Monday, November 5

Dear Family!

     How is everyone with the storm and all!? I'm doing great, but I'll let you know now, we're on bike and using the family history center libraries and the member with us can't stay long so I may run out of time.  My address is 6304 Brittany Way.  We are staying at Brother Hs.  I'll send you my SD card soon.  Elder C my new companion is great, he's very hardworking and obedient and likes to play basketball and stuff so I'm set.  He's from Warner Robins Georgia and lived in Portland for a bit before that.  We're on bike, which the weather is great for.  It was awesome to be able to go to church in Westcliff again.  With both my last companions I was never introduced to the area books.  Me and Elder C have been going through them a bit, have a nice list of formers and potentials, but it hadn't been updated in months.  We're keeping real busy, we've done a ton in Sundance apartments, have met a ton of people and done some tracting.  Tracting is fun, but having all the campaigners out there too isn't cool.  I wish I had time to talk about all these different peoples' progressions, but we've just met so many more and I have less time.  C hurt his eye at work recently and so he was able to come to church Sunday.  We've been reading with him and he wants to finish the Book of Mormon by Christmas.  Tonight were going over there and we're going to teach his wife the first lesson and read with C.  I'm really excited for that and he is to.

     This week with all the work we've been doing we've met so many people that really needed the gospel, or at least more abundantly.  Going around in Sundance with the long list we compiled from the area book, we had successes, but even quite a few we didn't plan on.  One girl approached us and it turned out she was going to church and stuff a while back, but her mom (who is a member) called it off before she was going to be baptized, and talking to members we were able to find out a lot about that situation. The girl was so nice and excited about church and all.  We also met another guy, who after talking to him we found out was baptized at 8 and went inactive at about 17.  He's in his 30s now, lived all over, so his records are elsewhere, but things in his life are really rough right now and were hoping to get him back on his feet.  We just stumbled upon him, there's no record of him living in Vegas that the church had.  He was really nice though.  Anyways, we've met a ton of people like that.  We've had a lot of cool experiences.  We met two guys the other day that were real interested, but were also high and drunk out of their minds.  Both of them had a blunt in one hand and a beer can in the other.  So we're going to swing by there soon, they were really nice, but out of it. It was really funny talking to them though.  When we were in Sundance we also saw a fight, we knew it was going to happen because there was a ton of high school, young 20s people out, talking in hurried voices, running around and stuff, and there were a bunch of police cars patrolling.  Then finally it broke out and there was a group of 40 or so people around it.            

     We also met this guy, Danny Vegas, who had some really funny stories I can tell you about after my mission or something, but claimed he talked to God, that he was told to take charge of Las Vegas, but we promised him we'd deliver a message to our loved ones from him -"What just happened in New York will come to Hollywood, and then Texas, so if you live in one of those places get out."  He was nice though and said to keep believing and praying, and we can come back to him if we have any questions, so we're on good terms with him.  We've been having some good successes with various less actives and things are going great.  This week has been without a doubt the best of my mission so far.

     The other day we met with a lady who is a single grandmother I guess, and her youngest grandson, C is 9 and is the only one that hasn't been baptized.  He's a really nice kid, and we're excited to start teaching him; we've got another appointment Tuesday night.  We found them doing our visits in Sundance as well.  And we're going to be back tonight because we have dinner with a member in there, and then C and his wife.  Last night we did a small preach my gospel class thing with kids preparing for their missions.  We do that at Js house, and last night it was just him and J2 who I've mentioned.  J knows it like the back of his hand but it was great getting to know J2 better and help him.  After the lesson  we challenged him to keep living as an example to his family and to always be prepared to bear his testimony to them. (The other day we stopped by his place and he wasn't home but we found out he's got 2 younger brothers and a younger sister).  I'm really excited for him and all the potential he has.  Afterwards we got to talk to J more about the situation, and I learned a lot about his homelife that I didn't know.  He's only 19 but J was saying he has a 2000 dollar art school debt, and J gives him a lot of work so he can pay that off and go on a mission.  He's coming to our dinner tonight (it's a single sister) and we're going to go straight to the lesson from there, he just doesn't know it yet.

     So things are going great and there's so much I'm excited for.  This morning we got word that W and J who are lifelong inactive sisters that we had been teaching pretty consistently said they are done and again asked for their records to be removed. Things were going pretty good there to.  So that's unfortunate, but things overall are picking up and I, and the ward, are very excited to get things rolling again.  We had a lot of less actives show up at church Sunday that we had been hoping for, but surprised us, so that was really cool to see.  Art is still doing good. I am really happy right now and so grateful for all of your support.  We're more situated now so I should get to writing.  Today were going to Ross so I'm going to look for some more socks, pants and sweaters. Oh man, so this week I had my first two blessings on my mission, and there was a cool experience I'll hopefully get to next week about that.  But know I am doing great, and we are well taken care of.  Oh and Saturday we had special permission to go up to Mesquite for one of Elder C baptism, so that was an interesting place.. and both there and the Halloween mission talent show I got to see a lot of MTC friends and had a lot of fun with that.  I'm meeting and have met soo many great people I've never written about, there's just too much good things surrounding me.  Our new district members are also really cool so I'm excited for them too.  I'll get pictures out soon, thank you so much.

     Love, Elder Pyron

PS I've got a little time but I don't know what else to talk about, I don't have time to go into more detail about people and all because for that to be satisfied I'd be here all day.  I am as happy as I have ever been right now though.  The bike I bought from Elder G (for 60) is great, SOO much better then my other one.  And so just about everything is uphill for us, and the best thing ever is having a successful day, and then coming home at night from the top of the hill, and it's a long easy smooth ride right through the city, and your sweat makes you chilly.  Oh and we heard some more gunshots the other night.  But everything's great, and again I'll hopefully write some this week and talk to you next week!