October 22, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Once again, I am here in "J-ville". Where else would I be? Everything is going good. For some reason though, this week went really slow. It was our bike week this last week and I hadn't ridden a bike for the last 6 weeks so my butt was pretty sore. :) Thats ok though, it felt good to ride a bike again.

This past week we had interviews with the President. That went well and he says that we are doing good its just that we need to increase our lessons with a member. That is always hard because members have there own lifes that they have to live but I think that we can do it.

Saturday was the air show. It was a lot of fun. We went with the senior couple, Elder and Sister Witt. It was really cool to see all the different kind of planes. We had some investigators going and they said that they had a lot of fun. Sister Witt was funny because she wanted to go everywhere they were giving away free stuff so we too got a bunch of knick-knacks from the Army and Air-force. We saw the Blue-angels. We never saw them fly because we left early but we saw them flying around when we went tracting. They are super loud.

Now for the update on our investigators:

1. Kimi - We kind of lost contact with her. Her phone stopped working and we haven't been able to see her since. She called us once at night and told us that her 2 uncles just died so she has been having a really rough time. We are still praying for her and we aren't going to set a date with her until she stops smoking. But who knows how long that will take.

2. Joey and Amber - We finished teaching the plan of salvation and Amber took a lot of notes. She thinks that it is interesting but she is still very skeptical. Funny story about that lesson though. So we were calling around the night before trying to find a member to go with us and we call someone who we thought was an Active member and he says yes. His name was bro. Elliott. We get in his car and we see a bunch of cigerettes. Me and Elder Sellers look at each other and wonder. Later in the lesson, Brother Elliott tells Amber and Joey that he hasn't been to church in a year. So we found out that he was a Less-active member! Thats ok though. The lesson still went great and Brother Elliott said he needed it more than them so yeah. Who knows, maybe we will re-activate someone on accident.

3. Jimmy Baldwin and Judy - Jimmy got antied by his family pretty hard. He told us that he didn't want to meet with us again but when we were doing service for a thrift store, we saw him and set up an appointment to see him this saturday. I really hope that we don't lose him.

4. Gabby (Patrick and Lori) - Well, we had a the first lesson about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He liked it but he has trouble with the God head and he knows his Bible really well. We have another lesson with him on

5. Maurice - Still reading scriptures with him. Hasn't gotten an answer yet but he will eventually.

6. Jimmy Allen and Family- He keeps re-scheduling his appointments because some family issues come up so he needs to meet with us soon and get baptized because he is ready.

We have a few other people that we are teaching here and there but nothing big. We are hoping to get some progressing investigators soon because as you can see, we are kind of running low. I have been out 3 months now. It kind of hard to believe. It sure doesn't seem like like it has been that long. It has left like a couple of weeks. Time flys when you are having fun. But that isn't good because a missionary's time is valuable.

We are also starting a member lesson program to train members to be a full time member missionary or a full time finder. It should work out pretty well.

This Friday we have the annual Trunk-or-treat at the church. We are having a chili cook-off, games and stuff! It should be a lot of fun.
Thank you for your continued prayers and thoughts. They are keeping me going! I really appreciate it! I love you all and God bless all of you!

John 14:26

Love,


Elder Parker