Friends and family,

     So it already has dropped to freezing here at nights... SOS hahah.  Luckily its still pretty warm during the day so I haven't really had to wear a jacket, but shout out to my family for sending me winter gear because I will be needing it soon!  I still lovvee Ely though and I am very grateful to be here.  I'm telling you though, I might as well be in a foreign country because I am so uneducated on this small town life and am learning so much everyday!  Hunting and mining are the main topics here and one of my new favorite foods is venison (no clue how to spell it), which is some yummy deer!  Also there's animals EVERYWHERE on the roads at night which freaks the freakity out of me.. I have to try super hard to not be a spaz whenever we see them because me screaming does not help my companion to be a safe driver... so yes working on that.

     I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but when I got Sister Teichert as my companion we also got another town, Eureka, added to our area.  Its like an hour and a half away from Ely, so we only go 2-3 times a month, and it has a population of around 400.  We're pretty much starting fresh with the area because past missionaries didn't do much and didn't really leave us with anything to work with.  We went this last week and it was so good!  We met with a member for lunch and then pretty much just went around meeting and asking people for referrals.  One of them we received was a couple who apparently had been investigating and were going to get baptized but then they moved to Eureka and had no connection to the church or anything until we showed up! It was a such a miracle and I'm super excited to go back.

     One thing I've learned on my mission is that I have a LOT to learn, but what a blessing it is that we have so many resources to do so.  I just started reading the childrens Book of Mormon (lol) this last week because I realized that even though I've read the Book of Mormon a couple of times, I really don't know the stories well and those are what help back up the principles and doctines in it.  I encourage you all to take advantage of the church library- there's so much good stuff out there to learn and gain a testimony of and now's the time to do it!  I love you all.  I love this gospel and I love being a missionary.  Let me know if there's anything I can do for any of you and have a wonderful week!

Love, 

Sister Paul xoxo