Week 13...3 Months and Doing Awesome in Camp Hill

     Hello everybody I'm doing awesome and love getting the letters from you.  Keep them coming I love hearing from you.  I’m at the church since the library is closed today (Labor Day).  I will write a little bit of stuff here in this email, but I will finish in snail mail and answer the questions to your letter last week.  First things first I am glad you got the SD card.  I'm sure you are impressed with the laundry skills, I hate laundry just about as much as you do.  That is crazy about the record breaking heat/summer in Utah.  I'm glad I could help you remember the hottest summers on record.  At least you are not pregnant for this one.  I'm sure the summer was much better this time not being pregnant.  But I think I would rather take our dry heat than the humid heat here. 

     Now onto BYU…I can't wait to get the play by play from Mrs. Wrubell (aka mom).  I heard bits and pieces from the F family and they also told me there was a rain/lightning delay, but I can't wait to hear the official word. 

     Also I can't wait to hear the story of the gpa Lewy’s new truck.  It is crazy that they are tearing down great grandma Ivie’s house.  Oh, the childhood memories you must have of that place.  I'm sure it is a bitter sweet moment for all of you. 

I can't wait to see Steeler nation in Kerri's garage.  Also, I sent Megan a Happy Birthday letter the other day but I don't think it made it since the post office is closed today.  So tell her Happy Birthday.  As usual, I can't wait to get your package.  Well on to the questions. 

1. What are your highs & lows this week? Well, not much has really happened this week, but we managed to stay busy.  A high was definitely going to Texas Roadhouse after P-day last week with the district (thanks to all those that made that happen).  Another high was on Tuesday, we went to visit on elderly man who is in the ward and he is always fun to talk to.  For our message I shared DC 121: 7-8.  He brought up an interesting point and was talking about how the world is really starting to fall apart and the government is a big mess, as we know, and then he tied it to how the gospel is the best thing that we have and how we need to hold on to that because everything else is going to be a disaster.  I liked when he said “hold on to the gospel” because that will be the only thing you have that is good.  It made me think how grateful I am to have the gospel in my life and it makes me want to share it even more with the people in Pennsylvania.  Also, I loved getting your SWEET scroll letter wrapped around the bottle, I liked the idea.   Another high was reading/studying Alma chapters 8-9 on missionary work that you mentioned in your last letter… that was pretty cool.  Now onto the lows…Thursday night we were planning for Friday and it was kind of a nightmare because we had seen everyone for the week and the people we had left to see usually never answer.  So we had an entire afternoon to fill with tracting and seeing people that were super ineffective. Now the low turns into a high,  so we woke up Friday morning and had studies and then right before we went into weekly planning we got a text from a less active lady that lives in the ward who lives by us.  She said we needed to call her dad (he is also in the ward). We texted back and asked her why we needed to contact him.  She said he needed "assistance" and Elder J and I wondered what the heck that meant.  So we gave her dad a call and he said he needed help at his restaurant washing dishes (Thai restaurant called Bangkok Wok).  He needed help because I guess one of his workers cut his hand on some glass and had to get stiches and he needed someone to wash the dishes in his place.  So we went to the restaurant thinking it would only be a couple of hours; he said that is all it would be.  But it ended up being for about 6 hours.  We got there at 11:30 and got home a little after 5.  He had a bunch of errands to run so we stayed to help for a while.  It was fun and we even got free food.  By the way, I liked the Thai food.  So lucky for us, our entire free afternoon was suddenly full of service.  When we got back home we had dinner and did weekly planning the rest of the night. Another low for the week was not being able to listen to the BYU game on Saturday, but whatever I survived.  I found out from the F family that it was on rain delay for a while and I heard they lost and our defense is awesome but offense stinks once again.  However, I am waiting for your official results.   
2. What are 5 positive things that happened this week?  Eating with the F family and also doing the dishes at the restaurant.   And….I only have one more week of being trained and then I am officially trained.   
3. Update us on your investigators...Franky & Sally and their friend & the M family?  Well, we had a lesson on Tuesday with the M family and talked about sacrifice.  We watched the video, "Only A Stone Cutter", about John Rowe Moyle who is the guy who carved Holiness to the Lord on the Salt Lake temple.  Also, we were not able to teach Franky & Sally because there kids got lice the other day and so now we can't teach them until Wednesday. 
4. What about the 2 people that you gave BOM to a while back?  Not much they weren’t really interested, they just took books.
5. What happened with the church headquarters referral from the guy in jail?  Well we tried to go visit him on Wednesday and give him a BOM but we didn't really have time to stay and get to see him because we had to get to district meeting.  However, we did find out we have to mail the BOM so we are going to do that tomorrow and then try and visit him again on Wednesday. 
6. Are both pairs of your shoes that worn?  No just the slip ons.  I figured I should wait to get out the tie ups until I hammer the slip ons or I get into a drive area where I don't walk every day. 
7. How did the birthday cake turn out? At first glance I thought the picture was red jello or a petri dish  The cake turned out good, the reason it looked weird is because I had not put it in the oven yet so it was the batter you saw. 
8. Do you play a lot of basketball at the church with the others, or do you just write letters?  I do a combo of both. 
9. I can't remember, do you have your own room or do you share with Elder J?  No, we share that is the rule. 
10. What are the key indicators that you had the best week of? Explain key indicators.  Basically key indicators are the numbers that we keep track of. How many lessons we have each week, how many baptisms, how many referrals we got, and how many investigators are at church.  Hope that made sense if not look in chapter 8 in PMG and it explains it better. 
11. Did you ride the Bday saddle at Texas Roadhouse?  No, I kind of forgot.
12. Did anyone have to pay extra money or just the $3 that you paid?  No, I paid an extra $3 and Elder J left a tip.
13. Did the others have a good time?  Yes
14. How's the weather been lately? Any rain?  Well it has been very hot and humid and cloudy with a sunshine mix.  This weekend it was 85 with like 70% humidity.  But it is supposed to cool off this week.  Last night there was a big thunderstorm around 9:30 or 10 pm.  I took a video of some of the lightning.  I am going to email it when I am done. 
15. Any new investigators or teaching opportunities?  Unfortunately, no.
16. Any service opportunities this week?  Yes, as you have seen we did a lot. 
17. What's the most fun thing you've done in Camp Hill?  There is nothing really fun in Camp Hill.  So hopefully I will get to an area with some fun stuff  like Hershey or Gettysburg or Pittsburgh.
18. Anything we can do for you?  No
19. Anything/anyone we can pray for?  Pray that as transfers are coming up (and I might possibly lose Elder J) that I may be able to keep the area going well and I will continue to progress. 
20. Any big plans for Labor Day or is it just another day for you like it is for us?  Well it is pretty much P-day then we are going over to Sister B’s house (from the ward) for dinner with the sisters.  She is super nice and feeds us on a normal basis.
21. Do you need more return address labels? If so, I'll send some after transfers when I know where you will be for sure.  Yes, but like you said wait until after transfers.  Also, people if you decide to send me mail later this week make sure you get it in the mail by probably Thursday or Friday at the latest so I get it.  If I end up getting transferred it won’t get to me.  I don't think I will be transferred but just to be safe follow that rule.  I will know by this weekend if I am and then I will let you know Monday. 

     Also don't feel like you wasted your entire Saturday writing the play by play BYU letter because you didn't.  I only know a little about the game. The F family's daughter had some BYU sweat pants on and so I had to ask about the game, but like I said not much detail was included, just that it was on rain delay. 

     Oh my goodness, that is awful about Derek Johnson.  Oh what a crazy world we live in.  Maybe it was a good thing you were not home during the lock down because Megan would have freaked out hearing and seeing all of that going on.  Tell Randy and Laura I am thinking of them and the family.   I can't wait to get the package on Thursday and get the latest update of good ole Draper, which I guess is now the center of attention. 

     Well thanks for the info even though it is tragic news and a senseless act it is still good to feel sort of in the loop of things.  Things seem to be getting closer and closer to home and the world seems to be getting more evil, things really are starting to turn scary.  Like I said in the highs I mentioned above, I'm glad we have the knowledge of the gospel and how awesome it is and I’m grateful to be sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

    I would agree with you about letting fear guide us too much.  I am learning to be faithful and like you said if you have the combo of both it doesn’t work out so well because I definitely have felt it when I let fear guide my decisions instead of faith

    Remember, I will find out this weekend what is happening with transfers.  We find out Saturday if we need to pack and stuff but we don’t find out where we are going until Tuesday. 

Bye LOVE YOU and thanks for all of the prayers and support.

Elder Muir

xoxoxo