October 29!

Howdy ya'll!
First of all, I want to let you all know how stoked I am that USC lost because I really don't like USC at all. The beavers losing is good too though but not quite as good of a thing I suppose. It's also good to hear that the Packers are dominating again and it also sounds like the world series is pretty boring this year. Who won the Monster Cup in Vegas? My guess would be Villopoto but what do I know? Is football season halfway done already? That's crazy if that is the case but I'm pretty sure the Ducks and packers will both be champions. That's how it should always be. I haven't heard much about how Cam, Kiley, and Kait are doing. Fill me in please. Also, your idea with the package is fine. Thank you!
Anyway, this week was a pretty interesting one. Remember that crazy less-active member I told you about that told us that we need to learn how to have the spirit with us and that we need to pray to Jesus and not God? Yeah, we had another interesting experience with her this week. She started talking to us about politics (no bueno) and asked us if we have voted or anything. Elder Jacobs has voted and she asked him questions like who he voted for and stuff and she basically was just trying to get us in a position to argue with us. She said that Elder Jacobs could have been electing the anti-christ since he wasn't really an informed voter and things like that. He admitted that that maybe it isn't the best idea to vote if you don't have any idea of what's going on but we were told by Pres. Miller that we should vote. She told us after that how messed up the church is for letting something like that happen and then I pointed out that the church takes a neutral stand on politics and doesn't tell us who to vote for or anything like that. She told us that's wrong. She also told us that she basically left the church because in sacrament meeting she couldn't hear people bearing their testimony because of babies crying and stuff like that. People are crazy.
We learned that Shariy has NOT been baptized before and is therefore not a member of the church. She set up an appointment with the bishop this week and he told us that he is gonna make sure she leaves their meeting knowing that she needs to marry Geno so she can be baptized. Bishop Caldwell is the man. All of our ward leaders are supportive and helpful but the members bail on us pretty frequently for help with coming to lessons with us and dinner and things. Bishop Caldwell is going to change that though because he is awesome. He has a son on a mission in upstate NY whose mission president told him that with the new announcement on missionary ages their particular mission is expecting 250 more missionaries. Crazy. Also, his mission president said that there are 50 new missions to be opened up across the world. Crazy. Also, our bishop told us that before the announcement there were 300 missionary applications sent in each week, now there has been about 4,000 a week since that announcement. Crazy awesome. A marvelous work is coming forth all right! That's cool to hear that people are starting up on their papers earlier now. Missionaries are going to be all over the place in much larger numbers!
This week I went on my first exchange and I was really nervous for it because I was the one who stayed in our area so I was large and in charge. The missionary that was with me is Elder Cloward and he has only been in the field one month longer than myself so it was the two newest missionaries in our district in the area of the least experienced missionary in the district... We didn't really have any set appointments or anything during that time so I really had no idea what we were going to do and Elder Jacobs didn't really help me out too much with ideas or in the planning department. We tried visiting a lot of potential investigators that we had been trying to teach because we are running out of people that are willing to meet with us. So we went over to this girl's apartment near where we live named Hannah. She had been taught once before and said that she didn't want to meet with the missionaries again. Elder Cloward and I went over there and we asked if there was a time we could meet with her and she told us Wednesday so we finally have an appointment with her which doesn't seem like a huge deal but it was pretty awesome. Then we went over to another potential investigator family that we had tried to get appointments with many times and they finally allowed us to set up a time with them on Friday and that was way legit also. At about 8:30 at night, we had run out of people to visit and we had nothing planned so then I brought up the hated "T" word. Tracting. Nobody likes tracting because it means your members aren't helping you enough! Anyway, we knew that that was all that we could do so we knelt down and asked the Lord to guide us to where we needed to be and we went on our way. We walked out of our apartment complex and Elder Cloward said we needed to go straight so we did. Then we came to an intersection and he said we needed to go straight again so we did, and then we went straight again. Elder Cloward saw a house with a red truck in the driveway and he said that was the house we needed to go so we went up and knocked away and we met a girl named Anna! She is catholic and has a couple of Mormon friends in her jiujitsu (don't know if that's how it's spelled) class. She said our religion is interesting to her but she isn't sure if it's for her because she is catholic and then the spirit told us to tell her that we don't want to take away from her beliefs, but that we feel we can add to her beliefs. We bore testimony that our message can bless her life and she told us to come back on Wednesday. It is so awesome when the spirit guides you to the place that you need to be. I know that is what happened and it happened for when we found Roxy and T.J. also!
The next day we met with a less-active guy named Michael who grew up in the church and has a very strong LDS family that lives in another ward. He has an 18 month old daughter and lives in some very humble circumstances. He's about 21 or 22 years old. About the time that he was planning on going on a mission he had a cousin come to town that was a bad influence and got him doing all sorts of drugs and stuff that he knew he shouldn't do. He really loves his daughter and feels horrible about the decisions he made. He wants his daughter to grow up in the church and be one of those young women who live happily and marry in the temple instead of one of the women running around his neighborhood getting themselves into all sorts of trouble. He said his greatest desire is to go back to church and to get his life back in order so he can provide his daughter with the life that he had as a kid. We told him that he can make all of this happen through the Savior because the Savior knows him and what he has been going through and what his wants and needs are. Michael knows that is true and he said he would come to church but he didn't have a white shirt so we gave him one. He is a really awesome guy and we were really excited to have him at church yesterday. Sadly, he didn't make it because he got in an argument with his girlfriend about their daughter. That was pretty disappointing but I know he will get to church soon!
I know that the Savior is real and he loves each and everyone us individually. He didn't just die for us. He suffered for us. Pretty much every horrible feeling you can ever feel he felt for each of us. That is why through Him and only Him we can change our nature and be forgiven of our sins. We can be made whole through Him. The Atonement can help Michael (and everyone) get their lives in order! That's all I've got for the week!
Peace and Love!
Elder Black