August 5, 2013

Dear Everyone,

Things are going well, thanks for the letter Grandma Maxine!  Also, whose ideas was this MASSIVE PILE OF GREEN CANDY!?  Good Gravy!  I was guessing the Bazinga Shirt was Mikel's idea, but it may have been Dad's.  Took me a good half hour to unload that package.

The main people we have been working on are Brother T**** and his niece.  Sister T**** did receive a letter with a picture of our family.  As Brother T**** put it, "I've driven through towns with less population than that family!"  Brother T**** is scheduled for baptism on the 31st of August, as is Brother A***** and his niece.  We're excited for them.  Another person we've been teaching is a Mr. C****.  He is a Lawn Care MASTER and a big Chicago Bulls fan.  His wife doesn't approve of going to any church but her own, but we've had positive visits with him.

Food hasn't been very strange as of yet.  Elder Anderson has run into this his whole Mission, expecting to be given some traditional Southern Cuisine but people just serve normal food.  He's like, "Cook something Southern!"

The apartment is technically three rooms and one bathroom.  The main room is like a wide hallway in which we study in a sort of living area and further back is the kitchen.  We don't eat at the apartment often because we get fed CONSTANTLY.  The first time I ate dinner at the apartment was like, a week and a half in.  When I do eat dinner at the house I put beans on toast.  Frugal and nutritious.  Mhmm.

Bike week has been a GLORIOUS endeavor!  See, the biking isn't the hard part.  It's the stopping after biking, you loose the wind you get from moving and the heat sets in like a pack of wolves!

As for P-=days?  We get rained on.

Everything continues to be fantastic!
-Elder North

So the massive pile of green candy was his greenie package and it wasn't all candy, but there was a lot.  When a missionary first goes into the mission field they are called a greenie, so we send out a greenie package full of green stuff, green candy, green cereal bars, pickles, green fun spray stuff, green stamp, a green shirt.  In this case he got a shirt that has Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory in green saying Bazinga.  Deven got a green shirt with Oscar the Grouch on it, but I couldn't find one of those for him.

I sent Sister T**** a thank you card for calling me and a picture of our family.

Today Elder North had a longer than normal P-day because Elder Anderson got news that his best friends dad passed away and so Elder Anderson and North got permission from the Mission President to go hang out in Frayser with a couple of other Elders and play basketball and stuff to help try and keep Elder Anderson's mind off of things for a bit.  Frayser is in Memphis and Brother T**** gave them a ride over there.

Thanks for your continued love, prayers, and support.  Please write, missionaries love letters.