Hey hey y'all

yeah, I'm way surprised that it's already getting close to halloween. It doesn't feel like I've been out here that long. Today is my month mark out in the field! AHH it's going by so fast!Thankfully though it's getting somewhat cooler and the cecada's are starting to hibernate and whatnot so no more noise from them :) teaching is the best part! I hate tracting most of the time, but I know it's part of the whole package so I'm totally fine with doing it, except when people are ridiculous and hide in their house when we KNOW they are in there! GAH
Dad told me about Grandpa's crazy experience at the airplane museum. That's so nuts! Elder Richard G. Scott is a way awesome man. We heard him speak the night before we left to come out here. That's so crazy Grandpa got to show Elder Scott the museum. So let me recap my week I guess. Well the important things I guess. This past weekend the stake had stake conference and so we went to the Saturday session with our investigator who is gonna get baptised this saturday. It was great. There was this lady there that acted EXACTLY like Sis. Parmenter. She was a recent convert and hilarious. She talked, along with some other people and it was a great thing to have an investigator there. I just wished we could've gotten our other investigators to it. Oh well. But Sunday we got a ride to the Sunday session, but we were late, so we had to sit WAYYYY in the back with all the families who had tons of little kids. I felt like I was sitting in a jungle I could barely hear what the people were talking about, let alone focus on it haha. But thus is a family ward I suppose haha. Oh! You didn't happen to hear on CNN about a group of murders that happened in a town called Farmville, Virginia this past week did you? Because apparently it made national news! That town is about 30 minutes away give or take. Apparently this crazy college kid there killed his ex girlfriend and her whole family. And apparently it was pretty gruesome, but I didn't hear any of the details other than that. But just wondering if you'd heard. Anyways, so two days ago on monday we went on exchanges with those missionaries in farmville. So I went to farmville and Elder Hinds stayed here. It was a blast. We didn't get a whole lot of work done there in farmville, because we couldn't find any of the addresses we were looking for (it's out in the country as well, but theres a college in farmville so it's a little more densly populated than anywhere that's in our area) and one of the elders I was with has Crohn's disease, so he had to lay down for about an hour or so. So we went around and met a few people. We talked to this guy who is like an ex-navy seal special ops sniper or something. He did all these missions that he can't talk about and stuff it's insane
haha. Anyways, what bummed me out about the whole day was that Elder hinds and another Elder went to teach Kevin and Sarah. (they are the two investigators that are super redneck and live in a trailer and whatnot.) We have been working with them trying to get a marriage date, because they aren't married, and also a baptism date. They have been praying about it but it didn't look good. But while I wasn't there Elder Hinds set a date for them to get married and baptised in November! Ahh I wanted to be there when that happened! Oh well, I'm more happy than jealous, just because they finally agreed to be baptised! yay! also, we have an investigator getting baptised this saturday. He is one awesome guy. He is older, but really rock solid in everything we teach him. We just taught him about tithing last night, and he was totally alright with it and everything haha. I'm not doing the baptising, but I'm just excited to be there and for him to get baptised :)hmm...let's see if I have any crazy stories. Our stupid phone keeps telling us theres going to be thunderstorms, but I've yet to hear any thunder. Oh, so I've been writing my roommate brent pretty consistently, and thankfully he's been writing consistently as well. Oh man do his letters cheer me up on a bad day haha. He is so funny and I miss hanging with him so much. If he reads this on the blog, brent you should be getting a letter from me shortly ;) haha.
alright I remember a crazy story now. The other day we were tracting a street here in blackstone and no body was answering as usual. We walked up to this house, and two girls (maybe 20-23 or 24) walk out and meet us. We start talking to them about the church and the gospel and what not, and we started talking about prophets. One of the girls asked us "well, how do you believe them?" (speaking about Joseph Smith) and then sbe asked "because if I just told Mallory (she is the other girl on the porch talking to us) 'Mallory! God told me that we couldn't be lesbians anymore!' I don't think anyone would believe me." I was just like wow. Way to make this whole thing SUPER awkward. So after we found out these two girls were lesbians we continued teachin em and then of course one of them had to ask about how we viewed the gay/lesbian deal. So we answered in the most polite way we could (without beating around the bush of course) and they weren't offended or anything because I basically said "well, we do believe homosexual deals are a sin. BUT. Christ wants everyone to love everyone. So we have no right to judge you, or be prejudice or hateful or anything." We also cited a talk from Elder Holland I believe, where he said that it's not a sin to have those feelings for the same sex, but it IS a sin to act on them. So we answered politely and respectfully. And because of that we are teaching them again on saturday ^^.I'm not exactly sure how we are going to go about this whole deal though, haha. I'll talk to the mission president about it.

Hey me again!

OH. You'll absolutely NEVER guess who I ran into out here. I was at this fireside thing up near Richmond and this lady walks up to me and is like "Elder Christensen!" and I was like (in my head obviously) "who the heck are you lady?" haha. Shes like "Do you know who I am?" and I'm just standing there with a stupid "I have no clue who you are" grin on my face, and she's like "I'm Drew Pigg's Grandma!" I was like WHATTTTTT. Yeah she's apparently Drew's Dad's Mom. haha. I was totally shocked. I was like, whoa. Small world. hahaha.
I eat, but it's not really good food, and I never cook anything...lots of frozen food...but's not cause I don't want to, we just are not home for long enough to cook. It's lame, but at least it saves money haha. We are also running out of miles again (GOSH and it's barely half way through the month...kill me now.) and we've been biking alot. and it's been BUTT hot around here and so humid you can see the freaking humidity. It looks like it's foggy or misty or something outside, but NO. It's just the stupid humidity. AHHH AND THE STUPID CICADA BUGS ARE KLSHDFLKJSHDFJKsd. *ahem* I love it here. haha. I love going out and talking with people. But like I said, I'm not so much a fan of knocking on doors for hours and getting maybe two people to come to the door. Ridiculous. But I love teaching. I love it more than I can say! I love seeing those people hear what we are saying and get it! Truly and honestly understanding. It's a great feeling. It's what makes this stuff worth it. What makes all the heat and the bugs and the exhausting days worth it. haha funny thing about the swine flu vaccine. You would never guess how crazy conservative it is out here. Like there is this guy in our branch, who I swear, is like 10,000 times more conservative than anyone I've ever met. And it's hilarious cause he's always telling us about his conspiracy theories about the government and the end of the world and what not. And what's even more hilarious is it's not just one guy in the whole bunch who's like this. Our whole branch presidency is like this in one way or another. Cracks me up. They have these big discussions about the second coming and how we are getting closer and closer and how the president is doing crazy stuff. Its like listening to coast to coast Am in real life. hahahaha. But I love em and all these things I'm saying about them isn't negative, it's just the funny things about them.
yeah I guess I am a bit of a freak when it comes to our house. Like, I'll let it get messy for a while, but when P-day comes around, Ihave to like, get everything organized, otherwise I feel like we are living in a pig sty. haha. and you are right, that's what they always tell us. That the Spirit can't dwell in an unclean place. So we try to keep things clean. Anyway, we are being careful on our bikes. I lost my safety packet there for a while, but I found it again here a few days ago. So I have some nice new reflector fabric on my bacpack and some new lights and whatever. It's fun. I actually love riding my bike....sometimes we do 7+ mile bike trips out into the country just to save miles. It works, but I'm always way nasty sweaty when we get back...the humidity is what makes hot days so bad out here, But I have like 3 water bottles I use all the time (which were here when I got here thankfully) and so I am staying pretty hydrated. I did almost mess myself up the other day coming down off this bridge on my bike. theres almost no sidewalks in this whole dang state and so we were riding on the edge of the road and I'd get nervous everytime a car would go past so I'd get closer and closer to the edge. Then this one time I was coasting down going way fast and then my bike started going into the gravel and I freaked out and pulled on the break and my whole bike started drifting out to the side a little for a second but I correct and I was fine. Scary, but fun after the fact haha. But my helmet is driving me crazy. It's smaller than it should be so it gives me headaches when I use it, and I can't adjust it to be any bigger, so the strap around my chin is alot tighter than it should be, but I can deal with it so I'll just go with that until I have an opportunity to look at a new one. that's awesome to hear about jordan and ryan getting started in school again. Gosh I can't believe it's already been 6 weeks since I left. Time is going by fast. Tell Ryan and Jordan that I'm proud of em for what they are doing in sports and school. Sounds like ryan is stepping it up a notch!
I'm glad to hear the bulldogs won! I hope they have a good season. Beat the rebs! haha. I might send a confederate flag home sometime...if I can ever get one haha. Its got a totally different meaning down here then it does up there, so we'll see if I actually get one haha. one story I wanna share for this week. So on Monday of last week, we got a text with a media referral for a man out in the middle of nowhere. So we went out there to give him what he ordered and before we even knocked on the door, he came out and was all grumpy and just shouted "I can't talk right now, I just got home from work and you can call me and we'll make an appointment later" and closed the door. So I was a little mad because we drove 45-50 minutes to get out there to talk with him and we used up tons of miles and he just shut us out. so a few days later, we call him up and we make an appointment for tuesday (yesterday) and then we hung up. BUt then we get a call 15 miuntes later and it's him again, and he's asking if we can send someone out that day and talk with him cause he's been so depressed and whatnot lately. So we get a member to come with us and long story short, he's half american indian and has problems with alchohol and we are now teaching him! He's very interested. And He gave us some very awesome gifts which he made and were very special to him, because of the gift we gave him: the Book of Mormon. He was a little drunk at the time, but we've talked to him since. It was awesome and it made me love this work even more.Well I'm outta time, and I can't think of much more to say, but if you have anymore questions just let me know and I'll write back on wednesday! LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING AND LET EVERYONE KNOW I LOVE THEM.

Hey everyone!

it's actually really hot and humid here most of the time so we actually rarely wear our Jackets haha. Yes I have my black suitcoat. I'm eating ok, I actually lost like 8 pounds or something ha. Yeah the place we eat at is pretty cool. Yeah we don't really eat at members that often, but they are trying to do a better job with that since they need too haha. But the area we are in only has a branch. and there's maybe 30-40 people there every sunday. I guess a good way to describe it is that the Young mens president and the Young womens president are husband and wife. Haha. That's cool to hear about wylie. Can you find me his mtc address and his mission home address? I wanna write him, but I had to send a letter to his house that hopefully the chapmans will forward to him. Along with wylies address can you get neil and davids address for me? Along with josephs college address, incase he doesn't write me back or the letter doesn't get to him? thank you.haha Ryan is carrying on the legacy! I'm sure he will party it up. By the way, did those two get my letters? I hope you didn't read them! They were to jordan and ryan only! haha. The Branch is very cool. It's funny though, all the members of the branch presidency have huge bushy beards. haha. But they give us food and whatnot. We write emails at the local library here in Blackstone. It's awesome. haha. Our apartment is pretty good, and even better now that we spent the day cleaning it...it was a mess before. The elder that was here before me with Elder Hinds was a total slob and left tons of dishes that were sitting there the whole time while I was there. And who knows how long they were there before I got there. Mold was growing on em it was so bad. We actually had to throw some plates and stuff away cause they were so moldy. But our place is NICE and clean now. woo! It's a two story apartment, with a living room and kitchen on the bottom floor, and a bathroom and two bedrooms on the top floor, but one of the bedrooms we use to study in. Yeah so I've actually been using my bike alot lately, because my companion's using another elders bike while that elder works on his. So yeah. I love the bike! I almost flipped over the handlebars the other day because the brakes were so nice and new haha. But yeah, let dad know I am tightening those bolts each day before we go out on the bikes. But you know how I said it was really hot here? well it's hurricane season here, and we got the edge of Tropical Storm Freddie (no joke, that's what it was called haha.) and it dumped rain the past few days. No thunder and lightening though. And I'm sure you are gonna love this, but apparently in the spring they get tornadoes and stuff here. haha. Not only that but we have another Hurricane heading our way here in the next few weeks, so we'll see if that makes landfall or if it even hits here. But the weather is crazy here, it changes so much lol.
Oh and I'm glad you and dad decided to go on this trip after I leave! bums! haha I'm just kidding but it sounds like a ton of fun just make sure dad doesn't get wasted at all these swim up bars he's telling me about hahaha. But let me kind fill you in on the work that's been happening here in the past week or so. we went and say two of our investigators that are progressing really well this last friday. And my companion asked me if I would like to be the one who asked them to be baptised. And I said yeah of course! So I was nervous but we asked em at the end of our lesson and they pretty much said yes, but the only dissapointing thing is that they said they wanted to wait till next year to do it because they wanted to get everything worked out before then. These investigators are so awesome, even though they are kinda hickish haha. They live in a trailer park in this tiny little town called victoria. But I love em and I really wanna see them join the church. They are there almost every sunday. We asked em to pray about when they wanted to be baptised and we are going back today to talk to them about it, so wish us luck. haha. we also have another investigator named Richard who is set for baptism here on the 26th. And he is so cool. He is older and retired, but is very solid in the truthfulness of the gospel. I love him! He is so excited to be baptised and he's coming with us to stake conference and he wants to watch general conference and its way cool.we also have another investigator that we are still working with...he is having a hard time keeping his commitments so we are hoping on thursday when we go to teach him, that he will have done some work. Those are basically our progressing investigators, but we are still doing tons of finding and we are teaching several other people who we've only seen like once. But it's going good, although it get's a bit frustrating when we are walking or biking all day and no one ANSWERS THEIR DOOR. GAH. But the importance of the work keeps me motivated. Oh so also we had to go to the doctor all the way in richmond the other day because of my stupid toe. I have a bad ingrown toenail on my right big toe, and I called the health secretary for the mission and she told me to go see the doctor. but the missionary insurance covered it all I think. But the toes feeling better now, they gave me some antibiotics and told me to basically just soak the the foot in some warm water with epson salt dissolved in it. And it's makin me feel better so that's good.It's so hot and muggy here, you have no idea. Even when we were walking around in the rain, and I had an umbrella, and I should've been freezing because I have no coat, I was sweating like crazy. It's ridiculous how humid it is here. But I'm getting used to it.
So sometimes I feel like we waste alot of time driving, because we have to drive most of the time cause our area is so large. I emailed the mission president about it cause I wanna make sure we are doing everything right. I love being out here so much, you have no idea. I miss everyone so much it's crazy, but I love being able to see the joy in peoples hearts when they come to understand the gospel and Christ's atonement. I love it when people are kind to us when they don't even believe what we believe. It shows me that there are yet a few good people left in this world. And when we get the people who make fun of us or make themselves look really stupid by yelling ridiculous things out their car windows at us (which we rarely can understand) I just smile and am glad I am the one getting made fun of, especially since the Lord is on our side, and us on his. This isn't to say this work is easy, because it rarely is. Especially with this ingrown toenail, it's been hard to walk around the past few days. But I want to work hard out here and make sure I have no regrets about how I spent my time here. Oh, and just as a side note here, I finished reading the book of mormon cover to cover again a few days ago. The end of the Book of Mormon is so sad. Just reading about Moroni all alone, watching his people be destroyed because of how wicked they are, and not being able to do anything. It kinda reminds me of today, watching the world tear itself to pieces simply because people have differing opinions. I love the Book of Mormon. There are so many ways we can apply it our lives, and so many examples we can follow. I also decided I'm going to read the bible cover to cover so I'll let you know when I get throug with that haha. I started...2 days ago? I think? and I'm in Genesis 48 or 49. It's very interesting. haha.Well I guess I'll just finish this letter up, but I love you all so much, and I hope to hear from you sometime before next wednesday, and I hope everyone is doing well and whatnot. I love you all especially for the love and support you give me. Please keep the missionaries of the world in your prayers.Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't wanna stop typing haha.I guess I have to. Love you all SO MUCH. And I'm so greatful for everything you've given me. And continue to give. I'll talk to you later. Love you and I hope you ahve fun with everything.BYEHunter.

Finally in Virginia!

Hey hey hey. I'm doing good! Let me recap what I've been doin for the past week or so haha.So after we hung up on the phone on wednesday, mom, I got something to eat and then we borded the tiniest jet I have ever been on (seriously like, there was three rows of seats, two on the right and on the left - like this: (- --) we actually ended up having to send some other people (no missionaries) on another plane, because with all our stuff and all the people we were overweight. so that was intense. the connecting flight was about an hour. we flew into over richmond and the very first thing that I saw was trees. I couldn't believe there were that many trees in virginia. It reminds me ALOT of Oregon. So anyways, we landed. (oh and btw, that jet was the bumpiest ride I've ever had on a plane, I guess because we were so small and light. also, instead of going down that hallway to the plane, we actually had to get out and walk on the tarmac to get to the plane cause it had like steps. I'm telling you, it was like one of those private jets.) I expected to get off the plane and just die from the heat and humidity, but it wasn't that bad...at first. But anyways we walked inside and made sure everyone was together and walked off to get our luggage and meet the mission president. we walked down this hallway and there was like, 4 missionaries, the mission president, his wife, and a senior couple missionary companionship. They welcomed us and we went off quickly to get our luggage. That was all good, except one of my bags, someone ripped off that rubber plastic case that had my name in it, but I found it just fine. We walked outside and it was so dang hot. Thankfully they told us we could take off our jackets cause i was just dying. But we got everything loaded up and went to the mission home. The mission home was huge and the mission president was so nice and they fed us and we just had a really good time. They explained to us mostly everything about the mission and what was gonna happen the next day. So we finally went to bed, cause everyone was so dead tired. They had groups of us in different rooms, because we obviously had no way of fitting us all in there. But we slept way good that night.The next day we got up, and ate breakfast. I wasn't feeling so hot, so I didn't eat a whole lot. They told us to bring a change of clothes, and I did, but apparently we were also supposed to wear our suit coat, but as you know, my blue suit coat only matches one pair of slacks, so I wore my suitcoat and it didn't match my pants...it was kind of ridiculous. But oh well. We took some pictures (which I'll be sending to you, but I'll tell you about that later) and headed on our way to find out where we were going and meeting our new companions. The mission president has these elders that help him out called AP's and they were way cool. We got to the chapel (called the Bailey Bridge Chapel) and they explained some more stuff to us, and I paid for that packet (oh btw, I only withdrew 20 dollars from the account cause the atm I used had to be in multiples of twenty) and then we went into the meeting to meet our new companions and figure out where we were going. I was way nervous, not cause I was worried about anything, just cause the change of things I guess. Nervous to leave the friends I had made.Uhm, so they went through everyone and I watched all my new friends get assigned to go all over the mission :'( it was sad to see them go, but I know I'll see them again and I know they are doing the same thing as me so they're doing whats good. I was like one of the last three picked, and I was assigned to go with Elder Hinds (Pronounced Hind like Hindquarters and add an "s" haha) to Blackstone and serve in the Burkville branch. I was like, "I have no idea where thats at, but I hope it's good haha. So basically our area covers three counties and several different towns. It reminds me alot of brownsville. It's a tiny town with basically one main street with a couple somewhat big streets and abunch of houses scattered all over the place (this blackstone that I'm talking about). So even though we live in blackstone, we have a car and we drive to a bunch of other little towns like Victoria, Burkville (where we have church), Crewe, and others that We haven't visited yet. The only problem was, that we normally get 1400 miles to use while driving, and apparently Elder Hinds used them almost all up 4 days before the end of the month, so for those four days we weren't able to drive at all haha. And heres were we ride our bikes right? wrong. His bike is broken. So my awesome amazing so-excited-to-ride bike is sitting in our kitchen. We walked the entire town of blackstone for four days. Thursday Friday Saturday, and Sunday. I tell you what, I think we did a good job getting the worst out of the way early. Cause those days were really hard on me. I had the biggest blisters I had ever SEEN on both my little toes. Right now we have three investigators that are doing well. Well I guess techinically it's four. Anyways, theres Kevin & Sarah, who are probably the most redneck southern people I have ever seen. Kevin is 21 and Sarah is 19 or 20 and they live in a trailer out in Victoria (about thirty minutes or so away). They are progressing well, except that Sarah is bipolar, and they both have anger issues. They both smoke too, which is whats making it kinda hard. We are going to try and commit them to be baptised here the next time we see them :) . Then theres Richard. Who is one of the most amazing people I've met since I've been out here. He's schedule to be baptised on the 26th of this month (september). We are way excited for him, and we just had a wonderful lesson with him last night about the word of wisdom. It went way good. There's also a man who's name is Bo. I haven't met him yet, but I will on thursday. Apparently he's really cool and we may need to work with him some more but we are excited. Not everything is great, but we are working hard and excited. We had this guy named David totally explode at us the other day. We were comin back to teach him, but he was drunk when we got there and started cussing at us and yelling and tellin us we were following a bunch of BS and just ridiculous things like that. We just walked away after we talked to him for a bit haha. It was ridiculously stupid but funny. Oh we also have a little restaurant here in blackstone that we are able to go to for free! Apparently it's owned by some inactive members but they still let missionaries come in and eat for free haha. It's interesting. oh and so I've learned a couple things about virginia in the first couple of days. haha. 1. Cecada bugs are the most ANNOYING bug ever. Seriously they are making noise ALL day and apparently people here just consider them part of the background noise. But they drive me CRAZY. I can like hear them while we are in the house. It's nuts. 2. In virginia, I HATE the sun, and love the wind. It just happened to be crazy hot and humid here the days that we had to walk around, and then as soon as we didn't, it cooled down. perfect. 3. Crickets don't just chirp in the evening. haha, this is just like the cecada bugs. They are chirping all day, and it sounds like the suns about to go down. so yeah, I'm trying to think of anything else to write...please tell people to write me on that address you got, and if its different, heres the one I know is right: 620 S. Main Apt B8 Blackstone, VA 23824. BYE LOVE YOU DAD MOM JORDAN RYAN AND ROCKYYYYY PLEASE WRITE MEEEE LOVE YOU