Email Letter - May 29, 2012

Hey everyone I hope your memorial day was fantastic and that all went well! Sorry I'm a day late but libraries were closed and the such due to the holiday.
This week has been interesting to say the least. Stressful for sure.
We got up to Weaverville late Tuesday night and have enjoyed it up here. It's really amazing, the views and all. We found out the other day about a few interesting facts, first, if you were to lay trinity county flat, it would be larger than Texas. Second, there are a grand total of 0 traffic lights in the whole of the county and third, well there is no third but it flows better when you have three.
The members up here are great, a lot of them are really wanting to help out, and many of them have people for us to teach it's just a matter of setting appointments and getting things all worked out.
Until then we'll continue tracting, In Weaverville anyway. We actually found someone to teach from tracting last week. It's the first one my entire mission that said he was interested at the door and then kept the appointment. He said he was looking for us to bring some light into his life and that's exactly what we'll do. He's out of town all this next week but after he gets back we're excited to meet with him
again, especially since he has some great questions about the plan of salvation. We're excited!
Aside from that there's a whole lot of the usual around here. We think this next p-day we'll check out some of the local stuff. Joss house, the various museums and all that good stuff. It'll be so much fun!
Anyway, take care all, sorry if this didn't get to everyone the comp we're using is old and didn't want to enter a group so I went individually. But in any case have a wonderful week and I love you all!

Email Letter - May 21, 2012

So big news, I'm getting transferred! You're probably thinking, "wait, didn't you just get to Redding 2 weeks ago?" yes, yes I did. Elder Bennion and I are both leaving the Redding 2nd ward to open up the Weaverville ward and Hayfork branch. We got a call from the zone leaders on Thursday letting us know what was going on, and we're headed into the hills. It's gonna be a blast and it will be much enjoyed. Effective tomorrow we'll be covering that area, which is pretty much the northern 2/3s of Trinity county. Our Hayfork branch alone is about 23 miles from one end to the other, or maybe it was 23 miles to the furthest active members house from the church. I think the latter. Good thing we'll be in a car!
We actually went up to the Hayfork branch conference for church yesterday, and met all 15 active people in the branch. We'll hit Weaverville next sunday and meet the rumored 70 active people. There's a lot to do and we're excited to be the ones to have the chance to do it.
Aside from that the week has been pretty average. We went to the Sundial bridge to talk to people the other day and we took a few good pictures and a video, pictures included in this email and the video will be sent seperately. We tracted a lot again this week but other than that we really just got ready to pass the area off to the missionaries taking over. It's going to be a long process.
Something that will get old, but will add a whole new challenge in is that we will be living in Weaverville half of the week and Hayfork the other half. It will be rough, but splitting all of our stuff and living out of a suitcase kept in the car will be fun, at least maybe for the first week. Maybe. Anyway, it'll be good no matter what because we have a good attitude and are going to be working hard so we know we will be blessed!
Now it's just a waiting game, we get our car and go up tomorrow after our Zone Conference. it'll be great! There are also some other pictures, one of the valley just outside of Hayfork, and one of the King street sign. Love you guys and have a good week!

Email Letter - May 14, 2012

Sorry about the lack of email last week, really there wasn't anything to say that was exciting. Just that I got transferred. I've had a first week up in Redding. Elder Bennion is great and we're having good success. Up here there hasn't been a lot of work in a long time and we're going to be fixing that. It's kind of a bummer to always come to a dead area and then leave when it's revived. But that happens, and it seems to be my calling and when President Weston trusts me to do. I'm alright with that I guess.
So a little bit about the area: It's hot, really hot. It was in the mid 90s almost all last week, and it's only getting hotter. At least it isn't humid. In the area there are a lot of different churches, two of them also happen to be schools. One a university like BYU the other a ministerial school. The Univeristy, called Simpson, is mainly for non-denominational Christians, and they hate the church. If you're a mormon and you try to go to Simpson they make you publicly denounce the church to attend. The other, called Bethel, is into signs, wonders, and miracles, especially healings. Sad thing is that it all happens for them and they think it's the true church, so they're VERY devout. They don't get that it's all false. So in this area there is a lot of opposition to the church, but it's just one more thing to overcome. We're not too worried about  it. We'll do our job to invite, and they'll accept or they won't.
Anyway, not too much to say about the work. We knocked a few hundred doors this week, not counting the Less-Active's and former investigator's doors we knocked on. Which was another good amount.  We'll keep going, and keep our heads up while we do it.