October 7, 2010

Dear family,
General Conference was really awesome. Thankfully, I could watch it in English so that was good. I really liked Pres. Uchtdorf's talk also about the difference between being proud of someone and being prideful. I especially liked the line where he says: "Being humble isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking less about yourself." It was kind of a bummer, though, because none of our investigators came to watch any of the seesions of Conference. That would've counted as like 3 weeks of Church if they came to all the sessions, haha. We kind of joked that any new investigator could be baptized after watching Conference because it's recommended that investigators come to church for 3 weeks before they're baptized. We did, however, have Pablo our new recent convert, watch General Conference from his house, so that was cool.
This week, Luis fell into a couple of relapses again concerning the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity and so we told him that he still has a second chance to repent and prepare to be worthy to be baptized next week. Arlene is doing great still. In fact, she's excited to tell her friends and family that she's going to be baptized next week. She's also been reading and praying pretty much every day and she even told us what she felt when she knew that it was true (Arlene speaks English, and Luis speaks both when we go over).

We got kind of mad because Pedro Pacheco, one of our investigators that knew the Book of Mormon and the Church were true fell through and said he couldn't see us anymore because he's too busy with work. He definitely wants to be baptized, but it won't be anytime soon. While I was on exchanges on Monday, Elder Parker met a family that wanted us to come back and so he taught them the 1st lesson that same day and just yesterday, we taught them the 2nd lesson. I can definitely see this family being baptized soon.
Man, that stinks that you might have to get the heating fixed. I know those can cost a lot of money. Don't worry about sending more goodies or anything. I'm pretty sure that if you send more, they will still be eaten when I'm gone on exchanges, so don't worry about it. The Elder that took my spot that day has the same exact build as me: really skinny and will eat a lot and stay skinny.
The biking gloves seem to be working well, so that's also good. We've been having really nice weather lately. It doesn't get too hot in the afternoons and it's starting to get a little cool at nights. In fact, we've had a couple days this week where it was completely cloudy and threatened to rain on us, but it never did. All the missionaries are pretty much praying for rain, but I don't see why I need to. Elder Parker's bike tire popped again after a week and a half or so and he's ticked about it because he just got it fixed.
I think that's it for now. Yes, they're feeding me well.

I love you!

Elder Meiners

P.S. And to all of my Facebook friends, your efforts did not go unnoticed! My mom sent me an email with pretty much all the wall posts concerning my birthday, so thank you all for thinking of me and for wishing me well.