June 5

Things are going good here, a lot of the same things. I am completely exhausted all of the time though. We've been in a trio for the last week and a half, plus training and being district leader, I am just run ragged.

Well, I'm glad that the weather is nice there. It is definitely summer here. 97 degrees and 100% humidity, I sweat like a fountain. And there are some serious hills here to bike up. Greenville was completely flat, but Chapel Hill means what it's called. There are tons of churches and tons of hills, and we get to bike them all :)

The threesome has been good, but it is over today! We thought it was going to be for all of June, but it ended up not happening that long, which is good.

I can't complain to much. We should be having another baptism this weekend, so I am excited about that. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much, and he continues to every day. I am so grateful for him and all that he does for us.

Well, I need to go, but I miss you and love you.

Love,

Elder Rider

May 30

Things here in the mission are going good, it has been a crazy week. Our baptism did go through, it went really great, a lot of people came and the spirit was very strong. One of the missionaries in my district had to go home for personal reasons this week, and so his companion, Elder Nielsen, is now with me and Elder Pfleger, so I'm in a trio again! This time for 4 weeks, until the next transfers. So we are now covering 3 wards and 2 areas :/ haha one of these days I'm going to get 1 area with 1 ward, and I won't know what to do with all of my free time.

We have been finding a few more people to teach, there's this one couple named the Stroupe's that we are really excited about. He is an ex-baptist minister (retired) and him and his wife went to San Diego for vacation recently, and they went and saw the temple, and they also went to the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center in San Diego, and they absolutely loved it. Brother Stroupe said he watched what the pioneers had gone through, and said, "why would people do this to others who are just trying to follow God" so he gave his information to get a copy of The Book of Mormon and to learn more about the Church. It has gone really good. When we shared the doctrine of dispensations and apostasies he really understood it, and when we shared the story of Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he said "well, it's a bit of a stretch for me to believe that, but it's even more of a stretch to believe a 14 year old boy made of this up. I am going to prayerfully read the Book of Mormon." So yeah, that is going good :)

Anyways, that's what has been going on here, we are still trying to figure out where we are going every day, Chapel Hill has a HUGE bus system that is free, so we ride the buses a lot and just talk to people. The wards here are really supportive, they are excited to share the gospel, which is really good.