Service, teaching and chess

Thanks so much for all the news and love. It's great to hear about everything going on at home. I'm glad to hear that the sisters in the Philippines are fine--I had heard that all the missionaries had been found safe and sound, so that's good to hear. It's also good to hear that I'll be back in time for the new Star Wars movie :P.

It is a little weird how many people you guys peripherally know in Colorado. We had dinner with the family that my companion knows pretty well on Thursday night, and I assume that they're who the photos you got originated from. It was pretty crazy, I guess they know a guy in our Oregon ward really well, so we talked about that a little. Kinda bizarre.


We were not involved with the carving of the pumpkins--those were actually the Sisters' handiwork. If I remember correctly, we went to their house to talk to the member they live with, and we happened to get there just as they were getting back from somewhere (Okay, I probably don't remember this correctly.) Anyhow, the sisters showed up as we were messing with their pumpkins, and took the picture that I assume you have.

Every week I send a letter to the Mission President and this is basically an expanded version of the letter I sent:

This week was certainly interesting--with some great parts and some not so great parts. 

We had Zone conference on Thursday, and it was awesome--I really enjoyed the trainings we got from the President, Assistants, and others, and the role plays that we got to do (one was role-playing street contacting, and how we could really do a street contact talking about any principle of the gospel. The one where we were asked to do a street contact about the law of chastity was particularly fun.) I feel like I learned a lot. 

Apart from Zone Conference, the week was pretty good. We got to do service at a couple of different places, and to visit a couple of families who haven't been attending church regularly. With one of those families, we committed them to study the scriptures a lot more than they had been, and they seemed really excited about that, so that was good. 

On Friday evening, though, my companion started feeling pretty terrible, and continued feeling sick through Sunday--we weren't really sure what it was, partly because the symptoms kind of kept changing. So, we stayed in on Saturday and Sunday, although we were able to get to Ward Council and Church on Sunday, which was good. 

He's feeling better now, though, so hopefully we'll be able to do a lot more work this week.

Things have been generally going pretty well. Thanks for all the news and the love that you've been sending me. I love you so much.

Love,
Peter

And follow-up questions:

Okay, it's true, the pumpkins were really impressive. I think they did use stencils, though, so eh. 

When you're sick, you usually call the Mission President's wife, especially if you feel like you'll need medical attention, or if you have to stay inside. If you're homebound, there's a variety of things you could do. I read from the missionary library some, played chess with my companion a lot--he was in his bed, but I guess was really wanting to play chess.

Okay, chess has been fun, but we've been playing a little too much. It has been a lot more competitive--my companion won almost every game on Saturday and Sunday, even with him being sick.

Zone conference was from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m, so pretty long.

Oh, and:
My companion (going home next month) has been trying really hard not to get trunky, and he's doing pretty well, as far as I can tell. Sometimes it does get a little weird, but most of the time we do pretty darn well.