Aug 14, 2011

Thanks so much for all the detail about what is going on back at home. Reading these emails so far has been a highlight every week. I love hearing abou what everyone is up to.

If it was a blue car in front of the house, it is probably ours. Actually a really scary thing is that my companion has been here for a year on August 21, so his liscence expires. Which means next week I will be the one driving. We are planning on doing some practice this week so I don't kill us.

Alright here are a couple stories. I found out that we used to be able to play board games in this mission on p-day, until during a heated game of risk one of the guys punched his companion in the face. So we can't do that anymore. Also, one of the mission rules here is that every time we back up the car, the companion not driving has to get out of the car and make sure they dont hit anything. I guess yesterday someone was backing up and the companion outside the car wasn't paying attention so his companion backed up into his legs and crushed him against a wall. These were proabably not the smartest missionaries, and now we have to buy reflective safety vests and wear them whenever we are out of the car backing our companion up. People are going to think we are even weirder than they already do.

And this really is a hard thing. Theres already been a lot of hard days. It really does help thinking about everyone back home who is praying for me. I read my patriachal blessing last night. What stuck out to me was that I was blessed with endurance. I will need that more than ever for these next two years.

I can't believe Riley already quit that job I got for him. What a slacker.

Ya i really hope sean and carson can eventually go on missions. i email sean every week, Ill start talking to him about it.

Congrats on your excercise, sounds like you are doing awesome.
I really dont have many photos, I will try and send some soon though. I had no idea the MTC president would be posting those photos online. The one of us singing the anthem was really funny, we lifted our hands in the air for the final 'thee' in the song. And the short guy singing with us was just some french guy who i had to teach the anthem to. me and him were good friends in the MTC. my compainon was Elder Banks, a bit taller than me, short black hair, pretty big/solid guy, usually wore a grey suit and made really weird faces in photos.

I would share more stories about my companion now with you but there isn't much to share. Every night I am exhausted and try to go to bed at like 10, because he is district leader and has to account on the phone for a while every night with other districts so I just go up to bed while he is talking. He found out what I was doing though and now he always comes and wakes me up. He is a really awesome guy, he keeps me going on a lot of the hard days. He does operate quite slowly though, he likes to really take his time and think about things wheras I just like to do things as quickly as possible. Ive been trying to slow down though so I can recieve more promptings.

Thanks so much for your love and prayers

Elder Steed