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Monday, April 25, 2011

Day of Service

There wasn't too much of anything exciting that happened this week.  Right now we only have 2 people that we are teaching, so we are kind of in a finding stage right now.

On Saturday we had the day of service.  about a third of the stake got together and we went to a cemetery to do some service.  IT was an older graveyard, and there had been a lot of growth.  there was about a 400 yard stretch of the side of the grave yard, and we cut down all the bushes, trees, vines, etc., that had grown in across that 400 yard stretch we cut about 20 yards inward into the woods.  IT was a pretty big project, but there were a lot of people there, so it didn't take long.  We worked from about 8-12 30.  I wish I would have had pix, but I forgot my camera.

Oh, yea, I almost forgot the highlight of the week.  We went to the temple on Friday.  It was really enjoyable.  it had been a long time since we had gone, it was great to go back.  I also bought a couple CD's.  Do you remember the music book I bought that had some guitar tabs for the hymns.  I found that CD and bought it, as well as another acoustic guitar cd, and another CD, that is similar to the EFY music.

ON Thursday we helped a member of the branch out with moving.  A while back, the apartments next to hers, burned.  her apartment didn't get burnt, but there was a lot of smoke damage in the house, so she had to move.  So me and elder Dixson went over to help them out.

Right now we are teaching a Guy named [investigator].  He has a baptismal date for the 7 of May, but I think we may need to change it.  He is doing well, but he hasn't been to church in 2 weeks, and I don't think He understands why he needs to come.  I don't really want to baptize him into inactivity.  But I think If we work on him some more, he'll get baptized.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Tornadoes!!!

 Jeff Sent a few pictures.  I will try and post a few of those later.

Did any of the tornadoes get near you?  Did you get some of the storm?

No, we didn't see any of the tornadoes.  It was windy all day (which made it fun on the bikes) and we got some pretty good rain.

I noticed that Fayetteville was one of the areas hit quite hard.  Were any of the members you knew affected?  You may not know that yet?

I'm not sure, I did hear that the Fayetville Raeford area did get hit, but I havn't heard anything about anyone over there.

Was it hard to transfer after spending so long in your last area?

Yes, and no.  There were a lot of people that I knew well and loved, and it was difficult to leave them.  But at the same time, when you're in an area for that long, you start feeling like it's time to move on and get a change of scenery.

How are things going in Wallace?  Are you getting to know people?

Things are going great here, yep I am getting to know a lot of new people.  I actually feel like I have been learning this area a lot faster than any of the other areas I've been in.

Is it difficult doing some teaching in English after teaching purely in Spanish for so long?

It is for sure different.  I sometimes forget words, or stumble on my phrasing, but it's not too bad. Before my mission I heard of missionaries that came home and weren't able to speak english very well, because they had forgotten it, and at first I thought that the same would happen to me.  But serving in the united states is so different, because you use english everyday whether you want to or not.  In fact, sometimes I feel like I know spanish well, and I know how to say things well, but since I don't speak it 24/7 (It's especially dificult having a companion that natively speaks english, because it's so easy to just speak english) that I think it's a little more difficult to get a really good accent.  because to get a good accent, you have to teach your toung to move in different ways and grow different muscles, and it's difficult to do in the U.S.

The other thing that is different with doing english work is that the culture is a lot different.  You wouldn't think about it, but the way you act around americans is different than the way you would act around hispanics.  I also sometimes find myself at loss with things to talk about with the english people, because the conversations that I would have with hispanics, wouldn't be the same kind of conversation that I would have with an american.  I don't know if this makes sense or not, but just know that there is a difference of culture between the two.

Right now were teaching someone named [investigator].  He has a baptismal date for the end of this month.  things are going well with him, he just has a few doubts about why we can't drink tea, but nonetheless he has been going without tea.  But to encourage him to do it, me and elder Dixson promised him that we wouldn't drink soda if he wouldn't drink tea.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Details on the Transfer

Hey how's it going?
good

How's the new transfer working out for you?
Good

Where are you?
Wallace

Did you notice they are building a temple in the town you were born Ft. Collins?
Yep

So, yea, as you know I got tranfered this week, and I am now in wallace, and My companion is elder Dixson.  He's from Arizona, and he's been out about 8 months now.  Wallace is an area out in the country (Raeford was in the country, but this is even more country than raeford).  But the area is doing really good right now.  From what elder Dixson has said, they have been teaching a lot of lessons recently (10-15 a week more or less).  It's a branch of about 80-100 people that come every week.  The branch is mixed english and spanish, and they meet in the smallest churchbuilding I have ever seen.  I'll have to send you some pix.  Since most of the meetings are in english (there's a spanish sundayschool class)  we have to translate for church.  Also, there aren't any english Missionaries in this area, so I'll be doing both english and spanish work.  It has been crazy, because I have been serving in a spanish branch for the first however far I am through my mission, because there are only three spanish branches in the entire mission, and I've already served in two of them.  So I have been pretty lucky.

So, sunday I got a warm welcoming into the branch by giving a talk in sacrament meeting.  I talked on the priesthood and how it has blessed my life.  It wen't pretty well, but I wish I would have had more time to prepare.  I had three days to prepare, and I wish I could have had a little bit more, but either way, it wen't pretty good.

You may have noticed that I didn't write yesterday... we had an activity zone conference yesterday.  in the morning we had a lesson on "helping our investigators recieve revelation through prayer.  Then for lunch we had a pig picking (my first one!), and then we played some sports until about 3 30, then we wen't back to work.  That was pretty fun, it has been a while since I have actually played any sports.

One other cool thing that you might be interested to hear.  We found out that Richard G. Scott is going to come and speak to our mission.  I'm way excited for that.  it's crazy, we got david a bednar last year, and now Richard G. Scott, that doesn't happen very often.

I'll have to send you pix of our apartment/house, because we pretty much live in a house made for a family.  There's two bedrooms, a laundry room, a front entryway/living room, a family foom, a kitchen/dining room, and a huge bathroom.  Also, there's a keyboard and a typwriter in the apt.  You might be enterested to know that I actually have been playing the piano.  we have an hour to get ready in the morning, and I only need half an hour, so I have been playing the piano in the mornings this week.  The other good thing is that the members take really good care of us as far as food goes.  There's a lady in the branch the buys us some milk, juice, bread, some fruit, and a meal every week.  I've also heard that we get fed just about every day (not this week though, because it was conference this week, and the meal list didn't get passed around).  But I opened the cupboards of the kitchen, and the cupboards are loaded with food!  I've been playing the survival game in Raeford (on the other hand, that helped me eat healthier, because I could only buy the necesities).

So I think you asked me about the weather...I think you've asked me for several weeks now, but I always forget to tell you.  But it's good, about 70-80 degrees.  it's starting to warm up a little bit...and get a little more humid.  I'm a little bit closer to the coast now, so I think it's going to be a little more humid than last year.  however there were about two days were it was pretty cold, about 40-50 degrees.  also, I think/am hoping that polen season is mostly over.  I think that it rained through the worst of it this year, so it hasn't gotten as bad as it got last year.  And I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that it stays that way.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Conference... Baptism... and Transfers

So about the baptism you had last week you did not tell us you were going to have one. Congratulations! Tell us about it, I don't know anything about this one. It sounds like all is going well.

The baptism that we had on saturday was a sixteen year old boy that has been working on getting baptized for the whole time that I've been here in Fayetville/raeford. He had to wait for quite a while to be eligible for baptizm, but he finally got baptized this last weekend. He had already been taught a lot by the missionaries in the past, so we didn't have to teach him everything. But we did have to get him off smoking and back on track with reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church. I've got some pix of the baptism that I'll send when I get the chance.

Do you suffer much from allergies to the pollen?

Not too much. It depends on the day. This last week it was pretty rainy, so it didn't bother me too much, and we were inside all day this weekend. But I did actually buy a package of the claritin like you were talking about. One of the members suggested it to me.

Como estas?

Muy bien.

Como fue tu semana?

Muy Bien

Viste la conferencia en espanol o ingles?

En Ingles. Nuestro presidente de mision quiere que la escuchemos en Inlges. El se siente que es muy importante que aprendamos de las doctinas del evangelio en nuestra lengua materna. Aun no estudio las escrituras en ingles en las mananas. en el principio de mi mision, lo hacia (desde el fin de mi primera translado hasta mi quinto translado). Pero ya no. Es dificil, porque me encanta espanol, y me gustaria estudiar en espanol para mejorar mis habilidades, pero es mejor ser obediente!

algunos de tus investigadores vieron la conferencia?

Si, algunos. Tres investigadores

Como anda la clima?

Bien. Durante la semana estaba lluviendo, pero ahora, hace sol

Hace frio o calor?

hace pocito calor 65-75 degreos

ha estado lluviendo?

Si

So funny story. I was just typing all of this in spanish, and somebody accidently bumped my foot, and said sorry, and I said "esta bien". And no he isn't hispanic.

This week was a busy week. We actually spent a lot of time inside. On tuesday and part of Friday, we did some deep cleaning of our apartment (It was a mission wide thing) Then on Weds we had District meeting and Weekly planning on thursday (like normal) and then of course Conference on saturday. So we Pretty much did that and taught lessons the whole week.

Conference was pretty fun. It was pretty busy though, we got at the church at 9 am to get everything ready for the baptism. Then we watched conference, and then had the baptism in between sessions of conference. Then after the afternoon session of conference we wen't out to eat with one of the members that came out her from raleigh (It's not a member I knew from raliegh. He was baptized here in Raeford, and then moved to Raleigh about the same time that I came here. But right now we are teaching his cousin Morena.) But we ate at a "mexican Restraunt". However Ricardo (the member) wasn't too happy about the food, it was basically taco bell at a sit down restraunt. but that's alright, it filled us. Then on Sunday morning before the first session of conference (conference here starts at 12) we ate lunch at Morena's house (the prima of Ricardo) It was some really good food, we ate a sort of soup. But then she brought out a habanero asado. I don't know if you've ever eaten a chile torreado (grilled jalepeno) But when it's grilled it's a lot hotter. So my companion convinced me to give it a try, That was reeeally picante. It wasn't as bad as the first time that I tested that habenero at home (the one that I got from sundayschool) because I've gotten to where I can eat hotter food. But nonetheless, it was hot.

This is becoming a pretty long letter, and that is pretty much all that happened. But I'm being transfered tomorrow, so I'll let you know where I'm at next week!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Lost Keys!

This last week was kind of a crazy week.  On Monday when we got home, I reached in my pocket to look for the keys to the house, and they weren't there.  My companion knows how to pick the lock, so we got in the house and looked around to see if we had left in in the house, which it wasn't.  So we went back out to look for it, but with out any success.  The next day we called the vehicle coordinator, and he told us that he could come the next day and give us the spare key.  But he also told me that it would cost about 250 to replace the key, so we pretty much needed to do everything we could to find the key.  Not to mention the fact that it would take him about  2 hrs to drive to our apt. from the mission office.  So we pretty much spent the entire day looking for the key.  We retraced our path the day before about three times, we turned our house upside down.  We even figured out how to break into the car to see if we had left the key in the car.  It was kind of interesting.  We slipped a metal hanger with a hook on the end through the crack on the window and looped it around the door handle and pulled it open (on the car we have if you just pull on the handle it will unlock the car.   But it still wasn't there.  When our vehicle coordinator finally came the next day, we were able to open the trunk (which you can't upen from the inside of the car...I'm not sure why, it's broken or something) and they keys were there!!  But It was also kind of disappointing, Tuesday we had about 7 appointments planned, but we had to call all of them and cancel, because the appointments were all about 25 mi away.

[Investigator] has plans to be baptized this coming week!  He was interviewed on Sun., and this Saturday, in between sessions of conference, he will be confirmed.

 This week we had plans to teach one of our investigators, and we got a call about an hour before and his mom invited us to come eat dinner with them that night.  I don't think [he] or his mom had planned this out or anything, but it worked out good.  Mario's mom isn't a member, but she is really nice to us.  This family is from Honduras, so the make flour tortillas (Mexico-corn  Guatemala-corn  Honduras-flour Argentina-no tortillas Puerta Rico-no tortillas Dominican Republic-no tortillas and I'm not too sure about the rest), But she showed us how to make tortillas.  I'm going to have to practice that a little bit more.  The corn tortillas a really easy, you just add water and smash it.  But the flour tortillas you do by hand, I'm not sure how to explain it, but it was difficult.  She was making fun of us the whole time.  It's interesting to see the difference in culture between the different countries, because when I've had people from mexico teach me how to make food they would always say that I was doing a good job, but sometimes we would say "como esta mi tortilla?"  And she would say "es fea!"  or "Es Horrrible!."  Of course she wasn't just being mean to us, it was more of sarcastic...more or less, I don't know how to explain it, but just know that it was funny.

Right now, we have a lot of people that we are teaching, and a couple that our progressing quite well.