May 29: Illusion Michael, it's an illusion!

greetings and sulutations my loved ones. as you could probably have guessed, yesterday the places were closed so we weren't able to e-mail. I think it was Memorial Day, maybe Veterans. Well i guess that goes to show you how much of a holiday it was for us. Actually, 'i'm pretty sure it was memorial. I called a member of the ward, and he picked up and said, "Hello, this is Mark Bendoski, How are you doing? Happy memorial day." ....One comment at a time! I didn't even know where to begin in responding to all of that.
We went bowling. we bowled 4 games. I got frustrated on the 2'nd game because we were doing team bowling, and all my companion had to do for us to win was knock down two pins in the final frame and we would win......ya, he got one. It was okay though. I got over it. My highest score was a 180 yesterday. Those bowling shoes i bought sure make a difference :).
Last Monday i bought another suit, but this one reached the all-time low price of a whopping 3 dollars and 50 cents! And it looks like a million bucks. Elder Ostler called from his new area and said he found a suit that he will bring to me at zone conference. That is going to put me up to a grand total of 7 suits that i have now. And keep in mind i came out with 1. Thrift store after thrift store has kindly donated to my collection.
On Tuesday we had transfers and i got my new missionary companion, Elder Duane, and guess what, he is a Canuck! Luckily it hasnt been the source of any contention yet. He's been out 5 months now. He can play the recorder pretty well, which is nice. Can't go wrong with a little recorder action. I must say i enjoy being senior companion a lot. I like setting the work load. This last week we made tons of progress with one of our investigators, Jaira Cuthbert. We had a sweet bomb diggity lesson Friday night.
We just drove over because we had about an hour left in the day, and so we were just gonna stop by and set something up. So i just asked if we could come in and we did. I then turned to my companion and asked, "So, any ideas?" I sure do love unplanned lessons. But it went really well. We read from the Doctrine and Covenants, section 59 of why church is so important, and it finally registered to her why she needed to be at church, and she did come. It was one of those lessons where you don't really remember what you said. Just like the hymn we sing says....."let the holy spirit guide..." and thats about all i know of it.
Sunday morning was one of the most anxiety filled mornings of my mission. We met someone at 8 20 am to go pick up people for church. Well he set off the car alarm, which came with CAR ALARM 10.0 or something outrageous like that, and he couldn't get it to turn off. So he starts driving down the road, with everyone coming outsire to see what the noise is. Finally i just said, we need to turn around and get this off, i'm not picking people up in this thing. Plus, the power had just gone out, so the cops were out doing the intersections. Keep in mind that time is still running. Finally we figure out how to turn it off every time it came back on, so we drove past some cops and quickly turned it off, and they looked at us for awhile. Luckily we never got stopped. So we get to the first persons house, Jaira, and she is in her PJ's. So i told her to come at 9 30 and i'll be outside. Then we got our other person, Alexander, and that went fine.
Well 9 30 comes and i go stand outside.....and wait....and wait....finally i gave up and went back into sacrament meeting, thinking she never came. My blood was pumpin! But then when the meeting was over i walked out into the foyer (check with Justin Jones on the pronunciation of that one) and she was sitting their with her two kids. That sure made my day.
Anyways, Alexander is scheduled to be baptixed this saturday at 10 am, Jaira the next Saturday. We were supposed to meet with Alexander and set up the program last night, but he didn't get home till...well actually i'm not sure right now if he came home. :) Sure do love the week before baptisms. So we could use some prayers with this one.
Other than that things are going pretty well. Oh ya, last Monday we got a phone call from the Assisstants, and they told us we now have the car all the time. I think this is the first time i told you that......right? Well either way, it is nice. Especially with the summer time and what not. My companion is doing well, just need to help him get up in the morning. But i'm used to that. Good to hear Mike got himself an internship. Working the good old 9 to 5. Mom, you said that will be new for him. Well, Mike once worked a 6:30 to 10:30, so i think he shouldn't mind it.
Oh ya i met some lady yesterday in the Wal-Mart parking lot from Boston. I told her i used to live in Connecticut, and she was so upset when i said we lived in California now. Oh well. Sister Knudson, the lady in the ward with the two kids, single mom, who we have been trying to help quit smoking, is now on day 31 smoke free. Thats the longest she's gone in 30 years or so. Well, thats about all for now. Sounds like you've got some traveling to look forward to these next few weeks. Hope ya have fun, send me some pictures. My companion's name is Elder Duane, he is from Cardston, Alberta,......Canada.

Love, your third born