Monday August 8, 2011 from Elder Pelton:

This week has been awesome for us. Things are finally starting to turn around and pick back up. This has been the best week I have had the whole time I have been here in Cloverdale. Things with my companion are starting to get better and our investigators are becoming more interested. It is awesome! All we have to do is keep it that way - with the help of the Lord, though - because he is helping us out a lot right now. The facebook thing is still really strange to me. Half the time, I have no idea what to do at all. If anyone has a friend they want me to teach or be friends with online, let me know. It is hard sharing the gospel online without sounding preachy, but I am starting to get use to it. It makes things more exciting because I can keep in contact with people from my last area and recent converts and investigators so it's really handy for me.
Exciting things this week were limited, but we did have them. We had a lesson with one of the families we are teaching and it was awesome. We taught them about Christ's life and the great apostasy and the role Joseph smith has in all of it. The kids like us coming around a lot amd the mom likes that we are helping the family come even closer. The wife is not a member but and husdand is less active and they have 4 kids 3 above batismal age. They have a baptismal date for September and they are all excited for it. The mom was almost crying when we talked about having them be baptized. That was the hugest blessing we have seen this whole week. One of our other investigators said when we met with him on satuday that he was going to finish Alma by Sunday and he still had about 30 chapters to go. We are going to see him today and hopefully all is well with him cause he missed church this week and that is strange cause he normally is there every week. This has been a week full of change and blessings given to us that have been needed for a long time to help this area stay afloat.
My companion is starting to get more invloved during the lessons and that is huge since I was doing all the talking and now it is almost 50/50. So he is moving along really well. We had a long talk during one of our companion studies of what things show our trust and faith in God and speaking out was a big one because if we both are not talking, then the message we share has no impact on people. It was good for him to have that discussion. Now we are going to work on his dedication to the work and waking up on time and helping him be the messenger instead of so being so quiet. I am doing great. I got to talk to one of my Zone leaders for a while about the potential I have and how I need to step up and become better and also work on the things President Bunker is testing me with, as well as other things I need to do to help my companion. It was well needed for me cause I needed some one to be able to talk to that could give me counsel and help me with the things I have been thinking about. Everything is great! It is amazing that it is already August and my birthday is soon, 2 days before transfers. So it will be exciting this month to see what goes on.
I love you all. Those are my updates for the week!
Andrew