Scottie, Levi, Oliver (on lap) and Moises

Hola hola family!!!

This last week has been super busy and very crazy. Here's a few of the highlights. Also, we have our 2 year mission anniversary party this morning from 10 AM to 1 PM, (the Utah Salt Lake City West Mission was formed 2 years ago) so I won't be able to get to email until later in the afternoon. Just so you know :)

Tuesday 6/24/14:

Today was a pretty normal day, but the end of the night was pretty cool. We went to try and visit the Rodriguez family, but they weren't home, and as we were about to leave we saw this little old Mexican man in his Mexico cap and jersey) pushing a janky looking shopping cart with a cooler inside of it, and it had a sign that said "raspados" (Spanish way of saying snow cones basically). We were hungry, so we went over, bought some (vanilla flavored), and we posted up on the Rodriguez family's porch to eat them. Then the Rodriguez family showed up! So we had an awesome lesson and got snow cones, not too shabby of an evening haha :)

Wednesday 6/25/14:

Crazy day today. I was on exchanges (where a companionship splits up and teams up with missionaries from another companionship) with Elder Hux in our area (he speaks ZERO

 Spanish, so I was on my own pretty much all day). We got a phone call early in the morning from Olga who needed some help so we spent a good part of the day trying to assist her and Edir (her husband).

Saturday 6/28/14:

Awesome day today!! Patricia and Ramon got married!! They've been waiting a long time for this step, and we're glad we could be there to support and help them. I'll send pictures, since they'll explain more than my words could, but it was a super happy festival :)

I'm so sorry I won't have much time to chat, barely any, today has been nonstop. Mission party went until 3,'then we were going to bike to go shop but (Elder) Biggs (Scottie’s companion) forgot his bag (and our phone) so we had to go on a hunt to find that. Kind of hard without a phone or anything. We finally got it and biked to Winco to shop, but I'm pretty sure I've biked over 25 miles today and I'm just beat. Drop dead tired haha. 

But: 

1) Happy Anniversary :):):):):) y'all are the greatest example ever (our Anniversary was June 29^th). 

2) Happy 4th and early birthday to Padre (Scottie’s father’s birthday is actually July 4^th!). 

3) The frame works! As soon as you email a photo there, it shows up, it's so cool :) 

I love y'all!!! Glad to hear everyone had a good week last week! Y'all are literally the best family a kid could ask for, thank you so much for all that you do to love and support me. 

Love always,

Scottie

June 23, 2014

A quote that he loves!

Hey Family!!! Sorry I've been so late on this, I'll try and fill in the highlights from the last few weeks. I've been super busy and we've just been running around like crazy, thus my lack of long updates, but here we go: 

Birthday cake to the face!

6/9/14:
It's my Birthday!! Today was an awesome day, it started off with working out, and then Kordon Vaughn pulled over on the street next to us while we were walking home. He brought me the caramel cake and it was so cool to see him....and the cake was amazing (update: it was gone within 3 days). (see previous blog entry for photos) At P-Day activity, we played basketball, then some of the missionaries set up some piñatas for me....and during the second piñata, while I was blindfolded, they attacked with water balloons, which lead to a huge water balloon war...it was so cool! Awesome day, it's kind of weird to think I'm 20 now!

Elder Higgins and Sister Juarez - she got him with the cake!

6/10/14:
We had missionary leadership council today...I think I sent you the picture last week of everyone   there. Basically, it's all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders and Pres. Swain (Mission President) and the Assistants getting together to talk about the state of affairs of the mission. We discussed problems, what we could do to improve, how we were going to do it, and we got trained on several things. I was so cool to be surrounded by all those people I respect and look up to and get to hear all the testimonies that were shared, the Spirit was really strong during that meeting. It was definitely a highlight moment of the mission.

Missionary Leadership Council

6/13/14:
Today we had our first zone training (since becoming a Zone Leader). It's like district meeting, except all of the districts in the zone combine and we're in charge (as zone leaders) and it lasts about 3 hours. We invited the Sister Training Leaders (Aschroft and Joseph) to come and train with us, and they're absolutely incredible missionaries so it was awesome to have them there. The training went really well, and we planned some activities for the middle so it wasn't too boring for 3 straight hours, but the time really flew by. I really love this zone, it was so cool to hear everyone's opinions and perspectives and points of view on missionary work, I'm really thankful to be surrounded by all of these good examples.

6/17/14:
Today we had a pretty exciting day. This afternoon, we went with Ramon and Patricia to the marriage license office in the afternoon and helped them get all the paperwork filled out and settled, and they now officially have their marriage license :) They're going to get married on
the 28th of June, and we're super happy for them. Patricia will then be getting baptized soon afterwards, so there's a lot of good changes coming their way. It's so cool to see how happy the gospel can make people, I love it!

6/18/14:
This day will always stand out to me. I said a special prayer for the Prince family today (I pray for them all the time, but especially today). My thoughts and prayers go out towards them, and they always will.  (Today was the 2-year anniversary of the tragic boat accident that took the lives of Griffin and Jake Prince, the young sons of our dear friends, Mike and Tara Prince.) They're amazing people.

We had an impromptu mission leadership council today to talk about some updates to the iPads (including a new online progress record form, that's pretty cool). (Scottie’s mission is a Pilot Mission for new technology) So we talked about that and we're excited to help train the missionaries on this new tool! Also, while walking from dinner to our apartment to pick up our bikes, we passed this Mexican gentleman working in his yard with this sweet black leather cowboy hat. I stopped and, in Spanish, told him I liked his hat. He walked over to the fence and said "Here" and placed the hat on my head, and I was like "Are you serious?" and he was like absolutely, have a good day! Just take care of it. So now I have this sweet hat haha, pretty cool moment.

They call me Pepe - with the hat he was given

6/19/14:
Hump Day!! (The half-way point of his mission!) Wow, it's absolutely crazy to think that it's been a whole year since I entered the MTC. Time is really moving, but when I look back on all that's happened in this last year, it's been a crazy amount of stuff! I'm super thankful to be out here, my testimony has grown and my appreciation for life in general has increased. I'm so thankful for the restored Gospel, and now, more than ever, I know that Jesus Christ, my Savior, Redeemer, and big brother lives. That's a powerful thing to know, and I love it :) I was super surprised by the package I got from y'all today, and it was so cool!!! The camel cookies (we baked camel-shaped cookies) were really good, that was the first time I've had animal crackers (we went through a big bag of animal crackers to find all the camels!) in a long, long time, and that Hump Day shirt is way funny haha. The 2 poems you included were really insightful, and the digital picture frame is by far the coolest thing ever. I was so surprised when I turned it on and it started rotating through pictures of my family and friends (all holding signs that said "Happy Hump Day"), that was really special to me and it means a lot, so thank you so much! Y'all know how to make my day, so thank you so much! I love my family, I hope y'all know that :)

6/21/14:
Today was a super tiring day, but so much fun. We got up at 5:45, a little earlier than normal, so we could go and do Insanity but get done before 7. By 7 o'clock we were at Hermano de Alba's house with Alfonso making carnitas (like the ones we love at Monterrey). It's a long process, about 4-5 hours, and we made about 40 pounds for the Father's Day activity we had today. It was so fun just hanging out with them and making carnitas. Then, in the middle of that, we ran over to the chapel and helped them clean (Hermano Aguirre is a professional cleaner, so he had some of those vacuum cleaners that you wear like a backpack, and I got to use one of those). The activity started around 11, and lasted till 6 PM. There were activities, food, soccer games, ultimate Frisbee games, more soccer games, break time....then more soccer games. Haha, let's be real, the branch loves soccer...it was so cool to be there and spend time with them, and we had a bunch of investigators and less active people show up and they loved it! My legs feel like they're going to fall off from all the running around, but it's been an awesome day. I love this area and the people, and I really hope I don't get moved anytime soon :) Life is good!!!! And my face is only mildly sunburned haha....no worries, nothing too serious :)

Making Carnitas

With the janitorial equipment!

So this is what happens when you serve in the Spanish program. We were in a big meeting in our church's gym...and I sat next to the young men's president...and this is what he was doing during the meeting. Yes, that is the US - Portugal World Cup game, live stream to his tablet haha. too funny, everyone here is SUPER INTERESTED in the World Cup, 24/7!!

World Cup Live Stream, during a meeting!

Love you all,

Scottie

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Haha, non-teenager Scottie-man, that made me chuckle!

Yeah, I ate it pretty hard on my bike haha. (see previous blog entry for more info and photos) We were going at a pretty good speed around 7 am (coming back from morning workouts), and I kind of tried to maneuver around something on the road...and I ended up feeling my back tire slide out from under me as I went down pretty hard. The bruises and bumps are healing, the road rash is almost gone, and thankfully that's all that happened! I changed out my rear tire on the bike but everything else was good! It could of been way worse, so I'm just counting my blessings. I know you know what it's like to fall hard on the bike!

This week has been going great! We did meet a couple of new people, and we actually committed another couple to getting married! And the last couple that got married is doing awesome. She just learned that she's going to have a baby boy in December, so that's exciting!

New word for the week: abnegado - it means selfless. Christ was the perfect example of a selfless leader, and I love learning to turn towards his example to see what I can do to improve. I love it!

You're awesome Tía Tammy!! I hope that you're having a great day today and that you have a great week :)

Love always, 

Scottie-man

Awesome rainbow that he saw

Happy 20th Birthday Elder Higgins!

June 9, 2014

Hey there family!!!

I love y'all so much, I can't even begin to express my gratitude and happiness towards y'all :):):)

Yeah, my long update may come late or next week haha, I had TONS of emails to respond to this week. (We did not receive a detailed update this week, but we did get to "chat" via email about his birthday and his bike wreck.)

So I wrecked pretty bad on my bike earlier this week. The day before I'd changed my back tire because it got popped and shredded, and the new outer part that I put on wasn't very good apparently. Riding back from insanity around 7 am on Wednesday, my bike tire slid and I fell hard. My right arm looks the worst because of the deep road rash, but my left palm is bruised deeply, right hip and right shoulder took a bruising, knees scuffed and I had a pretty good headache haha. But my helmet worked just like it was supposed to, and I know someone upstairs was looking out for me because I should've been way worse. And my face, even though it hit the ground, only got one little red dot. Last injury as a teenager (his 20th birthday was June 9th, a few days after this happened!) hahahaa, I'm all good though, no worries :) my scar even looks like a heart on my wrist...that's kinda fun right?

Heart-shaped scar!

I sent some picture, I was coming back from workouts so I was in workout clothes. The bike is fine, I'm good. But my shorts were somehow not ripped, even though the skin underneath was. They're indestructible, funny stuff :)

Road Rash!!

Bruised palm :-(

 

Thank you so much!!!! I am the luckiest kid in the world, but I know it's not really anything about luck, to have y'all as my family. I thought it might be hard not being with y'all on my birthday, but y'all have made it outstanding!!!

I even saw Kordon  (a family friend, and one of Scotties former Youth Leaders,  that now lives in Utah) this morning, he's a champion! And I'm currently smashing some of the caramel cake, thank you so so so much. It's amazing and reminds me of birthdays at home :):) (Kordon’s wife was kind enough to make Scottie’s favorite cake from the recipe I sent her and Kordon delivered it on his birthday, bright and early!)

Scottie and Elder Biggs with his birthday cake!

Transfer calls have been made, Elder Biggs and I will be together again for another transfer!

I got a ton of emails, family, friends, church friends, school friends, it's so cool :) thanks for reminding people, I know I wouldn't have heard from some of the, without that, so thank you! And I'm fine, really. Doing push-ups still hurts because my hands and wrists are sore, but nothing broken and I'm smiling :)

Some healthy food

More healthy food!

But thank you so much for what you sent! It made my week so special :) and I've lost enough weight to afford a little indulgence.  (We sent him barbeque from a place that we enjoyed a while back – Rendezvous, in Memphis)

Special delivery, a little BBQ!!

Ribs, pulled pork and baked beans!

Before....

After.... (with Elder Biggs)

I just want you to know how much I love and appreciate everything you did to make my birthday so special. It's been amazing, and I hope y'all know how much I love you, with all my heart :)

Today’s plans: we're actually going to leave in about 15 minutes for some basketball and missionary gatherings, so I'm excited for that :) You know I look forward to anything basketball, we don't get to play near enough for my liking haha :) (They only get to play on the P-Days, once a week, this week his P-Day just happened to fall on his birthday!)

Hola Tía Tammy!!

20 years old!! I can't believe it, time is just a-flying out here. I feel like it was just yesterday when I was chilling as a little kid at Grandma's, where did the time go? And yes ma'am, I did get your boxes!! Thank you so much, the snacks and spirulina (a vitamin supplement she sent him) and everything are so cool. And that workout shirt was perfect, I wear it all the time now. And those electric blue elite socks are jammin, I'll be wearing them to P-Day for sure!

My favorite thing on the mission so far is just being able to meet so many people and hear their stories and just see how much of a potential we have to change our lives if we put our trust in The Lord. And wow, that was so cool to see your message! En serio tía Tammy, te amo tanto y espero que sepas que siempre estoy pensando en ustedes. No sabes cuan importante es, para mí, tener una familia increíble como ustedes. No puedo esperar para verlos cuando estoy terminado con la misión!! (Seriously Aunt Tammy, I love you so much and I hope you know that I am always thinking of you. You don't know how important is, for me, to have an amazing family like you. Can't wait to see them when I'm finished with the mission!)

Thank you so much for your presents, it was so kind!!

Birthday P-Day today: woke up, worked out, went shopping, ate some cake, and we're about to go meet up with a bunch of missionaries and get some ball going, so I'm super pumped :)

Word of the week: legado, it means legacy or heritage, depending on how it is used. Its cool think that we all leave behind a legacy, I want to work hard every day to make sure I leave behind a good one :)

I love you Aunt Tammy, thanks again!!!

Scottie

Lehi and Scottie (the Sanchez family's baby who was born premature)

Hey there family!! This last week has been full of excitement, things are going great!!

5/26/14 - Monday:
Today was a crazy busy P-Day (preparation day). We got up at 6:10, started off with the Insanity Fit Test (new fitness program), then we spent two hours shoveling gravel and moving rocks for our stake president. We did a quick run to Wal Mart, then we emailed (they get to email once a week – on P-Day) and then went to P-Day activity for a bit. We played basketball for about 3 straight hours, and I was loving it!! I hadn't gotten to play basketball in a good little while. We then did some visits, then we got to start exchanges (where each member of the companionship teams up with a missionary from another compantionship). Elder Burgin (one of Scottie’s prior companion) came back with me into our area and that was awesome. I miss serving with Elder Burgin, he has definitely become one of my best friends in the mission field. We stayed up way late catching up with each other and telling funny stories, and it was great!

5/27/14 - Tuesday:
Another busy day. I was exhausted when I woke up at 6:10 to do Insanity, not much sleep, but it’s all good! I got it done, ate breakfast, and then we had a meeting in the mission office for all of the Spanish Speaking Missionaries. It was great, just to talk about some things that are particular to the Spanish program. Elder Biggs and I gave a training on Preach My Gospel chapter 7, which talks about learning your mission language. We felt it went really well, the assistants' exact words when they asked us to do it were: "Y'all both speak really good Spanish from what we hear....and you're white....soooo, wanna do it?" haha, love it. After the meeting, we had lunch, planned, visited people, had a quick dinner from Subway, and then we had an awesome lesson with Olga and Pres. Atwater (Branch/congregation President), she's super ready for her baptism this Saturday! We headed back to the apartment, then talked about the exchange, and then we swapped off
again (re-joined their original companions). I'm ready for some sleep!

5/28/14 - Wednesday:
Starting the day off at 6:10 again, another solid Insanity workout. We studied, got haircuts from a Hermana (sister) in the branch, had a quick lunch and then we did District Leader Training meeting. We typed up and sent in some exchange reports and then we had an awesome dinner with the Marcelo family: a Peruvian dish called Causa. Then we taught Lilian, then I got to do a baptismal interview for a man named Senor Navarrete. He was super cool and it was a really powerful spirit in the interview, I was glad he picked me to do it. We taught Ramon with Levi, then we finished up for the night. We're staying so busy lately, the time is just flying!!

5/29/14 - Thursday:
Once again, another busy day today. Up at 6:10, it was the recovery workout for Insanity so it was a little easier on us, we enjoyed it. We had studies, then started our visits to weekly planning sessions. The zone seems to be doing well, so that's awesome. 3 baptisms lined up this weekend!! We had a single sister drop some dinero (money) off for dinner, and we grabbed a burger from this place called Virg's. It was my cheat meal for the week: bacon and bleu burger, so good! We taught Olga and Edir again with Pepe and reviewed everything, she's beyond ready and just super solid. We worked out all the details to her baptism, then went to ask Pres. Atwater a question about it at the chapel, and since we were there and only had 15 minutes left of the night, the branch wanted us to play some volleyball with them and we did. Super fun!! Once again, I'm excited for sleep.

5/30/14 - Friday:
Awesome day today! Up at 6:10 for the Pure Cardio workout in Insanity, kicked our behinds. We studied, and then attended Elder McNeil's district meeting about commitments, it was way good. Also, I forgot to mention, Elder Russell (one of our AP's) is going home next week, so the new assistant was called: Elder Chappell. He came out with me and he's such a stud, he's going to do such a good job, he's a truly good guy. We had lunch after the meeting, then we did our weekly planning, and we got some really good stuff coming up in the future. We had dinner with la hermana Raquel Garcia, tacos dorados....tan ricos!!! Llenos de queso y servidos con sandía y una paleta de piña, it was amazing. We taught Tierrablanca, got another training assignment from the Assistants, and that was that!!   

Scottie and Elder Russell

5/31/14 - Saturday:
Today was so cool. We got up and did our Insanity workout, then we got ready, studied, then headed to the chapel to get everything set up for Olga's baptism. It went really well! Pepe and Hermana Nava gave the two little talks, her suegra (mother-in-law) bore a really good testimony, and her brother-in-law performed the baptism. It was wonderful! I'll send pictures, she was so happy!! Afterwards, we worked on the iPad training assignment we had, then we did some afternoon contacts. We made dinner ourselves in the apartment because our scheduled dinner was in Mexico haha, then we did more finding all evening and had a great visit with the Rodriguez family. The doctors said that their dad/the sister's husband was recovering remarkably fast from his stroke, just another testimony of the power of a priesthood blessing. We're excited to see how that family progresses!

Olga at her baptism

Scottie and Elder Biggs with Olga's family

6/1/14 - Sunday:

Wow, I can't believe it's already June! Craziness. We had a typical Sunday morning for the mission: wake up, study, meetings starting at 10:30 --> 12:30, church from 1 --> 4, and then another meeting from 4:15 --> 5:15 with the stake. We were stoked to see 7 investigators to
church today, things are blowing up in this area! We had an awesome and delicious dinner with our branch president and his family: salmon pie, it was pretty great, I had to control myself to not eat too much haha. We made a few more visits, came home, called in numbers from the
zone, and that's an end to an awesome week!

Love you always. 

Scottie 

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Aunt Tammy!!!

Your right, time is just flying by!!!

I can't even believe it's just one more week (his 20^th birthday), kinda strange!! That's super kind of you Aunt Tammy, and I have heard of Spirulina, I heard it's supposed to be really healthy and I could definitely use some of that!

Word of the week: deportividad. It is the Spanish word for sportsmanship. Not exactly gospel related, but I learned it when talking about the World Cup with some people haha. It's super important to have good sportsmanship though, otherwise nobody wants to play with you. 

I love you Aunt Tammy, so very much! Email you next week :)

Love, 

Scottie

(A two-week update!)

Olga and Edir got married!

Pres. Atwater, Elder Biggs, the happy couple and Scottie

This last week has been super awesome!! Here are the highlights:

Monday- 5/12/14 –  

Today was a crazy busy P-Day (preparation day). We got up, went on a massive shopping trip to Costco to get all the stuff for the zone activity, and then we started cooking. We had a big breakfast for lunch meal spread: waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, etc. After everyone ate we had games and volleyball set up, then at the very end we did the gallon challenge! 1 gallon of milk - each, 5 people: Elder Biggs and I, and then Sisters Hubbard, Tasi, and Arbon. It was intense, and attached you will see a photo of Elder Biggs and I about 7 minutes in. But no lie, as soon as I threw up (and that wasn't even painful), I felt great and went and played basketball. We had a busy night visiting people, and that was that! Sorry I couldn't email much, since we were in charge of the activity we were busy pretty much all day! 

Scottie and his companion doing the "Gallon Challange"!

Tuesday – 5/13/14 -
Today was a pretty sweet day. We had the normal morning and afternoon, but the evening was really cool. Every once and a while, when he has a chance, President Swain (Scottie’s Mission President) will come out to lessons with the zone leaders. He came out with us tonight, and the people we were teaching are in their early 20s so they spoke English and Spanish well. So we did a Spanglish lesson so President Swain could participate (Pres. Swain doesn’t speak Spanish, and that is usually how Scottie teaches), and he's such a spiritual giant so it made a huge impact. It was awesome, but slightly nerve-wracking because I felt like I couldn't make even a small mistake, but it was really good overall :)

Wednesday – 5/14/14 -
Today was another good and busy day! We got up and ran and then had our normal morning, District Leader Training in the afternoon, then we helped some people out with service. We had Pepe come out with us all night and had solid visits with Maria, Ramon, and Diana. It was a good night!

Thursday – 5/15/14 -
Another busy day! Normal morning, followed by a lesson about family history with Alicia Ramirez. Then we went around and visited all the weekly planning sessions in the zone (part of his duties as Zone Leader), people are doing well! We had an awesome dinner with the Balderas family (didn't help my new healthy-eating plan), and then we ran around contacting referrals. We met a new guy tonight though, named Josue, and he seemed super interested.

Friday 5/16/14 -
Another awesome and busy day! We got up, ran again, and then went to Elder McNeil's district meeting.  We spent the afternoon doing our weekly planning, and halfway through we got a call to go help a family move (service is a big part of what missionaries do). The husband was a mechanic, so he had a ton of heavy tools and equipment, including a cherry picker used to lift engines out of cars. Haha, it was comical watching us try to lift that up into the big moving truck they had, no ramp though, we almost squashed ourselves but we got it in there! We had dinner, and then we spent a good chunk of the night doing baptismal interviews. The zone had 6 baptisms this last weekend, and we did 3 for Elders Balino and Martinez in another area (they didn't have ZL's that spoke Spanish). They were all awesome experiences, I'm pretty tired though!

Saturday 5/17/14
Today was really cool! The Gomez family from my last area was going to the temple for the first time, so   Elder Chavez and I went with them. We spent a good chunk of the morning and afternoon there, and it was just a beautiful experience. In the afternoon, we went to go visit Alfonso, and he was making carnitas. He had this huge cauldron looking thing full of them, they were so good!!! We taught Olga and Edir about the commandments and they've got their marriage license so we're pumped for their wedding next Saturday! They're progressing really well :)

Sunday 5/18/14
Busy day today! Church and meetings from 10:30 to 5, dinner, and then the mission president's devotional. We took Pepe and Levi and it was a really nice one for sure, we had a great time, and so did they. We collected all the numbers and we're ready for sleep!

I love y'all so much, I hope you're having a great week and I hope that the first little bit of summer is awesome :)

Love always,

Scottie

I'm on the lds.org webpage!! (This picture is from a youth dance that he attended while he was still in high school!):

www.lds.org/youth/activities/cultural-arts/music-and-dance/dances?lang=eng

(From is email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hola Hola Tía Tammy!! 5/12/14

 I'm so sorry I couldn't respond last week, we just had a crazy schedule and I couldn't email much.

 I cannot use words to tell you how awesome it was to see you and Tess yesterday via skype/facetime. (We were able to skype them from another line and let them see and talk to Scottie!) That was the coolest little surprise, it made that call even better. I'm sorry we couldn't talk too much via that process, but it was so good to just see you and hear your voice for a little bit, so thank you for taking the time to do that. I hope you had a very Happy Mother's Day, you deserve it!!

 I'm glad to hear things are good there, it's so funny that Tess and Tate and everyone are in the real, grown-up world of work and school now, I remember going down the river in Helen when we were all just care-free kids, how time has flown by!!

Things are going super well in the new area, we're staying super busy and just doing our very best to keep on working hard. Something cool is that this last week, we met with the Torres family again. Well, de la Cruz and Torres haha. They have to get married before baptism, and sometimes that's a hold-up for people, but just this last Friday they went and got their marriage license and they're super excited, they called us and asked us to come over just to show us, they were just smiling and they're really happy to make changes in their lives.

They're former gang members that made it out of California and they're really making a change, it's so cool to see that, and there's no better place to start than with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Word of the week is fidedigno, it means reliable. There's a lot of people, companies, and circumstances in life that are not reliable, but the scriptures, prayer, and our loving Father in Heaven will always be there for us, giving us the tools we need to succeed.

I love you Aunt Tammy, I hope you have a beautiful week :)

 Scottie

5/19/14 - Pretty crazy last week, here are some of the highlights:

So on Monday, we went to the planetarium for P-Day, which was pretty cool...but it's no basketball haha. Thanks for bringing me.....(inside family joke!)

Missionary on Mars!

Monday night through Tuesday night we were on exchanges. I went with Elder McNeil into his area....which is insane. There are some real characters over in his area, one lady just started swearing at me and going crazy for no reason, it's weird! But Elder McNeil's a stud and a great missionary so it was cool to be there with him.

5/21/14 - On Wednesday we had a pretty normal start to the day, and at night we had an awesome lesson with Edir and Olga. They're super excited for their wedding this Saturday, and so are we!

5/22/14 - Thursday was a crazy busy day! We got up, and exercised, then ran all over to check on Weekly Plannings. Plus note of the day: a missionary just gave us the Insanity videos so we're about to start getting up early to do those in the morning, we're excited! We had a stake meeting tonight called Hastening the Work meeting. Pres. Swain (Mission President) and Elder Evans (Area 70 – a church General Authority for that area) spoke and it was great. They focused on making the ward council meetings more focused and more effective.


5/23/14 - Friday, we started our first day of Insanity (exercise plan). The workout is pretty appropriately named, it's gonna be intense! We went to Elder Burgin's district meeting today, and at night we went with Alfonso to temple square (Levi drove us down there). It was amazing!

5/24/14 - Saturday was just an excellent day! Olga and Edir got married today. We spent some time with Sis. Kitchen (his land-lady) picking flowers from her garden and making all the arrangements and corsages and such, then we set up the room at the church. Pres. Atwater (our branch president) performed the ceremony, they had some cake, and it was  just lovely! I'll send pictures :)  

Elder Biggs working with flowers!

Sister Kitchen making corsages!

They caught Edir smiling - finally!

The wedding cake!

5/25/14 - Sunday was a typical busy Sunday. Meetings and church from 9:30 to 5:30, then a late dinner, then we went and met with the Tierrablanca family and got her back on track to progressing towards baptism.

So it's been a crazy busy week, but I’m loving it and loving life. The mission is super good! I can't believe I'm about to hit my year mark, and transfers are coming up on the 3rd, so time is just a flying! I hope y'all are having a great week and loving the summer :) Talk to you again next week!

Scottie

Hey Tía Tammy!! 5/26/14

New events in our area: Olga and Edir got married this past Saturday, and Olga is getting baptized this upcoming Saturday, so we're super excited for that. And we just met the nicest family ever: The Rodriguez family. They're super kind and we're going to start visiting them pretty regularly. 

New word of the week: armadura. It's armor. The Gospel, scriptures, prayer, and the love of our Heavenly Father provide us with plenty of armadura against the craziness of the world we live in. 

I can't believe my birthday is coming up, I've only got like 3 weeks left as a teenager haha. Strange! That means Tess too (Scottie and his cousin were born 20 days apart I'm about to run out. And, we're starting a new workout and fitness program out here (a small group of us elders), so any sort of protein powder, protein bars, health/nutritiony stuff kinda like that would be super! But to be more honest, anything you sent me would be greatly appreciated and I'd love whatever it is :) You're super kind for thinking of me!

I love you so much Aunt Tammy!! Happy Memorial Day :)

-Scottie