Oct 30, 2011

Hey,

I must not have had time to read it, I don't think I even noticed it actually. Unless it was the one where you said you were on call but you would write back later in the week.

I talked a lot about Oscarson in my email to mom. He is a really good guy. We will never get into a fight, he is just too peaceful and laid back. He fits in well with the ward and with the investigators. He did some martial arts, and so did Ken, so they have some common ground. It just isn't the same with Elder Simmons gone. It is weird. I don't know if I mentioned this eariler, but I think I told you how Ken has been struggling with keeping the sabbath day holy because he has MMA training on sundays. Turns out last sunday he tore his meniscus while doing this so he is no longer going to be doing training on sundays. I obviously feel horrible that he hurt his knee, but I can't help but wonder if this happened to try to nudge him a little bit in the right direction.

I really hope I am here for Christmas! The next transfer day is Dec. 8, and I would hate to move like 2 weeks before Christmas. You would have to try to meet a bunch of new people, and the work would be going really slow, and I just think I would really enjoy Christmas a lot more here. But obviously I'll be where I need to be.

It is really cool for me to hear about your work as a ward missionary. We have to teach gospel principles every week, to be honest it isn't something I love doing. I'm sure you will do great at it. And I'm sure you will love going on splits with the Elders if you ever get the chance. Let me know how all that keeps going.

Okay, so I heard you sold the Jetta!? I am very sad about that... who did you sell it to? Why?

I think all together the stuff I bought was about 160 pounds. 100 pounds for the satnav, 10 for the case, and 50 for the razor. I hope thats alright.

Elder Oscarson can't drive. He had his liscence back home, but never did much driving. He can't drive standard either. I am going to try to talk to President to authorize him to start taking driving lessons though. I don't mind driving, but I really don't like driving all the time. He is really scared/hesitant to start though. Especially down here in Cornwall where the roads are super narrow. He has like 0 desire to learn how to drive. I think there are about 60-70 areas in the mission, and about 20 of them have cars. And about 3 are bike areas. The rest are either walk areas or bus areas. I am really glad we have a car area. But we have been doing a new thing where we just park the car in whatever town we are working in and walk everywhere. It allows us to speak to way more people.

Other than Lands End, I haven't been to many other historical areas. We were planning on going to a cool castle today with the Redruth Elders, but we changed our plans are we are going on this old tin mine tour somewhere by the coast. It is supposed to be pretty cool.

I think the appartment would be easier for a christmas package. The address is

155 Pendeen Park

Helston, Cornwall

TR13 0SL

I guess I should mention briefly what we have been up to this week. Yesterday we had stake conference up in Plymouth. It was really good, the stake president challenged the whole stake to read the whole BoM in the next 6 months. And President Shamo spoke as well. It was a great meeting, but sadly none of our investigators could make the 2 hour trip up there. Then last night, we had nothing to do so we just went knocking. We did this for like 3 hours, and it was the most rain I have ever seen in my life. It was just pouring, i had an umbrella and a raincoat but my slacks and shoes and socks just got soaked through. It was pretty miserable, although one guy named Rob invited us in, I think because he felt bad we were out in the freezing rain, and we got to chat with him for a while. He asked us if we wanted some tea or coffee to warm up, and we told him we don't drink that, and from there it turned into a good gospel discussion. He says he won't be converted, but he invited us back in a week to see him so we will see what we can do.
We also got to do a lot of service this week. We have been volunteering with a disaster relief charity organization called Shelterbox. We packed over 200 boxes of tents, blankets and other supplies to be sent over to Turkey to help the people there. I think there was like an earthquake or a flood or something. We had like 25 ward members there with us, and one investigator, and it was a lot of fun. I don't know why I never liked doing service back home, I love doing it here.

Ken and Toni are getting closer and closer. They are pretty much a part of the ward now. They went over to the Morris' last night, along with Jeff and Laura Bray, another young family in the ward, and they had dinner and watched a session of general conference and stuff. It is really cool to see how they don't really need us anymore. They have friends, and testimonies, and once you have those 2 things I think the rest just takes care of itself.

Thanks for writing, I can't wait for Christmas when I'm able to call you guys!

Love Elder Steed