January News

Elder Robert Cook ~Serving in Texas Houston South Mission
Dear super, stupendous, amazing, outstanding, sometimes crazy Family, :) Well, it is official, I will have been out a year in about two or three days, and suddenly I'm kind of freaking out because i realize that I'm half-way done with my mission!!!! HOLY COW time has flown by, and the scarier part is that the second year goes even faster...at least that's what I hear, and that is scary because this year has flown by. Well, lets not talk about it and I'll just pretend that I still have over a year and work like I have a month left. So, yes I did get your e-mail today instead of yesterday, and now I'm sitting in the library here with Obama's induction speech playing in the background and all the news people that just love him to death. Well, sorry I sounded so "down" in last weeks letter, I was just tired after a long day of activities and I still had about 5 more hours at that point, but don't worry, Super Elder never slows down and never stops while he's on the Lords time. So the news about the district of Alvin now. Well, Elder Franco has called us about three times this past week saying hi and telling us what it is like to be home, and we just laugh and keep trudging along. We did get a new Elder this past week and his name is Elder Baird. He has been out about 17 months and is a really good guy. He is very mellow and calm, but he is a lot of fun when he opens up and is a really cheerful guy. He and elder Jenks already get along great, so things really haven't changes a whole lot. Well one thing, we also got a new District leader, and guess what, your talking to him. President Allred called me on Tuesday when we were in the middle of personal study and told me I was going to be the new District Leader, I really didn't think I was going to be getting that call. I still consider myself young in the mission, but I guess President and the Lord trusts me and so I'll give it everything I have. Friday I had exchanges with the Zone Leaders so that Elder Whipple could train me on how to do my new assignment, and we had a great exchange. we had an awesome District Meeting with the Pearland District, and the spirit was so strong. Elder Whipple gave the talk for the meeting on Faith and Confidence, and then Elder Jenks gave a powerful training on the vision we should have as missionaries. he shared a really cool quote from President Spencer W. Kimball that really struck me hard. He said "if I had half the years that I have right now I would run to every door sharing the gospel, and then when I couldn't run I would walk, and then when I couldn't walk, I would crawl, and the when I couldn't crawl, I would lay on my belly and pull myself by my elbows, and when I couldn't do that, I would lay on my back and scream the message of the gospel to anyone that could hear me." When Elder Jenks said that it hit me really hard and I have pondered that statement from the prophet many times this past weekend, and I feel a desire and need to do even more to share the gospel now and after my mission, so i hope that you all would ponder that statement too. It was just a powerful meeting that really humbled us all and was the kind of meeting that would light a fire under our butts for this transfer, and I a so grateful for the spirit we felt there. Another thing that I realized this week was the power of a testimony. ONe night as I was writing in my journal, I began to think about the lessons we had had that night and the testimony that i had given to this person. As I thought about the testimony I was given, I felt so thankful for the knowledge I have and the strength it gives me, and the power that comes from it. Sometimes when we are teaching, it doesn't matter if it is on the doorstep, or in the house, when I bear testimony of the Savior and of the Book of Mormon, I can just feel the power of the testimony bearing testimony to them and confirming what I am saying. Every time I feel it, it strengthens my testimony and confirms to me that what I am doing is exactly what the lord wants me to do. it is an amazing feeling, and a comforting one too. Well, I only have one minuete left, so I'll finish up soon. I love you all big and miss you tons!! Love your missionary, Elder Cook

Elder Justin Doyle~Serving in Mexico Monterey West
I am feeling awesome! I love it here. Changes are coming up this next week and I don’t know what is going to happen. If I am going to stay or leave or what. The baptismal experience was great! We have two hopefuls coming up and hopefully they will make the decision to be baptized before either mi compa o yo leave the area. That is funny because it is NOT green. I saw a very unkempt patch of semi green grass the other day and was shocked to see grass. I forgot about it completely. There are several fabricas (factories, sorry) and so it is kind of industrial. Right now I live in el valle de las flores if you want to check that out. My area right now is El valle all the way to the right to arteaga and a little past. Things with mi compa are great. I am learning a lot. He is treating me fine. We are friends but there a re a lot of major differences between us because he is from Tabasco ( the bottom most tip of Mexico) and I am from California so our likes are different but some are the same. His name is Elder Gonzalez. I am close to fluent. haha. I have no idea! I can communicate and chat and do all that stuff and understand a ton but at the same time there are muchisimas palabras que yo no entiendo pero I have a meta to learn 10 new words each day and have been doing that since I first got here. WOW! Felicidades to Tanner and I hope he does well because that is great for him. That is way cool for Tyler and can I have the name of Auroras band to write down to remember. He’ll find a job soon I am sure. Figures for Samantha at that birthday party because it is Summer Stone. haha I miss you guys too but in due time and dad and I will be watching the unit and such. I do think it is funny that you wrote tanner and not Tyler, so dad misses a kid who is at home more than one who is gone. haha. I bet he is. I didn’t even think how small it would be once i left.I made a cd of pictures from here and I am going to try and send it to you today if possible. Don’t worry I am keeping the cd card for myself. I do need some money to buy a small backpack and scripture cases here because we are supposed to have those things here and I do not. I am going to check the bank account with the card today and if there is money I am going to pull out some because I need it sooner than later and I cant wait for a response in a week. Apparently we need those things always. its a rule. We teach about 5 lessons a day to people and do a lot of tocando en lal puertas. I love you all and am going to try and puit some pics on flickr right now for you to see if i can. I love you

Elder Clifton Dudley~Serving in Mexico Monterey East
"Thanks to the ties I received for Christmas, I have finally been able to realize a long awaited goal: wear a different tie every day of the month. When I took my inventory on December 30th, I noted that I had 30 ties. I also realized there are 31 days in January. As I explained to my companion, this is called ¨Working with Faith¨, because I had a worthy goal that could not be accomplished at the time that I set it, but that I had faith that God would help me do it. Of course I was joking. God has a sense of humor, too.At the end of the sports day in the mission office, I ran into Elder Gonzalez, who was my companion for my first 3 days in Mexico. While we were companions, he had liked/envied one of the ties that I had, but I was unable to give it to him since at the time I only had 6 ties. And so I promised him that I would give him the tie before the end of his mission (right now, he has 3 months left). It just so happened that I was wearing that very tie when we saw each other in the mission office. ¨Hey, when are you gonna give me that tie?¨ ¨What, this one? I´d give it to you right now, but I don´t want the President seeing me leave tie-less¨¨Change it out for this one¨ he said, handing over a tie that the mission had given him for Christmas. It wasn´t until I got home that the thought, ¨31st tie¨ crossed my mind.Hope you like that rather unusual spiritual thought. Also, I hope that Mom enjoys her birthday. Love you all a lot."

Elder Cassidy Hilton~Serving in Argentina Bahia BLanca
"You know you're in Argentina When...
People cannot parallel park and usually hit other cars when they try.
There's a bidet in every house.
People stand outside their houses for hours, watering their sidewalks and dirt lawns. That is not even a joke.
People 'mow' grass with a weed whacker until it's all gone and its dirt again.
You see someone with really expensive designer clothes, multiple cell phones, a large flat screen TV, and they live in the dirtiest, poorest shack you can imagine, with no plumbing sometimes.
There is never carpet ever.
You see families of five crammed onto a mo-ped, driving around town.
You buy something and people don't have enough change, so they make you buy candy so you use money.
Women openly breast feed in public.Wine is priced way less than water."

Elder Cameron Pettey~Serving in Sao Paulo Brasil
"Hello family and friends. So I was transferred. And am now in a new area. Its already been almost a whole week since I have been here... So Elder Court and I wanted to stay in Ermelino together because this AMAZING family showed up at Church last Sunday. They are unexpainable. But made it so both of us wanted to stay super bad. But I was transferred and already have to move on. Elder Court is training a really white american. Haha. So thats cool. And I am now on the ISLAND of the mission. Ilha Bela (beautiful island) its called. It really is beautiful. It is really far away, and we had to take a ferry to get here. It is way tropical and green. The island is big. It has lots of cool stuff, mountains, beaches, waterfalls, rivers, etc. Lots of cool stuff. It is so good to see nature again, and to here the trees blowing in the wind and the birds chirping. It is a really pretty place. It is a bit of a touristy place for lots of Brazilians and others, too. They have some wicked fruit flies here that eat your blood and that itch way worse than mosquitos... The branch here is really good from what I have seen so far. Seems to be about the same size as Ermelinos ward, with like 70 people who go. They meet in a rented house, and sac mtg is in an open covered room. Kind of cool... And now for the best part, my companion. Elder Eloi. Brazilian. 19. 1st area... From Maceio... He is helping me prepare for my future."

"We had transfers(my 8th) on Tuesday and...Elder Eloi ... got transferred.... So we got up at like 3am on Tuesday to make it to Sao Paulo. Our entire Zone was transferred, so we went together. Ends up that I am training Elder Lee! An American from Arizona. So far its been really good. He seems like a good guy. But, that poor kid, we got off to a little bit of a rough start. After transfers, we went to buy our bus ticket (on Tuesday) to go back to the coast. Everybody wanted to go to the beach for the new year, and (the bus system) didn't have any room until Wed at 6pm. So we went back and ended up just sleeping at the assistants house. The next day we had interviews with President. It was really good... It was really spiritual, and helped me. He also talked about Elder Lee, and I´ll quote him on what he said..."He´s solid, not flashy, just solid."... We took the bus and got to Caraguatatuba late (Wednesday). It takes like 2 more hours to get to our house from there, so we ended up just staying there with the Elders. It was cool. We stayed together for the New Year. We had a little toast at like 9pm. ha! Then slept. The next morning we finally got to the island. So it was quite the experience. 3 days of traveling, with one set of clothes, garments, without toothbrush. It was gross. Good."

"Life is not always easy. We are always going to have challenges in our way. Challenges, however, are what we need to grow, and to reach our potential. Everybody is different and needs different challenges to help each individual grow to its potential. It is required that we overcome our challenges and that we become greater than them. Then we will get another challenge. Then we have to overcome. Then challenge. Then overcome. It brings comfort to know that this is for our own good, and that as the Lord states in the New Testament, that he won´t let us be tempted above that which we can handle. Through much prayer and scripture study, we can overcome all things. I know that the Lord is our guide and that he will help us in all of our struggles. Trust in the Lord. He knows what is best for each and every one of us. Love,Elder Pettey"

Elder Jordan Shillingburg~Serving in Antofagasta Chile
I’m still in the same sector with Elder Jesus, YEA! But all of the other companionships have changed the señor companion. And our latest baptism went through, that one was on the 27th of Dec. Here is something funny that happened this week, we were door knocking and at this one house it was only a kid there, so we offered him a pass along card and so he left the door and walked to us to take the card, and the wind blew and shut the door, so we kind of ended up locking a kid out of his house. But we did just leave him stuck like that, so elder Jesus tried to swipe the lock on the window with pass along cards, but if Cody was there he could have opened this window like nothing, but he ended up figuring out that he had to push on the window and then swipe it, it took about 6 minutes for him to figure it out, I would have done it, but that might look wrong, a gringo breaking into a house, I’d rather have them take the blame if something goes wrong, cuz at least he can explain it better. And on a missionary note, we had to push two of our baptism dates back to the 24th, My B-DAY, cuz one of the investigators did come to church yesterday, and the other doesn’t feel prepared so we go to give him some reassurance and hope for this guy. And we found a new investigator Saturday, and she was at church yesterday, we got this one in the bag, Susana Morales.
It turns out that many of these people go camping, but where I don’t know, somewhere near the beach or something, but he is going on one of these camping trip things for the next 3 weeks, so that kind of sucks.but it is all right cuz we got a bunch more good investigators that we are going to knock out, we are going to try to plow out all of them on the 7th of Feb, and another on the 14th. And this week we managed to get 9 investigators to church yesterday, so woot!The kid that we plan on baptizing on the 14th is an investigator from my second week here, but back in November his aunt talked them into having their cousins baptize him in Peru after we taught him most of the stuff, but something happened and so he isn’t going to Peru, so it is a good thing that we didn’t drop him, so now we have the opportunity to baptize him.

Elder Cameron Smith~ Serving in Rome Italy
Buongiorno Cari amici,
Everything is going great I have just had some crazy weeks these past two weeks. But the good news is that I'm alive and still here in La Spezia. By the way I still love it just as much! The work is still going and we are trying hard to bring a couple of our investigators to baptism. We have given two "soft" invites so far, that is to say, we asked them, if they were to receive an answer would they be baptized. So we have a couple prospects that are looking very promising.
We started a FHE type thing for members and investigators here in La Spezia. We usually have about 10 people that come and we do a nice spiritual thought, play a game and have a treat or something afterwards. It has been going well.
We have been having a lot of people that are really interested in the church from our English class and we taught a first lesson and watched the restoration film last week. There were quite a few people that stayed and participated. It was really cool!
One thing that I have been working on is improving the effectiveness of my prayers. I realized after Elder Bednar gave his talk that there were many things that I could improve about my prayers. For example, not falling asleep every time that I pray on my knees. I know you laugh, but you do it too. It's hard after a long day and then the lights are out and it is really quiet and my sheets smell good and are really soft, because I just went to a laundry mat and dried them. Anyways you get the idea. So I have been trying to make my prayers more meaningful and it has really made a difference. I would encourage everyone to try it.
I can say with assurance that this is the Lord's work and that He is guiding it at the head. He has shown me many times His love for me and our investigators and members. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, He who paid that ultimate price for my soul. He who died so that I might live. He who was led captive that I might be set free. I love this work and am learning to trust in the Lord and allow Him to show me miracles! I hope that every one of you can see these blessings also through this amazing missionary work!

Elder Kyle Clark Smith~ Serving in Phoenix AZ Spanish Speaking
“What a week! It was hard to say goodbye to the people in my last area. I was so blessed with so many amazing experiences and opportunities.
First, my companion. Is name is Elder Crandall and he is from some small town in Wyoming and the other two Elders that live in “The Shack” with me are both hillbillies. One is from Montana and the other is from Oklahoma. Needless to say I feel like the oddball in the apartment. They all share hunting stories and working on the farm and have thick accents, and I am starting to talk like them. I now say things like, “I reckon that…” Or “I’ll tell you what.” It is a lot of fun. “The Shack” is nice, no luxury apartment like Surprise but it works. I feel like we are camping every day. The shower is outside in a littler shack and we have to wash our dishes in a bucket because the pipes are busted. We all sleep in the same little room with bunk beds and I feel like I’m at scout camp or something.
Quick story- we had a few appointments fall through on us on Sunday so we were trying to figure out what to do so we sent and checked some referrals. Halfway to one of them we got lost and ended up in front of a former investigator and decided to see if they were home. They were busy and we set up an appointment and left but walk by a member’s house. Elder Crandall asked if I wanted to meet then and I figured why not, so we went to their home. Ok, now the cool part. He opens the door and throws his hands up in amazement. “Elders, it a miracle! I was just looking for your number and couldn’t find it. Come in. My friend is here and was asking questions and wants to learn about the church. Here sit down, this is Juan Carlos, teach him!” So we did and it went great and we are going back on Thursday. Talk about being guided to be at the right place at the right time. That was NEVER in the plans but we were subtlety lead there. That was a good lesson to learn. The Spirit works by subtlety leading and that is exactly how should work too. We need to stop and remember and thank the lord and realize that his hand is in all things.”
Elder Nicholas Takis~Serving in Missouri St Louis
"I'm going to Sullivan. I'll be serving in Sullivan which is about 30 minutes away and in the suburbs again. I get to drive and I'll be district leader and be follow-up training Elder Baker. He's a good guy and a good missionary and my district is great. Some of my favorite guys.. they will support me well, I need all the help I can get.. Things are great. not gonna lie, this is soo hard.. I kinda hate but love transfers ya know? I have to leave all the people I met and baptized. Sooo rough. But the Lord will give me strength though.. I know he will. Hope Sullivan is awesome. If not I'll just have to make it so....haha.. My Ward mission leader here, you know Laffi.. his fiance' is in that ward.. woop woop!!.. she'll take care of us, Tingey called and told her on the phone that I was coming and she screamed..lol.. funny lady, so no worries momma, we'll be taken care of, and Laffi will be seeing me sometimes so he'll watch out for me...."
Elder Carter Zufelt~Serving in Denver S. ColoradoCarter just got transferred from Lakewood to Littleton. His new address is:7737 West Chestnut, Littleton, CO 80128. His new zone is huge. They cover two stakes and most of the Rocky Mountains (Vail, Aspen, Frisco, Granby, etc.) His companion is Elder White who is from Wanatche, WA. They get along great. He is serving in the Columbine Ward and the Chatfield Ward. "The Chatfield Ward has alot going on and the members are wayyyy solid. alright, it was hard to leave Lakewood. There are so many people that are sooooooooooo close. This past week we had such a good turnout to church. We had 10 investigators there. That is the highest I have ever gotten and I was pumped to see that!!!! It was a bummer to leave. That is one of the hardest things for me-leaving and area after developing friendships and bonds with people whom you have grown to love. One family we are teaching here is from Hawaii, they are sweet!!! Her name is Nunni and her sons' name is Kalei and they have relative that are living with them. Their cousin’s name is Isaiah, he is 9 and super sincere. Most of our time is spent tracting. We do a lot of it, and even though it's not the most effective thing to do, it does work and it feel good to hit the pavement. There hasn't been much snow here lately, but it has been sooo cold. There was one day where the low was -8 degrees and with the wind shill it got down to -20!!!! It was bitter cold and it hurt to go out, but we still did. Zach, I'm pumped for you to see where you get called. Maybe you'll get called here, and maybe I will train you!!!! That would be saaaweeettttt!!!! Check out this cool quote from Abraham Lincoln, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." It is amazing to think that our Founding Fathers were so inspired and that they have accepted the gospel in the spirit world. I love seeing how each thing made it possible for the gospel to be restored to the prophet Joseph Smith. Truly this gospel is true and is led by Jesus Christ. I love sharing that message."