June 9, 2011

Dear family and friends,

This week has been pretty good. We saw Gabby a couple times this week and so we saw the movie The Testaments and also Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. She really liked both of them and I think that she knows what the movies were trying to show and why it was important, which is the good thing. We also have another investigator named Marco who's 24 years old that apparently took some of the lessons in Mexico and his Mom is Mormon and his dad is Catholic. So he knows a little bit, and both he and Gabby came to church this past week, so that was good.

Today was the first time that I've been to the temple since January because if you're in an out of valley zone, you can't go to the temple. But now that I'm back in Las Vegas, I could go and it was good to be back and be able to feel the Spirit that was there and be able to renew our covenants.

On Saturday, it was really busy and hectic because there were 3 families in our ward that got evicted out of their homes and so we tried to help them move out all of their stuff in a certain amount of time. It's kind of a crazy story, but they were all paying their rent on time to the landlord, but the landlord wasn't making those payments to the bank because he was keeping it for himself and so the bank was wondering where their rent money was and so they just evicted the families. We helped one of the families on Saturday and then we helped another family on Tuesday. On Saturday, it was also the first time that I went to a funeral, and it just so happened to be in Spanish because I think it was a Spanish member that died and so they asked a couple missionaries in our district to give "speeches". Luckily, I didn't have to give one.

I think James would be proud of me. My companion was getting pretty good at chess in our apartment against the English Elders because we have a big chess set on our table. And so he wanted me to play him in chess because he thought he could beat me, but I beat him twice in a row. I never even thought that I could be good at chess, but I guess I am.

On Monday, we had interviews with President Christensen, except it was a little different because it was in our apartment! So we had to clean up a lot and have our suits on and everything and we even had the interviews in our room. While President was doing the interviews, Sis. Christensen showed us how we can clean the collars on our white shirts and shine our shoes. She said that when she used our bathroom, it was the first time that she had ever used a missionary bathroom because usually they're so dirty.

So it's getting a little hotter, probably not as hot as Maryland, though. Actually, sometimes I wear long sleeve shirts because that way you won't get sunburn on your arms. Since it's getting to the summer season, Sis. Christensen said that for Fast Sundays you can drink water just so that you don't pass out or anything, so that's what we did this past week. It was kind of hot to be biking around on Fast Sunday, so we stopped at different member's houses for water.

So it sounds like Kara's baby will be born pretty soon! I saw her picture and she is getting pretty big, haha. Whenever it does come, just make sure that you guys send me some pictures.

I'll try to send you guys a picture of the shirt I burned for my 1 year mark. Don't worry, it was a shirt that I couldn't wear anyway because it didn't have a front pocket.

So Erika and Tyler are working at Quality Associates? Is that the one that Julia worked at? And which one was the one that Kara, Erika, and James all worked at? That kind of reminds me of a family we have in our ward. There's a girl named Cao that works at McDonald's, and so does her older sister Alexis, and so does her younger brother Poe, and so does her husband, Dominic. So they have like 4 family members working at the same McDonald's. I just thought it would be funny if we did the same thing.

I would hope that my room is clean enough for them to use. I've been gone for more than a year now, so that should be enough time to clean up any messes that I left.

As for applying for school, I still have like no idea what I want to do or how I want to do it. I think what Mom suggested sounds pretty good because I guess I can't even apply for the School of Music at BYU until January, so that'll give me at least something to do. But other than that, I haven't given anything much thought.

I guess that's all I can think of. I don't need any more shirts or anything, I still have like 13 left. I'll tell you if I need anything.

I love you!

Elder Meiners