Howdy y'all

Back to the big city! It's so nice to have more shopping options than Walmart and Lexington BBQ!!! Today I bought myself a new tie with some of the Christmas money I received.

Matthews is a pretty great ward. I feel like I know a ton of people already. There are two families that were in the Providence Ward and another couple of families that are related to members in Providence. Our ward mission leader is a super solid guy and the Bishop is pretty fired up about missionary work. They've had 6 baptisms in the past two months so the members are really excited too. We've got a few solid investigators and are spending lots of time out finding new ones. David Blackwell has a baptismal date for the end of the month. I taught him in Providence and now he lives in Matthews. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the job this time. I almost feel like God has given me a second chance from Providence here. It's pretty much the same area, same dynamics and everything, except this time I'm gonna harvest some real fruit.

Being an assistant is pretty okay. It's not too much different than being a Zone Leader, just different responsibilities. Some missions have what they call office missionaries that pretty much sit in the office all day, but instead we have all of the administrative responsibilities along with full proselyting responsibilities. So we have to work crazy hard to hit all the standards of excellence and have to be super great at planning. I get to see President a bit more often but most of my time will be spent on exchanges and out proselyting like a normal area. I'm really enjoying it though.

I really like my new companion. For some reason he really reminds me of Luke (Sam's cousin). They have really similar personalities. He's a really hard worker and I think we're going to see a lot of success.

Here's some pictures from the week.