05.16.11

Hey Family,

I wonder how you all are doing since nobody from my immediate family wrote me this week. Thats okay though, I bet your sending them at this very moment while I'm writing this email. Kelsey told me about Ben and Dakota's farewell. Sounds like they did awesome and that they're pumped. I'm really excited for them, the mission is the best thing ever. They're gonna tear it up.

This week was an emotional one for Elder Hardy, he's pretty scared to leave, he hates transfers, and getting a new companion, and he just doesn't like change, so it's been one of our harder weeks together. He's been in the Memphis 1st Ward his whole mission, so he's been saying a lot of goodbyes, and because he's leaving, people have actually been feeding us, that was pretty cool. Sure enough he received a phone call this morning saying to pack his things and that he was being transfered. I wonder who my new companion will be. Elder Badger always tells me to expect the worst, lol, that way I wont be caught off gaurd. Haha, but he also told me things couldn't get much worse so I dont need to worry, haha. He loves Elder Hardy, he served with him before he served with me, but it's pretty well known around the mission that Elder Hardy one of the harder missionaries to serve with, and I could serve with that man 4 transfers if I had to, so I'm not too concerned about transfers. but you know me, I pretty much just go with the flow. Come what may and love it! So I'm sure my new companion will be a little stud. I'm guessing he's gonna be younger than me, mission age, but we'll see. That reminds me, I officially turned 5 months yesterday! Happy Birthday to me, one more month and I get to burn a tie, and I'll be at my 1/4 mark. Pretty crazy stuff.

Mom, you don't need to worry about the flooding. I'm a really good swimmer. Also, the flooding isn't bad in the Raleigh/Frayser area. I hear the Mississippi River crested and now the water level is receding again, but then again you'd probably know better than me, you can watch the news. I also heard that the Mississippi is usually about a half a mile wide, but with the flooding it's gotten up to nearly 3 miles wide, pretty gnarley huh.

So i'm guessing most of you have also heard, but yesterday at Stake Conference I ran into some familiar faces, JD and Monique Derr. It was reallly wierd to see people I knew from my past life, before I was reborn into the world as a missionary, haha. It was way cool though. I had no idea they were in my stake until Stevey told me on Mothers Day. When Elder Hardy and I were driving to the Stake Center I was telling him that we might see my brothers in-laws, and then it ended up happening. Mo was really cool and said she'd feed me and my comp dinner somtime, and she said we could bring over investigators for member present lessons or whatever we needed, and so now I have her number if I ever need anything. It was way sweet. Elder Badger had the hotts for her, he asked me if she was single, lol, that silly guy.

We have one investigator, Erbin, who is looking really good for baptism, except for his smoking problem. He's commited to stop, but then he smoked the very next day. We're gonna have to go through the stop-smoking program with his this week. If he stays clean this whole week he'll probably be baptized on the 21st. If he relapses again we'll have to push it back to the 28th. He'll be baptized this month though, He's a stud.

We have a lot of other investigators who we can never seem to get a hold of or catch at home, but that isn't out of the regular.

I've noticed that certain southern words that I used to seem really wierd aren't seeming so wierd anymore. I don't know how it happened, but I started using the word Ya'll like it's normal or something. The other day I caught myself asking Kiesha and her kids "Are Ya'll fittin' to leave?" Then I was like, what the heck just came out of my mouth. So I just wanted to brace all of my loved ones back home, I might come home with a wierd vocabulary. Then again I also use a lot of ghetto words like Flojjin and junt and shoknowhatosay, and "you so green" which directly translated in ghetto means, "you're mean". haha.

Nothing too crazy has been going on this week. Elder Peay went AP and Elder Adams is getting transfered, and Elder Hardy is leaving, so we're going to have 3 new missionaries in the ward, so that'll be exciting, transfers officially happen Wednesday morning.

Alright, well I know this letter is a little short, please forgive me mother, we're in a little bit of a hurry. I love you guys. Thanks for all your constant support.

-Elder LeBaron