Dear Everyone,

Well, Ben asked me a lot of questions which took me a while to answer so I don't have a whole lot of time left today. So, if you want to read some more about how things have been going, ask him to forward it to you.

Because I don't have much time, I won't be too descriptive, but here's some things that have happened this week:

Among other things, we had a fantastic mission conference on Friday. Two MTC instructors came down and talked with all of us about how to improve the results of our mission. I learned a lot and having been trying to implement a lot of new aspects into my own personal service and also into my work with Elder Davis.

We had another tree cutting expedition this week for one of the Spanish members in the ward. These trees were about twice as tall as the first ones we took down, but we finally finished it. By the end of our time working, he had huge branches covering his entire front yard. We then loaded them all into a trailer and took them down to a mulching yard that they have here in Texarkana. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot of new Spanish words too. :)

Elder Davis and I have both been sick this last week. Then yesterday, I began losing my voice. Elder Davis thought it was hilarious as I would go up to people to talk with them and my voice would crack every time I said the word "missionaries." Had a great lesson that night with a man named Robert that invited us into his home when we contacted him out in the parking lot of his apartments. We were with a member from the ward and he gave a powerful testimony of his conversion 5 years before. The Spirit was there very strongly as the three of us testified of the truthfulness of this gospel and of the Book of Mormon. I thought my voice being the way it was would take away from some of the spirit as we were testifying, but it didn't and the man named Robert accepted our invitation to be baptized. (That's another thing that I've been wanting to tell you. We have a woman named Connie with a baptisimal date and now this man Robert has a date as well. Maybe I'm just being stupid, but I thought it would be really cool if we ended up baptizing two people with my parents names. They both have the same date too. :)

Well, my time's up. Sorry I didn't write more, but I did send you a CD in the mail yesterday with all my pictures from my first 3 months here as well as a letter I wrote you last Wednesday. Just as a heads up, at the Mission Conference President Tucker made a lot of organizational changes around the mission so we'll now be having P-days on Mondays. So, as of next week, (March 1) I'll be writing you every Monday instead of Wednesdays.

Hope you all are doing well!

Tu hijo y hermano,

Elder Bradley Bishop

Dear Everyone,  Well, I made it through the sub-freezing weather and now it's starting to

 warm up a bit 

again.  As you know, I hadn't brought much winter gear, but I thought it would probably be enough to keep me warm anyway despite the cold since I would be wearing more layers 

than I did back home.  However, I didn't really account for the icy wind that we had  here. I also realized a little late that whereas back home I would only be outdoors for  at the very most an hour, here we were knocking doors for hours on end without ever being  let inside to get warm.  So, in the end I ended up freezing my tail off, but I survived  and I learned that I only like the cold bits and pieces at a time.  I also learned that I  don't like the wind nearly as much when it adds another 10 to 15 degree drop to the  freezing temperatures.    Anyway, besides the weather here, we've been having lots of other fun experiences. Doing  stuff with members, knocking doors, and...being chased by a dog.  Yep.  I can now  offically add that part of mission culture to my checklist of things accomplished.  Elder  Wilson and I had gone to try an inactive member, but when there was no answer we decided  to tract a street next to it.  As we were walking towards the street we saw a German  Shepherd about 20 feet away from us, but couldn't figure out if it was chained or not.   Then, it took a couple of steps closer to us and we could tell that it definitely was not  chained.  So, we decided that rather than taking our chances, we'd just walk back to the  car and try another street.  Elder Wilson turned around and started walking back towards  the car and the dog started sprinting at us.  I let out a shout and we both started  booking it for the car with the dog snarling behind us the whole way.  When we got to the  car, the dog was too close behind us for us to get in so we ran around to the back side  of the car.  Then, the dog came around one side and chased us twice around the whole car  like some crazy game of duck, duck, goose.  Well, after two loops we decided we'd had  enough of it so we stopped and I started swinging my backpack at it and Elder Wilson was  brandishing his scriptures ready to bop it on the head with some "scripture  power."  I guess we looked at least a little intimidating because it backed off a  little and Elder Wilson shouted at it and it backed off a bit more.  We decided it would  be smart to keep the car between us and the dog, so Elder Wilson got in the drivers seat  and I got in the backseat on the driver side and we drove off.  Afterward we had a good  laugh about it.  After that incident, I now consider myself a fully broken in missionary.  :)   The rest of the week has gone pretty well.  We went out to one of the member's farms and  helped pull up about 150 lbs of frozen turnips out of his garden.  We also chopped some  more trees down yesterday and had some trouble getting a stump out, but finally got it.   Some other service we've been doing a lot lately is giving blessings.  Elder Wilson and I  gave two this last week and we've given about one a week since I got here.  That's always  a great experience as well and it's humbling to see how much faith some of these members  have in the power of the priesthood.  Giving all these blessings and seeing the faith of  some of these people has in turn strengthened my own faith.    Because it was so cold last week, we didn't have a whole lot of success in getting in  doors.  You'd think that because people didn't want to be outside in the cold, they'd all  be at home and we could come in and speak with them.  Instead, people just wouldn't open  up their doors because it was too cold outside.  So, it wasn't a very eventful week as  far as teaching goes.  We still taught a fair number of lessons, but none to anyone who  has really been progressing a whole lot.  We tried to get one of the spanish members to  come with us for one of our more promising investigators, but when we came for the  appointment we found out the investigator had been called away for work and so that fell  through.  Still, the work goes on and I'm still doing great.  I can't believe that Elder Wilson is  going home in just two weeks.  It'll be a big change without him here anymore.  Well, one  of the members is taking us out to lunch today so I better go.  I love you all and I  continue to pray for you every day.  Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bradley Bishop

Dear Everyone,  Well, another week has gone by and as of 4 days ago I've been out for 4 months!  Wow, the  time flies by so fast.  I can't believe all the experiences I've had in such a short  space of time.  Sure, I think about all of you sometimes, but already it seems to me as  if this is the only kind of life there is to live.    Everyone sounds like they're doing great and had a fun time up at the cabin.  I can't  believe how many changes are happening there in the ward.  I got a lot of cards from  families in the ward and it was great being able to hear from all of them.  Brother and  Sister Squires sent me a package the other day with some carmel popcorn in it.  I had  already sent them a thank you letter for the card they had sent me so instead of sending  another letter, please just let them know that I got it and I appreciated it a lot.  Surprisingly, the weather here has turned pretty cold.  We had a couple days where some  snow fell, but it didn't ever stick.  The members here had also let us know how cold it's  going to be getting this week.  Everything seems a lot colder when you're out knocking  doors all afternoon.  I've been managing to keep warm enough, but slacks don't keep the  cold out too well.  I'm not looking forward to rest of this week when it gets down into  the low teens.  (I guess I'll just have to run from door to door to keep warm.)  The work is going really well.  We're finding great new investigators to teach, both  spanish and english.  The hard thing is hanging onto them enough to keep teaching them.   Everyone should just plan out their whole day like we missionaries do and life would be a  whole lot easier.  We had an appointment with Allen for tonight and he called and had to  cancel again because of his work schedule changes.  If we could just teach him, I know  that he'd get baptized.  We keep praying though and I know things will work out in the  end.  This last week we got to help two different families with service projects.  The one was  a part member family that lives out in the boonies and have been working on an addition  to their house.  The husband is not a member, but the four of us Elders got up there  together and laid the tiles on the roof for the addition with him.  (He's a carpenter and  so he built the whole house by himself.  It looks great.)  (And yes Mom, I was EXTREMELY  careful.)  It was a great experience and I had fun learning how to put a roof on a house.   The man was very grateful to us and hopefully he'll be open to hearing the lessons one  of these days.  Then, our other service project that we did yesterday was for one of the  members.  Bob Taylor, the elderly man who gave me all the geneology information, asked us  if we could come take a tree out of his backyard for him.  It had fallen over a couple  months before and so we chopped it all up and trucked the wood away to one of the other  members houses.  Then, we came back and he decided he wanted to take a couple more trees  out of his backyard.  So, I climbed up one of the little ones and tied a rope around the  top and we started hacking at it with the axe.  That one came down fine.  Then, we went  after the other tree he wanted gone.  It was covered in vines all the way up the tree and  was a good 25-30 feet tall.  But, we didn't want the tree to hit the power lines on the  way down so we decided to take a little of it's height off...(This is the part where I  know Bryce would be proud of me.)  I climbed up the tree with a bow saw, went up to the  top, and started sawing off limbs!  (I'm sorry Mom, but it had to be done.  Anyway, I'm  obviously still alive and so there's no need to worry.)  :)  All the branches came off  fine that we needed to get and Elder Wilson tossed me up a rope that he had lassoed and I  put it around the top of the tree.  Then we started chopping at it again and we pulled  the tree down with the rope without taking out any of the power lines in the yard.  We  sawed up the trees and stacked them in his backyard.  Anyway, we were pretty proud of  ourselves and decided we would call ourselves the lumberjack missionaries from then on.   Elder Wilson took a couple pictures of me up in the tree that I'm planning on sending  home.  Maybe I'll send it for Mother's Day. :)  Well, those are my stories for the week.  I promise that I had some amazing spiritual  experiences as well, (not just death defying ones) but I'm all out of time so I'll have  to tell you about them another day.  Before I close though, I'd like to share a scripture  with you that's meant a lot to me since I got out here.  I've got it memorized in  Spanish, not English so I don't know if I'll be able to get it word for word, but here  goes:    I know that I am nothing.  As to my strength I am weak.  Wherefore, I will not boast of  myself, but I will glory in my God.  For with his strength, I can do all things.  For  behold, we have worked many mighty miracles in this land for the which we shall praise  his name forever. -Alma 26:12  I know this to be true with all my heart.  This scripture gives me strength whenever  things get hard.  It may not always be in the way we expect or when we want, but God  truly does work miracles through us every day.  I've seen the miracles and blessings  spring up around me and change me and the people we teach.  He lives and He loves each of  us. For the which, I will praise his name forever.  I love you and I pray for you every day.  Thank you for all you that have taught me  throughout my life and preparing me to come out and serve.  Tu hermano y hijo para siempre en Cristo, Elder Bradley Bishop

Dear Everyone, Sorry I didn't write yesterday. Since this is transfer week we actually have our P-day on Thursday instead of Wednesday. Elder Francom left for the Mission Home Monday night and he's home now. Elder Knight went down to Shreveport to wait there for his new companion. Elder Knight is becoming a trainer this transfer so he's getting a new companion from the MTC. Both Elder Knight and the new Elder are English speaking as are all the other Elders in the zone so Elder Wilson and I cover any spanish referrals we get from the other missionaries which is why we went down to Atlanta, TX last week. So, did I understand correctly that Tanner is going to Salt Lake City on his mission? It's awesome hearing where all of my friends are getting sent off to. Whenever you hear about anyone getting their call, please be sure to let me know. By the way, I got a card from Sister Merkley saying that you two had talked about Elder Merkley and I. I'm pretty sure I've asked you already, but if you could try to get me Elder Merkley and Elder Webb's mission addresses I'd really appreciate that. That's also really cool to hear about the Gila Valley Temple going up in May. So Bryce, you want to start doing stuff with computers. That's sounds great, especially if you can go to Gateway and get so many classes done in such a short time. Do you know if you want to go into hardware or software yet? How's school been going for you? You've only got one semester left! I loved Mesa High so much, but it felt good to finally graduate. You're still working at Nielsen's right? (I'm asking you all these questions to see if you'll actually end up writing me one of these days. :) Still, I do want to know how you're doing so if you don't love your big bro enough to write him make sure the info at least gets transferred to me through Mom and Dad). I did get the Christmas CDs and the Christmas package so don't worry about that Mom. You told me I should call in between 5 and 6 so that everyone would be there. I'm not really sure what our schedule will be like here that evening, but I won't call before 6. Let me know what the latest time is you want me to call though too so that I can decide when the best time would be to call everyone. Tell Aunt Katie thank you for the popcorn. It was really good. I hung up the stocking you sent me next to the fireplace and the Christmas tree that Elder Knight received. He got a big box with twelve days of Christmas presents to go along with the tree. Then, a couple days later he got a package from his family with twelve days of Christmas presents too. He put them all underneath his Christmas tree and so our apartment looks pretty well set up for Christmas. The other three of us were saying that we were pretty sure we had never had that many presents under the tree when we were back home. It's alright though. I really don't need anything. Remember how I always say what I really like is opening the presents and don't really care much about what's inside. I've decided that what I really like this Christmas is just seeing those presents under the tree even if they're not mine. I think that what I've really always loved is just being in that room Christmas morning with the family and spending that time together laughing about the cheesy presents we get each other. Anyway, I don't want you to worry about me. I hope that didn't make it sound like I'm homesick because I'm doing fine and wouldn't trade being out here for anything. People have been a lot more receptive this last week. We still don't get in a whole lot of doors, but we're getting in more and that's a great blessing. We've also been teaching more spanish lessons. Yesterday, we actually taught three different Spanish lessons which I'd never done before in one day. We rarely get more than three English lessons in one day. Still, everything is going really well and we're hoping to get a couple baptisms in this transfer now that we've got an investigator pool going. Yesterday, we also tracted into a hard-core anti-Mormon yesterday and he just started railing on Joseph Smith and how we didn't believe in Christ. I ended up just telling him in a couple sentences that we did believe in Christ and that Joseph Smith WAS a prophet and then we left. I guess the people who try to tell you that you are wrong are trying to discourage you or change your mind, but I always end up just coming away with my testimony strenghthened. I'm still working on our challenge to read the Book of Mormon before Christmas and I should be able to make it by then if I keep reading the same amount I've been doing. It's a lot slower going when you're having to look for and mark a bunch of specific things. Still, I've loved being able to read it this way. I have learned so much this time around that I've never thought about in all the other times I've read it through. I love being able to share the Book of Mormon with our investigators. Being able to tell them that I know it's true and the blessing it's been in my life is of itself a blessing. It makes the Book of Mormon more precious to me. It makes me want to study it even more to come closer to my Savior. Tell everyone I say hi and thank them all for their prayers and support. I can feel the blessings from them every day. Have a Merry Christmas and I'll talk to you all next Friday! Remember to write me about the call times in a letter since I probably won't be getting on the email next week. Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bradley Bishop

12/9

Dear Everyone, Hope you're all doing well.  Thanks for the card Mom.  I got it yesterday and wasn't sure  if I was supposed to read Kaytie and Ryan's letters or wait for Zone Conference when I  get the other ones, but I decided to read them anyway.  Thank you so much Kaytie and  Ryan.  I loved your letters and your testimonies.  I'm really looking forward to see  everyone else's in a couple weeks.  If you see Kevin or his family again, tell them I  said congratulations: both on Hillary's marriage and on Kevin getting his call.  It's  really cool hearing where all my friends are getting called.  Keep me posted whenever you  find out about others getting their calls.  It has gotten a lot rainier here! And colder.  We had one storm yesterday that the other  Elders said was about like the storms they have on a regular basis in Louisiana.  It  really was "pouring buckets."  The rain and the cold makes it a little less fun  to tract, but it makes you all the more appreciative when you actually get in the door  with one of your investigators.  I decided to go out and buy myself a jacket since we  don't like to wear our suits too much on rain days and since most of the white shirts I  have are short sleeved.  One lady whose door we knocked said my mother would be ashamed  of me for not dressing warmer and said I needed to get a jacket, a scarf, and a beanie.   I said I'd get the jacket and she gave us a return appointment. :)  Our investigators are doing pretty good.  We had at least a couple pretty solid  commitments from two of our investigator families about coming to church on Sunday.  We  even brought a member with us to go pick one up Sunday morning.  They didn't answer the  door and the other family didn't show up either so that was a little disappointing.   However, we did have one of our investigators come for the first time that day.  His name  is Allen McDonald and though it's hard to tell for sure since we've only taught him once,  but we're pretty sure he's going to be golden.  His parents are both inactive, but their  hometeacher was visiting them regularly and when Allen moved back in with them to work  for his dad, he got interested in the Church.  Their hometeacher had showed them Elder  Holland's testimony about the Book of Mormon from General Conference and it really made  Allen interested.  We went over with the hometeacher and had a lesson answering some of  the questions he had.  His main concerns were about the Pre-earth life and then the Book  of Mormon, but he was very receptive. The mom and dad were both converts from years  before and were very kind and supportive.  They were both bearing testimony to him as  well and so hopefully this might be the thing that gets them active again.  We haven't  had much luck catching the rest of our investigators this week.  We took some of the  April 2009 Conference CDs that a member gave us over to one of our other investigators,  Johnny Deaton, to listen to.  He has trouble reading because of his eyesight so we're  working on getting him the Audio for the Book of Mormon so he can listen to that as well.  I loved the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  It had been a really hard day Sunday.   Our other investigator families hadn't come to Church and it had been raining all day  and everyone kept slamming the doors in our faces.  We spent the day trying to round up  our investigators to come watch the Devotional with us, but none of them could come.  So,  it ended up just being one of the members, Elder Wilson, and I in the chapel as we  watched the Devotional.  As I watched it, I felt so much peace and happiness as I  listened to the Tabernacle Choir sing and the First Presidency speak.  It had been a hard  day, but the Spirit lifted me up again as it always does.  I love hearing those three men  speak.  We had been challenged at our last conference to try a little caroling for our tracting  to try to get people to listen to us a little more readily.  Bad idea.  We tried it and  it didn't go so well.  I'm far from the most talented singer in the world and  Elder  Wilson sorta sounds like a bullfrog.  We had some doors close on us after we had a single  line out from Joy to the World.  Anyway, it was a funny experience.  What made it more  funny was that Elder Wilson thought we sounded good.  However, to my relief, we both  decided we wouldn't do it again if there were just the two of us singing. :)  Today is Elder Francom's last P-day.  He and Elder Knight are the other two Elders that  we share our apartment with.  Unless something changes, the other three of us will be  remaining in Texarkana for the next transfer.  In fact, because of the changes they are  making about missionaries staying longer in their areas, there's a good chance I'll be  here for at least 6 months.  That's alright though.  There isn't as much Spanish here as  there is in other areas, but I'm still greatly enjoying the work, both in English and in  Spanish.  Yesterday, we went down to Atlanta which is about 30 miles south of us.  The  missionaries down there had found a couple Spanish families and so we went to talk with  them.  Too bad none of them could talk that day, but they were all friendly and we had  two of the families that were very excited for us to come back.  I don't know if I've already mentioned it, but the mission also received a challenge a  transfer before I got here to read the Book of Mormon by Christmas.  The cool part of the  challenge is that we were told to mark the scriptures with three different colors.  Green  for any attributes of Christ that we found, blue for Doctrines of the Gospel, and then  Red for every time one of Christ's names or titles are written.  It has been such a cool  experience!  They gave us a copy of the Book of Mormon to use and the whole book is just  full of color.  This challence has really made me notice and look for things that I  haven't in the past.  For instance, now whenever I read the scriptures, the Savior's  names always stand out to me.  It's great!   Well, that's about it for this week.  When are Kaytie and Ryan getting to Arizona?  I  love you all and I miss you, but I'm growing so much and am always striving to become a  more worthy representative of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  This is His gospel and  his work.  Every day I'm working to do what he would have done and say what he would have  said if he himself were ministering to the very people with whom I am speaking.  Thank  you for your prayers and I pray that our Heavenly Father always is watching over you and  blessing you the way he has me.  Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bradley Bishop

12/2

Dear Everyone, I'm writing a little bit earlier today because an investigator of the other Elders invited us out to his cabin for our P-day. It's been raining this morning and the last couple days, but we're still hoping to have a lot of fun up there. We're leaving in about 30 minutes so I'll keep my letter short today. It sounds like you all had a great Thanksgiving. We ate at two different members houses. One meal was at 2 and the next was at 4 so we were all very full at the end of the day. The Sister from the second house gave us ALL the leftover food and so our fridge is STILL overflowing with stuff right now. We also helped the second family set up their Christmas tree which was really fun and made us decide that we want to put one of our own in our apartment. We're not sure whether we'll actually get around to it or not though. If we do, we'll probably just leave it up even after Christmas. :) Speaking of Christmas, Elder Wilson has a couple Christmas CDs that we listen to when we are driving around town, but being raised on a ranch, he grew up listening to country music and so both CDs are Christmas Country. If it's not too much trouble, do you think you could send me just one normal Christmas CD? All this country is kinda driving me crazy. Just kidding, it's not that bad...but seriously, send me one if you can. :) The Work is going great around here. Tracting is a lot more fun during the Holiday season. Almost everyone is nicer. Instead of those that turn us away simply telling us they're not interested, they turn you away and then wish you Happy Holidays as you are leaving. It's great! We also taught a couple more Spanish lessons this week which is always exciting. It's hard to really progress when you don't really run into any Spanish speakers more than once a day, but I'm still working on it and I try not to make the same mistakes twice. I'm excited to learn it and love teaching in Spanish. Unfortunately, a couple of our most promising investigator families have hit a rough spot. Two of them in the same week got anti-ed by some people they knew and now they most likely won't let us come back. We're still praying for them though. Also, we got kicked out of an apartment complex the other day. We were teaching the beginnings of the first lesson outside a man's door when another man drove up, climbed the stairs and told us we needed to leave because there was no soliciting. This is where it gets kinda funny in a sad sort of way. We told the man we weren't soliciting, we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ. The man then told us to take Jesus elsewhere or he'd call the police. Pretty funny in a pathetic sort of way. I wonder if the man even realized what he was really saying. Anyway, the police wouldn't have done anything, but we left anyway. It was saddening though. We hadn't had any real success in there so far, but we were only about half-way through the complex and as we were leaving, I couldn't help but feel that there may have been someone a few doors down that would have listened to us and had their lives changed. Still, everything is done in the Lord's timing and so if there's someone who needs to hear it, they'll get it one way or another. On the bright side, we had a couple commit to being baptized the day after Christmas! We're not sure if they'll actually be able to make that first date since there's a couple things they need to do before being baptized...for instance getting married, but hopefully even if they don't make the first date, it'll give them a goal to start working for. We've actually only taught them 2 times in a week and a half and they didn't make it to church the first week, but we're hoping to get them there this Sunday. One of their children had to go to the ER yesterday though so things are a little crazy right now. Hopefully they'll be able to make it though. Anyway, I have to go now, but I'm doing great! It's hard to lose investigators that you've grown to love, even if you've only known them a couple weeks, but everything happens for a reason. Maybe they'll be ready to receive the gospel a few years down the road. I love you all and thanks again for your letters. Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bishop

here you go!

11/25

Dear Everyone, Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for all your emails and letters. Sorry Mom, but you weren't the first person to send me a holiday card like you hoped. :) Still, thanks so much for it. Congrats on your new calling Dad. I guess Bishop liked you, Bro Johnson, and himself being together too much to let you get away from them. Tell Kiley thank you for her picture and that I love her too. It sounds like you've got a fun outing planned at the cabin for Thanksgiving. Let me know everything that happens and send me a picture or two as well if you can. I've got all the family pictures hanging up on the wall next to my desk by the door and it's fun to look at those pictures when I read your letters from home. Well, I'm finally settling down into the routine of things here in Texar. Because it gets dark around 6:30 people always think it's late when we go around knocking doors even as early as 7 or 7:30. So, we try to do all our tracting during the afternoon and early evening. We've really only got a small window between when people are actually home from work to answer their doors and when people decided it is too late to open their doors. But, whenever we have appointments that fall through we often end up trying to tract that area if we haven't already worked it so sometimes we end up tracting all the way until 9:00. We had something interesting happen the other night when we were tracting at about 8:30 or so. We knocked the door and a woman said, "Come in." (Surprisingly a fair amount of people do that here. You knock the door and they either shout come in or we have a conversation like this: "Who's there?" "The Missionaries!" "Who?" "Church people!" Then, people either shout to us they're not interested or they actually make it all the way to opening the door to tell us they're not interested. One time, we actually had about a 3 minute lesson about Prophets through a lady's door because she told us she was listening, but wouldn't open the door to hear us.) Anyway, to make a long story short, this woman ended up being a member of the RLDS church and said her dad used to be a preacher in it for about 40 years before he retired. She was in the process of moving and so we offered to come back and help move it into the truck on Friday. She told us we could and that her dad would be there and would probably love to talk with us. As we left Elder Wilson and I were wondering what it would be like to teach a member of the RLDS church. You don't just bash with the Bible, but with the Book of Mormon too. :) No, but we really are wondering how we would teach someone like that. Most of their beliefs are the same and this lady even brought out this old wood-bound quad-combination that she had. Anyway, it'll be interesting. Things are still going great. We actually taught a couple lessons in Spanish this week to some people we tracted into and we've got a couple return appointments set up for this weekend and next week. To answer some of your questions Dad, we have our own washing machine and dryer so we just do that in our apartment. It's rained a couple more times since last week so that's always fun. The first two weeks I was here we only had a few meals with the members, but this week we've got had a dinner appointment every night because of the Holidays which has been nice. So far we've got two meal appointments set up for Thanksgiving, but we might have more if people call us. The Texar Elders who work the Arkansas side have six lined up so they're not too worried about what they'll be doing all day. I'm pretty sure we won't be trying any tracting on Thanksgiving. We might get everyone in town mad at us if we did. When we don't have member meals we just cook on our own. I've made myself some breakfast burritos a couple mornings and some pancakes or waffles a couple others using a mix, but usually I just have cereal. I've actually made rice a couple mornings too. We usually don't have as much time to eat in the mornings because we end up excercising into our breakfast time since it takes a little time to get down to the park where we run. For lunch and dinner I've been making some quesdillas or sandwiches most of the time. I buy apples and yogurt to eat all the time too so don't worry about me not eating healthily. :) Each week I buy something new to put on my sandwiches. I've worked my way up to bread, meat, cheese, lettuce, and mustard. Maybe next week I'll buy some onions and make some carmelized onions. I'll probably get some beans to cook today as well. We'll see. Up until now I've had a macaroni and cheese free mission. I'll probably try to keep it that way or at least try not to make it a daily meal. If you have any other ideas for foods I can make fairly quick that would be great. I'll write again next week and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bradley Bishop