Ape Caves

Well well well, we have had a good week here in Vancouver. We're kind of getting gipped on our sunny season in Vancouver. There are 10 months of rain and 2 months of summer in vancouver. Right now we're in the summer months, but its been pretty cloudy the last couple of days. Anyways, we're going hiking today and I just hope it doesn't rain on our parade. We're hiking the Ape Caves in Mt. St. Helens, so that will be quite an experience. We'll actually be going through the Lava tubes. I wonder why they call them ape caves and I speculated to Elder Hundley that they are infested with wild apes that will rip your arms off if you make them mad. I hope that isn't the case. Anyways we're pretty excited to go to that.

This week we had a class with President Alder, he is the Employment specialist for the branch. He served as a mission president in one of the Chile missions. So he has a class for the spanish missionaries every so often just kind of coaching us on language learning, and making a study plan to improve our spanish. It was pretty good, he taught some good stuff. We found out at this meeting that one of the spanish elders in Longview is going home because of health problems, and that Elder Barton, a zone leader who went home for surgery like a month and a half ago, will be returning to take his place. So we're sad to see Elder Marroquin go but happy to see Elder Barton return.

We had the Branch picnic on saturday, it was a big success. Its fun to see the fellowship of the branch and how involved investigators and Recent Converts already are. Daniela and Salvador, a couple who joined the church several months ago, brought a grill and cooked carne asada for everyone. Carlos was there and he was talking with everyone and joining in with the games and sports that we played, It was really a cool activity. We have a very strong Branch here in Vancouver.

Speaking of Carlos, we met with him during the week and taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He took it really well and said he'd pray about it. On Sunday night an older couple in the Branch, the Rodriguez' had Anna Laura, Carlos, and us over for dinner. She made us Mole, which is a special type of sauce poured over chicken usually. After all these months of eating Mole, I found out yesterday, that it has Chocolate in it. That was an interesting discovery. Nonetheless It does taste good! Before I come home I need to learn how to make these things so I can cook la comida mexicana para todos uds. I'd say my favorite food by far is still Carne Asada.

Anyway in church yesterday the announced the 5th sunday fireside again. I think I told you all about it last week, but they're going to cut sacrament meeting a  bit short. Go into the cultural hall and serve sandwiches and then we will be back in the chapel for the special fireside where they will make the special announcement, that the branch will be doing a Pioneer trek next summer. Well at dinner that night with the Rodriguez family they were speculating that they were going to announce they were making the Branch into a spanish ward. We kind of feel bad that they have their hopes up, we hope they'll be happy with the pioneer trek announcement. Hahaha.

So with all that its been a great week. We are looking forward to Zone Conference this Thursday and district exchanges on tuesday. It should be a good week!

Well thats about it! Que tengan una buena semana!

Los Amo!

-Elder Derek Partridge