March 9

Mom,

Thanks! I haven't done anything to accept it yet, hopefully I'll get that done today. That's awesome that Spencer's birthday is this week! Yeah, the pictures that I see of them every once in a while they all look super different, I can't believe it! Well, I guess I can believe it. I've been gone for a while haha.

I guess technically the June 24th is an estimate, but I can't imagine it being a different day because the process is the same every transfer. Everyone moves areas on Tuesday, and so all of the departing missionaries go to the mission home at 2 o'clock and have a testimony meeting and dinner with President and Sister Batt and whatnot and then we all sleep at the assistant's house on Tuesday night and depart Wednesday morning. And the transfer ends that week. You'll probably get a letter from the mission office about three months before my release date.

I hope to be able to learn a lot more about Meme and all of my family history when I get home. I want to start a project and do a lot more family history when I get home, I just plan on making it an every Sunday thing while I'm living at home and I'll work on it whenever I come home for the weekends while I'm at college.

We saw Bridgette on Monday night and she said that her dad, who is a very staunch Catholic, told her that she can't change religions and but she said that she feels like she needs to learn more about the Book of Mormon and whatnot and so we had an appointment set up but it fell through and we haven't been able to catch her when we've just stopped by, unfortunately. We were able to find three new investigators this week though: Daniel, Nancy, and Thomas. They are all pretty awesome people and we hope things go well for all of them!

One pretty awesome experience that I had this week was the opportunity to give a blessing to a member who is currently disfellowshipped and has been for 18 years, but he is such an awesome and faithful guy. He still pays his tithing without fail and everything. I'll refer to him as Albert. On Saturday evening we saw the bishop for a minute and asked him if anyone was on his mind that he'd like us to visit on his mind and he mentioned Albert and so we stopped by at about 8 o'clock and when he opened the door he said, "Oh boy do I need you two here right now. Please come in, I need a blessing." He told us that he resigned from his job a couple days before and he isn't sure if it was the right thing to do or not and he's trying to understand what the Lord needs him to do and he was told by the doctor that if he doesn't quit smoking his lungs will give out on him and also if he can quit smoking then he can regain his full fellowship in the Church. We gave him a blessing to help him feel comfort and also to be able to quit smoking and there are only two blessings I've given in my life where I have felt the Spirit so strongly, this one and one I gave in Shiprock a few weeks before Christmas. It's one of those blessings where I could just feel the words flowing through me from the Spirit, and really from our Father in Heaven. It wasn't terribly long, but was very powerful and just a great faith building experience. I know the Priesthood is real, and that as we are worthy we may act in place of the Lord.

I just read a book this past week, it's called The Power of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton R. Christensen. IT IS AMAZING! SERIOUSLY, EVERYONE WHO SEES THIS NEEDS TO READ THAT BOOK. It is like Preach My Gospel for members, and it's a pretty quick read. It's only like 130 pages or something and the pages aren't long at all. It's filled with gold as far as how to find people for the missionaries to teach, how to help others progress in the gospel and everything. That book helped me increase my faith so much and made me have such a stronger desire to share the gospel even as a missionary and to take my calling more seriously and try to share the gospel with every person I talk to.

Yeah, there's just one ward. It's called the Mt. Taylor Ward and it covers Grants, Milan, Bluewater, and San Rafel. We technically cover San Mateo also but it's really far away and we never go there. No, there is not any other missionaries in Grants, the next ones over are Thoreau which is about 30 miles away. We live alone and we have a bedroom, a study room, a bathroom, a very large living room, and a kitchen. It's pretty nice.

I love you all!

Elder Schaelling