Howdy.

I have officially been on my mission 21 moths! Who knew I'd make it this far.

Yesterday was amazing! We were sitting in sacrament meeting, really sad because none of our investigators came to church, and Elder Hatch spotted someone sitting on the back row he didn't recognize. After the meeting we went back and introduced ourselves. Turns out he's not a member, but his girlfriend is, and he's been going to church for about 2 years. He just moved here from Raleigh and now that he's living on his own he wants to look into being baptized. His name is Ganesh and he's amazing. We've got a lesson with him this week and I'm super pumped. Danny is doing well too. Her son was in the hospital this week so she couldn't come to church but it sounds like we're having dinner this week at a member's home so that's great.

Transfers are next week, which means Elder Hatch goes home and I get a new companion. We haven't started planning yet because this week was crazy busy. Three Zone conferences and two exchanges filled up just about all our time. Sister Alexander gave a pretty neat training in zone conference about the Revolutionary War battles that happened in our mission. There were a lot, one of which, King's Mountain, was the turning point in the war and the another was the last battle fought in the war, Guilford Courthouse. Then she talked about how the people that died are now ministering angles helping us along, which got me thinking about family history. So yesterday I did some looking on family tree and found out I have ancestors that fought in the very battle she trained on! They're from a small village outside our mission, but still in North Carolina. I also found an ancestor that was born in a town, Wilkesboro, that I literally drove through last week. Pretty nuts. All these people are from the 1600 and 1700s. They say one of the determining factors to where you go is your ancestry, which means someone in our family is bound to go to Italy and the others are probably going to serve in the Carolinas or Virginia or the north east. Maybe even Missouri or Kansas, I saw a few of those.

So that got me thinking about temple sealings and families. I've been pondering on how the Aaronic Priesthood  and all of the blessings of it can be fulfilled by yourself. And to fulfill the Melchezidek priesthood blessings you need your spouse.  But the fullness of the priesthood (the patriarchal or all of the keys and ordinances including the ones we don't have like resurrection and creation) need not just your spouse, but a full family to fulfill. You need to be sealed back to Adam. You can't be exalted without your ancestors. Kinda puts a larger importance on family history.

Anyways here's some pictures from our uptown scavenger hunt today. Hope to hear from ya soon!