March 25th - Transfers & Greek Independence

First off, I'm waaaay freaking jealous that you are going to have gyros for Greek Independence Day. I'm dying for some Greek food. Miss you mommy! They have these things called "shwarmas" here that I get a lot of that are way good, even though they made me sick once. But it's beef in a pita bread with cucumbers and sauce and stuff. Kinda like a gyro. We actually got some at a Persian restaurant the other day.. felt like such a traitor! I still love you Greece!

Today is my last day here in Fairview. I'm actually way bummed to leave here, but I'm going to be out closer to the mountains a bit so that should be fun. My new zone is Montalbon. My new comp is way dope. He used to skate, and growl for his band back in the day, so I hope your stoked to here my pig squeels when I'm singing in the shower back home. I'm going to have him teach me. Ha! Ha!

Yea, I'll miss this area. Our work has been so good lately. One of the families that we found and were teaching, are getting baptized next month. They gave me a book with pics of them and crayon colorings and stuff as my going away present. Ah, I'll miss everyone here. Everyone's doing really well. It's too bad that I'll miss out on the baptisms, but I guess that happens. I'm just glad I got to see them progress. I took pics with some people too. I'll have to send some so you can actually see the peeps we teach.

But yea, I'm doing well. Just enjoying my last 127 days in the mish.

Talk to ya next week. Love ya!

March 17, 2014

A lil update for the week, just a few highlights...

We did exchanges with one of the District Leaders in our zone, so I got to work with Elder Liu for a day. Haha! Just like the good ol' days when we were comps. We've just been going around our zone and going to different elders each day to do studies with them so we can get to know them better and see how they're doing. We've been kinda busy lately, so sadly I haven't been able to work out a whole lot. Ah oh well, I hope you all like fluffy pale missionaries for when I get home!

Our area's doing really well though. We got some good families we're teaching that are getting close to baptism. Hopefully, I'll still be here for it! But we have this one member family, and they referred us to brother's brother's family and we have been teaching them now. They came to church for the first time and should be set for baptism on April 26th. But it's cool cause now the family is all stoked about missionary work and referred another family to us that we've been teaching and now we're going over to teach sister's mom later tonight. The ward's been such a big help lately.

We met someone on the street the other night who turned out to be a member (inactive) and went to their house to teach them. It was my first time teaching them but I remember Elder Jackson talking about them. We talked to them for a bit. Brother was just bashing on us and the church saying we're just trying to get money and stuff and how he doesn't need to go to church because he can just pray and feel Jesus. So we just taught them the restoration. When we taught about Christ establishing his church on the earth, I remembered a part I like in Ephesians chapter 5 about how Christ loved the church and that he gave his life for it. So, i shared that to brother and then since we builds houses for a living I was like, so imagine you did all the work and spent all this money building a house for your kids, but nah they didn't want to live there even though you did all that just for them, how would you feel? Then brother kinda caught on to what I was saying. Then I asked how he thinks Christ feels when he gave his life so we could have a church here on the earth, but even though it's just down the street, you don't wanna go to it.. eh it went better in the lesson but it got to him. He said he liked what i said and said i was the best missionary that's ever taught him. Heh, guess the guilt trip worked.

That's good for now. I'll email again on Tuesday and let ya know if I'll be transferring on the 26th.

Love ya! See ya in 135 days!

March 10, 2014

Hey Mom:

That's dope the Horne's are getting ready to serve. Pretty soon, you two will be next! 

Ha! How do you know everything that goes on here? 

But ya things are going great here. But sadly looks like I wont be getting anymore baptisms before I leave if I transfer on March 26th, but that's chill. We have a lot of "for sure" one's coming up in April, so it's just nice to see the people I was actually here for, for all the finding and teaching process, get ready to be baptized, even if i'm not here for it. But we have 15 bap dates as of now. How many of those will go through? Ha! I dunno, but we just make sure all our investies have one as soon as possible. 

Umm what else?.. Oh, i'll actually probably just write you a normal letter about this soon, (sorry its been so long since I've written an actual letter), We we got caught up basically doing marriage counseling for this part member family we teach, when we went to teach the other day. We ended up talking with them for 3 hours but me and Elder Jarman make pretty good marriage counselors. Ha! Dr. Phil sta

But ya, we went and hiked river cat mountain again. love it. I'll have to send some more pics soon. 

Love you all!

March 3, 2014

Hey, so a little update about life here. It's only been a few days since I last emailed, but things are actually going pretty good here. We've been super busy with meetings lately as always, but still been able to average like 30 lessons a week and still been able to find lots of new investies. Our High Councilman invited us to come to the Ward Mission Leader Training last night to teach about the new and returning member forms we use to help get members ready for the temple. Our High Councilman is way sick!  I'm glad to have him around. We get to meet with him again this week. 

We saw quite a few miracles at our church attendance yesterday. We had this one investigator we teach, who we neeeeeeeever thought would go to church. You have no idea how long it took us to get her to even pray, and she came to church for the first time yesterday with her husband and daughter who are both members. Also, we had this one lady come who we taught yesterday but her husband is Iglesia Ni Cristo and she always questions Joseph Smith and stuff, even though she's a member. She came to church yesterday for the first time in 15 years. Pretty dope!

Also, I think I mentioned this already, but we have our one homeless investigator we teach, It's kinda fun! He actually is almost done with 2 Nephi now. It still blows my mind that he speaks fluent English. It's fun because we just sit on the side of the highway and teach him. I guess it helps the world to see what we do. We actually gave him a baptism date. We're wondering if we can get him a job at maybe a call center or something since he speaks English and help him get an apartment so he can shower and buy a change of clothes and come to church. I can see it happen. That'd be a dope story!

Ya, we're doing way good. We have like 11 investies with a baptism date and we have one that is still set for March 22, so hopefully that goes through so I can see one more in this area before I probably transfer.

 

It's summer here now and bloody hot everywhere. The only place that has air conditioning is our church and the mall.

 

Aight, well that's all. love you!