McKay - Transfer 5, week 1

Hi Mom! (and family)

Well, I thought I'd received inspiration that I would be leaving the area, but apparently President Barry remembered his promise to keep me here for a while and transferred Elder Bennion instead. My new companion is Elder Whitby from the tri-cities area in Washington. Cool thing though....he's an Aggie! Booyah! We have a lot of Utah State pride going on right now in our apartment and have practically convinced one of the other elders from Oregon to come to USU with us in the future. :) Elder Whitby is actually just waiting for his visa to Brazil to clear, so we're anticipating that he'll only be with me a few weeks. But who really knows. With stories he's told me of visa issues, it could be a while yet. It's so fun to watch his "greenie fire" at work. We picked up a couple of new investigators this week and he's already planning their baptisms. I guess I've just become too cynical over the past few months, so I no longer count my chickens before they hatch, but it's a lot easier to set a date with someone than to actually see it through. The other elders keep joking about how he'll be getting fungus in Brazil from standing in baptismal fonts too long. Hopefully that's how it works out for him, but here we have a tough time getting one every few weeks/months.

Wednesday, after transfer meeting, E. Whitby and I were biking and it was a particularly hot and humid day - he was dying! (I've acclimated so I got to chuckle and bike faster to make him keep up. Hehehe! ) Anyway, after that day though, the weather suddenly changed and ever since then it has actually felt like autumn! We're down around 75-85 most days and it feels great! People tell me that autumn here only lasts a week or two though and then just plummets into the cold season, so I guess we'll find out.

Unfortunately, the bishop requested that Jessica's baptism be postponed till next week. He didn't want it to take place over conference weekend because he was afraid no one would show up, so we pushed it back till this coming Saturday. Woot! She's so excited though and it's really been quite the trip for us to see it. This experience with her has been a total breath of fresh air and is putting new vitality back into our work.

The weekend was pretty slow. We watched a lot of TV (conference) and ate an insane amount of food with members between each session, but otherwise not much happened Saturday and Sunday. Elder Whitby and I did work hard during the time we had, but for some reason, only one of the scheduled appointments/lessons actually went through.

It sounds like all is going well back at home. I am picturing Gabe being quite the dating machine, but he always did have quite a bit of bravado. Hopefully he can pull it off and become far more smooth than his older brothers were at his age. (Though, I will admit, Benji was a lot more on top of things than Daniel, Jake, and I...) With all of this wood cutting, he'll be bulking up those arms too! Hard to believe that Landen doesn't remember you after only a month away, but he is quite young. They'll just have to visit you more often to make sure that the kids know who you are. Have you thought of using Skype? That program is still one of my all-time favorite inventions. =D

Give Eli my congratulations this weekend.

Love ya'll!
Elder M.