Switzerland...

Hola!

I'll start things off with a joke!

I heard this one the other day and it was awesome. I hope that it will be just as funny read, as it is told. I'll do my best to stay true. There is a river in Provo canyon that is called Deer Creek and there are no fish in it. None. Hermano Urquahrt says (he came up with the joke) that he’s tried so many times to catch fish there but it never works. The joke takes place there.

One day a truck driver was in his truck and driving through the night. He was pretty sleepy and still had a long way to go. His music was on quietly in the background and his truck dog was asleep on the seat next to him. As he started to drive up the canyon he heard a noise coming from the back of the truck. He turned of the radio and listened closely to see if he could hear it again. A few moments later he did. It was something singing in the back of his truck. He carefully pulled off to the shoulder of the road and went back to see what was happening. He slowly walked up to the back and then through the door open to see who was singing in the truck. He couldn’t see anyone but the singing was getting louder so he cautiously climbed in and walked to the back to see what was happening. He moved a few boxes and the singing go louder until he opened a case and saw that it was full of singing cookies.

He said, “Why are you guys singing?” And they said, "Because we are lonely back here!" The truck driver told them that they needed to be quiet while he was driving and they were silent as he got out the back and closed the door and climbed back into his seat. He started driving again because he had a long way to go and didn’t have time for singing cookies. After a few minutes, he heard it again, the singing from the back of the truck. He again pulled off to the side of the road and climbed in the back.

"Why are you still singing?" the cookies didn’t answer this time. The trucker said, "The next time I hear singing from back here I am driving this truck off the road and into the river!" They cookies stayed silent and he got back in the back. He continued driving for about 5 more minutes when he heard the singing one last time. He sighed and patted his sleeping dog on the head and then cranked the wheel as hard as he could to the left and drove the truck off the road and into the river!

How funny is that!?

When Hermano U. told us we laughed and laughed and laughed. I hope its funny to read. Its not my fault if its not.

This is going to be another weird letter I’m sorry. This is what Hermano Urquhart aptly called the "Garden of Eden Week." It would be breaking the rules to leave, but we can’t really progress while we are here... I think everyone has been feeling that a lot. I know I have. Nothing really happened. We taught a lot of lessons, and I practiced a lot of grammar. That's pretty much the summary for the entire time since I last wrote. Except I did get a pretty sweet package on Saturday! It had an awesome zombie poster and a sweet Nacho Libre t-shirt. The zombie poster says, "What will you use?" But I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with it yet. It scares the sisters too much to keep in the room so it’s on my desk at the residence.

To all of you who have been asking if I have met specific people, I’m sorry I haven’t yet. I've met a lot of cool people from cool places and incredible backgrounds but I haven’t met the people I'm supposed to be looking out for yet, sorry!

Something cool is, I get my travel plans next week! It's the beginning of the end of the beginning! and it feels like the end of it all! It will be weird to go back and live in the fake world once again.

This week I’ve been doing what I call "the mural series." We’ve had like 4 different teachers this week and for each one I draw a mural of them across the whole whiteboard. Some of the best were (sorry I don’t have pictures, words will have to do the 0.01% they are worth) Hermano Wood was an exterminator freeing his girlfriend from the sinful jungles of Honduras. Hermano Busath was slaying the dragon of strife to save his wife with his flaming sword of truth. Hermano McCleve came back on Monday and so his was the coolest by far. It may or may not have drawn a crowd of teachers.... (hint, it did!) It was him as the destroying angel. He was walking in a pillar of purifying fire through the valley of death (see Psalms 23) surrounded by the slimy hands of temptation and the woods of despair. They are pretty goofy when you read about them, but I made a lot of teachers feel like bosses. Everyone needs to feel like a hero every now and then, right?

A pet peeve I have discovered this week - people who think they are too good for the rules. Surprisingly(not) 19 year old boys fall very well in this category. I kid you not I heard this metaphor 3 times in one night. "The chain of command is something that is very important to me. I think it is one of the greatest things that people can understand. Good leaders always establish a chain of command. I hate when I have more than one person telling me what to do. It just make things confusing and it tells me that I don’t need to listen because they don’t understand how things should work." (this was after the other zone on my floor got in trouble for ripping a trash can off the wall when they were having a tag team wrestling match in the hallway... missionaries these days [at least they were with their companions, right]) "I don’t need the whole branch presidency to tell me what to do and have the mission presidency talk to me and my teachers! Where is the chain of command in that? It's like when there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Nothing works when you have more than one person cooking in the kitchen. You get 2 people baking a cake and they forget who was adding the flour so they add it twice and you get a dry cake. Or they add the water twice and it becomes soup. That’s why you need the chain of command. When there is only one cook everything gets done right." I commend his efforts and confidence in the metaphor but this attitude is ridiculously prevalent here. I don’t know why I wrote all that. Point is, I think following rules is important and some people don’t. I don’t mean to be a tattle-tale or anything.

We had some pretty good devotionals this week. They were interesting and I loved hearing the stories they shared. One was particularly great about the blessing of faith. There was a young man (returned missionary) who was preparing to propose to his girlfriend and he took her to a little cafe called the deer creek cafe. It was a small and romantic little place on a dock that overlooked where the river and the lake connected. He had the ring in his pocket while he and his girlfriend were eating, and was looking for a way and a time to ask her to marry him. As he was fumbling with the ring, because he was so scared, he dropped it and it fell through the cracks and into the water bellow. He didn’t know what to do. His girlfriend saw his face had changed and asked him what happened. He said, "I dropped it,” she asked him what that meant and he explained what his plans were. She was surprised and was not expecting this at all. She told him that maybe it was a good thing he lost the ring because she would have said no because she wasn’t thinking about things like that right now. After a few more awkward minutes, they left and the man went back to his home.

The next Sunday, he set up a meeting with his bishop because he was sure she was the one and he didn’t know what to do. The bishop listened to his story and looked at the young man for a few moments. Then he said, “Do you think this is all going to work out in the end? The young man said yes. He said, tomorrow we need to go fishing. They drove up to deer creek to go fishing off the pier that he had tried to propose to his now ex-girlfriend at. The bishop asked him how he was feeling and the man said that he didn’t know so they pulled two chairs up to the edge of the dock and said a quick prayer. When they finished the bishop threw out his line into the water and almost immediately something bit! They reeled in the fish, they both knew that they wouldn’t be able to catch another one. The bishop asked the man if he could gut the fish and the man said of course. When they cut it open they found ....... a singing cookie!

That took way too much time. I hope it was funny and for all of you who wanted/expected a ring sorry!

I hope you laughed and this doesn’t ruin anyone's faith. Sorry for a subpar letter this week hopefully amazing things happen this week and I can tell some sick nasty stories
Thhhats all for now folks!

I love you all!

Kate have fun this summer and get those apps done!

Jacob get ready for an awesome 4 years of high school! You’ll do great!

Mom and Dad don’t rub it in too much that you guys get to go to Europe whenever you want.

alrighty!

Adios!

ps. please spelling adn grammar check this for me. inm sure its atrociuosu