60 - Baptism!

 

haha Okay first off, yes the little girl is a gringo! Her parents are from Texas! They speak English with a little bit of Spanish.. so yeah! haha  Selling a house doesn’t sound fun. At least you are learning patience! Someone will realize that the house is the bomb .com!

But Brooke hasn’t emailed me! You should ground her! haha no I’m just kidding. 

But this week was a little crazy. And by little I mean a lot! There were a million things happening all at the same time...

Okay to start, on Tuesday we had district meeting, and it was really good. I taught about patience and love. And especially how I need to try harder at it. And then Tuesday we had to clean and everything because the assistants said they would check houses when they came to visit. But they didn’t. And then we went to go have some lessons.  Just normal ones really, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Then Wednesday was the Zone Conference where I saw a few old friends and ate some good pizza. The whole zone conference was on miracles and spiritual experiences. It was pretty good. Then Friday we felt sick, so we did the baptismal interview with L. a few lessons and then went home. Then Saturday we had the baptism for L! It was awesome! Sadly not many people came, but it was a good experience. I could tell that he felt something really special. Then Sunday he got confirmed. Then we went out and did some visits. And that was kind of it. It was a slow normal week. But L. got baptized! So it’s all good!

I hope you like the pics on the mission blog! I think I looked cute at the conference ;) haha just kidding. I love you mom! Have a good week! Tell Marcus I said hi. He doesn’t like to email me anymore.

59 - Best Experience of My Mission!

I'm glad things are going good for you guys. Tell Brooke I'm proud of her biggest flirt award! I want photo proof. haha That's hilarious that every single one of us won that award. Way to keep it up! 

This week was really good. Actually really cool. We started off with a lot of meal appointments which was awesome! One of which was a barbeque with the N. family, gringos from Texas that live down here. Super awesome people! We had some awesome grilled BBQ chicken with yuka fries and salad. It was so good so that was awesome! And then we found 2 new families to teach. One the moms name is C. and she is super nice, a really funny lady. She was really open to hear us so we are planning on going back this week. Then we have a less active member who has a son that is 9 years old. So we are going to teach him and his dad to try and baptize them together. Then some other people that seem positive. And then we have L. He told us he was going to come Sunday so his baptismal date was set for this next Saturday. He had to come to church Sunday in order to get baptized. Sunday comes around and he doesn't show up. So we call and he doesn't answer. So we leave after the sacrament and run to his house. His dad is super super sick. He actually has Parkinson's and couldn't breathe. Luis said he couldn't leave him so I explained to him about a blessing. I asked that if the blessing made his dad feel better immediately would he come to church for a little bit. He said yes. I explained that it was completely dependent on their faith. We gave him a blessing, and right as we finished and said In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen, the dad started breathing normally. He started crying, and he said he felt better. I asked him if L. could come with us to church, and without hesitation he said yes. We made it to church a little late, but with time. So since L. came to church with us we have his baptismal date this Saturday!!!! It was such an awesome experience. It was a huge thing of faith to trust in us as representatives of Jesus to bless his dad and leave him at home to come to church, and having enough faith that he would be okay. It was so awesome! It was so cool! The best experience of my mission so far! It was an awesome thing to see. But yeah. That was my experience for the week! I love you! 

58 - Skype for Mother's Day!

It was awesome to talk to you guys! 

That’s cool that Dolores said my Spanish was good! Tell her I am expecting to only speak Spanish with her when I get back. I think she will be excited about that! By the way, you might want to hint to dad that he needs to practice his Spanish. Yes it’s still good but talking to him, it was really slow and simple... but don’t tell him I said this! Just try and get him to use Rosetta Stone or something. I want to be able to speak Spanish fluently with him. But we will see how it goes! 

I’m glad you are happy and excited for school to end! It will be a good thing for you. Then you will have some free time. You are working too hard. I remember bringing you a pizza with Brooke one time. That was actually super fun! 

It was awesome to talk to everyone yesterday. I’m glad things are going good and that everyone is enjoying life! Even though Brooke has some big dreams of buying an STI. But hey, maybe she can get a discount on her insurance for being a girl! haha But I’m glad things are going good back home. Thanks for the advice dad. Things are getting better daily and I am enjoying working more and more. But I hope you guys have a good week, tell all the family that I love them! I love you! I’ll see ya later! 

57 - New Companion!

Well, it is a little weird to think that I’m going to talk to you guys this Sunday. Then I only have 1 more time to Skype at Christmas and then I go home... so that’s kinda different to think about.

But this week was good. I got a new comp. His name is Elder R.  He is a really cool kid and we get along really well. He is from Honduras and he is a worker.  He is pretty funny. He helps me clean, he helps me teach, and helps me contact and knows how to do it well. So it’s awesome. I’m really happy now. We have good study as a companionship every day and we plan all the time. We going through the area book and finding new people and doing lecciones para encontrar and other things like that to find more to do. We have started using other ideas that I have never thought of to find new people that we can teach. This week we have been talking to members and trying to get them come out and visit people with us, and we have 2 members that are going to help us out.

We have had some really good lessons this week. We had 2 really good ones with L. where we explained the restoration to him again, and he felt really good about it. He was having a hard time with studying the Book of Mormon too, so we explained the importance of reading the scriptures and told him all the blessings that would come if he did it. So that was really cool.

But things are getting better and we are working harder and trying our best. I feel like that last change I didn’t work my hardest but I am going to do better this one. I felt down about myself, and every day was horrible. But now I know what I need to do and I am going to do it. 

We did get some really good lunch today. And I got a mango as a gift from a family yesterday. But other than that this week was kind of normal. Nothing amazing happened. 

I love you, and I’ll talk to you Sunday! And yes, in Spanish! 

56 - Weaknesses Make Us Better

 

Well, this week was a little weird, mainly because I've felt a little dizzy. It feels like I'm on a roller coaster when I close my eyes. I went to the nurse and she said it might be due to stress and to come back in a week and check. 

Things with Luis are going okay. I am working hard to teach my comp how to teach a structured lesson. Changes are this week, so we will see what happens! I don't know what is going to happen, and I don't really mind all that much. I'm just going to take it as an opportunity to do better, whatever happens. I'm feeling like I haven't worked as hard as I should have out here so far.  I need to work even harder, and I will start feeling better physically, and things will get easier. So I'm going to go for it. Give it my best and try and help people. Thanks for the letter mom, I know there are a lot of things I could do better. And I'm going to do it. I need to always do my best, no matter what situation it's in. I always gotta do it, but hopefully my health problems start to get better. It's rough when nothing seems to be going right. But I guess it will help me one day.

That's one thing I realized, that yeah it stinks to just translate all the time, but maybe one day I will be able to use that to help someone. It is really stressful. But we will see in the future! But things are getting better. I had a really bad attitude about things when I got there, but now I'm just taking it a day at a time and trying my best every day and it has actually made a huge difference. Thank you so much mom, you have always been there to listen and help me, even through all the times of not doing my homework. haha

Oh and an FYI I gave a talk Sunday. It was about the talk from the Liahona on challenges and sins. I think it was super good. I felt the spirit super strongly. And people were crying in the congregation! It was really cool! And I felt really good about it! In studying I have learned a lot about my weaknesses, and it's easy to forget that sometimes that is necessary to become better. It was a good thing for me to learn that.

Like I said, it's kinda tough out here in this area. But I'm learning in the process. 

It's good to hear that things are good. I have been praying for you guys a lot and I hope that I'm doing well enough so that you guys will be blessed. I hope things get easier and the house works out. It would be really cool to have that all work out. 

Who is serving in Monticello? I can't think of anyone that would be there. But that's cool! I hope you have a good week. I love you! 

55 - A Good Week

Well this week was good! We had a few really good lessons this week, and we did a lot more contacting. I turned it into a game with my comp and it seems to work! It’s a lot better now so I’m happy! Things are going good. I am translating all the time pretty much. It is really hard and sometimes I get tongue tied. For Sunday I had to translate from Spanish to English and then English to Spanish. It was a little weird but cool! And I realized that I am pretty decent in Spanish. I can do pretty much everything. I have actually explained deeper doctrine, so that was pretty cool! But I’m starting to enjoy my area more. It’s hard but I’m becoming content. I like the weather, and the people are pretty nice so I’m having a good time. Yes there are some things I wish were different, but I get what I get, I can’t change it all at once. So I just gotta work hard and get what I can done. It’s interesting because missionaries pretty much do a lot in the branch. It is kinda stressful, but I’m getting a lot of experience so that’s good! Maybe it will help me if I’m ever a bishop one day or something like that. So I’m not going to complain about it anymore. But thanks for your help dad. It has been a tough time, but I like it.

That’s awesome that we might be in the same ward as the Littlewood family! I miss Reagan Littlewood soooo much!!! She is so dang cute!!! And she is sooo cute when she gets all shy!! I’m so going to hug her when I see her.

Last week I talked to president again, through weekly email. I told him how I felt and how things are going. He told me the Lord always has a plan, so I kind of have become content. I am really starting to like my area. We don’t have many investigators, we don’t have many members, and it’s tough to be in charge of everything. But I have realized that I can’t change anything, so I am just trying to enjoy it. We have had some great lessons with Luis and he seems to be doing well. But I’m not sure if he is going to get baptized. My comp wants to go and answer any question he has but I’m trying to find of things that I can do to help him learn more and not just kind of do it by having him ask whatever question comes to his mind! 

I feel like everything is going better. I don’t feel sad, I don’t really miss home as much, I don’t feel as down, I actually am pretty happy. I like my area, even with its problems. I feel like this has kind of changed my outlook on things. This has been a huge help for me! I love it now! This was a great blessing for me! I know that the Lord has been helping me with an open mind. And it’s actually a lot better! I love you! Thank you for always being there for me! I miss you and I love you!

54 - Festival week

Well this week there was a lot of stuff going on. There was a huge party, so it was like a big fair out here. It was a jolly old festival, which included a horse parade, a bunch of people selling stuff, and last but not least everyone completely drunk. It was actually kind of funny. But it kind of stunk because we got practically nothing done. It was the worst week I have had for work in a while! I didn’t feel sad or didn’t miss home or anything, it was just so impossible to get work done when no one is home, and everyone is out in the streets getting drunk. So to anyone reading this who likes getting drunk, just an FYI, you look pretty silly. But hopefully this next week will be better.  We did find a few new people to teach.

Something cool this week, there is another gringo here, he moved from San Fran and he doesn’t speak any Spanish at all. So now I’m in charge of 2 people at church to help translate for!!  This is in addition to my district leader responsibilities. I have 2 companionships as a district leader, but being the English speaking missionary, I am in charge of 2 people, like 60 and an 80 year old. They don’t speak Spanish so I have to help them and translate everything they need. We had to go do an interview for a recent convert to be ordained to an elder and I had to translate everything for him. I also had to translate stake conference for him, and that was crazy. I had to pretty much yell English to him, (he can’t hear very well). Haha. But it was okay I guess, pretty cool. And then there was the cutest little girl that lives in our branch, her name is Abby and she just turned 4 years old. Her parents are from Texas and are a super cool family. This little girl is so cute! We were sitting on the bus and she was talking to me and holding my hand on the way to stake conference, she is so dang cute!!! She reminded me of Jade and Emmry. I had divisions with the zone leaders, so that took us out for about a day and a half.   

Lately there are a lot of stupid little things going on in the mission, little fights going on between people and dumb stuff like that. So it’s kinda getting annoying. But we will see how it turns out. 

But I did see a super sick white Nissan GTR the other day. There actually are quite a few super cool cars out here. Every night I hear what sounds like a Mitsubishi 3000 GT, and a Mazda RX7 racing down the road. So that is pretty cool too!

I’m just working hard and hoping it all pays off in the end. I talked to president about my area and everything, so I don’t know what he will say. But I forgot to tell you, I have a problem in my back. The nurses said I’m not allowed to carry my backpack, and I have to take Advil 3 times a day. I could use some good ol mommy love.

I love you! Have a good week. And good luck with work!