Just another week in paradise

Thanksgiving was great. We had two meal appointments spaced out several hours apart, so we were intelligent about it. The first one was with the Hunt family. The food was good there, but so was the second meal! We spent some time talking with them and ate.

It was hard to be productive the rest of the day, but I tried to do some good studies and fell asleep in my chair, because we had just eaten. In the morning, we couldn't study, because we went to the Turkey Trot. Some people in West Point put it together for a boy with cancer. He passed away the week before Thanksgiving, so it was an emotional week for a lot of people in West Point. Elder Harper and I sold raffle tickets, and Elder Harper got on the loud speaker and auctioned off the live turkey, $600. We know the guy that bought it and are going to kill it and eat it with him and the Kristiansen’s on Christmas Eve. It was sooo cold at the Turkey Trot.

At night, we at with the Facer family, and they also invited the Kristiansen’s over. So we got to eat the turkey we killed! It was pretty good, but I'll be honest turkey is turkey. They say the non-frozen one would be so much better, but it all tastes the same. I ate a pretty good amount and had some pie but not as much as usual. No one sent us home with leftovers!! SO there were no leftovers this year, but that's ok; I am still very grateful.

Have a Great Thanksgiving!

Well another week has come and gone in West Point, Utah. Things have been cold. There were a couple days where it was so, so windy. I do NOT like the wind. It wasn't that cold outside, but the wind made it pretty bad. There were a lot of fences blown over, and people staying inside, but luckily we have a car so we really can't complain.

So the first thing to talk about is the Kristainsen family. I am not exactly sure on the spelling, but it is pronounced like it looks. They are from Denmark staying with their godmother. She is from England and lives in our stake. They will be here until January. They are looking for a job right now so that they can stay. They only way the job will work is if it is something that one of them can do that an American wouldn't be able to do. They have to show they will not just take away an American job from a citizen here. Fin can drive all types of big trucks, so they are looking for something like that. If they don't find something, they will fly home and then come back again for vacation. The kids do not go to school, so they are home all day everyday. We met them at a dinner appointment and set something up. Fin didn't believe in God, but they like going to church with their godmother, because they feel welcomed here versus in Denmark; the churches there are mean and don't allow kids (they have never tried the LDS church in Denmark). Anyways, we have had three lessons so far with them (I forgot to mention them last week), and they have a baptismal date for the 14th, but it is shaky. Fin really did not want to go to church every week and had no interest in religion, but his heart is softening. He is just worried about our "no beer" rule though, but we will get to that later. There is a man that speaks Danish in our ward that comes to translate. When he cannot make it, we found two returned missionaries that served as companions in Denmark that came and taught with us. It is kind of crazy translating back and forth, but it is fun. They are a good family, and they like us. We are going to do a better job of daily contact and reading with them. They read their Book of Mormon, and we read ours and talk about it. Sandra is really playful and likes to come up behind me and tap my right shoulder then run to the left. She does that the entire time we are there. She is cute and doesn't understand anything we say. She is the only one not old enough to be baptized. Their accent is really cool, and they have taught us 2 or 3 Danish words.

If it wasn't in Utah, I would come back and live here....

One week in paradise! It has been great. I love being in West Point, UT. If it wasn't cold and in Utah, I would move back and live here one day.

I am jumping around-out of order, but Sunday was very welcoming. We went to three sacrament meetings that day, and one of them had a primary program! I sang along to all of the songs under my breath; they all made me think of Mom. It made me love the stake right away, and we got front row seats.

Other good news, Chad's mom wrote me!! It was from both of them, but she wrote it. It was so good to hear from them that they are doing well; an answer to prayers.

I started out in the area a day earlier than everyone else, because Elder Harper's companion had already gone home. We had a lesson that night with our investigator named Theresa. She is an older woman, but she is in a lot better shape than her husband who can barely walk or speak. She has lots and lots of questions. She was raised catholic, so it is a big change for her, but she wants to know more and does extra reading on her own. It was a great way to start out. She is a little hard headed, but so am I, so I love her. She is great. She will start reading The Book of Mormon more and be set. The second lesson we taught her this past week we talked about church. She said she hadn't ever gone to church, because her husband (member) had never invited her. (Invite the ones you love to do things that you know will make them happy! You will regret it if you don't). He had a smart remark that I couldn't understand, because he mumbles very slowly, and then he said he would start taking her to church in two weeks. He has been sick and thinks he will feel better by then, but I wouldn't want to rely on him for her church attendance. He is in pretty rough shape.

Great week-I guess every week is great...

I will be serving in West Point, English zone leader of the Clinton Zone with Elder Harper. I have talked about Elder Harper; he was my favorite district leader while I was a zone leader. I have wanted to serve with him for a while. He is very bold, knows how to baptize, has one of the nicest apartments in the mission, and he loves to lift weights at the high school gym up the street.

This week has been great! A lot of awesome things happened. I guess every week is great, though. Anyway, we had a mission tour this week from Elder Clark. I guess I can start with that.

Elder Kipp and I ended up going to the conference for the north half and the south half of the mission. It was basically the same training, but new revelation the second time. So it was a six-hour training; most of it was done by Elder Clark. They are in the process of trying to get a senior couple in every stake and aren't even close, but the few that were there he had stand up. He then rebuked everyone that hadn't recently bought his wife flowers not including holidays or anniversary's and made them all promise to buy their wife flowers. Then he thanked them for their service and told us to start working with them.

He brought Sister and President Hiers to the front and had us all say things that we have learned from them in their mission. You could see how happy it made them. I was really glad he did that. Then he went on and trained on pretty much every basic aspect of missionary work. He really emphasized talking with everyone and how to get referrals from members. He also talked a ton about diligence. Overall, it was really good, and I learned a lot and got ideas of things that I need to be doing better.

Another week!

It snowed here yesterday. Isn’t it awful? I'm not ready for the snow.

So this week is a little different; we have p-day on Monday like the rest of the world. We will be having a mission tour from Elder Clark this week. He will split the mission in half and give a mission conference to the north half of the mission on Tuesday and the south half on Wednesday. Then we will have mission leadership council with him on Thursday. It will be a great week even though I am sure a stressful one for President and Sister Hiers. Hopefully, we can get called to repentance; the last general authority was just way too easy on us.

This week has been great. I just have a feeling this last coming week of the transfer will be a very long one. We are pretty exhausted and ready to have an apartment again. It will be exciting to find out what will happen to us this transfer. Last week, I went to Syracuse for a few days. I went to one district meeting and everyone had dressed up for Halloween except for Elder Kipp and I. Afterward, we all went out to unlimited sushi together; we are big fans of unlimited sushi.

My son and grandson with Jaime Rogel..do you remember me telling you about him? I taught him last transfer. I am glad the two of them are doing well. Elder Salazar is as great as ever and everyone loves him.

A long, long week

Another week of traveling. This has been a long, long transfer. I have learned a lot and when I talked to President on Sunday, I told him I have grown more this transfer than any other one transfer of my mission. I have gained a lot of patience this transfer in ways I didn't even know I needed. At the beginning of my mission, my idea of a good missionary was one that rebuked every disobedient missionary he saw and always corrected others no matter what they thought of me. I did that for a little while and obviously it didn't work. I have no idea why I thought that was the right thing to do. My thought process was if I don't tell them I don't give them a chance to improve. My other thought was I should never lower my standards for someone else. I took that as meaning that I had to make every companion conform to my beliefs and way of thinking. This transfer I have learned that means my standards don't have to change just because I am being patient with a missionary that is learning. I have learned mainly this transfer that when missionaries are doing something wrong, they already know. I really don't ever need to tell a missionary that he isn't allowed to sleep in past 6:30, because they all already know that; they have heard it 1,000 times from their zone leaders and from the Spirit. The best thing for me to do, especially with a missionary for two days, is to develop a relationship and show them more love. I can have a better chance of helping them to repent later having had a good relationship with them rather than trying to force repentance now and ruining a relationship. It took a long, long time to learn that, but President Hiers and I sat in his office this Sunday laughing about it. He told me he knew it was always something I needed to learn, and that's why he had to be patient with me and do the same thing he was trying to teach me to do, that is be patient, develop a relationship with me, give me new experiences to learn on my own, lead by example, and just love me no matter what. He is a great mission president. I have never heard of anyone seeing him get mad, and I doubt that I ever will. I'm glad he taught me so many things in the past 18 months in a way I never thought would work. Now I am not saying I am very patient and passive or anything; now I have just improved a little bit and have a long way to go. The point I am making is that at least now I know what I am shooting for. I think it will help me a lot in the future with being a young men’s adviser for example, parent, things like that.

Never been more tired...

Sooo tired! Today for p-day we went to Antelope Island with four other zone leaders. It wasn't planned, but we slept at their house and then ended up just going, because they kept asking us to come. Then we spent two hours cooking lunch for all of us. Then we went back to Ogden, moved apartments, and there goes p-day! It flew by pretty fast. Antelope Island was kind of desolate. We saw a few buffalo and lots of dirt and dried out plants and that was that. So we just had to do it to say we did it once.

We had some amazing chicken. Elder Graham is from Hawaii, and he made us sushi, but instead of meat he used spam. It was actually pretty good: spam, mayonnaise, rice and seaweed. So I got a taste of Hawaii.

This week has been pretty interesting. I had some stressful days and some not so stressful days, too. I will work backwards. Yesterday, I went out with Elder Saldaña and his companion. He still loves me so much, ha-ha. He was kind of mad that I am going out with him again tonight and wanted me to go somewhere else, but I will be with him again tonight. During the day, we had normal morning schedule, then had some stuff at the office to do, and then did several companionship studies with groups of sisters. We do that instead of exchanges. Elder Kipp and I will just get together with four sisters at a church building to train on stuff. One group of sisters was Spanish, and they are all pretty young in the mission so it was good to just talk about the Spanish program. I miss it.