Received Monday, October 21, 2013

have you met anybody that has ever before played Minecraft?

Yes! there was a boy in primary in my last area that loved minecraft. He talked about it all the time. Many others I've met play it too. I don't really get it.

Have you been making a new/different food for yourself lately?

We got steak from someone who just had it extra in their freezer, but we gave it to another family we know who is waiting for the branch president to come back so they can do  food order. On friday we were on exchanges and I and the person I was with decided to splurge and go to a local pizza place and get calzones. They were so good. Also we were given (by the same people as the steak) some ground beef which we'll make with pasta and red sauce when we are hungry and have time (and are not lazy)

Had any interesting dinner appts?

last week was basically a drought for dinner appts. Yesterday though we had an Octoberfest themed Linger Longer. there was some good braughtwerst (no desire to figure out how to spell that) and other foods. Also homemade root beer, which was good, but I only had a little. I am hungry, will probably eat microwave pizza single at home. We do have a fun dinner appt later today.

How are your investigators doing?

R--- and A----. We didn't have much contact with them this week, things kind of fell through :/ I don't expect anything terrible, but that's not good. over all I would say still like learning the gospel, but still living together (can get married in February).

B--- R------. (his wife just died about month ago) we had a very good 2nd lesson with him this week

N--- D---- (also studying with JW's. Has a hard time understanding. Very nice and strong desires to do what he must to go to heaven). Things also fell through with him. He called us to let us know and reschedule though.

F---- family (PMF). Sister F----- is unfortunately the queen of canceling. The lessons there awlays seem to go great though. I hear the best strategy is too show up 15 mins early so she doesn't have time to cancel. I expect very good things. They seem to be related to everyone in town and they all are sort of interested in the gospel. We need to find a way to get some consistency though.

B------ K------. Doing well. Comes to church every week, but only the first hour. Possibly baptized in November. The hard thing is we likes to leave church early so he can spend more time with his (catholic) busy family. It's hard to be the only member in a family, basically I think it comes down to you need the faith to believe you living the gospel the very best will be the best thing for your family. He is a big believer in leading by example, which is good (he is married with 3 kids). He just finished being the lead in The Death of a Salesman. We helped him with practicing lines which was fun.

People talking about the world series out there? Boston Red Sox and all….

not a ton. I didn't know about the world series till I read the email. I think part of that is the members don't bring it up to us. We did service at a Blood Drive and I was again with the people at the end at the food table (where I like to faint) and as I would talk with the people almost all of them mentioned they were going to watch the game that night and how Big Papi got them that one big comeback. I don't think i've encountered to many big sports fanatics here, but almost everyone is at least a passive fan. It's the social norm to watch the games.

What are you doing for p-day today?

Magic. Also we drove up to this hill to take some pictures (there was a tower on top called poet seats tower. Very good scenery. Also there was some low quality graffiti, except for the words of wisdom painted on the bottom of the steps "watch out for hobos" which I thought was funny). I'll figure out about getting them home sometime soon (the pictures, not any hobos)

**our missionaries here in our ward have switched over to the missionary bag with one strap; just like you. I guess THAT IS the new way of things.

remember at conference President Monson talked about shepards? I think it was during the priesthood conference. Reading this and remembering that caused Elder Gallagher and I to have this conversation

me: Elder, what was that really cool name you said during general conference for our satchels?

him: oh ummmm, it was Shepard's bags!

me: yea!

Then I wondred if it is an odd missionary blessing that I get to think the name "shepards bag" is really cool for my man-purse. 

anyway.

It would be interesting to see Tim Tebow on the rams! it sounds like Bradford is kind of what makes everything work there though. Both StL and Sjax seem to have a hard time staying away from bad luck.

This was a good week, seemed to go by very fast.

We had a miracle thursday night. There is a member in out branch that has PTSD who normally loves to come out with us to lessons, and be very actively engaged with church in many ways. but sometimes goes into depression slumps. He was in one. We've tried to contact him for a few weeks with limited success. Thursday we called him, had a 10 or so minute conversation, which seemed good, but he still was very discouraged and didn't plan on coming back to church this week or anything. Afterwards we texted out EQP and asked him to give him a call. He said he was just thinking about that member and did. Afterwards the EQP texted us and said the member would be at church on sunday. He was and seems ready to get right back into the swing of things. It was great.

I guess thats why its cool to have "shepard's bags." We get to have many experiences trying our best to be a "true undersheperd" and do whatever we can to help the flock.

That's everything! Keep doing good! have fun being pricked by needles and all the rest!

Received Tuesday, October 15, 2013

QUESTIONS:

Did you go to San Diego for stake Youth Conference…flash mob, etc? (relates to last week’s letter….)

Yes. I think Steven was my FHE "dad". That may have been my last one, I don't remember. Also, 2 Sisters back from my MTC district went to that mission, serving in the Mormon Battalion visitors center thing.

How did you watch conference? How as it for you?

At the church. We set up the TV and everything. saturday morning 1 other family was there with us. For priesthood I think 4 or 5 other families were represented. they said for priesthood that people were now able to watch it at home, but if possible they should still watch it in the chapel. It was interesting to see who came. We enjoyed it very much.

Do you want me to send you the Ensign with all the talks like I did before?

yes please!

ARE YOU TRANSFERRED? What is that news?? – obviously not…..

I'll reply in spanish: No.

Did you have any BIG weather? I heard about big storms over the weekend.

I feel like no. I think it did rain kind of hard one night, hard to remember. It did at least for a little while because I remember we went out without any umbrella's or anything so we got kind of wet. It's a good thing I'm not an evil witch from the Wizard of Oz I guess.

Is this the last transfer for your companion?

It is! you can tell he has a mixture of all the emotions that would accompany being in that situation. Going to try to work hard to finish things out. 

Did you get last week’s e-mail ….ever….from the library e-mail?

I did not, it was fun to get in the mail though!

I mailed you a nice box full of stuff….letters, ward bulletins, rice krispie treats…did you get it yet?? I was hoping for Friday or Saturday delivery!

Have any pictures to send by flash drive?? Just wondering…

I did! the krispie treats were so good. They did not last long. With something like that I always end up eating like 4 at a time because their just sitting there, so why not! Elder Gallagher says my wife better not be a good cook.

The wednesday P-day we did down in Amherst was very fun. Hours of sports. We did some basketball, volleyball, dodgeball and a free for all dodgeball game I first learned from Steven. Not too brag, but I kind of dominated. Oh I'm gettingt kicked off the computer. I'll see if I can get back on then.

Bye!

ZAK SENT A 2ND E-MAIL A LITTLE LATER:

We're at a different library because our usual one has no internet.

Going to the temple yesterday was also very nice. I'm very grateful to be in a mission with a temple. We saw the old video though because someone in the session needed language translation they don't have updated yet.

Interesting update about sports. Are the Broncos still Christopher's favorite team? I can never remember. How do they feel about Peyton living out his days as a non-colt?

I'm trying to remember what happened since last monday. I also got a package from the Primary with lots of notes and candies. Griffin's note had some questions. One of them was something like "how many Red Sox fans have you met?" I have probably met about as many Red Sox fans in the past 15 months as subway sandwiches Dad has eaten in the last 15 years. Thats a lot.

Yesterday on the way back from the temple we contacted some people who are normally too far away to get too and we contacted a string of people that were all very nice, which I appreciated. Mostly they were not interested, but but very kind. Not that a ton of the people we contact are usually obnoxious and crude, but these people almost made you stop and think 'hey, we should be friends!'. It made me want to make sure I am as nice to people as I can be even if I don't agree with them. Also it reminds me of one of the things President Monson said in his short last talk of general conference, something about "maybe be a little kinder".

One thing that was kind of interesting happened sunday morning. We were in branch council, about 20-30 mins before church starts and we got a phone call from an investigator. He said his Sunday plans changed and he actually wanted to come to church if he could get a ride! we were able to scramble and get him one in time from someone who was already at church.

Ok, that's everything. Sorry this one was shorter. Love you

Received Wednesday, October 9, 2013

this week has cruised along pretty well. We get to go to the temple this Monday, which will be very exciting (have you guys gone since it changed a little bit?).

I have a few peanut butter related stories I remembered I could tell. A few weeks ago we had dinner at the Roberts family. They're great. the daughter wasn't going to be at church because she was going to a camp or something with her Shakesphere group, and when the group heard she was going to leave early to come to church on sunday they said she should stay and they could all go to her church together! So her whole group went to the local LDS unit nearest there camp. That was cool, but not peanut butter related, but the dinner was. We sat down and the food on the table was 1. Lettuce, 2 Tomatoes, 3 Potatoes, and 4 a pot of orange thick gravey looking stuff. They explained in the pot was a peanut sauce (basically like melted peanuts I guess)  which you pour on top of the food. And that was the meal! lettuce with potatoes and tomatoes with a peanut sauce on top. I almost never ever like tomatoes, but I didn't mind them on this. It was interesting and different, even kind of tasty. I think they like to try to be vegetarian, I can't remember for sure though.

This week we invited the father of that family to come to a lesson with us. He came, and it was good, and he gave us some chocalate cake to take home. After taking a bite it was clearly a peanut butter chocolate. It looked like regular, but the frosting must have been some peanut butter concoction. Very interesting. Sister Roberts must like peanuts a lot or something.

BTW does dad ever get invited to go out with the missionaries? If there is an active man (ages 16+) in our branch that doesn't come out with us at least occasionally it's because they've rejected us the multiple times we've asked.

the third peanut thing is our attempt and making chocolate peanut butter bars (peanut butter, nesquick and milk and popped int eh freezer). They were interesting. certainly not bad, but only on the fringe of actually good. We need to do something to make it more chocolatey. Not sure nesquick alone can do it. We'll try a batch with Breakfest Essentials to make a healthy version too.

Of course we really really liked general conference. A lot of missionary talk on saturday! (notice the exclamation point!) We're going to start making index cards or something with our investigators names on it so we can give them to members to ask them to pray for them, as the speaker, Nielson talked about. He is coming to our mission in november. (I think it was spelled Nielson. He is 70.) One of our investigators said she cried during President Monson's talk. I lot of people talked about how even if something immoral becomes legalized, and accepted, it is still wrong in god's eyes. We wonder if something bad is going to get legalized soon.

President Monson talking directly on home teaching was also interesting. There were tons of very good ones.

We are driving down to Amherst today for Pday with a lot of our Zone. Not positive what the main activity will be. Maybe basketball, which would be exciting. We're going down to the card store today so Elder Gallagher can buy more magic cards. The people there (the ones working and the people who just hang out) are the height of geekyness, and very nice. We think they should get baptized.

An interesting thought came to me during a lesson yesterday while Elder Gallagher was talking. We were talking about how Alma (I think in Alma 28) says he wishes he was an angel and could declare the gospel to everyone and they all would listen. Do you remember Alma's conversion story? He did literally have an angel come and call him to repentance, which would be why he wished everyone could have the same experience. I think that stuck me because I think along those same lines sometimes; I was born into an LDS family surrounded by mission-goers and good examples. Why can't everyone have that? Why did I? I don't really know the answer, but we're all put where we need to be. We  need to march forward with the knowledge we have, love those around us, carry our cross, try to learn what Heavenly Father wants us to do, and do it!

That's everything for now. I'll be be be here to "talk" next week (maybe tuesday because the library is closed).

Love, Me

Received Monday, September 30, 2013

Weather…how is it…any snow…dressing warmer?

pretty good. Always wearing a long sleeve shirt, and that is just fine. This week actually was even a little warmer. The temp would have to decrease by half to snow. Sorry for Quinn and the Rexburgites

Any yucky dinner appts? Just know they tried hard?

no not really. Someone took us out for all you can eat clams once. That wasn't fabulous, but not too too bad either. I don't really want to do it again either. They were fried, served with french fries.

Heard any songs about the Fox?

i have not. I wonder how many non-church songs I hear in an average week. Probably 1 or 2.

Do you do any random knocking on doors?

Not often. Usually when we do it's when we're looking for a innactive member or something and when they're not home or have moved we ask all the neighbors if they know anything (or if they''d like to learn about the restoration. They actually do,  but they usually don't realize it)

What are your plans for the day?

Before We came here to email I used basically the alst bit of peanut butter in the jar to make a sandwhich. Then I noticed the Nesquick sitting near by. I decided to pour some into the PB and see if it came out yummy, like nutella. After some experimenting With Elder Gallagher (it took more nesquick than expected and added a tiny bit of milk) we ended with something that tasted good! maybe we'll try to make a big batch and freeze it and make some chocolate peanut butter bars. 

I DID send the magic cars last Monday, have you gotten them yet?

We just barely got the package today! I haven't really looked at it or read the letter inside yet. Thank you! If you ever come across more you can feel free to send them too. Pistachios were also a good choice, always a good snack food

Who do you get letters from?

I'm mostly at that stage of the game where 90% of the time I just get letters from the person who gave birth to me.

That's not exactly true. I got a letter within the last two weeks from Sister Sotis also. She's very nice. Also I've gotten a few emails from my friends Janna (from High School).

Have I talked at all about the online missionary work here in the MBM? It's inspired. Anyone can do it. I'll explain.

"They" (the future and current millionaire internet minds involved with the mission. Both missionary and members. There is a missionary here who won a hacking compention and was featured in CNN. He could have gone straight out of highschool and make a 6 digit paycheck because he won. He was a  big part of making all thing.). But anyway, "They" developed a "portal" online, so they can track when people post religious related things online. Newspaper articles, blog posts, whatever. Millions and millions of people every day google religious questions like "who is god" or "how can I forgive a sibling" etc and then end up reading the religious things that have been posted online. with the "portal" they made they can zap right to the website when something is posted and make a comment  that says something like "I know someone who went through a similar experience, and their religon helped them through it. (or someone who's thought about and wrote about the same topic, etc) and they posted it on this website here (and they post the link). The link takes them to Reallifeanswers.org a webiste with blog post style articles (about 500 words) about such topics. The problem is they do not have enough articles! That is what they need help with. Anyone who wants to can write one. The process is to write the article, then send it to 2 non-member friends to read, so they can see it and give imput as to whether it makes sense from a non-mormon perspective. It then can be sent to the webiste people for use. They asked all of us missionaries to write articles. I wrote an article about how God shows his love to us, and I sent it to Janna. She happily agreed to read it, to which I am grateful. I'll write more next time about how to write an article if you'd like. Also I'll include mine at the bottom if you want to read it (and if you feel so inspired you could send it to a friend and ask if they have any comments.) I wonder if Mom would enjoy something like this

Does your companion get stuff in the mail?

basically never.

What time do you have to call in to your ZL every night? You do that, right?

we talk to them every sunday night, thats it. usually around 9 or 9:30.

Do you shower in the morning or night?

Morning

That looks like all my questions.

Looks like all my news too.

I hate to end my letters…I wonder if that is how Heavenly Father feels when we end our prayers?
Very intereseting perspective!

one of the parts of the Book of Mormon I've read more than others is Enos. He makes sure to pray for all the people he feels needs it. He put a lot into his prayer and got a lot out. It is a great way to learn out to "cry in mighty prayer in suypplication" as he says.

Hmmm

that is everything! sorry I didn't have too much time today. Next p-day is wednesday. Things are going great! Very fun and rewarding.

I love you

Received Monday, September 23, 2013

I you get some mail from me this week…seems like I might have sent something, but I just can’t remember. I sent Quinn a sweatshirt which he got…. (I JUST remembered what I sent!! It was great!! Hope you got it!!)

what sweatshirt? you should make one that says "I'm wearing this because it feels chili" and have a picture of a chili dog or something. I just thought of that, could maybe use some work before final production.

 I feel like I've gotten a lot from home recently. Last P-day I got the package with the Chocolate stick thingys which I gobbled. Also it had another chocolate bar thingy, which Elder Gallagher and I saw earlier that day at BJ's and we considered buying one, and huzzah you sent it! Also I have a orange skull mug (which is good to drink chocolate milk out of). Also I got airheads. All was much enjoyed by me and my compadres

 

OH! I will get your magic cards sent today!! Expect them at the end of the week.

So you won’t be playing Magic for p-day today, what is on your agenda?

nice. If they're too hard to find or something don't worry about it.
So last P-day elder Gallagher bought a magic card box that cost 20$ that had like 225 cards in it, so we easily built 2 decks out of it, so it IS on the agenda.  There is a monday holiday coming up, and a member mentioned maybe playing basketball with us, which has a slight chance of happening, but I might be the only missionary in the area (out of the two of us) who is super keen on it

Do you have an organist at church, or someone playing the piano?

organ! but the she is only there like half the time (she travels a lot. Chinese. Married to our branch president. Great family. She sometimes asks funny questions).

 

How were the talks at sacrament meeting on Sunday?

pretty good. There was a youth speaker, an adult speaker, a stand up rest him (I think every ward should have one) and one more adult speaker. A lot about prayer. The last speaker is the 1st counselor and he talked about how when they pray as a branch presidency, president kemsley doesn't just start talking right away afterwards, he sits and listens for a moment. It made me stop a think for a minute about having the faith to listen after we pray. Some thing I've thought about a lot actually.

 

Do you (and your companion) stand at the door and greet the people as they come in?

often. When there's not someone I'm specifically talking to or introducing myself to then that's the standard go too point.  I really try to make sure I know who everyone is who comes in/introduce myself if I don't. Yesterday I did miss someone, but found out later from someone else who she was.

What did you do for your exercise today? What do you usually do? Lizzie rolls over. She has great core strength.

We have a bench for bench press with some weight on it, and I did one set of those. I got on the ground to do crunches, which is my normal routine, but I was super tired so I got on the bench and did something to make sure I wouldn't fall back to sleep while lying down. Normally I try to do I do 200 little cruches and then about 30 (perfect) push ups.

 

Conference is coming up; how/where will you watch it? How far way is your church building….time to drive there?

I bet we'll watch it at the chapel. Maybe we'll be able to have our investigators over at members homes and we'll watch it with them. Our church is about 15 mins from where we live. Many people here live about 40 mins away. People have been that far away in each of my areas so far, makes you grateful for being so close.

 

I will just close my letter today by telling you how grateful I am for the gospel; to have it in my life, to understand my purpose here on earth and that I can improve myself. I am grateful to have the scriptures. They are beautiful and they do have eternal truths. I know that Jesus in our Savior. I know that he knows each one of us and loves us. I feel so blessed to have this empowering knowledge. I am grateful to you that you are spending your days sharing your testimony and the message of Jesus Christ to others. It is the sweetest gift.

Thanks mom!

We had a couple interesting things this week. Like I mentioned last time we had interviews. President always just kind of asks "how are you doing?" and then "what do you want to talk about?" The past couple times he's had a cushion to kneel on. He mentioned about how he wants Elder Gallagher to be a district leader before he goes home, and he decided to make the switch right then! none of us knew you could switch the DL without being transferred or you could switch it half way through. I told him I was un-offended and liked the idea. we talk together about the decisions and everything and it's good.        

We're still working on building the branch mission plan. President Kemsley decided he wanted to read the book Power of Everyday Missionary before finalizing any ideas, which I think is pretty neat. He's always very complimentary and grateful towards Elder Gallagher and I.

We're worried about one for our investigator families, they're learning and likeing the gospel, but theres a couple key things they're not repenting of and it's making them feel really guilty. I just read Mormon chp 9 recently and there's a couple verses that explain something really well. It's basically the LDS doctrine of the big H E Double Hockey Sticks. He says when you understand your sins and you understand god you would be far more miserable to be around him, a pure being, than with the other unclean souls. As our investigators come to know God better the guilt is building and soon they're really going to have to decide whether to truly repent or they'll end up pushing god totally away again. It's a little scary, but we're doing all we can to help the choose right!

One more thing, I'll ask for help about (anyone who wishes may reply). Mom's testimony reminded me I was going to ask. can you share with me some different ways sharing the gospel has blessed different aspects of your life? Brought our family closer together? reduced stress? brought peace?

we're really trying to help the memebrs here see and feel how sharing the gospel does bless every part of life. I can feel it and see it so clearly because thats my whole life right now. The more personal experiences and testimony I can have te share with others would be awesome if that's ok to ask.

Thanks you everyone, keep choosing the right! Jacob says "Oh be wise, What more can I say?" I've always liked that, we know the truth, so just be wise and live it!

Love, Elder Zak

Received Monday, September 16, 2013

Do you still call “it” the poop-shack?

haha, sometimes, not often. I've told that story to a few people though.

It seems transfers should be coming up again soon…true?

false. we're starting week 3 of the 6 week transfer today. right in the middle

Was there a story on your ending of last weeks letter; which really didn’t have an ending…were you suddenly kicked off the internet?

yes, sort of, i don't remember perfectly. I was running out of time, but accidentally did something that deleted everything! I tried to find something that would Undo, but couldn't find anything. Elder Gallagher said just push send and see what happens. It worked!

Any rain lately?

yes. It seems to rain here fairly often. There is a bridge going over a river we go over every day and its kind of fun to see how it goes up and down depending on the rain. There is a little island in the middle, and sometimes it's all covered except the trees, like the trunks are growing straight out of the water.

Any dinner appts last week?

ummm yes. There is someone here, Brother Biddle, who comes out with us to lessons at least every week, and he almost always takes us to lunch too. Usually subway. We used to love Burger king because they had 1 dollar bacon burgers, but those were discontinued :(

The relief society president had us over yesterday, she does that every other week. It's always her, 1 or 2 other RS sisters and a guy from the branch. It's hard to really talk missionary work in a group like that, but it's always fun. We also got fed by another family in the branch, they have 5 kids all in primary. Plus our usual tuesday dinner at a non-members (have I mentioned that?) and our usual thursday service at the community dinner, so we were fed pretty well.

That reminds me, we have left over spaghetti at home from yesterday. That will be good.

Do you find many people that don’t know you are a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints….because of your dress….meaning that they have heard of the church?

I feel like basically everyone recognizes us as missionaries, but they don't always know what church. I've been asked "what are you selling?" a few times. Some people recognize our full name (LDS), some don't. Most all recognize "mormon" but not everyone.

last week we got a call from the referral center (this time it happened to be a Sister from the Oakland visitors center I think. I guess I should have asked what they have there that constitutes a visitors center), telling us about someone they've chatted with on mormon.org who logged on because of a card we gave them. That was fun to hear because we give out so many of those

Doing any fun activity today?

we got a free 60 day membership to BJ's, (do we have those in the west?) which is a lot like Costco, so we're going to try shopping in there, so I guess sort of?

You played tennis once; was that in this area? Were there just random rackets there? I could send you some of those big, foam tennis balls. That could be fun, if you had rackets and if there was a tennis court and if your companion wanted to play.

that was in my last area. there were random rackets, and some balls, but we also bought new balls because they were pretty dead. I think we played 3 times. It was ok, because it was nice to run and get kind of sweaty, but I was playing against my companion, Elder Stevens, who had no sports/athletic type background. It was a paradigm shift from the normal competitive approach to sports. He really liked it though, I wonder if he still plays.

Do you have a favorite hymn you like to sing in church?

Angels We Have Heard on High. Doesn't matter what season, we should sing that one more often (and all the Christmas ones). There's a lot I like. I really like a lot of the primary songs, me and Jayna have that in common. I like Called to Serve as well.

Does your mission pres have a favorite hymn he likes you all to sing at conferences?

No, not really. I heard at the last transfer meeting (that I was not at) all 3 talks we about humility and the closing song was Be Thou Humble, so he's not afraid to use them to send a message. I've heard him sing a few times too. Actually maybe the answer is yes; every Zone Conference (the biggest meeting) the RS in the ward provide lunch, and we always sing "As I Have Loved You" to them. related story: remember, I got here at the same time as President Packard, as the mission was shifting away from the last mission pres. I guess he and his wife made a song that was the "mission song" that was sung at every zone conference. I've never heard anyone say they liked it (it was weird) and it was sung at Pres Packard's first wave of zone conferences (that was the only time I sung it) but Pres Packard must not have liked it either because after that it was never heard from again.

This week we did a lot of the same good things as normal. Have I mentioned Marie Santiago? She is a new investigator we found, she was a former investigator from 2008. We've taught her 1 lesson, hopefully that holds on. One of our progressing investigators, is the lead in a community play, The Death of a Salesman, and I wish we could go see him perform it. He is pretty stressed, we helped go over lines with him once, he's on the stage the entire time.

We're making a branch mission plan, which is cool. I think it could help to have a plan backed by the branch council that the whole branch knows about. I think it'll mostly have the stuff we're already trying to do, but with the official support of the leaders, it could be extra good.

There's a less active sister we see every week. The missionaries have been doing that for a long time, mostly just reading the Book of Mormon. This last week we brought with us one of our newly called branch missionaries, a 19 year old (currently "undecided" about serving a full time mission) and asked if we could "practice" teaching the lesson with her. It went really well. Very good for him and for her.

Also a sunday school teacher was just called for the youth, so we're not doing that anymore. We're going to start having a Gospel Principles class, which is good. Apparently our branch presidency decided we really need one after last week when we had 2 investigators there and plural marriage and a few other things came up in class.

We a pretty good week ahead of us as well, a good number of lessons set up, and we have interviews with the president this week too, plus we're going on exchanges with a district mates.

Good luck to Quinn, good to hear things are going well thus far. He should chastise his RM roommates for not waking up at 6:30 to get a 30 min work out in the morning.

That's all. I love you!