Jan 19 2015

It’s been NICE this week.  In the high 40s to low 50s!  It’s our personal heat wave.  We had a great sunday and taught a new investigator.  My companion and I are "hosting" a Game Night as a finding activity for the last saturday in January and it looks very promising.  I will relay if it goes to crap.  Nothing else quite as major, just normal missionary stuff.  I will share the Killing the Cat story since I don’t think I shared it last week.  So we went to a members house to return a pot and when she answered the door she asked if we could help her with a cat problem.  Her problem was with a super nasty bloody can that was slowly dying in her backyard.  She asked us if we could kill it and we accepted the challenge.  She told us we could push on its heart and crush it that way but my companion decided to suffocate it.  He put his hands over its mouth and nose and after about fifteen seconds that cat reacted and that sucker fought back.  My comp had to wear bandages over his wrists for the next couple days like a failed suicide attemptee.  Also the cat took forever to die so it was just horrifying.  The members 3 year old daughter watched and we asked the mother to put her away but she just told us she was crazy.  They were all crazy to be fair.  Anyway that’s all for this week.  Hope things are going better for you guys.

Week 20

A few new things this week.  To start off I pulled the Baby Jesus out of the Rosca at a members house and will now have to make tamales for Feb 2.  Gas hit 1.99 for unleaded here in Colorado and that is super insane to me.  Makes me consider moving here after my mission but then I think, "Of course not you fool".  Maybe Denver but I don't serve there so I wouldn't know all that well what its like.  I had an interesting exchange with one of our investigators.  He was telling us how he has to go to Mexico for two weeks and will drive down to El Paso to cross the border.  I told him I was born in the EP and he said he loves El Paso and wants to move there one day. He is probably talking about the East side but hey, its still El Paso.  The best part of the week would have to be when we went to Loveland for the day and Elder Bednar visited our mission and talked to us for a little bit and then had a discussion with us and finally let us ask him questions.  It was great but I wish some people didn't get called on to ask him a question, most of the questions were great and very personal but one, and I will always remember it, was just plain dumb.  I say dumb because the kid that asked it doesn't have any special needs and wasn't trying to be cool and ask a stupid question.  His question was, "do you ever get a revelation and tell Monson and Monson says wow that was really cool".  I turned to the guy next to me and said, "is he serious?"  Other than that it was wonderful and I learned a lot.  I wanted to thank you for your prayers and letters!  I love you guys and encourage you to have a great rest of your week.

Colorado sunset

These are lollipops that are made by the Special Ed class at the school. Mt. Dew flavored for the extra mile but I almost got the "fuzzy navel" flavor but then I remembered who made them…...

Week 19

Hello people.  This week was interesting.  A few days ago while we were getting gas I saw a movie that was coming to red box was one that I saw previews to before I left.  Its a weird feeling to think I have been out for that long.  On Saturday while driving to Yuma there was from 5 to 20 feet of visibility on the roads.  Eventually it got better but it was really bad weather.  This next week we are going to have the opportunity to hear from Elder Bednar who will be coming to our mission.  I'm super excited to hear from him on Friday in Loveland.  It starts at 8:30 so we are going to have to wake up at 4:00 to make it on time.  That part I am not looking forward to.  Keep it real guys.  And have a great week.

down a half of a foot in the snow

The snow is coming

the temperature a few days ago

I don't want to get out of the car

I'm not the biggest fan of the snow

Christmas week

Christmas week was interesting.  We got a gift from a member family and when we opened it the excitement left even though we should have know what it was all along.  Toilet Paper.  We ate at Members house for dinner and didn't have a repeat of thanksgiving.  They actually made our favorite meals and it was super nice of them.  The weather is frigid and there is ALWAYS snow on the ground.  Not too much excitement this week, but I do miss my family which I didn't think I could this much.  (I didn't, however, cry.  An attribute father has given me.)  After all the chaos we did manage to visit an investigator we have been meaning to see for a few weeks and made huge progress with her and her family.  We sadly though dropped two investigators just yesterday.  Hopefully, we planted enough seeds for some future missionary work.  It is a strange thing to drop an investigator.  They really have to be no progressing for some time because as missionaries we are desperate to cling on to these guys.  (we don't have any other friends).  In a more spiritual sense this week I wanted to share how to obtain peace.  Its something I learned because we had the chance to be lazy for a day.  In reference to the song "where can I turn for peace" the turning implies an action.  just believing that God exists will get us nowhere.  Happiness comes from our desire to be like our Heavenly Father.  If we are to achieve peace in this life it will have to be worked for like everything else.  I hope I don't sound like a prophet, but it is true.  "A smart man learns from others mistakes" so learn from mine.  Becoming better is essential, its the only thing that separates us from the savages.  That's it for this week, have a great day everyone!

On Christmas Day!

An actual white Christmas!

An old sign for all the churches in town. It only has half of them.

My little branch President and his little family OR I'm just HUGE!