Hi Mom,

These last few weeks have been hectic. I didn't get a chance to email before today because P-Day was our orientation day. I went out with Elder Guevarra, it was his last day of proselyting and we went tractng and contacting. It was fun. I got to give the Joseph Smith story in Spanish and Elder Guevarra said I killed it.

Tuesday was transfer day, so that's when I was assigned my trainer, Elder Garcia. He's, to use the term of the mission, "sick". He goes home in twelve weeks so his last assignment will be to train me. He doesn't have any signs of being "Trunkie", he's driven to end strong and baptize a family, so we've been working, searching, and praying really hard. We think we have one in the C* Family, but they need to come to church. We also don't have any baptismal dates (Fetchas) because no one will come to church, and the one investigator that is coming, mom won't let her.

We have a goal to talk to everyone we meet. This has lead to some very interesting conversations. Here they count how many conversations they have in which they try to talk about the gospel, so every conversation.

We've had, in the last week, 157 conversations, which blew away the mission standard of excellence, and warranted a call from the Spanish Assistance to the President. Through this process, we've also managed to come to the conclusion that I am a magnet for the crazies. In the first week I've had eight converstations with people who were crazy, or tried to. I'll give you the highlights. There was Livin' the Vida Loca, a homeless man who called us over and asked us why we didn't talk to him, asked a bunch of trivia about irrelevant and untrue facts about Church history, and hated me because I was white and didn't speak Spanish (This was day 1). Then There was Voodoo Lady, who tried to hit me with a shopping cart. and finally there is Angel, this is actually his name. We talked with him for 30 min. during which time he talked about 100 unrelated topics and, when he found out I like to sing, told me "You're not a singer, you big boy. You a Boxer" Elder Garcia and I have had a hard time forgetting about this contact.

I actually haven't bought an iPad yet. We won't get iPads in this missions until later this month at the earliest, and we might get the new iPhone 6 or 6+ instead. I keep you posted. we're actually going to be Guinea pigs for more of the online access missionaries.

What I did get was a nice bike. it cost me around $400 with tax and all the necessities, like helmet and lights, but it's a nice bike. I have a picture of it before and after we "picia"ed it up, but the computer I'm using doesn't have a place to install my pictures so I'll send them next week.

city is Van Nuys zip 91316.

I have to go now, I don't have anymore time. I'll write more next week

Love

Elder Michael Blanding