Elder Todd Cronin: Happy New Year!!! January 6, 2011

Family,

Hello back!

Olivia! Goodness child do you enjoy anything? Ha ha. There are many joys in life waiting to be explored. Try finding them! And if you can't find them, make them enjoyable!

Callie! I like how you're note starts out in Ebonics and then switches to proper English. Nice! Please assure your friend that I am alive and well! I got the Christmas card from the family too. Did you get extensions? There is a Callie street here I'll have to take a picture and send it to you soon. You all are the best! Thanks for all the support and time that you all put in to my mission. The Lord will surely bless you!

Samuel! Buddy! How tall are you now? How are the video games going? I hear scouts are going well is Pinewood Derby coming up soon? Got any ideas yet for the car? Let me know. It was nice to see the picture of you and your carp made it onto the Christmas Card! That was an experience watching you bring that monster in.

Momma! It is so great to hear you are doing your part as a member and helping out with missionary work. If it weren't for the members we could not be effective. I don't know if you remember my talk before my mission but you are doing your part for the 170 allotted to you! The best thing a member can do in helping a person progress is bear a simple and specific testimony based on what the investigator needs. Use Preach My Gospel! Its an amazing tool!

Family, time is flying by even faster now. And another week has passed. So let me tell you about it.

Sunday I had the great opportunity to teach High Priests. Ha ha. The Lord must really trust me. Because my lesson was based on the talk fromt his past conference by Larry R. Lawerence titled , "Courageous Parenting." That's right, this young buck got to instruct some seasoned veterans on how to parent :) Look up the talk though. It was very insightful.

Monday morning around 8:00am we got a call from one of our investigators who we've been trying to get in contact with for about a week. So this phone call was unexpected. I answered and struggled to understand exactly what he was saying. But what I made out was this: He asked if we could come over right then. We were in the middle of breakfast and half dressed so we hurried over there. Once we got there you could tell he hadn't slept all night and he was depressed. He began to explain to us that he has been having these vivid dreams of Satan beckoning him to worship him. He has a drinking problem and he kept asking us why he falls into this bad habit sometimes. Why doesn't God intervene? He said he prays for strength often but it seems God doesn't help him out. God hasn't answered his prayers. Unfortunatly, being to cuaght up in either himself or the world or even both he couldn't realize that we were an answer to his prayers. As we explained to him the benefits of following Christ, being baptized, and recieving the Holy Ghost, he began to understand. Him and his wife are now preparing to be baptized!

For the majority of the week Elder Macferran and myself have been sick. He has a sinus infection and I've got strep. Boo. So the work has been fairly slow as we've rested to recover. Successful nonetheless. We've had two successful lessons with the Z family from last week. Bro. Z even set up a private mine tour for the 20th!!!! But here's the catch: transfers are on the 17th and we find out on the 15th if we're staying or not so pray that we can stay here!! Plus if I stay I get to be here for Cowboy Poetry, focused on Hungarian Cowboys! They're flying in to Elko all the way from Hungary!

The only bad new from the week was that we got to teach our neighbor but when we went back to follow up to see if she had prayed she told us our message just wasn't for her. She said she doesn't think she can handle another life changing experience right now. We're still friends, in fact, we had breakfast with her this morning. But I was depressed the whole day after she told us that. I just see so much of Mom in her that I know the Gospel would do nothing but help her. But she has her agency as do we all. But Mom I know she would love a quilt so if you have time...

Yesterday I finally got to ride my bike!!! Elder Jennings was my companion for the day and we both reported to the MTC on the same day so neither one of us can drive yet so we opted for bikes. Well i opted for bikes because we could have asked a member to drive us around all day but I wanted to try out the bike. So all day yesterday in 20 degree weather we trekked across Elko on bike. It was an amazing experience. I've been here for 2 months and I got to see a whole new side of Elko. The smells, sounds, and people were all different for some reason. Being on bike makes for easier street contacts as well so we had some interesting encounters. I added some pictures. I hope the chilliness was conveyed in them.

I love you all,

Till next week,

Love,
Elder Cronin