February 6, 2023 THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER XVI

sooo we've been talking to these two guys in a cemetery.. which is pretty interesting here, because since it rains so much, there are too many floods to bury people underground.. sooo they just basically have these above ground tombs made from concrete with all the crosses and stuff you see in cemeteries... it's a little creepy at night ig, and it's super weird that there are so many bodies just chillin above ground in cement boxes like that.. buttt it was kinda cool to have a lesson there too.. we diD make sure to shake the two guys hands very firmly tho, because they were saying they spend more time at the cemetery than at their houses.. whichhh sounds like ghosts to me, buttt i shook their hands prettty firmly, so i thinkkk they're still living... we also had exchanges with the zone leaders, that was pretty good.. it didn't really affect me too much, because i just stayed with my comp anyways.. buttt since we're in the same house as the DL (since our whole district is literally just the 4 of us) we got to talk to the new ZL a little bit... he's an interesting guy.. his name is elder willliams, annnd he's sUper good at being passive aggressive.. i thought it was really funny, but elder palmer was a tinnnny bit annoyed by the end of the exchange... we had an activity that night tho with some members in the ward, and we were supposed to have dinner there, and then have a little spiritual thought and stuff... we got there, and pablo (the guy who's house it was at (also the first council to the bishop)) wasss peeling bananas (and i mean green bananas that are like weeks from being yellow).. sooo that meant it was gonna be a long time till we were gonna eat.. sooo we spent a ton of time there, annnd the food was.. ummm.. idk what one of the things was, buttt it was like a potato with less flavor, and more of a hairy texture.. (so just imagine eating hairy paste ig? buttt really compact and pretty dry so you gotta chew it a lot and it's a littttle hard to swallow).. and then it was fried bananas and plantains.. which can be good, buttt not in the way they were made... sooo not gonna lie it was pretty bad, definitely the worst meal i've eaten here, buttt at the same time it wasn't aWful, sooo i was determined to finish it.. i mean pablo hAd spent so much time to make it, sooo i ate and ate and continued to eat on the whole walk home, just trying to choke it down... annnd i finally got to the last bite and accidentally dropped it on the floor while fumbling with the lock for the door.. buttt i got most of it down at least... annnd then.. wednesday.. i woke up.. got out of bed.. went to go do my regular work out of lifting cinderblocks at awkwardly painful angles, and (get ready for thiS explanation) ..balancing the ends of a skinny metal bar on the top of the corner of two walls that don't have a roof, so that each end of the bar is resting upon one wall.. and doing pull ups (that's super precarious, buttt it's all i got).. annnd i was pumping out my usual 1,000 pull ups for the day.. 965.. 966.. 967.. (not really, it was more like 7.. 8.. 9..) and then the bar bent too far (cuz it's super flimsy, and doesn't exactly hold me super well) so the bar fell off the corner of the wall thingy.. annnd i landed kinda weird, and ended up fracturing my knee cap.. no i'm just kidding.. instead.. there was a random earthquake... sooo i was kinda just standing there after doing some pull ups.. and then... you know, things started shaking... liKe they do in an earthquake... annnd my first thought was "who is stOmping around at this hour?".. my second thought was "oh.. i guess they dO have earthqua-..." and that thought was interrupted by elder palmer stumbling outside to say, aNd i quote... get ready, it's super profound... "tHiS iS aN eArThQuAkE!"... and i was like.. "yup"... buttt ig he was kinda scared, which makes sense cuz the infrastructure is here is literally just cinderblocks, rebarb, and wet cement... buttt all i was thinking was "ehhh weak" (the one in utah a couple years ago (that one right at the beginning of covid that made everyone freak out cuz it was the beginning of the end of the world) felt a lot bigger and longer than this one, and that one wasn't even bad (iii thought))... annnd i'm sure the people felt it a little stronger where it was actually at (like 40 something miles from our house) buttt it wasn't bad for us.. just a 5.6, that only lasted like 10 seconds... sooo i might be wrong, buttt i feel like i'll get at least a couple that are stronger than that while i'm here.. we'll see... sooo aLso.. remember how i'm not sick anymore.. wellll... apparently i'm not nOt sick anymore.. sooo we didn't end up going out today (wednesday).. we'llll see what happens throughout the week tho.. so far it isn't too bad, buttt it's also the same exact symptoms as when i was sick throughout the CCM... sooo that's not super good.. buttt with luck i'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be gone... and tbh if it's not, if i can walk and stuff i think i'm still gonna try to go out, cuzzz i feel like i'm wasting so much time today, buttt at the same time idk how effective i would be anyways? idkkk... the next day tho i pretty much felt the same, slept a lot and stuff, and when it was time to go out and start our proselytizing i didn't feel great but didn't wanna miss more lessons.. that was one of the days we're supposed to go to pueblocito (tuesdays and thursdays) which is a little farther away, so we take a carrito over there.. we went down to the street to try to hail a carrito, and in the mean time, our lessons felt like falling thru for a little bit, and ig i didn't look too good, so we went back to the house for "an hour" which turned out to be like 3 hours.. buttt we finally went out because we had a family home evening thingy, and that was pretty good... the next day i was better, not cUred, but better.. sooo i thought.. buttt i ended up feeling prettty bad later that day, while we were proselytizing, and i somehow ended up laying on the same floor that i was laying on that time before i went to the hospital.. i was fine this time tho, in like 5 min or so, and drinking some gripe tea and then i was basically cured after that... buttt that morning i went to make a sandwich, and i pulled out my two pieces of bread.. there seemed to be a lot of flies (like tiny ones, basically the size of fleas or something) trying to land on my bread, so i was trying to avoid them with that kind of wave thing that we do when we're trying to keep flies off of our food.. annnd then at closer examination i realized that the flies were coming frOm the bread.. sooo i threw away those peices of bread, and pulled out the bag that i had gotten it from.. there were only like 2 or 3 pieces left, buttt sure enough.. more flies.. that was a little annoying, but it was fine i thought, because it was the end of that loaf anyways, just a couple pieces.. annnd someone must have just accidentally let a fly in there or something... sooo i pulled out a new loaf of bread (we buy like 6 at this point for 2 weeks, cuz we go thru them super fast)..and thennn i make a sandwich.. i eat the sandwich.. i'm on my last 2 or so bites.. a fly flies out of my sandwich.. sooo i'm convinced all of our bread is infested with tiny flies now.. which isn't even very surprising, it iS the DR.. buttt at the same time, i've been eating a lot of bread here, and that's not the first time i've thOught i've seen a fly in the bread bag... buttt ig it's fine, cuz we also had our transferly "fumigation" that day.. if you are like me and don't know what a fumigation is, basssically some guy comes with a reverse vacuum? that sprays poison everywhere in our house? annnd we all have to leave or we will die.. last time we went to the church during it, buttt this time we didn't want to, so we're just sitting outside on our patio thing, trying not to breathe.. annnd it's supposed to be study time, but i'm having a little trouble focusing with the poisoned air, mixed with the usual 74,848 motorcycles going by, random people shouting, someone using a jackhammer for some reason, a cement truck, annnd i'm still a little sick.. sooo i'm writing my email instead of studying... also, apparently they have a holiday here that's kinda like halloween? in the way that people dress up? buttt that's pretty much where the similarities end.. bAsically instead of little kids, it's teenage boys, and young adult men (like the age of people that are wAy too old to be trick or treating), and instead of going house to house to ask for candy, they go from girl to girl and smack them with homemade weapons.. they're usually made with soft materials, buttt.. i seriously don't understand the point of it, it's just super weird.. ig it's like flirting or something over here? like if you are a girl and you get attacked by a sweaty guy in a costume, then you're obligated to go on a date with them?.. i have seriously nO idea... we haven't really had an extEnsive amount of success this week, because we didn't go out too much, and we had a lot of time taken from meetings at members houses and stuff.. i slept a lot, and didn't have a lot of energy, buttt i'm just finding little things to focus on, like the lessons that dO go well, the spanish is still getting a little better, it's slow ofc, but it's moving.. our transfer is almost over tho.. there's like a week and a half from the time this email sends until i'll be done with my training, and i'll get a new comp.. it's almost certain that i'll stay here to train my new comp in the area, buttt at the same time anything can really happen.. our president is known for kinda just doing super unexpected things, sooo we'll see what happens... thaAaAat's all folks.. be sure to tune in next time for the hopefully not so boring adventures of elder williamson, the story with wAay too many chapters, that just keeps on getting dryyyyer!!! will anything interesting happen? itttt's doubtfulllll! hahaha i'm just kidddding, i'm pretty sure i'm gonna start running out of stuff to say here pretty soon tho, sooo don't be surprised if these emails just start having like 3 words and a picture of a domino! have an amazing week tho! annnd don't let anyone stop you, including yoursElf! moroni 10:7 And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever. don't deny god.. it will never bring you any more joy to have the things of the world.. you aren't going to find joy anywhere that the spirit can't come with you.. maybe worldly happiness, but that will leave.. the way to jOy might not be the easiest way.. but it is the most fulfilling.. and that's the point of all this.. thAt is our purpose...