July 12th 2010

Hello,

Well I am glad you got to see the pictures. I look forward to seeing the ones you send me. I cant believe Spencer is already doing cub scout day camp. I remember when I was doing that, and it doesnt seem too long ago. Time sure goes by fast. And Happy Birthday to James. Well, not too much has happened since I last wrote on Wednesday. Its kind of strange having Pday on Monday, but I am sure I will get used to it soon. I have a few stories though. First of all, on Wednesday Elder Haley and I went on splits with the Elders Quorum presidency. I went with the Elders Quorum president, and we went to go see some less actives we are working with. It went really well. We have a great president, he is very down to earth and very good at connecting with people. And we wanted to take him to some of the less actives that we think are close to coming back, so we went out with the presidency, and I went with Brother Fell, the president, and both of the people we went we had great discussions with. We were able to have a good discussion with one member and then we went and saw another less active and he told us that he has decided to come back to church. He went less active after his mission and now he is like 30, but he knows he should be at church and always has known that and now he has finally doing it. :) He has come to church the past four weeks now and stayed all three hours. And its alot different over here, almost all of the members of the ward here are converts, i think there are only 3 elders in our quorum that grew up in the church, and so there are alot of things that the members here dont know, like how to do home teaching. So anyway, this elder that has started coming back will be a great help to the ward beacuse he is raised in the church, served a mission, and knows alot.
Also yesterday we had a cool story. We are instructed to tract every Sunday, because people are usually home on Sunday. And tracting is not the funnest or most exciting part about missionary work. But, we put it in our plans to do it, and then yesterday we were kind of behind schedule, and so we had the option to skip tracting because we still had enough plans that would take the remaining time. Well we decided that since we are told to tract we would. So we biked to the street we had picked out, and locked up our bikes, and we saw a lady sitting outside. Well we did what we are supposed to do, we went and talked to her and she knew who we were and she had mormon friends back in Georgia, who she had lost contact with. So we talked with her for awhile and then she asked if we had any literature that she could have. So we gave her a book of mormon and asked if we could come back and talk to her more about it. She said yeah and so we are going back on sunday. I feel like we were led right to her, because she was the first person we talked to and we never would have gone to the street except we picked it out to tract on. Then we were about to leave and another person came outside, so we talked to him too, and he had been to Salt lake and seen the Mormon tabernacle choir. And he also asked for literature, and commented on how we seem like really great people. We gave him a restoration pamphlet, and he wanted us to come back on Sunday too. So after we talked to him we needed to go, and as soon as we started biking, like on my first couple of pedals, my chain broke, and its amazing how much people watch us, because as soon as the realized we needed help, people came outside and starting asking if we neeeded any help. Well they werent really able to help because they didnt have tools to fix a chain, but it was still neat to see how much people watch us and respect us and wanted to help us, and we were very grateful for them. So we called a member with a truck and he picked us up and fed us dinner and then took us home and then today he bought me a new chain. And I have no idea how my chain broke, but if it had broken any earlier, we definitely would have had to cancel our plans for tracting. But the Lord let us get to where we needed to be, and he put us around nice people who were willing to help. He is watching out for us, and hopefully we will be able to have good lessons with these people next sunday.
Well our investigators are slowly but surely progressing also. Joylyn kind of had a funny story, well more like weird. We told her that Satan doesnt want her to come to church and will try to stop her. And she told us that she wouldnt let that happen, and that she would be there for sure, well then she didnt come yesterday, so we went to go see her and ask what happened, and she told us that she woke up in time to come but she couldnt move, and she watned to get up so she could come but she couldnt move. So we didnt really know what to say, or even what to think. Im sure she wasnt lying and that she really did want to come, but I wonder how bad it really was. But we get to have interviews tomorrow with President Perry, and i am excited about that, so I figured I would ask him what he thinks.

Well I am doing great in Hampton, I look forward to seeing all your pictures. Ill talk to you next week.