Hey there!

Man, it sounds like y'all stayed super busy this last week. Thank you again for the update, I   always love hearing what you been up to. That is so crazy that the Yellow Jackets did so well this year - that makes me happy to hear.

This last week was pretty crazy for us. Mission leadership council went really well, but Elder Arnold (from the Quorum of the Seventy) was there for an hour and I feel like we're making good progress in the mission which is good. There's still a lot of things that we can improve and do better, but we're doing the best that we can and slowly improving, which is all we can do at the moment.

We had a busy week, and a lot of cancellations. But that gave us a lot of time to find new people, and we have a few promising prospects.

This week, I tried something that I had never had before. For dinner one night, we had Elk heart in venison steaks. I will send a picture of the heart. It actually tasted really good, and I would eat it again if given the opportunity. The guy that fed us was a real country boy, and he had shot the elk himself with a compound bow - then butchered it himself.

Elk heart for dinner!

I am definitely learning a lot being in this position (assistant to the president). It pushes me in a lot of ways that I haven't really been pushed before on the mission, its one giant balancing act. Where in charge of so much administration office work, and then we have to go out and do the same missionary work we were doing before, but without as much of an opportunity to study the Scriptures and really plan out what we're going to do with the people that we teach. It is such an amazing opportunity though, and I love the challenge. I'm learning tons, and I've learned a lot from Elder Chapell (his companion).

I really cannot wait for our Christmas time phone call, it is going to be so good to hear from you all again. It's hard to believe that it will be my last call home. May 5 (the official release date for his mission) is coming up way faster than I thought that it would, but I'm going to work hard until the end. I love you so much, and I can't thank you enough for all the support that you give
me.

I love y'all! Our big project this week will be getting out new phones. Our mission is switching over from Sprint to AT&T, so we are in charge of getting every companionship (75 of them) A brand-new phone, transferring over there contacts, and then updating the online missionary information system for all of them. It will be quite the task but we are hoping that it will aid the work in the long run :-)

Love y'all!

Scottie

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Aunt Tammy!

It's so good to hear from you. Thank you so much for sending all the pictures, I love seeing what's going on with you and your family.

Thanksgiving was awesome. We got to spend most of it with the Balderas family, and we had lots of good food, football, and basketball. It's crazy to think that it'll be the last Thanksgiving I had out here in the mission field.

We are staying busy as usual. We are finding new people to meet teach and we are seeing great progress in the Tu'uhetaufa sisters. They are going to be baptized on the 20th of this month, so we are quite excited.

I don't get to practice Spanish as much as I used to, but here's some Tongan words that I've been learning:
*ofa atu - I love you
* Malo 'aupito- thank you very much
*sisu kalaisi - Jesus Christ

I love you aunt Tammy. I hope that you are doing well, and I can't wait to see you soon :-)

Scottie

Scottie being Thankful with the Balderas

 Hey Family!!!!!

Life has been tooooo crazy lately haha. Elder Chappell (his companion) and I had been running on fumes so Thanksgiving was a very welcome break. 

We got up at 6:30 so we could go and play Turkey Bowl with the Balderas family at one of their friend's house in South Jordan. It was the most organized and epic Turkey Bowl Football I'd ever seen. They had the field painted and flags and a referee and an announcer there the whole time haha. It was way fun, and our team did well!! (Elder) Jarvis (his previous companion) got to come with us too so that made it even better. 

Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl!

We came home, then ate our first meal (lunch really) with the Roblyers (the Mission Executive Secretary couple). 

Scottie and the Roblyers

Thanksgiving lunch at the Roblyers

Then we chilled with them for a while, then I spent the whole night with the Balderas family. Chappell and Jarvis went and played basketball at the end of the night, and as much as I love Basketball, it was better to be with family (Balderas') that night. So it was awesome. Thanks for telling her I love mac and cheese! She made some and it really helped me feel like I was at home haha :) I loved it! I'll send you pictures from that!

Thanksgiving dinner with the Balderas Family

Elder Higgins!

The rest of the week, we did lots of teaching and finding and that was great!

We found one new investigator that started smoking while we were in their apartment, so we left their house smelling heavily of smoke. Not my favorite but we do what we have to do to go ahead and hasten the work!!

I got my new suits from Men's Warehouse also! They fit super well and I'm much happier now that I have nice clothing (the suits he left home with had gotten pretty worn out!). While being in the car ruins my cardiovascular endurance, I can wear nice clothes without getting them ruined which is nice! 

We'll be busy this week with Mission Leadership Council tomorrow (Elder Arnold of the 70 is coming) and then on Friday we'll have zone trainings. We usually get invited to train at all 7 of them, so we stay busy on Friday :)

Life is good! Thanks for sending the update and all the pictures, I read the whole update and saw all the pictures and loved them! Madre I hope you get to feeling better!!!!

P.S. Go Ga Tech!!!!! That's so awesome that the beat UGA at their home stadium #wreckthehedges

I love y'all so much! Thanks for everything you do for me, can't believe it's already December. May 5th (our officially announced date to go home for the missionaries that come out with me) is coming up sooo quick!

I'll send pictures soon :) 

Love y'all!!!!!

Scottie

Hey Family!

I love y'all so much!! I hope you know that, and I hope y'all know how thankful I am for y'all!

This last week was pretty rough, no lie. We didn't get much sleep at all haha, lots of stuff to do on transfer week! and we got dropped by a few investigators (everyone that had a date for baptism dropped us), and we didn't have any dinners all week for some reason (the Young Single Adult wards are not always great with the meals, lots of students who are doing good to feed themselves!). But it's okay!!! The Lord always provides!

We've already met some new investigators, Fa and Melanie Tu'uhekautafa are their names. They're sisters, and we're excited to work with them :)

And we eat with the Tongans this week  (they eat with the English speaking YSA ward one week and then the Tongan ward the next week) plus Thanksgiving with the Balderas family, so I'm going to get plenty of food haha.  

Elder Chappell (Scottie's companion) with his late night snack!

When we eat with the Tongans, we're well fed. When we eat with the palagi (white) (by white - he means English speaking) ward...we have to go to drastic measures at 9:30 at night haha

I'm really looking forward to Thursday! I hope y'all know how thankful I am for everything you do for me. And even though I'll really miss y'all, it'll be the last time I miss thanksgiving (he will be home this time next year)!! And I'll be with the Balderas family, which'll make things much better too. 

I'm happy and smiling. Elder Chappell is an incredible companion, and we're really loving serving together. It's like serving with a brother and best friend. Jarvis, Chappell, and I are going to be friends for life, they're awesome people. 

I see that you're in Disney World!! Have so much fun please :) I can't wait for that Christmas phone call so I can tell you all the stories of what's been going on. 

I love you! I'll email again next Monday and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving :) Please send my love to everyone back home!

Love always, 

Scottie

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

Elder Chappell, Elder Higgins, Elder Jarvis and Elder Rosdahl

Hey Family!!!!

This last week has been crazy, but here's a few highlights. 

The BOYS!!!! Passing over the 18 month mark, coming up on less than 6 months until that May 5th date. Craziness!!!! (All these Elders entered the mission field at the same time, they have become good friends!)

Scott, Elder Jarvis, Elder Chappell, Elder Rosdahl

We had Mission Leadership Council on Tuesday. It was my first time leading the meeting as an Assistant, so that was pretty interesting, but we think it went really well!

Tuesday night: it was the first time we were going to bed at 10:30 in like....5 weeks haha. We were literally crawling into bed....when the phone rings. President Swain: "Elders, I'm sorry, but I need you to go take care of an issue with a report I was supposed to get." We didn't have to do this report, but the missionary that was in charge did it incorrectly and thus, we went to fix it. Bed time--> 11:45. Haha...so close to good sleep :)

Wednesday, we took a missionary to the airport...turns out, you can't park on the side of the drop-off lane...even for 5 minutes to run someone inside. The guy that wrote us the parking ticket said one of us should have stayed in the car, we tried to explain our mission rules that we have to stay with our companion...he said "I don't care" and walked away. Somebody didn't have "sunshine in his soul" that day haha. No worries, lesson learned and on to the next day :)

Saturday to Sunday was our stake conference, way cool experience! Turns out, a YSA (young single adult) stake conference focuses heavily on dating haha, which is comical from a missionary standpoint, but it's all good. There were plenty of spiritual messages too :)

Thanks again for the shoes! They're awesome. (His old ones were worn out so we sent him some new ones)

I love y'all tons! I hope your week is awesome, Christmas is rapidly approaching! Have a great week and we'll talk soon :) I love you all!

 I'm healthy! Mildly sleep deprived but healthy :) no worries, I'm smiling!

Morning exercise....usually doesn't happen. I wish we could do more, this week might be a bit calmer, but it's kind of rough to find time for that haha

I love you!

Scottie

Hey there family!

So sorry I couldn't ever get on last week to email, we never got a P-Day (being Assistant to the President sometimes means there is no time for Preparation Day) really and then when we were going to try to email later in the week on Thursday (our most free afternoon), we got a call from Pres. Swain (his mission President) and had to drive out to Magna to deal with some disciplinary things (part of his AP duties), and that took all afternoon. So that kind of took away that opportunity haha. But here's a small recap of things that have been going on:

I don't think I've ever been this busy in my entire life. This is truly an opportunity to grow and learn. I thought the mission had been challenging but very manageable up until this point, but now I'm getting to learn and grow like never before. It's such a unique perspective on the Work of Salvation, and it's keeping me beyond busy.

We have been doing our absolute best in our area this transfer, and it's starting to show the results. 1 baptism and 3 reactivations so far for October, and we're hoping for more this upcoming weekend. We found a few new investigators, a cool experience was that a guy in the Tongan ward came home from his mission 2 weeks ago, named Nella, and he brought his 2 sisters to church. Their names are Fa and Lupe. They aren't members, and their dad is a pastor for the Church of Tonga, but they want to get taught and baptized because they've seen the blessings in their brother. SO cool!!!!!

We've been beyond busy this transfer with office stuff, even more than usual according to Elder Chappell. We've had 6 Emergency Transfers, no good. 4 missionaries have gone home early, which is always sad. We even took one to the airport ourselves. We had to wake up at 4am to get him there on time, after having gone to bed around midnight the night before, so that made for a tired day haha. But it was a weird experience. This kid seemed pretty sad, he'd only been out for about 3 weeks, but he's going to go home and get some things in order. It was interesting to see what the process is for missionaries going home, craziness. And everyone (at the airport) kept asking where I was going haha, I just kept saying, "Nowhere, this is my mission." Then they laughed and asked again....and I told them I was serious hahahah. I love this mission so much though, it's such a big blessing to be able to be here and learn from all the people and President Swain.

I'm sorry I can't write more. So, in a meeting with Pres. Swain last week, he brought up a concern. Tons of missionaries are claiming that they're homesick, and he doesn't like that because it causes missionaries to go home early. He stated that he'll be enforcing a new rule, that during email time, we can't "chat” (email back and forth) with our family and friends back home. He said he knows that it doesn't negatively affect everyone, but it does some people, so he's just going to make it a rule.

I know that'll probably make you sad. I hope you know how much I love y'all and wish I could just pick up the phone and call you all the time, I have so many stories and I just can't get them right via email. But I'll be calling you in just a few weeks! (He gets to call/Skype on Christmas Day!) No worries :) Please don't be upset, just know that I'll make a big effort to take more pictures and write better letters so you know what's going on.

This upcoming week, we have Mission Leadership Council, which will be fun. I'm excited because I really feel like we have good Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders in our mission, and it'll aid the work so much. I know that the Gospel is true, and I gain a more sure testimony of the Atonement of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, every single day. There is no way to fully describe the joy that comes with the Gospel, it has to be experienced. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be able to be here and share it. Also, if y'all haven't ever read the talk "Rejoice!" by Quentin L. Cook, from the October 1996 conference, you should go check it out. It's amazing! Rejoice by Quentin L. Cook

I love you so much, thank you for being the best family and support ever.

Love always,

Scottie

P..S. Thank you again so much for the package (we sent him a Halloween package), and thanks so much for sending one to the Balderas family too. They were beyond hyped to get it, they said thank you to you so many times, Elisa is super excited to meet you, Levi said "Love you Mama Higgins!", and they're just really thankful. You're awesome for so many reasons, best parents in the world.

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Aunt Tammy!!

I'm definitely staying way busier than I ever was before with all this new responsibility and new area, but I'm loving it. 

Thank you so much for your constant support and love. These last few weeks have been a big time of learning and growth for me, I wish I could just pick up the phone and call you! But I’ll be home before you know it, this week marks only 6 months left. Crazy to think about. 

I am doing really well though. Very happy, very fortunate to be here in this mission. 

I love you! Can't wait to see you again!

Scottie

Oct. 20^th

Dear family, this last week has been insane!

I've learned a few things as an assistant. For example, we don't really get sleep. This last week we had our mission tour with Elder Arnold of the 70 (First Quorum of the Seventy – a General Authority for the Church). He is an extremely spiritual and very intense man. His list of what he wanted for the mission zone conferences was long and detailed, and he expected it to all be perfect.  We spent the three days of Monday-Wednesday on a combined 14 hours of sleep, but we got it all done and it was incredible! We learned tons from Elder Arnold, and one of the coolest parts was the one on one interview we had with him!

Elder Arnold of the First Quorum of the Seventy

After mission tour, we tried to get back to focusing on our proselyting area. It's so cool to serve in YSA (Young Single Adult congregations). The English ward is pretty cool, the bishop is a former mission president so he's super awesome at helping us out. The Tongan ward is awesome! This last week, we even taught a lesson in Chuuk (Micronesian language). I can't speak it obviously, but I read out loud from the Book of Mormon in it. The person we were teaching told me it sounded exactly right. I just pronounced it like I would pronounce Spanish haha. We even got to teach a young man in Spanish, so that's good, I can still practice my language skills.

Life is super good. We stay busier than I even anticipated. Most days start before 6:30 and we don't get home until midnight, but I love it! I feel productive and feel like we're getting tons done, now it's time to focus on helping the mission keep moving forward and helping our brothers and sisters learn about the true and restored Gospel.

Unfortunate part of this last week, we had an emergency transfer on Saturday that moved about 6 elders and sent one home, which was no fun to deal with and we felt bad for those involved, but it'll be for their best in the long run. Elder Chappell and I spent all day long transporting missionaries and their things from one place to the other, pure craziness! (Part of his new duties as an AP: Assistant to the Mission President)

I feel like I'm going to blink and it'll already be Christmas time, can't wait to see y'all :) (We will get to Skype and talk to him on the phone that day!!!) Until next week, just know that I love y'all and you're the best family ever :) Keep on smiling!

Life is good though. Crazy, but good :) I love being on the mission!

Hey Madre! I love you! I'm sorry my email time was limited. We had a “kind of” P-day today.  We had a mission office meeting all morning, finally got some food/did some shopping, then just had a couple of hours to play ball and clean, so that's what we've been doing. But I love you! Thanks so much for your long update, I truly appreciate it and I'm so thankful to have a mom like you, I brag about you ALL the time. Seriously, you're the best. 

Love always,

Scottie

(From his email to his Aunt Tammy):

Hey Aunt Tammy!

I'm glad to hear grandma and papa are healthy! (My sister is currently visiting my parents)

So my favorite part about this new assignment is the opportunity it gives me to grow in leadership skills. Least favorite part: we get very little sleep. We don't really get to follow the (normal) missionary schedule because of all the extra assignments we have, so instead of 6:30 am to 10:30 pm it's like 6:30 am to midnight haha, every day.

We get exposed to plenty of opportunities to learn how to correct/assist the missionaries we serve over when they’re disobedient as well as plan for the mission goals and implementing general improvement plans.

Phrase of the week: no puedo esperar. It means I can't wait. Each day that's how I feel about the next. Each day is a great opportunity to learn and grow :)

I love you so much! See yah soon! Send my love to everyone back home please.

Scottie