Yesterday we got a nice meaty letter and a video call from Elder Boling!

The call came while Michele and most of the older kids were gone, but the little ones enjoyed eating dinner and talking to Elders Boling and Day at the same time.

From his letter:

Michele said:
>  ...the cutest is hearing Timothy pray to "bess Ale-anner"

Timothy's prayers worked! I have had an amazing time here!
So many things have changed about me in the past month. Some of these things are:

• I like to do dishes 
• I like to take out the garbage 
• I like to play basketball 
• I love to play volleyball 
• I miss algebra 
• I found a rap song that I like 
• I like potatoes
• I like the Saturn (Sad, isn't it? I've been humbled with our mission car, a fancy, gutless, flaky, 20 mpg Chevy Malibu. Even the Gypsy gets better mileage than that. And is more reliable, this car always makes strange noises. And this car's worth more than the bus?)

It is so bizarre. I guess I just appreciate life a lot more. And after working 80 hours a week, taking out the garbage doesn't seem like much.

A mission is not what I expected, even after the MTC. I didn't think that it would be so hard, but I can handle it a lot better than I expected I would be able to.

We usually prosolyte by knocking door after door after door, for about 10 hours, then when someone wants us to come in and share our five minute message, we call it a let-in. They are pretty rare.  When we knock doors, our let-in rate averages about 1.5%.

Yesterday was a miracle at 18% let-ins, 18% people closing the door in our face, and 64% people saying they're not interested. That's over ten times better than most days. The Lord is on the move.

...meals...often consist of:

• Cereal
• Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches 
• Quesadillas 
• Milk
• Boiled eggs 
• Whatever else we ate on the bus 
• Costco rolls 
• Fruit smoothies 

except for the dinners, which we have at members homes. The Stake we serve in has some great cooks. I love having dinner at members homes. If you want yet another way to help out even more with the Lord's work, having the missionaries over is a great way to do that. It really brightens their day, helps them get to know you (like they're supposed to do) and also gives them a great dinner! 

I still love my companion. Elder Day is still training me well, we are still alive and healthy (even after he cooked hamburger meat for one of the first times, and even after the plane almost crashed when I got to Denver!), and we get along great!

On the phone he explained that when his plane came into Denver, the pilot landed in a rather stiff -- borderline unallowable -- cross-wind, and bounced a bit trying to get straightened out on the runway.

I am keeping exact track of how many doors we knock, so I can report it when I get home. I've got to have something bizarre to keep track of!

...So far, life has been great- up until last night.  I made my first big mistake on my mission yesterday....

So what did he do that was so terrible?

The hard, blunt truth: I got a Facebook account.
I hate it!
I know hate is a very strong word. That's why I used it. 

I was told that I could use Messenger without having to have much of an association with Facebook. I was told that Facebook wasn't really bad at all, and if you used it in the right way, it was a great tool for the Lord's work. In other words, I fell from peer pressure.

He then detailed the instant onslaugh of spam, friend requests, etc. and all the time and mindshare because FB doesn't make it easy to deal with such in bulk -- and the theft of which feels more agregious when you're on the Lord's errand.  He finished with individual and passionate pleas to his siblings not to give into the pressure that others have put on them to allow themselves to get sucked into it.

At that point, he ended his email and asked for the video call, and the rest of the discussion was a lot lighter!