November 29, 2016

We are going 30 mph on the freeway and it is driving Davey nuts!
I keep telling him to have patiences, it's like telling acrying baby to stop crying haha :)

Love ya,
Mom

Love that picture. Yeah the snow has been crazy. My companion wants to have snowball fights all the time. Texans. Figures :)

There was this news story on Thanksgiving. We didn't see you.

That was a cool service project. Super boring though. I scooped 507
cups of lentils into bags. I'd rather rake leaves. Oh well.

Chase,

This past well has been a busy week, but fun. We headed down to St. George with the boys, dad, and me. Katelynn and Jeff felt they shouldn't travel with being so close to her delivery date. Katelynn had decided to call Trevor and Suelynn to see if they could join them for Thanksgiving dinner - which they ended up doing. Kates said she and Jeff had a lot of fun with their family. I truly feel our family as well as Trevor's family will be blessed with living close.

Dad, the boys, and I had a wonderful time in St. George. We went straight to the Moss' and visited with Judy's, Jeff's family, and grandma and Grandpa. We gave them highlights of you and shared your last email with pictures. They loved reading and hearing about your new adventure. We then headed to the Coombs'. It was fun to visit with Tonya's, part of Janna's, Cheryl's families, and Grandpa and grandma. Janna and Summer were the only ones who came. Jeff stayed home with sick kids. We had yummy food and a great time visiting. The kids went out and played basketball while the adults visited. Dad got us a motel to stay in, which knowing me was nice. The next day we went hiking on the red hill, had a picnic, went to Santa's workshop, visited with the Moss', and then part of the Coombs' went to the movie - "Fantastic Beasts and where to find them". I LOVED the movie and you would have too. You'll have to put that on your must watch list when you get back. After the movie Davey and Brayden went to Tonya's home where she was hosting Hanna, Katherine, and a couple of their girl friends from BYU. (They showed up for the movie, they had dinner with other family members)

We headed home the next morning to go to the BYU basketball game and them the football game. We had a great time being together. The football game was cold but barable - dad had bought us hand warmers and I used them for my feet and hands.

On Sunday Brayden spook in church. Like normal Brayden did not want help from his parents. The first of his talk was good, but he struggled with the end. I think he learned the importance it is to prepare and not wait tell the night before.
I'll share one thought with you that I shared to the boys this morning, in the talk "Look to the Book, Look to the Lord" by Elder Gary Stevenson in the last general conference he quotes President Benson: “The Book of Mormon teaches us truth [and] bears testimony of Christ. … But there is something more. There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. … You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path.” I know that when you take the time to study the Book of Mormon, even if it for ten minutes a day, we will be protected and helped to resist temptation. You will be blessed to feel his love your Savior has for you and you will begin to realize you aren't alone he will always be there for you when you are struggling to learn the language, having the stress to share a lesson, not feeling well, or even missing us your Savior is their he knows what you are going through, he knows you can do it,  and most importantly he loves you.

Hope you have a great day today and hope this week will be amazing! Find the joy in all things. The gospel is true! Live it! Love it!

Love you always,

Mom
xxxooo

Thanks so much mom. Love hearing about what you guys are doing.

Love that thought by Gary e Stevenson. I called elder Anderson coming and speaking to us. We were all placing bets on who would come for thanksgiving. What can I say? The spirit of prophecy is just a great gift. ;) im calling d Todd christofferson for Christmas. :)

Honestly, besides hearing from elder Anderson, thanksgiving sucked.  Haha I wasn't homesick at all but the food was terrible. Only thing that was really good was the apple pie.

Missed all the good food we have at grandmas 

Awe... the force is strong with you (haha). I'm glad you enjoyed Elder Anderson. Not to brag, but we did have great food - sorry yours wasn't good.

I wanted to share something I read this morning...
"We [partake of the sacrament] in remembrance of the death of our Savior; it is required of his disciples until he comes again, no matter how long that may be. . . . Why are they required to do this? To witness unto the Father, to Jesus and to the angels that they are believers in and desire to follow him in the regeneration, keep his commandments, build up his Kingdom, revere his name and serve him with an undivided heart, that they may be worthy to eat and drink with him in his Father's Kingdom. This is why the Latter-day Saints partake of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper" - President Brigham Young

Hope you have a wonderful Sabbath day  :)

Love you always, 
Mom
xxxooo

Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this thought. That's a really cool insight. :)

Let me know if I ever get too sappy with you... I can tone it down, at least I'll try.

Mom

No your fine. I'll let you know though :)

One thing that I would like is a box of Kleenex and maybe some of the
pocket size ones as well. Toilet paper quality here sucks.

Chase,

Did you get our Thanksgiving package?

Mom

Yes thank you! Everyone loved the jerkey. And the poo pourri is great:) I'm going to take the big one with me. Did you send the same thing to elder Coombs?

Yep, I hope he found the funny in it.

I'm glad you liked it :)

Mom

Just got done with the temple. Did a 7:40 session. Now doing laundry.

Love to see your handsome face :)

So do all the sister missionaries. :)

Haha, I love how humble you are!!! Davey has taught you well ;)

Mom

Humility is my strongest Christlike attribute

You are soooo funny!

Just got done with laundry

I just printed the picture off - thanks :)

Mom

I finally feel adjusted to the Empty Sea life.  Haha.  Let's see, we had Thanksgiving last Thursday which was a good break.  The day before we were placing bets (not really, just guessing) in our district about who would come to speak to us.  I guessed Elder Neil L. Anderson.  And yep, I was right. :)  He was super good.  Talked about the importance of living in Thanksgiving Daily.  Just like explaining that we owe everything to God - our bodies, our every breath, everything.  So we need to constantly be thanking him for everything - big and small.  Really cool.  After the devotional we did a service project to help feed children.  We just made boxes and boxes of lentil casserole.  Yum.  It was pretty boring.  I scooped 507 cups of lentils into meal bags.  Yes, I counted. Cool to help out though.  After that we watched Ephraim's rescue which is such a good movie!  Thanksgiving dinner (well it was actually lunch, I had a PB&J for dinner) wasn't very good.  Haha it was probably the worst I've ever had.  The apple pie was good though.

Then on Sunday we had a devotional by the head of the missionary department or something.  His last name was Allen i believe.  But he talked to us about mission life, and boyfriends/girlfriends, and really focusing on our missions.  He was super funny and a great speaker.  I hope my companion learned something from him about keeping his eye single to the glory of God, and not on his girlfriend.  He acts like he's already married to her.  Haha

Speaking of my companion, I kind of had a tough time with him last week.  He can just be super immature at times and not focused at all on the work.  I'm trying to love him though and keep his head on straight.

The language is coming along pretty good.  Nowhere near fluent, but slowly progressing.  I've been dreaming in Spanish for almost a week now which is pretty cool.  Also, the last lesson we had with our investigator Federico went pretty good.  I didn't read from my notes at all!  Was able to just talk to him in castellano and understand most of what he was saying back.  That was an awesome Tender Mercy.

I've got to say exercise time is probably my favorite here at the MTC.  Playing speed is my favorite.  I try to keep my pride levels low so I make sure to just come in Second.  Although one time I accidently won a game.  :)  

Also, got a big box of donuts from a mystery person, but it was super good.  My district and I loved them!  And thanks mom for your package as well!

Couldn't figure out how to upload pics last time, but I got it this time!  I'll send some more pics from my Ipad as well.

And I also got my voice recording uploaded from like the 3rd day.​

More pics.
1. My companion elder barmore. Don't let that face fool you, he's crazy. Haha
2. Doing laundry
3. Enjoying snow
4. Enjoying snow plus elder barmore in background
5. First shoe shine!
Hopefully those are in the right order :)

Can you view the pics and recording I sent?

How is the quality of the recording?

Email time is up, but I'll try to send my journal entries later today.  The big one is the one about my companion. So read that for sure.  We're doing better though.

How are things going this last week.  Are you "struggling" still?  

It's hard. But this week has gone a lot better as far as the language
and lessons and such.
I've hard a hard time with my companion at times though. He can be
immature and wild sometimes.

I had a companion that the mission president said, "Just stay with him, your job is to just be with him, I don't care if you teach or not, just try and help him."

You will have companions that try you.  Just do what you know is right and be forgiving and humble and know that it will help you in the long run and make you a better roommate at college, husband, father, etc.  It will also help them if you are that way.  Endure it and you will be blessed.

We really missed you at the games on Saturday and at Thanksgiving.  It was hard on us too.  Did you get the pictures we sent as we did stuff? 

Yeah, that's all I've been trying to do. To stay humble and loving. I think it will help me with future companionships as well

Yeah I got your pictures. Heard about the game against usu and about Taysom. He hurt his elbow? 

Just told Daley this, but Honestly, besides hearing from elder Anderson, thanksgiving sucked.  Haha I wasn't homesick at all but the food was terrible. Only thing that was really good was the apple pie. Haha

Mom said she sent you some turkey, ha ha.  Did you get that?  Sorry the food wasn't great.  I still am eating healthy so mine wasn't great either.

Yes, Taysom ran a lot during the game.  I asked everyone around us, "What is up, he is going to get hurt."  Sure enough, he was going for a touchdown and tried to jump over a guy going for his legs and got his legs cut out from under him and came down on his arm and hurt his elbow.  Today they announced that it was worse than they thought and he won't play in the Poinesetta Bowl. The ironic thing was that it was against USU that he got hurt both times before and they were season enders; So, he has been out with season ending injuries 3 times in the last 4 years and all three times were against USU.

Como esta su espanol?

That's crazy with taysom. Too bad. Yeah haha I loved (and my roommates loved) the turkey jerkey. The poo pourri was a nice thought too. That has come in handy.

Mi espanol es mas o menos. Jaja castellano es muy dificil pero, estoy aprender. La lecciones es no facil. Pero, entiendo mas y mas. 

I've been dreaming in Spanish for almost a week now too. Kind of weird but really cool.

Sounds like your Spanish is coming really well.
I am in training now so I am not at a computer and doing this on my phone.
Are you going to send out a general email update on this last week? Can you add those email addresses I sent?

Yeah I will

I saw you asked mom for Kleenex, is there anything else you need? Anything you've seen other missionaries have that you think would be good to have?
How about your birthday or Christmas, what would you like or like us to do for those days?

I still haven't decided if I want to get like a thing for my ears or scarf or gloves now or when I get down to Argentina.  I'll let you know.  And only things I can think of for gifts is like a tie or something.  I don't know.  

OH! I need my patriarchal blessing and priesthood line of authority.  My blessing is in the cabinet under Chase or Chase Mission.  If you could like type it up and send a copy digitally or physically that'd be great.  Physically would be best.  And maybe a scripture case for my spanish scriptures.  And a mini PMG and mini PME.  (But I can also buy those here) So let me know.

OK, I'll look into the 

I'll use your lds.org login and try to get the official priesthood line of authority from the church (like the one attached) but I for now I have attached mine and you just add your name to the bottom of it.

I've also attached a picture of my new badge, it just came finally.

And send me an sd card reader.  For my camera so I can send pictures from it.  Just one that has a usb attachement to plug into the computer.  If its expensive then don't worry about it.

Thanks

Is it just an SD card?  There are several kinds, just making sure.

Yes, just the normal kind. Remember when we bought the camera at costco?  Just that kind

OK, just making sure.

Hey, we found out who gave you donuts.  Davey's ex - yes Alex did that and nobody knew.  We joked that she was going to wait for you.

Wow, I thought it might be here, but wasn't sure.  Tell her thanks! :)

And can you save my recordings at home on the computer -  and my pics?

Yes, I will save everything.  I am thinking of using the memories section of Family Search but wherever it is it will be saved.

The recording worked and we can view pictures.

Good, thanks, I'll stay in touch on my ipad for about another 2 hours, then choir, then devotional, then bed.  :)

Awesome, it is so good hearing from you and chatting a little.  Like I said, we really missed but know you are doing what is right and are where you should be. 

Waiting with elder barmore outside the barbershop. He needs a haircut

We briefly talked about a razor and/or trimmer.  Did you get one?

No, I haven't gotten one. Don't know if I need one or not. What do you think?

I think it actually might be nice just to trim my sideburns when they get long. I don't think I'll need any attachments for it.

I was wondering if a small one with attachments would allow you to cut your hair too between haircuts.  I saw this.  I had one like this at one time.  It didn't last long but I liked it while it worked.

Well I think we're not supposed to cut our own hair. I know we can't in the MTC, but I don't know about argentina. I don't think attachments will be necessary because it'll just take up more space

Waiting for choir to start! :)

Sorry I've missed visiting... I got busy at work.

I loved reading your weekly and look forward to your journal notes. I'm not able to listen to your recording at work, I'm hoping I will be able to do it at home.

Love you so much and have a wonderful week!

Mom

Katelynn said she was able to listen to it so probably.

Okay, I'll try it when I get home

you know I'm making a collage of you mission to keep at my desk... and this one is a keeper, haha

Haha that is not necessary ;)

It might not be necessary to you but I love coming to work everyday and seeing your face... Love you

Haha okay. :)