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