The Book of Three

The tag line is because this is the thrid to last weekly email. Scary.
First of all, Mom, I want to apologize, I won't be sending pictures home today. :( I had a late night last night, and I was really tired leaving the house and left the camera and stuff at home. However next week I'll be sure to remember and send home pictures from the Ellis Island trip and the temple trip.

It's a little weird this week that you are the only one I'm sending the email to. Normally I send the weekly email to yours, Dad's and Nick's email addresses, but since they're off camping I guess you're the only one to send it to this week.

As the final weeks of my mission come closer I still can't quite wraop my head around the fact that I'm almost going home. I've loved my time here in New Jersey, it's been really cool. I have seen a lot of lives changed, and I've loved it a lot. I am detirmined to work hard these last few weeks and go out with a bang.

This week was a really interesting/tough week though. There were conferences all week, training for the leadership, and so we were in a threesome all weeks with Elder Godfrey. I felt really bad for Elder Yates, though. It's tough enough killing a companion, but being all week with 2 departing missionaries, I imagine it was hard for him. We tried to not be trunky and all that, but I think we still were a little. The week was tough, too because the three of us had to work both areas, and unfirtunately we worked in the Heights area more than ours, so our numbers weren't so good this week, but at the same time we did see some miracles.

We set two baptismal dates this week. One of them was Joseph. We sat down last night and I asked him what was holding him back. He said he doesn't know enough. We talked about it a little, and we encouraged him and bore testimony. We set him with a date for August 8th. He is still a little shaky about being baptized, but I know that as he prepares for that date, he'll feel the help of the Lord. I have faith he'll be baptized on that day.

The other date we set was with Katherine. She didn't come to church yesterday, she was babysitting. We are going over today, though. On thursday we set her with a date for the 15th of August. She is really awesome, and things are going well with her. After church we went over to her house to see what was up, she told us to come by today, so we have an appointment tonight at 5:00. I am really excited.

Samuel is also making progress, but slowly. I know he'll be baptized someday, but not while I am here. He's a great guy, and he understands that where he's at is not where he wants to be. Yesterday he shared something interesting with us. On Saturday we had a ward barbeque. Samual came and he had a lot of fun, but then he went out partying that night. He said that the party wasn't worth it at all. We talked about it, and he definitely preferred the barbeque. He wants to change his life, but it'll be difficult he says. This Saturday we have a talent show activity, and we invited him to come to that activity instead of going out dancing. He said he would, and he wanted to.

This week I got my travel plans. I remember that in the MTC when we got our flight info we wree so excited. I'm not excited about this at all. But here's basically how it'll go down.
I leave the Newark International Airport at 10:30 am on August 16th. from there I fly to Atlanta, and I have an hour layover. From there I fly from Atlanta to Salt Lake, and my flight is supposed to arrive in Salt Lake at 4:30 P.M. That's the plan anyways... I'm thinking about purchasing some phone cards before I leave and so I can make some calls in the airport. I don't know what I'll do in the layover in Atlanta for an hour.

By the way, I got the package this week with the Meds. Thank you so much for helping me out with that. Hopefully I can get back to sleeping right and not be so tired all the time. Missionary work is definitely more difficult when you're not sleeping properly.

Also, today I am going to pull out a little more money from my savings. I hate to keep nickel and diming my savings, but I need some money to send some more stuff home, also I think I need a few bucks for the temple trip on Wedneday as well. I want to thank you and Dad for all the help financially you have given me while I've been out here. I couldn't do it without your help. I
Well, I gotta go. I'm almost out of time. I hope that everyone has fun on the trips and I hope Nick gets his mission call soon. It's making me nervous...
Love you,
Elder Isaac Ellsworth