State College Week 1

It is absolutely wonderful here! Yes, the trees are starting to change colors and it looks great! It's been kinda cold lately so some of them are just turning brown and dying, but we are getting a lot of fall changes and colors! I'll try and send some pictures to you next week when I do my e-mails. I sent a box last Monday and I don't know if it made it to you or not. It just has a lot of extra things that I really didn't need, like picture books and t shirts. Anyway, my new companion's name is Elder Mason from Rexburg Idaho. He's a really awesome brand new missionary, that is really prepared. We're going to have a great time here in State College. So Transfers was on Tuesday of last week, and we didn't get to our area until Friday. The reason being that our apartment wasn't ready for us to move in yet. So we stayed over in Pittsburgh and helped out the Office Elders with a few things for those few days previous to Friday. So when we finally got to State College Friday evening it turns out that we didn't have a key to the apartment, and the apartment office was closed by the time we got there. So we had to talk to some random person, ask for a number and have someone come out and let us in. By about 9:30 we got all the stuff into the apartment and set up. Because we were going into a brand new apartment, we got brand new things! New Mattresses and box springs, new desks (plastic tables), new shower curtains, cooking pans/ utensils, and dressers from Ikea! The only thing I forgot was hangers. So all my stuff is sitting on the floor right now. I'll have to get those today.

The Wards here are awesome! They are very big, and supportive! They have had sisters in the ward for about 4 years now, so they are very excited for the change, mostly because the priesthood can be more involved in the work now. And we get fed nearly every single night because the wards here rock!

We were also able to find a new investigator for us! His name is R....d I....l T...y, and he is from Sierra Leon, Africa. He's here on some student thing for Penn State. He has some family that are members of the church back in Africa, and one on a mission, so he's somewhat familiar with the church. We found him on Saturday (our first full day in State College), and he came to church yesterday! He's really cool and we are excited to teach him in the future.

I love it here and I look forward to serving here for the next few months, or even the final months of my mission.


Love,
Elder Benjamin Luis Serrano