Elliot's May 29 email

Here's the latest email from Elliot, a day late due to yesterday's holiday. It sounds like he's happy in his new area, back in Oklahoma City, where he likely will stay until the end of his mission in August.

Hola!

So this past week was pretty awesome, not gonna lie. I never realized how out of place I felt being in the country until I came back to the heart of Oklahoma City. And my area is all city. We live at NW 39th St and Amelia in an apartment (can't remember what they're called) and our area is about 2 miles east to west, from Meridian on the west to May on the east. Our southern border is Reno and to the north we don't really have a boundary line, but we rarely head that direction. It's a super small area relative to the others I've been in, and I'm on a bike which is sweet. And there are tons of people everywhere.

My new companion is Elder Roberto Orellana. He's originally from El Salvador, was baptized in Taylorsville, UT, but came to the mission from Dallas, TX. He's solid. He was baptized 5 years ago by Noah Hartsock, who was either a forward or a center for BYU's basketball team when I was there if I remember correctly. [Noah is from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and served his mission in Salt Lake City. His senior season on the BYU basketball team was 2011-12.] He's spent the last 4 months or so going out with the APs from Dallas and definitely came here prepared from day 1. We really wanted to jumpstart the area so we just got to work. We had a ton of miracles and ended up with 16 new investigators, many of whom seem solid. So we're excited for the area and I'm super glad to be back in a Spanish Branch.

Well I'm sitting here watching my time on the computer wind down. I love you all and glad to know everything's going well. I'm excited to be an uncle soon!

Les amo!

Elder Elliot

Oklahoma sports report

Time for an update on our favorite college basketball teams at tournament time.

The Cowboys saw their season come to a close Monday night when they lost 74-64 to the Washington State Cougars in the National Invitational Tournament.  Despite 17 points and 11 rebounds from senior forward Matt Pilgrim, the Cowboys came out on the short end of the score, as the Cougars limited OSU's leading scorer, Marshall Moses, to just two points.

The Cougars played the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Saturday, March 19 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.  Gonzaga has family ties for Elliot, since his dad lived in Spokane for several years as a kid.  Elliot's uncle Don still lives there and does some work for Gonzaga.  And John Stockton, a Spokane native who played for Gonzaga and whose son David now plays for the Bulldogs, is a long-time favorite of Elliot's brother Keith.  But Elliot and his family bleed Cougar blue so there was no doubt about which team to support.  The game was reasonably close through the first half but the Cougars pullled away in the second half, winning by a final score of 89-67.  Jimmer Fredette had another spectucular game, scoring 34 points, including seven 3-pointers, some from the next area code.  (Jimmer is also a finalist for the 2011 Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year Award.)  Noah Hartsock made all five of his shots, including three 3-pointers on his way to 13 points, and Jackson Emery tossed in 16 points.  Next up for the Cougars is the number two seed Florida Gators, Thursday evening in New Orleans.

And after the jump, you can watch a great video: "We Are BYU."