Another great week! 5/20

It was another great but busy week here! It was a weird week though because I spent most of it not in my area haha. We had quite a bit of exchanges this past week, some planned and some emergency. Each time I got to go to the new area for the day though, I always really enjoy that, I just get to hang out in the sort of back-seat mode while the other missionary runs the area for the day and I just help with the talking to everyone and the teaching haha. It's a nice stress reliever for me! One of our exchanges was with the Assistants, which is always sweet because they have the best beds in the mission haha, I slept great! We did have some great lessons though and met some really sweet people on the street. We spent everyday this past week down in the "Hoodbridge" part of Woodbridge haha. It's a very low income area but the people are great! I'm sure I've mentioned it in previous emails, (I'll attach a picture) but it is a sweet place! We also got to do a pretty fun skit this past week about praying for missionary opportuities and the difference it makes in finding people who are prepared for to recieve the Gospel. We bought a white shirt from wal-mart and some gold metallic spray paint and painted the shirt completely gold, which worked a lot better than we thought it was going to haha. And then we put all the things people find/see in a "Golden contact" on peices of paper and taped it all over the shirt, things like: "I wish my family could be together for ever", "Give me a Book of Mormon plz", "I wish I was a Mormon, and "Go BYU/Utes" haha Elder Rasmussen is a die hard Utes fan. So we played out a scenario where at first we had another missionary pretend to be a person passing by on the street but just in normal clothes, we had kind of a standard conversation and then went on our way. Then we practiced the scenario again as if we had prayed for missionary opportunities beforehand and he came in wearing the Gold shirt and wen around the room talking to everyone about how much he wishes someone would talk to him about a church haha we picked a guy from the zone who used to do a lot of acting to do it so he was perfect haha. We did it at a half-mission conference and everyone really seemed to like it. Overall it was a very good week though! Even with all of the busy-ness and emergency exchange haha (there were just some companions in the stake that weren't getting along at all). But it is very hot and humid here! Summer is definately setting in. We are supposed to have a ton of rain this week though and so that is causing alot of the humidity. Hopefully we get some good thunderstorms! Well I hope you are all having a great week wherever you are! I love and miss you all lots and I'll talk to you next week.

What an awesome week! Happy Mothers Day! 5/13

What an awesome but busy week it was here in Woodbridge, we had some sort of meeting almost everyday this past week haha. Tuesday was our zone training day, which went awesome. We related the story of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to us rebuilding our mission and the missionaries loved it. Then Wednesday we spent the day (from 7 AM to 6 PM) doing interviews with President Riggs. While one companion was meeting with President the other was meeting with us, so it was a great opportunity to get to know each of the missionaries in our zone. The Thursday was exchanges with some missionaries, they went great and then the weekend came! And man oh man was it one of the best weekends of my mission! The baptism of the Giacomini family went awesome! They loved it and had great support from the ward, we had around 80 people there. They only hiccup was I had to baptize Nicole three times haha the first time she didn't go under all the way, so they said to do it again, so we did it again but I didn't say the baptismal prayer (didn't know you had to say that over again haha) and then finally the third time and after saying the baptismal prayer again it went perfect haha. Such an incredible experience! They got up and shred their testimonies afterwards and both were awesome. Nicole sang a song called "I will follow Jesus" it's a non-denominational hymn I had never heard but it was sure awesome. Then Lorenzo shared his conversion story and how he told us from the beginning that he is convinced that everyone will be a Mormon eventually haha. Then we went out to eat at an Indian restaurant that was awesome, I didn't realize how much I like Indian food haha. Sunday was of course an awesome Mother's day because of many reasons haha. It started off with church, where both the Giacomini's got confirmed and then Lorenzo received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained to the office of a Priest, meaning he can bless the sacrament now (we'll get to do that with him next Sunday). We also had a family we were teaching come to church for the first time and they thought it was sweet! So hopefully they come back next week as well! After church I got to Skype home and talk to my family for a bit and that was super sweet! They looked great and it was so good to get to talk to them again. It is crazy to think that this was my last call home on my mission. Missions go by so fast! It was awesome getting to wish my Mom a happy mother's day over video chat though! I got to have a nice little tour of the house too and it looks great, especially our backyard haha I miss our pool! Well I have to get running. Another busy week ahead! It'll be another great one! I've attached a few of the pictures from the baptism from Elder Rasmussen's camera. I hope you all have had an awesome wee as well though! I love and miss all of you and will talk to you next week!

Another Great but busy week in Quantico 5/6

Man has it been busy as always! But an excellent week none the less, I've decided that life as a missionary is always busy so it's better to just be used to it haha. As busy as this past week was though this upcoming week will be even more busy! Tonight is the baptismal interview for the Giacomini's then we have a zone training tomorrow that we have to teach at for awhile, then Wednesday will be interviews with each of the missionaries in the zone (so we'll be at the church all day with president haha) then Thursday-Friday we will be on exchanges with missionaries in another ward, Saturday will be the Giacomini's baptism which I am so stoked for, then Sunday is mother's day and we get to skype home! Plus we will be doing missionary work all around that haha. Man that sounds lots busier than I thought it was going to be now that I type it out. This past week was great though! We had a couple of great lessons with the people we are teaching and had some great exchanges with some members. A few of the people we have been teaching we have been making more of an effort of being in daily contact with this past week and man it has gone great! we have been over at one lady we are teaching's house for the past 5 nights in a row, just for 15 minutes, to read a chapter in the book of Mormon and she has been loving it! It's been a good opportunity for Elder Rasmussen and I to read it from the beginning again as well. Surprisingly enough we hardly get to read the beginning with people because they always have questions about specific things that they read specific chapters about, so it's been very nice to read it from the start again with someone to give us a non-members perspective on the whole thing. Sunday was definitely the best day of the past week for us though! We had lots of people at church, including Nicole and Lorenzo (the Giacomini's) and Nicole got up and bore her testimony! It was so sweet! They are such a cool family, I can't wait for their baptism this weekend! We also got to teach the young men in the third hour of church about "Prophet's and Revelation" a very fun topic to teach about because it's something that hardly any other denomination besides our own has the same view on. So we taught them all about it and then turned them lose on practicing teaching it in a role-play type scenario where we had our Bishop play the part of a non-member who had questions about why the Church in the Bible was so different than the churches on the earth today, the perfect opportunity for these young men to teach someone about Prophets and revelation! They did a great job haha. Well I'm getting close to being out of time here so I've got to get running! I will talk to you all next week though and I will see a few of you this Sunday! I hope each of you have a great week! I love and miss all of you guys!