Answers to Questions

• How was your week? 

Good...more will be explained later...

• Any more progress with [investigator] or are his grandparents still opposed to his being baptized?  

No, were actually trying to set up an apointment with him again so that we can have a lesson about what are plan is from here.  We plan to talk to him about what he could do to gain his grandparents trust and to discuss baptism with his parents.

• How did transfers go?

Great.  I have a new companion, elder Larsen.  He's been on his mission for 21 months now, so odds are I'll probably be his last companion.  From what I've seen so far he seems like he'll be a really good companion.  and he gets mad whenever anyone asks him how long he's been on his mission...which is good, because that means he shouldn't get "trunky".  Another thing that's going to work out well with this companionship is that he likes to ride bikes...I think enough is said there (he didn't ever really ride bikes before the mission, but he likes riding his bike on his mission anyway, and he keeps as pretty good pace)

Also It's been kinda crazy because we have 3 missionaries (including my companion) that have been transfered into the branch.  So as far as things are looking right now this is a good thing, because all the members are excited that a bunch of new missionaries are here and their excited to meet all of them.  In fact we've got a dinner appt with a member just about every night this week.  Which is good for two reasons 1. it's food....kinda obvious 2. We can get referals.

• How is it being the guy that knows the area?

So...the guy that knows the area...well, I'm realizing how little I know the area at least...  One thing I've never been good at is...well a couple things is directions( I'm pretty sure you all know that, because I always got lost when I tried to go somewhere in provo) not to mention that fact that there are no numbers for the rodes and they wind all over the place in what ever direction they want.  Another thing is that I'm not good with names.  Other than that It's going pretty good.  and I'm starting to learn some of the names of the rodes, and I've got my planner to write down peoples names.

• Is it getting pretty hot?

Yep, it's getting hot and humid.  whenever we stop and get off our bikes the sweat just falls off our face (I'm serious about that too, I'm not over exaggerating) and my clothes are usually wet all day long, but other than that the heat isn't too overbearing, because once we get on the bikes and we get the wind blowing then it cools us off.

So, yea, that pretty much explains our week, we've been doing a lot of finding recently.  But I'm pretty excited for this next transfer because I've got a new companion that works hard and the members are feeding us (wich will give us an oportunidad (sorry I don't know how to spell that in english...) to talk to the members and get them excited about missionary work, and then hopefully get some referrals.

So I'm going to have to get some more details on this river trip.  Sounds like it was pretty crazy!  and of course pix.

Also I'm excited to hear about Timberline for [biker boy] and [the student's] trip to Connecticut.

Transfer for Elder Compton's Companion and Pictures

Hey, how are things going for you guys?  So that's awesome that sharee got her mission call!  My companion always makes fun of me when I talk spanish with an Argentina accent, so I'll have an excuse to do it now!...

Tomorrow are transfers and my companion is going to be transferred...He's been a good companion and he's really good at teaching, I'm just excited to have things changed up again.

I went on an exchange this week with one of the zone leaders.  It was really enjoyable and I learned a lot from him.  He's a really hard worker and really good at teaching.  We were on the bikes for about an hour and a half that day overall and he probably kept a pace of about 18 mph the whole time...I was able to keep up, but I was worn out at the end of the day.  Also he was really good at contacting people and never fell into the trap of teaching the same thing without really catering to the investigators needs.  I learned that to be able to do that I have a lot more studying I'll have to do.

So other than that not too much really happened this week, we've done a lot knocking doors, and I've got to get ready to take over the area...I'm a little nervous about that, but I'm sure it will work out fine.

Elder Compton

Bicycle path on the way to their apartment

Jeff's companion riding (did Jeff take this while riding his bike?  Look like)

Desks in their apartment.  Jeff's is on the left.

Member family

2010-06-07 Letter and Pictures

This last saturday we had a really awesome experience.  Elder David A Bednar came and talked to our mission for about 3 hours saturday afternoon.  There's only about 150 missionaries in our mission, so we were easily able to fit everyone in the chapel (on the soft seats).  It was probably one of the most amazing things that have happened on my mission so far and I wish that I could describe what it was like, but you would have had to of been there to really be able to understand what it was like.  He basically was teaching us how we can seek learning by faith.  Which to summarize the entire meeting into one sentence would mean that we have to act or do something to demonstrate our faith in order to recieve results...an example of this that he gave us is that in our prayers we shouldn't ask for the missionaries to be able to find people to teach, but rather we should ask for the courage to talk to people about the gospel so that we can find people to teach, and then we should act on that request.  So, yea, that's a summary of what happened, but I can't excactly tell you what I learned from the spirit and an apostle for three hours,  but just know that it was awesome.  He asked us a bunch of questions for the first half to help us learn helped us learn some concepts about learning by faith, and then in the last half he let us ask him questions.  One really cool thing that I learned (I'm not sure how it got brought up but anyway...) is that he told us that if we don't think something will happen to us then it will happen to us, but if we think it could happen to us then we will work hard enough to prevent it from happening to us.

One other think that I learned is that he told us that it's only when you loose everything that you realize that none of it really matters.  I've realized this a lot bn my mission.  Because I got over missing my guitar and friends a couple of weeks into the mission, the only thing I really miss now is you guys...my family (don't worry though, not enough to get distracted)

Letter from 2010-06-01

Hey how are things going for you guys, it sounds like you had a pretty fun trip this last weekend.

So our teaching pool is still pretty small, but we have a pretty solid investigator right now that has a baptismal date for june 12.  I think I may have said a little bit about him last week, but he's 14 yrs old and he's friends with a couple people in the ward (which is how we found him.)  He doesn't really do much so we can teach him several times a week.  He's pretty fun to teach and he is really excited about his baptism.  It's really cool, because he almost always follows through with the commitments we give him.  He will read a chapter in a day if we give it to him...which is really amazing because a lot of people "cant find time" to read over an entire week.  It was kinda funny this last weekend because we had an activity where some of the youth in the ward came on splits with all the missionaries to knock doors.  [He] found out about this and wanted to come.  He's only 14 and not a member yet, so he couldn't come on his own, but [his friend] is old enough that he could come with us.  so he came with us to visit a person.  It was really cool because he shared his experience about how he gained his testimony of the book of Mormon and tried to commit the person to come to church.  I thought it was awesome, and funny that he was doing this when he wasn't even a member of the church yet.

I was pretty excited because my companion got his bike fixed this week.  He pretty much had to replace the rear gear casset, his chain, a couple sprockets, and had his gears readjusted.  He had a lot done on it, but that's good because now we can pick up the pace a little bit on the bikes now.

yesterday we didn't get to email because it was memorial day and the libraries were all closed.

Other than that there wasn't too much of anything exciting that happened.  We are excited because the fireside with Elder Bednar is this weekend.

so How's dallin doing out in japan?