Saturday, December 19, 2009

October 20 - Dec 15 2009 Letters


October 27, 2009


It sounds like C[...] is getting old, being able to read and such. That is good that the elders are having you fellowship a family. That isn't good that they blew you off though. The hardest thing about the work is being on time for stuff. We depend so much on other people and we are constantly telling people we gotta go so we aren't late.


G[...] got the priesthood last night so he can baptize his wife A[...] on Halloween. That is a cool situation because G[...] had to give up chewing tobacco to do it.


I will get the picture for you sometime soon.


E[...] M[...]


November 24, 2009


Thanks for the birthday stuff. The camera is way nice to have. Thanks and also for the salsa. I was excited to eat some real salsa and not the fake stuff up here. We were double booked on my birthday with lessons and so I made it over to the H[...] five minutes before curfew. It was nice of them to pick up and give me the presents for you guys.


President O[...] approved me going to Thanksgiving with the C[...]s. Thanks for getting my phone number to them so we can make this work.


Well everything is going great. I'm having fun and the members are really pulling their weight out here. We received a couple calls lately from members saying they invited friends to be taught. Maybe they are doing this because we keep giving talks and seeing us reminds them of what they gotta do. It's like in Alma 46 when Moroni puts the Title of Liberty on every tower in the Nephite lands to remind the people of the covenant they made.


Love, E[...] M[...]


December 1, 2009


Nope no snow. It's good though because snow isn't the best thing in the world. Thanksgiving went pretty good. I got to see J[...] and the grandparents and a whole bunch of relatives I don't know.


C[...] was baptized last week which was pretty nice. After he was baptized, he was smiling for the rest of the meeting. It was pretty nice.


We have another one this weekend. Her name is D[...] T[...]. She asked that I baptize her, so that will be cool. Her parents are coming back into being active in the church and are working towards going to the temple to be sealed. They are a really good family. The father just needs to give up his smoking habit. Since we invited him to church he made sure he went and brought the whole family each time, kicking and screaming. (like our family home evenings). That's all the stuff going on here.


Love, W[...]


December 8, 2009


Well, that's some good news for the family. Yeah, I do know E[...] M[...]. He is one of the zone leaders.


So this week has been pretty cold. It's snowed a little bit, but the baptism of fire is still happening. We had one more this last Saturday, a girl named D[...]. It went nice. The water in the font was emptied by another ward's bishop so we were filling during the baptism. When the ordinance happened, I got in the water to baptize her and the water didn't even go up to my knees. I still got her first try. Afterward I didn't even have to change my garments because they didn't get wet. Good times.


Love, E[...] M[...]


P.S. Tell S[...] I ran into JD M[...]. He served in the same mission as him and knew him while they were out.


December 15, 2009


Dear Mom


So life is good up here. It was really cold last week and there is snow everywhere, but no worries. This week nothing too exciting happened.


We did start teaching a young man named J[...]. He is 13 but he is still pretty cool. When we shared Joseph's first vision with him he said he felt "amazing". So we committed him to be baptized on the 2 of Jan.


Maybe I will still be in the same area then, but transfers are 2 days before Christmas. Next week I might not send a letter because I'm talking on the phone to you a couple days later. We will see though. I'll send a picture of Thanksgiving attached to this.


Oh for Dad. The Perry plan works really well, but the problem is actually getting the ward leaders responsible to do their job, i.e. the Relief Society president to actually invite, etc. The best way I've found for this to work is to have the bishop start out the ward correlation meetings by having the people focused on in the plan discussed first, and to keep everyone accountable. good luck. I've seen it work a lot. One man we are teaching right now is because the ward leaders worked with him, offered the bishop to marry him and his wife, and invited him to meet with us. Cool stuff.


Love, E[...] M[...]