Hello from Yucaipa, California!

This week has been crazy!  California is a pretty cool place.  It reminds me a lot of Utah.  Except for all the Palm trees.  That's really the only different part.  My mission president is way cool.  He's a really nice guy.  Very spiritual.  He's always tearing up haha.  My companion is Elder Seright.  He's from Coalville UT.  We get along just great!

We have been assigned to work in the Yucaipa area just like that random lady said.  I have no idea who she is haha.  Is that where Ellle said she lived? I couldn't remember.  Maybe you should call K'Ann and ask her.  It's pretty interesting up here though. There is a no tracting rule.  All missionary contacts and referrals come from members.  Elder Seright and I, along with a couple of Sisters, are assigned to the Yucaipa 4th ward.  Yesterday in Ward Council the bishop told them all that missionary work takes priority over all callings, activities, youth-things, and anything else except for family commitments.  They were all given a list of names to go out and contact and try to set stuff up for us missionaries to do. 

It's been a pretty rough week for missionary work though.  Elder Seright and I are essentially opening up a new area and so we had no information at all. We didn't even have a ward list until the second day we were here.  To make matters worse, they haven't even given us a phone yet.  Supposedly, we are gonna get one today.  Apparently some order went wrong in Salt Lake and so none of the phones made it out here.  The next thing that's not so fun is the fact that Yucaipa is the hilliest place I've ever been.  Literally the whole place is one giant hill.  And we are on bikes.  It sucks cause we have to waste so much time riding places.  It takes us nearly an hour to get to some of the houses.  And since we don't have a phone to let them know we are coming, often times they aren't even home.  For the past few days, since we don't have any investigators yet, we've just been going around and dropping in on ward members and less actives and meeting them.  They are all really nice and they seem to like us haha. 

More about the bikes.  There is no way I should still be alive.  Haha every night when we get home my legs feel like they are gonna fall off, but when I wake up, I'm not even sore.  The lord is definitely helping me out.  haha. 

That's sad to hear about Montana's friend :(

One of the things that President Van Cott is really pushing is exact obedience.  Apparently in the past, this mission has had some really crazy elders and the area really suffered.  I've just been hearing horror stories of all these awful missionaries.  It's really turning around though.  Just not in our ward currently haha.  We will get some investigators soon though i'm sure. 

The only really cool thing that's really happened to me this week is that I saw a pomegranate tree.  That was cool.  Haha. 

Sounds like everything is pretty crazy at home! Sounds like a lot of fun though :)  I've been dying cause I just want to go waterskiing so bad.  The weather around here is pretty much perfect all the time for that.  Speaking of the weather, it's pretty hot during the day but it's been starting to cool down a lot.  Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am to be here at this time.  Even like two weeks ago it was like 10 degrees hotter every day.  Glad I missed that!

Good luck with the swim stuff Sade!

Keven and Skyler, you are gonna love the field when you finally get there! ;)

Well it's about time for me to go, I'll talk to you next week! :)

Love you guys!!

-Elder Wise