Letter #3

Yo family,

Hartford, Connecticut Temple!
Happy Birthday Mom

I got some serious updating to do so here it goes. I'm serving in Salford. It it a city that existed before manchester but as time went on manchester sort of enveloped it. It is a pretty dumpy town to be honest. It looks just like bridgeport...it's like coming home. Lots of trees and big brick apartment buildings, it's a pretty rough place. I've had a homeless wheelchaired man yelling at me trying to get me to call an ambulance for him, which we almost did, A crazy drunkard harassing us in a walkway tunnel trying to get some leaflets from us and a man who's been to prison twice, the first time for murder, the second time for murder, yelling at me telling me joseph smith is not god. I continued to explain to him that i was well aware of this. Our flat is nice but pretty small i didn't take pictures this time but next time for sure. The food aint so bad. I found a new favorite snack, crumpets with some choco-duo sauce. My companion, Elder Dittmer is from hamburg, germany and he is like proper german, as the english would say. We are both about the same hieght which is pretty nice. The problem is we don't find eachother very funny, so it can be boring at times. He's a great trainer though. He is a district leader and he's been out almost a year. He has taught me a whole lot so far, including how to walk fast. He calls it walking with purpose. We teach very well together, I finally started to figure out what teaching by the spirit is. We came out of an appointment after teaching the first lesson and in the lesson the investigator asked a pretty tricky question and referring to the prayer at the beginning I was able to answer her question. My companion said afterwards "I was going to say that exact same thing. If that's not revelation, i don't know what is." Pretty good stuff. The missionary work is hard that's for sure but it turns out to be very rewarding. Every morning I wake up and I am homesick like you wouldn't believe. I feel awful in the mornings but as the day progresses I feel better and better. By the time we arrive home every night, exhausted and sweating, I am happy and I feel great. It is this cycle i keep going through but i am told it gets better with time. We have a quite a few investigators and a transfer goal of six baptisms. we have zero so far and zero dated. Nevertheless, we will continue to work hard. We teach a lot of recent converts as well. My favorite is brymo from nigeria. He is eighteen years old and ends all of his sentences with "you knowum sayin?". It is fun to teach him and watch his progression. I am very jealous of the missionaries that found him first. It makes me realize how much of a change we can have on people's lives. We are also teaching a boy named hadrian who is preparing to serve a mission. We teach him and do lots of roleplays, it makes me feel important. General conference was great. We spent the whole day at the stake center watching all the sessions in a row. There was a point where it was raining so hard outside that the sattelite signal cut off for quite a while. That darn english weather. Street contacting is pretty scary stuff but worse than that is bus contacting, it terrifies me. I get on the bus and my companion starts chattin away and i just freeze up and sit down. I don't know why I am so scared of it. I suppose i will get over it as time continues. Plus we ride the bus everywhere. We set up a lot of appointments with people but a majority of them fall through, I think Elder Dittmer and I intimidate people into meeting with us. I met Elder Helzer at General Conference, he is in our district. He is best friends with Torsten and he speaks about as much english as him as well. For P-day today we went out to the city to do some sight seeing and I will include some pictures. Best believe I be preachin' in my wallabees! It's good to hear from everybody and i'm excited for my package! Happy Birthday Moms and you should call Jake up and say the same 801-205-9416. You have the same birthday you know! I saw one of the tripp girls in the choir at conference and a kid i went to high school with. Talk about homesick!

Peace,

Trace