Otra Semana Pasada! (Another week by)

Time is all running together!  Must mean he's staying busy ;)  I told him I know that feeling all too well!!  And I'm supposing that going on a mission is a lot like the first few weeks back to school!  Super easy to get up, get ready, get going, AND be on time for the first few weeks and then the snooze button becomes your friend!! Ha Ha.  It also sounds like he's still enjoying it and even finding time to school other elders in basketball :)  Keep Praying for him and his investigators.  And pray they don't start their apartment's on fire exterminating bugs... Literally ;)

Otra Semana Pasada! (Another week by)

Santa vaca!! Weeks just fly!! I swear I was just writing you last week. Time is becoming nothing out here. The only thing that gets harder everyday is getting up at 6:30. I had so much energy in the morning my first couple weeks and now it's starting to wind down haha. That's how it is for every missionary though. This week was pretty awesome! Miracles are happening everywhere. As far as Axel and Abel the only things we need to do is get them interviewed by our zone leaders and then they can be baptized. They're expected to be this Sunday, which isn't very far away! I hope we don't have to keep delaying it. Abel wants his Dad to baptize him but the only problem is, is that he's inactive and a little bit disobedient. But Abel loves his Dad, I'm just worried that it would break his heart if he knows that his Dad may not be able to do it. But we love him and his dad! No matter what they want. Abel said he's cool with our branch president doing it if his Dad can't. If his Dad could do it I think that would sure make Abel as happy as could be. Axel just wants to get baptized he really doesn't care who does it haha. We didn't catch Arturo this week dang it! We have faith that he's doing good though. We didn't catch Jorge either. It was hard to catch our investigators this week for different reasons. We did actually have one of our investigators this week (Miguel) that actually read on his own! Holy heck can you believe that? A lot of our investigators think they have to read so much. He told us that he only read like 3 or 4 verses and me and my companion were all pumped up and excited for him! He looked at us funny, but we were being serious haha he felt like it wasn't much but we told him that's plenty and to keep reading. Some investigators read maybe a line or don't read at all. So we're super excited for Miguel! He wants to be sealed for his family. First we need to baptize him... We have a new investigator named Erika who is Stephanie's sister. Stephanie kind of flaked out on us :( we invited her to be baptized but she said she didn't want to make such a big jump in her life and that she felt that God was happy with her at where she is. We were sad but her sister Erika still wants us to come by. She has a TON of good questions and she tells us all the time, "Dang you guys are the only people that can answer my questions". We have an appointment with her on Tuesday so we look forward to that. 

        

I actually had the chance this week to go on exchanges with one of our zone leaders. His name is Elder Cook, I want to say he's from Riverton Utah? I may be wrong. But we had an awesome time together! He's a great missionary! He loves to work and he loves to just serve everyone he talks to. I learned a lot from him about missionary work and the only thing he learned from me is that I could whoop him in b-ball haha. He's an awesome dude, I really enjoyed my exchange with him. We had other meetings this week too like Trainer/Trainee and it was pretty good. I kind of already knew what was going on since I've had a taste of it before. The best thing I learned from it was to never compare myself to anybody else. Which I'll be honest I'm a little guilty of that. So I made a goal to just continue being myself during my training, and to find out by the end of my training of how I can personally teach and help others come to Christ. There are people to hear the gospel in a way that I teach, as well my companion teaches. We just have to have faith to find them... A couple funny things happened this week. We had the J-dubs (Jehovah's Witnesses) come by our door. And she was Hispanic and she saw us and said that she couldn't speak English very well, but we just said Oh no it's okay! We speak Spanish too! Then she looked at us like oh shoot, well we have another appointment to go to so we'll  come by another time okay? hahaha it was funny! The other crazy thing that happened this week was Elder Moosman tapped a wasp hole that was in the ceiling outside of our apartment. The nest was inside the hole and he took a lighter and some old spice spray and started lighting the wasps on fire and then he tapped the hole so they couldn't come out. It was super funny! He just did it like a man, and he was sitting there swiping the wasps around like it was nothing. We thought he was crazy. I'll have to send the video. Speaking of videos, President Clark has now issued that we can send videos! Also we can Skype, but only around Christmas or Mothers day. So maybe I'll send it sometime soon.

Yes i did get your package and letters :) Thank you so much! But unfortunately the chord you sent is to small. The plug into the camera needs to be bigger, so I'll just send the cord back, I might find one at Walmart or something. But thanks for the food and stuff! I think it's all gone though. It's good to hear that everything back home is good. 4-0 baby!! That's what I'm talkin' about! I miss football a lot but it sounds like the team is doing awesome. Send my love their way and tell em I said to keep up the good work. Same with Mar send my love to her! I'm glad Justin is working on his goals. We all have goals in life and I've seen changes in him since I first met him. So as far as he has come since then, I have faith that he can over come smoking! I love the pictures and I love hearing about everything back home. Unfortunately I'm going to have to cut this one short but I love you all!! 

Love your son, Elder Horrocks

He sent pictures!!! YAY!!!!

I almost had a breakdown last week!!  Nothing big really, but to me it was huge ;) Alex for some reason didn't get my email.  He had gotten the pictures I sent but no letter!  This happened once before and I HATED it!  I get all anxious!!  It feels like missing a chance to talk to him :(  Luckily I had been checking my email and he had sent a letter saying he didn't get my letter, so I quick sent it out to him again!  I was excited to tell him about my little adventure so I was sad he didn't get to read about it. (He had seen the picture I had taken tho and had a bunch of questions) ANYHOW,  I had an amazing night on Sunday when I went to a fireside that Alex's old mission president (President Gelwix) did in Sandy.  I saw that he was going to be there and it just so happened that I was in Sandy so I talked my sis KaeCee into going along with me.  Justin was going to go but decided to stay home and help grandma with the kids at the last second.  Anyway, it was such a wonderful fireside.  I felt his love for the people in the Fresno Mission and I knew that they were looked after physically and spiritually!!  Alex was blessed to know him for sure!  Afterward I introduced myself to him and told him I was Alex's mom.  He hugged me and told me how proud of Alex he was and that he loved him dearly and that he was going to make a WONDERFUL missionary!  He also told me that he was in Canada when Alex flew back out and was sad he didn't get to tell him goodbye first.  He is such a sweet, sincere, genuine man.  I knew without a doubt that he loved the missionaries and would have done anything for them.  Including listening to the spirit when it told him to go visit at 1am.  I felt very spiritually fed and blessed that he knew and cared for my son.

Alex also sent some pictures!!!  YAY!!!!!  He looks sooooo happy! I love that I can still see his personality shining through :)

Helping out, put up the play

Me trying out some costumes

Jesus Christ appearing to the Americas in "Light to the Nations"

All Book of Mormon characters and stories during the play, (Liahona, Joseph Smith finds the plates, Enos prays, all other stories)

On the way home from the play we were crowded in the car

On our way to the temple

A scripture case I made out of a cereal box and Ensign pics

Elder Guereca and I

On our way to do service. Me and my companion Elder Hall are in the back

Elder Brower creeping on Elder Hall

Me washing the car

I Didn't get a letter from you but I got your pics and stuff. I'm assuming you're sending it today? If you didn't get the chance to send yet it's okay. I'll send you mine!

Another week flown by!

So there are many miracles that we witnessed this week, but at the same time it was kind of crazy but I'll explain. For our investigators we are ready to get Axel and Abel in the water! We've taught them all the lessons and now we just got to make a baptismal service and have them be interviewed by our zone leaders and hopefully they can be baptized this Sunday. As far as tony he isn't with his brothers as much. He's usually with his mom. But when he does see us he wants us to teach him haha. We didn't see him this week though. I'll take pics and when i get a cord I'll send them to you. Our other investigators are doing good too. We love them all. One of them that's doing good is Arturo and he is right now trying his hardest to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true, AND if that's true then that means that Joseph Smith was a prophet right? It seems simple but yet it's so true. We dropped by him and he said he didn't read this week and so I told him to go get his Book of Mormon and he brought it to us and I asked him to read Alma 37:36-37 and he read and we told him how Heavenly Father is LITERALLY our Father. He wants to hear us pray to him. He wants to know how were doing. Just like parents want to know how their kids are doing haha. So we marked Moroni 10:3-5 and he told us he'd read it right when we left so we expect him to have that done.
        We have 3 other investigators that we met this week too. Stephanie and Erika are two of them, and they're sisters. We taught them the restoration with them and did what's called the cup lesson (do you know what the cup lesson is? Short explanation: 12 cups on bottom that represent 12 apostles, stack other cups on top that represent Jesus Christs teachings and commandments such as faith, repentance, baptism, receiving gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end... along with others like obedience, prayer, scripture, study, Sabbath day holy, and all preach my gospel lessons. On top of it is Jesus Christ cause he's the head of the church) That's not even all of it. But it helped our two investigators a lot. It kind of makes our restoration lessons really unique. Stephanie and Erika really wanted to feel the spirit, but it seemed like they wanted to know right away. But we explained that all of these things we teach don't all come at once, but overtime and with experience, our testimonies and ability to recognize the spirit begins to grow (Alma 32:28-30) we shared that scripture with them and it helped them to understand. So they're awesome! Our other investigator, or i should say really good potential, his name's Jorge. He's the friendliest Mexican I've ever met. When we talked to him he asked us to come by again. We were like what? You're asking us? That never happens! Also as missionaries were not supposed to talk about politics. When we talked he started to bring those things up, but we even told him that we don't have TV or any news to read from to know what's going on. So when we told him that he's like "Oh...well... Obama me no likey." Hahahaha he gave us a good laugh. Unfortunately we haven't caught him since we talked cause he hasn't been home. I'll let you know when we do though.
        So two crazy and exciting things happened this week. First I had an opportunity on Friday to go on exchanges with a missionary that has been on his mission for only a week. And I went to his area and he was running it. His area is out in Ceres in it is big! His name was Elder Checkets and he's English speaking. We went on exchanges because Elder Hall my companion had to go to a leadership meeting in Fresno for some leadership stuff because he's district leader. Elder Checkets and I did really good for being trainees haha. It was super hectic trying to find our way around though! Oh my heck it was so frustrating! And we were on bikes too. So that made it even better... So if you can imagine two trainee missionaries walking around a city, looking puzzled as ever, that's what it was like.... The other event was on Saturday and it wasn't as crazy. It's actually an experience I'll never forget. We did service to help out for a play called "A light to the nations" in Turlock. It's about when Jesus Christ comes to the Americas. It's like a play with dancing and singing and other neat stuff. But you could feel the spirit so strong when it showed the part when Jesus Christ appeared to the Americas. People in the act were crying and they looked so happy when they saw this. It only strengthened testimony even more of our Savior. In a sense it was like having a feel of when the Savior comes to the Earth again. We'll all be crying and walking to him ready to see him. I took lots of pictures and I'll have to send you some one of these days.

So you took a picture of President and Sister Gelwix??!! How? What was going on? Where did you meet them?? Did you tell him you were Alex's mom? :) haha that's way cool. I love the pics they're super funny! I heard about Weston's game and it seems that he's doing awesome! 3 in a row baby! Wished they would have put a big donut on the board, but 41 to 21 is still pretty good. Mar made the team! how's Justin doing? Is he doing a lot better? Tell him I love him. Hope all is well.

Well I guess I'll write ya next week cause I'm running out of time! But I love you! Tell everyone I send my love their way and remember our investigators name by name and keep them in your prayers.

Love, Elder Horrocks

This isn't a great picture of President and Sister Gelwix.  I didn't want to hold up the line any more when I got to them so I just snapped the picture while I was standing in line.  They were some of the kindest people!  So blessed they looked over my son.

Once Alex received my letter and got the story he sent this quick note back:
Got the letter! President Gelwix is a wise man! I love that man to death! I'm stoked you got to meet him and he still sends love towards me. I felt super bad that I couldn't meet him before I left but maybe I'll see him when i come home. But I think you got my letter so I'll leave it at that cause I got to head out but love ya!

La Obra del Senor

New Arrivals: Alex is on the 3rd/middle row. 9th one over from the right

Big Al is doing spectacular!!  He sent a link to the blog that the Mission Presidents wife runs.  The picture above is from her blog.  I didn't see any other pictures of him, but it was fun looking through them  Check it out :)


La Obra del Senor

So this week was a little bit better then last weeks. As far as our investigators with a baptismal date we have 4 at the moment. Their names are Axel and Abel, Miguel, and Arturo. Axel and Abel are the grandsons of our branch president out here in Hughson and they are going to be a little easier to baptize, they're 9 years old. We finished all the lessons with them and now they can be baptized! It's about time too, because we can only catch them on the weekends and we were supposed to baptize them 2 weeks ago. But because of some things or events they had to do we couldn't meet up with them before. What's funny about Axel and Abel is they have a brother named Tony and he's 11. He was there when we taught Axel and Abel the last lesson. When we finished our lesson Tony says "Wait! You gotta teach me the other lessons, so I can be baptized too!" We asked Axel and Abel if they wanted to wait for his brother and they simply said no hahaha, just shows how much they love eachother ;) but they were kidding. You could tell Tony was a little bit jealous of his younger brothers, but hey maybe we might have another baptism!

Miguel is an investigator that said he would be willing to be baptized so that he could take his wife and kids to the temple and be sealed. When we told him about how families are sealed together forever, he hopped on that and started asking questions. So we look forward to getting him to the temple too! But he has a few word of wisdom problems that we know about. We told him that if he reads the BOM and prays he will progress, because we can't always be there to help him. As for Arturo he was doing awesome for a week! He loved it when we would pray with him. We followed up with him to see if he read the BOM and to pray to know if it was true. He told us he didn't read and that he doesn't know if God would answer his prayer. We're not sure what's holding him back, but we told him the Heavenly Father WANTS us to pray to him. (Mathew 7:7-11) We told him God wants the best for us so we should pray for him, just like an dad on earth would want the best for his son. He understood that, and he knows that prayer is a commandment so we will follow up with him today to see how things are... Unfortunately we didn't get anyone baptized for the 4 weeks i was here. We were soooo close!! But we can't take away free agency. We're looking forward to 2 or 3 with Axel and Abel and maybe his brother too.

All of our other investigators are in mind of us but aren't progressing as much. There is one that goes to church with her family and she plays on the volleyball team and everything but she won't be baptized. So we question ourselves about her. We've taught her literally everything there is to know!! We're thinking that we'll teach her about sealings and temple marriage, because she can only be marries in the temple if she wants to be baptized... It's like Elder Holland said in one of his talks to the missionaries, "President why can't they see this? What else can we do? Why don't they just walk up to the font?" it's because salvation was never easy. And we should never think it's going to be easy for us, when it was never easy for our savior who suffered for us. So in all the persecution, confusion, and questions of why isn't it simply working we have to remember these exact words. We have to suffer a little bit of what he suffered, but he'll bless our area for it. So right now we're kind of watering our area till we can go out and start to harvest it. We're focusing on finding new investigators everywhere we go.

Wednesday was a good day. We had 6 qualtiy lessons instead of just 2 or 3, and we found some potentials but we'll see how that works out. This area is tough! From what I've heard from every missionary, this is the hardest area they've been in.

Good to hear that Union won their game! Sounds like Weston did pretty good. 6 touchdowns in 2 games is pretty good. Mar's gonna make the volleyball team as usual. That's crazy you got rain for 4 weeks in a row! Now we need that in Cali! We're dying over here cause it's so hot! Did I tell you we have a drought? So pray for rain! (James 5:8)... No I didn't recover from fire bum haha that never happens when you're eating mexican food 24/7. Every Sunday we have a family called the Sanchez's and they sell street tacos or drive taco truck 3 days out of the week and they have 500 people a day! Every Sunday we go over there and they feed us tacos. It's the best tacos I've ever had. But just because of that we never recover from fire bum... By the way one day Elder Hall and I, and the english elders were driving to Waterford and we had our bikes on the back of the car. But the latch broke off and we were going about 60 mph and the bikes went rolling down the road after the latch broke loose. Their bikes are busted so it stinks to be them haha, but we got a new latch the next day so my bike won't fall now.

Everyone needs to read at least one chapter a night in the BOM, and I promise you'll be on the right path.  As a family or personally, but personally is good or even better. Also tell Justin that if he still has his Preach My Gospel book to read ch. 4 and go to the point where it says "Helping overcome Addiction" I think he'd like that.

The language is definitely coming! Since I've given my talk I've seen great success in my personal growth with the mexican culture and the language. I'm understanding a lot more as time goes by... That video you saw of President Clark  and missionaries singing "Called to Serve", that was Sister Clark recording it. I wasn't in the video you saw but she did record us at a zone conference like 2 weeks before that we had. If you go to www.fresnomission.blogspot.com you might find more videos, maybe you might find me? I don't know.... By the way you know that corn on the cob on a stick you see on nacho libre?? Yeah i had one of those!! They're sooooo good!! It's basically parmesean cheese and chile sauce on corn. so it's definitely mexican style. But I gotta go so I'll keep you in my prayers and keep our investigators in yours! Love you all!

Elder Horrocks

Week 3: All is well in the mission!

I'll find out today if his baptisms went through.  :)  It was a fun week.  I joined a Missionary Mamas facebook page and got in touch with a few people from that area!  One of the creators of the page asked for the Mama's to post pictures of their missionary playing sports and she put together a little inspirational video.  I will add a link to the video at the end of the letter if you'd like to watch it.  Alex is around the 2:20 mark.  Another Mama posted a video of the Fresno missionaries singing "Called to Serve Him"!  It's AWESOME!  I cried like a baby :'(  Only problem is... I CAN'T SEE ALEX!!!  I'm really not sure if he was even there (I asked in this weeks letter), but it sure would have been nice to see his face singing!!  I'll post a link to it also.  If you see his face let me know!!
Over and Out XOOXX
Mama

All is well in the mission!



So this week was super super slow! There probably isn't a whole lot to discuss about what happened this week. But I'll start on the bright side. So we got 4 new investigators and their names are Arturo, Anthony, Areli, and Cesar and they are all in the same family, but we haven't met the entire family yet. Anthony and Arturo are pretty solid. They both work and are in there late teens or early twenties and they were cool with us coming over and teaching them more. We asked Arturo to pray and he said that he's never even done such a thing before, and when he prayed oh my heck it was like he had been praying for years! That was surprising to me!! I love hearing prayers from potential people because it's humble and meek and not a super long preacher prayer :). Like I said before in the past this area is super small. Right now we are out finding people, and the fact that the area is a little bit smaller makes it a little more difficult to find. But the Lord is aware of our struggles and is helping us a long the way. Also we are doing everything we can to have Axel and Abel (the 2 brothers) to be baptized on the 31st. we just have to teach them 1 more lesson... The bad news is that we've had appointments with our investigators drop left and right, and a couple of them we've had to drop :( Remember Yanime? She's still solid but she moved to Ceres because she got kicked out of her house. We only know that she might of got in a little to much trouble with her parents. But we asked if we could still teach her and she said yes! For Yanime we are thinking about transferring her over to the YSA Elders out in Ceres. Whatever we have to do to get her baptized!
              There's actually crazy news. I don't know if I shared this with you or not but transfer calls came up on Saturday night! Elder Hall and I are staying but Elder Lundberg is going to be a zone leader in the YSA Fresno north area. None of us saw it coming! I think he'll do good though since he's been district leader before. His companion Elder Brower is getting his 6th companion and he's only been on his mission for 4 months hahaha. He's had companions come in and out for different reasons... By the way I gave my first talk yesterday! I was beyond nervous because it was in spanish. Elder Hall took like 30 minutes and left me with about 5 to speak. I spoke for 15 mins though haha that's whats great about the language barrier. You can talk about 3 things and take 10 minutes to do it. I gave my talk on conversion through the atonement, and how we can make the atonement personal in our lives. Elder Hall told me I did pretty good and that it made sense. If my companion tells me that, that's good with me :)
        Dannnngggg Weston?!?! What the heck happened on Friday?? Wish I could have been there to watch it. Weston's already got 3 more touchdowns than I did my junior and senior year.  But that's good for Weston! Tell him to keep it up! I'm glad to hear that everyone else is doing good too. I'll keep saying my prayers for home every night. Tell him Justin I love him, and Mar too.

     I'm getting used to the Mexican food out here. Fire bum is starting to adapt to me haha. Let's just hope that it's not the same with gay guys. Elder Hall told me that we are in the heart of it all though. There are gays everywhere, especially in San Francisco which is  only like and hour away.

But time is short and I got to head. I love you all and God bless!
Love Elder Horrocks

p.s. I'll keep you updated on packages. I'm sure the zone leaders will bring me the ones you sent tomorrow

He's just dandy!!

Monday mornings seem to be the only time that I have to post on the blog, so this is last weeks letter (he'll write me again today).  He is doing well!!  He actually asked me not to post a specific part of the letter so if it doesn't make complete sense that is why ;)  Feel free to write him also :)  He loves hearing from everyone!!

Familia!!

It's good to hear from everyone! I love hearing the stories that happen back home, it makes me miss everything back home. Right now everything out here in Hughson California is doing good. It's a tiny tiny little town, but the Lord has people waiting to hear us. It's been a week full of miracles! Whether we seem them or not, there is always a miracle happening everyday. When people say they've never talked to missionaries before is a miracle sometimes because it's so small out here haha. But I love it! It's a good area to start in. There was a pretty cool thing that happened on Friday. Elder Hall, Elder Lumberg, Elder Brower and I were on our way home from the apartment, and we saw a car broke down and a person walking on the side of the road at about 8:30 at night. It was pretty dark and we had to be back to the apartment at 9 but the spirit told Elder Brower that we needed to stop and help her and see what's going on. So we pulled over and Elder Brower and I got out to walk her back to her car. Elder Hall and Elder Lumberg went back to her car that was broke down. The person's name was Stephanie and she was so grateful that we pulled over to help, and she started cry. She was scared because walking around in California at night can get sketchy. She was from Ceres which is about 5 miles from Hughson. She ran out of gas and so Elder Brower called one of his members to bring a galon of gas. Long story short she was so grateful and wanted to know more about us, so the missionaries out in Ceres are teaching her and she has since then loved us! So the Lord prepares people to teach!

Right now we have 3 progressing investigators and it's Yanime, and two brothers named Axel and Abel and they're 9 years old. We used to have 4 progressing, but I'll explain why we only have 3 later. We have a church tour with Yanime today and she's super excited! Axel and Abel are easier to teach but they're hard to catch. They're never around at home except on the weekends. But Yanime, Axel, and Abel all have dates for the 31st, I'm way excited that we'll hopefully have 3 baptisms in one day! We ate taco truck this Sunday again, except this time we ate like 4 or 5 peppers, and the fire bum is unreal out here! You have to be careful what kind of mexican food you eat but for the most part it's pretty dang good!

So I Love hearing about stories back home! I love the pictures and silly little things that JT and charleigh do. It's hilarious. I don't have a camera chord other wise I'd be sending a few pics too but I don't have a chord. So maybe you could send me one of those? Along with some food or treats? Haha but that's really all I need. The Camera chord is like a Android charger too... I heard about Jaycee and she will always be in my prayers! Grandma told me before I left, but tell her that I hope all goes well!

But yeah! That's another update in 5 days haha.

But time is running short and I love you all! Let me how the games go even if you can't go to them. But remember to pray for our investigators. :)

Love Elder Horrocks

Week 1 Down!!

Alex's mission president said that P-Days were on Monday's so on Monday I checked my email every 20 min (literally) and didn't get anything :(  Same thing on Tuesday :(  Finally, Wednesday afternoon I got a letter from him :)  YAY!!!! (Mind you, I checked the email every 20 min. for 3 day's straight!)  Enjoy!!  I love him and miss him tons!

Hey Mom

Sorry about the late email. I came in right in as we were doing our temple day in our area. The temple in Fresno is small but it was a lot of fun, it's beautiful there too!! So our temple day was today and also our prep day so that's why I'm emailing so late. I'm adjusting to the missionary life little by little, but it gets easier and easier. I didn't want to believe how hard it was going to be when I left a second time, but I have to admit it was pretty dang hard. My new companion is Elder Hall. He's white and speaks some pretty good Spanish. He's from Orem Utah so I'm pretty familiar with where he lives. Right now he's a district leader and a trainer, and it's his first time with it too. He's getting the hang of it though! It's a lot of work. I help him along with it and stuff, things like paper work and phone calls or whatever he needs help with. Right now my area is a place called Hughson California, which is north of Cali. We cover 3 little towns like Waterford, Hughson, and Hickman. I've seen a few familiar faces since I've been back. In fact when I first showed up I went out with an elder named Elder Jensen and he was in my district in Portervile. He was pretty stoked to see me. I haven't seen Elder Nye yet though.... The Spanish is coming a long. I have a huge head start and can speak pretty well so far. I'm still learning though. 

Right now we are teaching 2 solid investigators but we have 4 or 5 with a baptism date. Right now we are teaching a girl named Yanime (Ya-neem) we taught her about the restoration and the plan of salvation and you should of seen the look on her face. She tried not to cry when told her about Jesus Christ and his atonement, and that because of him we can live with our families again. She was pretty tripped when we told her we lived with God before and that we will live with him again haha. She is super excited to hear more from us! We are going to be teaching her how we can return to God by using the Gospel of Jesus Christ... Our other investigator is Adrian and we found him knocking houses in Waterford. He said that he already talked to missionaries a couple years ago but that they quit coming back. So here we are now teaching him again. He's 16 years old and so Far we've taught him the Restoration and the importance of repentance and baptism. He trusts us a lot. The way we know that is because he's told us a lot of things he's done in the past. And he wants to change, and we told him that God sent us here to do that. The other investigators are Selena and Lupita (Lu-peeta) and they are going to be baptized eventually. Lupita signed the papers and everything but she flaked out this Sunday because her Dad is Catholic and told her to wait and not do it so fast, which is frustrating. But she knows what we taught her is True from the bottom of her heart. Selena is cousins with Lupita and she has the same mindset. They both go to church actively we just don't know why they're not committing to baptism yet.. So we need prayers that our investigators will understand the importance of the Gospel and that they'll continue to read the BOM and find out for themselves that it's true through prayer... Something crazy this week is we have Sunday dinners every week at a non members house and they run the "Taco truck" and it's like an ice cream truck except they sell tacos haha. Elder Lundberg (who's 285 pounds) ate 16 tacos, yeeee!!! Me, Elder Brower (Elder Lundbergs comp) and Elder Hall ate some dried peppers dipped in chile sauce. And it was like stupid Hot! I thought Elder Hall was going to throw up! So we drank like 6-8 cups of Horchata to take the spice away (it's a cinnamon milk that Mexicans make). So we had fire bum for like 2 days haha

Hahaha I love JT's stories they're hilarious. Thanks for the pics too by the way. I showed all my zone Charlie's picture and everyone else and they said charlie was really cute haha. I miss everyone already. It's crazy to say good bye for a second time! But everything is going good... Don't worry about the bike, just get it here when you can. Same with the pull up bar! Oh also if you can, remember that green Spanish book and CD that was by the computer that I used to study Spanish? If you could send that, that would be awesome! :) but time is short and I'll let you know more on Monday!

Love you all 

Big Al

ANNNNDDDD WE'RE BACK!!!

At the Stake Center after Alex was set apart.  Only missing Justin.  He was sad he couldn't get off work.

Haydn, Alex and Stephen

As if saying goodbye wasn't hard enough once, we got to do it twice!!  So just in case you weren't aware Alex went back to Fresno on Tuesday, August 5th.  It was exactly what he has wanted and he couldn't be happier.  I've watched Al grow and discover who he is personally and even more so spiritually during the time he was back.  He developed a very personal relationship with his savior and Heavenly Father and it showed in everything he did.  He did a semester at UVU, where I feel like he learned even more what he was capable of accomplishing on his own!!  Learning the bus schedules, riding his bike, working AND going to school.  Getting A's in the Geology and English (classes we thought he'd struggle in) and B's in PE and Music.  WHAT!?!?! (YES!! You read that right!! B's in music in P.E) ha ha ha.  He matured into a man right before my eyes!!! But most of all the spiritual journey he chose to take and set his goal as returning on his mission has been his number one priority.  Honestly the odds were not in his favor.  only 1% of missionaries who come home return.  Alex is in that 1% now.  I'm proud of him.  I'm even more proud that decision and process was ALL HIS.  He did this all on his own!!  We were just here to support and guide when he needed it, but he is responsible for where he ended up... I LOVE HIM!  I love the example he is as a son and brother!  We will miss him coming in from Mortal Combat Wars at 3 a.m.  We will miss him randomly deciding to come over after work and spending the night with us.  We will miss him Playing the Guitar.  We will miss him teasing the babies.  And we will miss his quirkiness everyday.  The people of Fresno are very blessed to have him there!!  He is prepared to spread joy and love.  Honestly I don't see how they can get away from being drawn to his countenance!

Saying goodbye at the airport.  No one ever gets a pic of Mom with him but I got my hug too!!

I waited all day Tuesday (after I got home to my internet not working and my data service in Roosevelt is HORRIBLE so connecting to my email through my phone was a bit of a joke) for an email to come that said he had arrived and it never came!  Wednesday morning the internet was fixed and on and I again started waiting.  Around 11:30 I received a phone call from Fresno.  It was President Clark (his new mission president).  He called to tell me 2 things:  1.  That Alex had arrived safely!!  They normally take time to send out a quick email letting parents know they arrived and he had just realized that they had not done so.  I admitted to him that I had been looking for the email but that I new if he hadn't arrived safe I would have received a phone call yesterday.  He laughed and said "I know you mother's like to get a return receipt!".  I laughed and told him that was EXACTLY what I needed (I'm also VERY relieved he "understands" us mothers) ;).  2.  He had spent all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday with Alex and he wanted to let me know what an amazing son I had.  He was a fine young man and that he already loved him and his spirit.  He said he was going to do great things!  I (of course) agreed with him!  I actually could have gone on and on and on about how much I loved Alex and that I knew he was going to do great and marvelous things but I didn't want him to thing I was bragging ;).  ha ha ha.  So instead I told him how special Al is to everyone here and that he had an enormous group of people cheering on his every move!  He apologized again for no email and said that P-days were Monday's and he'd send out emails then. ...He asked if I had any more questions for him and I said No and we hung up.  Then I realized I hadn't even asked where Alex was going to be.  So I guess I'll find that out on Monday. 

SOOOOOOOO... He's there!!!  Feel free to email, or write a letter and send it, or even send a package!!  He wants to hear from everyone and anyone!!  The email and mailing address are exactly the same.  If you can't find them let me know and I'll post them again :)