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Hey Mom,

i was hoping that the pictures would make it through this time. (he sent photos will i will post after i get my homework done!)

i am really sad that grandma bert isnt doing well.

btw i sure do appreciate that you take care of the missionaries out there. i am sure that our ward is very supportive of the missionary work. i always remember the members of the wards i served in who just really took an interest in making sure that we were doing well. there arent as many in this ward but i suppose that is why they put older missionaries here. i dont worry about dinners, mom. to be honest i often view them as something that takes too much of our time when the members are unwilling to do missionary work. we get some.

the earthquake was kind of wierd because i didnt realize it was an earthquake for a while. it was definitely significant. i could feel the earth moving. i thought it was really cool.

i cant believe that em is driving! she was just starting high school when i last saw her and now she is 16 and almost halfway through with it. that isnt as bad as Elder Miller has it though. he had a sister born right after he left on his mission that is almost two that he will go home to meet.

so i got some great news this week at zone leader council! hunter got baptized a couple weeks ago. (i cant believe that i wasnt invited but oh well, we are busy.)

also, leonard's wife manuella has a baptism date and she is supposed to be baptized soon.

fran and lee are hanging in there for the most part. i was reminded that the missionaries i trained are 8 and 5 months out now. kind of weird to think about.

also, joey had a baptismal interview with President Brady and he passed so he will be baptized on Apr 25th. i dont know how to feel about him because once he decided to be baptized it was pretty much a done deal.

i do have some bad news as well, we had to drop dan because he wanted to take a year to read the old testament and go to Church only once a month. it was hard because he just bore his testimony of the Book of Mormon to us having just finished reading it and told us that he believed we were messengers from God. he said that he would love for us to come over but he felt that he was being overworked mentally and needed a year long break. Elder Miller and i had to 'rid our garments' and tell him exactly what was holding him back and what would happen if he kept on the path that he is on. maybe in a year he will get baptized but i dont see it happening unless he makes some changes and moves out of his mom's house.

skip has also made similar choices knowing that the Book of Mormon is true. she just doesnt want to be baptized or go to Church. we will still visit them occasionally but they are dropped for now.

we do have a couple new people to add to the docket of 'our' investigators. we found a girl named dana going to chipotle. she ran up to us and said 'hey mormons how do i get a Book of Mormon?' she is probably 17 or 18 and is a Sr in high school that has a lot of Mormon friends. she wanted to learn more about the Church having been a few times with her friend. her parents immigrated from vietnam and she has a buddhist background but she is excited about learning. she has read a few chapters from the Book of Mormon and would have come to Church but she had to work on sunday. it was interesting teaching her who God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are. so we taught her about that in our first lesson and briefly taught her how to pray. then we taught her more extensively in our second visit. she has a good friend in the ward so everything there seems to be going really well. it is fun and challenging to teach people without a Christian background. it is difficult because you have to teach them every basic thing but it is good that they do not have any false ingrained ideas about things. a different teaching experience.

we are also teaching a man named pat now. he used to consider himself a Christian and since was atheist for a time but says that he wants to believe again. he is a registered nurse. he really enjoyed our first lesson and came to our lesson yesterday concerned that he had found scientific evidence that native americans were asian. we didnt see it as a big deal and thought it was funny when he was relieved after hearing that potentially lehi was oriental. he seems pretty sincere.

next week i will know about transfers.

to the fam: sorry i dont have time to write individually but i am sorry that grandma bert is not doing well. i love you all and hope you are doing well.

Love,

Elder Barron