i spend like five minutes on these subjects. i shouldn't.

This week was kind of nuts. Of course we had the baptism on Saturday morning which went along as meticulously planned. My talk was...less than stellar. I had it all written out in bullet points but I did it in pen and I had done it all out of order so I drew all these arrows and stuff thinking I'd remember them when I got up there. I didn't. It wasn't too bad or anything. It's just that all the confidence I thought I was going to have fell apart when I got up there. The baptism was still good though and everyone there liked it, including some non-members. Very good morning there. After that we ate lunch at the church and did some stuff before going to a Stake Luau that night. It was weird cause those are the very activities I dreaded going to back home. I won't say my opinion has changed, but I did look at it differently. It was weird seeing all the missionaries from the zone there with their "people". That was fun.

The next day was Sunday where I had to talk in church. I spent most of the morning planning it out in bullet points, which I had never done before. I was very worried about making it through the 10 minutes. I got up there and cracked a few jokes and I suddenly became very comfortable, and talked for 18 minutes. I didn't even realize I had talked for 18 until Elder Petersen got up and said something about it. It was weird. Talks go by fast when you pause a lot. The topic was missionary work so I went on about comparing missionary work to being a lifeguard and centered the talk around that. I got some good comments from people in the ward so that was nice. But I felt bad I went so much over and handcuffed Elder Petersen and our ward mission leader in what they could say. Sacrament Meeting went 20 minutes over, which was fine because we were also teaching Gospel Principles right after so we didn't have to meander through that lesson too much.

That night we set another person for baptism. She went to the baptism and loved it and went to church twice and loved it and went to the Luau and loved it. Apparently she was telling people about how she wanted to be baptized at the Luau and church so we basically had to ask her about it. We had only met her a week before and she's already read all of 1st Nephi. She's very social so she's already made friends at church and stuff so she's pretty much set.

The Friday before all this was Zone Conference, which was our zone and another zone. We learned a lot of stuff. It was nice to see other missionaries outside our zone again, even though I know very few of them. One of the missionaries I came out with had to be emergency transferred out of his area because of...health stuff (won't go into detail). Let's just say he won't be riding a bike the rest of his mission. I'm jealous.

The last few days we've been helping someone build a patio in their backyard. We ripped all their grass out, put down a liner thingy around it, and put a layer of gravel and a layer of sand down before putting the stones on. Elder Petersen did construction before coming out so he actually knew what he was doing. I think the attached picture shows how most of the day was pretty well. It's not like I was lazy or anything. He's very meticulous and he knows it and likes it that way so if I tried doing any of the other part of the sand he would've just done it over anyway when he got there. So I'd basically just grab the stones for him and cut open the bags of dirt and stake down the plastic liner and stuff. Not much, really. He really enjoys doing that kind of stuff so don't think I was mean or anything. I did sweep the dry cement into the cracks afterward which was good. We had to mist it with water to get it to harden into cement. Fun.

So yeah, transfers are coming up next week, so I'll definitely know by next e-mail. Elder Petersen has been here about 6 months so he thinks he's gone but staying longer than that isn't all that unusual. It's very likely I'll stay but of course anything could happen this time around. Ideally we'll both stay and the other half of the district will stay and we'll all have another party for 6 more weeks. But that's the least likely scenario. We both see a lot of potential in this area (I told you about the zit thing last week) so we want to stick around and see it. One of our zone leaders is going home though. His name is Mason Winder. Yeah, Mace Windu, I know.

Hm, I don't know what else to say. Mother's Day is not this Sunday but the next so we'll be chatting then. When that'll be and for how long I don't know but I do expect all manner of baby talk on that day.

I weigh 145 now, so I'm fatter now than I've ever been before. I haven't been doing the perfect push-ups so I'm not like getting muscle or anything. Exercise in the morning is basically long, drawn out stretches and some sit-ups. Don't judge.

I think that's all. Weather's been fine. We were supposed to have thunderstorms this last weekend but we didn't. I was sad.

-Elder Ryan Parker


Pictures:
1. Us eating lunch after the baptism. We didn't have the time or the money to go out or eat in so we microwaved burritos there. Don't I look so much taller and bigger than him?

2. Me watching Elder Petersen lay the sand down.

3. Look Optimus, I'm helping!