10-1-08

Dear Family,

Today was a great day. We met a guy whose name is Brian. He has a good friend named Mike who is always at his house hanging out with him. He was a pastor for 6 years a while back and living next to a member. So she tipped us that he had shown an interest in the church so we went over a few days ago. We only talked with Mike the first time on Brian's lawn for about 5 minutes. I don't even remember what about. This was either my 2nd or 3rd day on my mission, and yesterday when we went and talked with Brian and saw Mike again, Brian told us how our talk with Mike really helped him out and how they appreciated our efforts. I had no idea. I was nervous and it was one of my first actual missionary interactions, and I was stoked to hear that.

Anyway, today was great because I'm getting door approaches/street contact down so I'm not nervous anymore. Elder Jones and I gave a sweet tag-team door approach/two-principle lesson/conference invite to a girl in downtown Mt. Vernon. We flowed really well and I felt like a legit missionary, not a greeny, for the first time.

But, about 2 hours ago at 8 pm after a good dinner appointment, we went over to Brian's house and as usual, he called us in. He got attacked by his brother 2 nights ago while sleeping. He jumped on him and started strangling him after walking in the front door about 2 am. Brian's adopted son called 911 and he bailed, but Brian has been a little torn up physically and emotionally since then. We've been over with him once before tonight and he has enjoyed it. He knows his Bible well and Mike gets in on our "study sessions" we have. They aren't lessons because we are just breaking ground right now. We're working on the Apostasy right now, and we already set up the Book of Mormon with him and I gave him my original quad to study from since I got a new unmarked one in the MTC, and he looked like a kid in cand land when he saw how my Book of Mormon was connected to the Bible with cross-references and all that good stuff. We talk about our beliefs and the agreement is if we say something he and the Bible don't agree with, we'll talk about it. And if he talks about things we see differently, we will prove our position. We've been showing him some solid scriptures and he really enjoys it. He made sure we realized how big of a help we were with him and was he was going through. He was amazed at how we rang the doorbell about 3 seconds after he thought to himself if we were coming by tonight. He's a really good guy, so is Mike. It is an awesome feeling to know we are helping them out. When he hears our whole spiel and knows it's true, he's really going to love us.

It's nice to talk with people who don't judge off the bat, and are open-minded to our message. Many people here belong to the myriad of churches in town and won't hear our message. The one lady who has belonged to another church and has allowed us to share was embarrassed since she had been told so many falsehoods about our faith from her minister. But still she decided the Bible was enough and wouldn't even experiment on the Book of Mormon. It's sad so many people don't know what they're missing since they have been told opinions as facts. When you think of the big picture with every religion of Christianity steming off a dead religion (Catholicism) and how there are countless numbers of these congregations with different interpretations of scripture, it is boggling how they can believe they are in the right place. The Trinity and how it came about through creeds also boggles me. If they had any idea the way we view the Kingdom vs. Heaven/Hell, things like that, there is no doubt they would all be interested to some degree. It is sad to see someone pass up something they need. Agency is a doozey!

Anywhoo. I am in Mt. Vernon. It's pretty nice here. Big evergreen trees everywhere, blackberry bushes grow wild and are really good. It's usually some form of cloudy or drizzling; rains a lot. I'm about 10 miles from the Puget Sound and about an hour and a half south of British Columbia. I like it. Nice windy, foresty roads. A big river goes through downtown. It's really scenic. When you look to the east it's big hills covered in evergreens to the Cascade Mountains which are big and jagged, then behind them is Mt. Baker. It's this huge extinct volcano that is snow-capped year round. There are farms out here surrounded by forests of huge evergreen trees. I live about 10 minutes from downtown Mt. Vernon to the east in a more woodsy area next to a big lake, in the basement of a family's house who are members of the church. Behind the lake is a huge hill covered in evergreens, like everything here, and behind that hill is the town of Mt. Vernon (30,000 pop.). There is a little downtown with a nice little Main Street. It's kinda ghetto. It's got a shady area, a few trailer parks, a Mexican section, a train-tracks ultra shady area, farming area, nice homes on the hills to the east of downtown, a river that flows through town, and a big lake which is over the hills out back to the east, which is were we live. Basically, the place is gorgeous. It has been sunny for the last 4 or 5 days too, and hot, about 80. Amazing. I really like it here: the area, my comp, what I'm doing.

My comp is Elder Jones. He's from Layton, Utah. He played football, wrestled. He's cool, plays guitar, good sense of humor, obedient, diligent, just a good all-around missionary.

Our Mission Pres is cool, Pres. Showalter. He's a mellow x-banker from Salt Lake, relaxed but very much in control and runs a tight operation with high standards.

Our district is cool. We had a good p-day last week. We played v-ball and it didn't last that long after I started jump-serving and making people feel bad with my uber-dominance. I didn't mean to shutthem down, it just kind of happened. So we played soccer. But a sweet rendition where if you mess up a certain number of times, you line up about 30 feet away facing away and people kick the ball at you. If you miss, you line up next to them. If you hit them, you're safe. So you want to get to the end of the line so there are like 10 people lined up and you can't miss. We have some cool ward members.

After that, we went to do a rope swing. It was raining and I was thinking it would be really lame. Oh my gosh, the thing was gnarly. Looking at it, I wasn't even sure if I would try it. It's up there with big waves and jumps as far as a first-time adrenaline boost. There was a tree about 100 feet high with the rope going up about 80 feet and tied to a limb that poked out perfectly away from the trunk. Then behind the tree was a hill and on this hill was a 3-level platform to take off from. It was awesome. You're on the platform and the tree is huge and the rope goes up forever and you jump off the platform and swing by the tree and get really big off the ground. It's totally safe, don't worry. (mother's note: yah right!)

Anyway, I love you all very much. I appreciate your prayers and letters. The picture of Creighton is hilarious and he will get a roundhouse for it. Thanks for keeping me up to date Mom. Dad, I hope your hard work is paying off. Katie, I hope you get that job. Sam and Connie, I hope the twins sleep better now. Camille and Jeff, I hope you guys are doing well with your tests/books. Jeff McLellan, I didn't forget about you. Surf it up for me. Mom, thanks for all you do.

Much love, Nate