Elder Long in New York: Letter from May 7, 2014

Mom!

So, does that mean you and dad might move to Idaho? Or will you just
spend a few days in Idaho then come back on your days off? Either way,
that's crazy and a lot on your part. I hope that you make the right
decision! I happy for you and for the things you are excelling in!
Great job mom!

I'm so happy for Nate and Brenn. Sadly, myldsmail.net is really bad
for sending pictures. Almost every picture I get on here completely
gets ruined. Almost like you had a photo copy and then it got ruined
in the rain and then you scanned it and sent it to me. It's like
chopped up, purple and black and white. So, I didint get to see much
of their pictures with Aria. Go dad!! That's awesome. Dad is the
perfect example of following the spirit. The Lord can always trust him
to listen and obey. I love pops!

So, this weekend is Mother's Day! I'm so excited to talk to you guys!
3:00 there would be 5:00 here. President Morgan told us last Wednesday
that we can make our own time to talk to our moms. Whenever we want.
So, we can do later if you guys need, but 5:00 works perfect. Send me
the name of dad's FaceTime and also skype. Just in case.

We haven't met with Dan. He will not respond to us at all. So, we will
see. John is still set to get baptized. We meet with him weekly and he
is ready. We just need to finish teaching him the lessons. Pretty
exciting. And no, nothing on the robberies. Will will never find out.
I've let that go a long time ago, haha. It doesn't matter.

Elder Berube and Elder Steiner are fantastic. I get along with them as
well as I would if I were home. Elder Steiner is an exact replica of
Derek Moss. Same personality and everything. It's pretty funny. We
have completely reorganized and cleaned the apartment. It was crazy!
We took everything that the other elders had left or junk that was
useless and put it into a pile and then organized it. Now our
apartment is looking great and home like. I'll send you a picture of
the "pile". We won't be a trio for much longer. Today we are getting a
fourth for elder Steiner. It's needed. It's been pretty though running
both areas. Mainly cause I'm used to planning our week for one area,
so I completely forgot about the other area, haha. Craziness! But,
it's worked out really well. We taught this lady last night man...this
is a crazy story. Okay. So, elder Steiner is looking for people to
teach, and he comes across this lady's name who was last taught 364
days ago. So he says: "Let's teach her. It's almost been a full year!"
So we decided to look her up. Before we get to the door, she opened
the door and yells: "Oh, it's the Mormon brothas!" She invited us in
and we sat down. She began to explain who she was and how much she
loved the bible. She just went off on all these different topics from
the bible and what not. Then she told us that the missionaries that
she last met with, invited her to come to general conference. So she
decided to go. When she got there, she said they were talking about
"Praying for the dead" and that the Holy Spirit told her to "Get the
heck outta there!" (Funny coming from a different perspective) So she
ran home and opened up the bible and she said god told her to "leave
it up to me". Anyway, when she told us that, it all went crazy. We
tried to keep her on topic about the restoration and then her drunk
brother walked in and started yelling. So she looked at us and said:
"Tell him what you told me. You're gonna be responsible for his
salvation if you don't teach him!" And we just sat there like...really
lady? Then as we were leaving, she told us that she was trying to burn
this witchcraft book and it wouldn't catch fire. So she soaked it in
rubbing alcohol and it still wouldn't burn. So she "called down the
fire from heaven" and it eventually can't fire. So yeah. We had an
interesting time with that. Haha. Now we know why she got dropped. But
we are praying for her.

I love you guys. Thank you for the support. Have a great week!!

Love, Elder Branndin Brian Long

A picture of all 4 name tags before Elder Alivio went home!