Witchita Falls, Texas- Week 38

Hey! 

Thank you so much for the Birthday Wishes! You all are the Best! I had a great birthday :) it is weird, I'm 20 now.... well one more year! Had a good day, we went to the Book of Mormon class that we teach every Wednesday and that was fun, I always learn when we teach that class. On Thursday, we had interviews with President, that went well, he is still as tall as ever hahaha. Then we went to go see Mike and Steve, and then Chris, they are so much fun to go visit, and when we go we always make their day :) And at 8, we took the Sister's recent convert Steve with us out teaching, to go see Grace, Mary, and Dorcas, it was a awesome lesson. I think the thing that stood out to me the most this week was how it doesn't matter if you understand the language being spoken or not, the spirit always brings understanding, when we went to teach them, Grace wasn't there, and she speaks the best English and helps Mary understand because her English isn't the best. So the first miracle was getting in the their home, I didn't think that she would let us because Grace wasn't there, but she let us in! So we taught the Plan of Salvation to Mary and Dorcas, and they understood it :) and even asked good questions, so we invited them to be baptized, Dorcas said yes, and Mary was wondering if she needed to, because she said that she had already been baptized in another church in Africa. So we explained to her why she would need to be baptized, so she thought about it and then said yes! We set up another time for Saturday when Grace would also be home, so we came back with Steven again, talked about the Restoration again, and Invited Grace to be baptized, she also said yes! And then Mary started testifying about Baptism, that she believed everything that we are saying and that her and her family could be baptized 20 times, but if it wasn't by the right authority it doesn't count.... Elder Santamaria, Steven, and I just looked at her in amazement! Before the lesson, I was worried about Mary that she might of not understood us, but after that, I realized how much power the Spirit has in the lesson! It was amazing! On Friday we had a less active Family that we visit and are teaching their son who is not a member, so all morning I kept feeling, go over to their house at 4:00. Originally we had planned to go over later, so it got closer to 4, and we were riding around on our bikes and I told Elder Santamaria that we need to see them now, but he wanted to tract or something and see them later, finally I got him to go, so we knock on their door at 4:00, and they are home and not sick! So talked with her for a while, found out that their dog passed away earlier that day, he was 17! So her son, has been depressed all day, so we talked with him too, teaching him about prayer and that it can really help when we feel sad, and taught the restoration. By the end of the lesson, he had a smile on his face :) so I was so glad we came over at that time to help brighten someone's day. Also I don't know that it was about this week and our investigators saying some pretty profound stuff, but he said things to that I had never thought of before about why we have scriptures, I can't remember exactly what he said but something like, "the scriptures help us to see how others before us got their faith and believed" it was a great week! We also had the Babble Taco Challenge! The Babbles are members here and when their (our) district has all new missionaries, they hold the Babble Taco Challenge- how many tacos can you eat in a hour! Elder Schwartz got 7, I got 12, Sister Ellis got 13, Sister Young got 14, Elder Santamaria got 15, and Elder Staili got 20. The Record was 21. Sooo fullll......... Sister Young and Elder Santamaria threw up right after so we all thought that was funny. I heard about the tornadoes in Oklahoma, but not really worried here in Wichita, everything just goes around us, so pretty safe, we just have rain. Love you guys!

TOCO CHALLANGE!

Witchita Falls, Texas- Week 37

Hey!
Well it's the start of a new transfer! My companion is Elder Santamaria, and it's funny what we realized, the elders in our district, Schwartz, Staeli, Santana, and Santamaria, we all start with S! Hahaha, Elder Santamaria has been out for 14 months, and has spent all his time so far in Spanish branches, so he said he is not used to an English ward yet, but he likes it. On April Fools day, we went over to our ward mission leader's house for dinner. For dinner, the drinks were Jell-O, with straws in it, so it looked like a drink, but when we picked it up we realized it. :) For dinner he said we were having cake, so he brought out a cake, the inside of it was meatloaf, and the frosting was mashed potatoes, and decorated with ketchup, it was really creative! And dessert was taco salad, which was ice cream and other things, it was a good dinner :) Well, the zone leaders changed up our district a little, took away our car, gave it to west, so now we share a car with the sisters, and changed some of the ward boundaries, didn't like that at first, but it is getting better now. We met with Grace and Mary this week and gave them a Book of Mormon in their native language of Yuruba, they were so surprised that we actually got it in their language, they loved it! And then they said that they would go watch General Conference at the church with us! They are awesome, and then gave us a ride home which was very nice us them to do, because it was already 9:00 and we were on our bikes and we lived 45 min away on bikes. That saved us from some sketchy situations :) I also have a greater appreciation for General Conference now since I have been out. It is the best! It was so funny, the Saturday morning session, before it started I said that President Boyd K Packer and Elder L. Tom Perry would speak, and that President Packer would be one of the first ones, totally called it! So that was great, and Grace and Mary and her sister showed up and they enjoyed it too!  And tortilla tally is 6. I'm not the driver anymore so i like that :) Texas is good, a lot different then Oklahoma, not sure if a like one more than the other, like them for different reasons. When ever people ask me what I like better Oklahoma or Texas, I just say Arizona :) hahaha! Love you guys!

Us with the Afutiti family

Tostitos!!!

Witchita Falls, Texas- Week 36

Hey!
Today we had to deep clean our apartments, so that is what we did in the morning, transfers are coming up really soon, my new companion is Elder Santamaria, he was in my last zone, so I know him, he is really cool and I look forward to being able to serve with him! On Monday night we had a short exchange, so I went to west elder's area with Elder Schwartz and we exchanged back Tuesday. We went to do service at the food bank again, that went well. We have been low on miles since this is the end of the month, so we have been biking a lot, the weather is getting warmer outside, and we have had a few rainstorms, sadly they do not last very long, but everything looks a lot greener here now. We have had dinners with members most days this week so that was cool. Elder Rodreigez has started packing, and I have been cleaning, so are place now looks a lot better. Steve is doing well, his foot will still take months to heal though, but once it does, he can be baptized! We have a few investigators that are solid, but they are hard to meet with, busy with jobs or school. But everytime we are able to have a lesson, it is always great! I don't think that there is anything like the Easter Pagent here, but General Conference is coming up soon! We are super excited! And I told you guys last week that the church came out with a new video! have you seen it yet? http://www.mormon.org/easter

Cool Clouds

My Zone

Elder Rodreiguze`s "funeral"

My District

Witchita Falls, Texas- Week 35

Hey!
So on Monday we had zone p-day! It was really fun, we played lots of sports, and that is always a lot more fun with a lot of people there. The church is coming out with another video, Because He Lives and going to continue for the rest of the year it is really good. This week went by really fast. Every Wednesday in the church building, we have started to have a Book of Mormon Class. We go over one question the Book of Mormon answers and talking about it, I think it is really cool that we are doing that. We helped a member paint his house, so that was really fun. And it was awesome, on Sunday, we have been working with some less active members for a while, and Sunday they came to church! That was so great to see them there! This week we have been busy going around and seeing people. We are going on exchanges again today, I am going with Elder  Schwartz up to his area for the day. Time has really flown by, about a week till transfers, and two days ago was trainers calls, and have not gotten one yet, so probably not going to train, even though everyone is saying that I am. Oh and the Because He Lives video is like the He is the Gift, from Christmas time. And to let you know, if parts of the email are out of order or sound strange, the computer I'm using isn't that good, and it mixed up the email you send me and this one, so I tryed to separate the two the best I could, and also since I'm on this one, I can't sent any pictures, if I can get on the good ones today I will. Also, Alex Boye and a senior center made their version of this song called Up town funk, it is so funny, in the video there a person who is 92 years old doing the splits (the video was on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir page, thats how I found it) Hope everyone is having a great week! Love you guys!
   

Wichita Falls, Texas- Week 34

Hey! 
So the tortilla tally for last week was 4, and for this week, it was 2. This week we did a service project at the food bank, so that was fun, we got that done really fast. I still hate that black box thing on the car, C got a call from Elder Williams on Monday, he told me I was in the red for seat belt, and yellow for aggressive driving, ahhhhhh!!! So we had to figure out what was going on with the seat belt thing, I was very confused because I have always worn my seat belt, we finally figured it out- it was when we took the car in to get fixed, the workers there, drove it without a seat belt, so told him that, and the "aggressive driving" was driving down the roads here because they are so bad! They are full of potholes (you can't avoid them all) and all the dips in the road, so yeah...... he said he would take away the seat belt thing for me so that's good at least. On Tuesday we are going down the freeway, and right in front of us there was a accident, so I had to slam on my breaks and swerve a bit to avoid it, so after we stopped, I'm like, well that's good, we didn't crash, so I felt happy about that! 2 seconds later,"Aggressive Driving" (the box talks to you).... I wanted to throw it out of the window, so another call to Elder Williams telling him not to count that one because that was not my fault. We have gotten a lot of new investigators this week, and we have had really good lessons with them! Steve's surgery went well, as he told us, "I don't know what they did but I still have toes! so everything went fine." Found a family to teach! They are awesome! It has been a really good week. Hope everyone is doing great! Love you!

Wichita Falls, Texas- Week 33

Hey!
I don't know if this has been a short or long week, on Tuesday we took the car in to get the oil changed, this car seems it is always in the shop. Anyway so we took it in to get the oil changed, and while we are waiting, we got to watch Turbo, we thought it was the best movie ever!.... but of course we didn't watch it :) or at least tried not to.  So after the oil, they told us about the front tires, they needed to be replaced, and one had a leak in it which we knew about, so we had to call Elder Williams again, to get that approved, so they replaced the two front tires, then after that they wanted to align everything, so they did that too, so that took forever, it seems like we are always calling Elder Willams, so yeah. Then we went to go visit Mike and Steve again, Steve had to go to the hospital for his foot, so hopefully he will be back soon, we have been visiting them both quite a bit this week, they are best friends so we went to see them to cheer them up. At the hospital Steve recognized a lot of the members that are doctors there, so it's nice to know they are in good hands. There was snow and ice this week again, so that was fun to see, but the ice built up on one of the windshield wipers and tore the rubber part off, so there is another call to Elder Willams, hahaha so we got another one. Exchanges went well, we saw a lot of people and had good success, pretty good day. Love you guys!

 

Wichita Falls, Texas- Week 32

Hey!
I'm glad I got to finish emailing on Tuesday, that night, we had dinner with the bishop, and so it was Elder Rodriguez, Elder Quist, Elder Schwartz, and I. So bishop and his family are talking to us mostly in Spanish, and it was really funny because Elder Quist is the only English Elder there, so he has no idea what we are talking about. I am better at understanding then speaking, so hopefully my speaking will improve someday. We took the car in the day after exchanges and we finally got the car back last Thursday after waiting at the car place for the entire morning. The insurance company had not paid yet, so that was the only hold up, the car was in the parking lot all done and clean for us, but we couldn't get it yet, so finally after calling Elder Williams, he is in charge of the cars, he called them, and I don't think he was to happy with them about being late, because we had to have the car for Friday which was the next day. So we got it and everything was good. On Friday we had Zone Conference, where we all got the infamous Black Boxes on our cars! So it knows everything about the car, it is sort of annoying now- before you start the car, you have your seatbelt on then you start it, then you have this card that they gave us, so we have to sign in to the car! It was nice though because Elder Quist offered to drive to Lawton, so I'm like yes!! So I didn't have to drive there, I still don't like driving. After the conference, it started to snow a lot! So it was a good thing that I was not driving :) It snowed on Friday and the morning of Saturday then it changed to freezing rain, so the cars were grounded, the bad part was that we still have to see people, so on Saturday we walked about 10 miles in the snow to go visit people. So the snow was on the ground and that was soft, but then there was the freezing rain on top of that- so there was a hard covering then we would walk on it and break though the top layer of ice and into the snow under neither, it was really weird walking on. We were so sore after that. Because of the weather, church was canceled, so it was weird not going to church on Sunday, it was like a regular day. Today the snow and ice is finally gone, the temperature is still cold but its safe to drive so that's good. Steve and Mike (from my email last week) are roommates in a nursing home, Mike is a member and because of him, his roommate Steve, is getting baptised soon! We love going over there and talking to them, Mike has a board with the pictures of all the missionaries that have been there, there are a lot so it is cool to see and he remembers all of them! The dryer in our apartment works, the problem is that the power cord doesn't fit in the outlet, but its fine, I'm glad just to have a washer! Wichita Falls isn't really a Spanish area, there are Spanish speakers here though. We are slowly getting more people, but I still haven't used Spanish that much, and Elder Rodriguez really doesn't practice Spanish, so I'm trying to get him to help me more, its hard to practice because we never use it. We are having a exchange on Friday, Elder Schwartz is coming down to our place with me, so its going to be just like the MTC again. Should be fun. Okay, Love you guys!

This was after we rode our bikes all day in freezing rain!

The car is frozen

SNOW