THERE ARE CATS IN OUR HOUSE‏

I talked about having a headcold. NOPE! It was cats.

​Found this guy a couple weeks ago, shooed him out, and forgot about it. Then, on Friday night:

We were struggling to get two cats out of our house. We manage to do so, block our doors, and magically, my head cold and congestion go away.

Now, it occurs to me that there is a spiritual parallel here. Of course, because I am a missionary. And I have time to write it.

Many times, there are things in our lives that hurt us. Sometimes, we know what it is. Other times... not so much. We could be completely unaware of it, even though it was pointed straight out to us. Then, something happens and you're like "WOW. Gotta fix that." And it's wasy to fix, you do it, and then all is a lot better and you're not sneezing so much that you have to end your prayers early to go blow your nose for the next 10 minutes.

I don't like cats.

And that's life.

Well, thanks for all your support, and I'll talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Newman

AND THEN I WAS SICK

...with a rotten head cold.

Here's a picture from last night of my coat getting caught in my bike wheel while riding on a freeway (miraculously, I didn't crash):

​And it took me a while to get it out. Later on, the chain fell off the gears, but then I got it back on.

Things are interesting on bikes.

And... well, last week wasn't so exciting. It was mostly just me getting back into the swing of being a normal, non-office missionary. Everything'smostly back to normal now, so that's good. I've got to make sure that I do everything I need to and more, though, but that'll come. I'm really looking forward to this week, and hope that all's going to go better.

It should, because we've got 5 appointments tonight. At 6, 6:30, 7, 7:30, and 8:00. Anyone can tell you that's pretty rough, but they're all really good people, and if all goes well (and it will), they'll get baptized soon.

Well, love you all and hope all is well with everyone!

Elder Newman

Elder Newman.exe has crashed‏...

...on his bike three times. Once, I got an infected wound because of it.

So, what's happened? Not much, although we did find a fantastic family last weekend. It's a single mom with her three children, and they accept everything. They came to Church on Sunday and stayed to watch a baptismal service afterwards. The mother loves it - she's led a really rough life - and so does her oldest daughter. They're going to progress really well and really far.

WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO. SERIOUSLY. But things are going to go well.

Also, you may be interested to know that I've been designated the branch piano player. Evidently the members are so sick of the CDs they've got that they don't mind just hearing a mangled version of the right hand of the hymns. Although it did pave way for a miracle that only I saw.

The first hymn was number 10. I mangled it terribly. We had investigators in the meeting, so they didn't know, but the members surely did. I wanted to make sure that the sacrament was as spiritual as possible, so I said a very fervent prayer that the Lord will bless me as I played the sacrament hymn - "The Lord is my Shepherd," which is #56 in Spanish. So, the time comes, and I begin playing. I bungle the introduction up a slight bit, but then for the rest of the song, the rest of the three verses, I only played about 3 or 4 sour notes. Final hymn comes around, and I destroy it in the bad way. It was quite a delightful miracle with the second hymn - and evidently, I played well enough that the branch still wants me to play the hymns. We'll see if I can get any time to practice.

Let's see... well, we hit 65 people in attendance on Sunday, so that was good as well. I appreciated it. We're working on making the number jump even higher and higher, since we want to see real growth here in the ward. That means I need to contact more people, which means I need to contact men.

​And now I've got to go. Thanks for all your support and sorry for the short and lame emails!

Love,

Elder Joseph Newman

Maravatio‏

IMMA GOIN' TO MARAVATIO, MICHOACAN! *fireworks* It's awesome. It's the one district in the mission with bikes, the Branch President (Presidente Muñoz, I believe) is one of President Whitehead's favorites, and the area is like none other in the mission (aside from the bikes). In an interview yesterday, President Whitehead told me that Maravatio is like no other area in the mission - way different than Atlacomulco. Atlacomulco was way different than the city, and I've spent a total of... well, one year now in the city. [4.5 (Culturas) + 5 (Offices) + 3 (Naucalli) = ~12 months = 1 year. ] So, it's going to be like starting the mission all over again - new area, new culture, new companion, new accent (there should be a new accent), new EVERYTHING. I imagine it's going to be more like my Dad's mission - little to no American influences, almost no speaking English (I may be the only American out there. I haven't checked yet) and all that fun stuff. The only difference to the beginning of the mission is that I'll still be a District leader, but aside from that, it's all new.

And I don't have any new pictures for this week. Sorry about that.

Well, that's all I've got time to talk about. I'm leaving for Maravatio on Monday, so if you don't hear from me next week, that's why.

Thank you all for your being wonderful-ness,

Elder Newman