First Transfer Done

Hey Family!

How is everybody today? Sounds like you all had an exciting week. Mary didn’t write me but I would like to hear how she did in the swim meet, I can’t believe they had the Greg Fernley already. Can you believe it’s been two years since I swam in that? I am glad that Brooke had such a good time trick or treating and mom was able to go with her.

So Halloween here is a bit different, it’s combined with Dia de los Muertos. The little kids go around asking for candy for the whole week. Not many people actually give them candy though... it’s kind of funny. And they don’t knock doors unless they know the people. They also had a lot of little candy stands for the shrines they set up, I didn’t get the chance to buy any but it looked kind of cool. I only actually saw a couple of shrines set up. Overall, it wasn’t too much different.

We completed my first transfer yesterday, kind of exciting but it doesn’t mean much. Except one of my good friends in our district got transferred, Elder Allen. And also one of our zone leaders. I hope the new one is good.

I did hear from Shayne, that is so exciting, I am so stoked for her!

So the bug bites pretty much stopped I think we killed almost all of them. I don’t really need anything in specific but thanks for asking. They have lots of stuff here to take care of bugs and stuff because everyone has that problem. Our house is super cool and I have really liked living in our area. It just has a couple of problems that we will hopefully get taken care of over the next few weeks. The Brother we are renting from said he would, but it hasn’t happened. First of all we don’t have a hot water heater. And it gets pretty cold in the mornings so I am a pro at taking showers in literally under a minute! ha ha. The second thing is that we don’t have a stove… which is okay, not that big of deal, but just kind of annoying because its limits my food options (although we have an amazing taco restaurant on the corner of our street). The third thing is that we don’t have a washer, which is also okay because we do laundry with members, but again just kind of annoying.

Dad asked about my companion, for the most part he is really, really good. I couldn’t really ask for a better trainer. The mission president is practically begging him to extend his mission one transfer so he can train one more missionary. The only thing that I don’t like is he only has 2 transfers left and is so ready to go home, his head just isn’t all the way here in the mission sometimes. But we have been having a little bit of success. I think we were kind of bummed after the family we were teaching didn’t get baptized and we had a week where we didn’t have a lot of success. We for sure have one baptism this week and possibly another. The one we have for sure is a boy of 9 years old, he wasn’t baptized because his family wasn’t active but we have been activating them again and he will baptize this Sunday. The other is in a family of members but was living with her boyfriend when her family was baptized. She is now living with them again, she is super ready and his good examples around her but she is just concerned it is too fast. We are planning on this Sunday for her as well, but we will have to see. We also have a family we are going to contact this week, they have been to church 2 or 3 times and the mom’s sister is a member in our ward. So I think we will have a family to teach this week.

Our entire mission this last month only had 45 baptisms, in a good month we have over 200. So as a district we set a bunch of goals. The big one is we are all going to baptize 4 this month. We are all looking for a family or 4 or more to teach and baptize. To accomplish this we are going to fast every Saturday to find a family of 4 we can teach and baptize. And we have a few other things we are going to do to be move obedient and have more success.

The language has been a little bit better; I had a few really cool experiences this week with the language. A couple lessons I taught with almost no trouble. I saw one of the Brothers in our ward and he started talking to me and I just started talking back without thinking about it, we had a full conversation. That said there were also times that I had no idea what was going on, it’s still really tuff. I even had some people just ask me simple questions, that I didn't catch until they repeated a few times. I am still frustrated but I can see and feel the Lord’s help with the language when I need it. I know this church is the only church on the earth that has the fullness of the gospel of Christ. That we have the power and authority of God on the earth called priesthood. We have living prophets that lead and guide our church. I know Christ lives and suffered and atoned for us and later died on the cross and was resurrected the third day. I know he plays a huge role in our lives and we feel that through the Holy Ghost. I know the Book of Mormon is true and have seen is along with the gospel and his teaching change lives. That we can become closer to God by reading that book than any other book, just like Joseph Smith said.

I love and miss you all

Elder Utley