Adventures with The Sandman

In the photo above, Rob shows off his culinary talents. Apparently, the chicken-in-dumplings recipe brought a smile. Here are his notes from this week. The first remarks are in response to a chance encounter we had with Sister Patterson at Roger's mom's house. She was at the MTC with Rob, and has a sister who served in Black Mountain Branch before Rob left: "Hahaha! What the bird? Small world indeed! Tell Sister Patterson #2 that I thank her for finding my grandma:)." Regarding one of his contacts, Rob said, "If you could go and do a session at the temple and put Jillean's name on the prayer role, and maybe pray for her as well, that would really help out a lot! I'm hoping the baptism goes well. She's still on board to be baptized this week, but she seemed a lot less interested the other day :/. Like she just wasn't super stoked on it like she has been, so I'm thinking we're gonna take her to a member's house and get her to feel friendship and watch Meet the Mormons? That was the best idea I could come up with. By the way, Jillean says she knows a guy that can get me a monkey! :D :D :D Not a whole lot has changed in the last week, though. Took a nice spill on the bike and blew out a few tires. haha. But that's pretty normal ;). The Sandman (Elder Sandbakken's new alias) was like 'DUDE! You ok?' bahaha. I'm like, 'O, I'm fine. It's not the first time.' ^.^ Getting pretty sick of bikes, but O well, it's good for me. Elder Sandbakken makes a mean breakfast, which is really nice! O, and we cooked chicken-in-dumplings yesterday! Tasted close to home, but not quite as good;) I don't know how you fold those darn croissants so well! Things are good here, though. It's finally starting to cool down, I think. Been pretty overcast this last week. We got rained on HARD the last few days. It's kinda fun, though, trekkin' through the rain doing the Lord's work. On Tuesday I met this crazy guy. haha! He was wild! He was ranting and raving about Joseph Smith and how awesome we are. Needless to say he was wasted, but still quite entertaining. He literally stopped traffic in the middle of the street to yell about Joseph Smith to people. He dragged us into a bar and stopped everyone from what they were doing to say a prayer. O, man, this guy was hilarious. Highlight of my mission so far. lol. I'll send you a picture. Tell Baxter I miss him so so so so so so SO much! Lol. My monkey is gonna be so cool, though. You have no idea! Baxter is going to love her."

This is a picture of Rob with the gentleman who advocated loudly for Joseph Smith. I am guessing he is not a park ranger.