Week # 12/28/2009 (Ponce)

December 28, 2009

hey guys
I have no idea what the heck you were talking about on this email haha but I’m doing good! Today is just another p-day like always so yeah call days don’t change anything they are just normal work days and you get to call home but yeah I’m doing good and we are preparing for our baptisim. Also this Saturday was kinda cool! I got to give my first blessing in Spanish. Usually I’ve just annointed on my mission but Saturday I gave the blessing and the lady was just coughing and going crazy but yeah I was like dang she’s never going to want me to give her a blessing again haha but then the next day she walked up to me at church and she said that she was so thankful for her blessing and everything and that I gave her the blessing and that she coughed whatever she had out and that now she is healthy and doing great! it was kinda funny but yeah so i was kinda expecting to hear how all the partying was going over there at grannys and how everything went haha but i guess I’ll have to wait till next week but yeah i hope everyone is doing good and tell everyone that I said hi
O and who was the lucky bugger to get all the underwear?

love you guys
elder ward

(We sent Matthew a VERY short email by phone internet while we were over in Rexburg cuz there wasn't any internet to use! I guess he wasn't too impressed!)

Pictures!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM

PUERTO RICO!!!

Elder Pliler & Elder Ward

Elder Ward & Elder Stanley

Elder Pliler & Elder Ward

Christmas 2009 Phone Call!!

Today Elder Matthew Ward called at about 11 a.m. That was the best Christmas present ever! We (Robert, Karen, Jason, & Eric) all had handsets and were able to all hear and talk to him together. After a while ... we put him on speakerphone and it worked out really well! It was fun to listen to the stories he had. A conversation in Spanish would break out now and again with his Dad. Even though I had no idea what they were talking about, it was a lot of fun listening to him speak Spanish so well (I'm assuming it was well!) -- it sounded good to me!

After an hour or so, Matthew called his sister, Andrea, in England to talk with her, Bill, Taylor, & Kennady (I don't think Bryson & Jayden talked to him)! Then, Matthew called us back and talked again for a while.

It was so fun to hear his voice!!

What a fun Christmas phone call -- just wondering how we are going to be able to handle the two phone calls we'll get on Mother's Day -- Jason will be entering the MTC on January 6, 2010.

Week # 12/14/2009 (Ponce)

12/14/2009

Hola family

so im going to start out with all your questions first so i dont forget but first off garments i am good im just going to use the ones i have untill i wear them out cuz they are fine its just if i did it again i would get all low necks and try some mesh ones and then drylux haha but anyways about the shoes i really wanted a pair of the non water proof and the light brown... i dont think they have the light brown in the shoes that are like my black ones and yeah they are waterproof i really like them but i just want to see if otherones that arent waterproof are a little cooler. so for the christmas call it will probably be in the moring for you guys cuz i think im 3 hours ahead of you so that means ill probably be calling you guys at like 11 or 12 i think right around noon i guess but i will just call you guys and then ill tell you the number of the phone that i use and then you can just call me back cuz our cell phone is free long distance and if i dont use the cell phone ill probably call you from a members phone with a phone card :) and then lastly i havent gotten the package yet so i dont know if the cds worked but i will check the mail after when i get home today and if not it should get her sometime this week and then i will check :) but all of the other cds that you have sent they all worked fine so yeah :) but anyways i hope i answered all your questions haha so it sounds like everything is going great over there in Idaho haha thats so cool that jason went through the temple wow thats great stuff hes a lucky duck haha what kind of garments did he decide to get? o and what did you guys do after? did you go to tacanos? but anyways thats awesome dad and jason are speaking what was his excuse to have dad speak? :) but thats cool i wish i got to listen to them :( i guess ill just ask for a reinactment when i get back :) but it sounds like you guys are getting everything figured out and are going to have a nice little partyso im sending you guys are package today and it has some little gifts and surprises for everyone so that should get there pretty soon and also ive been looking hard for some nativities and there is a whole ton of catholic ones but i dont like them much because the catholic statues always make everyone look all wierd and like sad and dark and dreary so yeah i dont like those ones but ive been looking and we know of a place where all the artisans go and i guess they make a lot of them out of wood so i want to get ya one from there but the only problem is that its off limits and we arent aloud to go there.... so i talked to some good member friends and we are going to send them in to check it out and then hopefully i can get one that way but it probably wont be before christmas sorry :(that is crazy that kyle is comming home it actually seems like a whil cuz that first year seems like a long time ago because i was still in high school when he left haha crazy but when i look at that second year it went by like a lightning bolt haha i cant believe ive been out so long its almost been 7 whole months! :( CRAZY! but that will be exciting and cool that he gets to see jason right before he leaves ok so thats so awesome the wrestling coaches asked them all haha they just know that the mormon kids have good work ethic and standards and all that great stuff all ya got to do is set the example and good stuff happens right :) thats awesome it sounds like hes having a good time wrestling but anyways so now to the missionary work haha its really going awesome and we are doing great! WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE! her name is celeste and she is going to get baptized on january 2 so we are really excited about that and also i kid that has been going to church for a really long time his parents are probably going to finally let him get baptized for his gift of the tres reyes! so yeah we might be having two baptisims these next couple weeks so yeah a couple prayers wouldnt hurt for those guys ;) but yeah besides them we have two other people we have been teaching a lot ones name is tony diaz and we contacted him while he was outside boxing and hes a really cool kid and doing good so yeah we are going to keep teaching them and then other family that has these two little kids that are like amazing pro soccer players haha and they are from cuba but the mom works everyday including sundays and is only home on saturday so they are going to take some work but yeah they are good too so yeah send some prayers this way and they would be apriciated :) but anyways thats about it life is going great and im excited to get all this good stuff going before the end of transfers o yeah also something cool that happened was since ive been on my mission weve had this standard set that we need to contact 140 people unplanned do 12 horas of tocing doors and teach 20 lessons every week but pretty much no one ever really gets those but anyways so i got here my first week and i saw how awesome this area is and i knew we could get it so that first week we worked hard and got everything except the lessons we had like 14 lessons but then this week i told my companion we are getting it no matter what and we are going to work hard and get there (not that we were just focusing on the numbers because really thats not what matters) but i knew we could get the goal if we would just try our best but anyways what happened is was my companion didnt really want to do it and he has some health problems but i told him we could if we just tried and prayed really hard and i shared nephi 3 7 and nephi 17 3 and then we were just working hard and just kept going and going every day and at the first of the week he was always saying we cant we cant we cant but as we kept working he finally was like seeing that we could do it and then sunday came around and we had to teach 3 lessons get 20 contacts and 2 hours of finding but i told him i knew we could do it and so we left the house and then my bike tire popped and we had a lesson clear out in the boonies and i was like man idk what we are going to do so i ran my bike home really fast (while my companion rode his lucky bugger :) haha) and then we put my bike inside and then ran over to a members house shared a lesson asked him for a ride which was the life safer WAHOO and then i was worried about getting 2 more lessons but then in our 2 hours of finding time we found two inactives that let us teach them and WE DID IT! it was awesome it was great for me though i loved it because i learned a ton it was a testimony builder for me that heavenly father will give us all we need to complete with his commandments all we have to do is do our part and really want it :) it was great now i just have to keep that standard my whole mission haha but anyways sorry this emails so long but yeah i got to go
I LOVE YOU GUYS and tell jason to send me a letter here pronto haha
love ya
elder ward

Week # 12/07/2009 (Ponce)

December 7, 2009

HOLA FAMILIA

first off mother I figure I better let you know that of course I can teach a whole lesson in Spanish I’ve been a missionary for over 6 months and I think if I couldn’t teach a lesson by now I would consider myself a failure haha. no the Spanish is coming a long good I can say pretty much anything I want to say -- sometimes it just takes me a second to figure out how to say it but when it comes to teaching or the gospel stuff I can pretty much say it no problem. but it sounds like its getting cold …here I’m dieing right now in the heat haha jk its not too hot but it is a little :)that’s awesome Jason is going through the temple right now WAHOO!! That would have been cool to be there for that but o well you guys can just pretend that I was there haha I MISS THE TEMPLE! :( tell Jason that he better go as many times as he can before he leaves because once your on your mission and you can’t go anymore you really start to miss it haha o and about Jason getting his stuff I have a couple suggestions 1st off make sure you don’t buy docmartins like mine haha (which reminds me did you get my email last week and check on that web site to see if they have those hush puppies? because I wear my black shoes everyday cuz I can’t stand my docs they just fry my feet off so I kinda need some brown shoes really bad so yeah will you check for me :)) and also tell him to get a tiny itsy bitsy backpack haha I love my back pack but at times its a bit big and I just want a tiny one so I was going to ask you if you could also get on the internet and see how much a Dakine Drafter backpack is its like a little camel pack but yeah its the perfect size so yeah if you could check both those things for me that would be amazing :) so it sounds like you guys had a fun little Christmas party (I think he is talking about the Creche Exhibit cuz I didn’t tell him about any party!) haha we had a good one too we went to the plaza in Ponce and we had all the missionaries in the zone there and the city of Ponce had a huge like religion party in the plaza so like every religion came and each one had a church leader (ours was the stake pres.) and then we all had like a little booth and we just went around teaching people about the church and singing hymns and stuff it was really awesome and kinda crazy. right when we got there this crazy guy with a big microphone like ran up and was yelling at us and telling us that we were del diablo haha it was kinda funny but that was really our only run in all the rest of the people of the other religions were really nice :)but yeah life is going great! Today I went and printed off some pictures for ya and I’ll try and see if I can find a nativity but idk I haven’t seen one yet :) but yeah also my companion wanted to make some Christmas cards so we did that and we will try and send them out to everyone but I think I’m just going to send them to you and then you can mail them to all our family cuz I don’t have the addresses of everyone :) well anyways I guess that’s about all for this week we are doing great and finding lots of people we don’t have anyone really progressing yet but I’m hoping for some good stuff this week but yeah everything is going great and I love you guys and I’ll talk to you next week love ya elder wardps don’t forget to check that stuff on the internet pretty please and my shoe size is 11 in dress shoes :)

Bummer but yeah you can send those to my apartment but yeah just make sure they are durable light brown shoes I really liked those hush puppy ones cuz they weren’t water proof or anything so yeah I figured they would be cool and also on that back pack just make sure its a dark color if they have a really dark blue that would be cool but yeah just any dark color is fine and yeah thanks mom your the best o yeah also you can check eco shoes too if you cant find those ones they make good ones but yeah thank you and one more thing what’s your guys plan for Christmas will you be in Rexburg? Its coming up quick and I’ll be calling home kinda crazy hu? But yeah I’ll talk to you next week thanks
elder ward
love ya

Letter to dad:

haha man sounds like the duck hunting is going good this year. where did you guys go? just below the dam or below the boat dock? or up in hamett? but yeah everything here is going great and the Spanish is going good i still have to think about it a lot of the time but it definitely comes fast its kinda crazy. but yeah i love the Ponce area and we are doing good we are a ways away from the mission home still its actually just below Adjuntas so distance wise its farther away but yeah also something thats kinda cool that I forgot to write in the other letter is that our district got two more elders that were in another area but they moved them to Ponce so right now the city of Ponce has 8 missionaries. so when they did that they split us so I’m in a district with just me and my companion and then two other missionaries its pretty cool though cuz its the missionaries that live right next to us so we see each other a lot but yeah I’m loving it here and a lot of good things are happening. We still don’t have any amazing investigators yet but we are making that better. when I started in this area we didn’t have a single investigatore because my companion and his companion had to stay in the house for the last three weeks of last transfer because my companion crashed on his bike really bad and it messed him all up but we are starting to get more investigatores and we are doing good but yeah I love the mission it’s amazing you learn way more as a missionary than you could ever learn anywhere else I think but yeah the time just flies by and you don’t even know where it goes I swear the weeks seem like days its pretty crazy but I’m so excited to get Jason out I cant wait for him to get out and in the field its kinda crazy because its at the end of this transfer when he goes into the mtc. It is the same day this transfer ends! Everything is going great and I’ll talk to you guys next week
love ya pops
elder ward

PS: Tell Charles he better quit killin all the hens because I want there to be some ducks when I get back

Week # 11/30/2009 (Ponce Area 2)

Email dated: November 30, 2009

EL DIA DE PAVO!
haha I had a great dia de accion de gracias haha it was the day after transfers so yeah I didn’t know what to expect but we actually ended up going to a really cool guys house that’s only been a member for about 6 months and he’s the only member his wife and 4 kids aren’t members so we really want to work with them but yeah it was good. We had turkey rice and beans and pasteles (they are like these little things that they started feeding us around here at the end of October and I guess they cook them all the way through January too. I guess its a festive food but its made from platanos or guineos or whatever they decide to use and its just like all mashed up and they put meat and all sorts of stuff in the middle of it and then wrap it in a leaf and tie it up and boil it. Its like a puertoriqueno tamali but yeah I like them :) ) also this family had a little bit of American food like appetizer things it was breaded shrimp and then like these little codeanblue (idk how to spell that I’m not French) balls and like fried taco things haha (I don’t know how to describe all this stuff) but yeah it was good and we just stayed there with his family for a bit and played some dominoes for a little bit and then went out and went finding -- tocing doors and visited some other members it was good.So that’s a bummer that Kyle and Tanner aren’t going anymore I thought for sure that they would both smarten up and get goin I was all excited dangit o well I guess maybe while Jason is out they will realize what they are missing and get in gear haha Anyways it sounds like you all had fun and that it was a good thanksgiving. Did you get any killer good sales? My companion wanted to get up early and head to the store to see if we could get some Black Friday sales but I had to inform him that we probably shouldn’t do that. haha he’s a funny guy! But yeah I love Ponce so far. Its a really big city I already knew a ton about it cuz I was always here already and I went on a trade off in the area that I’m in now but yeah its good there are 6 missionaries in the city of Ponce which is cool so sometimes we’ll be riding on our side of the street in our area and they’ll be riding on the side in their area and we will see them haha and one of the companionships actually live in our area in another apartment complex so we see them sometimes too but yeah the thing I love about Ponce is that there are so many people haha ITS GREAT! in Adjuntas there wasn’t as many people so it was hard to talk to a ton of people. so now there is like a ton of people everywhere and when there’s more people, you talk to more and when you talk to more, you can teach more, and when you teach more you baptize more so yeah our agenda for this week is already chuck full of citas so I’m way excited. We found a guy my first day here and we’ve taught him two lessons and he’s way cool and doing good so I’m excited about him too but he’s going in for a knee operation so we can’t see him till Saturday. but yeah Ponce is great and so far from what I can tell it should be an area with a lot of people getting baptized but the missionaries that have been here for the last while were a bit bagga haha but don’t worry we are changing all that around :)My companion Elder Stanley is great! He’s from Las Vegas and he’s a good guy. he only has 4 months left in the mission and so I think he’s getting a little excited to get home but I keep him working pretty hard :) he’s also hyper glysimic and so he has to eat every now and then so that’s kinda been weird for me because I usually like to just eat a giant lunch and then just work the whole day but yeah I kinda felt bad cuz we did that two days ago and then he got really nauseous and sick so now we just like stop at burger king and get him a milk shake or something but yeah I love him he’s a great guy and he’s working hard and we are going to see some good stuff happen this transfer I KNOW IT!!So anyways I don’t even want to think that it’s almost Christmas! That’s so crazy! Its going by way too fast WAY WAY too fast!!! But yeah I actually decided something that you can get me. I would really like if you could get on the internet and go to that Hush Puppy site and see if they have those brown shoes still on sale because I mean my doc martins are good I just think my feet are going to melt away cuz they are so so so hot here! In Ponce its like 10 degrees hotter than Adjuntas and yeah my feet don’t handle the heat in the doc martins and they are my only brown shoes so yeah if you could look on there and see if they have them and send me those that would be great they are the ones that are just plain leather and like a light brownish color and they aren’t water proof or nothin but other than that I think I’m good with everything I actually might try and send some stuff back again like my doc martins if you can get those other shoes sent :)but yeah sounds like everything is going great up there in Idaho! Thanks for the email and everything and I’ll talk to you guys next week.
LOVE YA
elder ward

Week # 11/23/2009 Going to Ponce! (4th Transfer)

Email dated: November 23, 2009

4th Transfer
Ponce 2 Area
New Companion: Elder Stanley from Las Vegas, Nevada

I’M LEAVIN! :( :) had to put a double smile because I’m happy to go to a new area and talk to new people but I’m also sad to leave my little Branch up here in the mountains they are awesome. Our mission is going through all these changes so now what we are doing and I’m pretty sure all the missions in the world are doing is that we don’t have transfer meeting and we have zone conference every month now. I guess they want to focus on doing missionary work by the month now or something but yeah so I know where I’m going and who my companion is already. My comps name is Elder Stanley from Las Vegas he’s a pretty funny kid I went on a trade off with him for a day my second transfer. We are going to be in the Ponce 2 area haha kinda funny cuz that’s still in my district and I’ve gone there at least once a week so far on my mission haha so it’s like I’m right next door kinda funny but yeah Ponce is like one of the bigger cities in Puerto Rico so I’m going from one of the small ones to one of the biggest haha but yeah it should be good except it’s usually like 10 degrees hotter down there which isn’t cool. I leave Wednesday morning -- I don’t know what my address is but you can just send stuff to the office and it will get to me just fine. Oh and if I go to the islands ever you just send letters to the office and then President takes them over when he flies over like twice a transfer but yeah you just can’t send packages when your in the islands!
So to answer dad’s questions if we can watch movies the answer is YES! you know all those movies that the missionaries hand out (like cordero de dios, como hallar fe en Cristo, Familias puede ser eterna, etc..) haha yeah those are the only movies we can watch :)
But anyways that does sound like a good movie haha (We went to the movie “The Blind Side” and I told Matthew a bit about it! Very GOOD movie!!) I would like to see it so yeah you can just buy it and save it for me. I love football movies! but yeah tell Jason he better get crackin and get to the temple and get all his stuff ready and tell him that I said a lot of days those mesh garments don’t sound too bad haha
We had Thanksgiving planned with an awesome family here in the branch that I just love. they have a bunch of kids and they’ve been members for about 30 years or so they were one of the first people to get baptized in Adjuntas but yeah they are awesome and have a bunch of returned missionary kids and then 3 foster kids that are ages 12-14 but the problem is I get transferred the day before so I don’t know what I will be doing Thanksgiving. I would imagine it will just be a good day of missionary work cuz a lot of families will be home and then we will probably have a dinner at a members house in Ponce.
But anyways I think I answered all the questions haha but yeah life is going good we just gave out a baptismal invite yesterday and the guy accepted his name is Nestor and he’s a really nice guy that we met at the beginning of the transfer. He was living with a girl and a bunch of kids but they got in a fight and she left or something and his house on his farm burned down a couple months ago and he didn’t have insurance so the Lord is doing a good job of humbling him so yeah he wants to get baptized but he still has a lot of work to go. Other than that we don’t have any really strong investigators but we will find them I have one more day left to get them haha :)
Well I better get going o and I ended up getting everything in the mail like a couple days ago so yeah I have my card and everything and tell Jason I’m going to write him a letter today.
I love you guys and have fun in Utah
elder ward

Week # 11/16/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: November 16, 2009

haha you crack me up but good work on the missionary work now you just have to get her to come to the good part CHURCH haha but it sounds like your doing good haha. So you and kelli went to the temple? When is Jason going to go through? I don’t know how hot it is in the Philippines but tell him that I kinda wished I would have tried some mesh garments out sometimes haha and don’t let dad see this email cuz honestly I like the crew neck ones better too haha even though I told dad I wouldn’t it’s just so much better with a collared shirt haha I definitely like the other ones better when I’m wearing a t-shirt but with the collared shirt I like celestial smile all the way haha (you might have to delete some of that when you send this email out haha idk :)) but that’s cool that you had the temple pres. and stuff come down that’s awesome its crazy cuz sometimes I wish I was in a states mission cuz I miss going to the temple I love it and also I miss all the big wards and stakes haha don’t get me wrong I love it here but its just a giant sized blessing to have a temple and a big ward and everything :) but anyways everything here is going great we haven’t really found anyone for a while either we are spending about all day everyday tocing doors and looking for people to teach we just haven’t had that much success but we are working hard and we will find someone :) but yeah o so I got a funny story I’ll tell ya about so Friday (which happened to be Friday the 13th) was just a funny day so it starts out that we forgot to turn our phone ringing on which is our alarm clock and usually we wake up at 6:20 but the phone didn’t go off so we woke up at like 6:35 and sinned right off the bat and then we did all our studies and all that good stuff which went good but we went out to teach and in the first 30 minutes of the day all 5 of our citas fell that we had planned idk how we even contacted them all in that time but it just so happened like that and they all said they would be gone and we couldn’t teach them so then we went tocing and it was a way hot one Friday and then mid contact I was talking to this guy and all of a sudden a big giant bee stings me right on the tip of the figure and man it hurt but I was talking to this guy and man it was just a mess but really funny at the same time but yeah it cracked me up and I don’t want to complain in my email or anything but I just thought it was a funny Friday the 13 experience haha well I better go run and check dad’s email but I hope you guys are all doing good I have checked the mail yet so I don’t know if its here but I think it should bebut I love you guys and everything is going wonderful transfers end not this Wednesday but the next so yeah we’ll see what happens haha but yeah love ya and I’ll talk to you next week
elder ward

(Matthew’s email to his dad was quite hilarious this week so I just had to share it with all of you!)

WHAT?! Man I feel out of the loop I didn’t know they were selling wolf tags now I can’t believe that that is crazy but brad missed hu? That’s a bummer but where were you hunting? Man those crazy wolves -- sounds like there is way too many of them. so you and brad better get out there and shoot a couple haha but I was thinking if you get one you can skin him and tan him and make me a big old Indian hat with the tail hanging in the back and the face right on front and then all 4 legs hanging down hahaha it would probably be better to do that with a coyote but yeah. What did you end up doing with your bear and your elk? I think the best would be to rug the bear that’s what I’m going to do when I shoot one haha :) well everything is going good and it sounds like you having fun but I’ll talk to ya later
Love ya
elder ward

(Andrea’s email)

hey HOWARDS
Puerto Rico es perfecto! :)

but anyways transfers are this next wednesday but i dont know if i will be going or not yet i will know this saturday if i stay or not but yeah if you want you can just send it to the mission home and it will get to me just fine :) but anyways that would be cool if kenna baught an airplane that sounds fun you should let her do it :) but they are dancing hu? i dont know how to do any of that dancing stuff but i did have a roommate in college that was catholic and a ball room dancer but he was pretty different haha but anyways yeah i dont really need anything for christmas for real missionaries just live out of a suit case and dont really have room for anything and ive got plenty of clothes and stuff so really im great but thanks but i still would like a big box of home made cookies or maybe some peanut butter bars man i havent had those for a while haha but yeah anyways everythign is going great hows the england life? i was just thinking do you guys know when you are going to leave england? and are you going to try and go somewhere crazy afterward? anyways ill talk to you next week ( i almost didnt get to talk to you this week but good thing i refreshed it before i left hu :))
well i got to go ttyl > > love you guys > > elder ward>

Week # 11/09/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: November 9, 2009

Madre su espanol es excelente so anyways to start out that’s pretty cool that you guys had your primary program cuz we had ours too haha well actually we had stake conference so because the wards are really small they do a combined primary program right before conference starts but yeah it was really cool and reminded me of the funny kids. This one little girl did not want to say her talk at all it was funny. They also sang familias pueden ser eternas tambien haha :)ok so what are you doing with a bunch of pieces of wood your sanding? 800 is a lot haha but it sounds like everything is just about the same back home haha. (Super Saturday) They don’t have any pawn shops here :( well at least I haven’t seen one haha and they don’t have any guns really either because there is nothing to hunt so the only guys I ever see are the ones that the police have and I always ask them what it is (even thought I can usually tell before hand haha) but yeah it’s a good way to start a conversation except now I know all the policemen in town I think and haven’t got one teaching appointment with any of them :( but yeah talking about the police reminds me when me and my companion lost the keys to the car and went to the police station to see if they could unlock our door and they just handed me a slim jim and said bring it back haha man that’s funny :) I think I told you that story though at least I hope so hahaSo that is way crazy about Chris (Chris Hipwell is on a mission in SLC) and his parents going there all the time man that would be weird but I’m not going to lie sometimes I get jealous of those Idaho Utah missionaries that have giant Stakes of people that would love to help the missionaries haha ;) At least that’s how I picture it and it all makes sense to me now why they have so many baptisms! But wow that’s so weird that Kyle is coming home kinda crazy hu? Man I can’t believe it he’s going to be an RM he’s going to BYU right? man that’s weird but something kinda cool that I just realized that he will only have a semester more of school than me when I get back so we will be about the same :)So that scripture sounds like a pretty good one of Jason’s. (Jason’s scripture for his Missionary Plaque is … Alma 26:12) That was one of the two I sent you remember? But something really cool about all that is that his scripture if you read the story of the sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger well the sons of Mosiah and Alma all convert and the sons of Mosiah are all supposed to be kings but they decide to leave and go on missions instead and Alma does the same thing but the sons of Mosiah take off to go teach the lamenites and Alma stays to do his mission -- well Jason's scripture is Ammon after he had all the success with his brothers and my scripture is Alma (Matt’s scripture for his Missionary Plaque is … Alma 29:9) but I just think it’s cool because they were like best buddies who left out on their missions to different places but they just really have the same look on things. haha but yeah read the stories I LOVE IT :)but anyways now to the good stuff so everything is going really good and we are starting to get investigatores and we’ve been teaching a lot more now :). the family is doing good we had a lesson with them yesterday and the branch pres and his wife came with us so that was good (they are both returned missionaries and are like 27 years old so yeah they had preach my gospel on their missions too so they can teach great and know the language haha) but yeah then we also have another returned missionary that is 22 and he is the second counselor and he has been helping us on the weekends and he’s way awesome too but yeah we are teaching and finding and everything is going good we haven’t got anyone to church yet but we will :)anyways I’m like out of time though I’m talking too much ahha but I better get going I hope everything is going great and you get Jason’s stuff done on time haha I’m doing good and I don’t really need anything for Christmas -- tell dad I heard about Jason’s Christmas present and wouldn’t mind one of those waiting at home for me haha (I guess I better find out what this present is … I don’t even know!!!)
love you guys
elder ward

(This is a portion of Andrea’s email from Matthew)
Yesterday I got ribs for the first time of my whole mission it was the best we went and visited a member and they were about to eat so she is like come eat with us and she pulled out ribs I WAS IN HEAVEN!!!But anyways so for Christmas I don’t really need anything. You can just send me a batch of cookies and then I can lug them around in my giant belly instead haha but yeah I don’t really need anything :)You can tell Kennady that we will have to go on a special trip to Puerto Rico some time because I know she wants to go so bad :)
But anyways I hope everything is going good with you guys and tell everyone hi for me thank you so much for the email and everything ill talk to you later
love you guys elder ward

Week # 11/02/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: November 2, 2009

HOLA FAMILIA

Life is great down here and I’m having fun! haha but no it did not really feel too much like Halloween haha but I’ll tell ya how it went. It was a pretty good day -- we woke up in the morning and did the normal thing and then while eating my cereal I decided that I had better pick a very exciting person to be for Halloween so I decided that I would be Captain Moroni so I was Captain Moroni but with a modern day twist like white shirt and tie kinda thing. Then after that about half way through the day I decided to switch and then I was Ammon. It was awesome! haha then we had a lot of lessons which was awesome and then we had to go home because we were called the night before and everyone had to be inside by 6 because things can get crazy on Halloween. haha but it’s weird here because people just like to have fun with Halloween but since I live in Adjuntas where there is a thousand churches everyone freaks out when you celebrate Halloween cuz they all think its the devils day its kinda weird I didn’t get to see but I guess every year all the younger generation dress up and do the normal Halloween thing except not trick or treating and they go to the plaza and just hang out. Anyways I guess at the same time all the pastors and stuff go to the plaza and like preach and tell people to go home and repent and that they are worshiping the devil. It’s a crazy place up here in Adjuntas haha.but other than that I think everything is about the same haha we found two new investigatores this week and I’m really excited about that. One of them said she wants to be baptized but we’ve only taught her one lesson. Then also that family that we found (Nestor and Brenda) they are doing good and we are really excited to teach them some more. We are supposed to have a noche de hogar with them tonight so that should be good!So about blessing the sacrament and stuff that’s cool Jason did it but here we never really do it. I had to pass one time because there was only one kid old enough to pass in church but yeah it’s always blessed by the old guys we do have one priest (the one we got the scriptures for) but he doesn’t ever really bless it. It’s always the elders.but anyways i did get your package and thank you so so so so so much it was awesome. I took that little pumpkin cup and I turned it into my pen holder so I’m pretty excited about that I would have eaten with the bowls and stuff but we were fasting so I couldn’t :( but I guess the next elders that get this apartment at Halloween they will have some Halloween fun haha. but yeah thanks for everything and life is going great
I love you guys and I’ll tty next week!

love ya
elder ward

hola papi
so we are teaching one family that is really good they arent that religious which is a good thing but it also means they dont understand a lot so yeah we are teaching them and then we have one younger girl thats married and she was really excited to learn and understood everything really good so yeah we are going to try and teach them right now and are really hoping things go good with them other than that we have a couple of other investigatores but no one really strong my companion loves the mountains cuz he hasnt seen any for a really really long time haha but i guess the islands are really cool so i guess it would be pretty cool to get shipped over there and i guess a lot of people speak spanish over there too so that will be good. It is way crazy that Reed and Kyle are coming home and that ive been out for almost 6 months its pretty nuts the whole mission time thing is crazy it seems like time just flys by its a lot faster out here on your mission than back home thats for sure yeah so is all the hunting over then? i forgot about duck hunting its kinda wierd it doesnt seem like its november haha its way to hot to be november hahaha nate sent me a letter and said he got busted man they got some bad luck it was last year when his dad got in trouble for not packing out his entire bear on the rafting trip haha well i hope he makes it ok but yeah that should be cool in rexburg are both the cabins done now? and have furniture and everything? well everything is going great here and im loving it its pretty crazy that jason will be getting shipped out in about two months now its gettin closer haha but yeah well ill talk to you guys next week
love ya
elder ward

haha pops is getting old hu? well man did Brad ever shoot anything? but yeah sounds like those two costumes really get used haha they were a good investment but i hope your doing good and having fun life here is going great the other day i saw like a giant iguana it was like 8 feet long i sware haha but yeah ill have to show you some pictures some time but keep up the good work are ya gettin good grades in school? and have you read the B of M yet?
love ya > > elder ward>

Week # 10/25/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: October 25, 2009

Hola Familia
well thank you so very much for doing that mother I’m pretty excited but this transfer just started so don’t get to worried yet haha but yeah thank you so much for getting those he’s going to die when I give them to him it will be awesome but anyways I like the black better anyways so good choice :). (Matthew asked me to get him a set up scriptures for someone in the Ward he is in who is planning on going on a mission. Elder Wingman is the name I had inscribed. I think I need to find out a little more about this guy!!)

but anyway yeah he’s from Alpine (Elder Maxwell, Matt’s Companion) that’s what I meant to write but its Lone Peak high school so yeah sorry about that but yeah he’s from Alpine.ok so it sounds like Mtn. Home is growing like crazy its gonna be a whole nother place when I get back its kinda nuts and the whole mormon temple thing (the Stake Center … I hope he really doesn’t think it is a temple. I told him about someone in the Mtn. Home News thinking it was a Mormon Temple going up over by McDonalds.) Is pretty sweet but anyways you said Brother Waddoups was there that’s pretty cool I should send them a letter so if you get the chance do you want to send me their address? that would be great but anyways it sounds like the missionary work is going good down there haha but yeah we spend most of all day every day trying to find people and contact people its crazy because here in Puerto Rico you find all day long and you can set up like a bunch of citas and then the next day you go to them all and they all fall and no ones there so then you just have to go find and try and get new people to go and teach its kinda a bummer sometimes but o well we will find the ones that are waiting for us haha but yeah life is going great and we are having fun and working hard we are still trying to find a couple good investigators so that will be good but yeah also something kinda funny I’m starting to learn about some Papiamento (language) a little bit cuz my companion was in Aruba and Curacao for 6 months and everyone thinks I’m going there after this transfer its kinda funny because the islands made this thing now they don’t let us in there for very long at all so now like the longest people stay in the islands is 4 transfers so this transfer about 5 missionaries have to come back from there so yeah that’s why everyone thinks I’m a gonner but we’ll see :) I don’t know if I want to start from square one with another language again :( but yeah so when your with a comp that came from there your supposed to learn a bit so you can get a little head start before you get there but idk I guess we’ll see :)well I hope everything is going good with you guys and that life is great its sure great here haha

love you guys
elder ward

Picture!!! Elder Maxwell & Elder Ward

Elder Maxwell & Elder Ward

After doing Service!

Week # 10/19/2009 (Adjuntas) 3rd Transfer

Email dated: October 19, 2009
Adjuntas
3rd Transfer
Companion: Elder Maxwell from Alpine, Utah

Hola Familia

So me and my companion are doing good he’s from Lone Peak Utah and he’s awesome. I was just telling dad that I was pretty sure that there wasn’t another missionary in my mission that did outdoors stuff and liked hunting but then the next day I meet my companion and sure enough he likes it about as much as we do haha but yeah his name is Elder Maxwell and we’ve been doing good. He works hard so its great we are going to get a lot of stuff done this transfer I know it :)But anyways that’s cool it was homecoming week this week. I remember one time at mutual we were doing that fear factor thing and I had to eat a caramel covered onion and it was sick. I couldn’t do it -- man it killed me haha so I know how he feels that would have been rough. (At the Homecoming Assembly the Homecoming King Nominees were in a relay. They each had to put on nylons, high heel shoes, a dress, boa, jewelry and then eat a caramel apple. The one that had a caramel covered onion was the Homecoming King.)So that’s cool that the ward is getting to work with the missionary work. How it’s really supposed to get to is something called CAR (conversion, activation, and retention) and all the leaders and the missionaries meet every week and they go over all the people they are teaching and the members bring new names and everyone works together to do it. Its pretty crazy but after being on a mission for a while I can see how it would work wonders haha so keep it up and get the ward going good hahaA NEW STAKE CENTER?! That’s crazy so that will be cool I guess when I get home. its kinda weird I don’t like getting old and everything changing haha its definitely going to be weird to go to Mountain Home when I get back.(Matthew sent home a package with some funky hats for Jason & Eric.) I knew they would love them haha I actually bought them because Nate Call had one at school and so I thought it would be funny if I bought one and we could wear them to school haha ok so about MR elder Wingman haha ok I know its going to be a lot of money but it would be cool if you can get him the bible too with his name on it but make sure its the new bible cuz the new bible just came out in Spanish and Elder Kolar was supposed to order that for him but then he left and forgot so yeah if you could just get a set of scriptures it doesn’t matter what color and no tabs and make sure its inscribed cuz that’s the main reason I’m having you do it cuz I could order them but I can’t get it stamped haha but yeah and just take money out of my account to do it :) THANKS! (Who does he think puts the money in his account? HAHA! as Matt would say!)But yeah we knew Elder Kolar was going to Aruba because when you leave to the Islands you get to know a little bit before because you have to fly over and stuff so yeah we knew he was going there and also when president came to church we got him to tell us that my companion was coming from the islands hahabut anyways that reminds me of something -- so since my companion has been in the islands for the last 6 months where they speak papiamento he doesn’t know that much Spanish haha so its way cool I really like it because before Elder Kolar knew it way good so he just spoke but now that my comp doesn’t know it to well I have to talk a lot more :) I mean he can talk as good as I can I think but it just helps me learn more :) about the pictures I’ve got a couple new ones I think so I’ll try to send them today but we’ll see if it works haha and for p-days usually we don’t have to much time to play around so usually we get all our stuff done as soon as we can and then just hang out with some other elders and go to the beach or play dominoes and stuff. But today we are staying in Adjuntas instead of driving down to Ponce so we might go to the highest mountain in Puerto Rico or something it all depends if we have time but yeah everything is going great down here in island paradise and we are working hard and having fun we are still trying hard to find new investigatores and we have been doing good this week so that’s exciting! We had one family that we found. It’s a younger family with 4 1/2 kids she’s about to have a baby any second but yeah so we are really excited about them. We have taught them two lecciones and they are awesome the last lesson that we had with them he asked us what the requirements to get baptized are so that was really cool and I’m excited to teach him some more. We’ve found some other pretty good people one guy we went to teach his daughter and when we showed up he was sitting there and we asked him if he would want to come in and have a lesson with us (which was also a blessing because it was a lady that didn’t have a husband so we couldn’t have gone in the house if he didn’t come) but yeah he told us that he was evangelical and didn’t want to do it but then finally he did and when we taught him he just ate up the whole lesson and just loved the Book Of Mormon and took it for scripture right off the bat. It was awesome I’ve never seen someone that just got introduced to the B of M take it like so respectfully it really is cool and I’m excited for him as well.Well that’s about all for this week. Life is going great and I would love to see those pictures you guys are sending me so yeah and put some of the cabin in there too if you can cuz I haven’t seen those pictures still either :) but yeah I hope all is well at home and I’ll talk to you guys next week.

LOVE YA
elder ward

ps how’s Andrea doing? she hasn’t emailed me in about two weeks

Week # 10/13/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: 10/13/2009 (3rd Transfer – Staying in Adjuntas)

ok so I’ve got to make this email short cuz I just typed a whole email to you and then the computer didn’t work and it got lost so I’m kinda bummed about that but o well haha :)but anyways first things first I’m staying in Adjuntas and Elder Kolar is leaving to the islands. It’s kinda crazy he’s been studying his Papiamento and it cracks me up I don’t know how much I want to go to the islands because I want to learn Spanish really really good but yeah Papiamento is a pretty funny language and most likely I’ll end up getting sent to the islands sometime and have to learn it. but yeah other than that not a whole lot has happened here. President came down and had church with us and that was really cool and then he taught a thing about missionary work to all the leaders it was really cool he just explained how the church is changing the missionary program and now we are trying to move it worldwide where the members do the finding and all missionaries do is teach. He told us how and what we need to do to get there obviously our mission is really far from that because we do A TON! of finding but we are working on getting it there. haha but yeah that was good and he also said my companion is coming from the islands but we don’t know who it is yet we will find out Wednesday :)anyways so that’s cool you saw all those guys blogs! Elder Knudsen is with me right now and he thought that was pretty cool. He’s an awesome guy but he is getting moved too :( there are 5 people moving from my district this transfer. It’s kinda crazy and in my zone they are closing some areas like Andrea’s email explained my mission is getting the numbers cut a lot. When I came here there were 100 missionaries and my mission is getting cut to 50 – slowly. haha it’s cuz they have so many missions opening around the world so they need to send people over there. Anyways I better get going. I sent you guys a package today so that should get there soon it doesn’t have to much just a bunch of stuff I didn’t want here and some stuff for Eric’s b-day but yeah I’ll talk to you guys next week.
love ya elder ward

Week # 10/05/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: October 5, 2009

HOLA
ok so life is going great and the mission is awesome but to start off this lovely email I’m going to have to ask you guys why you’re doing this to me? we haven’t got a big elk since that one I shot with the funky horns a couple years ago and then the first hunting season after I leave you send me this picture of a big old elk man! Your killing me! haha but no that really was cool looks like things went well but I’m expecting a detailed description of the hunt as well as a couple nice pictures haha.But wow I didn’t know Jason got hired by them that’s awesome but first things first I would have to agree with mom about staying in work because first off I don’t have any money right now so when I get back I’m going to be flat broke so I’ll have to work my butt off to get money for school but I have all summer to do it but Jason, on the other hand will get back in January and school starts right then so he won’t have time to work. You’ll just move straight to Rexburg and if you don’t have any money to take the ladies on dates with I don’t know what you’ll do hahahaha but yeah keep working right up till you leave is my advice.But the package did come THANK YOU! it was a great package I was tempted to keep all those laffy taffys for myself but elder kolar clearly pointed out that one of those bags were for him so I decided he had a right to them hahaha but really it was great and I liked the cds they are awesome thank you very very much and elder kolar is very thankful as well :) but about the Christmas cds just get them whenever you can Christmas here in Puerto Rico is pretty crazy and people get way excited for it. I haven’t heard any Christmas music yet because all I ever hear is regaton but yeah I guess Christmas time is crazy around here but the even bigger holiday than Christmas is "dia de los reyes" or the day that the celebrate the three kings but yeah so I’m really excited for Christmas it’s going to be really good. also if you can when you send those cds see if you can get some efy ones from somebody and my Joseph Smith cd in my box in my room that would be really cool but if not that’s fine too :)ok i really got to hurry cuz the library is all backed up and there are all these ladies just trying to get on a computer. but conference was amazing I loved it my favorite talk was ELDER HOLLAND that was amazing the most powerful testimony of the book of Mormon that I have ever heard it was amazing but yeah we watched it all at the church with all the members too hear. they all just go to the church and bring food and eat between the sessions and just like stay there all day its actually pretty cool. I watched it in English in the non air conditioned room haha :( IT WAS HOT! but definitely worth it. I loved it o and we did watch the priesthood session and it was great it was all about relationships of dads and their boys it was really good but yeah I got to go sorry but I’ll talk to you guys next week. Tell Jason to send me a letter or somethin haha ttyl

love ya
elder ward

Part of Andrea’s letter from Elder Ward – had some interesting info that I thought would be fun to share …
HEY
yeah I don’t think I got your email last week haha was it a good one? but yeah the videos are usually kinda hard to see cuz the computers are usually way slow over here and i dont have enought time to wait for them to load so yeah sorry about that i never even got to see jason open his call videobut the mission is going great I’m loving it we are having a ton of fun and its just great but the time is flying by way too fast it’s scary!!! can you believe that I have already finished 1/6th of my mission I don’t like to hear that it’s nuts and people that were here in the mission when I first arrived are going home like 6 of them this transfer and man it’s just weird. time goes buy way to fast out here its like crazy nuts but yeah its kinda sad because when i came in the mission had just over 100 missionaries and then within like a year it will be cut down to 46 can you believe that? its crazy crazy! so everyone is leaving and there won’t be a single new missionary till January it kinda stinks I’ll be the youngest missionary and I’ll have like 8 or 9 months its kinda weird but o well.We have a couple investigators right now not a whole ton we never really have a ton here in Puerto Rico I’m not gonna lie Puerto Rico is one of those hard working missions haha we have to go knock doors 2 hours a day everyday and then we have to contact 140 other people per week or 20 a day and then those are like our finding goals and here in Adjuntas we still only get like 1 or 2 investigators out of that every week its but I STILL LOVE IT!!!!but anyways about conference it was so so so so good you should get on the internet and watch it there was a ton of great stuff watch the talk by ELder Holland and you might just get blown off your seat. haha But you have to watch it -- don’t read it! You can watch them all on the internet right now :)well I better get going and ill talk to you next week
love ya
elder ward

Week # 09/26/09 (Ovejas in the backyard!)

Email dated: September 26, 2009

HOLA!

As I’m sure everyone already knows life here is going great and I’M LOVING IT! So first off we don’t have really any progressing investigatores right now which is kinda a bummer we haven’t had any since our baptism but we are working hard to find people so I know it will pay off soon. In the town of Adjuntas it’s kinda crazy there is like a million and a half churches everywhere and half of them were created there in Adjuntas but they all have this mindset that you just go to the church that you live next to and it doesn’t matter what church you’re in just as long as you’re in one and you’re faithful to it. So it’s been kinda hard to convince people that there’s only one true church but yeah so that seems to be the biggest problem here but we are working hard and trying to get people to pray and ask if the church is true because we know that’s the only way they can find out and we know if they really ask they will get the right answer but yeah so that’s how the missionary work is going. also we had a baptisim yesterday kinda haha it was kinda funny cuz there is a family in the branch that got baptized like a year ago almost and so the mom and the two older kids got baptized but the dad still isn’t and the other kids were under 8 but yeah the mom and the two older girls are really strong members and are really cool but we always go over there and try and teach the dad but the last time we went over there the kids like I TURNED 8! I WANT TO BE BAPTIZED! he was way excited but him and his mom thaught that he had to talk to us to get baptized so we explained that since they are already members and he goes to church already and everything that all he has to do is talk to branch president and get his interview so he did that at mutual and then we had the baptisim this Sunday after church and even though it was a member baptisim the kid wanted the missionaries to do it so Elder Kolar baptized him it was pretty cool Elder Kolar has been out just over a year now and he’s had 6 baptisims including the last 2 with me but he had never baptized anyone himself so that was pretty cool it was kinda funny though cuz we try and really get the members involved and the members to do the convert baptisims just to strengthen the converts with the branch but the kid wanted Elder Kolar to do it so we did haha it was cool.So it sounds like the hunting season is going good. I mean I hear about all these Elk they have been seeing but I haven’t heard about any dead ones or seen any pictures yet so I don’t know what to think haha either someone’s a bad shot or telling hunting stories I’m not quite sure :) haha So Eric hurt his hip and went to Cliff huh? Does he still have that big old crazy picture of me in there? I still don’t know about that haha it kinda creeped me out a bit when I saw it it’s like life size haha but man that would be nice to go to Cliffs office right now haha I could use some adjustments :) I loved going there. tell Eric he should have asked him for some acupuncture to fix his little problem that would have been pretty funny hahabut yeah it sounds like everything is going good and everyone is doing well o and about the box I’m pretty sure you tell me you are sending it every week so I get all excited when I check the mail and then its not there haha it’s kinda funny I guess though :) but nope I cant really think of anything I need real bad I think I’m doing good. Elder Kolar said to have you send a bag of laffy taffy for him too haha so that would be nice if you could do that :) but yeah I’m doing good I still haven’t bought my bike yet cuz I haven’t needed to and they are expensive so I don’t want to haha I know it will hurt to watch money go into a bike haha but I guess I should just bite the bullet and do it kinda face the inevitable but yeah haha well i don’t have anything else to say but o yeah really quick I just remembered a story I want to tell you guys so the other day we were at some older members in our branch’s house and we were talking to them and stuff and the old lady was talking to me for a while and she was talking about these sheep (ovejas) behind her house and how they were everywhere and something about these guys coming to get them and stuff so I was really confused because I don’t think there are sheep in Puerto Rico so I was like man she talks crazy old people Spanish and talking about these crazy sheep that are flying around and stuff so then we started eating and I was telling Elder Kolar she was talking to me about some sheep behind her house and I had no idea what she was talking about and he was just laughing and didn’t think there were sheep in Puerto Rico either but anyways come to find out her and her husband started talking about it to us later and I guess the whole time she was saying "abejas" which is Spanish for bees. haha but yeah it was really funny I thought she was talking about crazy sheep behind her house but it was crazy bees so now we have a little joke we say "si habia ovejas volando y brincando en todos lados" have dad translate that for ya haha :) but yeah a funny little story for ya but I’ve got to go and I will talk to you guys next week.
love ya
elder ward

Knight Ring-Bearer!

Knight Ring-Bearer at a Wedding!

Week # 09/21/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: 09/21/09

HOLA
well life down here in paradise is going amazingly well haha this week was really kind of a complicated one (I learned something this week from our president. He said nothing is hard its just complicated and you have to figure out how to accomplish it :)) We ended up dropping all of our investigators pretty much last week and some moved away and stuff so this week we were pretty much just finding all week all day long so we found some people but then the appointments (that was weird to write it took me forever to think of the word appointments we use "cita" haha) but anyways all of the citas that we set up during the week pretty much all of them fell so yeah it was kind of a bummer because we still don’t have any investigators and we are working like crazy trying to find some so yeah we are expecting some good things this week and gonna work hard to find some more people. :)but anyways it sounds like life is going good down there I mean all this bag piping, partying and stuff sounds a little crazy to me haha :) but yeah it’s so true what Mallory says about your mission being the best one in the world cuz you do really love it and it’s really funny cuz in the mtc everyone says their mission is the best mission ever and they haven’t even been to or really know anything about where they are going haha its kinda fun but its cool cuz right from the start you just love where you’re gonna go and you just want to help people and change peoples lives so much its kind of a crazy thing but definitely true because I can tell you right now that the Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission is the best one in the world ;)but tell Jason good luck with the temple challenge haha its kinda crazy but if I were him my advice would be to switch it up and go do some annointing and then endowments and then some sealings and then back to endowments so you don’t do the same thing the whole time that’s what I wish I would have done but yeah either way he will have fun and love it :) it’s a pretty cool experience and you learn a ton of really really cool stuff but anyways about his clothes -- I would get some nice ecco shoes because I think they are the best long lasting and durable and they don’t have hot liners or anything which is way nice. I definitely would say not to get the doc martins because they look way good and mine were definitely cheap and that was nice but other than that I don’t like them as much because they are heavy and a lot hotter. It also would be smart to see if those hush puppy ones are still on the internet the brown ones cuz I think they would be way nice shoes and are a good deal but don’t get the hush puppies like mine cuz they are great shoes and I really like them but the little sole liner thing since it had that little bubble thing for my heel well I already wore that out and it came off so I have to go buy some like doctor scholles or something. and for his suit I assume he only buys one but tell him to get something he likes cuz everyone just wears black ones but if I were him I would get a brown one or a grey one cuz they don’t attract the sun as much and I like it cuz they look good :) but yeah o and for socks tell him to get short ones because they are a lot cooler just like short black ones but then you also have to make sure that your pants are long enough too so don’t get them cut to short but yeah that’s about all I got for advice o except definitely get polyester ties they are a lot better haha but yeah if you are curious about anything else I guess you can ask me next week.
Everything here is going swell and I’m loving the mission life o and if you want when you send that package you can throw a bag of laffy taffys in there cuz they don’t make those around here haha but that would be good but other than that I’m doing really good and having fun I didn’t really take any pictures this week so yeah sorry about that I don’t have any to send ya but it sounds like everything is going great and I cant wait to hear how the hunting season goes it sounds like its off to a great start so make sure Jason keeps me well informed haha well I’ll talk to you guys later
love ya
Elder Ward

Letter to Andrea:

haha i guess the letter will be like a little surprise time capsule when you find them haha but yeah everything is going good I’m loving it here in Puerto Rico but yeah we had two baptisms 2 Sundays ago and that was really cool and everything went well it was awesome. Jason is going to love his mission I have met a ton of people that have gone there and it’s really really cool from what I’ve heard. The language will be a little hard I’m not going to lie I heard that it’s a little different and when you move to another place in the mission the dialect completely changes and it’s a bit tuff but he will do fine :) I’m excited for him anyways -- about the food here when we eat at a members it is always the same just rice and beans with meat but yeah I love it. It’s way good and i cook some good stuff here a lot so we are good with that except we have a lame oven so it’s really hard to bake stuff in it so we have given up on that because it’s like a tiny little electric one and it just burns stuff so you have to like turn the heat half as hot if you want it to work and yeah it’s just a mess and I don’t use it anymore :) How’s the new house? I bet you had a fun little move haha but it sounds like everything is going good up there make sure and tell Kenna that Eric does look kinda cute and girly sometimes but she better stick with the girly hair styles hahaha jk. (Kennady wanted her hair cut like Eric’s and Andrea told her she couldn’t cuz Eric is a boy and she is a girl and needed a little girl haircut. So then she told Andrea she wanted it cut “just like Grandma’s”.) I thought that was funny but yeah life’s great and I’m having fun and I’ll talk to you next week
tell everyone hi for me :)> love ya > > elder ward

Pictures!!!!

Baptism - 09/12/09

Week # 09/14/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: September 14, 2009

Hola
ok so I was so stoked when I found out Jason’s call. Did you call my mission president and tell him? (I emailed Hermana Martineau the Mission President’s wife.) because I was out at like 8 o clock and I got this phone call from Sister Martineau and she was like your brother is going to the Philippines and I was so excited and yeah it was so awesome and I was stoked but yeah that’s so cool he’s going to love it there. Sometimes I wish I went to an awesome place like that I mean I love Puerto Rico that’s for sure but he’s really gonna love it there. And so about the supplies I was going to say that exact thing about the pants haha. Over there you can get way nice dress clothes like your pants and suits and all that for like nothing and they are way nice everything over there is like way cheap and also he’s going to find all sorts of way cool things. It’s going to be awesome I’ve met a lot of people that have gone to the Philippines on their missions and also my companions brother went there so yeah I’ve heard a lot about it and all I’ve got to say is he has to send me some pants and a belt made out of water buffalo horn. It’s really really cool they make a ton of really cool stuff out of buffalo horn so let him know once he gets there that’s what I’m expecting haha but yeah so anyways I’m way excited that’s going to be awesome he will love it!!!Our baptism this week was great it went well. I’ll try and send some pictures this week again but yeah it was kinda funny and kinda a long story but I’ll tell it really quick. The lady is really timid and shy and so she was like freaking out when it came time for the baptism and then once they started going under to dunk her she freaked out and like jumped up and was like coughing and spitting water everywhere and like freaking out. She was afraid of the water but yeah she went crazy so then we decided we would do the husband and then she would go again cuz she didn’t go all the way under. So then the husband went and it was all fine and went great so we went to baptize her again and she freaked out again and was fighting to get out before she went under so the guy that baptized her just shoved her under pretty good and got it haha it was pretty crazy and kinda funny. We decided that the people here in Puerto Rico have crazy baptisms because the other elders that we are always with elder Knudsen and elder Sykes they had a baptism this week too and the kid was a ten year old in a part member family but when he got to the font he was freaking out too and then he just like jumped in and was splashing around for a bit and then he just started swimming around. haha kinda crazy but yeah so they baptized him and then when they were done he started swimming around again and they just shut the doors to the font while they were trying to get him out haha but yeah so that’s our sweet baptism stories kinda funny!But anyways everything here in Puerto Rico is going great and I’m loving the life as a missionary. About contacting people as members the biggest thing I think is to be friends with other people that aren’t members it seems like in Mtn. Home and even here in Puerto Rico where there aren’t that many Mormons all the Mormons are friends with Mormons and that’s just how it is so I think as members we need to try and be friends with other people and then share little points about the gospel and testify what it’s done for you and then just ask if they would want to know more. There are some scriptures and some talks that tell the missionaries to be bold but not overbearing so I think that works the same with members tell them boldly about the gospel and what it means to you and why it’s important and what they can do to find it but don’t try and force it on them haha but yeah that’s my strategy haha but yeah I guess I’m not the best to ask I’m still a greeny I think haha unless that’s just your first transfer that your a greeny I’m not sure :)
About those cds I think you can get the music free on Itunes and just make me a cd if you want. I’m not really sure but yeah that would be cool also all the apartments usually have a cd player so I don’t need that or anything but yeah send me them whenever you can cuz we want some music here cuz we don’t have like anything haha
So the people that got married were both members and they got married in the back yard of the guys dad. His dad is our mission leader but yeah they got married there and then went to Mexico to get sealed in the temple because there is no temple here in Puerto Rico. Most people go to the DR I think but she had family in Mexico or something so they went there.So it sounds like everything is going great back home. I cant believe it is hunting season and I’m not going to lie I’m a bit jealous I want to go shoot a gun and go camping so bad it’s crazy haha but I am having fun here too so it can wait :) and its weird to think about AFAD haha you and Eric were the only ones. It’s weird that all that’s left is him haha but yeah kinda crazy well I better get going but you guys have a great day and tell Jason to write me a letter sometime soon! Oh and tell dad I want to go to the Philippines when Jason gets back so he better start saving up some money hahaha jk but that would be really cool the way I got it figured is that Eric has a lot of good choices to do for his trip after he graduates haha. We have England, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Philippines and idk what else. haha he’s set but yeah I better get going

I love you guys and I cant wait to hear from ya next week.
Elder Ward

Week # 09/08/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: 09/08/09

HOLA FAMILIA
life is going good here on this wonderful tropical island! so yeah that’s always great haha but no really we are doing good I haven’t had any baptisms in my mission yet I’m pretty sure Puerto Rico is like the lowest baptizing Latin place ever haha but no its really great I think the problem a lot of times is the people need to be humbled because like no one works here and they just get money from the government and live pretty good lives so yeah a lot of people are a bit prideful and don’t like to give things up like drinking and smoking or going to church but yeah we find good people all the time and we are having the baptism on the 12th.so I think it’s kinda funny that you can’t read those letters it cracks me up but you’ll just enjoy it twice as much when dad gets home because you’ll just have all that excitement built up haha (Matthew sent a full 1 ½ page letter to us all written in Spanish and Robert was out of town when it arrived.) but I’m not sure what letter that you are talking about to Kyle because I haven’t sent him one. I remember writing one in the ccm a long time ago but I thought you already got that one so yeah I didn’t send one to Kyle did I? (Kyle Hall had actually written Matthew and so I told him I would be sending Kyle’s letter onto him.) I just remember sending one to Sami Jo and Jason but yeah so I’m a little lost about that. o yeah I was going to ask you when you send that package with the cds hopefully you haven’t sent it yet but could you get some motab Christmas music and burn some copies of it cuz we want to give it to one of our investigatores that has heard of them and so I told him I was going to try and get him some to listen to so yeah if you could do that that would be awesome.all this talk about going to the mountains makes me a little bit jealous I’m not going to lie haha I would love some nice cold weather camping trips haha but one day everyone was freaking out cuz they thought like a mini hurricane was coming to get us and we were out side knocking doors and everyone we went to was like you guys better get back home or else this storm is going to get you and it wont be good but yeah it was kinda funny because it got down to like 60 degrees and everyone was wearing like sweaters and stuff but yeah it was cool nothing happened it just got windy and overcast all day and then rained all night long like crazy and then the next morning it was back to being hot and humid haha ok so all this talk about peoples babies and all this crazy stuff makes me feel weird I’m not old enough to know all these people with babies haha but I’m glad everyone is doing good and you can tell them all congrats from me :) Elder Smith is not in my mission he is in the east side I’m not really sure the address but you can figure it out but yeah idk about that mail at the ccm it doesn’t work that great I’ve decided.So that’s pretty cool about all the football stuff man it seems weird that all the football stuff is going on right now and I don’t have anything to do with it haha it was funny at transfer meeting cuz my old mtc comp was talking to me about all the football stuff he was dieing haha but yeah I just think it’s kinda funny but yeah sounds like everyone back home is doing good and enjoying themselves. Here everything is amazing our branch is really cool, kinda small, but they are always there and really cool people. there is one kid that is 16 that always goes out and works with us and he’s awesome he’s gonna be an awesome missionary it’s crazy but yeah every once in a while my comp teaches the gospel doctrine class they don’t have me do that quite yet haha I don’t know Spanish near good enough but yeah everything’s going great o and one funny story that I just remembered so we had a wedding this week and that was pretty fun to get to go to but yeah the funniest thing ever was the guys little boy was the ring bearer and instead of wearing normal nice wedding clothes he was dressed like a knight and had a sword and everything it was the craziest funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life! I thought for sure they were going to make him change but nope he was a knight! Pretty funny haha I’ll see if I can send a picture but yeah I better get going life is going good we are having success and trying to get more.
love you guys
elder ward

Week # 09/01/2009 (Adjuntas) 2nd Transfer

Email dated: September 1, 2009
2nd Transfer
Adjuntas
Companion: Elder Kolar (?)

HOLA!
first things first if people spoke English here do you think I’d be too worried about the Spanish hahahaha jk there are actually a handful of people that speak it really well and a lot of people can understand English but are way too afraid to speak it so yeah we usually never talk to anyone in English It’s rare but there is quite a few and a ton of the members are really good at English because of missions and they all study it all 13 years of school but yeah so a lot of people can speak it but we always speak in Spanish.So anyways tomorrow will be the start of a new transfer which is 6 weeks so don’t get too excited I got a lot more of those to go haha but yeah I’M STAYING IN ADJUNTAS which is awesome I’m really excited about that cuz we still have our baptism on the 12 and I love it here in Adjuntas but yeah so I’ll be here for another 6 weeks :)
You asked in your letter that I got who those other elders were so I thought I better explain it so we have 8 elders in our district and we all live in different houses but the other 6 live in Ponce cuz it’s the big city here and we have to drive down to Ponce to do email every week on p-day. So the guys in the picture were Elder Knudsen and Elder Sykes. Elder Knudsen came in with me and he’s awesome. He’s from Sandy Utah and Elder Sykes is from Texas. Elder Knudsen got called this week and was supposed to get sent to the islands and we were really bummed about that cuz then we wouldn’t have gotten to see him for about 6 months probably but then they called and he is staying now so I’m really excited we usually do stuff with them every p-day so yeah I’m happy.
Ok so I’m really excited that everyone is going on missions its gonna be crazy I’m so excited especially Jason cuz my plan is I can write to him and he can give me pointers on how to be a better missionary so I’m excited about that and tell him that I’m sending a letter to him in the mail today. I just got his in an email from dad :) so yeah that’s awesome Kyle and maybe Tanner too so yeah I’m way excited. Oh and Sister Johns too -- man she’s an awesome lady we can learn so much from her what an awesome attitude and everything that’s so awesome (Sister Johns is an 85 year old Sister in our Ward who is going to serve for a year at the Family History Center in SLC). o and I was thinking you guys better send me a video or at least pictures of Jason opening his call ok... it was really cool today they called me and asked me if I know of anyone going to serve a mission anytime soon and I said yep sure do! It was cool to be able to say it :) but yeah they just gave us all a survey so yeah I feel like I better call them back and say Kyle’s going now too haha

Everything is going great here and we are having fun this last week was a little rough with finding people and contacting people we didn’t really have too much luck but then all of a sudden this Monday start of the week we had some really cool Milagros (miracles) haha like this one guy he is the coolest guy in the world but yeah we contacted him and he told us where his house is like 20 minutes in car so we get over there and we have no clue were it was at -- so we just started hiking up the mountain in the middle of the jungle dieing from heat and it was just a killer but we were yelling at a bunch of different houses and no one was answering it felt pointless but we kept going just winding up this giant mountain and then we yelled at this one house and no one answered so we were like ok lets just head back there’s no way it’s up here and then all of a sudden we see him driving up the mountain in his old beater car it was pretty cool but yeah so he’s an awesome guy. Only half of his body works cuz he got in an accident a while ago so he just hobbles around but he works hard and just lives in this really tiny house and he’s really poor but he’s just so happy and content with life. He’s awesome and a giant example for me but yeah so that was an amazing experience and we expect good things from that but life is great I’m having fun and man I love the mission but yeah I better get going I love you guys o and my address is the same. I’m not moving :) everything is great here and I’ll tty next weeklove ya elder ward

Letter to Andrea:
haha good idea with the halloween stuff I was luigi last year and Nate my buddy was mario (Andrea is dressing the twins as Mario & Luigi for Halloween) haha but yeah life is great here and I’m having fun I’m sure you already got my letter and know pretty much everything but yeah it’s great and I’m staying in the same place so yeah you can send me stuff now :) but anyways good luck with moving (Andrea and Bill are moving into a different house still in England L) I wish I could come help ya cuz I know its going to be killer haha good thing you haven’t been in that house for too long and don’t have a ton of stuff all piled up that you have to get rid of but yeah so I’m so excited about this mass missionary movement it’s going to be great and I can’t wait to talk to Jason about the missionary life after he has been in the field for a while it’s going to be awesome I seriously can not wait but yeah tell everyone hi and I love you guys I cant wait to get your mail from the girls :)
love ya
elder ward

and a little bit of Spanish directed to Robert – cuz I sure didn’t understand any of it …

haha si usamos la palabra chevere cada dia. pero la vida aqui is perfecta me encanta la vida misional. di a brad que espanol es facil y si el realmente quiere aprenderlo podra hacerlo. ahora yo no se mucho de espanol pero estoy aprendiendo rapido yo espero que jason va a mision en un pais que habla espanol porque seria muy chevere si todas de nosotros hablamos espanol pero nuestro investigadores estan progresando y haciendo todo lo que necesitan me encanta la mision y yo se que va a encatarle a jason tambien pero tengo que irme le amo mucho y voy a hablar a ti luego le amo elder ward

Week # 08/24/2009 (Adjuntas)

Matthew's Address:
Elder Matthew Ward
PO Box 33
Adjuntas PR 00601

Letter dated: August 24, 2009

OK FIRST THINGS FIRST JASON IS GOING WAHOOO!!!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW EXCITED I AM RIGHT NOW!!! IT’S GOING TO BE SO COOL TALKING TO HIM WHILE WE ARE BOTH OUT!

but anyways tell him he better write me and get a move on it I haven’t heard from him in a while man this is going to be so awesome I bet he goes somewhere awesome but yeah tell him to hurry and write me cuz I want to talk to him tell him to email me at least if he doesn’t send me a letterbut yeah life here is going great and we are having a lot of success and fun. our investigadores are awesome they two that we have been teaching hector and Raquel are amazing and they have FECHAS BAUTISMAULES WAHOOO yeah they are getting baptized on the 12 so we are really excited about that it’s going to be great they are just awesome people and so ready. we teach them a lot and every time we leave them with something to read about what we are going to teach them next time and then when we get there we just ask him how the reading was and they teach us the whole lesson they are just amazing and they are doing everything they need to and yeah its awesome and every time we go there it’s crazy cuz we teach them a bit (they teach us :)) and then we ask them if they have questions and then they ask all these awesome questions and then we help them and they just understand it and right when we teach them they decide to live what we taught its awesome like with the work of wisdom we left them with a pamphlet about it and before that we knew they drank cofe and had a bit of a problem with that we always say the cofe maker with a bit of cofe in it on the counter but when we went back this last time after we gave them the pamphlet the cofe maker was all wrapped up and setting on top of the freezer now haha :) they are just awesome awesome people and I cant wait for when they get baptized. hopefully I don’t get transferred this Wednesday :( that would be a bit sad but for some reason I think it might happen :( but yeah anyways besides that life is going great and we are doing good I went and got my PR drivers license today so that will be cool haha but yeah other than that everything is going pretty normal o and I got your letter with all the emails in it it was awesome to read those and hear how everything is going but I want to hear from the others now too so if you get the chance can you get me Chris Hipwells address and Jordan’s too cuz I haven’t heard from them in forever so that would be nice do you not get their emails? but yeah other than that I don’t think I really need anything except for that stuff you’re already sending it is way nice that mail isn’t a ton and that letters get here so fast it’s awesome but yeah anyways I’ll let you guys go but yeah have an awesome day and thanks for the emails and everything I can’t wait to hear from ya next week :)
love you guys
Elder Ward

Week # 08/17/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: August 17, 2009

Hola Familia

Missionary life is going great there is supposed to be a big storm today and it has been rainy and overcast but we will see everyone’s been telling us to get ready so we had to do our hurricane preparedness stuff but I think everyone’s over reacting a little haha its hurricane season now so it rains like all day everyday and its kinda crazy and a lot of times we will be outside tracting and its just pouring on us and we are soaked and still people won’t invite is in haha we just stand outside the fence shouting through the rain and getting drenched its kinda funny haha and it’s kinda fun to be out in the rain and jump in the puddles (I’m not going to lie we like it better when its not raining but we do our best to make it fun :)) it’s been getting cold here too I’m actually sleeping with a sheet over me now and turning my fan off sometimes haha we are in the area mas fresco than all of Puerto Rico so I’ve been really grateful for that :) it sounds like you guys had fun over in Buhl and bowling huh? I’m thinking I might need a house like that :) but yeah that’s awesome you can tell them congrats for me :) (Matthew’s cousin Jenn’s baby blessing was yesterday and they have a bowling lane in their basement.)So pops is the new ward clerk huh? Does that mean he has to be a high priest now or is he still staying with the young bucks in elders? But anyways the missionary work is going really good and we have been working really hard. the area I’m in hasn’t got a baptism in like 7-8 months or something like that and the one that did get baptized doesn’t go to church so its kinda bad and not a lot has happened here in a while. my companion said he had a lot of elders that didn’t like to work cuz two of them were in their last transfers and were just a little lazy but we’ve been working hard and we have found 3 people that I think are going to get baptized the couple that I told ya about last time that just showed up to church are way awesome and so golden they don’t have any problems except cofe which we’ll get rid of ;) (I guess it’s a good thing Matthew can’t spell coffee? LOL!!) we taught them again yesterday cuz he worked from 11-10 so we couldn’t teach him all week but this week he’s got all the nights off so we can teach him and we went to his house and we left him with reading the introduction of the book of mormon and he read everything before 1st Nephi and when he finished that he just started reading and has read a ton so far its awesome but yeah we keep teaching them and they just keep asking loads of questions and just say don’t worry we will learn soon enough poco en poco. It’s way cool they are so so so awesome and then the third one is a girl that we taught yesterday and she is way cool and really excited to come to church we brought some members her age to come teach with us and it was just awesome I’ve decided that that is like the key with missionary work its all about the members members members members so if the missionaries have you go work with them do it :) haha but yeah so we are doing really good. I really really really hope I stay in Adjuntas because transfers are on the 2nd so we are both really scared that one of us is going to get shipped out but hopefully not :) it’s kinda crazy how long I’ve been out here huh? I hit three months on the 20th it’s kinda scary cuz as fast as the time is going by I better start learning some more spanish cuz I’ll be going home in no time :( but anyways with the cds just get like all the efy cds you can and just good stuff like that and every other church music you can get a hold of besides spanish hymns and primary songs cuz I already have that but everything else would be nice oh and disney songs if you can get those too :)
I got your package today right before we left to go email it was the first mail we’ve gotten in a while so we were both pretty stoked so thank you thank you thank you I loved it and good idea with the rings that was smart and the books (the new gospel art picture books) are going to be awesome I’m really excited my last book got a little wet in the rain so now I pack everything in plastic bags its kinda funny so I learned my lesson on that one. I thought my bag was pretty water proof but it wasn’t haha I’m just happy my scriptures survived :)but anyways I haven’t been taking too many pictures cuz we have been really busy but I’ll try and take some more and I haven’t got my license yet either but I’ll get it done soon we are just crazy busy all the time. but anyways I thought I would tell you guys a little about this weekend so we are in a town that is just full of churches and its pretty crazy there is like more churches here then in Utah and they are all different religions haha. It’s pretty crazy but anyways they always have all this crazy stuff going on in our town plaza so we go down there and talk to people and make contacts a lot but this weekend they had a big old prayer thing for all the religions and they all came and knelt and prayed from like 10 - 12 and then after they shot off fireworks it was crazy we were in bed but we live right next to the plaza so we heard the whole thing. It was pretty funny but then not only did they end it with fireworks the whole weekend they just had like a big party afterwards haha it was kinda funny but pretty cool at the same time I bought this really cool smoothie that they cut the pineapple insides out and then put your smoothie in it. It was so good and pretty funny I LOVE pineapples :) (Pretty funny cuz Matthew totally despises MOST fruit and he is learning to LOVE most fruit!) But yeah so we had fun at that and talked to a ton of people. well I think I better get going ill try and send ya some pictures thanks again for the package and I’ll talk to you guys next week
LOVE YA
Elder Ward

Week # 08/10/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: August 10, 2009
Adjuntas
Companion: Elder Kolar

ok so I think I’ve answered some of these questions haha but o well I know you forget sometimes mother dear haha jk but anyways yeah you can just send it to Adjuntas because we know for sure I still have 3 weeks there so that will work just fine but yeah around transfer time its better to send to the mission home cuz then I’ll get it at zone conference but we won’t have another meeting till transfer meeting and that won’t be for 3 weeks but my normal life is pretty simple haha I wake up at 6:30 and then I exercise for 30 minutes and then I get ready for the day for 30 minutes and then I eat breakfast and work on some Spanish at the same time and then personal study starts and I do that for an hour and then comp study for an hour and then Spanish study for an hour and then it’s out doing missionary work we just contact people and then just run around to citas all day long and yeah we just keep pretty busy we usually take a little time out for lunch and dinner when we have members that feed us but if not we usually just wait till we get home at 9-9:30 then we plan and get ready for the next day and go to sleep haha the only day that is different is p-day and that day we just do everything the same except 11-6 is we run around trying to get our stuff done and do our laundry and stuff we do have a washer but we have to hang dry I don’t think anyone in our area owns a dryer haha but yeah so that’s how the days usually go the Spanish is coming ok not as well as I would like I’m starting to understand a bit but sometimes we’ll be talking to people and I have no idea what’s going on I hate when that happens but yeah that first week was really hard but now I’m getting better and am starting to understand at least the gospel conversations what we eat is whatever we can find haha we don’t waste too much time eating usually it’s bread and peanut butter for me and some pineapple or something and every now and then when we really want to we’ll make some tuna or some beans and rice haha but yeah and then when we eat with members its beans rice and some kind of meat I love it and I had one of the members teach me how to cook it so we are gonna try it this week but yeah anyways life is great I’m having fun working hard and getting stuff done haha so anyways like the coolest day of my whole mission happened yesterday its a long story but hopefully I can write it really quick but yeah so we had a dinner appointment that we went to and the people weren’t there so we went tocing instead so we toced this guy and we were talking to him and he wasn’t really interested but we set up a time to talk to him again and like didn’t really think much of it and then so yesterday we had like 6 people that said they were going to come to church and we were waiting but no one showed up so we were like dang lets go get them so we left and we ran around to their houses and they were all sleeping and wouldn’t come so we were like really bummed cuz not a single one would come so we went back to the church and we were late and it was just a bad deal but then we see this car in the parking lot and we were like who's that? and we walked over there and this guy gets out of his car and it was the same guy that we found tocing (i just realized that doesn’t make sense to you guys tocing is spanglish tocar-is to touch in Spanish but they use it to mean knock too so really its tocando puertas but we spanglished it haha dad will understand) but anyways so it was the same guy and his wife and they were like oh we just thought we would come here instead of you guys coming to us and it was crazy cuz they live like 30 minutes from the chapel and so the wife was really nervous but we got them inside and they stayed for all of church and really loved it and it was just awesome and then we went back that night to their house and taught them a lesson which was awesome and the wife she doesn’t ever talk and she is really timid but she was like crying during the lesson and wow it was just crazy and then at the end we asked the man to pray and he was a little scared but then he just got down on the ground and we all kneeled and prayed it was awesome we didn’t even ask him to kneel but they are so cool and yeah it was an awesome experience I can’t wait to teach them again. but yeah so that was awesome everything else is going good I got your box of goodies when I got to the mission I thought I told you all about it but yeah it was awesome I loved it and the book is way cool I love all the pictures of my mission buddies that’s way cool but yeah it sounds like you guys have been having a lot of fun and everyone is doing good and it sounds like the cabins are coming along good and so that’s awesome it sounds like the rain’s crazy for you guys but I have no sympathy because every single day we will be outside and then it all of a sudden turns into a crazy down pour and we get soaked you never know when it’s going to come it’s kinda crazy but I guess that’s the tropics for ya haha but yeah I’m having a ton of fun and I’m loving it here in Puerto Rico but I hope you guys are doing good and how was that UP movie? I wanted to see that one haha it sounded good but yeah I better get going I’ll talk to ya next week

LOVE YA
Elder Ward