Email: January 16, 2012

Hello from Roseburg!

It is definitely different here! Roseburg is down near the bottom and a lot closer to the coast so we have a lot more rain and trees and it is very green. I found out that it is a full bike area so luckily I brought with me an extra bike that was in the Prineville apartment that didn't belong to anyone. It wasn't in good enough shape to ride so I had to spend some money to get it up to snuff. It was extremely cheaper than buying a new bike however. The cheapest new one I could find here was well over 400 dollars, its insane! But its okay because Betsy gets me a long! (that's the bikes name now) There is so much more work here it is crazy! They had a good list of investigators when I came in and there is one with a date for the 28th but it looks like we will have to push it back a week because she didn't come to church yesterday which is frustrating. It is very annoying when someone tells you that they will do something and then they don't do it! We had four people commit to come to church with us yesterday and not a single one showed up. We had an awesome lesson at the first counselor in the bishoprics house on Saturday night. They brought over two of their friends who are interested and we taught the first lesson and challenged them to read and pray and we have dinner and another lesson at their house on Thursday of this week so that will be awesome. Their names are Pam Wise and Marisol I don't know her last name. We have a bunch of appointments set up this week that I think will be really good. We found three new investigators just this week that we have return appointments with. Im pretty excited to be here and have all this work. I have to still make sure that I am being obedient, it is very easy to get complacent when you are having success but it all comes down to how obedient we are being. My new companions name is Elder Ludlow. He has been out six months now so we have been out about the same amount of time. I can't believe that it has been that long. Time flies, it has only been three months but added with the other time and I only have 18 months left. It's going too fast! My legs are getting so strong though, we have this huge hill that we have to go up to get back to the house every night and there are a ton of hills here. I hope it helps me lose some weight, the members in Prineville fed us so well I gained all that weight I lost back. Its very frustrating because I hate saying No to people who offer us things because that is there way of helping serve the lord and they will be blessed for it so who am I to say no? Oh so the house we live in now is awesome! We have a whole room devoted to a ping pong table!!! It is not just an apartment in a house, it is an actual house and it is in the forest basically it is very cool. I will get a few more pictures and then I will send one of the SD cards home so you can see it.

So Matthew waited in line at Buffalo Wild Wings huh? That's awesome, I'm pretty impressed. I would have totally done it with him, that's totally worth it. And I'm kinda getting mixed reviews on this new puppy ha ha. Hopefully it will all work out, I'm sure she will calm down just like Wilson did. There were many times that mom wanted to get rid of him for chewing on things and doing what puppies do, but look at him now! Mom would cry if we had to get rid of him!

President told me that one of the reasons that I came out here was to help Elder Ludlow be more obedient, it is a very daunting task but I think it is good for me as well. I have to watch myself and make sure that I am doing all that I need to so that I can be an example to him. I think it is more for me than it is for him. I'm grateful to be here and I am very excited to go to work and help the people here in Roseburg come to Christ. The new address here is 3517 Hughes, Roseburg, Or 97470. Thats what Ludlow told me so I hope that it is right.

Love,
Elder Erickson