"Preaching, love and peace with other well dressed guys." -Everclean

 

As far as my knee, I'm not sure because I haven't been running so it hasn't had a reason to hurt, but I am going to a session of therapy tomorrow and will let you know how that goes and what is going on.

For the newsletter I would say that every member needs to be a missionary! It is crucial for the work to progress! Read Mormon 9:21 it is a recipe on how to have miracles! I challenge every member to read that scripture and then to accept the challenge to have a miracle happen in their lives right then! To pray to know who they can help to receive the gospel. Then sit there for a moment and think of names and then start saying the names and have someone write them down (this is what PMG and the apostles have told us to do) Then think of specific goals for each person on your list to help them come closer to Christ. It could be things such as have dinner with them and the missionaries. Or maybe serve them, or maybe to share your testimony with them, or invite them to have lessons with the missionaries. Also each member should be familiar with the ward mission plan and how they can help to achieve that plan because EVERY member is needed to achieve it!

As far as losing a companion I have no idea... President told us in our interviews that we weren't going to be in a trio the whole time because one of us was going to Murrietta but we don't know when it is opening... so it could be anytime but we haven't heard anything so far so we don't know anything yet.

The best parts of being a missionary are the opportunities that I have to go and share the gospel. It is so amazing to see what kind of a difference it can make in people's lives! You see miracles happen all the time as you pray for them and seek out opportunities to serve those around you and do your best to spread the gospel with all you come in contact with! It is also really cool to get to know people, I have met so many people that I never would have met if I didn't come on my mission. It has also changed the way I see people as a whole. Everyone has their own story and everyone out there is just trying to live life like we are. They may be lost and confused and only need a friend or someone to help guide them in their lives. It is crazy how we will talk to people from gang presidents to hobos, to hard workers, to lazy people, to really rude people (a lot of the time). The worst part about being a missionary is that I don't get to see you guys. That is by far the worst part. Elder Fe will always talk about how he would give all his money to go play baseball and when I hear that and think of water polo I miss it but it isn't what I want, I would give everything to go see you guys. The best would just to go on vacation and spend time with you.

I have been emailing my friends but not a ton, I usually email one every week. Me and Nate, Steven, and Elder Wallentine have been emailing. It is so great to hear from them! I have really missed Nate and hadn't heard from him in months and it is awesome to be able to email him. I was also really happy to hear from Steven because I didn't have his address or anything!

Well things are going pretty good here! We have been getting a lot of new investigators and a few are looking like baptisms! We are struggling with G who we thought was a for sure baptism because his wife is very anti-Mormon and didn't say anything until church this last Sunday, so we are working with him to see what we can do. We have other investigators though who have good promise to be baptized in the near future and we are working hard to make it happen! So it would be awesome if you guys could maybe pray that his wife will not be so hard hearted and allow him to go to church and be baptized.

My clothes are doing well! My shoes are awesome! They still look brand new after I polish them! I did have to buy some things like blanket and pillow because I have no Idea how long I will be here and I can't just borrow forever. So I had to spend some money recently and still have to pay for the therapy (which they said will be something like $20) so hopefully that isn't a problem.

As for Skype I think we will be able to! We just have to find members who have three devices with Skype capabilities because there are three of us, ha-ha but we are in the rich area so that shouldn't be too much of a problem I don't think! As far as time limit I'm not 100% sure but I think we get an hour.

Oh, so I got a lot of letters from 1-2 months ago like your postcard from Vegas. So the problem is that you have been sending them to the wrong address it is 451 NOT 415. I don't know if I told you wrong, but send all letters and packages to 451. Did you send the camera to 415? if so that is probably why it is taking so long, but I should have it next week even if so because they were averaging about a month with the wrong address.

When I get my visa... ha-ha I don't know. It is hard for me to say. It is interesting because here in Temecula the Spanish work is very slow. The area was dead when we got here and we have been slowly turning it around. I think what will happen is I won't too much miss the tracting and things like that that have filled most my days here but will miss the people. There are a lot of awesome members and our investigators who actually are progressing, ha-ha

These guys will listen to us all day.

I was wondering if you could burn some CDs for me because I don't know how much longer I'll be here. (It does sound like 3 months is the average right now, two different families who live here said their sons waited three months to go) but I can listen to lots of music here and I was wondering if you could burn a CD of Reliant K's Forget and Not Slow Down along with two songs from the albums MmHmm and Five Score and Seven Years Ago called Forgiven and Be My Escape you can find the music on my hard drive. Also maybe like a CD of everclean and maybe some MAE songs. Those all are things that we can listen to!

I usually end up copying and pasting what I wrote to President into your letter, ha-ha like the one about G, that was pretty much all of what I wrote to President this week.

I don't have enough time to share my testimony in here so I will mail it to you!

I love you guys so very much and can't wait until Mother's Day; it is much too far away!!

"Chicken Surgery" Don't try this at home!

I found out... nothing much about my knee. We waited for 1.5 hours to go in then another 45min for the doctor to come in and say well... I think it is an overuse injury. So after that he said that I should go to therapy and that should fix it. I told Sister Cook this and am waiting for her to tell me what to do. If I go to therapy they told me that it would be a $20 copay, and I paid a $20 copay to go in, hopefully not too expensive! But I think that I will probably be going to a therapy session next Wednesday is what it sounds like.

I didn't see a package today but we didn't pass the zone leaders car either. Also I don't know if I'll get it this week because for some reason we got some letters yesterday night and I got a letter from grandpa but no package... so I don't know if that means that we aren't getting any more mail this week or what! But I really want my package I have been waiting for the camera all week!!!

Pues... good, and not so good... We have been having investigators drop like flies. It has all been because their families don’t want them to meet with us anymore, so it is out of our control. We have however been having miracles happen, like we have a husband of a family who is considered a dry mormon (goes to church, activities, everything but baptized) that is thinking about a baptismal date when he hasn't in 8 years! And with G he can't get baptized this Saturday because he didn't go to church. He texted us Monday and said he wants to move his date back 2-3 weeks... so we are meeting with him today and going to talk about it.

In the mornings we go to this tennis court thing that is at our apartment and my companions run around the edge of it (or at least they are supposed to) while I do exercises in the middle. A lot of times what ends up happening is we end up playing with Elder Herrera's soccer ball.

As for my favorite family to eat with it is probably the Vidals. They are hilarious, plus where they are from makes it even better. So they are originally from Chile and then moved to Australia because the dad served his mission there so they also have a lot of Australian stuff. It is funny because they talk with an Australian accent and then they will start speaking Spanish and that is in a Chilean accent. They also have a son who was on a mission but has been home due to being really sick because of the food he ate in Mexico (menudo and mole) and he is really cool. He just left back out to Colorado this Monday though! But it was cool, one day when we went over for dinner the dad gave us some cool Australian stuff because he says he has too much, ha-ha that was the night we were playing the didgeridoo (or however you spell it) I will probably send the boomerang he gave me home when I send the other stuff that I don't think I will have room to take to Argentina. Plus the food they give us is really good!

Some funny things that happened lately... well just a couple of days ago Elder Herrera was walking around "shooting" people with his birdie finger. I guess in Colombia they call that the pistol, idk, ha-ha but we kept telling him that he couldn't do that here but he was insisting that it was ok because that is the corazon finger. I think he finally gets that he shouldn’t do it but I think he likes to do things like that because he can play the innocent card and get away with it. Oh, and better yet was a couple days ago (pictures of this) we got a chicken for dinner. Elder Herrera decided he was going to cut it and began cutting the whole thing in half (rotisserie chicken). I told him that wasn't how you did it but he wouldn't listen and proceeded anyway. By the end it looked disgusting and I took a piece of the breast and ate that but had lost my appetite because of his "chicken surgery" as he called it. You will have to look at the pictures of him as he ate the entire rest of the chicken (me and Elder Fe didn't eat much because of how gross it looked with the inside hanging out and all over the rest). He ate basically the whole chicken by himself making a huge mess and was covered in grease. Look at the pictures and you will see ha-ha but after that he was making weird faces and saying that his stomach hurt, ha-ha we couldn't stop laughing at the weird faces he was pulling. Then Elder Fe went into a laughing fit for 10+ min and I recorded a part of it that will be on dropbox. That was funny, although very messy.

We get to go to the San Diego temple every other transfer i.e. this one. So at some point this transfer we will get to go and I hope I do because it is such a crazy cool temple! Have you seen it? It didn't have a budget when it was being built and I can only imagine what it would look like on the inside!

Como es mi espanol? no se, jeje Digame! Ojala es bien! Estoy practicando todos los dias y aprendiendo mucho cada dia. Puedo endender que personas dicir casi todo el tiempo pero hay personas quein son muy dificil a entender. Ellos habla bajo o con un fuerte accento. Pero por lo mas puedo entender todo. Yo se por seguro es bastante major de cuando sali el ccm. No hay un comparacion a eso teimpo. Hablamos en espanol todos los dias casi todo el tiempo porque elder Herrera no le gusta a hablar ingles y no trataria a hacerlo.

I don't have a calling in the branch. We did bear our testimonies the first fast Sunday, but that was it. Elder Herrera had to teach one of the gospel principles lessons but besides that nothing specifically for the ward. But doing it wouldn't be very hard; we do everything in Spanish all day anyway, ha-ha

I was able to print the newsletter, thanks, it was great!

Oh, and thanks, I will buy more dryer sheets then, ha-ha

I love you guy’s soo very much and miss you! I can't wait to hear from you more next week!

Signs like this don't worry us :)

"This guy has taffy? I love taffy!" -Gus

So with my knee it is fine. It only hurts if I run. So with it getting better... I was told in a mission training thing that we are supposed to not talk about injuries with parents unless instructed by the mission president or after it is gone so that parents don't worry. They don't want parents to worry or call the mission about it. I found that out after I had told you about my knee so I just stopped talking about it. It kind of has gotten better though, it isn't the same thing i don't think. I think before it was jumpers knee that I had because Elder Fe said that Jumpers knee is a buildup of calcium in your knee and before it felt like a rock and grinding pain. Now it is more like a pressure and like my knee wants to split. But I am not running anymore Sister Cook told me to stop running until we get this taken care of. We are trying to coordinate a doctor’s appointment but it is like a five way balancing act. I have to find out what Doctor to go to and find one that takes my insurance (which they never know!) then I have to make sure that is ok with Sister Cook and then we are doing all this while still doing missionary stuff all day, ha-ha so it is a little complicated to figure out. No, I haven't been to any doctor yet, but I don't think it is jumpers knee anymore (although I think it was before if that makes sense).

Yes, we did get the package last week, and everyone loved it! Especially during weekly planning (3 hours long) where most of the taffy was eaten. We have gotten in some water gun fights that have been fun (But Elder Fe broke mine in the last one!). They loved the letters Emily sent them. Elder Herrera I think understood it, he didn't say too much about it besides, "Por mi? Que loco, Man!" ha-ha. Elder Fe said that Emily quotes movies too much and that she quoted 7 different movies or something and he didn't understand why, ha-ha.

 With investigators I can't remember if I told you guys about G, I think so, but I don't remember, ha-ha but He has been progressing really well and has a baptismal date for the 27th. I think that he will get baptized, he has a huge desire to and has been asking us things like to have a book of Mormon before we got him one, or about Mormon.org, or really good and thoughtful questions during lessons, or if his kids can come to his baptism, ha-ha Claro! He always is texting us/calling us for something! S we just got back ahold of he has been with his nephew this whole week but he still has interest. We are trying to reset his baptismal date for May 4th today.

 As far as Argentina I am way excited but I can't let myself think about it. I have no idea when/if I will be going so I just don't think about it. They aren't going to tell me anything until they have my visa so I don't want to be distracted by worrying about it ha-ha. But it will be awesome when I do go. Tell Cody not to worry, ha-ha $32 is plenty, ha-ha I usually have an egg sandwich every morning (because I don't like cereal). For lunch I eat things like hamburgers, deli sandwiches, pb&js, tuna, canned chicken sandwiches, leftovers from meals with members, etc. If you don't waste all you money on snacks and fast food you can buy a ton of real food that will keep you full. Just be sure to but cheaper thinks that are more filling not expensive things that aren't. Lots of people buy the instant foods that you microwave and those cost more. I like the real food anyway and you get more for less money. You have an hour every breakfast and lunch. Also you get fed dinners by member as long as you set up appointments (Which in English work you should have meals every night) Here in our branch we only have like 5 members we go to and we get dinner usually 6 nights each week. Plus he could practice now, only have $32 to spend and buy his own breakfasts and lunches! Just shop smart!

 This week we had interviews with the mission president and he told us that we aren't going to be a threesome the whole transfer. He told us that one of us is leaving to Murrietta when it opens around week four (two more weeks). We aren't sure who it will be I could see either Elder Herrera or Elder Fe for different reasons. It will be weird because I have been in a threesome for my entire mission so far! ha-ha

 Well, I hope all goes well and the problem with my knee will be figured out soon! Talk to you next week! Love you soo much!!!

He asked us for a BoM (imagine that!)

Beautiful Temecula!!!

For the ward newsletter.... I would like to say thanks to all my leaders from over the years who have taught me so much! Como Dad, Todd, Cody, Bro McGowan, Aaron, Jo, Eric, Jacob, Dan etc don't have time to think too deeply, but try to include all of them. It is extremely important for our ward to work with the local missionaries! The biggest thing that you can do to help them is to honestly ponder on who you could give as references to the missionaries! I know that it is difficult but the amount of baptisms that come from member referrals is on average 1 in 4 while through other means was something to the effect of 1 in 100. If the ward thinks of anyone who they could invite to dinners with the missionaries or even could just use their help with service or something it really helps the work progress!

As far as the guy we taught last week in his garage, we haven't been able to go back and visit him yet :( but we are trying to set up a time with him. His son was either in the hospital or algo asi I can't remember exactly and he works a ton. But right now we have another investigator who I might have forgot to mention before who is progressing really well! His name is G. G was the first person to go on mormon.org and then talk to us about it. He then asked us for a BoM (imagine that!) He has been reading the BoM and this last week he came to Conference and was asking a lot of questions about it. He came for the first session on Sunday and said he had to leave an hour in. He loved it so much that he ended up staying an hour and a half but his wife needed him back so he reluctantly left with as it turns out President Monson being the last speaker. We were sad that he had to miss that but he told us that he really liked the messages from conference and has been texting us all the time! It is so awesome to have an investigator like this!

Before I continue any more I have to share something awesome that happened! You will be very surprised, I was, ha-ha but this last Sunday between sessions of conference there were two baptisms. It was some investigators of the Hermanas in our area. These investigators didn't have any family in the church so we were asked to do the baptisms! Elder Fe and Elder Herrera both baptized the mom who had back problems and I baptized the son named Oscar who is 10. It was so cool! I didn't think that I would have any baptisms soon, especially not one I had never taught! It gets a little crazier too, ha-ha so that morning I realized I have never said the baptism prayer in Spanish so I had to learn it fast but that wasn't a big deal, but what was crazy was President came to the baptism! I guess he comes to baptisms here and there, ha-ha. So President came to the first baptism I had ever done and I ended up going first for some reason, ha-ha I was really nervous but it went well!! It was such an amazing experience!

As far as weird food I haven't really eaten anything besides the pigs ear I mentioned... yet, ha-ha. Although the other day Elder Fe lied to me. We were over at Hno Arena's house having dinner. He is older and sometimes I have a hard time understanding him. Right before we started eating he said something about menudo (that is cow stomach and we aren't allowed to eat it because it makes us really sick). So when we sit down Elder Fe said don't eat the meat. So my plate had a bunch of meat on it and so I was piling the meat up in a corner and trying to cover it with rice to not make it too obvious. Then when we left Elder Fe told me that the meat wasn't menudo but beef and he had been eating the meat when I wasn't looking. So there was that, ha-ha. We usually eat things like pollo, frijoles, tortillas, arroz, taquitos, etc. Also a soup pasole that has bean things and chicken that is also pretty good. There are a few families that will make more American foods too, ha-ha. We usually end up eating with about three families multiple times each week and the others every now and then.

I didn't know the missionaries who got their visas last week, did they get to the MTC at the same time as me? The only news I have heard was this week was that I got a letter in my email entitled visa and when I opened it, it said we haven't received your visa yet but we'll let your mission president know when we do..... I was rather angry with that letter, ha-ha.

Transfers are today and I am still staying here in Temecula with the same companions. We have heard rumors that we might get two new missionaries in our apartment this transfer (We really hope not!!!) One thing that makes me wonder about the progress of Visas though is that Hermana Ruiz (one of the two companions of Hermana Jones who is also going to Argentina) is being transferred and Hermana Jones and Escalante are going to remain with only those two. This means that if she were to get her visa there would have to be some changing done instead of just leaving. That makes me wonder if they are expecting that we won't receive our visas this transfer.. pero no se

Conference was awesome!!! I loved the talks by President Monson, President Uchtdorf, Elder Cook.... All of them, ha-ha. We are supposed to listen to conference in our native language, and I am glad I probably wouldn't have been able to understand it in Spanish after all they seem to use larger words in conference, ha-ha. I think that my favorite talk from this one was the one about peace by Elder Cook!

In drop box there is pictures of our Easter egg hunt (Elder Herrera's first one!) Also there is a picture of when we went to the pizza factory (this was the rest of the Easter funds) and Elder Fe thanked you in the prayer right before we ate! Thanks so much for the Easter stuff! It was a lot of fun!  

Elder Herrera's first Easter egg hunt :)

I haven't got the package yet, but I will probably get it right after emailing right now, that is when we get mail/packages each week!

I love you guys soo much and miss you!!

 

Praying in the garage... what an amazing experience!

Printing letters works great as long as you don't mind that I have to pay 15C a sheet to print! It is a lot faster it takes about two weeks to get letters through the regular mail because of the system that they have for mail.

What was it that Elder Feinauer said? He never told me! but I will let them know you sent treats, ha-ha. As far as the Easter stuff, last week I bought some Easter themed doughnuts that we ate and some plastic eggs and candy for them that we will be hiding today (we didn't have time because of district activity last week and it will be great Elder Herrera has never done it before). Since we didn't have much time to decide what to do last week we will probably use the rest of the money for either a lunch or some candy, I will talk to them about it today after email and will let you know!

Transfers are something like April 9th that is next Tuesday right? Ha-ha I don't want to waste time looking. but I most likely won't get transferred and the only one in our companionship who might get transferred is Elder Herrera because he has been in the area a long time but Elder Feinauer said that he probably will stay since I am still here because President Cook told him that both him and Elder Herrera will be training after I leave so he thinks he will be training in Temecula and Elder Herrera will train somewhere else.

I don't know where I will be watching conference for sure but I think it will be at the stake center. None of the missionary’s apartments should have TVs, although I think one of the English Elders brought one into theirs but I'm not sure. Either way we will have to be dressed for it, we have to dress for studies each morning so I'm sure we will for conference.

A typical day here in Temecula? Well, we get up at 6:30 and run until 7:00. We get back and shower, change, and eat until 8:00. Then we have an hour of personal study, then two hours of companionship study, then an hour of language study. We then have an hour for lunch. After that we go out for the rest of the day and teach. Depending on if we have appointments planned and investigators to visit determines what we do. Usually we will have one or two planned appointments each day and write more potential appointments for every hour. We also have two backup appointments planned for each hour. We usually also have an hour or two of tracting/contacting each day. When we go to appointments they more often than not fall through and so we go to our backup ones. This means we spend a lot of time traveling from place to place to see if people will let us in. When we do get in we teach them, ha-ha. For tracting we pick an apartment complex or street and go knock doors. It is usually not super helpful because a lot of people just don't open the door (you can see them look through the peep hole because the light goes dark), then those who do most of them say I’m (pick a religion) and don't want to hear your message so we finesse our way into trying to convince them to let us come back and get their phone number and leave ours. Then there will be the people who will just see you and say something like I don't have time for this and slam the door in your face. Then there is the very rare ones who set a date for you to come back (usually it's I have work every single day and no break). Then there is the VERY rare one who let you come in and teach them then and there, I think there have been two this transfer, ha-ha. Once you do get to go in and teach things are so much better. You actually get to talk to them and help them to progress. The problem is that while I've been here of the people that we have taught more than one lesson to are eternigators (people who have been meeting with the missionaries for years) except for like one or two.

S is one investigator that was new when I got there and he has been progressing but he doesn't like to make commitments. The other problem is that he doesn't have a job right now so he isn't committing any time to reading the LdM and hardly any to setting lessons with us. We are going to try to visit him this week; he wasn't there for church this time... Another progressing investigator that we have is A that I think is a new investigator. He is only like 13 or 14 so he is more interested in basketball than religion, ha-ha but we are working with him and hope to set a baptismal date this week. We have been working with J but he isn't keeping any commitments so we might be dropping him but I'm not sure. Just yesterday, however, we were tracting before dinner and came across a man in his garage. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and told him we would give him a copy to read if he promised to read and pray about it. He said he would read it but he didn't know how to pray. So we taught him how to pray and gave him an example. We then had him give a prayer. It was an amazing experience! His simple prayer of no more than a couple sentences was one of the most powerful I have ever heard. It brought all of us to tears. We are so excited to go back and teach him more! He actually asked us if we could come back and talk to him more! It is great! So hopefully he will be our new golden investigator! We also met with a guy named J this week. He is struggling with an addiction and he actually sought us out. We have met him two times this week and have come up with a plan with him to help him quit his addiction. I know that as long as he does he will be baptized! He is a great guy and has the desire to change and I know that Heavenly Father will help him! I wish that he could be our investigator but since he is English speaking we will be passing him off to the Zone Leaders because he is going to the singles ward. Oh well, at least he will still be able to learn the gospel and progress.

On Pdays we don't really have that much time. We are supposed to write letters, email, shop, clean the house, clean the car, etc. Then we sometimes have district activities where the whole district gets together and plays games like chair soccer, signs, wall ball, basketball. So we haven't really had much time to do anything like sightseeing. The other problem with that is there isn't much sightseeing to do. The only tourist place within our area is old town. Elder Feinauer wants to go there so we might do that this week. We also couldn't go to the beach even if we had it in our area because the mission rule is "Where the sand begins, your mission ends"

We drive a Honda, I don't know what model, ha-ha I'll have to check and tell you next time and yes please do still send my driving record because I have no idea how long I'll be here and I might have to drive before I leave.

Estoy muy agradecido por todo que hacen para mi. Uds son el major familia en el mundo. Espero que no fue necesario que sali mi familia para servir mi mission pero, asi es. Estoy muy agradicido por la vida que tengo y la opertunidad para servir mi mission. Estoy aprendiendo muchisimo aqui. No es un manera simijante que puedo aprender como mucho en este corto tiempo. He aprendido muchisimo de la importancia de el evangelio. Yo se este evangelio bendice las familias y he vido los cambios que hace en familias. Miro las familias quien no tiene el evangelio y solo quiero compartirlo con ellos. Este me recuerda de la escritura en Mosia 28:3 donde dice que los hijos de Mosia fueron convertido al el evangelio y quirian a compartir su mensaje a todo el mundo por que ellos no puede pensar en el tristeza si alguien no recibia el evangelio. Les amo muchisimo!!!

I love you guys so much and miss you; I can't wait for next Tuesday!!!