Brian Email 8-18-05

Hola familia mia,

Como estan todos? I'm doing all right, but things are getting a little
stressful lately. I already told y'all that I'm training, but I haven't
mentioned much about my greenie. He's usually pretty cool, but in some
ways it's a little frustrating. I don't mean to sound negative, but he
has had a very very sheltered life, and the South is killing him. I had
to explain what the YMCA is and Goodwill stores, he had never heard of
either, and I can't even imagine what else he doesn't know about. He
didn't know that Catholics think highly of the Virgin until I told him.
Haha, it's going to be a fun three months. I've had just a little fun
with telling him lies, but I always told him I was kidding. He's
definitely different from all my other companions so far, but he's a
good guy and he wants to learn everything.

This week has seemed really long, we have been stood up a lot, and we've
finished tracting all our favorite apartments, so now we have to look
for more. All that is left is farther away, so we have to spend whole
days up there tracting to make it mile-efficient, but the days seem so
much longer when we spend all day in one spot. It's still mad hot out,
it has been mid 90's all week, I come home soaked every night just from
the humidity and sweat.

As for good news, we went yesterday and followed up with a lady we had
taught once, and she said she had been reading the Testimony of Jose
Smith and that she had been praying about it and felt like it was all
true. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes. We asked her
when she could be ready, and she said, in a month. We'll see if she
becomes the branch's first baptism in 14 months. We just have to get
her to church and teach her the rest of the lessons, how hard could it
be? All our other investigators have been a little flaky lately.
Silvina hasn't been to church in a few weeks, and Edwin is still hiding
from us. Nancy came to church two weeks ago, but hasn't been as
consistent as she was before her "baptismal" date. But Juan Carlos came
to church. I forget if I've mentioned him or not, but he's a pretty
chill guy. He said he liked Sacrament meeting a lot, and that this week
he is going to come for all three hours. Another new investigator that
Elder Mitchell and I found says he got Sunday off this week and that he
wants to come too. They live right next to each other, so maybe they
can fellowship each other or something. We also talked a little bit
last night with Juan Carlos and some of his neighbors, they seem cool
enough. We're going to try to teach something next time, now that we
have a foundation of friendship.

We have a lot to look forward to, there is way too much work to do
though. When we tract 10 hours a week, we end up following up about 10
hours also, and then we have all the referrals from our branch to
contact, plus two pages of media referrals... We hardly have time for
our other investigators. It's always so hard to make time for everyone.
When we planned for the week on Monday, we already had Saturday full of
appointments, and about 12 other appointments during the week already
scheduled. We are so backed up I don't know what to do. Teaching
people every other week doesn't work very well either because they
forget everything, it's a little frustrating. And President Noel wants
us to teach English one night a week, so we'll have to fit that in
somewhere, I think we'll start it next week sometime, and let our branch
president announce it at church.

I didn't know Andy was 1st assistant, maybe I just forgot though.
Congratulaions! And he's a senior... How did he like white water
rafting? It doesn't really exist here, all the "rivers" are too small
and muddy. Did they go with Bro. Loveland? He always liked going with
my group because there were a lot of us and not a lot who couldn't hack
it. He always said we were more responsible than a lot of other groups
he takes. How did mom end up going, was it Priests/Laurels? Oh, and
speaking of that, I just learned a cool phrase last night from my zone
leader, it's "Double Date District", that's the kind I'm in because it's
two Elders and two Sisters. I thought it was funny.

Congratulations to David on his mission call. He's not speaking Spanish
is he? Then he could talk to Julie and Stephanie and Michael, that
would be cool. Tell him the South is awesome. I have some really good
friends in Texas. Oh wait, only one now, the others are home already.
I forgot. I used to know people in his mission, and I know a few that
will be getting home from missions and going back home to Dallas.

And that's all I have for now. Have a good week, don't have too much
fun in school. Have a good family reunion/BYC. :)

Love, Brian