Never been more tired...

Sooo tired! Today for p-day we went to Antelope Island with four other zone leaders. It wasn't planned, but we slept at their house and then ended up just going, because they kept asking us to come. Then we spent two hours cooking lunch for all of us. Then we went back to Ogden, moved apartments, and there goes p-day! It flew by pretty fast. Antelope Island was kind of desolate. We saw a few buffalo and lots of dirt and dried out plants and that was that. So we just had to do it to say we did it once.

We had some amazing chicken. Elder Graham is from Hawaii, and he made us sushi, but instead of meat he used spam. It was actually pretty good: spam, mayonnaise, rice and seaweed. So I got a taste of Hawaii.

This week has been pretty interesting. I had some stressful days and some not so stressful days, too. I will work backwards. Yesterday, I went out with Elder Saldaña and his companion. He still loves me so much, ha-ha. He was kind of mad that I am going out with him again tonight and wanted me to go somewhere else, but I will be with him again tonight. During the day, we had normal morning schedule, then had some stuff at the office to do, and then did several companionship studies with groups of sisters. We do that instead of exchanges. Elder Kipp and I will just get together with four sisters at a church building to train on stuff. One group of sisters was Spanish, and they are all pretty young in the mission so it was good to just talk about the Spanish program. I miss it.

Sunday, we didn't have dinner with President; he was busy. But we did get to help with call-ins (where the zone leaders turn in numbers for their zones to President). I sat there and dialed the phone numbers for President and messed up twice calling wrong numbers; the numbers on the sheet were really small, not my fault. It didn't finish until like 10:45, because people, for some reason, always mess up the addition putting numbers together.

I went to Mt. Lewis on Sunday for sacrament meeting and sat in the back with Elder Plowman. It was good to see him; he was such an awesome companion. I want to serve with him again. He is doing pretty well. l saw a lot of the Monte Vista ward was there, too, because they are related to the guy who was getting called as the new bishop that day. They had a confirmation so Mt. Lewis is still baptizing regularly, but apparently Diana stopped going to church. That's the hard part about that ward is that the retention is like ten percent or lower.

I went out with some interesting elders last week towards the end of the week. Throughout the exchange, I write down things that they are doing well and things they can work on, and it was really hard to find things they were doing well. Some of the classic things to work on that I saw: peacock noises in public, fist pumping to music at stop lights in front of members, incredibly long awkward silences, all not working. That's just a tiny little taste, but needless to say, it tried my patience. Either way, I do know that I am growing this transfer. At the end I asked them for feedback, and they told me that I was patient and loving with them rather than just coming to rebuke them, definitely never heard that in my entire life.

Elder Kipp and I have an agreement that to obtain a Christ-like attribute you just have to have someone say it to you once, and then you have it and don't have to work on it for the rest of your life. Charity and patience check! Ha-ha.

We visited a family Elder Kipp knows really well on Sunday, so they could give us lunch, and we ate chocolate chip cookies, because Elder Kipp asked them to get some for me...best lunch ever! Also last week, I spent some time in Brigham City. (By the way the other ones were in North Cache Valley, and the rest of this week I will be in Cache Valley.)

Brigham City was good; it was with two pretty new Spanish elders, so their Spanish is still getting there. I think I helped them out with some ideas on how to find in such big areas since they cover an area almost as big as my Idaho area was.

Last p-day I got to play soccer with Elders Salazar and Garcia (the latter is my grandson). They are both equally good, probably could be the two best in the mission. That's my posterity.

So anyways, that’s all that I can think of that is going on. I am pretty tired. Kind of mentally exhausted, too; mission tour is in two weeks (general authority visiting) so that will be good...just waiting for that to happen. I will be in Hyrum later on this week. I think that's all to report for now. I am literally falling asleep as I type this. Now it's time for us to leave and drive back up to Cache Valley. Wish us luck… Love you, everyone!

Elder Bassett

Sorry Mom, I can't think of anything I want for Christmas. I will write something down during this week and put it down in my email for you next week…the only thing I can think of is awesome ties and protein.