Hey mom!

General Conference was awesome! I got so much out of it. General Conference is way sweet while you're a missionary. I took a whole bunch of notes. We didn't have any investigators come to the General Conference sessions, but one did come to the Priesthood session. This week hasn't been too bad for us. We didn't have a whole ton of visits, but the ones we had were pretty good. This transfer has gone by way fast. We're already more than half way through it. I don't think that I'm going to be staying here for another transfer, but I could be wrong.

For my personal studies this week and last week, I've been trying to find more scriptures that I can use for the lessons. It's amazing how many scriptures there are about any topic that you are searching for. There are a lot of scriptures that I have read before without really thinking about the meaning of it and there are a ton of good scriptures that can be used in the lessons. I do a whole lot more talking during the lessons than I used to. I've gained a lot more confidence in the things that I say. I've gained a lot more confidence in my ability to OTM people as well. That was one of the things that we learned in our Zone Conference (how to effectively OTM). It's helped me out a lot.

I'm uploading more pictures for you right now. The internet isn't very fast here so it takes a long time. I've realized that I should probably take more pictures of the things that I'm doing. I always have my camera with me, but I forget to use it. I've been teaching myself the piano and it's coming along pretty well. I can play about 6 songs from memory. I'm working on the whole sight reading thing.

We are going on a District Outing today. We are going bowling up in Pittsburg! It's going to be sweet.

So I found out from Lisa that when she served here, she served in Pittsburg. Back when she was here, Parsons was a part of Pittsburg. There is a family here named the
Shouse's and they both remember her. I thought that was pretty cool.

I almost have a tape about half way full for you guys.

Elder Budden and I are trying to get ourselves in some good shape so we are going to start running about 4 days a week. We've been waking up around 6 every morning to get in some extra time for exercise.

So, somehow, a pair of my socks disappeared so if you could send me out another pair or two that would be much appreciated. Also, if you guys could send me out some MOTAB
CD's or just some other church CD's that would be nice too.

Unfortunately the work here has really slowed down. We've been trying to get some new investigators, but for whatever reason we haven't really been able to get any. Hopefully we will be able to get the work to pick back up here again.

I hope that everything is going awesome for you guys. I remember you in my prayers always! I love you all

Love Elder Joyner

Investigators that we saw:

Fran - We taught Fran about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a really good lesson. It's hard to tell if she is really paying attention sometimes. She says that she is, but sometimes it doesn't seem like she is. She still says that her head is not right for her to come to church. She says she wants to be there, but she wants to have her head clear first so that she can focus on church and nothing else. She is having trouble forgiving someone for something that happened in the past.

Mayhues - We taught Sis. Mayhue about the Restoration again, about Prophets and about the Book of Mormon. It was a really good lesson because we focused a lot on the things that she didn't understand. She still didn't fully understand everything, but she said that she understands more now than she did before. She says that she is open to change and that she will give the church a shot.

Jerry - We talked with Jerry mostly just about what is going on in his life. We talked to him about trials and about prayer. We talked to him about General Conference. He's really open and honest with us. We just need to find a way to get him to church.

Anna - We taught Anna about the Book of Mormon. We taught her about the book of Ether. We are going to be going over the book of Ether with her and see if we can get her liking the Book of Mormon more and seeing the importance of it so she'll start studying it more.

Bonnie - We taught Bonnie about the Plan of Salvation. She said that it was a different spin on it and that she hadn't thought of it like this before. She had a very different view of what the Plan of Salvation was, but she said that she will pray about it to know if our way is the correct way.

Rosco - We taught Rosco about the Book of Mormon. Where it came from, why it's important, and the storyline of it. He said it was a really good lesson and that he appreciated us teaching him about it. He still hasn't realized that if the Book of Mormon is true then the church is true. We're working on that.

That's it for this last week!