Nov 29th 2010

Hey,

Well we have had an excellent week. Things have gone really good. I am feeling much better and I got better just in time to play in the turkey bowl and have alot of fun. I had a couple touchdowns and an interception which was fun. We played flag football with socks as the flags. Then we had a great thanksgiving dinner at the Sly's. It was fun. The food was great and we just had a fun time laughing together and we played some games. Then we decided to watch a movie called suits on the loose which is about a couple of prisoners who take over some missionaries and then to hide their identity they pretend to be the missionaries and they go to church and everything and pretend to teach people the gospel by the spirit. It was an alright movie. We had to get permission to watch it though cause it is not an official church movie and so Brother Sly called President Perry and he just started talking about how such great missionaries we are and gave us compliments I didnt feel we deserved at all, but then President Perry said yes we could watch it and he thanked Brother Sly for feeding us.

So that was fun, and thanksgiving definitely went by too fast. We did not really feel at the time like going back to work at all cause it was such a nice little vacation. But we did. So then on Saturday we had Joe's baptismal interview. I was nervous. But he passed! I was so happy for him. It was such a relief and blessing. He was ready to be baptized and he was. The interview was on Saturday and we went to go and visit him Friday night and when we left he said a very heartfelt prayer asking God to let him become a mormon and to become a member of His "true and authentic chruch." His prayer was answered. So he was baptized Saturday by Brother Sly and then confirmed yesterday, and is excited to get a calling.

Then Sunday night we had anxiety attacks. We didnt know what was going to happen for transfers. To our great surprise and happiness which I think is what I said six weeks ago, we are both staying again!! And the sisters are both staying as well. Its crazy. But I am very happy about it. So Happy. I get to be here for Christmas and New Years which is coming very fast. I am very excited to call you all.

Funny story: There is a less active we visit each week and we have become pretty good friends with him and we saw him early in the week last week and as we finished the lesson he was like you guys are coming over for thanksgiving right? We couldnt say no, so we figured we would just go by for a quick visit and then say we had to go somewhere else. This is a very nice man and I like him alot, but his house is not exactly the most sanitary, and I get nervous sometimes when he feeds us. We have helped him clean his kitchen a few times to keep the bacteria and cockraoaches down. Yeah cockroaches.

Anyway, so we go over around lunch time for thanksgiving and there is a nice white turkey sitting on a platter on the table. I hovered my hand over it to see if it was warm and it was. lol. So then we said the blessing and since no one knew how to cut the turkey I volunteered to do it. So I didn't know what i was doing but I just started cutting down the breast and it was not cooked at all. The top half cenimeter or so was white and the rest was untouched, it was red and bloody. I guess he thought it was precooked, (he has trouble reading), so we cut up a raw turkey. We didnt really know what to do so we ate some mashed potatoes and gravy and we just laughed about the turkey and made it funny instead of a dissappointment. Then he realized he had a deep fryer so we threw some pieces into the fryer and had fried turkey. It actually tasted really good. It was a success. And I am still alive to write this email.
I love you all and thank you for your prayers. Talk to you next week.
Love,
Elder Larson