Man last week was crazy for writing. If I remember right. And also this week was crazy as far as missionary work goes. One of the most draining weeks of the mission. But I had the coolest miracle I've seen my whole mission right on Dad's birthday. It was at night for me so it was probably morning for you sometime.

But I'll write about that l8r. How's everything going? I love hearing from you all back home. I just got some handwritten mail from dad, and I really loved what he wrote. It was from the beginning/middle of April, I think. But there was a scripture from 1 Cor. there and it was really awesome for me to read, especially when it came from dad. Those little things really build me up during the hard days! Really, you're advice and your thoughts in your letters really do more for me than you think. I'm so sorry I've been horrible about responses as far as the physical mail goes. I want to get better at that because the written letters are dang fun to get. And of course read. Why didn't no one tell me that Patrick got his wisdom teeth out?? I remember those days... Man that was a really fun part of getting ready for a mission. Just be sure you've got lots of movies to watch, and you'll be fine. Maybe you can get a good chunk of one of them new seasons of House out of the way. By the way, I kind of forgot that I used to watch that show. I just remembered the other day about how Mini-me (Seth) picked up on that and was watching it even after I left. WOW that seems like forever ago, but it all went by so fast. I feel like time is flying, because I feel like my year mark is just right around the corner. I remember at the beginning of my mission seeing missionaries where I am right now and thinking how forever away that was for me, but boom now I'm here. It really flies. I've been getting really retrospective recently because half of our companionships in our zone have a brand new trainee. It's been way fun seeing where there at and remembering that. Those were the good ole days. I'm glad you mentioned pictures, mom, because that's one thing I'd LOVE from home! The skype thing got me thinking about that a little bit. The thing that got me most was how seth talks like he's been through puberty or something. HA! Post-pubescent Seth. Boy, that'll be the day. I can't BELIEVE that school is almost out there. When I was leaving they were just barely starting and now they're all finishing up!! And Patrick's going to be a SENIOR. WHERE HAVE THE DAYS GONE.

Okay, enough of that rant. I'm sorry, I just lurve all the little stuff. This internet hour is such a SUPER time for me to just get back in touch with the little family stuff and think/write about how everything's going there. See? There I go again. This is one big rant. Please excuse my rant. Sam, I know what talk you're talking about (we watched it at the end of March), and it's AMAZING. Elder Holland has always been a favorite (he's everyone's favorite), but that talk blew me away. It also kind of spurred me to get into reading the New Testament. Elder Barton is finishing out his mission this November, so we did some math and figured out that if we study 3 pages of the New Testament together during companion study every day, then we'll finish it before he leaves. And if by some evil means a transfer comes about, we'll just either continue with new companions or do it on our own. But it's been gr8. There's lots of little things that I didn't notice before, and just reading about Christ always brings the right spirit back into the work. The more I've gotten used to things, the easier it's been to just over-busy myself and get too caught up in the administrative part of the work. That's why I've gotten to love study, is because it reels me back in and helps me think about the why. Cool/minor thought: When Christ says to Peter and Andrew (at the very beginning of Matthew) "Follow thou Me," Matthew takes time to note that they got up and left straightway, and they even left their father. (No offense dad.) But it made me feel good about myself when I made that comparison to what I'm doing out here.

Hey family I just want to say that I love you. You are so great. This mission thing is going by pretty quick and with all these milemarks flying by it has really got me thinking about what's going on at home and how everyone's growing up. There are times in the field when you are really worn down and you don't want to do the work, but you get your bum on the street and you work anyway, but the whole time you're thinking about stuff you'd rather be doing. Those times happen a lot less often than they did at the beginning of my mission. Towards the beginning of my mission during times like that, I'd think about stuff like House, or longboarding, or video games, or getting fast food with friends or skiing. Now most of that stuff has gotten old and when I think about it, it doesn't have a huge lure like it did before. Now when I have those days when I think about home, all I think about is family! Weird, right? I feel like a mission is a cleansing experience in that way. As I've gone out here, all the distracting stuff has kind of been forgotten, and now whenever there's a spare moment to think about home, I just think about dinner with Grandpa, or going to the temple and eating breakfast with dad, or driving around on errands with mom and just chatting, or other things like that. That's the best! That's where it's at. I feel like I appreciate that now so much more than I did before. Too bad the Lord had to kick me out of America and ship me across the entire planet before I could come to realize that in full. Man, missions are so cool.

So I've got ten minutes left, and I've GOT to tell you the coolest story from my mission so far. Well, one of them. And surprise, it happened while I was once again on splits with Elder Hollinghead. You're going to have to go to that boy's homecoming in a few months. He'll have some awesome stories for you and it would probably be way fun to talk to a first-hand witness face to face. Anyhow. He and Elder Eyers were down in our area for three days to do splits with us. We've been working to get our mission sold on this 1-a-day new investigator thing, so when we had 2 hours of free time on friday night, me and Elder Hollingshead just hit the street as hard as we could, trying to find someone that would listen to us. At the beginning of the first hour, we set a goal to find one new investigator and give out 2 Book of Mormons. We had some good contacts, but by the end of the first hour, we still hadn't found anyone. So we stopped to pray and reset our goals for the second our. And while we were standing on this street corner getting ready to pray, this 21 year old kid walks over to us from across the street and starts talking to us. He was pretty quiet at first, and so we said what's up. And then he said I want to get baptized. We were FLOORED. We asked where that came from, and he said he just wanted to change his life and he doesn't like the Russian Orthodox church. So we said Right this way, sir, and gave him a tour of the branch building and had a rock solid lesson with him. Missions are so COOL. But here's where it turns into a nightmare. We typed his number into our phone but DIDN'T SAVE IT. I guess we were just too excited or something. So we haven't seen him all weekend and it's KILLING ME. But he knows where we meet and he's got our number so we're hoping he'll come to us soon. Also, he said he doesn't wander too far from home ever so we're guessing he lives pretty close to where we found him. So Elder Barton and I are going to use every minute of spare time when we don't have meetings knocking on every single door of every apartment in Saratov in order to find him, unless he comes back to us first. Pray for us!

So that's IT. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. Thank you for your prayers and your letters. A family's a b-e-a-utiful thing. I'll talk you next week! LOOOOOVVVEEEESSSSSZZZ
From,
Alex