February 25th Letter

Vauxhall, famous for potatoes...and thats about it

Connect Four with Elder Jensen-Fresno, CA

A sweet tie someone gave me. cough cough

me and my baby, the rapid fire



Alright, hopefully this doesn't go out again. to be honest, this last week hasn't been too eventful. Not too many stories to tell. I'll get more! haha I ate spaghetti/lasagna 6 nights in a row. if i ever see tomato sauce again i'm running away. Unless of course its moms. :) We saw a big hit to our teaching pool. Every Saturday we go out to Grassy Lake, the small town just east of Taber, and do work there. We has 3 investigators there, and we lost all 3 this last visit. We were working with this Mennonite family, and the wife was really nice and enjoyed the Book of Mormon. She said she thought it was a good book. But this last time we went by she came to the door looking sad and said her husband wanted us to take the book back. we saw a bruise on her shoulder and guessed that he REALLY wanted her to give back the book, so that was sad. And a girl we've been teaching who allowed her baby to be blessed in sacrament meeting a couple weeks ago finally lost the battle with her mom. She doesn't want her coming to church anymore. Dang. But on the bright side we set two baptismal dates with Hannah and Bradley, a mom and her 10 yr old son. They're really cool. As with the lack of fun stories, i finally decided to tell my conversion story. So here we go.
my whole life i knew the church was true. it was just a good comfortable feeling i felt whenever i was at church or gospel subjects were brought up. But i eventually got sick of leaning off of others testimonies and all. I wanted to know for myself. Especially growing up listening to my dad's talks on tape about his story and all. I wanted a cool one. Sometime early in high school, i was reading in my favorite books of the Book of Mormon, Alma, Mosiah, and Moroni, when i got the feeling it was time to pray. Almost as soon as i started praying and asking Heavenly Father if it was true, I got my answer. It was so sudden i almost brushed it aside. Right when i asked, I felt a voice in my head say, Duh! Of course its true! I felt surprised that answers can come that fast and abrupt, so i kept asking, and it was the same every time i asked. So i decided to listen. And i felt, You know its true. you've always known. Now go and spread my word. Those words have stuck with me so much! So straight and so solid! And that is how i came to now that this church is true, and that i am doing the Lord's work.
One thing I've learned out here on my mission is if you've been born in the church, don't think you aren't as special because you don't have your neat story. Everyone has to have their own testimony found in their own way. Some find it through prayer. Some find it through trials and sorrow. Anyway you find it, its YOURS. And its special.
Another cool thing about being a missionary is the support you find through other missionaries. Some of my favorite people to hear from are those other guys that I'm friends with from BYU or whatever. Fred Nelson, Ryan Gray, Skylar Brown, Jordan Harbor, all those great guys. I can't wait to swap stories with them.
Well, what i thought was going to be a short boring email got quite expanded! I just want everyone to know that i love what I'm doing. I keep having a dream every other month or so where I'm home from my mission, but i can't remember anything past 3 months, 5 months, or 7 months. And its frustrating. 24 months seems like a long time, but i want to make the most of every day i get. Going home seems really scary. hahaha well, i think that's pretty good. I love you all!
Elder Crippen