i am glad to hear that you are all living in the new house now. i got the letter to send for a ballot a little while ago and thought that if it would take a month for me to request a ballot, a month for them to send me one and my vote would arive in time for the inaguration of the new president, pluss i dont know a thing about what is going on in the us or the world.we are teaching this lady leticia, she wants to get baptised but has to get married first andshe said that her partener wants to get married, we just have to make it hapen. irma is cool as well. she is a friend of the family of the bishop and they told us that irma wants to get baptised, she had a accident a while ago and as a result, she cant hear very well. and since my accent and spanish in general arent very good, we have a hard time comunicating but shes realy cool, just needs to come to church. and elvia and her family as well are cool. their biggest obstacle is that they havnt come to church. i think that her husband is impeding them. sergio is cool as well. he has problem with the word of wisdom. and we are teaching more people but these are the people most likly to progress soon. tell sam i miss him as well.love ben

well its good to hear that you liked your race. i love races. the feeling that i feel after a race i imagine is kind of like how it will feel to come home from the mission, or when we leave this world and see our heavenly father. trail running is cool. we hiked in this canyon today. its a realy popular place and tons of people were there running up or down the trail.how is stu doing?things are well here. this week, i contacted a guy in the street and put a cita with him, but we didnt have time to go visit him. then i contacted the same guy a few days latter and he told me that he was waiting for us when we said that we would visit him but we never showed up. so we visited him, and he came to church sunday. he realy liked it. im glad that i was given an opportunity to repent of not visiting him and that he is progressing well. the members in this area have given us alot of refrences. its cool. people are almost afraid to talk to us in the street and everything, but if a member presents their friends to us, its compleatly different. its cool. just hard to get members animated to give us more refrences. they called a new ward mission leader in our ward. he is a recent convert from 3 years ago and is realy excited to work with us. he said he could come to teach with us every day if we have citas that he can help with. he told us about his conversiohn story, he had huge problemas with the word of wisdom, and the missionaries came and brought him to a baptism, and he stoped drinking that day. it was cool.tell brother shaw that i got his letter. he told me some things that president watson said when i was set apart. it got me animated it was cool. i dont have many oportunities to respond to the letters that people send me, but im greatful for them. life is good. time is flying realy fast. thanks for the letter.love ben

i loved general confrence. it was awsome. president uctdorf is incredible. and elder scott was great in the preisthood sesion. he translated it into spanish and spoke in tu form. tu form is how you talk to one person specificly, so when he did that, even though millions were listening, it felt personaly directed to me. we had a baptism this week.it was ther sister of a member. she has a tender heart and it was a cool experience. do you remember who spoke about gratitude in the confrence? i cant remember, but i liked the talk alot, was it uctdorf when he talkded about hope? i realised gratitude is one thing that i have lacked my whole life. im going to change.we went runing this morning with hermano silvestre. we went trail running, it was realy fun. and we cleaned the house for a few hours. i remember dad spending all day saturday cleaning the house alot of times. im glad that i had that example and that you guys kept the house clean. and that you taught me the importance of spiritual things. well its time to go. but i love you. what is the new adress on dean drive? i need to sent you somthing.elder lariviere

i just got the absentee ballot and your package. thanks for every thing, ill try to set up the excursise equipment soon.my companion is new in the mission, or was born in the mission so im his dad.things are well. we are excited for general confrence, and if all goes well we should have a few baptisms between sesions. and we played socar today. we got lost coming home so we dont have much time. but we had a good week. we blessed the house of one lady, with the preisthood and she felt the spirit realy strong that was a cool experience. and all is well. love you, have to runben

i havnt heard of any one with food storage in mexico. good luck selling the house. how soes my landscaping look? and my painting? you know we are doing baldface when i get home right? and we are jumping in the pool?as a district leader i have to motivate other missionaries, give an hour and a half district class evert week, i have to report every ones numbers to the zone leaders, and thursday all the district leaders in the city went to the presidents house for a confrence. it was cool. they made us pancakes and eges and it got me realy motivated. i just need to learn to motivate others without making them mad, and hopfully stil being their friends. we went down town today, and i say my old companion. it was a realy happy experience and good to hear about how my area is doing after i left. im learning alot and i hope i can fulfil all my responsibilities.my "son" is doing well. hes learning alot. im trying to get him to talk in the lessons more so sometimes ill finish a principle and look at him. a few times hes started teaching about the plan of salvation when we were teaching about the restauracion. but i was alot worse when i was learning.we went to the temple 2 weeks ago. my first time in 9 months. it was realy cool. i felt alot better after.love you byeben

i should have brought my camera today. they made me a trainer. i have a kid. it was a crazy day. a few other missionaries in my zone are trainers as well. so we all went together. we got lost getting to the offices and got their late. my son is from chiwowa. its spelled differently but i dont know how. hes way cool. im realy excited. they made me district leader as well. i saw elder mikami my trainer who lives by the offices, elder jones who was my companion in the mtc and a bunch of other people that i hadnt seen in a long time. it was realy cool.a baptism that we had planed for yesturday, when he had problems with his family and couldt come to church. but after we visited him and it was a realy cool visit. i love when investigators have our confidence and they just open up and tell us what they are thinking. he told us about how his way of thinking has changed compleatly since we started visiting him. life is good. we are going to have succes.

well i just finished writing you a long letter and it got deleted. but thank you for the happy birthday. i cant beleive im 20. we had a good week, one investigator that was giving us excuses for 3 months about why he couldnt come to church finaly came and should get baptised sunday. and an area 70 came and talked. it was cool, he gave a great talk. thansfurs are next week. my zone leader thinks that ill be a trainer. well see. life is good, but im running out of time at the computer so i have to go. i still dont have the package, ill let you know when i get it. oh and im proud of sam for calling out his teacher. i should have done things like that so many times. way to go sam. love youben