Shoot, little baby JT got his Mission call to the Philippines?? What the freak is Tagalog?? haha Man I’m so excited for him its going to be awesome! And Addy is in college? That’s weird too! She and JT can hang out which is cool. Shoot I’m going to be behind in the school department when I get home. Going to have to jump in and get to work! I’m bummed I missed Dylan bearing his testimony in Swahili --- I bet that sounded awesome! Everyone is leaving on a mission! That’s awesome that the guys in the ward are all willing to go and I’m not a loner out here on a mission. It will be cool to hear how they do!
Yeah the temple was awesome. Birmingham is smaller than Newport Beach. That temple was tiny and I got to bust out my temple clothes and my comfy shoes. It was really fun and even though we were like 20 minutes late we missed lunch but made it in time for the session. It was a long day. We left at 10:00. Elder Clanton and his companion Elder Miller spent the night so we could all head up together in one car. Got to the temple at 12:30, had the session at 1:00 and it ended around 3:00. I got my package! Then drove home and got home around 6:00. It was a lot of driving but I just sat in the back and took pictures of the sky the whole time haha. Ever since that huge storm last Monday the sky has been so blue and pretty and the weather has been uh-mazing.
I loved the package and I listened to the EFY CD on the way over here to the library :) I love the power bars and the fireballs but those cliff bars are jacking my system up. I’ve had the worst gas lately like straight gas pains and been destroying the toilet. Not fun at all.....I’m blaming it on cliff bars because it only started when I ate them and I’m eating super healthy lately. So yeah no more cliff bars haha. And we didn’t get any extra money for better food like they said they were going to :( so I’ll just have to be thrifty like a boy scout with the money I have.
I’m so proud of Jackie getting a temple recommend and hitting up the temple baptisms. That’s awesome! And I’m still surprised dad is letting her cut his hair haha. Should be fun though. And DIDN'T run into Joe Geer. I met some guy who worked with him and he asked me to ask you. And I also ran into this guy two days ago who is a survivor of cancer, two times, and who had the craziest stories ever. I told him about Aunt Susan and how she wrote a little book about cancer or something and he wanted to know the name of it and buy it. He works with the American Cancer Society and is the Mississippi representative or something. So what’s the name of her book? And can he even buy it?
The exchange with Elder Clanton was amazing! We do those once a month and I think we're having another one tomorrow! So I’ll be with Elder Clanton again. And since Elder Holley is the District Leader, we also have exchanges with the Zone Leaders once a month. They are either next week or tomorrow. So we need to figure it out. haha. The couple that came to church and paid their tithing are getting baptized on Saturday. We’ve taught them a couple of lessons but they’re getting baptized back home in Tennessee. But it’s ok because we will have 2 new members of the ward! Other than that, we have some new investigators but nothing too solid. We have one lady on the airbase that we teach. She’s married to a less active member who is a firefighter for the air force. They are a cool couple and made us some bomb chili the other day. It’s was so good! We are also teaching a couple in the projects but I’m not too sure if they’re really interested or not. We’ll see how it goes. We’re going to try to set up a booth at Mississippi University and try to get some investigators by just sitting there and letting people come up to us and ask us questions. Not too sure about that though haha.
Didn’t Nicole take piano lessons from you a long time ago? That’s cool that she wants get back in it though. I do too! I want to learn how to play bass and piano better when I get home. Take advantage of the talents I have. And mom, Chris’s brother is baptized...I’m 99% sure he is just doesn’t go really. But yeah it would be cool if he got really active. haha
Have fun with Aunt Kris and say hi for me. Tell Nick to write me and tell me how he’s doing. And what are you doing with Grandma? Going to Aunt Darlene’s to just visit or what?
That “Nearly” CD is amazing and I’m excited for that! And Lee Hale is just talking me up like a good MTC teacher haha. I’m sure i just looked like a little 16 year old out of place at the MTC :) but that’s cool that he was down visiting.
I forgot to tell you but last week we had like 70 extra people at church because of the BYU vs. Ole Miss game and it was retarded. People were bearing their testimonies about BYU football and saying how they prayed they would win and they did. I was like are you serious. I’m so glad I didn’t have any investigators at church haha. But then again, maybe that would of been a good thing??? It was way lame though haha. The guy in my ward who breeds quail, chicken, guineas and canaries is so amazing. He called himself a "rascist bigot homophobe' as he drove us to the bishops house a couple of days ago. Let’s just say he’s interesting and I love just hearing craziness. Spices up my day for sure. And his brother owns a shoe shop and he said they had classy belt buckles so you know I’m fixin to hit that up right after this haha. Try to get that missionary discount ;) Tell Lauren I know about the big marshmallows! They are so cool and they have them at Wal-Mart for cheap haha.
I’ll write Allison and Tyler back next week maybe if I can email y’all fast enough to have time left over. They wrote me a nice email with a cute picture so thank them for me and tell Allison that I didn’t prepare really for my mission haha. I was a loser about that. But what I should have done was read the Book of Mormon more and pray and just strengthen my testimony. Because the stronger your testimony the easier missionary work is, no joke. So tell the primary kids to just read the Book of Mormon and appreciate what they have and see how blessed we are to have the gospel. I can guarantee, any 8 year old in her ward knows more about God and the gospel than 50% of the preachers out here. They just chalk everything up to faith and I’m glad I don’t have to do that. It would be hard to preach about something I don’t understand. I love the gospel! It’s awesome - shoot
Anyways I got to go. Things are going great out here and I love Mississippi. I’m taking more pictures I just don’t have time to upload them. So I might print them out at Wal-Mart and just send them to you.
Love you and stay safe in paradise!
Elder Oppenlander
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