October 11

Howdy all! I'm writing to you from La Porte, TX, where I will be serving for at least another 6 weeks. This breaks my record for time served in an area. I served 3 months in Lake Charles, 3 months in Baytown, and now @ least 4.5 months in La Porte. I'm still loving the fall weather, but I don't love how early it's getting dark. It adds new challenges to missionary work that I'd almost forgotten about since winter.

There's a strange phenomenon that seems to occur each time I sit down to write my weekly email. Even though throughout the week I repeatedly think, "Wow- this is awesome! I need to remember to write home about this!", I suddenly can't remember anything and have no idea what to write! My apologies for not being super great at writing quality emails each week.

Thursday we went on exchanges w/ Baytown sisters. It was super fabulous! I went to Baytown w/ Sis. Kinikini and Sis. Wallace came here to LaPorte w/ Sis. Hatch. It's only the 2nd time I've done exchanges and it was a great experience! I learned so much from Sis. Kinikini and really enjoyed working in Baytown again. One of the particularly memorable moments of our exchange was the lesson we taught on the Law of Chastity to 3 young men ages- 16, 19, and 20. It was really actually very cool. It's a subject I have a lot of strong feelings about and we were able to teach a very open lesson. They asked lots of questions that we answered bluntly. We bore strong testimonies and the Spirit was really powerful throughout the lesson.

This Saturday was particularly eventful. We got up early and headed to Baytown for the baptism of J* and B* M&! What a miraculous day! They've been investigating the church for over 9 months, w/ at least 6 different sister missionaries (all of which were able to be there- also a miracle!) I was able to sing a couple of special musical #'s w/ other sister missionaries and it was a very special experience. I just love J* and B* and am so happy for them!

Shortly after the baptism, we headed to Houston for a tri-mission conference where Elder Costa of the Seventy spoke to us. AWESOME!!! It was uber-cool! Elder Nielson spoke to us as well and the whole meeting was very powerful. We wrapped up our Saturday w/ the ward social "Fall Festival" Halloween party... sloppy joes... candy.... games... and lots of fun costumes. A couple of less active members that we've been working with were able to attend and that made us very happy. Sister Hatch and I did the goofy missionary nametag switch for our costumes.

I love you all!!! Be good and smile lots!!!

*~Sister Pilmer~*