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.