July 14, 2009

Hey family,
Yes, president Bassett called me with the update. I'm glad to hear that dad is doing well. Hopefully he'll be home soon. :-)
[drum roll]
Yes, it's time for more exciting transfer news!
I know what you're thinking, the Central Ward area must have been split again! That would have been amazing, but no, it wasn't. Actually, transfer news is even crazier than that.
Elder Turner and I were sure that he was leaving-- he's been in the area for a long time. But we were wrong. In fact, I'm not emailing you from the Phoenix library today. I'm actually emailing you from a library in Apache Junction right now. Yes, I got transfered to AJ! Crazy, huh?
I told Elder Christensen when I went to Phoenix that I would go to AJ next-- it's the next logical place in the valley after Scottsdale, Mesa, Phoenix. Yup, I called it.
Oh, and I am once again Junior companion, which is nice. I've been hoping to go Jr. again since I went Sr. in Mesa, lol. The problem is that I am Jr. companion to a Zone Leader. Thus, I am now a Zone Leader! :-) I turned a bit pale when President Bassett called me to tell me. But I'm happy to give it a try. Hopefully I don't let him down. So I am a Zone Leader in the Superstition Zone (spelling?).
My new companion is Elder Gomez. He's a pretty awesome guy, and I'm excited to work with him. Elder Coffman was here before me, BTW. Just thought you'd like to know that side note.
Oh, and my first born in the wilderness, my greenie Elder Christensen is also now a Zone Leader up in Pasen (spelling?). That was really great to hear. Both of us becoming ZL's at the same time. He's only been out six months and he's a Zone Leader already! He's such a good missionary. I'm glad I didn't ruin him, lol. :-D
Last week Elder Turner and I found a new investigater. She was really great-- she reminded me a lot of Ceanna, my first baptism. We taught her the first lesson, and she was really excited, so we set a a church tour to show her around the church. Then we taught lesson two, then three and set a date for August 2nd. All in one week! It was really amazing. She was yet another GREAT referral from the spanish speaking missionaries. They give us some really great people to teach.
James is doing well. He's down to five cigerettes. So far, so good. He's still slowly working his way towards getting baptized.
Hopefull I'll be able to make it to all the baptisms that will be coming up this next month in my old area, but it's a pretty far drive, so I may not get to. Either way, I'm glad I could help get the area moving.
While I was there, more people were baptized into the ward than the entire previous year. Not because of me, of course, but because the members were helping out a lot, and Heavenly Father was helping us find some really amazing people. I'm so glad I could help. I know the ward will keep moving forward, and work will increase even more. Everything was going great, so I'm sad that I had to leave the area, but I am excited to be in this area. I hear that there is a lot of work going on here, so I can't wait to get started!
hope all goes well this next week.
Love you, and hope to catch you next week. :-)
Tell everyone hi for me.
Jason