Week 40--Lau Lau and Peaches

Hello,

I'll start off today with a story.

My companion and I were just going to visit one of our less active members, but they weren't home so we decided to take a rest on the curb. While we were sitting there, a giant truck drove up that I saw pass us on the main street just a few minutes eariler. And when I say giant, I mean GIANT. It was a F-450 that was lifted and it had probably two feet tall tires. So keep that in mind while I tell the story. So I hear this guy on his cell phone, and it went something like this, "Yeah yeah yeah, I'll talk to you later." And then he signals for us to come talk to him. My chin barely reaches the bottom of the window, that's how big this sucker is. He looks at us and this is the first thing he says, "My great-great grandpa was the first person to bring peaches into the Salt Lake Valley in 1850. Brigham Young stood in the same place 2 years earlier and said, 'this is the place'. My great grandpa owned 40 acers in Centerton or something like that, and was given to him by Brigham Young himself. My grandpa was the Secratary of Agriculture for Utah for 40 years. My two uncles shot Jesse James in the back." Turns out he's a super less-active member, but for the sake of time I will include quotes of our conversation. "I've smuggled everything into this country but guns and heroin." "I wish I could grow weed in Taiwan and sell it to Colorado" "There's a fine line between really bad, and really good. I walk that line." "When the zombies come out, I will be there standing shoulder to shoulder with you fighting. I've got my guns. I've got my food. I've got my water. I'm a prepper." "If my grandpa knew about this queer stuff going on right now he'd roll over in his grave." I wished for this car, I got it. I wished for this watch, I got it. I wished for some women, and I wish I wouldn't have because I got them. Be careful what you wish for." Then he gave us 100 dollars and drove off. It was the weirdest thing.

 

So this week has been absolutly awesome. To start off, Darryl got baptized. It was glorious. We intially were going to have the baptism on Saturday, but due to some miscommunication and complications, we moved it back to Sunday. But as it turns out, everything went very well. Right before the baptism, we had to rearrange our speakers, and one of them thought that he was speaking on one thing, and it was a fiasco, but it worked out! Before the baptism, Darryl was like, "One of my drinking buddies might come." Despite all of the mix up, the main thing was that Darryl got baptized, and he did. It was amazing. The spirit was so strong. He got dunked, and he looks at Brother Thiim (the guy who baptizes him) and asks if everything was okay, and he nodded, and Darryl turns around and was like, "Yeeeeaaahhh..." and does a little dance. But that's just the way he is. He got up after his baptism and bore his testimony, and told us his parents had died in the same year, which caused him to spiral into alcoholism. And he tried stopping many times, but never did until he met us. And he told us about how much Christ and the Church has helped him. It was insanely spiritual. So spiritual that I forgot that we sang closing hymns and went up to say the closing prayer and the bishop was like, "Elder, what about the closing hymn?" OOPS. But his friend came right after the baptism, and we went up and talked to him, and he told us he wanted what Darryl had, and he was coming to Church the next week, and we taught him about the Book of Mormon, and he was like, "this book speaks to me." It looks like we have another Darryl on our hands.

 

So we have been teaching this family, and it's this big Hawaiian dude and their kids. The dad is a member, but the kids aren't, and we are baptizing them in two weeks. But they let us make Lau Lau with them, which a local dish. And so here's how you do it:

Clean the taro leaf->separate the stem and the leaf-> wrap the pork butt and stem in taro leafs-> wrap in tin foil->steam for dayz

So we went Thursday and made Lau Lau, then on Saturday we went over and taught the boys and had Lau Lau, Poke (raw fish), loni salmon, poi, and potato salad. It was sooooo good. I felt real hawaiian.

 

Another weird story. The other day we called for our dinner, and she was like, "Oh I forgot!" and so she just told us she would leave her house open, and go in and eat. We were like" What the...." but regardless we did it. We felt so awkward. So we just made so quesodillas and dipped outta there, but it was weird just being in their house alone.

Lots of interesting things happened this week, buy one thing is for sure. Darryl is a strong member of the Church, and I couldn't be happier.

 

Aloha family! I hope this letter finds you well.

Elder Gleave

Pictures:

1) my companion being Jack Black

2)Baptism

3) Scuba Gleave