Trial By Walking

Dear Family,

Two cool things happened last week, one- we had interviews with President Weston, it will be the last time I get to have an interview with him, seeing how he goes home soon. It went well and I was the very first one in, so I got him while he was still happy. :)

The other good thing we did was went to a 77th Birthday Party. He is super funny and grumpy, we called him and sang Happy Birthday to him and he said we totally ruined his birthday...so he loved it! We ate dinner with them and played basketball with T and her cousin, it was super fun! We weren't able to actually teach anything, but she doesn't know everything we do so we were able to "teach" her during a few rounds of basketball.

That was about it for the week, we walked and walked and walked some more. It was the week after a baptism, it has been raining off and on, the schools are all graduating and the seniors are out in Milford and Seward and college parties are going on everywhere and no one wants to talk to you. We were dropped by M and pretty much 2 others, they moved and one said it was just too much of a change for her. 

This next week should be better, I sure hope cause this week sucked! I did send home some pics. :) We got a pool table from the Capital Elders so that's now our game room.

Love, Elder Searle

 Companion Elder Hansen

Sister Mark Died/That's Some Crazy Cracker Crap!!!

Hello Family,

It was so awesome to be able to Skype you all. We were talking to the Liesky's here, who are crazy and super funny and he always says "that's some crazy cracker crap!" but anyway, they were talking to us and they only get to call their son, no Skype, so be glad that we were able to!!

The main part of this week is that Kendra was baptized!!! It was great and super stressful!! Our branch president asked us if we had the baptism paper and we were like "no...why?" Well, I guess you are supposed to give it to them?? NO CLUE! I have never had to to do it for the other baptisms we've had and the zone leaders thought it was odd that he asked. So we had to hurry to our place and grab the piece of paper, and our place is about 15ish min. from the church...so we were 10-15ish min. late for the baptism so everyone had to wait for us. We were so stressed out BUT we got it done. Then I was able to confirm her on Sunday...on Mother's Day so that was cool.

Then on Wednesday, we had a storm come through, nothing bad for us, but it sure left a lot. Like a lot of water everywhere, West Lincoln was pretty much underwater. I was able to get a few pictures but nothing too crazy. The one pic with the trains shows how high the water was. We were at the Hensley's when it hit so we just stayed there because the rain comes down so hard and fast. We were there for like 3 hours, we ate dinner with them, prepared their basement, just in case and also taught like 3 chapters from the picture Book of Mormon and started going over the Plan of Salvation with the 3 kids. Then we just started messing around and Taylor wanted some pics to remember us by and I took her hat. I sure hope that Elder Hansen and I can be the ones to baptize them, I love them to death!!

We also helped move a family out last week, they were a super cool family we were working with. We found out his wife had fallen at their new place and broke her hip...SUPER SAD!!! It's like she had a stroke or something. We got a call from her husband and he asked us if we would be able to come see them at the hospital in Lincoln today, so we will stop by and see them tonight. Then we'll be spending the night with the Zone Leaders because of our meeting tomorrow and going to the hospital tonight. We have interviews with the mission president first thing Tuesday morning so instead of us wasting miles, we will be staying with them.

That's about my week and this week should be fun as well!!

Oh, I did find out, that older lady who we saw crash her car, she passed away in the hospital from it. 

Love, 

Elder Searle

 Kendra's baptism day!!

Chillin' in the storm

 Some of the flooding

Bo the dog

 
Elder Hansen's new desk

Do You Receive the Blessings From Jesus?

Dear Family,

This week has been quite different than all the other weeks. To give a quick recap of what all happened this week....we played an awesome game of basketball and T finally beat me! She's now 1-7 against me in PIG, went on exchanges, helped a 300 lb. man get off the floor, talked to a guy looking for moral mushrooms, watched and listened to our neighbors fight and jumping on the roof of a car, went to a softball game and modeled for a part member family!! 

Tuesday was a pretty normal day, we went on exchanges with the Mahoney Elders and Elder Stapley came to Seward with me. He was sent to South Korea and he got sick and had to go home, he was home for a year then they sent him back out, so he's in Nebraska now. He is from Kansas so his family just drove him up here to the mission. :)  We went and saw M & K and M's lesson went well, she actually called us and said she didn't want to keep going on with the lessons, but I never heard the name of who called but we figured it was her. So we showed up anyways with our Branch President's wife and it went well, we were able to answer some of her questions and she wants to meet with us again. K's baptism is still on for this Saturday!!!

Wednesday was an awesome day with an awesome family, we got the Book of Mormon picture book and we read it with the kids and it worked out great!! So we did the normal just showing up and talking with them and then the mom was like "you kids should listen to the Elders for 30 min. then they can come and play with you guys."  So we sat and read the first 2 chapters and pretty much taught them the first lesson. Then we played some basketball with them, which is always fun!! Taylor is the girl in the pink shirt, it was about time she won. We were able to go watch one of her softball games on Saturday, it was fun to watch and hang with her mom and dad.

Thursday has to the be the strangest start of the day I have ever had, we were asked to help some older people move and it started out well, then she came and asked if we could get her husband off the ground. He couldn't get back up because he can't really use his legs all that well. So Elder Hansen and I and 3 others got him on a blanket and we lifted him up onto a chair. Then that night, we were walking and this dude was following us so we turned around and started talking to him and he wasn't there at all. He was smoking something and had a couple three too many sips but he said he was in the creek looking for moral mushrooms and telling us how you can tell if they are good to eat. I think he ate the wrong kind of mushrooms, but it was fun talking to him. He was telling us how he found Jesus and he was SUPER emotional and his eyes were all weird, that's how we could tell he was on a little something. We told him we had to go and he was like "do you receive the blessings from Jesus!" So now every time I sneeze or Elder Hansen does, we say, "bless you"...then..."did you receive the blessing?" :)

Friday, aka Mayday? Never heard of Mayday before but people at the FoodNet got us things for it. One girl gave us these shakes and we were sipping on them for a little bit, then Elder Hansen and I looked at each other and said "it's coffee isn't it?"  Yep!! and it was gross!! Elder Hansen had some Oreo thing and mine was Reese's. That night one of our neighbors in the apartments were outside yelling and fighting so we listened cause it was kinda funny, but at one point the dude started driving off and the crazy girl, who we sorta know, jumped on the trunk and then climbed into the roof and down by his door and then he drove off! I sure love our neighbors!! They give us good stories and some entertainment at night. 

On Saturday we helped a lady at her new store and she was like "I know this is super weird, but will you help me with something?" Of course we said yes and was like "I need you guys to model for me...WHAT?! She is opening a new store for Women and she needed to see if her backdrop would work for pictures, so we had a little too much fun with that. :)

That's all the fun that happened last week. K's baptism should be May 9th, Elder Hansen is going to baptize her and on Sunday she'll receive the Holy Ghost...from me. That will be awesome!! Then I will get to Skype with you guys!!!! Can't wait!!!

Love you all!!

Elder Searle

 Elder Hansen & Elder Searle

 Elder Hansen looking quite relaxed and loving the tie :)

 ????

 Doing a little bit of modeling :)

Taylor finally beat me in a game of PIG