Making everyone feel comfortable in church

I want money for my birthday. No packages. Doesn't matter how much. I trust your judgment. I think that art thing fell through. I've been trying to find out the guy’s number and where he stays, but through the transfers the Elders lost track of him. I might try and e-mail Elder Goodman who went home. Maybe through some miracle he has his number written in his journal.

With that debit card, I would send it to me and when I get it I'll e-mail you. Then you can activate it from there. So write down the all the numbers and then send it to me. That should be the easiest way.

We've been teaching families. We currently have four families in our teaching pool. Saturday night I was feeling a bit overwhelmed thinking that I would have four families coming to church in the morning. It can be a bit tricky running around trying to make sure that your investigators are comfortable and fellowshipping with the members. But it worked out that only one family came. Maybe the Lord thought we weren't ready to handle all that. So we'll focus on this family. They seem good. They're related to the recent convert family that we just baptized. So the fellowshipping is a given. The only problem is that they live pretty far from church. And they have a small baby. When they came I first saw Ben the husband. Five minutes later was the 15 year old daughter carrying the baby. Five minutes later was the mother. It's weird how families are here. The family values just aren't really there. But you better believe that if any type of relative dies, they will be going to the village for burial. That is a must! It's just a different culture. We try convincing them to at least sit together in sacrament meeting, but it's not exactly working that well. Maybe after two or three generations, that concept will start to pick up.

How soon do you need to know about the hotels? I can talk to the couples about it, but I wasn't trying to make rush about it. I figured hotels don't have to be booked this far in advance. But I guess it wouldn't hurt. It would be nice if Troy could come. I e-mailed him and told him that.

Cool discourse on humor and spiritual maturity. I liked it a lot. We all have a lot of ways that we can grow. I liked what you said about jokes during talks. How President Hinckley never had moments where he had to pause while the audience composed itself after laughing uncontrollably. It seems like a good rule to have while giving a talk.

I hope that money goes through for those permits. It sounds like you were talking to a Ugandan. They like that style of, "Yes, please. OK, please." The way they use that word "please" confuses me sometimes. I got an e-mail from Ben confirming that he's coming. I'm impressed. To be honest, I never thought it'd happen. So after this, I'm just nervous that we won't be able to do anything cooler. It'll be hard to top this one.

Thanks for everything. Have a good week.

Elder Zachary Wright