Notes from Sam - 10 October 2007

Hi everybody,

British postal workers have been on strike for about a week, and so I haven't gotten any mail since last Wednesday. : ( But that's a pretty small inconvenience - one of our investigators gets paid through the mail and has had to make all sorts of special arrangements this week. Besides, pretty soon the strike should end and they should deliver all the backlog.

On Friday and Saturday we went on exchange with the other elders in our district, who are working in the village of Kendal. Elder Tomita went to Kendal, and Elder Turner, who is from Sacramento, came to Barrow to work with me. Elder Turner is recovering from surgery - he had to have his appendix removed just last transfer, I believe - but he was a good sport and we did a lot of good work. His style of missionary work is quite different from Elder Tomita's, so it was a really good experience for me to work with him for a day. Both the Kendal elders stayed with us on Saturday night so they could see General Conference (Kendal has no chapel so they have to come down to Barrow for the broadcast), and I also got to go on exchange with Elder Di Iulio from Italy for a couple of hours.

On Friday night, Elder Turner and I committed one of our investigators to baptism later this month. Gavin, the investigator, got really excited when we told him he could get baptized this soon. He made it to General Conference on Saturday night and to a baptismal service (for an 8-year-old girl) on Sunday, which helped him feel really good about going through with it. One of his big challenge right now is quitting smoking, but we met with him last night and things look very good.

Our finding efforts are also going well. Until last Friday, I had never been invited to come inside a door when tracting, but since then I've been invited in three times, once with Elder Turner on Friday and twice on Monday. One of these was a really nice old couple who were eager to chat with us, albeit not necessarily about the gospel. The husband told us all about his experiences serving in Burma in World War II: learning Urdu from Indian servicemen, negotiating with a local headhunter tribe, and "fighting the Japs." He was very apologetic when he realized Elder Tomita was from Japan. : )

Thanks again for your wonderful letters! I hope everything is going wonderfully in Jacksonville. I'll try and send you some pictures, but I may not have time - if not, I'll try next week.

Love,
Elder Pimentel