Hey family,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Well for your birthday I got pictures of the capitol building. They're not the most spectacular cause I was snapping them while waiting for a bus, but I tried. Hope you had a good day.

This week went ok. We've been getting a lot of referals lately. We got one from a college kid who wanted a B of M, the lesson went really well and we have another appointment with him on tuesday. The other 3 referals didn't go so good... The most peculiar one was a man who just wanted to learn english. He currently speaks about 10 words and had a friend who said we could teach him english so she refered him to us. Turns out hes from Afganistan, hes Muslim, and has no interest whatsoever in learning about Jesus Christ (all this was found out through hand gestures and fragmented sentences). But before we found out all of this we tried to explain what we actually did, so I got on his computer and went to the russian lds.org (his friend speaks russian) to help explain what we did, then went on to the conference talks from last year and pulled up one page in Farsi and one in English. We listened to a talk in Farsi by Elder Uchtdorf (I picked one that was pretty universal) that they really liked. Anyways we told them we wouldn't come back but that they should look up like an English for begginers class or something....

Gestina is still doing great. She went to both of the Sunday sessions of G.C. and took notes on stuff that stuck out to her. The last lesson we did with her was on the Word of Wisdom and following the prophet. She took it really well, but had some Qs about coffe and tea (as they always do) but by the end understood why and commited to keep it. She also commited to find out whether Pres. Monson is a prophet. What a perfect chance to find out, G.C. ( no not game cube, James...)! This week we are teaching her about temples and the Law of tithing and fasting.

So something very important I have learned, how to say chipmunk in German; Backenhornchen! So yes I am learning more German.

The weather here is getting marginally nicer, its around 50 regularly. Although it did snow last Fri...so usual WI weather, can't decide what it wants to do.

Thanks for the prayers for new inv. We recently had a loss of inv. (no one was relly that interested in actuallty DOING things) so we're down to 2 or 3 solid ones. Your prayers help. The mission has recently just started a push on 'finding' so the next couple of district meeting topics are on that and the upcoming zone conference. Apparently low inv. numbers are a problem all over the mission, not just in the areas I'm in :)

happy B-day again Dad, have a great week family!

Love