Hello everyone!
I've got a lot to tell this week and a little more time this week.
So Kearns is interesting. It's the exact opposite of any of the other areas that i've been in on my mission. I went from Cottonwood, to Draper, to Daybreak... to Kearns... It used to be an old military town and everything has been pretty much to the ground. I think our area is the only one that has more non-LDS churches than LDS buildings. We have a section of government housing that we work in a little bit, We've been tracting, and we've run into our fair share of anti mormon people and also some plain crazy ones too. We have to be ready to stumble through a spanish conversasion if we run into any spanish speaking people. Elder Usevitch is pretty good at his spanish and we try to work on little phrases when we drive around. We have one of the mission trucks because our area has so many dips and gutters. The ward and stake leadership needs a little push. Everyone here is so busy with work and other financial problems that the leadership suffers a bit. The bishops have it really hard dealing with welfare and a ward that is 75% less active. We've been working slowly with the ward councils to help them to do the ward mission process a little better. Some arent doing it at all, and even one bishop told us his ward wouldn't do it. We are teaching a few people, not as much as i'm used to, so a lot of our time is spent finding new people to teach. One of the ones we're teaching is a 9 year old boy, Koki, who was adopted by an active family. He's from the Marshall Islands! He speaks Marshallese, which sounds like a mix between an African clicking language and gibberish. He has a half brother who lives there too who translates for us. We're picking up some simple marshallese words but the boys laugh at us when we try to say anything. We have two other investigators, both who are really close. Michelle Aguilera, who is preparing to be baptized on the 30th of this month, and as well Jaime Fitzgerald. We've been working with a fair amount of less active families, which seem to be overwhelming the wards here.
I was able to attend a baptism in Cottonwood for Ralph James, a man that we had taught for a while. He had been attending church for a year with his wife and we couldnt get him to budge. He's originally from England, and he's lived here in Utah for a few years. He kept his baptisimal plans a secret from his wife and surprised her when she thought she was going to another members baptism. It took 6 missionaries to get him there, but he finally understood the importance of it all. We have a couple of baptisms this weekend in Draper. It's funny, becuase i've had at least one baptism every weekend this month somewhere in the valley.
All in all, things are going pretty well here. Zone Leader is alright, but there are little problems that pop up all over the place, and it cuts into our P-Day time pretty bad. I'm learning lots of big lessons sparatically as we handle all the situations in the zone. Elder usevitch has been a Zone Leader for one transfer before i got here, so we're both learning quick.
Not much else to report, Read your Book of Mormon. It does wonders!
Love,
Elder Wright
