1-2-09

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                        

 It dawned on me a few days ago that I’ll be a missionary for all of 2009. I thought that was pretty cool. Things are going well in Marysville. We’ve built up some good momentum here and have many people to see now which is nice.

 The snow’s finally gone so we can drive the van around—that’s been huge. When it first started snowing I thought it was awesome. It looked really nice and white outside, but I got over it fast, since we couldn’t drive for about a week. Church was even cancelled for two weeks. So the snow’s gone for now and we’re all doing a pretty good job at making up for lost time.

 We had a zone P-day yesterday with about 20 missionaries. We played the most intense basketball of my life. I had heard the legends of how crazy missionaries got at basketball and yesterday I lived it. You would think there were NBA scouts watching the way it was going. It was a lot of fun. We only had three minor injuries, so it was relatively clean.

 I wish I had some good stories about my investigators, but so far they’ve all been pretty normal. This transfer, so far, has been really good. We’ve had two struggling companionships in the district and they’ve both been able to get things going so that we’re all pulling hard. I like my new leadership calling a lot. I like the whole team mentality of it, the pressure and responsibility are definitely there, but the opportunity definitely outweighs them. It’s fun.

 This is what’s called “money week.” Since somebody has to come to church three times before they can be baptized, this is the last week we can still find, baptize, and confirm in the transfer, and today (Friday) is the most important day of the week since it has the biggest influence of how the Sunday turnout goes. So today’s gonna be a busy one.

Last Sunday we did pretty bad at getting people out to church mainly because of the snow, so this week needs to be a big one. I’m learning a lot this transfer so far. 

Thanks for all of the letters. To answer your question Camille, no Mallory unfortunately isn’t active since her dad isn’t, and things like that make me want to be back in Mt. Vernon to help fix. It’s hard leaving all the people you’ve taught and recent converts for two new missionaries. They are good missionaries though and I trust that President Showalter put them there for a reason.

 Thanks, again, everybody.

 Love, Nate