Email from James - July 25, 2011

Hey dad,

Wow it's Pioneer Day. I forgot we had that in Utah, haha. :D I'm way happy about the new law tha was made in Utah about the fireworks. That will be a lot of fun to have when i'm home. Maybe we'll celebrate Easter with fireworks in the circle after the mission haha.

2nd Wow. Shandra got married? That's exciting news. Kinda werid cause it doesn't feel like it was that long when we were all in highschool as little dramatic teenagers. You will have to make sure to get that invitation for me. I want to see it. Oh as missionaries we have the funniest talks about marriage and what not :D Their mostly all jokes or us just being silly about it, but it gives us a good laugh. If you see her again, tell her congrats for me. 

Oh so I got the package you sent me. Thank you so so much and tell the Lambournes thank you too for the mac and cheese. Ooo Velveta is quite heavenly. I haven't eaten it yet but I will when it's a special occasion. :D And oh my gosh that MOTAB mens choir cd is so awesome. I have to admit, I am not a fan of MOTAB. All because i'm a  missionary doesn't mean I like it. It kinda gets depressing. so haha little side note, i'm ok without motab cd's. But, this one is so so good. It has such good songs on it and we listen to it a lot. I was also very excited to have my cargo shorts again. They felt so good to put on. :D Also really random question, what is this crazy code thingy on the cheetoes bag. They had some in the new era and it said scan it with your phone id thingy. What is that? We were freaking out about it. I was confused cause I wondered if the church was owning cheetoes now because they had the same code thing to scan. Thank you so much too for the magazines. They are way way good. :D

We didn't have a baptism this week but there will be one for sure this week. Our investigator, after many years of meeting with missionaires, is finally getting into the water. We kinda just want pres. Chomskis to keep him under a little water just so he gets the feel of the water and we know for sure he is baptized. haha. He is so great though and he is going to be such a good help to this church. We are way close to him and he is a way cool guy. :D

We had a lot of funny things happen this past week, like Elder Erickson and I were in a city called Panavežys and we had a few hours til our bus came, we had to drop elder lindell off with some other missionaries as they were going up to riga for a leadership conference, and so Elder Erickson and I walked to this cool catholic church. The inside as way cool and these old bobs ( old ladys ) were praying very creepily and loudly to Marija. It was echoing all around the big cathedral. Then we walked around outside and there is always a back door to the churches and I had always wondered what they were for. Well, I found out. As we were walking around the door was open and we looked in and there as an open caskat and a dead guy inside of it with candles around it. We sat there and we didn't believe at first it was a real dead guy. I walked down the steps a little to get a better look and there was a sign that had his name on it and when he was born and when he died. Ya that was a bit weird. My 3 dead person I have seen on my mission. Thankfully he was more peacefull looking this time. :D

I got to lead music in sacrament leading. Woo. Pres. Chomskis said as he was up at the stand that Elder Erickson would play the piano, like he always does, and then I would lead, which he hadn't told me. That was funny. It's so much better when the members are participating in the church then just missionaries but there as no one else there to lead so I had to. 

This is the last week of transfers which is kinda crazy so we will know next week what changes will happen. It should be interesting cause no one was changed last transfers. 

I hate shaving

Other than that nothing really too exciting happened. We found 7 new investigators which was a super awesome week. We had a really good finding and teaching week which was a lot of fun. We are going to Vilnius tomorrow for District Meeting and then Elder Lindell will stay there for exchanges and Elder Erickson and I will come back with a Russian elder for exchanges here. That will be fun :D 

It sounds like things are going really good at home and i'm pretty jealous you get to go on a 50 mile bike ride. I can't wait to ride my bike again. but, it can wait. I love you so much and tell everyone else hi for me.

                 Aš labai tave myliu,
                           James

Photos from James - July 2011

Private coach on the train.

Everyone sleeping on the way home. Everyone laughed so hard and wouldn't sleep after our first stop on the way home after I took this.

Elder Lindell (red tie) and I were trained by Elder Hatch. Then Elder Lindell trained Elder Hyer ( next to me ) and him and I were comps and now Elder Lindell is training Elder Erickson and us three are together now.

Email from James - July 18, 2011

I'm glad you got a kick out of me having to shave. I missed one day shaving this week on accident and I got a pretty good rough man look going. It was not good but thankfully we didn't get out too much. We had a lot of errands to run. Ya it's funny cause now the European Basketball Championships are going on so when we go out harvesting, guys will come out and just want us to hurry it up or join them and watch Lietuva play. They think we are nuts going out and trying to talk to people during the championship games. Unfortunately America lost in the quarter finals to Russia which is sad. The last games of the whole Euro Games will be in Lietuva. It's going to be nuts because they have been talking about it all year and they have built new stadiums in all of the major cities. Missionary work will be fun during that time.

I loved hearing about the hike you got to go on and the pics you sent. The first one is up side down when I open it up so that was kinda funny. I can't wait to get up into the beautiful mtns of Utah and going for hikes and runs. It will be great. I also think we should totally going on a camp trip together with Bro. Bean and Tanner after the missions. I thought that was so strange when you mentioned that cause home just feels like a far away dream sometimes and it has always just been mission.... mission....mission. :D 

So we had a fun week this week. Lots of fun things happened and we found some cool new investigators. We traveled down to Vilnius for a District Meeting since it is just us three here. We don't have District Meetings here since it is just us. We tried once and it was more of a joke. Just kinda like another longer companionship study. What was fun is on the way down, we took a train. I love trains so much cause they are so much faster than buses and they go through really pretty parts of Lietuva. So they randomly put us three in a compartment instead of out in the two seaters where everyone sits. We shut the door and it was just us three in there. We were acting like rich people, movie stars, and after the lady asked us if we wanted any tea or cofee, Harry Potter. Hahah we kept saying, "a chocolate frog for me please", or "we'll take the lot" haha. I will send a pic that we didn't realize til after, but it totally describes our companionship personalities of each one of us and what the transfers have been like together. We say it is going to be our acapella cd cover after the mission. We want to be in an acapella group together haha. 

Then there was amazing Rumšiškės. When we pulled in, all of my memories from last year just flew back and hit me in the face. I couldn't believe it was a year ago when I was last there. It blew my mind. I can remember last years Rumšiškės so clearly. So we got there and it was so fun to see all the members from all the other branches I know and served with. They were so happy to see me and we had fun joking around and what not. So all the branches acted out their plays infront of eatchother. Our skit was funny and we got to act out a part of ours where Elder Lindell and I are the older more experienced missionaries and we can't find someone to talk to but Elder Erickson talked to a guy very baldy in a funny lithuanian american accent and was able to get a guy to feel the spirit by his small testimony and elder lindell and I were amazed after. Hahahah it was fun. We acted it out infront of about 200 people. :D Everyone said they like it a lot.

So we learned some fun lithuanian traditional dances and had fun all dancing together. Then we ate and chatted and ofcourse they got some country music going so they could get all the american missionaries to do their "funny" dance. :D They really like it when the american missionaries dance. 

So here is a funny part of the day but I have to give background history. There is a senior couple who I just love to death name the Jacques. Well when I was in Klaipeda during the winter, they came to check our apt. I had a quote from Elvis and a pic was on it of him that I had on the wall. It's a really good missionary quote surprisingly. :D So sister Jacques was amazed at how I loved Elvis Presley so much and we talked forever about him and I told her about Grandma. I told her I knew how to dance like him and she wanted me to do dance but I said I wouldn't unless there was music.

So back to Rumšiškės. The Jacques are leaving in two weeks so this was their last big event of their mission. So while we are all dancing to ABBA, lithunians love ABBA for some reason, I did some sweet talking and got them to play Elvis Presley. All the missionaries automatically looked at me and smiled cause they know how much I love Elvis Presley. So I found Sister Jacques and she had the biggest smile on her face and I said I promised. She began laughing and said she had been waiting. So As everyone is dancing I bust out my Elvis moves and she hurry and grabbed her camera so she could get pics of me doing it. Well other people saw her commotion and ran over. Lets just say about 50 or more people were freaking out at me doing this Elvis Dance and singing along with the music. Hahaha. There is going to be over 100 pics of me going that on facebook after the mission hahaha. Sister Jacques said I got to live as Elvis for a bit with the youth girls screaming as I was doing it ahhaa. Ya they aren't going to let me live this down if I get transfered to the other cities. Hahaha it was so much fun and I loved seeing everyone. I can't wait to see them again and everyone in Vilnius says that they want me to come to Vinlius soon. :D That made me smile so big. 

Hahaha so there is my funw week. Ah missionary work is awesome and I love every minute of it. I am so glad that there are the coolest members here who love missionaries and  help us out so much in the work. I love Lietuva so much and the people live here. 

Thank you so much for always being there for me and all of the love and support. Before we know it, christmas will be here and we will be talking again but I won't dwell on the future. There is so much to be done now. It's funny how Elder Erickson says time seems so long ahead for him in the mission and that he has forever. I can't believe how fast time has gone and how far I have come. I can't wait to share with you all my stories and love for the people here. 

           I love you so much,

                   James

Email from James - July 11, 2011

Really random start to this letter but I really hate shaving everyday. During the winter I could pull of shaving one day then not having to shave the next but now I have to shave every morning otherwise I look like a pirate. Haha I used to think it was so cool to shave and now it's a burden haha. :D

I truly am so blessed in serving in Šiauliai. We always find lots of people to get numbers from and then to meet with which is such a great blessing. The major struggle I have is still learning this language. There are so many words and my stupid head won't remember the words I need to remember. It so different from english and any other language so it will be a struggle forever. Ugh, it's quite frustrating. I have major up and down moments with the language but what can you do. Just keep working I suppose. :D

Hahaha oh girls camps. I laughed so hard when you told me about how they were screaming about some tick in the car. I could picture it all with you laughing in the front teasing them about it and they are still screaming. :D Eh, send some of the girls here, I could find so many things that are a lot worse then a little tick. Hahaha I love this mission, being back home is going to feel so weird by how clean everything is and just by how people act, ect. It will be great. That's cool about how you gave the lesson about the precious stones. I heard a lesson something like that when I was in seminary forever ago. It was similar. I bet it was a way good lesson and then a forever testimony meeting after. Those fireside testimonies are always way good. It's just something about the forest that brings out the true spiritual side of someone. "Nature brings people closer to God" which is what all Lithuanians believe. :D 

Ah the infamous King's Peak hike. I'm way jealous. If they do it again next year or some cool hike, I totaly want to go :D. That has been one of the funnest camps I did in scouts. You'll have to send some pics and let me know how it went with all the guys. Ha I loved the picture with parke and the pack. He looks way tough with it on. It will be fun when he's older and us three can go on fishing trips and hiking trips together. 

That Interivew with President Dance is way cool. Elder Leishman had it on his MP3 player and I really liked it. We kinda laughed about how it talks about how many members there are and we looked at eatchother and say which way over half of the number of members are less active or are in another country or don't want to talk to us. I hope the day will come when a stake center will be here in the Baltics and especially in Lithuania. I will pass out when that day happens. But the youth here are so prepared. They notice how it's way strange how you have to confess your sins to a preist or the only way to bendrauti, ugh I don't know how you would say that in english, I am trying to think the best way to say that in english but it doesn't have the same feeling, like to communicate I guess . So ya the only way to communicate with God through a preist or just in the church is weird to them and they notice it. So I have no doubt when I am way older and they are older and have their own kids, the work will increase so much more. We found some way cool kids while out harvesting on saturday and they were awesome. We taught a way cool first lesson and gave them two book of mormons and we are going to meet with them this week. They were way interested why americans were all the way out in Lithuania and could speak Lithuanian. They also asked why we don't have girlfriends here in Lithuanian when they are the best looking in the world. Haha. :D They said after the mission I should come back and hang with them and they would find me a girlfriend. Haha I think they just liked me cause I we talked about music for a while and we liked the same kind. I love the youth here so much. I would totally move back here for a year and just hang out with them.  They are cool with whoever and they don't have stupid american clicks like we have. 

I actually did have a chance to meet president boswell at zone conference. He is so so cool and really funny. He makes a lot of jokes and just has a great attitude. I like him a lot already. Sister Boswell talked first and told us a little bit about how they got their call. They are from Frezno Cali. I laughed cause it was like in the movie Mosters vs. Aliens when they make fun of Frezno and no one has heard of it. She is way nice and she is going to be such a great mission "mom".  Then President Boswell spoke and he talked about Preisthood Keys and how we need to work side by side with the branches here otherwise the work won't go forth. It was way interesting. He talked so highly about us. He said how he heard so much about how great this mission is and how great of missionaires we are. Apparently they are really good friends with Elder Oaks and they say him in the MTC and they talked with him for a while. At the time he was holding in his hands all of our testimonies we had sent him. Elder Oaks was way impressed that President dance would do that. Elder Oaks told him how he had been in on a lot of the mission call meetings and he said how the missionaries that get sent to the Baltic Mission, are some of the greatest missionaires that are called to serve. President Boswell was so nice to us and talked so highly about us and how he hopes he can meet up to how we are. After we had a chance to have quick interviews both with Sister Boswell and President Boswell so I could to meet them both for a bit. They were separate interviews. But ya, they are going to be great to have here with us and to serve with them. I am so excited.

Nothing else really much to report this week. I loved the pictures so much. I loved the one of you two together. I am so blessed to have parents who are still together and love eatchother so much which helps the family grow so much more closer together. We got a busy week ahead of us, Rumšiškas is this saturday and I will take lots of pics. I am way excited. It's crazy how that was last year and it doesn't feel like it was that far away and now my last one is here. I'm way excited to see all the members again. :D

I love you so much and thank you so much for all the love and support.
                        James

Photos from James - July 2011

All of us at the Hill of Crosses. 
Elder Lindell, Me, Rimontas, and Elder Erickson.

Inga ( an investigator ) and us after a lesson with their family.


The big white church in Šiauliai.


Me with my epic bike after the journey.

Email from James - July 4, 2011

Sveikas Tetė,

Haha no 4th of July won't be the same as it is in america. I still remember last year when I was with Elder Hatch and that morning we went out onto the balcony of our apt. and sang the national anthem. We have had some pretty epic prayers saying how blessed beautiful the country of America is and how we are truly blessed to be born from that nation and what not. :D oh I love America, you have no idea. We are going to go to McD's and then go bowling to celebrate and then tonight i'm going to make some rootbeer with some root beer extract some older missionaries left behind :D Lithuania has a big holiday on the 6th which is the day that Mindaugas was crowned King of Lithuania so they are very close. It's funny it is on the 6th because that is zone conference this week so that will be fun with travels and everything. So President and Sister Dance are officially out of the mission. It was so sad the morning of July 1st. We talked about all of the great things President Dance does and how great of a man he is and how he always does everything to make sure he is lifiting up a missionary. I may or may not have had some tears come :D Him and sister Dance have become like my second parents. They are so special to me. President Dance has helped me out so much. When we you look on his facebook, he may not update when they are going to be having their homecoming cause he says he never updates it so you may just have to email him and ask. That would be so cool if you could go see them. I would be so super jealous. :D So we had a miracle and whenever you have a miracle you have to call into the mission president and tell him about it. So I got voted to do it this time. So I did and it clicked right then that President Dance probably wouldn't be answering. I then heard a deep voice say, hello this is president Boswell. I sayed, Hello president boswell, this is elder sanford from lithuania. I told him why I was calling and told him about a really cool meeting we had with one of our investigators who is soooo prepared. Her husband isn't too religious and isn't interested in meeting with us but he has no problem with us meeting with her. So President Boswell instructed us on how we need to really try and get the husband to come meet with us so that then they can be together. It was..... interesting. He sounds like a pretty cool president but, ugh, president dance acts so much more diferently and.. ugh I can't explain it. We were kinda shooken up by it and how he was but we just kept reassuring ourselves it was his first day in the field and he was just tired. I have faith he will be cool,... i pray :D It will be a different change but Baltic Missionaries are the best and I know the Lord only call Baltic Presidents to the Baltics. :D We are way excited for Zone Conference.

I bore my testimony in Sacrament Meeting too. :D What a coincidence. I bore my testimony about the power of the Holy Ghost. I told how we talk to so many people who are a lot older than us and they usually say we are younger than they are, we don't have a family or children, we haven't been through the trials of life, how could we know what they need or what is truly from God. I said it is true about all of those things except for the last one. We DO know what is true. Whenever I get a chance to bear my testimony, or when I study the scriptures, or something my companion teaches, I can feel the power of the Spirit testifying of it's truthfulness that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. 
I really have been learning so much about the power of the Holy Ghost in my Bible reading. I am in the Book of Acts and it has been wonderful. I noticed at how once the apostles and the members of the church receives the spirit, their teaching and their acts are so much more different. Peter testifies with boldness and it states a lot in the epistle he is "filled with the spirit" when he teaches. I got so pumped up during those parts and they did so many miracles. They testified to people who were ready to kill them but they had no fear. They feared God more than man. It really got me excited and energized to go out and start "crying repentance to this generation". I learned a lot too about how important it is to pay your FULL and HONEST tithe from story of  Ananias and Sapphira in the beginning chapters of Acts. I have been getting so much out of reading the Book of Acts. I love it so much. I look forward every morning to personal study more and more. 

Our awesome investigator, Kęstutis, came to church and he has a date for the 23rd. He is being very serious about it this time and I know he is going to be baptized on that day. He told us he is working a lot now so he can buy a car so he can have no problem to go to church every sunday and he is looking for a house and then a wife to raise a family in the church. He is so so awesome. He has been meeting with missionaries for about 5 to 6 years and this was the most responsible thing we had ever heard him say. We had a huge big group hug after sacrament meeting :D Ah I love that guy so much. He always tells us he loves us. :D Smiles all around. Haha

So the "miracle call meeting" I mentioned was really cool. This girl we met with has a young daughter and she is married but the husband isn't interested in meeting like I said. We met with her once and this last meeting was truly a miracle. We weren't sure how serious she would be about finding out if the Book of Mormon is true of if the gospel is true. We were mistaken, she had read from the very beginning, including the introduction and all that before the pictures all the way to 1 nefio 15. Wow, we were blown away. She also read through the Joseph Smith pamphlent and really liked it. She said she really likes this Book and feels really good when she reads it. She really wants to find out if it is true. She says she prays every time she reads it. We had a great lesson and we set a baptismal date for her on Aug. 13. She is going out of town til the 21st but she said she would keep reading and praying. She wants to meet when she gets back. What really personally hit me was that the area she lives in was where I felt we should go a few weeks ago. I had been praying and asking Heavenly Father where to go and as I looked at the map on the wall, the area she lives in stuch right out at me adn I said let's go there. That was a really powerful testimony to me of the power fo the Holy Ghost and that God does lead us to the elect and the prepared. Things for me personally have been changing more and more in the past while with my testimony of the Gospel. I see more the reality of the power of the gospel. It's been amazing. I can't explain it over email but I can't wait to share my testimony and what I have been learning and growing into when I return home. 

Another one of our investigators has been in the hospital for the past few weeks. Whenver we would try to call him, his brother would answer and we would talk to him for a bit. This investigator has been such a great guy. He is way solid and he came to church twice and did everything we said he would do and we set a date for him to be baptized and he really wanted to do it. So he had been in the hospital for the past three weeks. At church, when he came once, I sat by him and I got to talk to him for a while. He is such a great guy and I really wanted to get to know him better. He was a little more quite but he wasn't starting to really open up more around us which was awesome and we saw so much good that was going to come out of him. So this past thursday, we called and his brother answered. He said his brother didn't survive the bleeding and he passed away. We couldn't believe it. It really made us sad because he was one of our most solid investigators and then he died. It put quite a damper on the day but we kept our faith up because we knew he was in a great place and probably was continuing the lessons we finished with him. :) It really made me see how important it is to help everyone here who will listen, because we dont' know when their time to go will be. I won't ever forget him. 

We found some more great people and have a lot of great lessons set up. It has been raining a ton and we have gotten our shares of Lithuanian showers. We got drenched :D I loved the picture of Parker. He is getting so so big. I can't believe it. I will let you know on monday what the new mission president is like. He didn't email today so our anxiouty, i can't remember how to spell that, was killed. :D 
 
    I love you all so much and mom, you are the greatest mission mom I could ever have. I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all the love, prayers, and support you give me. I can truly feel them as I serve in this beautiful country that I love. This is a hard mission. but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Tell everyone else at home hi for me. 
            Su daug meilų visada ir per amžius iš tavo sunaus,
                            James

Email from James - June 27, 2011

Brangus Tetė,

You got that right we had a busy week. It was a really fun week. It may seem like a lot didn't happen cause I couldn't remember a lot but I will try. I wrote a lot in my journal every night so I won't forget the little details. We had a lot of investigators not show up to lessons but we were able to find a lot more. It was awesome. Unfortunately, as said you did in your mission, we waited for them to come to church like they said they would but none of them showed up to church. We also had a lot of funny things happen this week. Pavidžiui, for example, as we were harvesting in a Bendrab, pretty much the worst form of an apt. buliding you could ever find, these two little boys would follow us around and ring a lot of the door bells when we weren't even down there and they would tell people that we wanted to talk with them. Oh my gosh they were crazy. They would wait and watch and if the people said no, they pretty much all did, they would start laughing. Hahaha probably the craziest harvesting I have had to do before. There was a lot more that happened but i'm sure you can imagine how it would be. English class was awesome. Elder Lindell and Elder Erickson teach the first class and I teach the second class. I had about 25 people come to class and it was so much fun. They were so much fun to teach. It's always fun to teach when you can get the class to laugh at you and I got them laughing pretty hard haha. They thought it was fun. :D There were some ladies in the class that were a little flirty, hahaha like mid 20 year old girls haha, but they were a fun class. In church, we are preparing skits to do for Rumšiškas. We have some funny ideas of what we are going to do that go along the lines of home teaching. If you can remember, Rumšiškas is that summer activity where all the members of Lithuania get together at that cool cabin area thing and we all have a big party. That was my second transfer in the field when we had that last year. It's going to be on the 16th of July. I'm way excited because I will be able to talk to people more and I will be able to see all of the members that I love in all the other cities. It's going to be a blast. This past week was a huge holiday in Lithuania so the city was way dead so we went out harvesting. Hahaha, we didn't do that for too long because everyone was way way drunk, so we didn't harvest for too long. Quite some funny stories I will have to tell after the mission. ;D

So yes it is President Dances last week of the mission. I can't believe it. I'm way excited for Pres. Boswell and Sis. Boswell to come though. They are going to be great. We are going to have another zone conference next week so I will be able to have an interview with him and we will all get a chance to meet him. He for sure won't be learning LIthuanian. The mission presidents here don't really learn the languages. They kinda start but since there are 4 languages in this mission, there is really no point. Pres. Dance started learning Latvian but didn't really keep it up and then he knows a very little bit of Russian. Pres. Boswell won't learn Lithuanian. 

Hahaha I have to tell you about a funny dream I had last night. I was a trainer and I was training two missionaries. One was a younger guy, standard new missionary, and the other one was you dad. Oh my gosh it was hilarious. I was really confused why you were serving a mission but I was told I had to train you and help you with the language and how to work. So we went out to a place to eat with Elder Lindell and his new trainee. We started talking and we went up to some people before eating and I contacted them, and you kept asking me how to say things and I would tell you how to say it and then you would say it in a hillariousl new missionary accent. :D You tried very hard but the guy kinda laughed. So we met up with the other missionaries and we just got a small thing to eat. We said we didn't have a long time til we had to go home because it was almost nine. You asked what time we had to be back and we said at nine. You said that was weird and that you wanted to talk to the President about it because apparently in France you were able to work til 10. You said you thought that was so weird and that you wanted more time to contact people. Haha It was pretty funny and I had to tell you that's what the rules were and we were to live by them. :D Then I woke up hahaha. It was quite funny to see you working as a missionary but you weren't younger or anything. Just how you are now but with a white shirt and a name tag. Maybe your going to be a mission president soon. :D

It sounds like you guys had a way fun time at Trek. Trek was so much fun and I won't ever forget those fun times. That's way cool they were able to go on the original trails of where the pioneers used to be. So it wasn't at the same place we did where we did Trek? hahaha I think your just getting all the energy I don't get to use for sports on the mission haha. I definitely plan to do Ragnar when I get back. When I was in Vilnius for exchanges for the second exchange, we did a run in the morning through center and up to a huge hill with three crosses on it. My comp. said I was going to kill him by how fast I run. It was about an 8 mile run and I felt so goo the whole time. I can't wait til I can run every morning again. In a threesome we don't have enough time to go running in the morning and my body doesn't feel like doing push ups or weights in the morning. Ya even though we do it every morning, I still can't get up at 6:30. I dont' think I will ever get used to getting up that early. 

I'll be really interested to hear what car you end up buying. The poor awesome Mazda is finally made it's last day. Audi's and Mercedees  here are quite cheap here suprisingly, because we are in Europe. But i'm so tired of seeing Europen cars and no change in how they look. They pretty much all look the same. Haha whenever we get a lucky chance to see a huge truck, which is so rare, we flip out like little kids. I like that car a lot. Hahah people here always talk like after my mission i'm just going to get home and have a car and find some pretty girl and go off to college and have a great carrear and what not. hahah it's fun to tell them I will get home and will have no money, or car, or a girlfriend ( I will have no money for one haha), and I will somehow get to college. I just say what I am wearing right now as a missioanry will probably be my same wardrobe when I get home. :D Then they say, oh well in that cause just come live here in Lithuanian and marry a lithuanian girl so I don't have to leave them :D 

We got a lot of cool lessons set up this week and I am so excited. I have been finishing my reading up of the gospels in the Bible and it has been so awesome to read. I have learned so much. In the first chapter I realized I need to recognize more of the small miracles of the Lord that he gives and then he will give more when we are humble and we recognize his hand in our lives. When I first got here, the "small little miracles" , that don't seem big to the older missionaries, seemed huge to me. I would thank Heavenly Father with all my heart for them and it would get me to work harder and I know the Lord blessed me for it. Now those "small miracles" seem like more everyday occurances. I learned I truly need to thank Heavenly Father for all the things that happened during the day that are truly miracles from Him. I love how detailed and more spiritual indepth the gospel of John is. I'm just super excited to start getting into Acts and the doings of the apostles aroun the world. 

I forgot my camera again but I will send some pics next week. I liked the picture of Anna at Trek. The good ol Wyoming foothills. :D I will be excited to talk to you again next week. 

                  Būk stiprus tikėjime ir žinok kad tave myliu labai daug,
                                James