August 8^th 2011

So to start out, Dad is right. It is Jar-deen. with a long e sound even though some of the members in the mission think otherwise. Man it was a crazy day with all the seatbelts and what not. That is super sad for the Schmids. One thing after another man. They need to get a break. It hasn't rained here for a good month now and boy do I love it. It only gets into the high 90's and occasionally 100 but it drops down the next day. So it is real nice out here. Everyone always asks what the weathers like in AZ I just tell them it’s constantly 110 or more and they say I’m lucky to be here. It’s funny I haven’t even noticed the heat the past couple of weeks and it has been warm. This week was pretty good. Monday evening we visited some people. It went well. Tuesday morning we had our leadership meeting. Then we went and tracted for a while. We realized we needed to find more people to teach because everyone’s getting baptized. So we tracted a lot this week. As well as walked everywhere. We had a lot of appointments on Tues. but most of them fell through. We had dinner with the Marcados at this Asian food place. It was super good. Wednesday we had district meeting then we went with our recent convert Ian to go see some people. He was pumped to be with us. We spent the whole time with this old lady that got baptized a month ago, trying to get her bike from her daughter’s house so I could fix it. The mission has taught me a lot about fixing bikes so that’s a good thing. We tracted a lot on Wednesday as well. We found a lot of people too. It was great! We did service in the evening for Ian’s mom who got baptized like a month ago as well. We were lining up some bricks in her front yard that she had put down but they were crooked. I think we did more damage than help ha. Then she fed us. Ian and his mom argue a lot so it was interesting. Ian’s dad is not a member so we're trying to work on him but he never talks and is not interested so we will see what we can do with that. Then the rest of the evening we saw people in the richer area. North Sac reminds me a lot of home. Like the way the streets and everything are set up. It’s weird. Thursday we went and got a member to come out with us. His name is Semi and he is Tongan. He should be getting his mission call this week. So he came out with us from 12 till 9. I don't think he was expecting to be with us all day but it was fun and I think he enjoyed it. We taught a few people and it was good. We taught a 15 year old girl who thinks she is Mormon already but she isn't baptized. She addresses herself as a Mormon so it’s great. She has been coming to church for a long time. The only problem is her dad lives in Antelope which is a different mission and he has most of the custody over her. She only stays with her mom on occasion. Her mom lives in our area. But we taught her and it was good. Her dad says she has to wait till she’s 18 to be baptized and her mom won't answer her when she asks. But we had a good lesson watching special witnesses of Christ. Its out dated with like 5 of the people on it dead but it’s still good. I can't remember who we had for dinner that night. On Friday we had weekly planning. We walked like all day and it was good. A lot of the people we want to baptize flaked on us this week. It’s annoying but we'll figure it out. We had to get our oil changed and our tires rotated at two different places on Friday. That took like 2 hours including the travel time. We had dinner with the Warros. He is something foreign cuz he has an accent and she is polish. They have a son in Tennessee on a mission right now. Dinner was good. She made some good salad and pasta and got pizza. We went and saw a few more people that night then finished it off with making baptismal programs for our baptism on Saturday. Saturday morning we walked all morning. For like 2 and a half hrs. straight. It was crazy. We got a call from some missionaries in our zone and it was a crazy phone call. So they had a baptism for a lady named Sheri that I interviewed like a week ago. She is from turkey and is a princess. She is one of the last remaining blood lines to the Ottoman Empire. Well she came in contact with the church loves it and wanted to get baptized. It also turns out she has over 140,000 acres of land in Damascus and wants to just give it to the church in return of them building a hospital on it. It’s crazy! So she got baptized on Saturday at eleven. Well guess who decides to pop in? Elder Clayton from the presidency of the Seventy! We were out seeing people but he wanted us to take him to the airport. We couldn't make it in time so a member had to take him. What a bummer. He would have been in our car! It was cool though. We had Valerie Brown's baptism on Saturday as well. It went well even though no one came except those with a part in the program. After her baptism we went down to Lodi to see a baptism Elder Manukailea knew. It was good. On the way home our ride took us to dinner at this amazing Thai restaurant. It was soo good. Sunday went good. We had trouble getting people to church but we finally got someone. It was ok. The rest of the day was just ok. But the week was good overall. So being a zone leader is fun. We do a lot of organization work and stuff but our biggest thing is to work as hard as we can to baptize so we can lead by example. Our zone is doing really good and leads the mission in most things. We will probably get the second most baptisms in the mission this month but we are a lot more consistent than the other zones. We range from 9 to 11 a month when they usually get 1 to 4 one month then 10 another so we pride ourselves on that. So I am trying to learn everything I can from my companion so I can keep it going when he leaves. He is a very hard worker. We get along real good but he just never tells me what he’s thinking and what’s going on so I am usually just sitting there trying figure things out but we do get along good. So that’s it. I hope your week goes well this week with a little less drama. Man I will be out 15 months this week. That is crazy fast. Oh and I did get your package. Thanks so much. I loved Jackie’s letter. Man she is looking great. Hopefully I can do the same in the next 9 months. I loved the pictures as well. Keep em commin!

Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

Oh yeah mom, I just ran out of my inhaler... so I need a new one. And you don't have to get surgery when you tear a tendon, I tore two and partially tore one in my wrist when I broke it and they said they just reattach. But sometimes you need to. That’s it.