Trio

February 29, 2016

Hi everyone!

This will probably be a shorter letter. This was a pretty good week. Lots of stuff happened, but I guess there's not a lot to write about. For one, we're a trio now. Elder Ludwig's companion had to go home, so now Elder Ludwig is with us and we're covering his area and ours. So that happened. For some reason I seem to get stuck covering two stakes a lot. So now I'm covering the Snow Canyon Stake and the Red Cliffs Stake. We've nicknamed our area "Snow Cliffs". Our trio is doing pretty well. Elder Burt and I are getting along really well. Elder Ludwig I think has had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to the trio, but he's been doing better recently.

The work is a little bit slow right now. Basically, there's just about one ward that has work for us. We're working on changing that, but we're in a bit of a dry spell. I think we'll start to see progress in

most of our wards. Except in one of them, the new ward mission leader is a little bit of a fruitcake and he got into a big argument with Elder Burt. The whole situation is dumb, and the guy was trying to

argue some really ridiculous garbage. Basically he just acts like the missionaries are out to get him. I think the situation will improve. It's just a little frustrating right now.

But on a more positive note, we had a baptism! It was my first baptism in the Snow Canyon Stake. It's a guy named Ivan. He's pretty cool. His family has been being taught for a few months now. His wife and daughter were baptized a few weeks ago, and recently he decided that he wanted to get baptized too. Elder Burt had been reteaching him the missionary lessons about a week before I got there. So I've been teaching him about two weeks, a few times each week. Anyway, he's awesome, he has a great family and some really great neighbors who have been helping him towards his baptism. That's definitely been the highlight of the week.

I got to meet our Stake Presidency. They're awesome. The Stake President, President Bowden, is pretty great, and super missionary minded, and really helpful. And his 1st Councilor, President Loo, is just one of the coolest guys. He's a super cool, super friendly Hawaiian guy who is really fun, missionary minded, and really enthusiastic. And he's one of those people who just makes you feel

good after talking to him. We actually had dinner with him, which was super fun.

Well, that's about it. Again, a lot of stuff happened, but not a lot that I can write about without it sounding redundant or not making much sense. Maybe I'll have more to report next week. Yeah, I know I said that last week. I'll send some pictures though. Anyway, I miss

you guys! Have a good one!

-Elder Oswald

Pictures 1&2: Ivan's baptism; from left to right: Elder Ludwig, myself, Ivan, Elder Burt. The other guy in the second picture is Brother Mangum, Ivan's neighbor who baptized him.

Picture 3: I wasn't able to be at Justin's baptism in Enoch West this weekend, obviously, because I'm in St. George now. But I made sure I, or at least my image, was in the baptism picture. :) I'm so excited for him, and for when the rest of his family gets baptized in a few weeks or so!

Here's another picture from the baptism in Enoch West that I missed. This is Justin and his family (the kids are getting baptized soon too), along with Elder Char, Elder Baker, and Elder Bright, and a

picture of me (with Elder Bright). :)