Matt: Aug. 2nd 2010

Dear Family,
Greetings from Tennessee! Holy cow this is the realness. No more mtc, just actual people that really already have a religion ha ha. No things are good here. Everybody already is Christian so that is nice. But man oh man is missionary work different in the field than it is in the mtc! First things first though
Natalie & Nate- As I was packing to leave the mtc last saturday I found the letters that you put in the suitcase that you brought like a month ago ha ha so if you've been wondering why I haven't written you back, that's why.
Ok so I'll kinda give you a breakdown of my first week here. I flew in by myself last monday and as soon as I got out of the airport it was like walking into a bathroom where somebody has been taking a hot hot shower for like 20 minutes...HUMIDITY!!! Woof! So basically I just about croaked walking from the terminal to the car. Then we went to the mission office, where you address the letters to (hint hint) in Brentwood which is 1 of the 5 richest cities in America. Then I went out to my area in Murfreesboro and met my companions Elder Smith of Centerville and Elder Adams of Mesa. They are awesome. I'm glad I am with them. Anywho because the elders before them got in some fender bender we didn't have a car, and we had 2 bikes but 3 people so we walked all week in sed heat and humidity. It was rough. I had sweat from my neck to my belt by the end of the day. It wasn't all bad though, as we were walking down this street we passed this house with a gravel driveway and Elder Smith was like, "Alright we're doing it." and so we walk up and knock and this pretty cute lady answers the door and Elder Smith says "How you doing ma'am? We were just walking by and your driveway reminded me of my favorite ice cream- Rocky Road." and then Elder Adams starts laughing (a little too hard) and then we went into our whole missionary shpeal. As it turns out her and her husband are inbetween churches and looking for a good one and we set a return appointment for the next day. It was so crazy!!!! I was like "Oh my gosh, so this is what missionary work is like in the South." Anyway our return appointment went well, he seems pretty accepting. He brought up how we could become Gods and his concern with that, but we handled it pretty well and are going back to teach him again next week.
So then the next day we go to district conference and we get a ride from the bishop's wife and she was like "Gagon... I went to high school with a Rhett Gagon." anywho turns out the bishop's wife is Aubrey Kimball my piano teacher of old! So yeah we reminisced about Sandy, Utah and stuff. Then we went to lunch with the Bishop and he was like "Now wasn't your brother in some plays with MIchelle? Like some play where they're all hillbillys or somethin?" ha ha ha so that was funny to me how he remembered Lil Abner. But yeah they have a way awesome family and the members out here just rock.
Another missionary deed we did just last night was we went to this less active guy's home and made his very obese 16 year old sister in law throw away her ouija board. Isn't that crazy?!!?!? Man alive, the things they don't teach you in the mtc ha ha.
Well other than that things are pretty smooth. We got the car back Saturday so now we aren't killing ourselves in the heat/humidity. And believe me we were close to death cuz it gets so g durn hot here.

Dad- The food is great here. We've had a few meals with members with some good southern cookin' like: Costco lasagna, Papa Murphy's pizza, Spaghetti with Ragu, and then at a member's Nationalization party (he just became a U.S. citizen) we had some Phillipino food, and some regular American food. The Phillipino food was pretty much like what we know as chinese food, but it was colder because we were like an hour late.

So yeah that's how things are going. I'd love to hear from you...any of you.....PLEASE SOMEBODY WRITE ME! ha ha Well I think that's all for today. The work is good here in Tennessee, but hopefully I can get to Brazil before I forget all my portuguese.

tchau y'all
love, Matt