(10/20/2009)

Well the same old same old has been passing through here. It has definitely warmed up but it is still chilly in the mornings and very hard to get up since it is still dark.

Mother, I got your hats. I will hold off passing them out to people until it gets a little colder. There are definitely enough people here that need them. There is a lot of poverty here. I got the box the same day as your letter on Monday.

Well I guess since I am coming up on my year mark, my garments are getting a little raggedy. If I could get like five new bottoms. I would like the Medium short Dri Lux. There is no rush, just next time you are in Mesa if you could swing by the beehive center.

That is amazing that the fire marshal had to tell people to leave the building at the temple hearing. Sounds like it was close to not getting passed. Can they do anything to that land until it passes? I am assuming not. What about the Gilbert temple; is it done and how about the Gila Valley one? How are those coming along?

Yesterday morning I woke up with a little bit of a cough and felt kind of achy. It proceeded to get worse. I didn’t sleep very much last night. Thankfully it is p-day today; maybe I can get some rest.

Well Sunday night we had a little fireside that President Belnap puts on every once in a while. In these firesides he has recent converts come up and share their conversion story and their testimonies and we are supposed to invite our investigators and less-active members to listen. Well we didn't have any investigators nor less-active members but we did have Nick speaking. So we went up there to listen and he did awesome. He told a longer part of his story that I had never heard.

A few years ago he got divorced and to cover up the pain he turned to drinking and the "party life" as he called it. He also got into the wrong crowd and was making money "the easy way". Well he was living in Spokane and he drove down to Sunnyside to visit his grandmother and his grandmother told him that she didn't like the way he was living and she wanted him to change. He just ignored her. She told him that she didn't want him driving back that night because it was too late. Again he ignored her. So later he goes to visit his mom. She works at the casino and didn't get out of work at 11. So he visited with her and she also told him that she didn't want him to go home that night. He ignored her and went and got into his car. He tried to turn on his 4-week-old brand new Lexus and it wouldn't start. Well he had a meeting to be at in the morning so he tried and tried to get there but he couldn't. He called his best friend and told him that he couldn't make it and his friend said okay I will go by myself. So the next morning, that car starts right away. He drives to Spokane and gets home and looks for his best friend because they lived together. He couldn't find him anywhere and neither did anyone else. Well he gets a call from the police and they tell him he needs to come to the city morgue and identify a body. So he goes and he walks into this room and they roll this body out that looked like frozen meat with 6 gun shots in his chest and 1 in his head. This body was his best friend, and that "meeting" was a set up. He said that it was supposed to be him on that table. He goes on and tells how later, he met this girl and she invited them to church and the rest is history. That was a powerful story. The spirit was so strong.

Well that’s about it for this week. Sorry it is short. The Morales family is doing well. They didn't come to church but they said they tried...whatever that means. The Solis family is still stuck on the Sabbath day. And Alida, Veronica daughter is getting baptized on the 31st and her husband is having a change of heart.

I gotta run...Take care