Epic Ride

Dear America,

I've been able to do a lot of study this week from the first book of Nephi. Nephi is an interesting guy. Have you ever noticed how often he says something about how "the Lord had commanded me"? He's intensely focused on being obedient, even if he doesn't know why. One of the reasons he was able to stay so focused is because he always had Laman and Lemuel to remind him to be better. Just as their seed would eventually stir up his posterity to remembering the Lord, they were placed there to keep Nephi in check. Without their constant murmuring, I doubt that he would have had the strength necessary to do what was required of him.

We had an epic ride in a three-wheeled taxi this week. We also had a district activity last Mondaywhere everyone brought some common food of their country and sampled a little bit of everything. All of us enjoyed it a lot. Elder Lesh and I got together and found some real actual potatoes in the market. So we made fries and orange julius, true American dishes if there were any. They were a big hit, much to my surprise. Usually Africans are disgusted whenever I try to prepare anything remotely American for them. But everyone loved it and asked us to make more. Also present on the table were: coconut rice from Nigeria, cocoyam with kontombre and talapia from Ghana, chakalaka from South Africa, and scone-like fried dough from Zimbabwe (sorry, I forgot the name). It was a lot of fun and everyone was able to enjoy something.

I was going to send pictures today.....and a longer email. But apparently my card got a virus from one of these computers and it has erased all of my stuff. So that sucks. I've been trying to fix it, so sorry the email is so short and picture-less this week.

Elder Nelson