You know it’s bad when your fellow missionaries are emailing you and calling you by your first name and asking if you’re "trunky"? Trunky is a word we use for a missionary whose mind is at home and not on the Lords work. Am I trunky? Only when I have to plan my return trip home such as how am I going to get all my stuff home and what am I going to do for the summer, and saying goodbye to people. Essentially I am only trunky when I get bombarded with the question by my fellow missionaries. To some I tell them to ask my companion, because he is the one who would know best if my mind is here or there.

Service project with E. Norton (L) and E. Brand (R). We helped a member
clean out storage lockers that she rents to students.

Our Memorial Day included some fantastic weather. It rained in the morning but then the skies opened up to some warm sun and the humidity. Riding the bikes was wonderful until.... Elder Norton's new bike broke. Two weeks ago we had the tire get punctured, but yesterday his entire peddle decided to fall off. Once again, we were stranded in the furthest possible area from our apartment and not a member for miles around to help us. We did a jimmy rig fix so that Elder Norton could get his bike to the closest member’s home, but they weren't home. So we chilled on their lawn chairs while we called a bunch of members until one was able to come and help us. Hurray for Bro. Boston!!! Elder Norton rode 300 meters and it broke again!!! Does this make us sound pathetic now? The car gets taken away, buss stations closed, bikes get stolen, and then bikes break twice, all sorts of transportation troubles. I'm not convinced that we will ever have a smooth week of transportation ever. Something has to go wrong!

This week is packed for us fortunately. Monday was Memorial Day so we had regular proselyting. Today is P-Day. In the evening we will be disk golfing with the Priests in the Ward - Fun! Tomorrow is my last Zone Conference. That will take up nearly all of our day, and then we have three appointments in the evening to fill up our entire Wednesday. Thursday we have a service project and our weekly planning session. This week will go by quick.

Pday Lunch!

That's about all I have. Scripture for the week: Jacob 4:12

 12 And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?

Thank you, love,

Elder Luymes

Every week I write down the topic of my emails as "weekly update" but often times I find myself laughing as I have an image of Colonial Klink from Hogan’s Heroes coming out of his office yelling to Sargent Schultz "Report! Report!" Can you imagine Colonial Klink yelling at me asking for my weekly report of my mission. I can kind of picture my mom thinking "where is it, where is the report?" She's anxious kind of  like Klink is to get the report. LOL it’s a funny thought. Hogan’s Heroes is a great show, I'll need to watch more when I get home.

We had a couple great surprises this week. It was nothing like the disaster and chaos like the week before. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Santos. He is an Elder that just got transferred to the Ward. He is from Phoenix Arizona and has been out on his mission for 14 months. On Wednesday we were biking to an appointment that we had out East by the lake. On the ride out there [Pause: I should mention that Elder Norton got a new bike on Monday from a member] continuing with Wednesday, we were biking to the appointment and Elder Santos was behind me about 20-30 feet and all of a sudden I hear him yell out "is my tire flat?" I slowed down and to our misfortune his tire was very low. We checked it out and pulled out a small piece of wood that was no longer than an inch long. This tiny piece of wood hit the jackpot. It penetrated all the way through the tire tread (mountain bike tires) and it penetrated the air tube and blew out his tire in a second. What a lucky piece of wood. We walked to the closest bike shop and fixed the tire, then continued biking to our appointment. It worked out well; we weren't thrown off the schedule too much. It made for a good laugh actually.

Kenosha is the home of Americas oldest operating Velodrome (bike racing on a track). It is in our area, and Elder Norton and I pass by it all the time. So we took a quick minute and raced around the track. It is so much fun.

On Friday Elder Norton and I had the privilege of going on exchanges with President Cutler. He texted us a few days before and asked if he could come out with us on Friday. How could we ever say no! President drove us around in his car (which was a nice day of rest for our legs); we had an amazing time together. We had two appointments while we were with him and we talked to three other people who we met. One guy we helped put a fridge into his car, then we struck up a conversation about religion. He had met with LDS Missionaries in the past but it had been a very long time. His views of the Bible were a bit skewed; he was convinced that the Bible taught more about King David than it did about Jesus Christ. You could tell that President Cutler was "rolling with the punches" with this guy. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he gave us his phone number. It is always great being with President Cutler, his knowledge and testimony are such a great inspiration. At the end of our exchange, President Cutler was answering one of Elder Norton’s questions and President made a joke about me going home. Ha! He is such a great guy!

I would estimate that we biked ~60-70 miles this week.

Scripture for the week: Alma 22:13

13 And Aaron did expound unto him the scriptures from the creation of Adam, laying the fall of man before him, and their carnal state and also the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world, through Christ, for all whosoever would believe on his name.

Thank you all, have a fantastic week!

Elder Luymes

Directions -- U.P. Style

This was a week to remember in the worst of ways. In the thick of it all it seemed as though the weight of Satan was going to squash Elder Norton and I. So much opposition, so much going against us it was ridiculous. By Sunday, so much had happened and we were clearly on the downward slope that all we could do was laugh and joke about it. It was a good week, a testimony week and one that I won’t forget for a very long time.

On Monday as you are aware of, we didn't really have a P-Day. Of the normal 8 hours that are given to us for emailing and shopping and sports, and all the other fun stuff. Instead we only had two hours to do all that. Monday morning got occupied with a service project that went twice as long as it was supposed to. Then we had a lunch appointment with the Sister missionaries and the Elders as well as a member. Then we had a lesson with one of our investigators. We only had one hour for emailing, followed by dinner and then 10 more minutes of emailing and then an appointment with another member. It was crazy and stressful.

Tuesday started out on the wrong foot. We got a call during studies from the vehicle coordinator for our mission. He was informing us that the mission was taking away our car (not because of the accident) but because the car was need elsewhere and we would now be full time walking, busing, and biking Elders. Our area is small enough where it is kind of manageable without a car, but this was the worst week in the world to get a call saying "you’re losing your car". We had three, four, or even five appointments back to back every day this week. Those appointments are all over town, some of them are 15 minute car rides, it would be impossible to try and bike that same distance in a time frame that would also allow you to have a solid lesson. We racked up the miles on Tuesday and drove to all the people that we knew would be hardest to visit once the car was gone.

Wednesday, the car went bye-bye. We had to turn it in to the body shop. When the car is finished I will need to sign the check on behalf of the church and then the car goes to the Kenosha Spanish Elders for good. From then on we walked. The senior couple did help us out though; they drove us to several appointment on Wednesday and Thursday. We didn't make all of our appointments however but it was a whole lot better than walking to them all. I am very grateful for the senior couple. Thursday was the best day of the week.

Friday, was supposed to be even better. But somebody decided to steal Elder Norton's bike. This left us with only walking. I didn't have the money yet to buy the bus passes so we walked all day Friday, missed a few appointments and just kind of was in a daze at how this week was falling apart. It was unreal!

Saturday, I finally got the money to buy a bus pass, we prepared for the day, hopeful as can be that this day was going to be the turnaround. And then... the bus station was closed. We can't buy bus passes, we can't ride the bus, and our entire day’s plans went down the drain. We just kept on walking, mile after mile. Eventually we did figure out a way to buy bus passes on Saturday but it still messed up the schedule a whole lot.

Sunday, nothing bad happened. A member has agreed to give us his bike; we got to Skype our family and see their smiling faces. We had a great dinner with a member family. Sunday was great. This new week should be a lot better. Hopefully less opposition, less drama with the car and bikes being stolen and bus stations being closed. It should be a good week. We hope!

Wall of Inspiration - Jesus Christ, Coach Green (aka You a Pony),
Adrienne (post wisdom teeth still on drugs).

Happy Mother’s Day, love you all,

Elder Luymes

May the Fourth be with you!

Hamming it up with Kenosha B team!

 

This P-Day is not even a P-Day. We got a text early in the morning asking for some emergency help to help somebody from the Racine area move. We volunteered and didn't know what we were getting our self into. 4 hours later and we still need to go back tomorrow to help move the final load. Then we show up an hour late to our lunch appointment with the Sisters and one of the members. Then we had a 3pm lesson, and now we have a 5pm dinner and we are literally just now getting to our first P-Day activity. Our day is shot. Essentially, we have a 2 hour P-Day.

Today starts the first day of my last transfer. Yeah, that is all I really feel like saying about that.

Spring has come, the weather this week was absolutely the best. We had sunshine all week, and the temp was in our favor. We walked a lot and biked around a lot. The tulips are blooming, and the dandelions look really beautiful with their golden yellow flowers that show up everywhere.

Tulips = Spring!

The work in Kenosha is still going strong. We have two baptismal dates. One, a boy, had his birthday this past Saturday so we went to Wall-Mart and bought him the Meet the Mormons movie. Elder Norton and I are still together this transfer. This helps a lot because we both have an understanding of the area, and we have a vision of what needs to be done.

Thank you, I'll email longer next week, today we have essentially no P-Day so this email is short. Love,

Elder Luymes

Sweet ride, nice grill. We found this along the way.