Dec. 27, 2010

So before I forget i do want to ask you if there is anyway that you could possibly send out a giant vocabulary list of spanish words, because that would be awesome. But i don't have much to say that i didn't want to say on the phone, other than Nelson's in the front, let me hear you grunt; Nelson's in the back, show me where its at; Nelson's all around let me hear that sound, Nelsons hu Nelson's hu Nelson's hu hu hu! But for P - day it has been different in every area I have served in. Here the Elders our die hard frisbee golfers, seriously die hard. In my last area I mostly just balled people in basketball, because that is kinda just what I do, pretty much. I also tried to do a back flip for the first time since the mtc, but I almost killed myself, I might just wait till after the mission to try again...but probably not. But that is pretty much it for right now. We didn't end up going caroling so that was good, haha. what a shame. But we did have an awesome dinner and so that was good, although we did have cereal for Christmas eve...lame haha but it was good cereal. Alright I will write you more next week, and possibly get that one letter in the mail. LOve yall tons, have a good week.

Dec. 13, 2010

Well this week has been awesomeness! 3 people came to church! Milagros! I was so excited, heck I am still excited. But of course I will be leaving, down to Spokane to be district leader down there. So I am really excited for that as well. Holy cow I have just learned so much this transfer. And I know this is what God wanted me to learn, and that I wouldn't of been able to learn it in a different area with different members or a different companion. I have learned so much from this transfer, such as: there is so much joy in the gospel, and there is no need to be frustrated; That procrastination is one of the biggest tools of Satan, if we procrastinate extending the baptismal invitation, we are thereby procrastinating the days of their repentance, and thereby breaking a commandment pretty much. That really hit me hard these past couple days, and it is something I will be applying for the rest of my mission. Now does this mean that success comes from having people say yes and pulling through with it, yes and no. Baptism I think would be a success for that specific person and somewhat for me as well. But real Success for me simply comes from, remembering my purpose and remembering why it is my purpose, and then going out and doing it. Knowing this brings joy. The field is white already to harvest. God will make sure there are people prepared in every city, and it is my purpose to find those people, and help them and invite them to prepare even more, until they make the commitment to be baptized. Oh and yes mom I got all the packages I think. But if you want to go ahead and send the package just send it to the mission office and they can send it to me. Because i won't actually know what my address is till next p day. Holy cow I am just so excited for what is in store for this mission and for the people I am going to come in contact with. But I love yall so much and no I have no idea about anything that is happening on Christmas. But I will definitely open one of those presents tomorrow.

Dec. 6, 2010

It turns out that once again we did not have anyone technically at church. I say technically because I guess two of them came and because they could not find us in the building they left. So that was pretty lame. But I will definitely acknowledge the miracle of a nonmember just showing up for church, even though we did not know her. And so we will hopefully be teaching her this week. And so that of course was awesome and just another one of those moments where you know God is watching over you and is helping you in his work. I guess we were to dumb to find her on our own and so God just placed her right in front of our face or something. But it was awesome cause our branch did a really good job on fellowshipping her and everything. So we will be teaching and inviting her to be baptized sometime this week. We also are teaching this awesome girl named Andrea Pruneda now. She is like 17 and has some really good mormon friends, only problem is that she lives with her grandma who is anti. And she goes to church with her. But she is reading the Book of Mormon and writing down questions she has, and researching stuff online( might not be the best way) but at least it means she is interested and taking it seriously. And so she will be baptized as well. Mom you want to send me your conversion story. I think I know it pretty well, but it would still be cool to read it. I love yall so much. We get our transfer calls here this coming Sunday, so I really am praying that I will be able to help this area a lot more. And so I guess we will see what happens. But I love yall so much and have a good week.

Nov. 29,2010

Well it would seem like most everyone wants to know about my thanksgiving and so i will talk about that. But before i forget, I thought it was way funny to read amandas cartita sobre las personas in Paraguay, because the dad gum hispanics here are the same way almost. Except here instead of being afraid of rain, they are deafly afraid of the snow. Which seeing how it has been snowing for a straight week and a half now, it makes getting people to come to church un poco dificil. And they are always saying its feo tambien. In fact we went to see if we could get one of the hispanic members to come out team teaching with us and he just told us that he was not going to because it was too cold outside and he didn't like the snow. We were like our car is right outside your house and it is warm. nos digo, nope not going it is cold outside. And finally after 20 min of begging he finally came. It was actually way funny. But ya for whatever reason the adult hispanos just hate the snow, but the kids like it. Oh and also a crazy story, my companion has the tendency to drive through stop signs, little did i know that he would develop the habit of running over stop signs. Ya that is right. I almost died because we tried to make this turn on this snow which was truly all ice, and were fixing to run into a phone poll, but were able to turn away from that and run straight over a stop sign and into a ditch. It was pretty crazy. so mom if you could hurry up and send my driving record to the mission office that would be muchly appreciated haha. Granted the worst part was just standing in the snow for an hour waiting for the tow truck. But anyways. thanksgiving... It was just a normal day for us, probably cause our president didn't want anyone playing any turkey bowls or something no se. Pero we did get a thanksgiving dinner with a family named the Hughes. Extremely nice family, but it didn't quite compare with some of Big Mammas cooking. Haha jk mom you are not big. Or that ephraim one, that one was so good. But it was a pretty good thanksgiving. Most of the day we just spent planning for the next week and doing service and stuff. Friday was just crazy though. We went over to Guadalupe's house for his baptismal interview... and holy cow! I was just blown away. Now we had taught him earlier in the week, and he was having some doubts about his baptism about how he dind't want to cause any problems in the family and he wasn't sure if he was ready and stuff. And so I just knew i needed to bear my testimony. And it was just so powerful, and he agreed to go through with his baptism, cause he knew it was the right thing to do. Well so we are there to interview him and see if he is ready, and once again he is just like i dont think I am ready. But this time I kinda had the impression that he was not telling the whole truth. And so while the ZL is doing his little interview questions I realize that his wife is kinda easedropping. And I knew that the problem was something to do with his wife. So then I started talking loud enough so she could hear me, just about how he needs to be a leader to his family and everything, just to see if she would come over and tell us her view of the story and everything. Well come she did, and with the look of the blasted devil on her face she exploded, and continued to explode. It was crazy. She basically said she would divorce him if he was baptized. ANd how we don't even realize that kind of man he really is and how he had cheated on her in the past. And she just went crazy lady on us. But needless to say he is not getting baptized, although he did still come to church. And one other investigator came as well. Which was kinda hard, because we made sure to invite everyone to come. And so we only had one investigator make it out of the 20 that we invited. Especially since all of our lessons were way strong this week, but still they did not choose to come to church. But I learned a valuable lesson about how not to do something. I was sitting in church when someone was praying they mentioned to please bless the missionaries that they might have success. And for whatever ever reason this kinda got me mad. And I just thought if i went up on the stand and put a seed in a cup and told everyone to pray that this seed would grow. No matter how hard we prayed and no matter how often we prayed that seed would most likely not ever grow. Because we still need to do ou part by nourishing it every day. But i got to go so I will leave my thought unended. But I love yall so much. And i have no idea what i want for christmas. Money maybe. And prayers that I will know what to do to help our investigators.