Baptizing the World!

July 1st 2013

Hey Mom, 

Thanks for the email. Sounds like lots of fun things are going on back home.

Today was transfers and both Elder Henrie and I are staying here. It's pretty cool actually to be in Eugene during transfers because we can go t o the transfer spot and see everyone move around. This week has been really slow but we are trying to get things picked up. We did have a baptism though! Madison got baptized and it went pretty good. He is really excited about the Gospel. So Yesterday at Church we were in a correlation with our ward mission leader after ward council and President and Sister Young dropped by. President pulled Elder Henrie and I in to a room and told Elder Henrie that his grandpa just passed away. He was 93 and Elder Henrie was really close to him but he took it pretty well. That is about everything that has happened this week. 

Future Bishopric

June 17th 2013

Hey mom!

Thanks for the email and pictures. I didn't get your letter yet but hopefully I will soon. I did order my glasses but I didn't get them yet. they should be coming in on Thursday or Friday. Things are crazy here in Eugene. Everyone is leaving for summer. Tons of Graduations have been going on the past few days and today. Right now its a little weird because all the college kids families are in town for their graduations. So now you see old people playing beer pong too with their kids. That or you see the kids try and cover up what they usually do on a nightly basis. Tracting hasn't been too productive here because anyone that shows a little bit of interest is leaving to go home to China or India or wherever. It's weird with the kids moving because there is just a ton of junk everywhere. dumpsters are overflowing and tons of left over furniture just chillin on the front lawns. All the insides of college apartments are now out on the front lawn. And lets just say you see some interesting stuff. So we are now teaching 3 people that are staying here for the summer. kinda. Mike is leaving soon so that will be really lame. They are having a Sisters transfer this coming monday and we are kinda hoping that the YSA sisters both get moved because there isn't enough work to keep both sets going.

This week was zone conference which was great! its awesome not having to travel forever to get to it. And I got to see the Brookings Elders and see how everything was going. So that's basically what has been going on here in Eugene. 

June 10th 2013

Hi mom,

Things are going well here in Eugene. Everything is crazy because of finals this week. So all the kids are going nuts. Because our apartment is right next to campus we hear it all night! This kid up the road had a barmitsfah (i have no idea how to spell that) but he was having one for fun. He invited us to it. really he is just a stoner kid who isn't religious at all but wanted to have one for the dance party afterward. But he brought in a translator so he could do the reading for 2 hours from the tora.

Other things that are going on this week. We hiked a mountain for a meeting with our mission president. It was pretty cool but I thought I was going to die because we took the short insanely steep way up. We had a zone meeting that we had to teach this week that was 3 hours long so we made a awesome tower out of tables and Elder Henrie climbed it as we talked about rising to greater heights. My allergies have been destroying me too which hasn't been fun at all. I cant wear my contacts at all so I am sporting my super ghetto glasses. Last night Elder Henrie and I had to present something on behalf of our zone in front of the stake high council and ward mission leaders for the stake and my contacts were going nuts. My eyes were watering the entire time. 

Elder Henrie got food poisoning so I chilled by the window and watched all the people walk by after I did a ton of paperwork mumbo jumbo. There were about 7 people that went by digging in our neighbors trash for cans. One guy comes by every morning around 7 am.

We are working with a recent convert who is in love with my little pony but is also a crazy knife fighter. he quizes us now every time we go over on the main 6. Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie pie, Flutter shy, Rainbow dash, and Twilight sparkle. He is going to a convention in washington for it which is ridiculous. anyways thats about if for this week.

Racquetball in Eugene

June 3rd 2013

Hi Mom,

So things have been pretty good here in Eugene. We are starting to get use to the area and that pace of missionary work. It's still pretty crazy being here though. I feel like we have more curve balls thrown at us being in Eugene because we are so close to the mission office. We went on 2 different exchanges this week with Cottage Grove missionaries and some Eugene Spanish elders which was pretty good. They cut everyone's miles so we have to drive a lot less. So we have been trying out the bus. It's pretty fun though. So when I was on exchanges with spanish we got a phone call saying that a visa waiter had just got his visa and was flying out monday. So we had to pick him up because he would be with spanish till monday. Dropping everything and picking him up changed up our entire day so we ended up walking about 2 and a half hours to try and visit someone who wasn't there. we were able to take a bus that saved us some walking time to get back to our apartment. It was pretty fun to stay at their apartment though because we were in a trio for the day and they had the Chinese Elders staying with them. Elder Kwok is from Hong Kong and Richards is from Sandy. They were both super cool and Richards won The Price is Right. 

Yesterday was Stake conference for us and we had 2 visiting seventies which was awesome. Elder Erickson and Elder Schweitzer. They gave great talks and we had 3 different meetings with them. Then Yesterday we had an entire day full of tracting planned and as we were walking out the door to start we got a call saying that we needed to get an Elder who was going home within the next few days due to medical. So we had Elder Hill with us for a Sunday. But we just dropped him off at the mission office this morning.

The people here in Eugene are crazy! It's kinda like a huge dirty Ashland. This girl we are teaching came to our meeting at the institute wearing a white wig a dog collar and a halloween mickey mouse hat. Oh Eugene. And there are quite a few drunk homeless people sleeping all over the place.

So school is about to get out so the parties are really going to start up. We were knocking on this apartment complex and there was a party going on in the apartment across the small courtyard from where we were that seemed pretty crazy. This guy came up in a pirate costume with a ton on boose and knocked on the door. Elder Henrie looked at him and said "why are you dressed up in a pirate costume?" as soon as he said that the guy answered the door in the same pirate costume and said "Welcome to the house of gay pirates!" Pretty interesting life here. The sun has finally been coming out so out with the lawn chairs and beer pong tables. The first time I was ever offered to do a keg stand happened last week. I don't think the party life is for me. And I could never live in Eugene. Especially because my allergies are killing me! Even though I'm taking Zyrtec I feel like I'm going to die! 

This morning we played racket ball with the 1st councilor in our mission presidency. It was a lot of fun and was pretty crazy. I will try and send a picture!

Love Ya!

-Elder Berg