Monday, December 29, 2014

Happy New Year!

Well we had a pretty great week!  It was so great to be able to talk to you guys!!  And being able to see all the cousins and stuff for a minute was a great time!!

So this week was pretty crazy.  Let's see...well first off, all of our investigators are doing really well!  Although we are going to be pushing Sister Armstrong's baptism back a couple weeks.  Probably to January 17.  We just need a bit more time to make sure she has it all down.  She's doing really well though! 

On Christmas Eve we had a great lesson with a guy named Jose.  We just talked to him on the street one day and he invited us over to share a Christmas Message.  So we went and did that and at the end he asked us for a Book of Mormon and wanted us to come back and teach him more!  So that was super cool! He's awesome.  And then we did some service for Brother Alvarado.  The Wright family fed us dinner and it was delicious!  The rest of Christmas Eve was pretty much spent playing santa.  We delivered some Christmas presents to some people in the ward, and then we had to deliver all the Christmas packages to the rest of the Zone.  It took pretty much all night.  

On Christmas we did our weekly planning, and then we skyped of course!  And then we had dinner at a members house, and then we spent most of the day delivering Christmas Cards to our investigators.  We didn't really teach very many lessons, but we were able to see a lot of people and wish them Merry Christmas.  And we had a really good lesson with Sis Armstrong and David. We went over the baptismal interview questions with them.  They are both really close to being baptized!  It's awesome! 

And we had exchanges with the AP's the next day which went really well!  I really love Elder Darro.  He is such a cool guy.  We are good friends haha. Pretty much all our appointments fell through, but we did have one really solid lesson with the Sardar's.  They are so amazing!  Even though they don't understand everything fully yet, we can tell they are just so converted.  It's awesome.  Elder Darro and I also went to our favorite restaurant (P&G's) and the owner Pete (who loves us) gave us some hats for Christmas!  I'll send a pic haha. 

On Saturday we had a mission wide conference.  Elder Higham of the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy came and spoke to us!  It was so awesome!!  I learned a TON and I've already seen a big difference as we have applied the principles we learned.  He spoke mostly about prayer, and helping our investigators pray.  And President Miskin and President Madson (the counselors in the mission presidency) spoke a lot about Christ.  How he was the perfect teacher and we dissected all the prayers that Jesus gave in the scriptures.  It was great! 

And that night a member of the Bloomington ward took us to meet some of their friends and we had a great lesson with them!  So now they are our new investigators as well!  

So as you can see, we just had a great week.  Christmas time is awesome! 

Sounds like you had a great week too!  I saw a preview of Unbroken at a restaurant and it looks amazing!  I really want to see that one.  I loved the book! I'm glad you've all had a good time in Mississippi though!  I love that place haha.  

Well, I hope you all have a great week!!  Happy New Year!! Love you all!!

Love, Elder Wise

The Crew at P&Gs

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Ocha Heh (It's Good!)

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be fluent in Urdu by the time I leave this place.  Hopefully anyway!  It's such a fun language!

Anyways, this week was chaos.  After finding out that Elder Webb was leaving last Monday, pretty much the whole day was spent packing up all his stuff.  Then Tuesday was spent saying goodbye to a lot of people.  We had some good solid lessons though before Webb left.  Everyone was very sad.  Then came Wednesday.  In the morning we drove around and picked up a bunch of Elders and all their stuff.  This was made difficult because it was pouring rain!  Everyone's stuff in the back of the truck was pretty soaked.  But hey, it turned out alright.  Then we spent the next several hours in a training meeting.  Where I met my new companion.  His name is Elder Cook!  He is from good ole American Fork Utah.  Although he didn't go to AF High School.  He went to Lehi.  So he doesn't know anyone I know.  Lame! He's cool though.  He's had quite a week.  Waaaay different then my first week in the mission haha.  My first week we had no phone, no area book, no investigators, nothing.  

Wednesday afternoon was spent driving other missionaries around and picking up bikes for them and such.  The joys of being a ZL haha.  

Then we get to Thursday.  A large part of the day was spent doing service!  We worked at the food pantry again, and then we went and helped my favorite old man.  Brother Alvarado.  He's the best.  That night we had a great lesson with Sister Armstrong.  And guess who else was there!?  David!  Carlos' brother!  He's back!  We taught them both the Word of Wisdom (that's what they both struggle with)  And it was great!  David is on date again for February 21, and we were able to find out some things about Sister Armstrong that totally change everything!  She is going to be baptized on Jan 3rd!  The main thing that was holding her back is no longer an issue!  I just about cried cause I was so happy.  It was legit! 

We pretty much spent all day on Friday delivering packages to the missionaries in the zone.  And bikes too.  In my zone we have 27 missionaries, and they almost all had christmas packages that needed to be delivered.  So we played Santa on friday.  It'll probably happen again today, because we had to make a trip to the mission office and we picked up a dozen more.  Fun stuff!  

Yesterday was pretty good.  We had several investigators at church, and we had a great lesson with our investigators Jesus, Maria, and Angie.  By the end of this week they will probably be on date to be baptized as well! So things are just coming together around here!  It's great! 

Sounds like everything is pretty crazy back home haha!  I'm glad you all made it to Mississippi alright!  It sounds like it was quite the ordeal haha.  Snowbird sounds awesome though!  I am really jealous.  

I'm super excited to skype on Thursday!  We will be going over to the members house at noon, our time.  So that's probably like what, 3 for you guys?  I will probably call dads cell first, to let you know I'm on.  And then we will only have 45 minutes to talk.  :(  So have some stuff ready to talk about haha! 

I got all the packages!  The candy is delicious!!  And the new pants came and they fit beautifully!  As long as I don't gain any more weight, we will be great!  And I've gotten a lot of the cards, but I am definitely missing a few of them haha.  I'm sure they will trickle in eventually.  

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!!  I can't wait to talk to you!  Love you all!

Love, Elder Wise

We played soccer last P-day.  I am so outta shape!

We took one last selfie with Sis Jones (curly hair) and Elder Webb before they left us.  Luckily Sis Anderson is still here.

Elder Webb and Julian.  So adorable.

Last selfie with Elder Webb and our cuties from Thanksgiving.  Can't believe they've lasted so long.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Baradin Mubarak!

So, we've been taking Urdu lessons from the Sardars, and Baradin Mubarak means Merry Christmas!! Well, when directly translated it means happy big day, but that's what they say! It's crazy that Christmas is next week!  I'm pretty stoked.

Alright.  The big news.  We found out about transfers today.  Elder Webb is outta here!  I'm staying in Colton for another Transfer!! It's crazy! I have been here so long.  Elder Webb is being transferred to Redlands, and his new companion is Elder Raff!!  I'm so jealous!!  I miss that guy.  You are probably wondering who my new companion is.  Well I don't know.  I'm going to be training a new missionary!  So I won't find out who he is until Wednesday.  And to make it more exciting I'm the only zone leader now.  So this next transfer is going to be very exciting! 

As far as the zone goes, there were quite a few changes.  One of the sisters serving in the Colton ward with me, Sister Jones, is going out to the desert, and a few of the other missionaries are leaving as well.  It's kinda crazy, because now, all the missionaries who came to this zone two transfers after I did, have now left.  Jones was the last one.  I'm just out-lasting everyone haha.  

This week was pretty good.  We went on exchanges with some elders.  Elder Hunter and Elder Andrew.  I like them a lot.  I got to go on bike with Elder Andrew and we had a real good time.  We also weekly planned with some of the other elders which went really well. 

All of our investigators are doing pretty good as well.  Although we are struggling to put them all on date.  It's coming along though.  Lazarus is the only on on date currently.  He is so awesome!  

Well, sounds like everything is going well at home.  That's crazy that Nick is leaving already!  I can't believe he couldn't tie a tie haha.  

I'm glad Sadie had fun at the Dance!  That's awesome! 

Kelsey is getting home?!  That's crazy too haha!  Time flies haha 

GG has a time share at Snow Bird??  How is it that I am just finding out about this!?!?  That's awesome! 

I haven't gotten some of the stuff you've sent.  I did get both of the big packages.  They are withholding mail because of transfers.  But I'll be able to pick it all up on Wednesday.  

Well, I hope you all have a great week!! Love you all! 

Love, Elder Wise

P.S.  Jahwil Mazidar hah ------> This rice is delicious!!

Monday, December 8, 2014

Miracles Do Happen!

Well, this week was pretty darn good.  I have to say.  There's lot's of good news, but also some bad news.  Bad news first?  Yes.  Brother Angel crashed again.  Not sure how soon it'll be until we see him again.  He kinda told us not to come by unless he calls us first.  Sad day.

On to the good news!  Well, let's start with the miracle.  So, we are sitting there in church, waiting for sacrament meeting to start, when we notice a guy sitting on the back row.  Never seen him before, and he didn't look like a member.  So,, obviously, we went and talked to him.  His name is Jeremy.  And his girlfriends name is Candace.  Haha jk #PhineasandFerb.  Anyways,  Jeremy ended up staying all three hours and we found out some interesting things.  1)  He used to be Christian, until about 3 or so years ago when he decided God didn't exist, so he's been Atheist the last couple years.  But recently he's had some experiences in his life that have changed his mind.  2) He knows quite a bit about Mormons already, because he was learned it all so as to be better able to bash with missionaries.  and 3) He's awesome!  He seems really solid.  You could say he has "Real Intent".  So awesome!

The other miracle of the week happened yesterday as well.  We went to go see Jesus (I think I mentioned him a couple weeks ago) and we were able to pick up his wife and sister-in-law as new investigators!  So that was awesome.  

This week we had MLC too!  It was awesome.  We learned a lot.  The main focus was planning, and using How To Begin Teaching from PMG.  That was on tuesday, and then we had Zone Meeting on Thursday.  Which went really well.  Sister Van Cott came to the ZM too.  It seems as though every single zone meeting we have is attended by someone of higher authority haha.  Either President shows up, his wife, or the APs.  They must be worried about what I will teach the other missionaries haha.  

We also had exchanges this week with the AP's.  It was so fun!  I got to go with Elder Darro again and it was awesome.  He's a great guy.  

Well, it sounds like things are going well back home!  I can't wait to get some of that homemade candy haha!  So good! Glad everything is going well.  Hope you all have a fantastic week!  

Love, Elder Wise 

P.S.  The big box came today.  It's at the office.  We are probably going over there to pick it up.  It's going to be so hard not to open it! I'll do my best.  Thanks so much for everything!  Love you!

Monday, December 1, 2014

Woohoo!




Well this last week was pretty fantastic!!  So many fun things happened!  Let's see, well Thanksgiving was pretty fun!  We made a ton of hand turkeys that we gave to members in the ward, and made some other things for the members of the ward council.  They all loved it!  That was pretty much all we did all day was make and deliver cards to people.  And then we ate dinner.  It wasn't your traditional style thanksgiving dinner.  Which was kinda sad.  I missed my mashed potatoes and gravy.  But it was still really delicious!  We ate dinner at a mexican families house so we ate a mexican style dinner.  It was a sandwich with turkey, lettuce, some spicy mexican stuff, cucumbers, mayo, and I can't even remember it all.  It was a huge sandwich though.  I was stuffed!  And then a bunch of members gave us pies so that was awesome! It was a really good day.

These are the cuties we delivered to the ward council.

We also went on exchanges with some Elders in our zone so that was a good time!  It's fun to get out of the area sometimes and see some new faces. 

The biggest miracle of the week happened on Sunday.  We were just there, minding our own business, when all of a sudden, he appears.  We hadn't seen him in over a month and it was making us so sad.  It was Brother Angel!!!!!!! He was looking good too!  White shirt and tie with dress pants!  It was so awesome!  He told us that he's spent the last few weeks just shut up in his house reading anti-mormon material on the internet.  But he finally just decided that he didn't agree with it and that if he really wanted to learn what the mormons believed, he should just go to church.  So he woke up Sunday morning and went to both Bloomington and Colton ward sacrament meetings!  He is so awesome!!  It was so great to see how the Lord softened his heart and helped him to see through all the Anti stuff.  It was awesome.  We almost cried.  

The next biggest adventure happened this morning!  We got a call last night from Elder Bird and his comp Elder Nock and they had some spare seats in their member's car, and they invited us to take a trip to Palm Springs to ride on the Tram!!  President gave us permission to go!  It was so legit!  We left around 8 this morning, and got back about 45 minutes ago.  It was so fun!!  Fun fact:  The Palm Springs tram is the Tram that Mike Rowe worked on in an episode of Dirty Jobs.  Heck yeah!  Oh and another awesome thing that happened was this.  Do you remember my investigator Sherry that we were teaching when I was in the Park View Ward?  Well, she works at a restaurant at the top of the tram, and I totally saw her there!  It was so cool!  I guess she's moving to Utah in a couple weeks.  So we just barely caught her before she left!  That was super cool.  I took a ton of pics.  Close to a hundred I think.  Then on the way home from PS we stopped in Cabazon and walked around in this hugely massive outlet mall.  It was unreal.  We walked into a few stores, and then walked right back out after we saw the price tags haha.  They were some nice stores.  

The Tram

Elder Bird and I atop the mountain.
Palm Springs

So yeah, that's really all the super exciting things that have been going on.  It was a great time!  All our investigators are doing really well.  Missionary work is great!  

Well, as a result from our trip this morning, we are pretty rushed for time.  Sounds like you all had a great week!!  Hope this one is just as good!!  Love you all!

Love, Elder Wise