September 6, 2010

Subject: Done

Hey up. So first of all, nice try Caleb. He sends me an email this week saying that Kasey’s been telling me lies and he hasn't taken my shirts. Kasey didn't tell me. Sandra sends me newsletters and I keep seeing him wearing my stuff. Good one though. Just leave me something to wear when I get home.

Secondly, 4 man flats are fun except I'm pretty sure that ours has bed bugs and I'm being eaten alive. My arms are just red covered in tons of little bites and it swells up around the bites. It's pretty gross looking. At first I thought I had the chicken pocks, then scabies but I've researched it and it's definitely bed bugs. It itches like crazy. It's hard to focus on teaching sometimes because I just itch like mad. I'm also going insane because of it. I've slept on the floor in the other room with no blankets the last two nights to get away from them and I've slept with the light on because they’re nocturnal and I'm hoping that will scare them away. Not the best nights sleep and I feel a little like a crazy person but no new bites so I'm calling it a victory. I'm going to call Sister Lindley today to see what to do. It will be the first time I've called about anything on my mission. The worst part is apparently the bites are harmless. It's just having an allergic reaction that makes it swell up and go like mine so the other missionaries have a few bites here and there but none of them have been bitten as much or have had the rash that’s gone with mine which means that they’re not too bothered by it. So it's just me going crazy. So that’s fun.

Let’s see what else. Oh tell David thanks for the email. It was great. My birthday was alright. The Chinese students threw me a birthday party so it was pretty good. I ate chicken foot. Not bad but not that good either. Fun though. I got the box, thanks.

Oh I also broke our shower this week so that’s nice. It still kind of works. It just has no pressure and it sprays a lot of extra water everywhere. Also if you could see the amount of spiders in our flat you'd be amazed. I vacuumed up 12 in just our bedroom today and they’re massive but there’re no poisonous spiders in England so it's all good. I'm not usually too bothered by spiders but some of these are like man eating sized. So that’s a little about where I live.

York’s great. A lot of tourists. School doesn't start till October here so no one’s here. We've found a few really good English people but they’re all taking holidays until school starts so we'll have to keep trying.

Our ward mission leader’s a stud though. He does everything for us. He's loaded too. I asked him what he does and he told me he mostly just buys and sells companies. He's gotten a lot of his friends baptized. Right now his project is this homeless man he wants to get baptized. He gave him an apartment, brought him to church, went shopping to fill his cupboards with food. Then the man disappeared and he cancelled a business trip to Scotland to go find him. He'll cancel meetings to come teaching with us. We'll ask if he's available, he'll look on his blackberry, make a pained face, we'll see him delete some things, then he'll say he's fine and can come out with us. He gave this homeless man his watch the other day. Took it off his wrist and gave it to him so he could know what time his appointment was at and it definitely wasn't anything close to a cheap watch. So the ward’s really good here. I love it. If I could just participate and stop itching, life would be perfect. Love you all. You’re all great. Thanks for everything you do. The Church Is True.

Elder Cody Scott Johnson