October 5th 2010

October 5th 2010
Man do I sure love these emails. So I am extremely sorry about lasts weeks email. I was up all night on Sunday night and slept all day Monday trying to catch up on our pday so I could be better by Tuesday so on Monday I tried to come over to the Church's family history Center and email but after sitting up too long I started to get sick so I had to take off to the couch and lay down for a bit and then actually fell asleep for a long while. And then I realized that I failed to mention that this week was going to be transfers so we wouldn't have Pday until today (Tuesday) so I just want you to know that I am not dead. I am actually doing really good. I finally started feeling better on Tuesday night but the medical lady told me I couldn't go out on my bike so I just went in the car with another missionary and we had splits with the elders quorum and high priests so I rode in a car all night. They put me on the B.R.A.T. Diet for a couple of days (bread, rice, apple sauce, toast) so it would make my stomach not act up and I’m glad to say that I am all back to normal. But the worse part about the whole sickness wasn't the tiredness and not eating normal food and not even the actual throwing up but since I did throw up about ten times in one night, the muscles in my chest that normally don't get used were super sore so my chest was killing. Now I know what you’re thinking Mom and I was thinking the same thing. Pneumonia (or however you spell it). So I talked to the Medical lady and she told me it was just the muscles and my chest doesn't hurt anymore so she must have been right. But my chest was killing me for like three days. She told me not to ride my bike but I had to because we had appointments and stuff so it just kept hurting. But now I'm all better. I went to the doctor last Tuesday for a follow up on my asthma. They put me on these pills for a week then on Tuesday the doctor prescribed me an inhaler that is a steroid because he thinks while I'm here in Sacramento it will help me out. I take it every morning and night just one puff and so far I haven't seen too drastic of a change but I have to check in with the medical lady every couple of days because she said I am probably worse off than I think I am but I’m not. I can never breathe so it’s nothing new. So by now some of you might be wondering about transfers because I had previously mentioned it. Well I am sad to say that Elder Holyoak is getting transferred... Bummer. But he is going to the office to be an office elder which is really cool. So my new companion is going to be Elder Cannon. He came out the same time as Elder Holyoak so he’s been out for about 15 months. So it should be good. But something else is happening too. My area used to consist of two wards but now, since Mexico is being really slow with visas, we have a lot of visa waiters in our mission so they split my wards up so now I will only be covering one ward which will be nice because it’s kind of hard trying to put the same amount of effort in both wards. So that’s exciting news. So this last week was crazy. We recently started going over to a Less Active families house to teach them the lessons because the kids don't know much about the church even though they have been baptized and it has gone real good. But we found out that their cousin is not a member so he has been coming over the past couple of times and wants to be baptized so that is really cool. Also we went over to a Less Active ladies house who someone in our ward wanted us to stop by so we did and met her 26 year old daughter who is not a member and we talked to her for a good little while and she told us she almost got baptized but she doesn't want to quit smoking and drinking coffee so we decided to teach her anyways and the next time we came over she told us she got rid of the coffee maker and was on her last pack of cigarettes because she thought it was stupid to do those things. So that was really cool. It’s amazing how the spirit works on people when their time is right. We have a lesson with her tonight so we will see how that is going. We have been teaching this 79 year old black guy named Leon whose wife died in May and it has been good. We’re not sure if he’s taking the lessons because he knows a lot of people in our ward and likes to hang out with them or because he is truly interested but either way he listens and feels the spirit so that could lead to a strong desire to be baptized. So I have broken two more spokes on my bike since last emailing home which brings me to a total of 5 and I’ve spent over 100 dollars. Its ridiculous so I’m going to call CTR bikes and see what they want to do for me. So that’s a bummer. When I was sick I got all the way down to about 225 but am back up at 240ish so that was crazy. That’s how sick I was. So conference was AMAZING! I loved how the prophet got up first thing and challenged every young man to come on a mission. It’s the greatest thing ever being out here. We watched Conference at our Church building. It was nice. There were only like 10 people there and a family that came cooked lunch on sat and sun. for us. It was good. I loved Saturday morning session. I felt like it was real good. Then priesthood was definitely the best I have ever heard in my life. The Korean or whoever who spoke about the scorpion sting was AMAZING. I loved his talk. After it I leaned over to my companion and said man he hit that one out of the park. And he agreed. The first presidency did amazing. I wrote down a couple of good quotes from each of them. One from President Uchtdorf was "Being humble isn't thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself" That was good because I tend to beat myself up for stupid things and end up comparing myself to others which he told us that "Pride is a sin of comparison". Then I loved President Monson's Three R's of Choice. They were good. I loved his quote of "Decisions do determine Destiny". That one was really good. Then on Sunday it was all amazing. It was hard to take very many notes because I was captivated by each of the speakers. The Choir was amazing in all sessions and Love One Another is now one of my favorite songs. It was so cool to see Elder Allred singing up there with the MTC Choir. I wasn't expecting to see someone I knew but I thought I would look anyways. They did great. Well I’m about out of time. So I will update on more next week. I'll have more details on my new companion and on people were teaching. I was able to go to the temple this morning and it was fantastic. Each time I go it strengthens my testimony that this church is true. I know it is and I know that President Monson is a true prophet of God. I am so glad to live in a time when we have the true church and a living servant of God to lead us. I hope all is well at home and I love you all. Good luck in life.

Love,
Elder Tyler Pete Arnett