Elder Gatten Aug. 24, 08

So it was awesome to hear from you all again this week. I love the opportunity that I have to get your e mails. I seriously love hearing from you guys. It sounds like this last week has been just one of those crazy weeks. The elephant ear booth, people coming and going, and everything that goes along with that. It sounds like your all making it though and your just all getting your feet back under you now!
So the elephant ear booth sounded like it was good. It was cloudy and rainy the first couple days but you know what that’s life huh. Then it picked up Saturday and Sunday I heard. That is good. How were the sales and everything with the price of the ears and everything up? Did people complain and stuff? Did grandpa help a lot again or did he kind of stay out of it this year as he gets older? I remember him and harden putting it all together with all of us young guns years back. That was so much fun. It’s a family tradition with such a wholesome purpose. Who worked there? Were there enough people? Did anyone tell you to say hi for me? When is the first CDA football game, that should be coming up fast huh. So much is going on. Its starting to be fall again here before you know it. That is so weird cause it was fall when I left. Nuts how time flies. I have 9 months. Next transfer I will hit my 1 year mark. Crazy. I have grown so much.
So what about those Olympics! They finished off pretty awesome I though. Mens volleyball won, also basketball, plus the US women pulled off a win against brazil to win the gold. Man did I get a ear full for that. I am still getting it from everyone how it was luck and so on. But I just say you cannot deny the score, the us won and brazil is going home with silver be happy with it! Anyways I really enjoyed being able to stay up on it here a little bit. I love the Olympics.
so brynne found out that she is having a boy! I cannot believe it! I am so freaking excited for her. I don’t know why, maybe its cause I just feel closer to her and all cause she is the closet in age to me. I love her and I could not be more happy for her. I remember when she wrote me when I was in boa vista and told me that she was pregnant and everything. I was so pumped. Now she knows what she is having and so on. So much has happened while I have been here. Crazy. Ill have to many new nieces and nephews when I get home I don’t know what ill do. I wont know them and the ones I have now will look so different it will blow my mind! Katelyn said that ella is beginning to look like kiah and that kiah is like a young girl now. Cade is walking and attempting to talk too. Craziness! I love them all so much. I miss them so much. Let them know that!
Dad got our goose mounts dusty! Sweet huh! It has already been a year since we headed up to Canada! I have been thinking a lot about that trip this week knowing that it was this time last year. I scan all the pictures that I have on my camera from the trip and I can just imagin it all so vividly. It’s the best. Good times. We will have to plan another trip together. Dad and brett do their hunts by themselves so that means that we can have our duck and goose hunts together. Well have life time memories of it brother! I hope that the mounts turned out really sweet. I still have not seen my MULE MOUNT that dad got. You have to take pictures of them all and send them to me I am dieing to see them all. And dads duck mount. That has to be neat. I can just feel it in my bones that it it hunting season ya know. Its so nuts. And your going to be going up to the joe this weekend. I cannot believe it. It feels like it was just memorial day!
So this week it rained a lot. One day especially. The roads were flooded up to my knees or a little bit higher and I was just thinking of all the nasty diseases I was getting. But there are like poop river/ canals that run throught the city as their soar system, and they filled up super high. It looked like the st joe with hi water. But brown and reeked like poop. There were like soccer balls and tons of things in it cause the water carried them away from the peoples houses, and there were people with long poles picking the stuff out of the river. They take all they can get for free here. Poop river or not. Funny story though.
So tyler said that Kenny was taking the discussions how is that going? I am just curious cause I heard that and then I never heard anything more. I have been praying for him and the situation. That would be amazing if he came to know the truth. I can totally see him being a great leader in the church. You should go up hunting with him this year or something, i think that would help him a ton!
So we had a baptism this week! What a miracle! Seriously.! We had no opportunities for baptism really, and then we knocked doors and found this young girl. Like 12. anyways we taught her the last couple weeks and things just totally worked out, and we ended up with a baptism. What a blessing. An act of faith too. We had promised a baptism this week not knowing where we were going to get it, and the lord put someone in our path. I love the gospel and the difference I see it make in peoples lives. The work is going well. The biggest problem that I have is getting people to church. We pass and pass by the houses of the investigators and they have the biggest excuses ever. You literally have to throw shoes at them and water to get them up. Its so different than the states. I love the U.S.
I have been realizing the real importance and purpose of our lives this week. I have had the goal to think in more of a eternal perspective to help me along. How the work I am doing now may not have any fruits but I am laying seeds and who knows what my affect will make down the road for these people. It is a great comfort to know though that I am giving it my all. There is no no no doubt there. I am being blessed, and I know I am where I am supposed to be at this point in my life. Many countless sacrifices, but unlimited blessings.
I love you all. I am so grateful for you all also. I am mindful of each of you and your situations as I pray day in and out. I go through each one of you as I pray. I love it. Sometimes I fell like the brother of jared, having my faith tested but always knowing without a doubt that my father and heaven is there and will lead me in rightousness. I know this gospel is true. I am to the grind and bit. Really working and building up his kingdom. I know that through the sacrifice that our saviour made we made be healed and return to our heavenly father again after this life. What joy this plan brings. An eternal perspective. Take that to mind. Your all the best. Next week I have a normal p day. Wensday. Hit me up and drop a live slackers. I am always here…where are you….brett…..dusty…..tim…etc
Your elder

Spike lee!