Here are a few pictures!! I will figure out a way to put more up later...
In my letter to Zak, I talked about some of the pictures he sent. He responds to my comments. I have tried to include here some of the pictures we talked about.

Zak and his companion Elder Beck

Zak's Halloween costume

wow, lots of good questions today

QUESTIONS:

1. it looks like your apartment has no bedrooms, just a kitchen, bathroom and one great room where you all sleep. Is that true? Or is that your choice in how to use the apartment? Could people be praying by their bed at anytime so you just have to be quiet and reverent? How does that all work? Hmm..where are your clothes...clothes...where do you get dressed? Now I really need some explanations...

There are 2 "bedrooms" but we just use them as our study rooms. I like the way our apartment is sent up. There is a little room with our washer and dryer. there are 2 bathrooms, one attached to each study. I think the 1 bathroom you see is the washer dryer room. It would be tough if we had only 1 bathroom, especially with morning showers Maybe I'll take a video tour of the apartment with my camera. It's always been set up that way (since I've been there) except we shuffled our beds around a little bit to fit the table. About praying: we have slightly awkward moments almost daily where you say something to someone only to realize they are praying. Luckily we do awkward things all day everyday so it doesn't make a difference anymore. usually when at night when I pray at my bed there is some conversation going on, but it's not a big deal. Every once and a while if things are especially rambunctious I'll pray at my study desk, which is in a different room. There is a 4 drawer dresser in our study room, Elder Beck has the top 2 drawers I have the bottom too. Also there is a closet where we hang up all our pants and white shirts and suits and stuff. I take a set of garments with me into the shower every morning and put them on after I shower. and I'll put my other clothes on wherever.

Have my explanations been thorough enough?

2. You look REALLY good!

False. I look EXCEPTIONALLY good.

Actually the other elders like to make fun of me because there's a few different people in the ward that sometimes call me "adorable", which is not a very missionary word.

3. beautiful temple pictures!

EXCEPTIONALLY beautiful temple pictures!

4. nice outdoor shots of your apartment

fair.

5. Talk about the blue and red body suits!! Where did they come from?? What’s the deal?

I thought I had written about them, I guess not. There is a family in the ward that owns a costume shoo and told us we could have whatever we wanted. We all got body suits like those. It was really cool of them. I was pretty disgusted at some of the costumes they were selling though (modesty, etc)

6. Will you have a companion cut your hair again? It didn’t look too bad.

I would, I'm not exceptionally picky about it. Elder Concha is the one who did it though and he's gone. Jackie Carmo (Less active who came to church 2 weeks in a row with us!!) is a barber so I'll probably have him do it. There is another less active who cuts hair who it would be smart to go too.

quick note: in missionary lingo there is no "innactive"; everyone who isn't fully active is "less active", so if I say less active I might be referring to someone who hasn't been to church in years. Also we always abbreviate it as LA, so I tend to capitalize it funny when I spell it in these emails. I think I usually catch myself though

7. love the mustache pictures

me to.

8. your Christmas tree is lovely

we have more stuff under it now (some stuff you've sent). Also we bought candy canes to hang on it.

9. are you warm enough in your bed with ONE blanket??

yes. The temperature is always fine in the house.

OTHER QUESTIONS:

Are you still running?

not really. We (Elder Beck and I) still wake up and 6. We go driectly to the mini gym in our complex. I don't spend time running most days. I spend 1 day working on chest, 1 day arms, 1 day back and abs, 1 day shoulders and legs. Also I spend 1 day doing a lot of running (on a treadmill. lame.) every once and a while. I think I'm going to switch up my rotation though. I warm up with a jump rope most days. Elder Beck spends basically the whole time running every day.

What do you do for exercise?

I'll a picture of our little gym. there's no free weights or dumbells, just machines.

Doing anything fun/exciting today? Tackling some famous football players?

Bill told me to stop picking on Tom and Wesley so much, so I haven't done that in a while.

We did a P-day thing with our whole zone today though. it's something missionaries here do a lot I guess. It's thins kind of dorky, very missionar'ish game with nerf guns inside a chapel. I spent 20$ on a gun. Griffin would be proud. I shot a lot of people.

Has their been any discussion about the Christmas Phone Call?

Yes. We'll almost definitely skype with the Simpson's laptop and Ipad, which should work great.

Do you think you will be able to skype?

Yes Ma'am

So, I will send the energy balls and your flashdrive back to you on Monday. Probably not in the same package...we’ll see. I really think I may use the same padded envelope that you (sent the flashdrive to me) used. I know, bad grammar structure; just figure out what I mean.

Glad you guys liked the pictures. It took me a while to remember what energy balls were, but I think I do not. Basically like cookie dough'ish stuff with oatmeal and peanut butter right? I remember liking them a lot. I'll have to eat them in secret so I can still help sustain Elder Beck in his diet.

I had heard that that silly fish word thing a few times, but I still failed the "quiz" until I saw the answer.

Yay for the Rams.
Ya, Chris is 19, but looks and acts younger. He's getting better though. He's doing pretty well.
We weren't able to meet with Miranda this week which was super lame. She didn't end up coming to church either because she was at a friends house and didn't have a ride home which was really disappointing too. She's still been reading and praying most every night though.
Very funny story about Kylie. Good for her. And good for mom at teachng and for quinn with his BYU stuff.

For me it's been another week thrashing the nations like usual. One of our investigators, Maria just got interviewed for baptism and will be baptized either this sunday or the one after. She is Chris (and a few other people's) Foster mom. She will be a strong member. She is already a strong missionary force.

One cool story before I have to go.
About a month and a half ago Elder Beck and I were trying to visit a former investigator. We didn't find him, but we talked a little to someone outside the apartment complex. He was in charge. He was slightly rude. Then someone else walked out and said hey I'm a mormon. We started talking to him. He grew up LDS but fell away as soon as he left the house. We didn't have his records in our ward. We had a good conversation for 5-10 minutes, then he walked off. He didn't want us to come back. His name is John Shaw
about 2 weeks ago we received his records in the ward. The Simpsons (who didn't know anything about our encounter with him) visited him and he had hit rock bottom. He let them in. They've been meeting with him since then and he came to church last week. It was great. It was cool to see a few """coincidences""" work out so well and help someone out.

Also I've gotten lots of mail from home this week which was been very fun. Griffin's christmas list is hilarious. ALso I got a package form LDS.org. (not opened).

Love you all! have a great week!

We're going to go visit a lady who's trying really hard to stop smoking so she can visit the temple. Bye!