September 30, 20102

Dear family,

Everything has been going really good. This week has been a little slower than usual, but we're still excited to go and do work.
Luis Lopez is still doing good. He loves having us come over and we're still set on baptizing him for the 16th, so hopefully that will still go well. He's had a couple visits with the bishop to make sure that he's still worthy to be baptized and so he's really excited. He's definitely going to have a good time at General Conference.

Arlene is also doing good. We gave her a 'For the Strength of Youth' pamphlet and she says she really like it because it's plain and simple and yet to the point. That's what teenagers need these days. She even came to morning church this week and so that was exciting to have her meet the ward and how she felt during the meetings. She said that even though she was tired because she didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, she felt good because she felt the Spirit during all the meetings.

I'm excited to go to General Conference this weekend. I have to listen to it in Spanish, but I'm doing a lot better at understanding in Spanish. I feel confident in following a conversation; now I just have to work on speaking it.

Elder Parker actually got his original bike that he got fixed. So we haven't had bike problems in about a week, which is pretty much a miracle, comparing to what we've had before. So this morning, we got locked out of our apartment because we left the keys when we went to morning sports and the other Elders in our apartment locked it when they went to the temple. But since the front office still wasn't open yet, we had to get in through the open ledge about 15 feet up. I stood on Elder Parker's hands while he lifted me up for me to get over the ledge.

I had exchanges with Elder Arbizu yesterday (the one who's picture is in the Gospel Principles book) and he was having some back pain last night so he slept on the couch and I brought my mattress out and slept on the floor. The other Elders in our apartment are getting hungry since they don't have much food or money, so when I was on exchanges, all the Elders in the other district got all their expired food and put it in a trash bag and gave the bag to the Elders in our apartment and they didn't mention that the food was expired. It was funny.

So Mom said that when she finished painting the library, there's a painting from both me and James, but when I saw the picture, they're actually both James'. Boo. So I think that's it. Everything's going pretty good with me. All of those cookies that you gave me for my birthday got eaten while I was on exchanges, so I guess I just have to eat my cookies faster. I'll tell you if I need anything else, though.

I love you!

Elder Meiners III