Thanksgiving!!

Woohoo!  Thanksgiving is coming up!  That's going to be bomb.  I'm excited.

This last week was pretty good!  Let's start with the B-Day.  Somehow everyone found out that it was my birthday and everyone wanted to feed me.  So we ended up eating like 5 or 6 meals that day.  I was so full.  It started in the morning.  I was craving some butterscotch rolls so I made those for breakfast, and then the Sisters brought a bunch of peanut butter bars to District Meeting to celebrate.  Then after that we went to lunch at P&G's which was delicious.  And then we had dinner with the Jones family, who made Burgers and Cake.  Delicious!  And then we went over to the Sardars that night, and they made us an entire dinner as well.  So I was super stuffed that day haha.  It was awesome though!  And I got the packages and letters!!  I love the new hoodie!  It's super comfy!  And I loved all the letters!  I got Lucie's haha.  Good ol Whoopy cushions!! I love it! 

This week we were finally able to volunteer for a service project off of JustServe.org.  There hasn't been a project in our area up to this point so we weren't able to do it, but now we have a few different ones!! On Thursday we volunteered at a Food Pantry and helped prep a bunch of food bags to be handed out to people in the community. It was pretty fun!  We are probably going to go back and help out again this Friday.  

Friday night was our ward's Thanksgiving party.  They had a big dinner and stuff.  The Sardars and the Shad's and Sister Armstrong all were able to make it and they had a great time!  It was really fun! 

The sad part of the week was that pretty much every set appointment we had fell through.  It was kind of a bummer.  We weren't able to do a whole lot of teaching this week.  But that's ok!  This week is looking like it's going to be awesome!  We are going to put the Sardars on date for January hopefully.  We kept trying to do it this week, but like I said, nothing was working out.  Sadly there aren't any baptisms set for Christmas time or anything.  But there should be quite a few in January!  And we have really been focusing on finding new investigators lately.  Which is turning out to be quite the challenge. But, we'll just keep trying I guess. 

Well, it sounds like things are going well back home!  I can't believe it's snowing and stuff haha!  That's so fun! Yeah it's been pretty chilly around here.  Around 70-75.  Brrrr.  haha 

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week!! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love, Elder Wise 

P.S.  The church is true

My new jacket!

And last night for dinner we had a frying party!  We just fried up everything and everything.  This is a plate of all the things we tried!  My new favorite thing to fry is Twinkies.  Hands down.  Soooo good!  The Poptarts were pretty bomb too.  haha

Colton:Take 7

And there goes week one of my 7th transfer in Colton.  It wasn't too bad!  Plus, it even cooled down which was really nice.  I think I even wore a jacket one day.  Which is sad.  I'm now one of those wimpy Californians who are freezing when it's like 70.  Utah is gonna be tough next year haha.

Let's see, well on Monday we picked up a new investigator.  Her name is Michelle Cash.  She lives in the same apartment complex as Carlos and Grace. That's pretty much just where all of our investigators come from.  Which works out cause then they have like half a dozen perfect fellowshippers.  It's great! She's really cool.  

We did have some baptisms scheduled for this last Saturday but they didn't quite happen.  In fact, Brother Angel (who was so golden it was ridiculous)  has pretty much vanished from off the face of the earth.  We don't know what happened really but he ignores us and won't answer the door even though we know he's in there.  It's really sad.  

Sister Armstrong is still doing well.  Although she's been kinda sick lately.  And she keeps going out of town for random reasons so that's no good.  She's been thinking and praying about a baptism date though.  So hopefully she will be baptized here in the next month or two.  

We had a zone conference this last week as well which was super awesome!!  We talked about two main things.  Conversion, and the Book of Mormon.  It was really really good.  I learned lots about the process of conversion, and how to ask inspired questions and answer them with the Book of Mormon.  Since it's the book of Mormon that really does all the conversion.  They tied together quite nicely.  

Church yesterday was pretty good.  Lazarus and Gloria were able to make it again, along with a couple other investigators.  My favorite part though was that my favorite little kid, Angel Pasillas (the one who was going to be baptized, but moved away right before), came back and went to church with us!! It was great to see him.  Plus, it's really cool cause it turns out that one of his best friends is Raul Santiago, who we baptized last month.  So they were hanging out and having a good time.  And Raul's big brother Angel was able to get the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday as well!  So next week he'll be passing the sacrament!  It's just so awesome! 

I did get the package you sent!  Don't worry, I haven't opened it yet.  Although I've been tempted.  I'm sure I'll love it! Thanks so much! 

Glad to hear everything is going well at home!  Sound freezing!  I'm kinda jealous and kinda not haha.  I do miss snow though.  

congrats on getting your drivers license Sadie!  That's sweet!  Just don't crash my car :)

Well, thanks for everything!!  Hope you have a fantastic week!! Love you all! 

Love, Elder Wise

Where Am I Going?

Well, here's the question...Am I getting transferred??  The answer is............No!!  I'm staying here in Colton for at least 5 more weeks!!  (This transfer is a week shorter, due to Christmas.  Next transfer will be a week longer.)  So yay!!  That's pretty exciting.  At this point I am hoping I'll stay for another transfer after this one, the reason being that if I do I'll have been here almost a whole year, and also, I'll get to see Carlos' and Grace's baby be born!!  That would be pretty cool.  Grace says the baby already recognizes my  voice haha. Every time we go over the baby starts kicking.  Fun stuff.

Well, this week has been pretty crazy!!  Some really cool things went down.  First off, the Galvez Family got baptized!!  It went really well.  Their confirmations yesterday went smoothly as well.  I'll send some pics.

Elder Wise, Elder Webb, Fabian, Silvia, Ashley, Richard, Elder Woolf

 

The other really fun part of the week was that I went on exchanges with Elder Seright again!  It was really fun.  But you won't believe this.  We went to the Asian Buffet for dinner, and I ate octopus.  Yup.  Aren't you proud of me?  It kinda reminded me of chicken heart.  But more rubbery.  It had no taste.  I'll send some pics of that too.  

We got a lot of investigators at church yesterday too!  Well, 5.  I've told you about the family from Kuwait we are teaching right?  Well a few of them were able to make it to church yesterday. It was total chaos though, for a number of reasons.  But, suffice to say, it all worked out.  So that was great! 

Oh, we got a new truck too!  The old one we were driving was getting old so they replaced it with a brand new 2015 Nissan Frontier!  It's soooooo nice!  I really enjoy it.  We switched them out at MLC on Thursday.  Which went really well!  Almost the entire meeting was focused on Finding new investigators.  It was really great! 

I got the package of goodness!!  Thanks so much!!  Everything arrived in great condition.  So yummy! Thanks! 

That's so fun that the Sisters were able to make it over!  Sounded like a great time!!  

Well, I'm about outta time today.  The library is crowded!  Have a great week!! 

Love, Elder Wise

What A Week

Well, this week turned out a lot differently than expected.  We had a lot of lessons planned and they pretty much all fell through haha.  On the bright side, we had quite a few people at church!  7 actually.  And 3 of them came for the first time!  Lazarus and his wife Gloria (the ones from Pakistan) were able to make it and I think they enjoyed it!  It's always kind of nerve wracking on Fast Sundays.  Their kids weren't able to come though cause they were working.  We will have to work on that one.

Good news!  The Galvez family passed their baptismal interviews yesterday! So we are getting everything ready for their baptism this Saturday!  It's going to be awesome.  It's crazy though, cause they are moving this week as well, luckily within our ward boundaries still, so we are getting everything worked out for that as well.  It's going to be a great week!  

Lazarus and his wife fed us dinner this week.  It was authentic Kuwaitian food.  It was pretty good!  Their daughter Choosy (that's her nickname.  Her real name is Paluasha which is too hard to say) made it and accidentally put waaaay to much chile's in it and it was pretty spicy.  It was still good though.  They are so nice! 

Halloween wasn't too exciting.  We just planned all evening.  No one even knocked on the door or anything.  So that was cool.  

Sad news.  Our neighbor Fadi moved.  Stay tuned for some pics though!  I'm gonna miss that guy.

I feel so small next to him.

His biceps are as big as my head.

Well, sounds like you all had a great week at home!  Haha I'm glad you all had a great halloween!  It sounded super fun! I love all the pics too!  Those pumpkins look awesome!! 

I can't wait for those pizza rolls!  Thanks so much mom! That'll be the highlight of the week for sure!

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week!!  I love you all! Missionary work is the best :)

Love, Elder Wise

Julian and Perseus.  It was a long day!

Elder Hayden goes home next week.  He's the AP, so he was able to meet us for lunch.