May 9, 2011

Hey Mom!

This letter might be a little short because we talked last night, but that's how it is. haha I'm sorry I called late, I couldn't do anything about it. Larranaga is calling tomorrow night. Mother's Day here is always on the 10th of May. His immediate family are members, like his parents and sister but nobody else in his family is a member. He is a member of 6 years. I'm not exactly sure how far away they live, maybe like 8 hours in a car, but I'm not sure. As for the school, that's crazy that is is almost over again! The time is going pretty quickly. Wow, that's a lot of field trips, too. I bet that will be pretty crazy and a little bit of fun. haha And it's not Phoebe!! haha It's CD. I'm not sure how you spell her name but that's how you pronounce her name. haha The idols are in the Catholic church, like the virgin de Guadelupe and the santos. They all come from the Catholic church. But the idols are all over the place here, in the streets, in houses, they have necklaces, plates, and a ton of things. It's pretty crazy how they are here in worshipping the idols. They break the first commandment and nobody even cares or realizes, haha I don't know what you want me to do about Olsen and Clark, but I'll try to find out when their homecoming is and all that good stuff later on in the year when they are about to go home. So what else... oh I just remembered something that happened yesterday. A lady came to church by herself so it was really cool. She says her son is getting baptized and she wants to know more about the church, so she came and she said that the first two things that she heard were one of nephews favorite hymns and his favorite scripture and I guess her nephew had just died not too long ago. So it was really cool. Her name is Gabriella so we will see what we can do for her. Then another girl came with her family and she isn't a member and so we are going to visit her and see what's up. Those two were miracles. We needed them to come to church, that's for sure! haha Then today, we just cleaned up the house really good and relaxed. I wrote a couple letters and then we went and ate pizza at Dominos. It's just not the same pizza and the hamburgers here. But oh well, I can't do anything about it. haha I can't really think of what more to say. Here we hope that this week can go better for us and that we can help some of God's children return to him. I know the church is true. If we do the things right here we will be together forever as a family. I hope now that you bought Ash another snake that you don't kill it again haha. When are you going to the DR?? You can tell Ethan what up for me if you see him. But that's all I got for today. Thanks for the prayers and the thoughts in my behalf. I hope everything is good at home.

Take care and I love you,

Elder Malan

1st pic- I can't remember, haha

2nd is the cake tradition for birthdays.

3rd, the result of the tradition, and 4th the combi (van) when we went to the temple.

Enjoy!

May 2, 2011

Jenny, Magdalena, Elder Malan and Christian!

Mason in his apartment with the Happy Birthday sign!

Hey Mom!

I'm doing good here in Prados. It's crazy that I'm already going to be talking to you guys again! It just seems like yesterday that I was talking to all of you at the house. But hey that's fine. But I think I will be calling you on Sunday around 6 o'clock your time, 7 here in Mexico. So I will just call you guys. I hope I can use the card right. So ya, if I cannot get it to work. we can call on Tuesday. So then we have one more day of writing to see what we are gunna do. Then I'm fine with how you guys want it. So don't worry about it. It's more for you guys than me. And I heard Bin Laden was slain. That's good to hear that one more person that wants to kill people is gone. As for the people that we have, Magdalena and her two kids should be getting baptized this Sunday! So we are really excited for that one. They are really cool. They even fasted yesterday! For 24 hours, it was really cool to see that happen. They gave me some cupcakes for my birthday! It was really nice of them. I have a picture of them that I am sending to you. We did a little bit of work with the menos activoes of our ward. We reactivated a lady that hadn't been to the church for 15 years! So it was really cool. We are trying to baptize her daughter. But she is 15 and believes in San Judas. If you don't know what or who the Santos are, they are just like idols and they ask the idols for stuff and believe in them. So we just have to work on that a little bit. We also reactivated some more people, too. So it was a decent week. We found a family this week again. They were former investigatores but couldn't get baptized because the husband has to get divorced from his other wife then get married to his wife that he has now! haha So we are working with them and we can divorce them easily because he hasn't seen his old wife in 20 years. So we hope to have them progress and get baptized, too. Other than that the week was ok. We are just trying to find the people that the Lord has prepared for us here in Prados and sometimes they are a little harder to find. haha But we are trying to do what we can for all the people. Me and Elder Olsen were talking the other day and we have to do street contacts everyday where we stop them and talk to them really quick and tell them we want to share a message with them at their house. Usually they say no but sometimes they say yes and sometimes they give us a bad address. We were talking and saying this is the only time when we have an excuse to talk to these people on the street and what a great cause it is, too! We have also seen the Jose Smith movie a couple times with investigatores. Man is it powerful. I know that he was a prophet. He died so we could have this Church in our lives. Jesus Christ is our Savior and through him we can be clean from sin. And for the sun now, haha, we are in the sun all day, mom! haha Always walking in the sun and all that good stuff. I want the rains to start already! haha And the 20 cards were really sweet. I don't know how I am going to be able to afford writing them all back! haha That's sweet about the taxes. As for the birthday, it went ok. We didn't really do anything, but today we are going to buy a little cake for me. And for the pizza, ya they are basically the same, the only difference is they deliver on motorcycles and they drive like maniacs. But that's like everyone else here. And no my comp didn't do anything for me. But oh well. I gotta go right now but know that I love you and this is the Church of Jesus Christ. That's why it has His name. Never forget it. I don't want to come home and reactivate you guys! haha jk

Love you all,

Elder Malan

Pictures: the first one is me and Magdalena, Christian and Jenny.

Second is me under my banner of happy b-day in the house! Enjoy!