Thanksgiving

Dad,

Happy Thanksgiving! It will be a good one this year for us. A family in the Ward invited us over for tamales, which are a Mexican specialty. We won't be doing any tracting because it is a holiday, but it should be a good day. Regarding money for some souvenirs before I come home... that would be great. It doesn't matter how much, just do what you can and I can figure it out.

And then for the BYU thing... I believe that BYU will need an official high school transcript. I don't know if you can fax it to them or if it needs to be sent to them, but they will need it I believe and then the GPA part on the application will need to be filled out. Thanks.

Thanks for the trunky jokes, ha ha! They don't bother me at all. My companion and I are very dedicated and so trunky jokes don't distract us. Elder Lindsay goes home on January 17th. He has to get back for a scholarship he has with the Army or else he would be going home the same day as me. By the way, the missionaries in my last area got my package from the office and so they will be giving it to me the next time that they see me which will probably be the 2nd of December.

The work this last week was good. We found and taught a lot of people, but yet I continue to get humbled when it comes Sunday or when the time comes for a return appointment with that person and they either don't come or they aren't there and then we never contact them again. It is the Hispanic culture that they don't want to offend you and so they just say yes to everything but they never follow through. But when we find someone that does follow through with their commitments they are real great.

For example Nacho and Maria - two of our investigators. He came to church again this last week with three of his kids, but she wasn't able to make it. They own a Taqueria, which is just a taco restaurant, and it is open on Sunday and so she had to work this last Sunday because they were short two people because of the holidays. They were supposed to get baptized this upcoming Sunday, but won't because she has only been to church one time and it is required to go three times before baptism. They are great though! They offer free food at the restaurant for us. We ate there last week and they paid for us. They are great people, and will be getting baptized in the next couple of weeks.

Our other investigators have pretty much dropped off. It happens regularly in Spanish areas and so we aren't too worried about it because we know the Lord is preparing people in our area to be taught.

Dad, you asked about my personal study. That is a good question to ask because I've been eating it up lately in my personal study. About two weeks ago, there was a District meeting all about The Book of Mormon and the importance of it and I was looking in Preach My Gospel in Chapter 5, which is all about The Book of Mormon, and I really felt impressed to begin a new study of the Book of Mormon. I was about in the middle of the book and so what I did was I just picked up from there and started in a new Book of Mormon color coding guide to help me study it more. Each reference to Jesus Christ, any of his names, I am marking in orange. Each reference to an attribute of Christ I am marking in purple, and each reference to where Christ or his prophets speak for him by saying, thus saith the Lord, is marked in green. Well I am now in Mormon chapter 4 I think, and so I have studied from the middle, Alma 50 or something, to Mormon marking it as I go. I am loving it! It is showing me so many new things especially of how many references to Jesus Christ there are. On every page I would say that there are at least two references to him. No one can say that we don't believe in Christ... All they need to do is read The Book of Mormon and see all the references to Him. The crazy thing is that I'm pretty sure at the beginning of the year President Jones is going to do a study of The Book of Mormon with the mission and it is going to be the exact same marking system. So I'm trying to finish it before the beginning of the year. As well as seeing all the references to Jesus Christ, from this study I have truly grown my testimony in the Savior. 3 Nephi 11-3 Nephi 27 are just packed with Christ's teachings and those pages are filled with green because he is speaking the whole time and it is truly great to see, learn, and apply his teachings.

That is about it for this week. I love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Harvey