Happy Veteran's Day

Hi Mom & Dad!

Dad, I’m so glad that you are really enjoying your new job!

I hope you are getting settled in, in Pittsburgh!
It sounds like this new phase of life will be an adventure and be really really good!
How long do you expect to live at an apartment, before you start looking for a house? Until June?  Have you been looking at the different areas of Pittsburgh? Found any that look nice?  Are you thinking Suburb? Rural? Small town?

Mom, How is seminary?

It sounds like you both have been able to have some amazing scripture study.
I have been trying to read the whole standard works before I come home and its really really cool to be able to learn and to get new insights. I can’t wait to be able to do some more in depth study on some of the scriptures

Today our p-day got moved because yesterday was a holiday and some libraries were closed.

The pictures are super cute! Mina and her animals! :)

The new companion is Sister Montini.

She is from Michigan and goes home at the end of this transfer. :\
She is super sweet and actually reminds me a lot of Aunt Emily.
Which is funny because her name is Emilee.
No idea why there are 3 of us. Apparently President is closing a lot of areas in the mission. And Sister Montini goes home in 5 weeks. In this next transfer 16 sisters go home. Most of my companions will be going home soon. It’s kinda crazy.
It’s kind of stressful being in a trio again, but not nearly as bad as last time.

We have been doing a lot of contacting, trying to find new people to teach. it results in meeting a lot of fascinating people. From every single different walk of life.

This week has been interesting. Finding new investigators and working with some new people. It’s always fun.

It’s amazing how everything just seems to work out sometimes. Everyone is in the right place and the right time. We have experiences like that all the time. This week we stopped by a less actives house and he said "I knew you would come. I was reading my scriptures and I prayed and I just knew you would show up."

Today we got to go to one of our members weddings. It was simple and just at the courthouse. But it was definitely a well- spent p-day.

I don-t have pictures yet, because they used my camera, and they are getting some pictures developed now.  Hopefully next week :)

We have an investigator named Brad who is super awesome!
He is a lawyer and is so prepared to be baptized. Everything we teach him, he is like "Yah, that makes sense."

The lessons are going great!
He has tons of really good questions and really has a desire to learn.
A lot of the time he will ask questions that are super in depth and things that we don’t really know how to answer.
When we taught him the Word of Wisdom he informed us to feel like he was living the word of wisdom, he was going to give up all caffeine.  Which he is still doing.
Hopefully he will be baptized on the first weekend in December.
He is close to baptism. The only thing that is holding him back is the fact that he thinks he has to (or just really wants to) read the entire Book of Mormon before he is baptized.
His questions include things like "When helping to make a law, how much should my religious beliefs influence that decision?"  And just other things that I have never even heard of before.
He prays reads, comes to every activity he can. In gospel principles we divided into groups and each group was discussing the priesthood and he had to take charge because none of the members would do it.
I think he believes the Book of Mormon. I think when we asked him he said things here and there made sense. And he definitely recognizes the spirit.
Golden investigator
Brad is single, we only teach YSA. But He referred himself through mormon.org.
Crazy! Apparently he had a really good friend in law school that introduced him to the church.

One of the problems the YSA ward is having is just getting people to attend. And when really really strong new people join the church the leadership is all over it. I think they assign everybody visiting and home teachers even before they are baptized.

Any ideas on how we can get more active YSA to come?  They go to church.

But almost all of them just go to their home wards. They just don’t feel like coming to the YSA congregation for whatever reason.

We always try to encourage people to read the Book of Mormon in an effort help them feel the Spirit.  Which sometimes sort of works but it doesn’t drive them to attend with us.  Atleast they attend.

Love you!

Em