Hey all,

It was great to read your letters and emails! Sorry if you haven't been receiving letters from me. The email was down for a while and I don't have a whole lot of time to write plain old letters.

Things have been crazy here. Last week I tried giving my companion a haircut, and well, I don't think I need to elaborate on how well that went! I have been eating some pretty interesting African food. I can't count how many times I've wondered what they were feeding me at some of these houses. I seems like they use any kind of random meat--turkey neck, pork shoulder, anything with fins--mix it with hot peppers, vegetables, and spices, and boil it all together, bones and all, and serve it over rice. It's pretty good, though. I love being out here on a mission.

We had a rough week, but everything is going pretty well. We got another baptism on Sunday and we should have one for next week as well. I've almost read the Book of Mormon through again, and I'm loving the lessons  and the people we get to teach. Things have been hard sometimes, and the inner city is pretty run down and dirty. We saw a lot of drugs and burned out buildings. I wouldn't want to be there without being a missionary, but it's not so scary when you have the little black name tag on.

We had a couple of investigators watch General Conference. It was great! One had two little kids who like throwing things, so I spent a lot of the Sunday session catching toys hurling towards my head. It was great though. I loved Elder Scott's talk on Sunday. The mom of those two little boys got baptized between Sunday sessions of conference and it all went pretty smoothly. Thanks for sending me my line of authority. I love this place, the atmosphere, the people, everything is pretty fantastic. Our apartment was built the same year as the Constitution. I haven't seen much of inner Philadelphia, but there are some pretty cool parts of the suburbs that are really old. I'm in Bristol, PA if you want to look at it on Google earth.

I have learned the power of fasting and prayer. One boy who we had to prove to that we were missionaries. . . well his dad got really mad when he found out he was talking to us. He refused to cook him dinner that night. We were pretty terrified that we were going to lose them. That night, I fasted and prayed like crazy that his heart would be softened and that he would no longer stand in the way of his son's conversion. At our next appointment, everything was settled with his dad, and we can visit him whenever now, not just when his dad is at work.

Pennsylvania is really nice right now. When I got here in March, it was freezing and there was about 3 inches of solid ice over everything. The wind was blowing and it was pretty cold. After that storm, we spent a couple hours of service helping people get their cars unstuck from the roads. They were actually frozen to the ground. Now it's about 60 degrees and sunny, sort of. Kind of rainy, really humid, a lot like Florida, only colder.

Have a great week! I love you guys!

Elder Wallentine