Elder Edholm -- week 55

This week, we had one person that came go church, Carlos. Before the quarantine, he went to the English ward for 3 months straight. We've kind of lost contact with Ken, which is a little sad because he was our most reliable person that we were teaching. We're really hoping that he's just out of town.
There's this one hill in our area that is just super hard to bike up, but there's a super cool view from the top so that makes it worth it. One thing that I have really come to appreciate is the time we have to study each morning. A whole hour to read and to just learn more about whatever topic, principle, or story that's found in the scriptures. This last Saturday we made a video about becoming better through Christ, which was really fun to do. By this time next week, we'll find out about transfers!

Elder Edholm -- week 54

It's been hot here, biking is fun (but we have some hills), but I have not been sweating even 5% of how much I did in Bolivia. And we didn't have anybody at church on Sunday, which was a little sad. 

We went hiking up Mount Olympus today, it was about 3 miles steep uphill climb, but the views were amazing. 

A view of his area

Sunset view of his area

Andrew and his companion

View from Mount Olympus

Panoramic view

Zone Conference. Andrew is fourth from the right. 

Elder Edholm -- week 53

I am getting use to how much we bike, we go at least 7 miles everyday, and there are some difficult hills, so I'm getting in better shape! My companion is really motivated to work, so we have been able to teach and help more people! We've really been having a lot of success with talking to people that have talked to the missionaries before, they have been extremely nice to us and a good portion have agreed to meet with us! Everyone that we are teaching and contacting speak Spanish, so I've been able to improve my Spanish. Yesterday we had three people come to church with us, Ken and a mother with her son (Luz and Geronimo). It was really awesome to see how much they appreciated the meeting as much as I did. We still have to wear masks when we talk to people and when we knock on doors, but not when we are riding our bikes to get places. But people still get mad at us sometimes for not wearing masks while riding, but that's okay! That's it for this week!

Elder Edholm -- week 52, 1 year mark!

We moved from the hotel to an actual apartment, and this place is pretty nice. When we were in the hotel we were pretty close to wheeler farm so we jogged there a couple of times in the morning. We are now just starting to be able to teach people kind of consistently, we are teaching a guy named Ken, so that is really cool. We've had three lessons with him so far and we started sending him daily scriptures yesterday, through text. On the fourth of July, we visited another person we are teaching, Carlos, and he made us some ribs to take home with us, it was really good. And also a member gave us same cake too! It was a pretty good day. I think I'm just now starting to adjust a little bit to this new mission, just now seeing a decline in my stress, so that a relief. That's it for this week!

Andrew's area

Wheeler Farm

Beauty by Robin McKinley

Teen fantasy. I have been revisiting some of my favorite books and reading them aloud to my children. I chose about 5 and let them pick which one I should start with. All three chose Beauty.

Robin McKinley is an incredible author whose descriptions and characters are life like and full of color. I've read Beauty too many times to count. I never tire of rereading it. It's the best retelling of Beauty and the Beast fairy tale that I have ever read (and I've read a lot of them)!  It's one of the books I always recommend to all types of readers, young and old, male and female. All three of my kids really enjoyed it. It's not too mushy for a 12 year old boy, but has enough romance for a 14 year girl to sink into. It has decisions that are hard to make and people who turn out to be more than you thought.

Recommend: Yes Yes Yes.

Murder in Waiting by Lynn Cahoon

Mystery. This is an addition to Cahoon's Tourist Trap Mystery series. I advance order each installment to read on my Kindle. It's always a wonderful surprise when I open up my email and see that it's been delivered!  I've bought into these characters hook line and sinker!  Admittedly they aren't always the best written plots, but the culprit is never easy to guess and I thoroughly enjoy getting lost in the fictional town of South Cove, California.

Jill is the owner of the local bookstore/coffee shop and her boyfriend, Greg, is the small town's police chief. With a cast of endearing characters in the town, including Jill's eccentric aunt and a police dispatcher who is clairvoyant, there is plenty of side plots going on amidst the murder investigation to keep the story moving well.

Recommend: Yes.