Albs (albany)

So Albany is awesome. I really like it here. The area is huge and covers like 1.5-2 hours drive in any given direction, but we mostly stay within the major part of the city. So transfers were last tuesday and I got sent here and Elder Leota got sent to Bridgetown, which is also a country area and it is on the way to Albany. So we drove to Bridgetown which was like 2 to 2-1/2 hours drive from Perth and we stayed the night at Bridgetown where our companions were waiting for us. My new companion is Elder Wilkey, he is from Orem and he is the companion I have the most in common with so far, he's pretty cool. Then Wed. morning we made the 4 hour drive to Albany and got here in the afternoon. The landscape is amazing and there are lots of hills. The weather is a lot cooler and it is acually cold most of the time because it is winter still. It's been cloudy a lot and has rained at least once a day sometimes just small light showers though. The population of Albany is about 30,000 but most of the people are old. This is where all the retired people come and it reminds me a lot of Choteau. It has the feel of a small town even though is not that small...our apartment is pretty small though. There are only two rooms this time...the last house had 4. Only one shower and the fridge and pantry/cupboards are smaller and we have to share a desk for studying when last time I had 2 desks to myself...pretty lame. Oh well what can you do.

So I mentioned that there are a lot of old people here, well the branch is like 90% old people...old, but awesome. And we really hope to find a family to start teaching. We have about 3 individuals we are teaching. But there are about 40 members in the branch that come consistently and they are some of the coolests old people. They pretty much all love family history and doing geneology and the second day I was here we went to the chapel cause they do family history every thurs. morning and sometimes investigators come, and so they wanted to see how far back my family tree went and so I sat there clicking going back through the generations forever and only got to like 935 A.D. before we had to go and Bro. James (the family history guy) was just amazed and wanted to see how far back it went. Anyways, so we left and then yesterday in church he was giving a talk about family history and he said that he was still clicking through mine and got all the way back to Adam. I didn't know that much work had been done. I didn't even think that was possible to trace that but he said that there are a bunch of kings and stuff, like King Louis IV and so once you hit royalty its smooth sailing cause like people back then actually kept track of stuff and so anyways everyone is like super amazed with that cause they all love family history work and Bro. James, whenever he walks by me always like pretend bows and worships and I'm just like well, we all have lineage of the hightest royalty...Heavenly Father. Did you know that that much work had been done?

So I said that we would get conference last week (yesterday and the day before) well it turns out that the far away branches don't get conference till two weeks after the live broadcast, but it looks like we won't be getting it this coming saturday or sunday either, but next , its a shame.

Elder Wilkey told me this and I don't know if its true or not, but it probably is, but he said that the Albany Branch Chapel is the farthest chapel away from Salt lake City...pretty cool huh?

Well I really hope I get the package you sent. The mission office usually just forwards the mail out to us since we don't see the mission president or zone leaders or any other missionaries for like 6 weeks at a time, or until zone conference which is in like two and a half weeks. Also, the socks...don't worry about them, but if you do look for them, not just any socks, but the ones I described earlier, like they should be in my drawer and they're going to look really small.

Anywho, Jenn i know you were only emailing me cause you were being a slacker and didn't want to do any work, but that's ok...an emails and email....lol conner's gay...jk not really though.

Sorry, there is more I wanted to say but we have to leave right now to go to a funeral. Take care and love you all.
Elder Salakielu