heyo!

Hows it going fam?

I hope everything is going well for you all! It sounds like things are going pretty well so I'm happy about that, its always good to hear that you are doing well.  

Lindy sounds like she is having a good time there in Europe galavanting around =) Way to take the Essig's advice, I hope it is helping haha.  Just a few more weeks, can you handle it? 

Cutler, it sounds like it is getting pretty hot there, that or you just sweat a lot=) who knows. Its not too bad up here, some days its pretty warm but its alright. It really is beautiful around here though. But you sure sound excited about the family reunion! You are really lucky that you get to bet there, I am actually jealous! I think it would be awesome to see everyone. And you are going to have some fun activities to do and so it should be a good time. You just have to change your attitude a little bit and you might just enjoy it. Be careful ;) you wouldn't want to have a good time around the family, would you? 

Hey Mom! Great job with Steve, I'm proud of you! keep up the good work! And get crakin on those missionaries, make them go out and see him so that they actually do it, some missionaries are EXTREMELY LAZY and it kills me so just follow up with them to see if they have actually done anything. 

Dad, I'm excited for you! It sounds like you are busy! And it sounds like Z is gettin there, gettin better every week! Thats great. Just look at all the progress and all the blessings that you have had in the last few years, I think its quite amazing (granted it has taken LOTS of hard work but the blessings are undeniable). Anyway, keep up the hard work, it'll come=)

This week was a good one. We started off better than we had any of the other weeks which was good but then it kind of got slow which kills me. I like it when we are really busy. But we have a couple of good people to teach which we are excited about. 

One of those people is Fanny. She is a spanish speaker and last week we taught her with a member that we ate with and it was a really good lesson. She left for girls camp last week and we heard from a couple of the leaders that she had a really great time there so we were really excited about that. They told us that she bore her testimony at the end of the camp so that is really great news. She has a baptismal date for the 3rd of August which we are still shooting for but it was strange because she didin't come to church on Sunday and we dont know why...we'll see this week though.

Yesterday we had a really great lesson with the guy we are teaching out in the mountains and we are so excited for them! He is the guy that raised the bear up there.. But we taught him with Spencer's member friend from Three Forks and we taught the Restoration. So it was a great lesson and we got to the end and he said that he believed everything that we had told him.  He proceeded to tell us an experience that he had during the week when he was talking to a young man who came into his work that was an evangelical christian and he said that he was very very close minded. The point was brought up about having other scripture out there that is from God and the kid was 100% against it but then Mike (our investigator) started saying that he believed that the Lord could bring forth other scripture and truth. He spoke about the Book of Mormon and actually defended it which was amazing! He defended the LDS church and he isn't even Mormon! It was incredible, and I definitely see him and his son being baptized sometime here in the near future though I don't think it will be while I am here. It will probably be a couple of weeks after I leave but we are excited for them. 

Another strange thing happened. We were in the back of the chapel greeting people as they came into church for Sacrament Meeting and all of a sudden in walks a kid that was in my ward at BYU my freshman year! It was crazy! He is from Pennsylvania and he is out here for a family reunion visiting our bishop who is his cousin. Crazy right? So we sat together and got talking for a little bit and he told me that he didn't have any place to room yet so I told him that I if there was room with us in our place that he could room with us! I think it would be sweet! We didn't hang out too much before the mission but he is a great guy and lots of fun so hopefully it will work out. 

So I have been thinking about getting a bunch of rock climbing gear up here because I really wanted to get into it in the fall because it isso fun!  But the sweet thing is that there is a member that works at REI and she will get the workers discount for me up here and then on top of that there is no sales tax up here! So its going to be like 30% off or something like that so I figure that is well worth it.

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful time with the family down there in SD! It should be a great time! Tell everyone that I said hi and I'm sorry that I couldn't be there but that i'll see most of them here pretty soon! 

Love you! 

jar