Its a New Year!

Hey Family! So this week when Elder Longhurt's and my roommates left us, we thought we would be getting two new elders coming to live with us. Turns out, they didnt. We have a pretty big apartment to just ourselves, so last week we deep cleaned that thing on P-day because missionaries have been living here for over 6 years and missionaries dont treat things the best haha. But i thought it was a great gift from God because Elder Longhurst have differences. And we really do get along almost always. But somethings we are both a little stubborn about. I think this will be a great opportunity for me to learn how to more effectively work out my differences with others. 

    On New Years Eve, President Griffin wanted us in by 6 because of the roads. So, as missionaries looking for something fun to do, we got together with our Zone Leaders and a couple other companionship and we played Hide and Go Seek in the church. And i was talking myself up, telling everyone that they wouldnt find me forever. I completely forgot that wherever you hide, your companion has to be somewhere near you. Of course my companion is 6'3'' and ant hide ANYWHERE! I was upset haha. 

   Teaching wise, Elder Longhurst spent a lot of time on the streets this week. Some of our potential investigators havent turned out to be as promising as we had hoped for. So we have been trying to build up our teaching pool some more. We met with quite a bit of our Recent Converts, New Members and we actually got a referral from a family that we are pretty excited about. We met with him and he believes everything our church teaches, even the Restoration, he just thought that we worshiped Joseph Smith. So we resolved his concern there and we will be going back to teach him later this week! 

   One night i was on splits and i was with our Ward Mission Leader while Elder Longhurst went with our El Salvadorian Elder who was waiting to be transferred. I asked Brother Raliegh what he would like us to work on in the area. He was glad to hear that because he hasnt felt like the Elders here in the past little while have cared too much. I am excited to work together with him because he seems to have some really good ideas. He was teaching me some of his finding approaches that he used when he was serving in Chile. 

    On Saturday we had a horrible lesson. Our potential investigator had friends over playing video games while we were trying to teach him and he was having trouble focusing. We were pretty upset because we tried to move into other rooms and stuff but nothing was working. But then things turned around for us and we taught a really good lesson where we could feel the spirit and the person we were teaching opened up to us. 

    Last night, Elder Longhurst and i went to visit a inactive returned missionary who is about 60. He was nice to us but nobody ever knew why he wouldnt come to church. We finally were able to get him to open up to us and even though he said he wasnt ready to come back to church, he said that he wants to do Home Teaching! Go figure. but we are really excited because it seems that he just wanted somebody to reach out to him! 

    I found out some history on Sunnyslope. It started out as a refuge for Tuberculosis patients. They would send them here (which was out of the city then) because the sun just beats down on North Mountain and TB patients needs that. But anyhow, that is why it is so impoverished now. That was many years ago and now all those homes are old and broken down, that is why this place has really nice area on either end, but for a couple miles in the middle, it changes. I was really interested because i always wondered why some of the really nice areas were just a few streets away from some sketchier neighborhoods. 

   Sorry for the short email! Nothing stood out too much this week! Ill send pictures here in a minute! Love you guys! Elder Byington