Bikes and Gigs!

This week was awesome. I'm seriously loving mission work and getting accustomed to mission life, no prob (I think). 

I think dad will love this. So Elder Smith and I were thinking of new ways to do service in the community! He and I both play piano and guitar (and sing? Well he does, I try). So we went to a retirement home in the community and asked if we could play some songs for them, Elder Smith and I alternating on guitar and piano and singing for them. They said yes! They were so pumped, we're playing a mini gig for them this Wednesday and also playing their Halloween party!

This week Elder Smith and I did close to twenty hours of service. A couple times throughout the week I was thinking that all this service is preventing us from what I thought we were here to do: share the message of the restored gospel. But each time I had the thought, another thought came to me--well a scripture: Mosiah 2:18 that says when he are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God. I was truly comforted by that thought. We did everything from fixing bikes to bucking hay.

Last week I knew very little about bikes, nor their parts nor how to fix them [parent insert: not because we didn't attempt to get him more acquainted with bikes, he just never liked bikes]. Now I'm working on bikes almost entirely by myself. It's crazy what you can learn with a good attitude.

But about the bucking hay part. So I can scarcely recall a time where I've been to a farm let alone "buck hay." On Saturday after helping a lady move for three hours, we went to a farm in a rural, beautiful part of Idaho. We were helping a farmer (whose land our 'shack' is on) deliver six tons of hay to another fellow farmer. Yes. Six tons. Like 12,000lbs. We moved the hay from a trailer to a barn. The bales were heavy and to move them you have to do like a power clean, then move it to wherever. There were five of us and it took us only forty-five minutes to move it all. It was crazy!!! All of us were working nonstop and we deduced that each of us moved roughly one ton ourselves. I wish I would have taken pictures haha I was covered in alfalfa from head to toe and my lungs and nose were stuffed with hay as well, my snot was green for hours after. It was tiring and hard, but SO worth it. Serving others is always worth it.

Elder Smith and I continue to crank out lessons to investigators and less actives alike, please keep praying for us though! Love and miss all!!

Elder Tuscano