I'm no longer dreaming of a White Cristmas

Hey Y'all, it was a snowy week but it was a good one. Hope that you enjoy reading my emails about my mission for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Even though i'm only 4 months in, I have already been able to bless others and feel the outpouring of the spirit. Hope y'all had a merry Christmas and i wish you a happy New Year!

Its cooooold (sorry for all of the weather subjects, i'll stop in a week or two)

So this week was a very interesting one, with lots of events, conferences, and everything else.

Skating: So last pday we were able to go Ice Skating. It was a member in one of the surrounding stakes that has set up a Ice Skating rink kinda thing in their backyard. So about 3 o clock last Monday, most of our zone went over to the house and skated. The last time that i did something like that was about 10 years ago, back in Georgia. And it wasn't on the ice, it was roller bladding, and i fell a lot. With the help of a little chair that also likes to slide on the ice it was a lot easier than you would think to be able to go about it. And i was also able to do it without the chair, and i only almost fell down about 3 times. It was fun and it's something that i will love to do again. 

Another Week, Another P-Day

So this past week was pretty good. Enjoy the email!

Sledding: So last P-day, after going shopping and everything like that, we were able to head down to St. Anthony for our P-day fun activity. A member over there had a hill, with snow, lots of snow, so we sledded. It was fun, some pictures and videos will be attached (probably). After sledding for about an hour we headed over to get some hot chocolate at a gas station. then we played a couple of cards games and headed back for dinner. Sledding was fun. Growing up in a place with only about 2 inches of snow is very different from Snow that is always on the ground for months. It was fun, and thankfully i didn't get too cold over the hour of landing in snow, later today we are having another fun activity.

The snow, hasn't stopped.

Last week, as you all may remember, i freaked out over my email about all of the snow that i was receiving out here in Rexburg, ID. Well............. it hasn't gone away. It hasn't snowed many times since, but its always been cold and so the snow never went away, it froze, and just stayed there. It's great, but i hope that I'll still love the snow by the end of this Christmas season and the winter, which lasts until March or April.

Winter Has Come

Everyone one of y'all,
Hello
This week has been up and down, and has been very weird because of the Holiday time of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving: This one the main day of the week and it was very interesting. The day before and after Thanksgiving were very slow. Almost no one was actually home for the holiday and some of our appointments fell through. But the day of thanksgiving was a service day/p-day. We started off with waking up and getting over to St. Anthony at 8:00 to serve others! It was a free thanksgiving dinner event and we got there for the setup. People from the area brought about 20 turkeys and 1 or two hams. Along with the stuffing, jello, pie, turkey, ham, corn, and rolls, it was a feast for anyone who stopped by. A lot of people came over the hours and it was great to see people enjoying the holiday with family and not having to spend too much food. We worked until about 1:30 and headed back to Rexburg. Right after we changed we headed over to someone in Rexburg to have thanksgiving dinner at 2. It was my great aunt and Uncle Fred and Wanda Scoresby. They had called the week before and talked about it and we got permission, so we ate there. It was a good meal and the only meal we had that day set, where usually missionaries on thanksgiving have many meals and get a little bit too much food. After dinner it was around 5 o'clock and it was the time of the start of the P-Day. Because we weren't supposed to bother people with their families, we had a zone activity. We went to one of the buildings and played volleyball, soccer, and card games until about 9. With the amount of food eaten, directly followed by about 3 hours of straight sports, it was nice to get a good night's rest. 

Another Week, Another...

Email,
Thanks for reading everyone. This week has been really exciting for many reasons, the crowning of which was the Baptism of Peighton!!!!!!

Peighton: SATURDAY WAS THE BAPTISM OF PEIGHTON. AND, IT WAS AMAZING. It was a wonderful program and it was spectacular to see everyone from the ward, from her seminary classes, and others, come and support her in making this big decision in her life. I'm thankful for the opportunity I had to teach her, because if it was someone else, it would've happened just a surely, for she was prepared. She has really grown as a person and seeing her baptism and confirmation the next day really attested to that fact. She can now receive the blessings about the companionship of the Holy Ghost that we have talked about since the first visit. Pictures are below. 

Not that cold in Iceburg

Hello everyone, 
This week has been pretty weird but good nevertheless. 
Here is what happened. 

Tiesssss: Last P-day was tie making day. We started off with all going to Walmart and picking out yard of fabric to make our custom made ties. ill send a complete picture a little later of the final product, buttttt it looks good. When then went to a church building and made the ties. The member that was nice enough to show us how to do it was amazing. She brought a showing machine and pretty much let us do it all ourselves, just showing us what to do at first. It was pretty cool and now i know how to make many a tie in the future. 

P-day Galore

So this past week was really weird with schedules and stuff, so here we go.

P-day/Halloween: After i sent out emails last week, we headed over to the house of a member in the Mission Presidency. It was a house that reminded me of Cameron Crest Farms. But everyone there (members of our zone that could make it) brought food and had a lot of fun. After and around the time of Dinner we played a game of Pool, played Phase 10, and talked a lot and had fun. After dinner was the time where we were allowed to watch G rated movies. Everyone there wanted to watch Aladdin, but it wasn’t in the house and would’ve cost money to watch, so we watched Tarzan, a movie that was very reminiscent of a play I saw about a month before i left for my mission. Then we watched a couple minutes of Fantasia 2000. The whole day and night was very weird and relaxing, because it was weird just sitting around not doing anything gospel related, i mean weird. Also just watching a movie was weird. But it’s all good. 

Dates

Don't think this is anything like unimportant dates, this is baptismal dates. We had a lot of miracles this week and I would like to tell you all about them, we also had some fun with other things. 

Abhi: Abhi is one of the miracles that we have received this week. He just moved from India last week and is now going to school at BYU-I. His wife has been a member for about 13 years and he, while she was attending BYU-I this past semester, has been taking the missionary lessons over in India. We first got to meet and teach them Monday night. While we were learning about who he is and what he has already learned, he set a baptismal date himself. He suddenly brought it up, we were very very surprised at that moment. After we talked some more, learned about what miracles he had had in getting to the US, he and his wife stopped us. They said that the Baptismal date that they had already set was too far away and moved it up to one week sooner. When we went back later in the week we asked him about some of the reading in the Book of Mormon and he shared his testimony that it is true. He is so ready to be baptized, now we just have to share the lessons. What a miracle

This is an email about me and my area

Everyone,

Lo siento for this weeks email, not that much happened, but be prepared to still read quite a bit of text.

Sick day: so the day after p-day for whatever reason, my companion was sick. That day was a lot of study among other things. I watched Mountain of the Lord 1 and a half times, watched To this end was i born, and some of the testaments. we also had to go to walmart to get him some soup and some gatorade and we just got looks of disdain. It wasn't pday and everyone knew it, hahaha. Then after we went to dinner we headed over to Mr. Mendoza. We taught him the restoration and the commitment we gave him was to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it was true or not. He at first didn't want to do it, either he didn't think it was that important or he just wanted to be honest. We sat there for about another 10 minutes and finally, hopefully, got him to see the importance of why he needs to read. I think it was a line in the Ricciardi Letter (missionary talkish thing) or somewhere else is that one of the reasons why we have the investigators read and pray when we are not there is so that they can feel the spirit when we are not there. When we are there and talking about Jesus Christ, it is very easy for the Spirit to be present, but making the concerted effort while we are gone is just as important for the progression of the investigator. He is still having problems, but not as bad as that first day. 

Iceburg is Fun

Everybody who this letter concerns,
Its not iceburg yet, just been a little windy. The area here is great and there is a lot of member support, so much so that every RM at BYUI wants to go on splits with us.

Service: Hemming, Do
This week we served two different people, each for quite along time. The first was a Bro. Hemming. He is an older man in one of the wards who needed a old shed roof take off. We took off the nails of the metal sheets, but most of the them had a rubber guard, still on them, that made it take a lot longer. That, along with having to scale and stay up the shed to get to the top, made my calves and feet very very very sore. It was a very good workout to say the least. 

Just gonna type whatever here starting next week

My Peoples,

I am in the field.

This email might be a little skiwampous but next week will be better.

Travel: Last monday was the day that i left the CCM, the MTC in mexico city. I went with one other Elder to the airport, which is where we checked in for the flight to SLC. While we were setting down and sitting down by the gate, we found 5 other Elders. They were returning home from Mexico Missions. 3 were leaving from the Mexico City Northwest mission, and the other two were leaving from the Ciudad Obrigon mission. We talked for a little bit and we heard quite a bit about missions and some advice. The flight up to SLC went well, and I soon said goodbye to everyone and said hello to my 4 and a half hour layover in the airport. It was 3 and a half but the flight to Idaho Falls got delayed an hour. Got some dinner and sat down after calling the family. There i found one more elder returning home. He had served in Russia and i was able to learn a lot of how the missions are going over there and how it is pretty different from the mission i was going to be serving in. After the flight, that landed around 12:30 at night, my Mission President Elder Nelson came and picked me up. From there i was given to the Assistants to stay the night, because the rest of the 22 missionaries that were coming in new, they were all coming one day later that i had arrived.

Only 3 Days

So my last pday was on Friday so this email will just cover the last three days but not much else. 

Sunday: Today was another Fast Sunday, because they decided it was the week before confrence instead of the week after. Testimony meeting was awesome. Priesthood was taught by Elder Marchant and Johnson and it was all about Faith and Hope. Main parts of scripture was in Matt 14 and Alma 32-Ether 12. Something that i thought about faith was Enoch, the prophet of the old Testament and the scipture in Moses 7, where because of his faith he was able to make the earth move in order to protect Zion. The Devotional we had that day was a video of Elder Holland talking about the Divine Companionship of teh Holy Ghost. After Dinner, which was wonderful corn dogs, the movie was 2 different Videos. the first was the story of John Tanner, who is actually the great grandfather of someone in my ward (or maybe the great great grandfather), but it was a great message about the power we have as missionaries and the consecration that we need to have on our missions and in our lives. The second video was about the end of the Saviors life and it was pretty powerful. Then i took some much needed rest that night. 

Another week, can´t really come up with a good caption at this point

Barber Shop Quartet: So about lastttt Sunday or something, we found out that me and three other people in my district who also liked to sing and we talked about doing a barber shop quartet because it worked out pretty well with the parts that we like to sing and that we have sung for a couple years. Its Elder Marchant on Lead, Perry on Tenor, Christensen on Baritone, and me and Bass. We found that we can perform a piece for devotionals and stuff so we are going to sing Brightly Beams our Fathers Mercy in spanish and we are either going to do it this Sunday or next Sunday before a conference session. 

Sick Me, Sick Music, Sick Devotionals

Hola

Each section is in order of least exciting to most exciting (roughly)

Hermano Trejo: The teacher that is amazing is leaving us. He started college this past week so he is no longer our teacher in the afternoon and our morning teacher, Hermano Osorio is also leaving us because teachers are getting changed around and everything because of the school year starting. 

Sickness: I got sick. So on Wednesday i woke up and immediately afterwards had some Diarrhea. Thought everything was fine until later that day when my stomach was hurting and i had nausea. Went to the clinic and got it checked out and the possibilites were either something i ate and 24 hour flu, or it could be intestinal flu. welllll, when i woke up in the morning i was still feeling it so i went back and found out that it wasssss intestinal flu, joy. Still been able to go to class and today im feeling well enough to go to the temple, but if my prayer was to lose weight here, i think i've been accomplishing that. My intestines are inflamed so i cant tell by belt buckle, but i have only eaten less in the past two and a half days than i would in a normal days lunch and dinner, but water and diluted Gatorade have helped.  

Too much stuff to have a subject line

Peoples in school and home,

Elder Schwieger: In my mom's email to me last week, she said that there was an Elder Schwieger entering the mtc these work. We had grown up in the same ward in Kennesaw together. I read the email on friday, so I was planning to look for this elder and try to find him in the next week. Then comes Sunday. Testimony meeting starts and one of the first people to get up is an Elder Schwieger who says he's from atlanta, georgia. Turns out he's in my zone/branch so ive seen and talked to him a little bit this week. Pretty funny how these things turn out. 

CCM is Good

Hola peoples,

So this is the start of my mission mass emails per week. If you´re reading this off the blog or facebook, be sure to actually email me. For the next 5 weeks i can email for an hour once a week on Friday. Then after that for the rest of the two years it will be an hour on Monday. So to start it off.