Elder Nick Jones: Keep Calm and "Sereno Moreno"

Salutations all!

Elder Jarninagin and I have had a great week this week! Elder Jay received an ENO Hammock in the mail this week (thanks Bro and Sis Jarninja), and we have spent a ridiculous but still obedient amount of time in it. Like enough to where we are sunburnt. Our granola levels are skyrocketing. It's coming out of my pockets.

Smile!

Anyway, the actual missionary work has been going great too. We have started working with a less-active sister name Cindy. She is super cool and is very refreshing, in terms of she wants to change her life and get her faith back and she is actually willing to somewhat make and keep commitments to do so! She was very faithful as a young adult, but after moving to California from Utah at age 25, she got into some darker paths and stopped coming to church and of course subsequently lost her faith. She really wants it again because she remembers how happy she was before, because her life kind of stinks right now. Addiction is not a fun dragon to slay. But she is already showing great progress, so we continue to look forward to working with her.

A funny thing: There's a sister in South Lake who has a son who has somewhat "gone astray." But of course, like a good mother, she has not forgotten him, so we were tasked to bring her wayward son his Easter basket in his tattoo parlor lol. The look on the faces of these tatted, pierced, and otherwise modified people when two Mormon Missionaries with an Book of Mormon in one hand and an Easter basket in the other walk in their tattoo parlor is priceless. So we enjoyed that. And JoJo got his candy!

And right after that we got another treat. A sister in South Lake took us to a really nice Italian restaurant and we got to eat some bomb comidas Italianas. You know ya boy got the chicken parm. It was fuego.

The romantic fireplace where my chicken parm and I shared a nice evening.

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with the two Sciarrotta boys, Frankie and Tony. It's the first lesson we have had with them for a while, since their little brother has some serious health problems that keep them busy. We have set them with a baptismal date for the 20th of May! I am excited that they are going to be baptised, but a little saddened, since the week before that I am most likely going to be transferred :(. It's ok though, I am just glad they are getting baptised while they can!

On Friday in South Lake we ran into an interesting man named Shawn at Mickey D's. He is a Do Not Contact because had threatened an old bishop a while back. He looks about as loco as he sounds! He asked for our number and guess what, he didn't get it, yay! Then, that same day, we went to a ward party in South Lake. It was Luau themed, so we got some sick Hawaiian food, and got to see a bunch of weird people trying to hula hoop. It was quite enjoyable.

Spring in the Sierra Nevada.

Then, Saturday, we took Mike (the less active) to a Spanish baptism in Carson, and we translated for him. It was fun, and I am really enjoying Spanish now because I pretty much understood everything that was said. Yay gift of tongues! Also that day we did some service at Fish (a thrift tore) and I saw some sweeeet shoes and snagged them for literally $1 each pair. #perks.

We didn't see any Dog Alcohol Campers, woulda been cool though.

Entonces, some news about Stewart. Good news or bad news or good news first? We will do it like a sandwich. So good news, he is dead. Also it's Stewartess, because she's a girl. But she's still dead. Bad news, she got her thang on and there are 2 more little baby mice in the house now. Good news again, we caught one yesterday -humanely! - and we released him (Stewartito) into the deep wild of the back parking lot of a Sharkey's Casino. Also the Carson Valley is like the Bird of Prey capital of Nevada right now so good luck Stewartito. There is one more culprit at large but soon he or she will be brought to justice. If only we could have cats.