Mission Call

Colleen and I just received a mission call! We have been called to serve as the Mission President and Mission President Companion in Berlin, Germany, starting July 1, 2009. I am speechless (and that doesn't happen for me very often). Love to all. Uncle Jay

Notes from Sam -- 17 December 2008

These are all from Accrington. Two of the shots are from when we had snow (that was about two weeks ago now), one is a nice sunset (we've gotten to see a lot of them in the past week or two since the sun sets by 4:30 PM), and the other is me with Elder Farrant, who was assistant to the President and just went home on the 10th. A great missionary. Notice my very short haircut - Elder Stevens wanted to try cutting his own hair so we borrowed the zone leaders' clippers and I shaved my own down as well. It's grown out a little more now, thank goodness - I don't really like it when it's that short. : )

Dear family,

I’ve got a lot to tell you about!

Our main investigator here is a great man named Chris ..... He’s had an amazing life involving even more travelling and unusual experiences than mine, including working as a coal miner, living on a boat, wandering around India for ten(?) years and living in several other countries including Australia and Spain. The missionaries stopped him about a month(?) ago as he was walking somewhere right after his mum’s funeral, actually carrying the box with her ashes in it. When the missionaries told him about the Plan of Salvation, he felt like he couldn’t turn away such an obvious sign and invited them to his home to teach him. He now has a really solid testimony of the gospel and a great desire to be baptized and spends hours reading the Book of Mormon every day. His only challenge is that he needs to move out of his (female) housemate’s flat before he can be baptized and that’s going to be very difficult for him to do for a variety of reasons. We have a lot of faith in him and in the Lord to provide a miracle for him, and we’ve set a baptismal date with him of January 17th. We’re praying for him a lot.*

The Newcastle Ward is great. We didn’t meet any of the members in our first couple of days, but fortunately Saturday evening was the ward Christmas party. We had walked in and started talking to a few members when they passed around a few sheets of paper with “Favorite Farmyard Animal” at the top and a place to write five random numbers below 20 on the bottom. Elder Garcia and the members we were sitting with didn’t take the paper at our table, so I grabbed it and filled it out. It turned out this was part of a game: when someone at the front of the room read out one of your numbers, you had to stand up and make the sound of your farmyard animal, and as soon as all 5 of your numbers had been called out, you had to run into the middle of the room and make a rooster noise. Sure enough, my numbers got called out one by one and I ended up getting called into the middle to do a rooster impression. So the first things most of the members of the ward heard me say were sheep and rooster noises. : ) Kind of an unusual introduction to the ward. Fortunately the ward members have a great sense of humor and the experience broke the ice for us. The next day at church I ended up giving a talk and playing the piano in sacrament meeting and Primary, so I guess the damage wasn’t too great. : ) Since then we’ve had our ward coordination meeting, and everyone is really excited to help us. I think we’ll have great support this transfer for all our work.

Some amazing finding experiences from this week:

1. Last Friday Elder Garcia and I spent the whole day inside, with zone leaders’ council all day and planning all evening. But the Crewe elders had given us a referral for someone named Zack who lived in our area, so on Friday evening I rang him. His mum answered and when I explained who we were she told us he wasn’t home. I arranged to call back when he would be in and was about to hang up when she said, “So what can you offer me?” I was a bit surprised, but I used the Power Statement about the Restoration to briefly explain our message and I testified that it was true. When I asked her if we could come and share more about it with her, she was really open and agreed to an appointment on Sunday morning. A quality gospel conversation over the phone! Better yet, when we went round on Sunday morning (with our ward mission leader), we found not just Zack and his mum Tracy but four other people, all of whom participated in the lesson and became new investigators! We’re seeing most of them again tomorrow night and they said they’d come to church on Sunday. Yay!
2. On Monday night I was on exchange with Elder Breisch, a great missionary who’s serving in Crewe right now. We’d just taught a lesson and weren’t sure what to do, so we got in the car and said a prayer to know where to go. I felt a bit like we should stay in the area we were in and work there, so we got out of there to go tract. Right as I did, a man walked up, so I started talking to him. He agreed to meet with us and we set up an appointment. Just as I finished speaking to him another lady walked by and we spoke to her too and set up another appointment with her and her family! It’s amazing to see how the Lord guides us to people who are ready to listen when we make sure to ask for his help.
3. Right before coordination meeting last night, we stopped by Tracy and Zack’s house to make contact with them. We had about twenty minutes left before our meeting. We walked across the street and Elder Garcia talked to a man there and set up an appointment with him! We still had time, so we decided to tract the street, and we went and knocked on a door. The man inside was named Jeff and he let us in for five minutes! We taught him a quick lesson and then went off to coordination. We should be seeing him on Saturday night. Miracles!

I don’t have much time to talk about our zone, but I love it. Our two district leaders are Elder Drago (serving in Stoke) and Elder Davies (serving in Wrekin), both amazing missionaries. We had district leaders’ council with them on Saturday (see the picture) and focused on the importance of having quality gospel conversations and committing people for baptism. They were both really humble and ready to catch the vision, and already their districts are doing great things. I want to tell you more about them but I’m about out of time.

Zone leaders’ council was last Friday. It was great, a lot like district leaders’ council but with the difference that President Bullock involved us directly in making decisions for the mission. I felt President Bullock’s love and trust for us in a much bigger way than I have in the past, and I felt really united with the other zone leaders. The system of church government really is inspired.

You can call me on that number for Christmas, no problem. Probably aim to talk to me around 3 PM English time (10 AM Florida time?). I’ll send you one more email hopefully with some more information, but if not that should work fine.

Love,
Elder Pimentel

Hey! I got some more computer time.

I wanted to tell you more about our amazing zone, starting with our two rockstar district leaders. Elder Drago is kind of a legend in the mission. This is is fifth transfer (making seven months) in Stoke-on-Trent, which is the area right next to ours (and more or less in the same city - Stoke and Newcastle are a bit like Dallas and Fort Worth). He is from Frankfurt, Germany, but he is half-Italian and speaks Italian as well as German and English. He turns 28 this month and has spent a couple of years in the German army and mostly completed a degree in film. He has only been out as long as Elder Adams but has been completely on fire since then and has been baptizing non-stop. I bet he's already taught more lessons than I have. To top it off, he's a really big guy. So even though he is really humble and friendly, it's pretty intimidating to be his leader. I'm looking forward to going on exchange with him so I can learn how he runs his area.

Elder T. Davies, our other district leader (not to be confused with Elder J. Davies, my old district leader in Manchester South), is from Mesa, Arizona. He's serving in Wrekin with a German missionary named Elder Ritter. He's a really happy person with a great sense of humor, and I love speaking to him on the phone at night. At the end of our district leaders' council on Saturday, right after we'd talked all about dating people for baptism, he asked me and Elder Garcia to do a role-play of dating an investigator for baptism. Elder Garcia (who played the missionary) did a great job. That evening Elder Davies told us that right after district leaders' council, he and Elder Ritter had gone to an appointment with one of their best investigators and dated him and his wife for baptism just as Elder Garcia had demonstrated! The investigators told him that they'd been wanting to be baptized and had just been waiting for the missionaries to give them a date. I love missionary work!

There are a lot more really great missionaries in the zone, and I'll try to tell you some more about them as the transfer progresses. A lot of them I still don't know very well myself.

Elder Garcia and I are looking for a new flat, so my address may change in the coming weeks. But for now go ahead and send post to 2 Hill Street. We actually live a few doors down from a great member family who have invited us over for Christmas dinner! We have another invite for New Year's Eve, and we're definitely going to have somewhere to go on Christmas Eve (President Bullock is going to make arrangements to get all the missionaries in the mission fed on Christmas day and Christmas Eve). Also, the whole zone leader council (including Elder Garcia and me) have been invited to a Christmas dinner at the mission home on the 23rd with the Bullocks and their various children who will be visiting for Christmas. So it doesn't look like I'll need to order a kebab next week. : )

Elder Garcia is a great missionary. I've been most impressed by how much faith he has. I can see that to be a really great missionary and a really great leader, I need to strengthen my faith a lot. Fortunately, I'm going to have plenty of chances to do that this transfer.

I love you all! Merry Christmas!

Love,
Elder Pimentel


*Grandma Bay, you mentioned you’d be happy to put the names of our investigators on the temple prayer roll. Chris ... has a special need for prayers right now – I’d appreciate it if you could put his name down.

From Jon 12/10/2008

Subject: Peb sib pauv khub ib zaug ntxiv

Nyob zoo tsev neeg!

I'm writing on Thursday because our preparation day was moved from Saturday to today to accommodate the Minneapolis New Year this Saturday.

We got a call from President Howell Tuesday night saying Elder Vang would be going to Winona, WI, and Elder Hadlock would be training in Eastside, and Elder Erickson would be in Frogtown with me. He called again Wednesday morning saying he had changed his mind. The current assignments are as follows:

Eastside St. Paul---Elder Hadlock and Elder Nielson (new Hmong speaker)
LaCrosse---Elder Fawsen and Elder Neibaur (my old companion)
Eau Claire---Elder Cutshall and some Mika Elder
Frogtown---Elder Erickson and Elder Lo
Minneapolis---Elder Hill, Elder Vang, and Elder Pimentel

So, Elder Vang and I are still together, but we're invading Minneapolis to see how much damage we can do... in a good way. Now I actually AM at the Aldrich Ave. apartment, and Elder Erickson is taking my spot in Frogtown, where he will receive yet another package for me. Will it never end? ;) The apartment is very small for two people, and we're still trying to figure out how to fit three Elders and their stuff in there. We're working on getting another bed, too. Chances are our rap-enthusiast neighbors will be evicted soon due to a demolished fence and refusal to pay the heating bill. If that happens, maybe we can move into the upstairs unit, which has carpet, way more room, and control of the heat. We may also get a less-active member to move into the downstairs, so we will have quiet neighbors and we can keep tabs on them.
Elder Hill is a great missionary. He was in the marines for four years, so he is very disciplined and is a very hard worker. He studies Hmong harder than any missionary I know, but he still struggles with it a lot. Elder Vang and I will be able to help him considerably.

Hopefully we will be able to arrange a musical number for Ia's baptism in which Elder Vang and I will perform so we can attend it.

Minneapolis is exploding in terms of the work. Nine new investigators last week! That helps make the transition easier. :)

I'll let you know more about the work here once I know more. I'm looking forward to having a car this winter, and I'm pretty stoked to still be with Elder Vang. We were really bummed when he was not going to be here for the Minneapolis New Year or for Christmas. I'm glad to work with Elder Hill too. His diligence rubs off. He's also very tidy.

-Elder Moua Ying

Notes from Sam -- 11 December 2008

Dear family,

As you probably guessed, I’ve been transferred! My new area is Newcastle-under-Lyme, and my address is

2 Hill Street
Newcastle-under-Lyme
ST5 2DW

Newcastle (not to be confused with the much larger and more well-known Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which is in the Leeds Mission) is in Staffordshire, in the most southern part of the mission. It’s right next to Stoke-on-Trent, which you may have heard of. Newcastle Zone, which includes most(?) of Staffordshire, a chunk of Cheshire (Crewe and Congleton), Shropshire, and a big swath of rural Wales, was actually part of the Birmingham Mission until about four years ago. It’s a part of the mission I’ve never been to before (except once or twice to Crewe for zone conference and train connections), so it’s exciting.

It’s also exciting because we’re whitewashing. So I still know very little about the ward and most of the investigators. I’m looking forward to meeting them all. There’s another set of missionaries in the ward, a set of senior sisters who focus mostly on less-active work, and it will be good to work with them.

My new companion Elder Garcia and I have also been called as the Newcastle zone leaders. Since neither of us knows much about the zone (he’s never served around here either) or about most of the missionaries in it, we have a lot of catching up to do pretty quickly! We’re going to be very busy this week. I’m having a great time. I got to talk to several of the missionaries in the zone on the transfer coach down to Newcastle, and they seem like a great bunch. I’m looking forward to going on exchanges, getting to know the missionaries and getting to see the different areas in the zone.

Another big change for me is that we have a car, and I’m actually going to be driving it some of the time. Elder Garcia has been in a car area for the past six months serving with companions who weren’t licensed to drive a manual transmission, so he’s decided we can take turns driving (or “take it in turns” as the English would say). Yesterday was his day and today I’ve been behind the wheel. Elder Garcia has been wincing and cringing a lot, but I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m actually that scary a driver or because he’s so used to sitting on the driver’s side that he thinks the left side of the car is always a lot closer to the curb than it is. : ) Probably a little of both. I’ll get used to it, though, and by the end of the transfer I’ll be driving pretty smoothly and confidently. It feels good to know that all the time and money I spent on my license is paying off.

Elder Garcia is great. He’s from Cadiz in the very southernmost part of Spain and came into the mission six weeks after me. He’s been a zone leader in north Manchester for four transfers and I’d heard about him and how intense he is. He reminds me of Captain Moroni a little bit. When I first spoke to him after we’d been assigned to serve together, he said “We’re going to destroy everything!” That seems to be a characteristic phrase – I’ve heard him repeat it several times since then. One of those times was when we were talking to Elder Frogley who is an assistant to the President, and Elder Frogley said, “You mean destroy it in a good way, right?” : ) I’m really excited to be serving with him.

Great stuff happened in my last week in Blackburn. We taught Jerry with a member, and we dated him for baptism on January 10. He loved church and has been reading the Book of Mormon – we got him a Tagalog one before I left. Yvonne bore her testimony on Sunday, which made my day, and I got to say goodbye to both her and Jason and Emma on Tuesday. It’s hurt more to leave Blackburn than any of my other areas.

For Christmas phone calls, I think you can ring me. Our number is .... I’ll try and send some more specific info before Christmas.

Chris ..., the investigator I loved teaching so much in Blackpool, is getting baptized on the 20th! He and Jane are getting married this weekend. He asked the Blackpool elders if I could come back for the baptism, because he said I’d been instrumental in teaching him. That makes me feel pretty great. I don’t think I’ll be able to go back for it, but I can at least write a letter.

I love you all! Goodbye until next week!

Love,
Sam

From Jon 12/6/08

Subject: Noj peb caug lom zem heev!

Greetings, one and everyone!

We've got snow! We also have colditude.

I got a bundle of post of late, including the shoebox, something from Grandma, cookies from aunt Nancy and family, and a letter from the Alameda Pimentels. Wahoo! Ua nej tsaug ov!

Shue and Ia got married, and I got to sign the papers as a witness. We set a baptismal date for the 20th!

New Year's was awesome! I have a healthy collection of photos, but once again, I left my camera upstairs. Our booth went very well. It was very exhausting to be there all day for two full days, sitting rarely, and all the while wearing about 30 lbs of silver. At the end, we counted up all the referrals we collected from people that wanted a video, a visit, or both. Over the two days there were about 150, but only about 22 were for our area. Still, we won't have to tract for a while. See and Pa Vang performed with a dance group at New Year on Saturday. They did pretty well, but did not win the competition.

We found a new investigator, but we suspect he might actually be a member and not know it. His Mom and older brother are less active members, but he doesn't remember ever being Christian. He really has a desire to apply the teachings to his life and become a better person. We are going to look for his records at church.

The other night, we finished a terrific lesson and returned to our bikes, but when Elder Vang tried to unlock his bike, it wouldn't budge. It was right about our curfew and it was very cold. We took turns trying to muscle his key in there, but in vain did we muscle. I pulled out my bike light and inspected the lock for objects wedged within by saboteurs, but found nothing out of the ordinary. I figured if it were frozen it surely would have given under the much jiggling and musclery. As Elder Vang continued to struggle with it I prayed for help and waited for either inspiration, or for it to suddenly work. The only thought I had was to breathe on the lock. Initially, I put the thought on the back burner and waited for a better idea because it probably wasn't frozen. Then I realized that it was dumb of me to wait for something that sounded like a better idea to me, and I should just trust the answer I was given. So I did. It worked. Go figure. Revelation rocks.

Transfer time is approaching, and there is much talk and speculation about what will happen. We are getting a new Hmong speaker, and someone will be training him. Everybody thinks it will be me, and I don't know what to think. Evidently in some of their interviews with the president they mentioned to him that I was pretty good with Hmong, and President "jokingly" told them that maybe he'll have me train the new Elder. I guess we'll see. Many of us suspect Elder Erickson may get sent to Wisconsin because he has been in Minneapolis his entire mission save one transfer. Elder Vang has been in St. Paul his entire mission, and has been in Frogtown several transfers in a row, so maybe he'll get transferred. I'll let you all know what happens.

I want to see pictures of that wedding cake; it sounds like quite a project! Well, I've got to be heading off now---oh! Has anyone seen Prince Caspian? Let me know how it is. Right, then. Cheerio!


-Elder Moua Ying

Notes from Sam -- 3 December 2008

Nice shot of the temple in gray, rainy weather.
Me and my posterity! I don’t think I mentioned this but Elder Adams has been assigned to train new missionary, Elder Chambers, in Blackpool. In mission lingo, that makes him my grandson. We met up with them at zone conference and got this photo. Left to right: Elder Stevens, me, Elder Adams, Elder Chambers.

Dear family,

Last Friday morning Elder Stevens and I had an appointment fall through. I remembered there was a potential investigator who lived in the area and was free in the mornings, so we went to her street to knock by. When we walked into her street, Elder Stevens walked right past her house to the other end. At first I was a bit annoyed with him because I thought he’d just got the house numbers mixed up, but it turned out he’d seen a door open at that end of the street. He used a power statement in speaking to the man in the house, and he invited us in! The man’s name was Jerry ... He’s from the Philippines (so he actually knows how to pronounce my name) and has been living here for about 5 years, working something like 80 hours a week as a nurse. As we taught him the Restoration he told us that he felt spiritually lost and had asked in prayer the night before for the Lord to show him the way. He told us he felt that we were the answer to his prayer. We committed him to come to church and to be baptized once he has repented of his sins, and he agreed! He’s a great man, really humble and open, and we’re excited to teach him. The only challenge is that he is so busy working (8 AM to 8 PM shifts most days) that we won’t be able to teach him more than about once a week. That shouldn’t stop him progressing, though.

On Saturday night Elder Stevens and I had 8 people committed to coming to church the next day! We’d talked to all of them on Friday or on Saturday, so we were feeling really great. I actually woke up in the middle of the night for a couple of minutes and got really excited when I thought about all the people coming to church in the morning – it felt a bit like Christmas morning. The next day, only one person showed up! : ( We were disappointed. Half of the investigators had close family members get really ill or suffer some injury that they had to help deal with, so we have to cut them some slack, I suppose. Fortunately, the one who did come was Jerry, and he had a great experience. He texted us after church to thank us for bringing him. The ward is now excited to get involved with him – Bishop told us last night that he really wants to go see Jerry with us – so we see great things ahead for him. We’re seeing him on Saturday and hopefully we will set a baptismal date. Ryan’s baptismal date has fallen through now, but it’s wonderful to see how the Lord continues to bless us with people who will progress even as our older investigators struggle.

Blackburn Ward has made a drastic change in how they coordinate missionary work. Our ward mission leader was released on Sunday and will not be replaced. Instead, we will coordinate our work directly with the bishopric in PEC, and the former ward mission leader has been called as a ward missionary to work alongside us. We went to our first PEC last night, and it was great. As I understand it, the reorganization was done in part to trim down on meetings (we don’t have any coordination meetings now) and to streamline things generally, and even from the first meeting I can see that working. We heard from the bishopric themselves exactly what they want us to do and exactly how they want to help us, and I had a lot more confidence that the plans we made would actually be fulfilled. I love working closely with great ward leaders. Preach My Gospel Chapter 13 says the relationships we develop with stake and ward leaders as missionaries will bless us throughout our lives, and I can see that happening already for me. I’m really grateful that I’ve been called to a mission where the Church is already reasonably strong and where there are such experienced, Christlike leaders to learn from.

Thanksgiving Day ended up being a bit crazy for us. Our tea appointment called an hour beforehand and cancelled (all the males in the home had been called out at the last minute). I was pretty sad for a second after we received the call, and then I realized that there wasn’t anything we could do about it and that really it was a good test to see how thankful I really was for what I had. We ended up going back to our flat and ordering big kebabs instead. In accordance with tradition, Elder Stevens and I talked about all the things we were thankful for while we ate our kebabs. I ended up really enjoying the meal and feeling quite happy as we went out to our lessons that evening. So there’s a happy ending! Yay!

I went on exchange with Elder McIntosh (for the fourth time – this is our fifth consecutive transfer in the same district) on Monday. He’s a great missionary. I was really impressed with how excited he was as he talked with everyone and invited them to be taught. I guess over the past week or two I’ve stopped feeling as excited about teaching and testifying to everyone I meet even though I’m still doing it. But it really is an exciting thing – you just have to remind yourself that and get pumped up about it. It was amazing to see what a difference Elder McIntosh’s excitement and boldness made in our area. Elder Stevens and I had a goal to set up 15 appointments with people from quality gospel conversations all week. With Elder McIntosh’s help, we ended up getting 13 on Monday alone! It shows just how ready our area is to receive the gospel.

Yvonne is still doing great. She missed church on Sunday because her relatives were in town from Birmingham and she had some kind of obligation to visit with them, but she still made it to stake choir practice that evening. We’re hoping to get the rest of her family more involved in the church. Her father sat in on a lesson we taught on Monday night, and he expressed a lot of respect for us and our work. He’s also expressed some interest in family history work. We’ll see what we can do.

It snowed this week! And stuck! We’ve had heavy frost for most of the week, but also genuine snow. On Monday morning it snowed for a couple of minutes during our study. Then on Tuesday it really started bucketing down. A member told us that it hasn’t snowed like this in Lancashire for about ten years. I’m really happy about it, because it makes the hills look beautiful and everything seem like Christmas. Even if it does make the pavements slippery, now that it’s all hardened and icy. Elder Powrie, who is from South Africa, had never driven in snow before, so it’s been quite an experience for him too.

Elder Stevens and I tried cutting our own hair last week. It worked OK, and my hair looks alright. It’s a lot shorter than I’m used to, though, and I think next time it gets long I might just go back to the barber shop.

I’ve been enjoying the MoTab Christmas music, especially because it looks like my other music hasn’t been approved. I enjoyed it a lot last year, though, and of course I’ll get to listen to it next year as well.

Next week is transfers! Already. Probably Elder Stevens or I will be going, so please send letters to the office this week. Thanks!

I love you! I’ve enjoyed all the post I’ve been receiving recently, including letters from Uncle Jay’s family and Grandma Bay. Is the small box from Uncle Ron’s family a Christmas package?

Happy Christmas!
Love,
Elder Pimentel

Notes from Sam -- 26 November 2008

Dear family,

Ryan ...'s testimony has faltered a bit, and his baptismal date is now in question. We also haven't been able to see Leslie this week (she went out of town over the weekend). But we've been teaching a lot of great new people. I've noticed that all President Bullock's emphasis on quality finding (quality gospel conversations and power statements) has really done is speed up the work we were already doing: we still tract, street contact and teach lessons to investigators, but now we teach more people on the street, set up more appointments, teach more new investigators, and commit a lot more people to be baptized a lot sooner in the teaching process. I find the new pace of our work makes it much easier to deal with the inevitable disappointments when they come - if an investigator drops us, we're sad but we'll probably find two more investigators by the end of the week so we don't have time to dwell on it. Maybe it's a bit like Dad's "lightning cleanup" principle - if you work really hard and really quickly, you won't have time to be bored and complain.

Anyway, our week was great and we taught a lot of new investigators. We had a particularly great experience on Saturday night, although it was preceded by some adversity. We went to an appointment we'd set up on the street with a young man named Raz, but as we were knocking on the door some kids in the street told us that Raz didn't live at that house. It turned out that Raz lived in the house next door and had given us his neighbor's address as a joke. While we were standing outside, Raz (or someone else in his house) opened the top floor window and dropped an egg. It landed on Elder Stevens' bag and got egg gunk on some of his stuff. He took it very stoically, however, and we continued on our way.

Later that evening we had our lesson with Leslie scheduled, but when we got to her house with Brother Spencer, our fellowshipper, we discovered she'd forgotten our appointment. Brother Spencer really wanted to teach someone with us, though, and when we had trouble thinking of who we could see he urged us to say a prayer. After praying we decided to try someone named Keith Scholes. Keith had actually been referred to us by a member couple called the Halls who had come out teaching with us a month or two before and had mentioned Keith to us as we'd driven through his neighborhood. We'd followed up with Keith but hadn't gotten a solid appointment. Anyway, we decided to try by with Brother Spencer and we got in the door and taught a great first lesson! Keith, who investigated about a year and a half before, was really receptive to the Restoration, said he believed it was true, and accepted a commitment to be baptized when he knows it. He's a great person, very charismatic and down-to-earth. He's also a bit of a "rogue," as Sister Hall put it, and he's told us a few hair-raising stories about his youthful motorbiking exploits. Since Saturday we've taught him once more with the Halls (whom he knows really well), and he's looking like one of our most promising investigators. He should be coming to church on Sunday and on Monday we're having tea at the Halls' with him and teaching him afterwards. Elder Stevens pointed out that Keith's current investigation is more or less a pure result of the work of ward members - the Halls referred him, Brother Spencer's urging led us to hunt him down and teach him, and now the Halls are taking the lead in preparing him for baptism. It shows how crucial it is to work through your members, and what amazing blessings are out there as we learn to do it better.

We also taught Patricia ..., Yvonne's sister. She is amazing! Just like Yvonne. Apparently when Patricia was first being taught she came to church regularly for a short time, and she really wants to start coming again. She told us that she's been to many different churches and she likes our church better than the others. We taught the Restoration and discussed baptism, and she agreed that she wanted to be baptized. It may take a bit more time with her than with Yvonne, since she has a couple of concerns (she has trouble understanding the Book of Mormon and isn't yet married to her boyfriend), but she is a very humble, sincere person and I think she will progress. She's got Yvonne's support, which should help a lot. Yvonne is doing really well. She was at the lesson with Patricia and mentioned to us that she's been getting a lot of opposition from other Zimbabweans who attend a church she used to go to, but she isn't giving in to their criticism at all. A wonderful sister from Chorley who is in the stake Relief Society Presidency is trying to get her (and possibly Patricia as well) involved in the stake Christmas choir, which should be a great experience.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty great about our area. With Jason and Emma (who are still chugging along pretty well) and all these great new investigators, we have an amazing teaching pool, and I foresee baptisms in the next two months. I'm going to be sad if I get transferred this time around.

The rest of the district is doing well too. The Chorley 2nd elders, who saw some amazing finding miracles last week, got a couple of new investigators yesterday, and the zone leaders in Chorley 1 actually taught someone I street contacted when I was on exchange with them. We're all pretty happy.

Last week I promised you a story from Elder Kopischke. Elder Kopischke’s family had just moved and his son Daniel (high school age at the time) had just started at a new school. At the first day of English class, the teacher went around the class and had all the (German) students stand up and say what they wanted to do when they grew up, just to practice their still-rudimentary English. When it was Daniel’s turn, he got up and said, “I am Daniel Kopischke and I want to be a teacher of business and geography, but first I will serve a mission for my church.” Then he sat down. Everybody stared at him, and the teacher asked him what church he belonged to. He stood up again and said, “I am a Mormon,” then sat down. The teacher said, “Now you have to tell us what a Mormon is.” So Daniel got up one more time and said, “We are Mormons. We don’t drink, we don’t smoke, and we don’t have sex before marriage.” : ) Elder Kopischke used the story as an example of having an undivided heart and how it pushes you to share the gospel as best you can. He also talked a lot about seminary and how important it is, and told another story about his 18(?)-year-old daughter who was called to be a seminary teacher. She taught a certain group of boys for several years until they finished seminary, at which point they all went on missions. Elder Kopischke's daughter concluded, "If they can go on missions, so can I," and so she went and served a mission as well, right along with her seminary students. Great stuff. I'm really grateful for my seminary experience, I think more for the work it required me to put in than for the scriptural knowledge I amassed - looking back on my four years of seminary, I feel like I really achieved something just by getting up and going consistently. It's a good feeling.

It was nice to be in the temple with the zone last preparation day. Being there reminded me of all the times I went to various different temples before my mission. It always feels the same no matter what temple you're in - cozy and warm and wonderful, a lot like going home on a really cold or nasty day. Yesterday Elder Stevens and I got to the stake center for district meeting before the building had been unlocked, so we spent a few minutes standing outside. I looked over at the temple right across the street and was struck by how lucky I am to be so close to the temple - not even most missionaries in the mission get to be on the temple site so often.

Thank you for the Christmas music! We're going to put it on tomorrow night (the official beginning of the Christmas season according to me). We have interviews next week and hopefully by then President Bullock will have vetted my Christmas CDs from last year, but we'll be OK either way now.

President Bullock has granted a special exception to our normal tea appointment policy so that we can have a 90-minute tea appointment with a member, with or without investigators, on Thanksgiving Day. We've been lucky enough to get such an appointment! So it should be a great Thanksgiving with plenty of good food.

I love you all! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Cheers,
Elder Pimentel