Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Baptism?

Martin wasn't able to quit smoking soon enough to get baptized, but he is going pretty strong now. It has been since Friday since he has smoked. We are pretty sure that he will get baptized this Saturday. Yesterday we went to work with Martin. He is the head herdsman on number 4 dairy for Jack. When we pulled up we saw him with some strange contraption attached to the back side of a cow, and he was pulling out a dead calf, and that was just the start of the day.

We then had to give some cows medicine and we used this thing to hold the cows head still. It looked kind of like a wrench that you put in their nose, it didn't look very comfortable. Then we shot this gross brown liquid in their mouth. After that we had to give them some huge pills, about three inches long and half an inch in diameter. We put the pills in this two foot long pipe and stuck it down their throat and with a ram rod you stick all of the pills into their stomach. Then the fun part came, we got to color on cows that are getting sent to the slaughter. It was pretty hard work.

So if you are ever thinking about going to box canyon make sure you look out for poison ivy. Elder Waldorf got it pretty bad on his legs and feet, so it has been very hard to for him to sleep because he is super itchy. For some reason I didn't get touched by the stuff, and we went to all the same places. I still want to go back after the mission to go swimming there. The water looks so clean and wonderful to swim in.

This last Friday was zone conference so we got to go to Twin and see President which is always good times. During zone conference we have what is called zone breakout, where all the zones split up and have their own little meeting. The President and the AP's go around and listen. Normally no one comes to ours because it is in spanish, but this time President came to ours, he needed a translator but it was still good to see him really showing interests in us hispanos.

After zone conference we did exchanges. I stayed in Twin with Elder Moncayo, from Equador. He is really funny, turns out that most of the hispanic missionaries are funny but for different reasons. It was pretty fun to hang out in Twin and get to know the other missionaries better.

Last night we didn't have very many people to visit so we went to a members house, they are a part member family and we teach the non member but he works a lot. They were getting corn ready to freeze, so they put us to work. I would cut the corn and Elder Waldorf helped cook it, there were 11 5 gallon buckets full of corn. My hand was so tired from gripping the knife.
I think that is pretty much everything that we did this last week.

Love,
Elder Paxton

Side note from Mom: About an hour after I received Chris's email I received a phone call from Wendell, Idaho. I was a little panicked at first wondering if something had happened to Chris. Thankfully, it was just a very nice sister from Wendell. She said that the Elders come over to their house often and they feed them dinner. She asked Chris the last time he was there if there was a favorite dish that he would like her to fix. He told her he would like the Oriental cabbage salad that his Mom makes. She did not have that recipe. He told her he should call me to get the recipe, so, Sister Dunn called to get the recipe. What a great sister going out of her way to feed Chris a favorite dish.

I thanked Sister Dunn for calling and told her that I would email her the recipe. I also thanked her for feeding the Elders. She said that the Elders come over to their house quite a bit and help her husband out on the farm. She said they love Chris. Come to find out, they are the part member family that Chris helped with their corn that he had just told me about in his email. That phone call made this missionary mom's day!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Fun week!

This week has been pretty fun. We went down to box canyon again and we had a lot of fun. We have been enjoying riding our bikes, the only problem is that my new crank keeps wanting to fall off. The bolt that holds it on can only get a few threads in to the bottom bracket so it some how works it self out. Suggestions dad? I'm pretty sure I wont need the other crank. Besides that it has been good exercise, and we have been very protected. Yesterday we left the car at home, didn't ever once turn it on.

We are still really hoping that Martin will get baptized this Saturday. He is really looking forward to it and is really excited, but we have to get him off the cigarettes. we still haven't been able to see his wife to talk to her more about how she feels about baptism, hopefully she has done everything that she needs to do to get an answer about the truthfulness of everything.

I am pretty sure that all of south central Idaho is going to burn down. There were 3 pretty good sized fires in between Boise and Wendell. I heard that they burned around 200,000 acres of land. The first day it looked like a nice cool cloudy day. The only thing was the ashes and the smell that made it less than nice. We wanted to ride our bikes that day but we didn't feel like breathing all of that smoke while riding. we are trying to get 200 miles before Elder Waldorf goes home. We have gone about 61 so far and we are hoping to get to 100 by the end of August. hopefully we can.

Well that is pretty much everything going on here in Wenderful. Hopefully I get to report on a baptism next week. Pray for Martin.

Love

Elder Paxton

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

I've been riding my bike!

So this week has been pretty fun, I have been riding MY "fixed" bike. The front brake still doesn't work but I can ride it and stop when I need to with the back. I have tried to fix it but either we are bleeding the hydraulics poorly or they are more broken then hoped. I stopped at the bike shop in Twin and they said that it might be a 50 dollar part plus labor to fix it. I am probably going to bring it to Twin to see if that is the case.

The baptismal date is still set for the 28th. Martin really sounds like he wants to get baptized and he sounds very sincere. We are also very sure that his wife will get baptized very soon as well. Maybe not the 28th but soon. We are still waiting for the night sacrament and as soon as we get that Miguel will be baptized. Every time we go over there we just share spiritual thoughts just to continue strengthening his testimony but for the next time we told him that he has to teach us something from his Book of Mormon reading. I am looking forward to what he is going to share. Another thing that happened with Miguel, yesterday, we left the phone at home, but good thing because Miguel called us saying that he wouldn't be home for our appointment so if we had the phone we wouldn't have been able to teach him. Blessings for being forgetful.

This past week I got to hang out in Twin because Elder Waldorf had to be in a leadership training meeting on Thursday and Friday from 8-4 both days. I had a really good time hanging out with the Twin Elders. It was nice to get to know them a little bit better. I am hoping I get to serve with them one day.

The other day we were teaching one of our English investigators and his wife was saying how sometimes he uses some beautiful language when he has had a few cervezas (beers) she said it in spanish so her 10 year old daughter wouldn't understand and she(Ryley) was asking what does that mean, I told her don't worry about it and Elder Waldorf told her that it meant soda, so as far as she knows cerveza means soda I thought it was pretty funny.

That is pretty much all that is going on here, all that I can think of at least.

Love
Elder Paxton

PS: I got Nicole's package. The cookies made it and are delicious. I am really enjoying my not super trunky companion.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Who's Ready for Round 4?!? (In Wendell)

Today was a really fun day. We spent p day RIDING OUR BIKES!!!!! It felt so good to go riding around, we did a lot of hiking down in a canyon, its called box canyon. It has crystal clear water that is really tempting to jump in. I did take my shoes off and stood in it about mid calf. It felt so good because today was a little warm when the clouds weren't over head. I took a bunch of pictures so whenever I get my other card I will send the one I have now home.

We get transfer calls last Wednesday. Elder Wright is going to Jerome to be zone leader, for his first time, he is a little scared. My new companion(my 7th comp in 7 transfers) will be Elder Waldorf. He is coming from Jerome and will no longer be the zone leader. He is from ATL, so he says sir and ma'am, like a good southern boy. I am really excited to serve with him, he is really funny and Elder Wright says that we will get along really well. I will also be killing him (which is missionary lingo for I will be his last companion). So it is up to me to keep him from being too trunky. The good news is that he says that he wants to ride bikes everyday, at least for a little bit, I am looking forward to that.

Last P day was really fun. We went to the church and set up the gym for war. Everyone had pvc pipe blow guns and Nerf darts and divided into two teams and tried to kill everyone. It was really fun. I was the sniper for our team. I had the longest "gun" and I was really accurate with it. Standing in the back corner of the gym I could get darts stuck on the supports for the basketball hoop on the far side, almost every time. So our team captain would said if I get out it's game over. We all had a lot of fun.

This past week we had a pretty good week. We were able to have 4.5 investigators at church. 4 are our investigators and the half is a non member from Jerome that used to be taught here and she just decided to come to church. She also referred her sister to us. Last night we set a baptismal date with one of the investigators that went to church. We are hoping that he keeps coming to church so we can baptize him on the 28th of this month.

We are still waiting on word of the night sacrament. I guess it takes a long time to think about when 1. you take the month of July off and 2. they are changing the policy church wide, but we are hoping that by the end of August we will have word.

That is pretty much all that is going on here in the booming metropolis of Wendell.

Love

Elder Paxton

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

I'm Jealous!

I am so jealous that you are in McCall, so is Elder Wright it was/is his favorite area. That is where he was trained and also where he was right before Wendell. He really wants to go up there sometime after the mission and do the whole lake thing. I told him we could take him to the cabin.

This week was really slow. we weren't able to teach very many lessons, but we did do a lot of service and also got to know a lot of less actives that our English ward wants us to visit.

So this week was over all a good week. I really enjoy doing service for other people, sometimes I wish I could do service all day long, but that isn't best use of time.
So I am trying to grow some pansies as a district activity. We are trying to develop more patience and it is also an object lesson to show how the sower doesn't always get to see the fruits. That is big time true in Wendell. We have some super awesome investigators that we know will get baptized and be super members one day, but we are probably not going to be able to see that happen, mostly because we still haven't heard back from the big wigs in slc about the night sacrament. but we are still trying to stay positive.

The word on the street is that transfer call will be tomorrow night, but no one really is sure because this transfer has been very interesting and different. I am pretty sure that I will be moving out of Wendell but there is no sure thing when it comes to transfers.

We need to get going our day should be pretty busy we are having a zone activity and we have to eat and do shopping as well.

Thats all for now,

Elder Paxton