Hola familia,

Dance Festival
This was a huge event. This entire side of the mission, 80 missionaries, participated all day Friday and Saturday. 2500 youth from Longview, Vancouver, and the Dalles all were involved in this festival. This all took place in a really big football field amphitheater. They had three performances and a Youth Conference. There were a lot of nonmembers participating as well. The missionaries job was to usher all the people into their seats before the performances. Then we would watch part of the performance and at a certain time we would go back and get ready for our part. At the end of the very last dance every single kid comes out onto the field and when they get into a big group they started to sing How Firm a Foundation, that was the theme for the whole festival. Then all the missionaries in single file lines carrying white flags come marching out onto the field. It was intense.

I think my favorite part though was the youth conference. It started out like a skit with Helaman and Moroni. Then all of the stripling warriors come out, there were only about 40 or so. After they do their thing, which I never got to see, the missionaries come out onto the field behind them. As we came out we sang Called to Serve. Then there was some narration talking about the missionary life. Then we belted out the standard of truth. It was powerful. That was the strongest I've felt the spirit in a while. Then we started to sing We'll Bring the World His Truth and went and crawled up into the crowd. There were a lot of people crying after. It was such an amazing experience.

The Move
We moved out of the Boyle's home today. There were some changes in ward boundaries in the stake and they ended up redoing all of the missionary housing. Some missionaries even had to change the ward they were serving in. It's still two weeks until transfers.
This is the new address: 701 NE 108th St Vancouver WA 98685. I don't know much about the new family we're living with. We only just moved in this morning. I've been really sad about the whole move. The Boyle's didn't want us to leave either. Well, that's the life of a missionary.

Mission President
We now have a new mission president. President Belnap went home yesterday. Our new mission president is President Greer. I haven't met him yet. We'll see him for the first time on Friday. I've heard that he is a very happy person and that Sister Greer is even happier. I'll tell you more about them next week.

Young Women's class
This last Sunday we taught Sister Boyle's Young Women's class. It was a lot of fun. The topic was sharing the gospel. We talked a lot about the Dance Festival and how they could use that experience to share the gospel with those that came or even those that didn't.

Loose Chickens
After our district meeting yesterday the sisters went over to visit Sister Woodland. They weren't home but the sisters discovered that there was a dog in the chicken coop. They got the dog out and then called both us and Brother Woodland. Brother Woodland couldn't get back home but we ran right over. So I had some fun catching chickens and putting them back. There were only three that weren't accounted for and one that was eaten by the dog.

Missionaries out saving the souls of men and a few chickens on the way.

!Que tengan una semana maravillosapo!

Elder Ben Arnold