Dear Family and Friends, Monday, April 1, 2013 3:38 p.m. (EDT)
I am doing pretty well. This
last week has been pretty great. We are really trying to figure out ways to
find new people to teach.
Sunday: We were a little disappointed when none
of those we were teaching came to church. We had so many say that they would
come. Denise said she would love to go and was planning on it, but we think
that her husband doesnt like us, because she has been avoiding us.
Monday was a regular day, we
didnt do anything fantastic. We just cleaned up around the apartment and went
shopping so that was pretty good.
On Tuesday we taught
Denise. It was really great, she was really interested about
what we were teaching. We invited her to our Easter Potluck and to church
on Sunday. She said that she would love to, so we were surprised
when she didnt come.
Wednesday was really awesome.
We stopped by Brother Emerson and taught about Christ's atonement. It was
awesome. Brother Emerson is such a character, hes an 85 year old
cowboy. Last Sunday it was testimony meeting, I invited him to get up and
bear his testimony. He said that "You couldnt get me up there if you had a
gun behind my head?" Well he ended up getting up. During Sunday school, Brother Cochran asked, "Does it ever feel good to be angry?" Herb took
advantage and said "Yes! Yes it does!" He is a funny guy. Well during
this lesson that we taught him we taught about Christ and his atonement. At the
end of the lesson he told us that he felt different, that he had never had that
feeling before. We were so happy because he was feeling the spirit, something
he said he always wanted to feel. After Brother Emerson we went to Jay's house.
Jay is an alcoholic even though he doesnt want to admit it. We have brought it
up a couple of times and he always gets mad about us and feels that we are
being confrontational. Well on Wednesday we decided to teach him about faith
and the atonement. Well we really let the Spirit guide the lesson. We ended up
talking about repentance. He asked how many times he could be forgiven. We told
him he could always be forgiven as long as his repentance was true. He said he
had a problem and that it was annoying to him that he would repent and the same
issue would pop up again. We told him through faith he could get over it. He
admitted his problem was drinking and he led us into a lesson about helping him
with his drinking problem. We talked about the Word of Wisdom and told him why
it was important to stay away from addictive substances. It was awesome!
Thursday was also a good day.
We taught Doug and Kim, and we stopped by a few people that said they might be
interested about learning about the gospel. We taught a new person in Hyde Park
named Bryan. He is a little confused about the Bible as well as the Book of
Mormon, and how they relate with each other. We explained that the Book of
Mormon is not a run-off from the Bible and that really it is just another piece
of scripture that is comparable to the Bible that adds many important stuff to
it. It was pretty good.
Friday was not a good day. We
had a bunch of people cancel on lessons, so we ended up visiting a couple of
Less Actives. We had the Easter Dinner Friday night.
Saturday was a really good day.
We were able to go to Brother Cochrans house. The sap was running that day so we
helped collect and boil the sap. It was really fun. He has a mile long trail
around his house that goes by all the sap buckets. His system is gravity fed.
So he has about 2 taps on every tree and then he has hoses run down from
several trees into a 5 gallon bucket. We hopped in his Jeep and headed down the
trail. It is a mid 90s Cherokee with 38 inch tires. The lift is all home-made,
but it works really well. The snow was about 2 feet deep up there so it was
really fun. Brother Cochran is a crazy driver, it was fun. The first time we
collected about 15 gallons of sap. We took it over to his sugar shack. His
brother and father met him there. His brother had about 14 gallons and his dad
about 35 gallons. We started boiling it. They can boil about 12 gallons of sap
every hour. It takes 43 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. The setup
he's got is pretty homegrown. Theres whats called a boiling pan on top. This is
where the sap is boiled. The pan is welded onto what is called an arch. His is
made out of a 50 gallon drum. We had to toss wood into the arch about every 5
minutes so that the boiling stayed constant. The sap is continually run into
the pan at a constant speed. About as fast as a drinking fountain or a
water dispenser in a fridge. The sap moves through the pan in an S pattern. You
will probably have to look it up to see what I mean. At one side of the S it
is pure sap. On the other side it is syrup. When the syrup reaches a
temperature of 229* then it is ready and all the syrup is poured out until
there is just sap left in the pan. Then the process starts over. Me and my
companion got to regulate the wood, so every 5 minutes we tossed some wood in.
It was fun. We were there for about 4 or 5 hours.
On Sunday we had dinner at the
Weeds. Their son, just got off his mission. He served in Seattle Washington
(Not Everett Washington, so he doesnt know Brock). Dinner was really good.
Today we are headed down to Berre where I will be on exchange, while Elder
Smith goes to a training meeting in Manchester NH.
Elder C. Jensen