February 24, 2019

February 24, 2019

This is the picture of Matthew's district taken at the transfer meeting.  I'm not sure, but that might be his new companion there beside him.  I'll have to ask him this week.

This past week, the leadership of the church announced a change to the communication rules for missionaries.  The new mission rules allow for PHONE CALLS home :)  This changes a lot for Matthew because he would much rather talk than email.   He is allowed to use Google Hangouts (which we have been allowed to use already in his mission), but also he has the option to call each week if he wants.  So this past week he called home, and it was wonderful to hear from him!

He gave us a video chat tour of his new apartment.  It looks very nice and seems to be in a nice area.  I wish I had thought to take a couple of screen shots so I had pictures...because he still hasn't sent any of those ;)

Here are some of the things we learned this week:

• Matthew loves his new companion.  He says that Elder Talbot is great.
• Elder Talbot is from Clinton, Utah
• He has been out the same length of time as Matthew; in fact they flew out on the same plane from the MTC.
• He is interested in Engineering.
• They are in the smallest areas of the mission and he says they can walk from one end of it to the other in 30 minutes.  This means they are walking more than biking right now because of the snow and ice.
• He says there is a big lake in the middle of the area. (From pictures we have seen on the internet it looks like a very pretty area.  Hopefully Matthew will take some actual pictures for us.)
• The area has a high concentration of LDS Members so he says that makes finding new friends more challenging.  

The scriptures he shared this week are: Alma 41:10 and Mosiah 3:24.  Both of these scriptures talk about choices and consequences.  I like the one from Alma that tells us that wickedness never was happiness and then in Mosiah the scripture tells us that we will be judged based on on our works.

He seems to be happier and more focused again this week, we can't wait to hear from him again tomorrow.