November 2, 2009

Hey Dad,

I was bummed about the baptism as well, but Gladys reset her own date
for November 8th, however that probably won't work either because she
may be going in for surgery very soon. Luckily she says it is supposed
to be a quick recovery and she'll probably be able to be baptized
soon. My hope and guess is Nov. 15th, which is when hopefully Marcella
will be baptized. Word has it that Marcella is still feeling good
about that date! *fingers crossed* Challenges are definitely expected
no doubt.

Halloween turned out lame as was expected but not as bad as the 4th of
July. We had a fog machine that we found for cheap so we fogged up a
room in the house...don't tell the Sanners who own the house, they're
freaks when it comes to doing anything fun...but we didn't harm or
damage anything so all is well and it was a blast. So while the room
was fogged we played with some laser pens and listened to some music.
We tried to tell a scary story where we each said a sentence but that
didn't work very well, we all just ended up laughing. Then we went and
playing Beyond Balderdash, basically just Balderdash but instead of
just words, there are categories like movies (where you describe the
movie), and dates (where you say what happened on that date), etc. If
you don't know what that game is ask Mom, she knows ;) So we played
that while munching on food and candy. We had bought a few bags of
candy from the Dollar Store (about a medium sized bowl) but we only
had one member family (with two kids) stop by. VERY diappointing. Ah
well, we busted our guts playing Balderdash, it was hilarious, so
Halloween wasn't too bad.


This week will be GREAT! We probably won't get anything better to cook
with but we make do just fine. It's kind of fun, though it really is
pretty odd.

I will tell my stories in Mom's email this week so she can get a
treat. Make sure you ask her to forward it to you just in case she
doesn't.

Love you,

Elder Jay Davis

Hey Mom!

Things are great, I'm really enjoying the work, things are happening, and life is fun!

Oh my gosh! It was SOOOO CRAZY! SISTER SHIPLEY (not sure her maiden name) KNOWS AUNT MARCINDA AND THE SIX OLDEST KIDS IN YOUR FAMILY!!!! AHHHHH! Yeah, Sister Shipley came up and talked to me at church and told me the story and stuff. She wasn't a member of the church while you lived in Colusa but she remembers riding in the green bus and she remembers going down to Rexine's wedding shower or something on the green bus too! It is just really fun for me. What are the chances of that?! And she's a member now too, a very faithful one at that. Anyway, that made my whole week!

As of right now Marcella is still excited for the date on November 15th so we are very excited about that! She's not unsure about the church, in fact she seems pretty sure, she just is scared about her family I think more than anything. Luckily she is still excited which makes me think she's ready.

Gladys is all over the place, but she's doing better and she has already had plenty of blessings of comfort lol. She's doing better though.

Yes, we finally have the car back. It's quite nice to have it back. The plans for that whole weekend were destroyed so it wasn't very effective but we were still able to get stuff done. I bought a bike off of a missionary who is going home at the end of this or the next transfer. He is a Spanish missionary and they never need bikes anymore so he didn't need it. I bought it for $160. He bought it for around $300 but wanted to give it to me for $100 which I didn't think was fair. So it's a really nice Trek (FAR better than any Walmart bike and I didn't pay much more). I will definitely keep this bike for when I'm at home unless somebody needs to buy it from me for their mission.

I wrote to Dad about Halloween, which I seem to always write all my stories in his so don't worry, I saved my most interesting story for your email :D If you don't mind it'd be easiest for me and time if you'd read about Halloween in Dad's.

That is SO insane that Allison is engaged. She told me she had a boyfriend and that he was getting baptized but that's all she's told me. That's really crazy.

Snow!!! Woot! I miss that.

So Yuba City is packed with East Indian people who speak Punjaab. They are mostly of a religion called Sikh (seek). They had a BIG parade yesterday! It goes down from one of their "temples" and follows a three or so mile course all the way down to the corner our church is on, then turns on that corner and continues, then back and loops around to the temple again! So basically it blocks the church members into the parking lot (great planning :P). It's insane. I have taken 18 minutes of video of it on my memory card that I will soon send home. There was music and all sorts of stuff there. They were all wearing really bright colors. Anybody is invited of course, it's a public event. They have crazy floats and they give lots and lots and lots of free food! They don't expect or accept any money for anything. There were pickup trucks with the beds full of ice and sodas and drinks! It was insane! I can't even describe it and do it justice! Incredibly nuts! I'm looking forward to sending you the video even though it's a lot of the same stuff.

Love,

Elder Jay Davis