The Gospel is for both the sober and drunk

Dear Family,

Thank you for your prayers and fasting for Emily. She has progressed a bit this week; we are trying to find ways to help her strengthen her faith and her testimony. And, other good news, the church is really helping a lot in her husband's job search. I am sure that fasting and prayers will help, and hopefully she can meet her goal to be baptized by the 13th.

The new car looks nice; Michelle can count on some major arguments on who gets to drive it at college. It would be easier if we were both going to the same college :P.

Sounds like you put Grandpa to good work doing chores around the house. Did they have fun there?

What ward is Donald in? What part of San Diego does he live in? If you talk to him, ask him if he knows any Chinese people.

Yesterday for halloween, in the morning we had zone conference. We worked in the afternoon, looking for our potential investigators. But on halloween night, we are not allowed to be out; it's a really bad proselyting time, especially since we might get egged or something, so we had an evening study with President Northcutt that was very good. He's the best stake president I've ever heard of; he takes so much time out of his schedule to be with the missionaries, and it's really cool. We studied with him again this morning, as we do every p-day.

So, I guess I better back up to earlier on this week. Tuesday, I was kind of peer pressured into letting another missionary cut my hair because, hey, it's free. And to make a long story short, that'll never happen again. The guard came off, making big problems, and now I have very very little hair.

This week we spent a lot of time getting acquainted with the new ward. We met with the ward mission leader, brother Welch, who is awesome on tuesday, and Bishop Ellsworth on wednesday. We also went to a lot of entries on the Potential Investigators list, seeing how much potential they actually have. There aren't really a lot of hot ones, but we do have appointments with a few.

On thursday we did service again at the San Diego food bank in the Salvage area. It was not nearly as bad as last week, when there were flies over everything, there was rotting stuff, and it smelled like poop. This week, it was cookies, crackers, and cereal in damaged boxes. We went through them, made sure that the inside bags weren't damaged or opened, and then taped up the boxes. It was fun.

On saturday, we volunteered for a really big community event, the Carmel Mountain High School tournament of bands, where about 20 big marching bands from the San Diego area came. It was kind of like the marching band tournaments I did in 10th grade. We were security in charge of directing the buses into the parking lot, and making sure private vehicles didn't get into the parking lot unless they had a pass. That was a pretty fun job too, and we were very visible as missionaries. A lot of the band kids waved at us or said hi, which probably could have opened up some missionary opportunities.

Of the two potential appointments that we set last week, one held and one fell through. We met with Ling Cao... she's not tremendously interested in joining the church or anything right now, but she's letting us come back which does indicate some desire. One of her friends seems somewhat interested too. I think the lesson we taught was pretty good, it had the spirit, and so we're going to keep working with her.

Wu Lai, who we were excited about last time, got hung up at work, so wasn't able to make the appointment. But we have a rescheduling later this week, so we're still hoping on him.

Sunday I was at church from about 7 in the morning to 8 at night, which was pretty long. I was waiting around studying while Elder Elkington was on base, and then our meetings started at noon. Oh well, at least I got a lot of study in. I'm almost on page 600 in the old testament; I've been reading the whole thing.

On Sunday, as we were teaching Mrs. Ma, there was a fireside going on in the chapel, and a lady came in to grab Elder Elkington because a man had just walked in off the street to see what was going on, and so Elder Elkingtong went out and sat with him in the fireside and taught him a bit. So, I was in teaching Mrs. Ma by myself (not by myself, because I had ward missionaries with me too) in chinese, and that was a cool experience. Afterwards, I was able to meet Elkington's new contact. His name is Nicholas and he really liked the church and was very interested. He was a little weird though, and I later found out that it was because he was a little drunk. But we offered to meet with him, he said he'd love to, and we set up an appointment for 3:30 yesterday at the church. He didn't show up, so we went to the address he gave us. He wasn't there, but his stepfather told us that nicholas is pretty much a homeless drunk who stays there when he wants to, and that he needs help, and is going into a lockdown therapy today. So, that was a pretty weird little episode. I hope he's okay though, he was nice and if he can turn his life around, he would be a good member. The gospel is for everyone, for the solid happy families as well as the lost transient souls of the world.

Well, I'm out of time. Have a great week. Thanks for writing. Love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers