April 28, 2010

Hi,
No, I did not get transferred, neither did Elder Clark. Elder Hoffman in Woodville did though.

I sent an email to dad with pictures in case it didn't work with your hotmail account.We did have our baptism on Saturday (There should be pictures at the end of this email). It is incredible to watch how hard Satan work against us. We got a text from L___ @ 12:00 midnight saying that she was going to need a ride to church. We tried to call and find out/fix the problem Sunday morning but her phone was dead. So, we missed PEC with the branch council driving all over Jasper trying to make sure L__ would be able to come to church and be confirmed.

The original plan was that L__ was going to ride with her member friend D___. We figured she was probably sleeping over at D___'s house that night because she said, "'We need a ride." We went over to D___'s house only to find out that they weren't there. Sis. C (D___'s mom) got D___'s Cell # for us and helped us figure out that the girls were at L__ house. D___'s car was there, but she didn't have her key. Don't ask me how that happened. So, we ran a spare key up to L___ house and made it back just in time for the end of PEC. L__ & D__ did make it to church & L___ was confirmed as planned.

You asked if we have to teach a lot at church. Not really. We pass the sacrament probably 1/2 to 1/3 of the time but that's it really. We say a prayer every once in a while.

We have probably 4-5 promising investigators we are working with at the moment. We will see how they all turn out.

I don't know why that email won't send ( April 14). I copied it and tried again.

Tell Tyler he should start working on his Spanish now. There is a family here who have a daughter in the Uruguay mission (she comes home in august) she went to the Argentina MTC and if I remember correctly they said she had to go tracting in the area around the MTC her first or second day! He can ask Seth if he had to do that (That's where Seth F. went right?)

I wish I could tell you another story but I don't have the time, I wish I had learned to type properly.


The Missionary that baptized L__ is Elder Fairbourn. Jasper was his first area 18 or 19months ago. Just goes to show, you never know what seeds you may plant.


Love you all

Elder Clark is the one on the right with the flower in his mouth.
This was after District meeting last Friday.

April 14, 2010

This weeks letter is MIA--Missing in action. Hopefully, more news next week.

April 21, 2010

Hey,
Sorry that is all you got I sent that off at the beginning of the e-mail session hoping you would maybe answer it before I got off. {He asked what kind of GPS?} I'm not sure why you didn't get my other letter. My email said it sent it off, maybe because we were emailing from a different place. I sent it to you again. I also sent a copy to dad just in case it didn't work again.

So, for either Friday night or FHE I strongly recommend watching "The Best 2 Years". Maybe it was funnier for me because I am on my mission, but it was hilarious and pretty realistic. The missionaries were all really extreme but I would not be surprised if there are some missionaries that are like that.

As you probably know Elder Spackman is going home in a week. One of my zone Leaders Elder Frakes has been assigned to fill the calling. It is pretty unusual actually, Elder Frakes has only been out a little over a year. Usually that calling is filled by more senior missionaries. So right now I only have one zone leader until transfers on Monday. He is bouncing around with some other missionaries in Beaumont. I don't know if I will be transferred or not. I think it's a 50/50 chance.

We have not got mail today yet, but I still have not gotten the GPS package. I have not had the chance to mail that package yet but I will today. Also I had a Black Jerry Garcia tie That was tearing in the back. Would you please send it out the next time you send something, I'll even sew it in my spare time if I need to.

We still have a baptism this Saturday. The interview is tonight. So, we are pretty sure it will go through. Elder Gardner is hoping to make it back for it.

Something else I wrote down to tell you, I have learned to love to mix my rice with whatever comes with it chili, gumbo, ect.

Also, on a sad note the bishop of the Buna ward died on Monday. A tree fell on him, not sure what happened beyond that.

Almost out of time, love you bye,

We cut this tree down 2 weeks ago after wards we learned it was really dangerous and we won't be doing it again.

Sorry still no picture of Elder Clark, that's him in the red.

I had more time than I thought. Um, tell Robin not to complain to me about going back to school "now I've got homework, now I've got to get up early, now I don't get to see my family (cousins, aunts and uncles) for a long time." Don't even give that to me Robin! You will see your family again before 2 years. You can call them if you want. You can still sleep in on Saturdays and holidays, so don't complain to me. {Apparently, Wesley feels strongly about this}

It is getting hotter down here. Its getting into the 70/80's now, not looking forward to summer. But maybe because it was so cold this winter, or because of the volcano in Iceland it will be a cooler summer.

I can't believe school is almost out. It is the first time in 12 years that school ending means nothing to me. It's weird!

Ok got to go now,
Love you, bye!

(These are my favorite things from my mission so far. The Bom (Book of Mormon) is from President Mouldenhauer. We are going though and marking all references to Christ right now. the Beanie baby is a polar bear given to me by some members. The gator head I bought at a gas station in Orange.....It's from Florida.)

April 7, 2010

Hi everyone,

That's a bummer (you all had the flu), it has been going around here too. Elder Clark has not been feeling well the last couple of days, not the flu, just tired and crappy, it was weird.

Thanks for getting the watch. I got the Easter package yesterday. Thanks for sending all that out.

Yep, it has been about 80 degrees at about 2:30-3:00 the last few days, but it has also been breezy so it has not been that bad.

The work is going great. Because of all the tracting we did, we have a bunch of new people to check up with to see if their interested or not. We taught a quick first lesson to a "Christan" lady who said: as long as it doesn't contradict the Bible, she has no problem with the B.O.M.! One of our investigators, L_____, the last time we met was a little concerned about the baptism interview. When we came back a few days later we ask her if she would like to talk about it a little more and resolve her concerns. She told us after we had left she had prayed about it and wasn't concerned anymore!

Let's see, what else, we and our branch mission leader, a true cowboy and he's like 80 years old, were the only people who watched conference at the church, except for one session that the branch president and his wife brought a home-bound elderly lady to the church. My favorite talk was Elder Holland. What about you guys, who was your favorite?

The downside this week is that members think that when you wear the black name tag you are perfect and no longer a human being.

Did Tyler Calder get his call? Eric? I saw that Ryan, Jeff, and Lisa all come home soon.

Can't believe school is almost out, for the kids.

Got to go, talk to you later, thanks

love you bye!

We were able to go to lake Charles for Elder Clark's baptism. We stopped at a flying J in Orange, TX and I bought an Alligator head & an alligator foot back-scratcher. It's basically an alligator foot on a stick. Sorry I didn't get to email you yesterday, the library computers are still down, so we are at a member's house again today (the only members I know of in this branch that have more than one computer).

L__ moved her Baptism date up to April 24th. It is the Saturday just before transfers...just in case. We have had a lot of people who said we could come back that we have tracted into this week. It is starting to get hotter, it was in the 70s the other day.

Next P-day I am going to send you a package, I guarantee it will make any sort of ribs, burgers, pork chops, roast, etc. better. Similar to bacon, but in my mind better. sorry this is so random I am just writing what I want as I remember it. Tuesday we typed the wrong address into the GPS for out dinner appointment. I had only been there once, with the GPS set on lowest miles setting not fastest time, and it is quite a ways off the highway, so I wasn't that concerned when we LEFT OUR AREA, and turned onto dirt, county roads that the GPS thinks are paved. We can't tell it to avoid unpaved roads. When we realized that we had the wrong address in the GPS we put the right one in but it thought the fastest way was through dirt county roads.....in the dark. Yeah, those roads were really meant for trucks, not for a Chevy Malibu.

We finally were able to get back to the main highway and get to dinner. We had an appnt. w/ L__ @ 6:15 so I figured we would be there about 7:30. ya, we left L__'s @ 7:40.... we got to dinner @ 9:00. Dinner was crawfish. We left dinner at 9:40 & got home about 10:27. We couldn't have dinner earlier because we had an appnt. at 5:00 with Aaron and Desert. They are 8 and 10 respectively. They are our branch President's nephew's son & daughter. Their parents are inactive members. They want to come to church again, but it is hard for them. He has "elephantitis"(?) in his right leg. We have taught their kids the first 2 lessons so far.

You said Tim is going to Costa Rica? Are you still going to be the Y6 Cast Team Leaders at Pageant? Oh, yeah, we looked at Wal-mart & could not find that "watch" you were talking about. Sorry I am not answering more of your questions, I need to start writing down all the questions I get in your letters onto a single piece of paper that I can bring with me to the computer.

I don't think I am getting an accent down here, but I think my vocabulary and grammar are degrading. All right my time is just about up. Looking forward to your Easter packages. Oh, yeah, don't pickup scared dogs....they pee!

Love you all, bye!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Alright, the library is still having issues so I probably won't have the full hour to email.

This paragraph is dedicated to questions. When we went to the temple they took us to an LDS bookstore my debit card is almost out. Could you please check into it? These next questions are probably Dad questions. Could you please send me copies of the conference DVDs that we got from Uncle Jim? Would you please also send me a CD of Elder Hollands Talks? I'm pretty sure conference talks mp3s are available for download from LDS.org. Also, Is it possible that you could get your hands on a copy of the new Joseph Smith movie, and send it out? If not I will try to get it from one of the missionaries down here. Also, Whatever GPS you decide to get, I have heard that some models have 3rd party voices that you can download from the internet to the GPS. (such as George Bush) Would you please Look into that?

Ok, we have had a rough week. Instead of getting lessons we got a lot of return appointments. So, we will see how this week plays out. Also to pump some life back into the Mission Miracle. President has instituted the "week of sacrifice" this week. We are focusing on the Saviors finial week in mortality, since it was this week almost 2000 years ago. Each zone is also fasting one day of the week. Today is our day to fast. Also, this is where the sacrifice comes in, we are tracting for 5 hours a day. Mon., Tues., Thurs.,& Fri. 3.5 hours Sat. & Sun. and I think 4 hours on Weds. So P-Day Ends by 2:00 P.M.

Almost out of time. Sorry it is so short, got to go write you on Weds.

Bye
The picture is from a members house in Woodville. We were there for district meeting