Good Afternoon!

March 16, 2015

Good afternoon!

Sorry I'm writing so late. We went to the Duke basketball museum this week and then played basketball for a couple Elders, so we're just now getting around to it.

So after visiting both UNC and Duke, here's my verdict. UNC basketball seems a little more high energy and fun, while Duke seems more fundamental and strategic. There's just a different energy surrounding both teams. Still haven't really sided with either one yet. But both museums were cool! It was nice seeing all the Michael Jordan stuff. I'll post pictures next week. As for the campus, I'd definitely have to go with Duke. UNC seems more like just part of the city, but Duke has it's own architecture and everything. It kind of reminded me of Princeton a little bit. But both were pretty nice. A lot bigger than BYU-I haha!

As for the work, it's going. Little by little we're starting to build a rhythm. Member trust has gone up since I've been here and we now have some fairly solid investigators.

E is an 18 year old boy who now has a baptismal date for the 11th of April. He's on page 100 in the Book of Mormon and says that he'll do anything to follow Christ. He just needs to come to know that these things are true and he'll take the plunge. We also talked to his older brother, R yesterday and he seems very open. He'll sit in on the lesson tomorrow.

A is an ex cholo (Mexican gangster) and seems to be running from the pain of his past. He's 28 years old and is married and has two little girls. We've really been trying to testify of the Atonement, but he's the kind that likes to tell us everything he knows when we teach, so we may have to break down a few walls before we can really help him. We mentioned church and he seemed a little turned off, so we'll see what happens. I hope we can help him. He suffers from depression and anxiety, and that's not fun stuff.

I don't have my planner with me so it's hard to tell exactly what happened! But the work is going. It's going! We should have a baptism next month if our calculations (faith) are correct. Also, I gave a talk yesterday. It only took about thirty minutes to prepare, but I gave it and my Spanish was flawless. I can definitely say that I'm fluent at this point. I have absolutely no problems expressing myself, and even if I can't understand all the words, I can understand what people are saying by their body language, tone of voice, etc. Speaking Spanish is fun!

Well that was my week. Nothing too eventful happened, but we try to have fun. We're going to a Salvadorian restaurant tonight to eat with a recent convert Pedro. It's his birthday and if he's not with the missionaries, he's not having fun. Haha he calls us his "sons."

Well I better wrap this up. It's good to be here in Durham for a time and I'm looking forward to the miracles of this next week.

Take care,

-Elder Landon Carroll

Homemade Chile Relleno

Hump Day cookies that Landon's Mom sent