Dear Family:
Hey! Great to hear from you all! So to answer some of moms questions I do drive in a car with my companion. He is the designated driver but I drive if I need to for exchanges with the other elders. The Mount Vernon Branch is very large and it is sometimes hard to stay in our mile limits for driving. It is almost the end of the month so we should be getting more miles to drive by the end of the week. In Iowa it feels like summer on days it is not very cloudy. It is not very hot but the moisture in the air makes it worst. Everyone says that it has been a very strange winter this year and that it is usually much colder then it is now. Our days usually begin with personal study for an hour then companionship study for two hours. We then go to our appointments for the rest of the day and take breaks for lunch and dinner. We get back to our place around 9 at night or earlier if it is on the weekends or we need to report numbers. Our preparation days are usually random but we start with email then we go shopping. After that we go out for lunch. Then we usually go back to the apartment to do laundry and other stuff.
So that is usually how our days go. The district I am in is awesome. Everyone is so fun to be around and we all treat eachother like brothers. We have no sister missionaries in our district. But we do have the zone leaders in our district. This last Wednsday I went on exchanges with a spanish speaking elder and we had some awesome experiences. He did not have any appointments so we went exploring and relied on faith to lead us. While we were walking we ran into this kid who said that his Grandma needed to see us. We followed him and we found his Grandma. She is a member and was having some pains. We gave her an awesome blessing and had a great experience. After that we ran into two people who wanted a Book of Mormon from us. We then went to dinner and we found a family he had been looking for that they had lost contact with. So that was awesome.
Then to tell you about some experiences I have had in Mt. Vernon. We have this investigator named Allen who lives in a trailer owned by his stepfather. He does not like to get out and has taken a lot of crap from his family and from life in general. So we thought he just needed a little bit of happiness in his life. We showed him the New Testament video and after it ended he just looked at us and said: "That was a good movie". Now this guy has a lot of movies in his house and that was just amazing. We plan on meeting with him tomorrow to introduce him to a quit smoking workshop that has proven to be succesfull with many people. Another investigator we have is a 19 year old girl named Lydia. She goes to Cornell college wich is in Mt. Vernon. Now this school is full of Liberalists so it is very interesting to see some of the people on campus. Elder Jones was on exchanges with another elder when they met her. She had seen the Mormon musical and she said she wanted to learn more. Elder Jones met with her again to answer her questions and give her a Book of Mormon. Then Elder Jones took me to meet and teach her. We gave her the Restoration lesson and challenged her to read and pray to know it is true. We texted her last week to make a new time to meet her but she has finals this week and is leaving for spring break. So we get to meet her on April 9th. She did say that she is enjoying the Book of Mormon and is praying. Only time will tell.
The members of the branch are great. We get fed by them most of the days of the week and the food is awesome. Had taco salad for 3 night in a row so that was annoying. We did not have steak last week. They had to reschedule for this week. So I will let you know how that goes.
So is everything going well back home? The baby healthy? Everyone alive? Hope everyone is still happy. Give everyone my love and say hey to everyone in the ward! Hope all is well with everyone. Let me know if anything else changes. Enjoy conference and have fun!
Sincerely;
Elder Spencer Ariotti
