The 3 languages of his mission: English, Spanish and Tongan!

Hola Family!

It's the week before transfers out here so we've stayed beyond busy, here are some of the things that have kept us on our toes: 

1) Our car battery died on Tuesday...we found out at 10:15 at night when we were dropping a package off with some other missionaries. The guy we called to jump us took 30 minutes to get there, even though he lives super close by haha, but it was okay...we had Panda Express in the car with us, and we ate well (we didn't get dinner that night so it was a blessing in disguise to get some late-night Panda)

2) We collect the iPads from all the missionaries that are going home. 

3) We set up and get new iPads to all the missionaries going in (out into the mission). 

Setting up new Ipads

4) We talked with Pres. Swain (his Mission President) for over 4 hours on the phone this last week talking about transfers (part of his responsibilities as Assistant to the President) and who was going where...we finally got things figured out. It was a big transfer, for various reasons. Of our 75 companionships, 55 of them were changed in some way. 

Working out the transfers

5) Teaching! We had a solid week with 18 lessons, so that was pretty good considering how much time we spent working in the office haha. 

He got a visitor while teaching!

6) We did not spend too much time sleeping ;) But no worries! I'm healthy and happy :) (This seems to be a theme recently!)

Life has flown by, the last 6 weeks have been the fastest of my life. But things are good! We have transfer meeting tomorrow, but our day will start at about 4 am when we start taking missionaries to the airport. It'll be kind of sad to see some of them go, Elder Isabell was like a brother to me and helped me so much when I got transferred to be an AP, and he goes home tomorrow. Time flies too fast!

Scottie and Elder Isabell at the airport

I can't wait for Christmas, it'll be so good to talk with y'all face-to-face (we will get to talk/Skye to him on Christmas Day!). I'm sorry I can't ever include as much detail as I want, we just never have time. 

I can't wait to talk soon!

I love y'all with all my heart!

Scottie

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Aunt Tammy!!

I bet the sunshine is a welcome sight! I really don't like the extremely cold weather; we haven't gotten it too bad, but it was 20 degrees the other day and that's pretty cold when you've got to be walking around haha. Thankfully we have a car now (the APs, Assistants to the President are the only missionaries in his mission to have a car), so that'll keep me a little warmer!

Well, this week we had some fun troubles with our car (dead battery), so we had to get that fixed. We had another missionary want to go home, and we tried talking to him but he didn't want to talk to us, so he flies out tomorrow. And we also have transfers tomorrow. I'm not going anywhere for a while, but it is kind of cool to be able to counsel with our mission president and help pick where everyone goes. The advice we give a lot of people that are struggling with home-sickness is just to pray and think about why they're out here, and really talk it out with the Lord. We try to help them see the joys and positives of serving, and there are a ton! I love being out here and I'm happy all the time :)

The Holiday season is definitely interesting as a missionary, because we see everything as so family-oriented...but we can't be with our families. But it does help that I know have people out here that may as well be my family. For example, the Balderas family. They treat me like family, and I'll be spending Thanksgiving with them. 

Tongan word of the week: Sisu Kalaisi - it means Jesus Christ. I know and can testify that he is our Savior, our Redeemer, and that he atoned for our sins so that we can one day return to live with our Heavenly Father. 

I love you Aunt Tammy!!

Scottie