Letter From Cody, week One!

First week here in Cali! First thing is first, ANYONE CAN EMAIL ME AND I CAN EMAIL ANYONE. I guess President Smart changed it, but not in the packet. Oh, well.
My companion's name is Elder McClain. He's from Orem and turns 21 this month. He's been out 21 months, and I get to kill him off. That's when a missionary goes home. He's my "dad" of the mission since he's my trainer when I was "born". He's trained a lot on his mission, so I have three "brothers" and I'm Uncle's to a few Elders. It's odd, missions have their own genealogy. Elder McClain has torretts, but it's mild. He squeaks and twitches a little bit. He's pretty hyper as well, so sometimes it gets pretty annoying, but I have to remember that a lot of it's out of his control. One of his twitches is that he says "oh" a lot, so I'm always like, "What?" and it causes a lot of confusion. I lied, I am in Riverside, but it's not even that scary. For real, California is just like Utah. I feel like I'm just bumping around streets in Utah all the time. Haha. I'm the south end in an area called Orange-crest/Wood-crest. Our area is pretty massive, so we got a car, but we biked on Wednesday and there is a giant hill on Trautwein and Orange-crest, I believe, and it is murder to bike up. Look it up on Google Maps. My thighs and knee hurt so bad, but I slept so good. We live with a family. They're named the Wilde's, and he's a firefighter/paramedic. They're house is so pimp. Imagine Dave and Terra's house, but better. I'm actually pretty spoiled for my first area when it comes to living. Elder McClain and I got doubled into our area. That's where both missionaries aren't really familliar with the area. This last week has been kind of hard when it comes to work, since the area was pretty much dead. We've had to pound the pavement and hit up inactive member, or part member families. A lot of O.Y.M's, which stand for "open your mouth". It's just talking to random people about the Gospel. We're supposed to get 10 a day. A lot of them don't answer the door, or say no, and our stats have been pretty much zeros since last Wednesday...but it's totally paid off! We're teaching a family of 5. Rafael, Maritza, Ashley, Mark, and Andrew, and they are golden. A guy from Vivint was out here selling and he OYM'd them, Rafael just latched on and referred himself on Mormon.org, and we hit them up, and they are just perfect. The Restoration lesson went so well and was so powerful, and I'm 100% sure that they're going to get baptized. A family of 5! That's only happened to McClain one other time in his 21 months. You've just got to work hard and let the Lord do the rest. It's kind of unnerving to talk to random people, and they shoot you down a lot, but it gets easier when you realize that it's not your work, but the Lords. The Lord has perfect timing, and when we're being obedient, the rest just falls into place.

How are things at home? I know we've tried in the past, but see if you can get a family scripture night going every night. I know it's hard at first and everyone is running everywhere and everyone is tired, but the Lord will help if you make it a priority. The mission is great, and I'm stoked to be out here! Tell Jared to start getting ready, so that he has a bank of information for the spirit to pull from. The spirit brings all things to remembrance.

Also, the address of the place that I'll be at for the next 3 months is 8441 Applegate Court, Riverside California, 92508. Send that package of soccer pants and whatever else to there.

I miss and love you guys.

I hope this is enough info. P-day is on Mondays!