Elder Jacob Bentz: Fort Payne

Hello family!

I hope everything is going well at home. I think this was everyone's first day of school right? I can't believe it's already that time! Everything is good here in Fort Payne. Here's some interesting facts about the area: It used to be spelled Fort Pain because the trail of tears actually began right here. The band "Alabama" is from Fort Payne. At one point in time, 3 out of every 5 socks in the world came out of factories in Fort Payne. Last of all: Remember the movie October Sky, one of my favorites? Well, that story actually happened not too far from here! I freaked out a little bit when I found that out (:

It is gorgeous up here. Everything is really spread out and all the towns are TINY. We have bikes, but we mostly use the car and have members give us rides because the area is HUGE. The branch members here are awesome, and I love the people. Almost all our efforts at this point are focused on helping strengthen the branch members and the less-actives. We also do a lot of service. In other words, this is SOOO much better than tracting all day, every day. So much better. I'm in a trio with two others, Elder Anderson and Elder Whipple (Elder Anderson is from Utah and Elder Whipple is from Showlow AZ), who've been here awhile. It's so nice not having to worry about not knowing what to do. It takes an enormous weight off my shoulders, and honestly helps me focus on becoming a better missionary.

So last week we went to a store called Unclaimed Baggage. It gets lost/unclaimed baggage from airports around the world and sells it for super cheap. They had a whole section for cameras. So, I picked one that looked decent and was relatively cheap. At least I don't have that to worry about anymore. I WOULD be nice if my other camera happened to show up though. I had a lot of pictures on there. There'll be pictures attached to this email, by the way. The computers here have a slot for sd cards.

So, this morning, I decided to cut my own hair. The razor setting I used turned out to be WAYYY shorter than I thought it would be. Like..... wayyyyy shorter. SO, I look like I either just joined the marines, or am undergoing chemotherapy. (: I also accidently took a chunk out of the back because my hand slipped. So it looks like I have a bald spot too. Awesome!!! So yeah, you'll all laugh really hard about that, I'm sure. (; At least I don't have to worry about doing my hair for awhile!

Another interesting thing, we have some pretty extreme weather up here. This is tornado territory, in case you weren't already aware. We have weather alarms in all our apartments to warn us when thunderstorms are coming. We've had some pretty big storms, but no tornadoes thankfully.

Well, I think that's about all I got for now. Hope to keep hearing from y'all! I love you all

con amor,

Elder Jacob Bentz