Baby Ty - 4 days old
Well I'll tell you about my week, even though it won't be anything as exciting as Ty being born. Monday was not the most exciting P-day ever because we had to get the studded tires put on, and there were no zone activities so we just shopped a little and then took naps. I hadn't taken a nap in awhile so it was good. We had dinner that night with Jason MacDonald, one of our investigators, and we planned on teaching him more about the Word of Wisdom, but he had tons of questions about the Book of Mormon. The Bishop in the ward challenged everyone to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year, so he is reading the whole thing and had lots of questions. He was able to hear Elder Holland's awesome talk about the Book of Mormon on Sunday so I hope that will help gain faith and a testimony in the Book of Mormon. You don't have to read the whole thing to know it's true, and I think he does know it's true. On Wednesday we tracted into a lady who has been studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses for two years, but she said she believes in finding out and reading all you can before she makes any decisions, so we gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her the first lesson the next day. She had never heard of the Book of Mormon before, and understood why we have more scripture today. She was amazed to hear that we have a prophet on the earth today, and that a prophet translated the Book of Mormon. She wanted us to tell her things Joseph Smith ahd prophesied, so we told her a couple things, but that's not how you gain faith so we didn't go into detail and tell her everything he prophesied. She said her mom told her we were a cult, but she said she knew we weren't. Her mom told her to ask us about Kolob, which was a really weird question to get in the first lesson. I didn't want to go into detail about the urim and thumim and how it's a governing planet and everything, so I just told her it's the planet closest to where God resides. She understood that it was deep and she would understand it later. Hopefully things go well with her!
I can't think of anything really exciting that happened on Friday. Saturday was awesome of course with conference. I thought it was amazing how well each conference talk flowed with the prior talk, and how each talk made important references to the Spirit and having love. Elder Bednar's talk was also awesome about not being hypocrites. One talk I really like was President Uchtdorf's in priesthood session about the importance of work. No one in my generation knows how to work and get things done, so I thought it was a good talk. People in Alaska don't work very hard either, especially because they get paid money just to live here. Not everyone, but a lot of people work shifts where they get tons of time off, like one week on one week off, or two weeks on two weeks off,and then they complain when they have to go to work. It always frustrates me to hear them complain, and I think of how hard Dad works and doesn't get any breaks and doesn't complain. Well, it was different to not watch conference with you guys and be with a bunch of missionaries instead. It was good though.
After the Saturday afternoon session, we went to an appointment we had set up Friday with a woman named Patricia. A man answered the door and said "What do you want?" looking at Elder Vailea, so Elder Vailea told him we were there to have a lesson with Patricia, and he started yelling and asked us how we got her name. He kept yelling louder and louder and said he was going to call the police and file a complaint and get us in trouble because we had a record with her name on it (he said a lot of f-words too but I'll leave those out). When he said he was going to call the police, I just looked at him and said "alright." He can call and complain all he wants, there is nothing illegal that we are doing. He said if any missionaries ever came back he would bust them in the a**, and I thought it was funny that a shrimpy looking middle aged man would say that. It's one thing to say it to a little guy like me, but when you say that to Elder Vailea, you should probably think twice. He's 240 pounds of muscle so I always feel safe haha. We didn't yell back or anything, but I really wanted to. People like that frustrate me because it's hard to imagine them ever being able to accept the gospel. There was a lot more that he said, but it would take a long time to write, and I probably shouldn't repeat it anyway haha. We had dinner with the samoan family again yesterday. They had tons of food, and sent us home with lots of it. I'm going to get so fat. I had some boiled taro, and it was pretty good. It tastes pretty bland, but it wasn't bad.Well, that's my week. Thanks so much for sending my coat! It came a couple days ago. I also found a nice coat that was in our apartment. It's not warm enough for the middle of winter, but it's perfect for fall. I love you guys and I'm excited to be an uncle. Talk to you next week! Love Mat
