It Makes you Think if we're really Prepared to Meet God

Sipping a local herbal tea called "Chimarrao"

Spider from the yard! Ugh

How was your week?
I also had a boring week cuz I´m still sicker than a dog. Remember when I got sick at this same time last year because of my allergies? Yep, same thing here. I went to the mission doctor, who is a Bishop here in the city. The worst part of it is my bad cough. I have my companion take the Epi pen around in his bag just in case and I´ve been using the inhaler a lot. It´s starting to get better so I´ll be good to go here in a couple of days.

How is your young new companion doing?

He´s doing well. He´s learning a lot. He´s learning what the real world is like living with grumpy me haha. We´re finding some more success re-activating people. The doc told me to not even go out for a week, so we´re at least being a little productive. There´s no way I could sit still at home and rest for a week.

What does he do for food and expenses?

His parents just give him money each week. Their ward attends the same chapel so they give him money there, and we eat lunch at his house on p days haha.

Did your new family get their marriage papers in?

NO! it´s frustrating me because they´re both from different cities so it´s just taking a while for the papers to get here.

How's the apartment?
I hate it. It´s old and big, so it´s a pain to clean. We´re changing houses with some other elders at the transfer because we live in their area and they live in ours. I have no idea why it´s like this in the first place. Transfer is in 3 weeks though, so I may be transferred by then.

Any other packages or letters?

Yes some of my recent converts responded finally. They usually take a little longer, but they´re still active!

Hi family!

Sorry but I just had another boring week so not a lot to say today. Taylor and Hailey are already going back to school! That went by so quickly! Taylor´s going to be a big senior and Hailey a Sophomore. Good thing that she´s prohibited from talking to the guys til I get home. Time really does go by so quickly. It makes ya think if we´re really prepared and ready to meet God. I feel like I just got out here into the field and I´m already coming home in 6 months. Tay, make sure you make up your seminary credits and go all out this year. All of the scripture masteries and references you NEED to learn. They´re so helpful out here in the mission when you´re teaching a discussion and need to quickly respond to a question as efficiently as possible. What better efficiency is there than scriptures?

We visited all of my recent-converts and some less active families this week so that we could have some calm lessons. This next week should be a lot more efficient. I´ve dedicated a lot of time this week to pondering and praying. I feel like the Lord has left me in this area for this long to find one more family. The area is so great, and the members love us. I just feel like there is one more golden family waiting for me. My companion is going really well and he´s excited to get out to his own mission and start his two years. Yesterday he and I went to the stake center and watched training on the new Family Search website. The missionaries are going to start using that as an effective teaching and finding method. I had no idea how to use it or anything but it was a good training and seems to be simple. I´m going to use that in my training for district meeting tomorrow to see if that´ll get the missionaries a better way to find new investigators.

My district is going really well but a lot of the missionaries have been in their areas for a long time. And this week was freezing and rainy so it just wasn´t good for anyone. My dupla and one other had investigators at church. The pictures I attached are of a huge spider that a member found, and one of me drinking chimarrao; that´s what they drink here in the south, it´s like a really bitter herbal tea. You´ll see it when you come pick me up and they´ll make you drink it with them. I´m used to it now, but it´s not my preferential choice. We´ve basically got our teaching group down to two or 3 families now.  

 Oh my, so I ordered some garments on the online store and put my address down to send them to me. On the same order I ordered the Liahona as a present for Marco Aurelio for a year and put his address for that. The church messed up and sent the garment box to his house in his name. He opened them up and told his wife that he thought they were the baptismal clothes and so he washed them and dried them. The order form in the box was in my name and with my address, so they messed up big time. Marco called me to let me know and we went right there to explain it all. It was funny but then I got thinking that maybe the church does this often? Man, that wouldn´t be good. At least he understood and got a good laugh of it.