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