Elder Brantley Shattuck:

January 7, 2009
This past week we had the baptism of Helen Poonusamy-Ailantham! It was amazing, I think someone should right a biography on this woman's life because it is very dramatic and full of hardships that many people would not have been able to overcome. She was basically sold in slavery at the age of 9 because her own mother couldn't afford to raise her and needed money for her own life. Needless to say Helen grew up being abused in many different and horrible ways as she moved from family to family serving them as a house nanny. She never had the opportunity to go to school, so she can't read or write even to this day, but she can speak 4 languages. I was talking to Helen and she told me that there came a point in her life where she decided that she would never be rude or unkind to anyone ever again. She suffered with depression and didn't care much about life until a day on the bus when she looked out the window and saw a crazy old woman walking up and down the street picking up rocks. I guess this woman did it every day and simply just picked rocks up over and over again with no purpose. Helen looked at her as the bus drove past and she realized that that was the course her life was taking her to and she didn't want to end up like that, so she changed her attitude and got her life in order and she stood on her own two feet again. As she continued to nanny she ended up with a Mormon family that treated her like family, she saw the happiness that they had and she wanted it.... needless to say the missionaries came over and she accepted everything and ended up moving here to America for a new beginning and it just so happened that I go to teach her again right before she got baptised. Attitude can change anything, she is such a sweet woman and I must say that I don't think that I have ever met a more charitable person, I love her and wish the best for her.

We are also teaching a single mom right now named Candy Urhdal who is really great as well. She has three children that are 20,16,15....two boys and a girl. It has been a lot of fun, I think that she will get baptised eventually, she is very liberal though and has some big concerns that need to be addressed first but I think the spirit will be working on her pretty good.

Transfers are in two weeks, I have no idea what will be going on.

Oh the other day it was raining and I went and cleaned out a swamp area.... that was horrible, I smelled like poo afterwards, it was pretty funny though because I pushed my companion Elder Shapiro and he almost fell face first into the mud and slop, he is pretty funny(kinda girly) and I don't know how much hard labor he has ever had to do, he did not like it at all!!! It made me laugh pretty good.

I hope you get better mom, I can't imagine that is to good, I got food poisoning for one day after Christmas and that sucked bad.

January 21, 2009
I am staying in Brambleton and will be training a new ZL named Elder Gifford, I am really excited, we came out together so we will hit the year mark together and it should be an exciting transfer.
I knew the Eagles would choke, ask Steve if he has any newspaper clips of that to send me lol.....he sent me one talking some smack on the Broncos.... that is what we call karma.

Anyway I met an African American that is actually Japanese and has the facial characteristics of an Asian person but he has like a black person hair and skin..... it is crazy, anyways we taught him an amazing lesson and now he is thinking about baptism for the 14th of February except at the end of the lesson he had a question and he was too shy to ask it so he wrote it down on paper and the question was about gays and how the church looks at it..... well the church has a great pamphlet that explains its standpoints so I am picking up one of those to take to him and we will continue to teach him, he is very receptive to the gospel though.... it will be interesting to see what happens with this one.
Love you, Elder Shattuck