25 October 2011

Hello family!

I hope you are all doing well.

I have been transferred to the city of Carlsbad, Carlsbad 3rd ward. Now I can actually say I served in Carlsbad in the Carlsbad mission! My new ward has great members who are very good missionaries, and we live a ten-minute jog from the ocean. We jog or bike there almost every morning for exercise (don't worry, we don't go on the sand or in the water). My ward also has Legoland in it. A member is getting us free passes to Legoland, so that will be fun!

My companion is Elder Herald, from Allen, TX. He just got finished being trained by Elder Bailey (yes, I just replaced one of my former companions!). It's been nice, because Elder Herald tells ward members that I trained Elder Bailey, so I am instantly trusted. Elder Herald was also Elder Bowen's (my last companion) MTC companion. So, that's a fun net of connections there. On Thursday morning, we had just left our apartment for the day, and Elder Herald got bombed by a bird right on his head. It was hilarious! We went back and he took a good long shower!

As I said last week, I'm the new district leader here too. In the district are: Elder Herald-Allen TX, me, Elder Wheeler-Grauss, ID, Elder Nash-Sandy UT, Elder Stubbs-Kemmerer, WY, Elder Findlay-Snowflake AZ, Sister Ellis-I forgot where, Sister Hermanson- St. George, UT, Sister Gilmore-North Salt Lake, UT. Elder Gale is one of the zone leaders too. It's a fun district!

We have a lot of members and part-member families in the teaching pool. We have the [edit] family, who are less-active members with a non-member husband. Their names are Al, Joanne, and their son Chris and his girlfriend Ambria. They recently lost of their sons, Ian, and that is what is driving them to come back to church. They are a really good family. Also we have Scott [edit], a less-active 28-year old guy who is trying to come back to church. He doesn't want to go to the YSA ward, so we're meeting with him. You can tell by his speech that he's from California. Commonly uses words like "totally, sweet, solid, etc." I'm pleased to say I can speak fluent Californian! Also we have Ric and Anya [edit], who are recent converts. Ric is almost done with his USMC career, and is very excited for that. He's a fun guy and loves telling stories. Anya was a champion tennis player back in Ukraine. Her name may or may not be on ESPN.com somewhere. She retired from professional tennis, but is still teaching tennis lessons as a full-time job.

There are a lot of U of U fans in the ward. One or two of the men here played football at the U. The bishop is a very missionary-minded bishop and is really great to work with. We are good friends with the Rosell family. Bro Rosell is a former stake president and is currently the favorite seminary teacher. He is hilarious. Sister Rosell cuts the missionaries' hair and feeds us a ton. Their next-door neighbor is Brother Waddell. He is Elder W Christopher Waddell (first quorum of Seventy)'s father, and also the father of another Brother Waddell that was in my ward in MIra Mesa. I'm bound to meet Elder Waddell at some point, since I've already met two in his family!

Everything is going well in Carlsbad. I hope you all have a great week.

Love

Elder Jon La Follette

PS- late April-early Oct pictures soon!