8.29.11

Alooooo-ha.

Hey family. Sounds like things are going well on the home front. I miss you immensly, I think today is the day Elder Bearnson comes home. Tell him I say hello when you see him.

This week has been good. The best part by far was Zone Conference.... President Petersen is such an amazing man, and he is calling this mission to repentance. He compared the mission to pearl harbor, he said satan has made an attack on us, he's caught us "flat-footed", and just like that old japanese commander dude says in the movie "I think we've awakened a sleeping giant" he said he wants us to awaken the sleeping giant of the ALRM (arkansas little rock mission!) I said it in my own words, but when he said it it was really inspiring, lol. It was an awesome zone conference. Except for the fact that the AP's are initiating something called an "autofast", so, however many cars in your zone go over on miles that month, every companionship in the zone has to park their car that many days. The dumb thing is, they told us this close to the end of the month, and we had like 5 mission meeting outside of areas this month, so pretty much everyone is over on miles. So I think the whole zone is gonna be biking 13 days straight for September.... yay.

Things have been bueno though. Elder Kowalk is still new, so he has all these crazy ambitions, which are awesome, I like a challenge. So we set some crazy weekly goals. As a mission, we're supposed to be obtaining 4-4-2-2-1 every week (4 member presents lessons, 4 new investigators, 2 to chuch, 2 with a baptismal date = 1 baptism a month) Elder Kowalk decided we should be awesome and double that. lol. So we're going for 8-8-4-4-2 starting next week. Dream Big! right? We are even gonna cut our P-day short so we can go tracting. I'm okay with it though, this is supposed to be a 2 year sacrifice, so we're gonna sacrifice.

Elder Kowalk is such an interesting guy, lol. If I didn't know better I'd say he's gay. He just has some interesting qaulities, like he loves cooking and cleaning, and he talks really feminine, and just the way he carries himself and giggles like a little girl. lol. but he's a good guy, he cracks me up, and he likes girls, so that's good.

We haven't had much luck with the work this week, it's been rough. Please pray that we'll be able to find those who are prepared, because finding has been tough as of late.

Martha is doing good, she's still fighting baptism, and I think it's because she wants her baby daddy to join the church with her, but we have an appointment with him this week, so I'm excited for that.

Joe and Alexandria re-committed to getting married ASAP. we had a really powerful lesson with them. They talked to the bishop Sunday about marriage counseling, so things are looking good there.

It's almost September! My life as a teen-ager is coming to a close. How crazy is that. I wanna like throw a party and do all sorts of immature things before I become an old 20 year old and have to be mature. but I'll probably just do normal missionary things. Maybe go out to eat somewhere nice, like Taco Bell. It'll be sweet. Sarah, live it up and do lots of immature things for me while you still can. lol. I'm jk. but for real.

I wish you guys could just visit the Memphis 1st ward one sunday and see what it's like. They say the church is the same all over the world, but I think that excludes Memphis. Our fast and testimony meetings are by far the best, you usually hear a lot of ghetto people share a list of past transgressions, OR there's some baptist converts that get up there and start preaching to you and smackin the pulpit, and then of course there's a lot of people in the congregation hollerin' "AMEN" through-out. It really feels like home now though, lol, I've been in the same ward my whole mission. I've been wondering what it'd be like to go to a different area, maybe that'll happen after I train. but I have 2 more months here gauranteed. I love Memphis though. These people are family to me, I wish there were more black people in Colorado. lol. Maybe we can visit Memphis as a family after my mission, you guys need to see this ward at least once in your lifetime, and I know for a fact I'll be comming back to visit, at least once or twice. And there are a few cool things in memphis, like Graceland (Elvis' house) you can go on a tour through it and everything, I hear the Memphis zoo is awesome, The Mississippi River is incredible, and we could eat some way good memphis style BB-Q, Beale Street is cool and we can order a hamburger that can feed 8 people, and then we could visit the Memphis Temple too. It'd be a good family trip, so just keep that in mind :)

Well, I need to write President an email. I love you all, you're always in my prayers. Thank you for your support. Until next week

-Elder LeBaron