August 24 E-Mail

It's been a good week. We have met a lot of good people and are slowly building our teaching pool. To answer some of your questions, our area is really small. We are in the middle of two very large areas. But ours does have a lot of doors to knock on that haven't been knocked on for a long time. The area is probably like a mile by 3 or 4 miles. But we go all over it all day. We do a lot of biking and walking. But that's good. We keep the same schedule with eating with members. Four nights a week. We got here and they were being fed just about every night. But that is a mission rule so we had to change it. The girl who makes the dinner calendar was much happier with us. We have all kinds of places to go eat and shop around here too. Basically anything you can imagine. That's crazy that Brady's farewell is on Sunday. I remember when he got his call thinking that was forever away. I met the kid that is from Lehi that Brady knows. He was at that conference we had yesterday with Elder Christensen from the 70. It was a very good conference on how to feel the spirit. I really only had one interesting story from this week. We were knocking some apartments and we knocked the one on the second floor. Well no one answered so we started up for the third floor. Well I heard the door opening below so I jumped down there. Well it was this older sort of large man. In fact he was quite large. I asked him if he had spoken with missionaries from our church before. Angrily he replied with a yes. I asked him what he remembered. All he said was that he told the last guys that if they ever came back again he was going to "punch them out." Then he nicely asked me if I would like to be "punched out." And he was using quite the language. I almost started to laugh at him. But I was very polite and continued on. It made my companion quite mad. I don't think he had been in a situation like that ever before. But at least the guy didn't punch me. I felt pretty good about that. We have had a lot of people this week argue with us that we believe in the wrong Jesus Christ. And that Jesus Christ was not the spiritual brother of satan. So it has been interesting. At times its hard not to argue back. But all you can do in the situation is bear testimony and continue on. English work is much different than spanish. Every spanish person lets you in. Only the ones who are interested in english let you in. So it's harder to get in a door, but the door you do get in, the people are usually ready. And this past week a guy let us in who really is ready. His name is Ryan. (Pray for him that he will receive an answer to his prayers to know that this church is true) Well he is from Georgia and grew up as a southern baptist. He has been going to the baptist church here, but says that it's not really a baptist church. So he had a whole list of great questions for us. We answered them and he seemed to understand it all. The only thing was he didn't want to accept the Book of Mormon as the word of god. So we read the introduction with him where it says we invite everyone to read the book of mormon and to pray about it. So after that he was pretty quiet and just said wow. I guess I can't say anything about it until I do what it says there. We were really excited about this because he really is showing the desire to learn more. We have an appointment with him next Monday. We are also teaching a hispanic couple named Nelson and Mariella. They both have the desire to learn more too. The only problem there is that we have an appointment with them on Friday. Well Friday we will be doing exchanges and I will be here with an english elder. Therefore I have to speak all the Spanish. So hopefully I don't scare them away! Please pray for me on that one. Sounds like everyone is having a good time and staying busy. Mom the er sounds like quite the time. I was happy to get a business card from Lee's Mongolian with a little note from "Lee." That's pretty funny dad got light headed when you were giving Meesha her shot. I'm running low on time but I want you all to know that I love you! Thank you for all you have done for me. Keep going to church and you will be so blessed! It's sad to see the less-actives that tell you it all started out by missing one Sunday. So don't miss unless you absolutely have to!!!! Also continue to read and to pray everyday. Those are the three essential things. And I can promise as you do so you will notice a difference in your lives!!!!!!!!! I love you all so much. Thanks!!!