First P-day

January 7, 2013

Well here I am in the library, writing you all an email on my first pday. I love this place so much, besides the cold part, I could do without that. These first few days have been full of walking and hard work, but holy moly, we have a lot of fun. We are planning to go play some ultimate frisbee with our district later, and President Hermansen may join us. Then we are gonna go get our shopping and everything done later. Then we have a couple lessons and then dinner at the bishop's house later tonight. We haven't had to provide dinner for ourselves once since I have gotten here. Last night we had sweet pork tacos and cheesecake at the Metcalf's. It was so yummy. Then we played a game of apples to apples. The people in my ward are so awesome.

Yesterday, I was able to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting and meet lots of people in the ward. It was a good Sunday. Most of you want to know about my trainer, Elder Hayes. He is quite the character. In fact, he is known as the turkey around the mission. I once again got paired up with a marching band kid from the east coast, but he is a really good guy. He has only been out three months, but we work hard. A lot of our work has been with less active, in active, and part member families. But we do have a 17 year old kid who just is waiting on his mother's permission to be baptized. He is super cool. Another thing that we have been working on is updating the area book. It hadn't been updated since about June...because Elder Hayes Trainer did not believe in using the area book. From what I have heard, the guy basically taught Elder Hayes everything that he shouldn't do. So we have had a lot of catching up to do, but it is good because it keeps us busy, and we have already started to see results. Last night we went and visited a home of someone that we found in the area book. They let us right in and we found that they are a part member family, and the dad who is not a member travels a lot for work. He had been taking the lessons in the past, but he is interested in starting up again in February after some business trips. WooHoo! That is exciting.

Jeri Lin, my teacher who is in Vocal Point, his name is Landon Peay. He is super cool. I really want to get the all hymns CD that he told us they just released.

Also, could you guys send me a couple more of my tshirts? I would really appreciate it! If you can.

Dad, thank you for getting me the bike. That will be nice to have...maybe a little colder, but faster. I heard that the Seahawks won, I was pretty excited about that. They better beat the Falcons.

I think that is all I have for now. I love and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Bryton Dane Shinkle