Week #15: Native American Wind Chimes Festival 08

To Whom It May Concern:

The Gospel's still true. This week was fantastic. It was a little crazy with all the moving and and the companion switch but overall it was quite fantastic. We had a pretty amazing lesson with Kara. She's basically at a point now where she knows being baptized is the right thing to do but she's just a little worried about it. Part of the reason is she feels she doesn't know enough, but hopefully the talk by Elder Neil L. Andersen at General Conference helped a lot ("you don't know everything, but you know enough"). She recorded conference on Tivo because she's out of town until next Friday and she was pretty excited about seeing it. I never really thought about how cool it was that we get to sit down and watch a prophet and twelve apostles speak to us twice a year. I'm pretty sure everyone who watches (including me) says that they feel like each speaker is speaking directly to them. Anyone who tells me our leadership isn't inspired can go paint a shed. :-)

(If you'd like to listen to any of the talks given at General Conference, here's the link: http://www.lds.org/conference/languages/0,6353,310-1,00.html )

Anywho, we're teaching a guy named Kelly who's 88 years old. I don't know if I've mentioned him but he's awesome. He's pretty spry for his age. It's pretty neat to be teaching someone all about life after death when he's actually pretty close to seeing it for himself. He loves the Book of Mormon and has been reading it like crazy. He says it's an "epic novel" and he just can't stop reading. He was telling us how much he loves the stories (especially Alma) and how he loves the way it goes more in depth about certain things like life after death. His wife passed away a couple years ago so he really likes reading/learning about where she is right now and what it'll be like later on. Nifty stuff.

My new companion is an excellent teacher. When we teach he's very smooth and knows exactly what he's doing. The first day he got here he wanted to call and see who the designated driver was. Sadly, it was him (he's been out for a year). His hands NEVER leave the ten and two position so we're good to go. Anywho, he's a good person. This whole "fresh start" thing has been EXCELLENT. The ol' self confidence level has gone way up and it's fantastic to kinda be in control of the area and lead all the lessons. Anywho, I gotta head out but love love and more love to all you peeps back in the states.

Elder Al