Connor Poulsen of the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Mission and the Maryland Baltimore Mission: Pennsylvania BMWs of BMWing in the BMW of VWs

Hello everyone! First of all, DISCLAIMER: Awesome is used by all missionaries at all times I have discovered, so excuse me if I use it. Pennsylvania is awesome! It's so beautiful but so cold. We live in New Cumberland which is a cool town. Me and Elder Ramos are in the walking area, and the sisters live in Lewisberry and have a car. This week was bad but then got good, but it's all been very exciting.

For starters, going back to last Monday, we missed our flight from Detroit to Pittsburgh because our flight from salt lake to Detroit was late. So we waited in the airport for 6 hours... A group of 15 missionaries. Then we finally got on the plane and it didn't take off for another hour and a half because they were doing maintenance or something. So we got to Pittsburgh at like midnight. We were all up for 22 hours that day.

Then the next day we went and got assigned our trainers. Me

and Elder Ramos had sat next to each other at lunch before the
assignments were even made! He said when we were talking he was just thinking "this is the guy" and then we went to the meeting and he was assigned to be my trainer and we were both super psyched. Then that night after traveling to New Cumberland from Pittsburgh, we got the tragic news about the accident involving the missionaries, which happened very close to our area. They've asked us not to say much about it in emails but it has had a tremendous impact on this area and the Lord is pouring down blessings on blessings on blessings.

Elder Ramos and the ward mission leader and a bunch of other people are all saying how just in this past week the missionary work in this area has been moving forward more than it has in months. Everyone we see asks about it and both members and non members have so much respect for the missionaries. The sisters had someone commit to baptism because they felt it was time after hearing about the accident.

Me and Elder Ramos committed someone to baptism that same day too! It was sweet. His name is Michael and he is awesome. He texts us and asks us how we are doing and if we need anything and asks us what scriptures to study! It's great. We taught him last night and he brought his girlfriend to our lesson Valentine's Day it was great. He has an excellent understanding of most of the things we teach him. So that was awesome that he committed to baptism on Thursday.

Another investigator we are stoked about is this lady named Linda. We helped her organize her basement the other day and invited her to church and she came! She is a very religious African America lady and said "I'm comin to y'all services this week." And when we were helping her she kept saying "this a blessing y'all lord have mercy", she is quite the character and we are teaching her again tonight! So those are the two investigators we are most excited about right now, there are others but for the sake of time and how much stuff I have to write that's all you get for now.

So the members here love to help the missionaries, especially me and Elder Ramos because we don't have a car. Also they keep bringing us groceries, which is cool. The members give us rides most of the time except not always. The other day we got dropped off at an investigators house and then we ended up having to walk like 2 miles home and it was -2 degrees with windchill, so that was fun. I put my feet in the hot bath when we got back.

Oh so Wednesday we went to the DC temple! It was sweet, the bishop and his family took us. Bishop Hinzie (I think that's how you spell it) (mother's note: It's Hintze) an awesome guy. Oh so one of my favorite parts about New Cumberland is there's a lot of VWs here! I'm not sure what it is but there's a lot of sweet ones. There's a specialty VW shop 2 blocks from our apartment! Spot the mk1 golf, it's a beauty!