June 16, 2010

Hey

wow - Brians home; I almost forgot about that. ha-ha ya 20 hours on a plane would tire me out too. i thought you were going to say he fell asleep by the time you got to your parents home. how did all of the kids react when they saw him? it sounds like everyone had a great day. I wonder how he'll do being back home for the first 2 or 3 weeks. Im glad all of the family and friends were able to make it to watch him come home.

ha-ha ya before his mission he didn't care about girls or anything really involving them so that is surprising to hear that he's excited to start dating. good luck.

that's good that girls camp was fun for Emily. mason I'm sorry you got stung by a scorpion. and I forgot that your parents were putting a playhouse in the backyard. that'll be fun for the kids and anyone else who can play on it.

well the past week has been kinda crazy. Saturday was the "conference" in cherry hill -unfortunately irma wasn't able to make it. elder jay e Jensen was the one who spoke to us (it was only Spanish - i think he did something with English before the Spanish). it was really good even though i didn't understand everything. he spoke for an hour then everyone split up like they would the 3rd hour of sacrament meeting (even primary kids were there) then everyone met up again for the last hour where we talked a little bit and he opened the time for questions more from sisters but brothers could ask if sisters weren't.

after the 3 hours we all ate dinner in the cultural hall - it was pretty good. we have district meetings every Tuesday and the zone meetings are on the 1st Tuesday after transfers - there are 6 elders in my district and my comp is the district leader. - as far as the zone goes, there is probably 30 elders/ sisters and the whole zone is going north to the morristown mission. president winegar set it up so there are only 2 zones now, one going north and one going south. and with Spanish missionaries we have no more hermanas so its only elders and i would say maybe half of the 30 in the zone are Spanish.

with the English people we find we normally just refer them to the english missionaries however i wouldn't mind teaching some in English if it was allowed and if we did do that we would eventually refer them to the English missionaries at some point.

so with my week - we met president and sister barr yesterday (my new pres and his wife over morristown miss.) i shouldn't have any trouble getting used to them but i hope i get transferred sooner than later so that i can be with elders who are used to him. they told us that most of their rules etc come straight from the handbook and preach my gospel so it's pretty straight forward and i think there is a chance i might still need a bike - i just have to wait until I'm transferred.

my comp is in the Washington temple right now so I'm on an "exchange" with some other elders who had comps who went to the temple today too. it's been fun. pres barr said that they go to the temple in June (maybe July, don't remember for sure) and i believe December and the departing missionaries go one more time right before they go home so 3 times will be fun and i think there will be about 175 missionaries all together when the missions combine but it will be downsizing over time.

my Spanish is coming - i know that if I'm asked to talk about something specific I'm pretty good (if i have the vocab for it). i know one elder was surprised when i was speaking with a member about our investigators and maybe my comp too but I'm not sure. i forgot my camera cable so i cant send home pics today but i think i will be emailing again tomorrow so if i do I'll send home pics and people can write back if they want.

i love you all and thank you so much for your love and support. i always keep everyone in my prayers. i hope everyone enjoys having Brian home and Brian I hope you enjoy dating (again). :) I'll write home again tomorrow, or just send pics, i hope.

love Craig