Monday, May 2, 2011

So the package got here but was kinda a gooy moldy mess....the strawberries looked so good and yet so bad, even in the state they were in they still looked better than the strawberries in stores here (the less moldy ones and less bruised ones anyways), due to the mold I did not try any. I think it would be best to hold off on trying that kind of stuff till I am in Juneau or Anchorage somewhere easier to get it to, also they were in a soft box like the kind they make cereal boxes that is real thin. The other package also arrived Monday, thank you very much for the candy and letters. The prescription medication seems to be working my nose has been pretty clear.

We have 2 investigators on date for June 18th, Page 16 and Luke 15, they are siblings in a non-member family that have taken it upon themselves to investigate the church and to seek after what is right, this is really surprising to everyone for teens of their age to be doing that themselves. We are pretty excited about that especially because they put themselves on date to get their parents more involved in learning about the church.

I have had a pretty good week so far. I went on an exchange with the zone leaders and we did a little bit of tracting, we caused a puppy to pee all over the place at the first house (it was very excited) then 6 pugs at the next house would not let the man hear us, we said we'd try back, then a lady talked about some very bad experiences with her older brother claiming to be a Mormon and that the Book of Mormon was the only scripture allowed in the house, threw out the bibles, and said the Mormon church told him it was ok to drink lots of alcohol and to beat your wife and family, we tried to explain that none of those things have ever been accepted in our church and we made it clear that there are many off shoots, but she said she is still so traumatized from him that she could not let us in. That was my first tracting experience. My next one later that day went better we found 2 less actives and 2 who were open to us coming by and all 4 gave us phone numbers, names and better times to come by, one said that her door was always open to us. We don't tract where I am, I am in the Wasilla Zone but my area is just north of there we cover from Houston to above Talkeetna.
The red X is where our house is, the circle is where our church is and the outline shows our entire area at least up and down, it might be wider or narrower it is about the same distance as going from Rexburg to American Falls.

We drive a 2011 Chevy Colorado truck, the senior campions usually get the designated driver, I am the "co-driver" I sit there. There are quite a few trucks in our mission. Without a truck even getting to our house becomes very hard during the winter here, without a truck we could not visit many of our investigators or members. There is one ward that covers all of Willow, Big Lake, and Houston that has around 300 active I believe, that is our ward. Talkeetna Branch has about 30 active LDS members.

Also did you hear the big news??? Osama Bin Laden was killed yesterday in a shoot out with navy seals. I am really happy that at least the search for him is finally done. We were at a members house, the older couple we visited earlier, they got a telephone call, then we got one from a member and they turned on the news about it. Apparently there is quite a bit of excitement everywhere about that. It is funny because it was told to a New York baseball team during their game, in the 9th inning with it tied 1-1 9-11 weird.

I love you and thanks for the package.