December 12^th 2011

Well it didn't seem like much happened this week. It’s sad to hear about Grandma. I think she will hang out long enough for me and Elder Skousen to get home. We get home with in like two weeks of each other so hopefully she hangs on. It is so sad to hear about that though. This week was pretty good. Actually it was awesome. I think I’ll tell you a little bit about it. So Monday night we had dinner with the Lopez family. We have been working with them on sharing the gospel with their friends. They have two people they are working with and so they were supposed to invite them over for dinner but they couldn't make it. We had a great time. We have been over there a little bit and they love to film Elder Jones singing and me dancing. They named them Elder Jones singing and the other one Elder Arnett dancing. So you should check em out and see if they are there. I have a pretty good video I recorded of me dancing. I'll send it home soon. Then we went and taught Roberta and Serenity. They are great and accept everything so easy. Tuesday we had a good day. We had leadership in the morning. It was good. After lunch we went out and saw some people. I'm not sure what we did all day. I can't remember. It was a good day I’m sure. Wednesday we had a great district meeting. We practiced singing Angels we have Heard on High. We were asked to sing it at the Mission Temple Trip on Friday. We sound pretty good actually. Oh yeah before I forget. For some reason I keep thinking Ammon, Betsy’s husband, is from St. Johns. There is a missionary in our zone who is from there. His name is Elder Sean Bast. He is a cool guy. So if Ammon is from there what’s his last name? Wednesday was a day as well. We were able to teach some people. I'm sorry the weekend was a lot better than the week so those days got drowned out. Thursday we had to do weekly planning cuz Friday was the Temple trip. We had a good time doing that. Then we went and did some more stuff. Our night was pretty busy. We had so many appointments we actually had to cancel out dinner. It was fun though. We taught Roberta and Serenity and watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. They loved it. We were able to teach Justin and Shauna and it was real good as well. An appointment fell through so the member we were with took us to get some Chinese food. It was tasty. We had a good correlation with our awesome Ward Mission Leader. Then we went home and planned and went to sleep. Every morning I write in my journal and as of today I have written in it for a whole month straight! So there is some good stuff in there. We had our Temple Trip at the Sacramento Temple. First there was a mini zone conference with a Christmas program. They showed what we call the White Christmas video. It’s a picture slideshow of a bunch of baptisms over the past year. It was really good. The last two pictures were of two people who were baptized then a short time later passed away. Manat Soutsavang the paralyzed girl was one of them. President asked Elder Seumanutafa his feelings after watching it then he asked me to share my thoughts cuz I was a part of the baptism. It was the first time I really cried since before my mission. Then we had some good lunch. The temple was awesome as it always is! We had a good time though. Afterwards we taught a guy named Tracy. He doesn't believe Jesus is necessary so we moved on of course. We had our ward Christmas Party and Santa came! We got a good picture for our Christmas card. We had a real good time there and it was a lot of fun. We had 4 investigators come so that was fun. Saturday we had 2 baptisms! Roberta Campbell and her Daughter Serenity Douglas were baptized! It was awesome. Boy am I glad I learned how to play three Hymns, because we couldn't get a pianist for the program so I played. I messed up a little bit but that’s ok. Over the past week I have begun learning two more hymns. It’s not that hard if I just practice. Every time we're at the church and we have a minute I practice. So hopefully I can learn a couple more and fine tune the ones I know. The baptism was good though. We had to stay for the next baptism as well because the lady asked Elder Jones to say the opening prayer. People love him. It’s great. Then we went out and worked all day. We taught the Williams family and it was good. The Williams are Justin and Shauna. We tracted for a while. We had to write up a bunch of things for our Stake Correlation meeting with the Stake Presidency we had yesterday. That took some time. Especially cuz the office Elders in our mission aren't as on the ball as they usually are so I had to remake the form for our zone and I’m not great with computers but I’ve figured some things out so it works. We were able to see a few more people the rest of the night. Sunday morning we had a great meeting with the Stake Presidency. They are some cool guys. We are close to hitting the goal for the Stake of 100 baptisms for the year. We need about five more so we'll be close. We have the people to do it and some so we are working our patoots off! We had a good Church. Roberta and Serenity were confirmed and it was good as well. The Lopez daughter brought her friend Ryan to church so hopefully he'll be there tonight for dinner so we can teach him. Justin and Shauna were supposed to get their interview but they weren't at church so we went over to their house with our ward mission leader and he took them to church. We don't take peoples agency away but we give them as little as possible and then make them feel uncomfortable so they have to do what we want. It works almost every time ;]. So yeah that was good. We went tracting some more after church. We had dinner with Bishop Lee, the bishop of our ward. It was a lot of fun. I love his family. They have a little boy named Braden but he isn't anything like my brother. We had a good time with them. Then we had a Christmas Fireside. It was LAME! Seriously I thought it was like make a wish foundation and they let these people perform the day before they die but they all looked too healthy for that to be the case. The last number was pretty cool though. The Tongan ward sang the Hallelujah Chorus in Tongan and it rocked. Then we had a zone meeting afterwards. It went good. People are starting to slack off and it’s frustrating. At the beginning of the month we asked each person what they expected out of us as their zone leaders and we have been doing everything they asked us to but they aren't doing much. So it was rough. But I think everyone is going to be on board now. Today is P Day. We played football earlier. It was fun. We WON! I hate losing. So that was good. Things are going good out here though. I love serving. I have been taking each day by itself and I have never been happier. It’s rough to look ahead too far cuz then you get discouraged or now trunky but if I go day by day and do my best it all goes smooth. Inch by Inch like it goes. So yeah that is what’s going on right now. I hope everyone is having a good time back at home. I will be praying for Grandma. Oh and to answer your question mom, I don't really feel like they are here with me but sometimes I feel like Grandpa Pete is talking to me telling me what I should do. I think about him like every day. I just hope Grandma makes it till I get home. But either way she is a worthy woman who is entitled to the blessings of heaven and will be rewarded. I have learned a lot about the Plan of Salvation and honestly I feel like a mission is the best place to lose a family member because you have the spirit constantly. We'll just face the future with faith. I love you.

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Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett