Received Monday, August 5, 2013

QUESTIONS:

How was your testimony meeting today?

for me today, it testimony meeting was yesterday, and it was good. The friend who was invited was not able to come, but probably still will another week. The stake president and a few other stake people were here and (these were mostly expected) the branch presidency was changed, EQP and HPGL. the new Branch President is the old 1st counselor who seems like a really good guy and missionary minded. we're going over there for lunch today. the 2nd counselor just moved into the ward (this is their 2nd sunday) with his wife and 2 kids. He is from Germany, met his wife in London (as missionaries, both of them) and just moved to Connecticut from Chicago. I think they are kind of surprised to be so throwin into it so soon but are up for the challange. the EQP is someone who just got asked to start coming to this branch (he lives in the boundaries, but was going to a different ward. not sure why. I've seen a lot of that in the past year), which is interesting, but he did a good job in elders quorum and brought a non-member friend. Nothing exciting to report about the HPGL. he's a nice old guy (emphasis on the 2nd adjective) after the announcements there was not much silence, there was a good stream of testimonies basically the whole time.

Doing any sports today?

no, I don't think I'll be doing many sports in this area. My companion is not a big sports person and when I talked to the ZL's about organizing something with the zone, they said they would want to but we are just too spread out to have people to use the miles (which is unfortunately true). 

When you leave this area, do you think you will leave your library card for the next Elder to use?? Maybe your library card will become famous.

I don't think so. I guess they have some system here where all the libraries in western/central MA work together can accept the same library card, so I'll probably keep it. That is a funny idea though. For a lot of my time in Canton CT I was using elder Mars' library card, and he went home about when I came out.

The Hansens came over to N & B for dinner today. Haley was here – you know she just got home from her mission. SHE talked about Preach my Gospel DVD’s!! Have you heard of those?? She said she really enjoyed them. For her mission, each area had a set of the DVD’s. Have you heard of those?? The DVD’s are for the missionaries, for learning, not for investigators.

I do remember hearing she got home. Did I ever talk about when I talked to a sister she knew in her mission? in my first area someone serving there called and gave us a referral (I guess they do that there) and I remembered it was Haley's mission so I asked she knew Sister Hansen. She said yes! I think they were former companions.

I do know all about the PMG DVD's/The District. There are 2 sets. I (as instructed) watched some of them before I went into the MTC. you watch lots of snipets while in the MTC and you watch them while you are being trained in your first 2 transfers. All the apartments here have them too. Haven't watched anything in them in a while though. Usually it's about watching them doing a good job teaching and following the principles in PMG, but they also have some examples where they do a bad job and you learn from it. Probably the most famous part is when 2 of the elders do a really bad job teaching the law of chastity. they teach it to this guy and they are awkward and unclear and rush through it. In their next meeting the investigator talks about how he was at a party and he saw some girl he likes and he was tempted to talk to her and maybe ask her on a date, but they taught in the law of chastity so he didn't because (he thought) he wasn't allowed to. The missionaries then cleared everything up.

Talk about your weather.

Not as hot as when I first got here. It's been pretty pleasant actually. rains every once and a while. today sunny and blue sky.

Talk about your dinner appointments!! Same amount as in your last area? How has the food been? How are the families?

we do not have near as many. Every tuesday a non-member couple feeds us and every thursday we do service and then eat at a community dinner. other than that we ate once at the old branch presidents house (yummy barbeque) and we ate twice at the Graves house, a young couples, who unfortunatly just moved away. Interesting thought Brother Graves served his mission in Houston South speaking Spanish (I think was home before Chase got there though) and he had just got home from an internship down in Argentina. They fed us vegan burgers (tasted good) because he was tired of eating so much meat. Also he brought home some dulce de leche because they use it so much down there. I asked him if he had any of the warm milk in a bag, he said once and he did not like it. We did a quick FHE with them (it was monday) and sang Called to Serve in spanish. We are starting to advertise our calander a bit better and more people are signing up though.

How much is gas?

not sure I don't really pay attention. We just swipe the gas card and fill 'er up

Sweating much?

not lately

Have you gotten any new ideas for food from your fun, new companion?

no really new inventions, but a couple times we made pasta and mixed it with red sauce which I hadn't done in the past. Good and doesn't take too long.

Area you living with 1 other or 3 other missionaries? (I’ve probably asked this before…)

there's just 2 of us.

How do you like your apartment?

it's good. Nothing to complain about.

Do you (elders) help pass/bless the sacrament on Sunday?

there is 1 person who's calling it is to organize it. We have helped all 3 weeks I've been here.

ummm I told most of my stories while answering the questions. We got a baptismal date for 1 of our investigators (sept 1st) which is exciting. He's also quitting smoking. It actually was set while I was gone on exchanges with the ZL's.

We have a pretty good week schedules ahead of us which is exiting. Zone Conference on friday. Have you guys heard about the updates to the missionary Elders dress code? Backpacks and not "unprofessional and innapropriate" according to the church for missionaries. President is going to give us the full scoop. 99% chance i'm going to have to buy a man-purse satchel thing. seems silly.

that's all for now. Keep having a fun summer. Congradulations to Chase and Christopher for succesfully moving!

I love you all!