Hearing about Seth coming home was shocking! I sent him an email explaining how his purpose in Japan was fulfilled and God had a new mission for him. I didn't tell him that it was getting married, but he'll figure it out. haha. I do kinda feel bad about it though. At least he did his best.

I am doing great. With being in the Arlington Ward, we walked into a "star investigator" as the ward calls him. "Louis" -we have a lesson with him tonight so I'll know by the end of the day whether he is ready or not. We also met with another investigator - "Stanley" He's been in some tough situations but he seems to like us and he wants to be baptized. He smokes, so he'll have to stop to get baptized. But I think he can do it. He lives next door to a little black lady who came over and sat in during the lesson. She was drunk, but said that she wanted to be baptized too. So...we'll see about that. And at church, the APs came up to me and said they found someone for us who wants to be baptized. And with the Deaf Branch, we have a few referrals to check out. Including an interpreting job for a funeral of a deaf lady. Her family is deaf and most of them are non members. We'll see how that goes. I'm kinda nervous to interpret for a funeral. Ugh. I don't want to be the center of attention while some dead lady should be getting all the glory. Ok it's not really like that but you know what I mean.

As far as other missionary work goes, I have been boldly testifying and boldly inviting people to be baptized. I get a lot of rejections, but I've done my job and my hands are clean. It's hard telling someone that their baptism wasn't valid because it wasn't done with the proper, restored, authority. People don't like to hear that.

It's been fun with the other Elders in our apartment. They want me to buy a nerf gun so we can shoot each other all night. I dont' really want to...I like sleeping. And 10:30 is not early enough to go to bed. Because we wake up at 6:30. Yeah, it's 8 hours but that's lame. Today, for our Pday activity, we went bowling. I got a 147. Eh.

I enjoy being a missionary. I feel like I'm coming up on my 1 year mark, but it's still a ways to go. 3 months. we just had general conference, and we'll have another in 3 months. Time is going by pretty quickly. I think of music when I think of time. Well, I guess I think of music all the time, but for this example, keeping track of time, I imagine 16th notes on a piano just flying up and down the keyboard. And each second that goes by, (depending on the tempo) there could be many notes played. Many songs listened to. Many hours of enjoyment. Endless music. Because time is endless, and cannot develop. But music develops with every second that goes by. And I am waiting to write it down and play it - for myself. Is that selfish? To keep my "talent" to myself because I just want to enjoy what I do? I really don't mind if people want to sit and listen. I just don't want to make a big deal out of it. "It's not just a hobby. It's an obsession." But an obsession will not pay the bills. I need a better skill to acquire money with. Oh well. Thanks for everything. Next week I'll email on Tuesday because we are having a multi zone conference. I think. We'll see. K bye.

Elder Peck