What a weeeeeek

Hellllo everyone and happppppy Christmas! What a wonderful time of the year this is. I'm not saying it should be the happiest but if you haven’t been too happy lately now is the time to start. You have every excuse to sport that dashing smile of yours all month long. And after that, why hide that light under a bushel?? Keep it out for the whole New Year! It will make you and those around you much happier. I promise. 

So I’ll just go over every day for you all then. If anyone hates this format let me know and I’ll change it... soonish ;)

Monday. Monday Elder Bennett was sick on Monday. Like super sick. So that changed up the whole course of the day, kind of. It made me super sad to see him in so much pain. So we did all the Pday stuff but we like had to push Elder Bennett in the shopping cart because he was too weak to walk :(. So after the normal course of Pday was taken, we went home to rest but while Elder Talmage stayed home and napped with Elder Bennett I went with Elders Campbell and Sherwood and Sisters Fernandez and Franco to hike. We didn’t go very far, but it was fun and super pretty. We could see across the whole valley and when we stopped talking, it was completely silent. A blessing I haven’t had in a veryyyy long time. What a blessing it was to just sit and look out over this great city. I'm so lucky to be serving a mission especially in such a great place with such amazing people. Funny how getting away from it for a moment helped remind me. Life works in mysterious ways. After that, they dropped me off at home and we spent the evening studying and coaxing Elder Bennett to drink!

Tuesday we went on exchanges with Montebello North [a mission area in Sam’s district] and Elder Bennett went with Elder Chacon and E'T and I were super lucky to have Elder Johnson with us. He is such a fun loving, cheerful, and god-fearing man (I’m using the scriptural definition of fear here, but I'm pretty sure that he is smart enough to be afraid of the Big Man, too). We had an action-packed day planned but things got thrown off because E'B didn’t have enough strength to bike until later in the afternoon, so we had to move some lessons around. So then after the exchange the three of us went to contact some referrals but they were not home. Dinner was like 5 miles away, so we talked to some people on our way out there. After dinner we tried to go to all our lessons, but all three cancelled which almost! made me sad, so instead we went to visit some less active families. I goaded E'T into using his hidden Spanish skills and he was bomb. He got one family to promise to come back to church right then and there. It was really cool. He shared a powerful scripture and then talked about how they were not receiving all the blessings that our Father in Heaven wanted for them. They said that they could feel that too. That was a full day but not a lot to write about.

Wednesday was weeeeird but another great day. In the morning E'J and I drove E'T to the University (of Las Vegas). It was cool to get to drive again, but being on a college campus like that was horrrrrible for my focus that day. It was full of young people doing their thing. Some of them just waking up (we got there at like 11am), others running to and from classes, others proving to me that BYU isn't the only place with PDA problems (and in fact, BYU wasn’t quite as bad because they were way more modest), and there was just that sense of excitement all around. Elder Johnson and I talked about it all the time we were waiting for the other missionaries to pick up E'T. It's hard to explain what it was like there. Later, after dropping off the car, some member randomly gave us some tamales, which were delicious. But. While biking home and eating simultaneously my back wheel of my bike popped off and I was ejected from the bike and hit the wall and lost all the innards to my tamale and I got scraped up pretty bad. But it was super funny. Luckily I knew what I needed to do to fix it, so we weren’t just stranded. Elder Johnson almost wet himself, I think. Exchanges ended that afternoon and Elder Bennett and I went to go visit a Cuban woman who needed a blessing. She lives in our area but refuses to let Elders into her house which is a problem because sisters cant really give blessings.... but she finally let us in. We visited with her for a while and got to know her and talked about a chapter from the Book of Mormon and the faith it takes to read and follow the things we learn. It was a powerful time for us to bear our testimony of the Book of Mormon, and it was what she wanted to hear as well. Faith is such a beautiful topic. And it encompasses everything from hope to power. Faith in Jesus Christ is really everything. With it I have seen so many people change. Those who are kept from the truth only need to fully understand that it is in faith in our Savior that they will find it. Anyway. Then we gave her a powerful blessing. When she tried to thank us, neither of us could understand her. Her Cuban accent was tough but through tears it was impossible. When we did understand her, she invited us back to eat dinner. I'm pumped for it. Hopefully, I'm still here in central. Dinner that night was straight authentic Mexican, beans, rice, food poisoning, meat and all. But I didn’t know about the food poisoning until Thursday. After dinner I went to go on splits with the Zone Leaders because they needed help working in their area, so Elder Shreve and I went to visit a lot of his investigators. It was cool to be able use my English for a change.

Thursday. That was a tough day. Talmage and I were soooooo sick. In his words, "that cheese really jacked us up." We had district meeting, which was pretty good. Elder Bennett trained us in the ways of missionary stuff and then we went home and I spent the rest of the day walking the line between my bed and the toilet. In retrospect I don’t think Talmage or I ate that day.... That night we tried to go out to a lesson with Salvador. We got all suited up and took our

Pepto and took what seemed like the hardest bike ride of my life. But we got in there ready for Elder Bennett to carry us through, because Talmage and I were dying. We had prayed for the ability not to vomit over our investigator and we didn’t. So that was a blessing. On top of all the other blessings we already had! I'm going to be perfectly honest though, the lessons was about 2 steps less than average. But he knew that we are only human and sometimes get super duper sick. So no harm, no foul.

Friday was a day. We got to go to the temple, because Elder Talmage is new, so that was cool. Twice in a transfer is crazy lucky. Some missionaries only get to go 2 times in a year. We are so blessed. It's incredible. But we expended all our energy not dying during the session so Elder Talmage and I went home after that and slept. It was crazy how tired we were. 

Saturday... The day started with a breakfast at the stake president’s house. It was nice to meet with him and discuss the status of our wards and all the work that is going on within. After that we made programs for a baptism. Then we did what is called a district blitz. Our whole district and the zone leaders went to Elder Chacon's area to work it for 3 hours. We started with a prayer for miracles and they were seen. We talked to so many people. So many. We visited a large bunch of less active families who all seemed like they were just waiting for someone to invite them back to church. And we found so many others who seemed like they were waiting for us to come teach them. It was cool. Super cool. Montebello movin' mountains! Then we had a lesson with one of our newer investigators and 'set' her for baptism before the end of the year. All 4 of us were super excited.

Sunday. Normal Sunday. There was a member baptism that I had to play the piano for. It went way better than I expected. But it was definitely something I haven’t done for a while. Like a long while. Bishop said I had been hiding my talent and I think now he wants me to play in Sacrament [meeting], hopefully I get transferred before he remembers. Just joking. I'd love that opportunity to serve.

And that brings us to now. 

I hope that is good enough. I wish I had more time. 

Aight peeps. Love you all so much.

Stay safe, stay warm, stay classy.

<3

Sam  

This week's delicious letter

I don't know why I began with delicious but that to me seems like an apt description of the day, the week, and life in general. Yummy!

So nothing went as planned this week because of the great blessing of the newest member of the wolf pack. Weighing in at maybe 120 pounds standing at 6'1" from Layton, Utah comes the fierce, bold, and fastball throwing Elder Talmage! He's super cool. I/We are glad to have him here with us in Central. He is waiting for his visa to go to Mexico City but it hasn’t come yet and the word on the street is that he will be with us through the end of the year. Sick!

Before I forget, thanks to everyone for all the awesome letters and packages these last 2 weeks. I haven’t even had time to read them but hopefully I get to today because Elder Bennett is sick and we'll see if we get out to work tonight. Ya’lls are the best, I wish I could keep up, but I'm glad I can’t.

To Erin and Hailey. Idk if you to have internet out in the boonies but I have proof that you haven’t forgotten about me! :) Thank you so much for the postcard. It made me extra happy that it came from the both of you and from so far. It's a dope card too. 

Most of Monday after emails was spent trying to figure out how E.T' (lol) is going to have space and a bed and all that. Then we had to go get him from the office and all that. So Monday was shot and we didn’t have any lessons that night so we just tried visiting a bunch of people.

Tuesday was exchanges with the Zone Leaders. E'T. and I went with Elder Shreve from Wyoming. We spent the day talking to referrals and setting up appointments. We talked to a lot of people: more than 60 different people and left commitments with 48, which was a record at least in my book. I love talking to people so much. It's so much fun to hear other peoples stories and problems and all those things and try to help them. After that morning we went to a few lessons that we had scheduled. At one of them, Salvador told us that he was on chapter one still. I was about to ask why he hadn't been reading when we found out that it was chapter one of Helaman, like he read up to there, Isaiah and war chapters and all. Dope. So that was super unexpected but quite welcome as well, he says that he knows 70% of it is true but the other 30% isn't true because it is already found in the Bible. We tried talking to him about this but it didn’t go over quite as well as we wanted. We definitely need to try again to explain it because I think 70% is about 31% to few. After that we did an hour of impromptu service (to one of 6 investigators we have that want to be baptized but cannot because their respective husbands will not marry them) we helped clean up her back yard. It was such a beautiful night. Vegas is so beautiful if you can look past the sex, drugs, and sadness.

Shoot. Short of time. Moving on to Wednesday. Wednesday we stopped in to visit Juana and she made us lunch which was super nice of her. She also made us her smoothies and shakes for us to try. She's a saleswoman by trade and I must say that she was quite effective! If I wasn't a broke missionary I would have bought some. We did some other stuff throughout the day but then later in the evening we went to the Bishop's house to talk about some of the baptismal records and stuff. He fed us sooooo much pie and spent like an hour explaining Settlers of Catan to us and all the expansions. It maybe wasn't the most effective use of our time but I think he liked it. He's a great guy, our bishop is.

Thursday I got my bike back and I guess the problems with my seat are beyond the bike coordinators repair so I need to go to a shop sometime soon to get the post fixed up. After dinner Thursday we were coming home with E's Chacon and Johnson and I tried to be silly and bike between them but they both wobbled into me at the same time and we all ate it. Both of them fell sideways off their bikes and I was thrown forward and did a flip and a half. I had no idea what happened until I fell on my head. Luckily I was wearing my helmet. Kids. Always follow the rules, not matter how annoying. They are there to protect you. (cough, lawofcoughchastity, cough wordcoughofwisdom cough) I felt like an idiot, luckily no one was hurt and I was only a little dazed. I'm never gonna do that again. I tried to be silly and put people in danger. I am actually super embarrassed to even say that I did that :(. Oh freak, then that night we had 2 dope lessons, both with 2 new investigating families. The first was super excited to be baptized and the second family not as much but she, the wife, gave us an entire cheesecake. It was sooooo awesome. She asked us to come back and then had us try some cake she made and we said we loved it so she gave us an entire one! I took it home in my backpack. Some things only happen on missions. In my journal I wrote "I love being loved." We are all so lucky to be loved by so many people. “We” includes everyone in the world.

Friday we had a lesson with Antonia and it almost turned into her giving a talk on faith. That woman has more faith than I have ever personally seen. Part of it is probably necessary for her survival but either way it’s powerful. She was so many stories about prayer and faith and reading the scriptures and how they help her every day. Every time we go over there she is either reading the Bible or The Book of Mormon. And she always asks us about the temple. It warms my heart. Also on Friday we saved a dog’s life. Or at least I like to think that we did. Our neighbors’ disappeared and left their pit-bull puppy outside all week on their 5 by 5 patio. It wouldn’t have been as horrible except when they left the patio was a huge mess and the dog literally couldn’t turn around. It whined and whined and whined. We tried to block the whining out of our heads for the first few days but by Friday it got to be too heartrending. We went to look at it and it didn’t have any food or water or any blanket or bedding and it had been eating paper and chair legs. Not just chewing, eating. Its stools were like 90% paper and wood.  That almost made me cry. So we gave it some food and some water and .... I may or may not have cleaned the neighbors patio to give the dog a little more space ..... Probably a bad idea but I did it. The dog certainly appreciated it.

Moving on to things that don’t involve trespassing... Saturday we had a lesson with a part member family. The husband is a member and his wife is not. It was ... weird. He is pretty less active but he has a special spirit about him. Her, on the other hand, she does not. It's not that she’s a bad person or anything, she just doesn’t have the same.... brightness, or glow, or I dunno. I can’t describe it. But you could feel and see a huge spiritual difference between these two people. It was bien interesante. 

Sunday was church and all the things that go with that. It was a good day and I liked it a lot. We went to visit Marcos right after dinner and he was super happy to see us and we talked about a lot of stuff with him. He is such a special person when he hasn't been drinking. I am also understanding him way better than when I first got out here. It was cool to see him sober and with a new hope to stop drinking. He went to church with his wife today which is way better than nothing and he also said that he was going to try to start reading The Book of Mormon whenever he wants to drink. I don’t know too much but I know that if he stays true to his word he will be happier because of it. Repentance, fingers crossed. Not in the condemning way, but a turning from the things that make him sad to the things that will make him happier. Not to mention save him a lot of money. He drinks a lot of Patron. The bottles look cool though I guess.

Aight everyone. Because of all the craziness that's all the time I have this week!

I love you all so much. 

One of these letters I'll be able to properly express what it is like to be doing the Lord’s work.

In the meantime

ciao!

Sam 

crrrrrraziness

So this week, as all the others now that I write this, has been utterly indescribable. So much happened and it was all so different. I hope that I can properly give you all a fraction of what happened. Let us begin with that fabulous night called Monday. Walk with me down memory lane...

After I emailed all of you Monday, Elders Bennett, Taetakua, and I did our shopping and those things but then a little later we met up with the rest of our district to play games and sports and things for the last hour of Pday. It was really fun. I thoroughly enjoyed doing something other than work and study for a change, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as study or work, what kind of missionary do you think I am??? It was the last time that district was together because Sister Despain was leaving and we were getting Sister Fernandez.

Tuesday was a dope day of studying. It was right before transfer conferences so I studied a whole lot and then we, the 3 pack, drove down to Deseret Book before the meeting. It was cool to see all these books and movies and pictures and things a year ago I would have thought boring and now I coveted. Elder Bennett bought a sick book of Maxwell talks and he read me parts of it that day and all throughout the week. The Apostles and General Authorities and those guys are pretty darn smart. If I had money I would have bought some of the collections of talks and those things. 

Quick break for random thoughts: It is so interesting that those kind of things are interesting to me now. I still don’t like Mo-Tab and hymns very much but talks are like my favorite thing in the world, next to the standard works. I think every missionary and prospective missionary doesn’t want to change or is sure that they won’t change. And I don’t blame them because change is a scary thing. I haven’t changed too much, but there are little things that I have noticed about myself that have been changing. Maybe it is the authority of my calling that entitles me to a little more help than usual or maybe I am growing up for once or something but it’s interesting to me to think about all the little things that have been changing in me. I am positive I am still recognizable in every aspect as the same person who left 5 months ago but I like things like talks now, and I don’t complain quite as much, and I am overall more patient with people. And I've learned how to love strangers even more. Sorry if that part was boring or confusing. I'll try to explain it when I get back or something.

Aaaaaanyway. Transfers were cool and the departing testimonies were pretty good. I saw 2 missionaries go home that I had had more than just passing contact with so that was interesting to see them go back to be in the real world. I wonder how they are all doing, quite well I am sure. New to the District was Sister Fernandez. She is from Boston but her parents are from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It was funny to see all the sisters crying as they switched companions especially because Sister Despain was not super excited to get a new companion and now she and Sister Franco are super duper close.

Tuesday was mostly taken up by transfers and the logistics thereof but we had 3 pretty good lessons that night. With Juana we talked about the end of 2 Nephi and then with Salvador he preached to us about the end of the world. He is convinced that by the end of next month all the land will be sea and all the current seas will be dried up. Depressing, but possible I guess. It was hard to communicate because I haven’t been practicing and studying my apocalypse vocabulary enough. I had to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of translating for Elder Bennett. We also went to the De La Cruzes and they fed us scones. They looked a lot like Dad's but I didn’t like them nearrrrrly as much. But they were still good and warm because sometimes it feels like freaking Alaska here, but not really because that's cold. It gets down to like 50 and we freeze here! 

Oh man. Wednesday. Elder Bennett got called to speak at a funeral... It was super weird. We got a call right before leaving the apartment and the Relief Society president asked him to speak. Oo so we went and it was super sad. The family was a wreck and most of the friends were too. I don’t know if it is a normal thing to do but whoever was talking had like a host of people up there with them holding them. It made me really, really sad. Elder Bennett spoke of the hope of the resurrection and the joy that the gospel brings into our lives. He wasn’t overbearing and wasn’t long. It was just a simple but powerful message that Esther will live again. I hope at least one person was comforted by his words. The funeral went wayyyy longer than we expected and we felt it inappropriate to leave in the middle so that ate up a large portion of our night.

Another quicker side note. What is the coolest things about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is the hope it brings to all. We will live again and our destiny is not by chance, it’s a choice. Believe it or not, it makes people happy, me happy; to have that hope that our families and the ones we love will not be separated forever. 

Thursday. Thursday was a day. Starting at morning sports I had those bags of candies you sent me mom, and I gave everyone one and told them one thing I was thankful for about them; a smile, a testimony, an example of hard work, etc. It set the day off right. It made me feel good and I hope it made other people feel good as well. Studies were enlightening and the District Meeting was instructive. But afterwards the real fun began. 1pm we ate our first dinner with the Whostheirface family. They were from South America so lunch is the big meal, and it was a big meal. It was all the normalcy of thanksgiving but everything had either rice or beans in it; the stuffing, the gravy, the potatoes, the corn, the rice. It was all pretty good. After that we went with the Zone Leaders, Elder T. and the new Elder (6'3") Shreve to a dinner at the Richardson’s. It was awesome. It was an English family so I understood it which was a huge bonus hahah but then it was a lot like a dinner at the Mayo’s; lots of people, each happy, and excited to see each other. They made the 4 of us really feel like family and it was awesome. The food was cool and we ate a lot of their family tradition type foods so that was cool too each green onion and ham sandwiches and cottage cheese-less jello (because in the words of Brother R. "that's just plain ole disgusting"). It was cool to hear them tell their stories and Elder T. and I got to talk to one of the daughters who wants to get back active in the church so she can go to the temple to see her best friend get married and then so she can get married in the temple for her missionary. That was cool. I really hope she does. When she talked about it there was a light that came into her face. The temple is a special place and it gives hope to a lot of people. My fingers are crossed for her and her missionary. Then after that we went to Bishop Austin’s house for dinner too! By this point I was really full, but who wants to be rude, especially to the bishop’s wife! She made a wonderful dinner with mashed potatoes from heaven and a delicious seafood salad and pecan pie that would have made the angels cry! After 3 dinners I felt like I was going to die. But duty called. The Schneider’s asked if we could come to their house to eat dinner. So we went knowing that it would be delicious and our tongues were not disappointed, but our bellies were. It was a four course meal that was so delicious (I don’t know if any of you remember when I talked about Peter's cooking) in the words of the Chef himself "oh Peter, you've done it again, how do you always make everything so delicious!?" I asked him the same question and he laughed and said something about being German and better than everyone else -- funny, funny man. Dinner at the Schneider’s was a regular thanksgiving selection but the appetizer was German pancakes in a beef broth with whipped cream on top then lightly sprinkled with curry. Sounds weird but it was super good. Elder Bennett couldn’t finish his so I had to help when Sister Schneider wasn’t looking. The dinner was full of good jokes and bad jokes and a couple ones that made the sisters squirm and Sister Schneider yelling some bad words in Spanish at Peter. It was a wonderful evening. They yelled at each other but you could tell they loved each other but disagreed about a few things: language use specifically. After that we were about dying. But that's when the De La Cruzes called to see if we wanted to come eat with them. No one else had showed up to their house all day so we went. And we ate. And we cried. It was delicious and like the others, mostly regular tha

Time out!!!!!

We just got the call from the AP's!!!!!! Elder Bennett and I are getting a visa waiter to train! Ahhh!!!!!!

!!!!! Sweet! :)

...thanksgiving but they fed us deviled eggs as well. Yummy!!! So that was it, you know, just normal, 5 dinners. 5 full sit down dinners. 5 dinners..... ohhhh man.

Freak I'm distracted and out of time. 

Friday I did a temple session in Spanish!!!!!!!!!!!!! IN SPANISH! IT WAS INCREDIBLE! I love Spanish sooo much. I understood all of it which was cool. I wish I could talk more about it .... ugh. Time and place right :)?

Then Friday afternoon I translated for a baptism which was dope as well. I didn’t do as well as I would have liked but it was better than nothing, right?>! After that was a church party and Hispanic ward parties are a little bit of a different type. It's kind of crazy. But it was fun to eat and see everyone but by this point I was still full from thanksgiving. 

Saturday was actually Friday.... oops. Friday we didn’t do too much. Sunday was church and was sweet.  I love church. I got a few old Ensigns which is cool too.

ahh g2g sorry byeeeee

love you all so much. 

Sam!