On Being Mormon

I don't know if you knew this, but President Hale served in the Vina del Mar mission (the one that that one kid that Lauren knows is going to).  At one point in his mission, he baptized about 200 people, climbed on top of their church, cut the cross off, and tacked up a sign with the new corrected name of the church.  Pretty crazy, huh?  That man is incredible, and I'm sad to see him go, but President Anderson is going to be awesome.  Tomorrow is transfers and I'm staying here in Kendall (South Miami) and Elder Kennington is "transfering."  He knows where his area is (Afton, Wyoming) but he doesn't know who his companion will be.  I'm sure he'll do great.  He's been here a while and really impacted this ward a lot.  So much so that they had what can only be described as a farewell meeting last sunday, which we both groaned about, but it wasn't really up to us.  I'm going to try not to tell anyone when I'm going home just to avoid the hassel of dealing with members who want to say goodbye.  I'll say goodbye, I just don't want 4 dinner appointments and a planned party, which is sometimes what happens.  It's been unusually dry here.  Hopefully we'll get some real rain soon.  It's starting to look like Arizona.  Temple groundbreaking is this saturday.  I'm super excited.  It won't be finished before I leave, but I'd like to come back for the dedication if at all possible. Temples are a pretty big deal.  I've gotten a new appreciation for temples and for the old testament by reading the old testament.  The dedicatory prayer for the temple of solomon, as well as the Lord's answer to that prayer when he accepts the temple, are amazing.  I also think David gets criticized way too much by members of the church.  Yeah, he messed up bigtime, but the rest of his life was spent in the service of God and he was able to repent of everything except the murder of Uriah the Hittite.  Anyway, this is p-day, not institute class.  Btw Lauren, I think I remember something about how you liked the Ford Fusion.  Just wanted to let you know we're driving a brand spanking new one around Miami that the mission just got.  It smells nice.  Well, I'm still good.  My clothes are fine.  I'll let you know if I need to replace anything.  Being Mormon is just so dang fun.  I don't know why the whole world doesn't do it.

Hasta Lasagna (don't get any on ya)

Elder Fine