New email!

I am doing GREAT! We are working with a couple part member families. That’s most of the investigators we have. We have families where the parents are inactive and want to come back to church, so they have us teach their kids. We are working with one guy who lied about his age and joined the navy in WW2 and joined the air force in Korea and Vietnam. He doesn't have many WW2 stories but his Korea stories are cool. About how his plane crashed and he got captured by Koreans and was held prisoner for a year and they tied him to trees and threatened to kill him if he didn't talk but he never did, Now that’s a true soldier. His name is Paul and we are working with him a lot, He says he wants to know as much as he can before getting baptized but we are trying to get him to rely more on the spirit. He's getting somewhere though. He says he read 1 Nephi 3 times in one day because he has a bad memory. I hope you can get some of that stuff to me soon. I need my light rain coat that mom got me too, it tends to snow a lot and my big jacket is a snow magnet. we were walking home from Walmart and by the time we got there I looked like frosty the snowman just a lot less jolly. I love the couple I am with, they are so funny and very generous, Brother and Sister Warby are really really old, but she's really nice and makes me feel like her own grandchild. I assume its cuz nobody really visits them and they aren't very mobile so they have to stay home most of the day. But its nice she talks about how her grandma helped the pioneers. I am doing great and having fun. You should also mail me my Batman beanie in one of the boxes I stowed away. I can wear it on P-days and when I am doing service which we do about ten hours of service a week so we do a lot. Hope you guys are going great and I'm getting my bike today.

New emails!

Hey Dad,

Its pretty good up here, I'm living with an elderly couple in their 80s and they are so funny. The entire mission I will be living with old lonely couples so I like it because its way cheaper and I only have to pay for food. We are teaching an old WW2 vet named Paul. He was a pilot and we are teaching these two kids also, their mom is a member and not active and she wants to come back to church so she asked us to come over and teach them last night. So far tracting we ran into one kid who was totally drugged out and told us to come back when his friends are gone so I don't know what’s happening there. We also went tracting on Saturday and almost got this guy to let us come back to teach him but then his girlfriend/wife came and said "We're not interested and closed the door" sounds like a dictatorship. She won't even let him speak for himself. That kinda ticked me off.

But anyways, that English couple that I told you about really wants to talk to you so you should call them back because they say they've been trying to get ahold of you. Love you Dad.

Hey,

I am doing awesome, the Twelve week program i guess just helps us ease more into the field, they gave us a goal to at least commit someone to baptism in the first week, but so far we haven't really found anyone to teach. They say in the MTC that baptism and confirmation is a big part because they don't have to know everything about the church to be baptized its just that first step. So we've been trying to tract which is cool, because we get the chance to talk to people of other faiths. Whether they say yes or no i guess doesn't really matter according to my MTC teachers because if they say yes then great but if they say no then it helps them to ponder more on it, so we can help them prepare for it. I did see Tate, I thought I told you guys, but yeah he drove me and about half of my MTC district to the mission home and then we had a long missionary seminar and drove to Cheyenne that night. We talked for a little and I think he tried to make sure I had a good companion, which I do. Last Tuesday night I had dinner with a nice old English couple named the Picot's (pronounced Peecos [the T is silent]).  So they want to talk to you guys. So this sounds a tad bit expensive but I'm gonna need about $500 for a bike. I swear I will take care of it. We just had to give up our truck to the district leader and I'm borrowing his bike as exchange till I get my own. He used to work at a bike shop and suggests that I get a good one so it will last and I can just sell it to a pawn shop, mail it home, or sell it to another missionary. The bike I'm borrowing is a $700 dollar bike and I really don't want responsibility over it because that’s expensive. So if you and mom could do that that would be awesome. There’s no snow out here now, but the wind is horrific we were riding in 60 mph winds on Saturday and it was trying to push me into the traffic, but its fine now. It seems that not very many people want to hear us, because lots of people just close their door when we tell them we're missionaries or they just say not interested which is fine i guess its better then people yelling at us which has only happened once but they didn't say anything bad they just told us to leave them alone. So, I'm doing my best and studying hard I miss you guys. Love you.

First Area // Cheyenne, Wyoming

Hey mom I did get the cookies and they were good, right now I have my first area in Cheyenne, WY. Its so great out here I'm so excited, My first companion is Elder Jones he's a good guy he's teaching me a lot about missionary life. I'm really happy too because an Elder in my district is here too so I get a familiar face. I'm at someones house right now because i guess in this mission old folks will set up there basement for missionaries to stay so its really nice up here. I will give the address next week because me and my comp are moving tomorrow. I'm so happy I came and I'm so thankful you pushed me into going so early. I will write you back next week. I love you!

P.S. the camera memory is full so I will send that to you in a letter soon. 

I also went and did a service project this morning helping a guy move stuff from his house to his garage. He was like in his sixties and was in a wheelchair. He's not a member but he might come to church on Sunday, so thats really exciting. Well I'm doing my best to serve the Lord and having fun doing it. We are going to go shopping in a bit and get me some food, so that sounds exciting. Hows work? Are the kids doin good?  I'm really happy here. I miss the people at the MTC but overall its not too bad and I'm glad I got a new companion because my MTC companion was crazy! He would take his shoes off in the middle of class and the teacher would tell him to put his shoes back on and then the next day we would have a different teacher and he would do the same thing. the day before we left for the MTC he got a sandwich which was in plastic and unopened but he stomped a whole in the snow and told everyone he was going to keep it refrigerate it and save it for breakfast on the way down the airport, not only that but when we did lessons would walk around and barely contribute. He was sleepwalking one night and he took someones cupcakes and someones pillow and blanket and we found outside our room on the floor sleeping with a half eaten cupcake on the ground and his hand was on the box and when he woke up he was like "how did I get here cause I don't sleepwalk" and tried to tell everyone that me and the other elders in there carried him outside and staged the whole thing. haha CRAZY!!!! But anyways I hope everything is going good. I always pray every night that the Spirit will stay in the home so I love you guys and hope you're all doing great. In a couple weeks me and my comp are supposed to help a farmer in our ward cut off cow genetles so that should be a blast. hope you're all doin good. Miss you guys, Love you so much. I'll write you back next week bye.