Elder Ben

First off, I have to say to McKay that both your letters made me laugh out loud! People are looking at me wondering what is going on.  I don't know why, but the story of the hot sauce and your descriptions were really funny.  Also how people scream at you (missionaries) from their cars that "mormons suck" or that "you don't really believe in Christ" or something crazy like that is so true; it has happened more times then I can count.  Is that really going to shake my testimony? 

Sounds like all is well with the family.  I can't believe that the cross country team went down to Wayne for a meet.  That is a first.  We never did that race, but it sounds like a nice one.  Gabe, if you keep training hard, I think you will be able to go far in the 2A races.  Mom, to be honest I don't think I could run more then 2 blocks right now.  Besides some push ups and sit ups in the morning I don't see much exercise.  And I have now been at only 200 feet above sea level for a couple months now. I'm sure when I get home I will have a hard time breathing, let alone running.

This week has been interesting.  Got kicked out of multiple apartment buildings for "soliciting" even though under the law we aren't classified as such.  Even had the cops almost called on us. Just a bunch of crazy managers. Oh well, such goes the work.  Had a day of tracting were Elder Wilkins said I needed to do all the doors "for experience".  I have been doing about a third of them before this day. Anyways, all was going well...until I knocked on the door of a cute teenage girl who started to flirt with me right off the bat. You kind of forget words to use and your door approach when this happens.  So after making a fool of myself for a minute or two I was able to say who we were and what we were doing. Totally did not go over well at all. After Elder Wilkins was just laughing at me after. 

This week was probably the best week for us as far as new investigators are concerned.  I think we got 7 new this week!  Totally surprising to us.  One was really crazy! We were tracting and a lady let us in to teach her and her family. She said a couple of days ago she had a dream where she was in some woods with animals around her when the heavens opened and she saw Jesus Christ. He held his had out to her, and right as she was reaching for him, the dream ended.  Crazy because we just happened to have the restoration DVD with us as we were tracting (weird because we usually don't, but Elder Wilkins decided to take it last minute). We showed it to her and she said she had the same feelings while watching the video as in her dream.  Taught her the first lesson and she really liked it.  Already has a baptism date for next month. 

Also found two brothers that are up here working. They have just recently started becoming religious in their lives and started to read a bunch of religious material.  We had a two hour lesson with them teaching the first lesson and answering so many questions that they had.  Gave them a Book of Mormon, and one of them was already reading it before the lesson was over. Not very often do we find Mexican people who ask us a lot of questions or dive right into the Book of Mormon.  Just really great! 

Well I have to go, time is almost up and I still have to write my mission president.

 Elder Howell