2.14.11

Dear Family,

It sounds like things are going good. I guess sarah hot glued a piece of her project to the table? That made me smile, haha. You all sound like you're doing great, I love hearing from you. Before I forget, if you would send me Elder Burtons emails, I would very much appreciate it. Dear Elders do work, I got one from David, but idk if they cost money or whatever, but I really want to read Josh's emails.

Alright, well I think I'll start by teaching you guys some Ghetto talk. They use this word a lot - Flojjin - It means lying, or tellin a story, as they would say down here. Mah you jus tellin' a sory. This word's pretty popular too - Junt - it means hott or attractive. If someone calls you a junt that's a good thing. If you're a flojjin junt then you're a good lookin storyteller, haha. alright enough of that.

This week was really good. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with West Memphis, I didn't know this before, but West Memphis is actually in Arkansas, not Tennessee. So I got to go across the Mississippi, and right when you get across the river everyone is white all the sudden, it's so wierd, I almost felt uncomfortable being around so many white people, no more ghetto thugs, it was wierd. So I was with Elder Vieter for a day, he's awesome. He has been out almost 19 months, so he's an old guy in the mish, we had some good conversations. We visited a lot of his investigators, I met some really cool people. Then this really awesome Brother in his ward, Brother White, took us out to eat at a steakhouse. It was like heaven, and I had some fried ocra, it was way good, and a massive 16 ounce Serloin, thank you Brother White. On that side of the river everyone talks about hunting and guns, and on my side of the river everyone talks about gangs, drugs, and guns. Then we went around with Bro White in his big Deisel and saw a bunch of less-actives. It was a good time.

The next morning there was a crazy snow storm and everyone in Arkansas was freaking out that we were still out and about doing the Lords work. We went back over the bridge around 1:00 in the afternoon to exchange back. The bridge was super icy. Then Elder Badger and I continued our bike week in the freezing snow. It was sooo cold. 30 degrees here feels like 0 degrees back home, I dont know why, maybe because it's more humid here, but it's just so cold, and then 62 degrees and we're practically sweating, I hear summers are rough, and that you always feel like you're swimming in sweat, so I'm excited for that.

We were suppossed to have one of our investigators get baptized this past saturday, but she missed church the past two sundays, and she hasn't been able to se us in a while, hopefully she'll be ready by the 26th. Along with 3 other dates we've set for the 26th. Kierra and Stephanie both need to marry their baby daddy's though, But Thomas is solid if we can just get him to quit smoking. I gave him a blessing yesterday to help him with that, and he's committed to stopping, so the 26th should be a good day.

Friday all 8 Memphis missionaries went out to eat with Sister Uunander. She's a really cool lady, but she's single and she's 57 years old, so she's been dating and such and she told us all these crazy horrible experiences she's had with dating at an older age. She found a few guys off of the LDS dating website or whatever, but she really did tell us some scary stories. It got quiet, and all 8 of us were just sitting there and then she says, "well I guess if you take anything from lunch today, it's that- nothings worse than old horny people". That was really funny and we all said we'd put it in our letter home, haha, so I am.

Saturday came and the other Frayser elders had a baptism at 7, and President Drewes was going to be there so we wanted to make sure we were there on time, but we got caught up at Stephanie's house and she just had a lot to say, and it was a crucial lesson, so we got out of there at almost 6:45, and we were on bike week so we're walking, and the church is about 15 min away, if you're driving there. So we start running down the street in our white shirts, I'm sure we looked like idiots, and we called the Mid Town Elders to come grab us off the street, and we got there with like 2 min to spare. Then I find out Elder Peay wants me to baptize Toni. So I got dressed in my whites (they were already at the church) and I had my first baptism... Looking back, I feel like there are two things in my life thus far that I can say that I'm really proud of myself for doing, the first one is graduating high school, because that was a struggle for me, and the second one is coming out here on my mission. That baptism was one of the best moments of my life, I felt like I finally did something good, and I knew that there was no other place I'd rather be than right here, in the ghetto with these people, where the Lord wants me. It really was an amazing experience for me.

Sunday, we had 4 investigators to church! whoo. That's a record for me and Elder Badger, and guess what? Next week is the end of my first transfer on the mission. Next Monday to be exact. I'm sure I'll still be with my trainer for at least one more transfer though, and I'm happy about that, I love this guy.

Happy Valentines Day, I love you guys. Thank you so much for the package! You're in my prayers

Elder LeBaron

p.s. I sent stephen an email last week but I found out that it didn't actually send for some reason, I have no idea why. I might just send it to your address dad and have you send it to him, also, thank you for the cooking advice, I'll look into that, lol. We actually got 4 dinner appointments this week, thank the heavens, my prayers have been answered.