I really wish I could get longer letters! I want to know every detail and I feel like Alex is leaving out a lot! I want rambling, long detailed, and packed letters that take 20 - 30 minutes to read. I guess he just does not have the time. I have seen letters like that and I miss them. I know more is going on with him than what he writes in the letters and I seriously just want to know all!!! It is kind of frustrating to hear from him but have him not answer any question previously asked. I want him to be happy and I don't know if he is!


Before I start talking, one thing -

Email

Me

Songs

in

mp3

I bought an mp3 player thinger that you can just put mp3s on, and it's great - but I still need to get mp3s to play on it. I have a few here in DVDs people have given me, but you have to realize - you have the power to email me them *IN MP3 NOT MP4* whenever you want, simply over a few emails. For example, if you were to get ahold of Josh Groban, you could rip the CD to mp3 and send it to me in all of ten minutes.

That said,

This week was a little rough in terms on numbers and appointments, but these things happens. I've been here long enough to not freak out about these things, especially because it's been the second biggest party week of the entire year. Next week would be the biggest. We'll see how it goes. According to President King, the mission's been doing really well recently. We'll see how it goes.

So far Elder Burk is doing well. He's a little up tight, much like I was when I got here. It's the hardest thing to realize in the mission - that you can still be calm and not super retentive about everything. It's not to say that we can be disobedient, obviously. He's started to loosen up in the last few days, but there's still some way to go.

He's really into that kind of "I think Jesus really started to become a God when he started the Atonement" doctrine. Or like when people reject us, he's like "but we are representatives of Christ!" I don't know, it's a kind of mormony metaphysics.

Not to be negative or anything. We really are doing well.

Well, my stupid computer just crashed. Explorer died, but Chrome still goes. So now I have no taskbar, nor folders. Cool

Luckily I was able to start a new iteration of explorer.exe by opening a new task in the Process Manager. It's a good thing I'm a nerd.

So anyway, that's that for now. The week is lame because of our circumstances. I'm fearing that Elder Burk is getting a bad faith-starting training stange, or perhaps that he think's it's that I'm lazy or something. I don't really know.

Alex sent this a little later. I think they were having problems with the computers or something.

I don't really know why I sent that last one. Whatever. Maybe to free up some RAM with all those attachments.

I'm way sorry. I don't really have anything to say to you more than that. I'm still in the shaving dillema, but what else is new? I still look like a scrubbed off my facial hair with a lathe, but that's okay. Nothing really exciting about it.

Have you ever read Lectures on Faith? It is a book to blow through all rhetoric concerning faith, all examples, all everything of the sort. Basically it's seven lectures, each only a few pages long. Each has a purpose (this was written by the First Presidency for the School of the Prophets in the 1830-40s ish era). I suggest that you read it. For some people, like me, being low-rhetoric people, it can change your life. For example - there are three requirements of Faith in God:
A belief that God exists
A correct knowledge of the attributes and character of God
A knowledge that the path one is taking pleases God and complies with His will
Think about that for a second. Why does a person need to be in the Church? They would not otherwise be able to understand God, nor His plan. Therefore, for the much they want to believe, they could not have faith for life and salvation. There is a reason we do missionary work. It's one of those things.

Just keep thinking about it. If you read the book and think about it, it seriously takes all the vapid rhetoric and opinion out of religion. I really could have used it a few years ago.

And there it is. Email me songs. Good. Take Luck.

Elder A Conrad Crist