Great phone call!

We got to talk to Elder Paxton on Christmas day and it was great. We talked for about an hour. He sounded great! When Nicole asked him about if he knew when he would be coming home he said "when it has been 2 years!" She asked him if he thought he would come home a few weeks early since it would be so close to the start of the school semester and he said "if I serve 1 year and 364 days I will feel gypped" I guess that means he is not trunky or wanting to come home anytime soon!

Elder Paxton and Elder Sewell had permission from their president to go and visit family on Christmas day for about an hour. They first went to Aunt Lori's house and Grandma and Grandpa DeMond were there. They had a nice visit. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall! Then they went to Elder Sewell's uncle's house.

His email this week was very short. Elder Paxton is sick.

Here is his email...

So this week has gotten off to a rough start. Yesterday I got sick and threw up at a members home. We went over there for lunch and I hadn't eaten all day so when I ate a little bit I just felt super sick. I went into the back room and took a little two hour nap. When I woke up I was okay for a little while but then I went to the bathroom just in time to blow chunks. So today I am still feeling a little sickly, which stinks because we, well all of the other missionaries, are playing soccer.

That's okay though. There will be other opportunities. Not very much has happened this past week. On Wednesday we had a mission Christmas activity. Friday we just visited a few people, and started to eat our brains out. Saturday we went to visit our families, which was pretty fun. It was nice to meet Elder Sewell's family. They are super fun.

Sorry this letter is so short I am kind of feeling a little brain dead and can't really think of what else to write.

Love

Elder Paxton

Otra Vez!

Ok, so this is twice in 3 weeks that I have not emailed my son and this time he is really chastising me for it...I will have to repent and do better!

Wow life must be super bien crazy right now. I understand how that goes. We are always hoping that there are a few more hours in the day so that we can do more work, but we can't change that, so we will have to start working more efficiently and the best way to do that is to have effective planning. So mom, maybe you need to read preach my gospel chapter 8; using time wisely.

Thank you all for the wonderful gift that I have received, and I haven't looked in anything that didn't have, open ________day, or no peeking, but everything else since it wasn't labeled I assumed it meant it was fair game. Thank you everyone for everything. Also the big one from mom/dad I am pretty sure I know what it is based off of shaking and my massively huge smart brain that I have been blessed with(or by reading) but you might be pulling a fast one and be tricking me, which is possible, so we will just have to wait and see.

Okay so a quick report on this past week. Last Tuesday we had dinner with the Mendez family, which is probably the coolest family in the mission. Wednesday, I can't really remember anything too exciting, so lets just say that we had 600 people get baptized and all of them were immediately translated so we can't really count them in our numbers. Thursday we did our weekly planning, which has recently been moved from Monday, so it is a little interesting and will take some getting used to. Friday we had our branch Christmas party, which was great. There were almost 150 people there. I wish half of that would come to church every week, that would be great, but we had a good time there and met a lot of people. We hope they will one day want to listen to the missionaries.

On Saturday we went had zone meeting then we went to visit a ward member of grandma's. They are the Garrido family, from Argentina, and we recently helped them move. they are such a cool family and we really enjoy visiting with them. He is a black belt in tae kwon do and is fun to try to beat up, haha just kidding we don't ever fight him. Anyways, they asked to see pictures of our family and he saw grandma and grandpa DeMond in the picture from the family reunion. He asked "is this your family or just a family that you know from the Franklin ward", I said, "BOTH." I guess their son Gordo, I don't know his real name they NEVER use it, was one of grandpa's cub scouts. It is so funny how small the world is. Sunday was a normal day at church and Monday was another day with thousands of baptisms that got translated right after.

Everything is going so well for us here, we are really loving the area and trying our best to baptize people that don't disappear, right after so we have have our branch grow. But that is okay, soon enough it will be a ward and there will be a whole stake in the area.

Thanks again for all of the support and have a super fantastic Christmas.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Moving...

Okay, so last Friday we got transfer calls. Both Elder Sewell and I are moving, but we are still going to be together, in Meridian. We just got kicked out of our house is all so we moved to a different apartment. There is a rule in our old apartment complex that says that we cannot have more then four people living in one place. The Boise elders are now in a three some, because they have an elder who is going to Chile, but is here for the time being for medical reasons. We are still very close to the mission office so feel free to send any and all packages and letters to the office, we stop by there often.

This week has been a great week. We have taught the highest number of lessons for this transfer, which is good because we wanted to end with a bang. On Sunday they called a branch mission leader, which we have been asking for since we got here pretty much. He is super excited to work with us. He is an American who went through some rebellious years and didn't serve a mission. He lived in Texas, 2 miles from the Mexican border, learned a little bit of spanish and met a nice girl. Then they got married and he baptized her and her mom as well. He has said since he got married that his mission is with the spanish people, so he is really excited to work with us. After sacrament meeting he came up to us and asked us,"okay what do I do?" we are very happy to have someone who is as willing as he is.

So it seems to be a weekly happening now. Last night we got another group of visa waiters in. We got our first one that isn't from Utah. We have met around 15 elders who have come for their visas and all, except for this one, have been from Utah. The special one is from Blackfoot Idaho. We really enjoy having them over. It also helps with the work because when we are just two missionaries we cannot visit single ladies unless we bring some one with us, but with the extra elders we can walk into any door we feel like, if we are invited in...

Not much more then that is going on. We are getting moved in and today we are going to be doing our Christmas shopping, but I am pretty sure that I am not going to be buying anything, but Elder Sewell will be getting some things. Later tonight we are going to be eating dinner with the famous Mendez family. Every spanish missionary on this half of the mission knows them and have permission to go over to their house, if they have the miles. but they live in our area so it is great for us.

I will be checking the office often to pick up all of the wonderful presents I know you are all going to get me, I like all colors of ties...and anything food related...

Thank you for all your support and prayers! Always to remember to keep on keeping on, like it says in Mosiah 2:41

Love,

Elder Paxton

Happy December!

Well, it has been one busy week of Holiday concerts and activities this week at the Paxton house and as you can see from Chris's email below, I was so busy I forgot on Monday night after my concert what day it was and that I needed to email Chris. I hope when he finds out I didn't die that he will forgive me!

From Elder Paxton -

It was super sad to find out that mom has died, I mean that must be what happened, I didn't get an email from her so she must not be alive.

I guess I will go on with what happened this week though. Last Wednesday we got a couple more visa waiters. They were going to Mexico City Northwest Mission, and they needed to talk to the Mexican consulate. I guess they send them all to Boise because the church has a good relationship with the consulate or something, and we get to hang with them because we live two miles away from the office. We always have some good times when we have them. This go around was like a family reunion. One of the elders knew Elder Vazquez (our district leader and roommate) from back home, and the other elder that was hanging out with us knew elder Sewell from BYU. So far all of them that have come have been from Utah. Maybe one day we will get some from Arizona. We thought that we were going to be lucky and have them for a few days longer because the servers at the consulate were down so they couldn't do anything. Then on Friday the consulate got their servers running on a generator and everyone got their visa. We thought that they would probably be with us until Monday, but bright and early on Saturday morning, at 5:15, they had to be at the office to go to the airport.

We are really loving the weather. last week it snowed for two days straight and put 9 inches of snow on our back porch, and a lot of snow all over the road. Our leaders told us to stay home, at least until the roads were cleaned. Elder sewell got sick and barely left his bed the whole day, so it was good timing for us. I wish it would keep snowing, it has warmed up a little bit and it has been raining so the snow is trying to run away and ruin my hopes for a white Christmas. I am really feeling like this year will be the year for my first white Christmas (going on vacation and seeing snow doesn't count). We also have a "real" tree this year. it is a fake one but it is about 4 feet tall and beats the one that I had last year (maybe two feet that stood on our table). so if you would send all the presents soon so we can have under our tree loaded up with presents to open on Christmas day.

The work is slowly picking up. We are also trying to include the members more by teaching them the message of the restoration, and by giving them the pamphlet that goes with it so they can share it with their friends. We have given a bunch out and now we need to follow up with everyone to make sure that they know that we are serious about working. We are trying to visit a lot of people, but we have mostly been visiting closed doors, so we need the help of the members to get us passed the closed doors and that is when we work our magic and lead the horse to the water and hope and pray they they jump in. If you know anyone in the 8 stakes that we cover(meridian, meridian north, south, east, west, meridian paramount, meridian amity and eagle stakes) please give them our number(208)794-4476 we are available just about all day everyday and we would love to visit with them.

Today we are going to be running a bunch of errands. We have to go shopping for us, and for others. We are going to get some nativities and add to a 12 days of christmas thing for some people. We are thinking our neighbor down stairs, because we make a lot of noise sometimes and it isn't exactly pleasant when you are trying to sleep and it sounds like the roof is going to cave in, but we'll see. We are also going to go to Cabelas to party, it should be a fun and busy day for us. We also have a teaching appointment at 5:30 and we are hoping to set a baptismal date with him. Wish us luck!!!!

Love,

Elder Paxton

Here are some of the pictures that Elder Paxton sent this week.

Storm in Wendell

Cow in storm in Wendell

Waterfall

Elder Acuna

Fall colors...

The Dunn's Styrofoam and concrete house where Chris put in a lot of service

My district

Elder Sewell (my son) and Elder Paxton

Watch out E. Sewell, my belly was flat like yours when I was a greenie too!

E. Sewell (Chris's trainee), E. Paxton, E. Castillo (Chris's 1st trainer)

Is that a missionary regulation haircut?

My room in Boise

E. Sandstrom, Sewell and Paxton with matching pink ties

Wow they have pretty sunsets in Wendell!

That's all for now

Happy Birthday Elder Paxton!

To answer mom's questions...So about the camera card, we were super busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I didn't get it sent until Friday, because of thanksgiving. I was thinking about putting it in Grandma's mail box, but I wasn't sure how long you would be there or if the mail would steal it or something like that, so it should be there soon. (I got his card today so I will soon be posting pictures.)

For Thanksgiving we spent some time with an American family that goes to the branch. We were really at his parents house and some more of their family was there as well. After that we had a teaching appointment to go to so we left and went and taught Daniel. It was the best lesson that we have had with him. He is a little hard to understand, because he mumbles all of his words together and also doesn't always look at you when he is talking, but it still went well with him.

After that we went to the branch president's house and didn't actually eat anything since we were still full from the last place. We stayed there until we had to go to another teaching appointment which when we got there, nobody was home, so we just went home and I went to bed a little early.

Speaking of going to bed I am already loving my new pillow, it will take a little getting used to not sleeping on a flat crappy pillow but I think I'll get by. Also it has a ten year warranty so I hope you keep the receipt. Also all of my gifts were so perfect. I think everyone was reading my mind somehow. Trevor, I had been craving a new purple tie and was probably going to get one today but you beat me to it. Grandparents DeMond, I have been wanting a Boise state shirt since I got to the area. Jeff gave my a hat but I needed the shirt to go with it, now I have it. Grandparents Paxton, I re-fell in love with beef jerky last transfer when I was in Wendell but I have been too poor to want to buy some. Also thank you for all of the other candy that I got, my snack drawer on my desk was pretty empty and now it is very full, with only healthy food (ie: lots of chocolate, beef jerky, more chocolate, hot tamales etc.).

Muchos thank you's to Grandma DeMond for the cake. It is already half way gone, me eating 3/8 of it, Elder Sewell had the other 8th. The other elders that live with us have only eaten the crumbs. I keep telling them that it is the best cake in the world and that they need to eat a whole slice but they haven't yet. It was really interesting to tell the Elders from Mexico that it was my birthday because, the Mexican happy birthday song is around 3 minutes long and talks about King David and all sorts of other strange things, the English song was better, 30 seconds and then cake.

We decided against getting Elder Sewell's bike here for now, since it has been pretty chilly and we have been doing very well on our miles so far. I do have my bike in our little storage thing at our apartment, so if you see a sweet cheap indoor trainer, go ahead and send it because I am ready for that now.

Last week from Sunday to Wednesday, we had a visa waiter hanging out with us. He was in Pocatello for around two months and had to come to Boise to go to the Mexican consulate. Since the Boise elders and us are close to the office we both had an elder for a few days. It was really fun we all got along super well and he was a little sad to have to go to Mexico, only because we aren't there, and the super cool families here. I know that he is going to love it down there, and that he already loves the people of the Mexico Villahermosa mission.

That is pretty much everything that is going on here. Today we have the zone activity and also some service as well.

Thanks again for all the love and support from everyone.

Love,

Elder Paxton

My Greenie!

The mission office sent a picture of Elder Paxton and his "greenie" Elder Sewell, along with President and Sister Cannon.

Life is Great!

Hola todos,

This past week was a super improvement on our first week. The first week we only had one lesson, mostly because we had no idea where anything was and the members didn't trust the missionaries before us so they didn't give us any help. Now we are learning where things are and are regaining the trust of the branch so with their help, we were able to teach 7 lessons. Not a huge amount but a huge improvement, which is all we can hope for.

Everything is going well. My son(Elder Sewell) is really the best greenie that I could ask for. There really isn't anything that I can teach him, he already knows it all, except for Spanish but he is coming along. We have gone through our area book and tried to contact everyone who has been taught by missionaries for the last year. We have had a couple of people say that they would like to hear more and some say that the Catholic church is better and that they don't want to change, we get that a lot with Mexicans.

The best family that we are teaching was referred to us by the sister missionaries in Eagle. They live with a family that had set up a dinner appointment with their landscaper. Bro. Clegg (the brother that set up the appointment) had given Manuel un Libro de Mormon and he had been reading it in his spare time and had really been enjoying it. We went to dinner with them and then taught the first lesson(the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ) he and his wife Maria really enjoyed it and we were hoping to set a baptismal date with him, but... we forgot. Tonight we are hopefully going to see him and have a date set for him. Elder Sewell and I are hoping to get two baptisms before Christmas and we are thinking that these are the two.

We weren't able to go to the zoo last week, if we did go we would have only had 3 or 4 hours there and that isn't enough time, even in a small zoo. We will probably go next week or sometime. Today we aren't really up to much, just going shopping and not a whole lot more. We went to the temple this morning and we will hopefully have enough miles every pday to make the huge 2 mile trek to the temple. If you want to send me anything it is easier to just send it to the office, we go everyday to check the mail and Elder Sewell and I don't have a key(that works) to our mail box in our apartment complex.

On wednesday, we went tracting in a trailer park in Eagle. We came up to this one house that said beware of dog. We didn't see one, but we heard a little tiny dog barking from inside the house. At first we thought en serio but then Elder Sewell noticed that there were some rather large dog kennels so I whistled, and we hear this big huge bark and see this big dog in the house. The family wasn't home. As we continued on we were going through a gate to knock on another door, and Elder Sewell decides out of no where to whistle. From a back shed run out maybe 6-8 chihuahua and I just shut the gate and we keep going. If Elder Sewell didn't whistle that would have been an interesting door approach with a million little annoying dogs barking and trying to bite off our ankles. He was big time in tune with the spirit on that one.

Another super cool thing is that Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration is now on DVD. I have been waiting for that to come out since I first got out. So naturally when I heard about it I had to get it and go and watch it with a family. That is probably my favorite church movie there is. It is so powerful. You(everyone and anyone who reads this) should go get it and show it to all of your friends.

That is all that I can think of that may, or may not be, interesting. I could tell you about our weekly planning, but that would probably just bore you all to death, it does to me and I am involved in the 3 hour planning session.

Love,

Elder Paxton

New Home

My new pad is pretty sweet. We live in an apartment with two rooms and a pretty sweet kitchen, complete with a dish washer!! We also live with the Boise elders which is pretty cool to be able to see them a lot. I am starting to adjust to the "big city" life again. Even though we are in the big city we still can't completely escape the smell of the cows. Yesterday we went and did service for a member in the Boise branch and we were cleaning up horse and cow poop. He lives at Five mile just south of Overland.

My new companion Elder Sewell is super cool. He is from California, outside of Sacramento, and is out here to work his butt off. I am really happy that president has given me this opportunity to train. We are trying really hard to get a lot of member help to put some life back into the area. The past handful of elders in Meridian really did very little missionary work, so it is almost like we are opening the area. I have the perfect companion to help. He struggles with Spanish but has a great attitude and really wants to learn.

I have made sure that president knows that almost all of my family lives in this area, he just says that I need to not go out searching for them and focus on the work. That is okay because we are pretty busy doing things and don't really have time to just hang. The biggest reason we went to visit Jeff was to ask if he knew any Hispanos. Elder Sewell also has an uncle who lives in our area, so both of us can't escape our families, even on our missions!!!

I of course brought my bike and Elder Sewell is going to write home and ask for his too. We will drive to the church or something then bike from there.

Last night we had a really good lesson. We started with dinner and then taught the plan of salvation, and the family that we were teaching really seemed to enjoy it and kept saying oh that is logical, which to me it really is. Every thing about the gospel just makes sense to me. I hope everything keeps going well with them.

Well we need to get going. I am pretty sure we are going to the zoo today.

Love

Elder Paxton

Goodbye Wendell, Hello Meridian!

I don't know what my address is but you can go ahead and send everything to the office, we live about two miles from there. I am serving in Meridian, spanish of course, and I am doing what we call shotgun training. I am going to be teaching a gun safety class, not really, I am to be shotgunning the area which is when both the current elders leave and two new ones come in. I am going to be training a new missionary. This should be a pretty fun and tough transfer. I will need to rely on the help of the members, so Jeff if you know any Hispanics send them my way.

Our area covers Meridian, Eagle, Star, and in Boise everything west of five mile, so it is pretty big. I am really excited to be training but also a little nervous because, 1. I don't know the area 2. I haven't been in a "big city" like Boise in almost a year, so I feel super out of place. I keep thinking, why are there so many buildings everywhere?!? Where are all the cows and corn fields?!? I will get used to it super quick I am sure.

Well that is pretty much everything that is going on right now, today I have a bunch of meetings to go to, to learn how to be a trainer and stuff like that. Not much else is going on in my world.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Yes, Elder Paxton is back near family. I have not got his actual address yet, but hope to get that tomorrow from the mission office. His Grandpa and Grandma DeMond and Uncle Jeff and his family all live in this new area. Watch out Elder Paxton, let the spoiling begin!

Transfer calls tomorrow....

This week was another crazy fast week for me. Yesterday almost didn't exist, so seeing as it was a short week there will be less to write about, but I will try to make it a few lines long.

On Thursday I got to play zone leader for the day. Elder Wright (my old companion and current zone leader) and I were on exchanges. Our companions were in Wendell. One of the duties of the zone leaders is to go to every district meeting in your zone. So I got to go to Burley to visit the missionaries out there. On the way there there was a super cool wreck. A semi had gone off of the freeway and happened to hit the only car for miles on the frontage road. The semi was pulling two trailers that were both turned over and about 50 yards apart. the cab of the semi was completely shredded to pieces it was almost not recognizable. I don't know if any one was badly hurt, when we passed by only the clean up crew was there. If there was an ambulance it had already left. I really hope no one was too badly injured.

While at the district meeting I did everything a good zone leader would do, sit there and listen. It was pretty fun to go and visit with the other half of our zone though.

Today is our transferal zone activity so this morning we filled the temple with missionaries and right now the family history center is full of missionaries and in a few minutes we are going to go and play soccer or something I am not sure.

We are expecting to get transfer calls tomorrow and we will hear what might happen in the wonderful world of Wendell.

That is pretty much everything that has gone on this past week.

Looks like it is time to go.

Love,

Elder Paxton

A Day late

It has been another "exciting" week here in wonderful Wendell. Pretty much the same things have happened except last week we had interviews with President Cannon and yesterday we got to meet Elder Paul Johnson of the seventy.

Interviews were really good. We had our district meeting at the same time to save miles so the APs and Sister Cannon just had to sit there and feel the spirit without understanding the words that were said because we have our district meetings in Spanish, but that is okay. Then when I was in with president he was very surprised to find out that I have been in Wendell for 5 transfers now. I figured that he knew that already. So he said unless the Lord really wants me to stay in Wendell I will be moving. I am not getting my hopes up because you never can predict what is going to happen when it comes to transfers. Even when we get transfer calls it can change. It's never a sure thing. If I am staying in Wendell I am going to ask for my records to be sent up here and I will just move in, it would be easier that way.

Yesterday we had our mission tour which is when a general authority is "touring" the mission. Pretty much all he does is come and talk to the all of the missionaries. It was really fun. He is really good at keeping you entertained. Normally when we have missionary meetings from 9-4 one tends to get a little bored, but I never really did. The things that we talked about were really fun. We talked a lot about being low maintenance-high yield missionaries, meaning that we do a lot of good work and that we don't need to always be check in on by our leaders. He had a lot of good things to say and I am really glad that we could go and hear from one of the general authorities, in person.

Besides that not really anything else happened.

Love,

Elder Paxton

No Z in Boise!

I told Chris about this You tube video, but I didn't know if it was appropriate to send to a missionary,(not that it is bad, it is just not church music) so I will just post it here:



That is funny about the no Z in Boise. I always try to correct the missionaries that say boi-z. I tell them it is pronounced boy-see some still have problems with saying it correctly.

This week went by really really quickly. It is always hard to remember what all we did or if it was weeks ago. I'll look at my planner to help remind me. Really quick before I forget, next week pday is on Wednesday, because we are having a general authority tour the mission. He is from the first quorum of the seventy, so don't be super worried when you don't hear anything from me until Wednesday.

So this past week...we have actually found two new investigators. They are cousins that are living together and work at the same dairy. The house is the dairy's and I think more people live there but I am not sure. They are Victor y Claudia. Victor has an interesting story, so does Claudia, for how we found him. So a few months ago we tried to have English classes. They didn't have very many people that would consistently come. Victor was one of those that would pretty much always come. Eventually he had to stop and that was the end of ever seeing him. We didn't know where he lived or his phone number or anything. We pretty much stopped worrying about him. Two weeks ago the Bishop of the English ward that we cover calls us and asks us to translate for him. DI had called him saying that a lady needed a few beds and she was in his ward boundaries. We met with him and helped Claudia get the beds for her daughters. He was happy to help her but he said on one condition, if we could go and teach her the lessons. She was up for it and gave us her address and said come on by.

So we go and find her house and knock on the door and Victor opens the door. He says I didn't think I'd ever see you again. Anyways we are now teaching the both of them and they are really understanding everything that we are teaching. We also found out that one of the members in our group is Victor's dad and Claudia's uncle, so that should help in the fellowshipping of the two.

That is the most exciting teaching news that we have for the week. We have continued teaching the other investigators that we have and are hoping to be able to set a baptismal date with Martin's wife here pretty soon.

I am now able to add another thing to my list of services that I have done. Yesterday the Dunn's were pouring concrete for their house. The way that they are building their house is you stack foam about six inches apart and then you fill it with cement and then you've got a wall. We got to help do the cement to finish the walls. Now all that their house needs is a roof and interior walls and they have a house. It was pretty fun even though it was very cold. They started at sunrise but it had rained during the night and it was cloudy and windy. I was up on the wall helping pour and since there is no roof the wind had a direct shot at my face. It was still good to help them out.

That is all the exciting news from Wendell.

Love

Elder Paxton

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!