January 19, 2009 email

Hey Sweet Baby James!!!!!

            This week has been a crazy one for me too. As you heard, I lost my wallet. That had my license, my mission credit card, and my regular credit card. Hence, Elder Morris has zero money. I also had $20 in cash on my money clip. Just a little bit stressful there. Everything got worked out with it tho.

           To go on top of that my camera got stepped on by another elder. Now the screen is broken. It still takes pictures, but you can't see the pictures on the screen. I need to take it to best buy and see if that falls under the warranty. A lot of my stuff has been missed placed as well. Which really bugs me, but I'm trying to take it easy. LOL! My sunglasses broke this week too. Man!!!! But everything is still great.

            I had a long companionship inventory with Elder Bennet and I think we have finally got things worked out. Man, He was a tough one to get through to. He came out plenty bold, which is a good thing, but he had no love behind it. He didn't love the people. We went to a less active part members house to get to know them. After about 10 minutes he asked them to come to church and told them that we had to go. We didn't even know their background, no spiritual thought, no nothing. He just took over. Needless to say, they didn't come to church. I had a long talk with him and everything is fixed now from what I know. He has been working on loving the poeple and not just being a robot. I think our friendship is getting better. Keep praying for us though, It's helping a lot.

             All in all it was a great week all because we baptised Roland yesterday!!!!!! That's right, Roland got baptised. Elder Bennett Baptised him and I think that is also helping him love people more. Okay, next on your prayer list. We have Monique... Grandma Sligers granddaughter. She actually has a solid date to be baptised on the 31st of this month. Way sweet, right?!? We talked to her without Grandma and fixed all of her concerns. Next we have the Shepard boys. They have come to church the past two Sundays and we have a lesson tonight to commit them for the 31st as well. That will mean that we will hopefully get our goal of 4 baptisms this month. Pray for that as well. Transfers are coming up soon too. The night of feb. 2 we found out if I get transfered. I'm feel that for sure I'm going to leave. So, pray for the people in the area I'm about to go to too. Maybe pray for me to get spanish too :).

           Love your man. Nat Mat MO!!!!!

December 31, 2008- January 7, 2009

"So this is the new year..." (that's all I can remember from that song.)  Did I ever tel you about my awesome MTC experience?  The one where I forgot everything?  If I have, you get to hear it again.  About 4 weeks into the MTC, a new group of kids came in.  Elder Jensen is a huge Death Cab fan.  I began to realize that I couldn't remember one song from my past.  It was such a strange feeling.  It kind of felt like my identity was gone.  I had to find out the words to my favorite Death Cab song "I'll follow you into the dark."  I even asked you for the lyrics.  Well, at the end of the night, Elder Jensen comes running to me sticking out his finger.  I'm like "oh no, what's wrong?" Written on his finger were the words "Love of mine." Suddenly the whole song came flooding back into my mind.  I guess he remembered it in his personal study and rote it on his finger so he wouldn't forget.  So, now in everyday missionary life, little things like that come back. 

LOL! The expire phrase is something missionaries say like "Elder, Look!  I expire before this milk does."  Because no matter how good a missionary you are, you always long for home.  You just don't always think about it. 

Did Elder Finger and I get hammock pictures together  no.  But that would have been smart.  Speaking of hammock pictures, I had a visit from Chow Milner on New Years Eve at your request, I hear.  She came from San Marcos to tell me that you guys are Facebook friends and that you miss me.  Thank you.  She took a picture of me in the hammock just for you.  She had to take it from the window because there are no girls in our apartment.  It was way fun though.  Finger actually returned his hammock to Walmart.  I'm gonna keep mine though.  I love hammocks.  

I'm so so jealous that you got to have Cafe Rio!!  They have tons of what they call Taquerias in Texas, but nothing like Cafe Rio.  Taquerias are just tiny family owned Mexican restaurants where you can get cheap Tex-Mex.  

I should let you know that the work is great in Seguin.  I got a companion that I work well with.  The only down fall I can find in him is that he is slightly judgmental (I say that that as I judge him).  We have done so much in the past 2 weeks.  It's crazy.  We have had 9 referrals in the past 2 days! President always says that one name is worth 1,000 doors.  That's 9,000 doors in 2 days.  Our goal for baptisms is 4 this month.  Pray for us to hit our goal.  I know we can get it this month.  Seguin is on FIRE!  Still pray for Roland.  He'll come around.  I'm gonna miss Seguin when I leave here.  

December 13, 2008

Your new compassion for Elder Rogers is now matched by me.  i had to pray hard for him and me.  He finally isn't having more struggles that I know of.  I'm trying my hardest to make "Roge" into the man the Lord wants and needs him to be.  I actually asked the ZLs to give me another transfer with him because I feel I can help him more.  He has a lot of learning and social skills he needs to work on.  Pray for him to have the faith and strength to be more bold in opening his mouth to proclaim the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  It's hard to teach someone not to be shy.  I have challenges I give him all the time.  I challenged him to introduce himself to every person at zone conference.  He does a pretty good job when I challenge him.  The most important thing I can do is to LET him do things.  It's tough when he doesn't want me to let him do things because of his shyness.  He is slowly getting over it, but pray that it leaves him quicker.  

So I decided that a truck wasn't way great.  I'm kind of over it now.  I think the excitement over it was just because I was able to drive and it was brand new.  I guess I just mostly want a good dependable car. It kind of now just feels like the truck I had before my mission... a waste of gas and hard to handle.  We'll see how life turns out in the future.  Don't get me wrong, I still love the truck.  We are getting it taken from us though.  They have games with the cars here in the mission  One is the cleanest car award and the other is the most under miles for the month award.  The winner either gets 100 extra miles or they get to trade a car.  Well, someone that won decided to take our new truck.  So she is being replaced by an '08 version instead.  Sad story.  You told me to listen to righteous music.  Of course. I always do.