July 24, 2013.

Things are going good! the ward is crazy like always, but i love them. there is a ward baptism tomorrow and the kid's mom asked me if i could give a talk on baptism during the service, so i get to do that.. and then on sunday i have to give a talk in sacrament! first ever time that i'll be giving a talk completely in english, in an english ward, ever. haha i will be speaking on the sabbath day. 

our investigator michelle is AWESOME. yesterday we went to her house and we watched the joseph smith movie with her because she had asked us before about his persecution and stuff so we decided it would just be better to watch the movie and she loved it. she said during the movie it was confirmed to her that joseph smith was a prophet of God. this week she'll be praying about Thomas S Monson. but she is soo ready. its awesome we love her so much haha our investigators are a little shaky. we haven't been teaching too many lessons lately, but the ones we do teach are good and we're seeing progress- although slow- with those people we are teaching. and our relationship with the ward is getting a lot better too. the members love us. this week we have a dinner almost every night with a member. and each member wants all 8 of us there together haha if that ain't love then i don't know what love is!  we are going to the beach again today for our zone activity. it should be fun :) i'ma be real dark by the end of the summer. and i bought me some 2 dollar flip flops so that i can get some cool tan lines on my feet. but yeah. that's pretty much it guys. I love you so much. remember the Church is true!

July 17, 2013.

not a whole lot of things have gone down this week. pretty uneventful actually. and it went by super fast, so i don't really remember anything ha actually, we just got this new investigator who told us she visited the missionaries before and wasn't interested, but now she's ready and she's already commited to being baptized and she's already changed her work schedule so that she can come to church every sunday.. so she seems pretty solid, hopefully it all works out !! other than that not a whole lot has happened ha sorry, no updates! but i love you guys so much and miss you guys. go do something fun before summer is over!!! byee :)

July 10, 2013.

This past week was good. we had the leadership council so it was nice to go and see president and all of the other zone leaders in the mission. the weather has been so nasty here haha i hate it. hot, rainy, and super humid. blegh! it seems like the work has been going a little slow, but we DID have a baptism yesterday! and everything went smoothly :) sometimes it seems like we are working hard with little results, but then we see the tender mercies and the miracles that Heavenly Father puts in our path as well, so we are grateful for everything we have! transfers was today as you guys already know, so it's been a super busy day. luckily we have a little bit of time to email and i get some time to upload pictures, yay! haha hope you like them. 

1.baptism!

2. at the beach!

3. new suits!

July 3, 2013

other things. 

this past week happened so fast. this transfer is pretty much over! transfers is a week from today and on saturday we find out if we're gonna be staying or going. and on sunday we were talking to one of the AP's and he said that they almost transferred me back to spanish.. so i don't know if i'm staying here or what.. i have no idea what's gonna happen! hopefully me and portillo stay together and hopefully elder berryman stays with us too- the big 3! although this isn't my favorite ward, this is definitely the most fun i've had on my mission. so know that i am enjoying myself very much :) the work is a little rough here in this area. we have been working really hard, but the results haven't exactly been reflecting our efforts... it's all good tho, we know what we're doing! we have a baptism lined up on tuesday the 9th, for a girl named daniela. she's 12.. her 2 older sisters were baptized like 2 months ago and she said she wanted to too so we've been working with her since i got here and she's finally ready! and we just had a girl move in from another area in the mission and she told us her little brother who is 13 also wants to be baptized, so we just started working with him too. we just seem to be having some luck with the youth! counting our blessings. today we are going to the beach as a zone because it's the last p.day of the cycle.. hopefully it doesn't rain so we can still go! should be fun :) love you guys, be safe!!!

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June 26, 2013.

So this past week was pretty cool! last week me and portillo were feeling a little adventurous and we decided we wanted to play some kids in basketball.. so we sat down at the park and after like 3 minutes some kid came up to us and asked us if we wanted to play. perfect. we played for a bit and then played some kids in 2 on 2, the deal being if we win, we take their information and they sit down for at least one discussion. needless to say, we got their information and will be visiting them soon! on saturday our whole district had the opportunity to come down to manhattan because our ward has lack of priesthood, so they asked the missionaries if we could come help them in doing baptisms for the dead. so we got to come down and do that, it was so cool! i always love seeing different temples and the different parts of them. although we couldn't do baptisms, we helped with confirmations and being witnesses for the baptisms. it was a good experience. today we went to H&M and i bought myself the suit for a total of like 100 bucks. and we heard there are trampolines at nike world, so after this we're gonna go head down there and see if it's true. and then we're gonna go to the temple and play some basketball. so it looks like we have a good day in store :) well, no other news. but know that everything is good! right now we have a baptism lined up for the 9th of July. splash!!!! haha have a good week guys. I love you!

Hey! 

soo i'll just direct this towards everyone, but i'll answer dads questions first! there are 18 missionaries in my zone, including a senior couple. we have 2 districts, and next transfers we might get another two companionships added to our zone. yeah i still go to the same chapel i went to at the beginning of my mission, so i see a lot of the people i used to see! there are four of us in our apartment. the other 2 elders are in the spanish ward! uhmm,, we don't get fed that much, but we're working on it haha getting friendly with people so they'll want to have us over a little bit more! the work here in this area is a lot different than the work in my last area. the spanish/english culture difference is pretty big. it's still a little weird for me praying in english and sharing the gospel in english and having church in english haha this is the first time in my life where i go to church in english all the time! so it's weird. I'm having so much fun tho, although me and Portillo have a lot of responsibilities in our ward and our zone, we get along really really well and we think alike so we're always on the same page and we both like to have fun, so we always try and it always works! the people we are working with.. we have a few people who are almost ready for baptism, they just have to show a little bit more of a commitment on their part. but i guess we can say that about everyone haha but it's all good. today has been a little crazy, we were running around manhattan trying to find suits and shoes and stuff.. i bought new shoes! they're cole haan.. sooo nice! haha i don't think i'm ever gonna wear them. we haven't even eaten yet, i'm so hungry. i think i'm gonna buy a suit within the next couple weeks, then i'll wear the new shoes :) 

so i forgot to tell you guys this last week. but at our leadership conference a couple weeks ago president announced that the church is getting ready to move to apple. as in pretty soon, each companionship is gonna have an iphone and an ipad. crazy right? he told us that we really have to stress obedience to the missionaries in our zones because as a mission he doesn't feel like we're ready to be able to handle an opportunity like that.. so hopefully we can all be good boys and girls so we can have that! i'm so excited!! so yeah. 

this cycle has gone by so fast, we're already on the second half.. these past few weeks have flown by! i'm coming up on a year, and it doesn't feel like it at all. i still feel like i could learn so much more! but yes, dad, i have learned a lot, and i have a little bit more experience than i did when i got here.. and i'm excited to see what's in store for me this next year. bout to do work!! haha i'm sorry i don't have much of an update for this week. i'll try to make something exciting happen so i have a cool story for next week cool beans? love you guys, take care, be safe, all that jazz! byee!

June 12, 2013.

Life is good! the yankees game was dope! there was like 100 or so missionaries there, it was pretty legit. i took a bunch of pictures. you will see them soon! it was cool because i got to see a lot of the missionaries i've served with in my other zones. being a zone leader is weird. but cool. i don't feel any different , which is good i suppose. we have the mission leadership meeting last friday and it was awesome! president talked a lot about serving those who are in our zones, and that our main job is to love them and help them grow and develop as missionaries, and if our area takes a hit because of it then its fine. he also said that being a leader is the opportunity to have the same responsibilities as everyone else and more. so i am grateful for this opportunity. me and my companion get along really well, we are so much a like haha i laugh just thinking about it. we have a lot of fun. and one of our district leaders is elder berryman, the one who was in the airport with us the morning i left, remember? well yeah. he's like our twin. so we're triplets. the big 3. haha we have a lot of fun together! yesterday we had interviews with president. it was so great. we had a really good talk about leadership and some qualities that i have and could perfect and a lot of other things that he told me to think about. and it was awesome, it motivated me a lot and i feel like there could be some great opportunities coming my way. hopefully i can do what he asked. it's so funny being around the spanish ward, they are still coming up to me asking me to go have dinner at their house and not asking their own missionaries. we will fix that so we can all get fed  :) that's pretty much it for my update, things are going great. i love the work. i love the bronx. i love all of you. please have a good week ! byeeeeee!

June 5, 2013.

Hey!

i'm gonna write everyone together today because i literally have like 20 minutes to email and i still have to email president and send in our numbers from last week. the reason i don't have a lot of time is because our WHOLE MISSION is going to the yankees game today and all of the zone leaders have to be there early to pick up the tickets for their zones so we have to leave early because from here it takes us like an hour to get to yankee stadium.. i wish i still lived in my last apartment haha it was a 3 minute walk! but i love my new calling. it's a little hard, we are in charge of the well being for everyone in our zone and have to make sure everyone is doing okay, which is fine, we haven't had any problems so far so it's good! the only hard thing for me is that we have to prepare trainings for the entire zone and that's not something i have any experience with, luckily elder portillo does and so we help each other out. and wow, our ward haha a little dysfunctional. the missionaries do EVERYTHING. there are 4 sister missionaries and 4 elders in my ward. and we pretty much teach everything. i don't know if i said this last week, but me and portillo are in charge of the home teaching for our ward haha and the missionaries here teach the youth, sunday school, elders quorum, and gospel principles.. so we are super busy! our bishop is a convert of like 5 years.. and the 1st counselor of our ward is less active.. so there is a lot of problems here .. haha but i love it, i know i'm gonna learn a lot here and it is a great opportunity for me to grow and develop my skills as a leader, teacher, and missionary. so i'm excited. it definitely is weird walking the same streets as i did about 7 months ago. ahhh sorry i have to go, i'm sorry it's been 2 weeks in a row where i can't email for very long. i hope next week we won't have any more things come up and i'll really be able to email for a little while longer and update you guys on whats going here in Olmstead! I love you guys, have a good week !! byeeeeee!