October 17, 2011

Dear family and friends,

        Things have been going pretty good this week. We actually had 3 people come to church this week. They were Nelci, Lucio (who both have a baptismal date) and Ramiro. It looks like everything will look fine for Nelci's baptism on Saturday. We just have a cuple more things to teach her and she'll be ready. Lucio finally came to church this week after not coming for a while, but we still haven't seem him at all this week, even though we planned a few appointments with him. Ramiro also came to church also, but we didn't get to catch any of them because they all left right after sacrament meeting. Things are good with Ramiro, he just has to work out a few family problems. We've only had one "sit-down" lesson with him, so we'll find out more of his story later.

         We had a really cool experience last Monday. So we were trying to go visit some less-actives in our ward, but they weren't there and so we talked to the guy that was there and he seemed really interested. So we came by the next day and we asked him (his name is Jesus) and his sister, Diana about what they wanted to learn and they asked questions that pertained exactly to the Plan of Salvation. So we taught them about it and they seem super awesome. The only bad thing is that Jesus is moving back to Arizona today and so we told him how he could get in contact with the missionaries over there, but we're still going to go over because we want to continue teaching Diana. We invited her to church yesterday, but she didn't come.

         Being in the same ward is cool and all. Not too much has changed, haha. I'm in a different apartment which is kind of up by the mountain towards the temple; it's really nice and quiet up there. My companion moved to California when he was 8, so his native language is Spanish, but he knows English fluently enough that you can hardly tell.

         There's this recent convert in our ward that has a tumor and so sometimes she can't come to church. But she has a lot of faith because the doctors told her a few months ago that she would probably die from it, but she had faith in God's plan that it wasn't time for her to go yet, and so she's still here and she said that she's getting better.

         There have been a couple incidents this week where we couldn't eat at members' houses, and so they would give us a "carry-out" dinner. And it happened about 3 times and so now we have a ton of food in our fridge that will probably last us for another week without having to buy anything. I guess it just goes to show that members still give missionaries lots of food even when they can't be there.

         The weather this week has actually been surprisingly hot again. We thought it would be a little bit cooler, but it was up in the 90's and 100's again this week. So maybe it'll get cooler later on, but it's hard to tell.

         That's cool that you guys had the Alonzo Stagg hike again this week. I can hardly remember the last time that I went on that because marching band would always be on Friday night or all-day Saturday, so I haven't had a decent chance to try it since then. Maybe I'll do it some other year. Give my congrats to Jared for me.

         Well, I guess that's all I can think of. Our area is doing pretty good, we just have to keep on finding those people that are ready to hear the gospel, because we don't really have that many people to teach still. We're still working hard, though. I'll tell you if I need anything.

I love you!

Elder Meiners