Arriving Home

Thomas returned home on April 19th. He started school at BYU-I the next day. He had his report on May 15th. He's doing great and we're so happy to have him home safely.

March 23, 2011

hey everyone. how are you all doing!? i am doing really well. I guess i will tell you all about my week really quick. Things are going really well in our area. our zone isnt doing as hot but it will comeback strong in this last week of the month. this week was a pretty good turnout at church. we didnt find as many people as we would have hoped for last week but the people we found were golden! almost all of the new investigators that we found went to church. unfortunately, they arent married so we are hoping to be able to get the married as quick as possible so that it can happen this transfer. we are going to have to have some good lessons the next couple days.

we also had a baptism this week. i told you all about carol last week. she went to church by herself after about a month since we taught her. she was baptized. it was really good. the baptismal meeting was terrible though. i was so surprised that the investigators said they liked the baptism in the following lessons we taught them. there were not many leaders at the baptism and it was really irreverent. but carol was baptized and she was very happy. her whole family went to church and they enjoyed it as well. the family (edivaldo, adriana and lurdes) are possible baptisms for this week. i hope everything works out though. they are a great family. all the members were happy to have a complete family visiting church. so i hope everything goes well this week and that they are baptized this sunday!

those were the highlights of the week. things are going well. elder north and i are getting along great. things are going good! love you guys!

love,

elder long

February 23, 2011

Thomas with two sweet birds
viviane
jairo
jessica
bowling
luana and joão, baptized by jhonaton and jeferson

hey everyone! how are you all doing?! i hope everything is as great for you guys as it is for me! we had so many miracles this week! This place is the best! everything is going great. so this last sunday was the end of daylight savings, so we got a needed extra hour of sleep. so i think we have a four hour difference now. i guess i will tell you about my week though.

so this week we sure were blessed with elect people! jessica was baptized. she just got here from sao paulo. her whole family are members. she is the only one that wasnt. she went to the congregation which is a really closed church that has a rule to not accept to hear our message. she actually ran away from us when we marked a family night in her house a couple weeks ago. but she has had a very big change. she felt that god didnt love her. and she doesnt have that great of a relationship with her family. the lessons in her house are always difficult with little kids screaming and a dad that always starts talking about things that have nothing to do with the church in the middle of the lesson. but there sure were times when i could feel the spirit talking through us and i could tell she felt it. then she prayed and felt so good about it and she got baptized this last saturday. it was really difficult to get her to accept any kind of message. we taught her for about 15 minutes trying to get her to accept god's invite to go to church. suddenly she said she would do it just cuz we insisted so much. she loved it at church. she finally started reading the book of mormon after a few lessons just about the book of mormon. she was pretty elect. except she still doesnt have that many friends at the church. we need to help with thtat becuase she is a little to attatched to the elders. she is very smart though. she bore her testimony on the day of her baptism and even used the words "i testify that this church is true!" it was the best!

jairo is a members boyfriend. we have taught him for a while but he never has been able to go to church because of his work. he was finally able to though. and he was baptized on saturday too. even with lack of contact with him, he was baptized. he knew that he needed to be baptized and didnt have any doubt the whole time.

viviane may be the most elect person i have ever seen. we are teaching her whole family. she has 3 sons that are all over 17. they all have some difficulties. it is very hard to be able to teach them but when we finally were able to teach the first lesson, they already had lots of friends at the church and they were feeling very good. before i even invited her to be baptized she asked us about the baptism and if she needs to be baptized to enter our church. her family hasnt progressed quite as fast as her because of the word of wisdom and other things. we thought about waiting one more week to try and baptize the whole family together. but when she found out that before the baptism, there is an interview to see if a person is ready to be baptized, she really wanted to be interviewed. then she said, " if he says i am ready, i will be baptized!" she bore her testimony at family nights before being a member. at church, she told everyone that through the baptism she will help the rest of her family become members and live together forever. she was baptized sunday night. her husband will be baptized this week and maybe a couple of the sons. not to mention that her niece really wants to be part of the church. also her sister and brother-in-law (who are leaders in the catholic church) are definitely going to go to the church to see if they want to join too. she will open the doors to many other baptisms. she is a great person. i just wish i could teach her some more. elder castiglioni always teaches her becuase he doesnt know his way around on the other side of the area. so in splits he stays here close to the church and teaches them. they are great people though. we are really being blessed right now!

this week we are going to have a few baptisms. on monday, we had family night with a member family. the grandpa,eloaldo, isnt a member but said he wants "to follow this church until the end." we also are going to have a wedding. Isaias is going to get married so he can be baptized. he reminds me a lot of lonnie for some reason. he is really funny. he has been asking if he can jump in the baptismal font at all our baptisms for the last 2-3 months. he is a great guy! i am very happy for him. we also have donizete(viviane's husband) that is progressing very well. we are being so blessed. we have 3 or 4 other possibilities too! I LOVE BLESSINGS! we might even baptize the bishop's mom this week! i will keep you informed though!

well i love you guys and hope everything is doing great! have a great week!

love,

elder long!

January 19, 2011

thats my companion elder rowley


i found a picture of elder hansen. it is a really good one too haha

hey everyone. it sounds like everything is going good back home besides olivia getting a concussion. everything is going well here too. this week was quite a dissapointment though. we worked way hard and nobody went to church. i dont even remember another time that me and my companion didnt have a single investigator at church. that will never happen again. that was terrible. we worked really hard during the week to find some good people to teach. we dont have the best teaching pool ever right now. but that will move. we will work on that tomorrow alot. we havent been able to work in our area as much as i would have liked. i am pretty sure i will stay in JD Amanda the rest of my mission now. and i will live with elder hansen my whole mission too. so that will be really fun. elder rowley was a great comp. to bad it was only for 5 weeks. he will be transfered to another area in our zone. . i dont know who my companion will be though. elder rowley will be my companion until the end of the transfer.

we have found some good investigators to teach in the last couple days. there was a man named renato that just pulled up and stopped. he said hey. so we went to talk to him. we didnt know him and he had never talked to the missionaries. we did a normal contact with him and he asked us to go to his house right then. we went and he accepted baptism and everything. he is very elect! there was also a lady and her daughter that stopped us the other day and asked us to visit them. there are about 20 people that live in their house!!!!!! that will be great. we will visit them tonight.

so it has been raining a ton the last few weeks. i have two good pairs of shoes, so it is not a problem at all. there has been lots of floods in brazil but that doesnt ever happen here, luckily. everything is going well though. i am really skinny though but that is fine.

thanks for everything though. you guys are the best even though you all seem pretty trunky haha. love you guys!

love,

elder long

December 15, 2010

this is the great botucatu zone!!! yeah!!
Well hey everyone! how you all doing? i am hope you are all doing great! I guess my package has gotten here. i dont know why dad decided to send me another one but thanks! i will get it next week. well i guess i will tell you about my week now.
So this week went pretty well. our zone is pretty great. i love everyone here. we have a small zone with just 6 areas, 2 of which are sisters. so we have four sisters in our zone. that is a large number of sisters for any zone. it usually isnt a problem but they have got plenty of mood swings. they are great sisters though. we had another zone activity last week. so this is the first pday i atutally can talk to you guys and maybe i will be able to take a nap. last week we just hung out at the church talking and playing games like uno. the brazillian rules are pretty fun. we also played a little bit of soccer. our zone has worked so hard this transfer. we were supposed to have at least 9 baptisms this last week and every single one fell through. our baptism didnt happen because of the word of wisdom problems. but this week we should be able to get her baptized! the great downfall of our zone is sacrament meeting. we cant get lost of people to sacrament meeting unfortunately! we need to figure out how to help the missionaries to get people to church. then we would baptize tons. i guess i cant complain though. we have had a couple mission meetings the last couple weeks and the leaders seem to like talking about our zone. so i guess i dont have anything to really complain about in our zone. we just need to finalize our baptisms. on saturday we were able to pull off a sweet exchange with the members and missionaries so that i could go to jau to do interviews without needing to close any areas of the zone for the day. we were able to pull that off. unfortunately the baptism didnt happen because there were some difficulties with some members. sunday was great though. there was a family of three that went to church that we have never talked too. but they will be baptized very soon! we also were needing one more lesson with member to reach our goal and we had a miracle. some teenage girl called out "mormons." we usually wouldnt stop to talk to a girl though but this time we felt we should. we returned and there was a huge family in front of the house. they were just messing with us but then her dad got home and he asked us to leave a blessing in their house. he is a member that hasnt gone to church for a long time. his kids havent been baptized yet. i believe we will be able to help that whole family go back to church. we have had some pretty good experiences though. this week started out slow because of trips to campinas. but it will turn out great still!
thanks for everything you guys do for me! you are the best. i hope you all have a great christmas! speaking of christmas...that will be the next time i talk to you. our pday was moved to the 25th. next week we will have transfers and on wednesday we will have our mission christmas conference. i will write you an email on thursday next week to tell you what time you need to call and which number. it will probably be in the morning though. i cant believe i am talking about the christmas call already! time flies to quick!
love you guys a lot!
love,
elder long

December 8, 2010

hey everyone! i will have to tell you about my week really quick today. it was a great day and our zone is going great! i love this zone so much. just about everyone had baptisms this week and the area that didnt will have three baptisms this week! i am really happy with the work that they are doing. everyone is so happy to work and the union in the zone is great! in my area, everything is going well. we are working pretty hard and we are having success. we havent had enough time lately to find new investigators so we have only been getting investigators that arent really progressing that quickly. tomorrow is going to have to be a great day because we have gotten a really slow start this week. we had a meeting in campinas on monday. it was a great meeting. all the leaders said we need to be like the botucatu zone. man our missionaries rock! we had 9 baptisms in our zone with 6 areas and we met about all our other goals too! it was pretty great! this week we have even more baptisms too. it is nice we people think you are a good leader just cuz the missionaries in your zone are so good. we just got to get better at taking people to church. our zone has had a hard time with that!

this last week we had a baptism. we baptized patricia. she is celia's daughter. celia and mayara were baptized about a month ago. of all my baptisms, patricia has probably had the biggest change in her life. she has done a lot of bad stuff in her life and is overcoming a lot of stuff right now. it was nice to help her to enter the church as well. it was also nice to be able to help out the whole family. she wanted me to baptize her. when she was baptized she threw her self back and i hadnt even have time to get my arm under her ha. everyone was giving her a hard time that she had a lot of sins to be washed away so she had to stay under longer. but everything worked out. i have almost killed two baptisms in a row. i am the worst in the whole world.

i got to catch the bus though like right now. i will be back on in about 40 minutes probably. so i will try to talk to you more afterwards. love you guys!

love,

elder long

November 3, 2010

hey family! how are you guys doing today? sounds like you had a good
halloween everyone. time is flying so quick huh? sounds like dad
finally took a halloween off and didnt take annie trick or treatin.
this week was a pretty good week. today i am in são manuel and we had
a churrasco (brazillian bbq). it was really good. we are hurrying so
we can get showed up at soccer. i am pretty excited about it. but this
last week passed by really quick. it was a great week. we had two
baptisms. celia and her daughter mayara were baptized. they were
various times in the last ten years but now it was just their time.
the ward is pretty excited about the recent baptisms. they are
actually visiting them and helping them to feel welcome. they are a
great family that is passing through some difficulties. celia's other
daughter gives her some problems. mayara is elect as well. she has
lots of friends at church already.
sunday was amazing! we had the two baptisms and then we were able to
find a whole bunch of new people that will progress very well i
believe! i am pretty happy. we are starting to get a new teaching pool
that is better and bigger. so things will continue to move along. we
have other investigators that are progressing well. Rodrigo is the
most promissing of all of them. he is an 18 year old that likes church
a lot. he just is really busy all the time! we are also teaching a
lady named claudinha. she is about 75 years old and talks a A TON! but
she went to church and said she think that our church might be the
place she has been looking for for a long time! everything is going
well. thanks for everything! you guys are the best. love you guys!
love,
elder long

October 27, 2010

hey my family! how are you all doing today. it sounds like you all had a great week with becca and her family even though you werent all feeling the best. i hope you are all feeling better now.

my week went pretty well. it wasnt the best week number wise but it was still great! Maria Jose was baptized on saturday. she was so happy about that. it was some work though. she was elect though. the reason it was tough work was because we went to fill up the baptismal font at 4. it takes forever to fill up, so we went to teach while it filled up. we taught a lesson and then at 7 we went back to turn the water off. it was about two inches deep by that point and the baptism was supposed to start at 7:30!!! we use a hose to fill it up and it takes about three hours. i guess the water had been leaking out a little bit, so we found something to plug the drain and then we had to find a way to help fill it up quicker. for one hour we were taking buckets full of water to the font until it was finally full. there was no stopping either. there was one time when i was the only one there with 3 buckets being filled while elder bavender was preparing the other things for the baptism. i was pretty much running to keep the buckets from overflowing ha. but that was an experience. Maria Jose is a great person. she understood the need of baptism and didnt even complain about cold water or anything. she just went in. It was pretty cold too. but it was a good experience. everytime we get there she has sandwhiches, pop, and ice cream waiting for us! needless to say, we like visiting here. we have to sit in the front of her house because there isnt any man that lives with her but that is no problem at all.

Celia and her family are progressing very well. She was worried that her daughter, mayara, wouldnt like church. she is about 14 years old and doesnt have the greatest of friends right now. celia was hoping and praying that she would make friends at church. Mayara loved church and went to mutual yesterday and she will go to another activity tomorrow and the dance on saturday. Yesterday, we had a spiritual lesson about the plan of salvation. i felt so good talking about the atonement. the spirit was so strong and when i asked her what she needs to do to accept christs sacrifice, celia said "first, i need to be baptized and then keep following this path that God showed to me." I thought that was an alright answer. but they are progressing well and their baptism is marked for this sunday. so keep praying for them. her other daughter, patricia, is always pretty drugged up on medications. she is pretty out of it all the time. she sits there staring at me or into space with the biggest smile on her face. i dont think she even listens. thats what drugs can do to you i guess. today we will teach the word of wisdom. we will see how patricia accepts that though and if we can help her. the others dont have any problems though.

we have other investigators but it was hard to teach them this last week because of meetings. we had a meeting in Campinas on monday. it was a great meeting and i learned a lot about agency. is there a talk somewhere that talks about agency and how it isnt free? that is something i remember ever since i was little but everyone says "free" agency. it was a great meeting except for when the assistant tried to argue with me becuase we said we needed money to catch the bus when president asked who needed money. its not like i am using my money on stupid stuff but if they dont give us money, we would have R$10 for two weeks. but he doesnt know because he hasnt ever been to botucatu so it isnt his fault. we were able to get money though and everything is good. our district meeting went well too. it is so nice that i dont have to be the one to teach everything at the district meetings now! yeah!! president said that the district leaders need to do everything now since it is a DISTRICT meeting.

but that was pretty much my week. it was a pretty good one where i learned a lot! i love you guys! you are the best!

love,

Elder Long

p.s. to answer your questions dad, yes we do clap hands when we arrive at someones house. i think that is pretty cool. i can clap super loud now haha. and then the people usually come out and talk to us or if it is a door that makes it so that cant see who it is they will ask who is there. there are also quite a few houses that have doorbells and intercoms. those are usually richer people though. oh and a street contact here is starting up a short message with someone with the intent to mark their address. it doesnt count to just say "go to church sunday" like lots of missionaries do here ha. but we still consider it a contact even if we werent able to mark their address. oh and it is to bad about that other mike long. i have heard that there is another mike long when i used to go to the dentist and other places. but i am glad that it wasnt you that passed away in the car wreck.

p.p.s mom, you asked me about my christmas package. i dont think i need a new backpack. i will just sew that one part shut. i dont even use that pocket. and then you can just buy me a sweet Dakine backpack when i get back ha! deal? oh and by the way, i have another little backpack from the mission. and about the other stuff...i dont really want that much. i really do want you to just put the money towards a laptop or something, but i would like a journal, silly putty for the kids here(i think you already sent that),and those things that the sisters asked for, and for candy...i like fast breaks a lot!!! and 3 muskateers, blow pops, licorice, and i think that is good! thanks a lot! Maybe you could send a scotty's burger too haha and some of dads french fries and a jamba.

September 29, 2010

Mustache night :)

the botucatu waterfalls


hey my family!! how are you guys doing!? its sounds like everything is

going great back in idaho. everything is going well here as well! i
will jump right into details:
as you know, transfers were this week and i was... not transfered!
yeah! but i did get a new companion. His name is Elder Bavender. he is
from colorado. his mom said that the men from his ward went to the
same baseball game that dad went to. thats a coincidence. i am really
excited to work with him!! i am not excited to try to explain him like
you always ask when i get a new companion. you know i am not good at
that. but he is a great missionary and i will learn tons with him. he
is humble. i am training him as a zone leader. i dont know how much
training i will have to do though. he will probably teach me just as
much as i can teach him though. he got here one transfer before me. so
i still havent had a companion that arrived in the mission after me.
that is pretty wierd! but it isnt a problem.
i am definitely going to be tested this transfer. we are blessed to
have some of the mission's most difficult missionaries in our zone!
there was even one elder that untucked his shirt as we got off the bus
and left it out just becuase i told him to tuck it back in. he is
going to try and test my patience! we will see how things go! we didnt
baptize anyone this week once again :( but that will change now! the
zone is going to change tons now! elder nothum is training now and his
"son" is going to be a great missionary i can already tell! we went to
campinas yesterday. i have never really been used to long trips until
i got here. i was on the bus for over 8 hours yesterday. i woke up at
4 too. at least i dont have to drive though so i can sleep on the way.
but it is normal to ride the bus for a long time now! the mission is
moving a little slow right now and needs to move. there are a lot of
missionaries that will leave the mission at the end of the transfer
that, unfortunately, dont really trust in what president tanner is
doing. that will move things a lot i think! but that is pretty much
all that is going on here in botucatu.
sounds like you all had a good week. way to go in the powederpuff game
olivia. and it sounds like you had a good time at the dance. i got to
run home right now though so i will probably gt back on in like. love
you guys!
love,
elder long

September 22, 2010

hey so i dont have that much time today...once again ha. this week we
are going to the botucatu waterfalls!! i am pretty excited! but sounds
like you guys are doing great. missy and becca are probably dying of
heat right now. but at least you are going into winter now. it is
starting to get really hot here!!!! haha i dont know if i am ready for
the rainy season here but whatever "só vai!" but i guess i will tell
you about my week
i will start by telling you about last pday. we played basketball in a
sweet gym. well its not really a gym because it isnt a wood floor but
there is stadium seating and it had the first glass backboard i have
seen since i left for the mission!! i was so happy as i walked in!! it
was really nice to play. there were some other pretty good players
too. elder nothum plays well and so does elder fa, a tongan from mesa,
arizona. it was a great zone activity.
we werent able to teach leticia this week. we marked with her but she
called to tell us that she couldnt. sima and daniel were in são paulo
so we couldnt teach leticia at their house. so that was a bummer! we
found some other investigators but our week was a little weak. this
weekend i spent the whole time in Jaú. i was with elder fa on saturday
and sunday. i was there to interview people. there is a companionship
of sisters and one of elders in jaú. i interviewed a lady that the
sisters were teaching. the sisters said that it would be a really hard
interview but it was like the easiest one of my life haha. i just
asked the questions and she said she was real excited for the baptism!
thats how it is with the sisters here. the person is really ready for
the baptism or they dont even want to be baptized and havent even read
the book of mormon and dont know that their baptism will be the next
day! they never tell about the investigator's situation either so that
makes things a little harder but this one was great! then i
interviewed the elders' investigator! that was a hard interview! she
is that type of lady that like shakes her head as she talks and cant
do anything that anyone says. so when the missionaries ask how she
feels when she reads the book of mormon, she says, why do i have to
tell you about my feelings and she does everything to avoid answering
the question. that was frustrating for me during the interview.
on sunday, i taught the class in jaú. (i stayed there for the meeting
too). i didnt know that until about 20 minutes before the class. then
afterwards, we started filling up the baptismal font for the sisters
baptism about 5 minutes before sacrament meeting. the branch president
came up and asked me to give a talk hahaa. i gave a little chuckle and
said alright. i think he might think i was laughing like "i cant
believe he is asking me right now" but i was really laughing because i
elder nothum had to talk in botucatu in my place. i thought i was out
of giving a talk but i still gave one ha. luckily i was already
preparing one earlier in the week ha. then we had lunch, the sisters'
baptism, and the afternoon session of church(the other branch). then i
did 65 street contacts in about 2 hours!!! it was so crazy!! but we
made our goal on street contacts for the week!!
on monday i got so frustrated during a lesson. the lady was talking
bad about the church and saying that there is no way that can happen.
she wouldnt listen but i was able to bare my testimony to her. i felt
like i bore a pretty strong testimony. she promised to read, pray and
go to church this week and for conference! that was pretty strange
since she didnt want to accept anything the rest of the time!
yesterday we had a district meeting and we taught about receiving
revelation through the book of mormon. that was a great meeting!
everyone had great comment and the practices were awesome!! our zone
didnt baptize very much this month but all the other numbers have been
great!!! it has been a great transfer and i cant believe it is already
over!!! this next monday we will have transfers again. i think i will
stay here but i think i will get a new comp. so i guess i will let you
guys know next week!
love you guys! you are the best! oh and missy and becca dont be sad
that you are away from home. you can talk everyday! just keep yourself
busy and remember that it will be even better when you can live close
by again!
love you all,
elder long

September 8, 2010

here are some pics from the week. haha we got left in the mission

office alone so we had to take a pic with presidents big board of

transfers! joice is the the girl that was baptized. and those are my

new scripture cases. she also sent a tie that is pretty cool looking.

i like it. oh and that is the only pic i have of elder ficklin haha

hey guys!!!! how are you all doing this fine day?! everything is going
great here. it sounds like you all had fun in reno this last week. i
am glad that you liked it! i hope olivia and annie have started to
like school a little better now...i still am happy that i am not
starting school now haha. but live it up! the elementary and high
school days are awesome haha. but i guess i will let you know about my
week.
well first off, we were blessed with another baptism. i will send you
a picture. joice was baptized. she is ariani's friend. it was a good
experience. now we need to help her boyfriend. her boyfriend has
already been to church a lot. he is friends with our ward mission
leader. but he is to much into the things of the world, which makes me
a little worried about joice!! but hopefully we can help him out too.
this week we will probably have just one baptism. we could have 4
though. there is a girl named tainá that has been investigating the
church for about 3 years. she really likes the church and wants to be
baptized. she hasnt been baptized because of the slacker missionaries
that started teaching her 3 years ago. they went with her cousin(that
is also a teenage girl that was also investigating the church) to
teach tainá. tainá was the only one home. so the missionaries went in
anyways with the two young girls. her dad got home and walked in as
they were teaching. he didnt like that they were in there alone with
her, which is totally understandable. but now he doesnt allow the
missionaries to teach her (which is also understandable). so this
baptism is up to the branch president. but on sunday, tainá bore
testimony at church. investigators dont usually do that. she said that
she will bring her whole family to the church. and all her brothers
and the sisters want to be baptized too. that leaves just her parents.
so we will see how it all goes! but i will let you know next week
then!!!
this week we had our meeting in campinas. that means a few days of
waking up at 4:30 to catch the bus and a lot of money!!!! it was
pretty difficult!!! but the meeting was really good. it got a lot
better since the last zone leader meeting we had where we just talked
about things that we can resolve ourselves like teaching with members
and these things and getting people to do their street contacts. (oh
speaking of contacts; our small zone of 12 missionaries did 1025
street contacts this week. i think that is like a record in this zone.
we also had the best week of any of the zones with baptisms!!
yeah!!!!). we learned quite a bit though. the rules changed. i am
pretty excited about that. all the rules that we used to have that
werent in the missionary handbook were taking out. it is a good chance
for me to make my own restrictions. he just said that we have to ask
ourselves some questions to know if we should do something. we should
ask ourselves if it will harm us spiritualy, if it will give christ
and his church a bad name/reputation, andif we will end up getting
ourselves hurt. all the missionaries are excited about drinking coke
haha. i dont even like coke. probably because it is used as medicine
in our family haha. but i ended up staying in campinas for the night.
i stayed at elder guilherme's house. i have only talked to him two
times but i really like talking to him. the two times, we stayed up
really late talking about how we can get better as missionaries.
luckily, i had a 4 hour bus ride to catch up on my sleep after getting
up at 4:30 again ha.
yesterday, we taught the second of the new lessons to the
missionaries. it is about the role of the holy ghost in the
conversion. we didnt have as much time to prepare and it went pretty
well except that it started really late so we couldnt really work in
our area yesterday cuz we got home so late.
i went on another exchange with elder nothum. he is a great
missionary. there has only been one transfer in his mission where i
wasnt in his zone. he is a great friend, probably my best friend from
the mission so far. we have learned lots together. but our day
together was completely terrible becuase we got here so late and
werent able to teach. but i learned a lot. we just talked about things
we need to accomplish in the mission and things we have learned and
how we are so much different now. he told me he has learned lots from
me. i have never felt like the best zone leader but at least i have
helped someone huh? that mad me happy.
but that was pretty much my week. it was a good one! this week will be
good too. thanks for everything. love you all
love,
elder long

ps mom wanted to hear more about my comp. his name is elder ficklin
and he is a great missionary. he is from north ogden. it is really
easy to work with him. we are learning a lot together. we get along
great. haha i know, i know, my descriptions are great haha. i am
better with the answering question type thing haha. so if you want to
ask questions about him, i could probably answer hah. tchau!