January 16^th 2012

Yeah I'm pretty sure his blockage was just a blockage. He exerted himself to much doing transfers and was in a lot of pain and had an infection so that is why he went back into the hospital. I get to learn a little more now that we are around the assistants. The assistants are the assistants to the mission president. Every mission has them I think and they are two elders that are usually really good missionaries to help him train and organize things in the mission. Elder Kelley is one of them and he was my zone leader at the time I left Jackson and went into the Florin ward. He is a super cool guy and looks like Joe my cousin. The other is Elder Marcheschi who I have never served around but he is a cool guy too. They are in our zone so it’s fun. I will not be able to participate in the Gladys Knight performance which kind of sucks and I’m super bummed out about but oh well I’ll live. Elder Stradling just got to the mission on Tuesday and got his trainer on Wednesday. Since the Elder I was replacing was going home, he finished his mission; I met my new companion at the mission office, which is in our zone, which is also where the new missionaries get their trainers on Wednesday. He looks just like his mom! He was a typical new missionary. Kind of like a new puppy. I did get to meet him and I gave him a big hug, which is something we do a lot in this mission. He didn't seem to know my name but he said his family knows some Arnett's and I said well our moms are good friends. I think he was still trying to take it all in and was a little confused. He is not in my zone but he is with a great missionary in a great area. So yes I did get to meet Elder Stradling. My new companion is Elder Hatley. He too is from North Carolina ha. He is my third companion from there! Elder Brantley, Elder Jones, and now him. He is from Charlotte though and elder Jones was from Raleigh. But he is a great guy. He is half Chinese but he doesn't know his dad, who is the Chinese one because his parents split up when he was three. He is the only member of the church in his family. He was baptized at 8 but was less active until 18 and now he's on a mission. His mom and sister had their names removed from the church while he was on his mission. I don't know why they did that. And neither does he so yeah. He is super cool. He is very humble and has a lot of Charity. He makes me smoothies every morning for breakfast. We get a long pretty good. He is a little quiet but that’s ok. And Elder Hatley and I get along just fine. We live by ourselves in an apartment and it’s great. So no we do not live with any other missionaries. So yeah I do have three transfers left. The odds are that this should be my last area, and I am treating it as such by putting all my effort into leaving my mark here! But anything can happen. Elder Hatley will probably be together for one or two of those transfers but not all three. Then he would be here for like 8 months which doesn't happen. I don't know our address yet but I’ll get it. I know the cross streets are Marconi and Fair Oaks Blvd. So you can look that up. We live on Marconi and it might be closer to the other Cross street, Walnut. I have been thinking about what I want to do when you come to pick me up. I am not sure how it will all work. The church buys me a plane ticket but I can't pick what time I go home so it will probably be in the morning which would not allow me to do anything. Some elders just buy their own plane ticket and go home whenever they want. Really all I want to do is go visit some of the families I have gotten really close to on my mission. Some are converts that I worked with or just normal members of the ward. My last area has a lot of people so I will probably be spending most of my time there. Fortunately that area is right next to the Sac airport. So we will see. I will try to find out more info about the plane ticket. If the one the church gets me is late enough we'll do that or if not maybe I could get my own? I still want to go home the same day which would be a Thursday but I was thinking probably sometime in the evening. The flight is probably around two hours I’m guessing so to get home early enough we would probably need to leave here around 5 or 6 which would give me plenty of time to see people all day. So maybe if you know more info about that stuff just let me know. It feels really trunky thinking and talking about this stuff but better now then too late. Well this email has been pretty informative and I don't have much more time. I'll tell you some highlights of the week. I got here Wednesday and it was great. I was able to go back to my last area on Thursday to see Megan Hall get baptized. It was awesome. Brother Call from my last ward came and picked me up. He is super cool and I told you about him last week. I was able to get a picture with his family at the baptism. The baptism went great! It was cool. Usually during the time between the person getting baptized and them changing into dry clothes a missionary gets up and teaches the restoration so any nonmembers can hear it in a super spiritual setting. We call it the Half time show. Well there were no nonmembers there and I was doing the half time show so I just bore my testimony and kind of told the story about how it all worked out with Megan. A lot of people came to the baptism to say bye to me cuz I didn't have time to go see them so that was cool. I told them how it felt like home being in their ward and that I had made so many close friends that it felt like they were all family to me now. I told them that ward would always be my home away from home and that I’ll be back to visit later. So that was pretty cool that I got to do that. We have a few people we are teaching right now so that is cool. We don't have anyone with a date to be baptized yet but we are working with a few that came to church that we are extending a date to. We just need to teach a little more to count it as a solid number. This area doesn't have a whole bunch going on. In fact the whole zone is kind of down. I just want everyone to baptize here. And I just want to baptize as well. I came from the highest baptizing zone in the mission and from the highest baptizing ward in that zone and now I’m where not much is happening. Its rough but I have been able to bring a lot of good things in and hope it all works out great. I don't know why they brought me here to be a zone leader but I hope I can make an impact. I have the time to do it so we will see what happens. Well I hope you all have a great week. Sorry this email wasn't super long and all about my week. I feel like it was pretty informative so yeah. Love you!
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Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett