Finally finally finally a break in the rain and cold. We finally had a pretty nice week and it only rained on Sunday night.

This week was a great week for us. We got a ton of referrals from our Bishop and they’ve all turned out awesome so far. We started teaching a part-member family and have a potential 3 baptisms there and we have another part-member/less-active family we will hopefully get to meet with this week who want to get their daughter baptized. Our Bishop also hooked us up with another referral he just met on the street and I got to talk to him Friday. He was really excited to meet with us this week and really wanted to come to church Sunday but he was out of town. We also picked up a new investigator that just decided to come to church last week. She lives across the street from the church and just decided it was time for her to check us out. She’s come to church twice already, came to a ward-activity we had last week and also came to Book of Mormon class on Wednesday. Prayers for finding are working!

We had a great turnout for the mission fireside on Thursday. We had 5 people there and they all had a good time. I can’t believe that as of tomorrow I’m down to 3 months left. It’s pretty crazy.

 On Friday we didn’t have a ton to do but we were able to contact a bunch of former investigators and old referrals and had a lot of people tell us to come back. We met up with the Flint North missionaries for lunch. On Saturday we went to a member’s house house and helped him clean up a bunch of wood in his yard. We were pushing a bunch of big 2x4s and other boards through a wood-chipper and it was pretty fun.

Sunday night we stayed the night with the Flint North Elders so they didn’t have to come pick us up Monday morning to do laundry. It’s the end of the month and we’re all only allowed a certain amount of miles to drive so everyone is stretching. Plus Elder Nelson and I are on bikes Sunday night through Wednesday so someone has to pick us up to go shopping and do laundry.

We played a bunch of board games again and I’m still Stratego champ (10-3 against Elder Nelson and 15-3 everyone else) and I’m tied for Jumangi champ at two wins. I suck at everything else though –haha.

Ryan’s Baptism

Sweet Ghetto-Rider

 So that’s a run down of our week last week. I’m attaching photos of the baptism we had with Ryan and also of a sweet ghetto-rider we saw in a parking lot. Hope you guys are doing awesome! Thanks for the letters and prayers! Transfers are this week! I don’t think I’m leaving but I hope Elder Nelson doesn’t either!

-Erik

I don’t know if this is true or not, but awhile back a member of the church in one of my past areas told me that a popular magazine (I believe it was Forbes) came out with a list of the Most Depressing Cities in the US. Rounding out the top three were Detroit, Warren and Flint Michigan, although which order they went in I don’t remember. Well, Detroit has always been fun for me but that may be more because of my companions and the fact that downtown is one of the nicer areas. Warren wasn’t bad either although it was hit pretty hard by the collapse of the auto industry in 08. But Flint easily takes the cake on most depressed city. You can definitely see it as you drive through the city and interact with the people. The only two bright spots in the city are the community college, and the University of Michigan branch. Downtown is pretty nice too but it’s more like walking around downtown Lehi, but with less people out.

Overall I have enjoyed the area so far though. Conference was awesome too and a great up-lifter to the week. We had a ton of meetings this week through which destroyed a lot of our productivity. Besides the 10 hours of conference we attended, we also had two days of Specialized Training to attend. Those went from 9-4 plus it was about an hour travel time. So that took up a lot of our week but I did learn a lot. Our mission president talked a lot about the gathering of Israel and how the tribe of Joseph will be gathered first. I’ve heard his instruction on that about three times now but it’s a good one and gives you a lot of things to think about. He had everyone raise their hand if they were from the tribe of Joseph (Ephraim of Manasseh) and every single missionary raised their hand. He talked a lot about how it’s Joseph’s duty to gather the lost tribes, but first we have to gather each other first. So basically if someone doesn’t want to listen to us they’re probably just some Reubenite or from one of the other tribes. It’s a really interesting thing to think about.

On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning we had a little bug scare in our apt. I woke up with a lot of bites on my right arm and I was like “crap this better not be bedbugs.” Luckily we had specialized training that day and we were riding with the senior couple assigned to our ward. I asked Sister Picket if the bites were what I thought they were and she said no. She thought they were spider bites. I also asked Sister Holmes and she said the same thing. And I asked another missionary who has dealt with bed bugs before and he said I didn’t have anything to worry about. I shook my bed sheets out and vacuumed around the bedroom and I haven’t had anymore spider problems since then.

We’re teaching a lot of cool people right now that I hope can get baptized soon. If not this month than early next month. We’re teaching two full families that I’m really excited about. My whole mission it has been a goal of mine to help bring a family into the church. So far it hasn’t worked out but hopefully this area will change that.

Well, hope everyone at home is doing well. Thanks for all the letters and all that good stuff! Talk to you next week!