02/22/2010 (Ponce, PR)

02/22/2010

HOLA!

you really didn't get my old email again? that's so weird but yeah things are going good! sounds like thinks are going pretty good back home that's so cool about Brandt that should be a way awesome mission he should really enjoy that. also that's cool that Jason taught Brian kinda crazy but i didn't get an email from him this week did you? so when you get emails from him forward them to me too just in case i don't get one k.

o and yeah they changed all our emails cuz the church got a new email service thing but it said that if you send it to the old address it doesn't matter and still gets to me so i didn't worry about it. this is my new address mattheww@myldsmail.net

wow that's pretty crazy about Frank but at least he's serving his mission just on the other side of the vail :)... we always kinda joke about that as missionaries cuz if you die as a missionary you just wake up and the only thing that really changes is they give you a new companion haha

so that's really crazy about Brad as well! i hope everything goes good. I'm sure he'll be fine. i saw him get a big old chunk of sagebrush pulled out of his leg with a pair of pliers so i know he's a tough old bird :) (you can tell him i told him he was tough just don't let him know i called him old :) ) i got the package they sent me in the mail this week and I'm pretty excited about it haha me and my comp. are going to have a little beef party :)

that story about Mallory's mission was pretty cool and so true I've had a couple cool experiences like that on my mission although we don't baptize a whole lot over here in Puerto Rico you definitely see the blessings when you sacrifice. its like the story in the scriptures about the lady that throws in 2 pieces of gold for her tithing and everyone else threw in like 1,000 pieces and her tithing was the best because she threw in all that she had where the others just threw in the abundance. i always think about that as a missionary because you could be working a thousand times harder than everyone else but you still need to look for and find the way to work harder, it doesn't matter how much more or less you do compared to everyone else what matters is that you personally are constantly looking for how you can work hard or you can do better.

so something kinda funny about this week so in our mission we have these standards that are called the foundation which is 140 contacts 12 hours of tocing doors and 20 lessons and you are supposed to get that every week. well me and Elder Wilson since we have been together we have got it and we are really working hard and doing great but this other day we went to a members house to eat and they bought this cheesecake from Sam's Club and it was AMAZING! It was a real cheesecake -- i couldn't believe it! they make cheesecake here but its like a flan but this one was the real deal straight from the states and it was amazing so we asked her where we could buy us a cheesecake like that and she was like I'm going to Sam's tomorrow just give me the money and i'll pick you one up so we got this cheesecake that contains 12 slices. so when we saw that, we said WOW its perfect there is 6 weeks in a transfer so that means one slice each week for a whole transfer. so we put it the freezer and now every Sunday if we get our foundation we take out our cheesecake and we each get a slice. we had our first piece last night and boy was it good ill tell you what that's motivation enough for me to work hard :)

but anyways yeah i got the package i wrote about it last time i think but yeah thank you very very much and i got the letters and the card this week too so yeah thank you! and for my birthday I'm doing really good so yeah just the cookies would be good for me and yeah all my clothes are doing great and holding up wonderfully :)

love you guys
Elder Ward