February 27, 2012 Letter

Hello,

Well this week is a little more interesting than the last. I'm pretty much used to the whole "country" thing. It's kind of ridiculous, but hey...it's where I live. I am most definitely taking pictures of the new area so don't you worry your little heart mother. I have a lot of pictures on this sd card that I have been meaning to send home to y'all. I just wanted to know if you had all the videos that were on the previous card saved to a disc at home? I will send y'all the memory card in the next few days.

 

Cool things to report on from this week. We got to have a sleep over with other missionaries, I got to meet Elder Kevin R. Duncan of the Seventy, I got to go on splits with Elder Johnson from my MTC group, and we had 3 baptisms on Saturday. The sleep over was absolutely necessary because we live in the BOONDOCKS!!! We had a meeting that we were going to in Longview on Wednesday (meeting with Elder Duncan). Well, Longview is 110 miles away from Idabel. No bueno for missionaries who are limited on the number of miles that they have a month. So we drove down to Mt. Pleasant, Texas and stayed the night with some other Elders. Elder Moody and Elder Drake. Elder Moody came out with me so I know him pretty well. He is hilarious. Then from Mt. Pleasant we drove into Gilmer, Texas. Then from Gilmer we drove to Longview. It was kind of crazy. Fun, but crazy. All in all it was about 4 hours of driving with all of the stops.

 

The meeting with Elder Duncan was great. Other than the fact that I was asked to sing a special musical number again. They always ask me to sing when there is someone important coming and it scares the heck out of me! It didn't sound all that great, but it wasn't terrible. All I know is that Elder Jones was the reason that I had to sing. He was my companion two transfers ago and he is one of the assistants. I am POSITIVE that he volunteered me for that wonderful musical number. It's whatever though. The meeting was amazing. If I told you everything that I wrote down at the meeting this letter would be way too long, and I don't have a lot of time right now.

 

Friday I got to go on exhanges with Elder Johnson, who is now my zone leader. He and I were in the MTC together and he is one of my most favorite missionaries. Truly will be one of my most close friends for the rest of my life. He is in Gilmer right now so that was an adventure to get there. But, when we did finally get there, we had a blast. We went out tracting in the middle of nowhere. As we were tracting we found this dog (more like the dog found us). It was huge! It was a Pyranease? However you spell that. My spelling is the first thing that is going to leave me as I serve out here. 

 

Anyways...the dog followed us around the whole time that we were tracting. I guess it was a body guard from Heavenly Father or something. After tracting with the dog we went to dinner. The little girl at dinner was hilarious. The only thing that she would eat was butter. I was dying laughing. Like, her mom would spread the butter on a biscuit and she would pick off the parts of the biscuit that had butter on them. Then towards the end she got tired of it and just decided that she would go for the whole thing. She reached over and stabbed the butter with her fork and took a big bite. YUM! Ha ha ha. The really fun part of the exchange was when we got pulled over for speeding. The cop came up and asked for registration and what not. He was the nicest cop that I have ever met. He said that it would just be a warning and that he would go and run the license real quick and be back. Awesome. We felt so grateful that we decided to give the cop a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. He accepted! Who would have ever thought that you could share the gospel when you have been pulled over? It was great.

 

Saturday. Oh sweet Saturday. We got to see 3 people become baptized members of the church. Yes mom I took pictures. They are on the memory card that I am sending. Two of them are a couple. They are from the Marshall Islands. There are a lot of Marshallese people here in Idabel. They all work at the Tyson factory. Then again, Tyson and some railroad company are the employers of more that 3/4ths of every one in a 70 mile radius. (we recently figured out that our Branch covers about 6,000 sq. miles) The rest work at Walmart or the casino. Anyways... the third person was a part member family. The wife decided that it was time for her to join the church.

 

Sunday we got to go out and meet the family that drives 68 miles to church every Sunday. Man, THEY live in the boonies, not me. The family is awesome though. I'll have to send you more updates next week. I don't have a lot of time on the computer today. This library only gives you an hour to email so...yeah...gotta go. But I love you all so much you cannot even believe. Being out in the "wilderness" makes you miss home a lot more I have noticed. Don't think that I am getting all mushy gushy or I can't hack it out here because I miss you so much, but do know that I miss y'all. I love you very much and I will talk to you next week.

 

Love,

Elder McNinch

PS- yes they can write to me here in Idabel. Otherwise I would only get their letters once a month. So yes, please write me here!

February 20, 2012 letter

Oh deer,

"Where am I?" You see, that's an interesting question. The name of the city that I am CLOSEST to is called Idabel. I know longer live in Texas. I am in OKLAHOMA! Ha ha ha. Part of my area goes into Arkansas! Ha ha ha I love it! We live with a member about 5 miles outside of town. I tell you what folks, if this ain't the boondocks then I don't know what is. Remember how I thought that I was in the middle of nowhere when I was in Longview? Doesn't even compare. My first few days here were my first sign that I was no longer in "the city", but after Sunday I now KNOW that I am in the sticks.
Monday was a bunch of packing and saying goodbye to people and what not. Tuesday morning was transfers. That was a lot of fun (as you probably saw). The mission recently ordered trucks for some of the missionaries to drive and guess who got to drive it out to them!?! Yours truly! They are pretty sweet trucks. Chevy Colorado's with a 3" lift and after market rims and tires. Anyways...so Elder Morris and I drove the truck out to Lindale, TX where I met my new companion Elder Whicker. Elder Whicker served in The Colony and Little Elm when I was serving in Frisco so I already knew him pretty well. After the hour and a half drive to Lindale we drove with a member another hour to a place called Mt. Pleasant (smell of the town= not so pleasant). That's where my companion had parked our car to save miles. From Mt. Pleasant we drove another hour and a half out to the wonderful city of Idabel, Oklahoma. Ooo boy! We got home, unpacked what I needed for the day, and headed off to dinner. Dinner was awesome. Oh my goodness. We ate dinner with a man named Buddy. You know how sometimes we would watch Blue Collar TV? Well, let's put it this way. Buddy doesn't have to watch it. He lives it! It is so great! His son (28) was poking fun at him for being "old" and Buddy was jeering back at him with some of the funniest sayings that I have ever heard. I was in tears all night from laughing. Everything in Buddy's home is a nice John Deere yellow or green. Yes, even down to the toliet. I LOVE these people here! Buddy is a convert to the church. The two missionaries that taught him are some of the greatest ones that I know. Elder Ryan Hurd being one of them (he was the missionary that I met in the temple before our mission). Buddy has one of the strongest testimonies that I have ever heard. Hearing him bear his testimony after dinner was one of the greatest moments of my mission. Let me tell you, I cannot wait until fast Sunday. Ha ha ha.

I cannot tell you how many new phrases I am learning out here. Favorite one of the week is, "You bet'r git on dat lika duck ona Joonbug!" Ha ha ha. I almost peed my pants when I heard someone say it. The funny thing was that they weren't kidding. They meant it. It was in a normal, casual conversation. Something else that I am finding interesting here is that it's very culturally diverse. I mean apart from the 80% who are backwoods, you have a lot of people from the Marshall and Gilbert Islands and different Indian tribes. It's pretty awesome. In fact, most of our investigators right now are from the Marshall Islands. Sometimes we need to have one of them translate the lesson for us. It is so awesome.
Within the first three weeks of being here we will have 4 baptisms. We already have set 2 new baptismal dates with 7 more to be set this week. All with new investigators from this week. I will have to give you details on all of them in the coming weeks.

I had the opportunity to see someone healed this week. Her name is Carol. She has been ill for quite sometime. She suffers from some type of cancer and usually cannot have any visitors because of her weakened immune system. Her grandson, Austin, is 11 years old and wants to be baptized. So we went over to visit and see what we could do to help her, as well to talk to Austin about being baptized. Grandma let us right in and talked with us for a little while. She is currently on a breathing machine so she usually doesn't talk very much, but we had the chance to talk to her about what we could do to help her and her family. She expressed that she wanted her grandson to be baptized and someday go on a mission. She said, "If y'all could do that for me, everything else will be a piece of cake." I said, "No problem, I love cake." We set a baptismal date for Austin to work toward and left with a prayer. The next day we felt like we needed to call Carol to talk to her more about the baptism and what not. She could barely talk on the phone. I asked her if she needed a blessing, and she said that that would be wonderful. We went over as soon as we could. We got there to find out that Carol had developed pneumonia over the past few days. She said that she was in terrible pain. We gave her a blessing, promising her that if she would have faith enough, she would be healed and that the pneumonia would not overtake her. We left her with a word of prayer and a couple of extra blankets, telling her that we would be back in the morning to see how she was doing. The next morning we arrived at her home to find that SHE answered the door. Carol was walking around and talking like there was no tomorrow; breathing tubes still stuck up her nose. It was amazing.

So, now to Sunday. The day that I knew I was in the boonies. We had a meeting with the Branch Mission Leader at 8 and then we went to go wake up all of our investigators for church. As we were leaving the church parking lot we had to stop. Boonie clue number 1- A pack of deer came running out across the church lawn and darted into the woods on the other side of the building. I just kind of sat there and said to myself, "That just happened..." After the deer and trying to wake up our investigators, church was almost ready to begin. We were in printing programs when the Relief Society President came in saying, "Elders! Come quick! I need to borrow you. I have baptisms for you!" Say what? We go into the hallway to meet a family who just drove 68 MILES to get to church! 68 MILES! That is a long drive to church. They haven't been to church in about 15 years and all of their kids want to be baptized. Ha ha ha. Miracles much? But really what killed me was that they had to drive 68 miles to the NEAREST building. Boonie clue number 2. Then Sacrament service started and I starting to read some scriptures as I normally do. I couldn't help but look at all of the deacons as they stood up to pass the sacrament. They all had a common theme to their attire, and that was boonie clue number 3. They all had huge buck knives on their belts with abnormally large buckles. Awesome.
Needless to say, I LOVE my new area. Good luck getting mail here. My new address is "Rural Route 2 Box 602, Idabel, Oklahoma, 74745" No joke on the "Rural Route" part. That's really what it's called. I didn't even know that those kinds of addresses existed. We live with members and they are great. Their names are the McDonald's. Yes, ee ei ee ei oh, I live on the McDonald's farm in Oklahoma. Yes mom, you can look at all the picture cd's. The rest of the stuff is all books and talks and stuff that I want after the mission. Yes I got to see April Feliciano get baptized by her boyfriend Christoph McLaughlin. It was an amazing experience. Glad to know that we are not going to move before I get home. That is nice. School? Ummm...yeah...need to pray about that one.

Love,

Elder Michael McNinch

Transfer Day February 14th 2012 Pictures

First up I just want to say that this hair looks nothing like

THIS hair!

Now for your viewing pleasure....

There are more pictures, but blogger is being difficult and I can't get them all uploaded.
You can go here to see more. (Clickety on the word "here")

February 6, 2012 letter

Goodness,

Glad that y'all figured out the whole email thing. I was getting kind of worried that my emails weren't getting to you. I enjoyed getting an email from Aunt Enner last week. It was much appreciated. Please know that I love and miss all of you dearly.
I did get your really large packet in the mail. Glad to see that everyone is doing well. I love how Shawn and Michelle's family had 3 surgeries in a two week period. That has to be some kind of record. I loved seeing all of the pictures of everyone. It made me really happy. I'll have to make a list of addresses that I need so I can write all of them and see how they are doing.
I interrupt this email to tell y'all that the man that is sitting in front of me is listening to "Hot-blooded" by Foreigner and dancing his heart out. Ha ha ha. I am about to pee right in my pants. It's really funny because he is Hispanic and doesn't really know what the words are, so he is just kind of singing whatever comes to his mind. It's even better because he is using headphones but the music is up so loud that everyone around us can hear it. Ha ha ha. Okay...back to the letter.
Brent and Brittany got to meet President Durrant?! That's so awesome. Really crazy that they are in my mission. Transfers are coming up...who knows? Maybe I'll have another east Texas experience.
Jordan Miller is home huh? That must have been a pretty sweet talk. I bet that the girls in the ward were all swooning, weren't they? Elder Miller is such a stud. I love that kid. Glad to know that he is home safe now. No more freezing cold winters in New York.
So y'all have a new Elder. Where is he from? It seems like y'all have had a lot of foreigners. That's kind of cool. Everyone always freaks out when I tell them that I am from Las Vegas. They always say, "...no really...where are you from?" Ha ha ha...I'm a missionary...I don't lie! It's kinda funny. We have this girl who is getting baptized on Saturday who says the same thing. She told me yesterday at church, "When I first heard that one of my missionaries was from the city of sin I had to ask myself How can someone holy come out of the city of sin?" I thought that the statement was funny in general, but even more funny that she called me Holy. Ha ha ha. I have been called a lot of strange things on my mission, but never Holy.
So I understand that stamps are up to 45 cents now?! What is up with that?! Doesn't the government know that missionaries all over the US are outraged!?! I handed the letter to the teller at the library post office today and he said, "That will be 45 cents" I said, "What?" Then he explained that it is now 45 cents a stamp. I feel like my world is closing in on me. My companion just had to buy four 1 cent stamps to put on all of his letters today. Seriously?!? We need to get Romney in there fast so he can fix this mess. He'll go to bat for the missionaries for sure.
This week was fun. Getting everything all set up for April Feliciano's baptism. She is so excited. Her boyfriend is the was that is going to baptize her. He keeps telling her that he is going to hold her under for a while to make sure that she gets all the sins off. She is so scared of drowning which makes it all the more funny. She is also terrified of public speaking so we keep telling her that she is going to have to get up and bear her testimony at the baptism. She is hilarious. She is so ready to be baptized. I have never seen someone so giddy.
I don't really have much to report on this week...oh...I...uhh...broke the car...BUT! Other than that, everything is all good. "What?! I didn't brake it...I was just testing it's durability." But really...I broke like the smallest piece of the car. It was like a side taillight and just the plastic covering broke. They're trying to tell me that it'll cost $76.00to fix!!! I was like WHAT!!! No way. I'll figure it out. Don't worry.
Okay, so after the baptism and such I will send home a memory card so that you will have some beautiful pictures of your wonderful son. Other than that nothing much to say. The church is still true no matter how many crazy people I meet that set out to prove the church wrong. No matter how many people try to bash with us, it's still true. "I love my mamma very much, now you know that!"- Waterboy

Love,

Elder McNinch

January 30, 2012 letter

HELLO?

Okay, now I am really starting to wonder if you are getting my emails. I have sent the last 4 over again in hopes that you'll be able to see them but if not...sorry. Can't really do anything about it.
This week was kind of a bummer. We had 7 of the 14 lessons that we had scheduled cancel on us. It was alright though because we have a new investigator in the YSA branch! YAY! Something that we have been praying for for a long time. On Friday we were sitting in the car trying to figure out what we should do. We had about a half an hour before our dinner appointment and we didn't want to waste any time. We prayed to know where we should go or what to do. As soon as we said Amen the phone rang. Someone from the YSA branch said, "So I have this friend that wants to take the lessons, do you think that y'all could teach her on Sunday." Uhhhh...YEAH! It was awesome. I think that the only thing better than getting the referral was teaching her on Sunday night. Her name is Brittany. Her two friends are both return missionaries (love it) and have taught her a lot about the organization of the Church and the the Priesthood. I can't think of two better subjects that they could have talked about prior to our visit. I think what struck her most was the pre-earth life. That was by far the coolest part of the lesson. We asked her where she thought she was before she came here. She responded, "I didn't know that I was anywhere." We then went to Proverbs 8: 22-31. We explained that King Solomon was testifying that he was with God before our mortal life began. That he witnessed the creation and rejoiced in the Plan that Heavenly Father set forth; and that it wasn't just him that witnessed and rejoiced, but that it was all the sons of men. She just kind of sat with her eyes starring at the page. Then she looked up and the sweetest smile came across her face. Those are the moments that you live for on the mission. When someone comes to the realization that God is not some mystical being who has no care or worry for the people of this world; But that God is our loving Heavenly Father who knows each of us personally, and cares so much for us that he would provide a way to RETURN to him. Needless to say, the lesson went great. We will be meeting with her again on Wednesday night and I can't wait.

This morning Elder Dunbar found a IHOP gift card, so you best believe we had brunch at IHOP. While we were waiting for our food we of course played the table game where you slide a sugar packet across the table to get a corner off the edge. Well, this time we decided to play with the little half and half milk cups that they give you for the coffee that was already on the table (which we obviously were not going to drink). So the game was whoever had the edge of the milk cup over the edge of their side of the table had to drink it. You have to realize that this milk is nasty and warm. I had to drink four but Elder Dunbar had to have five. The waitress was laughing hysterically when she saw the empty milk cups. Ha ha ha. Also a good time that you live for on the mission. Not as cool or heart warming, but a good laugh is always nice.

Good news, I'm starting to write in my journal again. Good gosh I am terrible at writing in that thing. I have missed the last 6 months so I said, "Well, I might as well write for the last 6 so I at least have 1 full journal. Okay so in all reality, I don't know what to do if you are not getting these letters. I will forward all the letters to Dad on his email to see if it is just Mom's that is messed up. Okay...love you, bye...send stamps.

Love,
Elder McNinch

January 23, 2012 letter

Hello Family,

So I don't know if you got my letter last week...so I sent it to you again. The new companion is great. His name is Elder Dunbar and he is from Zillah, Washington. So awesome. Ha ha ha yes, just like it's spelled. Like godZILLA. He even said that there is a church in Zillah called the GodZillah church. Ha ha ha.

Umm, school? Yeah I guess that I would consider going to school in Florida. That is a super far way to go. I guess we'll have to see if I can get any scholarships or whatnot. I don't know...where ever is cheapest. Ha ha ha. That's how all missionaries think. I sent Dad a list of schools that I would like to learn more about two letters ago so you can consult that list. As well as look up some schools in Florida..I guess.

That Quail Ridge party sounds awesome. I will for sure tell Bishop Woodrum about it. Did you get to see Brett Leavitt? What is he up to? Is he married yet? I thought for sure that he wold be the first to get hitched. Ha ha ha. They still have the youth temple trip picture? Oh man, my hair was redonkulous in that picture.

I love that song. How can I be, like my brother Nephi...etc, etc? We played that as a special musical number in one of the zone conferences. I don't know how to play it. I just had a list of chords in front of me and kind of went from one to the other when the poly kid I was playing with changed notes...sounded okay though. I think that Kaitie is working on getting me the real chords.

Okay so here's last week... 

Monday:

We played pool at the Elder's apartment in the Frisco 2nd and 6th wards. That was a lot of fun. For whatever reason pool is much more fun when you speak in a British accent while playing. We were rolling on the ground laughing because we all sounded like idiots. Missionaries are just weird, don't worry about it.
We ate dinner that night at the Herrera's. They are hilarious. Somehow we got on the subject of children and working in the primary and nursery and brother Herrera says, "Oh yeah, I like kids...well done with BBQ sauce." Ha ha ha. Guess that explains why they have no kids.
 

Tuesday:

We had our first officail zone meeting with the new zone. We had introductions and it was a lot of fun. We put up a timeline on the board that had marks at 6, 12, 18, and 24. You had to go and sign your name on where you were in the mission. It was hilarious because my new companion, Elder Dunbar, is the oldest. He is at about 20 months. One of the newer missionaries gets up there and says, "Well, my name is Elder Evans. I have been out for about four months now. Four months goes by really fast, doesn't it Elder Dunbar?" Ha ha ha we were all dying laughing.
 In the evening we taught the Villa and McGuire family. They were both really good lessons. With the Villa's we taught the second half of the Plan of Salvation and invited them to come to church. We are really hoping that they are going to start coming on a regular basis now. For whatever reason it is really hard for them to come. The Mcguire family's lesson was way fun. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a white board. Drew out the pitfalls of life and how we use the Gospel as steps to get out.
 

Wednesday:

Wednesday was kind of a bummer day. We were trying to figure out how we could best help the YSA branch here. We thought...okay...lets go near the college campus and try to find some YSA investigators. Turned out that that apartment complex was chuck full of old people. Not young single adults.
That night we went to dinner with recent convert named Matt Fichtel and his fiance Stephanie Mullin. They are so funny. We had a lengthy discussion about gay rights and stuff because Matt likes to talk about controversial things. Never ceases to amaze me how smart both of them are. Like, if I could come up with half of the rebuttals and points that they do, I could be a really successful lawyer.
 

Thursday:

SUPER AWKWARD DAY. All of the lessons that we had tonight were really awkward. Taught a part member family where the kids didn't really care to listen to us. Then went out and tried to fellowship the inactive young single adults. Always find some awkward situation in which the girl that answers the door has less than modest clothing on. Then at the end of our night we had a situation that would take the whole email to explain. I'll just say that our investigator lied to us, the Bishop, and the President but we can't do really anything about it.
 

Friday

We went to the Lopez family's for dinner. Brother Lopez is training to be a chiropractor, so you know that we got hooked up with a free back adjustment. I was all sorts of jacked up he said. For dessert Brother Lopez made us this Razzleberry pie. It was like taking bites of the Celestial Kingdom.
We then went and taught the McGuire family again. The lesson was way fun. We taught the Restoration with Jenga. Built up the tower, played the game like normal, then related it to how Christ set up his church with the foundation of apostles and prophets. (Eph. 2: 19-20) Then we taught about the apostasy and how the foundation of Christ's church was taken away. We explained that all of the blocks that made up Christ's church (the gospel of Jesus Christ) was broken into pieces and different churches were set up in attempt to replicate Christ's original church. Then of course talked about the Restoration of Christ's church through a prophet. It was great. The kids loved it. They were giving us fistbumps and high fives all the way out the door.
 

Saturday:

We helped a sister move. She was an elderly woman and had no idea how to get to her new apartment. At least she knew the name of the apartment complex. Good thing that the Elders that live in Prosper live right next to her. That was a big help.
In the afternoon we went by a bunch of former investigators. People that have just dropped off of the face of the Earth. We went by this one girl who hadn't returned any of our phone calls or been home when we went by. Well, we tried one last time and she was there! She came to the door in a tank top and boxer shorts...great. She said, "OH I'm so sorry! I changed my number and forgot to transfer y'all's number to my new phone." I said, "Oh, okay, sweet. So what's your new number?" As I took out my pen and planner she took them from me to write the number in herself...weird. So I made small talk while she was writing. "So you've just been busy with school or what?" She said, "Yeah. School and work." Now when we had taught her before she hadn't found a job yet, so I was way excited to hear that she had found one. I said, "Sweet! So you're working now? Where are you working at?" She replied, "Victoria's Secret." Umm...uh...umm...uh. Okay...we'll give you a call...later. Bye. Ha ha ha. I had nothing to say to that. I felt really weird. I mean, I don't know that we should go back. I don't know if we can go back. I mean, she's 19, works at Victoria's Secret, and is no where near ugly looking. Not that missionaries seek to teach those who are ugly, but I think that you catch my drift. That's like missionary kryptonite. Not that either I or Elder Dunbar would fall to something like that, but still. Dang. Nothing much else happened that day. Spent a lot of time tracting and contacting.
 

Sunday:

LONGEST DAY OF CHURCH IN MY LIFE! Wow. We had ward conference and it took forever. We were in the first meeting for TWO hours straight. I have never ever battled head nods more in my life. I got so tired that I had to start creating lesson plans in my head to stay awake. I can now relate every Disney movie that I have seen to the Gospel.
 
 Well, That was my week. Glad to hear that y'all are doing well. Hope to get a letter from y'all soon. Please don't forget that I am in dire need of stamps.

January 16, 2012 Letter

Hello,

Do you share these emails with the family? It sounds like you and Dad don't really share what's going on in the letters. Ha ha ha. For information on the BYU football game see the LAST letter that I sent to you MOM. Ha ha ha. Oh dear, so this week was pretty awesome. Here are the details...

Monday wasn't all that exciting. Same old, same old. Wake up, study, shop, play basketball, write letters.

Tuesday was really interesting. We tracted pretty much all day. Not kidding. We have a couple return appointments from it so it wasn't all for naught. I would say that the best parts of the day were when we met a man named Page. Page said that he wasn't interested in what we had to share but that he had a question that no one could answer. He started off and said, "So, baptism. Was that a Jewish custom? Because, I mean, John the Baptist was doing it even before Christ came to him right?" We of course agreed. Then he said, "Okay, so Jewish custom or not, why did Christ get baptized? Wasn't he perfect?" We just sat there and were like...there is no way that you just said that! Have you read the Book of Mormon?! "No, I have never even heard of that." Oh man...okay so...you NEED to read it! It answers that question. We gave him 2 Nephi 31 to read and set a return appointment. We are so excited to go back this week. The next experience was in the lesson with the Villa family. The little girl Savannah (11) is so smart. At the end of the lesson was asked if there were any questions. She said, "So, if we come from God, if God is our Dad, where did God come from? Does he have Dad?" We were like...uh...well...uh...What do you think? Ha ha ha. I mean we can respond when adults ask us that question but it was so weird to hear it from an 11 year old. I mean, when I was 11 I was just wondering what was the best way to pick my nose without getting caught. Savannah is pondering the mysteries of life. This little girl is probably the most spiritually inclined kid that I have ever met in my entire life. It was awesome to witness.

Wednesday was great. We had interviews with President Durrant. During the interviews Elder Dunbar and I train the Zone on the new focus for the month from Preach My Gospel. It went...okay. Interviews were great as always. I go in, he asks if there is anything we need to talk about, I say no, he says 'thank you, how is your family', I say good, he says great, and I leave. Ha ha ha. I love President Durrant. He

Thursday we had a crazy day. In the morning we went and studied with Brother Amidon. He is the brother that broke his hip on Thanksgiving. He is recuperating quite well, but it is pretty rough for him. We asked if we could come over every Thursday and study with him during companionship study, and he said that he would LOVE to study with us. Ha ha ha. I love Brother Amidon. Things are really hard in his life right now but he has the most positive outlook. After studies we went to the city of Allen for a doctor's appointment. Elder Dunbar had to have the bottom of his foot looked at. Turned out to be pretty bad. He has a HUGE blister on the bottom of his foot now. Tracting is pretty rough. Wanted to get crutches but they are super expensive. Thursday night we had two dinners...BAD IDEA. One was the normal dinner that we had with the Stroud family. I love the Strouds. They are like the epitome of a missionary family. After that wonderful meal we went to the Cavitt family. The father is the only member and the other members of the family are Catholic. They are an awesome family! The kids are hilarious. Anyways, so we had dinner and then came dessert. Blue Bell chocolate chip cookies and cream ice cream. OH MY LANTA. Couldn't resist. Pretty sure that I gained 10 lbs that night. Doesn't help that we can't run in the mornings anymore either.

Friday was so funny. We ate dinner at the Stelling's house. Both Brother and Sister Stelling are converts to the church and are the sweetest people alive. They have 4 kids, one girl and three boys. Sound familiar? By the way, Elder Dunbar has a sister and two brothers as well...wiod. All of the Stelling kids are under the age of 10 so dinner is a RIOT! Ha ha ha I love it! After dinner we of course we shared a scriptural thought. Brother Stelling asked his youngest who was squirming around, "Who are those guys?!" The boy said, "It's the Eldoorths." Ha ha ha Brother Stelling asked, " So what do they do?" Without hesitation the little boy said, "Pee pee." HAHAHAHA! We about died laughing.

Saturday was AMAZING! We had the baptism of Nicholas Alves. He is 9 years old and has a more solid testimony than some of the missionaries that I know. We spent most of the day preparing for the baptism, but it was completely necessary. We got to the church to fill the font and found that the font was full of dead bugs...great. So we clean out the bugs and decide that we should probably scrub out the bottom. Oh dear. That thing hadn't been cleaned in a while. Anyways. So I turn on the water for a minute or two to wash out all the cleaner and junk only to realize that the plug in the bottom of the font was closed. All of the water and junk was NOT going down the drain. But now the drain was covered by the water which was too deep for me to just step down into. So I had to abandon the shoes and socks, hike up by suit pants, and drain it out. It was so weird. We got pictures of it that we'll have to send to y'all. The baptism was amazing though. We had a talk by Nicholas' step father on the Restoration and Joseph Smith, then a special musical number by Nick's primary class (tear jerker for sure), and then the actual baptism. So spiritual. Then to top it all off, we had 3 sets of fathers and sons go and bear testimony while they were changing. It was so AWESOME! After the testimonies I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and relying on it to guide our lives. Then we closed in prayer. Short, sweet, simple, spiritual.

 Sunday was a great day. I got a lot out of each of the lessons. Figuring that I should try to find something different in each lesson, because I get the same lessons 3 times throughout a six hour period. Two of my favorite quotes that were used were.

"Patience is actively working toward a goal."

"I believe in God like I believe in the sun rise. Not because I can see it, but because I can see all that it touches."- C.S. Lewis

Okay, so to address a few things...need some stamps. Also, I am going to send home a large box. You have to promise me that you will not open it or look inside it, okay? I love y'all SOOO much and wish you the happiest week of your life!

Love,
Elder McNinch