Brian Email 6-9-05

Hi family,

Still no word on transfers, but that's not for another couple of weeks
still. I am on exchanges though today. I'm in a little town called
Monroe, about 45 minutes from my apartment. I am with my district
leader's greenie. He is from Mexico but grew up in Chicago. He speaks
perfect English and Spanish, so it's not really too big of a struggle.
I would have been pretty nervous if my companion didn't speak well.

I'm glad it's been raining in Boise, it's been pretty wet here too. Two
days ago, we were going to an appointment and we were trying to take a
shortcut, but the road was flooded so bad that no one could go through.
We stopped and got out of the car just to look. Neither I nor Elder
Marks had ever been witnesses to a flash flood before, so it was pretty
cool. We were watching garbage cans wash away and all kinds of things,
then this lady drove up and was freaking out about her dog being chained
up in her yard. So we ran across the road, the water was between our
knees and waists, and we went into her yard to try to help, but the dog
was just fine. It was kind of a waste, but we were already pretty wet
anyway, and it was fun. I've been in a flood! (And no, I haven't
gotten to play disc golf yet.)

Then yesterday, here in Monroe, we were on bike and it rained pretty
good. It was coming down so hard, and the drops were huge. I was just
as wet as I was after the flood. I love the rain here because it is so
warm, it wasn't until we got inside our apartment for dinner that we got
cold. We went back out to warm up. Biking in the rain is a lot more
fun than biking in the sun, I don't sweat so much. We have awesome
lightning and thunder here too, way more than in Boise. It's probably
because it's a lot warmer here. It's been getting up into the 90s
almost every day. Another thing I like about the South, is that there
are fireflies. I never saw a single one before my mission, I kinda
thought they were just a myth, or maybe something that they only have in
England that Americans only hear about. But no, we have lots of 'em
here.

I keep meeting people who know people on missions in Boise, but I don't
know any of them. I never really paid attention to missionaries. In
the west, they just don't stand out as much. Here, we have people that
remember every missionary that has come through in the last three years.
They think it's wierd that no one from Idaho or Utah knows which
missionaries had been in their wards. I couldn't tell you a single name
of any missionary from our ward.

As for progress in the work here, there's not much of it. Everyone
still doesn't come to church, everyone still says they're going to. We
have taught so many lessons to so many people but nobody keeps their
commitments, except for very few. Victor still reads, that is really
nice. He is closer than the rest of our investigators to baptism, but
he still hasn't come to church, he said that's something he needs to do
before he can commit to baptism, and I think he has a point. A lot of
our people (members and not) have been moving away, so that slows us
down a little. Our mission goal is for every companionship to spend 10
hours a week knocking, which is really a lot more than I've ever done
here. It's really not too much though, it helps me to drop stagnant
people faster. If they don't want to change, I don't want to teach
them. We find so many more people, and we drop almost as many. The
truly elect will recognize us, and we don't need to waste any time
teaching the un-elect if there are more people to find. I'm still
loving my mission, and I'm trying to keep a good attitude. It's not too
hard though, I love being here.

Thanks for the letter, it's always great to hear what everyone is up to.
I hope you all have a great day/week, y que Dios les bendiga.

Love, Brian