Bonjour!!! Appleton is great, I'm having lots of fun with Elder Allen and we are already seeing miracles. On Friday we set a baptismal date with a potential investigator, his name is S___. So we are thrilled and excited and the spirit of this companionship is great and very strong.

Elder Allen is from all over Utah. I couldn't possibly begin to name all the places in Utah that he has lived but just assume that he lived there for a brief time or maybe a long time. He did live in four different homes is Spanish Fork. Elder Allen is 6'3'' (same height as I am) and he weighs 320lbs (I still weigh 175; I haven't gone up or down my whole mission). He is a big guy and played football in high school. Between the two of us we are towers and when we play basketball we have to be separated. Elder Allen is a 2013 high school graduate and he worked instead of going to college, however his school of choice is BYU Provo!!! He is fun, he has a great personality and he has a smile on his face all the time so I really think that this will be a great companionship and a fantastic transfer or two together. From what little I have seen of the members so far (Saturday and Sunday was Stake Conference so I have met very little of the Ward) the members are nice and they have a good relationship with the missionaries here in the first Ward. I have been told, but have not yet seen that the Appleton first ward has about 180 active members (the same size as the Sun Prairie Ward) and the ward has about 4-5 youth currently preparing to leave on their missions. So we are spending a lot of time with them in helping them prepare for their missions. It’s exciting.

My apartment address is:

Elder Andrew Luymes

317 1/2 E. North St.

Appleton, WI 54911

For our area we use bikes, legs, and buses to get around town. And when we really need help we can call upon the Hmong Elders in our ward for assistance and they can drive us wherever we need to be dropped off. It’s a nice perk but they obviously aren't always available because they are hardworking Elders and they have appointments to get to. The buses are...um...interesting. We get to meet and see a lot of interesting characters. My first buss story comes from Wednesday, my very first day in Appleton, and it wasn't even my first full day because Wednesday was the day that I arrived. We were heading home and an African American man asks us what church we were from. We replied with "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" and then we quickly replied "Do you see Jesus on this bus?” Elder Allen and I took a quick moment to look at each other and then Elder Allen replied "no?" The man then said very loudly "good, because I was about to call the cops, it is that serious!" There was absolute silence until we got off the bus and the same guy approached us again and apologized. He told us that through the course of his life people have worshiped him because they think he is Jesus Christ because of his vast knowledge of the Bible. We had a good laugh; we also missed a buss, so I am getting the full experience. J

With our recent baptismal date, the day was Friday and Elder Allen and I had been tracting for about 2 hours already. Elder Allen wanted to visit this potential investigator - someone that he and his previous companion had tracted into a month ago and had lost contact with. When we knocked on the door on Friday, S___ answered the door and we asked him if he had been reading the Book of Mormon since the Elders last saw him. He told us that he had read a few pages and had liked what we had read. He let us into his home and we began to ask a few questions as well as teach very simply the Restoration. He asked if we had the time to sit down and talk more. We did so and then we began to teach the Restoration is greater detail. S___ then asked us about what our church believes in regards to Heaven and Hell. We pulled out a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and taught him the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how through the Atonement we can be forgiven of sin and be able to enter into God's kingdom if we also accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We did teach the Kingdoms and he then told us that his wife died about 7 months ago. We shared with him our belief in eternal families through the Temple and how baptism is the first step we can take. S___ told us that he was baptized as a baby and doesn't remember any part of it. The spirit prompted very strongly and so we invited him to be baptized on July 12th, and S___ said yes.

Elder Luymes