Monday, August 10, 2009 - Time passes by fast!

Hey,

There's a lot of things I want to talk about, but there doesn't ever seem to be enough time! ...and technically, we can only write letters on P-day, and so I don't have enough time to write letters by hand!

Anyways, first of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN! I was going to say that you're legal now, but you're already 19! (?!?!?!?????) That's ridiculous. Time to start thinking about a mission.

It's so nutty how all these kids from primary and YM/YW are already in college! (?!?!?!?????) What is going on?!?

Also, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, MOM AND DAD!! Has it really been 100 years that you two have been married? Man, time really does go by fast!

And I got the message from Helen. She said you talked to her on Facebook.

We went to the Family History Center this week, and I signed up for the new.FamilySearch.org site. Nathan should sign up for it too, that way, all of the information is in. The one day we finally got to go is the one day I forgot to bring my four-generation pedigree chart. Go figure. In any case, it least I found out why they made us get one before going to the MTC...

It has been a rather slow week. On Monday, our toilet essentially exploded. The intake pipe, bringing water into the tank, had a loose connection. It was spewing water all over the bathroom floor and seeping into the carpets in the other rooms before dripping into the downstairs neighbours' bathroom. Long story short, we didn't go work that evening.

In other news, we've been doing more knocking on doors than the whole time we've been in Abilene. It's not fun. We did meet this one nice lady who let us teach her. We spoke for an hour during the evening on her front porch - while the mosquitoes were out. I thought I got a lot of bites on my arms... then I saw my ankles. They went through my socks to get to my juicy ankles about ten times for each leg. It was really itchy for several days. Meanwhile, Elder Tuttle just walks around and those dang bugs totally ignore him.

In a couple weeks, we're all driving up to Lubbock to celebrate doubling baptisms. We won't be taking rental buses as was the original plan. We're all trying to save miles and plan out transportation/carpooling. Since we've got the minivan, we are all but guaranteed to be using our vehicle. But we're all going to go up and have a professional photographer take a picture of the whole mission for the first time in the history of the mission. Then we're going to have a lunch and a little meeting as a mission (not quite so little, actually).

Also, just as a little side note: Monday morning follow-ups are not fun. Every week, the district leader is supposed to have an official chat with each companionship and see how things in their area are, then report to the zone leaders. For some reason, I always take forever.

Language is still going well. Maybe I should ask for a hour of language study every morning, like the Spanish-speaking Elders. Also, there's a member in our ward who's from Hong Kong and speaks very little English. I have spoken with her. She said she was going to invite us over to chat, but then she found out that I don't speak Chinese, so she changed her mind. I wish I knew how to speak and write it.

Anyways, things are going well here. I hope school and the school year start off right.
The Church is true.
I love you!

-Elder Brandon Wong