What an experience...

So I figure that since I haven't updated forever, it's time! I had a great time on my live-in with a family on the Isle of Man for 6 days and fell in love with the island. The family proved to be different that any family I've ever stayed with but I fell in love with four of their five children. The middle child was somewhat of a pervert and was found peeping through our door one morning, odd. I went with Lauren, one of the other BYU students and it was nice to have someone I knew to talk with. The family is young, with their oldest child at 13 and their youngest at 2. The parents are converts of ten years and it was neat to have gospel discussions with them. I must admit that I was shocked when I walked into their flat and saw the mess that the family lives in. They had food from three days prior left out and just filthy walls and floors. No carpet was on the floor and the heater came on every once in a while in the late afternoon, but other than that we were cold. I had the wonderful opportunity to be holding their cute little 2-year old when she wet herself and the diaper proved useless. That was when I finally broke down and used their bathtub to wash my hair and splash some water on me. Lauren and I only used the tub once each and that's more than I can say about the family. It was definitely a different way of life, but I sure learned a lot about the gospel and the way the family works. An experience to say the least.

We hiked up a big hill that you can see Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England from on a clear day.. we obviously missed out on the clear day thing but we traveled around the whole island on other days and saw each one from different sides of it.

Celebrating Guy Fawkes day on the Isle of Man with Caitlyn and Conner.

Keeva, Lauren, Aina (anya), and me goofing off on our first morning there.

James, me, and Lauren with the Church sign in English and Manx. Yes, we also saw some Manx cats there and took some pictures! There is only one ward on the Isle of Man. James was staying with the Bishop and we spent a lot of time with his family as well. He introduced me to the missionaries as his wife and convinced my family that we were interested in each other. Poor guy, I got brutally honest with him and told him there was no chance.