Moving on

This week was a pretty busy but great week. Last Monday started with Elder Nelson getting his stomach scoped with a camera down his throat to figure out what is wrong with him. No results came back. Bittersweet because it's good he doesn't have an ulcer or something nasty, but now we don't know what to do to treat it...oh well. I guess he'll just have to keep on keeping on. He's pretty good at managing it so it's not too big of a deal. 

Tuesday we went to a mission Christmas party/long meeting. Elder Nelson had a good time catching up with old friends while I just ate good food all alone...no, I got to say hi to some old MTC friends; Elder Buffaloe, Sister Beal, and Sister Valentine. We had a good time and I got the package my parents sent to the mission home. I had such a great Christmas! I got so many fun packages and letters from so many people it made me soooooo happy! Thank you so much!! It's not very easy being away from home for Christmas but things like that just make it so much easier. 

Christmas Day we had a brunch at the Dickson's (who have four HUGE dogs!), where Elder Nelson called his huge family. They got us a lot of little gifts and a NC T-shirt. So nice! We then visited Homer and then the Mooneys. We then visited the Dickinsons and we got to try out the Swagway that Clair got for Christmas, it was not very easy, and very wobbly. 

They offered us raw oysters but we declined because I remember how much my dad hated them on his mission, and I wasn't very hungry anyways. We then spent the rest of the night with the Eskelson's. We had a lot of fun chatting and eating and playing Mexican train dominos. I got to Skype my family which is the best! I got some good gifts for Christmas too. I got some sweaters and I wish I could wear them, but it is so blasted warm down here! Whoever heard of 70 degree temperatures the entire week of Christmas! It's throwing me off. Don't get me wrong, it's been nice, but I am really looking forward to some chillier weather and maybe to actually use the furnace in January. 

Carolina lost yesterday...pretty sad, but I can't believe the Falcons were the ones to break their winning streak. Weird. I can see Drew reading this email and laughing because he loves the Falcons and I would always tell him the Falcons aren't the best. 😅 Miss ya Elder Merrill! 

Well anyway, in other news...we got our car stuck in a ditch twice this week, well let me rephrase that, Elder Nelson got our car stuck in the ditch twice this week. That's what happens when there is a rule that to reverse the passenger has to get out of the car and back the driver up. We try some crazy U-turns. I'll show y'all some pictures. Hey, we got out of both of them though without any car damage! Not bad, not bad at all. I might have gotten a little muddy though from one of them. 

Well, we've had a really good, warm, Christmas week and we are looking forward to the new year. I love y'all! Thanks so much for everything you do for me! Peace out! ☮✌🏻

P.S. Oh, I forgot, The day after Christmas the district set off sky lanterns and then
went caroling to an old folks home. It was pretty fun.

Christmas

It was fun to talk to Elder Huff for Christmas.  We also got to 'meet' his companion.  Logan sounds great and seems very happy.  He is eating well (has gained 15 pounds), and teaching many.  We love him.

Good tidings to you!

Hey y'all! How's everything doing this wonderful Christmas season? Everything is going splendidly here in the thriving metropolis of Concord. This week was really was really fun and this upcoming week is going to be good too, I can just tell. Bike week started this Wednesday, and of course, it conveniently got chilly. Not super cold, but uncomfortably chilly. Elder Nelson was kinda freaking out about how cold it was, the lowest it ever got was the upper twenties, and that was when we were in bed sleeping. The coldest it got when we were out was the low 40's so it wasn't that bad. Elder Nelson is a St. George boy so he's weak when it comes to the cold. But everything's fine, as soon as we get the car back (of course), it's supposed to get back into the seventies for Christmas Eve and Day and for a week so we're excited. 

This week was pretty exciting, we got four 16 year olds on date. I don't know how solid they are but they seem pretty pumped. A month ago we went looking for a former investigator, and the person that answered the door was a kid named Caleb (not the former). We talked to him and he seemed accepting so we set a return appointment, but we were never able to get in contact with him for a while. We decided to just stop by and we met Paul, who also seemed excited for our message and set a return appointment for us. We went to the appointment and Paul and Caleb were there. So was Paul's sister, Alice. We taught all three of them and set another return appointment. When we showed up to that, Paul had decided to bring another friend along, Noah, and we had an amazing lesson with them and then we set baptismal dates with all four of them. I think Paul is the most excited and we really hope at least he will get baptized. It's pretty exciting. 

The Kannapolis Elders had a baptism on Saturday that we were able to attend with two investigators, Tay and Ella. We were super happy that they were there. We've always been able to get in contact and have lessons with Tay, but Ella is a different story. We haven't been able to talk to her in over a month. We brought Tay with Brother Halvorsen, and when we got there, we found Ella there! I guess she and Angie (the one that got baptized) are good friends and Angie picked Ella up. So we were super happy. We also got the whole family (Homer{Recent Convert}, Ella{Homer's wife}, Tay{Ella's son}, and Pie{Ella's granddaughter}) to church! And they really liked it! The
baptism went pretty well. Elder Nelson and I aren't very good witnesses. So when Elder Christensen was baptizing Angie, her foot popped out of the water. The water was so cold that right after Angie came up, she ran up the stairs into the bathroom. Elder Nelson didn't see the foot come out, but I did, but I guess I wasn't fast or loud enough at telling everybody that Angie's foot came out of the water, so we had to get Angie back in the cold water and do it again. But, after, Ella said, "It better not be that cold when I get baptized." Which got us excited. Afterwards we went out with Brother Halvorsen and he took us out to Pizza Hut, which was really good for Tay, because he doesn't get out much because he's wheelchair bound for awhile. We really appreciate the people that do so much for us in this ward, though yesterday at church they made things a little difficult. 

So a couple Saturdays ago, we met this guy named Pryce, who is a really skilled painter. He had just lost everything when his trailer with all of his belongings caught on fire. He didn't have it insured so he was left with only the clothes on his back. He seemed like a super nice, humble guy, so we invited him to church and he said he would love to come. Well, I guess that was a bad idea, because when we picked him up the member who was driving, who is a super nice older guy, told us that guy is crazy and we shouldn't have invited him to church. So the ride to church was super awkward. We then got to church and during the course of the three hours I had five ward members come up to us and say stuff like, "You brought THAT guy!?!" or, "You know that guy's like a time bomb just waiting to go off." So basically all through church I was stressing about if he was going to blow up or something, but he was pretty calm. Oh well. We had a guy sing O Holy Night, but I don't think he did as well as Chris Roper. 😏 

Well, anyways, how about those Panthers? 14-0 now. Pretty exciting. Well, I'm glad to hear that Star Wars didn't disappoint. There is a lot of hype round here about it. I can't wait to see it when I get home. 

Well, as I am writing this we are waiting in the waiting room of a digestive health center. Elder Nelson is going to get a camera down his throat. He's been having some stomach problems and he hasn't been able to eat much lately so we are excited to figure out how to fix it. 

I haven't really played the piano much yet in the field. I played a lot in the MTC, but there are a lot of people in the mission that can, so I haven't really had the need to. I play occasionally in district
meeting, but that's about it. 

I'll be singing tomorrow. We're going to go caroling tomorrow night with some members of the ward and the Concord sisters. Well, I love y'all and hope everything is going well. Talk to ya later!

Say hello to friends you know! And have a cup of cheer!

Hello, hohoho Merry Christmas. Things are getting exciting here in North Carolina. The missionaries are showing a bunch of people the new Christmas videos and we are getting a lot of new investigators because of them. The IPads are so awesome. We did a Christmas/#ASaviorIsBorn stand on Union street in Concord and it is just so easy to show people the video with our IPads. People love the video, and so do we!
What about those Carolina Panthers huh!?!? The are now 13-0! Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon down here! It is really easy to find Carolina Panthers merchandise basically anywhere you go. We hear a lot about the Panthers, every day. Flags are flying, everyone is getting a Panthers license plate, everyone is wearing Panthers gettup, every other billboard has the Panthers on it, it's crazy down here. It's hard not to get caught up in all the excitement. Even if you can't watch football...😥. Becky Brown's son (Jonathan) is keeping me updated with Green Bay Packers scores and Lakers scores. Whenever he sees me he comes up to me and tells me the scores. Like yesterday we went and visited their whole clan (Ben, Becky, Nicole, and Becky's kids), Jonathan came up to me and said, "Green Bay just beat the Cowboys by 28-7, now they are 9 and 4. They have only lost to the Broncos, Panthers, Lions, and Bears, but they have also beat the Lions after they lost to them. They are the best in their division!"............ This kid is four years old! He told me all of that from memory! He continuously blows me away!
Christmas lights are all over the place here now. Union Street is decked out, and so is the Speedway. On Tuesday, the Sistrunks had us over for dinner and then took us to the Speedway to see the Christmas lights. It is a huge deal. You just drive around and in the Speedway in your car (we even drove on the actual track). I never knew how slanted the track is! It goes to about maybe 45 degrees. They had millions of lights all around and it was all synchronized to Christmas music. Is was fantabulistic!

We have a two new people in our district now. Elder Washburn joined our district. He's been on his mission for a little over a year now. At first he seemed really shy and stiff, but once we got to know him a little better, he's really cool, and pretty funny. Sister Nansel also joined our district. She is fresh out of the MTC. Sister Daly is training her, and is training for her second time. So Sister Sandie left (which she was not happy with) and Elder Skinner became a district leader in Albemarle, which is still in our zone so that's fun! Guess who else is in my zone? Elder Barton! I haven't talked to him yet, but I don't really know how to approach him. He'd probably think I was crazy if I went up to him and acted like I knew him and he has no idea who I am.😜
We had a lot of fun this week and I am getting very excited for Christmas! So I hear Utah's pretty snowy and cold😆. I feel for y'all. This week has been so nice. It's been perfect weather. No rain, 70's, sunshine. We've had our air conditioning on all this week! If it gets this warm in the middle of December, I am definitely not excited for summer😓. It is forecasted to be in the seventies on Christmas too. Well, I'm sure it will get cold here at some point, but it hasn't come yet.
It's really weird to hear that Bronco is leaving BYU. I'm not angry, just a little sad. I don't know who will want to coach for BYU. Next year will just have to be another building year, like the last three. I have a feeling BYU is going to get their first non-winning record this next year. They have one of the hardest schedules ever, and now a whole new coaching team...yeesh. Oh well.
We had a nice full car week this week so I have no bicycle crashes to report, yet on Wednesday we switch the car back so I am not excited for that.
I really appreciate the package from the Steeles and my family! They really get me so excited!
We are still working on finding someone solid to teach, so right now, the only solid investigator is Nicole. Hopefully more will come our way as we work hard and go looking with faith.
We were able to watch the Christmas devotional last week at the Kings house, and we liked that. The Kings also had the Browns and Nicole over and that was good, except Penny (Becky's little girl) was really rambunctious and we all had a hard time concentrating on the talks, but I think Ben and Nicole liked it.
 Well, I love y'all and hope you have a great Christmas season and always remember what this time of year is all about. Think about why Christ was born for YOU.
Love ya, Elder Huff

Oh Little, Little Town!

Hello. Well, we had a pretty good week this week. We started off this week with an exchange with the Kannapolis Elders. Elder Christensen came over to Concord. We biked a lot that day. We had already planned out a pretty heavy bike day, but then to make it worse, a member cancelled on us suddenly so we had to bike to the appointment he was going to take us to. Eesh. We found a guy named Canaan, who was a former investigator. Now it's my turn to talk about cars, Dad. He had this little car called a Yugo. Have you ever heard of those? I guess it's a very rare car that used to be made in Yugoslavia. He also had an original Fiat and whatever the car that Knight Rider is.Pretty spiffy. I wish I could actually drive. There are so many Mustangs, Challengers, Chargers, Corvettes, and Camaros, down here in the South it blows my mind. I can pretty consistently see one on the road when we are driving around. I guess Southerners like muscle cars. I am also actually surprised how many pickup trucks are down here. I though that there wouldn't be that many but I would say there are about the same amount as trucks in Utah. I really want to drive the Black Hole again. I'm not too excited to drive in the mish because there are only Chevy Cruzes, Toyota Corrolas, and Ford Fusions. They are all pretty nice new cars, but they are also boring. We have a Cruze. Driving would be
a little easier if we didn't have the weird monitor box in our car. We call him Jarvis. He monitors our speed and other things like seat belts, tires, suspension, RPMs, and brakes. He gets mad at us a lot. If we go over the speed limit by five miles per hour, he says, "check your speed!" We get violations if we go too fast for too long, our RPMs exceed 5000, we brake too heavily, or do anything crazy. Which is good, but really stinks when someone pulls right in front of you and you have to slam on our brakes. Oh well. Oh, by the way, Brother Henrie (husband of the lady that friended Mom) has a Mazda 3 very similar to yours. It's the same except it's gray and it's a turbo instead of a 2.5 liter. His driving reminds me a lot of you too. Well, that's all I have to say about cars, I'll move on now.
We had a pretty good exchange. We stayed up a little late just talking, but it was fun. The next day we exchanged back and headed into Mt. Pleasant and talked to some people. We got yelled at by a lady who supposedly works for the DOT. She was mad because one of our tires was on the road. She drove up to us and said, "I hope you're not parking there! You know, I work for the DOT and I am not happy with the parking job." We asked her (kindly by the way) what the problem was and what was wrong with our parking job and how should we move it. She said that she just didn't like our parking job and she wanted us to move because the road was a pretty busy one. We tried to be kind and do everything she asked, but whenever we said anything, even with compliance to what she said, she just yelled back at us. Well, anyway we moved the car, but it just goes to show, some people are just set on being angry. Oh well.
We went to zone meeting this week as well. It was pretty cool. We had a Christmas theme and President and Sister Alexander showed up as well. 😳 It was good though. Afterwards we exchanged white elephant gifts. I got a NC State back scratcher, which is already broken. 😩 I gave a Batman mug. It was pretty good. I found it at Big Lots. I also found a pretty fly Boba Fett watch, which I got for myself. It's actually a quality watch which surprises me. After zone meeting we did another exchange with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Ellis in Charlotte. We did a Christmas stand in "uptown" Charlotte. We passed out pass a long cards and gave out free hot chocolate. It was pretty fun. We are psyched for the new Christmas videos. It's an easy way to talk to everyone. They are pretty good videos too. I was on Elder Ellis' last exchange as a missionary. It was one of the oldest and one of the youngest missionaries on exchange. He leaves this Wednesday. Transfers are this Tuesday. I'm a little sad. Elder Skinner and Sister Sandie are taking off. I'll miss them, but I'm happy for them. They are leaving their first areas. Elder Skinner is going to be a district leader. Which doesn't surprise me. He's pretty solid. Sister Daly and Christensen are staying and Sister Daly is training. So I won't be the youngest missionary!! It's going to be weird.
So I was jumping a brick wall to be fast. I wish it would have been something awesome like running from a dog or running from people with guns, but not so. I still have a bruise and some scabs, but it's feeling better.
It doesn't feel like Christmas here. I'm still walking around in a short sleeve shirt. It still gets pretty chilly 'round here but it is also pretty warm sometimes. Like right now as I am writing this I am outside in short sleeves and shorts and I am very comfortable. But Union street is decked out in Christmas lights. It looks pretty good. Well, I think that's all I got. I love y'all and hope to talk to you soon.

Elder Huff finds a new investigator?

Elders Nelson, Christensen, Huff & Skinner

Idon'tknowwhatthesubjectshouldbesothisisit

Well, things are going well here in Concord...somewhat...😐. Thanksgiving was awesome. We went to the Dickinson's house with Brother Larsen and deep fried a turkey. We were kinda disappointed
because it didn't explode, but it was still interesting. We hung out there while the turkey was deep frying. We got to get to know Clair (Their 11 year old girl that is not baptized, we just need them to get to church!😬) a little better and she taught me how to do backflips and front flips on the trampoline...in a suit (we had to wear suits on Thanksgiving). I'm pretty good at it now. We then went to the Larsen's house and hung out there for a while before lunch. Everyone was amazed
at my LEGO building skills. I built a house and a spaceship in twenty minutes. I thought maybe they were so good that the children there would revere it. Ha! Within five minutes they were destroyed. I was a little sad, they looked pretty good, but I guess that's what LEGOs are for. We then had a huge Thanksgiving lunch. They probably had about 15 platters of food. It was all so good. The deep fried turkey was very good. They also had about 5 trays of different desserts. I was so full afterwards. We then went home and were planning on going out for a little, but right as we were about to leave, our dinner appointment called and said they would be picking us up in about fifteen minutes, which was an hour earlier than we had planned. They picked us up and we played horseshoes at their place for about 45 minutes. Then we had sat down for a huge dinner. The Concord sisters came as well (Twenty minutes late...of course 😆 #surprisesurprise). We were so full from lunch we didn't eat that much. Elder Nelson literally took one bite of his food and had to go lie down, he was sweating pretty bad😅. I was able to finish my plate but you can be sure I didn't get any seconds. I am so grateful for members such as the Dickinson's, Larsen's, and Eskelson's who were willing to spend their Thanksgiving with us. We had a lot of fun (and food).
Well, opposition in Concord is getting to an all time high. We had someone drive by while we were on bikes and, shaking his fist in the air, triumphantly yelled, "I'm atheist!!!" That was my first encounter with an atheist out here and I hope I will never see one again. I was so scared, I was quivering in my slacks.The whole world was coming down on me. I just couldn't believe he was
an atheist. I think my testimony is shaken, I might need to come home. No, everyone in Concord is pretty nice. Everyone is religious and believes in God and Jesus Christ (except for that guy of course 😨). We'll talk to a lot of people that say that they already have a church that they are happy with, but they often also say that they really appreciate what we do. It's nice that we can walk up to almost anyone on the street and have a good discussion with them about Jesus Christ. The problem is that everyone is so accepting of our message down here, we have a hard time sifting through them all and find the people that are actually willing to commit to anything. People say they will to commit to anything, even baptism, but a lot of the times they don't mean it. We have to continually try to get in contact with them (which is not easy at all, because they will say they will be home, but when
we visit, they aren't😤) and see if they are sincere or not. Time keeps on passing by really quickly. In a week is the next transfer already! Transfer calls are this Saturday. I'm pretty sure (confident)
that we are not getting transferred, but I am also pretty confident that Elder Skinner will be transferred. Which makes me a little sad, but he has been in Kannapolis for almost eight months now, and it's his first area, I think it's time for him to branch out a little. Sister Sandie probably will get transferred as well. We'll have to see.
Wow! Go Uncle Richard! What a champ! I can't believe he drove all that way with all those kids by himself! Seems like you had a group of pretty awesome people. You're just missing a couple. Kim of course, hopefully she gets better, and obviously someone else 🙄. Go dad! Showing up those young guns. Right now, I probably could not have run the mile, let alone the 5k. I'm still recovering from my Thanksgiving feasts. Luckily the bikes are helping, but it hurts to bike. I did end up hurting myself this week. I tried to clear a brick wall in my suit, but nailed my shin pretty hard. It hurts a lot. I have a pretty gnarly bruise and scrape. I would include a picture but I'd rather not gross people out, and I'm sure that nobody wants to look at my leg. The miracle of this whole event is that my suit pants didn't even rip or tear or get destroyed in any way. They are perfectly fine! Which doesn't make much sense to me because my leg sure isn't. How did my leg get scraped up, but my pants didn't? Weird 😉. I'm fine though and I'll get over it in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Well, I'm sad I missed the family reunion but I'm sure there will be some in the future.

Thanksgiving

Christensen, Huff, Nelson, Skinner

 Well, I've had an amazing week and hope that your weeks are amazing as well. Hope y'all can truly reflect on what this upcoming Christmas season really means as I know you all will. I love y'all and
wish you the best!
P.S. Make sure to see the new Christmas video that the church puts out on christmas.mormon.org. It's wonderful. We are using it a lot already!

10-4 Good Buddy (23 November)

Elder Huff & Elder Nelson

Hey'all!!! Another week has passed and now I can say I've been out in the field for over a month now. Whee! Everything is going splendidly and marvelously. This week started wonderfully, we went to shop at Aldis with the K-town elders and we met a member there and she decided to pay for all of our groceries!!! That made me feel pretty good. Thank you Sister Chrisman! 🏆 We then played our crazy ping pong game Elder Nelson created. That night we met a lady, who we thought was a former investigator, but at the end of the lesson Elder Nelson called her Jennifer and she said, "Um, my name is Jackie" 😳 Oops. Oh well, she accepted our baptismal invite though, so all's good. Elder Nelson and I have been churning out the baptismal invites. We have the most invites and people on date in the zone. Not that numbers matter at all, as long as we all are trying our best. We have Jackie on date, as well as Caleb, a high schooler, who we also found at a former's house, Wesley and Lauren, a young couple who wants change in their lives, and Dorian, who we have only met with once, but we have had amazing lessons over the phone and he actually accepted the baptismal invite over the phone! Things are getting heated up in here!
This week was also full of meetings as well. On Tuesday Elder Nelson and I went to a trainee/trainer meeting. It was really long but fun. It was good to see all the people that I came out with and see how they are doing. I hung out with Buffaloe a bit, but he seemed kinda detached. We had some good laughs and discussions but I actually talked to the sisters from my MTC district more than him, which kinda makes me sad. Maybe he just wasn't having a good day? Anyway, it was good to connect with him. We had trainings by the Alexanders about obedience. It was pretty good. We went over rules that are commonly overlooked. Elder Nelson says the Alexanders are totally different from the Cravens. The Cravens were super strict with rules, Nelson said they even had a lot that weren't even in the white handbook. The Alexanders are different. They aren't lazy with the rules, but they go strictly off the white handbook and leave the rest to us. They said if they can't trust us we shouldn't be on a mission. So therefore, we are to monitor ourselves and make sure we are in line with the white handbook but most importantly the spirit. I think it is good because we can each strengthen in personal accountability and that will help us when we are off of our missions.
It was at this meeting that the President told me my hair was a little long(something I already knew, but needless to say, his words pushed me a little 😐), so the next day Nicole cut my hair. She did an amazing job. And while she was doing so, we taught a lesson on tithing and she bore her testimony about tithing. It was really powerful. She told a lot of miracle stories about the blessings they had received because they had paid their tithing. She and Ben are doing well. They plan on getting married after she has the baby, but we're trying to get the bishop to talk to them and maybe speed up the process 😜. We visited them yesterday and had a lesson on Thanksgiving. It was a really good lesson and afterwards they were talking about how they had written down things that they were thankful for and taped them on the wall. Elder Nelson and I looked at them, and we noticed that Nicole put "The missionaries" on hers! Yay! That made me feel good. We go over there about twice a week and each time we go we see progression on Ben and Nicole's part. Becky, eh. Her kids are pretty cute though. Her boy, Jonathan, who is four, is a sports genius. You can ask him the record of any football team, the score of any game in the previous season, significant players on each team, or who a team is playing next week and he will tell you. I have only seen him answer one question wrong. He's going places.
Anyway, we had the training meeting on Tuesday, then on Thursday we had zone conference. It was an all day thing...😂. We had training, more training, lunch, more training, and even more training. Then we drove like crazy to get to the YMCA and did a service project there for the rest of the day. It was a big thanksgiving dinner thing for the homeless. We had a lot of fun and the YMCA people were very happy for our service. Elder Nelson and I were the front door greeters. We stood outside and welcomed people to the event. There were some pretty interesting people, man some awesome
people. We made friends with the security guard. We were all outside and he said, "Well since you guys are here, I'm going to go get some dinner. You guys hold down the fort." So now we are also security guards. I'm gonna have so much on my resume people will come to me to give me jobs. $$$$$$$$$$$$$ Well we had fun. After we exchanged and I went to Kannapolis with Elder Skinner. The day was pretty good. We talked to a guy named Phillip...for an hour and a half...I probably
said 50 words...Elder Skinner probably 75. Man Phillip can talk! We had steak at a dinner appointment with the Chrismans. Man she spoils us. We should pull her into the Concord ward. They are too good for the Kannapolis ward. That night we exchanged at the Thanksgiving dinner for the Concord ward. Saturday we went to dinner at Bishop Nanto's house (He was the one who sent the text picture, which looked just like spaghetti, but it was so much more than that. Delicious
Parmesan chicken!) and we put up their Christmas tree for service hours. It was pretty fun. Afterwards the bishop gave us some of his extra Christmas lights. Yes! We then decorated our house, until I fell off a table. Then we called it quits for the night and finished it in the morning. We feel all festive now at night when we turn the lights on. It's so exciting!
Question time. I will be here in Concord for Christmas. Training lasts for 3 months. That means I will be in Concord until January 20th and probably longer. President Alexander is doing less transfers. Elder Skinner has been in Kannapolis for 7 and a half months. It is getting more and more common for missionaries to stay in an area for up to six months since President Alexander has been here. So, I might be in Concord until April. Weather here is getting pretty chilly. Up until the middle of last week it had been pretty warm, but it has gotten pretty chilly since then. And when I say chilly I mean highs in the fifties. Not too bad. I haven't used my big coat yet except for when it rains I just use the outer liner. I am pretty sure that I will be using it pretty soon. I need something a little lighter because it is such a heavy big coat. Even just the inside is too thick. Oh well.
The lady that we saw with Elder Mautz has been kind of flaky. She is still interested, but we haven't been able to get a good sit down lesson. Her parents are opposed to it as well. We called her home phone and her mother answered the phone and she frankly told us that her daughter is a baptist and is not interested, but we saw Lisa at Walmart today and she wants to meet with us. We'll see. That stinks the Parkers are moving. You should tell them to stop by Concord NC when they go to D.C. Say hi to Jim McKean for me and all the other peoplz. I love y'all.
Elder Huff

Crazy Elders (Logan is on top of the fridge)

Nice people take care of my boy (and think of his mom)

Just when I was getting tired of Facebook, and thinking I might quit, this happens. Now I'll never be able to quit. David and I were just getting ready to go to Lauren's Young Women in Excellence night when I got a message on FB.

"Hey sister Huff, just wanted to introduce myself. My family and I are in the ward that your sweet Elder is in. They came over to eat tonight and he is doing very well. Learning the southern ways. ; ) I made a,quick snipet of a video tonight and thought you might get a kick out of it. Hope you have a great night and again, your missionary is doing great."

I tried, but couldn't transfer the video, but here are some fun pictures.

She also said,

"Elder Huff and Elder Nelson's families. Y'all should be very proud of the two young men that you've raised. They are a great asset to our ward and great examples for my children, especially, our 12 year old son. 6 short years, he will be where y'all's sons are and I will be in your shoes. Again, be proud, y'all have done a great job."

She pretty much made my day. 

40 days!

Yup, I had my 40th day yesterday. That means I only have 692 days left.😳 I look forward to every one of them! That's crazy that you have an Elder from NC. I know where Highpoint is and I know(ish) the Paige's. He was put in as stake president the first Sunday I had here. He lives in Kannapolis so he's not in my area. The Kannapolis elders helped him clean out the garage. We got a ping pong table from the garage and set it up in the gym. We played ping pong most of p-day last week and plan on doing the same thing today. So you can tell the elder (Elder Baughan) that I might be playing on his uncle's ping pong table!😃
 I had a really crazy dinner appointment this week. The family we were eating at was a really nice normal family, but they made chili...really, really, really spicy chili. They put a bunch of chipotle powder in it. They felt bad about it, so they let me put a bunch of sour cream in it. At first they asked if we liked spicy stuff, and Elder Nelson really does, and I wasn't going to say anything, but he told them I'm not a fan, so they got the sour cream out and I bet almost half of the bowl was sour cream. 😫 It was still REALLY spicy. They had a good conversation, but I couldn't concentrate on a lot of the conversation because I was restraining myself from screaming...needless to say I drank four and a half glasses of water but I am proud to say, I finished the whole bowl!!! Elder Nelson didn't even finish his!
 On Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders 😬. And I took over my area as well. Elder Moutz came over to Concord and we did pretty well. We were walking to see Homer and we saw a lady outside and we started to talk to her, and before we knew it, we were on her porch, teaching the entire Restoration message, and inviting her to be baptized. She said yes!! But we haven't been able to contact her since...so I don't know if it's going anywhere. We'll see. We then found an inactive member named Mike and we raked some of his leaves and talked to him for a while. He's a really cool guy he just hasn't been to church for a while. He's in a transition state so he doesn't know if he's coming to church but he thanked us for reminding him to support his niece, who is on a mission in France so it was a pretty good talk with him.
I really like Elder Mautz. He's a lot like me. We had a good long discussion on which books we have read and movies we like. So, fun information, Orson Scott Card is in the mission, and he occasionally he has the missionaries over for dinner! I wish I can go to that area. Other fun news, Friedrich, from the Sound of Music, lives in my area! Crazy. Anyways, I like Elder Mautz but it's kinda hard to act normal around him because I always feel I am being scrutinized. Anyway, interesting story. We were sitting on this guy's porch and talking and a guy walked past and waved to us. I nodded in response, I didn't want to wave because I didn't want to distract from the lesson...I should have waved. He started yelling at me calling me an ungrateful, preppy, discriminative, white boy. He said some other things that I would rather not disclose at this time.
 We gave a blessing to a schizophrenic as well. She was a little off, but was normal enough to not deter us from giving her a blessing. She said when we ended the blessing, she felt a bad presence leave her.
Church was really good yesterday. We had the primary program and the Spirit was definitely there. It was interesting to see so many grown men cry. 😭 We had a good rest of the Sunday and a good dinner at the Nunn's with Homer and then we went to Ben Brown's birthday party! Nicole is having a boy! We stayed until everyone but Nicole, Ben, and Nicole's brother Colton left. We watched a little football (shh 🤐) and then taught the Restoration to Colton. Ben taught half of the lesson and Nicole gave a really good closing prayer. I am so happy with them. They are progressing well and I am excited for their future.
What is up with BYU? Losing to Missouri? Really? They only lose the important games don't they?
The people here are good, but it is hard to find anyone. The people that are willing to listen to us are so noncommittal it is scary. They will set up a time for us to meet, then when we go, they either don't answer the door, aren't even there, or say that something came up. All the people that would keep commitments are already content with life and don't want to talk to us. Eesh.
No more bicycle accidents to report, we got the car on Wednesday and are super stoked about it. The new church stance really hasn't made an impact on our investigators or anyone else either. It is a big thing in Charlotte, but the church's presence isn't really strong there anyways.
I heard about the Paris thing, man people in this world are just messed up. I see more and more of it everyday out here, but we have to realize that most people are good and would really help someone in need.
Sorry, this week I don't have any pictures, I'll make sure to have some next week.
I love y'all and hope everything is going well!

Hey'all

Well, this week has been pretty good. Tuesday we went and finished laying down the tile at Chris Sloane’s house. We did it pretty fast. I also found out what the guard does on a tile saw. It keeps it from spraying water and little pieces of tile in your face. I got really dirty. I got pretty good at using the tile saw, but I still hated it. Oh well. Here's what I looked like after the tile job. It's kinda hard to see but I have mud caked on my face.

When I took a shower I found a bunch of little tile pieces in my hair. This week I also went on my first exchange with Elder Christensen. He's a cool guy. He wanted a picture to remember the exchange, so he climbed onto the roof and took an interesting picture.

He then proceeded to jump off the roof onto the balcony, which was wet because all it does is rain here, he landed on his feet, but he then slipped and landed on his butt pretty hard. 😆 A good way to start the exchange. We had a lot of fun. We taught a couple people and I learned how Elder Christensen loves everybody and is kind to everybody. I need to work on that. We exchanged back on Thursday and that started my bike week.

I was kinda nervous about that because the one time we biked last week I kinda crashed into Elder Nelson...😳. I bet Brian Thomas is so proud of that. Luckily he stayed on his bike and kept it upright and I was the only one who got hurt. I got wedged between his back tire and seat. It hurt...a lot, and I still feel a little twinge there, but it's all good. Biking hasn't been all that bad, except for last night. We had a forty-five minute bike ride to visit the Dickinsons and the Browns and Nicole. It was cold, the first time since I've been here of course, raining of course, and of course there was no shoulder on the road, so I almost got hit by a couple cars. Man, it was dark too. It was on a country road so no street lamps and it gets dark here at five. All we had was our little bike lights. It was really cool though. I had never done anything like that before, so it was a good experience. We had a good visit with the Dickinsons, a less active family. We then biked to the Browns.  Ben, Becky, and Nicole were there this time, and we had a really good lesson. We then biked home, which was a little shorter than the bike ride there. I almost got hit by two semi trucks. I guess semis don't like yielding to cyclists on the road so I felt the heat of the engine as each of them passed and was almost knocked off my bike by the gust they produced. And I swear I felt one of them barely brush my elbow. Super scary but we got home safely.

We are still working on finding the elect. We have found a lot of different people, but they all turn out not very good. We tried to visit someone we had met with before. When we got there we were chased off by a boy probably around twelve years old with a 2x4. He said he would shoot us if we ever came back. It turns out that boy doesn't even live there. We were flagged down by the actual owner and were able to talk to him. We asked him about the boy and all he said was, "That boy needs serious help."

So the sisters brought an investigator to church yesterday. We had a Sunday School lesson about the law of chastity. Somehow, the conversation got into how hair highlights were rebellious. The teacher went on and on about how her daughter went a little rebellious and colored her hair, and how she had to let it go because you have to pick your battles and let them make their own choices and how she was happy when her daughter "grew out of it" yada, yada, yada. The whole time she was talking about it, the investigator, Carla, about thirty years old, was sitting there with a lot of purple highlights in her hair...😲. Okay sister, I love you to death, but I would think you would clue in and stop raving about the hair color. IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER!! Oh well, hopefully the investigator wasn't offended. She seemed like she was cool with it.

Okay, let me say, I need to see some sun. It has literally been raining here for the last two weeks now. And if it hasn't been raining, it's been overcast. This last week, I only saw the sun once...no joke. It's okay though, I like rain...except for when I am on a bike! Oh well.

Time for me to answer the questions I received from my family. My apartment is about average, maybe a little better than average. My companion says it is above average in the ones he has been in, but he also has only really served in ghetto-ish areas. Our mission president said at the very beginning that our missions' apartments are all pretty nice, some of the best compared to other missions. I'm enjoying the apartment. Okay, I love the Concord ward, but the dinner appointments are kinda sad. The Kannapolis elders have dinner appointments every night, while we are lucky to have four dinner appointments a week. And it is always the STP. Oh well, we eat okay at home...kinda. We have corn dogs, sandwiches, noodles, and sometimes mashed potatoes. I always make sure I get my bananas at the store as well. The other night was kinda sad. All I had was a corn dog and Elder Nelson had plain rice with butter and salt. Kinda pathetic. But I am maintaining my weight so far. Our exercise time is right as we wake up, which is not a good idea. We get up, lay on the ground and pretend to do sit-ups. Occasionally I get a few done, and maybe some push-ups, but usually we don't do much. We can't really play catch or something outside because it is dark, so...whatever. It's not really that cold here, just wet. Last night got into the forties, but that is as low as it's been.

Well, I don't really know how Concord is pronounced. The people with an accent say erd, while the people that speak real English say ord. I'm actually surprised, not many people here have accents. I mean, everyone has a little twinge, but it is really easy to understand. The only people that we have a hard time understanding are the elderly people and the people without teeth (there are a lot of those out here).

My companion was raised in the church, but he was mostly inactive most of his life until his little brother went on a mission. He then decided he wanted to go on one. So he did...obviously. He has a huge family of eleven kids, he being the ninth. We get along really well and we are actually similar in many ways. He is teaching me in a way I enjoy. He's kinda teaching by example. He lets me observe him do things before he asks me to do it. I feel like I have already learned a lot.

Don't worry mom, I am staying awake during personal study...most of the times.😜 I got over my cold and I have been eating the gummy vitamins. I love y'all and love your emails and letters. I still need to get some stamps and envelopes for real letters, but I hope I'll get there soon. Stay strong, 

love Elder Huff.

Whoo Boy!

Can you believe it?!?! Tomorrow, I've been in the field two weeks! And Saturday is my one month point! I still have about 100 weeks! How
exciting! So, I don't think I told you this last week, but I know when
I get home. October 9th. That's when my authorized preacher or
whatever card expires. Okay, now I need to answer some questions. So
last week was kinda crazy and busy. I kept having to write my email in
different places and my email was kinda scattered and I didn't get to
address everything, so I'm sorry I didn't answer your questions, I'll
try to do better this week. 

My companion has been out a year and a
quarter. He leaves next summer. My companion is pretty bubbly and
outgoing (well, at least he is more than I am) so he usually initiates
conversations with random people, but we are pretty close to 50-50
teaching already. He's better at finding scriptures and references and
then he wants me to bear my testimony about that subject, which he
says I do better than he does (I don't buy it, but I happily do it). 

Housing is pretty good. My companion and I live in our own flat. It's
a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom, AND IT HAS ITS OWN WASHER AND DRYER!
WHOOPIE! It's so nice because I can just do laundry whenever. Which was not an option in the MTC. We use one of the bedrooms for our study room. I have my own desk, of course. And my closet is in that room too. We spend most of our time in that room. Then the other bedroom my companion gets his closet in there, and the ironing board ( which I haven't had to use because of the awesome shirts I have🤘), and our beds. Those two rooms and my bathroom are upstairs. Then downstairs we have a living room, Then we have the other bathroom downstairs as well as the kitchen. Then we have a driveway outside...of course. Our front door is pretty awesome.

Of course it's raining...it seems like that's all that the weather wants to do here. Which is okay, for now because we have a car (a Chevy Cruze), but I am not excited for this Wednesday, when we give up the car. 
Elder Nelson and I are doing pretty well, this week wasn't super productive because of the rain and no one wants to talk to us in the rain. We go around and marinate, which is basically walking around and knocking on some doors and talking to people outside. We meet some crazy people. We can't catch anyone outside. We also marinated around better off neighborhoods this week so people were a little more prideful and didn't want to speak to us. We did talk to a pretty nice older gentleman though. We caught him outside walking across the street to his house. We were all the way down the street when we first saw him, but since he was walking so slow, with his cane, we were able to gain pretty good ground on him. At one point he saw us and I swear his pace doubled. We had to speed walk to catch him. He was a pretty cool guy and when we asked his name he said, " just call me pops" which was kinda weird since we just met the guy. We taught for a while and he seemed pretty interested, so we kinda got our hopes up, but then he said, "Well, it all sounds good, but I go to my son's church." Aargh! Supposedly, his son is a pastor, and to make it even better he lives with his son. So, oh well. Maybe we'll talk to Pops again someday. 

Halloween was pretty chill. We spent all day tiling some guy's house. Elder Nelson did tiling for his job before his mission, so he knew what he was doing, and he worked hard while I sat back, ate chips, and killed cockroaches with a hammer. I did work though as well. I cut and laid down backer board in preparation for the tile. I also cut tile, which kinda freaked me out. It was really loud and the tools we were using were pretty sketchy, but I felt bad that Elder Nelson was doing all the work, so I did as much as I could. We worked there for about five hours, but I felt pretty good about how we spent our time, because this guy just lost his wife and his house is filthy. We did the best we could to make his house look a little better. We then had to go back to the apartment at six because that was our curfew. The mission president didn't want any shenanigans. So we played Marvel Guess Who, which was pretty fun. I destroyed Elder Nelson. I beat him six games to none. We had no trick or treaters at all, so that was pretty good because we had no candy for them. 

We had a pretty good fast and testimony meeting on Sunday. We had two investigators show up for us and the testimonies were really good. The lessons in Sunday school and priesthood were really good too. Hopefully Te and Nicole will get baptized, though I don't know if they plan on it or not. We had dinner at the Howard's house that night. Their son is a type 1 diabetic, so they have a diet of no meat or wheat. Crazy, but the soup we had was pretty good. They have five crazy kids (Reese, Eden, Jesse, Layla, and Logan. I am doing so well with names!) and Brother Howard is hilarious! He told us awesome stories of his mission is Chile. He talked about he got attacked by dogs all the time so they made contraptions that flung beans at dogs like a bullet.  We were laughing for a couple minutes. We then had a good lesson on faith and hope. Then we took brother Howard to Homer( a recent convert) and Te and had a lesson with them. We ended up crackin up there too. I don't even now why we were laughing, something about a crucified chicken and Kool aid. Whatever. We had a good lesson too, I have to mention that too. We had a pretty fun p day today. We went to a trampoline park and then went to the church and played volleyball.  I love y'all and I love all your emails. I'll see you on the flipside. Hopefully I answered your questions.

First Week!!!!!

Our district plus Concord sisters. From left to right, top to bottom. Elder Skinner, Elder Christensen, me, Elder Nelson, Sister Blaylock, Sister Flaherty, Sister Sandie and Sister Daly.

Wow, it seems like so long ago that I said goodbye and entered the MTC. Well, so far I love the field. So I get an IPad!! Which is awesome! It helps so much. I have all the gospel resources on one device. It makes planning and studying so much easier. We just punch in the numbers to our area book and we can record all of our lessons as well as all the people we meet. We create calendars so we can pace ourselves throughout the day and it makes my backpack (excuse me, my shoulder bag) so much lighter and it keeps me connected to everyone in my district, zone, mission, and back home. I can read your guys' emails whenever I want to. But I can only send emails on Monday. 

  So my trainer....................

Is Elder Nelson!!!!! He's a great guy. We are in the Concord area, which is the best area I've been in so far.😜 Our first day we went around in the...well… ghetto area, or sticks, or the hood, or whatever else you want to call it. This week was mostly just finding people, so we mostly just walked around and talk to people. That was really interesting to me to see all the different types of people that live in such… interesting circumstances. People here are very religious, and it seems like everybody we talk to believes in God and Jesus Christ. Which is awesome but sometimes makes it hard because they have their own church that they go to and are loyal to. But I'm surprised with how many people are willing to talk to us. We just walk around and talk to people on their porches, or who are just outside. Though many people will talk to us, not all tell the truth. I love the people in the projects down here but I can not trust them. Sometimes it is obvious that they are lying. 

For example, we met a guy named Darrius who told us he is a quarterback AND fullback for the Iowa football team. First of all, fullbacks and quarterbacks have totally different builds, and this guy was neither of them. He was short, and really skinny. And second of all, he showed us how he threw the pigskin and let me tell you, if he threw it like he said he did. It would go maybe ten yards. Whatever, we pretended to believe him. Then we had to leave because this guy's friend showed up and told us to leave. Here are this guy's words, "I ain't talking to no white guys when I am soo drunk. What's a bunch of white guys doing in my lawn brotha, I'm too drunk. Them's gonna see me drunk. I'm so drunk!" While he is saying this he keeps taking big swigs out of his bottle. Needless to say, we left. Anyways, back from my tangent, sometimes we have to trust the Spirit to know if they are lying or not. 

Yesterday we had an appointment with a lady named Gladys. We pulled up and a man (who we later learned was her uncle) was outside her house. We asked him if Gladys was home. He said no and that she wouldn't be home for two hours. He got into his car and drove away. We felt that she was actually home so we went up to the porch and before we could even knock on the door, she opened it up and walked out like she was expecting us. We had a great lesson with her and I am glad that we didn't leave. 

Well, more about my trainer/comp. He's from St. George Utah (his parents now live in Gilbert). He's about four years older than me and he's only been in Concord for about a month so we are both new to the area, so that's why we're are doing so much finding. He drinks A LOT of water. He goes through at least five water bottles a day, while I might go through two. Because of that, he has to use the restroom A LOT! Which isn't bad because it is an excuse to get into people's homes. So cool. Speaking of water, the tap water here stinks! Literally and figuratively. So we end up having to buy big cases of water bottles. I am seriously considering buying a water filter.  I miss Utah tap water. Now I kinda know what Drew is going through. Not to his extent, but just a little. I am getting used to missionary life. The first few days I would always fall asleep during personal study, but today I am happy to report that I didn't even close my eyes except to blink. Yes! I do have a nasty little head cold though, but it's nothing I can't get over.  

Well, we had stake conference yesterday and the night before. We had two members of the seventy come because they were putting in a new stake presidency. They gave really good talks about missionary work. We went early yesterday to stake conference to sing in the choir, but when we got there, two hours early, the choir lady told us we couldn't be in the choir because we hadn't been to any other practices! She didn't even let us try out or anything! Kinda ticked me off but hey, she's a child of God and I love her. So Elder Nelson and I just sat for two hours. We were able to meet a couple members though so all's good. Well, everything is going well, my companion is awesome, the area is fun, and I love the people of North Carolina. 

I love y'alls. 

Elder Huff.

P.S. I am in a car for two weeks, then a bike. So on and so forth.

Elder Nelson and me

Oh yeah. I am popular already in NC. My voice is advertised.

He made it

Elder Huff with President and Sister Alexander

And he's off!

I got to talk to Logan for a few minutes this morning.  He's off to Atlanta, then on to North Carolina.  He sounded good, with lots of nervous laughter.  David got a little longer visit, he just happened to be at the airport early this morning. ;)

One last visit with dear old Dad. Elder Huff Jr. and Sr. Just seems like last year I (David) had one of those black name tags.

You can see it in his face . . . excited and scared at the same time.

Can you see him? He had a window seat.

MTC Life

Elder Buffaloe and Elder Huff

Wow, I have so much to tell you and so little time. Story of my life. No time. We are always being told, read this, plan for this, study this, yet there is no time. I wish I could just pause time. Read my B.o.M. study, and just have time to sit down and think. Nope. Well, I am super excite that BYU won and I also heard that the U beat Cal as well. Tanner better not push too hard and stay injured. Well, MTC life is crazy. I am so stressed out all the time. We have to do this, we have to do that, Iwishwehadtimeforthatbutwedon'tsowehavetodothis. AAHHHH!!! I have never worked like this in my life! It's constant! The only time to relax is the time we get to eat. And the food is...bad. So now I will vent about the horrible food here, I'm sorry, but I have to get it out. You can skip this section if you want. I can't stand the food here. Everything is stale, expired, cold, or just plain nasty. We have a motto here; "If it looks good, it might taste okay. If it doesn't look good, DON'T GO NEAR IT." I have already lost five pounds because I have only been eating salads (which are actually really good because they are the only things made fresh in front of you) and skim milk. I really want real food, or as we call it in our district, outside food. Dang Elder Mecham, he keeps getting packages of outside food and it drives me crazy. Well, yup my companion is Elder Buffaloe. He's a cool guy. I think the MTC has kinda gotten to him though. He has a hard time stressing out and his sense of humor isn't exactly like mine. But I love him already and I am so glad to be his companion. I also love my district. It's weird to think that I haven't told you about them yet because it seems like I have known them for months now. Originally there were nine members of our district; Elder Buffaloe and myself, Elder Mecham and Overfield, Elder Maxwell and Mizell, and Sister Beal, Valentin, and Vasquez. We are tight. I am super sad to report though that Elder Mizell left for home this morning...😥. I have to admit, when he said he was leaving yesterday, that night was the first time I cried in the MTC. He is from Douglas, Georgia and I miss him already. He got super homesick and then his spiritualness flew the coop. It's heartbreaking. He is so funny and his southern accent just made us laugh harder. He literally had us laughing for a straight 30 minutes one night when we were in bed talking. I'll miss him but this last day has just confirmed to me that he doesnt belong here. My room used to consist of Elder Buffaloe, myself, Elder Maxwell, and Elder Mizell, but now since Mizell left Maxwell has left our room because he is in a trio with Mecham and Overfield. So it is just the Buffaloe and I. We get our own dorm room, which is both nice and depressing. I have often said that we, as a district, get along too well. We feel like we've known each other for a long time. For the first couple days we had a hard time concentrating in class because we are always cracking each other up. We have a "real" investigator now. She could be either a converted member acting like she was before she was converted, or she is a real investigator...kinda nerve-racking. I think Elder Buffaloe and I are doing pretty well. He's a spiritual giant I just don't think he knows it yet. To make his stress worse, he was assigned the district leader...whew, I got the easy job; online coordinator, oh yeah. He's a good guy and I'm proud of him. He feels like he is not doing real well as a district leader. I think it's my job to kinda help out his self confidence. He is really doing well and so am I. So, I am not really a fan of the MTC. It does have a great spirit and I have learned so much here and have received my own personal revelation, but as I said before, the food is not great and it feels like a prison. We call it Spirit Prison. It is hard to see the outside world in the MTC. When you are outside or looking out a window, all you can see are other MTC buildings. We have key cards to get into building and get our food, and we only have a limited time to get exercise. When we went on our temple walk, I was amazed at the sight of a streetlight. I feel so cooped up all the time. I have to say, I am good at sewing buttons. Yes, I have already had the opportunity to sew buttons on my suit coat. I guess the Missionary Mall does not know how to sew buttons on suits, because on the first day I started wearing it, one button fell off, and the next day the other fell off. So I have sewn two buttons and I have to say, they look pretty good. I can just feel that they will last my whole mission. I'm just that good. 😁 And on that note, I have learned in the MTC that we aren't supposed to think about ourselves on our mission, and the connection WE have with our investigators, but on the connection that the investigators have between themselves and God. I need to learn to be less selfish and less prideful and be as Christlike as I can. I also have learned the difference between ah-ha moments and personal revelation. Our district is awesome. We can learn so much together if we just focus and put our heads together. Yesterday we were supposed to be learning about personal revelation through the B.o.M. We decided to pray to know which scripture we should read together. We prayed and then returned to our seats (we kneel for all our prayers, I have a big bruise on my knee now) and Elder Mecham and Maxwell both though of Mosiah 18 at the same time. I was thinking somewhere in Mosiah, Buffaloe was thinking of the number 18, and Sister Valentin was already opened to Mosiah 18 and she didn't know how she got there..............WHOA!!!! It gets better. We start reading as a class and it contained a scripture Buff and I were trying to find earlier, it perfectly covered the topic of church attendance that we were talking about earlier in class, and had a great missionary scripture. I encourage all of you guys to read this chapter, it is full of great stuff. I have to thank auntie Elizabeth for my great laundry bag that has helped me stay somewhat organized. I also want to thank all those who supported me to come on my mission. I can't wait to get into the field. Oh, I forgot to tell you where my district is going. The Buffaloe and I, along with the sister missionaries, are going to North Carolina, Charlotte mission, while the other elders are going to Nashville Tennessee. Mizell was going to New Zealand, but that didn't quite pan out. Sorry for such the scattered email. There are just so many thoughts running through my head it's hard to type them all down. Flight info: I don't know all the details, but I know we have a sevenish o'clock flight from Salt Lake to Atlanta Georgia on Monday morning. I'll get more info to you later today when I have my flight paper. I will also send some pictures. For some reason only the computers in the laundry room can send pictures and I'm not there yet. And yes mom, I have taken plenty of pictures. Well, I love you all, I miss you all, but I know I am in the right place. I know that Heavenly Father can help us in our trials and I hope we can all have a good relationship with him. I'll see you all in, well, a while. Love ya!

(P.S. Thank you all for sending individual emails, it means a lot to me. Could I ask that maybe you can sometimes send letters as well (that means I still want your emails). I can only check emails once a week, but I can read letters whenever I get them. I have to admit, I am a little jealous of the other elders that get physical mail all the time. I don't mean to be selfish, and I don't want to make you feel obligated, but maybe a little mail will not make me only think about P-day the whole week. I love you guys, I want to hear from everybody. And I do have Drew's email and he has mine so I do get his emails)

-Love, Elder Huff

Elders Overfield, Mecham, Mizell, Sisters Vasquez, Valentin, Beal, Elders Maxwell, Huff & Buffaloe 

Logan says, "Gotta be goofy sometimes!"