Today is my five month mark! (4/28/08)

That's great about the suit.1 I'm glad my package made it. (I think everything is self-explanatory in there but the tie--it was Elder Ch.'s and he didn't want it and I don't have much use for it currently so I'm sending it home).2 Yes, I would like to have the suit whenever you can send it. (Side note--my slacks are all way too big--I'll have to find some member who can take them in. They made them like three or four inches too big in the first place,3 with elastic nonetheless, and then I've lost weight. Our district is also doing the Biggest Loser4--hopefully I can shed a little more then.) The only other thing I would like is a mini book of the primary songs. (Another tangent--I was looking through the primary song book and if you look closely you can see that "Once Within a Lowly Stable" is a complete knock-off of "Once in Royal David's City"--you can even switch the lyrics from one tune to another!) As for sending them, the Welshes are in Utah this week and they offered to stop by to take anything or pick anything up (I had sent my package two hours before they offered), so I gave them our address and phone number and they might stop by so you'll meet my host family! You can probably send stuff back up with them.

This week we had a lesson with Heather and Matt. I think I wrote about them last week. Anyway, I taught the Word of Wisdom and then came time for a commitment. I committed them to quit coffee (the only thing they violate). It was silent for a bit so I was a little worried. My companion was I think even more nervous, and I know the fellowshippers were very nervous because they walk on egg shells with these people. But they said yes! They'd do it! I hope they keep it. I think Matt could be ready. I think Heather wants to be ready but she doesn't want to want to be ready.

Also this week we made contact with a recent convert of whom we lost contact three months ago. She was meeting with President so he called us and we're back on track to do new member lessons with her.5 We also got a new investigator in the form of a part-member family. She told us he doesn't like religious people but he liked us, and they came to Elders Quorum game night where they were immediately fellowshipped. He didn't make it to church but she did, and hopefully he'll be there this week. The bishop also invited another PMF to have the lessons in his house so that should happen this week.

And looking in the index of the triple combination I found some errors. They spelled Jeneum (a Nephite commander defeated in Mormon 6) as Jeneam, and they spelled cumoms (the unidentified animal mentioned in Ether) as cummoms. You'd think they'd be better than to have two mistakes in the index.6

Writing letters has proved very difficult so don't expect snail mail for a while unless I can get through writing back everyone else.

--Elder Melville


1When my mom forwarded this email to family, she said, “Note about the suit comment. One of his suits wore through already, but Mr. Mac's just replaced it and will alter it free as well.”

2I believe I was referring to this tie:

3I’m not exaggerating here. If I recall correctly, they measured my waist at 39 inches in those days, and they gave me size 43. I think they were judgmental and assumed that this fat kid would get fatter.

4This might have been the time my family told me they were doing a Biggest Loser competition among themselves. My dad won by losing five pounds.

5Oh yes, Denise. What a sad story all around. The missionary who baptized her was sent home once it was discovered he had broken the law of chastity in the bathroom with a girl. I think it was Denise’s friend’s daughter or something. I believe Denise was baptized after he had done the deed but before people knew. This all went down right before I got in the mission; it happened in another area, and then Denise moved in to our area after she was baptized. I remember Denise saying she kept in contact with him on Myspace and he said he might not get excommunicated. After this, our mission president made all missionaries commit to “locking their hearts.” I knew some missionaries who had been trained by him, and it sounds like it happened more than once. Denise told us she didn’t hold it against the Church that this happened, but she did struggle with making it to church. She was in her late 20s and was enormous; she had to be close to 400 pounds. I recently Googled and learned that she died in 2011 in her early 30s.

6They fixed these misspellings for the 2013 edition.