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

Week # 08/03/2009 (Adjuntas)

Email dated: August 3, 2009

Hola Familia

Puerto Rico is great and im having a ton of fun. it sounds like you guys are enjoying yourselfs on the trip to canada. Of course i remember the dinosaur place are you kidding me i dont think we have ever gone to canada without going to the dinosaur place the last time we went i think jason climbed up on his back haha but thats way cool about the deer jason is lucky because he can legally just get a hunting license there so yeah maybe before i get back dad and jason will have gone on a big hunt over there haha.so the reunion sounds liike fun its kinda funny that eric is the only kid but im sure its not to hard on him haha. i havent gone to canada for a while good think that dorthy and charlie came down because i havent seen the canadian side for a while haha kinda crazy i want to go to canadan some time when i get back last year at school me and nate were thinking about taking a road trip up there or maybe that was supposed to be for spring break i cant remember haha.so the living arrangements are pretty good haha :) we live in a little appartment and you can decide how it is after my story of last night. so we get home and plan and do all that good stuff and then we decided it was ant hunting time so we go around killing all these ants that just poor in from the cracks in the walls and in the windows and everywhere so we are busy burning smashing and spraying ants and trying to fill the cracks they come in and then i opened the drawer in the kitchen and there is like mouse poop all over in it and then we kill a bunch of ants and are about done and i see a giant roach on the ground and so then i had to kill that but other than that our appartments really good ill have to take a picture of it and send it to ya some time its kinda funny haha but yeah thats our house our Branch (rama) is just a little one but we have a way nice chample i think there is probably about 40-50 members that go to church most weeks but they are way cool Elder Kolar says that this is the best area hes been in for getting food so thats good but yeah there awesome and sunday i gave the opening prayer for sacrament haha my first one ever and it was in spanish :).ok so the picture book thing i bought one in the mtc and i wish i would have bought all my stuff in the mtc cuz it was cheaping cuz they give missionaries a discount but anyways everyone like loves the pictures so i want to get like two or three of them so if you can send a couple that would be nice if not i think i can order them from the office i was also going to ask you if you could get one of those wooden plan of salvation puzzles for me to if you can and then cds and that Doc Martin shoe polish stuff above the microwave haha if you could send that stuff that would be awesome :)but anyways about the mail its great it gets here in about 3 days so that works nice so i got your letter a couple days ago and then packages get here really quick too like three days so yeah that will be goodbut about adjuntas it is a district and we live in it and then jayuya is in our area too but we hardly go there cuz its a long drive but yeah we cover bother those districts and towns there kinda funny cuz its just two towns out in the middle of the mountains dad would love them its a pretty cool place and its way colder than the other places so thats nice the only bad thing is we have to drive like 45 minutes to get into a normal town were we can email so that kinda stinks so p-day we waste a lot of time driving but yeah everythings going good the fruit is way good i dont love bananas but i eat them and the members feed us great food and we eat plenty of dads fravorite platanas but i have to say i think they are better here then ecuador (the rice is a lot better here too :)) dad and jason will understand that one :) but yeah everythings going good im loving life and if i have time ill try to send pictures today
Love you guys
Elder Ward