May 27th, 2008

Hi everyone!

Happy Memorial Day! I'm not 100% sure what it is, and no one around seems to know either, but what it means is that I have to send letters today instead of yesterday.

Alma's gone. :( She went to visit family in Houston, and she'll be away for at least two months. It also means that we have to do our own laundry; but she gave us her house keys and said we can use her machines. She took her leaving us rather hard. Transfers are coming up on June 1st, and we might have to leave and we won't see her again.

Transfers are every six weeks. On June 1st, we get a call from the zone leaders, and they tell us if we're leaving. If we are, then the next day or the day after, we hop on the bus with our bags, and we only find out where we're going when we get there, and someone there tells us that we have to get off!
However, Elder Jenkins suspects neither of us will be transferred this time. That’s probably a good thing, because I'm just barely getting used to things, and the people here are really great.

a perfect example of that is when we went to the Richmonds for supper. They live out of town, so they came to our place and drove us to their home. Then they gave us my first real Texan steak! Oh, and it was good. They also own a flock of chickens, so they gave us eggs.

And if that wasn't enough, Elder Jenkins bought a brisket for $10, and marinade it for three days before cooking it for the weekly district meeting. we had it for lunch today along with scalloped potatoes and the peach cobbler Elder Duffy made, and I'm about ready to burst.

This last Sunday, we went out to Comanche, and we gave talks. I spoke about the Great Apostasy and Elder Jenkins spoke about the Restoration. They had 11 people not including us this time, so it's an improvement. Despite this, there's talk of closing the branch, so they're focusing on missionary work and perhaps reactivation.

We’ve been doing a bit of that ourselves. One of our investigators has been taught everything, but still isn't progressing. Then we mentioned the branch's weekly Thursday-evening softball game, and she jumped on the idea. The Brownwood branch plays softball every week against one of the other churches in the city. I think it's some sort of league. And, because she (an investigator) is going every week, we get to go too (and maybe even the occasional practice!) so not only does she get to bond with the branch but it's also one less night out drinking and something fun we get to do.

The other week, we had a day with not much to do, so we decided to make it a whole day of finding. So from ten in the morning until supper, we knocked doors trying to find someone who's interested. We didn't find that many, but we got three media referrals later on. It’s been pretty humid lately. It was a good experience, but we wouldn't really want to do that again.

Every letter, I always talk about how I always hear or read something that strengthens my testimony. Let me tell you about something else I'm always hearing about lately: the end of the world. Never in my whole life have I met so many people so unanimously pessimistic about the fate of their lives. Whether rich or poor, member or non-member, young or old; it always starts off with the gas prices. It’s just about at $4.00 a gallon now, and there's talk of going up to $5, $7, or even one mention of $10. Then, they move on to how these prices are killing them, and they can't afford anything anymore. Then, it goes into how food prices are increasing, and there are food shortages here and there, and soon there won't be enough to go around, and it won't matter because no one will be able to afford it, and we're all going to die of starvation because of no food, and it'll be at home because we'll have no gas to get anywhere. There’s probably a lot of truth in all of it (by the way, how's the family food storage coming along?), but I've never seen so many different, unrelated people talk about the exact same thing in the exact same tone.

By the way, Paraguay!?!? That’s cool! I'll have to write him...
and Ogden, too? Is that true?

Anyways, things are great.
Except... could you send some Lipton's soup packs? They sell them in boxes of twos here, and they taste different. ;) So does the chocolate milk syrup I bought. Well, I guess I could live with that. :P Don't bother. In any case, you should probably wait to send anything the slow way until after transfers, just in case I am transferred, in which case anything will take at least two weeks to get to me via the forwarding service. I'll tell you the p-day after June 1st.

Anyways, I love you!
Hope you're doing well.

-Elder Brandon Wong