Happy Halloween, hello overcast.

Happy Birthday to Camille and Aaron. And soon to be Kate the great.

How are you all doing these days? It's barely November but our ward is already planning our super Christmas activity, and they have been for quite some time. Some new good news is that our branch just called eight new branch missionaries. Now that the fire of service and the Spirit are being spread throughout the branch we will get to focus our energies and make new sacrifices in order to help others to come unto Christ.

So I have a story. But first I must mention about our crazy next door neighbor named Dennis. He is indescribably himself, and very quotable. He is better than quoting a movie. Dennis is about 70 years old. He doesn't have teeth but remarkably he doesn't need them. He chews everything from hamburgers to steak with the bones of his gum. He has the craziest stories about fighting in wars, helping the king, and the queen, and Korat, and everyone, as well as stories about karate, being a doctor, being a guitar star trainer, building trains, and being a Templar Knight. It is also notable to say that he has pictures and other evidence to back up all of his stories. He's been working with "The Mormons" for over seven years. Mostly all he does other than smoke is related to one service project or another. He has a great heart. He just needs to completely forsake his rowdy days and come unto Christ. He gives everyone nicknames (except for me, I still don't have one). Also, he buys us tons of expensive farang food (foreigner food) for us to eat for free. He wants to take Elder Blaustein and I to go shopping for a nice suit. After all he used to be the best dressed in Thailand. Actually he still is. "They call me Old Handsome."

I'm pretty much out of time because we just got back from visiting a snake farm and watching the Snake show, but I wanted to describe a little bit of the fiasco that we had with looking for a new house. A member showed us a nice little house that she felt would work for the sisters. I, having no previous knowledge about houses or prices or contracts, desired to look at other locations so that I could at least have something to compare this house to. With some options I could make sure that I was choosing the best location. Also, Elder Petersen gave us a budget of 8,000 Baht per month for rent, and the house was only 6,000. I figured that maybe there was somewhere that was better and more fit to the sisters needs. So we went around and looked at several other houses and compared all of them. Another location looked good and the lady was willing to put the house for rent instead of sell it, so we considered that house. But it still didn't look that great to me. Another place close by was big but way old. It smelled funny when we entered. Then another option came up. This house was very new and very nice looking house. It had everything we needed. It seemed like an answer to our prayers. I talked to the landlord about the contract and pricing and asked her to put in another air conditioning system and a few other things. After figuring our the contract and rewriting it several times the landlord decided that she would like to live there and have us rent another house that was just about the same design and was just barely built. We looked at it, but I felt like her house was the better option so we asked if we could continue on with her house instead. She agreed. She was going to go to Bangkok that weekend which meant that she could buy the furnishings but naturally she needed to sign the contract first. We went to print out the contract but we ended up wasting time at one internet shop which wouldn't bring up the contract because of an illegal version of Microsoft Office. There were other stores but none of them had a printer. The last store had a printer, but it was full. We waited a bit for someone to leave and when we finally entered the store and tried to print out the contract, the printer was slow. Because that all took so long we had to change the appointment. The weekend past and we were ready to sign the contract again. However, by this time the Sisters who are the ones who are actually moving expressed that they didn't feel good about the house because of the location. The house was a little far from the church, and we heard that that area had a lower elevation than the surrounding area and thus it floods every year during rainy season. By this time we have only three more days left before the end of the month when we have to move. I had already scheduled an appointment to sign the contract with the landlord and was about to leave when the Sisters called and said that they met with a member and found another location. All along I am trying my best to follow my feelings and find the best option for the sister. For some reason as soon as they called about this new house I felt like I needed to cancel with this Landlord that we had been working a deal with for the past two weeks. So we biked over and canceled with that Landlord (she was a way nice lady too) and went to look at the new house that the sisters found with the member. We go to look at the house and lo and behold, it's the very same house that we first looked at but with a different member. Up to this time I had done well to avoid the stress from the situation and had worked things out well, but now I could feel the weight of stress increase on my shoulders. We continue on to talk to the landlord to work out a deal with her. The landlord had talked to the member whose name was Nui. Nui worked out a nice deal and the rich landlord agreed to giving us all of the furnishings that we wanted for an increase of rent from the origional 6,000 per month to 7,000. But Nui didn't do very well at correlating with me, and so when I went to go talk to the Landlord I found the most shamelessly greedy and unpleasant person I have ever met before in my life. She put on a big show. She was "stressed and "tired" from work and had very little time to work with us because she was "busy." She expressed how we were asking for too much from her and she wanted us to lower the amount of furnishings. She felt that the contract was unagreeable because of a little tax deal that she wouldn't understand because she didn't care to listen to me. She tried to push the need we had to move by telling us that she might not even put the house for rent anymore, but she'll leave it as a visitors house for when her friends come to stay. She was clearly playing the game to save money. I did my best to work with her and successfully worked out a temporary change to the contract, but did not do any signing. Then I talked to Sister Nui who's phone was off that morning and she explained to me that the Landlord was nice to her because she did something big for her in the past, and that actually 7,000 Baht is a lot for a house. Even though my budget was 8,000 she explained that her house is 3 stories and she is only paying 3,000 for it. She also explained that she had been looking to find another house all morning. Long story short, she found one. The landlord was very rich, very comfortable, and very open-hearted to accepting whatever our needs were. And the brand new house ended up being only 5500 per month and close to the church. The only downside is that it's a pretty small house. But the sisters love it, and after a little more convincing and work, she signed the contract. I feel like I learned a lot from the entire experience, and I am sure that the Lord needed me to learn a lesson from it to prepare me for the future. Last Saturday we moved the Sisters into their new house and we moved into the Sister's old house, and cleaned both places. The Lord continues to bless us and answer our prayers for more faith. I am just glad to get back to 100% missionary work again. It's the best.

I love you all. Keep reading the scriptures and following the spirit.

Love,
Elder Lilly

P.S. Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat.
Dennis is going to take is suit shopping. What is your opinion on me getting a suit?