The Roller Coaster

Hey there! Or, as the proper English people say, "y'alright, mate?"

A lot of things have happened since you last heard from me. Last Wednesday Elder Baum and I boarded the roller coaster of Staines...n ot a real roller coaster--that would probably be against the rules, but that's literally what it feels like! Last week we spent the entire preparation day packing up this house so we could move out a couple days later. But there was some issues with the payment, so that didn't happen and we are still in the Staines house, unfortunately! Someday we will move out of this place. As of now, every room in the house is pretty much barren except for our study room, which has a couple chairs for studying and some custard creams for indulging. The other exception is "the creepy closet" upstairs. It's a small room that looks like a hobbit hole, but nobody ever goes in there and nobody ever comes out.

We also had the task of preparing lunch for Specialized Zone Training this week! For some reason, every zone training lunch I've ever been to has been pizza. I'm not sure why, but it's always pizza! So we decided to shake things up a little bit and surprise everybody with Indian curry. We have some Indian sisters in the zone so they were a big help. Elder Baum and I were in charge of making enough rice for 25 people, so one night we had all our stoves firing on all cylinders. It was so much rice! I earned the title of "Rice King" and Elder Baum is now "Atomic Baum".

The best part of the week was hearing from President Gubler. I'm telling you, you'll be lucky if you meet that man someday because he's so spiritually powerful. His testimony is rock solid and he pretty much slaps you with the Spirit. He taught us some of the things he taught us last year, like who we are and who Jesus Christ is. It was really good to have my true identity reconfirmed to me. There is so much to learn about the gospel. I really do know that we are children of loving parents in heaven. We've been reserved and prepared to be on this earth at this time and we have a purpose! That's what all of us need to realize. We need to remember who we really are! That's something crucial and it's also something we covenant to do each sacrament meeting. So when mom says "remember who you are" as you leave the house, you should probably do it!

That same night we had a very cool experience. Dan, one of our investigators whom we haven't seen for a while, met us at a member's house for a lesson. Dan is a friend of a kid in the ward who just got his mission call to Rome, so he's pretty young and really intelligent. We talked with him about The Plan of Salvation and it was super powerful. When we asked him to teach us everything we had just taught him, he was able to do it perfectly! We were really impressed! But the best part was the look on his face when we taught him about what happens after this life... he was fascinated. Man, I love teaching people about the gospel! You better believe that it's true. I'll also note that we didn't even find Dan. The member invited him to come to the mission call opening and we started teaching him there! Our members are on point in this ward, and that's how it should be. We had stake conference this week and we've got some great member missionaries :)

That's all this week from me. Please pray that Elder Baum and I will be able to make a breakthrough in this area and start baptizing this month! Thanks for your love and support! Love you all.

Love, Elder Thomas

ELSM