E-mail Sept. 8, 2014 "Another week full of blessings and buffaloes"

Yup you read right, there are buffaloes everywhere over here, out in pastures, wandering the streets, and occasionally trying to get into somebody's house. They're not the kind of buffaloes you're thinking though, over here they look just like cows with horns. To be honest, no, I can't really tell the two apart, but my companion says they're different so I'll take his word for it.

I'm constantly being reminded of how worthy a missionary has to stay to be able to do this work. Little things that I did before my mission can drive the spirit away if I don't watch myself, and even though most of those things weren't necessarily bad I'm beginning to understand that to be a missionary means to live a higher law.  Some of the investigators and less active members that we thought we were making progress with are beginning to slow down and show less interest in the things we're teaching them, which aside from angry dogs is about the most frustrating thing a missionary can experience. I think the Lord is testing my faith and patience here because I have to remind myself to continue to pray and work for them without seeing any immediate results. I know He knows what he's doing though, so I'll continue to trust in that.

This week I also realized how great of a blessing a microwave is, because when you need to rewarm pizza and you're apartment is lacking one you get a little desperate. The only other thing I thought I could use to rewarm it was a tiny little mini oven, but after opening it and realizing that it needed some major cleaning before it would be safe to put food inside I feared I might actually have to endure cold pizza.

Then I saw the toaster.

My ingenious procedure for rewarming cold pizza with a toaster is as follows:
-Step 1: turn on toaster.
-Step 2: turn toaster on its side.
-Step 3: insert cold pizza.
-Step 4: get so caught up in my own brilliance that I fail to notice that my pizza has caught ON FIRE  and is filling the kitchen with smoke.
-Step 5: immediately unplug toaster and sheepishly explain to my companion why our apartment smells like burnt tomato sauce.

...By making a few changes to some of these steps I think that this could still be an invaluable solution.

Oh, and my favorite conversation of this week:

"Elder why are you rubbing your leg like that?"
"Because I burned myself while I was ironing my pants."
"Wait, were you wearing the pants while you were ironing them?"
"...I thought my garments would protect me."

And because I know you're all thinking it, let me make it clear that no, that was not me.

Until next week, Adieu. :)