2 August 2011

Hello family!

I don't have much time today, so this will be a little short.

First of all, thank you for all the birthday wishes! I had a good birthday on Sunday. Somehow all the youth in our ward found out as well as some adults and a lot of people wished me a happy birthday at church! I can't believe I'm 20 already, but I don't feel much older than I did a couple days ago! My 1 year mark is this week as well. Man life goes fast!

My new companion is Elder James Bowen, from Grace, Idaho. Ever heard of it? Me neither. Town of 900 people, graduating class of 23. He's a convert to the church; he was baptized at 9 years old. His family growing up was extremely anti-LDS and his family did not support him at all joining the church, but he did anyway. A couple years later his brother was also baptized. Now his whole family are temple-worthy and very proud of him for coming on a mission. It's really nice to meet people and have my companion able to say he hasn't been in the church his whole life. People are a little more willing to listen to converts. He smells like he's from Idaho but it's all good. He reminds me of Brad and Dwain with his humor (very much so), speech, mannerisms, etc. He too is losing his hair, but not as fast as me. He's 20 years old. That's about all. He's doing very well so far and has a great love for missionary work and is teaching me a lot of things. It's always good to be around a new missionary, with the fire they bring being fresh from the MTC.

West is deployed now, as of Thursday. He texted me Wednesday night a really nice message, basically saying he was very grateful for all we have done and he'd never forget the impact we and the Church has had on him in such a short time. He wants to be baptized when he gets back. Ceyda has met with us once, went to church, and went to FHE with the Geeves family and us last night. She is progressing really well. She and West want to be baptized when he gets back from deployment. We will have a lesson on the blessings of baptism tomorrow, and then let her and West decide if she still wants to wait. He has Skype out there and can talk to her every few days. West took his scriptures we gave him and Ceyda said he had a goal of reading the whole Book of Mormon, then the New Testament by the time he gets home.

Couple fun stories from the week--

We tracted into a Presbyterian minister and he was really nice. He explained very thoroughly the doctrine of the trinity for about 40 minutes. I understood all the things he was saying, but the trinity doesn't make much more sense now than it ever has. There's a way to know it's not true! Besides, who would want to worship an unknowable God with multiple personalities who talks to Himself? I'm sure glad we have the truth! He also told us in the nicest way he could that if we didn't accept the trinity and reject our false belief then we were surely going to hell. Man I love California!

Also later that day we street contacted an old lady about to go to her car. We started talking and she interrupted and said "No thank you, no thank you! I have my own church already! Thank you for calling, bye bye." and got in her car.

That's really all for this week. It's warming up and staying just as humid so it's gonna be a fun month! Thank you everyone for your lov and support. I hope you have a great week.

Love Elder Jon La Follette