In the Mission Field

Dear family and friends,

I'm sorry I haven't answered your e-mails yet. I only activated my account today. I didn't get much of a chance to activate it while in the MTC. I'd rather not say why because it would greatly stir up contention. Needless to say I'm grateful that I have my e-mail account set up so now I can e-mail the people that I love the most and that mean the most to me.

 

I suppose you all have a lot of questions right now so I'll try to answer them all starting from the MTC to my mission field experiences.

 

In the MTC my classes were very long and we mainly read from Preach My Gospel. We also role-played as well. I had three teachers: Brother Peterson, Brother Clarke and Brother Hainsworth. All of them were cool guys who were return missionaries. There were eight people in my district, five of us were going to Phoenix while the other three went to Jamaica. I think I wrote a letter explaining where they're all from and what they're like so I won't go into that right now. I was in the Dan Jones building, which is called 15M. My companion was Elder Pearson and he was one of the elders that went to Phoenix.

 

My branch presidency is awesome! President Lafferty answered a lot of my questions and resolved a lot of my concerns and he gave me some helpful advice about how to recognize and follow the Spirit. My biggest challenge in the MTC was looking for the strengths in Elder Pearson and believing that he was a competent teacher. I treated him pretty poorly and I feel really bad about that. If we're ever companions I promised myself that I'd make it up to him somehow. I also promised to believe in my companions no matter what and to strengthen, encourage and support them.

 

I loved the cafeteria food and all the elders in my district frequently commented on how much I ate. We frequently had eggs, hashbrowns and bacon/sausage and I loved it so much that I frequently had three helpings of it. I usually had chocolate milk everyday but as we came closer to the end I started drinking more water instead. The only other people I saw there that I knew was Sean (oops I mean Elder) Vincent. He left about a week before I did.

 

Now for my the mission field. My trainer is Elder Mortimer as I'm sure Sister Connolly told you. He's blond haired, blue-eyed and from Utah. He was born in Sandy but moved to Salt Lake when he was 14. He loves fried chicken and ribs, and he almost likes hot sauce as much as I do. He's been on the mission for about one year and he's the youngest of four. His three older siblings are all girls. Two of them are married (the oldest one served a mission), the youngest sister is not. He's been extremely patient with me and I am very thankful for that. He's been sure to teach me and inspires me. He's helped me a lot and again I am very thankful for his support.

 

On Saturday we had a baptism. We baptized a single mother named Lisa and her hyperactive son Josh, who's about 11 years old. I lead the music and I think I messed up but somehow we got through that. It was really cool meeting them both. On last Thursday, which was my second full day in the mission field, nearly all our investigators with baptismal dates dropped like flies which really hit Elder Mortimer like a bombshell. I didn't really feel anything since I'm still trying to get to know everyone. The work moves on and we got some more investigators with baptismal dates. President Beck issued a standard of excellence for the mission, which we reached for this week. The standard of excellence is:

• 2 Investigators baptized a month
• 3 investigators a week with a baptismal date
• 4 investigators a week attending sacrament meeting
• 7 lessons taught to investigators with a member present per week
• 5 new investigators a week

Before I wrap up my letter I'd like to remind everyone to send any mail/letters to the mailing address on the blog and NOT the Connolly's.

 

Love,

Elder Boothe