Boy oh Boy!

Well this last week was pretty fantastic!  We met with the Sardars every day this week and they are doing wonderful!!  All of them are going to be baptized, but probably at different times haha.  The daughter, Chuzi, is getting baptized this Saturday, January 31!!  And the mom and dad are probably going to be baptized either Feb 7 or Feb 14.  So that's awesome!

Our other investigators are doing great as well!  We currently have 11 on date to be baptized.  The ones coming up the soonest are David Toral: Feb 7, and Kimberly Galvez: Feb 14.  It's awesome! 

I got to go on exchanges with Elder Miller this week.  He is a super cool guy. He's from Utah, go figure, and he serves in one of the spanish wards here in my zone.  It was funny because so far on his mission, he's never been subject to a language barrier.  Since he speaks fluent spanish, he can pretty much always talk to everyone.  But when we got to the Sardars and we were speaking Urdu, he had no idea what was going on haha.  I'm actually starting to get pretty good.  I can speak quite a bit now. It was cool too because we got a referral the other day for a man named Masih, who requested an Urdu Book of Mormon.  So Elder Miller and I went to deliver the book, and he was outside, and so I got to speak to him in Urdu for a minute, and Masih was blown away haha.  I think the last think he expected was to see two white guys jump out of a truck and greet him in his own language.  It was so fun! 

Well, that's kind of all I have to report.  Stay tuned next week for pictures of the baptism!  As well as Transfer info!  This could potentially be my last week in Colton!  That would be sad. Especially with all the baptisms coming up.  But, the Lord knows best.  Have a great week! Love you!

Love, Elder Wise

Hey Hey Hey

Well this week was pretty good.  Let's see.  Well, the Sardar's are doing great!  There was a baptism this week that they were able to go and watch, sadly it was in Spanish and they didn't understand a word, but they enjoyed it.  There are some English ones this week though that they will be able to go to.  After the baptism, the member who drove them, took them to Redlands to see the Temple.  And it has made a huge difference!!  Especially with Gloria (the mom) and Chuzi (her real name is Palwasha - and she's the daughter).  Up until now they have wanted to be baptized, but they wanted to wait awhile.  But now they are a lot more on board and we are shooting for Jan 31.  We have a lesson with them tonight and we will hopefully set that date with them.  Lazarus will still wait a bit because he is still trying to give up drinking tea.  They are the best though.  I love that family so much!  And the best part is that two of the kids will be going to the U in August!  So we will get to hang out after the mission.

All of our other investigators are doing pretty well.  Although we haven't seen Sister Armstrong in like 3 weeks.  She has vanished off the face of the earth.  I miss that lady!  The main struggle we have is getting people to come to church.  They commit to come, we make sure to remind them and get everything set up for them, and then they don't show up.  It's very frustrating.  But, we will get them this week for sure.  

And we got to go to the Temple on Wednesday which was awesome!  It was great to go back finally.  I probably won't get to go again until right before I leave, for my departing temple trip.  It'll be nice to be back in Utah where I can go whenever I want to haha.  

Since yesterday was a holiday we had lot's of free time since we didn't have to email or anything, so we went over to the Sardars and played Apples to Apples with them.  It was a good time!  

Lazarus, Chuzi, and Logan

Do you remember a long time ago how I used to complain about my back hurting while I slept?  It's been that way for a looooong time.  Well, I think it's fixed now.  Let me tell you why.  Nearly two years ago, when Elder Seright was being trained, he baptized a man named Jesse Tung, who is from Taiwan.  Jesse is an acupuncturist.  He's had his practice going for many years and he's helped lot's of missionaries the last couple of years since he got baptized.  Well I met him on exchanges several weeks ago and somehow it came up that my back hurt, and he offered to help.  So that's what we did yesterday.  It turns out that the muscles in my back are just super tight all the time.  So he did his thing and stuck me full of needles and such.  It was great!  He also does cupping, which he also did for me!  Remember that lady in our group in China?  How she had big purple spots all over her back?  Now I have spots too haha!  I'll send a picture.  It was marvelous though. I slept really well last night.  

Well, I think that about covers it for the week!  I'm sorry to hear you guys were sick!  That is no fun.  I've been feeling a little under the weather myself.  

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

Oh boy.

Well, another week has come and gone.  It was a pretty good one!  I had to do Zone Meeting on Tuesday and it actually went really well!  I was slightly nervous because I was all by myself, but it was good.  There was lot's of good participation from the Zone.

I also got to go on exchanges this week with a guy named Elder Hunter!  He is a lot of fun!  He plays college football and when he gets home he'll be playing for Utah State.  He's huge.  It was really fun to get to go with him though cause a long long time ago (when I was in Palm Desert) he was there too! And I had gotten to go on exchanges with his companion, but not him.  But now I got to!  So it was good fun. 

The rest of the week was pretty good.  We taught quite a few lessons and even picked up a new investigator named Miguel.  He seems super solid too!  His mom and brother are LDS so he knew about the church already.  Hopefully we will be able to start teaching his wife too!  It's going to be great.  The Sardars are doing really well.  They are making good progress toward baptism.  So are the Shads.  The last couple weeks we haven't been able to see Sister Armstrong because she has been sick and out of town, but she's back now so hopefully she will be able to start progressing again.  David is doing well also, but his life is pretty crazy and we have a hard time meeting with him sometimes.  And Jesus, Maria, and Angie are doing really well, but we weren't able at meet with them yesterday because they were so busy.  So hopefully we will see them soon!

Alright, this paragraph is going to be a little trunky.  Since I'm going to have to be coming home a little early for school, I talked to President about it and he has it worked out now.  So that means I now officially have a going home date!  August 17, 2015.  It's so sad.  That's so soon haha.  But it had to happen I guess.  It'll be a few more months until the office starts arranging things for flights and stuff (probably the end of May), but there you go.  Crazy! Just a mere 7 months away.  

Ok, off of Trunky stuff.  This week is pretty exciting!  We get to go to the Temple on Wednesday!!  It's going to be awesome!  I haven't gone in an entire year.  Waaaaay too long.  Although, as President says "We are here to do the work for the Living, not for the Dead."  So that's ok.  But it's going to be awesome! As a result of that however, our P-Day is shortened.  So today P-Day ends at 3 instead of the normal 6.  Which is cool.  

Anyways, I think that's about everything for this week.  I'm sorry to hear that everyone has been sick though!  That's no fun.  

Momentum opened in Lehi?!  I knew they were planning on doing that, but I didn't know it was already done!  That's awesome!!  I definitely want to go there when I get home!! That will be legit! There are going to be a lot of things I need to do when I get home haha.  I don't think I'll be able to cram them all in to just the one week before school starts though haha.  

Nels gave us his old phones huh?  That's so nice of him! He's the best! Thanks Nelsie!  It's an iPhone 5?  Sweet! 

Haha that's good to hear that the lake will be nice and full in Montana!  I can't believe they got so much snow!  That's awesome!  

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

Love, Elder Wise

Only 5 left...

So I got to thinking the other day, and guess what I realized?  I only have 5 transfers left!  That just blows my mind.  The last 16 months (as of yesterday) have just flown by!!  It's crazy!

Anyways though. This week was pretty good!  We didn't teach as many lessons as we usually do, but the ones that we did teach were bomb.  But I'll come back to that in a minute.  

The week started off with District Meeting on Tuesday.  Which isn't normally worth mentioning but in this instance, it affected the rest of the week.  We had a great training on inviting people to be baptized and putting them on date.  So we took that and rolled with it.  Now we have 9 investigators on date!  And several more coming up next week.  So that's awesome!  The investigators on date are: Sis Armstrong, David Toral, Jesus, Maria, Angie, Iffat and John Shad, and Luke Sardar, and Lazarus Sardar!  All on date for days in February.  So hopefully I get to stay one more transfer!!  If everything goes according to plan, we will be baptizing every Saturday in February.  It's going to be awesome! Coming up this week we will hopefully be able to put a few more.  Such as Kimberly and Janice Galvez, and Gloria and Palwasha Sardar.  So pray for all of them!  Thanks! 

Miracles happen.  We taught the Word of Wisdom to a few of our investigators the other day, and we were pretty nervous about what they were going to say.  But our preparation and prayers paid off and they totally accepted it and agreed with the principles.  It will probably take a little bit more to help them to actually live it, but this was a huge step.  So we are grateful for that.  

Sadly, our new investigators from last week decided to drop us.  They want to stay with their family tradition of Catholic.  We will still be able to swing by occasionally but for now, they aren't interested.  Sad day.  But not to worry! We will find others I'm sure.

Being a solo ZL is a fun time.  Whenever I have leadership meetings I just leave him with some other elders and I go with some other Zone Leaders.  And we never go on splits with members really anyway, so that's not too much of a problem.  And when we exchange with other missionaries, he just goes to their area since he doesn't know ours too well yet haha.  

I'm glad to hear that you all made it home from Mississippi alright!  With only a little drama haha.  

I'm super jealous of the Keb Mo concert though!! That sounds awesome!!  Too bad he didn't sing my song.  

Well, I hope you have a great week!! Thanks for all your prayers and help!  Love you all!  

Love, Elder Wise