Monday, February 8, 2016

How Long Does It Take to Bake a Potato?

Hey everybody!  

As I said last week, I have a new companion!  His name is Elder Aitchison, he's from southern England (a little village of about 100 people that's about halfway between London and Oxford), and he's a great guy!  We've been seeing a lot of success together!  

Elder Andersen wearing the tie I
knitted for him!
Two of the big things that happened this last week are that we helped out at a food pantry for veterans, and we had a zone conference down in Lake Havasu City.  I guess big things might be a bit misleading, they're both pretty standard, but I don't think I've talked about either in the past, so I figured this would be a good week to do it! 

We do service at the food pantry every other Thursday.  Essentially what happens, is we, and a few other volunteers, meet at the pantry at about 7:30 AM, and get things set up for the day.  We get huge shipments of food in from the local foodbanks, and have to get that all sorted out.  Then everyone gets put in charge of one thing and cars drive up sort of like a drive through and everyone takes the thing that they're in charge of and puts it in the trunk of the car.  Then the next car pulls through and we repeat the process.  It's a really good program that does a lot of good, and because of the average age of Dolan, lots of people in the town are veterans, and so it's also a good chance to meet people in the town!  

This last week we got sent home with tons of leftover food that they wouldn't have been able to
Elder Aitchison and I made some
banana bread. When you don't have
a loaf pan, you improvise!
hand out by the next time, so we have tons of food around the apartment!  Including some sweet potatoes roughly the size of newborn children!  We tried to bake them the other night, but because they were so big, it took longer to cook them than we thought it would and we didn't end up eating them until like 10:00 at night!  Nothing like an enormous baked sweet potato for a light midnight snack!  

The other thing was that we had a zone conference down in Lake Havasu City!  We were catching a ride with some other missionaries, and we got lost for a little while, so we may or may not have ended up in California for a short amount of time, but we got there eventually!  I always enjoy going to zone conferences and getting the chance to see all of the other missionaries (which doesn't happen as often out of valley because everyone's so far apart) and getting to learn things that can help us improve as missionaries!  

We'll also have interviews with President Snow this coming week in Kingman, so I'm excited for that as well! 

As always, I'm so grateful for all of your continued love and support!  I love all of you so much!

Elder Excell

Q&A - 2/8/16

1.)  Tell us all about your new companion, Elder Aitchison!  What things do you have in common with him?  What is the best thing about him?  Does he have a strong English accent? --I love Elder Aitchison!  He does have a pretty strong English accent.  I don't know that I'd say that we have a ton in common, but we still get along really well!  One of my favorite things about him is that he's super friendly and personable, which is a good thing in missionary work!  My last few companions have been really introverted and not very talkative, so it's nice to not have to carry the brunt of the conversation all the time when we meet people!

2.)  Picture request!!  Stop what you're doing right now and take a picture to send to me of you and Elder Aitchison together!!  -- And, another request for this week when you get back to Dolan... I'd love more pictures of your trailer!  Homework assignment! ;) --I just sent a video of us doing some tracting in white hills!  Hopefully that still meets the requirements.  Also it gives you a chance to hear his accent! 

3.)  I sent you a package yesterday and it is scheduled to get to you on Monday.  Have you gotten notice that you have a package? --We got the slip in the mail this morning!  That means it won't be ready for pickup until tomorrow, but we'll pick it up in Kingman on Wednesday when we come down for district council.

4.)  Random question... would you want the red couch/recliner from downstairs for your apartment or home someday?  Planning a trip to DI...  --I would actually love to have that red couch!  That couch has been a staple of my childhood, haha.  Besides, it's hard to find furniture as classy as that couch anymore.  ;)

5.)  What day is Terry and Julie's baptism scheduled for?  --February 20th!  

6.)  What is something new that you learned this week?  --It takes longer than I thought to bake potatoes!  More about that in the letter!

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