Email received April 15, 2014

Hello All,

Sorry that I didn't get a chance to write yesterday. We have had a pretty good week. Laura is really progressing. She has already had her baptismal interview and we are currently trying to decide on a date of when to be baptized. We are all really excited! She still has some really hard decisions to make before she can be baptized. I'll be praying really hard for her. We got a new investigator this week. His name is Daishawn. He was a member referral from a member in the spanish ward. We've taught him twice but we can't really tell if he is progressing or not. Other than that, things are going kind of slow, but that's alright. Recently our mission president issued a cool challenge to us. He attended a seminar for mission presidents in this part of the country that was held by Elder Bednar. The challenge is to get a paper back copy of the book of mormon and to read it cover-to-cover, highlighting anything that helps us answer the following question: How can I better use the enabling and strengthening power of the Atonement. At the end, we will write a one page summary of what we have learned. President Pingree has asked us to finish it before June 30, 2013. I'm excited. Well for the sake of time I have to go, love you all. Have a great week!

love,
Elder Steed

Email received April 7, 2014

Hey everyone,

My ankle is doing much better. Glad that everyone liked the pictures. I can walk on it without limping now, although it still hurts. I can also ride my bike just fine. I just can't play volleyball. Well, I'm not going to lie. I still play. I just don't run or jump. haha. Other than that I'm good.
This week we met with Laura twice. She is just awesome. There's just confusion about marrying her fiance or not. We are just trying to be there for her as she is going through these difficult times in her life.
Guess what! We have a new member referral! We were supposed to teach him for the first time last night but it ended up not working out. He couldn't come. We just talked with the family about how the lesson will go when we do meet with him. The member is really excited and so are we. We are meeting with them Tuesday night. He has already been to church once and came to the church yesterday for the first session. Apparently he really enjoyed both of those. Anyway, the member didn't do anything complex or hard to invite him to learn. It was just very simple. I'm excited to get my first member referral. I feel like it will be much easier for us, and more importantly, for him to have that support from a friend. It's hard for missionaries to do everything on their own. It's much easier when members help out. We are also supposed to finally meet with Roy again this week. Hopefully that goes well. I found a new favorite song! It's called "I Love the Lord" by byu mens chorus. I would LOVE to sing that song. It's amazing. I hope that all of you have a great week, and I hope that your trip to Austin will be great! for a little while you all will only be 2 and a half hours away by car. Have a great week!

love,
Elder Steed

Email received March 31, 2014

Hey all,

I wish I had some stuff to report on, but I don't really have much. haha. Last Monday I sprained my ankle playing volleyball. I landed on someones foot as I came down from a block. Twas very painful. I can walk, well hobble, now and it is progressively getting better. Most of the week was spent studying and cleaning. Pretty lame. Oh well.

I do have a new companion. His name is Elder Pongi. He is from Tonga. He has been on his mission for a little over a year now. His english is very good for not knowing any before his mission. He is such a goofball and cracks me up. We have a lot of fun. It's going to be a great transfer. As soon as I can start working fully again. I am starting to walk better but I'm scared for biking. Hopefully it wont take too long to be able to bike. I'm upset that this happened because we just got 2 new polynesians in our district who know how to play volleyball. And now I'm hurt. Oh well. haha. Well thanks for all the updates. I'm glad that Sister Goodwin was able to meet mom and deliver the note. I think that the Goodwins should be friends with the Cockrells up at BYUI. That would be sweet. Well, I gotta go. We're now going to the gym where I can watch people play volleyball. Gosh. haha have a great week!

love,
Elder Steed

 hahaha!

 front view

 

Compare with normal sized leg in background.

 

 This is what it looked like after 5 days.

 

 This was a really boring week.

 

Bored.