October 11th 2010

October 11th 2010

Wow! What a great email that was Mom. The story of the storm was crazy! I can't believe tornados actually touched down! We haven’t had any weather problems here. Last week it was kind of cold and the beginning of this week was pretty cold but by Thursday it was in the 80's and boy was that heavenly. So I have this problem where I write a bunch of letters then they sit on my desk for a week then I put them in envelopes and then send them a week later. So that is what happened this week. I have written letters to everyone including Grandma and will put them in the mail box today so they will probably get picked up tomorrow so you can figure out how long they will take to get there. Also, I need Jeff and Candice’s Address. I don't hear anything from them but I would like to send them a letter.

So this last week was good. It is super weird being in just one ward now. My area in Stockton was pretty small and just one ward as well but it was bigger than the ward I'm over now. With both wards we could stay pretty busy and things would be fine with finding people to teach and having appointments and things like that but now in just one ward it’s kind of difficult to do so. It probably similar to the size of our ward in Mesa but not as many members in it. So this week we were doing a lot of seeing potentials and less active members and stuff because all of our investigators were in the other ward that I decided to give up. It was a tough decision which ward I wanted because in the other ward we had a bigger teaching pool but the investigators weren't exactly solid and the members were all pretty cool and stuff but they weren't the most missionary minded and weren't as available to help us out with stuff. In the ward that I’m currently over we only have two real investigators and so it is harder to have things to do all day cuz you can't teach two people every day of the week. But ultimately I decided to pick this ward because the members are all great. They are usually available to help us out any time of the day and they are always willing to do missionary work. We had dinner with the bishop this week and it was amazing to see and feel the love he really has for the youth in the ward. He was rearranging things in the ward to specifically help out the missionary work and the youth. It’s a lot of fun working with him. So one thing we were trained on by another missionary a couple of weeks ago was working with members to find people to teach. Oh how true I know this is now! The two people we are teaching for real’s right now were because we went to visit a less active family. The first is a 15 year old kid named JT. We met him like a month and a half ago. His dad is a less active member and is a brother to the biggest well known family in Elk Grove. They own like four different businesses so we thought it would be good to meet him. He (the father of JT) told us that he wasn't going to be coming back to church or anything so we kind of left it at that. Then a couple weeks later we went and visited a less active lady in our ward with the same last name. It was funny because when we knocked on her door she knew exactly why we were there and she told us she was trying to make it back to church and then we asked if we would be able to come over and practice our lessons on her and her kids and she said she was actually wondering and asking her Mom the day before if she thought the missionaries would be willing to teach her kids so they could be more "knowledgeable". So she said of course and we went and answered her and her kids questions. We soon found out that she was the ex wife of Jt's fathers brother. So JT is her nephew. Well we thought well certainly these lessons would be more effective with an unbaptized kid here, which JT is. So we asked her to invite him over a time or two and she gladly did and also provided a Book of Mormon for him. So since then we have been over three times to teach JT and we have plans to invite him tonight to be baptized in a couple of weeks. So that was awesome and totally inspired. The other person we are working with is the 26 year old daughter of another less active sister in our ward. A couple of weeks ago we had dinner with this lady and she told us that she was having trouble getting in contact with the woman she visit teaches. So she asked us if we could go stop by and we do things like that everyday so we said "Why of course!" So the next day we went by and met Nici (said Nicki). She had previously moved back in with her mom and dad a couple of weeks before after having lived with her boyfriend in Colorado for 5 years! We got on the subject of religion, naturally, and taught her a little bit about Joseph Smith. She was intrigued by this, and was more than willing to have us over more. So since we have taught her 3 times and she is progressing greatly. She has committed, on her own, to stop smoking and drinking coffee. She, however, is not progressing as much and we would like. She works every Sunday and just started at her job so she has no seniority to take off whenever she wants to. So we are praying for help with that. So those have been two huge awesome things that have happened so far.

So now I have a new companion! His name is Elder Cannon and is from Bountiful, Utah. My first Utah companion. I was on a roll. He is awesome! He loves to work and is not afraid to just go out there and do it! We get along pretty good from what I can see. He is no Elder Holyoak, who is like a secretary in the office doing paper work and what not, but it’s fun. He went to UNLV the year before his mission on a full ride scholarship. He is majoring in Music and he plays the clarinet and is working towards being something with that. It is a lot of fun. We also live with two other Elders now. It’s so much fun. It’s easier to slack off but we are doing pretty good working hard. They are Elder's Duncan and Roberts. From New Mexico and Payson, Utah. They are great missionaries and they are a lot of fun being around in the apartment. So yeah that’s what has been happening this week in my mission. I will close this email now and then go play some basketball. Then after that I will probably go back home and write some girls. Bye

Love Elder Tyler Pete Arnett