I guess I misunderstood when Chris said he got his
transfer last week. He found out where he is
going, but he doesn't move until tomorrow...
Here is his email this week:

Well my new home is....in Oakley, I will find out
how it is tomorrow, I am still in Caldwell. Today
we went on a fun district activity, we went to the
booming metropolis of Melba, well actually
south of it, we went and played by the snake
river and went hiking and a little bit of rock
climbing to get to the top of the hill. It was really
fun. I took a good amount of pictures.

I should be sending my memory card home
pretty soon, I also want to send some
other stuff home, letters and what not. That
might be sent out today or next week or who
really knows.

I have heard a lot of good and bad things about
Oakley. Sounds like every day we take the walk
of faith. We live maybe 15 miles away and so to
save miles you drive to the highway which is
about 5 miles away and you start walking, hoping
that some one will stop and give you a ride. Also
from the sounds of it we have a baptism this Saturday,
a couple more lined up and a couple of their good
potentials set up too. Most of the work is English
though :(. Elder Riqulme speaks pretty good English,
his accent is not very good but who am I to talk haha.
He has a really hard time saying beach, just like all
hispanos, they usually say...well you know. Every once
in a while, I'll ask someone Como se dice playa in ingles?
(how do you say beach in english) they will usually say
I don't remember or something then we just laugh.

Also this week we hit a cat with our car, we are going
to take some pictures of it today. That was something
fun that we did. (sick humor)

Well not very much has happened this week so I don't
have a whole lot to say so I shall say adios.

Love,

Elder Paxton

I've been transferred

Hola Hola Hola

Como estan todos? Anoche presidente nos llamo y nos dijo
adonde vamos. Voy a ir a Oakley, el otro lado de la mision.
Es un area de Spanglish, y voy a estar con Elder Riqulme
(es de Chile, cerca de Santiago y ahorita el es uno de mis
lideres de zona) y tambien un otro misionero. Estara
interesante, un gran cambio de caldwell. Estoy
emocionado(sp?) por eso pero estoy un poco triste por
que una de mis investigadoras, no va a bautizarse este
transferencia, pero siento que ella va a bautizarse la
proxima transferencia. Pero yo se que Dios quire que
me vaya a Oakley. Buena Suerte a todos quien no hablan
Espanol.

Translation for those that don't read or speak Spanish:
(Thanks Trevor!)

How is everyone? Last night President called us and told
us where we are going. I'm going to Oakley, the other
side of the mission. It's a "Spanglish" area, and I'm
going to stay with Elder Riqulme (he's from Chile, near
Santiago and right now he is one of my zone leaders).
It will be interesting. It is a big change from Caldwell.
I'm excited for this, but I'm a little sad because one of
my investigators aren't going to be baptized this transfer,
but I feel that they will be baptized the next transfer.
But I know God wants me to go to Oakley. Good luck
to everybody who doesn't speak Spanish.

This last Saturday we got to see two of our investigators
get baptized and married. It was really awesome and
I just wish that we could have had more of our
investigators there. It was still very awesome though.
They are going to be some wonderful members, the
hermana already has a calling as a counselor in the
presidencia de la sociedad de socorro(rs), after being
a confirmed member for about ten minutes. They are
some really wonderful people. You all should be
more like them hahaha.

I am pretty sure that Satan is extremely mad at us
because since our baptism we have hardly taught
anyone and have had very bad luck with our tracting.
But we have found one investigator who lives in the
house of an old investigator of mine, and he seems
to be very interested, we left him a copy of El Libro
de Mormon and we are going to go back in a
few days and see how everything is going.

Today is going pretty slow, as many of you may
know a lot of new Toyotas have been recalled for
sticky gas pedals, and seeing as we have a 2010
Toyota Corolla we had to take it in. We haven't had
any problems with ours but it is getting fixed.
They said it would take about 2 1/2 hours. We went
at ten and they gave us a loaner and said they
would call when it is done, it is now just after 2,
I think they are running slow today. Maybe we
will be able to get it before I leave to Oakley,
I have a lot of stuff in it that I need to get.

Well I am tired of writing and also can't really
think of what else I should share so I shall say
good bye for now.

Que dios les bendiga (May God bless you)

Elder Paxton

P.S. Mom I know you are counting down the
days until mother's day, how many is it?

A short update

No time to write as always. I just got done bowling and we
are going to play soccer in 5 minutes. Can you send me
a hard copy of noferatu by the ruler, also have you
found out that it is a she for sure?

I have included an updated
picture of Nosferatu - his tarantula that he left behind
for me to take care of while he is gone. It has grown
quite a bit in just 4 months. I think he wants a picture to make sure it is still alive!

Life is going very well, I went to the temple today.
After we went by the DeMond's house and only grandpa
was there, sorry grandma. It is always nice to see
the family.

Anyways like I said I have to go and I love you all.

Adios,

Elder Paxton

ps: lori, children is ninos or hijos

This week has been very good. Our new house is pretty big,
compared to our old home, and I am taking pictures so
you all can see what it looks like. Elder Anderson and
I are the only two in our house. It is a rental of one of
the bishops of one of the English wards in our stakes.
It is actually just about right in the middle of our area
which is very nice.

We are working very hard. We are doing a lot of finding
activities because our list of investigators is dwindling.
Two se fueron(they left). We went and knocked on their
doors and there was nothing in their house. Two others
still live there but we haven't been able to teach them in
3 or 4 weeks, so we are trying to think of good ways to find
people, and trying to work with the members to get more
referrals. If any of you have any ideas of how to find people
let us know.

The investigators that we have are progressing very well.
We have the familia de Jesus getting married and baptized
on the same day and Yolanda who is getting baptized the
next week. One other family who has plenty of good questions
every time we go over, and a new one that we just got who
seems really interested in what we have to say. Her sister
met with the missionaries in Mexico, and our investigator
saw a change for the better in her and wanted to see what
we had to say, so we feel good about her.

The teaching and the spirit are definitely on my list of
favorite things but they are after the food, haha just kidding.
The hardest part for me is when it is the end of the day,
and all of our appointments for the evening either canceled,
or aren't home, and we still have an hour and a half to work,
and we have to find something to do. We have a lot of
potenciales, but at night is one of the worst times to try to
contact potenciales or to knock doors, so we always sit for
around 5 or 10 minutes trying to think of what we should do.
But we are staying very busy which is nice because it is easier
to fall asleep when you work yourself to death.

I'm not sure what I am going to do, come transfer day. With
Elder Anderson's record I will leave and he will stay there for
6 more months. His shortest time in an area was his first,
one transfer, because they closed the area after that.
Then he spent 5 transfers in sun valley. Then he spent 3 in
Wendel, which is on the east side of the mission as well.
So in his year before Caldwell he only had 3 areas.

Pues, tenemos que irnos, y comprar cosas, como comida
y un calientor(heater, i'm not sure if that is right).
Entonces, tenga una buena semana, y que dios les
bendiga. Tambien, buena suerte con entendimiento este.
Ojala Trevor puede ayudarles.

Bye

Elder Paxton

We Moved!

IMPORTANT!!! NEW MAILING ADDRESS:

14459 Sunnyslope

Caldwell ID, 83607

I have received all of your mail and if things are sent to my old
one they will be forwarded until February 15 or something.
But send all new ones to this address.

This week has gone by very quickly like always. Elder
Anderson is pretty much my best friend. We get a long very
well and are always talking about the most random things,
and a lot of times we are on the same brain wave.

I am so jealous of all the rain you have gotten. I am pretty
sure that every time I leave the state it rains more and
more, so maybe you will have somewhere around 10 inches
this whole year. The weather has been really mild the past
couple of weeks, the last time that we got snow was last year
(December 31). Some days I have actually been warm!
It has pretty much been around 40 or 45 everyday so
the weather is beautiful.

The best news this week is that my favorite investigator
set a fecha bautismal this week. It is going to be the 20th
of February. I love going to teach her because she just
absolutely loves to learn more about God and always
loves to have us over. She hasn't come to church yet but
we really hope that she will soon. Her name is Yolanda
Martinez and she is single but has 6 kids, ranging from
6 to 16, also she needs a job so all of you in the Boise
area who are reading this, if you know of something
let me know.

We have two others who are planning on getting married
and baptized on Febuary 13th, so that should be pretty
sweet. They are a really great family, and they even
signed up to feed us twice this month. They are what
we call eternals, they have been listening to the
missionaries for over a year now but they are finally
getting baptized which is really nice to see.

There is another family that I just wish I could help
more. They have been members for about 6 months
now and are just some of the greatest people I know,
but the place they are living in right now is trying to
take advantage of them. They are moving out but the
owner says that they don't need to give them their
deposit back, even though it says in the contract
(which is in english and this family doesn't know hardly
any) that if they give 30 days warning of moving out,
which they have, and the place is clean, which it is,
they should get their deposit back, minus 25 dollars
for cleaning the carpet. There are a lot of greedy
people in the world trying to take advantage of
small humble families, it is really sad.

Some of my favorite things of being a missionary
is getting to learn Spanish, getting to know
wonderful people that I would never have met,
and getting fed really good, legitimate Mexican food,
every night.

I am really have a wonderful time here and last
night was the first night we slept in our new house,
it is a pretty nice little house. I will send pictures
soon, also I found a dead mouse in the basement
when I stepped and heard a crunch so it has been
there for a while. I already have pictures of that haha.

Well I need to get going now we are going to take
pictures of/on the tank of Caldwell.

Adios!

Elder Paxton

Elder Anderson...

is pretty dang cool. He is pretty nerdy, but so am I. We get
along really well together and we are really enjoying our
time together.  Once again I don't have a whole lot of time,
we are going to go to Boise today and play soccer with the
English elders,  and we need to leave pretty soon.

I am pretty sure that this week we are going to set a
baptismal date with two other investigators which I
am pretty excited about, they are what we call eternal,
they have been taught by the missionaries for over a
year now.

I am staying busy and have been a little warm, almost
everyday has been over 40 so it is real nice. I hope you
all get a lot of rain, I heard that you are supposed to get
10 inches or something ridiculous.

I need to get going now but I love you all and look forward
to hearing from you.

Love
Elder Paxton.

1st Transfer done

I am now officially a misssionary, haha. Elder Castillo se fue
a Boise and my new companion is Elder Anderson. He is pretty
cool. It will be nice to be able to talk more with my companion
since he speaks English.

I don't have a whole lot of time today. We have a lot of shopping
to do because we don't really have food and stuff. All is well here
in Caldwell and the work is going well.

We have one baptismal date set as of right now and are hoping
to have two more this week. We are staying very busy teaching
a lot of people so thank goodness we don't have to knock too many
doors, it has been a bit warmer, above 30 or 35 every day. It is
supposed  to be rainy the next couple of days so it might cool off
a bit.

We might be moving pretty soon, I have heard someone say they
have found a house but we haven't been told directly, so who knows.
That would be really nice since we are 15 miles outside of our area
and we use a lot of miles in our car, and we don't have that many.

We need to get shopping and eating and teaching so I will say
goodbye for now.

Adios,
Elder Paxton