Packages, Packages

Muchos thank yous to all. I am going to be super unhealthy for the next little while. Lori, I got your package the very next day from when you sent it. so you could have put some home made deliciousness in, but that is okay. Grandma and Grandpa, I am looking forward to not having to buy razors for quite some time as well as sipping on some delicious hot chocolate.

This past week has gone by so fast it is hard to remember everything we did. I really enjoyed general conference. I am super excited to get the Ensign as well so I can read and reread the wonderful messages. We were able to watch all the sessions, even though we were a little late to the Saturday morning session, and to priesthood. Did they announce something about elder Russell M nelson? I noticed that he didn't give a talk in conference, which is weird because all of the twelve speak.

Something else exciting that happened this week was yesterday I decided that I wanted to get sick. I felt really really hungry so we went and got a burger at a place that is about 200 yards from our house.While there I felt really not good, so we went back home so I could lay down and hopefully feel better. I ended up throwing up (twice in total) and we spent the rest of the day at home with me in bed. I am feeling a little bit better today. I still feel a little weak but my stomach isn't feeling too bad. I think I am over it now.

Hopefully this week will be a good one a there won't be any more unexpected sicknesses. Thanks to all y todo que hacen.

Love

Elder Paxton

1 Year!

Queridos todos,

This week has been pretty fun. Elder half brother Acuña is really fun to serve with. He wasn't allowed to speak English in his house growing up so he wouldn't forget Spanish. It is hard to believe that I am about to turn 1. I feel so middle aged, I think I am having a midlife crisis. I think I am going to buy a Harley and ride across the country. I have yet to decide. We are still riding bikes a little bit and Elder Waldorf and I did get to 200 miles before he left.

So this week was okay work wise, we tracked all day on Thursday, but it was worth it because in the last 30 minutes before dinner, we knocked on a door and they invited us in. Apparently, the guy was less active. He got baptized about four years ago and moved here. He's living with his girlfriend who's also interested. So we set another appointment to come back in a week since we only had 30 minutes. We also invited them to go to church this week. I hope they come.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm even here in this area. I've already tracked like every house. I've been hoping that this is my last transfer here, but we have another 5 weeks in this transfer anyway, so it really doesn't matter too much.

Not much going on today for P-Day. just random stuff mostly.

That's about it for this week.

Love you,

Elder Paxton

My new companion Elder Acuna

I'm staying in Wendell

Another transfer and another companion. Elder Paxton is staying in Wendell for another 6 weeks. For anyone interested in his 'permanent address' he has given it here for any letters or packages you may feel inclined to send.

Elder Mejor en el Mundo (Best Elder in the World)
1501 E 3300 S
Wendell, ID 83355

Elder Waldorf will officially be killed tonight around 7:30. That is when he goes to Boise and tomorrow, he spends the day with president and on Thursday he is on a plane to Atlanta. It was really fun to serve with him, we had a great time together and we really tried to work our hardest.

My new companion is Elder Acuña. He is from the Salt Lake area, but his family moved there from Venezuela when he was about 4. He is really funny and I am pretty sure we are really going to enjoy our time serving together. He has been out for about 6 months, so I am technically the senior companion, but I really don't care about that. It really doesn't matter, we serve together as one.

What I am now going to explain might be confusing but I will try to make it clear.

My trainer, Elder Castillo, is my dad in the mission. Elder Acuña was trained in a three some. One of his companions is his dad and one is his mom. The dad is the one who is technically the trainer. Elder Castillo is considered his mom. so my dad is his mom, so we are kind of half brothers.

This past week went by really quickly for us as well. Sometimes it is hard to remember what we have done since I last wrote, because all the weeks merge together. This past week we really became pros at canning peaches. We were helping the Dimonds can around 200 jars of peaches. It is really quite easy, just takes a little bit of time. We have also helped Amy and Bud Dunn build their house, which I am probably going to have to visit after the mission, mostly to use their gigantic shower that they are planning on putting in. Also I really like them. Bud is one of our investigators that we have in our English ward. He really isn't progressing as much as he should but if we dropped him we would have next to no work in English.

We do get to do a lot of service though. We are very well rounded now. We have done plumbing, building a house, dairy work, farming, canning, pretty much everything that one would need to know a little bit about we have done. I really enjoy doing service.

Martin is doing very well. after baptism you teach all the lessons again to make sure that he is continuing to grow in the gospel and as we teach he really shows that he understood everything that we have taught him. Also we are teaching his wife who has now changed shifts so she is able to listen to us more often. She should be getting baptized pretty soon as well, we hope. They really are the most important people that we are teaching.

I am super excited about general conference. I really enjoyed reading the talks when we got the Ensign. I am glad y'all are reading them again. We can learn so many things from our modern day prophets. I cant wait to be able to read the next conference edition that comes out.

We have to get going now. We have to finish getting Elder Waldorf ready to go.

Love

Elder Paxton.

Pictures!

We finally got our quarterly arrival of pictures from Chris. His card had 171 pictures on it, so I have tried to pick out a sampling of what he sent. Many of them are of places that he has told us about in his emails.

Farm land of Wendell

Preparing for a ride...
A great place to rest during a ride...


Beautiful Box Canyon
(I can see why it would be tempting to go swimming!)

Elder Wright
Elder Paxton!
Shoshone Falls
Elder Wright
Snake River
Random shots,
In case Grandma wants to go shopping...
Pheasant...
Our fridge...
Thanks Hickman's for the art work
What Elder's will do for entertainment???

Fill sink with water and add glow sticks..
Turn out the lights...

Goofy Elder Paxton...
Elder Waldorf
My district
Zone activity with blow pipe guns
Wielding the sword of truth...
The fruits of his labors...
Martin Romero Samora
The beautiful end to a day!

A short one...

On Saturday I sent home my memory card so y'all should get it today or tomorrow. (It did not come today, so hopefully tomorrow. I will post pictures as soon as I get them)

On Sunday we had our stake conference. We were a little worried at first because there were no Hispanics there. But about 15 minutes after it started the room we were in was packed with members and non members. It was really good to have so many people there and the meetings went really well. After stake conference was over Teegan Dunn and Elder Waldorf gave a talk and I said a prayer. It was pretty fun to go to, afterward Amy Dunn made us the cabbage salad. I ate a mountain of that, like always. It was just as good but it had a slightly different flavor of love but it was still very good.

Well quiero que sepan que todo esta bien con migo. We have our zone activity, so we need to get going.

Love

Elder Paxton

We had a Baptism!

We did have a baptism this last Saturday. Martin Romero Samora is now the newest member of the spanish groupito. The baptism went so well. We tried to call everyone we knew to get them to go, English or Spanish. we were just hoping for at least 10, including us. We called the english Elders and they said that they were having one of their investigators meet with president in gooding(10 miles north of wendell) at 6:30 so we thought we would invite president and his wife. They came and said it was their first spanish baptism that they had ever gone to. We let him say a few words(with a translator) and the spirit was so strong. All in all we had 12 people besides us. It was so fun. I got to baptize him and that was my first time doing that in Espanol.

The next day was his conformation and fast and testimony meeting. It was so cool because Martin got up and shared his testimony, and he said something I never knew before. He said that the day the missionaries found him he was outside feeding his cows and has literally talking to God and he was looking for where he needed to go. He said if he(God) sends him a "sign" he'll follow it. Not 5 minutes after that the missionaries showed up.

It was such a tiring, but uplifting weekend. also during testimony meeting una hermana got up and shared her experience at the baptism. She wanted to say the last prayer because it was by invitation, and Elder Waldorf was directing andt he decided it would be good to have her say it. Way to follow the spirit.

That was the highlight of the week. We also did a lot more service for people (my companion says hey...) We got to work on the dairy with Martin again so he would be able to get off on time and come to the baptism. We got to shove our arms up some cows butts. It is a lot harder to get it in then you might think. It was also really really warm. we also got to help build a house. We made preparations for the floor/basement ceiling. We also helped some one move a lot of stuff into a storage unit and that is pretty much all we did this last week.

Love

Elder Paxton

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!