Wow. It worries a missionary when he sees "Lots of News" as the subject for his parents email. I was gonna be so mad if you told me you were moving. haha.

Crazy times in Webb City. Russell's Baptism is delayed until Feb. 20th(at least). Pres. Merkley wants him to go to church consistently and to get his daughter involved in Primary.

I learned something new this week that I desire to share with all of you, that you may learn and share it with others. APPARENTLY, if you open a can of food and eat only half of it, you aren't supposed to store the leftovers in the can itself. You're supposed to put it in a different container. Otherwise, you can get really sick if you don't. You could even throw-up all over your dinner appointment's bathroom.....

I feel fine now. FYI.

None of us are getting transferred. My assumption is this: I will be with Elder Sherrick for one more transfer. He will then be sent elsewhere. I will receive a new Junior Companion for one more transfer after that. Then I will be sent elsewhere. So I expect to be here another 3 months. So I'm half-way done, eh? When I leave I will be half-way through my mission. Tomorrow is my 9 month mark. Crazy!

In March our mission will reach its peak capacity of 196 missionaries. That's pretty exciting. We have a very, very young mission right now. And I think it's a good thing. Out with the old, in with the new. Ring Out, Wild Bells, and let him die. Or something like that.

Congratulations to Kenny! Good luck with everything, cuz!

Well, I think that's everything on my end. I will talk to you next week! :)

Love,
Elder Bracken

So, I learned 3 things on friday:

1- If I can avoid it, I will never have a suspended ceiling
2- If I can avoid it, I will never have blown in insulation
3- How to hang a suspended ceiling

So, we woke up Friday morning and turned on the lights, and the suspended ceiling in our study room had collapsed overnight. HUUUUUUGE mess. Insulation and dust everywhere. So, we called our landlord over(who is a member of the ward) and we proceeded to fix it. We cleaned up the bulk of the insulation and took everything out of the room. Then we spend the better part of the day replacing/repairing the ceiling. So we got that done. We spent the better part of Saturday cleaning up the mess. SOOOOO much dust! We'd vacuum thoroughly, and half an hour later the dust would settle again and we'd have to vacuum again. We vacuumed that room probably at least 20 times on Saturday. Not to mention cleaning the other rooms that dust inevitably floated into and cleaning the dust off all of our junk. So, that was my weekend. I enjoyed it, actually. Just messy. I'm just glad that we weren't in the room when it collapsed.

So that's the biggest news. Also, we will not be having any baptisms this month. We have 2 slated for February. Russell O'Neill and Patti Stuckey. So we'll see how that goes. We desperately need to find new investigators. And it's not for lack of trying either. We have been trying. But nobody wants to investigate, darnit. People have been dropping us left and right. It's been pretty crazy actually, how many people have dropped us.

We had a great lesson with the Petersons, the RLDS family we are teaching. We took over Bro Lambeth(not planned, it just worked out that way) who was raised RLDS then converted. He bore a way powerful testimony about it. So it was good I think.

Well, thats about all I have to report this week. Transfer Awareness Night(as my trainer called it) is on Saturday. So next week I'll write you and let you know if I'm getting a new companion. I don't think either of us are getting transferred just yet though. :)

Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Bracken

It has been a ridiculously cold week! Luckily we had the car! We had to give it to the Carthage Elders yesterday, but guess what! It's warmer! We might be above freezing right now! I'm not sure. But it's considerably warmer now.

The Library is FINALLY back open! I'm so glad! I was getting way sick of invading our member's homes to email. The school's have been closed all week,pretty much. Which is ridiculous. They say it's closed because of "dangerous temperatures." Whatever! Have gym and recess inside! This isn't that complex. These darn Mid-Westerners are a bunch of wimps. haha

So, no one came to church yesterday. That was way lame. We haven't found a new investigator in 2 weeks. That is very upsetting. We're expected to get a new investigator every day. 7 a week. And we've had two weeks without a new one. And not for lack of trying either.

A couple weeks ago we did a cookie-run. We baked some cookies and took them around to some people. Some investigators, somc less-actives, and I think 1 active family. Sis. Lewis, one of the less-actives we gave the cookies to, told us last night about her thoughts on the cookies. She thought we had greased the pan with bacon grease! She said they smelled and tasted like bacon grease! I don't know what happened! We did not use bacon grease! Now she's telling everyone in the ward that we made her bacon cookies! lame!

I don't recall if I told you about how we had lunch with her on Christmas Eve. We went over to her house and watched An Unlikely Mormon. It's a DVD of Glenn Beck telling his conversion story. It was good. I really enjoyed it.I highly recommend it.

I'm glad that the Shipley's are enjoying the dog. How is Grammy's cat doing?

We have a mouse in our house, we discovered this week. We named him Hamlet because he is going to die. Stupid Hamlet.

Do you have any suggestions for cheap Crock-Pot recipes a missionary could make? We recently acquired a crock-pot(just like the old blue one I grew up with!) and I would love some ideas on how to best utilize it. We cooked a nice pork roast in it all day, then shredded it and made pulled pork sandwiches. That was awesome. We also cooked steaks in it. I remember you tellin me Dad, about the Scouts cooking steaks in a Dutch oven with Vegetable Oil. We tried that with some super cheap steaks we found at Wal-Mart. It wasn't bad. Kind of a unique flavor.

I have improved much in my cooking ability. I like to cook a lot. I make some amazing tacos and quesadillas, I tell you what. :) The secret is the stuff called El Pato. It's this little can of Mexican tomato sauce kind of stuff that you buy at Wal-Mart for 62 cents in the Mexican Aisle. It makes for an amazing sauce for taco meat or to cook a chicken breast in for Quesadillas. Of course I add other spices as well, but that's the main ingredient. I'm going to make some Manwich Sloppy Joes today. I've never done that, but it sounds so simple.

Not much else is going on to report of at this time. Hopefully things will start picking up. :)

Have a great week! Enjoy your vacation!

Love,
Elder Bracken

2010! Only 2 years til the end of the world! ;)

So, twice today I have had to wite-out the year on some forms I filled out. I hate switching years. It takes so long to get in the habit of writing the correct one! Oh well, I will learn!

We did absolutely nothing unusual, different, remarkable, or noteworthy for New Years. They were just normal days for us. Didn't stay up til midnight or anything. I DID, however, have pizza on New Year's Eve at a member's house. So that was nice.

Yet again, I find myself writing an email at a member's house. The library is closed still. Apparently, the have no heat. Sissies.

Seriously. 3 inches of snow and everyone out hear loses their minds! That fell Saturday night, so church was cancelled. That was so disappointing. We were set to have the whole Stuckey family there! And school was called off today as well. I don't know how these mid-westerner's survive!

It has been very cold here. It's about 13 degrees right now. Wind chill makes it about 5. But the real problem is the humidity. It's about 65%. It's a whole different kind of cold here than in Utah. Cuts right to the bone. I love my scarf and sweaters. :)

Also, I DID get Aunt Vicky's package! Thank you! :) It's awesome. :)

Not much else to report this week. I better get going. I don't want to be on their computer too long. :)

Love,
Elder Bracken