Angie,
This has been my background picture for the past two years.  Love you Sis, and I hope you have an awesome day.  Give your son a great big hug for us and let him know what a great example he has been to our family!
Love you-Matt

Coming Home

So nice to have all our family there to support Taylor and family in other parts of the country supporting him in heart. We love you all!

We have a fun video from that afternoon, but Emily also took these pictures and shared them with us.

I can't believe it-one more week!

2 john 1:12

This week has been really good.

Time is flying by but at the same time seems to be moving slowly. It is a really weird feeling being this close to going home.  Your brain can't decide to be excited or just really sad and nostalgic. Either way, I am excited to see everyone again. I am working hard my last two weeks and will try my very best to look for miracles as Tyson counseled.

This past week we had zone conference and all of the trainings were great and things that the mission needed. We are definitely still doing tons of finding which is a good way for me to keep working hard. Carlos came back for his one week off work and now is gone again for two weeks, so I said goodbye to him. After his divorce is final, he will probably end up getting baptized with his wife like two weeks after I leave. Adriana should be getting baptized soon if everything goes to plan.

The district is doing well. I went on exchanges in Monte Vista last week, and this week I will go into Temple Boulevard to help do some finding there. Then next week, my last exchange will be with Elder Salazar which is awesome. I think we will go see a few of our Monte Vista recent converts if we get time.

A lady named Maricela that I taught in Monte Vista is finally getting her divorce done! So she is going to get baptized hopefully the last Saturday before I leave if everything goes well with the court, which it never does, but we are praying hard. That will be a great way to finish off.

There's not much else to say. I guess I will see everyone pretty soon anyway.

Love you!

Elder Bassett

PS Elder Larsen is from Dallas...where he is from, they call the dome..."the death star."

General Conference!

So conference was great! The letters are getting shorter, so the only thing I can really think of is general conference. I drove down for priesthood session but ended up missing half of Saturday afternoon, because of a bad signal, so I need to catch up on that. But other than that, I got to see it all and loved it! On Saturday, I sat with the "trunky group," a bunch of missionaries that are going home in the next couple months. The part about hero's from President Eyring made me tear up…which is impressive since he didn't even cry, and he always seems to cry when he speaks. It made me reflect on my mission, my companions and President Hiers in particular, and what I have learned from him the past two years. It was a very trunky night. Elder Plowman ran into his brother and dad, so that was pretty weird.

I don't have my notes right with me, but one of the things that most stood out to me were not slowing down once I get home. I decided I couldn't ignore it. One of the questions I needed answered was what to do to keep my "spiritual high" when I get home; there were several talks that answered that by just saying to keep going. Obviously, I plan on relaxing a little at home, but I don't really want to slow down at all as far as work ethic or studying or anything like that. I feel like I worked too hard to learn how to do those things just to throw it away or kick back as soon as I take my badge off. I know that's probably an obvious thing, but it meant more coming from the Spirit. I also learned I need to decide on the people I am going to serve once I get home, particularly my brothers. I am not exactly sure what I can do, but that will be a big focus of mine this summer since I will be around them a lot. Now that I think about it, will Amanda be home all summer, too? That's it for trunky revelation.

Well another week in the greatest mission in the world has flown by!

This week Eustolia and her two kids, Luis and Nayeli, got baptized. Abel is her youngest, but he isn't old enough yet. They are pretty solid. The other family we have the picture, the husband isn't there. The sisters were teaching them, and when we got in, we gave them a baptismal date then found out they live on the border of our area, and it might be in another ward. But the two stake presidents don't agree on whose area it is, so the sisters that border us have been going by to take over. We just talked to President Reyna, and he will talk to the area seventy to figure out whose stake/ward it is in. It doesn't really matter to me as long as they don't have to get switched back and forth; they are already pretty bugged that they will have to start going to a different ward now possibly.

This week has been amazing!!!!

I love Buena Vista. Where do I even start... OK, so I got started on the bus, and we arrived and went straight to work visiting potentials from the area book. I don’t even think we unpacked until the third day in the morning, we were so excited. So, we immediately got in touch with our wml, Brother Morales. He is the best wml I have ever met in my LIFE. He has spent, I would guess, 15 hours with us in the past week. He works full time and has a family; I don't know how he does it. Right off the bat he drove us around to show us where our top five potentials and baptismal dates were (there were three when we came in the area; they will get baptized this weekend). He also spends almost as much time helping the sisters out in the north half of the ward. AND he even helps fellowship a couple investigator friends in another neighboring Spanish ward. We were talking to the sisters on Sunday about how we were living off of tortillas and peanut butter since we left all our food in our last house and just had a enough to get a couple things. He overheard and brought us like six grocery bags of food the next day; he is the best…very, very dedicated and excited about missionary work. We report back to him every night about what we have done, so he knows who not to visit, because we already have and what to report in meetings on Sundays. I'll admit, he does take over lessons, but that's fine with me if he helps us out that much.

que mas.... 

Buena Vista South

I guess I didn't have anything to do with my hands so I did this awkward prom pose with elder coronado and didn't realize until I saw the picture.

So I am going to Buena Vista South with Elder Larsen! Elders haven't served there in a couple years; it has always been sisters due to an incident with some elders in the ward...I am very excited. It will be an exciting time and great way to finish off strong speaking Spanish. I will be district leader over an all Spanish district. There are only two Hispanics and the rest are Americans, so we will need to just force the Spanish all the time in district meetings. I think it'll be more like Spanglish, but that's ok; it's better than nothing.

Time is going by too fast!

SO, Elder Weidner and Elder Salazar came over for lunch last week, and right before they left, Elder Weidner (a big guy) decided to jump through the trap door. As soon as he landed, he went straight back making a huge hole in the sheet rock..and he wasn't willing to pay or help fix it! So we did the sheet rock this morning and will paint next week.

Another week has flown on by! We are in the last week of the transfer. We picked up a very solid investigator on Sunday. He didn't even let me finish asking the question before he said yes to being baptized...the 29^th! He has already been coming to church for three weeks and said he will get up 30 minutes earlier everyday to read The Book of Mormon. He is a marine and is in the process of leaving to find other work, because his shoulder is pretty injured; he's in his thirty's. Se llama Anthony. He is a great guy, and the elder’s quorum president is the one he goes to church with. He didn't grow up around here; he is from Texas, but he is here temporarily while he recruits. He is looking for a more solid place to stay and live.

We also taught a lesson to a girl in high school named Sharron, yesterday. The sisters have been teaching her for a few lessons, but she lives in our area, so they called to switch it over to us. The fellowshipper  doesn’t live in her area, but he is willing to come with her to church in West Point. The hard thing is that she lives in the ward with probably the weakest youth in the stake (as far as numbers); there is only one person her age. It'll be tough getting her to love her West Point ward like she has the one in Syracuse. But they definitely need her in the ward to strengthen it. She has a missionary friend out who gets home in a year and says she wants to wait for him to baptize her; we will work on that next lesson. I was trying to be mellow, because the sisters told me that she is a little shy and thinks elders are pushy, so I needed to relax and let them lead things for the first lesson (oh, and of course they told me I needed to smile a lot). So it went well. She is very solid. Once we teach the importance and urgency of baptism, I think she will feel the need for it to happen sooner.

The members are planting seeds...

This is Jarron...he is 8; we taught his family, and he got baptized last week with the other 8 year old stake baptisms. His family will be on the road to the temple!

Yesterday we had MLC (a new version of zlc with the sisters involved). We had a round robin with three different trainings from some zone leaders. We were trained on retaining converts, using the scriptures, and planning. The idea is we receive those and then bring them back to our zones in a zone study this week. So that's what we will do along with Sister Noel (our STL in our zone). We also had our accounting on our zones goals and goals for next month. Our zone set a goal of 10 and had 8 baptisms, so we set another goal of ten for next month. Things are accelerating, and missionaries are picking it up, so I really think it'll happen this month. Lots of good things are happening in the zone.

And of course there are good things happening in West Point as well. We haven't picked up anyone new to teach; still just trying to get people to squeeze us into their schedule. I think I have finally narrowed down what I have been talking about the past few weeks. I think I just want to be more diligent, because we don't really know what to do during the day. So I want to feel overwhelmed, but right now we feel kind of stuck in nightly planning about what to do the next day. It is a good thing, because it gives me a chance to be a better planner which I will need once I get home and have nothing to do to feel productive and will have to do the best with what I have.

I am really working on love. I need to have more love for the people I teach. I mean, of course I do love them, but I just have room to grow. I hope to end my mission more lost in the work than I ever have been rather than slowing down to the finish line. I think the key to doing that is love, and that's what I am pushing for.

Hunter was baptized!

Hunter got baptized! Her sister, Skyler is next to her and their nephew jumped in one of the pictures

Rushed email today...busy p-day. We went to the Brigham temple bright and early. Then we went to Costco and then went to the Roy rec center to work out. Then we went and did zone yoga (p90x yogax). Nobody really came except six of us, but that’s ok. Now we are emailing for a bit then going to do haircuts.

This week has been good. Hunter got baptized! It was a good service. She had many family members from other faiths there, so the Restoration presentation from Elder Coronado and I while they were changing was effective; I hope. We didn't have much enthusiasm, because we both had a fever at that time. We were both sick for a couple days.

Friday was probably the most sick I have been my whole mission. At the dinner appointment, Elder Coronado ate and I sat on the couch trying to hide from the light, because it made my head feel like it was going to close. He got a split, and I slept at the stake president’s house that night from six to nine. It was weird. It started in the morning, so I took a power nap at lunch and woke up, and it was worse. I took headache medicine and took another nap, and it got worse. Then went to dinner, and it just kept getting worse and worse. Well, we are better now thanks to resting on Friday for me and then Saturday for Elder Coronado (that’s when it was worse for him). I hate staying in on my mission, but this was one of those times when we didn't have an option. I think it was a migraine, but I never really had one of those so I don't know what to compare it to. We just have colds now, so nothing really that slows us down.

So, two of our more solid investigators got baptized, so our teaching pool is slim right now.

Another week has flown by!

Another week has flown by! As usual I don't have much to say. I feel like I just barely emailed home yesterday.

This is William. He is the handicapped kid we are teaching. He is getting baptized mid March.

Last week Elder Samia (assistant) came out on exchanges with us for 24 hours. He served in West Point a year ago, so he brought us to a couple families he had built relationships with. Both were excited to see him and both set up appointments. One of them is tonight. The other one was Saturday, but they didn't open the door. I guess it's just not their time yet. He thought we working well, which is good to hear, and being as productive as possible. I needed that. Not having tons of experience in the English program, I kind of wondered if we were just spinning our wheels on some things, but he said he thought we are being productive even if sometimes it doesn't feel that way. I guess, as usual, I just need to learn to find joy in the journey and recognize the little bits of progress that occur.

So Cecilia got baptized! She had told us on Monday she was ready, and we set everything up and told auxiliaries and everything. It was a small service, but that's ok. Chris didn't know he could baptize people until we told him, then he got really nervous when we asked him to do it, but it happened. Then we suggested bishop confirm her, and she agreed to it. He had visited her the week before on visits for ward conference, so him confirming her should create a little bit of a bond. (Cecilia is the one we have been teaching for a few weeks. She was living with the Vallette family, and so Brother Chris Vallette {in the picture} just got the priesthood six months ago and was able to baptize her this past weekend.)

This is Cecilia. The recent convert she is standing next to is Chris Vallette. He was able to baptize her.

Cold cereal is the best way to celebrate a baptism. (It's not considered sweets.)

Elder Bassett,

Here is a pic from my stake conference assignment. He's doing well, serving as the ward executive secretary. He also has a girlfriend.

Love you,

Dad

No pictures, but still a faithful letter writer!

I feel obligated to start my email off apologizing for not sending pictures. I keep saying I will do better, and I don't do it! I just don't think about it during the week honestly. I even started carrying my camera around with me, and I still would forget that I had it.

So this past week has been good. They seem to keep flying on by. Sister Erikson called me this week to ask me some info. to verify about going home, so that didn't make me happy. It's sad how fast it's coming to an end.

No new people were found this week, but we did hear about a couple new names of people we hadn't heard of before which doesn’t happen often, so that was good. Maybe we will be able to find some members to help us work with them soon.

Cecilia has been doing better. She gets closer to her answer every day. Taegan still wants to get baptized, and he will be with his mom this weekend, so he can go to church this Sunday. His mom, Kellen, has still not talked to Taegan's dad to see if he is ok with him getting baptized, so we are praying he says yes.

I just wanted to send you a quick note and tell you thank you for sending your wonderful son to Utah!  We had the pleasure of feeding these four wonderful young men!  They are awesome and such valiant servants of our a Heavenly Father!  We love them!  Hope you enjoy the picture!

Love,
Curtis and Alyson Child
West Point, Utah

I joined you in the fast, and so did Elder Coronado!

Elder Coronado and I will be staying another transfer together in West Point.

In the home stretch, I am working harder than ever. Sometimes, I am disappointed I am not more physically exhausted; I wish our work was more physically demanding to make me feel more accomplished. Maybe they should take our car away! JK, then I would just wish we had a car all over again.

This morning we had transfer breakfast to let everyone know the changes in our zone. For the most part, things are staying the same. We are losing Elder Clarke and Elder Singleton, though, and gaining an area with sisters in it. President wants every zone to have sisters. The new sister is an stl (sister training leader... like a girl zone leader) and is white-wash-training. She is a great missionary; we are excited to have her in the zone. Numbers in the zone have not improved at all from last week. We had a zone study last Thursday to set baptismal goals for the month of February and gave everyone a wake up call about what needs to happen for us to meet our goals. Our new goal for this month is ten as a zone. It is very doable; that is one baptism per companionship. Elder Coronado and I re-evaluated and set a goal of two for this month. I felt like we weren't pushing hard enough, but then again, I pushed last transfer, and we didn't hit our goal, so it needs to be one step at a time.

Teresa was baptized!

Elder Coronado, Teresa, Bishop Colohan is baptizing her, and the ward mission leader there, Brother Crockett, confirmed her. He is the one that served in Mesa.

Teresa got baptized this week. It was great to have so much help from a great ward. They set most everything up, and we just filled the font and showed up. She is already halfway through the recent convert lessons, because we had started doing them even before she was baptized, because she wanted to learn more so quickly. Things will go well for her. She stood up to share her thoughts at the end of the baptism and told everyone she had waited a long time and wasn't sorry that she did it. Her next day was the confirmation, and she was very happy, as was Garland. They had to leave right after sacrament, because Garland can't last through all of church, but she will usually stay and maybe they will bring the sacrament to him; I am not sure.

SO now we are just looking for other non-members to teach! Keep praying for us finding new people. Yesterday, we had a lesson with Gavin...he hadn’t come to church the day before, because his aunt took him to a hockey game. We talked about who he wanted to be as far as values and asked his mom what kind of person he wanted to be. He told us, and we talked about how baptism will bring that. Then as we were wrapping up, his Mom kind of nudged him to tell us something. Then he said thank you for teaching me, but "I won’t be needing your assistance anymore." He felt like he had learned enough ways to feel the Spirit and didn't think he needed anymore than that. He can read the Book of Mormon if he gets time, or go to church, but doesn't need the lessons. I guess he really just didn't get how much we were stressing the necessity of baptism. So then the ward mission leader took over and talks for 10 minutes about I don't know what, and we shared our testimonies and left. So that was too bad, never thought I would get dropped by a 12 year old, but it happened.

Another week has flown by

Another week has flown by. I lose track of time so easily as a missionary. I still love West Point.

We had zone conference last week, and it went well. It was from 8-4 so it was a very long one. The assistants trained on contacting, which a lot of missionaries needed, so that was great. It made me miss being in Ogden. We hardly ever get TTI's in West Point, and when I say hardly ever, I mean hardly ever. Since it's all neighborhoods, and it's winter, no one is ever outside. It's not like we can go to the convenience store since we don't have one in our area. So I want to apply that training more than I am.

President and Sister Hiers trained on faith and the atonement. It was fantastic. President Hiers is a powerful speaker as is his wife. I love them both; they are definitely a huge, if not majority of the reason I was called to this mission.

Time moves swiftly

Another p-day! This week has been great as always. Elder Coronado and I love serving together and are working hard in West Point. Today we got our suits dry cleaned, and it was definitely time.

So, recently I have been dragging out planning to be way long, so I wanted to get it done more quickly, in 30 minutes. So we started to do abs every night to motivate us to finish planning, so we can get to abs. It's funny how often it actually happens, and how often we get caught up calling missionaries in the zone, or fall asleep planning on the couch. I think it has only actually happened once in the past week. I guess that means we are working hard enough to be exhausted at the end of the day, or we are just very out of shape, because we ride in a car all day.

The no sugar thing has been good, we get offered dessert 1-3 times everyday and most people are ok with it, but they always need an explanation of why we are saying no. Some say good for you and others just seem unhappy that we said no to their dessert/candy. We ate with the Facers twice this week, and she hid all sweets in her house for us; she is the Kristiansen fellowshipper (one of them) and the ones we killed the turkey with at thanksgiving.

Our overabundance of vegetables with our chicken. Sorry, this is about the only picture I have on my iPad. 

Another great week in my favorite city in Utah. It has still been a struggle with New Years and everything to find people, especially, or set up lessons, but I am getting a better idea of how to work effectively. I am getting really good at evaluating daily on what is working; the problem is deciding how to actually change what isn't working. I have said it before; I think the most valuable skill I have learned on my mission is how to grow. Speaking of that, since we have an older zone, we recognized a lot of what we needed to do was help our missionaries grow and that in turn will positively influence their investigators. We asked the assistants to come give a training in our zone on Christlike attributes, and it went very well; they loved it. They had us all pick one and set specific, daily actions we would do to better ourselves with the attribute we had chosen for the rest of the transfer. I picked two things, gratitude and virtue. I am not trunky, but nearing the finish line is pushing me really hard to want to do everything I possibly can to grow out here. I am trying to focus more on our investigators, but it is very difficult. We really struggle with daily contact with people being so busy especially with precedents set in the past by us and past missionaries of once a week contact, which does not cut it.

Yesterday, we had a zone study to set baptismal goals for the month of January. Our companionship set a goal of three baptisms this month. It is pretty high with what we have right now, but we will do everything we can to get it. The zone baptized 14 last month, they set a goal of 17. That means we need to pick things up and get out of this rut we are in from Christmas since numbers really dropped around the holidays. We had our missionaries commit to changing and being better for their investigators, so we can hit our goal. I feel good about it; we just cannot lose the excitement that we had yesterday.