Letter from Mark 24 July 2006

Dear Family,

Thank you for the shoes and the presants, they were all great. the tops of the shoes are made out of a different material that looks like it will last a lot longer, it isn't soft like the other ones. It was nice to get those talks, i have been listening to the lectures on faith, and have loved it so far. The disks were also great, and i am excited to get to use them.

I found out that we will be moving in with members on saturday (july 29 i think) their address is

N3380 Beach RD

Lake Geneva WI 53147

I will probably only be there for a couple weeks because transfers are the 10th of August, but until then, that is where you should send any letters. It will be very different living with members, when we do we get a cell phone so we do not tie up the members phone line. ther will be less privacy, but it isn't like we are in the appartment a lot anyway. It is an older couple that have all of their kids out of the house, their youngest comes home from a mission in the next couple months. they both are up and out of the house before 6:30, So we probably won't be around them much. It shoulld be fun.

Things are still up and down with elder Griffiths. he is usually fine untill it comes to tracting. the mission president told us he want's a minimum of 7 hours a week, because you can't effectively work all week, and not be able to track an hour a day. I have the hardest time getting him to do that hour a day. he just wants to drive around, wasting miles trying to visit the same people over and over that are never home. the district leader and his companion have given him a hard time about the not tracting because he complains at the 7 a week, and they get 15 every week, he tries to say that we are teaching mork, but this week they tied us for teaching as well. I'm thinking that once he has had a few companions and a couple area's he will start to see what missionary work is really about. but now he thinks he knows everything, and won't let me tell him why certain things are part of missionary work because after being in the mission for 9 weeks he is a pro and knows everything. oh well, i am learning to be patient with him and to do what i know we are supposed to do regardless of what his complaints. i use to try to defend my point, but part of trainging is the new missionary is senior for the day often. he won't do it, so now i tell him, untill you want to be senior, we are doing it my way. after that he is usually quiet.

while it has been hard training, i am greatful for the experience, and what i have learned from it.

Thanks for all of the prayers and support. I love you all.

Elder Lundberg

Letter from Mark 17 July 2006

Dear Family,

we have had good week. last sunday the bishop told us he wanted us to see as many less actives as we could this week. the result was 11 lessons to less-active members (that is a ton for this mission) and 22 lessons total, which is the highest number of lessons i have gotten in one week. it is also cool to see that we did that on an interviews week, so we lost most of thursday to meetings.

thanks for the hymn book. it has been great. I have started to play more now that i have it. i have missed sitting down and just playing the hymns.

Wednesday I went on overnight exchanges with Elder Johnston, the redhead that i came out with. It was cool to be ble to serve together for a day. I took him over to Bill Shephard's house ( the leader of the Strangite church.) when we got there they were just getting ready to eat dinner, so they invited us in for dinner. Elder Johnston asked for a book of the law, so he took us to their storage in the church and gave him one, while back there we saw a pile of books that he said that he had written on the teachings of James J. Strang. he gave both of us a copy of that book aswell. we were both way excited. he told us they started a website. their address is www.churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaintsstrangite.com or .org.

later in the week we met Jehovah's Witnesses tracting and they gave us one of their sheets for a free book called "What does the bible really teach?" both my companion and I sent in for that. We were excited to order it.

Thursday was interviews. I talked to President hunt about how training was hard, and he told me that I was on of the trusted missionaries that he knew he could put anyone with and i would follow the rules, and that is why he put Elder griffiths with me. because he will work with me, but other missionaries may be swayed not to work if they would have trained him. It was a good talk, very comforting to me. He also told me that the stake had been slacking off, and has not found members for us to move in with yet, so he said thyey will try to extend the lease on the appartment for a month or two, or just get a new appartment. he wasn't very happy with the stake, they told him to cancil the lease, then they fell through on their part. I will let you know more when I find out where we will be staying.

Yesterday We went to the Hubsmith's house, a family in the ward, for dinner. they have a daughter in the singles ward that invited those elders (the assistants to the president) to dinner on sunday, because one of them was trained in this area. the other assistant, Elder Olson, Has the same Birthday as me. we to the family that about a week ago when we foundout that they were having the assistants over, then they invited us over and they said that would do a bithday dinner. when we got there they had superman stuff everywhere, they had a superman tablecloth, plates, masks, and for elder Olson and i they got Superman Life Cerial, a superman frisbee, a superman toothbrush (they said they looked for tooth paste, but couldn't find it,) an a few other things. It was Awesome. It was a fun dinner. It made may birthday away from home very enjoyable.

This weekend has been hot here as well. we haven't hit the 100's, but I'm sure the humidity is making up for that, we have hit the 90's a few times though.

Thankyou for all of your support, I appreciate your prayers, and i pray for you. I love you all

Elder Lundberg

Letter from Mark 10 July 2006

Dear Family,

This week has been better. lots of things have happened in this past week. I have a lot of things to write, and probably wont be able to write them all in much detail, but i have been keeping up my journal and i have written good accounts in there. eventually i will get to tell you all that has happened in detail. just know that with diligence and patience come many blessings, and i am beginning to see that. yesterday the priesthood lesson was on writing in journals. it made me glad i have been keeping mine, it also made me realise the full picture of what went on, and to see how i was guided as i thought about how to write it.

since elder giriffiths had our argument things have been better, i have tried not to ask him to do anything, occasionally i would, and he said no, then i dropped it figuring now it is his problem. most of the time after that happened he went and did what i asked him to do. it was frustrating it had to happen that way, but at least it happened. he has also been doing a little bit more since i stopped asking him to do things. Wednesday we reported numbers and our district leader was on exchanges with the zone leader. he takes the numbers on speaker phone so the zone leader heard everything and made comments. by wednesday we had 7 lessons in and they were both impressed. the district leader asked if we were going to get double honor roll(15 lessons and 15 hours tracting) i said yeah, we can do it, elder griffiths complained about the tracting a lot, to which the zone leader responded, humble yourself and listen to your trainer, i was very happy, he wasn't, but we did it, and he didn't complain too much as we were doing it. i am starting to learn how to modivate him to greatter efforts. Interviews are thursday and i will council with president hunt then.

the day that we had our argument, I had been calling a lot of former investigators, only one we could get to listen to us. we met him for the 2nd time on saturday. he has had lots of health problems and durring both visits i had the prompting to give him a blessing, the first one was short and i didn't ask him. on saturday he was saying how depressed his health problems were making him, and how he wasn't suicidal, but sometimes he wishes god would let him go if he wasn't going to be healed. after that i offered a blessing. That was elder griffiths frist blessing. in the blessing the frist little bit i tried to tell he would be healed but i couldn't say it. i can't describe it but my thoughts and words were led to say things i hadn't thought of before. Basically i told him that he was going to die(i said released from his all his phisical problems), and if he turned to god he would have support till then and great blessings afterward. we didn't stay long after that, but once we did that i felt that that was why we were led to him. my companion was giving me a hard time about blessing someone to die. I tried to explain that it wasn't me that blessed him to die, but it was gods blessing for him. It was hard for me to tell him that, but the words came more easily that any other blessing i have given, which has been a decent amount since i have been out. I knew what god wanted for him, i knew it. it is times like this that i know that this that i know this is where got wants me, and that i am doing what he needs done.

on to a higher note, thanks for the package, it was great. where did you come up with that green eggs and ham thing. it was great. i must admit, when i saw it i thought, "what are they sending me green eggs and ham for?" but i was great. E. griffiths said, "did your family come up with that, my family couldn't do something like that" i told him i didn't know, but it wouldn't surprise mi if you did come up with that.

I think i told you we will be moving in with members. I'm not sure when or where, but it should be before the end of the month, which is when ou lease is up.

I got to go, but i appreciate your prayers and support, i love you all

Elder Lundberg

Bryan Michael Lundberg

Bryan Michael Lundberg was born July 5, 2006 at 12:22 p.m. at Cottonwood Hospital in Murray, Utah.

From very beginning we noticed that Bryan had a unique and extra special birth mark on his chest.

ANOTHER COUGAR IS BORN!

RISE AND SHOUT!!