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November 10th 2014

Dear Family,

Hey!  First off, this week has gone so much better.  It was just what I've needed.  It's been a hard transfer but we had a couple things happen that made it a ton better.  Feels great now.  

We are finally starting to cool down I think!  This week will be all 70's so that will be really good...  It's been annoyingly hot the past long time. 

Yeah...  As far as the thing last week, everything was just wearing me down...  I feel like I'm hitting my break now though like people are starting to like me and I did this awesome service project on Saturday pretty much all day which really helped.  Funnily enough, it was for a field show competition and all the missionaries in two zones volunteered for it.  I got a cool shirt from it and it was so much fun.  Exactly what I needed.  Then yesterday we had a great lesson with one of our investigators, her name is Mayra and her husband is David.  She has been investigating for 7 years and her husband is less active.  But she finally accepted a baptismal date yesterday!  She always shut them down before but yesterday was the first time she accepted one so that really helped me get back to normal too.  Super excited.  The date is on the 23rd so we gotta keep her going strong until then!  I'm not really worried, just super excited. :)  Maybe my first convert and baptism!  It's hard hearing about like Sam and Dallin and their billion baptisms already but I'm so glad that something is finally coming! :)

Spanish is coming along pretty well.  I really love the language which helps I think.  Running is ok.  It's hard to basically fight Elder Taylor to get outside then he just rides my bike behind me instead of running but it's all good.  I can go fast.  We don't go a whole lot unfortunately, I need to set my own alarm for the morning so we actually wake up on time.  

Thanks about like the quote and stuff!  That's really cool stuff.  Thanks for everything!  I'm excited to get your letter!

Well I also got a blanket from our apartment manager last week!  She is inactive but she loves us and we talk to her like once a week.  She makes food for us and everything but she bought a really nice blanket for me!  You know my big white one?  It's pretty much exactly like that but blue and maybe not as thick.  It's so amazing though!  Super nice of her too. :)  Anyway as far as I know that's all that's really gone on this week.  The beginning of the week was pretty bad until we hit Friday then we found a new family!  That also helped...  We hadn't found anyone this whole transfer.  So finding a family is great and they are all super prepared and stuff.  So yeah it's been a much better time now that we've gotten through to the weekend.  Hopefully things will still keep improving!

So yeah that's the update on this week.  I don't really have anything else to say but thanks so much for your support and everything!  I'm really grateful for everything you guys have done for me!  I hope you have a good week!  I love you!

November 3rd 2014

Dear Family,

Man sounds chilly...  It's starting to cool down here too.  I bought a jacket the other day I can wear with my stuff so yeah!  I'm super excited for it to get cold finally.

This past week has been kinda meh.  Not sure what to say about it actually.  Nothing really interesting.  We have reactivated a family though which is nice but our investigators are just lazy and not very good.  We just try to go by whoever we can in the area.  I need confidence is really what it comes down to.  I need to have the confidence to do things.  I can communicate now what I need to say in Spanish and I understand just about everything when it comes to like conversation stuff but I am just not confident in myself.  Something I think I've always had a hard time with.  We eat dinner here at members homes a lot.  Just about every night.  I feel  bad for the members though because we come in a group of two companionship's and a lot of the times 2 times or more a week.  It seems a lot to put on them and I try to help them out but there's not much I can do.  There's a lot of ghetto sketchy apartments and houses.  It's pretty mixed up.  The apartments don't go too high though like 3rd floor is a typical height.  My companion is good.  He's been teaching me patience...  I'll just leave it at that.  He's also not the most obedient so I try to work on that.  I think that's how I'll improve is that with every companion I have whatever they have like wrong I guess with them I'll personally work on it to improve in myself.  It's like the talk from the last general conference from president Uchtdorf.  The 'Lord is it I' thing.  So whenever I think something like that I just think that thing and work on it.  Anyway we get along good.  I'm smart with my money so I'm super just fine with money.  I have extra stored up on the card.  Today I didn't even need to go shopping too so yeah I'm just fine with money.  On Sundays, we just do normal church stuff.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  They have sacrament meeting last here in the branch.  We go talk to people but I am really trying to get my companion to go knocking because it works, it's just dealing with rejection too.  When we knock on doors we contact in Spanish if they speak Spanish or have a picture of the virgin Mary or something.  If not then English but usually we can pick out the Spanish people.  I am going to start trying to speak in Spanish every day outside of the apartment or something like that.  

Anyway so this week the biggest coolest thing that happened was that I got a hat.  It's a straw hat though which is pretty cool.  We did service for this lady who is about 2000 years old and helped her move out of her house and she gave me the hat because I was wearing it.  It was super nice of her and I love the hat too. :)  So yeah that's about it for this week!  Sorry pretty boring but it's good.  I love my mission so much!  It's been a struggle a lot but I can tell that it's always worth it. 

Love you!  Have a good week!

October 27 2014

Dear Family,

So,my companion doesn't like riding his bike so we just walk everywhere. :)  I get along with him good though.  He's interesting.  He has to have noise going on all the time and it's usually him doing  something or saying something.  He's pretty funny though and we get along good.  If something is going on with him though you will know about it.  He told me a couple times today about this rash he thinks he's getting in his behind that I just don't really want to know but he says it all!  Running is good!  I like it a lot being able to run to the beach and everything.  I'm getting back into shape it feels like too because I can go a lot faster for a lot longer than I could when I first got here.  The weather is good.  It's like hot some days and a little chilly other days but it's staying around 80 degrees I'd say.  So still not really fall weather but we will see what the weather will be like normally here.  We don't actually have very many investigators.  Our area is struggling and we just walk all day trying to talk to and go by people but it's hard...  I've heard that we just stay in for Halloween when it gets night and like clean or something.  We'll see!  I'm almost done with Jesus the Christ so I'm expecting to just have a lot of reading to do there with that.  My apartment is about the same.  Super small.  But it has carpet which I like a lot more so I like it!  It's cozy.  And it has an air conditioner which is way nice because it gets toasty reeally fast when you use the oven or something. 

Well as far as stories from this past week, I don't have anything too interesting.  The biggest thing is that we had a Halloween party on Friday with the Rama and the English ward which was pretty fun!  We got to jump in the bouncy house for a bit. :)  Don't worry I had someone take pictures.  It was only me and my companion then Elder Campbell and an Elder called Elder Wolfenden.  He's from Sandy.  But yeah that was pretty cool!  Not really much else though as far as that stuff. 

We were walking one day and it was weird because everyone was like saying hi and stuff and so we were walking and this gay guy is walking the opposite way and I just kinda nodded at him and he gave me a high five as he came by and said in a very gay voice "What's up my hookah?"  I just kinda said hi but it was pretty interesting. :) 

It's been hard but honestly not the hardest thing I've ever done.  Now that I am doing it it's weird to think about...  But that one summer that I did the 1000 miles was harder than this in every way.  But yeah I'm doing good!

Well that's about it from this last week.  Hopefully I'll get some interesting things to say about Halloween. :)  Anyway have a good week!  Have fun with Halloween and everything!  Don't get too stressed out or anything!  I love you!

October 20 2014

Dear Family,

My new area is pretty cool!  It's pretty small and pretty ghetto but I love it here!  Honestly it makes me remember Maryland a lot!  Not sure why but it's just the feel of the place.  My companion is pretty cool!  He's super skinny and tall.  Like 6'3 and probably like 110.  We go running in the mornings to the beach which is about a mile away from where we live which is super cool and he doesn't like running so he bikes there.  He's pretty funny and nice but I think that he's not so excited to be with me because I'm not very funny and don't know how to be funny like that and yeah...  But oh well I guess!  The branch is pretty good!  I like it a lot!  Don't know much about it yet because instead of sacrament meeting we had a primary program with combined Spanish and English so that was actually really cool.  The first week in the transfer is always kinda goofy and weird and awkward trying to figure things out so I don't really know too much yet.  

I did get your package!  Thanks so much!  I was so happy when I opened it and found all that stuff especially the jam stuff.  And the lego. :)  Thanks so much for that!  It made my day for sure!  I'll try to send out a letter soon as I can with my other SD card.  

Thanks for the quote!  That's a really good one.  It's true!  It's way hard to remember that we have been given these trials to improve ourselves and we can't do that if we don't appreciate them and enjoy the moments we have!  

As far as this week, I don't really have anything else special to say.  Spanish is coming.  I can tell I'm getting it down slowly.  Going to try to do an all Spanish day tomorrow - me and Elder Taylor. Um... oh yesterday we went to eat dinner at a hermana's house and she told me I have a light in my eyes!  It was kinda cool to hear!  She told us about her conversion and baptism story basically and she had to go talk to President Tew and she said the same light was in his eyes so that made me feel really neat!  I'm glad I have that kinda light in my eyes!  I'm really trying to work on being brave with talking to people though...  I made it a goal yesterday that I'm going to say something every week in church to participate in the classes.  And I'm just trying to get Spanish down...  I probably won't get it down as good as I want to for a long time but at least I can kinda communicate-ish.  Well I can't think about anything else to really say at this point in time.  Just trying to learn the area and the people and stuff.    Anyway I love you!  Have a good week!  Hang in there!  

October 13 2014

Dear Family,


Phew so this week we got transfer facts.  You won't believe this.  So Elder Petersen got called to train again for another two transfers so I'm moving!  I was only here for 2 transfers which isn't too long.  Usually you can expect to get moved after 3 but I'm moving now!  I'm going to Long Beach south zone!  Don't know borders or anything yet but apparently my area will be the smallest area in the whole mission.  3 blocks.  And it's right next to the beach I hear so I'm really excited.  :)  My district leader there will be the same district leader I had for my first transfer and I'm going there with Elder Creasy so it's going to be way fun!  I'm super excited. :)  My new companion is Elder Taylor and it's going to be pretty sweet!  I leave early Tuesday morning and yeah!  Woo!

I'm glad everything is going pretty good at home!  Except for Jacob.  Too bad everyone is getting all sick and stuff.  

I am at the normal library.  It's not a county library so it's not closed today.  Which is good because I really like this library.  Strange to think I'll probably not come here again.  Can you email me a list of birthdays and stuff?  I can't remember all of them...  And I don't want to forget and someone gets sad.  

About this week, honestly everyone was just kinda dead from this transfer.  It's kinda interesting to see that people usually get energy in the beginning but it takes a bit to get going.  Then after a couple weeks they hit their groove and do good work.  Then it get's really hard to continue it out and finish it.  So this week was hard because everyone was just wiped out and just pushing through it.  However we did go see Meet the Mormons at zone conference on Friday!  It was pretty cool!  Have you guys seen it?  Definitely from a missionary point of view I loved it!  Since we were just kinda pushing through things, nothing too interesting happened other than transfers as far as I can tell.  Just a whole lot of crazy drama stuff that I'm glad I won't have to deal with anymore!  Anyway I'm way excited to go and get a change.  The new place I'm going to will be the Eximinol branch or something. it's something like that.  It's a branch though with 8 missionaries.  I'm super excited. :)  Apparently i'm close enough to the beach I can run alongside it.  We'll see though.  I can't touch the sand but there's apparently a trail I can go on.  I'll have to check it out!  

Anyway that's that week.  I love you!  Have a good week!  Thanks for everything!

New pictures!