Tis the season‏

Well it’s another week. And what’s unique about this week. P-day is on freaking Monday so I have no emails to respond to! Crap. It’s alright this just means that this gets to be extensive, redundant, and most of all, above all… boring. Yeah that’s my motto boring and awkward live by it and possibly die by it. Not so sure on the latter part of that sentence I have yet to be attacked because of being handsomely awkward. Maybe that’s why. Ah, whatever I’m rambling to amuse myself and chuckle while people look at me funny in the library. Bahahaha.

So anyways this week has been pretty good. My companion and I have gotten along a lot better. We were struggling for a lot of the week but then we had our epic planning morning on Friday which ended up taking around 4 and a half hours. We got towards the end of it yet again and I was just disheartened. But then we talked and kind of… worked out our differences so I’m hoping for better times and the past few days I have been a lot better. I’m teaching him how to play the guitar he’s not supposed to have but I’m just going to look the other way for now. I’m not the senior companion so I don’t have any place to be jabbing anyone else’s sides. I’m really glad things are better there though I was beginning to think it was going to be a long transfer.

This weekend was a busy one for us and for the church here as well. For the week, I had several unkind things said to me from the people who just don’t want to talk. There have been a lot of unreceptive people here. The heat makes them grouchy all the time. It just makes me tired and more determined to get into someone’s door. It affects people in different ways I suppose. I just have to say today I truly do feel delightful. I smell nice, I wasn’t rushed this morning, and I look good. So today I just feel good. Which is pretty nice.

I named this email based on the time of year it is here in Arizona. It is what the Arizonians call monsoon season which the people here are incredibly proud of (darn their none humble nature!) Anyways this doesn’t seem to just be the season of monsoons but also the season where the Spanish Elders go completely crazy. Spanish Elders are little crazy to begin with but right now they seem to have had a cog come loose or something. Last Saturday it was pouring rain it knocked out the power for half the town and it was scary because the stop lights were out and people were just going on through narrowly missing each other. I decided to call it a night and began driving home. We came to where we lived in the middle of nowhere. It’s the middle of nowhere because the road ends and we go a mile up of just dirt. It is just pouring rain I just want to get inside. As I’m driving up the hill I see two very white figures running towards the car. It’s the Spanish Elders in nothing but their undies running around in the rain. It was definitely… a sight I guess that’s the best way to put it.

This weekend was busy. I had my second baptism and boy was it fast. We began teaching this 10 year old girl in a part member family the night I got here and two weeks later she was baptized it was a great experience. I’m essentially guaranteed to speak at every baptism I attend because mine was less than 2 years ago. It’s certainly something to be able to say I’m a convert. It’s great when people say “you don’t know, you’ve been a member all your life”. Then I say “Umm, nope I joined a year and a half ago and I can assure you that if you pray about this book you’ll know that we are led by a prophet today and you’ll know that God lives and He loves you because that’s what I did.” It stumps them every single time. Anyways I spoke at the baptism and little Brylee Tucker became the newest member of the church. It’s really cool to experience that from beginning to end you know.

Well Sunday was the day of fun because the wards here got split and 3 new bishops were called. I will mold these bishops into what I want them to be MUHAHAHAHAHA*lightning*. It was a really neat experience actually. It was funny one of the wards was called Usery Park and when they announced the wards Usery Park was not one of them and was dissolved. So the new bishop goes up there and he’s like 20 something and says “Well former members of Usery Park I guess you can say your ward transcended into the heavens because of your righteousness because you no longer exist in this stake”. I got a kick out of it. I’m excited for the change but it shrunk our area and it’s going to take a few weeks for the leaders here to get things in order. So I’m not quite sure what to expect for the rest of the month.

Well I’m going to close this rambling of mine about now. This week is Elder Yates birthday and the start of his last month on the mission. So I’m going to write the Psalm of Elder Yates. Soon. But I don’t know when. This week I hit my 4 month mark. It’s really something, time goes by way fast. Though the members don’t have much respect for me. 1. I haven’t been out long and 2. I look like I’m 15. *sigh* It’ll be nice when I’m like 35 and people start saying “Hey what’s up 20 year old guy” Oh how sweet that will taste. But alas I must endure and end this. Peace out.

Love,Elder Caywood/ B-random

Bicycle

Ah so I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to make due with these junky computers from good ole Apache Junction. To be honest it’s making me quite frustrated because these things are slow and slow. This is why I’m enabling a no slow act. So that this ridiculous nonsense will end. But alas being a missionary I only have power over some things and technology isn’t one of them (in fact it might be one of the things I have least control of). Anyways I have been here for a whole week now and it has turned my world a little upside down. My lack of being able to cook anything has finally caught up with me since not everyone signs up for dinners. So my stomach will go hungry sometimes if I get too caught up during lunch or dinner. I’m not sure if I’ll be sending a pictures today because this computer can’t really handle well anything. It’s having trouble keeping up with my amazingly zaney fast fingers. And that’s enough sarcasm over the internet for one day.

What’s new, what’s new… Everything. Wednesday night our AC broke which kind of made things uncomfortable. When I woke up Thursday morning it was 94 degrees in the trailer. The trailer itself is a little messy due to missionaries living there. We are having a rodent problem. The Elders that have lived there for the past 3 months have killed 5 rats, 2 rabbits, and 1 squirrel. Currently we have a rat living under our dish washer. This rat so politely chewed through the cables of the dish washer and now we have to wash dishes by hand. But luckily for me my apartment in college didn’t even have a dish washer so I have lots experience with that. Maybe I should be a dish boy for a living. That’d rock. In fact maybe I’ll make a theme song. *Awesome 90’s guitar solo* “Super cool Elder Caywood, washin’ dishes in da hood. Your food is super late but you know… Its on a clean plate!” Ok maybe that was an awful idea. I’m sorry for the eyes that caught I’m fire because of that.

The new area isn’t quite as booming as our last area. Things have gotten quiet here though they have had a few baptisms in the past few months so that’s something positive. In the past week its become very apparent to me that if anything will happen here. I’m going to have to get going into overdrive. Its going to be tough but I feel pretty confident right now and I know I can definitely hold my own if it needs to happen. Its going to be good I think. We’re having a baptism on Saturday for someone we’ve only been teaching for 2 weeks so that should be cool. I hope it works out. The warnings I received from Elder Keir about this being a white trash area have been true. We went to a recent converts house and she wasn’t a huge fan of me. She looked at me and said “what are you 14?”. I get a lot because of my baby face and the aura of immaturity that seems to go with me everywhere. By the way it really seems that there will be no pictures this week because of this computer. I got some new ties from a member. He told me to pick one and I saw these two ties with donkeys on them and I knew they were democrat ties. My heart jumped and I grabbed one. He looked at me and said “liberal eh?” I responded “yeah”. He said “well then a true democrat should have two”. I was excited about it. My companion is very impatient with me and gets frustrated easily. He sometimes accidentally says what he really thinks of me out loud. He reminds me of the penguin from Batman. I’m hoping I can find a way to get along with him. If not I’ll just deal.

Today was exhausting, we hiked for 4 hours. There were bees and rocks and fear in my heart but I made it which I say proudly. I’m glad Brady’s farewell went well along with Spencer’s homecoming. I’m super glad he’s going to BYU-I. I just made a BYU thought I’ve been tossing around for a while now but I’ll have to explain that another time. It’s really cool though it may offend people who don’t go there which is another reason I will let that thought rest. I’m excited for Brady to go and teach. I’ve know him for a while and one thing that has always stood out to me is he has one of the strongest testimonies of the church I have ever seen. I can only name a few people as passionate as he is. A modern day Peter. He will work wonders in his mission I know he will.Well that’s about all I have I hope this has had some kind of flow.

Love Elder Caywood/ Bicycle Caywood(a little kid asked me what my name was and I said it started with a B, she responded it must be Bicycle or Blandy *sigh*)

Short on time‏

I have absolutely no time to write this so I'll try to be brief. Today was transfers which also on P-day now. It isn't inconvient unless you get transferred but today that was actually the case. I was moved from Phoenix to Apache Junction just east of Mesa. I was sad to leave our area because we made major leaps and bounds last week and we were going to see really good things next transfer. But unfortunately and not unfortunately I was moved. I've been given a new boost of energy kind of like a vigor. Its kind of nice. Its essentially what I'm running on.


Right now I'll try to fit what I can into the 7 minutes I do have left. I made a mistake this week leaving the Bjarnsons lights on. Sister B told me this story the other night. She said her and brother B came home and all the lights were on. And he said dangit it's Elder Caywood I know it(which is true). Sister B stopped him from doing it because I've been helping her with her math homework for the past week and she didn't want Brother B to make me upset. That was funny story.


Saturday night was one of the craziest nights we've had. We gave a drunk lady a blessing. She didn't like me because I looked at her weird and said I had judgemental eyes. I wasn't aware that was possible. After that we went to the square because we were invited to a baby blessing party for our muslim friend James. We were shocked to see loud african music playing and over 50 people dancing. And at the head of the grill was who else but Brother Camara. It was pretty neat but hard to talk to James. We talked to Brother Camara about one of our investigators who we are good friends with named Bee who just had a baby on Friday. We wanted to give her a blessing. So we went Brother Camara and basically snuck into this hospital(sorry mom) and gave this woman a blessing and saw her baby. It was really neat. On our way out a crazy guy started talking to us and said that one of the members we were with was his cousin. The member was really weirded out but the guy turned out to have dementia so it was all good.


Ah, Apache Junction. A place well known on the mission adorably called AJ. I live with the Spanish elders in a double wide trailer next to the superstition mountains. Our trailer is know for its ants, rats, and squirrels which the pelts of are on the wall. I'm all moved in. Its weird to have so much space and not have a member around all the time. My new comp is Elder Miner who is from Missiouri he's a pretty cool guy and has been out for just over a year. I'm excited for this because AJ is known for its "white trash".


Well like I said I'm short on time because the whole transfer for thing so I got to go. Hope everyone is having a good week.



love, Elder Caywood

233 years‏

Coming through. This email may be short because I'm RUNNING OUT OF TIME. Dun dun dun...... Seriously though I am what the crap am I doing wasting time like this talking about wasting time. I am a wast of time, thought, and space. I think someone could use this pasty white body better than I can, so I'm selling it. Naw I'm actually doing quite well.

Last week I left you with an uplifting email. I was in a stellar mood. That mood continued. I did a very good presentation that set the tone for zone conference. Sister Bassett heard me singing the tenor part for one of the songs and told me that I'll be in the running to sing tenor in the missionary quartet for the mission. So all was going very well. Then... I threw out my back, muscle spasm. I was in bed for 9 hours. It sucked. The next day I wasn't feeling good and I was sore. By the night time I was running a fever 102(Yet Arizona was running a fever 105). The next day they took me to the doctor and to my shigrin I discovered that I had an upper respiratory infection. So I was on bed rest once again. This is not all. During my time in bed rest a member made me some tuna fish sandwiches. I wasn't sure if I was allergic but I sure didn't care, they tasted great. I should of cared... Friday morning came around. I looked at my hands and they were covered in red spots. I then proceeded to the bathroom ripped off my shirt and startled myself. From my neck down I was red. Like some kind of monster. I showed Elder Yates and he looked at me and said "yeah you're pretty bad looking I think its more effective to hide you than to bring you out tonight". So once again I was dropped off at a member's house. Sad days...

My only real day of work this week was the 4th which is why I titled my email 233. 233 years of pure American fun which if I'm not mistakened pure American fun can shorten your life span. On the 4th I went to the visitor's center twice, that was about it. I also was treated to a tongan barbeque which was sweet and painful.

I have a funny story actually. Friday night I had to be put away because of my skin. I was sent to the Monuakafoa family. They asked me if I was hungry and I said "Well I have to get food with my medicine". So Brother Mo sent his wife out and she got KFC. I looked at it when she brought it in. And I thought man theres quite a bit there but not enough to feed 5 people. Then I saw one large pepsi. My heart skipped a beat. Brother Mo put down a plate and said "Elder eat". I've never felt so fat in my life. I'd finish one helping and before I knew it I had more. The Mos just watched me eat and eat. Finally I run out of space to put it and Brother Mo stopped. I was so full.

The work has definitely slowed down. One of our wards has nothing going on. The other ward has a lot of people not doing anything in it. Its a little bit frustrating and all of our baptisms have been pushed backa month. So were basically not even looking back at last week. I don't have a ton more to say. So I'll end it with a Peace Out

Love, Elder Caywood/ Job as I have been affectionately called this week.