Sky Stretches to Shore

The work of the Lord never stops, but since my emails are only tangentially related to said W of the L, they occasionally take a pit stop for tire repairs. (Meaning there are some of you who are tired of my emails, and I wish to fix that.) I hope you all used your week off to catch up on the Malachi emails that you've hitherto left unread in your inbox. (I'm looking at those of you named Cade, and to a lesser extent those of you named after an all-meat diet.) Some of this email was written last week though, and so in your mind just go ahead and replace about 60% of the times I say the words "this week" in this email with the words "last week" and it should clear things up a little.

Thanks as always for being on the list, and for reading the emails. I know the number of you who finish these is dwindling, and sure to perish in unbelief if you're not careful. This week went by so fast due to an often forshadowed phenomenon called time's not real, but I do have a few stories for you, dear faithful readers. 

My mission president told me this week that "I should be doing better things with my time than playing silly games." He said it with all the energy of a disappointed mother telling her son to get off the Xbox, which felt uncalled for considering how I'm the most consecrated missionary in the mission and board games help me feel the spirit. (In a manner of speaking.) So, after I got over being greatly offended, I trained for and ran a half marathon with Elder Ham, since that's surely gotta be a better use of one's time. I ran up the mountains and have pictures of the stretching sky and the far off shores I overlooked. It was probably the prettiest run I've ever been on, and it reminded me of my days runnning half marathons every Saturday while I was in Quebec City. Since then, I've been trying to convince Elder Ham to run a full marathon with me, but he's convinced it is an activity that would cause "extreme fatigue" which activities are expressly forbidden by the standards. I'll let y'all know if I sway him.

At publishing time, I ran another half marathon, and two halfs make a full right?

We met a philosophy teacher, and that was a test of self control like none other, because we aren't allowed to teach him philosophy, just the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Spreading the good word of Utilitarianism is "not in line with my missionary purpose" or soemthing. He fed us some interesting Filipino desserts and offered us every drink he had in the house, 96% of which we had to refuse due to our religeon's supiror Wisdom. We eventually found some common ground though, and drank all his juice and all his diet coke. I didn't try to drink all of it, but he kept filling up our glasses and so I had little choice in the matter. It was cool cause he was really impressed with us, cause he said we were the most polite and eloquent 18 year olds he'd ever talked to. All credit to my parents and grandmas for the polite part, and credit to the Spirit confirming the truth of all things for the eloquence. (And a little credit to Sam and Elder Whitchurch and Sister Silveira and Reese and Elder Henage and Elder Henage and Zach and all the squad who made me good at talking. To those of you not on this list: you haven't sent me enough emails so I've forgotten you.)

Just kidding I could never forget you, my love is eternal, which means unconditional and without end. Ha ha.

My last Pday, (when I was ignoring you guys toxic-girlfriend style,) and you guys were all pining away wishing for my words of comfort and affirmation, I was busy having the best day of my life, jumping off cliffs and stuff. I wasn't even thinking about you, cause I don't need you in my life. (Now you see why I say it was toxic-girlfriend style. I'm definitely salty that most of your lives kept on without me, and the world kept spinning, and you guys didn't email me 600 times to ask what's wrong.)  

Basically we walked to these giant sand dunes by the beach, and they were the tallest sand dunes I've ever seen. And then at one point they drop down in this super steep slope that just looks like a giant cliff, but when you jump off, you LAND IN THE SAND AND DON'T DIE!! It's so much fun, cause you can't see over the edge so you just jump into the unknown and then you're fine. I feel like Maud'Dib for real.

We also played some spikeball on the beach, and played some soccer, and ate some Carl's Jr. which is super cheap here for no reason. I got 3 burgers and 2 things of fries for less than $10. I think Carl's is better here than in the states, but don't expect me to prove that claim because I didn't go much in the states, and when I had it here it was after 27 hours of fasting, so that may have given me a biased view of the experience. It was maravilha though. Afterwords Elder Ham talked me into getting a full Carmel shake because he's just that kind of friend. "If there's room for it, you need it" he wisely counciled. He also is trying to talk me into buying more New Zealand chocolate bars, and he's for sure doing the Lord's work because the chocolate here is heavenly. They have these bars called Whittaker's and they're genuinely the best chocolate bars on earth. (Don't expect me to prove that claim cause I'm a missionary and busy sharing the gospel.) 

Miracle!!!!

We met our friend Hemi. He's been our best  friend for ages, he just didn't know it. That's why he ghosted us for the first half of the transfer, and ignored us when we knocked on his door 17 times. But it's all good cause God wasn't about to let that slide (cause God loves Hemi heaps) so we miraculously caught him as he was walking inside one day, when we didn't even plan to visit him. He invited us in, and we had a super long lesson. He's facing so many challenges that have kept him from getting baptized for years. But!! As of this week he quit vaping entirely, and so we're going to help him! In every way we can, like for example we brought him some banana bread and soft pretzels. Making food is my favorite way to help people. We've also been visiting him every day ever since we caught him, and on Sunday he even brought his kids to church! His testimony is strong, and I've learned a lot from him. 

Journeys and Map Debocles

You may not know this but we don't live inside the area we're supposed to stay in at all times. We do have some bikes that can get us to said area in about 15 minutes, but if we're ever transporting items that we can't bike with (like pretzels and banana bread) then we have to bus to the area which takes more like 45 minutes. What's more, because of our distance from the flat, we can't really go back there for lunch or anything, which doesn't leave us many options beyond spending all our money or carrying a bulky lunchbox all day. One time though we raided the Tongan Elders' flat and ate all thier ramen for lunch and that was a very trasty food hiest. (Shout out Dan Wells for introducing me to this life of crime.) The worst part of taking buses and trains though is that sometimes they just randomly get canceled and we'll be left waiting at a station for like half an hour.

Notable Cuisine 

I'll just give you a brief overview, cause you're in a hurry and I'm not that smart.

- Me and Elder Ham convinced more than half our district to use the "vanilla flavor bomb" button on the soda machine to flavor thier water, promising the result would be life changing. We didn't specificy how changed thier life would be.

- Every morning I eat this ceral that's labeled "Protien Cereal!!!!" and I know it doesn't have that much protien, but it fills my little heart with joy every morning.

- I ate at an all you can eat buffet place where you grab raw meat and cook it yourself. They don't pay you to do the cooking for them, in fact you pay extra for the privilage of doing literally all the work. I was sent at the expense of some kind members though, and ate heaps of meat, so overall a positive expirience.

- Our area has a large indian population, and so I'm always walking by very good smelling houses with longing for indian food in my heart. But this week after doing service for a lady she fed us some AMAZING indian food and ho

memade naan and it surely brought a tear of joy to my eye. (Partly cause of the spyciness. But worry not, I order a spice level 7 at cup bop so I can take some spice. Not to brag or anything, but you know. Spice level 7 is no joke.)

Important Events

- A guy holding a guitar tried to give me a fist bump. I didn't know what was happening, and assumed he was handing me his guitar so I tried to take the guitar. This happened twice, and it was one of my rare less suave moments. 

- My companheiro and I agreed at the beginning of the transfer that we'd each have the shared sim card for half the transfer. I hate having the Sim card though because it means I have to text people and turn my phone off silent. So I'm constantly trying to scam my companion and make him keep the transfer. By the end I think he will have kept the Sim for like 5/6ths of the transfer, which is a great success.

- One sunday we were touched by a babe's tender song. The primary program is always fun, but I especially like watching the little siblings try to micromanage each other as they sing. One concerned older sister helped her younger brother sing slower,  sing faster, sing louder, stand straighter and come in sooner all in the course of one primary presentation. As often happens, many young children refused to deliver thier lines, and so thier parents apologetically did it for them. I love that Primary Presentations are the same all over the world.

- One of the missionaries gave me a hair cut, and he did such a good job that my hair looks exactly the same. (How could you improve on perfection?)

- I helped with a musical number at zone conference. I turned the pages for the pianist, and I did a fantastic job if I'm just being honest. I could turn pages professionally if I wanted to. Maybe I'll get an English major. Also check out our ✨️cute matching outfits✨️ in the pictures below!!

Stats:

Lessons taught: 36

Miles Run: 182

Lives saved: 1

Souls saved: ~0

Bunnies: 3

Island Ties Aquired: 4

Times I've gone to taco bell: 3

Member Meals (in this area): 4

Sacriment Meeting Talks: 2

Required Readings. (You know who you are)

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/matthew-o-richardson/brigham-young-university-visionary-house/?highlight=Stand%20up%20straight,%20smile,%20and%20remember%20who%20you%20are

I wanted to send this specifically to like 3 of you, but I was worried I'd forget if I didn't throw it on here. Lovely speech, you should all listen, but specifically the 3 of you this is intended for.

Pictures: 

(They for sure didn't all add, but hopefully you get the idea.)

Featuring

- Sand Cliff (steeper than it looks)

- I missed my calling as a model

- Muito Bonita

Additional photos:

Stop Mackie's Rest

 Some pictures sent during this emailless (😥) week:

This girl is the sister of one of Sam's Animation students

Boon of Ancient Memories

Before the great Samoan warrior was called Apulu, he was under siege by Tongans. I've never personally been under seige from Tongans, but I can't imagine it's a pleasent expirience for anyone. Tongans are scary even when they're not trying to kill you, which these particular enemies were. There were many of the Tongan warriors who were trying to kill the great Samoan warrior, and as they closed in on him he hid in a grove of trees. In those times there were no shields, (or if there were, he didn't know about them) so he couldn't defend himself from the arrows and rocks they threw at him, except by heroically cowering behind the trunks of the Pulu trees that made up the grove. (They were called Pulu trees because the sap inside them was called Pulu sap. I couldn't begin to guess why it was called Pulu sap, unless maybe it was named after the Pulu tree.) The warrior dodged behind the trees as his enemies surrounded him, and he was so quick in his movements that thier rocks and arrows hit the trunks of the Pulu trees instead of him.  (Turns out there were shields, just unconventionally sappy ones.) But still his enemies closed in. As the enemies got closer, however, and thier onslaught of cast projectiles continued to pelt the trees unceasingly, the Pulu sap spewed out of the trees behind which the warrior hid. In a fatal tactical miscalculation, the enemies got close enough to the trees that the sap got in thier eyes, blinding them. And then the great Samoan warrior emerged, and stepped on the faces of the blinded enemies. 

When the great Samoan warrior returned to the villiage, the villiage people were understandably awestruck. Many enemies had gone into the forest to kill the warrior, yet only he emerged, covered in Pulu sap that had spewed out of the trees, the only one alive. Because of his wisdom (to hide when he was being attacked) they made him the leader of thier tribe. And they called him Apulu, because of the Pulu sap he was covered in. 

Good evening brothers and sisters of the Malachi email list. I share the story above as related to us by an old man who was sitting quietly by the river, (with a wise and somewhat contemplative attitude) who told it to us when we asked his name. His name is Sepho, which is the Samoan version of Joseph, but his title is Apulu. 

I did a LOT of listening to old people this week, (each with varying levels of craziness) which made me really happy. The story of Apulu was not the only boon of ancient memories bestowed upon us, but the old man by the river was probably my favorite. Not to flex, but I bet none of you get to hear native Samoan legends in your spare time. If I wasn't on a mission right now my life would probably be a lot more "fun" in a conventional sense. I would be able to play Spirit Island every day instead of just once a week, and I'd get to listen to more tragic love songs, and hang out with all my friends. I'd be able to waste time whenever I wanted instead of just on special occasions. But I would have missed an old man's story about the origin of his name. (He was in good shape for an 87 year old, so maybe the story was even about his own experience. He for sure could have been a mighty warrior.) If I'd chosen to be home right now, my life wouldn't have felt any more empty but I would have missed out on that hidden treasure that we found sitting by the river. 

One of the old guys we talked to this week was the dad of one of our friends. When we came to tell our friend about General Conference he was busy sleeping, but his dad offered us fruit and so we chatted with him for a minute. He was an old Iranian guy who didn't understand much english, but he told us he'd become a painter in his old age, and showed us some of his paintings. (Picture of my favorite below.) But then he also told us his hobby was growing bonsai trees. He took us into his back yard, where there were probably a hundred little bonsai trees at different stages at growth. Some grew on top of cool garden ornaments, like birds or cars or turtles or whatever else. Each was a different type of tree. He lovingly showed us each, beaming with pride as he displayed them. He told us how the trees knew him, which I think is sweet. He also handmade his own backgammon set, and now he rocks up to tournaments and wins them. (He didn't tell us this, he's too humble. We heard it from the previous missionaries.)

As a fun bonus he gave us advice on how to stay skinny, so we could have "good face" AND "small stomach." He told us to eat 5 times a day, but very small meal each. I think he may have been a little horified by the vigor with which we devoured the fruit he gave us. My companion and I had to try so hard not to look at each other as he gave us the advice, because we just knew we'd burst out laughing. (Like my sisters when they sing "The Lord is my Shepherd")

We also talked to a philosopher! He was super fun to talk to cause he kept saying things like "Don't say jesus is the answer until you know what the question is. Beware of those who claim to have answers before they've heard the question." Which might've been super deep but my IQ isn't high enough to be sure. He told us how he went to lots of churches, but the speakers were never eloquent enough for him. We invited him to General Conference, but unfortunatly he didn't come. Hopefully he comes to our church sometime, and doesn't care that the speakers aren't eloquent. He gave us lots of advice on how to do a better job sharing the gospel, by "building relationships with people first" and "not starting with a gospel message, but just listening to them" and little did he know I was applying that advice right then with him as I listened to his sage advice. We wrote down lots of his tips after the meeting though, because you can learn from anyone.

The third old person we talked to this week was my mission president.* 

We showed up at our district council meeting, and he was sitting there, all scary like. Luckily we were only 2 minutes late, and there were others that were five minutes late. We texted them to hurry up and be on time, but President just shook his head, smiled a scary smile, and said "I've got this. Watch this." Then he called them and they immediately answered. 

It was fun having him there, I love my mission president. He also gave me and my companion a ride to our next apointment and told us about how he baptized his wife (who was his girlfriend then) and then left on his mission a month later. When he got back, they got married. It was a very in-charachter love story, and I loved the no-nonsense way he told it. When he tells stories he's the exact oposite of me, he does no embellishing and uses no colorful descriptive phrases.

"How'd you meet your wife?" 

"I baptized her, Elder. And then two year later I married her." Those were all the details I could get out of him, despite having a million questions about how that all worked.

He also brought us Maori fry bread to eat after our district meeting, and told us it would make our stomachs bigger. Little did he know, I was equipped with knowlege from the bonsai guy that would keep me skinny.

Everyone here wants to talk to us about politics, which is inconvenient because we're not allowed to talk about politics, and we just want to talk about Jesus Christ. But one of the old guys we talked to just had such interesting political opinions, that I found it hard not to engage. We found him sitting in this greenhouse place behind a government retirment comunity, and he beckoned us over for a chat. I didn't know at the time that It'd be a 2 hour chat about US politics. He also gave us an extensive account of his recent 30 day water fast, where he only drank water for 30 days. With the help of my companion I was able to mostly keep my responses to neutral "mmm"s but at one point he started asking very directly if we "noticed" certian things about certian politicians. (Why does this country even care about american presidents?) It was fun to hear his contradictory opinions and try to guess (internally) where on the political spectrum he was. Eventually he started talking about his elcesiastical leader though, and we thought it best to depart.

We also watched General Conference this week, and it was my favorite thing ever. I took so many notes. It's like we have an old tribal "wisdom of the elders" council from all the people smart enough to live to old age. Except they're also called and inspiried by God. I love having prophets on the earth that can tell us stuff. Like, for example "The Redeemer rescues us not by shortening our course but by helping us lengthen our stride." -Elder Dunn. Or "Jesus Christ loves to lift!" - Elder Kearon.

"Covenants are the credentials of eternity."

-Elder Bednar

"As covenant followers of Jesus Christ we show compassion to those in need. These divine appointments do not interupt our mission, they are our mission." 

-Elder Farns

I may have misquoted a couple of those, but you'll have to go relisten to all of general conference to be sure. 

Sorry I remembered one more. "A deciple is quick to help and slow to judge."

Okay I'm done now.

On Sunday, after conference, we went to pay our respects to a member of our ward who passed away. This is my second funeral this transfer (and third on the mish), which isn't my absolute favorite stat to rack up, but it is nice to hear the stories of the deceased. Sister Johansson's son told us about how since she was young, she loved being independent, and always wanted to start her own buisness, but her parents wouldn't let her. So, she told her parents she was taking her brother to school one day, and then she ran away to Fiji for a year. (It's not a strategy I would have ever thought of, but its a pretty effective one.) There she had a job, and fell in love with a rich guy, but then she missed her family so she left the guy she loved and came back. They tried to write letters but eventually lost contact, and so her mom's friend set Sister Johanssen up with her son.

Anyway, I cannot recount all the stories, but I loved learning them anyway. If any of you are considering a mission, just ask yourself when else in your life you'll have the time to listen to interesting people tell you about culture and stories that are important to thier lives. 

The basher from last week found us again. He stopped his car by us as we were walking, and was soooo mad at our church. But unfortunately there was a car behind himself he couldn't bash us as long as he wanted to. He told us to come to his house though so we could talk more, and said he had free apples for us. I always thought Sleeping Beauty was stupid for accepting free apples from a suspicious and hostile stranger, but now I get it, because we definitely walked alllllllllll the way to his house, and let me tell you. 

The free apples were delicious. 

Highlights of the week:

- Swinging on swings in the sunshine at a random park.

- Elder Parau cooking Crepes. 

- 1st Nephi chapter 2.

- Fun conversations.

The mission has really got me appreciating the little things more, which is really interesting considering I'm busier than I've ever been before. Still, I'm more frequently reminded to slow down. I just feel like it's easier to make me happy here.

Stats:

Spirit Island games: 13

Temple Visists: 4

Funerals: 3

Miles Run: 145.5

Pushups: 11,505

Times I've eaten Taco Bell: 1

Chapsticks used: 0.9

Lavalavas collected: 2

Love for all of you: 3,000

O pé caderno:

*He's not that old, but he called me short day 1, so this is my little way of retaliating. 

Pictures:

(See if you can guess which of the aforementioned old men is pictured below)

Many Minds Move As One

This week a creepy guy gave me pigeons to feed, which was definitely not the strangest thing that happened this week, but it was the only especially strange thing I have photographic evidence of. The creepy guy was clad in all black leather, and had long dark hair (somewhat gnarly, but in a "wise sage" type way), and when his hands were outstretched, pigeons would perch thereon. He commanded them with all the force of a Disney princess. My companion tried comparing him to Jesus in a desperate attempt to turn the conversation away from bird facts (cause Jesus is holding a lamb on the front of one of our pamphlets) but to no avail. Birds surrounded him in a circle, and sometimes they'd take flight all at once, and then circle back as if with one mind, not dissimilar to the way a gaggle of missionaries moves through a crowd when there are souls to save. 

Welcome back to the weekly! This is the reminder that some of you need to catch up on the emails over past weeks that you may have skipped. That way you can make snooty remarks like "Malachi has really fallen off lately," and "His old stuff was way better." Even "I wish Malachi hadn't resorted to these new, flashy, crowd pleasing tactics." 

My companion and I have discovered two fun loopholes to being in a ward that doesn't feed us food. (In our ward's defense it's very small, and we're not trying to make the same person feed us every day. Just know though, if the Bishop's mother had her way, we'd be fed much more frequently.) 

The first fun Loophole is the local Costco. We can't get there by our own horsepower, but we've recruited nearby wheeled missionaries to help us fill our grocery needs. Last time we went to Cotco, among other things, we got all meat pizza (a kind they don't have in america) 24 costco muffins (which lasted our flat about 24 hours so we were averaging 1 muffin an hour) and some lunch meat for sandwitches. We also got some milk and kiwis and bananas and chicken. We would have gotten much more except we're poor and didn't want to spend all our money. Costco muffins are some of the best breakfast, after lunch snack, pre dinner snack, and dessert you can find. Being in costco is really weird though, it looks exactly the same as the ones in america, and so it feels like a portal back home. But the best part of costco by far, is that they have MAGIC SHOPPING CARTS! Basically they've got these big escalator ramp/moving sidewalks that talke you from the ground floor to the second floor of the parking garage. They use these moving ramps because everyone has shopping carts and you cant much take a shopping cart up a regular escalator. BUT THE CRAZIEST THING? When you push the shopping carts onto the conveyer ramp, they stick. They don't slide down the ramp and topple everyone over. That's because there's grooves in the wheels and grooves on the escalator ramp, and so the cart is ever so slightly lower when it's on the ramp, causing it to rest on rubber pads that are beside the wheels and usually just barely off the ground. It's for sure the most advanced piece of technology I've ever seen in my life. I hope you can all imagine my pure joy when my companion let go of our shopping cart and (as if by magic) it stuck to the moving escalator ramp. 

(To those of you who are new, and questioning my use of space, or those of you wondering why I get so excited about things like shopping carts: I have bad news for you. I will forever be happier than you are. Take some joy in the little things.*)

The second of the aformeantioned loopholes, is the Tongan ward. Last week on Saturday there was a Tongan baptism that we went to, since the Tongan Elders couldn't go, and it was one of the most impressive events I've ever took part in. There were not one but TWO bounce castles in the church, and literal buckets of food. There were meats of all types (I cannot verify what types of meat exactly, but I hope Horse was among them) and Islanders were cutting in to a whole cooked pig RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF US! They pulled off all the meat and just threw it right on our already overflowing plates. Another highlight was the fresh crushed fruit juice/smoothy stuff they fed us. They had tons of fishy stuff to eat too. 

THIS week, on Wednesday there was some sort of Tongan choir thing, and as us missionaries just walked by the Tongan ward firmly orded us "Elders! Come. Eat. Is good." So we came. We ate. And it was AMAZING. They were having desert after something, and they had these ball cake things that my companion definitely knows the name of, but I can't ask him right now cause I don't want to give him editorial credit on another email. But that was not all. "Stay here," they told us. "In one hour, we have more food. We have whole dinner here. Don't leave." So post desert, we did our companion study, and didn't leave, and the whole ward had this huge dinner thing an hour later. There was SO much food there. And they made us missionaries go get our food first, which I was greatful for but was also a little akward. I guess none of them felt like they could comfortably eat until they knew the american missionaries were being fattened up a little. A highlight of that meal was for sure the fresh ribs they gave us.

A thousand thank yous to all the Tongan women (and men?) who likely spent all day preparing the food for that dinner. 

A tongan lady in our ward bore her testimony today and also told us how useless Tongan men were when the women were trying to prepare a meal. Her biggest qibbles were:

a) When you ask them to peal potatoes they always say "how many?" Stop asking so many questions when your wife asks you to cook. Just cook!

b) When you ask a man to peel a kumera, you'll look away for one second, and when you look back he will have peeled ALL the kumeras! We're not feeding so many people! You don't need so many kumeras!

I understood her frusteration; as a man I can confirm I never know how many potatoes/kumeras I'm supposed to peel.

I don't know if you guys noticed, but I'm writing this on a fast Sunday. 

We also visited AUKLAND CITY yesterday. It was so cool. Walking around the city is such a fun vibe, and there's so many good places to eat there that I wanted to try, but couldn't due to the fact that I spent all my money on Costco muffins. Our Zone Leaders took all the new missionaries to the city to give us practice talking to people. (That's every companioship in our zone by the way, cause there's new missionaries everywhere.) There were so many of us, and it was funny to walk through a park or crowded square and see other missionaries talking to strangers out of the corner of your eye. It felt like we were spies infiltrating a fancy gathering or something, and we'd make eye contact across the square and wink. (Nobody actually winks, but you get the idea.) Though we were all sepaprate, we moved as one to bring people to Jesus Christ. Suffice it to say though, the Sisters were way better at it than the Elders. They would kept becoming best friends with everyone, and the best I could do was take pictures for them and thier new friends.

 

The ZLs did get us pizza after, but it was far from enough. Somebody should have put Tongans in charge of the event. Talking to city people is so fun, you meet so many weird, interesting people. 

Craaaaaazzzzzzy people!!!! 

The best section of the email. I keep thinking I'll have to remove it, but like mana in the wilderness, the Lord always provides.

This week we visited a guy in our area that had a little note of simple instructions from previous missionaries. "Rock up. Convince him that ancient aliens isn't real. Teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Easy enough right? I honestly thought the previous missionaries were joking, but the FIRST thing this guy says to us when we sit down is "do you know who built the pyramids?" It took all my self restraint not to say "I bet it was aliens!" and beat him to it, but I decided that'd be a bad idea. 

He proceeded to tell us SO MUCH STUFF, not the least of which being that WE HAVE NO FREE WILL AND EVERYTHING IS PREDETERMINED. It was so hard not to agree with everything he said. My tactic instead was asking things like "how do your beliefs bring peace and happiness into your life?" And he would say something to the effect of WHO CARES ABOUT MY HAPPINESS! I WANT THE TRUTH! But he also told us that if we achieved the seventh consciousness while meditating, we would know everything. Once again I had to stop myself from asking why he hadn't done that if it was so easy. He had so many questions about what God was made of (matter or energy?) Or who created God and I wanted to speculate with him, but I'm a missionary so I just said "I know that God loveth his children, but nevertheless I don't know the meaning of all things." But I DO know the meaning of all things, and he was so right about everything. He's just not happy. :( Still I loved him with all the charity of Christ, and as soon as we were done I turned excitedly to my companion and said THAT GUY IS LITERALLY ME IF I HADN'T BEEN RAISED IN THE GOSPEL. He was confused, but some of you will know what I'm talking about. 

This guy got such a crazy look in his eyes when he started telling us things, about how aliens built the pyramids and modified our bodies and whatever else, and that's exactly the look I get in my eyes when I talk to my friend Bronson. 

I hope we can have many more lessons with Ancient Aliens Guy. But unfortunately he told us to only come back if we wanted to know THE TRUTH! (About determinism, and the simulation theory, and quantum mechanics, and string theory, and a billion other things he wanted to tell us about.) Which... yeah that's not "truth" we're super interested in. Cause its not the kind that makes your life happy or peaceful. Hmu if any of you want truth that DOSS make your life happy and peaceful.

Stat ✨️Stories✨️:

Replacing our usual boring stat section, I have a few stories about the new stats I've achieved this week. 

Spirit Island Games: 10!! 

3 new games with the flat this week. I'm getting alllllll the missionaries in to this game, and I love it. Sometimes all that gets me through the day is knowing we can come back and destroy some invaders that are settling on my island. (It's kinda like being a grumpy old person, when neighborhood kids come and settle on your lawn.) 

Total miles run: 128.5 

Featuring 6.25 new miles on Saturday. Now I want to be clear I didn't set out intending to go 6 miles, but I got lost. I was on exchanges, so I was in an unfamiliar area, and I was with 3 other unfamiliar missionaries. They all came out running with me even though I told them it might be hard, and then they kept encouraging us to keep going further, until when we were about 2 miles out they all died. So as they were walking, I would run to the end of the street and come back, which accounted for at least 1 of the extra miles. Also, as we were heading back, I assumed they would tell me when the turn was to get to the street with thier flat. I was wrong. Herd mentality prevailed, and they assumed I was the leader and we all followed each other off a cliff. (Or at least down a steep hill we then had to walk/run back up.) Anyway three of us came back very sore. And the other diciple did outrun the ZLs and come first back to the flat. 

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