Week 3 (August 12, 2011)

Dear family,

Well its my third time to email home and I am trying something a little different so hopefully I can get a little more content in my email. First I'll address some questions that have been asked. Dad wanted to know about my ward here and they are just branches here. We are branch 35 district D. Reminds me of being in BYU 153rd ward. They cycle people through here so much that everyone just has a number and a letter. We do not have any culture classes which totally stinks. We have a fireside every sunday night and a devotional every tuesday night. No one amazing has come but it is nice to have a break from constant study.

After every fireside they show different movies and its optional if you want to stay and we have both sundays and I am glad we did. We have watched the Joseph Smith movie and The movie the Testaments. The Joseph Smith movie is great, it gets me every time he rebukes the prison guards when they talk about killing mormons. I know I will never come as close as to having a testimony as strong and powerful as his. He just saw the Father and The Son, no big. Then the testaments when Jesus appeared unto the people in the America and I tried to imagine myself being there and what I would have done if I saw Jesus. Its crazy to think what it would be like if you actually saw him and got to feel his presence so strongly. Just imagine what heaven will be like, it blows my mind.

We have had to teach so much its ridiculous. We did this work shop thing where people sat facing eachother and one person watched a video of a person and then one person just listened. The listener was the missionary and the viewer was the investigator and it was wild to turn around actually see what these real life people were like. They were not members and have some pretty rough stories and we as missionarys had to try and really listen to them and develop a Christ like love for them and then relate their life to the atonement and how it can help them. I did not like it at all but I did learn that we should not judge people by their appearance. One of the Guys was a really poor man with a huge beard and long nasty hair and looked like he would rob you if you ran into him but he said "I would give the shirt off my back if someone asked for it and reallly needed it" Everyone is a child of God and some people have just been prepared to hear the Gospel and we should not limit who we teach because of looks.

Has the family gathered around while reading this? Is Brittany there? I bet it is so much fun there but school is kind of hiding just around the corner. I loved your package mom. Yummy cookies! My pokemon sticker book is a huge hit here. Read Doctrine and Covenants 25:12. I dont know what it is but I wrote it down so it must be good.

Love,

Zack