August Letters

August 1

Saturday came and we got to go aroudn our zone with our mission president visiting people's apartments. One of his focus's is that we have spiritual safe havens in our homes. That they can be clean and night and well lit in order to provide a spiritual source for us during our studies and planning. It was a blast we got to go with him for like 3 and a half hours just visiting missionaries in our zone. It was cool to see him interact with missionaries and learn how he does it with so much love. What was really awesome though was the difference in my companion and i's relationship. it seriously was awesome the change and how much more we enjoyed one another's company. It has been hard with him just barely learning spanish, not knowing any of the basics or anything! But for whateever reason which was an answer to my prayer, we were laughing with one another we talked about little things that just needed to change and after that, we got along so much better. So since saturday, things have been great. he even said the prayer in spanish on sunday in sacrament meeting! I was so proud of him haha! it was so fun hearing him pracitce all the time. He said just about every prayer we had together and it was the same memorized prayer he had written down in spanish haha. I was so happy for him though. We also had to take over our english ward. It was so scary. I don't know why but i felt like a fish out of water when we were there. We knew just a handful of people who were actually soo nice to us and we were asked in sacrament meeting to stand up and share a quick talk. it was really cool though and we are just working on gaining the trust of the members. it will be hard again this week though because tomorrow we are going to eugene for zone leader council again which will be a full day out of town. It will be good for our newer missionaries to be taking charge though. And we are really excited to go to ZLC and ill get to ride up with puertas again and alderman and elder kirkham who came out with me so it as always, will be a fun reunion.

We had a cool lesson this week with rodrigo and adriana. We didn't find a ton of new people, but some potentials turned into something more solid. They are a really cool family and we are trying to get them to Family home evening tonight because they couldn't come to church yesterday. We had a fun lesson with them on sautrday where we shared a little something and then they just asked a TON of questions. We had some members with us which helped a ton and we planned this week to go to the park right by their house and go play with the kids whether its soccer or who knows what. They have a 12 year old named monserath, an 8 year old named angel and a 5 year old named sandy. They are a really cool family and as usual the kids love us haha :) We are gonna see a cool white family we are teaching too. We foudn them like a month ago but for some reason things kept falling through. We tried to refer them to the other missionaries but now we took over that area, and so we are hoping that WE were just meant to teach them haha (prideful?) and that's why it took so long to get a meeting in with them. They have the potential to be super money! She said she had a bunch of friends that were mormon and family too and she loved the family values and wants to go to church, it's her husband that she wanted us to come over and teach ahaha. She is acting like a member already! So this wednesday we are gonna go see their family with the stake president's wife who is awesome. I actually met their daughter in the mtc (kinda funny).

August 11

So the rest of the week. It has been pretty cool because we have been going back to the camachos and teaching them a little bit more now that they are settled down in their new situation...without their dad. It's really sad but he was pretty crazy. So we've been going over there and practically all the kids in the whole neighborhood come over and sit and learn with us. It has been so fun and sometimes i feel like the apostles of old or even Jesus Christ, teaching masses of people at a time. While it's only a fraction of what that must've been, it has been pretty awesome and we set two baptismal dates with an 18 yr old and 15 yr old, their names are christian and chandler. They are really into it and love learning about the book of mormon, and even the modern day prophet. The only thing though is that they are kinda flaky. For example, they didn't come to church yesterday. Mostly because the camachos didn't come. We talked to them saturday night right before they went to bed and basically all their neighbors agreed to come to church if the camachos came, but they didn't wake up nor would they answer our texts or door knocks...nothing. It was a bummer because there were literally like 8 non members that would've come with them haha. It would have been pretty awesome. But this week we will try and do something different to help get them their, i know they will come. We also went and talked to this part member family in our ne wenglish ward and they LOVEd us. It was so awesome. One of the ward missionaries told us to go visit them beacuse they need a new "perspective of missionaries" and so we went and they just loved it. We were talking about the sisters' daughter getting baptized and how that's the next big step for her. We are going to see them again tonight with the ward missionary (who is also the stake presiden'ts wife she is AWESOME). It has been such a miracle to see how much our new ward has been able to trust us in our few visits with them. They have all welcomed us so much into their homes. We did run into a speed bump with them though haha, because on sunday we didn't get the dinner calendar from the guy that fills it out for us, and then he went to utah and we never got it from him, so we had no idea who signed up for dinner this past week. The thing is, we didn't care so much about eating, but we just didn't want to stand anyone up. So we figured it out as best as we could and hopefully this week we will get it back. It was pretty funny.

August 22

We've been teaching this part member family in our jacksonville english ward. We have taught her all about baptism and all about the gospel of Jesus Christ and she seems to understand it, but just would not say yes to being baptized. Even her mom is super supportive but she just wouldn't say yes. So we have been praying and praying for her that it would click. We had a cool lesson with her on thursday night though. We went to a baptism for someone in our district, and elder alderman and i sang a song, and then we had a lesson with Kelsie (the girl in thepartmember family) and her mom dawn, at the church. We went into the chapel and elder alderman and i sang another song for her, the one we sang at zone leader council, it is "nearer my god to thee" and "i know that my redeemer lives". So we sang this song and it sounded amazing! Then the other elders left and we had a prayer right there. We had kelsie's cousin who is less active say the prayer. (she's 17). She said "dear Heavenly Father..." and just started bawling. It was really cool to see how the spirit of music had touched her heart so powerfully. We asked her afterward how she was feeling and what she was thinking and it was just amazing! She has been less active too but because she baby sits kelsie, they have been coming to church together. It was the perfect start to our lesson. Then we had a lesson about church and why we go, and how the main reason we go is to take the sacrament! It was a really cool lesson and the spirit was soo so strong. Then at the end, we had kelsie go stand up on the stand and talk into the microphone like she was giving a talk, and her mom says, "Kelsie, do you have something to ask the elders?" and she acts really shy and then says "...ummm....will you baptize me?" and she points at elder Hatton!! Ahh man it was sooo awesome and such an answer to a prayer! Not only the fact that she said she would be baptized, but that she wanted Elder Hatton to baptize her! I can't tell you how excited we were and just how amazing that night was. It was such evidence to me that the only way she could've accepted the invitation was with Heavenly Father's help. We taught her everything we could in the most simple and easy to understand way, and it was only when Kelsie and her mom, took the time to kneel down and say a prayer about whether she should be baptized or not, was when she got the confidence and the excitement to take that big step. It just completely took us out of the equation and yet made us feel good that we were able to help her reconnect with her Heavenly Father and receive that direction from Him. Super awesome.

August 29

This week was another weird one. I feel like these past few weeks have been soo strange. Just cause they are challenges that i haven't really faced in my mission yet. There were more ups and downs again this week with the work and our companionship and actually last monday started off really bad! But monday evening, we had some aweseom miracles! We were driving and i felt impressed to go see the camachos and so we saw them and had an awesome lesson with their family and even two of strella the 18 year olds friends. We taught a lesson to a 14 year old girl who found out that day that she was pregnant. Talk about a rough one. She told us and we didn't even know what to say. ahh man it was soo sad! It made me think of something katie said how when you are done being a full time missionary all of a sudden all the worries and the guilt and the stress that you feel for the people you are teaching nd searching for, goes away. And i was just thinking how that girls sadness became our sadness and how hard but amazing it is to be a part of Heavenly Father's children's lives. This week i swear we heard soo many "hard life" stories whether they were conversion stories or just people going through the hardest time. But anyway, on mondayevening, after the camachos, we decided to go bike to a less actives house that we wanted to see. We didn't have an appointment or anything but decided to go. So lately, i don't know what it is, but i have been working so scared. I konw it sounds goofy but like when we are biking on the streets i have just been so afraid to talk to people and i feel like i haven't had that problem since the beginning of my mission. I mean everyone gets a little nervous, but you overcome it and talk to everyone! But lately, i had been having this problem. So we are biking and i'm just praying while i'm biking that somehow i can get over this huge fear and just talk to the dang people in the street haha! So we passed one or two people and i'm like dang it what am i doing?! why can't i just open my mouth? And then we go onto the main road and are biking by this lady watering her grass and i stopped (YAY) and started talking to her. She keeps her hose running and occasionally turns it off to listen to us talk haha but all she does is nod or shake her head. And i'm like man what is her problem haha. So then after 30 seconds of talking to her and asking her a few questions, i realize wait, i speak spanish! And so i said "hey, where are you from" in spanish and then we started talkig hahaha! It was actually really funny and we had a good laugh together too. It broke the ice well. But we ended up talking and teaching her about the book of mormon and her mom came out too and told us to come back and they have known mormons before and even missionaries from back in mexico. So that was a pretty cool experience and we felt blessed for opening our mouths even though it'sexpected of us, it has just been especially hard for me lately. So then we bike a little farther toward the less-actives house, and there's a guy plauying with his dog and again, my mind says, "no you don't need to talk to him, he'll probably be really rude and you have somebody to see". And i kept praying and finally said hey as we were driving by. He was super nice and after a little small talk he comes and walks closer to us and asks us about mormons and says he knew a bunch of mormons when he was growing up. We asked if he had ever heard the story about Jesus Christ when he came to American and visited and taught the people here, and he was surprised and says, "wait is that in there?!" (pointing to the book of mormon). And then says, "...can i read about it?" and our eyes get big hahaha and we smile and say HECK YEAH! So we taught him more about the book of mormon and gave him 3 nephi chapter 11 to read and set up an appointment for the two days later. Unfortunatly he cancelled his appointment but we texted him later and got no response. But then he called us that night and says "hey i have a question, who are the nephites?" and he told us he was in the middle of reading but he didn't understand who the people were and so we had a littl mini lesson over the phone and he finished the reading that night hah! it was a pretty cool miracle and by the time we had taught both of those people we had talked to, we had to turn back and go home so i don't think we were even meant to see that less active that we had planned, we were supposed to meet john and angela, the people we talked to on the street.

July Letters

July 4

This past week we made a huge push to get members with us at our lessons. It was like pulling teeth just cause people are so dang busy! A lot of these dads are just working long days and come home exhausted. It was kind of frustrating too because we don't have the biggest branch and so when we'd get a return appointment we would literally go through the whole branch and not be able to bring somebody with us. But we ended up the week with over 50% of our lessons with members and this week we set 2 baptismal dates which was the real relief. It was so nice to finally see some fruits of our efforts. I mean it, i am soo exhausted. We get lights out by 10:30 and we are OUT! It was so funny the other night, me and elder alderman were getting ready for bed and i was like man i have so much energy, let's stay up and talk for a bit, and we got all excited but after our prayers we layed down and boom...wer'e out cold haha. That's just how it is. There's a lot to stress about with our area, new president, zone, 4th of july bbqs and just lots of stuff. So i think it's more of a mental drain than anything, but i really am just tired! It's getting super hot too haha and honestly we did a ton of finding this past week! Which i really do enjoy when we are talking to a lot of people because we've gotten really good at just teaching as we find and getting people to trust us. The only catch again, is that its scorching. But then i feel humbled when i think of my buddies in mexico or ellen or katie and how it must've been in ecuador and the d.r. We are really working diligently though. I love elder Alderman soo much. We get along so well and while he is a really good teacher and leader, he is realyl humble and is always asking how he can be better and teach better and speak better and stuff, it's pretty awesome and we are having a blast together. For real, inside of missionary work and outside, we are clicking really well, he is a really talented missionary. We saw a ton of miracles this week too.

The night before, we decided to go tracting one day. We show up at the trailer park and for some reason just didn't have a good feeling about it and so we left to do our back up plans and while we are driving, Elder Alderman says "stop". So we pull over and go knock on this random house that we were driving by. The lady opens up and is soo nice. She told us how she was really interested in mormonism because of the family values and how she wanted her husband to learn more about it and her kids. We were dumbstruck! haha it was soo awesome and so inspired, and so we are gonna go on exchanges and visit them this week when they come back from vacation. Then another day we came home at the end of the night and two guys contact us, and say they want to meet with us. haha we handed them off to the guys we are living with. Another day we did a quick tour of an apartment to move into, and as we leave i asked this lady if we could help her move things from her car, and she says "oh my goodness just my luck, i've been interested in converting and here are 4 missionaries to help me move my stuff". Once again i am struck dumb in shock haha. We handed her off to the sisters. It was cool because as we were working diligently and beginning to see success in our own area, we were able to help in little ways, the rest of the zone and it was just awesome. We felt very spirit led this week and i think it shows in the miracles we saw.

Another cool experience we had was with this kid named german. He's like 15 and way cool from guatemala. We taught him the first lesson the other day and he was pretty skeptical but at the end we talked about how if for some reason, all this really was true, wouldn't you really want to find out? And he was like yeah how could i say no. So we invited him to be baptized and he said yes and that he would read the book of mormon and pray about it. We left him a little question to answer after reading 3 nefi 11 too. So he goes out of town to work and in the middle of the week. we get a text from him saying, "hey guys i have to give your book back. My step dad found out that i accepted it from you and he got mad at me and doesn't want you to come over anymore"....My heart sank. I was soo bummed and just frustrated at how good things were going and then to see them drop. So he comes home on friday and says hey guys i'm home can you come over for a few minutes. So we went and saw him and he comes out to talk with us. we just kind of kicked it for a sec and then we asked about the book and if he had read and prayed. He said he read it all, and he answered the question we left him and he said how he loved when the Savior came down and talked to Nephi. He loved how when Nephi bent down to kiss his feet, the Savior told him to stand and spoke with him and then gave him the authority that he had to baptize and do miracles like He had done. It was soo cool how excited he was about it and how much he knew in detail and everything! Then we asked about his prayer. He said it didn't go great but then after he said amen, right away, images of his grandparents came to his mind and thye had played a huge role in what he believed before. His grandpa whispered to him "hijo mio" meaning my son, and then he said i couldn't hear what he said after that. His grandparents are past away too.But he said it couldn't have been a coincidence and that he really felt the book of mormon was the word of God. It was funny cause he was like,"yeah i would even consider it like the bible" and then he kind of surprised himself when he said that haha. But he said here, i can't have it. We declined of course to take it back and told him that that book meant more to us than anything and that it can bring him so much happiness, that it would be unfair for us to take it back. He said he would keep it and hide it, and that he would keep reading it, even if he had to read the same chapter over and over. It was soo sweet! But soo sad. Man we left there and i was soo mad and frustrated at his step dad. Man i wanted to scream and cry and throw stuff haha i felt like a little kid and yet at the same time, i felt really good inside knowing that the spirit had truly touched german and that one day, he will choose to accept the gospel. It was really reassuring and comforting and allowed us to keep working to have more experiences like that. I don't think we have used the book of mormon nearly enough in our teaching. In preach my gospel it says over and over that the Book of mormon combined with the spirit is our most powerful teaching tool. It was a really cool experience though and i hope good things happen with german even though we can't see him and he is going out of town to work till september.

July 13

We also foud a guy named gabriel who we taught and actualyl had a cool little miracle with him. We weren't sure how solid he would be but we got a chance to sit down with him and teach. It was going really well and we get to the part of joseph smith, the first vision, THE MOST SPECIAL PART!, elder alderman stops and says, "hey we'd love to leave you with a pamphlet that explains moer about all this..." and i look and go along with it, just praying that he had some spiritual impression. Well we end up leaving it right there and i'm like what the heck dude!? He says i don't know why but i really felt prompted to just stop and leave him with a pamphlet. So i said okay, i trust you. We leave and go back yesterday and talk with him. Gabriel says "oh man i'm sorry i didn't get a chance to read, my mother in law, picked it up and read about joseph smith and asked if she could take it home with her so she could learn more." We look at each other and are like haha sweet!! The spirit is smarter than we are. So we left him with another pamphlet and are going back on thursday. That was a pretty cool experience. We have some cool people to teach and are hoping to help them progress faster towards baptism by setting some dates with them. This week will be a big week.

Kind of a funny story...We got to dinner last week with the Rojas family who is awesome. We are talking with the kids who are 13, 12, and 5. The girl is 12 and she has some yogurt danimals thing in her hand. The kind that you drink. Then she shakes the top at me to pretend to be mad at me or something and the yogurt from the top flashes all over my suit in this big streak straight across my chest haha. Then a few days later we go to carlos and anahi's house and they have a little boy who has a gogurt in his hands. He keeps running up and hitting me with the gogurt thing and i already know at this point it's gonna end badly. But he holds it from the bottom and comes up and slaps it on my lap and then yogurt spills out all over my lap hahaha it was way funny and at that point i just had to laugh. It was pertty fun.

We are really tired today. I think the whole wednesday p-day thing threw us off a little bit and while monday was good, we had a rough day yesterday. We literally had a full days worth of people to see and they all flaked. We did get to see Kelly and the camacho family which was awesome because they had been MIA forever! They were glad to see us though and hopefully we can get them back to church. I will not give up hope with them haha. Anyways, it was so good to hear frmo everybody! You all just seem soo happy! I love hearing your experiences from pageant and missionary work, it is soo amazing! We are all engaged in the same work!

July 20

on sunday morning, we had a miracle of course. We are driving to church after having talked to all our solid investigators who just didn't want in, and we get a call from an unknown number. I couldn't even understand his voice or the name he said but he told me he was waiting for us on "stewart road" which is on the way to church. I really couldn't understand him well buit i said, "okay well meet you there and you can follow us to church" and he agreed. hahah so we are liek "what the heck!@!! who is this guy?! hahah" we were laughing and at the same time feeling kind of chastized from Heavenly Father because we were such downers after nobody said they were coming to church. And then we see who it is and it is a young couple, unmarried (unfortunatly), taht we had taught on friday. We invited them to church then too and they agreed if they didn't have naything going on, they would come. We tried to remind them on saturday but couldn't get a hold of them and they weren't home so we kind of gave up hope. But when we saw them waiting for us in another church parking lot haha (ironic), our hearts filled with joy and we were so pumped! They are such an awesome couple too and live right next to some recent converts from january, the ibarra family. the couple is sweet though and we taught them about baptism on friday how it's like a ferrari. When we drive it all over town and through pot holes and unpaved roads, it gets soo dirty! So we need a car wash! Then we talked about how the holy ghost was like a little copilot that knows the streets back and forth and can help us avoid the pot holes and the muddy paths. We were laughing and enjoying it but they understoof really well. When we were teaching them, we asked them what color would their ferrari be and so now they call us "red" and "blue" cause those were the colors we chose haha. It's funny and they ended up enjoying church a lot! They have a little 2 year old boy named Abel who did really well in nursery which was a blessing because they will feel comfortable coming back and leaving him there. Please pray for miracles with them. Honestly as of right now, they are the only solid people we have. Which is kind of sad, but at the same time, it doesn't matter. We are working our tails off and trying to work by the spirit. We know we are growing spiritually and mentally and we are having fun. I love working with Elder Alderman, he is a champ! Today is his birthday and so we are going to 7-11 to get free slurpies cause it's 7/11 today :)

July 25

Last night, we had a really sad experience. We went and taught this guy named david. He is living with a member who is a senior in highschool, just had her second kid, but is active in the church. They are bf and gf and she wants him to get baptized and come to church, but he is strictly catholic. We had another "throw down" lesson where honestly i felt like i loved him but i felt so sad that he just wasn't seeing what was right, and what was wrong. He is waiting for God to open every door for him and spoon feed him spiritually. It is pretty frustrating. He won't ever read, and he rarely prays, we have been so frustrated. THis pasta week though he did pray half of the week with his family. IMPROVEMENT! We went last night and taught and invited him to be baptized. He declined and even knew that what he was saying wasn't true. We talked about all these things about how good and how many blessings he would receive even if he just TRIED to find out if this was all true, and when we asked him if he was willing to "open this door" and do what it takes to find out, he said "no". It was heartbreaking for us but what made it worst, was when we turned to his gf and said "cely, do you have anything to add?" and she looks down at her phone and says, "no....it just makes me sad". and she just started crying. She was trying so hard to hide it and David didn't even see until we asked him to pray and he looked over at cely and things just went quiet, and then he said the prayer as she hid her face behing a little pillow and couldn't look us or him in the eye. Ah man it was sooo sadd! I can't tell you how horrible and just heart broken we felt. My testimony has grown so much too of how Heavenly Father really does feel what we feel, and his emotions are even amplified because His love is perfect. I knew that he was soo sad, not only for cely who unfortunatly has made some "oops" decisions but also for His son David, who just rejected the one way that would bring him back to Heavenly Father's presence. Man we left feeling pretty down but also knowing that we had taught powerfully and even felt the spirit during David's closing prayer. He is just not opening his heart.

We had a cool luau to go to on saturday night though that was a blast! We got to help out and give service there but a ton of people came and there were a lot of spanish people there that we saw and met and it was just a cool environment and we made a splash in the community because we essentially talked to everyone there whether it was about the church or not, we got face time with everyone. It was a pretty fun thing and the guy in charge of the whole thing is a member and put on a cool little show where they danced with fire and stuff. it was fun

We went on exchanges last wednesday too and taught an awesome lesson. It was fun to teach in english for a little while and it was a unique experience because i could say things exactly how i wanted to haha. In spanish, i can teach pretty good, but certain things i don't even think about saying cause i don't know how haha so it was fun to teachi in english for a little while.

June Letters

June 13

This past week we had zone conference which was soo cool. It was our mission president's last one and was pretty epic haha. It wasn't necessarily the most "instructional" but it was very spiritually edifying and man we all left feeling soo good but also a little sad. It's kind of strange how close you feel to a mission president and his wife, how the instant you arrive in the field you respect them so much and they become a little mission mom and dad. I really love them soo much and will miss them a ton. It's gonna be weird to get used to a new president who does things differently but i guess i will get the best of both so, it's actually a blessing. It was sad though, right at the beginning of zone conference, we sang our OEM mission song and i could just see tears flowing down my president's face. It made me think, as my year mark is coming up quick, how many more times will i get to sing that song ya know? I had a horrible dream last night that i got really sick on my mission and had to get sent home, even in my dream i remember calling president checketts and talking about being released and taking off my tag. I remember just crying in my dream and then i woke up. It's weird to think how time picks up and just goes!!! It doesn't slow down man even when the area is slow, there is just so much going on and so much to worry about, it just goes. Day after day i think i get more and more gratitude for this awesome responsibility we have as missionaries.

We went on three splits last week to get those all finished up which was pretty fun. It's always a little rush to switch companions and mix things up for the day. We saw some cool miracles. There was a lady we taught last week who said she was going to move to utah but ended up staying so now we can continue teaching her. We also gave a blessing to a less active who was having a baby and they are committed to coming to church. We taught a couple that just showed up at church a few weeks ago and it looks like they will be pretty solid too. We are gonna teach them tomorrow with our branch president. And then we are still teaching Berta, Cesar, and Jaydi. They are step-family with Luis who is the active teenager and his dad who is less active. We are seeing some problems now with Cesar who didn't come to church this past week. He has been avoiding us this past week which is really frustrating but his mom is way open and same with the little sister jaydi. They both came to church along with luis and the inactive dad, Efrain. They all came and enjoyed church too. We tried to see them last night but they ended up cancelling which was a bummer. I saw a cool miracle at church though which to me was evidence of the small scale things that Heavenly Father does to bring about greater things. Efrain and his wife Berta came to church like i said, but a little background information is that Efrain was married before and they were very active, but then his wife had an affair with another member of the church and they divorced and he went inactive since then. So in church they stayed the whole time up till the end when there was about 15 minutes left. I'm thinking,"oh great theyre probably bored and don't want to stay" but they said they had to go call mexico because berta's daughter was coming from mexico the next day. So we said ok and they left. Then we go sit back down in sacrament meeting, and the speaker right away starts talking about this guy that had the affair with Efrain's ex-wife, the reason he left the church in the first place. It was just a click moment that my companion pointed out to me and i was like "OH MY GOSH!" what a blessing that was. If he had stayed i don't know what he would've thought or said, but it wou'dnt have been good! What a blessing.

Then later that day we go visit a part member family and meet with this girl alejandra. She is in her low 20's and has two kids and her husbands name is javier. We are talking and we don't know th em too well so we asked, "wait alejandra, are you a member too?" And she says "no...but i want to be" . HA Elder K and i look at each other and try our best not to freak out and go crazy cause we were so happy haha but we then look back and talked about how that's what we do is help people become members of the church. And we ended up setting baptismal date with her for the 25th of this month. It was such a miracle and kind of a "duh" moment because we have visited them a few times before and it just never was brought up. I think it was just our bad like we had lost focus or something on how importnatn or rather, essential, baptism is. So that was an amazing blessing and we are gonna work with her husband too but he is hardly ever around and its hard for him to come to church but he has been before a while ago and alejandra said that he really liked it so well see what we can do with him too. We ended up giving her little boy a blessing cause he wasn't eating anything. He would only drink water or food they blended up. It was strange but a cool opportunity for her to feel the spirit and witness the power of the preisthood. I don't know why but this weekend we gave more blessings than i think have in the whole 3 months i've been here. It was just a reminded to me that the Priesthood power of God really is on the earth, and what an awesome responsibility we have to serve others with that same priesthood power.

Things are really looking up in our area. We finally have a decent sized teaching pool and i'm glad so that Elder Alderman will get here and right away see success. Our spirits are high and we are trying to rely more on the miracles of the Lord to bless our area because we know without them, we are uncapable of truly finding His prepared children and showing them the waters of baptism as they try and make it back to their Heavenly Dad. This week was a blast and the following one will be as well. We have transfers tomorrow, then next monday we are goign to eugene for Zone leaders council AGAIN! (i can't believe i've already going to three of these things, time is moving too fast!) so my email will probably come at a different time but we'll make it all work out. That is always a fun trip and it'll be president Macdonalds last one so we know it will be incredible! I'm feeling pretty good with my spanish these days too. I know i haven't been freaking out about it as much, but i realize the greater need to rely on the Lord for my speaking and understanding. I tried so hard before to just learn it like i would in school but that is probably the least effective way i could go about it. I have been praying the I might be and instrument in the Lord's hands and say what he would have me say and understand what i need to in order to be able to teach what His children need to hear. I find that i have been blessed more with better teaching, speaking, and listening abilities. I love this work, and i love the Lord.

I love you too everybody and thank you soo much for your letters and prayers and support. They mean more to me than anything i could ask for.

Elder Edwards

June 13

This past week we had zone conference which was soo cool. It was our mission president's last one and was pretty epic haha. It wasn't necessarily the most "instructional" but it was very spiritually edifying and man we all left feeling soo good but also a little sad. It's kind of strange how close you feel to a mission president and his wife, how the instant you arrive in the field you respect them so much and they become a little mission mom and dad. I really love them soo much and will miss them a ton. It's gonna be weird to get used to a new president who does things differently but i guess i will get the best of both so, it's actually a blessing. It was sad though, right at the beginning of zone conference, we sang our OEM mission song and i could just see tears flowing down my president's face. It made me think, as my year mark is coming up quick, how many more times will i get to sing that song ya know? I had a horrible dream last night that i got really sick on my mission and had to get sent home, even in my dream i remember calling president checketts and talking about being released and taking off my tag. I remember just crying in my dream and then i woke up. It's weird to think how time picks up and just goes!!! It doesn't slow down man even when the area is slow, there is just so much going on and so much to worry about, it just goes. Day after day i think i get more and more gratitude for this awesome responsibility we have as missionaries.

We went on three splits last week to get those all finished up which was pretty fun. It's always a little rush to switch companions and mix things up for the day. We saw some cool miracles. There was a lady we taught last week who said she was going to move to utah but ended up staying so now we can continue teaching her. We also gave a blessing to a less active who was having a baby and they are committed to coming to church. We taught a couple that just showed up at church a few weeks ago and it looks like they will be pretty solid too. We are gonna teach them tomorrow with our branch president. And then we are still teaching Berta, Cesar, and Jaydi. They are step-family with Luis who is the active teenager and his dad who is less active. We are seeing some problems now with Cesar who didn't come to church this past week. He has been avoiding us this past week which is really frustrating but his mom is way open and same with the little sister jaydi. They both came to church along with luis and the inactive dad, Efrain. They all came and enjoyed church too. We tried to see them last night but they ended up cancelling which was a bummer. I saw a cool miracle at church though which to me was evidence of the small scale things that Heavenly Father does to bring about greater things. Efrain and his wife Berta came to church like i said, but a little background information is that Efrain was married before and they were very active, but then his wife had an affair with another member of the church and they divorced and he went inactive since then. So in church they stayed the whole time up till the end when there was about 15 minutes left. I'm thinking,"oh great theyre probably bored and don't want to stay" but they said they had to go call mexico because berta's daughter was coming from mexico the next day. So we said ok and they left. Then we go sit back down in sacrament meeting, and the speaker right away starts talking about this guy that had the affair with Efrain's ex-wife, the reason he left the church in the first place. It was just a click moment that my companion pointed out to me and i was like "OH MY GOSH!" what a blessing that was. If he had stayed i don't know what he would've thought or said, but it wou'dnt have been good! What a blessing.

Then later that day we go visit a part member family and meet with this girl alejandra. She is in her low 20's and has two kids and her husbands name is javier. We are talking and we don't know th em too well so we asked, "wait alejandra, are you a member too?" And she says "no...but i want to be" . HA Elder K and i look at each other and try our best not to freak out and go crazy cause we were so happy haha but we then look back and talked about how that's what we do is help people become members of the church. And we ended up setting baptismal date with her for the 25th of this month. It was such a miracle and kind of a "duh" moment because we have visited them a few times before and it just never was brought up. I think it was just our bad like we had lost focus or something on how importnatn or rather, essential, baptism is. So that was an amazing blessing and we are gonna work with her husband too but he is hardly ever around and its hard for him to come to church but he has been before a while ago and alejandra said that he really liked it so well see what we can do with him too. We ended up giving her little boy a blessing cause he wasn't eating anything. He would only drink water or food they blended up. It was strange but a cool opportunity for her to feel the spirit and witness the power of the preisthood. I don't know why but this weekend we gave more blessings than i think have in the whole 3 months i've been here. It was just a reminded to me that the Priesthood power of God really is on the earth, and what an awesome responsibility we have to serve others with that same priesthood power.

Things are really looking up in our area. We finally have a decent sized teaching pool and i'm glad so that Elder Alderman will get here and right away see success. Our spirits are high and we are trying to rely more on the miracles of the Lord to bless our area because we know without them, we are uncapable of truly finding His prepared children and showing them the waters of baptism as they try and make it back to their Heavenly Dad. This week was a blast and the following one will be as well. We have transfers tomorrow, then next monday we are goign to eugene for Zone leaders council AGAIN! (i can't believe i've already going to three of these things, time is moving too fast!) so my email will probably come at a different time but we'll make it all work out. That is always a fun trip and it'll be president Macdonalds last one so we know it will be incredible! I'm feeling pretty good with my spanish these days too. I know i haven't been freaking out about it as much, but i realize the greater need to rely on the Lord for my speaking and understanding. I tried so hard before to just learn it like i would in school but that is probably the least effective way i could go about it. I have been praying the I might be and instrument in the Lord's hands and say what he would have me say and understand what i need to in order to be able to teach what His children need to hear. I find that i have been blessed more with better teaching, speaking, and listening abilities. I love this work, and i love the Lord.

I love you too everybody and thank you soo much for your letters and prayers and support. They mean more to me than anything i could ask for.

Elder Edwards

June 27

But that is the last thing on our minds. Holy smokes sometimes i feel like my head might explode! We met our new mission president last week and he is amazing! He just has the mantle upon him too. The first time we saw him, there was no doubt in my mind that he had the keys and authority to receive revelation and guide this mission. It was a pretty cool spiritual confirmation. He is truly awesome and you can really feel his love when you are around him. His wife seems to be really kind and sweet, you could tell they are both a little nervous haha but who wouldn't be?! I had butterflies before meeting him and i'm sitting somewhere comfortable haha. He is great though and there are little things here and there that are changing. The first being that we are going to eugene tomorrow early morning for zone leader council and actually driving over to klamath falls tonight which is like a 1 1/2 hour drive. We will be busy all day tomorrow and might not even have any time to proselyte in the evening cause we will have to travael about 4 hours in total one way. We are so excited and the A.P.s are really talking up the zone leader council so it should be a good one. The new president has a ton of faith and is all about hands on practicing and then applying. I think i will become a lot more "sharp" as a missionary and get out of my comfort zone haha. Well let you know next week what happens. And then wednesday, we have interviews again with him and wil be gone from 8-4 and that will be another long day away from our area but we know that Heavenly Father will help us make up for that time lost.

This past week we made a huge push to get members with us at our lessons. It was like pulling teeth just cause people are so dang busy! A lot of these dads are just working long days and come home exhausted. It was kind of frustrating too because we don't have the biggest branch and so when we'd get a return appointment we would literally go through the whole branch and not be able to bring somebody with us. But we ended up the week with over 50% of our lessons with members and this week we set 2 baptismal dates which was the real relief. It was so nice to finally see some fruits of our efforts. I mean it, i am soo exhausted. We get lights out by 10:30 and we are OUT! It was so funny the other night, me and elder alderman were getting ready for bed and i was like man i have so much energy, let's stay up and talk for a bit, and we got all excited but after our prayers we layed down and boom...wer'e out cold haha. That's just how it is. There's a lot to stress about with our area, new president, zone, 4th of july bbqs and just lots of stuff. So i think it's more of a mental drain than anything, but i really am just tired! It's getting super hot too haha and honestly we did a ton of finding this past week! Which i really do enjoy when we are talking to a lot of people because we've gotten really good at just teaching as we find and getting people to trust us. The only catch again, is that its scorching. But then i feel humbled when i think of my buddies in mexico or ellen or katie and how it must've been in ecuador and the d.r. We are really working diligently though. I love elder Alderman soo much. We get along so well and while he is a really good teacher and leader, he is realyl humble and is always asking how he can be better and teach better and speak better and stuff, it's pretty awesome and we are having a blast together. For real, inside of missionary work and outside, we are clicking really well, he is a really talented missionary. We saw a ton of miracles this week too.

The night before, we decided to go tracting one day. We show up at the trailer park and for some reason just didn't have a good feeling about it and so we left to do our back up plans and while we are driving, Elder Alderman says "stop". So we pull over and go knock on this random house that we were driving by. The lady opens up and is soo nice. She told us how she was really interested in mormonism because of the family values and how she wanted her husband to learn more about it and her kids. We were dumbstruck! haha it was soo awesome and so inspired, and so we are gonna go on exchanges and visit them this week when they come back from vacation. Then another day we came home at the end of the night and two guys contact us, and say they want to meet with us. haha we handed them off to the guys we are living with. Another day we did a quick tour of an apartment to move into, and as we leave i asked this lady if we could help her move things from her car, and she says "oh my goodness just my luck, i've been interested in converting and here are 4 missionaries to help me move my stuff". Once again i am struck dumb in shock haha. We handed her off to the sisters. It was cool because as we were working diligently and beginning to see success in our own area, we were able to help in little ways, the rest of the zone and it was just awesome. We felt very spirit led this week and i think it shows in the miracles we saw.

Another cool experience we had was with this kid named german. He's like 15 and way cool from guatemala. We taught him the first lesson the other day and he was pretty skeptical but at the end we talked about how if for some reason, all this really was true, wouldn't you really want to find out? And he was like yeah how could i say no. So we invited him to be baptized and he said yes and that he would read the book of mormon and pray about it. We left him a little question to answer after reading 3 nefi 11 too. So he goes out of town to work and in the middle of the week. we get a text from him saying, "hey guys i have to give your book back. My step dad found out that i accepted it from you and he got mad at me and doesn't want you to come over anymore"....My heart sank. I was soo bummed and just frustrated at how good things were going and then to see them drop. So he comes home on friday and says hey guys i'm home can you come over for a few minutes. So we went and saw him and he comes out to talk with us. we just kind of kicked it for a sec and then we asked about the book and if he had read and prayed. He said he read it all, and he answered the question we left him and he said how he loved when the Savior came down and talked to Nephi. He loved how when Nephi bent down to kiss his feet, the Savior told him to stand and spoke with him and then gave him the authority that he had to baptize and do miracles like He had done. It was soo cool how excited he was about it and how much he knew in detail and everything! Then we asked about his prayer. He said it didn't go great but then after he said amen, right away, images of his grandparents came to his mind and thye had played a huge role in what he believed before. His grandpa whispered to him "hijo mio" meaning my son, and then he said i couldn't hear what he said after that. His grandparents are past away too.But he said it couldn't have been a coincidence and that he really felt the book of mormon was the word of God. It was funny cause he was like,"yeah i would even consider it like the bible" and then he kind of surprised himself when he said that haha. But he said here, i can't have it. We declined of course to take it back and told him that that book meant more to us than anything and that it can bring him so much happiness, that it would be unfair for us to take it back. He said he would keep it and hide it, and that he would keep reading it, even if he had to read the same chapter over and over. It was soo sweet! But soo sad. Man we left there and i was soo mad and frustrated at his step dad. Man i wanted to scream and cry and throw stuff haha i felt like a little kid and yet at the same time, i felt really good inside knowing that the spirit had truly touched german and that one day, he will choose to accept the gospel. It was really reassuring and comforting and allowed us to keep working to have more experiences like that. I don't think we have used the book of mormon nearly enough in our teaching. In preach my gospel it says over and over that the Book of mormon combined with the spirit is our most powerful teaching tool. It was a really cool experience though and i hope good things happen with german even though we can't see him and he is going out of town to work till september.