New Area-Comp

(Craig and his New Companion)


Well happy November!!!

Emily, you are a busy girl - don't stress about writing me. You'll have a year after graduation to do so!!! its good that you are busy though. it keeps you out of trouble and focused on what you want to do in life. keep learning and working hard and you'll enjoy life more as you grow older. I'm sorry your bassoon was stolen but a new one is always nice, just i don't know if it'll be hard to get used to or not. do you remember if i kept my cd player? i'm thinking i'll want it if i still have it. i might have packed it away with my things at jason/amys house.... I'll see if i can mail you my gift today - you might have to just wait till Christmas though. I love you and thank you for your love and support for me. Have a great week!
Love Craig

Goodmorning family!

so my new area is North Newark and East, West, South Orange (or known as the Oranges). it's probably one of the scariest areas in the mission and it happens to be my 2nd area - kinda ironic but i love it!!!

as far as Halloween goes, we had to be inside before dark saturday and sunday night - im in a ward, not a branch, and the ward didn't have any party that i know of, not that we would have been able to go.

i'm sorry about your sickness - i actually was sick again too and i'm still getting over it but my companion is sick now so we'll see what happens. it's just a cold kind of sickness so i've been taking medicine everyday and it seems to have helped so thank you for the medicine you sent me a few months ago.

so thank you for sending the package. the way it works is the zls pick up the mail about 2 times a month - zone conf we only have every 3 months now so every other transfer, algo si. i think this friday the zls are going to have a meeting and they'll get mail then and hand it out when they get back. i'm not to worried and i think its safer to send it to the office - do you know if gerber if he ever served in newark/oranges (or ask him all of the areas he's served in).

i dont know my address yet - it wasnt on my mind this past week. i'm still trying to figure out the area which is the north newark and oranges area. it will definately be an adventurous 6 weeks at the minimum. we have a car yet the cigarette lighter doesn't work so no gps as of right now. we bought maps (which i prefer) and are using those until we get the cig. lighter fixed. i'm in a 4-man house and one of the english elders has a gps he is going to let us use when we get the cig lighter fixed.

my companion's name is elder stokes. hes from henderson nevada and whats ironic is he is from the cherry hill mission and we were together on an exchange for a day or 2 and we wanted to serve with eachother - we thought no cherry hill missionary was going to have another cherry hill missionary as a companion so for me it was revelation to President Bahr. we get along great and know that we can work very well together. he has been out for 16 months and goes home i believe in may. i'll try and send a picture.

im sorry to hear about the car. how did the transmission burn up? how is the driving working out with only the truck?

how are jourdan and ty doing with their papers? and do you know anything about logan morris? i hope he serves as well.

so we have 4 baptismal dates and one should be baptized this in november. there is a less active family who came to church yesterday and i guess is planning on coming forever (i'm not sure when the last time they came was - i heard a year and i heard they came all last transfer). i like working with less active members because they were already baptized meaning they know the church is true. they fell and want to keep the life they have so we need to get them to change their life to a better one with the happiness they know they can have that is everlasting instead of temporal happiness that they waste money on to keep. happiness should be free, not costly.

anyway if less active members become reactivated, they will have friends who are not members who will follow suit and be baptized at one point in this life - it turns into a repeating cycle - friends influence friends and they end up being baptized. its finding new investigators and reactivating at the same time. 2 or more people coming to Christ at the same time. its great!!

i have that quote from mission prep class - brother hall had it on one of the 50 sheets he gave us and i have it with me now along with everything else he's given us. im grateful to have those quotes and scriptures he gave us.

black socks would be best if they have black wool socks. it doesn't bother me though what color they are. the vneck sweater, if you haven't bought it yet, will be nice if its long sleeve so i don't have to wear anything over it. and hand warmers - im sure you know what they are or look like but those will probably be life savers for the winter. i don't know if they'd be cheaper in arizona b/c it's always hot there or here becasue everyone uses them..... what do you think?

i'm sending a picture of my new comp and i, a pzookie that we made last night (turned out more like bread but was still delicious) and thats all. i gotta go but i love you all and thank you so much for your love and support as well! i hope everyone has a great week and that everyone gets over the sicknesses. be safe and let me know if i can do anything for you.

love craig