Time flys when...

From this past week we had some good news too! Our teaching interviews went really well first of all. We ended up coming up with some really cool ideas about helping people understand making commitments. We did this cool little demo where we brought a bunch of ingredients for an "anti-mormon" smoothie. We put a little ketchup in because people hear we have tons of wives, we put in some lime juice because they say we worship joseph smith instead of Christ, and all these nasty ingredients for things that missionaries have heard from talking to people, all of the which are not true! But we had a nasty smoothie and while we were making it, one of the sister missionaries was outside not watching. Then we had another sister missionary leave the room and brought the first one back in. But when the first one came back in, we had a nice strawberry banana smoothie sitting right there on the table and so she thinks we just made a nice tasty smoothie which represented the misconceptions of the people we teach. (the nasty one was hidden). Then we blindfolded the second sister and brought her back in. The first sister had to invite the second one to drink the smoothie. It was soo funny because the one that had to drink it, only saw that we made a nasty one, while the inviter sister only thought we had a good one. And so it was really interesting to see the way she got her to drink it. It was cool because the one trying to get her to drink it took a sip and said "oh man this is the best thing ever etc...." and it was from her personal experience or TESTIMONY that the second sister began to believe that somehow that nasty smoothie was a good one. what helped even more was when the rest of the missionaries were like yeah it's soo goood! and that represented the testimony of members that assist us in our teaching. It was a simple little idea but actually covered missionary work pretty in depth and was pretty funny! Everyone was into it too, even those that were just watching. And in the end, of course the sister drank it and partook of the sweetness of the "gospel smoothie". it was soo much fun and the whole meeting was just a spiritual haven. Oh i meant to ask you, did you even read D and C section 135? We went over it with our whole zone and watcched part of the prophet the restoration and it wasreally touching and spiritually uplifting. If you haven't read it, please do it as a family, and you will see the sacrifices taht have been made to bring us the blessings of the gospel.

Other than that, the week went pretty good too. We taught a whole bunch this week and had members out with us almost everyday! The only problem is that nearly all of the people we are teaching, aren't progressing. It has been so hard for us to get people to church and i can't help but wonder if it is my teaching. I feeli like ive fallen a little bit into a routine and am not teaching enough by the spirit. I got to go on splits with this Return missionary that just came back 4 days ago from nicaragua and it was so much fun. his spanish was sooo bomb! haha i was a little jealous but he helped a lot and i think he helped me remember to really love these people first, before we can teach them. I would always rush into a lesson when we talked with someone but he was content in just knowing evreything about them and it really opened people up. It was pretty cool and i was so glad i got to go out on splits with him and learn from him.

We did have one major miracle this week which was soo relieving. We took a less active out with us on splits, he is 17 and his whole family is inactive. his name is ruben and he is in the family where the girlfriend doesn't want to get married but doesn't want the bf to move out either so now the bf can't get married. Yeah...so ruben comes out with us and has been loving it lately. So we went to white city and then came back after a mediocre night. I went to go OYM some people while Elder K went to go play with this kid named cesar in the parking lot with ruben. Cesar is not a member but lives with his stepbrother who is really active and is 15. the 15 year old step brother is Luis and he is soo money! but anyway. Cesar is not a member and we were just playing soccer with him for a little bit at the end of the night, and Elder K started talking to him about church and stuff and he was kind of like ehh i don't know if i want to go, this and that, and then ruben starts talking with him and says, "listen man, i haven't been to church in like 3 years...What if...what if i go, then you come with me, and we'll do this whole thing together. Like a pact that well make and well both go this sunday." And Cesar just stares at him for a second and is like, oKAY! hahah it was sooo amazing and just such a blessing/miracle whatever it was, it was awesome! But they were down and sealed it with a handshake.
hahah so on saturday we went and see these two kids ben and alex that we haven't seen in a while. They live like 20 minutes away so its kind of far too. But we saw them and they were glad to see us and everything it was cool. We talked for a bit and finally got them to commit to come to church and they got excited about it too. So we said okay guys we are gonna come at 9:30 tomorrow to get you okay? they say yeah its all cool and everything. so sunday morning, we make the trip out there to get them. we knock on their windows and their door and all we got was alex peeking up from his bed through the blinds and then going back to his pillow. We knocked there for a little bit until we got a text from their dad, who is completely inactive, "ben doesn't want to go to church. Please don't come back to our house unless he or i invites you" Oh man it nearly broke my heart. i love this ben and alex kids they are soo awesome. Theyre little skater boys and i just clicked soo good with them. I seriously was about to start crying and then we just left. It was odd and i think satan was really working on me because in the car ride i was just thinking "man i'm soo tired of this happening every week. I'm so tired of getting my hopes up and let down week after week." i felt so ineffective as a missionary. I don't just want to be a "planter" i want to be a "sower". The scriptures say the field is whiteready to harvest, not brown ready to plant, and while i knoew we can't convert everybody, sometimes i wonder why we can't convert anybody. We went on our way thoguh to get ruben and cesar. We texted them and found out that they were both ready and waiting for us, so that was a major boost and a testimony to me that Heavenly Father gives us a little dose of miracle right when we need it. They both came, the inactive kid ruben and the nonmember cesar. We were worried he wouldn't enjoy church because for the youth, all the classes are in english cause we overlap with an english ward. So he goes through and we are trying to give him a good time even in sacrament meeting but it's tough while maintaining a spiritual experience too so we were worried that at the end he would be like, yeah that was fun...LATEr! haha but it was clearly just lack of faith. At the end of church we walked him out with ruben and luis his stepbrother, and he says, "we'll see you elders next sunday..." hahah and we're like wait...next sunday?! Yess haha and so we talked to him more and he had a good timea nd we are gonna try and see him on tuesday. in the past, Elder K taught him with puertas or rather, tried to teach him and Cesar's mom wasn't really having it and didn't let them make to much progress but this time she was totally fine with him going to church and stuff. So he was the only one we had at church but it was worth it.


I love this work, i love you, i'm really happy, and i Love the Lord. What else matters :) Hope you have a great week!
Elder Edwards

Perspective

hola hola this week was pretty good. It was kind of stressful coming back from eugene in the middle of last tuesday, we had our combined district meeting to teach on friday that we had to plan for and we still had to maintain our area and so it was definitely a tough balance. It was pretty aweseom though because at zone leader council we were talking abotu our baptismal goals for the mnth of may and how we were going to reach them and how many baptismal dates would need to be set and stuff like that. So in our temple zone, we had a little bit of a difference between how many people we thought we could help get baptized and the actual amount of people we alreaedy had. Basically we left saying okay, we need to find a ton of people to teach this week. So upon getting back, we pushed finding new investigators through our district leaders and we saw soo many miracles! In our zone we do what's called, a "miracle update" where anytime something awesome happens in somebodys area, they text it to the whole zone. SO this week we got like 4 or 5 texts about people setting baptismal dates and we found so many new investigators it was soo great! Even some of the misisonaries in our zone that have been having a hard time, saw some miracles and got them pumped up. That was fun to see everybody getting excited.

We were kind of having a downer week at first too which was frustrating. We ended up "benching" jessica and her little girls. It was really hard when we went over there and realized that we were gonna have to stop teaching her. Jessica's sister is so mean to her little girls and it just hurts so bad to see and hear the way they treat them. While we were talking to jessica we basically got it out of her that she wasn't ready to make this commitment to be baptized and keep the commandments. We had felt good about her in the past but then because she wouldn't come to church it always put a little damper on things. So this time we finalyl just said we'll let her go. I think "benching" people, or rather, stop teaching people, is harder to do than actually finding new people. It requires so much more faith to drop someone that you have built such a love for and a care, and it's soo frustrating when they just don't get the whole picture. Sometimes you wonder if you could've done more to help her see. As we left their home the two little girls, chela and lulu come run up to us and they would always give us little "high fives" and "pounds" and they do it all soft cause i always pretend like it hurts my hand and so they did that before we left and then said "bye edward" hah it was pretty sad but as we left her home, both elder k and i felt a reassuring confirmation from the spirit that that was what we needed to do. It was a good comforting feeling. But it still wasn't easy. We set out then to keep finding new people. We feel like tracting is extremely unaffective and are trying to work through members. one of the things we took away from zlc is this program called "collect the elect" and there is a ton of suggestions for just how to work SMARTER not just harder. I think that is the main problem in our zone that peope are doing work, it's just not the smartest. So we are doing a lot more work through members, formers, exchanges, recent converts, less actives, and just trying to seek referals from everyone. We foudn out that 70% of baptisms come from member referrals, i thought that was pretty interesting. But we started it today and are looking forward to it.

One of the bummers this week was actually our meeting that we taught on friday to our zone. We had to push this collect the elect thing, and another program called "by small and simple things" and just get everybody excited for it. Our problem i think was that we just lacked creativity. There was way too much instruction and not enough edification. It was super difficult to get people excited and i think it just reflected our preparation. We prepared a lot don't get me wrong, it was just too focused on WHAT we needed to teach instead of HOW we wanted to teach it. Maybe it was a humbling thing from Heavenly Father. Now we have to teach this wednesday again because our mission president is coming to do his LAST interviews of his mission. So they will be pretty fun but were kind of stressed again. It kind of shook my confidence teaching in front of our zone and now i'm nervous to do it again haha but i think it'll be fine and we got some better ideas this time to make it more fun. So that will be nice when it's over hahah.

Our saturday was amazing though! We were worried because with all the preparation for district meeting, we neglected our area a little bit. BUT, saturday was so bomb! We foudn 3 new investigators that day that were pretty solid and taught 5 lessons to new people in the afternoon. Then that night we went on splits with two members and taught 5 more lessons with members with us, and our new investigators seem pretty solid too. So we felt great after that night and it was a nice boost. One downer thing though was that this guy that we have a baptismal date with, he flaked on us and we didn't get to talk to him OR his girlfriend that doesn't want to get married. We texted him yesterday and he's like yea, susana (his gf) doesn't want to talk with you guys about it. So we don't know what to do. We fasted last sunday and then on friday again for him. I think i'm still struggling to align my will with Heavenly Father's beacuse this guy is super solid, and we were expecting a miracle, but clearly right now, it's just not supposed to happen.

Sunday though was awesome. We didn't have anybody we were expecting show but it actually might have turned out a little better anyway. two people showed up with a member that, one of them had come once, and the other was the first time. They are bf and gf so they aren't married, but they aren't living together either. THey also are planning on getting married in July. But we talked to them in sacrament meeting and were like "so are you members, or just visiting or what?" and they were like oh no but we are coming because that is our plan. And so elder K already started talking to them about baptism and stuff and they were like yeah, that's why we are coming now. So that was a huge miracle that was soo nice! It was such a blessing and i feel like because we are working smarter, we are being blessed for it. The only catch is that they can't meet much during the week becuase the gf works and goes to school and the guy just works a lot. We'll see whats gonna happen though. We are gonna meet with the member they came with tonight.

That's pretty much the week though. My time is getting cut a little short but i wanted to share a cool story that a recent convert told me about albert einstein but it was pretty cool and i wanted to share it. Maybe you've heard it...

There is a big classroom filled with students and the teacher asks them all, "does evil exist?" and the class says "well of course, it's all around the world" and then the teacher follows that question with another, "did God create everything on earth?" and the class replies again, "yes, he created everything." Then the teacher says, "well, if God is so loving and all powerful and perfect, why would he create evil in the world, that would make him the author of sin and bad in ithe world". The class was stumped and didn't say much for a moment. Then a student in the back of the room raises his hand, and says, "professor, may i ask a question?" The teacher responds, "certainly".

The student then asks the teacher, "does 'cold' exist?" and the teacher responds "yes". The student then responds and says, "incorrect, heat exists. Cold is just the name they give to the absence of Heat." THen he asks another question, "does darkness exist?" and the teacher replies again "yes of course". The student then shakes his head with a smile, "wrong, darkness is only the name they give to the absence of light, darkness itself does not exist." Then the student asks his last question to the teacher,"does evil exist?" and the teacher again nods and says yes. Shaking his head the student, responds, "no, evil is just the name people give to the absence of God. God is perfect and loving. Evil itself is not made by God.

I thought it was just a cool little story and kind of whitty too. It was albert einstein that said all that stuff and i probably made a few mistakes but it's what i remember. I just like the little message from it.

I learned a lot about accountability this week and had the image of standing in front of my Savior Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, as i account for my actions, from my youth, young adulthood, as a missionary, and future father and husband, and i thought of what their reaction would be. Would it be one of smiles and love and gratitude even for me, even being imperfect, having done all that i was able to do, or would it be one of sorrow and sadness knowing that i am not worthy to receive all the blessings they have to give me. It was just a touching thought and we also have been studying the sacrifices made by the prophet joseph smith and got me thinking a ton. Our president said a cool quote that i liked, "I would love to sit in the way back in church, but that is not my lot in life". It really hit home with me. There have been so many times where i thought in my head, "man it would be so much easier to NOT do what i know i'm supposed to". Even serving a mission i have had that thought and i j ust think, regardless, we all would want to take the easier route, but we have not been given that responsibility. As members of the church we are asked to take the straight and narrow path, even if that means the path is climbing straight up a rock face. The life of a disciple of Jesus Christ is not easy but if i have learned anything from my mission, it is that it will be worth it. I am so greatful for the sacrifices of the prophet Joseph Smith. Section 135 of the Doctrine and covenants is really touching if you have time to read it and ponder over the sacredness even of a simple copy of the book or mormon. What exactly did it take, to bring that about. "it cost the best blood of the 19th century" as The prophet sealed his testimony with his death along with his Brother. That was touching to me as well that his brother Hyrum was with him even until their martyrdom in carthage jail. It made me think of Daniel, Zach, Tyler, and even Katie, or Jimmy, and Emily, as siblings and best friends, we will do what is required of us to build the Kingdom of God on the earth. While we'd prefer to sit in the back of church, that is not our lot in life :)

It's pretty cool that Heavenly Father trusts us so much with His work. I know that He loves us and that His son and our Brother Jesus Christ lives. I love you guys and miss you soo much. Last week was the best birthday present i could have asked for. Until next week!

Les Amo
Elder Edwards

Mother's Day Next week

Just some updates for our zone, we have transfers on this tuesday and wednesday. Luckily my companion and i will be staying together but next transfer president told elder K that he will be released from being a zone leader. So i already know that in 6 weeks i will be getting a new companion. But we don't' think aboout that now :) We do have some changes in our zone and we are gonna have 3 district leaders that are either brand new DL's or have only been it for 1 transfer. So we will have to do some major training with those guys to make sure they are on top of things and we are also getting two greenies in our zone and i don't know why but i'm just super excited to have some more greenie fire in our zone. I think we need it. They aren't even my greenies and yet i feel like they are coming into our temple zone family it's fun! Sothat will all happen on tuesday. Then next week, we are going to Zone leader council in eugene again and i will get to see puertas and hopefully Elder Gomez too. I found out he's getting transferred to Springfield in the Eugene zone so next monday i think we are all gonna go up and do some spanish work with them, that will be so fun.

Ok, now for this week. We had some big surprises that i wish were good things haha. Jessica does have a baptismal date now for the 14th of may and she was pretty excited about it, but she needs to quit smoking. She committed to it, but slipped and so now we are just working with her. I think we are gonna try and give up something with her so she feels like we are going through something similar. She is awesome and i still think her girls are the sweetest things ever haha. There was sooo much drama this week though holy smokes. I don't even know if i can explain it all.

Oh but even before that. Friday, at our zone conference, my teaching went great. It was soo fun to teach with elder nelson, who by the way, is now going to be a zone leader which is pretty cool for him. It's a bummer that we are losing him from our zone because he tears it up big time. But we taught really well, everybody had good things to say about it and we felt really happy afterward. We had a big plan and a fun activity that really could have gone either way, so we were greatful that it went well instead of downhill haha! We taught well, and the musical performance we did was awesome too! I wish i could send you the song. It's a song taht one of the missionaries wrote here and it's about missionary work and the OEM (oregon eugene mission) and it's soo awesome. Me and Elder Fiatoa sang and then we had another elder Kaumaitotoya do a little fijian part where he talked in fijian and we sang behind him. It was great! The spirit was really stong too as we sang ,we couldn't help but smile :)
Now for the drama...

So bubba camacho was baptized last weekend and was supposed to get confirmed this weekend. His dad was out of town working, and surprised eveyone by coming home on friday night. But this was actually the problem. He used to b an alcoholic and hadn't drunk for two months. He was doing really good and i honestly love the man. BUT, he drank that night with his worker buddies. He came home and freaked out at Kelly his wife, and Jessica and MOnica, the ones with the little girls. He accused them of going out and partying and stuff and thye were all just sitting at home and then Carlos starts screaming at kelly and all this crazy stuff. Then Carlos tried to do some things with Monica that were inappropriate but luckily they didn't do anything and he called the police on them and told the police that monica and jessica had drugs in their home with their litle girls and so the police went and checked and found nothing and then monica told the police that carlos was illegal and in their police computers he had two names that he was going by but the same picture and all this stuff. Then the police go over to the camachos and kelly answers the door and this is at 3:00 am mind you, and she says that he's not there! Even though he was, she didn't want to put him in jail. He has done a lot of horrible things in the past specifically when he has been drinking to kelly and so for her, it's just reliving all of these horrible memories so she was crying and just didn't know what to do. If the child service people came by and carlos was drunk, her son would get taken away againtoo so there was so much going into it that carlos was putting in jeopardy. Such a crazy time. This lasted all throughout saturday night. So on sunday morning we finally get a hold of kelly who, the poor thing, is so just distraught. She says everything is good to come to church and that they will be a fw minutes late. When we talked to her sunday morning, we didn't know anything about what had happened the night before either. But she ends up not coming at all because her daughter went to a party the night before that got raided by the cops and she was stuck in detox on sunday morning so kelly had to go pick her up and deal wth that situation and wasn't able to make it to church, niether could her son bubba who was supposed to be confirmed. AHH i was so frustrated with everyone! And then because there was all this drama with kelly and her husband carlos, jessica and monica were mad at carlos and kind of at kelly too so thye didn't end up coming to church just because of their late night and who knows what other excuse. Then the other 4 people we were supposed to have at church didn't end up coming either becuase of one thing or another. It was a super depressing morning and the only light really shed on it was when we got to play "love is spoken here" for the primary kids on the ukulele. It was really pretty and invited at least a little bit of the spirit back into our lives. We were trying so hard to keep happy and so we bore our testimonies too. Man it was a super rough one though. Then later after church, we went and had a bbq with a recent convert family who is trying to move out of their apartment because it is full of black mold! The family is so sweet and innocent but they don't speak much english so the owners of the complex are really not treating them fairly and are making them pay all this rent for their unsafe apartment, that they can barely afford and now thye gave them a 60 day notice as well. We have to go talk with them to figure out what is really going on. and if they really have to pay all this stuff. Other people have gone to court for this stuff and gotten a new place for free, so we don't want the Ibarrah family to get tricked or taken advantage of. But we had an awesome bbq and we brought the meat, (5pounds of carne asada for like 8 or 9 people). We ate so much and we had horchata and rice with egg in it and these yummy beans and pico de gallo. Man it was quite a meal for a fast sunady ahah. That put us in good spirits though.

After ward we stopped by kelly's to see if everything was okay from last night and the morning. And we find them all outside lounging in the sun. And carlos was out there too talking with one of his friends. We see kelly reading her gospel principles book which was pretty cool hah. We went and said hey to carlos. Ths was the first time we had seen him too and he was kind of em barrased to see us. But we just said hi and then talked to kelly for a while. Man i cannot tell you how much stuff this lady has gone through. It broke my heart, to hear the life that she has lead and then to know how strong she is in the church right now. Even though she oculdn't make it to church she is out in the middle of the day studying her gospel principles book and things she doesn't understand. She has been through so much though from abuse, to drug addictions, to rape, to going to jail for stabbing one of the guys that did stuff to her. It was some of the most horrible things i've ever heard and yet i felt so close and desirous to help her. She is amazing man, i wish you knew her. I can't believe the stuff she has put up with from Carlos too, he has done horrible things to her and she has forgiven him. She has a huge heart. But we talked to her about everything that had happened and wht's the plan i guess and she is all for the church, at this point she was like, it is all i have right now to keep going. She is like the mom of the whole neighborhood ha, worries about all the needs of everyone like jessica and monica, and her own family and she has just got so much on her plate. So she says she is just focusing on getting through her recovery and keeping her son. She said that she is gonna let carlos stay at their home but as of right now doesn't want much of a relationship with him so she said she will see if that changes over time. Thatnight we got her and bubba out of the house thoguh and went to a cool firside for recent converts and investigators. It was an informal meeting and mostly all the recnt converts talked and it was cool to hear their testimonies and questions that they had. It was good.

It was such a crazy weekend and full of soo much emotion. We saw jessica and monica too who don't want much interaction with carlos and in turn it kind of includes kelly so we are struggling to figure out what we do with thm cause theyre coming to the same branch ya know? It will take a lot of prayer and figuring thins out. It's hard cause we cannot pick sides and so we just play neutral with everyone. Oh and we talked to carlos last night too and just said hey man we love you and are here to help, but first you gotta want to help yourself. He was down to start working and said he really has been praying every day to have the strength and desire to not drink again. He realized he is crazy when is drinkng and so i guess that's a start. We will see what happens this week.

ahhh, i'm really tired. I Just want to go play dodgeball and get this all out hahah. (we are playing today as a zone :)) We are doing good though. This situation will be fixed and we know that Heavenly Father's will, will be done as long as we are working close with the spirit so, i guess for right now that's all we can do.

Our other problem is finding. We still are down on people to teach. We found a cool couple on saturday and are hoping for some potencial with them. They didn't come to church but at the same time we are feeling really hopeful just because when we talked with them and taught them, He had kind of like a Q and A and We answered a lot of questions and promised him blessings as he learned more about the church and then he had to split so we didn't really get a chance to share the restoration but he read the plan of salvation pamphlet and he was asking us a ton of questions about it. The coolest part was that he was like, there were two lady missionaries here the other day that talked to me and gave me this pamphlet and then you guys show up too. I figure God is trying to tell me something. And we were like...YEAH HE IS! The sisters too are missionaries in our zone that gave Jose to us as a referral. So this week we are looking forward to seeing him and his wife and little boy.

This is the last week of the transfer and i think i'll be a long one haha. We have to do a lot of finding this week to get our teaching pool up for the beginning of next transfer. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts and letters. They mean so much to me really. Oh and for my b-day package this week. I almos feel bad asking for anything but, there are these scripture cases that if somehow, you can get a hold of, i would go crazy! The only place i KNOW that they sell themis in the mtc, but they are little cases for your triple and bible. They just fit right in, and the ones in the MTC had little mexican designs on them that looked almost knitted i guess you could say. But they are for spanish scriptures so they are a little bit bigger than my normal quad sized english ones. If anyone has any connections to someone in the mtc, i will pay for the cases, the shipping, and whatever else there is hahah.

Anyways, yeah if you can't find them, don't worry about it at all, i can do wit hjust sticking htem in my backpack. But again, i can't wait to talk to you soon! I can't believe in just one week i will get to hear your voices and see your faces! I love you all so much and pray every day for you!
Love Elder Edwards

Happy Easter

So this week had a lot of downs but had a happy ending! :) Last monday we went on splits and it was a blast! Ready for this...it was my first day in my whole mission that i was on a bike all day! Haa i feel like such a sheltered missionary! It was such a blast though. I had to get used to the extremely uncomfortable seat that by the end of the day felt like i was sitting on a pointy rock, but we talked with sooo many people and just had so much fun. We just went into down town in the morning and literally there were people everywhere! I felt like prophets and missionaries of old going around preaching to groups of people hahah, calling them unto repentance. We were outside some little coffee shop and there were like 7 people smoking, we went and talked to EACH one and they were all sitting right next to each other. By the time we got to the last person they had heard what we do as missionaries about...7 times and still we got a return appointment with one of them haha it was pretty funny. My goal was to make everyone i talked to laugh or smile, and it ended up working out pretty good. Even when someone rudely rejected, i know my intentions were good and that they are missing something really special.

The next few days were pretty rough though. Talk about missed appointments and flakey people left and right! We had jessica who has a baptismal date, and she was sick all week! We get so nervous because she never tells us what's going on so we can't tell if she's ignoring us or there's something up. Then we found out that a lot of the time, she can't meet with us because her sister, who she lives with, is kind of crazy and is a drug addict :( So while jessica is doing pretty good at staying away from the drugs sometimes, she can't do stuff with us because her sister monica who is paying for their house is just tripping out on something and she is creepy when she is using. I feel so sad for jessica's two little girls. But we tried to see her all week and had nothing. Then on friday we find carlos jr. or Bubba is what we call him, outside on his front porch eating taco bell. He is 10 and he is the son of a recently activated family who had a date for this past weekend. We see him (finally, it took us all week), and we go kick it with him on his porch and we talked about spongebob and he tells us about his halo game for a little while haha and then we talked to him about his baptism and it was sooo awesome because just talking about those little things in the beginning helped him open up a ton to us. And he got excited for his baptism too. So that was a huge blessiong and then we ended up seeing his mom and dad later too which was another huge blessing because it had been all week! We then planned a bbq for saturday with them and they said they would invite jessica. So all the happened, we get to the bbq and jessica and monica cAME! it was great, we brought the meat and had a carne asada bbq. It was sooo good! We talked to jessica too and she said she was sleeping over at kelly's (the recently activated member), so that she could go church in the morning (THANKYOU HEAVENLY FATHER!). So that ended up great. The week itself was prett slow. We are running around looking for spanish people still, man it's tough! We had hardly any new investigators this week which was kind of sad. It's almost next transfer too so i might be getting a new companion, i don't think i will but you nevver know. We are trying to plan ahead though so that next transfer we still have people to teach when it starts.

So last week, i found out that i was teaching at zone conference this friday the 29th. I'm super excited for it and me and elder Nelson, the missionary i'm teaching with, planned it all out this morning for studies and it went great! At the same time we are kind of nervous. Then on saturday, the branch president gives me a call and asks me to give a talk in sacrament meeting. So that was a little nerve wracking! And wihle i still had a day in advance to write it, it was more to think about. Also the AP's called and asked if me and two other elders would do a musical number at zone conference so we have started to practice that too hahah! There is so much going on, this will be a crazy week. It'll be cool too cause we will have the AP's come down and they are going on splits with us and another companionship for a day. They are pretty cool elders and i want to learn something from them.

So my talk went well yesterday, it was on service and well i'm a missionary so it wasn't tooo hard thinking of something to talk about. It was kind of sad though that the whole easter thing wasn't that emphasized in sacrament meeting. We just had one talk about Jesus Christ and then mine about service, so i tried to tie it in as best i could. We did have an awesome bbq afterward though and everybody, well almost everybody we were expecting came to church! WE had bubba and his family, jessica, and her sister monica came! Because bubba had his baptism planned for easter sunday. So they all came and brought their kids too who actually did pretty good i was impressed! They all came though and really enjoyed themselves. Monica was talking about how for some reason she felt like getting emotional, the whole time she was in church. We talked about how the holy ghost talks to us and how what she was feeling was a good thing, in fact, it was heavenly Father telling her it was the right thing, her being in church. So it was a good turn out and the bbq afterward was super fun. It was nice we had a lot of the branch members and it was good for the camachos becasue they are just getting back into things, and told us at the beginning that they wanted to make friends in the church so they could ditch some of their old ones that were bad influences. And jessica and monica met some new people too, it worked great all around!

Then afterward we had to go get ready for bubb'as baptism! Everything workied out how we had hoped and planned and it was just all coming together! wE HAVE been working hard all transfer and were seeing the benefits not in our own lives, but the lives of someone else. He was excited for his baptism too and so was his whole family. Oh i forgot to say too, when we got to their house on sunday morning to make sure everyone was ready for church, they all came out with brand new church clothes! it was awesome, they had new ties and white shirts with slacks and shoes. They looked soo good! But we got the baptism all set up and it was awesome to see their family so happy. You can see in the picture just how happy they were and jessica and monica came too and they loved it. By the end they were talking about how they wanted to be baptized next and it was awesome. We have a lot of work to do with them and one of them, monica, doesn't quite understand why we are baptized. She just wants to get dunked and then move on, so we got some work to do with her but we are looking forward to it and jessica was feeling really goood about it. I just remember looking up from the font though standing in the cold water with bubba in his white jumpsuit and seeing kelly and carlos, his mom and dad sitting there staring at their son with tears int heir eyes, soo happy! We just completed the family and so now their next goal can be the temple. It is soo cool beacuse the building where the font is, is right next to the temple and so we had a long talk about it afterward. So that's the next step for them!!! How awesome is that. It was the best easter sunday of all and bubba was pretty excited to be able to remember his baptism was on easter. Afterward we went over to their place and had a little easter egg hunt and then we left. We didn't have anyone signed up up for dinner so we just decided to work all day and then take dinner at 8:00 or 8:30ish to end the night. We were exhausted! It was such a crazy weekend and we had a spiritual high going all day yesterday hah. We meant to color eggs on saturday night but didn't have time with our nightly planning and working on some stuff for our zone, and then we were gonna do it sunday during lunch, dinner, or after dinner, but we ended up eating and just kickin it until we fell asleep haha. We were so drained!

This week is gonna be really good. We are hoping to see Jessica get baptized in the next 2 weeks and monica hopefully will follow. We also have another guy named carlos morales who is the most amazing guy ever. He is just living with his girlfriend who is an inactive member! It is the most frustrating thing to see when a non-member is more committed to living the gospel than a member of the church. His girlfriend drives us crazy and you can tell he gets frustrated with her. He basically has all the lessons memorized he knows them so well, and we left him some homework last week and he recapped everything in depth and told us how important it is that we get baptized just like Jesus Christ was. He wants it soo bad but just as before, his girlfriend doesn't want to get married. They have a kid together and Carlos is ready to tie the knot but she isn't doing it. We were having an awesome lesson with him on saturday, after we sang them a church song and played it on the ukulele. We talked abotu sacrifices we make for the blessings of the gospel and how abraham was gonna sacrifice his own son, and lehi and his family left their home, money, and precious things, all because the lord asked them too. Or job how he lost his family and essentially everything he had, but later they were all rewarded and their losses were made up for. Carlos was getting way into it and asked for all the scripture references so he could study them during the week when he goes to work in california (bummer). Then his gf gets home with her mom and just ruined the spirit there. We asked them, hey are you coming to church with carlos tomorrow and susanna, his gf, laughs and says "ha he says he'll come but last second something will come up and he won't make it". It was so frustrating for me i was going crazy. i wanted to scream. This girl who knows the church is true, is hurting her should be spouse, and is so discouraging. You could tell he was feeling awkward too and so we decided it would be best if we just said a prayer and left before we said anything innapropriate to her. She was just such a downer on everything and she is holding him back from so many blessings. Not to mention she's living in sin. Man sorry, but this carlos guy is amazing. I wish you could hear him speak and hear his testimony. He was talking about how his whole family is catholic and the sacrifices he has made for the gospel he was like well i was catholic, and then when i got my answer, i figured if God really told me, i better follow it, and so i told my family and they don't like it at all. The poor guy puts up with so much and yet his testimony is soo strong. Pretty soon, if nothing changes, we are just gonna hit him with a spiritual train, and invite him to move out. I love that guy.

I gotta run though the lady is leaving pretty soon. But man i loved hearing from you guys! It means everything to me that you write me every week and it really does make my day. Thanks again for the easter box, i think i've already eaten all the pringles, the mac cheese, and the little dehydrated fruit stuff (sooo good!). haha but i love you so much! have a good week this week and i can't wait to hear from you and tell you about how zone conference goes :)
Love Elder Edwards

Trav's Letter

What up family how are ya>?! This week had some major ups and downs as usual :) Last monday night we went on exchanges with some people in our zone. They are struggling a little bit to get their area going, so we were hoping to really tear it up while we were there. I got to go with Elder Kaumaitotoya (from fiji!) and we stayed in their area. It was a lot of finding and stuff and it was a little different doing english work, but still the same rush ahah that's for sure. They really are not as nice though i gotta admit. But we ended up going over to this lady named Lynn, and she was like oh man i have been waiting for you for so long! Apparently they talked to her last week but since then they've had no contact and she had been praying that we'd come back all week. So we go visit her and teach her a little bit more about the book of mormon and how it could help her in her current situation and then invited her to be baptized. She said yes!! She was like yea that's definitely what i want to do. It was soo awesome and it was cool to have that miracle on exchanges in an area that really needed it. I can't say i really did anything either, it was completely the Lord that prepared her for us to come that day and he was the one that touched her heart. It was such a spiritual lesson too, everybody was crying haha :) i guess that's not really funny, but it was really cool. We had a pretty good day and we foudn some potentials too that will hopefully spark something. THen we switched back at our dinner time. Like i was kind of saying before, I have been thinking a lot about righteous desires, and my will versus' the Lord's will. Elder K and i have been talkin about it and how our desires are 99% of the time righteous, good desires. Like baptizing Heavenly Father's children, of course that's a good thing, but i'm praying constantly that i can be humble enough to accept what the Lord would have for his children. It's hard to really take myself out of the picture and completely rely on His will. Especially now where i'm getting more confidence with my teaching andspanish and i find my self caught in my own pride sometimes and it's just bad news haha. I've been trying really hard to think and focus on what the Lord would want. It's just hard to discern sometimes between something that WE want, that's good, and something different that the Lord wants, that may not seem as "good" at the time, but in the long run is the absolute best thing. There is a cool scripture chain that puertas and i came up with that we were studying in our companionship now. I dont know if you're interested but the scriptures are mosiah 28:1-3 alma 17:11,16 alma 26:30 Alma 29:1-9 helaman 10:3-5 and 3 nephi 7:16-20, 24 I was thinking about my desire to baptize. Honestly, i want to be the best missionary that Heavenly Father wants me to be. I know that i have the potential, through the spirit, to change soo many lives. I feel like the Lord has blessed me with so much, talents and a testimony, for the sole purpose of bringing his children unto the Savior Jesus Christ and helping them accept his gospel. And yet, i find myself struggling to really help people change. I think in my head i have been so concerned about baptizing people, that it has almost desensitized me to loving them in the full capacity. That has been another thing i've prayed for, a greater capacity to love His children. But with the scripture chain, the sons of mosiah and alma DESIRED to go out and serve that they might be 'instruments' in the hands of the Lords that they might be the means of bringing SOME soul unto REPENTANCE. I think of their thought process and how they couldn't have gone out there just to baptize the most people amongst their brothers. It's not a competition. But they went out, hoping that they could bring some soul unto repentance. Their joy must have been so full with each convert they saw come unto Christ. And they probably didn't expect any success and yet they gave everything they had regardless because they couldn't bear that any human soul should perish. They understood the doctrine of christ so well and the atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ, that they couldn't bear that anyone should perish. I love that scripture. Then in helaman 10 it talks about how Nephi always sought the will of the Lord and that he would grant unto him his desires because he would never ask anything contrary to his will. Then in 3 nephi, we are to bring souls unto repentance, not just baptism. I think i had the 2 mixed up or backwards. We are helping people to repent through the savior Jesus Christ and ultimatly go live with Him again. And baptism is just one of those steps that is necessary in the repentance process. I felt like in my head, everything i did built up to baptism, when really baptism is just a fruit of repentance, that is necessary as Christ taught us. I don't know, sorry for the rambling, it makes more sense in my head haha but i gotta go. Sorry for the tangent haha! This week is gonna be really good. I just found out that i get to teach in front of a couple zones down here in the south or oregon on the 29th of this month. I'm teaching about revelation through church attendance and teaching that concept through the 5 lessons that we teach people. I'm pretty excited and kind of nervous but it'll be great. Elder K and I are still doing well together and i love him to death. I'm doing my best to be the missionary you all think I am. That's something president always stresses: "be the missionary your mom thinks you are". Me encanta esta obra y amo al senor. Se que la iglesia es verdadera y nuestro padre celestial nos da pruebas para fortalecernos. I love you guys so much and thank you for the support! I hope you have a good easter and will miss bein there with you. The church is true :) Love elder edwards

Loving It!

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

Always positive

This is Travis and Victor (Elder Camacho). When I first moved out to Sacramento, I would go out with the sister missionaries every Thursday. Victor was one of the guys that we taught and got baptized (along with his whole awesome family of like 10!). Me and Jimmy have hung out with them and gone to dinner and to all the Spanish ward activities when this family has gone. Victor is A STUD and I couldn’t believe it when he got called to Travis’ mission. So glad Trav got to see him!

To think that President Monson is just as much of a prophet as moses and nefi and moroni, it is such a miracle and blessing to have the restored gospel on the earth today. I wish i could take all the feelings that i got from just watching conference and stuff it inside the people that we are teaching so they could FEEL the truth of this church. Beyond any spiritual conversion, the talks and messages that were given, even warnings, made so much sense logically. At the same time i was thinking how important a testimony is. In priesthood session i think, president monson said, "if you haven't read the book of mormon, READ IT" and the holy ghost will testify to you of the truthfuillness of it. There were many warnings as well of how this world in which we live is not going to get better any time soon, and the importance of having a solid foundation of a testimony of the gospel to pull us through. I loved the messages from conference and can't wait for the ensign with all the talks inside. It was another renewal of my testimony that we have a living prophet to guide us back to our Heavenly Father's presence. Wow so this week was pretty crazy and a little stressful for me to say the least. I don't know if i handled it the best but nonetheless we move forward haha. Last monday night and tuesday we were in eugene at Zone leader council. That was pretty cool and intense and long haha. We were in President macdonalds living room for 5 hours talking about different aspects of the mission and what we need to do to lift our own zones. A point that he made in the beginning that i liked, was that we are called as zone leaders, not zone managers. I think it's easy for us to fall into the habit of 'managing' the missionaries and making sure they are doing all the "right things". Doing the right things are for managers, and while that's important, a leader's job is to do things right. He said if everyone in your zone loves you, then you're probably doing something wrong beacuse naturalyl there are missionaries who are disobedient or lazy and need correction. We have to play the bad guy sometimes but in an effort to lift not put down. It's like the lord chastiseth whom he loveth and i think it's a similar role that we have to take on. But it was a pretty inspiring message and we all left feeling great and excited to lift our missionaries and inspire them to be superstars and rockstars :) After ZL council we got back to our areas though and i said goodbye to puertas which was fun having him around again. We Found some new people to teach this week and actually had an awesome experience with this girl named jessica. So i think in my last letter we told you about the less active family that lost their son to social services. Their son is not a member and might be coming home this week so we are hopeful to teach them but also, that family gave us a referral with their friend Jessica. We went over to her place to teach her this week with the whole family (less active family's name is camacho). She was kind of nervous to meet with us but was really nice and has two cute little girls. But we started teaching and this lady has no religious background whatsoever, doesn't really know much about Christ or anything, and so it was awesome to start from the VERY beginning and really focus on the relationship that exists between her and Heavenly Father. It was awesome to see things clicking so easily for her and we could tell that the spirit was strong from the beginning. We talked about families and how importnatn they are to Heavenly Father. We got to the story of joseph smith and we were bearing testimony of him being a prophet and i can't even remember what we asked her but she just sat there and then tears just started flowing down her face! It was like the Spirit just flooded over her and she just wept! At the beginning of the lesson she said "her life sucks" and by the end, man did she have a different perspective we promised her blessings that she would be happier than she has ever been in her whole life by following the gospel of Jesus Christ and we invited her to be baptized on the 16th of this month. It was such an incredible lesson and the spirit was sooo strong i can't even tell you. It doesn't often happen this strong but when i got to bear my testimony i could feel the spirit working through me and i felt like my words were being carried to her heart. It was an awesome experience. She described her feelings as floating haha, like she was having an out of body experience almost but felt so good and hopeful like everything is going to be alright. It was great and now we are having a lesson tonight with her sister monica too. Miracles after miracles have been seen here in medford. We are trying to get these same miracles for the rest of our zone. our goal is to set a baptismal date on every exchange that we do. That's one thing that we have to do every week twice a week. We are going on exchanges tonight until tomorrow night and then on friday to saturday too. That'll be fun and new and a chance for us to work with the missionaries in our zone and hopefully get everyone pumped to be on the Lord's team. We also had to teach a combined district meeting for our zone this week. It took a ton of planning which was super stressful but we had a lot of prayer and felt really good as we were preparing and we knew that we were guided by the spirit. We were nervous because we only get the chance to teach once a transfer and wanted it to be epic haha! So we found this little talk by henry b eyring that has music to it, i want to put it on the computer and send it to you because it is amazing! It's all about missionaries and their calling how eternal lives depend on us and how the Lord has literally chosen us to our callings. I am gonna burn it to the computer so you guys can listen to it cause it's amazing! But we played that and talked about our goals that we had made and fasted for the previous sunday and how we have to do all things in our power to bring them to pass. Last transfer we may have been good but we didn't meet our inspired goals. So clearly there is something more to do. Elder K and I are waking up at 6:00 now to get an early start on the day and taking less time for lunch and stuff like that and are committed to finding at least one new investigator a day with some other stuff that we put on a list of stuff that we would do this transfer. We are so excited and are trying to do everything we can to pump everyone up. We also taught the doctrine of christ at district meeting and the importnace of LOVE. We had some sisters in our zone teach love and it was perfect. That talked about what motivates us and why "love" is the most importnat motivation, the most powerful rather. It was a great meeting and we think it took it's effect. The only thing that we struggle with is that, the missionaries that come to learn at those meetings, always leave having learned something, but the ones that don't, DON'T! It's like the gap widens between the missionaries that are already good and the ones that need help. But we are working on it. We'll see how things go the next few weeks. Conference went well yesterday, we had one investigator come for one of the sessions which was good and although he doesn't have a baptismal date, he is close, he just has to get married first (UGH!) But that'll happen soon. Unfortunatly this Family history center is closing so i have to go early but i love you guys soo much! Seriously i love hearing from you and look forward to your letters every week! The church is true and i know the President Monson is a Prophet today that leads and guides and shows us the way the our families can live together forever. Love elder edwards ps. you can send stuff to my actual address if you want now. i should be here for at least 3 months haha but it doesn't matter, wherever you want to send mail is fine. And i will not need new sheets, there are some on there already that are washed and everything. I can't believe mike and stephanie and genevieve had babies! that is crazy awesome! Also i'm glad your getting into your school mom with ur research paper and presentations man i bet you're tearing it up. And dad still sounds busy hah going to la and stuff, i'm not to far from there you know>? Thanks for the support and the encouraging words, they really do help me so much! Love you again!

oh and katie your boy elder camacho got all dressed up in white his first weekend in the mission ;) HE'S A DUNKER!