He had a wonderful Christmas and the Ashcraft family made it very memorable for them!! Many thanks to them for opening their home to the Elder's and Sister's. I know that my son had a great time and loved spending it with their family!
So this week he was transferred and made a District Leader in Turlare. I have mixed feelings about it... I'm am SO excited for him and his new challenge but I am SO sad that he will be leaving Lindsay and all of the wonderful friends and people there!! I know this will happen more than not on his mission but I really am super sad about this one! What a great place for my son to experience some great times with great people on his mission. I hope I get to visit there one day :)
I also want to publicly thank Charlie and all the others in Lindsay who helped pull of his surprise birthday party on Saturday! They went ALL OUT and that means SOOOO much to this Momma who was sitting at home wishing she could make her sons 20th birthday special!! No need for that tho ;) they were awesome! Charlie got Alex good by shoving his face in his cake hahaha. It looked like a brawl broke out afterward and there is a sister that goes running after them in the video! Probably trying to stop the church from being covered in cake!! LOL... He looked so happy!! I cried (of course)! I sent the pictures and video to my mom and she called me and then we cried again! Man we miss him!! But we wouldn't trade him being home for anything ;)
I made a collage of all the pictures because there were so many this week and make sure you watch the video, if you haven't already of course ;) I'll also include Weston's duck pictures (the duck is mentioned in the letter) because they ARE pretty funny. They named the duck Sean and played with him for a few hours. BOYS!
He sounds so happy! LOVE HIM!!
P.S. The California Fresno Mission hit 1,000 baptisms!! Their goal was to hit 1,000 before the end of the year and they did it ;) 1,001 if you count John! :) Super cool!!!
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| Christmas Fun, John's Baptism, Charlie & Paul Building Snowmen, and Making Tamales |
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| Yosemite, Christmas Fun and Making Tamales with the Delgado's |
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| Surprise Birthday Party |
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| Surprise Birthday Party |
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| Henrique, Sean the Duck, Troy, and Weston |
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| Duck Lips hahaha |
Christmas, Surprise Birthday, Transfer Calls, and I'm a District Leader now
Yes a lot has happened this week! I was super excited to be able to Skype you guys this past week! I sure miss seeing your guys faces but I know I'll see them again before I even know it. So a lot has happened this week. We went to Yosemite last Monday, I believe I already told you all that. We had another baptism yesterday for John and what a great guy he is! He's pretty hilarious. After he was baptized he comes up out of the water and says, "Oooohh it's nice, I'll stay in here!" he must of thought it was a hot tub or something. Charlie and our ward mission leader helped throw out a surprise birthday party for me. I was pretty impressed how well they kept it a secret from me! It was weird because there was a few people I heard that were going to "eat dinner" with us at the church, but I come to find out it was a surprise birthday. I ALSO got my face STUFFED!! Literally stuffed with cake. (For those of you who've already seen the video on Facebook you know what I'm talking about). I was getting ready to cut the cake and Charlie tells me "A Mexican tradition we always do is after you blow out the candles you take a bite out of the cake!" So I was like "Alright I guess I'll take a bite"... Man I should have known!! When I went to take a bite he shoved my head hard into the cake! We had our laughs for a little bit as I tried to run around with my eyes covered trying to get back at Charlie with some cake. It was a fun birthday! Probably one of the funnest birthdays I've had.
Another Birthday surprise was transfer calls!! President Clark calls Elder Moody and I in the morning and we were with a member going to Angela and Angel's house. Usually when President calls people on transfer days it means they're going to get some kind of leadership position or training position. I had the phone when he called and I gave it to Elder Moody thinking he was going to get some kind of position. But then he told Elder Moody to hand the phone over to me and I was just thinking that maybe he was going to ask me to train or something. But he asked me to be District Leader in Turlare!! Turlare is about 10 minutes away from Lindsey so I'll still come by to do baptisms and hopefully, if I get permission, to go on exchanges with Elder Moody or something. But still... A DISTRICT LEADER?? I didn't ever see that coming! Especially for how short I've been out on my mission! When he told me I was going to be a district leader he said "You're going to learn how to be a bishop by being a district leader." Hahaha I guess that's true as far as missionary work is concerned... I'm a little bit bummed that I was just getting to know the members and everybody but I know the Lord's hand is in this and my will is submitted to his.
Christmas day I got to Skype all of you of course and hang out with members and we got a bunch of stuff from them. Christmas Eve was pretty fun though! We played games all night and hung out. We also had a little nativity scene with their family. We just had the greatest time! We weren't able to teach very many people but we had fun with our members. Several of you asked for pictures and I will try as soon as possible, hopefully today to send them to you.
As far as progressing investigators there's not a whole lot on our list now that they've all been baptized. Now we're back to planting seeds and looking for new investigators and working with less actives and recent converts. There are a few though that are progressing pretty well! N. D. is one of them still. She's having a hard time trying to trust herself that she can repent and be baptized. The more we talk to her the more we realize that she just needs to trust Heavenly Father and expect that she'll be happy, not necessarily that she'll have a crazy experience coming into the church, but that God will provide for her needs. We have a family called the V. family. They're all made up of 7 or 8 people. So if they can be baptized that would be awesome!! Right now we're just being their friends and little by little inviting them to come unto Christ. Mar. has been progressing but she has disappeared lately. We've went by her house 6 or 7 times this past week and she's not answered. We're hoping that either her or her parents will let us in cause she's super ready! M. is still a searcher, just looking for a spiritual experience, which eventually he'll get if he's looking sincerely. We've started talking the S. and J. again and said they would be baptized! We saw them a couple days ago on the streets and asked if we could come by and it worked out... As far as investigators are concerned that's basically all.
I'm sad I missed out on Christmas back home. Sounds like everyone was having fun with Karaoke! Did you tell Brother and Sister Ashcraft about that?? They were asking me to sing and stuff!!
I'm happy to hear Mar and Wes are working hard in B-ball. Sounds like they're always doing good! Tell them to keep up the good work.... I also got Weston's email of the duck hahaha. I can't believe he took the duck inside of McDonald's. I would have laughed hysterically!!
Well that's kind of all I have for this week. Next week will be different because I'll be in Turlare now. But I hear good things over there. Keep the updates back home coming! I love you!!
Elder Horrocks
P.s. Thank you for the presents! I loved them all! Especially the CD'S, the books, and the new bag. It makes it a lot more convenient... Also this morning we got the call from president saying we reached past 1,000 baptisms for our mission!! That's the first time in mission history in Fresno. It was actually 1,001 haha gotta give credit for that last one. But the year is still not over yet. We may not get that goal next year. Since Modesto and 3 stakes in that area are leaving in July of next year. But we got the goal!
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