Wow. I think I know how parents feel on Christmas morning now. We were up until 1 again doing transfer logistics and then yesterday I had to get up and call every zone leader at 6:30 am. Transfers are almost as exciting as Christmas, but when you stay up 'til 1 hurting your brain trying to figure out where everyone needs to go the excitement kinda gets lost. Then in the morning everyone is all pumped for the news and I'm like ugh. Ward council is in 30 mins.' So yeah, sorry for waking you up on December 25th at 5 am the past 18 years of my life.

My new companion is Elder Hatch. He's from California and is super good at water polo. Nine months ago I saw him at a meeting and was like 'Elder Hatch, one day we're going to he companions' and boom, prophetic. It's pretty crazy though because he only has 6 weeks left on his mission which means at the end of this transfer I'll get another companion. At that point I'll only have 2 transfers left so I'll probably end up finishing my mission in Matthews, which I'm pretty happy about. It'd be pretty hard going from the busy busy life of being an Assistant back to the slow work of a district leader. Especially on my last transfer in a new area. I'm pretty sure President will keep me here though. He kinda alluded to it in my interview this week.

So what is our family's schedule for August? Liam Galvin is planning a trip down to Oregon to come visit me and Elder Andersen. We're gonna go hiking and hit up Portland. Hope you don't mind but I told him he could stay with us. I suggested the 2nd or 3rd week of August. He's the one from Canada I got close with in Danville.

Haven't finished recording Maxwell's story. It's a long one so we're taking it a few recordings at a time.

I went and got all-you-can eat sushi again this week! I was on exchanges with Elder Carol. Then, like two days later, this young couple took us out to eat and since it was Elder Peterson's last week they let him choose wherever he wanted to eat. He chose this place called Cowfish that has sushi and burgers and is apparently really good. Well, we got there and the wait was like an hour and a half so we had to find somewhere else so we tried this place called Baku. None of us had been there and it turned out to be the weirdest place I've ever eaten. The waitress kept trying to get us not to order sushi even though she said it's the best in Charlotte and we were sitting on these weird couch things and they kept offering us alcohol and when the food came out it was like a ton of money for barely any food. The member felt really bad and offered to take us to McDonalds instead. It was a pretty fun night.

Well, I'm off to President's to meet the new missionaries!

This week we had Elder Zeballos come our mission. He's in the 1st Quorum of the Seventy and is from Chile. He and his wife were here Thursday and Friday and then went to the Gastonia stake conference. They gave pretty good talks and he had a special MLC with us afterwards. They were super humble people and really care about missionaries. Because of the storms up north they almost couldn't come but ended up driving 11 hours to get here. Even though it's been really fun to have all these General Authorities here, I'm glad it's over for a bit. We've spent a ton of time the last two weeks making sure our sound system works and setting up tables and chairs for all these meetings. Now I'm ready to get out there and baptize some more people.

We also found this really great investigator yesterday. He's from China and his father attended BYU. He's got a lot of Mormon friends and he's coming to church next week. His name is Shane, and I feel like he has a lot of potential. If he joins the church he'll be an Elder's Quorum president for sure. Gary is still doing well. He really fits in well at the YSA Ward. He told us this week he fasted for like 4 meals for God to help him stop smoking. We didn't even invite him to fast or anything. I love Gary so much!

Yesterday Maxwell received the priesthood! He would have gotten it way sooner but he was sick one week and then we had the conference with Elder Cook. Maxwell is such a solid convert.

So I'm pretty tired. I don't think I've ever been so tired in my life. Transfers are this week which means I'll be even more tired in a few days. So much work and on top of all that I need to find people to baptize next week. I'm getting a new companion next week because Peterson goes home. I'll be sad to see him go. He's been really fun to work with, and we've gotten along swell. Crazy he only came out 4 months before I did. I'm starting to get anxious about choosing a career and a lifestyle and everything. Good thing I've had 4 General Authorities here over the past few weeks to show me how it's done. It's been really interesting hearing their life stories and how they got to the point they're at now.  

Sure love ya!

Howdy.

It was a good week. I'm pretty tired. On Sunday morning it snowed which was really strange.

Elder Cook came with his wife and Elder McArthur and his wife and Elder Klebingat and his wife. On Saturday we had a meeting with them and the whole mission at the Charlotte Central stake center. It was amazing. The Cooks and the Klebingat's both spoke. Honestly, if I could choose between sitting down and having a conversation with Elder Cook and Elder Klebingat I'd choose Elder Klebingat. Elder Cook really blew it out of the water, but Elder Klebingat said some really insightful things. That guy knows the scriptures really well. He talked about why missionaries go inactive when they get home, and what you can do on your mission to avoid that. Then yesterday at the big conference he talked about the pre-mortal life and the war in heaven and he dropped some serious deep doctrine bombs. Apparently he's a convert and he's only like 45. He's the youngest 70 in the 1st quorum. Elder Cook's testimony on Saturday was fantastic as well. Gave us a few things to focus on to be better missionaries and said the church needs more outgoing and personable missionaries.

On Saturday I saw a ton of members from my past areas which was really neat. The Clays from Danville and Dusty, one of the recent converts Elder Everette and I taught together was there as well. I saw a few people from Welcome and a ton of people from Providence.

Most of my week was just spent preparing for that conference. One day we had to go to Best Buy and get some audio equipment and another day we had to spend a ton of time making sure all the audio equipment worked, which it didn't, and we had to figure out why it didn't work, that was a headache.

My birthday was wonderful! We went out to lunch at Sabor and in the evening Kevin had us over and made this Columbian dish that was super, super good. It had a ton of rice and beans and avocados and eggs and sausage. The Jacksons, our ward mission leader, got me a cake and we ate it at ward coordination. Don't feel bad at all the package came late. I was totally fine, just worried about my voice recorder. The Lexington Elders said the package was slightly open when they got it so hopefully nothing was taken. When I got it it had a bunch of snacks, a piñata and my voice recorder in it. Thank you again for it!!!!

This week we've got another 70 coming, Elder Zabollos. He'll be here for a few days. Tomorrow we start transfer planning, which is always fun. Should be a big week.

Okay I love you!

Hola family,

This week we had 6 elders living in one apartment. The Charlotte Central Zone Leader's dishwasher pipe exploded and when they got home one night it was completely flooded. Like an inch of water all around. So they had to come live us. Then the Reedy Creek Elders apartment need to be carpet cleaned, but the people took like 5 days to get over there so they had to live with us too. It's been an interesting experience. I'm realizing now this is what my college life will be like. Speaking of that, when will I find out who my other room mates are? After hearing of Luke's roommates I'ma bit worried.

On Saturday we went down to the local market and this member that runs it got us a bunch of food. It's kind of a maxi market, but the food there was sooooo good. She got us tortas, sliced paprika mangos, corn on a stick, and funnel cakes. It was the best!

I also went up to Hickory this week and on the way back we had to stop in High Point so I stopped at the Crouse's to say hello. I really like them a lot, they're so nice and humble.

Right now we're at this really high end Hilton hotel up town. There's a member that works at this little barber shop in the gigantic lobby that cuts missionaries hair for free. We've got to be looking fresh for when Elder Cook comes. This barber is like a world class guy. Everyone that comes in is like super high up CEOs and he's totally pals with them. He said his business has really taken off lately and I could tell because we had to wait like an hour because every time it was about to be our turn someone new walked in and asked if he could
cut their hair.

Yesterday we re-contacted a former investigator named Darwon. We were teaching him for a bit and then he fell of the grid for a month or so. Turns out he was in Sweden visiting his girlfriend who's a member and while he was there he went to church and met with the missionaries. Now he's pretty interested in being baptized. He and his girlfriend are both from Liberia so I'm not sure how one ended up in Charlotte and one ended up in Sweden but if they get married in the temple like they want to it doesn't really matter.

I'll thank you in advance for what's in my birthday package. One of the recent converts that got baptized my first week here is feeding us that night. He's from Columbia so he's making us some really good Columbian food. I'm pretty excited.

Love y'all