Birthday Week!

So this week has been a blast! On Monday, Keowa and Miranda took us to the zoo, which was awesome! I got some sweet pictures that I'm uploading right now. So we went to the zoo and were there pretty much all day. After the zoo, we went and got ice cream then we went to the Spaghetti Factory and had endless pasta and it was super good! We then went back to Miranda's apartment and we had cake and Mama Beck got me a funny Council Bluffs shirt that has a black squirrel on it. It's a little small so I wear it as my "Buff Shirt" every once in a while. I really can't describe how cool the zoo was, but hopefully the pictures that I took will show you how awesome it is. There is a gorilla there that just hates missionaries, if you look at him he will just turn around and sit against the glass without looking at you, he will charge at you and smack the glass, he only does this to the missionaries. :)

We had to go to the mission office so we all got ready and I remembered the mustaches that you guys sent me for my birthday. So all 4 of us had one on while we drove to Omaha, and when we saw President Weston, he thought it was funny and said how missionaries should do stuff like that more often, just to brighten the mood. The office staff had a good laugh when we walked in too. I got a good picture of all of us with them on.

Tuesday we walked around a lot. It was super nice this week so we were working on our tans enjoying the sunlight. I helped Jerry set up his new computer.

Wednesday Elder Schofield came on exchanges with me after our zone training. Afterwards, we went and all ate at Huhot again. By the time we did all this, we were suppose to have like 2-3 hours to try some former investigators, but the Bishop called us and said he was on his way home from work and wanted to pick us up then, since he was the dinner for us that night. We chilled at Bishop Kellers for a while. They did bake me a cake and their oldest boy Jett, thought it would be funny to get me a gift. So he hands me this huge box and when I opened it, there was another box, and then another box, all wrapped up. It was 3 king sized candy bars.

Thursday we went and taught Keowa at a park since it was super nice and we wanted to sit in the sun. We then went to his house and we talked to his mom for a little bit, she doesn't agree with what we teach, she gets her info from the FLDS and RLDS. His friend came over and we talked to him for a little bit. We also shot their bow and arrow, which was a PVC pipe, a rope and a stick, it was fun. We got to cruise around in his sweet car, which I took some pictures of for Travis to see the awesomeness!!

Friday we were walking down by Lake Manawa, throwing rocks on the little bit of ice that is left. We saw Cody, our 15 year old investigator, we were talking to an 18 year old girl who was waiting for the bus to get her little brother and Cody got off the bus. He had a question about Lehi's dream so we taught him more about that. It was also super nice this day too so we sat outside on his driveway and Elder Daines drew the tree and iron rod and everything in chalk. So they now have a huge picture of Lehi's dream on their driveway.

We also were going to teach Keowa at Miranda's house, and that is like forever away, we couldn't get a ride so we just walked the hour and a half to her house. Good thing there is a sidewalk along the highway or that would have sucked. We were picking up good "trash" that we could find on the side of the road/fields. We ended up finding a really nice fork, that Elder Daines uses, a huge teal comb, some golf balls and a kids play microphone, Elder Daines has been having too much fun with it, he used it in our lesson with Keowa, you could only speak if you had the purple and teal kids mic.

Saturday we finally were able to talk to this potential we have had for a while. We talked to him for about an hour and a half, we really taught him a little about everything. We have seen him a few times before today and he would never give us his name. So we were trying really hard to get his name from him, he knows our first names, but we don't know his. The ward mission leader and Bishop had a good laugh when on our progress record it said we taught "The Dude." He just avoided answering the question when we asked him his name again. He did it in a way that you would forget that you even asked him.

Sunday was fun, we talked to Miranda for a bit since she has been having a hard time, we sat on the golf course by her apartment. It was really good to help her out. I even got sunburned sitting outside as often as we did this week.....then yesterday it snowed!

Well, this week was pretty eventful, hopefully I made sense as I was trying to hurry and type all of this.

Love, Elder Searle