Feb 17th letter bonus!

From a handwritten letter Feb 17th...

Hey Y'all!

My trainer's name is Elder Josh Clason.  He's 21 and will be going back to BYU when he is done here.  Right now, he is training for a 5k to run with some members in our ward, and as the dutiful companion I am coming along for the ride.  I won't be participating, but that doesn't mean I won't have to follow along on my bike during the race or go on splits with another elder.  Onto physical description.  He's a little taller than me and is a little stockier as well, all muscle.  Before Brianna asks, I don't know his eye color or if he's cute or not.  Besides one: he's too old for you.  Two: he's taken.

Elder Clason hs been out for 18.5 months and has just 4 transfers left including the two I am taking up.  My guess is that they will be spent training as well because the last two transfers were also taken up by a greenie.  He's praying that it won't, but it totally will.

I thought when I arrived that there would be some time to unpack and such, but nope.  We went straight to work instead.  Half of what I brought is still in suitcases.

I am completely lost here.  I don't mean mentally or spiritually, but rather geographically.  There are no mountains! None! It's completely flat!  That and the fact that all of the streets here have names instead of numbers and grow in whatever direction they feel like means that it is impossible to get your bearings.  Even President Petersen has long since given up [trying to figure out all all of the streets].  At least the weather's been nice.

There is one family we are super excited to teach, and that is the D**** family.  We had been knocking doors in a part of town when E. Clason got the feeling to walk back to a trailer we had already passed.  We knocked on the door and this big guy walked out followed by a short woman.  We aren't supposed to introduce ourselves as mormon missionaries because that only gets door slammed in our faces and a couple of Elders in another area were mugged after doing that.  So, we introduced ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ, and then offered to leave a blessing on the home. After that we started talking and they turned out to be the nicest people.  The woman is D*** and the man is D****.

Pretty soon we found out that they had all lived on the east coast up until 6 months prior and had moved down for job opportunities.  As it turns out, D(man) had felt the night before we showed up that something was missing in their lives and they decided that  it must be God.  D(woman) started taking about the various christian churches he could join (there's 10,000 down here) and the LDS faith came up.  D (woman), it seems is a long time inactive member and while she hadn't gone to church in years, she still believed in everything.

D (man) told us it was a sign from God that we showed up when we did and is now starting to take the discussions with his family. The Lord has prepared them, so now it's up to us Elder to teach them.

I hope things are going great, and will write you another letter...eventually.

Love,
Jayden