Holy 19th Birthday, Batman!

Hello!

Well, as you may have noticed my birthday has now -officially- come and gone. And first things first I think I should give thanks where thanks is due. A HUGE vote of gratitude goes out to everyone who sent me a card or gift package, especially my mom and Elder Durrant's mom. You guys are all so thoughtful and it was very nice to receive all your kind words and packages. 

Wow! It's already been 11 months. 13 more months and I'll be home! That's crazy to think about! Honestly it doesn't feel like it's been a year already. To be honest I think that has to do mostly with the weather. My internal clock is very confused by the constantly perfect summer skies and the radiant glow of longer daylight hours, and by extension, longer proselyting time. In all honesty the time we spend working isn't supposed to change depending on how long the sun is up, but I've noticed that people tend to stay up and happy when the sun is up, so at the very least it makes preaching the gospel a lot easier. 

There's a lot to cover this week, and of course today would be temple trip day, so I'm getting a shorter P day anyway. Because of that, I may have to cut this email a bit short so I can get stuff done, but still keep you updated.

So! News! First off! Health stuff! Oh good....

So, after a very cool priesthood blessing from President Bekker, my eyes have been HEALING, believe it or not. In fact, the doctor said he had nothing but good news to report! And so of course, because I'm never allowed to be completely free of health struggles it seems, my back has been absolutely killing me, to the point where I'm visiting a chiropractor on Thursday of this very week. Talk about being out of the frying pan and into the fire, am I right? When I told the mission nurse the details of my symptoms she wanted me to do an MRI, but I wasn't comfortable doing that because number 1: Apparently it costs like a bazillion bucks and I already feel bad for spending the insurance money on my eye appointments.Number 2: MRI sounds really, really scary, and I am a wimp. The chiropractor is the cheaper option and I figure at the least he'll be able to tell me if it's a big problem or not.

More News! Investigators!

This week we finally managed to get back into contact with the Howells. The Howells, for those who don't remember, are a super gaming couple with two cats. Originally the plan was to visit these two every Saturday when they aren't doing W.O.W. raids, but Bro. Howell has been off at military training, and Sis. Howell had a recent death in the extended family, so it's been a few weeks since we saw them last. It was great to catch up with them. They were actually in the middle of prepping for E3, which is a massive gaming event that I watch every year-accept for this year. And next year.... And I... really... wanna.... watch it.... but I won't... because I'm a good..... missionary.... argh. My birthday made up for it though. Thanks again for making that a big day for me everyone! Anyway, we got to the root of some of their fears about the church, and this will be insanely useful for teaching them down the road, plus it was just good to see them again after all this time. SO that's them. We also were able to meet a super cool less active member named Tony Finau. He's a soldier for the marine corps, and that was super cool! I miss working with military families, and as his wife is now an investigator, we'll be working closely with him as time goes on. Meeting him came at just the right time, so it was a very cool experience.

I have to go to the store now.  Have a great week everyone.  Aloha.

Bat signal over Kaneohe (Must be for my birthday)

Eye appointment