February 8, 2016

That's too much fun about seeing Suzy and the Doty's along with everyone else!  Pass on a hello please.  Before I start my letter, I just want to say that I understand why we as missionaries aren't supposed to watch stuff, and be worried about what's going on in the outside world.  When I saw that the Broncos beat the Panthers I had to read that again, because I was just shocked that the Panthers even made it to the Super Bowl.  Anyway, for about 5 minutes I was just in shock, it just sorta reminded me that I'm in for a bit of a surprise when I come home to a different world then the one I left (I mean, I'm still on this world, but you get what I mean. You're pretty isolated from that stuff on a mission).  

Anyway, I don't have a lot to report this week.  It's been pretty crazy, we've been doing a lot of miscellaneous dealings for the ward, because our branch president does everything, our 1st counselor is one of the Senior missionaries, and our 2nd counselor is a recent convert and is still trying to get both feet under him.  So my companion the secretary, and I (the companion of the secretary) have gotten tasked with a lot of running around this week.  We've been trying to improve with contacting on buses with all the running around.  There's a section in Preach My Gospel (for those of you who have no idea what that is, it's the handbook that contains the doctrines that people who want to be baptized need to learn and agree to live by before they are baptized) that talks about just Going About Doing Good.  We'll I've found out that I have a really hard time just jumping into gospel conversations on a bus, and having everyone looking at me like I'm some crazy J-Dub (we get told that about 10 times a day, so not my words, I love the J-Dubs).  Anyway, I was reading in that section and I realized that yes, we're here to share what we know to be true, but as we go about doing good, people will see that we're sincere, and they'll be more willing to listen.  So today on our way to email, I just tried to focus on really just trying to get to know the person, and it was super refreshing.  It's a fine line trying to let as many people we see know about what we're here to do, but it's so much easier to do that as we just go about doing good trying to make people happy.  So I challenge all of you, just go out there and try to see how you can make people happy, and I know that as you do that, you'll find more happiness and peace in life.  You'll be happier with yourself just knowing that you're worrying less and less about yourself.  That's one thing I'm still working on, is just not worrying about me, and the better and better I do at that the more and more often I find myself just smiling for no apparent reason.  Happiness becomes a bigger apart of your nature.  

Anyway, we also got to do a split in Nevsky this week, and it was so fun being back where I was born!  It was cool being in the same area, but feeling like a totally different person with a different focus.  We've also been working with a member of our branch on getting his mission papers done, and both my companion and I are less than 9 months in the field, and we just couldn't find the Russian mission papers for the life of us.  Anyway, it was really funny as we tried to translate the medical questions for him, with some Russian, some pointing at different parts of the body, and google translate.  Also, this last week we got back from our split on the night train, and I was just so tired in the morning.  I tried doing jump rope and it was a complete failure.  I'm going to recreate the moment and send a video to you, my companion was on the ground for a while when it happened.  Anyway, we got a new ping pong table here, and there are now two computers in the same room at our church, so we're doing some ping pong today!  Love you all have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Belnap

Bright and I, he's the coolest African ever in our ward.  He's super skinny and so we switched suits, here's the result.  Our new ping pong table, the ugliest, but softest dog I've ever met, (he's our investigator's dog), and our monterrey chicken meal we made for breaking the fast yesterday!  Love you!