July 8, 2013

Dear Family,

I love being in the Meadows 1st ward! It is a lot different from Red Rock however!

This is a very low income area but the people are great! (and interesting at times). We have a while list of potential investigators and we are working on visiting them. most of them are not home but we have been able to set up appointments with some of them. My zone leader in my previous area told me of his observation of missionary work, while on exchanges. He said, "its funny that all we do for two years is knock on peoples doors for 2 years and see if they are home". Its so true! all we do is knock on their door and see if they are home. if they are then we say what we need to and see if they would be interested, if we could set up a time... and so on.

Elder Sanders is a great missionary! He is very quiet but we get along great.

I love living and breathing missionary work 24/7!!!

We were able to have a lesson with a returning less active member on Thursday and it is great to see the change in people! He has tattoos all over and he looks pretty rough. but he is the kindest guy in the world! from age 15 he was out of the house and into selling drugs. Now he is in his 30s and he is changing his life. He talked about all of the horrible things that are on tv and even on commercials. He has been able to recognize areas of his life that he needs to improve on and he is doing it.

We had a discussion with a man named, Demario. He was a potential that neither of us have met before. We knock on the door and the first thing he says is, "hey guys I'm really not interested". but the conversation soon changed and we were able to see what he thought about religion. He does not believe in organized religion but he does believe in the original church that Christ set up. He basically taught us the Great Apostasy while he talked. We told him that the original church of Christ is back on the earth. we talked for over an hour in 113 degree heat on his door step and it was good to finally be able to see him grasp what we were trying to say. For most of the conversation we were trying to tell him that what he was saying is exactly what we teach! and he wasn't getting it! But by the end he started to understand and he was willing to have us back again.

I love the mission and cant wait to get out there and meet some more awesome people!

Love,

Elder John

"wishing will not make it so. The Lord expects our thinking. He expects our acting. He expects our labors. He expects our testimonies. He expects our devotion." - President Monson