accidentally may have made brother Joseph Smith throw up…

10/31/17

yeah halloween is a thing here too! except they don't pronounce the H so for the past few weeks I've been totally lost when someone says they're excited for "lawloween". but yeah its pretty big here! we're trying to think of something awesome to do for halloween, feel free to toss some ideas. 

this week was awesome! pretty much just service stacked up all week haha, we got wrecked. ah man i faced my fears and we went to the hospital to visit our buddy Jean-Yves in the psychiatric ward. we asked for directions and we found the way and of course it was the super long dark hallway descending into a cold empty room of elevators. i was lagging behind a couple yards and wasn't doing so well already and right when we got to the end of the hall the old rusty elevator dinged and opened for us and it was totally empty and there was no one else anywhere near us, so we kinda just looked at each other and stood there and it took a lot to get me into the elevator after that haha. i was literally shaking man, then we got to the psychiatric ward and it was cool. i was shaking and sweating the whole time, but it was a good experience. i ran out of the hallway so fast. but yeah so our buddy Jean-Yves is doing great, keeps calling us and asks to talk to me and he fills me in on his life there and his dreams and we chat for a while, he really just needs someone to talk to. great guy. don't know why he only wants to talk to me though… 

we gave one of our haitian buddies a baptismal date! Ronel is so stoked! we had an awesome discussion with his about the Plan of Salvation with a focus on covenants and for some reason we ended up going mostly in the direction of eternal marriage and we saw a different level of interest and he started asking, "so what you're saying is, if my wife died, i could be sealed with her for eternity?" and we were like yes you can. and his voice kinda broke down and he asked how? and we explained the temple and the priesthood and he was amazed. after we finished he told us his wife was killed in the hurricane in Haiti. so cool the way the spirit works, its been such a blessing to be a witness to the amazing things that the Lord is willing to do for His children here. Ronel definitely needed to hear what was said that night. such an amazing guy. 

we did our food bank service again and made some new friends, one is this super cool guy that owns an old antique shop and he and i chatted for a long time about music and it led to the church and he loves what we do and he expressed his respect for the mission and everything, haha he called us "gosh darn monks." not quite that exactly haha he's got the biggest sailor mouth i have ever heard in my entire life. but he's a good guy. he invited us to his shop and hooked me up with a bunch of old records, Simon and Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, Billy Joel, Harry Nilsson, and of course one by Johnny Hallyday just for the name. super cool guy. 

man we got hit hard by some awesome service opportunities! the family Mouhe moved into a waaaaay bigger nicer apartment in Longueuil so before they moved in saturday we went with some guys friday and painted the whole thing. halfway through we got a call from our buddy Alexandre and he needed help moving three tons of wood and so we ran and did that and got so filthy haha but that was fun and then went back and painted the rest of the house and that took up about the entire day. then saturday morning we got a call that this guy needed help moving a piano so we ran over there and moved this fat piano down these stairs haha it was fantastic, then right after we drove to La Prairie out in the middle of nowhere, like two hours out from our area and we shovelled twelve tons of rock with the other two elders and that was a blast! haha i felt back at home. except it was cold outside when we were shovelling that was new. but that was so fun! then right after shovelling rock we drove to the Mouhe's and moved them into the new place and that was so fun! brother Mouhe and i bonded a lot haha, he doesn't talk much and doesn't express much emotion ever, but we were laughing the whole time we were working together haha i loved it. but yeah that took up the whole day and it felt good to do some intense service. we're definitely feeling it now haha. we grunt and groan every time we bend over to sit down or pick something up. i missed that. 

our pirate buddy Mac texted asking for help and if we liked steak dinners so we went to his place and he made us a fancy steak dinner to thank us for everything and then we helped him with organizing some things and it was nice spending time with him, his life has gotten so much better recently. his wife wants to work things out and he's just loving life. such a great guy. haha he's got these two little daughters 5 and 7 and a baby boy but one oldest son that we never saw and the door opened while we were there and this eight year old kid walks in and all the little siblings ran over to him yelling his name and jumping around they were so excited haha it was cool to see how much they loved their older brother. reminded me of coming home from work totally dead and the girls would do all sorts of awesome things like that, haha wish i had soaked that up more. 

soooo working with our homeboy Joseph Smith has been a bit up and down and its been a little down recently, he likes spending time with us but just runs into difficulties when it comes to the church. so yesterday we forgot to plan something for dinner and we decided it'd be fun to go to this big mexican place called 3 Amigos and i was like hey lets invite Joseph so we called him and he was down, so awesome. we met him there and he'd never had mexican food so we set him up with a fat chimichanga and we all got something pretty big and we were dying at the end, but we're missionaries, so we scrape the plate every time. every time. but i think that may have made Joseph feel obligated so he did the same, slowly and painfully haha. and then we were like oh of course we need to get some piña coladas (without alcohol) and we got some and it was just an awesome party. the drinks were HUGE though… we all were pretty much waddling out the door, but Joseph definitely pushed himself too far haha and at his car casually just vomited out the side, and seeing him vomit started to make me gag and i got close and that made Elder Johnson nauseous and it was an ugly scene haha. but Joseph walked it off like a pro, kept thanking us and pretending it never happened and how excited he is to meet up soon. felt so bad haha… totally pushed Joseph Smith to eat too much. he's a big guy too, like BIG guy. but it was a blast, we had too much fun haha. Joseph is so awesome. 

but yeah, too much fun here in Lemoyne!! i love it here so much and i love these people!! we run into people constantly that just despise us and what we do and they curse us and do their best to  break us down but honestly, nothing could bring us higher! we have so many reasons to be happy! we're here called by a prophet of God because HE knows we can do it! and He trusts us to be here! so awesome!! i love this mission so much!!! and i love you all so much!!,

-Elder Halliday

here we are after shovelling some beautiful rocks. 

this my friends is a legit banana peel that i 100% slipped on. never knew that was even possible in this dimension.

it got super cold, like 50 mph winds with rain and it was like freezing cold haha and i forgot my jacket. staying strong.

Johnny Hallyday, like father like son. 

and of course, drinking piña coladas with Joseph Smith. who else can say they've done that? thats what i thought. 

more pics. post rock shovelling. cool sunset. and spooky hallway

Holy cow where do I start???  You poor kid-that’s a tough week, painting, moving, shoveling?  And your chest hair is coming out of your shirt in the post shovel pic-I swear, don’t even touch it for two years. It will be an epic reveal. Then we really could shave something amazing into it. 

The pic of the psych ward looks like something out of alice in wonderland-the door looks tiny and creepy. 

The Johnny hallyday pic is EPIC!!! Yes!!!!!

The picture from the Whiting’s is so sweet!!!! Chads note looks like a desperate plea lol. We sure love all the Whiting’s. Gina’s kids brought us a plate of goodies last night-probably had more to do with ridge liking Reese but that’s ok. :) she said he got first choice of where to sit in class and he chose next to her. Not even shy or embarrassed about it. Nicest kid tho. 

The pic where you forgot your coat-I can see your pain in your eyes!!!  

I went to a funny thing for moms of missionaries-it was hilarious. Or I’m just not a very good mom, but it seemed like their boys were 7 years old not 18-20 year old men. Pretty over the top. Sevey’s mom is so intense, she probably needs a job or hobby. She said she wants to get a phone case with his face on it and I laughed (because she has other children so surely she is joking right?) and it was not a joke. I am just going to stick to what we have planned for Christmas lol. 

hahahah I KNOW!!! literally I'm learning african languages that no one speaks and arabic and spanish and creole and french and its SO MUCH FUN!!!  hahahahah oh my crazy moms. thats ridiculous. they all need hobbies. I'm glad you see it how it is, instead of like you sent your son to war haha ill be back before you know it. the end of next transfer will be my six month mark! how crazy is that?! its already flying. but ah aren't the whitings so sweet?! haha ridge and reese?!?!?! noooo wwaaaaaayyyy too awesome. i support it 100%