Elder Barnard

what's up everyone!! I gotta share another story about my amazing, but gullible roommate, Elder Barnard. you might remember my last email about all the things he's said so far and he is not the brightest missionary, that's for sure, but he is so loved. the other day I was eating this Mexican cake thing and it was a marshmallow cake with raspberry and coconut and it tasted like one of those Hostess Snowballs, if you know what those are. so I look at Elder Barnard and said, "yo you gotta try a bite it's really good, it tastes like a Snowball."(referring to the Hostess Snowball.) and dude goes, "nah I'm good my man, I don't like the taste of snow." I sat there for about five seconds just looking at him, absolutely amazed at what he had just said. I started laughing and he said, "oh no I said something stupid didn't I?" And I asked him, "you thought this cake was snow flavored?" And he understood his mistake. you live and you learn. you gotta love him.

the end of my birthday was lit though and one of the member family's found out it was my birthday and brought over a cake and sang happy birthday to me in English, even though they don't speak English so it sounded like, "happy verde to you." It was so funny and so sweet of them! the next day, I had exchanges with Elder Jaramillo and it was so lit, until the end of the night literally felt like the end of the world. so it rained all day long and we're on bike, so we were outside all day and it was cold and we were literally soaking wet from 3pm-9:30pm and it was pretty awful. anyways, around 8:15, we're going to a lesson and it's like a 2 mile bike ride and it's pouring rain and the rain starts turning into hail. there was 25 mph wind too so the hail was hitting so hard and it felt like we were being pelted by an airsoft gun repeatedly. we were both screaming while biking and we were going into the wind, so it's pelting our faces and our hands so I'm just biking eyes closed for literally 2 miles, and following the sound of my comp screaming in front of me. I kid you not, there were people on the side of the road that we were passing just curled up in a ball taking cover and just screaming in pain. we found a bus stop and had under the roof for a second and caught our breath, and we went on, and eventually made it. Satan was working real hard to keep us from getting to that lesson, but like the standard of truth says, "no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing." It was a fire lesson too and I went off in my Spanish. 

on Friday, I did exchanges with Elder Felsted and he's a beast. we went to dinner and the lady forced us to down 10 enchiladas each. and they weren't the small tortillas, they were some girthy enchiladas, and we got them down. I have a trick down where when I'm at dinner and someone starts to try to talk to me, I take a huge mouthful of food so they either stop talking to me, or it's a good excuse to hit them with the nod, little laugh, and "sí." on Friday though, I looked up and the lady was midsentence talking to me and I had no clue what she was saying, and I went to take get a mouthful of enchilada, but it was too late. I still hit her with the nod, little laugh, and "sí". then she asks me a follow up question and says, "who?" that's not something I can say "sí" to and I have no idea what question I'm answering, so I just said "myself." the mom and daughter proceeded to laugh at me for the next five minutes and I didn't know why. the daughter speaks English so I asked what the question was and apparently I was asked, "have you ever fallen in love with a woman who isn't a member of the church." And I had answered with, "yes, myself." pretty humbling. then we got bashed like crazy by this lady that night and I hate bashes, but we won the bash and she got mad we won so she slammed the door. I felt amazing. 

yesterday we had a member sit with our recent convert at church and our member was slumped and snoring so loud during sacrament meeting. everyone could hear him and oír recent convert had to keep shaking him awake, and then he'd fall right back asleep. we will not be choosing him again to sit with our friends and converts. we found this guy named Raul and he brought us inside and sat on the floor criss-cross-applesauce and I thought it was really funny until he just starts sobbing. literally bawling his eyes out to us about how mean his wife is to him and she doesn't respect him and he feels like a failure. saddest thing I've ever seen. and then he said, "these are not fake tears, help me." It was so sad to see a grown man bawl his eyes out to us and it didn't help that I only understood about a fifth of the conversation. at the end, when we went to leave, he gave me a hug and it ended being like a ten second hug and he kinda wiped his nose into my shoulder which was pretty disgusting but he said he felt SO much better after we talked him. RAUL IS A BEAST!!!

I love sharing with people the love that God has for us. I want you to imagine the person in the world who you love the most. think about the love that you have for them. God loves you a thousand times more than you love that person. he knows us. he loves us. the same man who created the worlds and the stars loves you more than you can possibly imagine. the biggest celebrity of all time loves you individually so much. please don't forget that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love you eternally.

also shout out Grandma Evans, she edited some pictures and put my face on some Book of Mormon characters, and some other people and it is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen. take a peak at the pics below.

Pics: there's a ton of pics to look through!!