Just watched them put up Moroni this morning!

This week has been awesome! It started with a lot of people dropping off the face of the earth, and then finding a ton of new people at the end of the week. The first thing to report on is that we did a special musical number in sacrament meeting. There are seven elders in the ward. The bishop had asked us to sing, and then he told the other elders, too, which is kind of where the problem was. It so happens that two of the elders in our ward are the most tone-deaf people I have ever met, ha-ha. So we sang, and it was pretty awful. I may have said this story last week, but I couldn’t remember so I threw it in because it was funny. It was hard for the three of us not to laugh...it was really, really bad. So they probably won't ever ask the missionaries to sing again, ha.

So we had exchanges this week. I went to my greeny area with Elder Norton. Elder Norton used to be my zone leader in North Ogden. He is an awesome planner and a very smart worker. It was good to show him around to some of the people I used to teach, so that he could have some where to start since they are in the processing of white-washing still. It was weird to see all the familiar faces and roads. I realize more and more, though, how much I dislike exchanges. Something about not sleeping in my own bed just drives me crazy and being away from "home". Maybe it’s just because I have such good companions and don't want to get away from my area, but I always get so stressed the whole day before exchanges. But it ended up being ok; so that’s good. While I was on exchanges though was the really stressful thing.

We love Ana and Angel!

Well, this is really the only picture this week. For companionship inventory, I have always just set goals for each other about how we think our companion can do better, but Elder Plowman, being more positive than me, made us list all our strengths. I thought you could see some of my Bassett genes in there. I didn't have a girlfriend to put as my strength, so they just went with mom instead which makes sense to me. I discovered one "talent" that I have was turning every strength they said into a weakness...they decided I need to be better about accepting good things about people/mainly myself. Anyway, it was just fun to do and look at.

We started off this week with zone conference. It was a replica of what we learned in mission leadership training so we just got to practice and hear everything twice. Elder Ward did a great job training on how to begin teaching. The best part was that they revealed two new key indicators that the missionary department wants us to pilot for Utah missions. Salt lake is already using them; it’s just new to us. They got rid of ‘larcs’ altogether (less active recent converts) and added the key indicator of ‘less actives in sacrament meeting’ and also ‘referrals from recent converts/less actives’. I am very happy with it. It will change the way larc’s are used. Actually, getting them to church is more of a measure of the ordinance and will force more productive less-active lessons, and recording referrals from them will encourage what we should already be doing but aren’t doing. They asked for a vote and two people in our zone opposed (oh boy...love those 20-month Spanish missionaries!), but they went through with it anyways. We went by to visit those two missionaries and discouraged rejecting the brethren's ideas/counsel in the future.

"Best ward mission leader ever, from Buchanan, GA"

Elder Pyne, Elder Plowman, Elder Bassett

So, it has been a great week. Elder Plowman is awesome; we already knew that, but just to reconfirm. We are having a ton of fun-the three of us together. Elder Ward is also doing well travelling the northern area of the mission. We are kind of disappointed the travelling trainers are going to every zone except ours, so he won't come to us, but I guess that's good that they thought they needed to solve problems elsewhere. We are pretty lucky to have such a great zone. It feels like we have been in the house until dinner everyday. Between 12 week, language study, trainings, planning trainings, personal/companionship studies, we are in the apartment a huge chunk of the time. But we are pretty good about not getting distracted and have a good time together. It looks like our visa waiter friend, elder Pyne is suffering from beginning of the mission blues, as Uncle David calls it, so we are trying to help him stay happy and positive. Elder Plowman is a lot better at that stuff, so it's good he is here. My remedy for everything is just to go knock some doors, because that’s what I like to do…probably not very helpful, ha-ha.

Ana and Angel are awesome. They are such blessings! They didn't make it to church this Sunday, but that is our fault, because we didn't tell them enough about it so it was still unfamiliar. While I was on splits teaching a less-active, my companions told them about church and all the classes and what to expect. Then the member, Brother Camacho (like 65 years old) and I showed up, and he talked for a long time to them about how forty years earlier he had been sitting on the couch with his little kids listening to the missionaries and now all his kids were returned missionaries and had families of their own, and how he looked back and was so happy he met the missionaries. It was definitely a perspective they needed to hear. It made them realize how much we loved them and what a blessing this would be for their three little kids. They ask the best questions and have been reading The Book of Mormon. I really hope all goes well with them.

A Baptism!

Matching ties for conference

Well, Sister Maria Guadalupe Ramirez got baptized on Friday. Livin the dream baptizing a lady named Maria Guadalupe. It went well. There were more people there than there are at Mt. Lewis baptisms but still not a ton.They couldn't do it on the weekend, because her kids work weekends so we had to do Friday. The three of us sang a musical number, ‘Mas Cerca Dios de Ti,’ (Nearer My God to Thee). We did it without piano: first verse in unison, second verse me bass and them melody, and third verse I sang bass, Elder Ward tenor and Elder Pyne melody. And then we spoke after the baptism and told everyone to go do more missionary work since it was all members. Then the bishop said in two weeks we would sing in sacrament meeting…too bad Elder Ward is leaving!

So she was NOT happy about these pictures...she refused to take pictures with us then we went and sat down and pretended to talk to her then elder pyne said go and we looked over and smile.d..then once we got that one over with we just took one from in front..I think you can tell how excited about that she was, ha-ha.

"...it brought the Spirit so fast it surprised me"

Matching ties before conference...

So this week was pretty different...

As everyone knows already, conference was last weekend. And I bumped into fifteen people that I knew including half my family! The highlight of the weekend was getting to meet my niece Emma, though. It was a little weird and unexpected, but I am still working hard and being a missionary.

The week started out awesome having two people pay for us at Farr's ice cream, our new favorite place. Across the street from our house is the original Farr’s! Then at Costco, two people offered to pay, but we only accepted one, because we were too full to eat anymore. As always, it's a hard life. (I bet y'all think I am just so obnoxious from the way I write these letters, ha-ha. Well I guess I am). We drank six gallons of milk this week...Costco milk was too cheap to pass up. We got sick of cooking and now live off of leftover pizza, toast, milk, and lots and lots of cookies.

We taught Robin a couple times this week, but teaching him the law of chastity was the funniest lesson of my mission. A few quotes "Woah, woah, woah. I don't know you guys that well to be discussing this." "Men have needs; you have to understand." "Sometimes you got to do what you got to do," and a lot of other ones that are not rated g that we had to just flinch through and try to bring the Spirit back. He is such a weird guy, but we love him. We have sent Elder Pyne to do lessons by himself (just with the member present who is an 18-year-old kid) to Robin which is the best way to train: having to let the Lord teach you to do it yourself while Elder Ward and I make visits or tract. He set him up with a baptismal date for the 21^st, and we haven't even trained him on that so Elder Pyne is still the best visa waiter ever.

We love Elder Pyne

So this week was great. We started off with a good district meeting last week. Then we went to costco for lunch. While we stood there, three different people walked up to the five of us standing there and gave us 50 dollars total. Life is good. So I got a package from Amy this week. It was awesome. She sent me a weighted jump-rope to do between sets so no more Mexican ladies will be calling me fat, ha-ha. A Men's Warehouse opened up next to Olive Garden, my two favorite places. I went to get my suits pressed last week, and I decided that’s where I want to work when I am going through college: men’s warehouse.

So, there are dust devils in Utah, as well! We were making a u-turn with all the windows down and one of them attacked us and covered us in dust. We just laughed for like five minutes; it was the weirdest thing. We spend a lot of time laughing. Elder Pyne is the best visa waiter ever! We get along with him really, really well. He isn't timid at all about contacting and understands almost all Spanish. People love him and he makes everyone laugh. He is really short and has a permanent smile on and always has squinted eyes. He was a diver/swimmer/wrestler in high school, so we have wrestled a couple times just for fun without making the people that live underneath us too mad, hopefully. Send us a few of your favorite jokes, because we tell each other jokes when we are going to bed at night, ha-ha. Elder Pyne is awesome. They gave us the best of the group. We are pretty lucky.

Love our Visa Waiters!

Elder Ward, Elder Pyne (waiting for a visa to Argentina) and Elder Bassett

Another week, and it's still a great day to be a missionary in the Utah Ogden Mission (that's our mission's motto). We are loving it with our brand new set of 11 visa waiters that showed up yesterday heading to Argentina. Visa waiters never really have gone to zone leaders, but as soon as we found out there were some coming in, we called the assistants and asked if we could have one, ha-ha. So…  Elder Pyne got here yesterday after six weeks in the MTC and is heading to Mendoza Argentina. He is from St. Louis and has been here about 24 hours. He is a really nice guy; we like him a lot. He is excited about missionary work and seems to get along really well in our companionship. He did Rosetta Stone before the mission, so he talks just about as much Spanish as I did when I got out. He did really well with his first contact yesterday, and of course, loves the perks of being a Utah missionary. We went to Sam’s Club today, and a lady walked up and handed us 20 dollars for lunch. That’s always a plus. We went to Olive Garden again last week with the assistants, and someone paid for us so that was a lot more breadsticks as well.

Something AWFUL happened in church on Sunday, though. I saw a lady that recognized me from my first area of the mission. She walked up to me and told me that I looked fat. I said what?! I haven't put on any weight, and she said it looked like I had put on a bunch. I was very offended despite everyone telling me that means I look healthy. This is the same lady that eight months ago told me that I looked like I was 14; so I wasn't exactly happy to see her again either. Then she went and bought us rancheritos and brought it to her house on Sunday, ha-ha. I don't think they quite understand the whole Sabbath-day-holy thing. We thought she planned on making the burritos herself when we called the night before to ask about dinner.