"I awkwardly walked away from Jodie's house with the new nickname of Elder Wimpy"

Hello everyone!

Well first, I forgot my camera at home... I have plenty of Pictures but I'll have to send them next week.  This week has gone by so fast! Anyways, not too much happened. Tuesday we did the Genealogical Society service thing and then visited Philippe. I'm not sure I talked about him much before. He's a less active member because he's in an assisted living home, but he is really a great person! Really enthusiastic and loves to read the Book of Mormon with us. We were supposed to meet Janette our neighbor Wednesday, but she fell through, again. That kinda stinks, but we're meeting with her today later, so hopefully it goes well! More on Wednesday later....

Thursday, President Salisbury and his wife actually came to do interviews with all the missionaries. They are both great leaders, they really show how much they love Christ, which is awesome. Friday we had a district meeting, which was interesting, but I learned a lot! Also, we went to the San Juan’s for lunch, and they have a dessert that is cheesecake wrapped in a tortilla, deep-fried with ice cream and chocolate syrup on top!!! Happy times. Saturday we contacted this non-member family that we are hoping will be solid investigators, but the husband was working, so we are determined to get over there this week! Saturday night and Sunday morning we had Stake Conference, which was super cool. Lots of the talks were about the Book of Mormon and the Temple since they had a stake wide Book of Mormon/Temple visit challenge. President and his wife actually both spoke, which was really cool to hear. Then after Stake Conference yesterday, we drove to visit Philippe and take him the Sacrament. He had asked for 2 blessings other times we had visited him and those health problems had gone away, but he had a new problem arise, so he asked me to give him the blessing which was such an awesome experience. Then we stopped by a less active family's house, the Thompsons. We ended up getting invited in for dinner, which was a miracle since we had no plans for food other than cooking for ourselves. But Sister Thompson had her mom and sister visiting and they are literally the funniest people I have ever met. They are all pretty "wise" (that means old) and would not stop getting on each other like family does, which was so dang funny. The sisters were threatening each other over potato salad.   They talked to us about conference and the Book of Mormon and how they all joined the church. They are all very faithful people, it's just they live in the middle of no-where and can't get rides to church, otherwise, they'd be there. 

Okay. SO. Wednesday. We went over to Jodie's house to help her with her yard and listen to the talk we had. Finally we got to share the talk and had a decent conversation about faith and keeping the commandments. After that, we were helping clean up and I was mowing the lawn (in service clothes, don't worry). While I was mowing her lawn, she walked past me and handed me something she was growing in her garden. I looked at it skeptically, it kinda looked like some sort of pepper maybe? I asked and Jodie yelled "I dunno what it is, just eat it!!" That did not encourage me. But I didn't want to seem like a wimp or rude, so I bit half of the thing while Elder Rasmussen watched from a distance. Pause. Have any of you ever seen an episode of Man vs. Food where the guy eat a Ghost Pepper or Trinidad Scorpion or some crazy hot pepper and is drinking milk and sweating for 1 hour or more to feel better? Remember, those are 2 of the 3 hottest peppers IN THE WORLD. My reaction was 10x worse to this pepper than the Man vs Food guy, but I only had a habanero! The half I had bit sat precariously perched in my mouth with all of the seeds but one, still inside the pepper. That single, tiny, horrid seed was already beginning to single-handedly turn my mouth into the core of the sun. So I had to make a choice. Let's just say my decision led to the worst most painful 45 mins of my mortal existence. I decided that, instead of ripping the pepper from my mouth to save myself, I figured that if I swallowed the half of the pepper in my mouth whole, before any other seeds got on my tongue, I would be saving myself from eminent doom. Makes sense right? Well, to say the least, I largely overestimated the width of my esophagus. When I tried to swallow, I gagged on the pepper, causing the seeds to pour over my mouth like individual bombs being dropped from WW2 planes. I immediately spit the pepper out onto the grass and threw the other half at Elder Rasmussen. He knew I didn't like spicy foods, but I apparently forgot to explain that I think Nacho Cheese Doritos are spicy. My mouth, upon being covered with fire and brimstone, started my first symptom. I started to salivate uncontrollably, until it started to pour from my gaping mouth like the raging waters of Niagara Falls. I stood hunched over, draining the fire-hydrant of a mouth I had, in front of Jodie's house. I was already starting to sweat and honestly felt like vomiting. Jodie kindly got me a blue Solo-cup filled to the brim with milk. I drank that glass faster than I spit out the pepper itself and was in dire need of more milk about 2 seconds after the first glass. Then before drinking the second glass, my nose started to run terribly fast, so fast I couldn't even catch it! Not really, that was Jodie's joke. But I did get a small bloody nose from it. While dumping the second glass of white beautiful milk into my scorching hot mouth I remembered that sugar is supposed to help a lot. So Jodie got me a 1/4 cup filled with sugar. I then shoved the sugar into my mouth to quench the eternal fiery pit that was in there. Remember, this whole time, I have mouth gaping open saying "Uuuuuuuhhuhuhhhhhghhrgrgrhhhrhghghrghhhrhhh". Luckily the sugar did help quite a bit, 10/10 would recommend, but that was not all. Lets do some math. A few tiny deathly seeds + 2 full glasses of whole milk, + 1/4 cup of sugar does not equal a happy stomach. So the Jodie offered some Pepto. She didn't have any, so she borrowed some frozen expired off brand Pepto-Bismal from her neighbor. I don't think that it is supposed to taste like root beer, but I took 2 spoonfuls anyways, while in the mean time, some bug decided to fly up my shorts -_-  Anyways…45 mins after my soul crushing decision, I awkwardly walked away from Jodie's house with the new nickname "Elder Wimpy" So yeah. Wednesday was a joy. Hope that story of my anguish was entertaining. 

Wishing all of y'all the best of luck,

Elder Goold

PS: Yes, I did say y'all.