Gone South for the Winter

January 30, 2012

Dear Jared,

Unfortunately it has been a boring week. Not a single funny story to be told. Life is plugging along as usual, which means nothing exciting has happened. Although I like it that way.  Life is good.

Anne and Melanie have been here for two weeks now. They are pretty quiet and mostly stay in their room when they are at home. They are the first kids that we have ever had that have not gone to church with us once. They come out just long enough to eat, that's about it.

Last night we invited Alec and Michelle Thorley over for dinner so we could get to know them. They are really fun. They stayed until 10:00 playing games with us. It is one of my goals this year to invite 14 new families to dinner. I really like getting to know new people. One can never have too many friends.

Wheelers are on a vacation this week. Dennis worked a lot of extra hours last year, so Associated game him a free cruise. They took Chris and Emma with them. Poor Mandy is home alone all week. She has less than three weeks before she's married.

We had New Beginnings this week. We did it for the entire Stake. Without boring you too much, I have to say I experienced a little miracle of my own. I had several things I needed and wanted to share with the YW but none of the four topics had anything to do with each other. I have struggled for weeks trying to get it all to come together, but up until the end, it just didn't. I said many prayers asking for help and the day of the event, I got an idea. It was almost magical as it came together. I ended up showing the video "Flecks of Gold", and tying it all into that. Basically, life is all about collecting fleck of gold (the small and simple things), and not just trying to get the nuggets. It was genius and clever and my talk turned out amazing. I am grateful for the power of prayer and for inspiration. I couldn't have done that on my own. We had over 250 people attend and I was so excited that it all came together.

Please tell us about your new place and your new companion. I'm excited to hear where you are and if you like it there.

I hope all is going well. We love you so much.

Love, Mom


Hello,

My time in Fort Wayne is over. On Monday and Tuesday we said goodbye to a bunch of people. We had a lesson with Chris and we set a baptism date for the End of March with him. It was an amazing lesson. We went to transfer meeting on Wednesday and there were a ton of changes. I'm now a senior companion and I'm in the University Ward in Bloomington, home of Indiana University. I'm serving with Elder Santy, (from Taylorsville) who was right next door in Avon when I was in Plainfield, So I know him pretty well. We got double transferred into the area, so we're both trying to figure things out. We don't have any investigators right now, so we're starting from scratch. We are getting our own apartment soon, but right now we're sleeping on the floor in the Zone Leaders' apartment. They were covering the Young Single Adult branch and the University ward, but now we're covering the University Ward. 

Bloomington is a great place. It's beautiful and there are lots of hills here. It's a completely different landscape from what I've seen in other parts of Indiana. There is a ton of culture here and people from all over the world. The ward is really different too. It's mostly all young grad student couples and some older families. Because of the university it's a really transient ward. People are moving in and out all the time.

The ward had a Culture Night activity on Saturday where everyone showed their talents. There was a lot of art, music, and even a magician. It's a really fun ward and they're all pretty into missionary work. I'm excited to be here. It's going to be tough starting from almost nothing, but I'm excited for the journey.

Love you,

Jared

Right now we're staying at the other Elders' apartment until we get our own. Their address is...

2305 E. 2nd St. Apt B1
Bloomington, IN 47401

We'll only live a mile or two away if we get the apartment they're looking at. If we get that apartment it'll be in about two weeks. We see the other missionaries all the time though so getting the package from them wouldn't be hard.