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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Elders Ghramm, Biggs and Higgins 

 (I'm not sure who is photo-bombing on the  far right)

Hola hola! It has been an awesome week!

Tuesday 1/28/14:
Transfer day! I'm staying put, but it sure was a sad morning helping Ghramm pack up. We've gotten really close over the last 3 months, he's an amazing elder with great gospel knowledge, and he's hilarious and a beast at basketball. But it's alright, because that's a brother I'll have for life right there. I'm super thankful I was able to serve around him and learn from him. Elder Duke is taking his place here, and I've heard good things about him so that's exciting. We had a really good dinner today with our Branch President and his family: enchiladas rojas with cheesecake for dessert. We had our missionary correlation meeting and went on splits tonight. I went out with Bro. Pons and we had a great lesson with Iyali (someone we met for the first time), the Heredia family, and then went to give Sis. Thurston
(sister missionary in his district) a blessing because she caught some sort of stomach bug. Lame! But the priesthood is real, and I have faith she'll feel better tomorrow. It was a busy but good day!

Wednesday 1/29/14:
Today was a good day! We got up and went running (2.5 mile loop around our area) and then we got into studies! I'm loving reading the Book of Mormon and New Testament together - they truly testify of one another and our Savior, Jesus Christ. We had a correlation meeting with our Stake President and then grabbed lunch at Subway. We set up some appointments, had dinner with the Paz family, and then learned some awesome doctrine from Bro. Paz - he knows a ton! We spent the night visiting with Edilberto, and he's cut back on drinking so much! He said praying has really helped him a lot - I know that God is our Heavenly Father and that he listens to and answers our prayers! Bro. Pons called and told me about the crazy snow/ice storm in Atlanta that was shutting y'all down! I hope everyone back home is safe and warm and not stranded on the interstates, I'll be sure to keep the Atlanta area in my prayers!

Atlanta Snow Jam 2014!

Thursday 1/30/14:
Today was great! It snowed last night and was still snowing a bit in the morning, so we didn't go running and just worked out in the apartment. We studied, grabbed some lunch, and then had weekly planning. My new district is awesome, only a couple of changes. Now it's Sisters Martinez, Despain, and Tasi (in a trio) and Sis. Thurston is training Sis. Hubbard. We finished training, ate a great dinner with the Pons family, got to teach his less active son-in-law, then we had a great night of visits with the help of Hermano Madrid. We taught the Islas family, set up a return appointment with Minnie and then a new investigator family, and it was just a good night. On the way back to the apartment we saw a ton of police cars and they were blocking the road leading into our apartments. Later on we found at that somebody got hit by a car while walking on the side of the road...kind of scary news since that's what we do all day and all night every day, but the person will make a recovery so that's good!
                                                                  

No Explanation needed!

Friday 1/31/14:
Another good day here in West Valley City!  We had district meeting, and I put together a training on the relationship between true conversion, the Book of Mormon, and the Holy Ghost. After we grabbed lunch at CFA as a district, it's the first time I've had that in so long!! I miss Cookie (manager at our local Chick-fil-A) and the southern hospitality though, nobody even said "My Pleasure." I love saying thank you to hear my pleasure! It was lame.   Still delicious food though. We taught Minnie, had a great dinner with the Bayona family, and then we went to Temple Square with the Heredia, Thompson, and Pons family. It was a spiritually powerful experience and it just really re-enforces my testimony of the restoration every time. I love it. I'll try and send some of the pictures we took of that trip too :)

At Temple Square




Saturday 2/1/14:
I can't believe January has already flown by! Today was such a busy day though, we loved it! We got up and went to play basketball (a few investigators were on my team, and it was awesome). We had a solid run this morning, went 6-0 in games to 11. We came back, showered, had a lesson with a guy named Jesus, then grabbed lunch with  Elders Duke and McNeil. Then came the busiest day we've had in a while: lesson with Sharon Vazquez, dinner with the Rocha family, lesson with Jhovi, lesson with Edilberto, lesson with Maria Diaz, lesson with Iyali, picked up tamales for tomorrow (see tomorrow's entry), and then got home. It was an awesome day, so busy that it flew by in the blink of an eye, and we're very excited for the progress we're seeing in our area.

Sunday 2/2/14:
Today was a great day. We got up and had a long time to study, I finished Luke in the New Testament, and then we went to church. We heard some really good testimonies in church, we got to teach the High Priest's group about missionary work, and then we had a meeting with Bro. Holden. We went over to the Perez-Almanza family's house and had this great chicken, rice, and beans dish cooked with a serrano pepper sauce - so good! Then we picked up the tamales from the apartment and headed over to the Lopez's house. On January 6th (Dia de los Reyes) we were at the Lopez's house and I ate a piece of the rosca (celebratory bread)
(Rosca de Reyes – Three Kings bread) and it had a little plastic doll in it - which meant that on February 2nd I was in charge of tamales for the second fiesta. I think the real custom is that you have to hand-make the tamales, but that takes way too long for our tight schedule so we picked some up from our tamale hook up haha :) We had tamales, atole (pink, delicious drink), and then because Bro. Lopez is from Argentina we had a traditional herbal tea called mate. It was pretty gross, but it's all about the experience right? We came back, I collected all the numbers from the district, handed them off to the zone leaders and then passed out. It's been a good week.
                                                                  

Atole

Mate (It even looks scary!)

 
Monday 2/3/14:
Today's looking to be the average P-Day. Up, laundry, shopping, email, then we're gonna play some basketball. Sis. Martinez is a really good cook and she's gonna show us how to make some Chilean empenadas, so I'm super excited for that! Hope y'all are having a great week!! Love and miss y'all tons! :)

I'm finding a lot of happiness in the Gospel and y'all as my family, and I'm just smiling and happy and so busy with the mission it's a blessing because I have no time for other distractions. But no worries! I'm good, promise. I'm happy,  I love you, I gotta run.

Love you,

Scottie

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Tía Tammy!

This last week has been very good, we're doing well and I am very happy, although it's about to get super cold out here!

Running is good but it's so cold, just that takes getting used to for me. 

We met a new family this last week, the Gomez family, and they're super friendly and humble and want to come to church, but their jobs prevent them right now. But they're working on it since they know what a blessing church is!

Word of the week: Somos hijos de Dios. It's not one word, but it's a phrase: we are children of God. I know that's true, and because of that he loves us and wants the best for us. 

Love, 

Scottie

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