October 31, 2011

Dear Family,

Wow I'm so happy to hear that everyone is doing so well. Thank you so much for the picture, stuff like that really means a lot to me. It's cool to see how much everyone is changing and growing, it's kind of a little depressing also haha. You'll have to let me know how your Halloween was this year. I remember last year you had a good time also. Were the kids able to figure out how to do adventure time? It's crazy to me that a year ago on Halloween I was in Vilnius. Time is going by so fast, it feels like that was just yesterday. In the Baltics they don't really celebrate halloween. Some little kids dress up and walk around, but no one gives out candy. I asked some Russians what would happen if I dressed up like a vampire and I knocked on doors asking for candy, they said that I would probably get arrested haha.

This week in the life of a missionary everything was awesome. Except for Elder Thomas has left the companionship and headed down to Vilnius. It was very unexpected because transfers aren't until this week, and we don't really know why it happened, but it did. The Assistants and President Boswell are always thinking up crazy ideas for transfers haha. On the missionary work side things were very awesome as well. The other day we were out finding and just knocking some doors as it was getting late. When we exited from one of the stairwells there was a way pretty sunset over the Daugava River so we walked a couple hundred feet over there and just looked at it. It's amazing, the most beautiful things in existence are God's creations. So after we got done looking at the sunset we started walking down a little path along the river when we ran into a man named ******. We started talking to him and we went over and sat down on a bench with him and talked about our church. When we were talking to him he told us that he went out in the morning that day and worked out and when he got home he really didn't want to leave his house again that day, but for some reason he really felt like he had to, and that's when we ran into him. We've taught him three times since then and he's read a ton in the Book of Mormon. One of the times we met with him we were like "we're going to teach you about a prophet named Joseph Smith" and he already knew everything about him because he read the pamphlet, he even knew the years when everything happened like finding the plates, and organizing the church it was incredible. He perfectly explained to us why the restoration was necessary and we had never taught him that before even once. He's doing incredibly well and we're very excited for what will happen in the future. It's amazing how the Lord puts you right where you need to be in order to find his children that are seeking for truth.

Thanks again for all that you do. I'm glad that I'm able to share all the cool things that are going on out here with you. It's also very nice to hear from you I hope that you have a great week.

-Elder Pack