Transfers

"Transfer's came and I am still in Tall Cedars, VA but Elder Bay left. It's too bad because we balanced each other out pretty well and had great things going.  He shed a few tears saying goodbye to the koreans and everyone else (he has always loved the korean culture and had studied the language).   They needed Elder Bay in the mission office. He'll be missed!

So I'm still here. Elder West is my new companion who actually came from being an office Elder.  He's a goof ball. We'll have some fun. He came out 6 weeks after I did.

Sara got a calling!  (a women Bryce baptized a month or two ago) This is pretty fun because I think it is the only person I have helped get baptize who I have been able to sustain.  She is the relief society welfare coordinator...or something like that.  She loves service and has been wanting to give back to the ward because of all she received, so this is perfect.

Lots of things happening in the next month! Baptisms almost every weekend. We are so thrilled. But know we still have a lot of tracting to do and can't get lazy. After all this time of no one being interested though, this is incredible.

love you all!

Elder Church"

A new year and lots of pictures!

Bryce has been a very busy boy this past month but we were able to skype with him on Christmas day! It was so great to see his face and talk with him about everything. He's doing great and can't believe it's almost time for him to come home. He said, "These past few months have been the best time of my whole mission because we're teaching a lot. We're teaching people who really want to be taught and it's been awhile since we've had success like that. It's really exciting."

Melissa's Baptism

Fernando and Linda

The Leducs: Kim, Tori, and Max

parking at the temple

New Years party with the zone!
sisters made drinks for a 'kung fu panda 2' movie night

Christmas card

this came in the mail yesterday...

Also - Sara (a young women they have been working with for awhile) is getting baptized!
They're so excited.

Update

Elder Church has been pretty busy these past few P-days so his letters have been brief. But he's doing well and freezing his buns off!

halloween? oh dear...

Picture Overload

Sometimes Bryce sends us his camera card to empty off so he can have room for more pictures. Whenever he does I find a lot of pictures he never sent via email. So I thought I'd share just a few. Some of them are old but you get the idea :)

P-day basketball

Apparently he doesn't need any more ties.

This one's for Dad:

We love you Bryce! 8 months to go...

Nationals Game

Bryce and his companions got to hit up a nationals game on their last p-day.

Bryce with Elder Peterson

Elder Bolos and Bryce

"3 homers in the first inning! Not a bad game to go to."

Thanks for praying for more people to teach. We could use it. We are trying to change things up and maybe work with the youth. This ward is the most challenging one I have been in yet and I think I will be here at least until thanksgiving so we gotta try some new things!

Bryce's story of the hurricane & quake

"On Tuesday we were eating lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings when the earthquake hit. It shook for about 10-15 seconds then stopped. We called everyone to make sure they were ok but I don't think anyone in the DC area was injured by the earthquake. the news may say otherwise though. The Washington monument now has a crack in the top, the national catholic cathedral lost millions of dollars worth of heavy statues and other old stuff, and the temple lost 4 of its 6 spires. Those are the only ones I can remember.

The hurricane was more exciting but not quite a big deal. Loudoun county is about an hours drive from the city. Irene was not sure if she wanted to hop on board land, or stay going north up the coast until Saturday. It was 400 miles wide so I woke up saturday to light rain as a result. As the day went on it was overcast by 12 and then for the rest of the day. The only thing that was different from a normal overcast, rainy day was ,the clouds. They were moving quick. We tracted almost all day that day because we had no appointments. It was kind of fun from 7-9 because it was raining nice and hard and at every door we got asked, "did you guys know you are in a hurricane?!" haha and no one let us in either! Only one tree fell in our area that I know of. No power outages of any missionaries in our zone. we live with members so we were just fine.

So there it is!"