Christmas week ... Dec. 19

This week brings us an interesting time. So they still haven’t finished our place in Tahoe, which has been tearing our plans to pieces for the last two weeks, but we’re pretty sure we should be good to go this week, so we'll probably be up there Thursday and Friday, in Gardnerville tomorrow (Tuesday) after District meetings, and then Carson the rest of the week. We had an investigator at church from Gardnerville Sunday, so we’re excited to go ask her how it was. Hopefully she felt something and enjoyed it. We’re excited for that.

Work during the holidays isn’t particularly good on one end because a lot of people are in and out of town. That makes things difficult. On the other hand, people feel much more charitable and turn more to Christ during this season, so in that way it goes up. Ends up just being a little different. Unfortunately work schedules get kinda rough too.

Christmas eve we’ll spend the evening with the A. family. Should be a really nice night. They’ll probably have a lot of family over, most of whom we know too, so we should have fun. On Christmas, we'll probably hop between a couple of families. The J., who are a great family. Only two of the daughters are members, but the whole family loves us and we love them too. Not sure if the daughters will have to work that day or not, but we'll still go over there for a bit. then We will have to go to the R. for a while. These families really quickly become family to us here; they are so great!

Things are going pretty well with the training program with Elder Baker. It’s kind of hard to understand the program, but were starting to get used to it. It seems that somehow it is way too much and way too little to study in a week at the same time. Our goal is to survive all 3 areas of training while still giving all of our investigators the time they need. Next to impossible, but we can pull it off.

It’s cold, but for exercise I do a little bike cuz we have a 1970s Flight of the Concords style bike in our apartment. It’s pretty sick. But no snow yet!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve started praying for snow! I can’t take it anymore! I think it might be snowing in Tahoe right now. There are thick clouds over the mountains, so I can only hope!

Carson preparing for Christmas

Carson City’s lights are pretty nice downtown, especially by the capitol. Gardnerville is pretty nice too, but not as sweet as Tahoe. But all of them are going to be just ok until it SNOWS! It seriously hasn’t even snowed yet! This is getting ridiculous. By this time last year they were rolling in about 6 inches here and a couple of feet in Tahoe. Everyone is assuming that a huge storm is going to hit us out of the blue one of these days to make up for it.

Yesterday we had the P. family come to church in Carson River, but we were only in that ward for about 20 mins before we headed up to Gardnerville for church there. We hadn’t been there in a while so we needed to get there and I had to give a baptismal interview right after church (number 7 in the last week and a half). We are working on developing a new system for deciding where we are going to go. Our bishop in Tahoe finally has a place for us to stay there, so we will now be doing 2 days a week in Tahoe, 2 a week in Carson, 1 a week in Gardnerville, and then Sundays and P-days will depend on what’s happening that week. It’s going to be absolutely ridiculous. I have no clue how we are going to pull it off, but that’s the goal. Anyway, the P’s have mentioned how different they feel with us and at church.

This week we taught the C. family Gardnerville for the first time, which went great! They sure felt the spirit during our lesson. Brother C. really thought hard about everything we talked about. We tried something different and instead of reciting the first vision, we fast forwarded to it on the restoration DVD and showed that, which I think was definitely more powerful. We also taught M., who isn’t going to be working on Sundays any more starting next week I think, so we should finally be able to get her to church! M. always feels the Spirit. he understands scriptures so easily compared to everyone else that its crazy! The investigators in general that feel it tend to be people that contact us and referrals. Other than that, not so much.

Sometimes the most challenging thing for someone learning about the gospel is the concept of going to church every Sunday. They know they’re supposed to, they just never have, so that’s hard to get a lot. For the most part though, there’s not a lot of difficult stuff. It’s just change that’s hard.

We’re always glad when members teach with us. Members do best when they bear testimony of the gospel in their own lives. We always really appreciate that and the investigators find it more powerful coming from them than from us.

Beyond Christmas lights and teaching? Well, we had a zone conf this last week in Reno and we got to watch "17 Miracles," which was reaaally good! SO that was fun! Today we are going bowling and cleaning. We have a guy from the missionary department coming out with us tomorrow because my comp was part of an experimental 6-week Spanish training district, so they want to see how it went.

December 5

This week we had a few interesting things. We had to be in Reno on Friday for the “Train the Trainers with the New Missionaries” meeting, and we got back from that around 5ish. We then had dinner and a lesson with a couple of new investigators, the P. family. We also picked up a new investigator yesterday, which was good, because we need new investigators. We also got an appointment set up with the potential family we have in Gardnerville and we are going with a recent convert to contact another potential (friend of her family) tomorrow. So we might be able to pump up our teaching pool a bit. The baptisms canceled because the boyfriend’s dad found out and went nuts. He can’t get baptized until he moves out of his house, and the girl won’t get baptized without him (though she says she is still 100% sure she will be baptized). It was an interesting week. We also had our Spanish sacrament meeting on Sunday, which was very spiritual and great. It was testimony meeting, and there were members going to the front to speak the entire time.

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.