8/28/13 Hey Everyone

I'm on my first p day, a whole week after I arrived. I barely made it on clothes. My first day was really hectic. I got all my stuff and checked in and then they plunked me into a classroom where I met my district. Branch 60, district A. My companion is Elder Clark. He is 18 and just graduated high school. At first I thoguth that would be a challenge but we get a long really, really well. He is our district leader here. He is doing a great job at leading our district. There are 4 sisters and 6 elders in our district. Elder Pawson Elder Clark Elder Schow (s-kow) Elder Hendrickson Elder Pope Elder Macarilay (mac-a-re-lay) Sister Guerra (gey-ra) Sister Lind Sister Harrison Sister Lind. EVeryone is 18 in my district (or 19 for sisters) except me. Its been fun. When our teachers arent' around i've kind been the unnofficial teacher. I"m lucky I had the experience with the A+ missionaries that I had. Practice teaching has been going really well too. My district says I am one of the best teachers they have seen. My companion is just as good and we teach with great unity. In the MTC we do something called 'progessive investigator' where we teach our teacher who is roleplaying. Our PI is progressing well as we learn to be better teachers. The most important things I've learned is how to start and how to introduce the book of mormon. we had our first TRC yesterday, and it blew up in our faces. TRC is where we teach volunteers from the public. Some are really investigating and some are just converts acting. Ours went really, really bad. He wasn't in his room, so it was like talking to the mexicans on the porch (@matt olsen lol). He just sat there and tore us apart and I had no answer to it. It was really disheartening. The spirit was not there and in the real field I would have walked away but since it was TRC we tried to make it through, however it was just bad. We got a return appointment but I dont want to teach him again. I would compare it to a spiritual experience where you really feel the spirit, but its the spirit of satan. Or something awful. you get the idea. On the positive note I really, really love my district. We have all become such good friends. Sister Guerra has a boyfriend waiting for her too, so we can connect on a lot of things. she hasn't received any mail at all from family or boyfriend, which is really sad. I'm just glad I have gotten a few letters from Melissa and nice emails from all of you. We leave monday morning at 530am for alaska, so i doubt I will get another chance to email again before a week from then. Which stinks but It'll be ok. feel free to write me letters, my mother has my address. Although I doubt i will get them before I leave haha. I have been singing with the MTC choir. Yesterday we sang in the marriot center for the devotional. Neil L. Anderson gave the talk. We sang "Lead, Kindly Light." It was so fun to sing in such large choir. It felt like (and sounded like) we were singing in MoTab. The talk was really inspirational as well. Love and miss you all, give my love to the ward. Until we meet again! Elder Pawson