Happy thanksgiving everybody. We have quite a few appointments on that
day and I'm really excited about that. Unfortunately Dante won't be
home that day so we won't be able to go to their house for dinner. But
there are other families that are signed up and I don't think that I'm
going to starve on that day.

Last week was a pretty busy week. I went on an exchange that was kind
of set up at the last minute. Elder Drake who is serving in a town
called Pottsville, he had to go to the eye doctor cause he thought he
had pink eye and it wasn't going away and the nearest doctor was in
our area and they had a lot of appointments. So on Thursday I got to
go to Pottsville with Elder Beach. We were very busy, we had quite a
few lessons. The most eventful part was when we were trying to stop by
some potentials in an apartment complex. We were having no luck so we
start heading back to the car and we get there and I look over and I
hear a loud BANG!! I see a car hit a light pole. It was really loud
and the bumper was in bad shape now. People started to come out of
their apartments and see what was going on and me and Elder Beach were
thinking that this must be a miracle cause now there are so many
people that we can talk to. But unfortunately we weren't getting any
luck with that either. So we just left after the cops showed up.

Friday we had transfer calls and my companion Elder Lewis will be
leaving and I will be staying. President really sounded in my last
interview that I was going to train but I never got the call from him,
so I guess I'll just be an rpm (regular proselyting missionary).
Transfers are tomorrow, I'll get to see who my new companion is!

I also found out this week that I am related to the senior couple
serving in our zone is related to me. We are like 4th cousins or
something. Their last name is Gardner and my Grandmas name is Gardner
too, so I started looking at my family tree and so was Elder Gardner
and we found out we share some relatives. So that was pretty cool.

Yesterday at church was really great. We showed Dante the baptismal
font after church and he got really excited. He says he is sticking to
it and wants to do it. He was upset that Elder Lewis has to leave
before he is baptized. He is making really great progress. He just has
to stop smoking. He is such a golden investigator!

I love being a missionary here! It's just great. It's also supposed to
snow a little by next week. I'm a little scared, but I'll be ok. I
know this work is true and that God is at the helm and we are his very
servants upon the earth. Love all of you and miss you.

Elder Shumway