3.14.11

Hello Family!

So this past week was great! Thanks for keeping Thomas in your prayers! I know they helped, because Thomas James was baptized Saturday night, and confirmed yesterday in church! Saturday night was the best night of my mission. I got to baptize him, and Elder Badger confirmed him, it has just been a great weekend, and I've never seen Thomas so happy. He hasn't smoked in two weeks now!

This week is our bike week so we've just been riding our bikes everywhere, I've been exhausted, and fall asleep right after planning every night. We've found 7 new investigators this past week though, that's a lot for this mission. I think I told you about the basketball game on the street Elder Badger and I played a couple weeks ago, well one of the kids we played, named Chris, decided to come to our weekly tuesday night basketball at the church, and he brought his mom and his 2 brothers. I talked to his mom for about an hour about religion while the kids played ball and she talked to me about how she felt like she needed to get closer to God, and she let us set up an appointment with her. It was great. After ball we always have a spiritual thought, and Bro Floyd decided to bear his testimony on the church and bascially told everyone there they need to take the time to talk with the missionares, It was really spiritually powerful, Bro Floyd is the man, he was the last bishop of the Mempis 1st Ward. After that Chris' mom was even more excited for us to come visit her. We brought Bro Floyd over with us the next day and had a great 1st lesson, hopefully we'll be able to set a baptismal date on the next visit with her and her kids.

Elder Badger taught this girl Monecia, I've only met with her once, and she actuallly had a baptismal date, but she dropped it and things got a little crazy, but anyway, she lives in GreenBriar Apartments, we teach a lot of people in there, and there are two member families in there, but we found out on Wednesday that Monecia's apartment got shot up, there was bullet holes all threw her car outside and her walls and her windows were all broken. It's nuts. I guess there was about 5 people in there when it was getting shot up, but they all hit the ground, and some guys had a bullet hit the tip of his ear and that was the worst of it. This girl we call "White Jessica" I'm sure you can figure out why, she's the only white girl in GreenBriar... but she told us she thinks it was Vice Lords, which is a huge gang down here. So that was kinda crazy, I'm just glad monecia is okay.

We've also been teaching this woman named Star and her 13 year old daughter Kanitra, and her nephew Deonte', they are way awesome. We actually found her from contacting a woman at Taco Bell named Melissa, and she lives with Star. Melissa isn't very interested anymore, but we found 3 golden investigators living in her house, it's interesting how the Lord works. Star is so interested in learning more, and trying to better understand our purpose here, and The Bible, and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, so I love meeting with her, she always asks so many questions. She wanted to know if we could help her to better understand The Book of Revelations... and besides the help from the JST and D&C 77, I don't know much about how to interpret it, but she seems satisfied with most of our answers. lol.

I'm almost done with The BOM again, I want to hurry and finish it and move on to The New Testament, I want to study more on the life of our Savior, I wish I had more than just 1 hour to study everyday.

This transfer is going by way fast, we're already half way through it. Most likely, Elder Badger is going to get transfered out of the Frayser house, i'm guessing he'll go to the other side of the river and they call either the District Leader from Lakeland or Blythville to be the Zone Leader on this side and take Elder Badgers spot, but I'm excited to see who my follow up trainer will be, but I'm gonna miss Elder Badger for sure.

Funny story, so last night... I suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, and I look up, and Elder Badger is freaking sitting on my lap in his g's. I dont know what the hecks going on, so i'm like "dude, what the freak are you doing!", and he just crawls off my bed back into his, and whispers "sorry". I was too tired to care, so I went back to sleep. When I woke up I kinda felt like it was just a dream, and I wasn't sure, but I walk into the kitchen, and Elder Badger is eating cereal on the couch, and he's sitting there giggling and he's like "Bro, did anything wierd happen last night?" lol... come to find out he was running from something in his dream and he somehow ended up in my bed. We were laughing for a long time. He's the craziest sleeper ever, he's constantly giving commitments for baptism and church in his sleep, it's so funny, lol. This was the first time i've ever seen him sleep walking though. He said it scared him, because he woke up when I yelled "dude, what the freak are you doing!", and he didn't know what the freak he was doing, he just woke up sitting on top of me lol... that guy.

My mission birthday is tommorow, I turn 3 months old, can you believe it? I met Elder Badger when he was at 8 months and now he's at 11. It blows my mind. 3 more months and I wont be a greeny anymore, that'll be nice.

I got your packages, thank you very much. Elder Peay actually found them in our bushes, I guess the delivery guy put them in the bushes so they wouldn't get jacked, I'm glad Elder Peay noticed they were there before the rain started coming, because it's been raining hard the past couple of days. and yea, just get the contacts here when you can, don't worry I'll be fine until they get here, I have my glasses. When you send my SD card back I can send you guys the pictures from Toni's baptism AND Thomas' baptism.

I haven't sent a letter out to anyone in a little while, I'm sorry, bike week gets a little crazy, and it can be hard to find time, but I'm gonna get a couple out this week.

Alright, well I love you guys, you have an awesome week!

-Elder LeBaron