Hey can you verify all of
this information and get it back to me today?
I am on early to send in data
as a District Leader. I will be back on later to write. Don´t stress.
Braxton sent a photo of a
paper he needed to fill out that asked for contact information for Dad and I
and our Bishop and Stake President.
We are not planning
to come to Chile to pick you up. Sorry.
Father’s email
Mother’s email
Home Phone
Father’s Mobile
Mother’s Mobile
Arrival Airport –
Salt Lake City, Utah
City and State of
Arrival – Salt Lake City, Utah
Ward – West Point 9th
Ward
Bishop
Bishop’s Email
Bishop’s Phone
Stake – West Point
Lakeside Stake
Stake President
Stake President’s
Email
Stake President’s
Phone
I am not
stressing! I love you!
P.S. We will
pick you up from the airport in 146 Days!
A Mom shared this
on Facebook and I thought you might relate. (It was an article about a mission that
asked the missionaries to read the whole Book of Mormon on New Year’s Day and
had her missionary’s experiences with doing this.)
I just started
reading the Book of Mormon again from the beginning. My goal is to read
it all before you get home. Obviously, if this young man can read it in
one day, I can surely read it in the 150 days from January 1st till
May 31st. I will try to read like Nephi and not like Laman and
Lemuel. We also started reading as a family again, but we are continuing
from Helaman. We made it one night and then Dad went to bed early last
night and Clain came in from FHE and went straight to bed, so we failed on day
2. We will try again tonight. What are you currently reading?
I am reading in Jacob. I
finished again and I am reading around every 3 months entirely the Book of Mormon.
That is
awesome! That is about 8 times all the way through during your
mission. I should have done better while you have been gone. I
spent some time studying a couple of concepts, so I was looking up scriptures
from all over and I have read a bunch of the conference talks and looked up the
scriptures from those.
I have been doing a lot of
things and I would say around 5 so far, but I am working on it. I have to take
time to prepare classes and other things so it is going slower this time. I am
around a month in and only in Jacob. I am going through your letter and will
get back to you on things.
The fact that you
will be home in five months is a little more real today with you filling out
that paperwork. Keep working hard and finish strong! You should be
the most effective in these last few months of your mission. You know the
language and the people and how things work in the mission. You are a
strong leader and a great example to the newer missionaries. Your testimony
is strong and vibrant. This will be the most productive time in your
mission! Life is Goode!
I have been
thinking about Elder Espinoza and his money problems. You are the best
person for him to be with to learn to manage his money. You are a pro at
doing that. Don’t be critical of him. Teach him this very valuable
skill that you have. I am certain that is why you and he are companions,
so that he can learn from you. Help him to understand how important it is
to keep some money in reserve in his wallet. Help him to plan his menu
better so that he eats for a little less. What techniques do you use to
help you with budgeting and shopping? Teach him those. This is a
Life Skill that he needs to learn and it will help him throughout the rest of
his life, not just while he serves his mission. This is something you
excel at. Humbly teach this skill to him.
I understand what you mean
this paper is generally known as the Trunky paper.... I knew it was coming but
oh well.... Thanks for all the help.
We are working with Claudio
and Sebastian towards baptism. They are really great. They have a ton of
receptive family members. We have found that they have a lot of family in the
area and have been able to share with many people. Karla has a sister that
lives in our sector that we contacted before we realized that she was her
sister. We were able to take Karla´s niece to church that is 10 with her. We
won´t be able to baptize her because he parents are of another faith and let
her participate, but don´t want her to change faiths. They aren´t very open to
listening to us....
You have been
busy. I am glad Claudio and Sebastian are progressing. That is too
bad that Karla’s sister and her husband are not interested. It would be
easier for Karla and her kids if they had other family members who were also
members to support them. It must be really hard for them to go to family
parties where everyone is drinking alcohol and to not drink like they have in
the past. From what I have seen on FB about Chile, alcohol seems to be a
big part of their celebrations. I see birthday celebrations for little
kids and it seems the party and decorations are more for the adults than for
the children. They get into dressing up and costumes a lot. Our
parties would probably seem boring to them. No dancing or drinking or
costumes or silly games. You have never had to face the challenge of having
non-member family members or friends. For the most part, everyone you
have associated with has been a member. It would be a different challenge
to join where you are the minority.
I think the church
policy is good to not baptize a child when their parents are of another
faith. If they are really interested, they will get baptized when they
are 18 and it is really their choice and won’t cause stress in a family.
We have a way of going about
it, but it requires permission and a set number of attendances. For now we are
planting seeds for her in the future. Karla´s sister never got married. She is
living with her husband without marriage and they smoke and the oldest daughter
does too.
It sounds like
there will be a lot of things against her being able to attend regularly.
Hopefully she will want to attend with Karla and her kids and that will be
accepted by her family. It will still be tough on her. Any luck
with Karla’s daughter? Is smoking a big problem down there?
A lot of people smoke, drink,
law of chastity issues... Shopping on Sunday. There are so many problems.
Karla´s daughter does not like getting up on Sundays early. She doesn´t want to
attend church. We can´t really get anywhere with her.
We are working hard to find
more people that are more receptive and have desires to progress. We pushed
hard this week and found 19 new investigators and we had 25 lessons which is a
lot. We aren´t using our Sundays in our sector. We were in Peñaflor working
with them in a cosechon. We are doing our best to meet more people and plant a
lot of seeds for the future while trying to help the people to arrive at the
Ordinances.
Congratulations on your
success. That is a lot of lessons and new investigators. I hope you
are able to help a few of them make it to baptism.
We are working towards that a lot. Thanks for all of
the support that you have been giving to all of my converts and keeping me updated
on everyone I really appreciate it.
You are welcome. It is fun to have the
ability to talk to them on Facebook and to see photos of them and their
lives. I wish we would have had that for your Dad. It would have
been nice to keep in touch with his converts and friends he made on his
mission.
I know that is the blessing
of today. I am working hard with so many people but I can´t accomplish
everything.
The Lord doesn’t expect you to accomplish
everything. Just do your best and it
will be good enough.
Thank you so much for the
updates. I will have to tell Elder Bevan about Elder Christiansen. He will be a
little frustrated, but I will let him know. It is so odd all the things that
are going on. Thanks for the updates about everyone from home. I really
appreciate it.
So far, I don’t see
a date or place for Kaden’s wedding. I hope they will go to the
temple. I know they are attending a Singles Ward in Twin Falls, Idaho and
he is studying Secondary Education at the College of Southern Idaho. He
works at Deseret Book. Maybe you will be able to drive up for the wedding
if they wait till summer.
I knew he worked at Dessert
Book. He actually sells Hermana Tolk´s CD´s so we talked about that in The CCM.
Hermana Kirkpatrick is the other sister that is there. They also talked about
going to lunch after the mission the 3 of them. Thanks for all the updates.
Deseret Book is a
great place for Returned Missionaries and will help him stay close to the
gospel. You can’t stray too far if you are selling LDS stuff all day, can
you? I wrote to Hermana Kirkpatrick a few months after she went home on
Facebook. I was hoping she would go back out. I will have to look
her up and see how she is doing now. Have a super, amazing, magnificent,
awesome week.
Karla showed me the Facebook message
today. She offered us lunch on our Preparation Day. We were at her house around
12:30 here or 8:30 there, for lunch. I talked with her. Soley wrote me and
asked me to write Carlos.
Carlos hasn´t been going to
church.... Soley asked for my help. I wrote them both emails today. I am doing
great. We have a teacher for Gospel Principles.
That is nice that there are a
lot of miracles happening in the ward. I will have to look into the work
options. I don´t have a good control of Portuguese. I understand it, but I
haven´t practiced a lot speaking it. That is cool about Elder Argyle. Sorry I
always refer to my former companions by their titles. I am going to ask Elder
Correa to write to Carlos as well. Thanks for the update on things from home. I
am doing really well. I am just short on time.
That is fine.
I understand. You are always short on time and I sent you a ton of stuff
this week. Hopefully it makes you happy and not homesick or Trunky.
I love you and think of you often, like every other minute. J I
fasted and prayed for you on Sunday and for Makayla and for our prophet.
I hope that helps you. It looks like you had some great success this
week. Hopefully this week will bring lots of follow up lessons with your
new investigators. Keep on working hard. You are loved and missed,
but you are where you need to be at this time in your life.
I am sorry that
Carlos has not been attending church. I am sure you will be able to help
him with your letter, love and testimony. And if Elder Correa writes to
him, it will also help him. He knew you loved him and cared about him
while you were in his ward. It was probably really good that you were
there for so long so that you could continue to help him after he was
baptized. Maybe Elder Argyle can also write to him. You will be
able to follow up with him when you are home and hopefully he will remember why
the church was important to him and remember the feelings he had when he gained
his testimony. It is too bad that they moved, because that probably gave
him an opportunity to fall away. If he had remained in the first ward,
they would have kept contact with him and helped him to feel he belonged.
Can you write to the leaders in the North Mission and have them contact Carlos
and Soley again? I hope Soley has been attending church. Maybe if
her parents visit again they will all attend church together. I will pray
for them.
Thanks for everything I
really appreciate it. I am out of time I will talk to you next week. I love
you! We will see what the Lord has in His plans for this week and what we can
accomplish.
I love you!
Be Goode!
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