Joshua’s Birthday Approaches…

WOW!! That's cool that Andrew is getting sealed to the Everett family. That just seems so perfect, and right. Wow... I'm sad that I wont be there to see that.

HEY! I need Jenny Jump's and Uncle Kenny's addresses! Please let me know soon.

Dad's Questions (starting with last weeks)

1. Dixon is a small town along the highway, about 17,000 people. We can bike across it in about 20 minutes. So it can be difficult to plan a full day if everyone isn't home. We do cover area outside the immediate city limits, but it goes out for quite a few miles in many directions, but it's all farming fields, ranches etc. Very sparse population.
2. We easily ride 10 - 20 miles a day. for the most part. It can vary depending on how we're inspired, and how much we feel like walking instead. But I definitely get my exercise in during the day, and I'm working on getting my exercise at 6:30 in as well, though my legs scream at me for it The bike is doing great. No problems there.
3. We do have a handful of Spanish people that I'm working with, and we're slowly finding more English people as well. It's getting better as we go along, but the progress is slow here, even though as a zone, and a mission we're still accomplishing miracles, and growing amazingly rapidly! This week found a lady named Karen who is a friend of a less active sister here (out in the boonies). She's just moving in, but we should see her tomorrow! I'm excited to see her. We also found a Spanish guy named Antonio. He was slightly drunk and so he was kinda out of it. But he wants to stop drinking and invited us over to see him again. That will be interesting. I hope that I can catch him early enough so that he's not drunk when we teach him.
4. For my next package, a couple of cookie mixes would be nice, but other than that whatever you guys feel is good. I like letters, so if you could get letters from Ben or Jordan or anyone that I know there it would be cool. If I have any special requests I'll let you know. (The $20 I had is now gone, because I lent it to a man who had an accident so that he could get his car towed to a shop.) So if I could get $10-20 that would be nice.
5. Conference rocked, I took a lot of notes, and so I liked parts of all of them. But since we went over Elder Christoffersons talk yesterday in church I've been thinking more about that. It was good. Receiving chastisement. Something we could all learn something from. 
6. At the moment we have about 6 investigators that we see off and on. They are really hard to find sometimes. But we have lots of potentials that we'll be seeing and finding this week, so that number should grow.
7. Elder Morrison and I get along very well. He is trunky, but he has a strong desire to work hard and accomplish stuff to strengthen the area as he leaves, so no worries there either. I'm slightly affected by his trunky-ness, but I'm focusing on the work here. I don't know if President Bunker will ask me to train, but there's always a chance with these last 3 transfers that I have.
8. I've been feeling good. Changing is a struggle. It always has, and it always will. I'm making progress as I try to make the best use of my time, and I don't always succeed, but I move forward, and I know that as I continue to strive, and inch my way forward, that I'll make it there. It reminds me of a story, when our young men's group went on the 50 mile canoeing trip. There was a point in the river where we stopped and made camp. It was late afternoon going towards the evening, and we went swimming, because we were all hot and tired from rowing all day. The river currant ran downstream at about 3 miles an hour, so we had a competition to see who could make it to the tower about 150 yards upstream. There were about 13 of us who jumped from the pier and started swimming. about 5 were swept back from the get go, and they gave up just as they began, the strongest swimmers made it there with little to no difficulty, but I think that I was one of the ones in the water the longest, because I just kept swimming against the currant, only inching my way up the river, it was so slow that Bro Wells our young men's president told me to give up. I told in in short breaths to forget it, and that I would make it. I was the last one out of 5 maybe 6 people who made it. So even though I was tired, even though it was difficult, I did it. If you put your mind to it, believe and have faith, and put your actions where your mouth is, then we can make miraculous things happen. I know that there are still blessings in store for me that I need to grow more to achieve, but I'm working hard, and making my way there.

So yeah. I'm doing well, and I'm happy with where I'm at and how I'm doing. I wish you all the best wishes, and pray that God will continue to watch over you and protect you.

Your Missionary,

Elder Richard Mackelprang