DREAMS DO COME TRUE IN NEW ORLEANS!!!!!!!

DREAMS DO COME TRUE IN NEW ORLEANS!!!!!!!

Well. I am happy. Very happy. I'll tell you why in a second.

WHAT!?!? Mother. I am planning on dating for a While before I get married. My rule is that I need to date my wife for at least a year before I marry her. So don't get too excited for any weddings soon. And stop spreading Rumors!!

I cannot believe that they won't defer that scholarship. I mean, honestly, I don't really care that much; but I worked my tail end off to get that scholarship. Actually, I just typed up a crummy essay about something I don't remember. But still. That's RIDICULOUS that they won't defer it. They hate Mormon Missionaries. I'm totally down for living with Skyler. I was just thinking of the other apartment because it would have been closer to UVU campus.

Good work Sophie!! And dang it Logan!!! 32 is a killer score. Can you ask to take the written one?? It would be a lot better because A) You can make your own written notes in the reading section. 2) You don't have to scroll up and down. D) You're not staring at a mind numbing screen. And Also) I hate technology and don't trust it. You should TOTALLY invite girls to watch movies with you in your hotel room. I did!! Worth It!! Make Mr. Bills think that all of us are rule-breakers.

I'll shoot Charlie an email. Don't worry. He'll be coming to Harry Potter World. ;)

SOOOOOOOO...before I boringly pass over the week. I'll give you the good stuff. So we got transfer calls last night and...

I'm staying in Chinguacousy!!!!

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BUT!!!!!
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I'M A ZONE LEADER!!!!!!

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And.

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MY NEW COMPANION IS ELDER BRETT BABBEL!!!!!!! Who's my best friend in the mission. So, the dream is coming true.

And most likely, we'll be here until the end of our missions. So we're pretty pumped. He ends three weeks after me. We're living with the APs in one of the only houses of the mission. "The Mansion" is what they call it. I'm SO excited.

Now let's think back to the week and see if there's anything actually exciting that happened this week. Haha. Just kidding, a lot of exciting things happened:

Monday we had a sweet P-Day at the Mansion. We went over and had a barbecue with the APs and the Zone Leaders. Very relaxing. We then bought a pizza and payed back one of our Returning Members who once bought us a pizza. It was very fun.

On Tuesday, we had an awesome English Class where 4 new students came. Elder Babbel and I taught, and then we gave a chapel tour to two of the students afterwards, who were pretty interested.

On Wednesday, we made cookies for a lot of people (members and investigators alike) and we got a new investigator through it. It was SO sweet!

Thursday. Yeah. That's all I got.

Friday. I made two cheesecakes for District Meeting and had my last District Meeting. It was really fun.

As you can tell. I don't have my planner on me to remind me what we did. And I have about two more minutes to email. :|

Saturday. We helped with English Classes. This time we only had 1 student. :( Later on, we had an awesome dinner with Romeo (our Investigator) and some members. They invited us and him over for dinner and we had a great time. 

Sunday. We had a wonderful Sabbath Day, followed by a wonderful dinner with our investigator Sofia. We invited her to be baptized on Mother's Day and she said she'll work towards that date!! We're pretty excited. We later went with our Ward Mission Leader to visit the Mexican Immigrants, then we got transfer calls. It was all pretty exciting.

Well. I'm out of time. But Life is Good. And short. So enjoy it. I love you all and hope you have a great week. Chao!!

HAPPY EASTER MONDAY!!!

HAPPY EASTER MONDAY!!!

Yes. I am excited to start college.

Where is the location of the housing for the honors scholarship?? And how much rent would I pay if I was living with Skyler ?? I just want to have all the facts before I make a decision. I just want somewhere that's in a good location, cheaper, and where I can be happy. Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me who I live with, as long as I have my personal space.

So this week was pretty great/different.

Monday, we went to our Bishop's house and practiced, with his wife, for a musical number we performed yesterday.

Tuesday, Romeo finally let us help him help with his house. So we painted primer on his walls while we talked about Missionary Work. Then we had lunch with a great old Guatemalan lady. While there, it started pouring rain. Pretty great. We then had interviews with President Shields, in which we talked about missionaries "Locking Their Hearts." Despite the rain, we got two new students in our English Classes and had a great class.

Wednesday, we did some service, went back to our "Mexican Minefield" where we found a man name Carlos, home alone. So we taught him the first lesson and he was Super Solid. It was pretty great. We then had a great dinner with the Chatter Family (the one's that took us to Niagara Falls).

Thursday we had a great lunch with our investigator. She is preparing for baptism (hopefully soon), so we were pretty excited to meet with her and teach her. It went well. We had some Indian Food.

Later, we did more service and then had dinner with another member family, then we had to run to another Music Practice.

Friday, I directed another District Meeting. It went really well. We had a Sister Bingham visiting, so I asked her if she was related to Erastus Bingham? And she was like "The one who has a monument in Lagoon??" And I said, "Yeah." Then she said "Yeah." Distant Cousins! So I took a picture with her (see below). I also made lot of cookies for District Meeting. So that was pretty fun.

Later on Friday, I went on exchanges with an Elder. He speaks little English, and even less Spanish. So I talked for the majority of the lessons we had. Which was great because I love to talk, especially in Spanish.

Saturday we taught English Classes again. Then we had Missionary Coordination. Then dinner with a fun Peruvian Couple. Later that evening we passed by some Less-Active, Part-Member families and we met a lot of really nice people. So hopefully we'll be able to work with them soon.

Sunday was a great Easter Day. Sadly, none of our Investigators came to church. :( But just about all of the members did, so that was good. We killed it on our musical number. I played "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" on the piano while three sisters in the Ward sang in Spanish. Later on Sunday, we had a really long dinner with some members and their friends. It was pretty bizarre. They just talked about politics (especially Donald Trump) and the most BORING stuff for about two hours while my companion and I just sat there and cried. :) We didn't really cry...at least not on the outside. Luckily, the Spirit saved us that night and we later on had an INCREDIBLE lesson with an investigator we've been trying to meet with a lot. She's living with an awesome less-active member (one of my close friends) and she's very interested in coming to church and everything. So we taught the first lesson (the Joseph Smith story) and it went SUPER well.

My perspective on life has really changed on my mission. It was honestly a very strange Easter I had yesterday. First off, it was sad to see that none of our Investigators came to church at all. Thankfully, most all of them members did; and it made me think how sad but incredible it is how different normal people verses members view these holidays. The world has taken such a "pagan" view on these Holidays and even the norm of "going to church on Easter and Christmas" is starting to diminish away. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, on the other hand, get the picture. We realize how important the life, death, and resurrection of Christ was and how we need to celebrate it and remember him, not only on Easter, but every day of our lives. Another thing that struck me yesterday was how sad and boring the world has become. The best part and the least depressing part of the dinner appointment we had on Easter Day, was when we shared the Church's Easter Video of Jesus Christ. The contrast was so obvious. The whole appointment went from sad and wordly to beautiful and filled with the Spirit. I was able to finish my Easter by reading some pages of the book Jesus the Christ. It was wonderful and it helped me realize even more how important Jesus Christ is. Just speaking of him brings so much life and happiness into our lives. He's so important and I know that he lives. He is. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!!

100 Days???

100 Days??? Oh no.

Well, with such little time, we're having a lot of success.

I'm very shocked and sorry to hear about Brother Lauritzen. Let them know, especially Liz, that they're in my prayers and I'm thinking about them.

Sounds like Disneyland was a blast. Super funny that it snowed when you got home, because it did here too. Basically it was Springtime, then last Thursday night/Friday Morning it snowed a bunch and completely turned into Winter. I was super worried because we had planned to have a barbecue on Saturday; but by Friday Afternoon, EVERYTHING had melted and it was Springtime again. Oh Mother Nature.

This week was pretty awesome.

Monday we went and celebrated the Birthday of Elder Valliere, my son in the mission, by going and getting Korean Barbecue. 'Twas delicious. Then, later that day, I went on exchanges with Elder Babbel and we taught some lessons and saw a lot of success. It was pretty great. And fun! We're both praying that we become Companions before we go home. He goes home four weeks after I do, so we both keep each other pretty trunky. ;)

Tuesday, we taught a few lessons and then taught English Class.

Wednesday, we went over to a city called Vaughn, found a strange painting of this alien looking lady on the side of the road, took it, worked in the area, then went home. Later on, we did some service, ate dinner, and then met with our Bishop and talked about Missionary Work.

Thursday we met with Romeo and planned everything for the Barbecue that we had last Saturday. We then taught some more people, did some service, and ate dinner.

Friday we had Zone Council. It was REALLY good. We had a lot of discussion on Jesus Christ and the new Easter Video (which I'll talk about later). We also talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how the most important thing the Book of Mormon does is testify of Jesus Christ. Super good. We then drove some Elders back to their area (in Black Creek). I used to serve there so I decided to take them out to one of my favorite Pupusas places. 'Twas delicious.

I was on exchanges with Elder Valliere that day so we had a lot of fun. We taught some awesome lessons and almost got into a Car Crash!!!!

It was super fun. We we're driving to our Dinner Appointment and some Indian Guy, turning right, totally skipped over the first lane and started turning into my lane (the far lane). I slammed on my horn and my brakes and veered left (as much as I could with the median there). The cars touched, but no crash occurred. We turned off onto a side street and I got out of our car and saw that some of his white paint rubbed off on our car, but no damage was done. The guy then came out and said that he was so sorry and that he was just super exasperated and tired and that he just wasn't paying attention. I was like "OBVIOUSLY NOT!!!!" Just kidding. I was super nice. I told him it's all fine because there was no damage and only a little paint of his car rubbed off on ours. We then introduced ourselves to him, gave him a card with Jesus Christ on it, and told him to go watch the new Easter Video. He was super nice. He told us that he'll definitely go watch it and that his faith in God grew from the fact that we didn't get in a crash. So that's good. It was super exhilarating.

On Saturday, we had the Barbecue with Romeo. It was SO good. A few Brothers from the Ward came over and we Barbecued and had a great time. 'Twas delicious. Our main goal of it was to get Romeo some friends and fellowshipping in the ward. Mission Accomplished. Later that day, after we were stuffed from the Barbecue, we had another dinner appointment with some members. Luckily, they didn't feed us that much, so we survived. We then went and taught some more lessons.

Sunday was a crazy miraculous day. We had a great time at church. A couple of our investigators came (including Romeo). After church, an Uruguayan family had us over for another Barbecue. 'Twas even more delicious. Later that day, a Mexican member of the Mississauga Ward (where I used to serve), got in contact with us and invited us to come meet some of her friends up in Georgetown (a town in our area). We went and found this Plant Farm kind of deal, where there are a bunch of Mexican migrant workers working and living there. The member took us around to two of the houses (bunkers) and we ended up teaching the Restoration to 11 of them!!!! It was crazy.  We gave nine of them a copy of the Book of Mormon (because we ran out). We're going back over this Wednesday and we'll probably try to teach all the Mexicans over there. They told us that there are about 70 living around the plantation. So we're planning on baptizing them all and starting a Mexican Branch over there. Haha!!! We were SUPER excited and Super Blessed.

So basically. This was one of the most successful weeks of my mission.

SOOO. If you haven't heard, the church just came out with the new Easter Video, "The Prince of Peace." If you haven't watched it yet, watch it!!!! It's SO good. It's awesome the direction the church is taking to focus everything on Jesus Christ. The new Easter Cards that are in Correlation with the video are just pictures of Jesus Christ on them. Nothing more. Because who doesn't want a free picture of Jesus Christ that they can easily carry around with them everywhere?? So my invitation to all of you is to watch the video, share it with your friends (online and in person), and get some cards from the missionaries and pass them out to EVERYONE!!! Let's spread the Spirit of Jesus Christ around for this Holy Week/Easter Week!!! I love you all!!!

Whoops!!! Last weeks letter. :)

I'm so sorry. I just found this in my drafts and realized that I didn't send it. Whoops!!! Last weeks letter. :)

"There Is Sunshine In My Soul Today!!" Quote Jefferey R Holland, Quote Eliza E. Hewitt
That sounds awesome Sophie!! I'm glad your shredding it up in Ice Skating. Wow, I hope the skate move you're learning isn't as hard to execute as it is to say. Sorry to hear about your teeth. My teeth are doing great. I miss you too!!

Great work Savannah!! I'm glad you got some delicious treats and a t-shirt. Everything's worth it if you get a t-shirt. Remember that. Sorry to hear about your finger. You should probably just cut it off. ;) I can't wait to see your bubble gun!!

Good Work LOGAN!!!! Way to kill it in the Knowledge Bowl. And HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Wow. 17 Years Old. That's how old I was when I kissed my first girl. That's how old you will be when you kiss you're first girl, if you haven't already yet. Prophesy made. Get it done.

And no, Mom, the member said that HE had the gift of prophesy and that I was going to become a General Authority. I don't often tell people that I have the gift of Prophesy. And be careful with what you say, Mom, there's no need for my head to get any bigger than it is. First, I have to become a Free Mason, THEN I can work towards being a General Authority. ;) And don't worry, living worthily and marrying the right person is the easy part. Now finding someone person that I can live with and love for the eternity. That'll take some time.

Great work on the Manicotti. You should send me some for my Birthday. :) I really don't care what kind of electric razor. I've never actually used one before, so I couldn't tell you the differences. My neck size is still 16 1/2 (luckily) and my arm length I believe is 32 or 36. Thanks!!

Well, this was a week. Pretty crazy stuff.

Monday we met with some awesome member families and helped them with their own personal missionary work.

It was really cool on Tuesday, because we were meeting with an investigator and teaching him about Apostles and Prophets. In the past, he had some doubts on the Prophet before, but while we were teaching about him, Elder Hansen bore strong testimony on the reality of the calling of the Prophet. I then said "I know that that is true." And then he said, oh so quietly, but audibly "I know it's true too." It was SO GOOD!!!!! He's so ready for baptism. His wife and kid just need to get back. Later Tuesday night we had two missionaries stay over, because they had a big meeting the next day. One missionary, Elder Dardon, has been out in the mission a little longer than I have, so we were able to kick it back to the old days. It was really fun.

Wednesday Morning, our Zone Leaders called us and asked us to trash our apartment so they could take some pictures of a "dirty apartment" to show as an example for other missionaries. It was very ironic that they asked two missionaries with probably one of the cleanest apartments in the mission to trash theirs'. :| Of course, I guess they wouldn't ask missionaries with a dirty apartment if they could come take pictures of it, because then the missionaries would feel really bad. That's not a bad idea though. Needless to say, we TRASHED our apartment. Luckily we had the help of the other two Elders. (I'll send some pics) Thankfully the Zone Leaders helped us clean it up afterwards.

Thursday, one of our investigators took us out to a delicious lunch and we had a great conversation with her about the Book of Mormon and Temples. She is so ready for baptism also. Hopefully that will come soon.

Friday we had the Temple Trip!!! It was pretty great. I got to see a lot of missionaries in the mission. Directly afterwards I had my District Meeting where I made like a hundred Brownies and gave everyone the "Lock Your Heart" Missionary Talk by Spencer W Kimball to read. I recommend it to everyone: Missionaries (Of Course) and Non-Missionaries (So they can rebuke missionaries who don't do it).

Later on Friday, I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Leung. He's such a great guy. I've been in the same zone as him for 5/6 of his mission. So we're pretty close. We had a great time and met with some really great people.

Saturday and Sunday we GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!

Apart from listening to the words of the Prophets, on Saturday, a bunch of us missionaries went out to Five Guys for lunch and later (to keep the Flint Family Tradition alive) we went and got Blizzards at Dairy Queen! I committed to Elder Babbel that that will be the last ice cream I eat until I get home (other than on my Birthday, or if a member offers it to me), so I got a large. Most of it is still in our freezer. :)

Sunday was a pretty crazy day. We went by an investigator's in the morning and he told us that he was coming to Conference and a baptism that was happening between sessions. Then he didn't come. So we called him and told him to come to the last session. He said he would, then he didn't. So we were pretty bummed out. On the contrary!! Another investigator came to both the first session and the baptism and she LOVED THEM!!!!!!!!!!!! Us and her RM son are both trying to invite her to get baptized as soon as possible because she is SO ready!! Later on Sunday, we met with our Bishop and his six year-old daughter told me that my Spanish isn't good, so I challenged her to a Spanish Talk-Off. I'll let you know how that goes later on.

One of my favorite Conference Talks was by Joy D Jones. The one woman who gave a talk in Conference. Although most of the talk made me trunky about have kids, I really liked the point she made about how people need to keep their commitments. As a missionary, it is honestly one of the most frustrating things, for missionaries, when Investigators don't keep their commitments. In the world we're living in, people are become worse and worse at keeping their commitments, promises, oaths, vows, etc. One thing I have been focusing on more in my life is being trustworthy with my commitments. If I truly tell someone I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it!! As Joy D Jones says, it is not only a great thing we should practice, it's a great thing to teach to the next generation. We do this by helping them to keep "simple promises." Because with practice comes perfection. :) So that's my invitation to you all, not only to teach the next generation how to keep commitments and promises, but to keep them yourselves!! I commit you to doing that. ;) Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!!