Meeting Malachi

Hey!

Yup we got the cake last night! I had met her once before when we had a tour of the Pentagon. She works there and I was able to meet her there.

Sounds like you guys have been pretty busy lately. I wish we could say the same for us. We have just been trying to think of things to do to keep us busy. We were able to deliver a copy of the Book of Mormon, and a Bible to a lady that we talked to a couple Saturdays ago. We have a lesson set up with her this upcoming Thursday so hopefully that will turn into something good.

We do have some other lessons set up as of right now. On Tuesday we have Jamie and Prasad that we are meeting with. They have been the hardest to contact recently because he always travels up to Pittsburg. It has made it really hard to get anywhere with them. We also have a lesson on Thursday evening at 5 with a guy named Malachi.

Malachi is married to a recent convert as of about a year. They were recently married just this last week. She is actually the daughter of a ward missionary here in the ward. He has attended church a bunch of times both when they were down in Texas as well as here. Yesterday we had his father in law who is the member come up to us and tell us that he wants to take the lessons. So we are going to go in on Tuesday and hit it hard and see how far we can get with this guy. We have seen him speak in classes as well as he got up in fast and testimony meeting. Those are always interesting to listen to. You never know where it will end up.

I will check the mail today. We do have a dinner tonight with an awesome member who cooks us 7 course meals. I have a good dinner planned out. WE will have to take some pictures. So currently we have elder Wilson and Elder Koloti over. Myself and elder Wilson were companions about 10 months ago when I was still in the Belmont ridge ward. We ended up staying up all night long! probably not the best idea, but oh well. We played basketball at 7 am and then had some Mcdonalds.

We do have a few people coming out of the wood work so we are happy about that. Hopefully we can help them progress to the next level.

Thank you guys so much for the birthday wishes. It means a lot. I cant believe spencer gets home in 2 weeks. That just means that I am right behind.

Thanks for everything!

I love you!!!

Feeding the less fortunate

Good Morning!!!

I love that!!! That is so awesome that the stake has realized that need within Roosevelt and decided to have a sacrament service in the evening. I wish that idea was church wide. Probably the greatest idea I have heard in a while. I like Bishop Hales, well President Hales now. He is an awesome guy. Its interesting to see the way the Holy Ghost works. Just a simple prompting to go to the Saturday evening session after a huge day of work, and look at what we can get out of it. It seems like I have that attitude going into a lot of meetings but it always seems to change my mind after the fact.

So this week has been eventful to say the least. So I will probably end up having to pay 350 dollars coming up soon to the mission office.

I'll give you a little back story as to why that is. So Thursday rolls around and we have nothing to do. So we are in our apartment at dinner time trying to think of something and I noticed that is started raining outside. We called Cornelius to see if we could meet up and talk with him since we couldn't think of anything else. He told us he was at 7-11 which is just a 5 minute walk from our place. So I grab my stuff and put it in plastic bags to keep water out.

We go talk to him for about an hour and we were in the rain for the duration of that. We went back to the apartment and grabbed a bowl that we were going to go return to our relief society president. After we get back out were on our way there and we start talking to a guy named Tyrone. he was probably mid 20's and we talked to him for 45 minutes. I opened my backpack to get him a copy of the book of Mormon, and I pulled out the first one and it was completely soaked. I opened my other bag and it was okay so I gave that to him.

After we stopped talking with him I had that oh crap moment run through my head about checking on my ipad. And sure enough there was water in the bag. Now I had the hope that since there wasn't a whole lot of water that it would be alright. I went straight home and put it in rice. Well lone and behold.....no success.

So I FRIED MY IPAD!!!!!   Not happy. The office elders are contacting salt lake to see if they can do anything for me. But there is a high possibility that I will have to pay. If I do I want you guys to just transfer some from my America first account. It was my stupid mistake and I don't want you guys to pay for it.

That's my ipad story. I'll keep you updated.

On Saturday we had an awesome experience. There is a group here in Alexandria that helps feed people who are less fortunate. We arrived at 8:30 and ended up staying till about 11. First we had an assemble line going and we filled paper bags with food. Then we went outside and filled plastic bags with vegetables. Our favorite part was when we went into the 2 buildings and delivered them to some people who couldn't leave their apartment to get it. It was awesome to talk to the people that we delivered to. They are super awesome to talk to.

We do have a few things coming up this week. Some missionaries that are my buddies are coming up next Monday for my birthday. We are going to try to find something fun to do.

Good to hear from you guys. I always enjoy your letters.

Ill contact you later in the week to let you know what happens.

Love You!!!!

Nothing to say!

This week has been good. Nothing much new happened sadly, but
sometimes that is just how life is.

We weren't able to meet with Prasad this week. We had a lesson set up
with him on Wednesday evening, but he ended up leaving for Pittsburg
that afternoon and so that got canceled. They are going to be on
vacation next week as well so we will see how that goes. We did meet
up with Cornelius one time this week. He finally got a job and so we
are going to try to meet him after 6 during the week.

I have been thinking lately about what is going to happen over the
next 4 months. My prediction is that I will end up staying in
Alexandria for the remainder of my mission. Chances are Elder Cook
will leave this transfer and go to a new area for his final transfer,
and then I will get a companion that I will spend 2 with then I will
be done. The possibility of me sending Elder Cook home is very slim.
But crazier things have happened. The only reason that I think this will
be my last area is because of the mission president transition. I
guess we will see.

I ended up ordering something  off eBay by the way so if you see
something from PayPal on my account you will know why.

Sorry for the short email. Nothing much to say. We will probably end
up doing a whole lot of nothing today. It's hard when you don't have
access to a car for your preparation day. It makes it difficult to get
anywhere. But what do you do.

Love you guys!

Wet feet....Guest Suite

Good morning. 

So I will start with what happened most recently. 

Last night we went to a fireside last night at he Annandale stake center. Jenny oaks baker performed with her 4 kids. It was really impressive. I think I was more impressed with the kids. The oldest was only 14ish. I also got to see a  bunch of the members from Warrenton. It was awesome to talk to some people I know. It's hard to believe I was there a year ago. 

So back up a little bit before that. We got back to the apartment right before we were planning on leaving to go to the fireside, we walked in I took of my shoes and walked into the bedroom and all of the sudden my feet were wet. Now obviously the first thing I did was look up for a leak but it was coming up through the floor. We went down stairs and talked to our concierge and he said he will have someone look at it. 

When we got back from the fireside we got into our apartment and there were just 2 fans on the floor. It didn't look like any of he carpet had been lifted up and we knew it had to come from somewhere. We asked the office if they had stopped the leak and they told us it came from the air conditioner. Well the closet from there to the wet spot was about 12 feet....obviously something wasn't right with how they decided to fix it. We moved our beds into the living room and basically everything else except for the stuff on the far wall. We then proceeded to lift up the carpet all the way to the wall where the ac unit is. GUESS WHAT!?!? WATER!!! All the way along the base of the wall. Not just in the bedroom, but also the living room. We got the maintenance people again and we tore out all of the padding and threw it away. We cut the carpet going from the living room to the bedroom so we could get underneath. We don't think they took into account the possibility of mold growing. 

Since our apartment is a construction zone now, they let us spend the night in their guest suite. It was basically a hotel room except bigger and nicer. They said they are going to get the carpet guys in there today and check for mold and make sure it's all dry then lay new padding. We were hoping that they would just replace the carpet as well but that would involve much more extensive moving and wouldn't be worth it. Hopefully it will be done by tonight but we will see. And if not, another night in the guest suite. 

Everything else pales in comparison really. We taught a lesson to Prasad this week. They picked their wedding date back to August so that will postpone his baptism again. We are going to keep working with them, but we will see how it goes. 

We walked to a bridge in our area that crosses from Virginia to Maryland and check that out. They made a park underneath it with some playgrounds as well as some basketball courts. Pits nice because it always shady and keeps it relatively cool. We got to walk up onto it and take some pictures. 

We haven't been able to contact Cornelius lately. Every time we call his phone it's off. We are going to keep trying. That's our week in a nutshell. I will send some pictures right after I send this off. 

Love you!

Pictures of Blake and his friend:)

Our Crazy Drunk Friend.....

This has been another good week for us. Last Monday we played some
ultimate frisby, as well as a little bit of football. It felt really
good to do some physical activity. The problem is, is that I think I
have shin splints. This whole week my upper shins right below my knees
have been super sore. I haven't had access to a computer to figure out
how to help it. Oh well.

We didn't teach anybody his week. I guess technically we did see
Cornelius again this week and we were able to talk with him. We were
walking down king street as he walked out of subway we met up right
there. It's no longer just a coincidence that we keep seeing him. It's
never in the same place. We were talking for a while and eventually he
asked us what he was doing wrong. He said since we were friends he
wanted to know. So we told him that he needs to stop drinking. Every
time that we talk to him we can smell alcohol on his breath.

He really wants a shirt and tie like we have and luckily we have an
extra suit in our apartment that was left by an Elder that went home a
couple months ago. We were r going to take it to a donation bin, but
now we are going to give it to him. We think that he might go
somewhere from here. Before it was just our crazy drunk friend, but
now we are going to try to teach him.

Not a whole lot else has happened. As you know we did meet those
people from Texas. They gave us 25 bucks for either dinner or
breakfast. We are always super appreciative. We have it chillin on our
fridge right now and we will probably end up getting some groceries
with it.

I am excited to talk to you guys this weekend. We will talk during the
week and figure out a time. Sorry this email is short, but not a lot
happened.

Love you guys!

Picture of our Missionary!

We received this picture today of our awesome Missionary! He looks great! I love it when people randomly send us pictures of him. Thanks Lynda and Craig!

Hi. My husband and I are in Alexandria on vacation from Fort Worth. We ran into your elder, so just wanted to take a picture for you. I have a nephew serving in the Salt Lake Central Mission right now, and my sister loves to get pictures sent to her from people that he meets. Thought I could do the same for you. :) Have a great night!
From a mom and dad of future missionaries, 
Lynda and Craig Carmack