Bishop Stauffer!

Fun to hear that Uncle Brett will be serving as the new bishop of good ol' Toppenish 1st! He will be a stud in fulfilling that calling and help a lot to strengthen the ward. That is a fun story to hear that the same thing happened to him on his mission. I just had the thought of how fun that will be for him to present CJ's (and mine) mission plaque up on the stand when that time comes. Awesome.

Sounds like summer is officially coming to a close here pretty quick! Enjoy it as much as you can! That hike sounded like a lot of fun, I miss fresh air and the wilderness haha. Even though I'm spending two years in LA, I don't think I'll ever be a fan of the big city haha. My companion taught a lady up in LA who got baptized yesterday so we drove up for that. We drove right past USC which was kind of cool. But I couldn't think of their fight song! It's been killing me! There is always traffic though, no matter what time of the day. It's just worse at certain times haha.

I have a challenge for everyone reading this email. We have been challenged as a mission by President Weidman to read the Book of Mormon by Christmas and mark every verse that relates to the Savior. You don't have to mark every verse that relates to the Savior because that takes a bit longer (it's almost every verse), but I challenge you all to read the Book of Mormon by Christmas! It averages to about 2 chapters per day. It only takes about 5-10 minutes tops. I will send a picture of our reading chart next week if I get the chance

My companion and I had an awesome experience last night that strengthened my testimony that the Lord is at the head of this work and that He has a plan. We had just got back from an appointment and had planned to take an investigator up to a fireside for the departing missionaries, but at the last minute, everything started to fall through. Our ride wasn't responding to our calls or texts, and neither was our investigator! We were pretty disappointed that we weren't going to be able to take him, but we still headed out to find some people to teach. We spent two or three hours street contacting and going to the addresses of less-actives. No one answered! The only people we talked to were those we ran into on the streets. It was a little after 8 pm and we chose a less-active couple to go visit out of a stack of about 20 papers. We knocked on their door and they opened right up! The man is from Nicaragua and the woman from Chihuaha Mexico. They are both awesome people! We got to know them a lot better and they have some things that keep them from attending church on Sundays, but we are going to meet with them again this week and see what we can do to best serve them. We both felt that we were meant to find that family.

I just had a chance to talk with a guy here in the internet cafe I'm in that served in Bahia Blanca Argentina! He's not active anymore, but we talked for about 15 minutes about his mission haha. 

I hope you all have a great week! The Book of Mormon is true and we can come to recognize the Lord's voice as we read that book. It changes lives! Dad--Thanks for that sweet picture up in the mountains.

Elder Reynolds