Bloody

Dear Family and extended ward and friends,

  I am doing well, I am currently serving in the Mojave River ward, in Hesperia, or as more commonly known to the people in the mission as the "Elderly ward". I thank you from the bottom of my heart/taste buds for the Pepper, most of the food I have been preparing has had need of such flavor, because the pepper here is so finely ground that it goes up your nose by just sprinkling it on your food, so again I thank you for it, for anything else that I might need I would like to have a sweater and an electric razor please. The times that we can go and email is sometime after 10:00 AM on Mondays. I would like to congratulate you on losing 25lbs dad, at the rate that I am eating, I may join you. For personal study I can study for a full 1 and 1/2 hours personally, and a full hour as a companionship. In my studies I have been reading through the Book of Mormon and have thus far been enlightened in my understanding and edified spiritually as to the ways of the Lord. I have also been studying Preach my Gospel, right now I am okay on my money, I have budgeted accordingly so that I can have a little wiggle room for right now. The dinner appointments have thus far been good (oh have I got a story for you but we will get to that latter) we have about 2-4 dinners a week from the ward. I have been able to focus more and more, but I have been more careful in the way that I have been teaching so that I have their attention comparatively to the TV. So onto the week of adventure for Elder Van Engelenhoven, He is a man and he is on a mission (if you can't tell that last sentence was done in an announcer’s voice for the cheesy cartoons back in the day). A LOT of people here say that "well Back in my day...............3 hours.... later.....because of the (fill in the blank and I think you get the jest of it) so on to my week.

   1-25-16

Well, we went shopping I made the painful discovery that razor heads are expensive on the mission, I also discovered that Potato bread is cheap, and tastes good. Elder Chamberlain and I played Monopoly and it started out as a tie but we worked it out to a stalemate (hahaha, work that one out), we then played Basketball for a while, I had to take a break I ripped the blister off the bottom of my foot (my foot is fine now) while playing.  I can now dunk, kind of, depending if I can get a running start, so some elders were playing Dungeon and Dragons, and all I have to say about it is that they were not smart in anything as to their approach of getting me to play or to accomplish anything of relevance such as MISSIONARY WORK!!!! It’s a game that is best suited for NOT ON YOUR MISSION. We then taught an Investigator, James, we read the first part of the Book of Mormon.

    1-26-16

We started off the day by giving out food to day in a soup kitchen, in Victorville and let’s say that the people there liked to talk (to anyone or anything) we then came home and finished our studies.  We taught another investigator, Richard Nathan. We later had dinner with Bro Hickman, (this is the later story that I said we would get to) he fed us spaghetti and meatballs, it was so good it was delicious unto my stomach and to my soul; but I then had to have 2nds because Elder Chamberlain went up and refilled our plates, I was properly stuffed, so we had the absolutely brilliant Idea to follow the plan and go tracting, (this is not the end of the dinner story.)  Then ran into another investigator who told us to come back at a later time, so we made it back to the apartment and updated the Area book and weekly planned, upon the conclusion of our planning and prayer I got up off my knees and made it to the bathroom and promptly threw up all of my dinner, and Elder Chamberlain saw blood in my throw up but it was not my stomach that was bleeding but my nose, I THREW UP SO HARD THAT I GAVE MYSELF A BLOODY NOSE, that was a fun sleepless night.

And I am almost out of time,

Sincerely yours in the service of the lord,

     Elder Ammon Van Engelenhoven