I Have Never Been More Thankful On a Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone!! This week was pretty good. Mondays have become my favorite day of the week because we spend the evening after p-day doing family home evenings with people. :) They are always way fun, and we play tons of fun games. This week was filled with more bike trouble, as Elder Knowlton's back axle broke in half!! haha It was really funny. When we took the tire off, the axle just fell out both sides. SO Tuesday consisted of a lot of walking. But it wasn't too bad. Wednesday was sweet!! The assistants payed us a surprise visit for district meeting and brought mail!! So I ended up getting my Thanksgiving package in time and was able to make pumpkin pie. :) it was so good!! The crust was really mashed up, and the pie tin was folded way bad, but we bent it back into shape and patched up the holes. Then poured the crumbled crust back into it haha.. It ended up being really good though :) We have still been meeting with Michael and Novia regularly, and this week was Novia's birthday, so we brought her some chocolate chip cookies, which she really enjoyed. Michael made us some potatoe pudding too!! Its like banana bread kinda... can't really explain it in words.. you just have to try it, but ya, it was way good. After our lesson with them one day, Michael brought us to some of his friends he wanted us to talk to and introduced us as his church brothers :) haha He likes us a lot, and they are making some really good progress. Novia (his baby mother) asked us what it takes to be baptized, so we taught her all the commandments, the law of chastity, the word of wisdom, tithing, .... everything.. in one night, and she was like, "cool, i'm ready to be baptized, i just gotta come to church first and make sure i like it" haha she's awesome. Thursday was pretty good. A really poor member fed us rice and beans for thanksgiving dinner, and even though it wasn't much, and i left still hungry, i have never been more thankful on a thanksgiving. It really meant a lot to me. My belly wasn't really full, but my heart definately was. Saturday and Sunday were district conference, (its like branch conference).. and it was great!! There were some amazing talks. The talk that stood out to me the most was President Hendricks talk on faith. He started it out by explaining that in the scriptures it talks about having the faith of a mustard seed. I always just thought that this meant that even if we just have a little faith, we'll be able to do miracles. But he explained that a mustard seeds grows into one of the tallest, greatest herbs. So even if we barely have any faith, it can grow into a giant herb! haha.. so i thought that was cool. He also told a story of a hiker that was walking along a trail that got narrower and narrower... eventually he was pressed up against a cliff wall with just enough room on the trail for his toes. He slipped and fell, but on the way down caught a branch. He yelled out, "Help!! Is anyone up there!?" A booming voice replied, "yes, let go of the branch" He thought about it for a minute, but it didn't seem rational, and responded, "Is anyone else up there?" ... I really liked how this applied to our lives. A lot of times, the inspiration we receive from God doesn't seem rational, or its not what we wanna hear, but if we heed it, miracles happen, and our faith really can grow into what its supposed to. It was a really good conference and i left inspired to do better. but time is short, it was a really good week. :) Love Elder Kraus ps.. keep writing. i love the mail :)

oh and i forgot

friday was sweet!! we played basketball again and me, Elder Knowlton, and Elder Paulsen swept the court!! 5 games to 0. The girl who plays every week (we call her shooter cuz she never misses lol) was like, "next week i'm bringing my crew, and its going down!!" It should be exciting. It was way fun.