Dear Family and Friends, Monday, September
23, 2013 at 6:14 p.m. (EDT)
This last week was pretty fun.
Berlin is an interesting place to be.
Monday: we did emails at the church and then went to
Walmart. It was great! I never thought I would miss Walmart so much. After that
we went and taught the Robinson's some of our "investigators." Really
they just like us as people so they are letting us teach out of courtesy, but
that went well.
Tuesday: We pretty much just walked around Berlin. Not
much happened. We just contacted the less active members that live in Berlin.
No one was home
Wednesday: My second District Meeting that I taught. The
lesson was on working with Less Actives and Recent Converts. After the meeting
we drove to Bartlett, New Hampshire. That was really fun. The road goes right
next to Mt. Washington. It would have been a perfect day to drive to the top
too. The colors are already starting to change. Not much work has been done in
Bartlett, so we just knocked on doors. One man invited us onto his porch. He
said that his home used to be a boarding house way back in the day. He said
that he had a registry for it and that Brigham Young had stayed there in 1874.
He got the book out and sure enough there's Brigham Young's John Hancock. It
was really cool. I of course took some pictures of it and also the house. You
will have to see why Brigham Young came all the way back here in 1874. After
that we went to Jackson. Jackson is a really nice New England Village I will
have to get some pictures of it. We stopped by Sister Crowther's house. Elder
Stauffer thought that she was a widow, but lo and behold her husband was there.
He is a non member, but they are a very nice couple. We werent expecting
anything but when we showed up they got on the phone right then and there and
ordered a pizza for us. They are true New Englanders. They both have a very
rich accent. When she would say huge she said yuge or 'uge. The accents out
here are great. After that we drove back to the apartment.
Thursday: A couple, the Dixons took us out to the
Chinese Buffet in Gorham. They were a really nice couple. He served his mission
in Germany where he met her. He is now less active though. She is pretty funny.
She says that I have a nice firm German Handshake. They go to the Buffet once a
month with the missionaries. They are serious about the Buffet and getting
their money's worth. Brother Dixon saves space for it. He doesnt eat the day
before or the day after, so when he is there he eats about 4 plates of just
meat. She wouldnt even drink the water because "water is cheap and takes
up too much room in my stomach." We did service at the Farmer's Market.
That is always really fun. We got free sweet corn. Not as good as Olathe Sweet
Sweet Corn though.
Friday: Was a good day. We did service at a thrift
shop vacuuming. That was a whole lot of fun... After that we saw a less active
Jules. He had a promising career in hockey until he got on drugs. He was ridiculous on Friday. He was playing
the radio really loud and he would say just really off the wall stuff. After
that we had dinner and then walked the streets some more. While we were walking
a drunk guy was walking towards us. He started talking to us. He could barely
keep himself upright. Even though we knew that he was way to drunk to remember
even talking to us the next day we talked with him. He asked us why we
worshiped Joseph Smith. We explained that we dont. He then invited us to his
apartment. We decided that it was a good idea to take him back to his apartment
and get him off the streets. On the way back he drank most of the rest of the
bottle of Jack Daniels he had. We got him up to his apartment and sat him down
on the couch. He told us to stay and talk with him. He asked to say a prayer so
we said he could. He said some really interesting things in it and at the
end instead of saying "Amen" he said "Alright God... I love
you.... Good night" He was so drunk. Out of nowhere he started cussing us
out and calling us cuss words and then passed out on the couch. I left a Book
of Mormon on the table explaining that we had helped him back to his apartment
and left our number. What a crazy day!
Saturday: We went to Lancaster and helped Brother
Savard split some of his wood. Because the wood is so hard out here all New
Englanders insist on using a hydraulic wood splitter to cut the wood. Which for
a lot of it is a good idea. I was really surprised when I tried to split some
rock maple with an axe and it just bounced right off. But because they have
this mindset they split every type of wood that way. They had us split some fir
which is relatively soft. I asked if they had an axe I could use and I went
ahead and split the majority by hand because those wood splitters are so slow.
After that we had dinner and that was interesting. The March family from church
came over. Of course they asked where I was from and when I said Colorado, they
were like "I dont know how you live there with wildfires and floods
happening every year." Elder Stauffer said that he was from Utah and she said
"I dont know how you live there with all the tornados." We made sure
to tell her that the whole state of Colorado does not burn down every year and
that tornados do not happen in Utah. After that they told me to look out for
wildlife on the road. Even though there is surprisingly little wildlife here.
Since I have been in New England I have only seen a handful of whitetail and
one moose, and that was while driving on the back roads in the middle of the
woods.
Sunday: was church. That was a lot of fun. After
church we just walked around Berlin.
So far this week was pretty
good.
Elder CWJensen