Dear Familia,

The Church is getting cooler. So Elder Perry came awhile ago and decided to make some policy changes on missionary work in this mission and put the responsibility moreso in the hands of the members. I was in Riverview at the time and the members were already struggling filling basic callings, so we didn't apply it there. But the work in this ward has been down for the last 6 months and we don't have much to do and there's a huge work force and really solid people have callings ike, “Beehive secretary” and “Activities co-coordinator”. So we should be clicking along like no one's business. But coordination meeting's been so-so and the ward mission plan is complicated and we don't have the complete list of less actives were supposed to visit and most people don't seem to care about those names anyway. They don't even have visiting teachers seeing them, yet they're sending us to replace member fellowship instead of enhancing it and preparing them to return to church. So anyway...lots of changes that need to be made and we have a brief meeting with Bishop tonight and my companion has done a lot of work making a presentation on reintroducing what Elder Perry taught, so it's going to be great.

The general idea is that the leaders of the auxiliaries (Relief Society, Elders Quorum, Youth, etc), will each choose five families that are sort of coming to church or ready to come back or have some open nonmember relatives. And then they, along with the ward missionaries will go see them and then we'll have lessons with each family in the homes of the auxiliary leaders. And the best part is that the ward mission leader will schedule, fill out the reports in the Area Book and report to the Bishop on those lessons for us. So we literally, just teach. So that way the
members always know what's happening and decide themselves how the missionary work is going to go. It's so neat. I really feel like this is the baby step to when there won't be a need for missionaries in the US stakes. I think that's the eventual goal.

Funny story. We were real nice last week and gave the elders our car and let them use our miles on a frosty Friday. We got teamups most of the day, but in the evening we rode their bikes to go check in on their investigator Kathy. We had a good lesson with her and had forgotten that we had left the bikes locked in a well lit place on a lamp post, because the elders were going to swing by and get them in a couple minutes. The elders called and said they'd get them in the morning. We leave the lesson and the there's the lampost...where's the bikes? The Assistants
live in the some complex as the investigator. We asked if the elders in our ward had come for their bikes and they said they hadn't seen them! Argh! So we lost two pretty nice mtn bikes. Sister Fife calls our elders crying and Elder Gallegos says, “Well, I guess some one else needed them more. It's okay sisters.” The next morning we drag the two bikes and helmets from main house shed up the stairs into our apartment and I start guesstimating repairs on the nicer one, but I felt bad replacing Elder Whiting's specialized with a Huffy. So I call the Assistants that
afternoon and ask for permission to look on Craigslist.com. Elder Gallacher says, “Oh, the elders bike weren't stolen, Elder Seethaller put them in our apartment. He's tall. He just lifted them over the lamp post. I thought he told you.” Oh man...if you hear about the homicide of a freakishly tall assistant to the President, eat this email.

So that investigator was baptized Saturday and we had a big part in that. Kathy Swain is in her 60s and has survived everything to be survived. She is an amazing woman at just 5 ft in height. She put off cancer surgery to be baptized this weekend. Just an amazing person. It's been a privilege to meet her.

Times out.
Love you!
Hna Deb