2 Months!

Friends and Family,

Tomorrow marks 2 months in the mission.  It definitely hasn't felt like 2 months!  Time is flying by.  This week especially, it seems like just yesterday that I was typing up an email to everybody.  This week was really good, a few highlights include-

Monday we had FHE at a less active's home (Familia Funes), they invited their neighbors and a bunch of members from the ward, over 20 people!  We had lots of food and karaoke, then us missionaries taught the Restoration and the members all shared their testimonies of Joseph Smith.  It was really neat, and the neighbors are interested in coming to church and taking the lessons! This week we spent a lot of time trying to find less actives, we were given a list of 15 to find, and a grand total of 2 still lived in the addresses they gave us.  It was good though, we found a few potential investigators through doing it.  

Wednesday was my first Zone Conference, the theme was references and to remember to always ask for them.  We had to wake up at 4 in the morning to travel into the city for the conference.  It was a lot of fun though, got to meet a lot of new missionaries and see one of my fellow greenies.  Thursday was my first service project of the mission, which was washing the Bishop´s car. Doesn't really seem like much, but he really appreciated it.  Also had a really good lesson with a less active, Andrea Torres, who works on Sunday, has 3 kids, and her husband is not a member.  One of the first times where I took the lead in the lesson and I told the story about making the decision not to play basketball on Sundays because it is the Lord's day, even though my team had games and tournaments practically every Sunday.  I was afraid my coaches or teammates would be upset or angry, but everybody understood, and the 80 year old coach admired and appreciated it.  Told the whole story in Spanish, and also invited her nonmember husband to take the kids to church because they all really wanted to go.  Heck, the 7 year old daughter drew a picture of her eating the fruit of the tree of life during our lesson on it.  That was a neat day.

Saturday we took a recent convert out with us to visit less actives and investigators for the entire day, which was really good.  They were able to share experiences and stories with the investigators that neither my companion nor I would have been able to share.  Sunday was the best meal I have ever had here, fried chicken and french fries, all homemade. Fantastic, reminded me of home. 

This week was really good, and we are halfway done with the transfer already. Time is definitely flying by! Hope everybody is doing well at home.

Love you all.

Elder Mangum

- Sorry I can´t send pictures this week, I'm on an older computer that doesn't accept the SD card.  Love you all!