Start of the transfer

Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:52:42 -0700
Subject: Start of the transfer
From: samuel.crapo@myldsmail.net

Hello family and friends!

It was good to hear from a lot of you as i checked email this week!  Things sound like they are going pretty good for the most part!  

This week for me has been pretty uneventful... kind of.  I've been getting kind of sick... and i dont know what it is yet? but if it keeps going on i'll find out.  I'm Completely drained though, i feel like i can never get enough sleep.  I could sleep alllllllllll day! 

In the way of missionary work though, we are having success with Lyndell! She is so great! We met with her like 5 times this week.  She came to church and stayed for all 3 hours.  It was good! she wants us to come back and talk about some parts of church but i hope she makes it a regular thing.

I've had a ton of bike problems this week which stinks!  So many flats! I had 3 flats on saturday... i will have to buy a whole bunch of replacement parts :(

The weather here is still hot but this week we were relieved to have some RAIN!!! yes! it was cloudy and some what sprinkly for a couple days this week. which made it super nice!

Most of the work we do revolves around seeing the members of the church.  the ones we havent met yet.  We dont have too many investigators... Actually only one.  

So things for the most part are just fine.  One of those slow weeks, that's all.

I hope you guys are all doing great.  I want to hear from all of you!!!!  I feel like i never know enough about everybody! So write me, email me! Do something to where i know you're still alive or send me an update of what you're up to.  If not that then send me some pictures!!!!

I love you all very much! And miss you all a lot as well!

Love,

Elder Samuel Crapo

Pictures 9/3/12

This is me elder goudy and elder Humphrey's

This is elder Goudy poking my nipple....

That is me and my companion elder Fernandez

I'm An Uncle!

Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 13:22:14 -0700
Subject: I'm An Uncle!
From: samuel.crapo@myldsmail.net

Hey Family and Friends!

This is Elder Crapo!  Sounds like things back home have been pretty insane. I was excited to get the news on saturday when i texted the guidos in simi to text scott to say happy birthday and then found out that Amy had the babies! that is SUPER early! but that is so cool! I'm glad they are doing well i cant wait to see those little guys :D  If you ever need to tell me something sooner just go ahead and text the guidos :)  That is their daughters phone number. Its Theresa! She is super cool and will forward any messages for me! I dont know if that is strictly by the rules... But i dont have much longer left and i promise i'm still super focused!  But Congrats to stuart and amy! I'm very excited for the both of you! Send me pictures when you can!

This week has been a good week! Not a whole lot has happened....  but it has been a good one!

We have been doing a lot of contacting and tracting and stuff. Everyone is SO NICE, but not really interested... which is a bummer. but i hope we get some more work soon.  The investigator we are working with still hasnt come to church yet.  She is just super scared i guess?  I hope she gets comfortable... we are trying new things to help her...  We only met with her once last week though.  

On tuesday we had a pretty funny split.  Well we were supposed to go on splits with the Priests and only one priest could come.  And it is brother kirks kid and he is a great kid and the whole time we spoke with them they were really concerned for him.  all we were going to do was eat dinner at a members house and he would share the message and then we were going to go to a part member family's house where he would just sit and watch and maybe bear testimony if he felt like it, but the reason his parents were so concerned were because of his biking skills.  I almost died laughing because as we were on our way to dinner this kid, who is 16, could not ride a bike to save his life!  He probably went 10 feet before he would just veer off path and crash or lose balance.  Poor kid, but gosh who doesnt know how to ride a bike?  We told brother T that we would be late to dinner and on our way there he climbed over his wall and took our bikes into his back yard and we hopped over to make the trip a little quicker.

On wednesday  we went to lunch with our district.  Which was super fun.  Our district is really small but we went to round table pizza and all had a good time.

ON friday night we went to the Durrants house for dinner.  They are probably my favorites. They have a daughter who is 15 and two boys just below her and it was a lot of fun.  The mom and dad are so funny and we have a lot of fun around them.  We watched a video  with them and then in turned into one giant epic pillow fight, running around the entire house just leveling each other with pillows and stuff. It was insane! SO MUCH FUN!    I wasnt feeling very good that day though and i think it was because i was drinking too much water.  So i bought a gatorade and it fixed me up pretty good.  I gotta make sure to buy more gatorade!  Otherwise all the water i drink flushes out all those minerals!

Saturday we did a ton of door to door stuff.  We had a good dinner at the Cosby's and we got some free juice from the Bywater family.  (he is the guy that works for bolthouse farms).

I think that is it for the substantial things... not a whole lot happened this week.  But its been good.  Transfers were today and i'm staying with my companion which i'm happy about!  We have a TON of people leaving and coming in!  Elder Lifungula is coming to this zone! Which i'm stoked about! Elder Hernandez is coming to this zone and i'm super stoked about that too, that kid follows me EVERYWHERE i go!  I love him! and.... we got a new sister, she came from a previous companionship but her comp went home and got moved over with two other sisters. But now one of the original sisters is leaving and she is staying.  Which is way cool!  She is awesome! She is from draper and her name sounds familiar so if anyone knows any Putnam's let me know cuz that is her name!

Anyways that is about it.  I miss all of you very much! I cant believe how fast this is all going!  I am having a great time in the extreme heat of bakersfield and everything is pretty good!

I love you all!

Elder Samuel Crapo

Exchanges

Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 10:04:08 -0700
Subject: Exchanges
From: samuel.crapo@myldsmail.net

Hey Family & Friends!

 

Its been another great week and the week has gone by so fast!  But i'm not in the library right now! I'm in Frazier Park! It is pretty sweet up here.  We got a member to drive us up.  Brother Nancett.  He's stinkin awesome.  But we will be driving back down on the bus! Yay.  We are up here to do a hike and since its our district only we had to come up because the sisters cant be alone with the other two elders so we HAD to come.  But it will be fun.

 

My week has gone ok.  Work wise... still slow.  We did have a good time with an investigator this week.  We taught a pretty good lesson with her and Asked her to be baptized by September 22nd.  She said she would pray about it.  She still hasnt come to church though.  She feels she needs to know more before she goes to church.  She is a little scared to go i think?  I wish she would just come because i think she would love it.  We also watch the Joseph Smith Movie.  The full one.

 

We went on exchanges this week.  My companion went to Frazier Park. And i stayed in Bakersfield with Elder Scholes.  It was a good exchange.  We exchanged monday night and got back together wednesday afternoon.  So it was a pretty long exchange.  But it was a lot of fun. 

 

We had some service this week which was great.  There is a family in our ward who is moving out and is trying to fix up their house.  So we have been doing all sorts of work over there.  Painting and yard work and what not!

 

I've had some bike problems this week! Two flats in one week!  And it is impossible to find a regular patch kit these days.  They only have these cheap patch kits.  Its ridiculous so i've been having to buy new inner tubes! It stinks!

 

Hmmm what else happened this week? Yesterday we were riding our bikes down the street and right outside of a members apartment a kid was getting in his car and he was like "Oh hey elders" and i recognized him so i stopped and said "Wait i know you!" and he was a kid up in Tehachapi that was good friends with our convert! We didnt talk to him long at all but it was cool to see him.

 

Also this week we stopped at the Gas station and i saw a guy with Utah plates on his car.  So i got out of our members car and i yelled out to him.  I was like "Hey what part of utah are you from?" he said Logan.  Then he came up and read my tag and was like "crapo? did you have a brother serve in Brazil?" ha and i told him yes.  He said that he was in Stuarts same district in Brazil at one point...  Small world.  Unfortunately i didnt catch his name...  But he is down in Bakersfield to work.  He just got here.

 

We also went to a members house to visit.  They are super awesome.  The Laffoons.  They have a whole bunch of classic cars.  Mustangs, volks wagons, deloriane (like back to the future), and a... Fero? I wanna say? But all super nice cars.  Pluse two street bikes. One of them being a Honda CBR 1000.  The guy asked if i wanted to test it out. BOY WAS I TEMPTED!  But they are super chill! She went to Sam's Club this week and bought us a 48 pack of Tigers Milk! It was da bomb!

 

I also sent Logan a Package in the mail last P-day.  I've never sent him a package and i kind of owe it to him! Plus he's the man anyways!  I put a whole bunch of cool stuff in there!

 

I think that's pretty much it for me!  Things are going great.  I'm loving this area still!  I cant believe how fast it goes.

 

Anyways i love you guys.  I hope you are all doing well and write me back soon! 

 

Love,

 

Elder Samuel Crapo

Weeks are Flying

Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:51:07 -0700
Subject: Weeks are Flying (i think i have made the subject of an email "weeks are flying" already)
From: samuel.crapo@myldsmail.net

Hello Family and Friends!

 

I cant believe how fast time goes.  I swear i was here in the library yesterday reading and writing emails!  Today was a way good day for emails! I had 19 Emails in my inbox!!! BOO YA!  That was so great!  Its  taken me forever to view them all but i love it!

 

This week has been pretty good.  Not too much happened.  Work-wise we have been working with an awesome lady named Lyndell.  She is about 70 years old but she has SO MUCH ENERGY! I love it!  We took her on a tour of the church this friday and she loved it! Loves pretty much everything about it.  We had a member of the ward, Brother Kirk, come with us and i'm so glad he came because she loved him, he loved her, and he was able to give her a lot of information on the church building!  Unfortunately she didnt make it to church on sunday.  She had a friend come into town! But she's so close!

 

We also have been working with another family but it seems everytime we go over they are just sleeping, or too tired to listen, or they have kids running around everywhere, or they have some sort of medical problem! The guy who lives there i feel so bad for.  He really has it hard. Always in and out of the ER and always has tons of meds that are effecting him.  He's a member but the rest of his family are investigators. 

 

We do a lot of tracting in this area.  Which i still like a lot.  But still no success.  We have found really cool members that pretty much just clean out their cupboards to feed us.  They seriously load us up.  Some lady gave us 3 boxes of cereal, 20 cliff bars, a giant bag of cereal, cookies and all this other stuff just because we stopped by her house.  Then she noticed we were on bike so she dropped it off at our apartment for us! What a stellar lady!

 

We had Zone Conference this week which is why i feel like it went so fast.  It was pretty good.  It was down in oildale which is a serious racist town.  There is a grocery store called 11C.  The 11th letter in the alphabet is K.  C is the third letter in the alphabet... KKK... Yeah they are all super racist.  Black elders and sister cannot serve there! ha ha

 

Ummmm  probably the biggest news was that me and my companion got in a bike wreck.  It wasnt too bad.  I got some nice road rash and broke my helmet and he got a little scab on his elbow.  but for some reason elder fernandez likes to ride REALLY close to me, side by side and then one day i was just riding along and he was all up in my grill and i couldnt pedal because they were stuck on his bike and i couldnt move my handlebars because they were stuck on his bike.  So next thing ya know we fell.   And my whole shoulder is black from the asphalt and my pants are ripped (good thing, because i needed a pair to burn for my 18 month mark OH YEAH) and i'm bleeding all over my arm, and leg.  So i'm sitting there thinking to myself to see if anything is broken, but its not, I caught myself on my wrist so that hurt a bunch.  But i'm sitting in the middle of the road and i look behind me and some lady is walking towards us and she saw the whole thing (dangit) and she was like are you guys ok? and i said yeah we are fine.  But she was still walking our way and she was just getting her mail so i started talking with her, i was like "hey how are you today ma'm?" and my companion looked at me with a bewildered face and was like, wow! i cant believe you started talking to that lady. ha ha. MISSIONARY WORK DOESNT STOP FOR ACCIDENTS!

 

So yeah, i burned my pants. It was great.  We burned them over at the Durrants house, THEY ARE THE BEST!

 

Other than that not a whole lot else happened.  We met a member this week who just got a job with Bolthouse Farms and he is going to hook us up with a whole bunch of fruit smoothies! YUM!

 

But i'm looking at my computer and only have 9 minutes left! YIKES! I hate writing in the library!

 

Anyways i love you guys!  i cant wait to hear from you again next week!  I hope you're all doing well!

 

Love,

 

Elder Samuel Crapo

 

 

113 Degrees

Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:44:37 -0700
Subject: 113 Degrees
From: samuel.crapo@myldsmail.net

Hello Family And Friends!

 

Today is monday and i'm writing you... duh!  How are you all doing?  I miss you all very very much!  Its so crazy how fast the weeks go.  I feel like i was here yesterday writing emails and now here i am again!  Jeeze!

 

This week was a pretty good one.  Last monday a bunch of elders came down and we got to play some sports.  That was pretty fun.  I got to see Elder Goudy.  He was in simi when i was there.  He's a good guy.  Super Crazy.  But it was fun being around him again.  We dont get to do too much on P-days because we dont have a car and our area is pretty small.  Plus there are no missionaries to hang out with out here! 

 

Tuesday was pretty good.  We had some good appointments.  Got to do a little service pulling weeds for an elderly lady in the ward and we got to meet some new people in the area.  We had dinner with the Tydriszewski (tid-dra-chef-ski) family.  They are super cool.  Super young family, just had a baby 3 months ago.  I already love them a lot! They are so cool.  He's a big comic book fan and loves star wars.  I dont know if i mentioned his house in past emails but he has a room dedicated to JUST starwars things.  TONS OF TOYS EVERYWHERE! its insane. I'll snap some pics next time i'm there. 

 

We also had a meeting with our ward mission leader.  He is pretty awesome.  Brother Branson.  Their house is kind of busy though becasue his daughter just got married on Friday. 

 

In district meeting we were told that we were no longer allowed to play sports...  On p day we can.  But any other day with investigators and stuff we are not allowed to.  That STINKS! But i go home in 6 months. I'm glad i got to do it for the first 18! I really took advantage of it.  It was fun.  But i guess too many missionaries were getting injured and the missionary medical was having a hard time keeping up with the doctor bills.  Stupid missionaries.  If they get hurt, say you fell off your bike or something...  Now we all have to suffer.

 

We had a couple of flat tires  this week, it was pretty funny because we worked on Elder Fernandez's tire a whole bunch, got a new tube in it, went to the gas station, filled it up, came back home, parked the bike, and then his new tire exploded.  So we had to do it all over again,  he's got a "hand me down" bike right now..  My bike is holding up really well.  The only thing that is wrong with it is the seat.  Its so small and hard i'm worried i may not have forever families with a seat like this.

 

The irish's (the people who own our apartment) took us to red robin for dinner at the mall.  And while we were there we stopped off at Macy's because elder fernandez wanted to pick something up.  And it was so weird being in there.  I never want to work at that place ever again! ha ha!

 

We also talked to the Irish's daughter in law who lives just behind us, and i noticed their garage was always open and inside they have a weight lifting bench.  So i asked if we could come work out on it at nights and they said yes.  I'm so happy!  Finally can get a good work out! :D

 

I also got to go to a Christian store this week. I picked up a W.W.J.D. bracelet since i gave my last one to Deborah in Atascadero.  So now i'm back to normal!

 

We did a lot of walking and it was REALLY hot.  We were on our way back to our apartment when some guy and his wife and small child in the back pulled over and asked if we needed a ride and we accepted.  They were super nice.  His family are all members but not from the area and they felt like Dry mormons.  So elder fernandez was writing down their information and when he gave us his address it sounded familiar.  So i looked in my planner for his address and i found it on the back where i keep the important stuff. and his address was under "AVOID" ha ha i guess this guy is super anti and when to an open house once and just preached anti stuff.  Offended a lot of people.  There was a note about him in the area book that said dont go around them.  So they dropped us off and asked us to stop by.  Elder Fernandez was so excited that we had just found a golden family and i was like, what is his address again? and he told me and i showed him my planner and he was pretty upset.  We got played pretty good!

 

On friday it was supposed to be really hot.  Same with saturday.  But we decided to go tracting anyways.  We did about 4 hours of tracting.  I like tracting, its not effective AT ALL, but i like it because its exciting. You never know who is behind the door ya know?  But we were sweating to DEATH and  EVERYONE is super nice, always giving us water or taking the time to listen. I love it here.

 

IN the way of investigators we have 2 that are progressing.  One is a recent converts wife who came to church this week with him.  In meeting with her we asked what she expects out of our visits and she says that she hopes to be ready to be baptized some day.. Now i dont think she really has the desire to get that done any time soon, its not on the top of her list, but still its good!  And then we met with an older lady but she is a fireball she's so much fun!  She said she had been thinking a lot about what we are teaching her and she wants to come to church.  We hope to set her with a baptismal date next week!  We also had the Irish's Daughter In-law come to church.  She is not a member but her husband is, just a little less active is all.  But she's really interested in learning, but at her own pace.  She's making an effort to come to church and hopefully in the near future will take the discussions.

 

We also got to go to our ward mission leader's daughter's wedding reception.  It was fun.  The happy couple met at walmart in orem.  How precious.  Its so weird going to those things because those people getting married are MY age! GULP!  But it was a lot of fun and we met some really cool people.

 

It was pretty dang hot all week.  Probably the hottest month in bakersfield says the locals.  They wonder why we are on bikes?  The Zone Leaders told us that on friday and saturday it stayed around 113 - 114 degrees constantly in the afternoon! Ha ha! It all feels the same after 100 degrees anyways.  I really like it though.  I think my favorite temperature is high 80's.

 

Anyways.  I'm loving where i'm at.  Everyone treats you like you've been here a really long time, like, lots of people already love us.  I like it here a lot.  I'll be sad to go.

 

Thanks for all your support.  If you ever get the chance write me! Or send me packages! or something? I only have 6 months left so dont put it off ;) i love you guys lots and miss you tons!

 

Love,

 

Elder Samuel Crapo

Second Week In Bakersfield

Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 11:51:18 -0700
Subject: Second Week In Bakersfield
From: samuel.crapo@myldsmail.net

Hello Family And Friends!

 

So it was the second week in Bakersfield and things are still going great!  I love this area A LOT! I'm really interested to see what president will do for transfers.  I'm usually the one who stays for 6 months! I could finish my mission off here.  But who knows.  The weather is great! its Usually 103 or hotter... so its not too bad.  I really like it actually.  Sure you get sweaty and stuff on the bike but it makes me feel so good.  So much better than the cold!

 

So last week i texted John and Michelle King up in tehachapi.  They were the investigators i loved so much. I texted them to tell them if they are ever in Bakes to look me up because its super close and John Said that they are BOTH getting baptized August 4th.  I begged President to let me go up to tehachapi to watch the baptism but he said no... Lame.  but still they got baptized. I was so stoked to hear about that.  They say they will let me know when they are in bakersfield! I would be so excited to see them.

 

Last p-day was kind of lame.  We have to do our email at the library because the Family history center is pretty much shut down at the moment.  The library stinks because i cant hook up my camera and send pictures or plug in my disk and copy pictures you guys send (thanks simon and stuart). But i will try really hard to get them when i can.  I love having pictures.  The p-day was ok though.  Not much to do when the only other elders in your district live an hour and a half away.  And the other two are sisters... So we did play basketball at the church after email.  It was fun. but it stinks knowing we cant all get together each monday.

 

We dont have too many investigators in the area but everyone here is SO NICE.  Its either REALLY nice or REALLY mean.  ha ha.  So for the most part you block out the mean and remember the nice.  So its easy to tract because everyone is usually friendly.  But like most people. They arent interested. 

 

We've met a lot more members this plast week and they are all really cool.  I like this ward a lot.

 

Our area goes out pretty far but there is usually no need to go out as far as it goes but on the last elders progress record there was a family on there that lived pretty far out.  Well we didnt have much to do so we went and saw them.  It was hot and it was probably just a 4 or 5 mile bike ride but it felt like a really long one.  The heat just takes it out of you.  But the guy pulled up RIGHT as we were about to leave.  He is a trucker and he was really cool. 

 

Hmmmm... What else happened this week?

 

We met two families this week who both have kids who are getting baptized.  Both REALLY cool  families.  Brother Nancett is one of them and he said that when he was 8 he was baptized by an Elder Crapo.  In San Demas.  So if somone can look into that for me and let me know that would be REALLY COOL!

 

We also talked to another family.  Big Samoan family and their daughter was baptized this week too.  We got to go the baptisms.  There were like 5 kids being baptized and the Samoans relatives filled the whole chapel.  We were invited to their house after for a Luaua at their house.  It was great.  Party up front had a whole bunch of them drinking and smoking but they were so happy to see us and then led us to the back where everyone was swimming.  They fed us SO MUCH FOOD.  It was crazy.  But so delicious.  Those people were so stinking nice!

 

We also went to the Nancetts after that.  They had a big water slide they had rented.  And we talked with them for a while.  They too are so awesome!

 

We also go to teach an investigator this week.  He was really cool.  A high school coach.   He also played football in college.  He's only been taught once and he really likes what we have to teach.  He's hard to get a hold of because he is so busy but i could totally see him progressing.

 

Hmmmmmm.... I think that is pretty much it that happened for this week.  Me and my companion get along pretty well.  He's quite the talker.  Talks pretty fast too, typical New York kid ya know? He's very outgoing and is fun to be around.  Its crazy to see how i have changed the way i look at my companion.  I feel like such a baby when i look back at my old emails about how i used to complain so bad about all the things they did wrong.  Its so easy to just shrug that stuff off now and just see the good in each companionship.

 

Anyways i hope you guys are doing great!  I love you lots and will talk to you next week!

 

Love

 

Elder Samuel Crapo