18 investigators

March 7, 2006
Dear Family,
Well, it's been another good week. Let me reply to some of your questions first, starting with the most important questions:

My birthday. You don't need to get me a cake or a cake mix or anything like that - the members and other missionaries here do a good job of getting every missionary at least 2 entire cakes, and I definitely don't need more than that. However, I do have a few things I want for my birthday, if that would be okay.

I would like a backpack. Not my lame shoulder bag that I have now, but a backpack. With two shoulder straps. That would be wonderful. If it could have two compartments or more, or good places to keep my scriptures, a few copies of the Book of Mormon, and passalongs, that would be great too. Whatever you find that you think would be best.

Also, I know this is weird to ask for for my birthday (and it's a real sign that I'm in the adult world now. Another one was that our apartment was talking about the high quality of certain brands of rice and I realized then that my childhood had ended) but perhaps you could send some sort of multivitamin supplement too. I've gotten sick too many times in the past few months and I want to fight that if possible.

Other than that, there's not really anything I want or need.

The Vancouver trip sounds like a lot of fun. I have always wanted to go there, so maybe we can all go when I get back. I hear there is a very big Chinatown there.

That is strange that you said in Vancouver they're not allowed to have missionaries over for dinner. Here, that's our source of generating referrals and working with the members, so I wonder if even though they have "more prime time" they get less referrals. But I'm sure that their mission president is following the spirit and it'll make a difference in that area. Evening is definitely our prime time for finding people home, but the problem is that the sun goes down very early, so when we knock on doors people tell us it's too late. And it's like 6:00 or 6:30. I guess they expect us to find them home while they're still at work. Weekends are even more of a prime time because we can use daytime hours to find people.

The Tuiotis moved up to Long Beach and are meeting with the missionaries and preparing for baptism there. It's too bad that we didn't get to follow through with it, but they're doing great.
Our investigator Jie is moving to Monterey tomorrow too. So, our investigator pool took a big hit. But then, we've gotten new investigators every day for the last 5 days - 6 in total, with some appointments set up for potentials. On Sunday, we knocked on a door while tracting, asked to come it, and came away with a baptismal date for two weeks from now. We hope it'll work out, it was pretty surprising. He had met the missionaries before. His name is Paco Marquez.

Four of the new investigators came from one member family we have called the Sapiens. Two of the sons friends (named Tyeshay and Stephen) and a few of the neighbors (Millie and her daughter Nani) are taking the lessons now. Plus, one of the people renting a room with Henry's family decided she was very interested in learning more too. So we are certainly trying our best and teaching a lot of lessons. We're up to 18 investigators total, which is kind of overwhelming, especially since we only have our car 3 days a week. But it is good to work hard.

We had a stake conference broadcast this sunday with President Monson speaking. It was very good. He wiggled his ears for us.

I am out of time so I must go, but I hope you all have a great day. I love you all.

Love, Elder Myers