Chapter 43

Woot! can't wait for tomorrow now to get that package with my goodies and ballot XD.  So speaking of Fall Weather for Halloween, it totally snowed on us last week 2 days in a row hahaha XD.  I have some awesome pictures of me doing awesome stuff involving the snow XD.  I will send those to you after i finish this email XD.  That's good to hear that david is doing fine in the Hurricane.  When i first heard about that hurricane and that it would hit New York my first thought was David.  But then i rethought about it and realized he would be fine because i mean it's David we are talking about, the kid who survived a snow storm in New York by buying the thinnest sweatshirt he could find.  I think he can survive a hurricane hahaha XD

You are very right, i am very excited about the work that is going on in Ririe! XD.  This week we have also found 3 more people to teach! XD.  I seriously love Ririe XD.  The work is going great, the members are super super awesome, and everyone is just awesome XD.  hahahaha.  Another cool thing that has happened is our sunday's have gotten even busier now hahaha XD.  We have appointments pretty much every hour from 2-8! It's awesome! hahahaha.  I seriously love serving with Elder Boyack.  I really get along with him and plus, we are both California Elders so we are bound to be the most legit companion known to man, especially since it's combining both the North and the South side of Cali hahahaha XD.  OH, and lastly another cool thing we did this week is we went and carved pumpkins with one of the families we are working with up here XD.  My pumpkin looks like a boss! hahaha.  Ill send you the pictures of it XD.

Well....... I pretty much have massive ADD right now and can't concentrate on emailing so if i missed anything i will add it in my email next week.  Peace out! XD

Chapter 42

Before i tell you about how awesome this week was, and man was it awesome, i have some information to let you know about XD.  Next week our p-day isn't going to be on monday, it's going to be on wed because every year for halloween we have to be locked in a stake center from 6-9, so they know where all the missionaries are in case someone random dressed up as a missionary goes out and does something stupid, so they jsut decided to combine our p-day w/ that day so on halloween we now get an all day p-day XD woot!!!!!!! XD XD.  So ya, don't be sad when you don't receive an email from me on monday because it will be coming on wed XD.

So onto this week!!!! This week was pretty phenomenal for us in Ririe XD.  First thing i have to tell you is one of our investigators came to church finally this week!!!! woot!!!!! And the best part is they loved church and said they can't wait to come next week too XD!!!!  Also, on sunday we had such an amazing day in the sense of missionary work! XD.  So lately we have been trying really hard to get to the point where our days are filled with teaching people and it happened on sunday XD.  We had 4 appointments that night, all back to back, and each filled up the hour.  So we had a teaching appointment at 4, a dinner appointment at 5, another teaching appointment at 6, and then lastly yet another teaching appointment at 7!  We had such a spiritual day on sunday and all of our appointments went really well, one of them even accepted our invitation to be baptized XD XD XD.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!!! hahaha XD.  We also were able to pick up yet another new person to teach this week!!!  It's seriously been a joy in my life being able to see the work in this area start from pretty much nothing when i first got to this area to see it now starting to boom for us XD.  We are now teaching about 9 people here in Ririe and they are all such wonderful people that have an interest in strengthening their relationship w/ their heavenly father and christ XD

I am loving serving in Ririe soooooo much XD.  I honestly can't wait till next week when i get to tell you again of the new successes and the experiences i will have had by then XD.  The Lord is definately in our every day work and it's freakin awesome seeing it first  hand how much the Lord helps us missionaries in his work XD

Well, peace out till next week XD.

With Love,
Elder ---->chis

Chapter 41

No way!!! Brother Wilson got released as young men's president?  I thought he was just going to stay in it forever hahahaha.  Man he was definately an awesome young men's president and he will be missed as one.  That's pretty insane that you guys have had to fill up more water trays the last 2 weeks [for sacrament].  I can't even imagine anymore what that's like to have so many people in one sacrament meeting hahahaha.

So this week was pretty legit.  We found yet another person to teach this week XD.  He is an 8 year old boy who's parents want him to get baptized when he turns 9, they themselves are less-active, and so they want him to go through the missionary discussions to help prepare him for baptism XD.  It was cool meeting them and to begin teaching him. XD.  Since the time i first got here to Ririe till now the work has picked up soooo much.  It's been awesome being able to see the Lord help us daily in our work here XD.  We also were able to meet with this lady who is less-active and we had such an amazing lesson with her.  We talked all about the atonement and how it is able to help us in our lives to where we can be forgiven of our sins.  The spirit was so strong in that lesson and in the end she agreed to meeting with the bishop and starting on her path back to being active once again XD.  It's seriously amazing what the spirit is able to do through us 20 year old boys who are trying their best to be representitives of Jesus Christ XD.

To answer your question for p-day we usually hang out at this member's house, in ucon, as a zone because they have an indoor volleyball court and a racquet ball court that they let us use. They also have a huge grass field next to their house that we can use for games like ultimate frizbee and what not XD.

Well, that's all that i have to report on for this week.  Peace out till next week. XD
With love,
Elder ---->chis

Chapter 40

I definately was freaking out when i heard the announcement for the change in missionary age.  And i agree w/ them making it 18 for boys.  If that rule were around when i was graduating high school i think i would of definately took them up on that one and tried to go when i was 18.  Imagine though how many more missionaries we are going to have out now because of the change in age requirement?  I mean especially the number of Sister Missionaries.  And that is awesome that Melani and Jane both are thinking of turning in their missionary papers!  A mission is definately a wonderful experience and i wouldn't trade it for anything XD.  So while on the topic of conference i would have to say that Uchtdorf's talk was also my favorite, especially the one in priesthood session XD.

To answer your question, I cover a total of 8 wards in my area (we cover the entire stake here) and the way we do dinners is every 3 days we go to a different ward for our dinners.  So pretty much every ward feeds us 3 times in one month.  Our ward mission leaders usually call people a week before or ask people at church to see if they can feed us.

So this week was a really good week for us for both fun and missionary work XD.  I'll start off with the missionary work part XD.  We were able to find 2 new people to teach and are super excited to start teaching both of them.  One of them is a person the spanish missionaries contacted while tracting and she told them she wants to meet with the missionaries XD.  So they told us about her and we went and contacted her and setup an appointment to come back.  The other person is a husband of one of the members here.  He is not a member and has taken the missionary discussions before in the past.  We went and contacted him and he told us he would like to start taking them again, which made me and Elder Boyack super excited.  The Lord is blessing us so much in this area and I am definately glad that i am serving here XD.

On to the fun part of this week XD.  So the first thing that happened is we got to go to a straw maze XD.  One of the wards here was going to a local straw maze and the bishop invited us to come so we can interact with the youth.  So we went and it was definately fun to do because we did it at night so the entire maze was pretty dark.  We cheated though hahaha XD.  We just put our hand on the left wall and followed it the entire way through so we knew for sure that we would make it eventually hahaha XD. 

The other fun, yet spiritual, thing we did is we got to watch conference as a zone XD.  And in between sessions we went and got food and just hung out so it was pretty fun XD.  I even got to see my last companion, Elder Wilkins, because the Terreton district (which was my previous one) got moved from being in the Rexburg Zone to the Rigby Zone (which i am in now XD).  Apparently they are having a tremendous amount of success back in Terreton right now and have quite a few baptismal dates, which made me super happy to hear about XD.

Well, that's all i have to report on this week so i shall end this here.  Peace out!
Sincerely,
Elder --->chis

Chapter 39

Woot it's October!!!!!!! And just like you i love October XD. Halloween is such an awesome holiday, especially as a missionary XD. We get to watch a movie for halloween and we are all hoping that it's going to be avengers hahaha XD. And wow seriously? It's going to be over 100 there today? I wish we could have warm weather like that... :( it just keeps getting colder and colder here ;(. And i have not yet broken out the hot chocolate yet but i probably will be soon XD. So i definately remember doing the primary program but i don't remember doing a flying jump of the stand when i finished my speaking part hahahaha. However, i can definately see myself doing something like that hahahaha. I mean it's similar to something else i remember doing. I remember when i got sustained in sacrament as a deacon and went up to shake bishop Kubat's hand, when i was heading back to my seat i did the whole napolean dynamite "yes" pose and then went back to my seat hahahaha XD.

That's awesome that you have a goal for this upcoming conference. You definately get more out of conference when you set a goal for learning something XD. And yes we do get to watch conference, which i am super excited about XD. I can't believe that it has already been 6 months though since the last one. The time on the mission is seriously flying by soooooo fast it's insane. I mean it feels like me and Elder Boyack have only been companions for maybe a week but in reality it's already been a month and a half!!! Oh speaking of that, transfer calls came on saturday and we found out that we are staying together in Ririe for another transfer, which we are super excited about XD. I would have to say that Elder Boyack is the companion that i have gotten along the best with and we are having so much fun together in Ririe, we hope that we get to stay together for both thanksgiving and christmas XD and celebrate the holidays together and show Idaho how 2 california boy get stuff done XD hahahaha.

So to answer your question of have i been having delicious potatoes, i shall answer w/ an awesome story that happened this week XD.  In kyle's last email to me he asked me if i had converted any potatoes yet, and unfortunately i had to tell him no :(. But on saturday we got to participate in a potato harvest and we got to take home 2 boxes of potatoes XD. So the potatoes have been converted and are now sitting in our house waiting to be eaten XD. We have already cooked a few of them and made some delicious hash browns. There is nothing like a fresh idaho potato XD.

The work in Ririe is starting to pick up for us XD. This last week me and Elder Boyack taught quite alot of people and are continuing to find more people. It's awesome!!!!! XD hahaha. The members are starting get involved in the work and one of the wards have even been doing this awesome idea of a 40 day fast for missionary work. Every day of the week a different family in the ward is fasting for missionary opportunities for 40 days and so far it has been helping alot XD. 

Other than that though there isn't any more news to report on so i am going to end this email here. Peace out till next week XD.

Sincerely,

Elder --->chis

Chapter 38

This last week was a better week for us here in the land of Ririe XD.  So the first thing that happened is we had a mission tour and one of the quorum of the 70, Elder Whitting, came down and toured our mission and had a conference with all of us XD.  It was such an amazing conference XD.  Our mission president, his wife, Elder and Sister whitting all talked to us and gave such wonderful advice.  One of my favorite things was a quote that Elder Whitting gave us XD.  He told us that "You create your own spiritual experiences."  That is so true, especially on the mission.  You can't just sit back and wait for everything to fall into your lap. You have to go out, have faith, and work for those wonderful spiritual missionary experiences XD.  He really gave a good conference for us and was a massive pump up to all of us missionaries XD.  So another cool thing that happened this week is me and my companion got to speak in one of our wards XD.  Honestly, although i still am not partial to giving talks,  the mission has definately helped me become better speaker in sacrament from all the different times that we get to speak XD.  We were both asked to speak on missionary work and we both feel like we did our best to try and motivate the ward to help us progress the missionary work in their ward XD.

So other than that though not much else happened this week :( so i am going to end this chapter here.  Love you all and thanks for all the support XD.  Peace out till next week XD.

From,
Elda --->chis

Chapter 37

So a P-day [aka "day off"] in Ririe is like this: 1) we wake up and go exercise by either going to a gym in a members basement or go play racquet ball in our bishop's racquet ball court XD.  2) go home and get ready and do our studies till 10.  3) either go shopping with our district in Idaho Falls or if we don't have anything we need to buy, which is usually, we go to the members house with the gym in it and work out some more/play ping pong or do something random XD.  4) we go do emails where ever we decide to go.  5) go to zone activity where it is being held that p-day and we usually play volleyball/gatorball/racquet ball/ultimate frizbee/basket ball/whatevs XD.  And ya that's pretty much how a normal p-day goes for us in Ririe.  XD.  Speaking of Ririe, it's pretty much becoming one of my favorite areas XD.  The members here are all soooooo nice and awesome XD and even though the work is going slowly right now, there is soooo much potential in this area and the members are very helpful in aiding in the progress of our work XD.  And my companion, Elder Boyack the super asian XD, is pretty freakin legit.  He is also becoming one of my favorite companions XD.  We definately are laughing atleast a thousand times a day hahaha XD.  So to answer your other questions, we teach on a good week for us we teach about 3-4 lessons a week, we have right now about 2 investigators, and we get meals ever day XD XD XD XD.

Brady is going on a mission to Brazil?!?!?!?! That's legit! XD You must tell him this next week in church that i said hi and to enjoy every minute of his mission because it goes by waaaaay to fast hahahaha.  Oh and congratulate him on shaving to hahaha XD.

This week we had a pretty legit lesson w/ one of our investigators.  We are teaching this family that is less-active right now and they have a 9 year old son that wants to get baptized.  So for these lessons, which has only been 2 now, the family kind of disperses and does their own thing while we teach the son and the 8 year old daughter because she also is wanting to get baptized.  But when we were about to start this last lesson w/ them the older brother came in and told us that he would say the prayer.  Then after that the older sister also came in and sat in on the lesson and helped out with the lesson.  It was a really cool/spritual experience to have and to top it off when we asked the 9 year old son to say the closing prayer he was kind of getting stage fright and not wanting to do it, but the older brother told him that he would help him out so he agreed to it and gave an amazing prayer.  We are super excited for this family and are hoping to soon have the entire family participating in the lessons because not only will they be able to draw closer to our savior and heavenly father together but they will also draw closer as a family XD.

Other than that lesson though, nothing else really happened this week so i shall end this email here XD.  Peace out till next week! XD.