October 22, 2012

Hello Family,

Sounds like things are going well at home. I am glad to hear that Chad is thinking about a mission right out of high school. I think that's a great decision. Missions are super hard, but they are way fun also. Just this first week I have met so many people and made some good friends.

I will start by answering questions. No I didn't have to buy a bike. I was lucky enough to be put in an area that has a car. There are tons of hills everywhere here. Right by our apartment there is a hill that is 16% incline. Our small little 4-cyl Corrola struggles up it. Elder Manwill is from Midvale, Utah. He said that all his companions have been from Utah.
Unfortunately, we only get to go to the temple once a quarter or when someone that you teach gets their endowments taken out you can go with them. E Manwill said that someone from his first area is going to the temple soon so I might go sometime in the next week or so. Yes, the temple is in Lake Oswego which is in our zone. It's way cool because we are the ones that get to hand out the Pass-along cards with the visitors center on it and tell people to go there because it's in our zone. It's just me and E Manwill in our apartment. It's a super nice apartment because there were sisters in it a month or so ago and they always get the best stuff. Thank you for sending the bedding I got it the first day I arrived here. I 'm thankful that I got it because a lot of people got here and did not have any of that stuff. We cover 2 wards in our area. The West Linn ward and the Willamette ward. Yes, that does mean that I go to two wards on Sundays. 6 hours of church+2 hours of meetings. It was a long day.
This week was really cool. We got a referral from a sister in the ward before I arrived here and we went there to teach her (Linda is her name) Lesson 1. It was awesome because she committed to a baptismal date of November 17. Apparently about 4 weeks ago she was given a blessing because she is battling a recurring cancer. In the lesson we taught she said to us that she felt that after the blessing she felt a huge burden lifted from here and that this church is where she needs to be. THE SPIRIT IS REAL!!! We also have this other investigator that's named Emma. She is 9 years old so pretty much she is getting baptized no matter what we say. We teach her because her mom is less active and her dad isn't a member. We teach her at the grandparents house. Her date is November 4. We have some Less actives that we teach also like Greg, the Valentines, Dylan and Eva, and Kasey. Those are the ones that are really progressing. I totally forgot to bring the address of my apartment with me to the library so keep sending things to the mission home. I got your orange letter so they do forward things.

Tell Chad that if he wants to prepare for his mission start reading and marking his scriptures and learning Preach My gospel really well. Learning the BoM is essential out here. I struggle everyday on finding scriptures that relate to what we are teaching about that day. On Friday we had 3 lessons to teach, which was great, but it scared me to death to teach them. You know me, I'm not a big talker, but I am trying. Everyday, we have dinner at a members house and we share a thought with them so we switch off giving the thoughts. It's super scary and I hope that they learn from the things that I say to them. I'm excited to get a Halloween surprise. E Call got one yesterday in the mail and was super stoked. Mail is always super exciting here. My comp hasn't gotten a letter in like two months. Even in the MTC he only got like 4 letters total.

Anyway, I have to mail the president now. I love you all. Thanks for the prayers they really help!

Elder Udy