Dear Shanell,

I received your letter on the 7th and was so excited to hear from you! I have been very busy. Being an assistant to President Gray is rewarding and enjoyable, but is also very demanding. That is fine with me though. We get to help with transfers every month and he really lets us in on everything that the General Authorities tell him in meetings and it is real neat to help him keep this mission running smoothly. It sure is tough sometimes.

We have introduced a program here in Adelaide that is practically fail proof! It is called the "Crossing the Bridge" program and it is a member missionary program to help introduce members' friends to the gospel. It sure beats some of the other programs we have seen. We taught it last night to 3 members and committed them to ask 5 people to hear the discussions. The program also helps in such a way that it sows members a very good way to share the gospel with their friends and it isn't even hard to do. I would love to show both of our families this presentation and know that it will work! I know that it is an inspired program and am so excited about it!

I have made the decision to extend my mission to January and feel very good about it. I don't feel like I will have any regrets coming home then. I am coming home in January because I already fulfilled my call to it's fullness (18 months) and I am now going the extra mile by staying out longer because of my love for the work and the Lord and for President Gray. I have asked myself many times if I will ever regret coming home in January and I have come up with the answer that I won't every time. Here is something that I have thought a lot about: There are 2 kinds of pain--the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. The pains of discipline weight ounces, but the pains of regret weigh tons.

If there is one thing I have learned on my mission it is that I will always try to do my best today so that there will be no regrets tomorrow when I contemplate what I did or didn't do. Here is another quote that is really good: The best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm on doing today's work superbly today!

We just received the conference tapes in the mail today from Sydney and we will be viewing them soon. I am excited to hear the prophet of God speak. I was studying about Joseph Smith just recently and I learned something very neat! When Joseph's father gave him a blessing, he told him that he would help administer the gospel to other civilizations of other worlds that have been created. I guess it makes sense because Moroni came back and administered part of the gospel to Joseph Smith. I thought that was interesting!

Peter Hollow is a really good friend of mine and is the member that got me thinking about extending. He is super cool and he served in the Melbourne, Australia Mission and he knew the missionaries that I knew in the MTC. He is a cool guy!

Thank you for all your support!

Elder Wallentine