Excerpts from Mike's Letter Home:

05/19/2003

Dear Family,

It was wonderful to talk with you on Mother's Day. I received the postcard that mom mentioned as well as a package today. Thank you so much for everything!

Well, this week has been really interesting, there has been some good and bad. We had our interviews with President this week. My interview strayed far from what I would consider a normal interview. We talked a lot about prayer and its importance. Towards the end of it, President told me that Elder Ricks would be leaving on May 30th. He then asked me, "What would you do differently if you were senior companion in Salem?" So, my time to be senior companion may be approaching.

One interesting announcement is that we will be receiving our monthly allotments differently. No longer will we be using a Zion's Bank debit card. Now, we will be using a JP Morgan Chase corporate Visa card. I am not pleased with this change. Now, when we want cash we will have to pay an ATM fee. So, no longer can we push the cash back button at Wal-Mart. We do not know the exact reason for this change, but I suspect it is because it will save the Church a lot of money. Now, I have to memorize a new PIN number. Grrrr!

Anyways, we have had a few good experiences this week. We were out tracting and we introduced ourselves and the man replies, "It's okay, I am a Christian." I reply, "Great, so are we!"  He then says, "Oh good, I thought you were Mormons." We then went on to explain our basic beliefs, but he wasn't interested. I replied how I did because I thought he had confused us with Jehovah's Witnesses. It was an interesting experience.

We taught some good first discussions. One might even be outside our mission boundaries. We had permission though. It might be 100' out of our mission, but it might not be. Either way, I got to do a little travel outside the mission. So, that was exciting. We also had a good discussion with the family I mentioned last time (with the goldfish). They have progressed, though it has been slowly.

I am glad to hear that Dan is doing well in Italy. I truly miss that guy. Also, thank you for sending me Aaron's e-mails. The article with Mike Moody in it was most interesting. It is good to hear that things are going well down there in Haiti.

I wish dad the best of luck with the organ recording! Keep up the efforts.

Anyways, I miss you very much and send you all my love. Take care and enjoy the week!

Love,
Elder Mike Robinson