Mother's Day Phone Call

We had a great phone call from John on Sunday evening. We did a conference call again and everybody in the family had a chance to call in and say hi to John. He is already planning his return home and wants to go to college. He told us that one of the things he has realized is that he is really very smart and capable of  getting a college education! Let's hope he still feels the same way in 16 months! We also made tentative plans to travel to Uruguay in 2011 to pick him up. It really isn't that expensive and will be an opportunity we don't want to miss. Finally, it looks like we will be putting together a package for his birthday this weekend. He needs shirts, socks and some other goodies. It takes 4-6 weeks to get a package to him, so we need to get it in the mail by Monday morning. We did receive a short email from him and here it is:

May 9, 2010

Dear Family,

Wow, what a day. Today is my p-day and it is now night time. Our new p-day schedule is awesome. I love having p-day that lasts until the day is actually over.

This morning I started out by going over to the sister missionaries’ house and fixed their furniture. They had broken one of their beds. I put some screws in it and I hope it solved the problem. (The missionaries all over the mission know me as the guy who fixes all the stuff) They were grateful and they said that they are now happy because one of them doesn’t have to sleep on the floor. Afterwards we had district meeting. It was enjoyable and it seemed to go by way too fast. We then played basketball at the church and it was so awesome to play after not playing for so long. We then had an awesome lunch and finished our activity around 4 this afternoon. Tonight, in about an hour I have a birthday party to go to. It’s for a joven (young man) in the ward who is about 14 years old. He always goes out and works with us and we are very good friends with the family, so that’s kind of exciting.

Our baptism we planned is for the 22nd of May, the day after Steven’s birthday. Her name is Haydee. She is about 64 years old and is awesome too. She has now fixed our clothes and sewed up many holes that I had in my pants and shirts. In exchange, we took the weed eater from the church and cut the grass in her back yard. She is really by far the best investigator that I have ever had!

Well it was really cool to be able to talk to you guys yesterday. Sorry if you felt that it was a weird conversation. I just felt really weird I guess talking to you guys on the phone. As a missionary I guess you just become weird. But I know that’s okay!

Well I love you and for now I’m just going to forget myself and go to work.

Love you all
Elder John Sluder