12-30-13

Hey Mom and Dad! Holy smokes it sounds like you've had busy week. 

I got to skype my family!

I'm 19 years old! 

My big sister is Married!!!

Dang it's all over my head

I had a lot of highs and lows this week. It was so good seeing you guys and enjoying the Christmas feel again, but I'm kinda ready for this holiday season to be over so I can forget about home and get to work again, know what I mean? I feel like a part of me stayed home when we closed that skype and I'm just now finally getting back into the swing of things. But with that aside, it was AMAzing being able to talk to you guys and seeing how much everyone's grown and that I haven't been forgotten. I can't believe Aubrey Carey is a Carey.. that's so weird to me..

I thought about her all Friday, but it wasn't sad for me like I expected- if change is going to happen, that's the kinda change I want ;)

My Birthday was pretty good! I went to the Hobbit 2 with my district, then we went out for ice cream and pizza. I was bored to death that evening because everyone else had to leave for different appointments and my companions wanted to spend the evening on the computers. So I just juggled for a long time. 

Last night I got fed! By a non-american! haha

I was out contacting with the assistants and Elder Brown and Elder Barclay. I was getting kinda cold cause I had ditched my coat at the office, not really thinking ahead. As we passed the house of one of Barclay's investigators, a couple in there 50's, and he suggested that we ring in and see if they minded company so that we could meet them. We were all kinda curious because of the stories we had heard so we all agreed. Man- these people were crazy in the most entertaining sense. Just very abstract views and a really lighthearted outlook on life. they were SO goofy, we had a bunch of fun there. 

We spent two hours at their house, just listening to their stories, viewing all their scars, admiring all their possessions including his "money making machine" (He's a cobbler so his heavy duty sewing machine is where the dough comes from) It was a lot of fun, but we only meant to stay 10 minutes and every time we stood up they're like "please don't leave yet, sit back down!"

Then the fed us basically all their food. I felt so bad because we had just eaten and we definitely weren't expecting a meal. They kept saying "next time you come for food you should call us first!" and we're like "we didn't come for food we just wanted to meet you for a moment!" But they kept insisting and we at a bunch of the best saramale I've ever had. Then they brought out a dish called piftie.. Basically you take all the meat off a pig, then we boil what's left with garlic and waaaay too much salt and.. eat it. it's basically a thin layer of poor quality meat with about two inches of what looks like translucent white jello on top. We all slurped it down with as straight of faces as we could muster and woke up this morning a little queasy.. but we were able to share a little spiritual thought and I think I can say I had a lesson..? anyways, it was sick ;D

i'm gonna dash now, we're going to go play some soccer at the park izvor. Love you guys so much, thank you so much for that skype call again! 

Good luck with your rejuvenation and stuff!

Elder Collison