Well, after a very short 6 weeks, i am no longer a greenie. My trainer got transfered out of st. marys, and i am still here to take over the area.

I feel quite blessed that i am trusted enough by the lord  and the mission president to take over st. marys. usually you are trained for 12 weeks (2 transfers) but apparently i was ready. It’s quite an undertaking but i think im ready…

I’ve been up here in the city of Findlay all day today hanging out with a zone leader, and 3 other missionarys in the zone. I haven’t met my new companion yet, but one of the guys here has served with him.  The new comp is from Utah, hes been out 18 months, not a big sports guy, but apparently is really nice. I guess i’m looking forward to this.   My old companion, Elder Bergeson is now in the City of Elyria (west of Cleveland i think) and he is a Zone leader. He’s taught me so much doctrine and so much about the mission and being a missionary. I am very thankful

I’ll be sending Tim my memory card very soon, and Mom will get some pictures soon as well.

It’s just crazy how things are working out, people keep saying i’m going to do great things and i’m just taking things as they come. I know i just have to thank the lord, work the hardest i can, and everything will be alright.

But…  If you are interested in learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have many ways of helping you out!

• To request a FREE copy of the Book of Mormon, Click HERE!
• To request a visit from the Missionaries (Like what Chas is doing now!) in your area, click HERE!
• To read up on our Church and our basic beliefs, click HERE!

The above links are all from the Church’s website www.Mormon.Org. This is a great site to learn about our Church and what we need to do to return to live with our Father in Heaven.

-Tim

This past week has been the best week of my mission so far. The Lord is really blessing us for our hard work. I learned that if you have faith, the lord will give you confidence and when you have confidence, the lord will give you strength unknown to the world.  I realize that everyday im here. St. Marys has become one of the most active missionary areas in the mission over the last month. We’re getting alot of new investigators, and our families that we are teaching are raelly progressing. I know its not us thats doing this, but it’s the lord. We really have to thank him for all that he has given us, and continue to ask for strength.

So, joe and tim. I have some questions.
What assignments were you given on your missions? Stuff like District Leader, Zone Leader, Trainer.  I don’t know if i ever asked, so email me back with what you were.

There is a word going around that my trainer is a front runner to be a zone leader this next transfer (2 weeks from now), and that i may be left with the st. marys area. Apparently i’m ready from what i hear, so i’ll keep you posted.

TIm, do you want to do my a big favor? I know you have alot of hymns on your computer. Well, all we can listen to is hymns. So i was wondering if you’d want to send me a couple/few cd’s filled with hymns. Our car has a nice 6 disc cd changer and i’d be nice to have some more hymns.  You can put whatever songs you want on them, but there are 2 songs i want on there for sure. 1: We’ll bring the world his truth/As sisters of zion. The one where it goes from elders to sisters then both. Another song i’d like is a hymn that isn’t in our hymn book anymore, but we are allowed to listen to it. It is “come thou fount”.  If you would like to, i would love a couple more cd’s.  No instrumental only though, we have plenty of that.

I’ll be sending tim a memory card soon, and you’ll get some pictures too mom.

Well, things are going great in st. marys, as you’ve read. The weather has been pretty rainy lately, so it feels like home. Might have snow this weekend though. Yuck.

Alright, i have to go, but i look forward to your emails or letters.

Yeah, we’re all dug out here finally in St Marys.  We “only” got 8 inches of snow. Man it got ugly. Saturday we got a call telling us not to drive our car, and friday we got sent home early.  So saturday, after a short nap we went out and tracted…That really sucked. I feel sorry for the biking elders up in Lima.   Its 55 degrees now, so its nice out now. Almost all the snow is gone.

Congrads on the new job Tim. I hope it works out for you.

Dang it, i was going to answer a bunch of questions mom sent me, but i lost the letter. Thanks for the sports update too mom.

When the Mariners 08 preview comes out in a few sundays, mail it to me somehow.

No mom, we don’t have a computer in our apartment, im not sure what you saw.

Tim, call mom, and tell her how to manually reset the router and settings so she can get the laptop online.

Shoot, i might only have 5 minutes left, its really busy here at the library, so i might not be able to extend my computer time to an hour.

Mom, i guess i’ll write you a letter answering all your questions.

I’m on later today, because we went up to Lima for a zone p-day right after study. My feet are killing me after 3 hours of basketball, but it was worth it.

Well, i cant think of anything else now, so i guess i’ll go.

Ask me some questions

Well, im still alive. I finally sent off that insurance stuff mom, and sorry about the postage due.
Interesting week i guess. We taught a guy who was drunk, another who prophesyed to us and got a few hundred doors slammed on us i suppose. the weather was cold, then we were in the 50’s for a couple days, saw some rain and yesterday we got hit with a huge ice storm. We got a call while in a dinner from the zone leaders telling us to get home. We were in a town about 20 miles away, so we took our time, stopped at a walmart then went home. there is a good 3 inches of ice on the ground, and it looks like it snowed hard, but it was all freezing rain and ice pellets. By the way, that stuff sucks to tract in. On saturday we set a record for us, and tracted 7 hours. We got 1 investigator out of it, but nothing else. Its hard to get appointments around here, because everyone is so steeped in their religious traditions. Its not even beliefs anymore, its just tradition. We share a message on a doorstep about how our families can be together, and be with god again. They agree with us, but before the door closes they say they are catholic. The catholics don’t even believe in that.  All the members of this branch just have the biggest heart though. We eat at members probably 4-5 out of the 7 days, and they are so nice to us. These people travel up to 30 miles every sunday to goto church, and they are willing to do anything for anyone, i just wish more people were like that.

We’ve really been learning a ton about the atonement, we have these 2 talks that we’ve been reading from a member of the 70 named bruce hafen. He is renound for his knowledge of the atonement. For district meeting i had the assignment to take these questions that everyone had been given, and summarise what everyone in the meeting talked about. I learned so much from everyone. The best part is that tomorrow we are driving up to Toledo, and we get to listen to Hafen speak to us on the atonement, and he’ll answer the questions he gave us. I’m really looking forward to it.

Alright now im going to answer questions joe gave me.
Can we use the computers for more than email?
No, were not supposed to, and my companion is pretty strict about that. So please! send me articles. I really really want to see Bedard in a Mariners uniform.

What is my apartment like?
We’ll, i’ll get out some pictures soon.Quick description. Were in a nicer neighboorhood, its not really an apartment, but like a 4 plex thats in a long strip. We have 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, big living room. The 2nd bedroom has a bench press in it and a couch. We also have a washer and dryer. No dishwasher though. I’ll send a video tour of it on a memory card sometime.

My companion?
he reminds me alot of tim and joe. Hes a pretty funny guy. He has epilepsy, but its controlled. Its hard to describe him. He loves sports, we play catch alot now and we have the most random conversations. He has a really good knowledge of the book of mormon too.

Money?
i should have made it more clear. We get $160 every month. I only got 40 because i came in on the last week of the month.
It goes fast though.

My area?
we cover roughly 15 towns. there are 2 other towns that are bigger than St marys. Wapakoneta, and Celina. Celina sucks for tracting so far, and the other is a pretty good town. Otherwise the rest of the towns are 1000 people maybe.

Do i have an accent?
Ohioans dont have an accent. They do have their own language though. They like to “dumb down” words if you will. They shorten words alot too.
Example: Diabetes. in ohio, its it only known as “sugar” so you hear people talking about how they cant drink or eat something sweet anymore, since they have the “sugar”. Its kinda dumb. any town with an I in it is pronounced like the letter I. Celina, rather than being Suh-leen-ah, is really Suh-LIE-nah. Lima sounds like the bean. Vacuums are not vacuums, but Sweepers. I could go on, but im getting tired of typing. they say “yuns” instead of “you all” or “yall”
Mumbling is really common too, its hard to understand what they are saying. Probably has to do with the fact that they all have horribly bad teeth.

We’ll, im gonna get going. We’re going to Lima to play basketball with the district. I’ll get some more pictures home. TIM, I NEED MY MEMORY CARD.

Hi gina, Mom said i should email this to you too.

Joe, mr. money maker, should i assume that i’ll have that car in the garage waiting for me when i get home?

Alright, im out.