One thing you will learn about missions is that it is literally two years of awkward moments.

We felt so blessed to be able to meet Sister Roma Ranger, the angelic woman that Elder Jake is living with. (She is between Dave and Pam and her sweet granddaughter is on the right.) She is vacationing near us and we were able to get together and thank her personally for all she has done for our missionary. We adore her, and so does Jake!

Hi everyone!

This week was pretty cool. We had another lesson with "M" on Thursday. We went to the Kolibars again to teach her. We taught her the Restoration and Book of Mormon, Lesson 1. It went really well. At the end we challenged her to be baptized on August 23. She said yes! We are super excited for her. We have to make sure her mom is on board with it but I'm sure it will all work out. Her mom is dating a member and hopefully we will be able to start teaching her mom soon. "M" is so prepared it is insane. She is perfect for this gospel. The Kolibars are such good examples to her and so supportive. She couldn't have a better fellowship family than them.

There was a car show here in Lethbridge this week too. There were tons of restored old hot rods and muscle cars driving down the streets. There were also a ton of custom cars that had nos and hydraulics and everything like that. It was super cool. We got to see a lot of cool cars. I'll send some pictures.

Now Sunday was the real dirt of the week. We have "A" as an investigator and he is supposed to get baptized this Saturday. We might have to push it back a week because we still have a bit to teach. We were trying to teach him as much as we could so we decided to use Gospel Principles class as an opportunity to teach him. Well we figured there wouldn't be a big turnout because there would be lots of people out of town. We were hoping that would be the case because the lesson we needed to share was the Word of Wisdom, not bad, and the Law of Chastity, terrible.

Just so I get things clear. I didn't want to teach the Law of Chastity to an investigator during Sunday school, but Elder Becker insisted. Well we show up to teach and see that this soon to be awkward situation just got a whole lot more awkward. Sitting in the class was the Drews. Now they are a sweet family. Moved into the ward a couple months ago. Had us for dinner a few days after moving into their new home. Great time. Love em. The super awkward part however was that it wasn't just the parents in the class. The twin 18 year old daughters were sitting with them. My first thought, "Kill me now."

It's bad enough to have to teach the law of chastity to adults, but to teenagers?! I don't think so! "A" hadn't showed up yet so Elder Becker told the people in the class what we were planning on teaching and why super quick. "A" walks in right in the middle of explaining. Becker just cuts it off mid sentence and we have a glorious awkward silence. Thinking this will be the worst 45 minutes of my life, it gets worse.

The twins get up and say they are going to leave! Oh man it was terrible. I didn't know what to say. I just said something like, "Yeah no worries" or "Yeah we understand." The class was horrifying. The Law of Chastity is the absolute worst lesson to have to teach on your mission. And it makes it much worse when there are six other members present when you teach it. Not including the two that walked out at the beginning. I honestly don't know what to say about that. I would have done the same though I'm sure. That is just unbearable. Needless to say, we kept it as general as possible and blasted through it. That is a lesson you check off the check-list and move on as quickly as possible.

One thing you will learn about missions is that it is literally two years of awkward moments. There is no other way to put it. You must learn to embrace the moment and pray you will never see the person again afterwards. Otherwise, you pray they only learn what the spirit teaches them and not what you say. It was a great end to the week though. And it made for a pretty good story. Lesson learned.

Anyway, the only other things that were special was the thunder storm that hit this week. The storms up here are awesome. The thunder is almost non stop literally. The one we had a couple weeks ago didn't have a single second of pauses. It was literally rolling thunder. They are awesome. And the lightning is spectacular. By the next morning. You would have never know it had rained. Everything is dry.

Well that's all I have for the week. I hope everyone is doing well back home. I love you all and pray for you always.

Take care!

Elder Anderson