The "Corn Sweats", and dreaming in English

Brendan is a hard nut to crack.
His e-mails seem to be pretty positive and upbeat, but it is a tiny bit hard to separate out the sarcasm. I will let you judge for yourself. I get more info from him when we e-mail chat back and forth, so it looks like until he gets the hang of the traditional missionary "weekly re-cap" type of e-mails, I will just copy and paste the weird stuff he does send us.
This is going to be an entertaining two years, I can guarantee.
Elder Wadley was assigned to his first area, Honey Creek. Officially the town his is living in is called Terre Haute, Indiana. When I google mapped the place, it looks like he is on the edge of a city, butted up against some farmlands. His first companion and trainer is Elder Eschler. I have done some internet sleuthing and can't find Elder Eschler on social media or a blog. I don't know much about him, other than I love him for helping my boy adjust to everything new.

Elder Wadley, Elder Eschler

Here is Elder Wadley's email from last week, and then I will follow that up with his e-mail this week. I missed posting last week- it has been crazy times around here.
His letters are a little back and forth as I ask him questions. I am not correcting, or adding punctuation. I feel like this adds to the flavor and adventure of translating his emails. Or something.

this place is seriously so fun i cant even explain it also got my bike haven't used it yet  i met sis anderson the mission secretary, she's super nice um we do a lot of tracting and I'm usually dripping sweat cause its so bloody hot here its great!

We have taught at least 10000000 people already we get food almost every day also it is currently p day and i love my trainer, Elder Eschler.

I haven't been to the temple yet but hey just btw in the mtc the last Sunday we were there elder bednar totes came and we saw him so that was insanely cool also i don't need really anything right also i have frogs now i think you know that though its super crazy here its totally bible belt country here and there's this thing we like to call "hoosiering" here its where people will talk for about an hour without letting you say anything its a really pleasant experience.

Elder Wadley catching frogs at the goat farm they went to for a service day.

I am going to pause here to add a Facebook comment from this photo posted by a high school friend of mine who is currently living in Indiana.
"It has been so unbearably hot and humid in Indiana this week. They call it a "corn sweat". It's when all the moisture produced by the corn fields gets caught in the atmosphere and the air becomes heavy and sticky. Hopefully it will cool off soon and make life more bearable for our missionaries.
Don't worry moms...we'll take good care of your boys for you!!!"
So sweet of her to explain that. It sounds kinda miserable. But Utah has been pretty rough too- it is just a hot year it seems.
Back to Elder Wadley's e-mail:

This p-day we went to the foster farms its this national champion goat farmer who has the missionary's over every saturday she really nice and makes good food cause everything is farm fresh its super good

my comp is super cool i love him the area is awesome don't let dad get too excited but a couple we helped move in the other day had a house that was built in 1909 so metal detect that!!  its not really that hot here its like a 100 degrees most days with 80 percent humidity it pretty awful hah The good new is that my english is good i actually had my first dream in english the other night so i think that is some kind of language milestone. haha love the president and wife both super nice people some pretty cool things have happened and last but not least im sleeping good

So there you have it. His English is great, and he has frogs for pets. :/
Here is our back and forth this week:

my week was super cool its was really rainy and stuff we got pretty soaked one day um we helped the fosters again also met a university of utah fan in our ward so that was cool  my comp is super cool we gave a blessing to a dude in the hospital. we have a couple investigators we had to drop one cause he answered the door smoking a joint had a bong on his table and needles on his table as well

Oh no. Why would you drop him? :/ How did the blessing go? 

it was good he was a drug addict as well

Tell me about the blessing? Who asked you to do it? Was the person a member? What was wrong with them? Did you give the blessing?

its this man named dean and hes a drug addict and has like 4 diseases in his heart and keeps going to the hospital so he asked for a blessing idk it went well i think i anointed elder Eschler blessed-its cool that people who aren't active still know that the priesthood is real and ask for blessings

ummm so we went to a park yesterday and i started talking to people because they were metal detecting and ended up talking to them for like an hour and half it was cool also ate at a members house yesterday and that had inca kola hahah 

So I guess that was the wrap-up of his first couple of weeks, if you can follow his random babbling. I did get some photos though. I just need to get him to organize his thoughts a little. Haha!
I do miss him like crazy.
This past week I have been thinking about how inspired the missionary program of the church is. Elder Jayden and Elder Brendan are brothers but so different. Elder Jayden is a little more serious in personality than Elder Brendan is. The people of Colombia are not used to sarcasm, and American humor.  Elder Brendan would look like a weirdo in Colombia. But- the people of Indiana must need someone who is quick-witted and slightly "off" because that is who they got.

Elder Fonohema, Elder Wadley, at the Provo Temple, during his MTC training

The Indianapolis, Indiana mission home.

His apartment in his first area, Terre Haute, Indiana

His MTC district, the new arrivals to Indianapolis, July 2016

Elder Wadley with President and Sister Carlson

I am happy that he is happy.
I am getting ready to send him a package full of laundry stuff. He said laundry is super expensive. He does it at a laundromat and thinks it is ridiculous to pay $1.50 a load! It makes my mama heart happy to see him learning that life is expensive, and to learn to budget. A few Tide pods and some dryer sheets might stretch his budget a little further.
There are so many perks to this mission thing.
Deeper appreciation for blessings, thinking of others before yourself, and insane amounts of testimony growth.
One month down.
23 to go.