Hello my family!

This has been a really good past week, and Sunday was a great finish to it. I can't remember who said this, but Sunday is like the "game day" for missionaries. You see if all the work you've done that week has been enough to get people to come to church. Ha and even though some of the people didn't come that we were expecting, there were others that we hadn't even been counted on showing up. But anyways, thanks for the updates throughout the week. I really enjoy your letters. Britta, congrats on the win against Sac State! Not a bad way to finish the volleyball career in Reed Gym. Ha but Grandma does have a point, there will be plenty of bleacher sitting time waiting for me at home.

So we had some really great experiences this past week. On Wednesday evening we were out tracting in a pretty big housing complex when we ran into a girl that was about 15. She was really nice and we told her about the youth group they hold at the church and let her with some information. Well about 10 minutes later we got a call from her older sister, Ellie. She told us that she's really like to attend it sometime, so we told her that it's normally on Wednesdays at 7. She said, "Perfect, well we'll come tonight!". It was 6 at this point and we were pretty floored. I'd never seen someone that motivated to just come and show up. We immediately called the YW leader and gave her a heads up and then let some of the youth know what was going on. And sure enough at 7, in walked Ellie and Julianne. They ended up loving the whole thing, and Ellie let me know that she's been praying for a youth group to attend so when she and her sister got the invite to ours she knew it was an answer to her prayers. They weren't able to come to church on Sunday, but they should be back on Wednesday night. Ha it was pretty much one of those golden experiences that just seem to come together perfectly. Definitely not a coincidence. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Also this past week we had another lesson with Luis. He's been really tough to get a hold of, but we finally got over there on Saturday and got to talk about the Plan of Salvation. I always knew he was pretty smart because of the questions he asks during the lessons, but I was able to understand even more after this last visit. So Luis grew up in Peru, got a scholarship and attended college in Russia where he was able to learn Russian and English, and that's where he got his electrical engineering degree. It was pretty amazing to hear all of that. Florida truly is a melting pot of people with backgrounds that are just about as varied as you could imagine. He soaks in what we teach him and we keep reminding him of Moroni's promise; that if he keeps praying and reading that he'll come to know for himself that what he's learning is truth. He really wants it to be true, and I know that as he keeps learning more that he'll come to know for himself.

Another cool experience was with Jonathon Turner. His grandma is a convert to the church, and we've recently started teaching him. Well on Saturday we covered the importance of baptism, and he immediately said "Well I want to be baptized!". Haha I was kind of caught off guard and said, "well....uh....that's definitely something we could arrange". We talked to his Mom and grandma about it, and they said that if it's something that he really wants to do then that would be great. Currently his date is set for Nov. 21st (the last Sunday of the transfer), and so we'll be teaching him the rest of the lessons these next couple weeks. He's 9 and can sometimes be a little....distracted....ha but at the same time he takes in a lot more then I sometimes think. We really had to start at the beginning with teaching him, covering who God and Jesus Christ are, but he was able to understand basically all of it.

Well, I love you guys so much! Have an awesome week, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Love your brother from the same mother (I think that one is thanks to Braydn for coming up with it haha),

Elder Kade Bartschi