"you can't do that, I'm a missionary!"

Family,

I am happy to hear the vacation went well and that Mason received his Melchizedek priesthood, how exciting that was for me to have all of your there and have Dad bestow it upon me. Not that it's about me though; I am so proud of him! As I am out here and have many more opportunities to use it out here, I am able to see how real it is and the effect it has on families and even strangers in the world. We had 2 people stop us at Winco today and they expressed how different we were than all of the world, and not just because of the way we dress. In stake conference last month, someone spoke about how in public, you can tell when members are faithful to their covenants, because they have a light in and around them, especially in California. That must be why people were so drawn to the Savior and similarly how Ammon was able to make such a good impression upon King Lamoni. Obedience to the commandments creates such a happy demeanor within us and it shows in a lot of our daily pursuits. People can seem so unhappy with the way their life is in California, it's kinda sad, especially when they reject the antidote to their issues. Thankfully we know where to turn to when we need heavenly help.

We had a pretty good week this week and I am glad to report! On Wednesday we had exchanges so I went to Barstow and throughout the day, the Lord blessed us their area with 3 new investigators! It's a very humble part of our mission, if you know what I mean. We should be going to Calico ghost town next week in Barstow for a P day activity, it's not a real ghost town, but a tourist kinda place, but we hear it's pretty fun! We have a senior couple serving in Barstow and they spoil us missionaries, good grief. The person who signed up to feed us moved and so the Mower's took us to Pizza Hut for dinner, they are awesome! I learned that Elder Mower is the maker of the company "lifetime". They make the folding chairs/tables/fitness stuff! super cool, right?

We've been pretty busy this week between a lot of tracting, teaching, and preparing a training for zone conference this Thursday. Zone conference is when we get together with 2 other zones and President and Sister Hobbs and the AP's have the zone leaders give trainings on what we feel like our zones are struggling with. It's a pretty cool meeting, and we're pretty excited to give ours. We fasted for help with it because we want it to come out perfect. For some reason, fasting is much easier on a mission. It's probably because we're just busy all the time or something!

The highlight to my week was actually yesterday when we got to see a family named the 'Iongi's. It's Bishop's nephew's family and they are a really funny family. It was definitely the Spirit that brought us there because it's been a struggle trying to set something up with them, and it worked out great. Before we left, we took a picture with them and I was on the end next to Janet and then she put her arm around my waist and I squirmed and was like "you can't do that, I'm a missionary!" I got really red apparently. It was super funny, we were all busting up.