Feb. 21, 2011
Subject: Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite...
Hey family. Happy President's Day! Turns out I got my Valentine's Day kiss after all. I was on an exchange in Hamtramck with one of our Zone Leaders Elder Smith (side note, his companion is the other zone leader and his name is also Elder Smith) and we stopped by one of their potential investigators for 5 min or so. Their potential was this lady who wasn't all quite there I'm pretty sure, she was older, didn't have any teeth. Well as we were leaving the lady asked me what my name was and after I told her she said "Well come here my little lamb!" i held out my hand to shake hers and then she sort of pulled me in for what i thought was just going to be a hug. She ended up plopping a big wet one on my neck...it was terrible. Elder Smith was cracking up. Ha the next half hour or so afterwards was the weirdest I've felt in a long time. So...not necessarily a high-light of a week, but definitely a moment that stood out. Spread the love, Happy Valentine's Day!

Detroit was a different place last week. It was up in the 50s I think, I heard the 60s from someone. It only lasted a few days, but they were for sure a good few days. The snow melted completely and there was grass everywhere that made Detroit look so much better. Elder Hoffman and I did some tracting and we only had to wear sweaters - no beenies or gloves or big coats or double/triple layers of socks. I'm pumped for the spring. Pumped. ...It was short-lived though, last night a snow storm came in and dumped a bunch of fresh snow and it's back to being cold. But it's all good in the hood, spring gets closer every day. Pumped.

So two other real quick adventures. Apparently Detroit is #3 on the list for the city with the most bed bugs in the nation. I had no idea what they really were until I came out here. They're nasty. They moved into our apartment not too long ago and they're not welcome. I slept on the floor for most of last week ha. But a senior couple from the mission office dropped us off bed bug mattress covers and some bed bug bombs. We're probably going to take care of that tomorrow. One more story - Elder Hoffman and I were driving our big van around one day with some spare miles. There was a club in the car that didn't have a key, but we'd lay it across the steering wheel just to make it look like it was locked. Well this one time it ended up locking somehow. Still don't know how that even happened. We ended up walking to our apartment to grab a hack-saw from Dooey the building's maintanence man. We walked back to the car and went to work. 4 hours. Ha it was rediculous, the biggest waste of time we've had on our mission. But we made the most of it, we'd switch off with the saw and the other person would call potentials and set up appointments for the week. Well we eventually made enough cross cuts in the club that we could pull apart the lock and slide the club off. A bummer was the more progress we made, the harder it would get because the blade became more and more dull. It was super rediculous, but in the end we were pumped. We call it the Parable of the Club - no project is too big or too difficult, we'll be as patient as we need to be, our goals will happen. People of Detroit beware, we will baptize you.

I'm still teaching primary bytheway. It's pretty fun. I'm at 6 weeks or something like that now. It's usually 2 kids, but yesterday other teachers weren't there and the class had 9 kids there. Anywhere from 6-11, some were visiting and may not even be members of the church. Not easy to keep their focus. Believe it or not, teaching primary has helped me practice for teaching some grown people out here. Marlin helped me teach the class yesterday.

Out of time, I wanted to tell you guys about Marlin. Sorry to leave you hanging like this, but I just don't want to forget so remind me to tell you about him. Awesome kid, awesome story.

Love you guys lots. All's good in the hood.

Elder Lamb