Elder Edmunds is leaving me!!!

Hey mom!!!

Sorry this is going to be such a weak letter today...we've just tried to cram so many things into this p-day that we didn't have a ton of time to write emails. Today I wrote a pretty long email to Akayla though.  She's been wanting to know more about my life lately.  I've just kinda been writing you guys about what my week was like and not giving her any of the details.  She's just been hoping that I tell her more about what's up so I spent most of my time writing to her today :)  I can send you some of the email I wrote her if you'd like so you know all about my interesting week haha!  Today we went to this huge cathedral that was super awesome and then we went to NYU and some stores. But yeah...so sorry for the awful email and I'll talk to you next week at TRANSFERS!!! Have an awesome week!

(excerp from Akayla's letter)

Something terrible happened at the church!! On Saturday we all came to the church to go for a walk with one of the other elders investigators and we hear the sound of rushing water and we were like "what the heck?"...so we looked around for a bit and we opened the door of the chapel garage (the church has a drive in garage for the people that have cars) and we see water just pouring out of the ceiling! A pipe burst right above the garage so it soaked completely through the insulation and drywall and waterfalled right onto the ground. There was this huge lake of a puddle on the ground so me and all the other missionaries that were there had to get big push-brooms and squeegies and try to push all the water into the three drains on the floor. It took them about 2 hours to find the shutoff valve for the broken pipe so for about two hours we had to just constantly be pushing the water into the drains so it wouldn't soak into the walls and just destroy the whole building! It was so crazy! My poor shoes were soaked completely through. I was absolutely freezing but because we had a lunch with one of the super old members in the ward named Brother Keits, we didn't have time to take the subway and bus all the way home...so we just had to deal with it until we got out of the lunch! I swear my leather shoes froze walking to his house!! My toes felt like they were going to fall off! It was definitely an interesting experience, though, so it was fun.

Then on Sunday we had this super drunk homeless guy that apparently is an inactive member from California show up at church. He stumbled into priesthood and while he was introducing himself his eyes were really wide and he couldn't even stand up straight to tell us his name! So of course we invited him to this linger-longer birthday party thing we had after church! Haha but first he went downstairs and left to go "take care of something" he said. That "something", though, was a big can of alcohol from the nearest drug store! It was a total mess...he came back and when one of the members tried to tell him to get rid of the alcohol, he like freaked out and was yelling and saying that he was a thug and that he's from Chicago and "you don't wanna mess wit' Chicago..." I think we'd actually have been worried he was going to try and start a fight but he was too drunk to even walk haha.....so we just had two guys kinda shuffle him downstairs and out the door without causing too much of a problem. So funny though! Only in Harlem......

Derek and Lina came to church though! They are so cool! We even got to see Derek! We were all worried that he was going to be this super uptight business genius that wouldn't take us seriously and was just going to be a problem...but he's awesome! He's just this super little, nerdy Chinese guy that is really smart but so nice! He sounds almost as interested as Lina and we'll be going over sometime this week! We're so excited!! :) :) :)

Were also working with this less-active 17 year old named Bernie and he's is super cool. He's just like any other teenager, though, so he has a hard time getting motivated to do things...but this week he came to church, too! All by himself! It was so funny haha he was just sitting there in a pulpit like 15 minutes before church started and he had his arms folded and as soon as I walked in from a meeting he like got all excited and waved at me and was like "I made it!" Haha :) he's so cool.

Every week we also go to this older less actives house to eat lunch. He's kind of crippled so he has to drive around in an electric wheelchair, which is a problem because if it snows at all he can't really go anywhere because his battery doesn't last long and it gets stuck in the snow! It's been snowing like crazy lately, too, so he hasn't been able to come :( he's faithfully fed us almost every week, though, and loves having us over! He really likes to watch tv, though so whenever we go over we always just end up getting sucked into watching animal planet hahaha he's so cool, though! I love him!

It is sooooooooooo cold!! I swear I'm going to die soon. If I don't write you next week just know that I'm laying frozen in an alleyway somewhere....ugh it's so ridiculous! It seems like no matter how many layers I put on, it doesn't even help!!

I just have one more huge thing to say....ELDER EDMUNDS IS LEAVING ME!!!! President called a few days ago to ask him a question about something random and as he was saying goodbye he was like, "oh, by the way, you're slated to be transferred this cycle." And then he hung up! What a bum! Transfer calls aren't until Saturday but he totally just spoiled the surprise! I'm so sad! One cycle isn't enough together! I really like the guy even though he's the total opposite of me! We get along great and this has been the first time where I feel like I'm not being dragged along and haven't had to do any dragging as far as missionary work! We actually work together!