That is all and i was thinking of stuff for my easter box and i had something just the other day but i can't remember what it was. Another random thought too is that mother's day is coming up which is pretty cool cause i will get to talk to everybody! Pretty exciting stuff. So i'm trying to just pick the higlights by looking at my planner and stuff. I will be honest, that we are so busy all the time that it is hard to make time to write in my journal. Even normal times when i would have the time, like lunch, we cut down so that we could be working more. I don't know where to draw the line and say hey i'm gonna stay up a little later so i can write in my journal or just say hey i gotta be obedient and find other time to do it. We are already getting up at 6 too so it'll be hard to wake up earlier than that to do it ha! BUt Last monday i got to do something pretty cool. There's this guy named ben rodriguez or well he's a kid. He's 15 and has a brother who's 13. They are soo awesome and are actually pretty into the church. Their dad or rather, step dad, is less active though and hasn't been coming to church for a while and the thing is, that the boys aren't super pushy with they parents. If we invite them to come to church, then they say oh ill ask my mom, who's not a member either, and then they end up not coming. We have even just showed up at their house to pick th em up and they aren't home. It is seriously so frustrating. But last monday after p-day ended, we went to see ben and he is a big skateboarder. So we went over there and he was skating so we got out and i had those blue vans in the car because i play soccer in them for an activity that we have, and i got to skate with him for a little while haha it was pretty sweet! He's good too and it was jst a cool way to connect with an investigator that made it really personal to me and him. Then we had a little chat afterword abotu the book of mormon and stuff and he was like yeah i read the other day when you guys told me too, I even took notes of what i read on my phone because i figured you would ask me what i read haa! It was sooo awesome to hear, and this guy is only 15! He is the man though and we are trying now to meet with his step dad victor, because if we can get victor back to church then ben, alex, their little brother, and victor's wife will all be able to progress. It is sooo frustrating though that because this Victor guy, his kids have to be withheld from soo many blessings, from the truth! They even talked about it in conference how it is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children the doctrine of christ and how they will be accountable for that one day. There is a bomb scripture about it in D and C 68 maybe? i can't remember the reference but i wrote it down. I can't remember if i told you last week but Carlos camacho jr. came home! That was the less active's son who wanted to come back to church! he came home and we've been teaching him and he has a baptismal date for this upcoming sunday! We are so excited for him and he is a pretty cool kid. He's only 10 but has a really sweet spirit.
We also have been going on exchanges a lot. We have some more tonight. It's weird being in and out of our area so much and honestly time goes by so much faster it's really sad. I feel like everynight in the few moments i have before i pass out to sleep, i think of how precious this time is. I reflect on the day and ask myself if i really lived up to my potential. I feel like i keep telling myself i have all this potential but i want to finally REALIZE it! I was even reading my patriarchal blessing this morning and i just was thinking, honestly, my whole purpose for coming to this earth, is to do missionary work. I have been blessed with a number of talents and gifts and personality traits that are useful to me but are really given to me to be a succesful missionary! I am trying to remember that when we have a rough day like this past saturday. We literally had our who le day planned, with appointments and back up plans, everything. And i think just about every single one of them fell through. The only plan that stayed was a lesson with this guy named carlos morales. Who is amazing and i will tell you about him soon. It was a frustrating day though and it's just one of those times where you tell urself okay, heavenly Father is really testing me right now, how will i play it out? it's nice though because after those struggling days, i have reconfirmed my testimony that heavenly father gives you just enough to keep going haha! Because of that lesson we had saturday night with Carlos. He just said, well i want to be baptized and we asked him about him and his girlfriend and he said, "she didn't want to be married before but she and i have talked and we are currently making plans for our wedding". I'm serious, this guy is a superstar! He has the most contagious smile and has the strongest testimony. He was even being taught back in january with puertas here and his girlfriend just didn't want to get married, she is a member too. (FRUSTRATING! It's soo much worse when it is members that get in the way of the work too! but i'm being patient :)). So we are gonna help those plans move along.
We also are teaching Jessica and Monica. Monica is kind of crazy and they both used to do some major hard drugs and stuff but jessica is totally clean and has been for a month or 2 and monica is on and off. Jessica is soo solid though she has a date for the 24th now of this month because she couldn't come to church this past week. We are afraid that monica is bringing her down a little bit though. She is solid some days, and then others she will be really distracting when we are trying to teach. But we had a cool little bbq with the camachos (less actives who came back to church!! YESS) and with jessica her girls and monica and her kids. It was super fun and we talked to jessica then about all baptism and stuff. She was really apologetic for not being able to come to church and stuff and had a bunch of questions about her baptism and it was just great! We were bummed though sunday cause we were supposed to have 6 solid people show up at church and 10 if we were lucky, but only 1 showed! ahh man when we found out abotu each person taht couldn't come it was just like satan trying to get under our skin a little bit more. And ya know what, for a little bit, we were both pretty frustrated and it worked. But we snapped out of it, had an awesome sacrament meeting where it was all recent converts from the last 4 months that gave talks. It was so cute to see them with their little paper talks all folded up in their pockets. And i looked over at one of them who was sitting in the congregation with his kids while others were speaking and looks over at me smiling, with all of his fingers crossed and i smiled back and told him i crossed my toes for him too hah it was pretty funny! He did a great job with his whole family too. Ahh we tried to do a lot of finding this week which had its ups and downs. It was frustrating because there are all these apartment complexes aroudn here and we cover a huge territory, but we just have to find the spanish pockets. We get lucky sometimes but i wish they were all just hispanic haha we want to teach and are feeling more and mroe confident as we try to teach by the spirit and it's rough sometimes when we are out knocking doors for a while and we don't get to teach. I really do love teaching and i'm trying to study and focus more on improving that itself. Hey my time is almost up though and i want to send some pictures to you so, sorry this letter was kind of just a list of stuff but i am amazingly happy to be a missionary! Our zone is on the up and up and missionaries are happier and we are happy. There is this cool talk that we foudn by elder eyring that i wanted to send home the words to beacuse it is EPIC! seriously, i wish you could hear it with the music because it's awesome, so one day i will try and send it to you, but we listen to it just about everyday and it is sooo motivating and inspiring i love it! i love being a missionary, sometimes i feel like ammon when king lamoni asks him what he wants, and he says he desires to dwell amongst his people and serve them maybe even till the end of his days. This work makes me so happy and in my head i feel like there is a transformation taking place of how i see these people we talk to. They are children of our heavenly father. Sometimes i forget that and i have been praying for Christ Like love this week. I love you! and i miss you and hope your week is great! It was so fun to hear about everyone's fun festivities this past week, and i still can't believe zach just hit up j prom! what a boss! hAH i love you guys! love elder edwards
That is all and i was thinking of stuff for my easter box and i had something just the other day but i can't remember what it was. Another random thought too is that mother's day is coming up which is pretty cool cause i will get to talk to everybody! Pretty exciting stuff. So i'm trying to just pick the higlights by looking at my planner and stuff. I will be honest, that we are so busy all the time that it is hard to make time to write in my journal. Even normal times when i would have the time, like lunch, we cut down so that we could be working more. I don't know where to draw the line and say hey i'm gonna stay up a little later so i can write in my journal or just say hey i gotta be obedient and find other time to do it. We are already getting up at 6 too so it'll be hard to wake up earlier than that to do it ha! BUt Last monday i got to do something pretty cool. There's this guy named ben rodriguez or well he's a kid. He's 15 and has a brother who's 13. They are soo awesome and are actually pretty into the church. Their dad or rather, step dad, is less active though and hasn't been coming to church for a while and the thing is, that the boys aren't super pushy with they parents. If we invite them to come to church, then they say oh ill ask my mom, who's not a member either, and then they end up not coming. We have even just showed up at their house to pick th em up and they aren't home. It is seriously so frustrating. But last monday after p-day ended, we went to see ben and he is a big skateboarder. So we went over there and he was skating so we got out and i had those blue vans in the car because i play soccer in them for an activity that we have, and i got to skate with him for a little while haha it was pretty sweet! He's good too and it was jst a cool way to connect with an investigator that made it really personal to me and him. Then we had a little chat afterword abotu the book of mormon and stuff and he was like yeah i read the other day when you guys told me too, I even took notes of what i read on my phone because i figured you would ask me what i read haa! It was sooo awesome to hear, and this guy is only 15! He is the man though and we are trying now to meet with his step dad victor, because if we can get victor back to church then ben, alex, their little brother, and victor's wife will all be able to progress. It is sooo frustrating though that because this Victor guy, his kids have to be withheld from soo many blessings, from the truth! They even talked about it in conference how it is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children the doctrine of christ and how they will be accountable for that one day. There is a bomb scripture about it in D and C 68 maybe? i can't remember the reference but i wrote it down. I can't remember if i told you last week but Carlos camacho jr. came home! That was the less active's son who wanted to come back to church! he came home and we've been teaching him and he has a baptismal date for this upcoming sunday! We are so excited for him and he is a pretty cool kid. He's only 10 but has a really sweet spirit. 
We also have been going on exchanges a lot. We have some more tonight. It's weird being in and out of our area so much and honestly time goes by so much faster it's really sad. I feel like everynight in the few moments i have before i pass out to sleep, i think of how precious this time is. I reflect on the day and ask myself if i really lived up to my potential. I feel like i keep telling myself i have all this potential but i want to finally REALIZE it! I was even reading my patriarchal blessing this morning and i just was thinking, honestly, my whole purpose for coming to this earth, is to do missionary work. I have been blessed with a number of talents and gifts and personality traits that are useful to me but are really given to me to be a succesful missionary! I am trying to remember that when we have a rough day like this past saturday. We literally had our who le day planned, with appointments and back up plans, everything. And i think just about every single one of them fell through. The only plan that stayed was a lesson with this guy named carlos morales. Who is amazing and i will tell you about him soon. It was a frustrating day though and it's just one of those times where you tell urself okay, heavenly Father is really testing me right now, how will i play it out? it's nice though because after those struggling days, i have reconfirmed my testimony that heavenly father gives you just enough to keep going haha! Because of that lesson we had saturday night with Carlos. He just said, well i want to be baptized and we asked him about him and his girlfriend and he said, "she didn't want to be married before but she and i have talked and we are currently making plans for our wedding". I'm serious, this guy is a superstar! He has the most contagious smile and has the strongest testimony. He was even being taught back in january with puertas here and his girlfriend just didn't want to get married, she is a member too. (FRUSTRATING! It's soo much worse when it is members that get in the way of the work too! but i'm being patient :)). So we are gonna help those plans move along. 
We also are teaching Jessica and Monica. Monica is kind of crazy and they both used to do some major hard drugs and stuff but jessica is totally clean and has been for a month or 2 and monica is on and off. Jessica is soo solid though she has a date for the 24th now of this month because she couldn't come to church this past week. We are afraid that monica is bringing her down a little bit though. She is solid some days, and then others she will be really distracting when we are trying to teach. But we had a cool little bbq with the camachos (less actives who came back to church!! YESS) and with jessica her girls and monica and her kids. It was super fun and we talked to jessica then about all baptism and stuff. She was really apologetic for not being able to come to church and stuff and had a bunch of questions about her baptism and it was just great! We were bummed though sunday cause we were supposed to have 6 solid people show up at church and 10 if we were lucky, but only 1 showed! ahh man when we found out abotu each person taht couldn't come it was just like satan trying to get under our skin a little bit more. And ya know what, for a little bit, we were both pretty frustrated and it worked. But we snapped out of it, had an awesome sacrament meeting where it was all recent converts from the last 4 months that gave talks. It was so cute to see them with their little paper talks all folded up in their pockets. And i looked over at one of them who was sitting in the congregation with his kids while others were speaking and looks over at me smiling, with all of his fingers crossed and i smiled back and told him i crossed my toes for him too hah it was pretty funny! He did a great job with his whole family too. Ahh we tried to do a lot of finding this week which had its ups and downs. It was frustrating because there are all these apartment complexes aroudn here and we cover a huge territory, but we just have to find the spanish pockets. We get lucky sometimes but i wish they were all just hispanic haha we want to teach and are feeling more and mroe confident as we try to teach by the spirit and it's rough sometimes when we are out knocking doors for a while and we don't get to teach. I really do love teaching and i'm trying to study and focus more on improving that itself. Hey my time is almost up though and i want to send some pictures to you so, sorry this letter was kind of just a list of stuff but i am amazingly happy to be a missionary! Our zone is on the up and up and missionaries are happier and we are happy. There is this cool talk that we foudn by elder eyring that i wanted to send home the words to beacuse it is EPIC! seriously, i wish you could hear it with the music because it's awesome, so one day i will try and send it to you, but we listen to it just about everyday and it is sooo motivating and inspiring i love it! i love being a missionary, sometimes i feel like ammon when king lamoni asks him what he wants, and he says he desires to dwell amongst his people and serve them maybe even till the end of his days. This work makes me so happy and in my head i feel like there is a transformation taking place of how i see these people we talk to. They are children of our heavenly father. Sometimes i forget that and i have been praying for Christ Like love this week. I love you! and i miss you and hope your week is great! It was so fun to hear about everyone's fun festivities this past week, and i still can't believe zach just hit up j prom! what a boss! hAH i love you guys! love elder edwards 
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