November 21, 2011 - Email to Family

 Hey my beloved family.

This last week went rather fast!  I cannot believe that it´s Thanksgiving again!  That was a really fast year that just took place!  I cannot believe it, literally the time is flying by so fast.  We had a really good week and we found 3 new people to teach!  That is pretty good right?

Well about that whole staph infection deal.  To start it off it´s like a boil under the skin and they hurt really bad.  I punctured it and drained it out for like 4 days straight and got my hands on some antibiotics.  That was really hard to do, and I still have one on my neck.  So that leads me to a question.  Can you send me an emergency package of antibiotics??  With the package, if you love me send a CD of Mannheim Steamroller and Josh Grobans Christmas CD.  Haha it´s Christmas and I don´t have a lot of music.  It´s the only thing we can do as missionaries is music!  We have a Mannheim Steamroller CD so you can burn that if you want!  Thanks mother, sorry I feel like I am always asking for stuff!!!  I hate it but the antibiotics I need to fight it all off! 

Okay so this week was really fun.  We had Zone Conference, which was sooo much fun.  I like our Zone and all the missionaries in it.  The lesson Pres Clegg gave was amazing and Sister Clegg´s was amazing.  They are truly inspired people called by God to lead us.  They are awesome and they spoil the missionaries!  We found 3 new people to teach this week.  The first one is named Pepi.  She is super old and has been meeting with the missionaries for 14 years.  She is a nice lady and hasn´t seen the missionaries for like a year.  She asks us to come over and to visit her because she lives alone and likes the company.  She fell once and broke her hip and 3 days later her neighbor found her and saved her.  She is a beast, she laid there for 3 days with out food and couldn´t moved at all.  She is like 70 something years old.  The second is Moises, he is a younger guy that is 32 years old from Spain.  He is a good guy and believes everything we have told him, but I am pretty sure he is a drug addict.  I am positive I saw Marijuana buds all over his table, so we will see he has only been taught once.  The other is a lady from Bolivia named Sonia.  We contacted her a long time ago and finally passed by and got a lesson with her.  So we are going to try super hard with her.  I think we are going to see really good progress with her.  She just needs to read the Book of Mormon I think and really pray with her heart.  We have only taught her once too because she is new.  I dropped Juan yesterday morning because he wouldn´t come to church; so I am done and fed up with him.  We have tried so hard with him and prayed a lot but he just won't progress or grow up.  Claudia, she is done, Henry and Paloma, they are done too, oh and I talked to Betty and she said there is too many serious bad things happening in her life right now and she can´t listen to us.  I tried my hardest to bear my testimony over the phone to her.  She won't even meet with us to give her Beach Boy Cd's back.  haha she gave us her Cd's to listen to but of course we didn´t listen to them.  She wanted us to translate two songs for her so she could understand what they are singing about.  Haha so we just looked it up on the Internet and printed them out.  Well Adrian the little 10 year old is awesome.  We taught him yesterday after church and that was a lot of fun. 

This week we are having a combined district meeting, well our whole zone this Thursday and having Thanksgiving.  We were going to have another Thanksgiving with the guy that we can send packages through but he is going to Portugal this week.  So oh well.  I think another American is inviting us over still.  I don´t really care, it doesn´t feel like the Holidays.  Well I think I answered all of your questions!  I love you all so much!  Thanks for all you do for me and you are amazing!  Have a good Thanksgiving! 

CODY

November 14, 2011 - Email to Family

Hey family that I love!

 

Well this was a good week and very different.  It is really weird not teaching as many lessons as I used to.  This area is very different and hard!  I like it a lot.  El Puerto is a great little city and the people are super nice, however with that comes lazy and kick back attitude.  So with that we are possibly dropping 4 people that we are teaching.  The first is Claudia.  She cancelled on us like 4 times so I am done wasting the small time we have on her.  I know that my efforts aren´t wasted, but when they are ruining time we could use to find new people and search for the people more prepared, that isn´t cool!  So Claudia is most likely dropped.  Henry and Paloma, they won't come to church and he didn´t answer my last two phone calls, so they aren´t going in any direction of improving.  We are going to have a lesson with them to see what´s up and ask if they are here to learn and progress or do they think we are jokes and wasting our time with them.  The last is Juan.  He is a sweet guy and we really don´t want to drop him, but he has had 5 months to drop smoking and still isn´t trying very hard at all to drop it.  We had a really good lesson with him, but he is taking away time from us.  We did a really good job in the street this last week, and my contacting has improved a lot, I can talk a lot better with people.   My Spanish has jumped a lot.  Yesterday I had to translate the young women's class into English for a girl while the teacher was speaking in Spanish.  That was fun and I surprised myself in how well it went.  I knew everything that she was teaching.  I love listening to the lady speak, she is from Madrid and there they speak the PURE clean Spanish.  She is the Presidents wife here in the branch and she is beautiful.  She is a super nice lady and a BOMB missionary because she helped get Petri in the water.  So this week we were in the streets a lot.  I am helping Elder Brown out a lot with the Spanish.  I love serving with him, he is funny and I love the kid to death.  He asks me to correct him, which is weird, just 5 months ago Elder Shaver was the one correcting me.  Elder Brown is a good kid and has a more happy and positive spirit about him.  I have really enjoyed the time with him.  We are staying in the apartment we are at.  The health Elders came and checked our piso and walked through it with the landlord.  Which was nice because they're adults. So they tell the landlord this has to be fixed.  Hopefully we are getting better beds and that will be fixed.  It has been raining a lot more here, it was pouring on the way to come email you all right now!  While the health Elders were here he had the opportunity to check out my staff infection that I had failed to tell you about mother.  I figured that I would wait to tell you when it had gone away.  So it´s all good, I was in pain for about two weeks and I couldn´t even sleep on my back because it was on my tail bone.  But hey the good news is that it´s gone!  I also got it on my neck but it´s going away too, well gone almost.  So I may be making some purchases soon for Christmas, so don´t get all upset!  I have been trying really hard to not spend money and buy things I don´t need.  The reason the American base didn´t charge me is because I took out American money, not EUROS.  So for Christmas, I guess I have a couple of things I can think of that would be nice! 

My list to SANTA:
1. The Prophet of the Restoration (you know the cool one they played up at the Joseph Smith building)
2.  Exercise Band things, one that has the medium Resistance.
3. Okay this is the big one, IF you haven´t come up with something else because I don´t really need anything.  Okay so there are these bigger electronic dictionaries that conjugate the words and have a lot of words.  The little one you sent me doesn´t have hardly any words! Sorry but they don´t have them, or they are words that they use in Mexico and no body here understands them.  There are some that are pretty pricey, but that is what I would like for Christmas.  Look for the one that has the most words, I heard amazon has the best ones for cheaper, maybe.  They said that you should send all the packages before the the beginning of Dec 7th or we won't get them.  SEND THEM TO THE BASE.  You can send me 2 HUGE flat rate boxes for 12 bucks.  DO NOT PUT SPAIN at the bottom.  Tell them that you are sending them to military. 
4. Peanut butter.  Like a big jar or crunchy and creamy
5. Deodorant
6. Ties
7. YOUR LOVE. (CANDY)(MTN DEW)

 

Love you all,

Elder Code

November 7, 2011 - Email to Family

How is my lovely family?

Well I am doing really good.  I love my new comp he is super funny and  a clean freak.  Which is nice Elder Banbury was a slob and Elder Shaver never picked up his socks and that made me soo mad.  Elder Spencer JM Brown.  He is from South Jordan Utah.  We represent UTAH.  He says to look him up on facebook, he is a nerd.

Well this week was different.  I really don´t want to talk about investigators because I really feel all of them are not progressing.  We have Adrian, who is 10 years old and he will be baptized in December.  I have been teaching him for a long time and his grandpa is going to come and baptize him.  He has to be taught by us and be interviewed by another missionary.  He is funny and a good kid.  He is Spanish and Swiss.  His mother is from Switzerland.  But we don´t get to teach him that often.  Henry and Paloma are not coming to church and I fear never will.  They have told me at least 7 times they will come and never do.  I have tried everything.  Same with Claudia we even went to her home and she wouldn´t answer the door.  So I am done with those three.  If they don´t come to church they cannot be baptized.  So really I don´t know what more to say about investigators.  Sorry.   All I know that it is time to start finding new ones to teach.  I am not going to be doing it alone or on my own strength or the strength of my companion.  We are going to search with the power of Christ because that is the only way we are going to find people.  I am annoyed with our land lord guy.  I have to deal with problems in the house because our piso SUCKS.  Well, I have to do it all in Spanish and some of the Spanish people are can be prideful, so, we may just end up moving!  That would be nice I have been sleeping on a crappy couch for four months now because we own 3 beds and 2 of them are broken.  Well it sounds like you and dad are doing good!  That is fun to hear that you all are going to go snow shoeing and loose weight.  Dad told me to make sure that you are loosing weight every email haha. 

So this is weird I am all alone to take over El Puerto.  This is the first time that I have had to do this.  It is different and I want to find new people to teach because the others clearly don´t want to change, yet.  So we are going to find people that are already prepared.  It is weird I have to speak a lot and I feel like my Spanish has jumped in a more comfortable way, like I can understand people more.  I still need to increase my vocab.  I am helping Elder Brown out with the Spanish.  He is really hard on himself.  It is weird to be the one correcting someone.  Elder Shaver corrected me so much.  He was super hard on me.  But it payed off and I love him for it now.  Elder Shaver was an amazing trainer, I love the kid. 

So Petri, I ended up giving her the Holy Ghost.  I tried really hard to put in Elder Browns name and the Branch President but she wanted me to do it.  I thought it would be a good experience for him to do it.  But yeah she is all done now and super happy.  They laddies in the ward are taking super good care of her.  Well that is about all this week.  I am about to upload some photos.  The shortest kid that is brown and not Elder Rodriguez is Elder Basurto.  He was my district leader and he left to Cáceres!!!!!!  He is going to tear that place apart.  Elder Basurto is CRAZY.  In a good way.  Well I love you all!  Thanks for all you do.
hahahahahahahaaaa DUSTY!  SO FUNNY, LOVED THE PIC.  Good for him.

Love, Elder Cody

October 31, 2011 - Email to Family

Petri's Baptism - October 30, 2011

Hey, so I am here on American soil, well not really because Spain owns it, but I am on the American base right now!!!!

So, this morning I played Racket Ball and basket ball (on an American hoop) and ate some Taco Bell!  Now I am emailing for free, which is awesome!  A guy from the ward has been taking us around the base, it's awesome.  I also got a Mtn Dew!  So yeah I have been getting spoiled today.  It is a Holiday I love Halloween. 

So the NEWS!  I am staying here in El Puerto and I am getting a new companion named Elder Brown.  He is 6'7" and played basket ball at UVU.  He has like 3 months less than me in the mission, so I am senior companion again.  I have heard he doesn't speak too good yet, I am ready to help him out.  I am looking forward to that because El Puerto is my city now and I get to kinda direct the work.  I have a lot of good ideas and ways I want to do the work here.  Hopefully we will be getting some new investigators because the ones we have need to start doing stuff or I will be dropping them.  

Petri, Alona and her daughter

Petri got dunked last night and I still did the baptism!  I baptized someone for the first time in my life.  That was really cool, I loved it!  It was a super cool spiritual experience.  I felt really good and scared all at the same time.  This is super weird hearing a lot of English, I have forgotten how to speak to people in English, well I have forgotten how to greet people.  Well Petri was super happy and she still doesn't have the Holy Ghost we will see who gives it to her on Sunday, maybe I will have to do it too.  The baptism was really small, she didn't want a lot of people there.  But it was small and simple and a really amazing feeling.  I felt really good and the old Spanish ladies in the ward do a really good job at welcoming her in the ward.  We found Petri through this lady named Alona, she is from Russia.  Alona  is awesome, she is going through a divorce right now and she has the cutest kids alive.  Her husband doesn't want anything to do with the church.  So the picture of the baptism with the lady and her cute daughter is Alona.  So the baptism was just awesome.  I didn't have to re do it.  The prayer I did twice because the first time I forgot to say her name.  So investigators this week we did okay.  There is no one new.  We did teach Henry and Paloma finally again and set new dates with them to get baptized, it is to make them work and do commitments.  They don't do anything for example yesterday morning I called Henry and they said they would go to church and they didn't show up.  They don't read or really pray to know if these things are true.  They don't take us seriously.  We need a member in there to slap them around a little.  Claudia is doing good, but she cancelled on us 2 times in a row I  was rather upset.  So I am almost out of time, sorry this is kinda short but I have pictures!!!  So this past week the Spanish garbage is on strike and all of the streets are packed full of trash, it smells soooooo bad.  It is gross.  

 

I cannot believe that Jerame did that to his knee again.  I feel horrible.  I hate that sooooo bad.  I am not going to play sports like that to blow out my knee again.  Well I am in love with soccer so I am going to play that still.  I want to focus on triathlons.  I am glad that dad likes his new bike, it looks siiiick.  I am excited to ride it, but not train on it haha!  Well I am doing super good and the time is flying by super fast.  Thanks for the video!  haha the dogs were super funny I liked that email a lot.  I love you all and you're in my prayers!

CODY

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