October 24, 2011 - Family Email

haha Zac is pretty cute and funny!!

So yeah tell Bry I got his letter and thank you! So I have a question can you send me the video of Damon rapping the End of the year song?  Okay so you have to go to you tube, then look for "End of the Year Rap OHS 2010" Then there will be a place next to the video that says EMB code, copy the website thing and put it on the email.  If you have questions ask Heather or Dustin or Jerame!  Could you do that?  I want to show my companion Damon´s video.

So this week was long and hard.  Well it wasn´t long just we had a really rough start.  Petri told us that she couldn´t pay tithing.  I think she thought that you HAVE to pay to be a member.  She doesn´t make very much money so it´s super hard and she has to pay for her, her son and her daughter that should have a job.  But we had a lesson with her and a member that is American/Spanish and she helped us out soo much.  Then we had a Halloween party at the church and Petri came to it and she told me she hates it when she is not with us because she doesn´t feel the Spirit!  All she wants in life is to feel peace because she has lived in fear her whole life.  She has had a horrible life because of her ex husband and she only feels happy and peaceful around us and the Mormons.  Haha she grabbed my arm and told me not to leave her because she wanted to feel happier.  But yeah she is on track to get baptized this Sunday night!  She chose me to baptize her!  But I think Elder Banbury is leaving El Puerto this next Wednesday the 2nd or 3rd so he asked if he could baptize her if he leaves and I said alright.  So I may just give her the Holy Ghost.  Which is cool I guess, Petri didn´t want to choose between us but she finally did and it was me.  We are pretty close I always hang around her to make sure she isn´t alone at church and the parties and when we teach her so I think she feels the closest to me.  She always gives me the biggest smile and grabs my arm all the time haha.  But the other investigators are okay.  To be honest none of them are progressing nor doing the things they should be doing.  The people are sooooooooo hard here.  None of them do anything.  Like half of them don´t have jobs and do nothing all day and won’t do their commitments or come to church.  So I don´t know what else to say about them.  We didn´t meet with Betty this last week she was ignoring us.  Henry and Paloma are not doing anything.  We didn´t meet with them either.  Juan only smoked one cig yesterday, that is because he ran out of tobacco and money.  So I don´t know about Jaun, I honestly feel like I am dealing with a four year old.  He can read and he loves reading, but he just isn´t smart.  I love the guy and he is funny, I love his excuses for not coming to church.  He is doing all of his commitments.  Claudia we are not spending much time with her, she keeps cancelling on us.  So we met this guy from Romania, well he stopped us on the street and he speaks English.  He understands a lot and can speak pretty well.  So we taught him the Restoration.  My first time teaching in English, it was so weird, but the spirit was super strong.  He asked the best questions too.  He is a really good new investigator; a little hard to get a hold of; but super nice.  He is a bodyguard for the French Legion - whatever that is.  His name is Lorenzo.  We had a good week I guess, we were really down when Petri dropped the bomb on us, but she is all good!  We had two eating lessons with Americans this last week and that was awesome!

So yes I got the package!  THANK YOU SOOO MUCH.  I love the shoes, they are a little different than the other ones so that makes me happy, I didn´t want the same shoes because that is boring.  Thanks for the Reese’s, makes life so much better.  I am very grateful for the stuff!  Sorry this is kinda short!  So I had to pay 30 Euros to pick up my package because it got flagged.  I think because it had shoes in it, I think they do that because they think I am going to go sell them or something.  So that is why I took out 30 bucks sorry!!!  I am going to buy a jersey I think because they are 40 Euros off and it is my favorite team! 

Thank you and I love all of you!

Elder Cody

October 17, 2011 - Family Email

Hello family again!!

So the time is going by rather fast, it always feels like I am brushing my teeth and sleeping but I am always tired and feel like I need more sleep.  Does that make sense?  The missionary part of the day goes by super fast I don´t even remember doing half the stuff I do because it goes by so fast and takes up the whole day!  So yeah the suit fell apart and I was sad; I held off telling you for awhile because I knew you would be pissed!!  So I haven´t gotten the package yet because last Wednesday was another holiday. 

But this week we worked super hard again and we got 25 lessons.  This week was very regular again but, yesterday we had kind of a cool experience.  It was one of those moments were I felt like the weight of peoples salvation was on top of my shoulders.  So we just contacting another Bolivian (because there is millions out here) and we had passed by her house many of times but she is always working or just says she´s busy when she really isn´t doing much, but we stopped by her house.  We knocked on the door and I asked how are you? All that stuff and I could tell she was crying.  I asked; "Is there anything we can do to help you?"  She said no, and I asked when could we come over another time.  She said next week.  I said okay and I told her we are going to give her our number in case she needs help with something because she is like 40 years old and crying.  As I was writing down our number she said come in.  We do so and sat down and she is just crying and starts explaining to us that her sons girl friend left him and took their child and that her son said he was going to kill himself.  This mother hadn´t seen him since Saturday night and so close to 24 hours.  We kept on telling her that we are here to help and everything.  Elder Banbury had no idea what to do, I was already taking lead of the conversation.  She kept talking and crying and I pulled out my Book of Mormon and just started searching and searching for something.  I asked her if she was a believer in Christ and God and if she believed in prayer.  I asked her if she had prayed for comfort and for help today and she said yes.  So I am still searching and I found the scripture!!  1 Nephi 17:13 or 13:17 it says I will be your light in the desert if you look unto me and keep my commandments and I will lead you to the promised land you will know that I was the one that lead you.  So I read this to her and than of course I likened it unto her as Nephi teaches us to do so.  I told her that you need to look unto Christ right now.  You don´t know where your son is, you are in a desert, you are lost and in darkness.  Christ is your light, he loves you and look up to him.  He will guide you.  She was crying and I was so sincere, I had never been like that with someone before.  I have never been able to share something so powerfully before.  I know that the Lord put us in her path to help her.  We weren´t planning on stopping by her house at all yesterday because she always says she´s busy.  We opened the door to a weeping woman and helped her out.  When I left the house I felt like a disciple of Christ, even though we didn´t take away the problem and I felt so helpless.  I didn´t know what to do to her, I couldn´t hug her or anything to comfort her.  All I had was the words of Christ and a testimony.  I tried right?  She said we could come back and she wants us to talk to her son without her there to help him.  So we are going to stop by one afternoon to talk to him, if he is still alive, we have no idea.  But that was a really cool experience for me, I was praying so much in that house saying please help me find something to help your daughter!  I only addressed her concerns and tried to help her, not try to get a lesson in and teach her and try to get her baptized.  I was trying to think of what Christ would do in this situation. 

Breakfast with President Clegg

Well mother no, no one got baptized.  The next person to be baptized would be Angeles or Petri.  Petri is still doing awesome and is getting baptized on the 30th.  Angeles is getting interviewed on Thursday.  She can´t understand the questions but she loves church and feels it. She won't pray still in front of us.  She is a nice lady and we will see what our district leader says Thursday about her interview. We have still called Jorge a lot and he won't answer, so I guess he is done for.  Elder Banbury is super sad about him; It's the closest person he has had to baptism here in Puerto and he failed us.  But we have Angeles and Petri and Juan if he quits smoking.  He has improved a lot but he is soooo addicted.  Right now he is only smoking 3 to 5 a day.  Yesterday he only left once during sacrament, he may not of even smoked during the 5 minutes he was gone.  Henry and Paloma are super flaky and are hard to teach.  They are so nice and would be good Mormons, one day. Betty had a really, really bad week.  Her boss died, well her job, she took care of an older lady and she died.  We talked to her on the phone for 20 minutes last night and we are going to talk to her tomorrow.  This last Tuesday we taught Pres Clegg and Hermana Clegg about the Book of Mormon and how to receive an answer.  We did really good.  Hermana Clegg loved it!  Well that´s about all that happened this week!  I love you all and mother feel better! Thanks again for the package even though I dont´t have it yet!

Cooking Breakfast for President Clegg

Love,

Cody

October 10, 2011 - Family Email

Hello beloved family of mine,

 

Jude I am sorry; I have been praying for you and your shoulder in Spanish this last week!  I have been praying that you recover fast and all that good stuff!  Mother you are amazing!  Thanks for doing that because those shoes suck!  Elder Rodriguez has the same ones and they did that!  They sent him a new pair of shoes too.  But I wanted the eccos becuase they are still going strong and are not showing any sign of ripping on the insides.  So since we are talking about things that rip or break I figured this would be a good time to tell you that all the way back in Madrid my Mr Mac suit fell apart...the material was horrid and wore out.  I think it´s because the Provo MTC made us wear suits every day all day long no matter what we were doing.  I am sorry!!  So I have been wearing the Texas one for 6 months now when we have to wear them!  Tell Sandy Apostle (my swim coach) hello and I love her! I will want hints on how to get a long distance stroke down for triathalons!

 

Okay so this week was good.  We worked really hard and we got 23 lessons, that is a high for us here in El Puerto.  I hit 20 lessons once in Cáceres.  Cáceres is different work though and it´s hard to have a lot of investigators.  So this week the investigators were okay.  Petri however is doing super good.  She told us a lot about her past life and I feal horrible.  She is a beast and went through a lot crap with her Ex Husband who is really not a very nice man and it ruined here mind!  She has certain things that scare her like slamming doors and stuff becuase it reminds her of him.  For example we invited her to a baptism in San Fernando like a half hour away by train that the Elder´s there had and getting on the train with the doors and stuff was hard for her to do.  We didn´t ride with her there but on the way back she rode with us and she seemed okay because she feels safe with us.  She told us that she just wants to restart a whole new life and move on.  We told her that it´s this church and after baptism we start a new life with Christ.  She knows that it´s this church and she knows that it´s all true.  She came to church yesterday for the whole 3 hours!  She is awesome and still doing awesome!  Juan is doing pretty good but he wouldn´t come to church yesterday because his shoes hurt his feet.  He is only smoking 1 cig a day!  haha he is funny and a little out of life.  He is 27 years old and acts like he is 7!  Henry and Paloma are pretty dang flakey and not too intelligent, however the wife Paloma has interest in the stuff we teach but has little education like everyone here in El Puerto.  Angeles is doing good she came to church this Sunday.  The Branch President here told us to have caution with her about baptizing her but, Pres Clegg told us to dunk her!  So what do we do??  She likes the church but I truly don´t know if she knows it´s true.  All she knows is that she feels good!  So we are working with her, Clegg told me "Elder don´t have any fear baptizing an old lady that doesn´t know anything, if they can feel BAPTIZE THEM!"  haha.  So that is that.  Claudia is a new girl we are teaching and she is cool a little weird and a few screws loose.  She is 21 and from Bolivia but we had a good lesson with her about how to recieve an answer through the Book of Mormon and prayer.  We are teaching that to Pres Clegg and Hermana Clegg tomorrow morning.  I have been studying really hard for it in Preach My Gospel this week.  I found that I need to still be praying and do the Moroni promise with regularity.  I did so the other day and right as I started asking I felt the spirit instantly.  I did that promise for the first time in Provo and never recieved an answer and I did it again in Madrid after reading 2 Nephi 3 and I recieved an answer!  Now I am in love with the Book of Mormon!  I pray everday after personal study to see if it is true...and it is.  I could never deny it.  It either comes from the devil or God.  God and Christ persuadeth a man to do good and the Book of Mormon does that!  Betty has been sick this week she texted us and told us to call her today, so I am ready and excited to start teaching her again!  Jorge we ran into him in the train station and he told us he is suuuuuper busy and that he is still reading though.  We called him and he still hasn´t answered.  oh well!  If he is a true follower of Christ he will get baptized and follow the church! Well that is all I have this week!  I am doing good and the spanish is improving.  Petri thinks that I speak perfectly but I still lack soooo much! Well I love you all and I hope everything is good!  When do ya´ll go to Texas??  How is my dog?  I miss her!  Well this is my email and I am working hard I can´t believe I have started the 4th week of this transfer!  Time is gone!

Well I gotta go! I love you!

CODY

October 3, 2011 - Family Email

Okay So I just wrote Brady and Jerame I am on a role.

So how is everyone??  Sounds like you have been busy around the home and I am praying for you Jude!  haha mom I am sorry I love you!  You will be fine and recover strong you and Dad are Healthy grandparents!  So I forgot to take pictures of the holes in my shoes; so I am going to go home take pictures and send them to you a little later today or this week, I am sure I will do it in like 5 hours.  They need to be fixed, if they by chance just refund you get the ones that look exactly like them but Eccos.  If not just send the others to my house I get it faster that way. 

His shoes at 7 months

His shoes at 7 months

So this week was really good in many different ways.  First off I got sent off to Cáceres and they had my card!  I am now legal in Spain!  It was good to see Silvia and that family!  They are doing super good and Shaver is starting to teach the older daughter!  She asked them what they did to her family - they are happy!  haha.  So Shaver told me I sound perfect in Spanish now, but by no means am I fluent.  I can sound good I just need to learn more words and understand the people better.  I would say that is the hardest part to me is the understanding the people! 

So this week investigator wise was pretty good.  We had a good lesson with Betty.  She is super prepared but also super scared about everything.  I have been praying a lot for her and I came to Conference with a question "What does Betty need to be baptized?"  Of course it was answered, The Book of Mormon.  That guy that talked about the Book of Mormon was SICK!!!  His last name was Callister I believe, I don´t have my notes on me.  Yeah she just needs to read more, I am going to print off that talk and give it to her.  She is doing good though and I am getting pretty close to her.  I shared stories with her that I have learned from other investigators.    Jorge has continued to not answer his phone we haven´t seen or heard from him in over a week.  We have no idea what is up.  Jose told us he doesn´t want anything to do with the church and he was wasting our time.  He lives far away and always cancels on us.  It is sad but hey we gotta move on and baptize other people.  We had to drop the baptismal date with Erika because she isn´t married!  That seems to be a huge problem in the whole mission, people aren´t married.  Henry and Paloma are good, we didn´t have a good lesson with them because her psycho grandma was there and ruined the lesson.  Next time we teach them and she is there I am going to ask her please not to talk; if she wants to, she can sit in on the lesson.  She is a crazy old woman that likes American boys.  We call old ladies that are like that snakes.  We have like 3 snakes here in El Puerto, they are CRAAAZY, they literally hit on us it´s super funny and they are like 60 to 75 years old.  Jumpe is doing really really good, he is the only investigator that came to conference.  We didn´t have many because it was in Cádiz.  But he said he really liked it a lot and it was very interesting. I need to send ya´ll a picture of him.  Angeles is...good.  She really doesn´t understand anything we teach because we are positive she has no education.  So I need to ask president what the rules are on that, if she can get baptized or not.  She comes to church and likes it a lot, she doesn´t really comprehend or understand anything.  So we will see, she is a nice lady.  Juan is still smoking but we are seeing progress in him a lot.  He wants to change and be baptized.  He has to be clean of smoking for like two weeks before he can get dunked in the water.  So we have an angel though, her name is Petri.  We taught her and I asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone that has the authority of God.  She said YES.  We had a really sweet lesson with this lady, she is amazing and has a date to be baptized the 29th this month, if we think she is ready.  If not she said oh I will wait the next week.  I know she felt the spirit when we taught her the Restoration and that is why she says she has no single doubt in her head about the church.  I swear all you have to do is read the Bible and know that the only true church of Christ is ours.  So she is awesome and she is from Spain.  She is divorced and has a 6 year old boy and a 20 year old girl which we haven´t seen yet.  Petri has come to church already with us once and loved it!  I already told ya´ll that.  So that is her!!!  So that is all for investigators this week, we didn´t talk with Alejandra at all this week, I feel super sad for her though.

So Conference was AWESOME.  We went to Cádiz and watched in English with all the Elders and two Sister Missionaries.  It was awesome.  I Only heard 3 sessions though, the Priesthood Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.  Priesthood session was good HOLLAND tore it up! That man is a freaking animal.  I felt like all of them were saying that the YOUTH are evil!  Like I felt like I was hearing Lehi complain about Laman and Lemuel.  It´s true though I have been there, the Aaronic Priesthood age, they are very influenced by the world.  It was awesome; I watched conference with a Mtn Dew and a Baby Ruth candy bar.  The guy that you sent the package to brought us to Cádiz and gave us Jerky, Doritos and a can of mtn dew!  So good!!  So that pretty much sums up the week! I typed that really fast and I am tired!  I love you all!

Love to you all,

Elder Code Man

September 26, 2011 - Email to Family

¡Hola amada familia mía! (Hello my beloved family, I am trying really hard to speak like a prophet in Spanish)

So this week was CRAZY busy.  We worked super hard!

This is Elder Anderson and Elder Valasco leaving, they were in my district.  Good Missionaries Valasco is from Bolivia and Anderson from South Jordan Utah

So first off I finally got the package, it was perfect thank you so much I love it! One thing DON¨T PUT SPAIN UNDER THE ADDRESS TO THAT GUY!  My companion gets sent packages bigger than that for 12 bucks!  You SPENT 45!!!  Thank you parents I love you!  I have decided since you don´t go down into the basement I will just re-do all of it and live down there so you won’t be alone anymore and I can do all the yard work and lift stuff for ya´ll.  So other good news is little Elder Rodriguez (from San Antonio) got moved into my district so I get to see him tomorrow at district meeting.  He will probably take over this area next transfer and I will stay here in El Puerto for 2 more transfers at least (I think) so we will be seeing a lot of each other for awhile!  I am excited! 

The president of the branch´s wife asked us to go into the attic to grab something for her and we found this little guy, that would be a dead bird

So this week we set 6 baptismal dates!!  We had a big week the Lord extremely blessed us.  We had Zone Conference last week and they told us to challenge EVERYONE to baptism.  We did so this last week.  So we have:

1. Jorge Oct 8th

2. Betty Oct 15th

3. Henry and Paloma Oct 15th (They are a couple)

4. Erika Oct 22th

5. Angeles Oct 22th

6. Juan 29th

7. Jose 29th

So these people are the people who we are teaching right now.  We didn´t talk to Alejandra this week we don´t know what´s up with her.  She has cancelled on us twice in a row.  So if she calls us we will talk and most likely tell her if she doesn´t want to change and actually do it, bye.  It´s super sad and that is one less soul not saved, yet.  I want to save them all right now!  I know she will LIVE this gospel one day in this life or the next, she has already accepted it.  So Jorge we had a really good week with him.  We taught him and he is reading and he said he wants to get baptized and then he came to a ward party and got to know the members.  He is a beast!  But then he didn´t show up to church.  I know he had to work late Saturday night until like 8 in the morning maybe.  We are going to take him to General Conference most likely.  But as of right now he isn´t answering his telephone.  Betty she is awesome, I love this girl.  I pray for her sooo much sometimes like 10 minutes straight for her.  I want her to not be scared anymore!  I studied for like an hour creating a lesson about fear, trust and faith.  How Fear is the opposite of faith.  I found a load of scriptures and wrote her a whole paper and all to teach her and give her.  We had to fight kinda hard to set the baptismal date.  We told her it´s just a goal to work for so we know what we are working for not just here to chat and talk about the Bible and stuff.  She loves to read and study when she has time, she works a lot and lives alone and all of her family lives in Bolivia and they are going through tough times there.  So she is a little stressed out and she worries about everything.  I have studied a lot so I can usually answer her questions.  I am about to read the New Testament to help me understand the Bible and Christ`s life.  So pray for her to calm down and receive an answer that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  Henry and Paloma are new.  They are interesting and very receptive.  They are strange and well not very educated.  Henry is 50 and Paloma is 20.  That kinda creaped me out because I am practically 20,  that is me marrying my mother.  But they are super nice and accepted the baptismal invite if by then they know that this church is true.  Henry is from Colombia and Paloma is Spanish.  Angeles is a Gitana (Gypsy) or just Spanish, her husband is a member and she didn´t know that she needed to be baptized to live with God.  She said yes to the invite and we are going to work hard with her.  Juan said he will quit smoking by the 8th of October.  He came to church yesterday and had to leave twice to smoke.  Yesterday he smoked 20 cigs!!  That is bad but he said he was super nervous for some reason.  Jose still has a date but it is hard to meet with him and he is scared about keeping the covenants of baptism after he is baptized.  He still doesn´t know the truthfulness of this message.  He is really scared to about baptism.  Oh Erika is new we got her at the ward party we had.  The members bring a lot of friends then we look around like vultures and contact them, it´s awesome.  She is from Colombia and we taught her the Restoration and it was super good.  She isn´t married though so we cannot baptize her and she is kinda super Catholic.  We are gonna get them married though!  So that was the week!  We did work and I did a lot of contacting.  I got like 11 futures with the numbers of people on the street by myself.  I am getting good at weaseling people into listening.  But the thing is that people give you fake numbers a lot.  Oh well!  The chosen people won’t lie!  We have been blessed with a lot of work and we are working hard.  Oh yeah a helicopter crashed kinda close to our home last week but a forgot to tell you all that!!  That was pretty cool we got to see it!  So that is all and I love you guys soo much!  The package was awesome.  Tell Bry and the Altamirano’s that I got their letters and thanks you so much, oh Derek Preece too!  Tell them thank you!!! 

Oh Jude do my shoes have a warranty on them????  Because the Johnston Murphy’s I have wore holes on the inside of the back of the heals and they are starting to give me blisters, I forgot to take pictures I will get them to you next week. Thanks let me know if we need to send them or something.