07/16/2012

Hello everyone.  Well it’s been a crazy week.  I think today we are going bowling!  I can’t wait! It’s still pretty cold here and should warm up in a month or so.  I think I told you all about the homeless man that they found at MES.  He passed away in the hospital  a couple days later.  The doctors said he had cancer and was not healthy.  At least he died in a warm bed and not the streets.  We still volunteer at MES and it’s been a lot of fun.  We are teaching some great people.  We are teaching one of the members oldest daughter.  She is awesome.  She is married and has no kids.  She is Calee’s age.  We get along great!   So she set a goal to be baptized on the second of September!  I was so happy for her.  Her mom has been a member her whole life and she has grown up coming to church here and there but not a lot.  Now this will be the last child in the family to be a member.  They sort of remind me of my family.  They have a lot of fun and there just way cool!  We are also teaching a cool lady who has two little boys she is a single mom and she is doing really well.  She also has a baptismal date for September second. Then her sons will be raised in the church and bam two more missionaries hahaha.  We also watched the restoration video with the other family we are teaching.  They fed us which is always a bonus.  I think this could be a good last area because people feed us a lot so I’m gaining weight haha.  As we watched the video the mom said she felt chills when it showed God the Father and Jesus Christ coming to Joseph Smith and restoring the gospel through a prophet.  I felt the chills too.  She said she just felt good.  We explained with the bible that she was feeling the spirit.  I love teaching about the restoration of the gospel because it’s the missing piece.  It’s like when you lost something and then found it.....you feel happy.  Sometimes you don’t even know that it was gone.

We also had flat inspections and we live in a pretty nasty flat haha, but we cleaned it and when Sister Oldham came she whispered to me " I told Elder Oldham that this flat would probably be transformed because Elder Balmforth was here" hahaha and she said it was.  She even took pictures.   We scrubbed the walls!!!!    Haha, I’ m not bragging for myself, I’m bragging for my momma, haha she made us wipe off the crown molding and everything haha, so I was taught well!   Thank you mom!  Anyway, sorry this email is a little short.  I love you all and thanks for everything!

Love,

Colton