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Sunday, June 1, 2014



(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!):


(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

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