February 6, 2012

Hey Mom!

I wasn't even really worried about the Super Bowl really. Didn't really even remember it was yesterday. I guess its cause my team lost, but oh well. It's a good thing that it wasn't a distraction for me. When does my buddy Jeff get home? Tell him hi for me and give him a hug.

The videos are pretty funny huh, I had a good time with Clark when he was sleeping. I just loved it ha ha, he is a good guy. And yes we all sang the last day in the MTC for us. And the cigarro shake is way funny stuff. I want to be able to do it again sometime soon! Because it's way funny and it works.  We didn't lite it in side the house mom! It was out side, it was cool though. The pants were about the same sort of deal. It was a good time too. The mission has a ton of experiences good and bad, but the good ones we remember and the bad ones not so much. That's the good thing. And that's good to hear that Ash went to the singles ward. Where is the church at for the singles ward? I hope not too far. And I think it will be a lot different from the church here. I think I want to go the the Spanish ward for a couple weeks too. I think that would be really cool.  The Priesthood is the business. It's the major thing that separates us from the other churches is that we have the authority from God. 

This last week it rained about every night. One night I woke up at 3 in the morning listening to the thunder the loudest I have heard it in my life, I think. It was crazy stuff. I thought lightning was gonna come and hit our house ha ha, but it didn't and we are good. Then I also found a white lady this last week. It was really weird talking with her cause she is from the Peace Corp and she is down here for that and she has 10 months here and she sucks at Spanish. It's crazy how much the Lord blesses his missionaries to be able to learn the language of the people cause I was like man when I had 10 months I could speak way better than that! ha ha So I know that the gift of tongues is real. I hadn't been able to see it much before but now with that experience I realized how much the Lord blesses his missionaries to be able to speak the language where ever they are at. And yesterday we had stake conference. It went well. The 2nd counselor of the temple came and spoke of the importance of going to the temple even though we have to make sacrifices.he said that a ward from Cabo San Lucas came for one week a week or two ago and there were 70 including teenagers to do the work in the temple. They had to pay 4000 pesos each one to come from there about 400 dollars. And the members sometimes complain here about paying 200 pesos- 20 dollars- to go to the temple in bus. Then I think about us and I think well we don't really have to pay anything to go to the temple. Maybe 2 bucks? And sometimes we complain about not having time or some other thing. I realized in his talk the importance of making sacrifices to be able to go the the house of the Lord and do the work for our brothers. I hope that you can keep firm in going to the temple at least once a month so you can remember the promises you made and so you can receive the blessings from the temple.

Me and my comp we are still together. We knew we weren't going to be changed, for the system of the trainers. And Jesus didn't really say anything about you guys, just that dad said that he couldn't speak very good Spanish and that he talks really slow and Jesus decided to give the phone to his brother ha ha. i laughed. Dad you need to practice!! That's the only way you are going to get better ha ha. You got Ben and Israel there to help you.
Now here we are doing well. We should have 2 baptisms this week so we are happy for that. We found a couple that we are teaching right now. The wife should be coming to church this week so we will see how it goes. They are cool. They liked the lesson we taught them so we will see how they go. Other than that the work is a little slow. I feel like I have already talked to pretty much everyone where I live ha ha. So that's not good cause I still need to talk to everyone. But yes, we are doing well and we should keep doing better these next couple of weeks.

That's it for this letter take care and do work. Give J Speech the what up for me when he gets back to the O. Love you all!!

January 31, 2012

Elder Malan sent home his flash drive this past weekend.  On it was some very fun video clips!  Let me know what you think.  I believe this is his last day/night at the MTC.  Do you recognize the tune???

To pause the background music, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and press "pause". 

January 30, 2012

Hey Mom!

I got the little package from Jesus. And he gave me the cookies that you gave him!  They are so good!! ha ha And the little key chain is a mini statue of some statue that is in Hidalgo in Tula. A missionary left it in the house so I took advantage cause I don't know if i will ever be able to go there. But yes it's for you mom. I'm glad that you liked the pictures too. And I'm glad that ash was able to read my letter and that he is doing well.  I'm glad to hear that he passed his class unlike me ha ha! Congrat, Ash! He is know seeing some of the blessings that Heavenly Father can give us if we do our part.  I'm glad that he will be able to help me when I get back home :) ha ha

Now for the pictures, the rat we found on the street dead. That's what it was. And ya they are my friends ha ha and now why was Clark always sleeping... that's a good question. You should ask him that one. ha ha He always fell asleep doing his prayers. Did you watch the video when I got him with the shaving cream?? It was really funny. If you snooze you lose. The Sponge Bob was a Snuggie that Elder Olsen had. I slept in his house one day and they didn't have enough blankets so he let me use that bad boy ha ha. And for the missionary washing my hair, they cut my hair one day and they were like we are gonna wash your hair now! So I was like ok that's fine and he washed my hair ha ha. Oh and one missionary wants to now how much the towels cost the microfiber ones and he would like you to buy one for him and he would give me the money, if you could do that.

The memory card you can send it back if you want. It's up to you guys. I have another memory card so its whatev. And the building that we were in, I'm not sure what its called but we went there and it was a building that the Spanish built here. So that's why its all pretty cause it was built buy a rich dude. Then the arches of Queretaro are those big things. They are cool. They are in my area so I pass by them a lot now. So its not that cool now ha ha.

For sharing the gospel mom, you can do it!! Just open your mouth and the Spirit will help you. Keep putting the example but talk too. Just little conversations. Like if they ask you what did you do last week? Oh I went to church and we learned this this and all that and then by doing something like that you are sharing the gospel! There is a little idea for you. And you should of made them pansita. They would of loved that! Or something really spicy. ha ha I am starting to like really spicy food.  They have some really hot stuff here.

Now here for the work, me and my comp are doing ok, we found a less active family that has two kids that aren't baptized. So those two should be getting baptized here in the 2 weeks I think. Those were the only two that came to the church. We are finding a couple people but they don't go to church. But that is always the challenge. But we just gotta keep working with they for a little bit and try to help them but if they don't want to we have to drop em. And yes we had to drop Hugo mom. So that is how it is going these days.

Now cool experience about the blessings, here we have to give blessings quite a bit maybe 1 or 2 a week. and last week we gave blessings to the less active family cause they were all a little sick. We blessed the mom and the kid. They were both better the next day! So it was a testimony builder that we do have the priesthood of God and we can do miracles here on the earth to bless the lives of the other people. That's one of the coolest things that I like doing as a missionary giving blessings cause the words just come and without thinking.

Here the weather has been cold the last two days and a little rainy so it has kinda sucked. But we are doing ok. Today we went to the mall to look at some stuff but I didn't find anything that I liked. But I will be here for at least 6 more weeks so we will see what happens. And Jesus didn't really say anything about you guys, but we eat with his fam on Sunday so we will see what he says.  Love you, fam take care and talk to you next week!

January 23, 2012

 

Hey Mom! How are you doing? I'm doing good here in Mexico. And yes, I did burn the pants and it was cool ha ha. I didn't burn my pants. They were some that some other elders had left in the house. So don't worry bout that mom. I took a video, so you will have to wait to see it. It went well though. Now this last week was ok for us, except Sunday. We had a good week and found some people but they didn't come to church on Sunday. That is the most frustrating thing, when they say they are gonna go then Sunday comes and they don't show up. But we just have to keep working with those people a little bit longer and if they don't come again then we have to let em go and find other people that do want to go to church. My comp is progressing a lot. He is talking to a lot more people in the street and in the lessons. I still gotta work with him on how to teach a little bit more but the good thing is that he is coming out of his shell and talking. And for the BOM, not gonna lie I haven't given it to anybody yet, but I will give it to someone this week.

I'm sad to hear about the 9ers. But the good thing is they didn't get there cause if they would have I would be dying to watch the game ha ha So next year they will make it and we will be fine and I will be able to watch it and enjoy it. And I don't think they went into overtime if they beat them 20-7 mom, ha ha but that's fine you are still learning.

And  I heard the jazz are doing well too. That's good to hear.  I did hear that they got rid of Memo. That's a good start ha ha, and they need to get rid of Andre, too. He sucks and they pay him a ton. And people have only thrown at me a plastic bottle. Nothing really bad has happened to me here. It must be because they see my big muscles and don't want to mess with me ha ha. jk. But no nobody has really done anything to me. And my favorite scripture is the same that I put on my plaque. 2 Nefi 32 8-9. That tells it all right there. I really like that one. And dad tells me he has first dibs on me every third Sunday to talk. I'm gonna be speaking more when I get home than here in the mission! ha ha. But that's fine I don't get too nervous when I talk to in front of a crowd now.

Now for the ideas that you guys have in ward council are good. The only thing that is always the problem is put it in practice in our lives. I see that here in the mission a lot. Here they tell us to do things over and over again and we don't do them or we do them only for a little bit then we stop.  It's the same in the church. We always hear the same thing over and over again but we don't keep doing it ha ha. I think that's why we don't progress as much as we can cause we don't keep doing what our leaders tell us to do. Like yesterday we did the class in the priesthood and we talked to the hermanos about fulfilling their priesthood duties. We showed a little talk from Pres. Eyring and talked about it. It went well but we will see if they do it. We talked to them about doing their home teaching visits and about sharing the gospel with their families and friends. We will see if we can get some more support from the hermanos cause here its a little harder to work cause the church is far away and the people are a little bit more closed in their beliefs or they will listen but won't do anything what we ask them to do. So we hope that our little class helped them out and that they can share the gospel with others. Really the priesthood is so powerful. I have seen it work many times here on the mission. To bless people that have addictions, to heal people, it really is the power of God given to man on earth.

Today we went and got our haircuts and I look good. I like my hair really short. I don't have to worry about it at all. And we played some board games with some comps. My district, I don't have really any friends, I'm the only American in my district ha ha. So it's a little different. but in our ward there are 4 missionaries and we usually go with the other two missionaries that are in our ward. Elder Salamanca and Elder Irigoyen. Salamanca is from Chihuahua and Irigoyen is from Uruguay. So I'm still the only white kid ha ha. But it's cool, I like it. We played Risk Revolution. It's a cool version of Risk. It's pretty fun. And now we are going to eat chicken. So we are excited for that. And the last time I saw Elder Baez was when he came to sing here in Queretaro for the missionaries in the activity Navideña. If a missionary isn't in my zone I don't really see them. So that's how it is with that. And nope I still haven't received my Valentines package. But that's fine. I want one in Febrero. Well that's about it for this letter. I owe Ethan some tacos from Mexico. So that's a bummer but he has to eat a jabenero. We will see how he does with that bad boy. ha ha I'm gonna bring back some salsa and see if you guys can handle it. I like eating salsa here. But ya well that's it. I hope you are all doing well. Take care and have a good day and a good week! Tell grandma and grandpa thanks for the Christmas present. Talk to you later!

first at the peña

second last holidays.

January 16, 2012

Hey Mom! Good to hear from you! I am doing pretty well here. And Clark man I love that kid.  I will try to tell more stories for you mom ha ha don't worry about that one.  No I don't know them, the people that you are saying in his story. The area where he climbed a mountain isn't in our mission anymore. I'm not going to bear my testimony in Spanish just so you know mom. I have already decided that cause everyone does it. I want to be different. And they don't say that line that much or I don't hear it that much. They do take the Lord's name in vain quite a bit. My comp even did it but I had to correct him and now he is a lot better ha ha. and my comp is doing well. He is doing better. He still has a long way to go but he is a lot better than before so that's the good part.  He is getting less shy so that's a good thing too. Now as for Hugo, we went to his house on Saturday night to check to see if all was good for church and his baptism and he went off on us. How he was saying that he only wanted to go to church when he felt like it and that he doesn't want to get baptized. So it was a bummer, I was a little frustrated cause he was doing good, but then he fell. So it was sad. We are going to have to let him go.

Now to tell that one homie that feels like the church obligates people to do stuff. It's not true. The church, like the missionary purpose says invite others to come unto Christ. The church only invites others to have the blessings that God wants to give us. It's our decision if we want to participate or no. We have the agency to choose what we want to do. The church tries to help us the best they can but in the end it is our agency that will win. So that homie just needs to understand that concept. That we have the agency but we will pay for the consequences, the good ones or the bad ones, cause here in the world it's for our progress not for God's progress- He is perfect. He wants us to have His blessings. He knows what we are going to do cause He is our Father. So He just wants to help us but we are rebels sometimes and don't do His will.

Now this last week went ok for us. We had a baptism on a teenager. We have been struggling with him and his mom for awhile but this last week they both agreed that it was the best decision for them and we baptized him on Saturday. Now the interesting part, as you can see in the picture my comp isn't with me. We did divisions on Friday and the DL came with me and my comp with his comp. We told them to be in the church at 10, but they never got there! So come to find out when they got the as the baptismal service was finishing that they had taken the wrong camion and went on the other side of Queretaro! So it's a bummer my comp wasn't there. I was bummed, but we couldn't really do anything. But the important thing is that he got baptized. His name is Omar. But now we don't really have anything. We have a couple people in teaching but they haven't came to church. So that is the sucky part. They need to have 3 times in church to be baptized. So we have to work hard this week to get going again.

Now today was pretty cool, we went to the Peña De Bernal.  It's a huge rock basically. It's the third biggest in the world. So it was cool. We could go all the way up to the top cause you need ropes and all that good stuff. But it was still cool. We could see everything. The picture I sent you is the rock. It's cool stuff. We went with 3 other companionship's. So it was a good time. And no mom you didn't tell me Misti is falling off the couch ha ha. She needs to find a different spot to sleep it sounds like. And why did you buy half a cow from Jeff's dad? Why did he have half a cow is a better question ha ha.

Well here we are doing well. We are progressing and trying to be better everyday. We just need to keep striving to do the best we can so we can qualify for the blessings of the Lord in our lives and help those who don't have the gospel in there lives. Here are some pictures of the baptisms and of the peña. I sent a package with a dude that was going to Utah so he should call you soon. Not sure when. Just don't be surprised when he calls ok? ha ha Well gotta go, I hope you are all well and echandole ganas. Te amo tambien mama. Cuidate mucho. Hablamos en una semana. Hasta luego.