September 22, 2014

Dear Family,

A lot of good and bad things happened this week so we'll start with the bad to get it over with. Do you guys remember Mark Childers? Mark is the man that we got baptized about 7 weeks ago and also my greenies first convert on his mission. Well he had terminal cancer and overcame smoking and everything. One of the coolest stories throughout my mission. Well we gave him a call to go visit him on Saturday and his daughter answered the phone and informed us that he had passed away from his cancer(age 52). She invited us over to go spend sometime with their family that day and go to a bbq with them because she knew how much we meant to Mark. It was a great opportunity to meet them and hopefully a good way in with them. The funeral services will be this Wednesday morning and either me or Elder Blomquist will be giving a talk during it. Mark meant a lot to me and we became really close and spent a lot of time over there. I know he's at peace now though and free of all mortal pain. Mark had expressed to his mother how important and how much it would mean to him if he could go to church with his mother. His mother was originally planning on coming down to Redding from Oregon anyways but she just so happened to come down the week he passed away. Talk about perfect timing. His mom insisted in coming to church with us and told us that she knew that Mark would be there in spirit at church. All in all I know everything will work out. 

We're teaching a couple named Robert and Shannon. There a couple that we were able to find through a member in the area. Robert and Shannon are a couple with mental disabilities but are just so sweet. Robert is getting baptized this Saturday which is super exciting. He already had his interview and everything is ready to go. Shannon his wife doesn't feel quite ready so she wants to hang on for a little bit so she is going to be getting baptized on October 11th. Robert and Shannon have been the coolest people, its been a huge blessing to teach them. 

This is week 6 of the transfer meaning this Sunday night we find out if I'm going to be getting transferred or not. I feel like its about 50/50 whether or not I will get transferred. I've now finished training Elder Blomquist but I've only been in my area for 3 transfers and I've been in my previous ones for 4. 

Dad, as far as the fires go, both the north and south of my missions are being affected by it, not so much the central. The North where I'm at there seems to be a new fire every couple of days, its kind of crazy. The most recent one has been in a city named weed. Redding is fine, just the air is really polluted which makes biking a little bit harder. 

Love you guys! You're all great! Hope you have a great week!