26 July 2011

Hello family!

It's been a little bit of a slow week, but that's okay. We've just had a hard time getting a hold of people to teach them, but it happens sometimes.

Pioneer Day was this week! Since it's not a holiday in California, the Vista Stake had its own celebration in the stake center parking lot, the same building we go to church in. They had lots of booths that you could do things in, like making ropes, candles, drinking homemade rootbeer, eating all kinds of berry and peach cobbler, churning butter, pulling little kids in handcarts, a couple guitar bands singing old music, a doll-making booth, and even a 1/3-size replica of the Nauvoo Temple that the Spanish ward made. It was really neat! Our mission president and his wife came as well. We had a couple of investigators go.

We had to say goodbye to West last night. He is getting deployed on Thursday, a little sooner than we thought. It was hard for all of us, since we've all become good friends. We gave him a military-sized pack of all the scriptures, which he was very thankful for. He plans to read them a lot. It's a shame we ran out of time to baptize him before he left, but I am sure he will join the Church when he gets back in a year. We will continue meeting with Ceyda. By the way, she is a really, really good cook. They fed us dinner last night. We took pictures and exchanged emails and such. Hopefully I'll get to talk to him again sometime.

Speaking of farewells, Elder Fackrell is getting transferred today. He came in with me and we've only been here for 3 months. President Cook asked me to train again, so I will get a greenie at transfers tonight. This will be my 3rd time training. There will now be 2 greenies in our ward! Hopefully he can break the streak and have a last name that's easy to say the first time. I have been praying a lot, asking for help as I train again. It's a big task and there is a lot of trust being placed in me, so I will need to do a good job! I'm sure it will be great again.

My birthday is on Sunday. I'll be 20 years old. That's pretty crazy. Hump day is next week. Boy, life is speeding up quick. I don't have a long time left on my mission so I'm trying to make the best of it. It's still a year, but seeing how fast this past year went by, I don't want to waste a minute. It's been really great so far being out here. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I miss family, friends, hobbies and whatnot, but the compensation of preaching the Gospel and helping people change their lives is pretty neat. I hope all of you are being missionaries in your own capacities. Sure we won't baptize all of our friends or even bring them to church every week, but just living the commandments and being an example goes a long, long way. This work is definitely real, and the Church is definitely true, and it's the best news in the world.

I hope all of you have a great week. I love you all very much.

Elder Jon La Follette