Triple Splits!

It's been a fun week but quite cold and very busy.

Tuesday 12- After we finished emailing, we went shopping. I don't know if I put this in my last letter but I had a flat back tire and it was hard to ride. We boarded a blue bus (they're free), because I couldn't ride my bike and headed downtown. We still had to walk a ways in the cold but we finally made it to The People's Food Co-op to have dinner with a member, Anna. Her friend, Jane, works there and wanted us to meet her. It was all very organic and hippy but it reminded me of home. Then we went with the Single's Ward mission leader to see some investigators who should go to that ward. Then we read from the Book of Mormon with Tim.

Wednesday 13- There was specialized training almost all day. We learned how to use our pamphlets better, just by going through the pictures and asking lots of questions. It was pretty good. Then we had spur of the moment exchanges. Elder Langford and I went to Ann Arbor 2nd with Elder Jones and Elder Plant stayed here with Elder Shepherd. We saw their best investigator, a Russian named Michael and he taught us about prayer. He was preparing for a lesson he had on Sunday and did quite well. Then we had dinner with a former mission president in the Taiwan mission. They were really cool and nice people.

Thursday 14- We saw Stella and I quoted Einstein again. He has this great quote about how cold is the absence of heat and dark is the absence of light, so therefore, evil is the absence of God. Maybe Matt could find the real thing. Then we saw Paul, their recent convert and talked with him for a while. Then we got a ride to a Sweetwater's and had hot chocolate with Anna and Jane. I found out that I had a second flat tire, so now both my tires were flat. Then we hopped on another blue bus to get back to the church for our Book of Mormon class. Elder Langford and I taught Tim while Elder Shepherd went with Brother McNaughtan to see Quincy and Deborah. I finally fixed both my flats and they're working well now.

Friday 15- We had weekly planning! 3 hours! Usually longer. Mostly because we can never stay focused. They start making faces at each other, so I go off and make myself hot chocolate. Then we taught Jing and I was in charge. We taught the Plan of Salvation and I thought I did well. Then we saw Brother Sharma. He has an Arabic roommate and wants us to teach him so we wanted to talk to him about it. We went back and had some dinner at the apartment. Then we stopped by the game night to see if any of our investigators had come. None did but I did see a group playing Killer Bunnies and I was happy. Then we saw the Chen's with the Teichert's. Both very nice families. Then we read the Book of Mormon with Tim.

Saturday 16- We went to see Brother Ence to see if he could get my bike fixed. I had broken two spokes fairly close together and my wheel was starting to taco. Pretty badly. I had an old rim that the mission gave me (that's all they had). We were going to replace the spokes on the wheel I already had and re-true it but the cassette was so tight on there that it broke one of his tools (I felt bad about that). We tried to just true the wheel but as soon as he put the spoke wrench on one of the spokes, it just snapped. So then we decided to cannibalize the wheel I had to get spokes to put on the rim the mission gave me. So we did that for a while. Elder Langford and Shepherd rode to Subway to get us sandwiches. We did get it all fixed though and my bike is doing great. We left Brother Ence with our bikes because he wasn't quite finished and we had to go to an appointment. We walked over from NW IV to NW V to meet with Yenny but that fell through, so instead we taught the Smith family. Brother Smith served in the branch presidency for a year in Hong Kong, so he had some advice for us teaching Asian investigators. Then Elder Shepherd went with Brother Kjar to give someone a blessing while we went and talked with some of the moms of North Wood. Then we had a good dinner at the Cowleys'. We met back up at the Ences' to pick up our bikes. Then we taught Waiting, Jianming, Helen and Erin with Brother Garrett. We correlated for a while then we read with Tim. (long day)

Sunday 17- Church!!! We had a super cool talk about the Word of Wisdom. The speaker gave a story about a safari and a man who was admiring the grass moving in the wind but then he saw some grass moving the wrong way. So he grabbed a gun and prepared himself. A lion jumped out but he was ready for it and was uninjured. He compared that to the Word of Wisdom and how it's much easier to deal with a lion when it's on the horizon than when it's in your camp. We went on three-way splits after church. We each went with a member and got a bunch of stuff done. I went with Brother Chambers, a lawyer. We had some people we wanted to see but no one was home. So we saw one of his nonmember friends. That was pretty fun. Then we knocked doors but it was fun. We met up at the church for Waiting's Baptismal Interview. She passed!!! Then we had dinner at the Wendts' with their next door neighbors, super cool people. We had to leave early, unfortunately, because we had to sing! We were in the Ward's night of music. The full-time missionaries sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and it sounded good. There were some really good songs there. One man, a PhD piano student played Nocturne in C (I think) and it was soooooper good. We read with Tim after that.

Monday 18- Now comes the sad and odd tale of my Doctor mishaps. At the game night on Friday I talked with the man who was going to make my mouth guard, which is actually used for people who grind their teeth. He thought that if he could open my mouth some more, it would prevent my throat from closing off. He told me to go to the school of dentistry today as a walk-in to sign up. So I went with a priest named Issac. We got there and found out that they don't accept walk-ins. Weird. I would have pursued it more but I was doing some home experiments and I found that just opening my mouth more wouldn't really help me much. I need something that would pull my lower jaw up. So I'm kind of tempted to make something myself but I don't know how safe that is. Also, the other thing probably would have cost around $250 or more. I'll talk with the ENT this week and see what he says.

Sorry I don't have more pictures, I'm not so good at that.

Have a good week all y'alls!

-Elder Michael Carlson