October 17, 2011

Parents!

It is so awesome that the Cards have made the Worl Series!!! I'm gonna start telling people I'm a Cardinals fan now and that I'm from Missouri! Thus far, I've been telling people I'm from Ohio. So I think it's time to change it up. It's not like I'm lying. I came out on my mission from Missouri, so it's valid.

We had a fantastic week! We have just been tracting like crazy. Not like you Pops, tracting 4-6 hours a day, but we've been doing it about 2-3 hours a day. We have truly been blessed by it though. We've found 10 new investigators this week. One of them, an 11 year old girl, got herself to church on her own, found us and said that she wants to be baptized! How incredible is that? Also, De's son wants to be baptized now. He's only 8. He turns 9 on my birthday. We talked about a date for him to be baptized and we set it for the Sunday after his birthday, but he wants me to baptize him when he knows that I'm here and the Sunday after our birthday is after the next transfer day. So, we set it for November 11 just to be safe. It won't be a convert baptism, but it is a baptism and that is what matters. We asked him why he wants to be baptized and he said, "Because I want to follow Jesus and have the Holy Spirit." Yeah, and 8 year old said that.

Anyway, we played some golf today. I sucked it up again...I hit a lot of trees though. I would have done a lot better if I didn't hit so many freaking trees! I always slice my ball too...I'm trying to figure out how to stop it. I overcompensate a TON, but I still manage to hit it way off of the fairway. Oh well...I'm not good enough at golf to get mad.

My new companion is a good guy. I like him a lot. He's been on his mission for about 15 months now, and he has been a ZL for 9 or 10 months. He makes me laugh because he's always so annoyed at the childishness of the missionaries we have. I'm not sure if that is directed at me or not - haha. I don't really care all that much. I'm just doing me. He has a ton of funny "old people" theories. He isn't a convert. He grew up in the church, but from ages 19-24 he went inactive and started doing the party thing. Then he came to his senses when he was 24 and went 3 years before he decided that he needed to serve a mission. He's actually 27, but he'll be 28 when he goes home. 26 is the cut off for male missionaries, so he just barely made it. He is extremely smart and he can also communicate with people pretty well. Because he's old and smart, he gets respect pretty easily. He's also very much into jazz. He played in a jazz band at UNT, some extremely good jazz school in Texas and he plays the trumpet. He also plays jazz on the piano all the time...I can almost play all of Sweet Hour of Prayer and Joseph Smith's First Prayer on the piano!!! It's taken a very long time.

Sounds like college football is doing alright now. I head that BYU beat Oregaon, but I thought that it was the Oregon Ducks. So I got super excited because I hate them. But a win is a win! Which reminds me...do you guys still have all of my high school football film? I wanna make a scouting video. I've been thinking a lot and I wanna get back into football. I know you're probably thinking, "what about lacrosse?" Well, I'm not counting that out yet either. I wanna have my options open...

As for Thanksgiving and Christmas...if I'm still in Clearlake it'll be interesting. We'll see what happens, but if I'm in a normal area I should be taken care of. I've gotten kinda used to the neglect from members here, so it's all good. I'm actually on the Slim Fast plan...don't judge me. It's a cheap way to have a meal! I have a shake and and apple (because I'm a rebel) for breakfast and then I have a shake and an apple (because I'm a rebel) for lunch and eat a good dinner. I've been doing it for about a week, so we'll see how it goes.

I love you guys! Thank you for the support that you give me. It helps me a ton. I love your emails. Have a great week. Give Max love for me!!

Love,
Elder Brennan