Elder Isabell... I mean Higgins!

Monday, July 21^st –

Just a quick note: P-day (preparation day) changed to Thursday cause it's Pioneer day (Pioneer Day is an official holiday celebrated on July 24 in Utah. It commemorates the entry of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847). I'm happy and healthy and loving life! Miss y'all like crazy, see you soon :)

I'll send more on Thursday.

Thursday, July  24^th – (Pioneer Day)

Hey there family! So there's so much to tell you, but since it's an all-day P-day, we're about to go get some delicious French toast at Kneaders with the Aps (assistants to the mission president). A few highlights to hold you over till I can get back on and send more:
* I almost got bitten by a pit-bull the size of a smart car yesterday! I don't know if I've ever biked that fast to get away haha

* I’m safe and healthy! No worries!

* I love the gospel. Love the mission. Love the Savior. Love y'all. And I'm loving life :)

I'll send more and pictures later, we gotta run now, I'm hoooongry!!

Hey, I don’t have any time but I just had to send you one quick email.

I'm so sorry I could never get back on the computer, it's been a crazy full day,
literally haven't stopped. I’ll email again Monday!

Monday, July 28^th –

Hey Family :)

Sorry I'm a little behind on this long update, but let's see what I can fill you in on:

So we had transfers on July 15th. I stayed in this area and got Elder Jarvis as a companion!!! We came out together and so it's like serving with a best friend. He's from Sacramento, California, and no lie...the last couple of weeks have flown by so, so fast. It's going to be a fast transfer, I can feel it haha!

We spent the first few days getting everything together, showing Jarvy (Elder Jarvis) the area, and then several service projects. One required us moving lots of furniture and boxes...upon moving one television, an army of cockroaches jumped out and started crawling everywhere. I'm sure my reaction was pretty comical....Jarvis and I ran out of that room so fast....I'm not a fan of the cock-a-roaches haha.

First Sunday, July 20^th - was super good! Elder Jarvis spoke for a bit since he was new, and he's a stud so he did great!

This last Tuesday, July 22^nd - we got an update for our area book app (on the iPads). Our mission is the pilot mission of the pilot missions, so we were the first ones in the entire world to get this update. That's pretty cool. The assistants (APs – assistants to the president) called Jarvis and I and asked us to be in charge of the training, so we spent a pretty good bit of time learning the updates and then did a training for all of the zone leaders and district leaders. The AP's, Isabell and Chappell, are super cool, and they were really thankful for us for helping them with the training. So we took advantage of everyone's good moods and made plans for an awesome all-day Pioneer Day P-day.

On last Thursday (July 24^th), we had permission to sleep in (missionaries normally have to be up by 6am every day). So we did....until 8 am (not really sleeping in, but compared to 5:40 its pretty good). We got up, read the Book of Mormon a bit, then the Assistants picked us up (they're the only missionaries with a car haha). We went to Kneaders and got the all-you-can eat French toast, then we went and played basketball for over 4 hours straight with this big group - super fun. We ate a lunch/dinner at Zaxby's, then spent the night playing volleyball, dodgeball, and more basketball. It's been a super awesome day, but we were all so exhausted and tired haha. Love it!

The rest of the week was pretty normal and chill. I earned a few respect points from Hermano de Alba and his friend Bracamonte by eating this wildly hot pepper....let's just say, Hermano de Alba agreed to come out with us for 3 whole days if I did it! Score :) Our branch council is on fire and setting up appointments for us left and right, so that's just awesome!

We are doing super well. I miss y'all like crazy, but time is just flying. It's about to be August! Craziness. I love y'all so much :)

Ps. We got chased by a giant pit-bull the other day, it's head came above my waist and it was the fastest I've ever biked on my mission haha, but we got away without injury :)

Some other missionaries sent us this picture with the question: "what do we do???"

Should we turn the water off?!?

The people here are so cool! And even though Mondays have "x"'s, we'll have food from some family, always, no worries :)

His August dinner calendar!

Super Good Food!

I'm currently serving with Elder Jarvis, we're all in Spanish positions, and  Elder Chappell is an AP right now! I love these guys like brothers, it's so fun serving around them.

Elder Chappell, me, Rosdahl, and Jarvis

Elder Moleli went home 2 weeks ago, I'm gonna miss him so much!!!!

Scottie with Elder Moleli who left 2 weeks ago

Life is super good :) I'm doing really well, just really happy right now. Everything seems to be pretty solid, but that is the Gospel right?

He says, "I really love this scripture!"

Love you tons,

Scottie

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Aunt Tammy!!!

We had a weird schedule last week and I didn't really get email time. But I loved reading the emails you sent!

By the way, all missionaries are encouraged to look for opportunities to serve. We do it all the time, and it's a super good way to follow the example of Christ and just serve. Plus, we usually get to know the people a lot better, and sometimes it's really fun even! I can't tell you how many times I've helped people move, cut down trees, cut grass, everything! Use the missionaries whenever you need, it's one of our reasons to be out here :)

New words: 

1) fe - it means faith. Everything we have to look for and hope for in life comes from our faith in a loving Heavenly Father and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

2) gracia - grace. Through the divine gift of grace, we have the opportunity to keep on moving forward and progressing, even though we're not perfect. 

3) mejorar - to improve. Sometimes, even in trials and hard times, all we can do is try to improve and get better every day :) 

I love you so much Aunt Tammy!! I can't wait to see your family, I'm so excited to hang out with y'all when I get home!

Stay safe and happy and full of the light of Christ!!

Scottie

Hey Family :)

Thanks so much for sending pictures, I love it!! Makes me feel like I'm part of that trip, in a way haha. (We sent him photos from our family trip to Tybee with all of the extended family)

And the pictures you sent to the frame were awesome as well, so thanks for that :) (We can now email some photos directly to his digital frame that we sent him for “Hump Day” – see June 23^rd blog entry)

This was the Monday I went to the hospital, 2 July I believe (it was actually June 30^th). I came out with all of these people (he left the MTC – Missionary Training Center on the same day as these missionaries)! They weren't all in my MTC district, but we all came out in the same group. Elder Jarvis is getting transferred over into my zone now as a district leader, which means I get to see him a lot more, so I'm pumped!

The Crew! Jarvis, Chappell, Rosdahl, and Higgins

July 14^th –

Wow! This last week was another super busy one, so here's some of the highlights:

Not too much happened in the earlier parts of the week, but on Wednesday it was our landlady's 70th birthday so we took her out to lunch at her restaurant of choice: and she chose Golden Corral haha, so we had a lot of fun doing that though!

On Friday – July 11th, it was Elder McNeil's (one of the District Leaders in his Zone) last district meeting before he goes home, so we were there with him and he gave a great training on scripture study. Then we had this awesome district lunch, and that was super fun!

Scottie and Elder McNeil

The weekend is when it got really busy! We spent Saturday morning at choir practice, grabbed a quick bite to eat at In-N-Out Burger, then went to the Jordan River Temple to do baptisms for the dead with Alfonso and Hermano de Alba. On the way back home, we got transfer calls from Pres. Swain (Mission President). Elder Biggs (his current companion) is heading out unfortunately, and I'm really going to miss that guy.

Outside the Jordan River Temple with Alfonso and Hermano de Alba

Saturday evening, we had our baptism for Patricia. It all went really well and it was so cool to see her make that step! She's been preparing for a long time now.

Elders Biggs and Higgins with Patricia and her family at her baptism

On Sunday July 13th -  , we had a super busy day at church. Last night, at the baptism, Pres. Atwater (Branch President for the Spanish congregation that Scottie is assigned to) asked if we could speak the next day in church haha. When we got to branch council, he told us we'd  have to teach the Youth Sunday school class as well, since the teacher wasn't going to make it (no surprise...it was the World Cup Final today). So I gave a talk about love and charity, and I think it went well.  Elder Biggs talked about grace and then said his goodbye to everyone. We taught the youth about the importance of Sacrament, and then right after church, we spent the whole night going and saying bye to people and visiting people for Biggs (Elder Biggs is being transferred to another Zone). We had an awesome mole dinner with the de Alba family, and then we got to hang out with the Balderas family for a while, which was awesome!

With the de Alba family!

When I eventually have to leave this area, it's going to be the hardest part of my mission. I love these people so much, it's one of the greatest blessings of my mission.

Scottie making carnitas - again!

Love always,

Scottie

He found a puppy that would fit in his pocket!

Hey Family!!!

Okay, so, this last week has been awesome! Definitely full of adventures, some that I know you  won't be super excited about, but before you keep reading, I just want to say: I'm fine, I'm feeling much better, I'm happy and everything is okay :)

So here's my roller coaster of a last week:

Monday – June 30th:

Scottie's Zone - Granger B at the Mission Anniversary Party

Today we had the awesome mission anniversary party! Our mission was formed exactly 2 years go so we had all 140 missionaries together for a big lunch and sports day. I'll send some pictures. They had this tiny little mini-pool set up, and I wasn't going to jump in at first, but then I realized that I haven't been able to swim in a pool for over a year, and it wasn't really swimming (missionaries are not allowed to swim!)...but it was kind of close haha. Everyone was gathered around encouraging me to do it, and someone yelled "do a front flip!" It sounded like a good idea, and Sister Brickey (one of the Senior missionaries in his area) actually got a sweet picture of me doing it, so I'll send that.

Scottie doing a front flip into the "pool"

We played soccer, Frisbee, and other water games all afternoon, and it was amazing. Then, we had a crazy afternoon of running errands and shopping, all via biking. We added up the total afterwards, we biked about 23 miles around West Valley haha. Then, we went and taught some lessons. I started feeling less than good...then I felt super bad. When we got to the last house, I could hardly think straight. I asked the lady for a thermometer, and I had a fever of 102.9. Ouch. So I took some ibuprofen and slept on their couch for about 30 minutes, when I woke up my fever was 103.3 so we went home, called Pres. Swain (Mission President), then got a ride over to the hospital. Elder Walker, one of the senior elders, drove me over. Bless his heart for his service but he was awful. He had the heat on in his car and wouldn't turn it off because "he was chilly," and then he got lost and said he had trouble seeing at night -_-. Anyways, I got there, got checked in, had trouble answering all the questions they asked, they put me in the back room, IV, 2 liters of liquids and some pills, ice packs all over my body. It was sweet! They said it was basically some severe dehydration and then heat exhaustion, so that wasn't very fun. Around midnight, Pepe and Levi (members of his Spanish Branch/congregation) showed up because they heard I needed a ride home, and they were so cool. They kept me laughing and stayed there with me all night. Then Levi started hitting on the doctor lady, had me laughing so hard. We got out of there around 1:30AM, stopped at Walmart to get some Gatorade, got some dirty looks from people who thought we were just disobedient missionaries (missionaries are not supposed to be out that late!) haha, then got home and asleep around 2:30 - 3 am. So very tired, but so very blessed to be okay and have good friends out here that'll take care of me.

Still smiling in the hospital! (I think he was still a bit delirious!)

Sidenote, I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you earlier. The doctor asked if I wanted to call home, but it was 3:30 AM your time and that would have just worried you when you couldn't do anything.  I'm not sure if there's going to be a bill or anything, I'm super sorry if there is or if it's expensive, I feel really bad. Sorry!!

Tuesday – July 1^st:

I had my dentist appointment this morning....at 8 AM. I could hardly keep my eyes open and the dentist was about 90 years old....no lie, I'm not even exaggerating, it was crazy. But everything is good, no cavities, they said "keep doing what you're doing!" So that was good, if not interesting at least haha. Then we had mission leadership council again (since we're in July now). The meeting was awesome, I was pretty exhausted though, no lie. The funny thing was, last week, the assistants (assistants to the mission president) asked us to do a training today. Usually, they ask multiple sets of zone leaders. Nope, this time, it was just us. So we made it through that, got home, saw one person, than I went to sleep. I needed it badly haha.

Thursday – July 3^rd:

Fun fact: tonight, I got a package. It was the advent calendar Christmas package y'all sent me! I don't know where it's been for the last 7 months, but thank you so much :) It was awesome, and even though the chocolate was melted to mush, it still tasted good!! Y'all are the best haha. (We mailed the package the weekend after Thanksgiving and he never got it. A couple of days ago I received a phone call from the Post Office in West Valley City telling me they had located the package and they would send it on to him if he was still serving his mission!)

The Christmas Advent Calendar - better late than never!

Friday – July 4^th:

Happy 4th of July!!!! Happy birthday Padre!! I've spent the last few days just trying to recuperate, and we've been working with the Tierrablanca family closely because they're getting baptized on Saturday. Today, we had zone training in the afternoon, and I think it went really well. We got permission to show the University of Texas 2014 commencement address, y'all should watch it if you get the chance, it's super good and actually related a lot to the gospel and missionary work. The theme was: things to do if you want to change the world for the better.  After zone training, we had a p-day for the rest of the night (we just weren't supposed to go out because too many people would be drinking and partying) (the mission office tries to keep the missionaries away from potentially dangerous situations). We did a big cookout as the zone and then played sports, then (Elder) Biggs and I went and hung out with the Balderas family all night, they're the coolest (that's Pepe and Levi's family by the way). We got home around 9:30 and  then climbed up on our roof (it's flat, no worries). We watched fireworks for a while...but then we were super tired so we ended up falling asleep somehow haha, but some loud finale around 11pm woke us up and then we went inside to go to sleep...our beds are slightly more comfortable than the roof haha. Good day!

Saturday and Sunday

Today was awesome. Big highlight: Gabriela and Edwin Tierrablanca got baptized today (Saturday) and it was an awesome service, they were just so happy, and loving life. They got confirmed on Sunday and it's just so cool to see how much of a blessing the Gospel is in people's lives. I love it!

The Tierrablanca Family got baptized

Love you all,

Scottie