Saturday, March 7, 2009 - Lubbock Dust

Hello!

How are you?

I'm really tired today. There's a couple reasons. First, I'm sick. I had a pretty bad throat for a while; now it's a full-blown sickness. I blame Lubbock dust.

Which leads to my second reason, which is the cool service project we did this morning. The zone leaders have an investigator who is starting a new welding business, and he bought an old, old, OLD liquor store that he's going to convert. They offered to help him clean it up, and they invited everyone else. It's out in the middle of nowhere, and it was dir-ty! It was so dusty, we had to wear masks. Fortunately, we had most of the missionaries in the zone there,...and they cooked us lunch for it.

In other news this week: Elders Craven and King had a baptism. They were teaching a 12-year-old boy who has been wanting to get baptized for so long now. Every week, he had his white shirt all set for church so he could pass the sacrament along with the others. The only problem is, he's a foster child and no one was sure if we were allowed to (as if the state could restrict the whole "freedom of religion" thing...). But last week, they got written permission and so they held a last-minute, yet expected baptismal service on Sunday. The room was so packed that the rest of the missionaries in attendance had to listen from the hall. It was really great.

As for us, we've been doing a lot of work out in outlying towns. Technically, those towns are considered the others' area, but since we don't have to worry about miles, we work there. We've gone to Levelland a few times, and we're still teaching Terry. We've also met with the branch president of Brownfield (who lives in Levelland), and he's been helping us by telling us about some people we can go teach.

Also, Elders Johnson and Rasmussen are officially out of the office and are now full-time proselyting missionaries. Elder Northey and I are pretty much already settled in, and though I'm still training Sis. Hansen, the two of them are pretty comfortable now, too.

Oh, we got new credit cards for all the missionaries whose cards were deactivated the other week due to security issues. This is the second time it's happened. Our card company is really dropping the ball.

Service was fun, but all the dust and exertion may have made my cold worse.

Anyways, I'm glad to hear about the work in Montreal. Doubling baptisms is a big goal here, too. Starting not too long ago, it's all we're talking about around here.

Got to take off here. Elder Northey has a member card to Sam's Club, so we might go today.
The Church is true!

I love you!

-Elder Brandon Wong

Something I wish I knew before my mission: that lighters are good for more that just cigarettes.