2 Emails in One...

Last week's email that didn' t come...

This week has been very busy, we have been working a lot
and did quite a bit of tracting. We walked a total of 12 miles
in two days, our legs and backs were pretty tired. We taught
a bunch of lessons this week,18, which is a lot for the Spanish
missionaries here. We have one boy who wants to be baptized
but his dad wont let him. Both he and his mom are super ready.
He has read the entire Book of Mormon in braille, he is super
awesome.

Besides walking a lot this week was pretty uneventful.
We haven't done as much service recently, but we did mow a
dandelion field (someones lawn) in our shirt and ties. I took a
video of Elder Sandstrom mowing, but won't send it because
it is too big.

Elder Wright is coming tomorrow and Elder Sandstrom
is getting sent to Ontario Oregon, he is happy
to be leaving, he has been here for a little while. I can't really
think of anything else that has happened this week. I hope all
is well back where it is good and hot.

Love Elder Paxton

This week's email...

This week has gone pretty fast, it was a little long because I still
don't know the area super well so we did a lot of wandering.

I do have good news, I got to finally ride my bike. As of today we
have enough miles to go 20 a day for the rest of the month,
so we are going to drive to the church, park and ride into town,
it takes us 17 miles to get to the church and back from our house.
So we should hopefully not go over too much. We are also trying
to get more rides so we can get more work done.

Last night we taught a couple of lessons, one to someone that
we found tracting. They are pretty much my first investigator
that I have found tracting. I have not done an awful lot of it but
my fair share. Anyways he had a whole bunch of really good
questions. He has even told his family that they shouldn't worship
la virgen maria guadalupe, la madre de dios, because one she isn't
even a virgin anymore, she has had other children, and perhaps
more importantly the 2nd of the 10 commandments says not to
worship false images.

The other lesson that we taught was super awesome, these guys
are so golden and have super testimonies. Because of the big fat
dairymen who won't give them Sunday off they can't go to church
and get baptized. They told us last night that they have also been
listening to the j dubs (Jehovah Witness), and they(the investigators)
said that they will listen to anyone and respect their religion,
but this(holding the book of Mormon up) is their religion. It was
so great to hear that from them, they already have a testimony
bien fuerte. These are the same guys who ask if they needed
to quit their jobs to go to church. The general authorities and
the 12 are going to have a meeting to discuss night sacrament,
starting at 7 or 7:30. We are praying for it so we can have our
investigators go to church.

Oh yeah I forgot I have a new companion I almost forgot.
His name is Elder Wright he is from Virgina. His dad works for
the FBI so he has lived in Utah, Hawaii, Ecuador, California and
Pennsylvania so he has gotten around a little bit in his life. Right
now his family lives in Virgina and his dad works in DC. He is super
obedient so I always have to back him out, even in an empty
church parking lot which I don't really see the point of, but it is
good to be exactly obedient.

President Yardley is going to go home this transfer and our new
president is going to be here in about one month. I am getting
excited for him to come. He probably is going to be super strict
since P. Yardley is a little more "laid back" for lack of a better word.

Well, that is pretty much all that is going on here in the hub city of Idaho
(that is what they call Wendell)

Love

Elder Paxton

No Email this week....

I did not get an email this week from Chris. :(
So, no post update.
I guess we will have to wait until next week.

Happy Mother's Day!

I will begin this entry with my own comments about Mother's Day!
I had an awesome day spending it with my 2 children at home
(Trevor and Nicole) and then we got to talk to Chris for about an
hour. We had a great visit. He sounds great and still sounds
like Chris. He said next week is transfers, but he will be staying
in Wendell, but will be getting a new companion.

He talked about the splits that they do and he said that some
of the Elders need to do splits because they need a break from
their companion. Chris said that he has been very lucky and
has not had any problems with his companions and just
goes on the splits for a change of scenery. I think it is Chris's
easy going personality that also contributes to his ability to
get along with all of his companions.

It was really nice to be able to ask him questions and get answers
back right away. We know how Chris does not always answer
my questions in my emails.

He said the trailer that they live in is pretty nice. He said that he
does have a nosy neighbor that likes to call the mission
president and tell him when he thinks the elders are not
doing what they are supposed to be doing. One day he
called the mission president to tell him that Chris and his
companion were leaving for the day late and they were
dressed in jeans and t-shirts. The president had to tell
the neighbor that the Spanish speaking elders don't leave
their homes until noon and they were in jeans and t-shirts
because they were going to do service.

Chris said they had to get rid of their "pets". The owner of
the trailer was not thrilled to hear they were keeping spiders
and snakes in her trailer. Trevor tried to ask if he could
get rid of the tarantula that Chris left behind in his room
at home, but Chris said "NO".

After talking to him for an hour, we really got all caught
up on what he is doing and what is going on at home.

His p-day was only 2 days later, so he did not have a lot
to say in his email. He did try to attach pictures with his
email, but they did not come through, so most of his email
did not make sense because we did not get the pictures.

Maybe next week he will figure out how to attach the
pictures.

Here is part of his short email, minus the picture descriptions.

So pretty much nothing has happened since Sunday, we are
expecting transfer calls tonight so next week I will be able
to tell you who my companion is and all that fun stuff.

We have been working super hard. We went tracting in the
rain for 6 hours you can see the results. (need picture)

Last night we had a pretty good FHE with a part member
family and we got the non member to read and he was
showing a little bit of interests which is a big improvement
then just sitting there and seeming to be in his own world.

That is pretty much everything that is going on here we
are trying to keep busy and not die from the smell of the
cows.

Love,

Elder Paxton

The Bonfire

So this week has been pretty fun for us, we did the bonfire
as a service project. The way that farmers get rid of stuff
that they don't want is to burn it. So we were just burning
some branches and rail road ties, two other elders came to
enjoy the awesomeness.

Last night we had a sleep over with the elders from Sun Valley
and we played some card games and we also played chubby
bunny. For those of you who don't know about chubby bunny,
you see how many large marshmallows you can fit in your mouth
and still say chubby bunny. We had around 9 or 10 before would
couldn't stop laughing.

This morning we were supposed to go to the temple but the power
went out in our trailer so we didn't get up. Good thing it is
pday and we didn't waste a lot of valuable time by sleeping in.
We aren't sure what we are going to do today for fun but we'll
figure something out.

I never did convince Elder Sandstrom to ride bikes, but
our area is too big and spread out to ride here.

When we do our exchanges they usually last for 24 hours
so I slept in Sun Valley last week. It is pretty nice up there.
We saw a bus stop with a leather couch and we were going
to stop and take a picture but we didn't because we had to
go some where.

Well I think that is all for now.

Love

Elder Paxton

Howdy!

Okay, so we just got out of the temple here in twin, even though
it is really small it kind of reminds me of the Mesa temple, I'm
not sure why.

I really wouldn't be surprised if Mom had a count down to
Mother's Day that is to the hour. I still have control of when
I call...if I call...I think if I did that Mom would come up here
and choke me or something. I think we will be calling after
church(your church).

So Nancy sent me a letter and told me that the Spanish branch is
now a ward, that is so cool. Our Spanish group is hoping to
become a branch pretty soon. But it will be weird to not call Rio
Salado a branch it has always been The Branch, and now it is
The Spanish Ward, so what are the times for the wards?

We had a super awesome bonfire last Tuesday. We spent around
a week setting it up and it was so well packed it was crazy huge,
crazy fast. So what we did was, there was a tree stump and we piled
dried tumble weeds around that, then we put a layer of ten or so
railroad ties, then a layer of small to medium sticks and branches
then another layer of 10ish railroad ties, it was so hot that I was
standing 15-20 feet away and still got slightly burned. After it
was all out, on the ground, what was burned(grass and stuff)
reached out around 15 feet at the farthest point, but it was so hot
that it dried out and killed the grass about 25 feet at the farthest
point. It was really impressive and I have a picture of it and the
thick black smoke looks so cool.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to baptize someone.
It was a child of record, unfortunately not one of our
investigators. It was pretty fun though. I was supposed to
give a talk but, what happened is that the boys uncle was
supposed to come and do it but never did show up. So we
thought we would have is dad do it but, he doesn't speak a
whole lot of English, and the boy doesn't really understand
much Spanish(his mom speaks English). I happened to have
an extra pair of underwear, I was on exchanges in Sun Valley
the day before and still had my stuff in the car. So I said that I
could do it. It was pretty fun for me because that was the first
time that I had ever baptized someone living. I have done
them in the temple for the dead but never for someone living.

So that is pretty much everything going on here in Wendell.

I think today we might go race go karts so that will be fun.

Love,

Elder Paxton.

More about Wendell

We live in a Vitt-mobile travel trailer and it is on someones farm,
haha just kidding it is a single wide mobile home, but it is
surrounded by farms. The lady bugs in the bathroom are real
and so are all of the other spiders and bugs in the house. It is a
pretty nice place to live, just a little warm now that things are
warming up out here. We will need to buy a fan to keep cool.

You can take the boy out of the zoo but you can't take the zoo
out of the boy. This week we have obtained a few more pets,
a snake and 5 frogs, all of which we caught outside of our house.
the snake we put in a box and we forgot that snakes can climb
up the corners, so it is probably in our house somewhere.
We try to feed the frogs but they are kind of lame. We gave
one frog the black widow and it tried to eat it, but no matter
how many times it shot its tongue at it, he couldn't eat it.
We also gave them some worms which they just licked.
They do eat the lady bugs real quick though.

Elder Sandstrom is from Mesa, around Signal Butte and
Warner, so WAAAAY out there. He and I get along very
well and we like to talk about things in Arizona. It is really
funny when we tell people that we are from the same area.
They like to ask if we knew each other before the mission,
we tell them that we come from a 4 million person city.
People like to think that the whole world is just small towns
where everyone knows everyone.

So last night we taught an awesome lesson, well we taught
the restoration, but this guy had a question from the last
time we taught him,. Last time we taught about praying,
reading the scriptures, and going to church. We told him
how important it is to have all three, so last night he asked
us if he had to quit his job to go to church, because he really
wants to go. It just really stood out to me how much he wants
to go to church and how well he remembers the things that
we taught. We have a couple of other really good investigators.

We need to get going, we are going to have a huge fire,
pictures and videos will be taken.

Love,

Elder Paxton

Lots of answers to Mom's questions...

So our house isn't really a house...we live in a trailer, I am
officially trailer trash now. It is actually pretty nice. There
are a lot of lady bugs in the bathroom. We are kind of
breaking the rules, we have a pet, and it is a black widow
spider that lives in an apple juice jug. We feed it flies and I
poke it with a stick, it is pretty funny.

Elder Sandstrom and I have gotten up on time every day except
one so far, which is nice. We have quite a few investigators.
We have one who we went over the baptismal interview questions
with, and she answered every question perfectly, except for the
last one which is, "are you ready to be baptized". It kind of
frustrates me when people say that they aren't because most of
the time they are super ready but they don't realize it.
So far there is no sure way to help them realize it. So we are
hoping that she finds out that she is ready real soon

Last night we taught a lesson to a bunch of guys, they all live
in a trailer together and E. sandstrom said that originally it
was just one guy there and the others would go and hide, but
slowly more kept coming and listening. Last night there were
4 guys and one of their girlfriends, so we feel really good about that.

We are about 30 minutes away from Twin Falls and I think we
go to the temple about ever other week which is cool. I think it
would be better for me to go and buy some shirts up here,
you know how picky I can be with things like that. Also I will
need a couple extra dollars for some new pants. The non suit pants
that I brought that say they are the same size and as far as I
remember they fit the same as the others, don't fit, so I gave
them to Elder Sandstrom since I figured I probably won't get
a whole lot skinnier.

There have been a few times that I wished I had a camera but not
too many, and Elder Riquelme said he would send me the pictures
that we took, so hopefully he does that so you all can see me being
a real cowboy haha.

There is a quite a bit of Spanish work in this area and there are
English Elders too so I won't really have to do very much English
work. I think President read my mind at last interviews. I really
want to keep on improving my Spanish so that I can amaze all the
Mexicans. All the time they ask my companion, who they know
speaks Spanish, if I do as well, I just say 'pocito' and then when it
is my turn to teach sometimes they are amazed at how much
(which isn't that much) I do know.

So that is pretty much all that is going on in my life here,
that I can remember.

Love

Elder Paxton