03/10/2009 (Busy Busy)

Hello from the snowy Walla Walla! It has snowed three days this week. It usually melts by the time it hits the ground or within two hours but still. It is the middle of March. It is not supposed to snow! The weird thing is there are a couple of days that are 55 and sunny and pretty nice days. It is confusing.

We have been working hard. Wednesday was zone conference which was really fun. It was just kinda fun to get away from the work I guess. Then that evening we did a couple of visits then taught English that night.

On Friday we went tracting at the labor camps. It’s just like an apartment complex type thing that farms let their workers live in. So we tracted there and talked to a lot of Mexicans and got a lot of return appointments. We asked one guy to read the Book of Mormon and he seemed interested. His name his Augustine. Then the very next house we went to, we talked to a lady named Veronica. She seemed a little stand-offish at first but we did a little small talk and got her to open up. Elder Flint then asked what she was cooking because it smelled good and she said enchiladas and asked if we wanted some. And you know it is rude to turn down food, so we politely accepted and they were so good!! We have a return appointment with her tonight. We taught a few more people and got about 4 or 5 potential investigators from it so it was a success. One thing that was funny was a group of about 3 or 4 little girls went riding by us on their bikes and one said look at the white guys in Spanish and Elder Flint without missing a beat said yeah look at us. The girl that said it turned around and stared at us so long I thought she was going to crash on her bike. It was pretty funny.

There are 3 colleges here in Walla Walla. On Sunday, a northwest religion class from Whitman College came and visited our sacrament meeting. Though I don’t think any of them are going to get baptized, they at least were able to come and witness what we do. The professor mentioned to the Bishop that it seemed like we were very organized. Other than that, they didn't say much, at least not to us.

Todd, the one addicted to narcotics, attended church on Sunday. He is separated from his wife, I don’t know if they are divorced or not but they are separated. She left him because she had been clean from alcoholism for 16 months now and was mad because he couldn't get over the narcotics. But now that he is over it, she came and visited him. They are trying to get back to church and even want to be sealed in the temple. He has been doing really well. He still smokes cigarettes but that is better than narcotics.

Yesterday we got into every house we visited. It was pretty nice. They were all less actives but we had a good discussion with all of them.

I don't know if I have told you this before or not but this Sunday we have a thing called invitation Sunday. It is just a Sunday where the talks are just on basic doctrine and members are encouraged to invite their friends. It is a mission thing and they did it like last October and they got 26 baptisms off of it. So we will see how that goes. I have to translate in the Spanish sacrament meeting to people that don’t know Spanish that go there. I don’t know why they go but I have to wear a head set with a microphone and they wear headphones and I translate to them. I am a little nervous but I figure if I don’t know what they said in Spanish, I can just make it up, they won’t know the difference.

Well the work is progressing here. Two weeks have gone quickly. My three-month mark is coming up next week. That is crazy. I hope it still goes fast, maybe even faster. We have been working hard but we still have a lot to do. I look forward to talking to you next week. Take care.