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Hey all!
So this week I met someone of special interest to me. Our Bishop in the Santa Monica 1st ward told us about someone earlier this week who had been less active for some years but recently decided that he wanted to come back to church. He said his name was Chad. Now, the first person I thought of when I heard that last name was one of the councilors in our Stake presidency from back in the day. I'm sure you remember him. Well I didn't think much of it after that until just yesterday when I got to meet Chad for the first time. We got to talking and found out that he has a smoking addiction and really wants to get rid of it. In the process of talking he of course asked where I was from and when I said Minnesota he said "Oh yeah? Me too!" He then asked if I knew his father from the St. Paul Stake. I said "Yeah, I love that man." He then said "That's my dad". AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! WHY IS THE WORLD SHRINKING!!!???? I cannot tell you how excited I was to meet this guy! I had heard a long time ago that XX had a less active son. Now I get to help him come back to church! Amazing!!!!! How does this stuff happen!? If anyone ever tells me that God doesn't exist from now on I'm going to laugh in their face!!! God does exist and He is watching out for every last one of us.
So that was one of the interesting things that happened this week. I'm going to have to type up a letter to finish all of my stories for this week. I just don't have the time to write it all.
I'm sorry to hear about what's happening with the XX family. I sometimes wondered how XX would feel when she found out about that. I know she'll be fine though. Especially now that she's married and all. MARRIED! WEIRD! I wish I could talk to her. Oh well, I'll get to soon enough I guess. 5 1/2 months! HA! NOT COUNTING! NOT COUNTING! ; )
Anyway, I'm still here in Malibu with Elder Schneiter. I'll be sending some pictures pretty soon so you'll get to see what he looks like. Right now we have about 7 investigators that will probably start to progress soon. It's pretty exciting. I'll be meeting with Chad this evening to start his quit smoking program. It's gonna be awesome! He's really got the desire to work hard for this. He knows the gospel, he just hasn't been living it. He said he's getting to that age where he feels like he needs to start taking care of himself. Yippee!
Okay well I'm gonna write a letter to Ryan now. Probably Hunter as well. I'm glad to hear that everyone is so happy over there. I can definitely see the blessings that have come from serving a mission. I know as well that there are many more that we don't see or haven't even come yet. So keep up the good work everybody. You're all doing awesome! I love you all! Have a great week!
Elder J. Otis
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Now, a letter from our Russian Missionary Son
Hey Family!
Glad to hear that Ryan's papers will be coming in soon, I can't wait to hear from you guys. About my phone number...I forgot to write it down (I have a cell phone so I don't know any numbers lol), but what you can do is look up the email I sent you in may, it's the same number and everything so, it will work. But maybe I'll look it up and send you and e-mail real quick tomorrow or something. Just make sure you call me after 8:30pm, or before 11:00am my time, I am always home at those times.
Thats sad to hear about the hurricane, the U.S. just keeps getting pummeled by Hurricanes, seems like there is one every year. Well, signs of the times I guess. If Russia ever gets a big earthquake they're done for. All of their buildings will crumble to the ground. Well, thanks for the inspiring emails this week, I got a lot! I felt loved =).
Well, the mission is going good. Missions are so interesting, they are always changing, and you are always learning something new. Sometimes they seem to slow down and you think you are learning much, but in reality if you are working hard something is always happening. And the times when things are going fast, you don't even realise that you are improving, but you are. Anyway, I've been in this area for a long time, and while I don't feel much different I know that I have improved a ton since the day that I came in to Pervouralsk. I am grateful to be serving here, it has been amazing. Well, I am trying to get FHE going in both cities to help bring the members closer together. Also, I am going to be working on the home teaching out here, on saturday we had a Priesthood conference, and it was all about Home Teaching. I was writing notes like mad, everything was great. Home Teaching is exactly what this branch needs, the blessings that President Allen talked about in his talk that come from Home Teaching are exactly what we need out here. The problem is that a lot of people have tried to start up home teaching(including me), and none of the members have done anything with it or been excited about it. So we are going to start talking about it often in Priesthood meeting, and I'm am going to try and motivate them and be excited about it. Andre and I can help it get started. And when it does, the work is going to move forward a lot faster. We just need strong families, we only have part families here, and not a lot of them. We need to baptize a few whole families, that would be a miracle and a great help to the branch. There just isn't a lot of stability and we need that to keep growing strong.
I don't think I need hand-warmers, Mama Jo and PapaDe sent me a bunch last winter and I didn't use them. I just wear small mittens and keep my hands in my pockets and they stay warm. Anyway, I've got a voice recording, I recorded it on the street so I hope you can hear, my Russian was kind of sucky in it since I didn't know what I wanted to talk about so it was stupid lol. I'll send you a recording of me reading in Russian, that will be cooler. Well, have a nice week!
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