Loved Conference!

Hello Family,

14,131,467 is a great number. It is also interesting to think that 1) I am one of those numbers and 2) I have been helping other people become part of that number as well. If you haven't figured out what it means, that is the total number of members world wide,as of December 31 2010, and we are continuing to grow. I think that we will make a big jump this year with the call to missionary work that we had last October. One other good number is 52,225, the number of full time missionaries world wide, which I am part of as well. General Conference is a great weekend. I really enjoy hearing from our leaders and feeling the Spirit with our investigators. We were able to watch four out of the five sessions with investigators, they all really enjoyed it, as far as I know.

One by product of General Conference is that after we watched the final session with the recently baptized Valdez family (they got baptized my first Saturday in Ontario) we got to talking and their 18 year old daughter, who didn't get baptized with the rest of the family. We have been reteaching her to see if she would want to be baptized. She asked us what all she would have to do in order to be baptized. So we explained everything and we asked when she would like to be baptized and she says that she wants to this week sometime. So we set the date for this Saturday and are making all of the arrangements to make it happen. We are very excited, but not nearly as excited as her mom is.

That was really cool. Other fun times we had this week was going back to my original area on exchanges. It was really fun because I got to see a couple of people that I knew. We had dinner with the Branch President, he has been released since I left, but I still call him presidente. And I also got to see the De Jesus family, the family that got baptized while I was serving in Caldwell. They are making great progress. They moved out of their tiny tiny one room apartment, into a really nice two bedroom house. They have had another child. And they just finished their temple preparation classes and are just waiting to be interviewed to go to the temple for their endowments and to be sealed. I really can't wait to see that happen. I also hope that I will be able to attend.

That is all the fun times for this week.

Love,

Elder Paxton

We will go forth Boldly and Nobly!

Hola Personas,

You will be happy to hear that in the last two weeks Elder Cottam and I have gone to jail 5 times. But thankfully every time we have gone we have always been on the correct side of the glass. We have also had in our possession alcohol and tobacco. We went to visit a guy and he was so drunk he could barely walk and barely talk. He had already put down half of a bottle of Vodka so we took it from him to keep him from drinking the whole thing and possibly end up killing him self.

We had tobacco because we are helping a man get over smoking so that he can be baptized and we were teaching him about faith and we used a visual aid, which is a rat trap, and we used the cigarette to set it off. Normally we break a pencil in it to show the power. After that we have the investigators set it off with their finger, to test their faith. We call it the rat trap of faith.

Going to jail is a little sad because one person that we visited is a member who got caught driving without a license and she is probably going to be deported. It will be sad to see her go but hopefully she will be back pretty soon. Her husband had all of his papers and it is really easy for him to travel across the border.

The other person we visited is one of our investigators, Oscar, and he might be in big trouble with the law. I, thankfully, don't know the whole situation but we are going to try to visit him and help him, partially at the request of his wife, Dulce. We have been teaching her and last night we set a baptismal date with her and her sister. We also gave Oscar un Libro de Mormon to read in jail. We are really seeing good things with this family. Hopefully everything will work out in the end. They are all very interested in learning more about the Gospel and we are really excited for them to be part of the branch.

One miracle that we have seen in our area started before I got here. Elder Cottam and Elder Sandoval were tracting in Nyssa,OR and met a guy named Oscar, who told them that he would be moving, but that he would like to hear more. He told them that he was moving to a house near a Mexican store in Ontario.

A few weeks later, after I had gotten to the area, we stopped by the same house to ask if they knew Oscar, and where he lives. There was a man outside and he said that he didn't know who Oscar is. He then asked it we were the police. After we explained who we are and what we do, he told us that he knows Oscar and he told us his name, Cornelio, and said that Oscar lives close to him, in Ontario, on Oregon Street. He gave us, what we call Idaho directions, to his house and after 30 minutes of searching we found it, and taught him a lesson and he invited us back.

So after a few weeks of teaching him and his family, he brought Oscar, his wife and children to church, with out us saying anything to him. Then later that week we went to visit Cornelio, wanting to ask him about Oscar and if he would be interested in hearing more. When we got to his house and he wasn't there we gave him a call and he told us that he was at Oscar's house, and he came back to his house and drove us to Oscar's. They are very interested in hearing more and we are excited to teach them more.

It is to bad to see how Satan works to try to stop the work from progressing. The member who is going to be deported was going to get sealed to her husband the week after she was detained. And things were progressing well with Oscar and then he gets put in jail as well. The good thing to remember is that "[nothing] can stop the work from progressing...but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." (The Standard of Truth)

We will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent in the work of the Lord and help all hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Email and pictures on the same day!

Dear Family,

This week we had some pretty good success. Unfortunately, we are going to have to move back our baptismal date for this weekend but he is still very excited to be baptized. We are going to continue to work with him and his father to help them get ready for their baptism, that should happen the weekend after General Conference.

We are having a lot of fun and are trying to work our hardest. Yesterday we didn't really have very much going on so we went tracting and street contacting for over 3 hours in non-stop rain. We really had a good time, even though the circumstances weren't ideal. Then we had two lessons after our dinner appointment, both of which went very well.

Not much exciting happened this week. Just good old fashion missionary work. I am very grateful to be serving in this area and I hope that we will start to see some families get baptized. But if not I am still happy to be able to serve here. Sorry this letter is so short, there just isn't a whole lot to report on. Just know that I am happy and that life is good.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Elder Paxton sent some pictures home today too. Here are some of them...

Home Sweet Home...

My closet (should I wear a white shirt or a white shirt?)

Ahhh so many Choices! (a missionary can never have too many ties!)

The Scenery

Yes, that is a forklift driving down the middle of the road!

Really? An antler hanging from the light?

My bike after a muddy morning ride

Some of our investigators

My 2 sons Elder Munoz and Elder Cottam

Maybe I worked my son a little too hard...
Which way should we go Elder?

The Twin Falls Temple

"CPS" took my son!

Hello Mother, Hello Father,

So I was told that Elder Muñoz was going to be with Elder Cottam and I for at least 6 weeks, but yesterday President called us and told us that today he has an appointment with the Consulate and that he is leaving tomorrow. So yesterday CPS (the AP's) came and stole my son from me. It was pretty sad to leave especially since we had a lot of fun things planned for today and for the rest of the transfer, but the Lord needs him in Villa Hermosa, Mexico.

I heard of the "new" aquarium in Arizona mills, my zoo friends told me about it I think some of them still work there. You didn't happen to see if I knew any of them did you? I do miss the zoo a lot and wish that I could go play with the stingrays again.

We are planning on having a couple of baptisms at the end of this month and the start of next month. We were supposed to have one this past Saturday, but his "wife" needs to get divorced and then they can get married and then baptized. This Saturday we have a baptismal date and it will probably have to be pushed back because I think she had her baby two and a half months early. One of our other baptismal dates will need to be pushed back because he hasn't gotten over smoking yet, but we know that he will get over it soon. We have another date for the 6th of April and we feel really good about it, as long as he comes to church for the next few weeks.

I didn't get to enjoy another hour of sleep on Sunday because in Spring you go forward and lose an hour of sleep, so I am still adjusting to the dumb (waste of) time change. I wish everyone would be smart like Arizona and not change the time. Especially since in the summer the days are naturally longer and I don't know any farmer that is working consistently until almost nine even during daylight savings. That is really the only criticism about Idaho. I was thinking about boycotting the time change, but that would probably waste a lot of time and we don't want to do that as a missionary.

I enjoyed your extremely mom comment, asking if I had enough clothes and socks and what not. I might want a new white shirt or two for going home but right now there is no sense in getting some because I still have a summer up here and it will probably turn my shirts yellow from sweat anyways, so we will hold off on getting clothes for now.

I hope all is well in Arizona.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Visa Waiter

I just had this picture sent to me today from the mission office. It is a picture of Elder Paxton with his trainee/visa waiter Elder Munoz, along with President and Sis Cannon.

Short email a day late!

Well sorry I couldn't email yesterday. We went to Boise and got to go to the temple, which is a great treat.

While we were down there we saw a poor missionary standing on the side of the road with a sign that said waiting for visa, need training and a companion. So Elder Cottam and I decided to pick him up and give him a place to live (in Ontario) and some training before Mexico. He will be with us for a couple few weeks.

His name is Elder muñoz he is from Liberty Jail, misery I mean Missouri. His papa is from Valparaiso Chile, y su mama es de Guayaquil Ecuador, but he was born in the states. He speaks Spanish real good. He is very excited to be here and serve.

We have to get going because we need to go to the store to do some shopping and then we need to get to work.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Covering a lot of area

Hello Family (de sang re o de espiritu),

This week was a pretty good week. We didn't teach as many lessons but we had a lot of investigators that came to church. We were also able to set two baptismal dates, now we have 4. The best part is we have at least one in every ward or branch that we cover. We are planning on having a baptismal service the last 3 weeks in March.

We have been visiting with Cornelio. His family(Cornelio, su esposa, y sus cuatro ninos(3 ninas (11 anos, 3 anos, 1 anos) y 1(4 anos) nino)) came to church this last week and despite the less then inspirational lesson in Sunday school, which was a training on family history work, none of which was understood by Cornelio and his wife, they really enjoyed going to church and are really progressing well. We set a baptismal date with Cornelio and hopefully his wife and 11 year old daughter will want to get baptized as well. This last week we really did a lot of Spanish work, which is awesome.

We had 3 investigators come to church in all of the units that we cover as well. Overall everything is going well. We are really trying our very best to keep up the good work. Despite some seemingly non productive days. We have really been blessed in many other ways. Yesterday we got to track a whole trailer park of about 40 trailers, and every opened door was a Hispanic family, so we got a lot of good potentials to visit on another occasion. Hopefully good things come from them.

I asked Elder Paxton how the rising gas prices are affecting their missionary work...

The way that the church controls the gas usage is they give us a limited number of miles that we can drive in the month. They pay for gas with a gas card that every car has, and we log our miles everyday. Sometimes we feel like the mileage puts a restriction on the work because we can't drive to all the places we would like, as often as we would like, but it is for a good cause.

It is time to go to Caldwell and play some real indoor soccer which should be fun. Thank you for all of the support and love that I receive!

Love,

Elder Paxton