October 10, 2011

Dear family and friends,

        Sorry I did not get to email last week. It was really busy because my companion had to go to a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day and some other missionaries depended on us for rides to go to other places. So I did get transferred, but it turns out that I'm still serving in the same ward, just in another area. So I already knew my companion Elder Santillan because he had been in the ward as long as I have, but now we're actually companions. He's from Michoacan, Mexico and he's been out for about a year. This will be his 4th transfer being in this area and of course it's my 1st.

        So things are going pretty good. We have 2 people set for baptism right now. One of them is named Lucio and he's set for baptism on Oct. 29th. His wife is a less-active member, and so now we're trying to get both of them to come to church. He says that he wants to learn more about God and become closer to him, but he has a difficult time doing those actual things that will help him and most of the time he blames it on his kids bothering him. However, he did get to read a little bit this week, but he still needs to come to church. Then we also have Nelci who's set for Oct. 22nd. She was actually a referral from Salt Lake and I think somebody introduced her to the church and she wanted to know more, so we got the referral and now we're teaching her and she's doing great. Her son also comes sometimes to the Mutual that we have on Thursdays, so that's pretty cool. We also have a really cool guy named Ramiro and he's different because he actually rides his bike everywhere. He rides it to work, church, or anywhere else he needs to go, and so that makes him pretty dependable. He's been taught everything, but I think he just needs to work out a couple family problems that he has before he gets baptized.

        I really liked General Conference, also. I always like the Priesthood session because they usually talk about missionaries a lot, and they did. They also usually make a few more jokes in the Priesthood session, also. I can't wait until it comes in the Ensign. Anyways, we've had some pretty crazy street contacts as of lately. We ran into a lot of people that told us that the Book of Mormon is false and that it doesn't say anything about the Book of Mormon in the Bible and I showed them a scripture where it does, but most of them just try to get us angry. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't because it's not even worth getting mad over.

        So it looks like we're starting to get the fall weather, also. This past week it rained for about 4 days in a row (which is really unusual), and then after that it got down to about 60 degrees where I would need a sweater and now it's around 70 degrees so it's really nice right now before it gets chilly. It sounds like it's already getting chilly in Maryland. That's cool that you guys are going to the Grand Canyon for your anniversary. I'm sure you're having a blast with all of the lookout points. It definitely was for me when I went there.

        Well, I guess that's it for me this week. Our area is doing pretty good. We just have to find more people to teach and know where to look because now we have a fairly large area. However, we do have an FHE lined up for tonight at a member's house with an investigator, so I hope that goes well. My old area should be in good hands because there's a former AP there and he's training a new missionary, and it always seems like missionaries that train/get trained get a lot of baptisms. Anyway, I'll let you know if I need anything.

I love you!

Elder Meiners