27 October 2014

It's always a happening time here in Sheridan!

Ah man, I remember Friday Halloweens were the best because they took up the whole day at school so you didn't have to do any work.  You just partied all day and then went home and got more candy! It was fantastic!  Plus, you could stay out late because you didn't have school the next day. Those were the days! Reminds me of the year Jacob, Austin, and I went trick-or-treating and we were like 15-16 (even though our mommies told us we were too old). When we stopped at the Bennett’s house, Mrs. Bennett gave candy to Jacob and me because we looked like we were 11, but she wouldn't give any to Austin cause she thought he was 17!  Hahahahaha! We had some good laughs at that—at least Jacob and I did, Austin was not too happy. So far, we don't have any special rules for Halloween. My companion said that last Halloween they tried to talk to people but no one was having any of it; and in fact got mad when they opened the door and found out it was missionaries and not kids. I believe that it will be a regular proselyting day until 6 pm, and after that we have a dinner appointment with a ward member family and they have invited us to also carve pumpkins so we are pretty excited about that.

THAT’S A JOKE! OF COURSE CARLTON WOULD BE ON DANCING WITH THE STARS WHILE I'M GONE!! He is like my idol and with Whitney...ah man..don't even get me started on her!   This is a cruel joke. They better win! I mean, how can you beat those dance move he does!?! That is outstanding that he did his dance to “It's not unusual" by Tom Jones. I will certainly want to watch that when I get home!

Yeah, the Meet the Mormon's movie has been a huge thing in our mission. We are encouraging all of the ward member's to invite their friends to see it. I was actually going to ask if you guys had seen it yet. I hear it is really good, and the beginning is funny. We aren't aloud to watch it in theaters but we will be able to see it in November during a private screening.

It is crazy to think that by the time I get home Apple will probably be releasing the iPhone 8, which is baffling. I have seen the I phone 6 and it didn't look very different to me so I haven't been all that impressed from what I have seen. 

I had one of the best experiences the other day, a member went hunting and shot a deer. Well, his knee is broken (he is the only guy I know who would go hunting by himself with a broken knee) and needed some help packing it out..so that's what we did. Drove up the mountain and hiked around until we found him (he called us from his cell and explained to us where he was).  After we found him, Elder Johnson and this other kid that came with us (who was a family friend) took turns doing the fireman carry with the body. I got to carry the head up the mountain so that was pretty cool. First time that I have ever held a dead deer head..and let me just tell you, that thing was as cold as a dead deer! =) I named the head Melvin and everyone got a kick out of that.  On the way up the mountain, his tongue popped out so that just made it all the better. We had to hike up a really steep mountain side (because he shot the deer in a valley, which made things difficult) in the dark, so it took almost an hour and a half to get it out. Boy, I will tell you though, I felt like a mountain man carrying that thing up the steep incline…working to feed my family, who was stashed away in a cozy log cabin somewhere.  Ha! That was my big adventure for the week. We then went up this morning and helped him pack the rest of his gear out, so I will post some pictures. Elder Johnson and I also were able to lure a cat into our apartment with a laser pointer. Once it was in, we closed the door and played with it for like 5 minutes and then let it out. It was a pretty cool cat. 

I love you guys! Thanks for the packages and tell Caitlin and Bryce thanks for the PEZ!

-Love Elder Rasmussen

20 October 2014

This is “Wranglin' Rasmussen” coming to you live from the beautiful town of Sheridan Wyoming! It's another beautiful day! Looks like temperatures will be in the low 70's for the upcoming week with potential snow next Monday and Tuesday. So enjoy the weather folks, cause it's about to get real cold round these parts!

See what I did there? If you didn't well, I'm sorry you will have to figure it out on your own.  So yeah, the weather has been fantastic here the past two weeks, and has been in the low 70's and high 60's which you can't beat for October. I have been thanking the Lord a lot lately for blessing us with warm weather cause I hate the snow.  Folks around here say it's a miracle that it hasn't snowed nearly as much as it usually does.

I have some suggested baby names for Caitlin and Bryce…I was thinking Jamantha, Jimantha, Jumantha, or Jabius. All those names would work very well for them, I think. So Caitlin is showing huh? Can't picture it. It still doesn't seem real, I feel like you guys are playing some sick joke on me and that when I get home there isn't gonna be a nephew for me raise in the ways of video gaming and you all will start laughing cause I fell for it. 

Thank you for the baby gender reveal package. When I first opened it, I only saw the part with the Binkey on it and I was very confused as to what it was, but I obviously figured it out when I turned the box around. The stuff in it was actually almost exactly what we needed--I almost bought a scrubby so I could clean the kitchen a bit better. For your information mother, I’ll have you know our apartment gets cleaned every Monday and it looks fantastic. I feel keeping the place clean is important and my companion helps out too. 

Yes mom, I have had my haircut..It's been over 3 months since I left home. That would mean my hair would be way long which isn't allowed, ya big silly! We go to Great Clips; it's a fantastic place and there happened to be a “blessed daughter of God” who cut my hair today.   Actually, it may have been the best haircut of my young life!

My companion and I were out tracking, going door to door; we knocked on this door and heard from the inside, "It's just those darn Mormon boys again." So we kept knocking but they never opened up the door. My companion had a crazy experience while we were on exchanges. They knocked at one house, the guy answered and started swearing at them and my companion had a hard time not laughing because the man happened to be butt naked from the waist down!   So after the man slammed the door,  they walked away, laughing as they went. This place is crazy and you never know what will happen when your knocking on people's doors..strangely a lot of people here claim to be both Christian and Buddhist, still trying to understand how that works.

Love you all have a great week! I love you guys, thanks for all you do!

-Ricky-ticky-Rasmussen

14 October 2014

Hola!

Apparently here in Wyoming, people actually celebrate Columbus Day…many get the day off of work and most kids got out of school. I thought that was “re-donk-ulous.” Who gets THAT day off of school?!? That never would have happened in the Nazi Jordan School District…I'm surprised we didn't have to go on Christmas!  Ha!  

That's sweet that you finally found out what the baby's gender is…I'm gonna go ahead and say it's a girl. No one has spoiled it for me, but that's what I have been feeling. 

Of course you guys do fun things with the Bob Rasmussen's while I'm gone! Seems like we rarely did things with them. You ladies crafted?!? That's crazy talk. You never do anything like that!

So about transfers...I GET TO STAY IN SHERIDAN!!! Hoo-rah for Israel! I’m so happy that I get to stay. I was not looking forward to leaving yet, but luckily I get to stay here for 6 more weeks (and hopefully longer).  This being my first and only mission area, I can't imagine serving anywhere else right now. We have a lot of great work going on here and we have two great people who have set baptism dates. I'm really happy I’ll have the opportunity to stay and see them get baptized. My companion is also staying, which is fine with me!  Sure, we have our good and bad days just like any companionship would, but almost all are good days—rarely do we have bad ones. 

So I finally met a lady who has a Minnesota accent—it is super sweet to hear. She said to us today, ”I'm from Minnesota don't cha' know?" as well as "Oh yeeeeah, I know all about the Atonement of Jesus." I was like, wow...guess some good Minnesota folks really do sound like you hear in the movies.  She has three cats that are extremely fat and you know what they say, the only good cat is…a fat one!  My favorite of the feline trio is the fattest of them all; his name is Connor, an orange tabby.  She also has a cat that looks exactly like our former cat, "The General," so I love going over there. The cats all jumped up on me and today; I had all three of them sitting on my lap..ok well, one was on the upper part of the chair and the other two were on my lap so I felt like the "Cat King." I soooooo wanted to get a picture, but we were in the middle of a lesson so it wasn’t appropriate to stop and take a picture.

I also had the opportunity to go up to Ranchester, Wyoming recently, which is a town even smaller than Sheridan--population about 800 or 900.  I went to Ranchester as part of exchanges (with other missionaries) and it was an interesting time. We ran into this guy who barged out of his home as we approached (and I immediately thought,  “Great!  Here comes the yelling and the, Get off my property!”  (*insert shotgun pumping sound*) But he invited us in, warmly shook our hands and we ended up having this crazy and entertaining 2 hour conversation about his life.  We talked about a lot of subjects and as many tangents.  Doesn’t seem especially interested in learning more about the church at present, but he was a really nice guy and it was a good time. 

Yeah, I’ve been doing my hair differently lately. Don't know what got into me…I just one day decided it was time for a change and have liked it, so it’s my new do.  Seems to be getting the job done. 

Yeah, Lexe's (a nice girl Cort has been dating) cousin is way sweet.  He takes us out to dinner every month or so, and has a super cool family.  We were surprised when we realized that my brother had dated a girl with the same name as his cousin.  And I thought, no way it's the same person…but he showed me a picture and there she was! Crazy small world..like what are the chances that would happen???  One evening we were talking about how if Cort and Lexe ever got married, we would be cousins-in-law. We had a good chuckle about it.  It’s strange how many connections I’ve discovered and experienced since being here.

I'm excited to find out what Caitlin and Bryce’s baby is, and I'm still working on my birthday package…I don't have much free time, don’t cha know?

I love you guys and can't wait to hear from you all again.

-Elder Rasmussen, Eri-eri-E-Rik

6 October 2014

Hola, Mi Familia!

It is once again a pleasure to hear from you.  Yeah, things are starting to cool down here and the wind is really starting to pick up.  It’s becoming rainy and cloudy almost everyday now.  Now that General Conference has passed, the suit coat rule is in place (we have to wear our suit coats every day until the April General Conference).  Not a fan of the suit coat, but hey…I’m on a mission and you gotta do what you gotta do.

For once, I really enjoyed General Conference.  I know many people look at it as “more church” but for us missionaries, its a welcome change and break. I can't even tell you how nice it was to sit back and relax for 4 hours a day while someone else teaches you! We watched every single session…which I don’t recall ever having done before (mission field confession). We watched the Saturday morning session at a member's house, and the mother of the family taught us how to crochet—so I can do that now, kind of.  We watched the afternoon session at the church and it was just my companion and I, so we got the whole place to ourselves and it was really nice. We then watched the Sunday morning session at a less active member's house, and then watched the afternoon session at our Y.S.A. Branch President’s house so we were all over the place. It was really neat to hear the people talk in their native tongues. I thought that they would have subtitles on screen as well and was a little disappointed that they had the English guy voice-over the speaker. The best was the brother who spoke Mandarin Chinese…I was having a hard time listening to the actual message because I just wanted to listen to his freaking sweet language. I instantly thought of Caitlin, waving her hands back and forth, teasing me that I love all things Asian.

Cort got a new job? What does he do? I feel bad for baby Noah having to work all night..haha not really—about time that kid started doing some work =). I don't see how he can carry a vacuum around when he can't even push a lawn mower! But hey, I guess if he is able to do it, good for him. Has the bathroom been a disaster since I left? And his room? I think about that every P-Day while I clean.  I just think, “Man, that room is going to be a huge mess without me there and now there is even more room for Noah to buy stuff and put all over the place.” He is going to need 10 storage boxes to hold all his stuff when he leaves on his mission.

Dang, Caitlin! Getting that baby bump and what not.  Ha! I’ve long felt like her first baby was going to be a girl, but cool if it is a boy—when I get back I can teach him how to do fun things like play video games. (Get that boy loving video games and then Caitlin will have to deal with them her whole life! Muhahaha! =).

I got an email from Jackson Walker who is in the Detroit Michigan Mission and he is in Flint, which is the murder capital of the world.  I was just thinking to myself, “Boy, am I very glad I'm in peaceful Sheridan Wyoming. I could not handle going somewhere like that.”

Transfers are coming up soon and I’ll admit, I’m a bit nervous about the thoughts of leaving.  The ward members and other missionaries all say that I'll stay and it will be my companion who moves on.  We’ll see. 

I love you guys!

Elder Rasmussen

29 September 2014

Greetings, my kin!

This week was a great one! I'm not really sure why because not a ton happened, guess I’m just feeling the joy of service.  The weather here has been pretty crazy as well. It was 85 degrees one day, then two days later it was raining and today it is what they call “misting." It's so weird, I had never had it “mist” before, at least that I can remember. It feels like you are standing underneath a hose with the "mist" setting on the nozzle. It’s a pretty cool feeling. Recently, it has just been cloudy with a little wind, nothing too bad.

So Damon and Jamilla had their baby, huh? I guess Caitlin will have her own new baby to call "Precious" and will no longer be doting over Baby William?!? Oh well, “Caitlins will be Caitlins.”  =) It seems like Jamilla had been pregnant for way longer than 9 months (perhaps for her too?).  I don't know, but I bet she is glad to get that baby out. 

Good to hear that Kayleigh Shaughnessy got married.  A lot of fun and exciting things seem to be happening there at home. I saw that picture of Marc coming home off of his mission and it was good to see him, wish I could have been there for it…have they told him that they are moving yet?  

Tell Uncle Bob and Aunt Brenda Thanks! I'm so thankful for all that they have done for me and for the humor that they bring into the family. Nothing quite like an "eyebrow salute" to get your day started. I loved Uncle Bob's video that Dad sent me! You can also let him know that there isn't anything other than the farmer wave and nod here…it's all these good folk know how to do! I told my companion about it and said, "Watch this…when I do the farmer wave, he will either nod or put one finger up on the steering wheel as his wave."  As the car passed, I waved the farmer wave…and sure enough there it was in return!  I told my companion all about the farmer wave/nod, and that would happen without fail.  It’s the way of things...the way of the farmer. He got a good kick out of that and now we smile every time someone does it. Nothing like spreading the "farmer wave and nod!"  God bless the farmer.

So the other night, I had a dream that I was playing Banjo-Kazooie but I was fighting a giant Boo (from Mario) and every time I hit it, it got smaller and smaller. I remember thinking to myself in the dream, that I didn't understand why this boss used to be so hard for me to beat? When I beat the boss, I woke up and thought.."What the heck!?!"  Those two characters aren't even from the same game, so who knows why I had a dream about the two of them? 

Speaking of dreams and what not, one night I woke up and sat right up. I stared at the clock trying to process what time it was…it was 5:59 a.m. and you know how you get when you are super tired and you can't really think straight? Well, that happened to me, and I was thinking that my alarm as set for 6:00 (but it was set for 6:30). So I was just waiting for it to go off, and when the clock showed 6:00 a.m., I closed my eyes expecting to hear that annoying tone…but nothing happened. So I thought to myself, “Well, I guess it's a good thing I woke up or we would have slept in!" I walked over to my alarm clock and flipped the alarm "Off and On" buttons a few time to see if it would go off.  I then thought, "I bet Elder Dettenmaier changed my time so we (Elder Johnson and I) wouldn't get up on time." (We had been on exchanges and the Elder I was with was Elder Dettenmaier). So I went to go grab my watch from downstairs to see what the time it showed, and on the way out of our room (keep in mind that it was still dark so I couldn't see anything) I slammed my knee and head into the partially opened door.  I thought, “To heck with it, I'm going to bed." It wasn't until then that I realized we didn't have to get up until 6:30 and was quite angry with myself.  Not only because I got up early, but that my knee and head now hurt. 

When I laid back down, Elder Johnson sat up really fast and said "Is someone breaking in?…I heard a huge thump!" I told him no and that I'd tell him what happened when it was time to get up. 

Okay, one more story about nights as a missionary. I woke up one night around 3:00 a.m. and laid there for a little trying to fall back asleep when all of a sudden, Elder Johnson sat up, looked at me and shouted “Hoorah for Israel! I looked at him and then started laughing as he laid back down, talking to himself and settling back into sleep. When I asked him about it the next morning, he said he didn't remember a thing. Good times!

Answers to Mom’s Questions for the week:

1.Yes I got the package of wool socks. The things you sent were awesome and they all fit really well. I love the socks, I'm wearing a pair right now.  My companion wants to know where you got the "Andrew Marc" coat, he really likes it. That thing is amazing!  It feels like you are wrapped in a marshmallow.

2.  Fishing was really fun, I didn't catch anything because I was learning to fly fish so I was getting used to all that goes along with it. I knew that when the mission office called you about the fishing license you would think something crazy was going on, so when I read what you thought when you saw the call come in, I chuckled to myself.

3.I do share some of my many sound effects as occasion permits, but not as much as I did back home (occasions here don't normally allow for such things). It was funny though, because we saw a motorcycle go by that sounded EXACTLY like Edgar's motorcycle from the Arisocats. I thought,  “Oh man, if my family were here right now I know they would all look at me and expect me to make the noise, and Caitlin would start laughing her cackle laugh.”

4. Transfers are in two weeks. I'm getting a little nervous because I don't want to move to a new area yet, things are really starting to pick up and I would love to see some of these people get baptized. I have built a really strong bond with the people in this ward. So, I’m hoping my time here is not yet done, but I'll go where the Lord wants me to go.

I forgot about all the family birthdays (Cailtin, Bryce, and Mumsy)! I will be sending a little birthday surprise home for all of you, so keep an eye out. I’m still working on getting some of the things I’m planning to send. I wanted it to be a surprise, but I thought I should tell you so you can report when it gets to you. I'll let you know when I mail it.

Love you guys!

Elder Erik