Ocean, fruit trees and...spiders?

Apparently there was an issue with the lds server on Monday and because of this many, many moms (and dads) were waiting and waiting (and waiting some more) for emails from their beloved missionaries. 
We were no exception. After checking all day and then most of the evening, and still not receiving anything, I began to get a bit discouraged (and sad !) 
Then suddenly an email arrived !! Yeah !! It contained 5 pictures. Awesome !! But nothing else :-(  No comments, no idea what pictures were about, nothing. 

Finally, on Tuesday morning (5:31am to be exact) the long awaited email arrived!! Here are excerpts from Elder Routledge's first email from California. Enjoy. 

It was really good leaving my district but also hard. After talking to you, though, I was good. I got on the plane to Santa Barbara and went to a really small airport, like ant size small. It was crazy small. (I think the airport might have been a bit smaller than LA lol). 

President and Sister Felix 

We were met at the airport by the Mission President and his wife and they are soo nice. They took us to go to a picnic on the ocean beach. 

Man, it was so cool seeing the ocean. It was soo beautiful and the sounds were amazing. The food here is pretty good. 

Then after the ocean lunch, we went to a really high mountain and saw all of Ventura. It was crazy and the the view was amazing. After we went back to President Felix's house and studied and had a big dinner there and stayed at a members house that night. 

View overlooking Ventura

 

Tuesday was transfers and time to find out where I was going to serve and with who. My companion's name is Elder Hunt and he is 6'6", so really tall, but the tallest elder we have is 7'3" and man was I small beside him. I live in a city called Fillmore and I serve there, Santa Paula and Peru. It's very nice and man, oh man, you can drive for 20-30 miles and all you see are citrus trees. Oranges, lemons, limes and strawberry's as far as you can see, and then in the background is all green mountains. It is so gorgeous. I can not see the ocean, but the view I do see is just as good. 

I live in Fillmore with 2 Spanish Elders. They live upstairs and I live down. 

Oh, your going to hate this. There are poisonous spiders that can kill you with just one bite and they found one in my room, so I tiptoe through the apartment haha (why, oh why did he have to tell me that ??!! Now I have to worry about earthquakes and spiders???) 

Well, I am okay now, but at first I was a little scared. I thought I should give you some scary news and they are about the size of your thumb or bigger, but hey, I am not dead yet haha wink wink (Oh, that boy of mine !!) Our apartment is very clean and pretty nice. 

Elder Routledge and Elder Hunt 

On Wednesday, I did some service at a Senior Centre. It was fun and I got free food out of it. The people were great. They have ghost chili peppers here adnd I am going to eat one. Today we went walking and found a few new investigators and we had a member dinner. Oh man, they reminded me of you guys making all kinds of jokes with us and cracking up the whole time. It was great. 

Thursday I taught a young girl. She is cool and wants to be baptized but she is only 16 and needs her moms permission but she won't say yes and sign the form but we will keep trying. Another guy we are teaching is a less active named Jared. He is so strong and him and I really connected and we are helping him to come back to the church. He is a good dude and he came to Stake conference this weekend.

Looks like a fun bunch of Elders and Sisters 

Friday we went on a blitz, which is when you do a short companion exchange. I rode a bike and talked to 4 people, one took a book of Mormon and the other 3 really listened. Oh, they have donut shops everywhere here, I LOVE IT. 

On Saturday, oh man, we went to our ward mission leader's house. He lives on a huge hill that overlooks the whole valley. It was so nice up there. We had lunch and we saw the view and it was great. This guy has his own shooting range up there and his own mountain. It was a great day. 

There is this really big cow who, from what I've heard, likes to lick cars and chew on car antenna's which is strange. Stake Conference was this weekend and it was a good weekend. My companion was sick this week, so it's been a slower week, but man oh man, it goes by fast! 

Tell everyone back home I love and miss them. Say hi to my boys, yep my boys, Jared, Brandon, Austyn. 

 

yes, that is Elder Routledge in the BACKGROUND