Hey hey hey, how's everybody doing?! Hope you're having a good week. Things have been going good here. The weather is getting nice. We've been in short sleeve shirts a few times which has been really really sweet! We got freaking DUMPED on with rain a few days ago, that was brutal. But everything has been going well. Money got reloaded today, so we're finally going shopping at WAL MART where we can actually afford to buy stuff! Thank goodness. Man, I don't remember what I told you all about last week and what has happened since then, but if I tell you something again, sorry.
Dionicio is doing good. He's trying real hard to stop smoking, but it's really hard for him when everyone at his work smokes on their breaks. He's really opened up to us and is a lot more friendly, so thats a nice change. Us and the Hermanas put on a movie night at the church on Monday night. We watched The Testaments on a giant screen and had a giant dinner there and Dionicio brought 3 buddies. It was great. He also got up to bear his testimony on Sunday and it was better than some of the member's! haha Jenry is doing good. He still needs to come to church 2 more times before he can get baptized, and on Friday he's moving to this place that is WAY far away from any member and he doesn't have a car, so that's going to be real tough. But he's progressing really well and reading the Book of Mormon and everything so we're really excited about him. Mauro is just Mauro. He says the book of mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was called of God, but he doesn't get that there is ONE true church and the whole authority thing just goes completely over his head, but we're now on good terms with his wife, so maybe she'll be the key? I just dont' know anymore, but we're still trying. We've been finding a lot of old investigators lately, and not because we were using the area book. We just tract into them and they're usually willing to hear about the gospel again. We found this guy Jairo who had a baptismal date 2 years ago but had some really bad experiences with some member at church and just stopped going, but we're working with him and he still has a testimony! It's awesome! So we're really excited about him too!
So can you believe it's finally april tomorrow? I don't know why, but march just seemed to go by really slow. General Conference this weekend, and I'm way excited! Funny story, we actually had an investigator who just raises every doubt he can think of, and he asked us how a church that professes to put such a big emphasis on families can send children away from their familes for 2 years and only let them talk to their family every six months! hahahaha I was laughing SO hard! Worst doubt ever, so we squashed that one.
Man, what else has happened. One of the recent converts of about 7 months has gotten all offended because his buddies in the branch didn't have time to sit down and hang out with him one day, and then the buddy of his cornered Elder Zobrist in the kitchen at the church and made him explain what's wrong with the other guy. It was really bad. We're still waiting to see the repercussions of that, but oh well.
So do you remember Elder Wheatley from the MTC? The really little guy in my room who was having a hard time with spanish. Well he's training now! yeah, he's training a native peruvian. I was so jealous. But I think they did it to get him some more responsibility so he would stop screwing around and get to work. He said it's pretty much like he's getting trained all over again, but this time by his greenie. I quote "My greenie is a really good trainer!" So that's the big news on transfers I guess. Umm, what else. I dont' think there is anything else. That seems like all for this week.
Love you all and I'll talk to you next week.
-Skyler
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
March 17, 2010
Wow, that sounds like the poor little kitty had quite the adventure. As for the pictures, I figured that was going to happen. I tried to get a few of them printed at Wal-Mart, but the same thing happened. That really sucks, because that was about 200 pictures on there :( I think it's the camera, because it was a re-furb camera, so I think there might be something wrong with it. Who knows.
I'm serving with the two greatest sisters in the world here in VA Beach. Hna. Barney and Hna. Law are freaking awesome, and it must be a utah thing to say "Love your guts" because Hna. Barney always says that. I don't get it. And yeah the Wanlass' hooked it up with another package. They sure know how to feed my addiction to sour patch kids! hahaha Of course I'll send them a thank you card.
Haven't had any baptisms since the 28th with Teo, but we're really trying with Dionisio. He's doing a lot better, and we thought we were going to get him baptized this saturday, but he had some problems with his baptismal interview. The biggest thing is Palabra de Sabaduria. He's having a REALLY tough time quitting smoking. Please keep him in your prayers and if you could even put his name on the prayer roll that would be great. He really wants to get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, but he's been smoking for 40+ years and just after the first day of not smoking he was almost at a breakdown point, so he's really fighting here.
Jenry is doing great. He found work, but it's work thats usually not on Sunday, so that's really good news! he loves church and he is just super awesome. We also had a FHE with the Garcia family (family near the end of the pictures on my card with us and the sisters) and Mauro Rivera. His family was going to come, but they weren't feeling good. But we watched Together Forever and he ate it up! He said "This is waht my family needs" so we're super stoked on him.
Speaking of pictures, could you possibly hook me up with a picture of downtown Reno? I'm really getting sick of all the green here, I just need to see some desert landscape por fin. That would be awesome.
Oh the spanish is coming along GREAT! The cards are good, but they're really basic words that I already know about 65% or more of, so I bought this giant 30000 word vocab book which is pretty good. But the spanish is real good. I got to translate stake conference for 2 hours on friday and I LOVED IT! It was so awesome! I hadn't been worked like that in forever! And everyone said I did a really good job and it pretty much all made sense, so that was really exciting. Yeah, Elder Zobrist and I get along pretty well still. Nothing bad enough to complain about :) Things with Pres. Pinargote have started to look up a little bit, but it's still a trial. PEC is more like "Judge Pinargote says what you can and can't do" but we're trying to get the script changed to "Judge Pinargote listens and helps us move the branch forward". It's a work in progress, but the new writers this season are supposed to be most excellent from what I hear :) hahaha
man, I can't believe Curtis is going to Spain! What part again? And Danny Hubert going to Bulgaria!? Interesting. And by the way, when IS mother's day? I dont' even know, I'm so lost as to the whole order of holidays and what day they're actually on. It's weird. But yeah, love you all. Hope you're doing great. I'll be sending home a package soon, so you have something to look forward to. Talk to you next week on my 9 month anniversary! Can you believe it? 9 months? Only 15 left, that's almost 1 year! Oh my gosh, it's going by so fast! Where does all the time go? One day I'll be back home and I'll be like "ummmm. Wut?" Man, it's crazy!
Love you all
Skyler
I'm serving with the two greatest sisters in the world here in VA Beach. Hna. Barney and Hna. Law are freaking awesome, and it must be a utah thing to say "Love your guts" because Hna. Barney always says that. I don't get it. And yeah the Wanlass' hooked it up with another package. They sure know how to feed my addiction to sour patch kids! hahaha Of course I'll send them a thank you card.
Haven't had any baptisms since the 28th with Teo, but we're really trying with Dionisio. He's doing a lot better, and we thought we were going to get him baptized this saturday, but he had some problems with his baptismal interview. The biggest thing is Palabra de Sabaduria. He's having a REALLY tough time quitting smoking. Please keep him in your prayers and if you could even put his name on the prayer roll that would be great. He really wants to get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, but he's been smoking for 40+ years and just after the first day of not smoking he was almost at a breakdown point, so he's really fighting here.
Jenry is doing great. He found work, but it's work thats usually not on Sunday, so that's really good news! he loves church and he is just super awesome. We also had a FHE with the Garcia family (family near the end of the pictures on my card with us and the sisters) and Mauro Rivera. His family was going to come, but they weren't feeling good. But we watched Together Forever and he ate it up! He said "This is waht my family needs" so we're super stoked on him.
Speaking of pictures, could you possibly hook me up with a picture of downtown Reno? I'm really getting sick of all the green here, I just need to see some desert landscape por fin. That would be awesome.
Oh the spanish is coming along GREAT! The cards are good, but they're really basic words that I already know about 65% or more of, so I bought this giant 30000 word vocab book which is pretty good. But the spanish is real good. I got to translate stake conference for 2 hours on friday and I LOVED IT! It was so awesome! I hadn't been worked like that in forever! And everyone said I did a really good job and it pretty much all made sense, so that was really exciting. Yeah, Elder Zobrist and I get along pretty well still. Nothing bad enough to complain about :) Things with Pres. Pinargote have started to look up a little bit, but it's still a trial. PEC is more like "Judge Pinargote says what you can and can't do" but we're trying to get the script changed to "Judge Pinargote listens and helps us move the branch forward". It's a work in progress, but the new writers this season are supposed to be most excellent from what I hear :) hahaha
man, I can't believe Curtis is going to Spain! What part again? And Danny Hubert going to Bulgaria!? Interesting. And by the way, when IS mother's day? I dont' even know, I'm so lost as to the whole order of holidays and what day they're actually on. It's weird. But yeah, love you all. Hope you're doing great. I'll be sending home a package soon, so you have something to look forward to. Talk to you next week on my 9 month anniversary! Can you believe it? 9 months? Only 15 left, that's almost 1 year! Oh my gosh, it's going by so fast! Where does all the time go? One day I'll be back home and I'll be like "ummmm. Wut?" Man, it's crazy!
Love you all
Skyler
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
March 10, 2010
Yes, Elder Zobrist got his pack of letters and I wish you could have seen his face light up when I handed him this giant yellow envelope with his name on it! He was SOOO excited, he ran inside and tore it open and was so excited about it. Thanks a ton for hooking it up. As for Matt Simpson, I don't know if I know him. Should it ring a bell?
I think every missionary gets really attached to their first area, especially when they spend so long in it. I can only imagine how it would be to spend the first 1/3rd of my mission in charlottesville and then have to leave! It sucked leaving Charlottesville after just 3 months! But it's ok, the work goes on!
Speaking of work, that's great to hear about the job interview on Dad's part. Glad Mike O could put a few of his skills to use! That's awesome! Sorry to hear about Juliann and Mike (editors note: job issues, not personal) That's pretty rough. But man, the Lord sure is giving them plenty of opportunities to stay strong and faithful! I know it's easy to say that when it's not happening to you, but everything will be alright. I wish we had 15 year old's coming to church altogether. We have almost NO youth in the branch, so it's really tough on a few of the kids in high school. Their parents don't speak english at all, so it's impossible for them to transfer to an english ward or what not.
As for our investigators, we have Jenry. He is AMAZING! He reads everything we tell him, he understands it and he wants to change, he wants to come to church every week and he's come to 2 activities. He's awesome. He's got a date for the 10th of April and he's progressing real nicely. We're working on getting him a phone so we can get daily contact with him, but it's tough, but the Lord will provide. And you know what the best part is with him? He's 19! And we're already talking about him going on a mission! I'm so excited, that would seriously be the highlight of my mission if I can get this guy to go on a mission! I'm really really excited about him and please please please pray for him to get baptized!
We also have this guy Mauro Rivera, who has a family! And he's got a date for April 3rd, but I'm not sure he completely understands it yet, but we're working with him and he reads and he comes to church and he just randomly showed up with his whole family at Teo's baptism last Sunday, so he's way sweet! But that's about it for solids right now, but we just found a trailer park of about 200 hispanics yesterday, the only problem is that it's about 15 or so miles from the church, so that's going to be tough to get people there, but the Lord will provide a way.
The coolest thing was, we went and saw Teo and Mercedes on Thursday after his baptism. Mercedes got baptized 5 years ago in Nicaragua, but none of her kids did. Well she told us on Thursday that 2 of her kids got baptized without her knowing, and that now Teo's son in Honduras is going to our church there! Isn't that great! They're going to be an eternal family! And I got to help with that! That is the greatest feeling EVER, to know that I had a part in helping this family be together forever, to always be able to be with eachother. I can't even describe to you what it feels like, but I think Dad might be able to describe it a little bit.
Well, I think that's all I've got for this week. I'm going to be sending my winter gear home soon so I have some more space for all my stuff. But that's all.
Love you all, hope you have a wonderful week.
SKyler
I think every missionary gets really attached to their first area, especially when they spend so long in it. I can only imagine how it would be to spend the first 1/3rd of my mission in charlottesville and then have to leave! It sucked leaving Charlottesville after just 3 months! But it's ok, the work goes on!
Speaking of work, that's great to hear about the job interview on Dad's part. Glad Mike O could put a few of his skills to use! That's awesome! Sorry to hear about Juliann and Mike (editors note: job issues, not personal) That's pretty rough. But man, the Lord sure is giving them plenty of opportunities to stay strong and faithful! I know it's easy to say that when it's not happening to you, but everything will be alright. I wish we had 15 year old's coming to church altogether. We have almost NO youth in the branch, so it's really tough on a few of the kids in high school. Their parents don't speak english at all, so it's impossible for them to transfer to an english ward or what not.
As for our investigators, we have Jenry. He is AMAZING! He reads everything we tell him, he understands it and he wants to change, he wants to come to church every week and he's come to 2 activities. He's awesome. He's got a date for the 10th of April and he's progressing real nicely. We're working on getting him a phone so we can get daily contact with him, but it's tough, but the Lord will provide. And you know what the best part is with him? He's 19! And we're already talking about him going on a mission! I'm so excited, that would seriously be the highlight of my mission if I can get this guy to go on a mission! I'm really really excited about him and please please please pray for him to get baptized!
We also have this guy Mauro Rivera, who has a family! And he's got a date for April 3rd, but I'm not sure he completely understands it yet, but we're working with him and he reads and he comes to church and he just randomly showed up with his whole family at Teo's baptism last Sunday, so he's way sweet! But that's about it for solids right now, but we just found a trailer park of about 200 hispanics yesterday, the only problem is that it's about 15 or so miles from the church, so that's going to be tough to get people there, but the Lord will provide a way.
The coolest thing was, we went and saw Teo and Mercedes on Thursday after his baptism. Mercedes got baptized 5 years ago in Nicaragua, but none of her kids did. Well she told us on Thursday that 2 of her kids got baptized without her knowing, and that now Teo's son in Honduras is going to our church there! Isn't that great! They're going to be an eternal family! And I got to help with that! That is the greatest feeling EVER, to know that I had a part in helping this family be together forever, to always be able to be with eachother. I can't even describe to you what it feels like, but I think Dad might be able to describe it a little bit.
Well, I think that's all I've got for this week. I'm going to be sending my winter gear home soon so I have some more space for all my stuff. But that's all.
Love you all, hope you have a wonderful week.
SKyler
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Mar. 3, 2010
That's way cool about Calvin! It's funny how interested teenagers can be in the gospel when they don't know what they're missing! So Bro. Chatterley is not the YMs president anymore? That's interesting, who are they going to call? He was only in for like, 2 years right? That seems way short for a YM president! I can't believe that sisters have been in the ward for 6 months! That's crazy! can you believe I'm now coming up on 9 months? Ahhh, I'm freaking out! I don't know about the whurch as a whole moving missionaries into the homes of members, but it is definitely a lot more common than I thought before the mission. But just last transfer, 3 out of the 7 spanish companionships were living in their own apartments, and all of them have enough space for 2 companionships, so....
SO big news, we married and baptized Teo on Sunday. I did the baptism and it went off without a hitch. It was great. One of the members who served in Chile lit me up about moving the baptism, but whatever. It went great and there were a TON of people there. And then on Monday, we set 2 more people for baptism, and one of them has a whole family, so we're really trying to work with him to get his whole family in on it, because that would be HUGE! And then on Monday night, we went over to Dionicio's house and talked to him and he told us he wants to move his baptismal date up, but he doesnt' know when and he wouldn't let us fix a date sooner, but he's going to call us. So that was really sweet! But things have really been going well here, me and Elder Zobrist are getting along really great and we're working hard and seeing miracles left and right! We went over to visit the Pres. last night and I straight up told him "We feel like the elders and you have been fighting for way too long. We want to change that and we need your help." And then he told us that he needed someone to translate for him at the hospital today, so we're going with him to BRT(in mission terms, that means Build a Relationship of Trust) so that we can get him working with us instead of against us, so we've got some really good things rolling now, and we're going to keep it up! So yeah, things are really going great here, thank you to everyone for your prayers and faith, it really is having an effect on the work in this part of the Lord's vineyard.
Yes, the card works fine! Thank you! I need to send my other one home. I didn't know that you had sent the other one back in the envelope for christmas, so I probably threw it out! Sorry! My bad. But yeah, I got the package and Elder Zobrist tore it open and goes "FLASH CARDS! YES!!!!!!!!!!" hahaha he was wayyyyy stoked. I let him open it up since he hasn't gotten any mail in over a month, and I let him tear into the SUPER noisy bag of Sun Chips, which we're probably not going to recycle anyway, even though that's the whole purpose! haha So maybe if you could send him a letter or something, that would be great?
But yeah, I think that's all for this letter. If there's anymore news, I'll let you know. Oh actually, this is a long shot, but the zone leaders always listen to what Elder Lusk says because he's the best missionary in the mission, but he put my name on the chopping block for Zone Leader next transfer, which would be crazy but highly unlikely, but just in case you get a call about me having a heart attack, you now know why :) haha have a wonderful week, and go save some souls!
- Love you all
Skyler
SO big news, we married and baptized Teo on Sunday. I did the baptism and it went off without a hitch. It was great. One of the members who served in Chile lit me up about moving the baptism, but whatever. It went great and there were a TON of people there. And then on Monday, we set 2 more people for baptism, and one of them has a whole family, so we're really trying to work with him to get his whole family in on it, because that would be HUGE! And then on Monday night, we went over to Dionicio's house and talked to him and he told us he wants to move his baptismal date up, but he doesnt' know when and he wouldn't let us fix a date sooner, but he's going to call us. So that was really sweet! But things have really been going well here, me and Elder Zobrist are getting along really great and we're working hard and seeing miracles left and right! We went over to visit the Pres. last night and I straight up told him "We feel like the elders and you have been fighting for way too long. We want to change that and we need your help." And then he told us that he needed someone to translate for him at the hospital today, so we're going with him to BRT(in mission terms, that means Build a Relationship of Trust) so that we can get him working with us instead of against us, so we've got some really good things rolling now, and we're going to keep it up! So yeah, things are really going great here, thank you to everyone for your prayers and faith, it really is having an effect on the work in this part of the Lord's vineyard.
Yes, the card works fine! Thank you! I need to send my other one home. I didn't know that you had sent the other one back in the envelope for christmas, so I probably threw it out! Sorry! My bad. But yeah, I got the package and Elder Zobrist tore it open and goes "FLASH CARDS! YES!!!!!!!!!!" hahaha he was wayyyyy stoked. I let him open it up since he hasn't gotten any mail in over a month, and I let him tear into the SUPER noisy bag of Sun Chips, which we're probably not going to recycle anyway, even though that's the whole purpose! haha So maybe if you could send him a letter or something, that would be great?
But yeah, I think that's all for this letter. If there's anymore news, I'll let you know. Oh actually, this is a long shot, but the zone leaders always listen to what Elder Lusk says because he's the best missionary in the mission, but he put my name on the chopping block for Zone Leader next transfer, which would be crazy but highly unlikely, but just in case you get a call about me having a heart attack, you now know why :) haha have a wonderful week, and go save some souls!
- Love you all
Skyler
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