Thanksgiving and transfers

Thanksgiving was good! We had a good time. We won the inter-zone Turkey Bowl football game! As heavy underdogs too! It was pretty fun. We played for a while and then chilled with a couple of missionaries for a good chunk of the day in Reno. Elder Tipa (one of the greatest people ever) was headed home this week, so we spent some time with him before he headed back to Samoa. Hit the Reno strip and just chatted (yes the Reno strip is allowed).

Back in Carson, we went to the Schufelt family for our first typical Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, etc.) and then we went to the Ayala's for some pan con palvo.

On Tuesday before Thanksgiving I got my call to train a new missionary, which meant Elder Reyes was leaving. So we spent much of our time letting Elder Reyes saying goodbye to investigators and members, but also got some lessons in too. The two people we have set for baptism bumped back to the 17th of December due to building conflicts and stuff, but they’re excited. Should be good.

So as of this Tuesday, I'm training a brand-new missionary, Elder Baker. He is from western Kentucky, close to Tennessee he tells me. He has a little bit of a Kentucky accent and is working on his Spanish, but he understands pretty well because his mom moved to the states from Juarez, Mexico when she was a kid, so he has some background. Just not so much on the speaking side of things. He's a chill guy.

Almost Thanksgiving

We spent most of the week here in Carson. On Friday I had to go to leadership training in Reno for most of the day, so my comp was on splits with some other missionaries here, and they made it to Tahoe and Gardnerville, but I only made it to Gardnerville once this week.

We had a lot of people fall into our laps this week. While on splits in Tahoe, my comp went to a member's house and 2 of their Hispanic friends were visiting who live in Carson and Gardnerville, and they wanted to learn more about the gospel, so we get to start teaching them this week. Then on Saturday we had a mini missionary (a teenager who is working with us for a bit) and we went to a recent convert’s house, and there was a guy there that asked for a Book of Mormon and if we could come by his house and start teaching his family! It was crazy! I actually thought that I misunderstood his Spanish because I was so surprised, hahaha! It was great! We also went on splits with the ZLs this week, so I was in their area for a day, but the other one and Elder Reyes taught 3 solid lessons for us. We didn’t have as much success in the ZL’s area. It’s kind of dead right now, but they’re working on it.

We will probably head up to Reno on Wednesday night and crash with some SpanAms up there. Thursday morning is the Turkey Bowl – touch football for all the missionaries in the north, so there will be somewhere around 60 of us. We will have some games as zones (were combining with Fallon zone) and then we will have games where they just split us up. Should be a good time. After that we will probably hang out for a little while with some of our friends up there until we have to be back for our first dinner down here at around 3ish. We will be going to that with the English missionaries in our ward. It will be a typical Thanksgiving dinner with a couple in the ward that we hear goes pretty big every year, so should be pretty good! After that we will go by a bunch of members’ houses that want us to go hang out and play games and stuff for a while. We'll probably hang out with the Ayala family for some games and stuff for a while. One of the kids is working on his papers for his mission and the next one is getting closer, but we're still working on him. They are all activating again after being inactive for a while (well, all the boys). It will be a fun day for us!

First Tahoe trip, etc.

C. got baptized and confirmed this week. The talks were great and C. was super happy. Plus a couple of her non-member family members were there, which was great. We didn’t baptize or confirm. One of her uncles baptized and another confirmed her. It was great. Then yesterday we gave a blessing to C. uncle’s girlfriend (non-member who was at her baptism...K.) with her other uncle, Ernie. She has a hurt foot that makes it very difficult for her to walk, so we gave her a blessing for it, and she even started crying. E. is working hard to convince her that that is the spirit she was feeling, which is great! After the blessing Ernie felt prompted to ask if anyone else wanted one, and her mom said yes, so we gave her a blessing of comfort for the stress in her life, and she loved it too! K’'s whole family was there, and I guess her brother had promised my comp a lesson, so he told us he hadn’t forgotten about that and still wanted to take the lessons (only problem is he’s in college so not around that much), but it’s still a great opportunity to begin teaching the family. Before the blessings we taught them about priesthood authority and faith and the importance of both, and it went really well. It will be little by little though with the parents.

Yesterday we went to Tahoe for church with Ernie, who is one of our ward missionaries. Tahoe is sooooo beautiful, hahaha. The church is on the Cali side of things, so we drove past the Marriott that has a ski lift that goes right into it. It’s pretty great. The lake is incredibly blue, but we haven’t gotten a chance to go to the shore to throw some rocks yet, haha. The ward is very solid but fluctuates size like crazy. It’s packed in the summer and around Christmas from what I hear. All of the vacationing members with houses there. Even this week there were a few, and this has to be the most down time of the year for Tahoe. The ward is solid though even without those members. Not big, but solid. One of our Hispanic members was there with his son, which was great to see, but he told us he can only go about once a month because of work. The other family didn’t go, so we went to visit them, and they didn’t even let us in the house, so that’s not a good sign there. The ward is working on getting us a place there so we can do more work up there (stay a couple days there at a time). Hopefully it goes through. We told them that basically its going to be by referral only up there, so they have to do their work.

This year for Thanksgiving we again are limited to 2 dinners, but try telling that to Hispanics who put food in front of us any day of the week if we so much as stop by their houses, hahaha. We have one dinner with some English members with the English missionaries too, so that should be fun. Then we'll go by some other places and probably end up at the A's house for some games and stuff.

Oh, wait a minute. I just realized that I haven’t told you about the mission tour yet! That was this last week. Elder Yamashita came on Tuesday! He was great! And his wife was even more fantastic, hahaa! They have only been in the states for 3 months and his English is fantastic! Hers is ok, but she’s still working on it, haha. The crazy part is the he spoke in conference last month and you could understand him perfectly well then too! Can you say gift of tongues? He talked to us about a huge variety of subjects, but one of my favorite parts was when he talked about direction that comes down from president Monson that says we should work with the youth as much as possible! That’s exactly what I like to do, and it was awesome to hear more about that! He also talked about working with members in general, really broke down the gospel of Jesus Christ (lesson 3) with who over sees what step (like bishop/mission prez over baptism) and what the steps are after baptism and confirmation that make up "enduring to the end." It was pretty sweet. Really helped us understand better. But the fun moment of the week was when his wife got up on the stand for her chance to speak and then handed out papers and taught us all origami! It was siiiiick! hahaha, so much fun. We made the paper into mouths that could open and close because she was talking about "open your mouth," haha. It was great.

My biggest challenge of the week? Probably just be trying to get a grasp on this huge area while realizing my companion is probably leaving and that it is very likely I will be training. That’s pretty trying to say the least. (Rumor has it we are getting 7 spanAm greenies.)

Nov. 7

Sorry to have missed last week. We went to the Reno Temple, and didn’t really get a P-day. Meanwhile, it’s been interesting getting to know things better here. This weekend we made it up to Gardnerville for church because we have miles again, and now we will be going up there and to Tahoe most of the week. The Spanish elders here hadn’t been to Gardnerville Ward in a while when I got here cuz all the work was in Carson, but we are planning on expanding that now. Carson is definitely our main ward cuz we live here, but it will be getting more equal in the coming weeks. We have a bigger group in Gardnerville than we thought, and they are very strong. We had a Sunday School class of 12 adults including 5 male Melchizedek priesthood holders, which is a very big group. You need 7 Melchizedek priesthood holders to start a branch and if we combine the groups from Carson y Gardnerville we have around 10 active, not to mention less actives we could get back by having a branch in Spanish here, plus the 2 families in Tahoe that apparently used to go when there was a branch here in Carson a while ago. So our biggest goals right now are working on proving that a branch is needed and sustainable. There are a couple investigators we have that have gone to church and not liked it because its in English. Theres not much we can do with that. If they already had a testimony of the truth it wouldn’t matter. We are figuring it out.

Who are we teaching? Let’s see. First is C., a little girl who is getting baptized on Saturday. She is part of a reactivating part member family. She’s good to go. She’s been going to Primary and knows her stuff. She’s great. Her uncles, aunts, and grandma are the strongest members we've got here in Carson, so it’s good to see that her and her family are really getting back in. Then we have E. who is the little brother of 2 members whose parents are not members. He’s like 14 I think. He’s a cool kid and knows that its true already, but we have to convince him that you can still be cool and a member, hahaa. We had a member come with us last time who i think helped that some, but probably not as much as the baptism that our zone leaders had this week of one of the most popular guys in the high school who is very proud to get baptized. Apparently the kid kicked a field goal in a high school game that broke an NFL record. 64 yards and nailed it. Apparently it was all over ESPN and everything. He’s the famous guy in town right now, haha. That’s always helpful. Let’s see, then we have his cousin S. and her little brother who we are working with as well. Their mom showed up for the end of the last lesson we had with them, and we think she liked it, so that might lead to something there plus mean permission for the kids. Hopefully soon. Those are the most important ones at the moment.

Though we live in Carson, I’m actually DL of the Gardnerville district, not in Carson. So its us, Gardnerville, and Minden. I know both the Minden elders really well, so that’s nice. I lived with Elder Bowzer in Fallon and Elder Ferris was just in south zone with me. We also have South Lake Tahoe, but we haven’t done any work there yet. We had a brief visit when a member took us to dinner their for their birthday, but that’s it so far. We will be up there this week...despite the snow. It’s snowed twice, but just dustings, nothin on the road.

Carson City has Whole Foods and Trader Joes! It’s funny because they are all right next to each other and there is NOTHING else. Well, we’ve got Target, Best Buy, Trader Joe's, and all the smaller stores that come with those. But Carson is definitely smaller than Jeff. I didn’t know, but there’s really not much here. They don’t even have a mall as good as ours, hahaa.

October 25 (Sorry -- parents have been traveling ....)

I arrived in Carson City October 19. We were parked that week: we only get to drive the car so many miles a month, and I replaced a missionary who was going home, so he didn’t care about miles, haha. Hopefully we can get some more. We cover all of Carson zone/stake. There are only 12 missionaries in the zone. We cover Carson, Gardernville, Mindon, Dayton, and South Lake Tahoe. So far we’ve pretty much only been in Carson because of miles. I’m DL (district leader) Gardnerville district. My companion is Elder Reyes and he is from California. He moved there from Mexico when he was 10. We get along pretty well. We are still learning about each other though. We have a few people with a baptism date set now. Mostly part member families, which is great. We live in a 2-story apt with 2 bedrooms upstairs and the kitchen and living room downstairs. Its 1 1/2 bath. Not new, but pretty nice, though I hear they are trying to move us. We have cool neighbors who remind me a lot of grandma and grandpa. They go to California for the winter. Pretty great though!

October 10

By far the best experience of the week was our lesson with M. where we set her with a baptismal date. We brought Hermano V. (1st councilor in the ward’s bishopric) with us for the lesson and he testified right to her soul. M. really felt that what we were teaching about the restoration was true and was super excited when I committed her to be baptized on the 22nd. She asked, "So soon?" which is usually kind of a bad sign, but she was saying it as in, "I can get baptized so soon?!?" haha, it was incredible. She has had so major trials in her life, and the gospel has already been a major comfort for her! It’s awesome to see how much its helping her, haha! After our first visit she read through Chapter 10 of 1st Nephi. She is fantastic. The spirit was just so strong in that lesson too. She came to church this Sunday in Spanish. We will be inviting her to a family home evening we are having at a member’s house tonight, which should be great! She really wants to go to a FHE, so it should be great.

I’ve written before about you ward’s “young men’s (YM) president – the program for teenage boys). He is just extremely involved in everything the YM do. He is kind of a kid at heart, so they all love him and respect him a lot. He picks a large group of them up every morning and drives them to seminary, picks them up for firesides (like the stake missionary prep fireside), talks to them all the time about missions, etc. He is really just helping them get the testimonies they need to make the decision to go on a mission. Calling him was probably one of the best callings that has ever been made in this ward. Well, he and our new ward mission leader. Everything is changing with them. Our youth are getting much stronger (the young women’s pres was already great) and we finally have a strong missionary program starting. We are trying to set up some time to get some of the YM out with us, but it’s hard with their schedules and our schedules because they all have school and soccer.

Mom asked if I’ve tried any new Hispanic foods lately. I did try pambazo’s, which are basically large wet sandwiches they make in Mexico City. They are pretty solid.

Yep, it’s transfers next week. We'll get calls on Saturday (Oct. 15). That'll make it a nervous week. I always get nervous when I think I might be getting transferred. I have no idea if I’m going or not, but it looks pretty good that I will be moving. Check back after Tuesday!

October 4 (sorry for the delay)

Conference weekend was pretty sick. On Saturday we spent the whole day at an investigator’s house for breakfast, then the morning session, then play some pool and eat some lunch, and then for the afternoon. That was pretty legit. The lady’s name is M. (her husband didn’t really watch but he chilled with us) and she is Peruvian and loves Pres Uchtdorf (this is her 2nd conference as an investigator...kind of an eternagator as they call them here). So she loved Saturday morning because they talked about Peru and Uchtdorf talked. The really cool part though is that most of her family in Peru used to be pretty anti-Mormon and this time 2 of her brothers and her mom watched conference and loved it! M’s on is a member who is going to University of Utah, so the grandparents wanted a feel for his religion and everything. Pretty sick, not going to lie.

Then we did priesthood session at the church, of course, which was sick...mostly because Elder Holland’s talk as always was super powerful. After priesthood session on Saturday, we went home to get some dinner because we hadn’t eaten since like 1, so we were hungry. When we got home I got this unshakeable feeling that we needed to go by the house of the family from the wedding a couple weeks ago, so me and Elder Kakau just left dinner for later. We got there, and the whole family was there and told us to come in! We had a nice chat with the father of the bride about our purpose of missionaries, and now the whole family is interested and not just the couple who were married. Unfortunately we aren’t sure when we will meet with them, because the wife will almost for sure give birth in the next couple days. We will be in contact with them though. The husband of the couple is very interested in the "other book" we have. So were excited for that too.

On Sunday we went to our Young Men’s Presidents house for both sessions with our priests who are in mission preparation class. We got to watch both sessions with all of them, which was great. Breakfast and lunch there too, and hang out with the YM in between for a bit. They are all so much more likely to serve missions now than they were before our new YM pres got here and started pushing them hard and getting us involved with them a little more. They are going to make great missionaries. A couple don’t even have super active parents, but they are doing super well now. Ya, pretty fun weekend overall.

Also, ya, its cooling down a bit. Lower 90s here aren’t bad at all, and those are our highs these days. Some days in the 80s. Not like home where 90s suck and 80s are sketchy, here 90s are decent and 80s are suuuper nice. So glad the 100s are over. They got pretty harsh some days. Of course now they’ll probably transfer me up north for the winter, haha. There is a strong chance I go to Carson City actually, but not much of other options in the north. Maybe they’ll let me stay another couple and do 9 months here. That’d be sick cuz we finally have people that are good investigators! hhaa.