Can You Smell Me from Here?

How are you all doing? Hopefully well, hopefully you are emotionally recovered from Ohio State’s loss to Oregon. Obviously, I watched exactly none of it, but I heard about it and can’t say I have recovered yet. I miss you guys and think about you often. Here comes another mostly dumb but hopefully fun email, but I have less fun stories from this week so hopefully that isn’t too disapointing for you.

Let’s start off with the food, which has been normal and tasty this week! First, a brief Ohio State/Ohio reference that only the dedicated will get. Every single street vendor and their Mom sells these things here called De La Rosa, and I see them everywhere. They are just this little beige circle looking thing in clear packaging with a rose on it. Well, I was curious as to why everyone sells them, so I bought one for like the equivialent value of 10 cents and gave it a try, and it tastes EXACTLY like those chocolate covered buckeye things. So that was very much a pleasant surprise and I might end up going bankrupt on those. As far as meals go, we have had a lot of food from the Mall in our area (and Carls Jr. with a member family, same one as the chicken bake family, who loved taking us there and watching me pound down a Big Angus Diablo Burger, large crisscut fries, a large coke, and a strawberry milkshake. Did I ask for that food? No, they thought it would be entertaining to get the biggest meal available for me and see if I could eat it, proud to report that there was not a bite remaining), carne asada, rice, more loaded fries, and rotisserie chicken sandwiches from Walmart, which were pretty mid but my companion loves them. That’s about as exciting as the food got this week, other than the fact that the eggs, tuna, and mystery fish trend has continued and that I have run out of the desire to chop off more potato limbs. We’ve been pretty lazy as far as food goes this week at home, maybe because my companion spent too much of our dang money on our District Council, so that has meant lots of bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, and cereal (zucaritas, mexican frosted flakes). Not exactly exciting meals but food is food so we take what we can get.

The tastiest thing we ate was last Tuesday night, a homemade concha that was absolutely fantastic and by far the best one I’ve had. I could eat like 12 of those things no problem, they are soooo good. While we were walking back to the metrobus from said home, we passed by an old and super drunk dude sitting on the sidewalk, and I took the liberty to translate what he was yelling for your enjoyement:

Some random dude walking on the other side of the street:

Old guy:

So that guy was pretty cool, although I’d say Mongolia Avenue is a pretty average street and nothing too special or unique. I’m glad he likes it though. The only other “fun” story I have from the week is that finally, thank goodness, my companion bought his dang Dior Savauge. It only took all of last Tuesday, we found the store that carries it, and unfortunately for me, they have like 7 kinds. So naturally, my lovely companion, took 7 of those little cardstock pieces of paper, each with the different kind of Dior, and spent the rest of the day making me, and other Elder’s, smell the stupid things 50 times and give our opinions. On Tuesday we had a mission-wide, Elder’s P day, and you best believe over half of the Elders there got harrassed into smelling Dior paper. Finally, he decided, so we returned to this specific mall, and he spent something like $320 USD on 100ml of Dior Savauge elixir, which I must admit doesn’t quite smell as good as the Walmart “Essence of Man: Ice Black” body spray that I really worked to convince him to get (for only 67 pesos!) to no avail, so I hope he never looks back on such a purchase with any regret or second guessing. Now that Depp Stench has been acquired, he uses it sparingly, but has been on a hunt to find the exact minimum amount of the stuff you can use so that you can still be smelled from 5 feet away. That has meant, in ever spare moment, that I get to be asked the lovely question “Can you smell me from here?” “No.” So, he moves 2 inches closer. “Here?” “Nope!” And then, this process gets repeated as many times as neccesary, which ends up being probably 30 times a session. Turns out, it is rather difficult to smell like Depp in a greater radius that 1 foot, at which point stinky breath seems to overpower and take the focus of the noticeable smells. So, in what I can only assume is a desperate attempt to convince himself that such a lofty purchase was worth it, a couple times this week he has absolutely bathed himself in the stuff. Mostly just to see how far he can get the range, but I would love to think that maybe, there is even a glimmer of a thought in his mind that maybe, Johnny Depp spray isn’t all that he hyped it up to be. As far as range goes on the days he smothers himself in it, the answer is, that the range is quite far and unbearably strong, and some days I have gone to bed with my nostrils burning. Even then, such an overpowering smell only lasts until about 11am then kind of goes away, but the damage to my nose lasts alllllll day! Awesome!

Well, as far a general life updates, that is about all I got as far as I can remember. Now, as far as success goes concerning missionary work, this week has been SO GOOD. We invited Angeles and Esteban, mom and son, to get baptized and they were so excited and said yes! They both take study of the Book of Mormon very seriously, and always have good questions and love learning more. So that is so so exciting, they are on date to be baptized the 27th! We also had a refugee family from Pakistan come to us wanting to learn, and the mom is getting married soon to a member in our ward, so teaching a whole family of 5 has been pretty sweet and it has been so cool to watch them support eachother adn encourage eachother to learn! At church on Sunday, we had 9 people that are interested in learning the gospel come to church with us, by far the highest that I have been here to see, so that was so cool!! We also got Sebastian’s baptismal service all set up with the messages and the music, and I am so excited for him, it is going to be an awesome day this Sunday!

For some reason, only this week, we have been giving a ton of priesthood blessings. I dedicated a home as the place where the Spirit can dwell, and given and participated in 7 blessings for people who have been really struggling and/or in our ward, and family members of members, and people in teaching. It has been so incredibly powerful to witness the Lord directing me, and others, in the words we say as we deliver a blessing to people as the Spirit directs us. I am not sure why we’ve had such a huge jump this week, but it has been really powerful to witness and participate in blessings given through us, but by God, with His power on earth. Each blessing is very unique and different, and it has been so powerful to once again, witness firsthand, how individually our Heavenly Father knows us. So that has been an awesome experience.

This week, I unfortunately haven’t been studying the Book of Mormon as much, but that is because I have been reading in the New Testament about the Savior’s life. Of course, I have still made time to read in the Book of Mormon, and so here is my scripture thought from the week.

One of the chapters I read this week wasa Jacob 5, which is the longest chapter in the BoM, and in my past opinion, also one of the dullest, but man reading it this last week opened my eyes as to how special that chapter is. As my friend Jared recently said, (and my deepest apologies for paraphrasing and adding some linguistical spice to his last quote in my previous email, the way he said the last quote was too boring, but dont worry this one is a copy-paste)

I think this is a good one, and I learned a lot, so maybe you can too! Here we go:

So in this chapter, Jacob is quoting the prophet Zenos, who compares the house of Israel (that’s just fancy terms for the people living on this earth) to a vineyard of olive trees. There are a lot of good verses in here, so let me share a few. This is what the Lord of the vineyard (Jesus Christ) says.

And after all the work the Lord and His servants put into helping the trees grow to become fruitful, and they would not…

Now, the Lord is working double time to help His trees become healthy, and grow, and bring fruit, so that He can spare them. This is my favorite part, because I think it applies so much to missionary work:

DANG do I love that chapter now. We each can work alongside the Lord as we do the work to labor in His vineyard, to help His trees become productive and fruitful, the fruits (or labors, as explained in the New Testament) of which, if done for the good of the Lord, will bring blessings. We will have joy with the Lord.

Something I absolutely love about that chapter is all the work the Lord puts into us. All the worry, the long hours of the day, the sleepless nights, all to bring us home to Him, because it grieves Him that He should lose us. He works as much as He possibly can to see that we come to Him, and even sends out for more servants (His prophets, church leaders, missionaries, and member’s willing to share the gospel and help others feel of His love) to do everything He can to bring as many of His children home as He can. The choice is ours, He never removes our agency, and His “servants are few”, but the Lord of the vineyard does everything in His power to bring us home.

Quick C.S. Lewis quote:

Even as the end is near, He spares us a little longer, and His hand is stretched out all the day long, never slackening. He sends out as many as will go, to help all the world come back to Him and realize that He is the way of joy. He is the way, the truth, and the light. He is reaching out so far for us, all we need to do is reach the short distance to Him and turn our lives towards Him. He brings us the fullness of joy that we each need. He brings us healing, love, peace, guidance, comfort, and joy, each of which can last for an eternity if we turn to Him.

My invitation to you is to be a servant in the Lord’s vineyard. Work alongside Him. His work is a joyful one, I can testify to that. No matter how much I whine and complain about my companion’s love for cologne, and even when days and nights are hard, and I am homesick or sad or discouraged or whatever, there is so much joy that comes from doing the work of the Savior Jesus Christ. My second invitation, which will probably end up being an invitation every week, is to study the Book of Mormon every day. I can say, in full honesty, that no matter where I am in the Book or how many chapters I read, that each time I seek the presence of the Holy Ghost while I read the Book of Mormon, and that every time I STUDY it rather than merely reading it for the enjoyement of the story, I learn something new. I feel the Spirit, I feel the love of my Heavenly Father and His Son, our Savior, and my prayers are answered. I have received so many answers to questions from the Book of Mormon, and promise that you can do the same thing as you seek to study the Book of Mormon, being led by the Spirit and seeking to feel His presence.

Well, per the usual, I started off claiming this email would be shorter, but I pranked you all again and it was a long one. If you read the whole thing, wow you are dedicated, and thank you! If you don’t, I don’t particualry mind, because this is also just a good oppurtunity for me to look back on the past week and even a sort of journal. I’ve had a few of you recently ask to be put on my email list, so here you are, and if you want to go back and read my emails from the past weeks, I believe my super swag Dad is posting them on noahcrockett.com (but I am not too certain, maybe you can fact check that for me!) (And tell me that isnt one sweet URL handle)

I love you all so so much. I miss each of you and I really do pray for you, and hope that you are all doing well. Thank you for your love and support to me, and I hope you know that I think of you all often! I guess I better wrap this up soon, so that is all for this week, and you’ll be sure to get another one of these bad boys when next Tueday rolls around!

Love you all so much!!

-Elder Noah 😀

Pictures for you enjoyment: