July 10,2013

Hey Pops,

Things are going well this week. My companions are learning very well and have taken well to the council that i give them. I am glad that i was given this opportunity to help these two good men. However the work here has slowed to a crawl. The members are not helping very much. We get money to lunch and dont have many opportunities to visit the members. I was at a ward council meeting yesterday and it wasnt very funcional. People arent doing their visits because their partners dont want to do them. They arent doing their stuff and are expected to try and tell others to do them. Its a difficult situation. Then they started arguing about food storage. It was rather ridiculous. I had to bring everyone to a calm and remind them that we where in the house of God. When the ward doesnt work right the missionary work doesnt work right.

 We do have one lady that says she wants to be baptized. Her son was baptized quite some time ago and she feels good about the church. She says that she feels good about the baptism but doesnt have a firm conviction about Joseph Smith. So guess who our focus is going to be this week. With a little faith and prayer Nivalda will be baptized this week.

Good luck on the survival camp. Man i wish i could go. I have been itching to do something like that. Saturday we went to a service project ,all five of us, and we mixed cement for eight hours. It was the old fashioned way with a hoe and shovels. It was a lot of work and i am still sore today. But i feel good about the service and the opportunity i had to use my muscles for something other than flipping pages and walking.

I am extremely happy that the Lord is taking good care of you. It has been a little difficult this week. As i have related the ward is in a low swing right now. I have been feeling very sad these past few days. The prospect of having the people i am trying to bring to Christ being turned away because of cold sholders is a disheartening thing. However I have faith that the Lord has a purpose in all these things. All i can do is hold my head and testimony high and work like there is no tomorrow.

Love you dad and have a great week :)

Doing Service

July 10,2013

Dear Mom,

Hahaha That´s my bro! Has to follow the tradition. :) Im glad to know that i wasnt forgotten by Joe. He hasnt emailed me since he said he was getting married. Oh well im sure he is plenty busy. Colby i am glad is growing up. All of us reach that point eventually. Unfortunately there are several missionaries that dont reach that point until much later and give their companions much grief. Fortunately my companion is not that type.

Ah stupid JWs they complicate everything. A lot of people dont even talk to us because they think that we are JWs. Im not worried about the visa thing. If he waits then it is because he was needed elsewhere. Not a problem at all.

I´m glad that Lyssa recieved my letters. I was getting worried that they were lost. Speaking of letters. I recieved another of the betridge letters. But to be honest i have no interest in writing to them. I dont even know them. If they were still in our ward that would be one thing but anyway. I dont want to seem rude.

I have no idea where i got the yellow fever shot. I remember that we had to go to Anchorage.

I actually have not recieved an email from emma in quite some time. I was wondering if she was writing or not.

Thats messed up that they would treat you like that as a customer. They should get reprimanded for that. Dont stress too much mom. Stress is the number one life reducer. That is one thing that i have learned here on the mission. When you are stressed you cant feel the spirit as well. There are two attributes that can do away with stress Humility and Patience. With these two attributes you can overcome stress and feel much more peace and tranquility in your life. The trust you put in the Lord will help you overcome and grow spiritually. Make a conscious effort to develop these attributes and you will see the difference in your life.

Mmm mosquitos sounds...yummy. Worse comes to worse they can eat tree bark right? I hear its good fiber hahaha    This week there is just a little news. The work here has slowed to a crawl. The members are not helping very much. We get money to lunch and dont have many opportunities to visit the members. I was at a ward council meeting yesterday and it wasnt very funcional. People arent doing their visits because their partners dont want to do them. They arent doing their stuff and are expected to try and tell others to do them. Its a difficult situation. Then they started arguing about food storage. It was rather ridiculous. I had to bring everyone to a calm and remind them that we where in the house of God. When the ward doesnt work right the missionary work doesnt work right.

Anyway thanks for you support Love you Mom have a great week

Picture

July 1,2013

Dear Mom,

That should be good for you to spend more time with family on saturday. It would be nice to be there with you all sharing these experiences. Colby i am proud of. He seems to be doing well. I missed his first date!? Dang it! I wanted to tease him. Oh well i will be there for Emmas first date. Heeheehee >:)

I will follow her the whole time.

Emma has always been loving and free giving. That is a very good attribute. I am very glad that she got that trait from Dad. I am as ever grateful for the things which i have recieved from my loving parents. Fourth of july here unfortunately has no meaning or significance. I would love to light fireworks and have a BBQ but i think i will have to settle for just the BBQ.

The weather has been good. For about the past month it has been raining on and off. Everything is green and there are lots of birds. As far as what Colby needs its pretty simple. Peanut butter, Lots of polyester ties not silk, pictures of the family his guns the dogs house etc, reglar flip flops for the shower, waterproof shoes there will be lots of rain in his region. I really like the hush puppy brand. Its been an excelent shoe for me. He needs to take good care of his shoes. No scuffing. The most important thing is that he will be comfortable in his shoes. Do exactly like we did one pair for more formal occasions and the other for day to day tracting. Lots of little personal care products he gets here. Bring deodorant that he likes and bring like five or six sticks. He can trade for good stuff with that. Get a seperate bible book of mormon comb. Hangers are important. Get good strong ones. Bring at least two towels. If you can get that microfiber one and then a regular thick one. For traveling purposes he will want the microfiber. Dont bring the shoe horns they are useless garbage. Duct tape of course.  I will think more about it and tell you.

News for this week. I am a trainer! So transfers happened on tuesday i stayed in the city and received a short term missionary ,a young man waiting for his mission call that will stay with me for the next few weeks, and on thursday i got a call from the assistents saying that a missionaries visa came through and i would train him. So on Friday i went to salvador to pick him up and President let the short term missionary stay to help me work. Its good experience for him. I have attached a picture of us to the email. President also put two more sisters in the neighboring city so now there is a lot of feminine talk in the district. Thats all for this week Love you

June 10.2013

Dear Mom,

Well this week was rather dreadful actually. I managed to get another infection. Fortunately I am feeling fine now. Its looking like the medicine for the first one worked again. Dont worry about the packages i really dont need anything. I will have to buy some socks but they are cheap here so dont worry about sending me some. This week we have been going to a lot of ward meetings and talking with the ward leaders to try and get the ward active in the work. The young ladies are the ones who help the most and have the best friendship with the missionaries. We baptized again on saturday. A little girl who is nine years old. We are going to try really hard to teach her mom now. Her cousin is helping her with going to church and everything. Here we let a lot of people go in our group. You can only teach them for so long if they never go to church. Usually if they dont go to church for two weeks in a row we let them go. We are teaching one lady who is a single mother who has one kid who is 6 i think and is only 23 years old. Its actually a fairly common situation here. Its very difficult to see a man get married and then stay married for a long time. To get married here you need 200 royals which is quite a bit of money for them. However they still spend their money on phones and televisions. So when they tell us they dont have money we look at them like yeah right. So is the work. I was reflecting yesterday on how much i have grown on the mission. I also thought about how i got here. It made me think of my sweet mother and all she has done for me. I thought of all the times that you have cared for me and loved me even though i didnt deserve it. Thank you mom for being such a good example for me. I know i was a difficult child but the young man that I have become has been worth it.

I figured that Mandi wouldnt take long to get married. Oh how good for Lyssa! Im glad that she has somebody to love and talk to. She always was kind of a reserved shy person. Hayden will get married soon? Wow that was fast. Didnt he get home in December? Wish them luck on the trek for me. I wish i had a story to tell you this week but i dont have anything. I dont remember much since i was sick. I love you mom :)

June 17,2013

Dear Mom,

I agree that the movie theater is not the right place for you. Under those circumstances it would be impossible to gain respect from anyone. Without the respect of your team you cant do much. I see that here on the mission. If a DL or ZL doesnt have the respect of the rest the zone or district always has a hard time. I am praying for you often that you will be able to find a balance between work and being a mom. Dont worry all these things will be for your good. Not unlike the Prophet Joseph Smith you are going through a hard time. He was promised many blessings after his struggles. The same shall be with all our sufferings. This life and these difficult moments are but a passing glimpse in our eternal existence. 

I hope that hot weather will return in april 2014. If not i am going to freeze to death! I thought of something you could send to me. A pair of thermal garments. Since it will be the last package that i will get i am going to want them when i come home.

I hear about movies every once in a while and am getting excited to watch them. I will have to spend a week watching all the movies that i missed.

Colby is Colby as usual then huh. He will change for the better on his mission.

This week there is just one story. We had planned to work with a young lady that is 18 and preparing to go on a mission. We went to her house and she was complaining a lot about her hand hurting. I asked her questions about how it got hurt and she said she slept on it wrong. I thought nothing of it and told her to ice it and it would be fine. Her mother got there right then and went to grab her hand to look at it. When she did Lais ,the young lady, started to cry from the pain. So i looked at her hand one more time. It was pretty swollen and there was faint bruising. She couldnt move her hand in any direction without pain and it hurt to even move her fingers. So i told her to take some tylenol and not to move her hand. So off we went. She complained for the next hour or so of pain and i decided she needed something more than tylenol. Fortunately i rembered my sling from when i hurt my arm. We went home and got it. As she was putting it on the neighbor kids decided to light off a bomb ten feet from us. So half deaf i continued to help her put on the sling. After that she didnt complain anymore. Yesterday she said that her hand was completely better and thanked me for the help. I dont know what she did to sleep on it that hard but it was a pretty good nap she took haha

Other than that nothing really happened this week. We spent a lot of time knocking on doors. Its very tiring work.

Anyway i love you mom