Received Monday, July 1, 2013

QUESTIONS:

What are your p-day plans today? 

Possibly tennis again, but it's raining! only lightly, so hopefully it stops.

How do you like grocery shopping...something you have to do, or do you kind of enjoy it?

almost always something I have to do. For about the past 6 months (with Elder Stevens/Holt) I've been with people are a bit of shoppers though. I enjoy being in the cereal aisle though; lots of fun options to pick from. Other than that I just make sure we get my small list of things we need and make sure we don't waste too much money on weird/random stuff. Elder Stevens is pretty thrifty though, which is great. I'm a bit surprised sometimes though when people are only somewhat converted to the idea that it's actually cheaper to shop by the pound.

What songs did you sing in church yesterday?? We sang ALL versus of America the Beautiful AND of the Star Spangled Banner!!! It was GREAT! Loved it.

this is what I remember: Jesus, Once of Humble Birth, and Battle Hymn of the Republic. We sang a patriotic hymn last week though, someone seems to have gotten a bit mixed up.

How has your weather been?

a bit warm, but not California hot. Very humid. Lots of rain too.

Do you take a bottle of water with you when you leave the house?

No. Elder Stevens has a camel pack he uses sometimes though. I never feel the need.

I guess it is true, no Cicada sightings for you....

:(

I would assume it is soon time for a haircut, will you have your companion do it for you again?

We just had a member do it about a week ago. He did a good job. good memory about when I last had one.

Any plans for Thurs, Independence Day??

Ward party from 12-2:00. Everyone is invited, bring your friends! we are! 2 investigators have already said they'd come and others + some less actives could as well. They do a pie baking contest here. No sports component, partially because its "too hot. Weak Sauce.

That's sad to here about [Aaron Hernandez, played football for the Patriots] Hernandez! I have not heard any sports news from anyone here. After a couple of days after the NBA finals ended I did ask someone and was sad to hear the result. The next week at church the sunday school teacher quoted a news article about how much money they spent on alcohol for their party afterwards, I don't remember exactly how it related to the lesson though.

Who on the Rams made the top 100? Chris Long? Bradford? that on CB from the Titans? do they have a good lineman?

The Garden looks good! {I sent pictures of our growing garden} is this the prime of the garden ever at the cole family house?

I'm glad bishop liked the story from the my mission presidency! it was actually president Haight, the other counselor who pulled over and shared the gospel with someone, who then met with the missionaries.

In your email after you went to the beach you had the line "Then we did my favorite thing and drove home by..." and my brain automatically thought you were going to the burned down house! not that time I guess.

we had another good. week. It seemed like we did a lot of service. One day we spent some hours digging in the front yard of a part-member family house. I enjoyed it. I've been a fan of ditch digging ever since the giant hole in our front yard.

We also found a new great investigator this week. His name is Bob ----, he's 65. Our paths just crossed when we were out and about one day and he said we could come on by. He's been a strong Christian for a long time, but doesn't think it makes sense that there are so many Christian churches, when Christ only made 1. We agree Bob! we met with him twice this week, and he came to church and the linger longer afterwards. all went quite well. He already agrees so much with most everything we've talked about. he just needs to be humble enough to really take Moroni's promise to heart. That's how he'll be truly converted, much more than just being happy he found a church that lines up with what he already believes. All very exciting for us. 

The members we've brought with us have done a great job being friends with him and people at church too. Also he likes basketball and some people in our ward play every Saturday so we'll probably go this weekend and play too with Bob, plus there's a couple non-members that come often we'd like to meet too.

So a week from yesterday we had a great meeting with the bishop's family and talked about their missionary endeavors and we're supposed to email them today to follow up on how it went, so I'm going to do that now.

Thank you for the great email! keep doing good things!