December 17 and 24 Letters

December 17
Not Much to Say

We did a whole lot of tracting and contacting former investigators this week. The one bright spot was Mauro now is getting baptized! We had a great lesson and we invited him to be baptized on the 19 of January. He was so excited, and his wife was even more excited. She has been talking about getting sealed to him since we first started teaching them, and so he was excited for that too.

I also had Chic-fil-a for the first time this week. When they heard I had never been, my entire district said we had to go. Then they watched me eat it to see my reaction. I guess it was pretty good, but it is way overhyped. 

We also had to bike all week. We technically share a car with some sisters in the other Palm Bay 1 ward, but they use all the miles every time they have the car, so even when we have it we can't use it. I probably biked 70 miles this week. I got a pretty nice bike, so it wasn't bad. It helps me stay fit I guess.

If any of you are wondering what a typical meal for me would be, here's my normal breakfast and lunch. For breakfast, I either eat Cocoa Pebbles, or I eat a burrito with scrambled eggs, pepper jack cheese, ham, and sriracha. Those burritos are amazing. For lunch I either eat a pb and j and nutella sandwich, which is amazing btw,  or a ham sandwich. I also have some frozen Totinos pizzas that I eat occasionally. I thought I would get sick of that food after a little bit, but I still love my burritos and PB and J's. Maybe in a few months I'll find something else to eat.

The last thing that's pretty interesting is we are teaching a former investigator that is kind of homeless but living out of a hotel right now, and we're teaching his friend who just got out of 17 years in prison last week. They are both reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church though. They are awesome!

Merry Christmas!

December 24
Krismis!

Its Christmas! We had an unusual week. Monday was P Day, Tuesday we biked for 4 hours to a lesson outside of our area, Wednesday was a normal day, Thursday we had district meeting and were gone almost all day getting an oil change and other stuff, Friday we were gone all day at a Christmas devotional, Saturday was another normal day, and yesterday we had a ward Christmas get together and we were visiting members all day. 

We had a lesson with a lady we found named Deborah. She had read the restoration pamphlet we gave her and she read it and said she believed it. She also said she read the entire Book of Mormon. She said she believed everything in the introduction and that Jesus Christ visited the Americas. It was awesome. Nooooobody says they'll read the entire Book of Mormon and nobody keeps commitments, but Deborah is awesome.

The ward I'm in is also amazing. I got about 10 Christmas presents from members at church yesterday. We are very grateful for them. 

On Saturday we got to have a dinner with a member family and 2 other nonmember families. We had a hit dog roast and watched the nativity on a projector. It was really fun and the nonmembers might want to take lessons. The only problem is they are in the other ward's area so we would have to give them to the other missionaries. 

Sorry if this email is a little choppy, I didnt have much time to write it. Good week overall, and I'm excited for Christmas. Merry Christmas ya'll! 

*He's really into making these ties. So we asked him about that on our phone call and apparently they like to hang out at some fabric stores and buy fun fabric. His trainer taught him how to make ties without using a sewing machine. This one is his favorite and apparently a favorite of several other missionaries. So he's going to make them one too.

Not gonna lie

You may think my life revolves around a missionary and school. At least that's what my blog posts will tell you.

Well . . . 

You'd probably be right.

I love my missionary Mondays.

Today I got to spend a good portion of the day emailing back and forth. I don't normally get to do that. And it's a good thing I did.

I sent him a bundt pan via Amazon Prime a month ago. His favorite is our Christmas morning rolls we make, so I figured he could make them there and feel like he's at home a little. Then I sent his Christmas package with a few ingredients to make his rolls, the recipe, and some cash to buy the rest.


Um, did you notice where he said he was going to BAKE the PLASTIC WRAP!!!

That would have been a disaster.

Anyway, there are other things happening besides just Erik and 2nd Grade.

Nate started working at McDonalds. He's working the grill and hasn't had too many burns yet. He's busy hanging out with friends, performing in orchestra concerts, practicing tennis, and running. He's about half way through his hard year of being a junior, and obviously too cool to smile when dressed in his work gear.

Ash was selected to be the student of the month by her English teacher. I made it to the little ceremony but my phone is slowly giving up the ghost and decided to take a breather. So no photos while there. I had to get them at home. She also is very busy with friends . . . like just about every weekend hanging out somewhere.

Alex entered four pictures in  our local newspaper coloring contest and won prizes for two out of the four. It must pay to take your time and do a good job. He also getting ready to start his first season of Junior Jazz. He takes his basketball to school every day to practice and play.

Tyler is busy bringing home some of the bacon from Wells Fargo and planting bushes in December. I know the neighbors think he is crazy. Once that gardening gets in your blood, it's hard to take the time off when the weather warms up in winter.


And I'm getting ready to finish up my classes for licensing. Three more classes. I'm headed in to the craziest four months of my life I'm afraid. Just keep swimming. That light is at the end of the tunnel.

We were also gifted a bouquet of Christmas flowers anonymously. The delivery lady showed up and a card that simply said, "Thinking of you. Merry Christmas." Our family is so good at being Christmas ninjas. I hate it when the tables are turned on me. Whomever it was, we are so grateful and loving their beauty.

BS and the apology letter

I had a funny moment the other day in my class. I was sitting at my table helping two students catch up from being gone for a week while the rest of the class was working on various activities. Another student came over to me and said,"Mrs. Leary, some of the kids over there are writing BS. What does that mean?"

She caught me so off guard I wasn't sure how to answer her. First, my initial thought was why are they writing BS and second, how do they know what BS even means.

And then it hit me. I had changed my Daily 5 check-in form to include Book Shopping where students can exchange their books for other books in our library. To keep it short, they used the initials BS, and since I had just included it that morning, I didn't have time yet to explain to the class what that additional choice was.

I sure had a good chuckle with myself over that one.

And another good  moment came with my difficult student. He made the choice to color all over his desk with crayon which isn't very easy to remove. I gave him some dry towels and told him to go to work. I ended up pulling his desk away from the others. I kept very calm and I continually had to redirect him to his task. And then I finally had to tell him that I was going to let him stay in for recess (he does not like going out at recess and it's about the only thing I have to hold over him), but since he had destroyed his desk, he would need to go outside today.

His desk finally got clean again with the help of some classmates. During one of our rotations, he wrote me an apology letter telling me how sorry he was for coloring on his desk. THAT was out of the blue and very uncharacteristic. I feel like I have a good relationship with him that I can command some authority. But it hasn't been easy. My dad who was a teacher tells me to not let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch. And I say, yes, but didn't the Savior also go after that one.

It hasn't been an easy year, but I know it will be worth it if I keep up my efforts and prayers for this boy.

December 10 Letter about Remembering

This is one of those letters that mom's wait for and hope for. He's only been gone three months but I can already see some tremendous growth in him or maybe it was just growth waiting to be unleashed. I do miss this boy of ours.

This photo shows a missionary wearing a jacket. Could it possibly be cold enough for a jacket??? It was only 89 degrees last week.

He also wasn't too impressed with my dollar store dart board I sent him. I think he should put his thinking skills to use and figure out a way to make it work.

December 10

This week was extremely uneventful. We tracted all week long and got zero new people to teach. We are switching it up this week and are gonna work way more with inactive members. The best part of the week was our lesson with Mauro and we have another lesson with them tonight, yay! We also had zone conference which is always fun. I also wrote a big ol Spititual Spiel that I've been writing all week if you feel like reading it. 

Like last week, we had lots of appointments fall through. That means we have from around 1:30 to 7 every day to do nothing but knock doors. We found zero people though! We were praying and working hard and nothing happened. Some weeks are like that, but you need to give everyone a chance. Even if nothing comes out of it, the important thing is that you talked to everyone you could. 

We had an awesome lesson with Mauro Villamil this week. His wife has an awesome testimony and she kept saying how excited she was for her husband to get baptized and how excited she was to get their family sealed. We will put him on date tonight for sure. They are so splendiferously fantastic.

Zone conference was Tuesday, and it took all day. It's basically meetings for 6 hours straight, like intense seminary all day long. It's fun though because we get fed and we can talk to all the other missionaries. That's about it for the week though. 

Gotta love Facebook and people who post photos for me.

Remember

This Spiritual Spiel is a tribute to my mom😁. She always says that the most important word is remember. This is what she told me in an email a while back, “When we remember our feelings and thoughts and experiences, we are in a better place to strengthen our testimonies and help others who are experiencing similar things.” I love you mom😊. I've been pondering this word all week and wanted to write down my thoughts about it. Fyi, this will probably be really long, so sorry.

A quote by George Santayana says “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Remembering the things we have experienced and the things we have learned is how we grow and it's what makes us who we are. If we don't use past experiences to guide us today, we wont ever grow and we will make the same mistakes over and over. 

Elder Holland gave a great talk at a BYU devotional called "Remember Lot's Wife." Listen to it if you haven't, but in it he gives this statement, “the past is to be learned from but not lived in.” Remember the past and learn from it, but don't long for it. Look for a better future, have faith that as you rely on the Savior’s atonement and always strive to be better, you will prosper and find “peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come.” This comes from remembering and learning from the past and applying it to your future. 

Mosiah 4:30 says:

“But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.”

The sacrament prayer, which most of us listen to each week, says “O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.”

Remember our Savior always, remember to keep his commandments. As we remember the past we learn. When we do wrong, we feel guilt and shame and sorrow, I know I feel terrible. Sometimes as we repent and change and strive to be better we block that out and try to forget. This doesn't help though. We don't want to live in the past, but we need to remember how those things we did made us feel. It will provide protection from sin to remember the way we felt. When temptation comes, if we remember the feelings that have come from sin in the past, it will be easier to resist. I love the story of Alma the Younger. He was a very unrighteous child and fought against the church. He repented and became one of the most valiant servants of the Lord. He didn't forget his early days though.

Alma 36:13-16 says:

“Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments. Yea, and I had murdered many of his children, or rather led them away unto destruction; yea, and in fine so great had been my iniquities, that the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. Oh, thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both soul and body, that I might not be brought to stand in the presence of my God, to be judged of my deeds. And now, for three days and for three nights was I racked, even with the pains of a damned soul.” 

He didn't block it out. He had retained this memory all these years. 

He didn't just remember the bad though, he remembered the good that came from the gospel and the atonement.
Verses 17-21 say:


“And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”

Remember the good that comes from repentance and the gospel. I love thinking about the last time I went to the temple and the spirit that I felt inside. When I have doubts, or I get discouraged, or someone we talk to says some anti or bring up something against the church, I remember the temple or a time that I gained a witness of this gospel’s truth. Remembering these moments helps to strengthen me during hard times. I don't think anyone could ever lose faith or hope or leave the church if they just remember. Remember the feelings that come as you do good. A lot of missionaries have had hard times because their investigators have encountered some anti material against the church. The best thing to do they say is to ask them how it made them feel. Peace only comes from the Holy Ghost. As we remember the times that we have felt the Holy Ghost our testimonies will be strengthened. As a missionary, it is my job to extend commitments to everyone I talk to, so my commitment is to find ways to remember Jesus Christ this Christmas season and to write down when you have felt the Holy Ghost and when you have seen God's hand in your lives. Sorry for boring all of you to death but I felt like I needed to write that. 

Another great talk about remembering the Savior is "Always Remember Him" by Garrit W. Gong in the April 2016 General Conference. 

December 3 Letter

Can you tell I'm having a wee bit of a time trying to keep up. Elder Leary got his package so now he's got a Christmas tree for his apartment.

I shipped out his Christmas package today, so hopefully on Wednesday he'll have some presents to put under that tree.

 

His presents had our traditional Santa math tags. Hopefully they will make him feel like he's at a home a little. Only 10 more days until we get to talk to him!

He was also busy this week putting together a Primary nativity.

December 3
It's been a long week. We had some good lessons and cool experiences, some not so good ones, and some cancelled. I'll start with the bad.

We had a lesson with a family with 2 daughters that want to get baptized and a dad that wont let them. We had s great lesson yesterday and invited them to be baptized and they said yes. Long story shirt though, the dad said they couldn't and now we dont really know how to proceed. We're going to keep in contact with the dad and address some of his concerns. It's kind of a terrible scenario for the whole family. Oh well, we'll figure it out. 

We also had an awesome lesson with Sister Villamil, an inactive member and her nonmember husband. It went awesome and we're hoping to invite him to be baptized this week. 

We had a cool experience with them. That morning so I was leaving I had the impression to grab a Spanish Book of Mormon. I never have them or need them. Anyway, I didn't have room for them in my bag. I had been having problems with my bike tire deflating, so I had a bike pump in my bag. I decided to take it out of my bag and put in the Book of Mormon instead. All day long, I never needed to use it so I was pretty confused. The last thing we did that night was go to our appointment. We're found out that they had lost their Book of Mormon and so I have her one and her husband wanted one too. I have one too him and he said he can only read in Spanish. He speaks English pretty well but I guess he can't read it. I was like hey, I have a Spanish one! So that was pretty cool. 
     
We had 5 appointments cancel this week, and 3 in one day. That means we did a lot of tracting. We didn't find a single person until Sunday night though. Sometimes nobody ever wants to hear what you have to say. Oh well, next week will be better. 

We also saw lots of cool reptiles this week. We saw hundreds of lizards,

a gecko, a WILD IGUANA,

and a man caught a black racer snake.

November 26 Letter

Here's an overview of my week. We got to have p day with a different zone in Rockledge which was muy bueno y divertido. We had transfers and now only have 1 ward, yay! We found 3 new peeps, Cathy, Moises and Brian.

Thanksgiving happened on Thursday in case you didn't know, and it was awesome. And last night we had dinner with a family comprised of a member, 2 investigators, 3 nonmembers, and 2 kids. It went soooooo well.

So last p day we went to Rockledge because it's closer than where our zone goes in Vero. We got to hang out with that entire zone in their monstrous gym which made basketball and gator ball way fun. Ender Squires' trainer is also in that zone so we got to hang out with him. We are also going to be with that zone today. 

We had transfers on Tuesday and got sisters in Palm Bay 1, the other ward we were covering. So now we're back to 1 ward and there are sisters in our apartment complex. So we're also back to sharing a car. It makes our job easier, but now we're back to biking basically everywhere because we let the sisters use the car most days because they have a big area.

We found 3 new people. Cathy we found tracting. She is pretty old with lots of health issues, but she's the sweetest person ever. She was on her porch and we talked to her for a good 20 minutes. We offered some service and then talked a little about the Plan of Salvation and the Book of Mormon. She said we could come back this week, so that will be fun. Moises was the dad of someone we found tracting. We got a return appointment with his son Alejandro, and we went to the appointment and Alejandro was just going to work, but he had talked to his dad and his dad was more interested than he was. So that was kind of funny, but we had a really long lesson with Moises about what the Book of Mormon is and how it can bless his life and his families lives. He is really cool and seemed very interested. So that was amazing. Brian was the last one we found, I'll talk about him later.

So Thanksgiving was Thursday. We all know what that means, we can now listen to Christmas music.😃 Thanksgiving was fun though we had dinner with the Hobson family and the Rasmussen family. It was really good. They're the 2 families that feed us the most, and the Bro. Hobson is the mission leader, so we k ow them really well. The sister missionaries in our ward also ate with us. It was fun. We spent the rest of the day tracting and wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving and we visited as many single people in the ward as we could to make sure they had people to spend it with. 

Our dinner last night was amazing. It was with the Schwind family. The moms a member and they have 4 daughters. There's a 15 yo and a 13 yo that are investigators. The dad is not interested at the moment. We had ribs and talked a lot to all of them. The daughters really want to be baptized but the parents dont want them to because they think they're doing it for the wrong reasons. We've become really good friends with the dad which is good. We had a good lesson on faith and how it might start as a tiny seed but that's ok and last week we had a lesson about the importance of building our own testimonies. The whole family liked it and the dad even said he'd read out of the Book of Mormon this week. 😀☺ Next week we have another dinner and hopefully we'll put the daughters on date to be baptized. 

Also, I biffed it on my bike. Check my google drive for more photos. What happened was we were biking down a sidewalk by a whole bunch of tall tightly packed houses and it was pretty windy. We passed by a canal which mean there was a big canyon thing that all the wind was going through. So right as we were passing it a huge wind gust hit and pushed me to the left, then I overcorrected and fell. I want hurt at all, I caught myself pretty well, but it messed up my seat and my brakes a little bit. It's all good now though.

That's all folks.

P.S. Oh yeah, Brian is the dad at the end, should've clarified that.

Angels Among Us

I'm sitting here in awe at what just transpired. My previous bishop and friend, Mark Steinagel, just called to say he had just surprised Erik, or Elder Leary I should say, at church. I knew he was going to Orlando on a business trip because he asked for Erik's information. I gave him what I had but let him know I certainly did not expect him to seek our Erik because of the distance. Erik is in an area an hour south of Orlando.

But in my heart of hearts, I knew he would find a way to get down there.

And he did. He said, "I wasn't sure if I was breaking mission rules by being there, but I figured I wasn't family."

He called me after church to tell me about his experience.

Mark and his daughter drove 1 1/2 hours to the meetinghouse Erik is assigned to. They walked in just as it was about to start to find a full meetinghouse with no seats except for the two right up by two elders in white shirts.The opening hymn had begun as they made their way to these two empty seats. He sat down nonchalantly by Erik. Mark said the face Erik made when he glanced over to see who was sitting by him was priceless as Erik gave him the biggest grin. Erik immediately leaned over to his companion to tell him who was sitting with them.

They briefly talked after the meeting, but Mark could tell that Erik was unsure how to interact with someone from home. He could tell that Erik felt the need to get to work with whatever they had planned that day. After learning that Erik and his companion didn't have a car in the 89 degree heat, he offered to take them wherever they needed to be. He was going to consecrate his rental car to the work of the Lord for the day. Immediately after he felt that wasn't the right thing to do, and Erik confirmed his feelings when he said (without consulting with his companion), "I don't think that would be a good idea."

They talked just briefly and Mark watched Erik and his companion talk with some people up front and then out in the hall. He felt it was time to go and quickly waved goodbye to Erik.

Mark relayed to me that Erik looked fantastic. He looked happy and upbeat. Oh how this mother's heart was grateful to hear from someone who had a first hand experience with Elder Leary in the mission field. You get emails home, but sometimes I wonder how much he's really saying. I guess that is why the Holy Ghost is so important. I've felt at peace with the weekly emails and haven't had to worry too much. The Holy Ghost has given me that peace and Bishop Steinagel confirmed those feelings today.

Twenty-three more days until we get to talk to our missionary. I CAN'T WAIT!! I need to commission Ash and Alex to make us a missionary chain instead of the usual Christmas chain.

Mark has been an important part of my family's life. He has given such great service unselfishly as he puts other's needs first. He will always have a special place in my heart for the service he has given to us.

*He didn't feel comfortable getting a picture with Erik so this is what I've got from the day Erik opened his mission call. Bishop Steinagel is in the suit.

November 12 and 19 Letters

November 12

This week was really fun. I finally did my first exchange which was amazing and we went to the beach! I also learned how to make ties and made the best time ever.

On last Wednesday, I went on an exchange with Elder Terry. I probably shouldn't say this, but we stayed up until 12:30 talking and working out. It was really fun to talk to someone new and live with them for a change. I love Elder Squires, but it's nice to be with someone else for a change. We had a great day together, we had 2 amazing lessons, put someone on date to be baptized, and found 5 new investigators, and 2 return appointments from potentials. That's about as good a day as you can ask for. They also had a member in their ward drive us to the exchange from Palm Bay to Fort Pierce. It's an hour drive, he did it in 25 minutes. He has a mustang and drives 130 on the freeway. It was kind of terrifying but it was way fun. Again, I don't know if I should have said that. 

We went to the beach this morning at sunrise.

Too bad it was cloudy on the horizon. It was way fun though. There was nobody there, and we could even stand in the water a little bit. We had a really good time. That was my first time seeing the Atlantic, even though I've lived within 5 miles of it for the past 5 weeks.

I also made my first tie. It was a cartoon shark tie, look at the picture of it. I wore it to both wards at church. I had probably 20 people compliment it. And kids love it. It wasn't made very well, and it will probably fall apart within a few weeks, but oh well. Today is also my first zone p day. We've been hanging out playing basketball and gator ball all day, it's been fun. 

If you want to see some pictures at the beach and a funny guy with a motorcycle with a side car with a dog in the side car with big goggles on the dog in the side car, then check my google drive.

November 19

I'm not the newest missionary in the mission anymore! I'm also pretty sure I'm the youngest in the mission, but that could also change. Anyway, this will be a short email. This week we just tracted a lot and visited people. 

So me and Elder Squires are staying together. We no longer have 2 wards which is amazing. There are now sisters that live in our apartment complex that are over that ward, so that'll be fun. 

The one cool experience we had was on Thursday, we didn't have anything to do and no idea where to go. Elder Squires and I went to different rooms and prayed for revelation. We then sat and thought. Elder Squires had the thought to visit some part member families and less active families. I had a specific name come to me, the Bradshaws. I didn't know there was anyone by that name. I thought I might have been thinking of the Cutshaws because I know them, but I searched for Bradshaw and sure enough there was someone by that name. They were an inactive, part member family. We went and knocked the door, talked for 15 minutes and got a return appointment. We then found a few more part member families to go visit and got return appointments from all of them.          
Anyway, revelation is real. If you pray sincerely for something you desperately need, and then ponder, you will get an answer. We've been guided so much the past few weeks it's crazy.That was such a huge testimony builder. I had never heard that name, and we independently had the same idea of visiting part member families and it worked. We found 3 other people to teach this week too which is cool. That's all I got for this week. 

Also, it got down to 50 degrees this week. Dont you guys feel so bad for me? Its soooooo cold. Just kidding. I love the weather here, but it was funny. We went to a members house that night and had soup and hot chocolate and they were wrapped up in blankets on their couch.


**In my email to Erik, I asked if he had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving and here is his reply . . . 

So yes we do have a dinner on Thanksgiving with the ward mission leader and another family named the Rasmussens. The Rasmussens have an autistic son who's 27. He's the coolest person ever. He doesn't talk but he uses a form of sign language but it's hard because he doesn't have the fine motor skills, but he can understand you just fine. He leads the music and passes the sacrament sometimes and his favorite place on the earth is the temple. He loves everything church related. Today a deacon came and asked him he'd help pass. It was the coolest thing ever to see his eyes light up and he almost ran up to the front of the chapel grinning ear to ear. We eat at their house every Monday, we're actually going over tonight. 

So Thanksgiving will be fun. We have a great ward, they're actually known as one of the best wards in the mission. We are fed every night. We actually had a dinner with a family with 3 little kids that are the literal cutest things ever. One of them wants to go on a mission to Wendys. 

Anyway, they made a really easy dinner that seemed like something you'd make. It's basically just chili with cornbread in a casserole. I attached the recipe, is pretty good. 

So with the Elder Holland talk [I emailed him one of my favorite talks by Elder Holland called "Remember Lot's Wife"], we just listened to that 2 days ago. No joke. It is a good talk. Some other interesting talks we listened to were Why 1820 by Hyrum Smith and What Is The Blueprint Of Christ's Church by Tad Callister. 

How's school going? Does Nate have a job yet? How's the weather there? It got down to 50 the other day and we were biking in short sleeves at night. Elder Squires is from Las Vegas Vegas he was cold, but I thought it felt great. I miss being cold. Here you're always wet. You get out of the shower and dry off and you're already wet. And you can't ever cool down. I'll play basketball and then usually i'll go outside to cool down, but that doesn't help here. So feeling cold for once felt really nice. Another thing, if you need a new phone wallpaper, go to the photos in the new Come, Follow Me manual on gospel library and download them. There are some juicy ones. 

Several experiences with prayer this week

I have been really struggling with my calling as a Sunday School teacher for the 17-year-old class. I love teaching but feel like I don't invest what I should into preparing a lesson. I plan a myriad of lessons for school all week long and I'm mentally done by the time I'm ready to prepare another lesson for Sunday. This week I prayed to Heavenly Father about it and let him know my frustrations with the situation. I don't want to be released but a weekly lesson is too much for me right now. I just keep telling myself to hang on until January, but that is still several months away.

Today our Sunday School president asked to speak with me for a few minutes before I began class. He said he felt like he needed to put two people in each class and would I be okay with swapping lessons. I told him that was a direct answer to my prayer. I'm hoping it will begin soon. Prayers really do get answered. Sometimes quickly and sometimes they take awhile.

The other one is I prayed about what I could do for my sister Natalie after hearing about the terrible day she had had a week previously. I had the impression all week I needed to go visit her in Logan. And I kept telling myself that I just couldn't do it. Saturdays are big days for me in planning for the upcoming week. Finally, late Friday night I texted her and said that Ash and I were going shoe shopping and wanted to come up and take her to lunch. And then I hit send . . . at 11:10pm. It was that late. I got a reply the next morning and Ash and I made a girl trip to Logan. It was impromptu and fun and like Natalie told me, "just what I needed -- thanks for coming up." I followed through with a prompting and that always gives me confidence that I'm doing what the Lord needs me to do.

Is is convenient? I feel like never.

Will the Lord bless my efforts? Always.

* * * * * * * * * * *

A family update: Kiersten and Jason have moved into the basement of Grandma and Grandpa Ellis's house.

The commute is a bit longer to school and work but this will enable them to save a lot of money. Plus they get to hang with Grandma and Grandpa. What a treat for them. Jason even got permission to hang Christmas lights and convinced Kiersten to climb a tree to hang some there.

They both quit Costa Vida. Kiersten is working with Jason's mom at a Curves workout place, and Jason has gone back to being a server at Olive Garden in addition to both going to school full time.

November 5 Letter

This has been the craziest week yet. There were so many changes made in our district, lots of meetings to go to, and it rained on us all week. 

Every emoji represents something that happened. 🌧🌧 It rained on us 2 times this week while we were biking. The first time was on Friday, and we had to bike 5 miles to dinner and then to a lesson. We started biking and then it started to pour. In Utah, pouring rain is very different from it pouring rain in Florida. There was a layer of water about 3 inches deep on the entire ground. And we were biking into the wind and the rain. We got to dinner and it looked like we had just gone swimming in our clothes. So that was a fun experience. 

🥩🥩 Halloween was also a fun day. No, we didn't go trick or treating. We weren't even allowed to be out after it got dark around 7. We did some service for a member earlier that day though and he was feeding us dinner that night. He decided to take us out to Longhorn Steakhouse. It was amazing. I got a prime rib and some really good macaroni and cheese. It was the best dinner I've had yet. 

😳😳 That emoji is me on Friday. We have been living right next to two other Elders in the Palm Bay 1 ward and we have Palm Bay 2. Elder Blomstedt was our District Leader. On Friday, they got Emergency Transferred out and we got their area. We now have 2 wards, our area has more than doubled, we don't have a District Leader, and we don't have their area book. It's been kind of crazy for us, and next week will be even crazier trying to figure out what we're going to do.

🚘🚘 The good thing is that we now have their car! Yay!! We wont have to bike through pouring rain in our suits anymore. And we won't spend an hour to bike to the southern part of our area. And it's a really nice new Malibu. 

🕘🕒 Because we have 2 wards, we went to 6 hours of church on Sunday. We were there from 9 to 3, and then we biked to a lesson. It started raining on our way back from the lesson, so we stopped at the church and studied there while we waited for the rain to stop. In total we were at the church about 7.5 hours. I don't recommend it, but it was still good to get to know some people in our new ward. 

🐊🐊 The alligator emojis are just clickbait😁. We didn't actually see any this week. We did get 2 new investi"gators" though. The mom's a member and the dad isn't. 2 of their daughters want to get baptized and all we need to do is convince the dad. He's a really nice guy but he thinks they want to be baptized for the wrong reasons. We're becoming good friends with him which will really help though. We talked about alligators for an hour with him, and he said he might take us to see a whole bunch. Apparently there are 3 spots within 20 miles of us that are just filled with alligators. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll have some cool alligator photos and some cool people being baptized.
     
Spiritual Spiel
This week I read my patriarchal blessing a few times. I want to invite all of you that have it to read it and see what things are in store for you if you are worthy of those blessings. It really is specifically for you and everything in it can be yours. I hadn't read mine in a while and it was cool to see how true it is even though I just got it a few years ago. As always, check the google drive for more amazing pictures. This was my Halloween picture, I hope you're all jealous.😀

Some things never change

Latest letters

Ninja in training. Erik's Halloween costume, I guess, complete with the missionary name tag. I'm a little jealous of the short sleeves.

I'm discovering that my weekly missionary email comes between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning. This allows me to email back and forth for a minute. Even though Erik still manages to drive us crazy from 1000s of miles away, we miss him and he finds ways to bring some humor to our lives.

In his last email he told me he definitely bought the right phone because it allows him to do memes. This is what he does on P-day I guess. Ashlyn managed to lock us out of the kids computer by continually putting in the wrong picture password and NONE of us know the real password. The only person who might know is Erik, who unfortunately doesn't live here anymore. After waiting a week, he sent us what might work. Nope. After much trying we are able to get into the Kids account but not the Admin. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! And he thought he would be funny by typing the the password hint as "Hahahahahahahah." How aggravating. One day we'll get that computer back to full working capacity, probably when Elder Erik makes his way back home in two years.

October 22 Letter
Here's a dumb missionary joke for ya'll. What is a missionary's favorite car? A convertible. 🤣 Anyway, like I said last week we are whitewashing our area, so we are getting to know all the members and all the investigators and others. Not a lot of super exciting stuff. I pass a tennis court every day on the bike ride to our area. I really wish I could just pause for an hour and go play, but I have more important things to do.We could get some new investigators by playing "beat you, teach you" but that isn't allowed. Bummer. I guess for this special edition 1 month in email I'll give you a pros and cons list. Here's a list of things that have been hardest for me. And I guess I'll throw in some good stuff too.

Biggest struggles so far of being a missionary:
1. Not playing tennis
2. No good music, and no, MoTab is not good music
3. No movies or YouTube, I guess I'll just say no media
4. No naps/Wake up at 6:30
5. I guess I also miss my family and friends just a little bit😁

Biggest blessings/ Pros:
1. Stronger testimony
2. I have more purpose/ I know what I'll be doing every day.
3. I'm out of the "Utah bubble" as people keep saying, which is a good thing to be out of for a little bit
4. It's not cold. In fact, its warm.
5. I can have a quadruple stacker PB&J and there's nobody to stop me.
     
On to my week, we taught an elderly couple named Sky and Clem. They are Catholic but their son's a member. They're really nice people and always feed us. We've also been teaching a Colombian guy named Manuel. He is also really fun to talk to and is really interested in our church. We've been talking to a lot of people and making ourselves known. We've also done a lot of service which has been fun. We got to do some digging the other day which was fun. This might sound kind of weird but I really miss my job and being able to dig with a shovel. Anyway, that's mainly what I spend my time doing. A lot of time is also spend riding bikes, we don't have a car, so we have about a 10 minute ride just to get to our area, plus an extra 5 to 25 minutes depending. We should be sharing a car soon though. 

Some highlights: 
I held an alligator head. We talked to a member that hunts alligators and had a whole huge freezer full of alligators that he had killed the week before. It was cool.

I went to Wendy's for my 1 month mark on Friday. And I did bring my frosty cards all the way from home, so I got 2 free frostys.

I did the worst thing ever. We were calling a member named Wanda to try to set up a time to meet with her. She didn't answer and we usually don't leave voicemails. Anyway, Elder Squires decided to leave one this time, but I didn't know that. This was late at night and we were in weird moods. Anyway, right when it beeped I was in the middle of saying "This is Wanda" in a really weird accent. Then Elder Squires freaked out and hung up. So basically a member we've never met now has a voicemail of the missionaries saying "This is Wanda" in a really weird voice and hanging up. Oh well. None of you need to know that or care, but that's what happened. 

I was told there were a lot of bugs here, that there are a lot of Alligators, that it rains a lot, and that the humidity makes things go soft. I guess I'm just lucky because I haven't dealt with any of that yet. It's been sunny, warm, and bug free. 

I try to keep my emails lighthearted, but seriously I have been learning a lot. I think I'm going to start putting a "Spiritual Spiel" (cool name, huh) in each of my emails, or maybe once a month. But here it is. 

SPIRITUAL SPIEL
My testimony of The Book of Mormon, Christ and the Atonement, and Prayer has grown so much. It has been great being a full time servant of the Lord, because if you put your trust in him he wont let his servants down. I've really learned even in just 1 month that sometimes you just need to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help you and to show you the way. This is a lot harder than it seems, but it does help immensely. There's no way I could leave home and come here and be a missionary day in and day out without his help.
   

I guess that's how you write a big long email about a pretty uneventful week. And as always, check this link out for all my photos. I got a photo with an alligator head, which is pretty sweet.

October 29 Letter
I'm 354,240,000 milliseconds into my mission. Not much happened this week. I'm not sure what to say. We did go to a Trunk or Treat which was fun. We were going to starve to death until my prayer got answered, so we aren't going to starve anymore. I also had to give a talk on Sunday about my favorite hymn, which was fun. I did a lot of service, knocked some doors, taught some lessons, and met with members.

Trunk or Treat was really fun. There were lots of good costumes. There's a kid named River that always wanted to race us and fight us. He thought he was the strongest person in the world because he dressed up as Black Panther. It was funny. 

One of my prayers was answered yesterday. I wasn't given the full amount of money for the month because I got here a little into the month. I also had to buy lots of hygiene products because I just got to the field, we also had 5 p days this month which means we had to go another month without money, and we're whitewashing our area so we had to buy lots of food and apartment supplies to get us started. Anyway, we have no money and no food and we have to go another week. I prayed that it would last its the week, but there was no way. We had a dinner today, and it was amazing. It was with Sister Boileau and her nonmember husband. They had cleaned out their food supply earlier that day and had 3 huge bags of food to be thrown out that wasn't even expired. She decided to give them to us. We now have food for a month. 

There are so many people that slam doors in our faces like Sister Young said. What's really been working for us is when they say "Leave me alone, go bother someone else, bye" we just offer our help with anything they're doing. We've gotten to talk to lots of people that way. They realize that we actually want to help them, not lecture them about repenting or anything like that. Anyway, life's good out here when I'm working. It's when I stop for a minute that I get homesick or start thinking about all the stuff I can't do. Like you said, I had an easy life before coming out, but I'm trying to always stay focused on my purpose. Time really does fly here. It's already been a month.

I also gave a talk 3 weeks in. And we had 2 investigators there that heard me, which is great.