Finally an email that had nearly all positives in it! What an emotional roller-coaster this kid is sending us on! I just hope these positive experiences can keep him buoyed up for the trials he'll yet face. So, without further ado, here's today's email:

Well to start things off I just have to say… I am eternally indebted to you, Mom and Dad. I mean that… Why? Because I don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to play the piano so beautifully and perfectly as I did in front of an apostle of the Lord. Yes, that’s right I played the prelude in front of Elder L. Tom Perry...Little bit of advice to Conner, Garrett, and Riley. This is from the Book of Elder Mortensen…. “I said unto thee, Conner, Garrett, and Riley my precious servants… what art thou doing with thy time upon the earth? Get thee hence off thy butt and go sit on the hard wood bench and let thy fingers play upon the keys of the ivory…” LOL!!! Don’t know where that came from…. But in modern terms. Garrett, Conner, and Riley. Seriously I can’t even begin to describe the joy that I felt from playing the piano with 250 people watching me and having and apostle of the Lord look at me and smile. WOW!! Seriously! I would hate for you to go on your missions and someone asks to play piano and you had stopped playing… It's not hard to put down the Wii and play the piano for a half hour. You will be so blessed, as you just read. Thank you so so much Mom and Dad!!! I love you forever for making me stick with it! I was playing prelude for about 45 minutes before because I love to play and the church has a freaking killer piano! Awesomeness! The joy that I felt when I turned around and saw Elder L. Tom Perry looking at me and smiling is indescribable. After the meeting started I went and sat back down with the other elders, and I was sitting dead center in the third row. And when Elder Perry got up to speak, he looked at me and said…. “Elder! Thank you for that beautiful music!! That was wonderful! You must have a strong mother to keep you playing for all these years huh? I said YES SIR! (Really I did) and he said "I can tell because all the Elders that I know that can play the piano all have strong mothers who kept them playing when they didn’t want to. You must be a very good producer… “

FREAKING HANNAH!! AN APOSTLE OF THE LORD SINGLED ME OUT!!

How freaking awesome is that? I got a handshake with him too! Twice… I feel so blessed to see and hear from two apostles in 6 weeks.

Oh, so I finally realized that I can do this [serve a mission]!! I had the coolest experience of my mission on Friday. So me and Elder Mason were waiting for a phone call back because we didn’t know where the address of a house was and this lady was finding it… But then this guy walked up and said “Yo man! You got a light?” I said, "No, I don’t". But he came up and asked me if we were out witnessin [Jehovah's Witnesses???] Um…lol. I guess that’s what you call it. Just then, the lady called back so it was just me and this guy named Darwin Delacey talking as Elder Mason took the phone call. Elder Mason started with Darwin on the subject of prophets before the phone call came. And so I asked him, "Well how do you know if President Monson is a real prophet or not?" And he looked at me and said, "Very good question, well I would have to pray or see for myself." And I said, "Well, one of the 12 apostles is going to be here on Sunday would you like to come and find out for yourself?" (I’m so bold I love it!) And he said "Ya I’ll come and find out. I was expecting him to flake out. He said I have run into you Witnesses before… I said "woah, we’re the Missonaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"… "Oh, the Mormons"…. "Ya". And he said" well I have run into you before and I know about Nephi and all that fun stuff"… "I said so you have a Book of Mormon?" He said, "It's in my storage place"… I said. "Well, if I were to give you one would you read it before Sunday?" “Ya Man I’ll read your book!” So I gave him my first copy of the Book of Mormon the one with my testimony in it! And I told him that this book was a very sacred book and it meant a lot! He said "oh, I’ll read it and take care of it!" Then we found out that he was homeless and lived in a tent on private property, he didn’t say where because he didn’t want the feds to come and raid his tent…. So yesterday came and Me, Elder Mason, and Brother Lentz. (Coolest Man in the World) (Well out here) (I’ll talk about him later) [Not sure who he is, he didn't reference him "later". I'm guessing a ward mission leader] went to go pick up Darwin at the library where we met him, and sure enough he was there reading the Book Of Mormon! Awesome!!!!!!
He said he liked conference a lot! He is going to try and come on Sunday to regular church.

The reason this story meant so much to me is because it was the first time I had the courage to talk to someone, usually Elder Mason has to introduce me because I’m scared, but I finally got the courage and talked to someone and I felt so good about it!! And I gave out a Book of Mormon!! Awesomeness!

So just a few facts about the mission,
· I put on 8 pounds in the MTC. Ask Nate and Aaron. They can testify about the all-you-can-eat food…
· Out of the 5,000 poisonous snakes in the world… 4,998 live in North Carolina… Ha ha (GULP)
· I am freaking huge in muscle I work out with a bicep bar every morning, and I woke up weighing 150 dead even. Yes, John Spence, I finally hit the 150 mark. Proud? Ha ha.
· The food here, well read Jeremiah 4:19 and that’s what I feel like every night…. LOL!
· For p-day we usually go email, then play ball, go shopping… so forth. Fun stuff. Today we’re playing ping pong. SWEET!
· There are 144 missionaries here….
· I bike one week and car share one week

Thank you Ethan and Hailey for the notes!! Thank you all for the packages!! I absoulutely LOVE THEM! That helped so much! For some strange reason your packages and letters come at the right time! I will treasure those words for the rest of my life! I started to cry because they were so powerful!

Sorry I’m terrible at writing people back! I’m trying! But p-day is very short….

Thank you so much for all the letters and emails! They help a lot!