We've Been Teaching So Much It's Awesome!

Hey Mom,

I'm glad that Eric's parents went to his farewell! That's a huge step for them. I'm sure that they can feel that this gospel is true. He'll be a good missionary. A mission will help him be grounded in the gospel.

We didn't get a chance to email long last week so I'll have to cover a couple week's worth of experiences. We are soo busy and it's kind of stressful, but we're having a blast! Serving in YSA is awesome. Last week was a pretty cool week because Elder Piiparinen and I got to catch a plane to Anchorage for our Zone Leader Council. We stayed with a missionary I'm tight with that I served around for the first year of my mission. The ZLC meeting was great and it was so cool to see some missionaries again, and meet ones I hadn't seen before. It's so weird to be around missionaries again after being away for so long in Whitehorse. The Spirit was so strong in our meeting, and it was a fun trip. Elder Piiparinen served in Anchorage awhile ago so we ate dinner with a family there that he knows. All in all it was a good time.

We've been teaching so much it's awesome! We are teaching a girl named Chelsey, who is so solid and loves the gospel. She is going to get baptized on July 25. We are also teaching this guy Devin. He's a way cool kid, and he's gonig to get baptized the first week in September. There's so much to do here. We teach a lot here, but we also tract a lot more than I have in the past. Because it's YSA the way we contact isn't the same as if we were contacting families, so we spend a lot of time tracting in apartment complexes and walking around the streets. Whenever we find someone who isn't within the age range for YSA, we give them as a referral to the ward in whose area they live in. Last week we were knocking on some apartment doors, and at the first door the lady told us she was getting ready for surgery and didn't want to hear it. At the second door was a really strange lady that shook my hand really hard for like 10 seconds and wasn't interested. Then at the third door, a guy answered whose name was Gary, and he invited us in to teach him, so we taught him and he accepted the invitation to be baptized! He wasn't in the YSA age range, so we gave him to some other elders, but it was a cool experience. Me and Piips relate it to the story of Nephi getting the plates from Laban and they had to try three times before they were succesful. Oh and just a few days ago, we tried contacting someone, but they weren't home, so we decided to knock on some doors, and the first one we knocked the guy said he would love to hear our message and be taught, but he was married so we gave him to the sister missionaries that serve in his area. It's actually fun to find investigators not just for your own area, but for other missionaries too.

We cover all of Fairbanks and North Pole and surrounding areas so we find people to teach wherever we feel prompted to go. Anyway, it's been a great week. We got to do some exchanges last week and spend some time working with other missionaries. We'll do that again for the next couple of weeks for a couple days at a time. Well, Fairbanks is great! See ya!

Love Mat