HOMECOMING!!!

Elder Matthew Ward arrives in Boise on Saturday, June 18th at 9 p.m. WOOHOO! We are very excited to see him! Please join us in welcoming him home! He will be speaking in church, Sunday, June 19th at 11 a.m. in the Mountain Home 4th Ward. We will then have a luncheon at Brad & Kelli Christiansen's home - following church! (A BIG Thank You to our good friends, Brad & Kelli for opening their home to us!)

We are grateful for all our friends and family and are thankful for the love and support they have given to Matthew (and continue to give to Jason). We are very blessed to have such great friends and family!

We are soooo proud of Matthew and the service he has given as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

Hope you can join us on Saturday and/or Sunday!

Possibly last Email from Puerto Rico! 06/15/2011

Hey mom things are pretty crazy! Thanks for the email I'm at a pizza place with Pres and the others. It's great but I will have to write you on Friday I think.
Love ya,
Elder Ward

04/27/2011 - Grocery Shopping for 14 Missionaries!

HOLA!

Yeah Easter was good. We had this big old Easter mission get together it was pretty fun it was a lua (I don’t know how the heck to spell that but one of those Hawaiian party things :)) but yeah so we had a big old pig and we played sports and just had some fun. It was on Saturday but yeah pretty exciting.

So about taking pictures … I’m pretty sure that my camera got stolen at the party so I officially have one chip of pictures for my whole mission :( kinda sad but yeah we are hoping that it will show up though :) and don’t worry I have all the pictures my comps take :)

yeah so we are still running around like crazy but its cool. I got to go back to Cabo Rojo and that was AWESOME. It was great cuz I visited all the people I used to teach and got them all excited again so it was really really good for the missionaries there. I had a lot of fun :) We go to a laundry mat but I haven’t gone yet so I don’t really know how it is they always want me to go get the food so I always go with the guy that has the Costco card and Elder Zenger who’s going to live with me at school. We all just take out cash before we go and they give it all to me and we buy it. We usually spend about 300 dollars every week A LOT OF FOOD! 14 missionaries can sure eat but we do it very economically :)

We don’t really ever go to the mission home anymore but the mission office is like right next door and so we have a ton of meetings there all the time with president and stuff so that’s fun. We are like presidents guinea pigs and so he tries all this crazy stuff on us and then we come back and talk about it and evaluate and go at it again. The stuff we are doing is very crazy and pretty difficult just because it’s a completely different type of work than I have ever done my whole mission but it’s fun :) and I’m learning a ton!

but yeah sounds like everyone is doing good. Don’t have too much fun with all your Easter peacocks haha!

Love ya

Elder Ward

04/20/2011 - Letter from Kennady!

04/20/2011

Dear Matthew,

I hope you visit us and I hope you come back. Which you will. I get 3 weeks off of school. We walked to burger king for lunch yesterday and I got a hershey pie, chicken nuggets, and french fries. I painted my own toe nails. They are light pink and dark pink. Can I paint your toe nails when you get home?

Love you.

Love from,
Kennady

Matthew’s response to Kennady …

OOOO NOOO there aint going to be any paint touchin these toe nails hahaha but don’t worry I’ll be home in about a year or so ;) I lost track how long I got left :)

Love ya

Elder Ward

04/20/2011

HOLA

Yeah I don’t really care when I talk I’m good with everything but if I do it the Sunday I get home just let me know what my topic is and you’ll have to let everyone know its my homecoming so yeah idk which is better. I’m ok with whatever Bishop wants! Tell him he can decide!

That’s cool Eric wants to do a lawn mowing business. It’s a great idea. I’ve thought about doing it a lot but yeah you just have to have a nice rider. I know a lot of people that have done it and made thousands of dollars - way good money during the summer you just have to find the right people and make sure you get a good price :). Tell him to go and hand out flyers and talk to everyone and put it in the newspaper and all that good stuff and I bet he would get some good customers :).

The new program is going good. It’s a little crazy but I like it. I just got back from Salinas last night. I was over there for two days working with some other Elders so that was fun. I was with Elder Foggin from Magrath - he said his dad went to Magrath High but he would have been like 3 years older than you. It was way fun to talk about Canada with him though.

But yeah all the Elders in our group are way good friends and we love it. On p-day we all split up and half go wash clothes and 1/4 clean and another 1/4 buy food. We go to Costco and its hilarious buying food for 14 missionaries. It’s a lot of fun.

Things are going great and we are having fun it sounds like everyone is doing good back home

Love ya

Elder Ward

04/13/2011 - Last TRANSFER!! (A 10 Week Special Assignment)

New Companion: Elder Radmall from Oregon
New area: San Juan
Living in a house with 14 missionaries!!

WOW! You’re scaring me with all that travel itinerary talk. I still got a lot of time left :)

So yeah we had some crazy all day meetings about the stuff we are doing in the mission and in our project and I am very excited. We are going to be working in San Juan my companion is Elder Radmall but a different one than the first one I was comps with and he is from Oregon. Way cool kid!

We will all be in the same Ward all 14 of us in the same house as well. We will also go and work with other missionaries on Monday and Tuesday of every week and then in our own area the rest of the time so that should be pretty cool. I’ll get to see most of the whole island and then we are going to take two trips to the islands for 3 days each trip. I’m WAY! excited we are going to be working a TON and having a TON of fun - I LOVE IT!

But yeah thanks so much for getting all that school stuff done. Jason told me that too - kinda crazy. It will be way fun to have him up there with me though – I’m pretty excited. I guess one of his buddies from the mission is going to be going there too. I can’t believe how fast time is going. I’m really getting scared.

I don’t have much time today. I already took a trip around the islands dropping off bikes and yeah we are so busy it’s crazy!

Oh and I did that with my eyes - I waited a long time (like 2 months) and then I got new contacts and it didn’t work :( so I guess I’ll just wait till I get home.

but yeah got to go

LOVE YA and I’ll talk to you next week
Matthew

Travel Itinerary!

Matthew will be home on June 18, 2011. He will arrive at the Boise Airport at 9:27 p.m.

04/06/2011

WOW!! Sounds like a fun trip I’m glad you got to see a lot and enjoyed yourselves. But don’t worry we can all take a relaxing vacation down to Puerto Rico all together when everyone’s home. I think it would be way fun to do for Christmas. (I was at the O'Dell family's house yesterday and they can’t wait for us to come down and stay there).

Conference was GREAT! I liked it a lot they talked a ton about families it was so awesome. We finally got a family to come to church and they came to the last session and just loved it they are a great family of 5 and all the family talks just hit them good :). You’ll have to watch the priesthood session on the internet it was really good. President Monson told all the returned missionaries to go to the temple and get married don’t wait hahahaha. I told Elder Dennis my new goal is to get married before he gets back from his mission hahahaha. But yeah really the talks were all very very good I loved the talk about “To be and To do” that was awesome and yeah they just were all really great I can’t wait till they come out in the church magazines so I can study them good. :). Elder Dennis told me I should ask Bishop if I can talk on conference and then I could just choose President Monson’s talk and tell all the single girls "look I’m not just saying it it’s the prophet. Do you want to follow the prophet?" hahaha but yeah I’ll be leaving Puerto Rico on June 18th. I guess they’ll have to check to make sure that’s possible but yeah I’m pretty sure that’s 100% but don’t worry they’ll call you with all the info and with my flight schedule and all that stuff. So yeah I’ll be in church there on Sunday the 19th but I’m guessing I won’t be talking on that Sunday - but who knows! haha.

Wow that’s crazy about Bishop Sessions! I hope he’s doing alright.

I still talk to Jason every week except the week that he was at the hospital so yeah it sounds like he’s doing good :)

But yeah thanks for everything I’ll talk to ya next week

love ya

elder ward
ps so yeah the project thing starts next week it’s still not all figured out yet and I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to know anything yet but I do know that we will all be living in the same house (the 14 people in my group maybe 16) and the house is way nice it’s a member that lives here that has a ton of money so it’s one of the other houses he owns and it has AC in every room WAHOOO!!! So that means we will be working in the San Juan area but I still don’t know all the details :)

03/30/2011

haha wow! It sounds like you guys are having funny and running around all over the place. You’re going to have to keep Eric on a leash. He turns 16 and he thinks he can just buy swords and go dancing with the Flamenco Dancers huh?

That’s awesome that you’re taking a lot of pictures. I really should get better about that but yeah. I think I told you that transfers were on the 6th but they’re not they are on the 13th so yeah I got a little mixed up. But yeah so transfers are on the 13th and then starts my nine week program. Today I have to turn in all my flight home info :(

That’s cool that there were so many Mormons on the trip. How many kids were there? and how many adults? Yeah I really want to hear Kennady talking like a Brit haha.

WOW! I completely forgot that I will be calling home in like a month haha that’s weird. That will be a weird Phone Call. It’s a good thing I extended my mission. :)

Things are going good - we are working hard and having fun. We have found some really cool families. One is an Adventist family that are really strong in their church but they are listening and studying and learning and progressing well. Another family is the granddaughter of one of the members and she and her daughters are going to church and they went to a baptism the other day and they are doing really well as well. I think in the next little while there is going to be a lot of success in the ward and that is exciting :)

Things are going great and I’ll talk to you soon
Love ya

Elder Ward

PS So I was going to ask you to talk to Bishop Price because for like the last 4-5 months I haven’t been able to wear my contacts because I put them in and my right one hurts my eye like crazy and if I leave it in my eye just produces a ton of eye boogers and all sorts of junk. The other day I opened a new pack and tried them out again because I hadn’t tried for like 2 months and I wore them like the whole day but it kept bugging my right eye and then I took them out to go to bed and when I woke up my eye was like sealed shut with eye boogers it was crazy. So yeah I’m not really sure what’s wrong but if you could ask him about that or what I should do that would be great. But if we can’t figure anything out I’ll just wear my glasses till I get home J

03/23/2011

Hola!

My birthday was pretty good - we had to do a lot of running around that day but it was good we had a meeting at the Stake Presidents house and his wife made us some homemade pizza so that was awesome. I’m not going to lie I forgot it was my birthday until about half way through the day haha.

Well it sounds like you had a fun little time in London running around all over the place. That’s funny they went to an antique shop. I’m pretty sure Bill nailed it right on the head haha. I can’t believe it’s already been a week to tell ya the truth. Time just goes way way way too fast now and I don’t know what the deal is. We are already 4 weeks into the transfer. Transfers are on the 6th and then that starts my last transfer so that’s when I’ll be with my whole group. I can’t wait to see what they have planned cuz they still won’t tell us all of it. Haha! but it will be fun I’m sure of it haha.

That’s so awesome that Adam is coming home on the 22nd that means I’ll barely beat him back home. haha You can tell Nathan that I told him good choice haha he needs the full 2 years ya can’t just cut it short!

So it sounds like the whole Howard crew is doing good. Do we know when for sure they are going to be moving to Texas? It will be nice having them there - maybe me and dad might have to try another little Texas trophy hunt just this time pick a better spot haha.

Everything here is going really well. We had a cool little learning experience on Sunday. Sometimes ya think when you’ve been on the mission for over a year and a half you have it pretty well figured out. So for weeks we have been just running around like crazy trying to get all our extra responsibilities done and also keep everything going in our area and complete with all the things president has asked us to do and we were just going crazy. So Sunday I got a bit frustrated haha (yes missionaries can get frustrated :)) so I said ya know that’s it we are going to do it right we are going to be diligent and plan everything out and not “run faster than we have strength” and so we started that this week are exercising a little more faith and it’s amazing. We are getting way more things done and its just going smooth and successful. (too bad I’m just now really learning that lesson huh?) It’s a dang good thing I added that extra little month on the end :) So yeah things really are going great we are working hard and just loving it.

love ya

elder ward

ps have fun in spain thats going to be a blast :)

03/16/2011

HOLA!

Yeah I got the package last night. I was in the office and it was there so THANK YOU!! Me and Elder Dennis are dieting! Haha! so we’ll have to share the treats with everyone. It’s so funny because when I was with Elder Dennis the first time he told me he was going to diet and lose weight and so him being my companion and all I decided to help and do it too and we did good for a while and then he broke and it went down hill from there hahaha! but the other day at the beginning of this transfer he told me again it was so funny “he’s like you got to help me Elder Ward” so I told him no messing around this time so I’m officially Elder Dennis' personal trainer hahahaha even all the Ward members know we are dieting and they don’t even try to give us pop anymore (that’s a blessing) :). But yeah thank you very much I ate one of those taffys today and it was pretty dang good.

So yeah we heard all about all that Japan stuff and I heard they got some nuclear power plant problems and if it keeps getting worse it will effect the Western United States so yeah we don’t get to much news but i talked to a couple people in the street about it.

What else is new? O yeah the coolest thing every that family that just got baptized we got it all figured out how to get them to the temple this week so that they can do baptisms for the dead it was AWESOME! They left yesterday and are going to be in Florida for a month so we got them all set up and got there recommends and everything I’m SO excited for them :) we told them they have to wear a skirt and white shirt and a tie so we got that under control I had a white shirt that someone gave me so I gave it to him with a tie haha.

So this week we had a really cool experience and found two new families. so we are really excited about that. They both seem very interested and one even has some family that are members.

but yeah thanks again for the package I hope you enjoy your trip you’ll have to send me some pictures and let me know all about it. You guys are going to have a blast.

Love ya

elder ward

03/09/2011 - Letter to Dad!

Dad,

That’s cool Brad got his truck. I bet he’s just way excited.

So does the cabin have everything finished then? or is there still a little bit more to do? Did you ever decide to do a porch? I can’t wait to stay in it and the ones up at the farm. I told Elder Burton that me and him are going to go to the cabin up in Rocky Bar and spend a few days on the lake this summer haha so you better have all that all ready to roll :)

How much do those Rangers cost? but yeah I heard they are pretty fun. I can’t remember which one it is but I think it’s the Yamaha that makes a really nice one too. I was talking to Elder Dennis about it him and his family are way into all that stuff. He’s the one whose grandpa was your teacher at Ricks but yeah they build all sorts or sandrails and do all that stuff. His dad’s way way way good at all that stuff so I told him we might have to go to town on the Willys after the mission haha!

Jason was talking to me about hunts. I have no idea when they are so you’ll have to just put in for me this year and see if I get an extra little blessing on top for serving a mission! Hahaha!!

Love ya

Elder Ward

03/09/2011 - A New Treat ... PIGS FEET!

HOLA!!!

You can tell Eric I’m going to have to whip him that phrase is bad haha it means something else so don’t make that mistake in Spain or you might get in trouble! :) The correct way to say it is. Como Estas? Tu tienes calor? You can’t say that someone is "Calient" (hot) you have to say "do you have heat" Tu (you) tienes (have) calor (heat) but don’t worry you’ll get it hahaha :)

That’s so crazy that it’s still snowing a bit. I really don’t know what I’m going to do because I think my body is ruined and I’m like thin blooded now or something because I don’t really get hot anymore and I freeze when it’s 70 degrees. I hope I’m not ruined for life. Haha!

That’s cool she bore her testimony and even cooler that she is going to the temple. Our recent converts are going to Florida on the 15th so they are going to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. I told them in a year that I’d go to the temple with them so we might be taking a little trip hahaha. They are way excited!

That’s so awesome so many missionaries are going out. I can’t remember who said it - I would have to look it up but someone promised that the more missionaries that a Ward has out the more that Ward is blessed. So the Ward should be seeing some good blessings by the time I get back right! :)

Well everything is going good here. Yesterday I was on a trade off with Elder Zenger (the one that’s going to live with me at school) it was pretty fun. I made him have to sing a solo at our recent converts house haha it was awesome. (two weeks ago I got Elder Dennis twice and now Elder Zenger I’m on a roll :) neither of them were very happy hahaha) but yeah I also got back on a bike for a couple hours yesterday and that was fun it had been a while but President wants us on a bike at least once a day so we are trying it out. I like it - it makes me feel like a real missionary haha.

What else... o yeah so the other day we had this big family night and then we ate after and they gave me a big old heaping plate of rice, beans and pigs feet. That was a treat! haha I don’t think there is any meat on those things just a bunch of bones and you just have to suck and slurp the fat off around the bone. Pretty crazy experience it was a first for me and Elder Taylor. We just looked at it, looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and then went to town on them hahaha!!!

But yeah we are going to have a big family night tonight with our recent converts and the mom’s sister and her family so that should be way fun we are excited!

WAHOOOO!!!

Love ya,

Elder Ward

03/02/2011 - Transfers! Zone Leader again!

Companions: Elder Dennis and Elder Taylor

HOLA

Well things are going great here in Puerto Rico I LOVE IT!

This week was a great week we had our zone council which is always good so that was fun and there is a lot of crazy changes going on. One thing I’m back with Elder Dennis again but we are in a threesome with my same companion. So me, Elder Dennis, and Elder Taylor and we are all zone leaders. It’s Elder Dennis' first time as zone leader so we will all be working together but at the same time me and Elder Taylor will be working with every elder in the zone so that’s going to be pretty crazy. The first three weeks Elder Taylor will be traveling all around the zone and then the next three weeks I’ll leave and do it. It will be fun but will probably give me a bad back – haha - an air mattress for like 6 weeks! Haha! This will also be my last transfer as zone leader :) then I just get sent to San Juan area where I get to just work hard for my last 9 weeks and enjoy being a hard working missionary! WAHOOO!!! So yeah I’m excited about all that!

The week also ended super good cuz yesterday we got to go out and work with all the new Greenie missionaries that got in yesterday. So all last night me, Elder Taylor, the APs and some other Zone Leaders each took out a new missionary and it was so fun! I was way excited it reminded me of my very first day as a missionary and we just worked like crazy! We placed 3 Book of Mormons and taught a family - it was way fun. Oh and I forgot to tell you a new missionary will be coming in next transfer from Magrath Canada cool huh? (That is the town I grew up in (Karen).)

Yeah I don’t really know what to do about the whole byu-i thing. There isn’t really much I can do. But they love missionaries so I think I’ll be ok! Haha!

I got 4 out of 6 of the DVDs you sent. Yeah you got the right ones - its just everyone wants them cuz they have that new movie so they are on back order so we might have to wait a while. But yeah really I can’t think of anything for my birthday so don’t worry about it I’ve got too much junk I don’t know what I’m going to do with at the end of my mission.

That’s cool you talked to Charles. It will be fun to see him when I get back. We’ll go hunting or camping or something and then I’ll make him go to church for my homecoming talk or something cool hahaha

That’s awesome Brad got his truck finally. Is it brand new? and is it diesel?

So does Eric work at the car wash everyday? and do you still have the hispanic guy working there? What’s the ranger doing? Does anyone drive it? Do we still have it?

So where are the Jensen's from? That’s cool their boys must be about my age when do they get back? and where are they serving?

Yeah the valentine made it thank you :)

Little kids are awesome! He made a good choice of scripture haha. There’s a little 9 year old boy that we teach him and his family and he cracks me up. Last time we were at his house he was outside on the porch burning leaves with a magnifying glass and I told Elder Taylor to put his hand in the light and see how hot it was and he was just messing around and he’s like ouch! and pulls his hand away! But yeah the kid loves us and they all think I’m like the mastermind and Elder Taylor is my Hench man haha so he tells his mom that I told Elder Taylor to do it and he burnt his hand. It was pretty funny! We are always joking around with them and for some reason they think I’m a prankster and Elder Taylor just carries out what I tell him to. It’s way funny!

But yeah life is going great and we are having fun!

Love ya,

Elder Ward

02/23/2011

HOLA!!!

Yeah isn’t it crazy how fast time flies? It’s scary! and Jason is an old geezer now.

Well I don’t have that much time today but before I forget I need you to do something that I didn’t know about so you have to resubmit my application to BYU-I so what I need ya to do is get online on the Besmart website and do that for me. My sign in name is __________ and my password is _________ so yeah if you could get on and do that and then I’ll make sure President does my endorsement but if you could do that this week at least that would be awesome it shouldn’t take too long cuz its all pretty much filled in you just have to read it really quick and update some things.

Zone Council was really great. I enjoyed it. Right now we have a TON of senior couples but most of them are usually doing the work on the islands in our mission. We don’t have any young missionaries on the islands anymore but yeah Elder and Sister Button are great. I just talked to them yesterday haha.

But anyways the Rodriguez family did get baptized and they are great. We got a little scared because we had the baptism scheduled for Saturday night and they didn’t show up and she called and she was freaking out cuz her husband hadn’t gotten home from work yet and it was all crazy but then we figured it out -- he got home late because he was working and something went wrong and they couldn’t let him leave so we did the baptism after church on Sunday and that was great I loved it :)

The CDs haven’t gotten here yet but they could have come today but I know they weren’t there yesterday. But don’t worry I go to the office a lot so I should find out pretty soon :)

Sounds like you’re all having fun and that it’s starting to get closer to spring. Haha! But we all know that the first day of spring doesn’t come until one of the best days of the year (Matthew’s Birthday is on the first day of Spring) haha so we will all just have to wait about a month or so.

I don’t really need anything for my birthday. I think I’ll be good so yeah don’t worry about sending anything really.

Things are going great here and we are really working hard and having fun. We have had a lot of success and its been great.

Love ya

Elder Ward

PS: I have seen Taken I’m not that old hahaha

The Puerto Rico San Juan Missionaries - December 2010

2/15/2011 - Zone Council

HOLA

P-day was changed to Tuesday this week so yeah but things are going good here. We have a Baptism on Saturday. They are way awesome and I’m way excited for them. We are working hard tomorrow we have our Zone Council so that should be pretty cool. Pres said we don’t have to do anything except conduct the meeting and him and a Sr. Couple will do everything else so that will be nice :).

Did you get my pictures I sent you in the mail? and Nate’s letter?

love ya

Elder Ward

02/09/2011

WOW!
This is some scary stuff I’m signing up for college – Nate’s freaking me out! Haha! and remember my other buddy Justin? Well he left on his mission March 4th so that means he has 1 month left of his mission. I always figured me and him go home about the same time :( SCARY!

Thanks for getting that all sent. It wasn’t that much money was it? I just figured it would be free doing it on your own. But thank you! :) Do you know if they said how long it takes for it to be sent cuz the members here told me it takes a while when they get it sent from online so I guess we’ll see what happens. Oh and I forgot to tell you those cds you sent me ended up working it was just that they were made for a cd player that reads mp3 files cuz that’s what you copied them as and I didn’t have one that did that so I later found that out but they all got stolen with the rest of my stuff right when I found out they worked! Haha!

hahaha yeah I think it’s so weird how old Eric is now. He’s old enough to be datin the ladies and that’s just crazy haha! He doesn’t still have a big old crazy mop on his head does he?

That’s so awesome that Corey Hall was on the winning team for a Super Bowl! Haha! Wow nuts that’s two super bowls now I’ve missed! haha kinda crazy! I don’t even know what it’s like to watch football anymore.

Sounds like your trip to Spain will be really cool! How many of the adults don’t know spanish? You guys might just have to postpone the trip and I’ll have to go instead :) haha its weird to think that I can talk Spanish.

Things are going great here. We go to Bayamon Monday and Tuesday every week and yeah there are a ton of missionaries there. There are always 6 and then everytime we go we bring 4 more for a total of 10 so yeah its pretty crazy. President also has me and my companion go to universities in Bayamon to try and talk to young adults. (this week was our first week trying that out and it was a bit of an experience. Talking to young adult Puertoricans is a tough thing to do but we’ll find a way to crack them haha) so yeah the thing in Bayamon is still on the developmental stage but it’s going good our Area is going GREAT! The Rodriguez family is going to get baptized on the 19th. We moved it back a week because he wanted to be good 100% solid on the no more drinking coffee. I think he’s been good for 5 days straight now so he’s doing great. But yeah the other people we are teaching are doing really well as well and it’s great to see. A lot of times we just wish we could be normal missionaries so all we have to worry about is our area and baptizing the families we are teaching - haha but yeah life’s great things are going well and we are having fun!

WAHOOOOO
love ya

Elder Ward

ps I don’t know how it all works but I’m pretty sure I have to do some stuff with classes soon. I guess our ecclesiastical endorsement had to be in like a week or so ago but we went and talked to president and he said he would send it in :) so yeah if you could see when I need to do classes and all that stuff that would be great thanks :)

02/02/2011

HOLA

That’s so awesome that you are having the missionaries over. I always think about that and how it will be so weird once I get home to talk to the missionaries. Haha! But yeah that’s awesome! In our mission we’ve been trying to get www.mormon.org out like crazy. When president first started talking to us he was like look for ways to do it and get it down. Haha! We bought window paint and wrote it neatly across the back window on our car! It was cool and then a bunch of missionaries got permission where there are graffiti walls in PR and wrote it there and we did the thing where you spell it with cups in the fence. it was cool! Haha! we were trying to think of so many things we also made special little cards to give to people.

We had transfers two weeks ago. I am still in Vega Baja with Elder Taylor from California. We are supposed to go to Bayamon 2 times a week but idk we are trying to get that changed. We have a meeting with president tonight and tomorrow morning so we will see what happens.

Teaching is going great. We have some great families that are really doing well. The family with the date for the 12th is progressing well and are doing great! I’m really excited for them. They are awesome. We are going to go teach them tonight with two of the recent converts from the ward so they can talk to them a bit about baptism :) (The family is a bit nervous cuz they’ve never seen a baptism haha)

I’m in a ward that has about 75 people in church a week but we are getting that up there is a lot of great people here but we are trying to get that going better now as well. We have a member that is SO SO SO awesome. He loves us so much and trusts us like crazy so he invited a ton of people over for family night and that’s where pretty much all of the families we are teaching came from either from that or referrals from people that went to that.

That’s crazy that Adam is coming home that early? He came to the mtc 3 weeks after I did so I figured he’d be coming home about the same time as me. Kinda crazy but yeah I cant wait to talk to him about his mission that will be fun.

So about the housing – I’m not sure what to do cuz we’ll probably want to move out after the first semester depending on what Jason wants to do (I haven’t talked to him) and also I still want to see if we can fix up that old farm house of grandpas and rent out the rooms and make a bit of money. (I have no idea how bad it is) Also last time we did that we signed up for two semesters and it was cheaper and then when I switched at the semester they only made me pay 100 bucks I think it was so it came out to be the same anyways so I don’t know if it would be better to sign up for 1 and then be good or buy two and sell it and change if we have to. Probably just do 1 and then we will go from there :). Did you talk to Nate about that? But yeah thanks :)

So I wanted to ask you to send me some things; first off it’s a video of the church. The office doesn’t let us order much anymore but it is the new Joseph Smith video. I don’t know if you have seen it but WOW it’s amazing. It comes in like a 4 disc pack with a bunch of stuff about the Doctrine and Covenants and a ton of other stuff but if you could get that in Spanish and send it to me that would be awesome and then also get on the computer and download all the conference talks in Spanish and put them on cds for me and send them AS FAST AS POSSIBLE :)

For my birthday I’m good - I don’t need anything. I was going to see if you could find a nice electric shaver but the weather over here makes them rust and it messes my face up here so it would probably just be better to buy one when I get back so yeah don’t worry about buying anything and if you insist on buying something buy me a razor and I’ll get it when I get home! Haha!

But yeah things are going great!
Love you guys

Elder Ward

01/26/2011

Yeah the weeks are just flying by. It’s crazy! Haha! This crazy like program thing we are doing just makes it faster I get super tired but its good! I like it.

Sounds like things are going good back home just super cold haha! I would like a little bit of that every once and a while when I think of a week of 40s I’m just like shocked and don’t even know what that’s like anymore haha.

OFF to Spain that’s going to be pretty exciting! I heard it’s really really great there! That will be fun for dad too cuz they speak a Spanish that is really weird they speak with vosotros and its all funny sounding.

Sounds like Andrea is really enjoying herself haha kinda crazy doing it double whammy (potty training the twins) haha thats funny I bet they are just really having fun =)

o yeah so before I forget - I have some stuff for you to do for me. So for fall semester at school I need to get my housing like right now so I was talking to my buddy, Elder Adam Zenger, and we are planning on living together. We are going to go to Summerset. He got his mom to do it a while ago like 3 weeks and I just kept forgetting to ask but yeah so if you could start trying to figure that out for me. We want to live in the same apartment and also if you could send Nate an email we want him to live there too so yeah if you could figure that out that would be AWESOME =)

I’ve been doing a bit better about pictures. I was going to send you some today but I forgot my cord so hopefully I remember next p-day. But yeah that’s awesome you have some. I didn’t know I sent a CD WAHOOOO but yeah I think we will be able to get some other ones too but at least we have some =) but I’ll send you more soon I promise! Haha! But yeah that picture’s pretty cool (a picture of all the missionaries in his mission) if you would have asked me like 8 months ago if I knew them all I probably would have been able to say quite a bit but now I’m getting older and more and more are coming in and I’m not sure I know a lot of them! There are quite a bit and you really never see them unless they are in your zone so yeah kinda funny!

But yeah things are going great here we moved the program we are doing now to another city so that’s going to be fun to start working there two days out of the week and here in our area we have plenty of work and good stuff going on. The investigators we are working with are progressing well so that’s fun and things are just going swell WAHOOOOO

love ya
elder ward

(A letter to Andrea)

haha yeah we have to get up way early a whole lot its nuts! But I guess that’s how it is! haha but yeah we have some baptisms planned right there close to her birthday (Kennady’s birthday is February 13) and they are awesome so we are way excited =)

The special program will be way awesome I think! The reason I like it is because I won’t have to worry about anything else I’ll have an awesome companion and I’ll just be allowed to work work work all day long way hard and just not have any leadership responsibilities. It will be AWESOME but no i don’t feel too special! Haha! President just loves our group and we are a big group so that’s probably why he’s doing it. I’m pretty sure he just looks at it like a one months worth of work bonus hahaha!

That’s crazy how fast the boys are growing up when I see them they will probably be little chatter boxes haha CRAZY!

But no I’m not really trunky if I was I wouldn’t be extending hahahaha but I know what he means you look at things like football, hunting, watching a good movie, dating girls and you think wow those are all good activities nothing wrong with them but as a missionary they are all against the rules! Hahahaha! So yeah it will be fun to do all that again but it can wait haha I LOVE MY MISSION! and it only lasts for 2 years =)

love ya
elder ward

01/19/2011

HOLA

Yeah it’s pretty crazy that time goes by so fast! I still feel like the young missionary but everyone in my zone is younger than me! Haha! Except one missionary - he goes home in 6 weeks.

Things are going great here we are still teaching that great family that came to church they are awesome and they have a baptismal date for the 12th of February so that’s exciting.

That’s crazy that everyone is after Coach Peterson haha! I hope he stays for a while too! I wonder if it’s going to affect them too much by having a new offensive coordinator.

so so about the whole picture thing I’ve got to get better we are just so busy that I haven’t really taken any. They all got stolen and it took away my drive even more to take pictures! Hahaha! But yeah I’ve taken a bit and I’ll take some more and see if I can send ya some. You have saved all the pictures that I have sent you right? Cuz a bunch of them are like my best ones so I hope you did :) o and in that picture I’m wearing a red tie with white circles on it I’m on the very far right side just past the middle to the top haha I don’t wear pink ties! Sister Alvarado doesn’t like them hahahaha :)

Yeah that would be really cool to go to Spain. I heard it’s pretty awesome there - Elder Dennis went to Europe and went to a lot of countries and said that Spain was his favorite so I bet its cool. A good buddy of mine went home today! He’s from Spain, maybe you’ll see him hahahaha

but yeah things are going good sounds like you guys are doing great

love ya
elder ward

01/12/2011

Hola Familia!

Well sounds like everything is going great back home and a lot of good missionary work. That’s awesome about Drew Guyer. I don’t know him but that’s so cool he’s going on a mission. Sounds like the missionaries in Mtn. Home are pretty good ones. And it’s so true if your not getting rejected that means your not inviting anyone to do what they need to do and that’s the whole purpose of being a missionary haha I think there are a lot of missionaries that are afraid of getting rejected so they aren’t bold.

This week we had a great week we had some awesome things happen. This Sunday we saw a way cool miracle! A lady that we had been teaching with her brother and mom well she finally came to church but the coolest thing is that she came with her husband and her daughter so I saw them and ran out and brought them into sacrament meeting. Then we went to classes and things and after principios del Evangelio class. I was talking to the husband and he said he wasn’t going to come in and stuff but he was really loving it and then I turned and was talking to some other people and some members were talking to him and then he all of a sudden turned around and walked away. I was so scared I thought they made him mad about something haha but then I realized he was crying and then he came back in and started talking to me in Priesthood about a bunch of stuff. It was great … I shared a couple scriptures to help him with his questions and now he’s all excited to listen and come to church with the WHOLE family! So that was AWESOME!

We are also doing some crazy program. I think I told you but my companion and I work in another area on Monday and Tuesday. We had some funny experiences … the Elder I was working with is brand new and doesn’t know Spanish so that was fun. We found this crazy lady and I thought it was one of their investigators we were going to and so she invites us in and we sit down on like this little cement wall and she all of a sudden sits down on the floor (we were waiting for her son to get back) but I turn to my comp and ask him who she was and he’s like I have no clue. So that’s when I realized we were in for a treat haha! Come to find out she is a less active member from about 30 years ago and she had been super offended and so she starts talking to us about all sorts of crazy stuff and she was all like a philosophical speaker and just way crazy (o yeah I forgot to tell you she was wearing like this crazy little turban thing) but anyways so she’s all crazy and then we sing a song, say a prayer and try to get the spirit there. She goes crazy philosophical again and then I start bearing my testimony about the church and then she reaches up and grabs here turban thing and she’s looking at me and I was like "oh no here it comes don’t give her anything, don’t act astonished or impressed" and then she all dramatic like rips her turban off and she didn’t have any hair it was all shaved off but I didn’t bat an eye. I finished my testimony and so that was funny and she looked a little shut down so she puts her turban back on and we tell her we have to go and I stand up and before I know it my comp has got the gate open and half way out haha! It was pretty funny and so I said bye to her and we left it was a pretty fun little experience though! Haha! (just another little mission story for ya guys)

But yeah we are doing way good working way hard and the time is just going by so fast because we are so busy. Tomorrow I have to do a training thing with the whole zone all by myself because all the district leaders and my comp are going to a meeting with pres. and he wants me to do this thing with the zone! So that’s going to be fun but yeah it’s crazy!

o yeah so my going home date is June 18 for sure now. I just figured out so I don’t even get a month over the two years haha - but yeah it will be fun I’m excited for my last 9 weeks it will be exciting with the crazy new program President wants us to do.

But anyways I think this email is pretty dang long. I better get going but love you guys and I’ll talk to you later!

Don’t have too many more snowmobiling accidents.

Elder Ward

01/05/2011 - Happy New Year!!

Well sounds like things are going pretty good. Our New Years was pretty good we didn’t go in early. President decided things weren’t too bad so we just stayed out and worked all day it was great. One of the recent converts that just got baptized gave us a bunch of food too. He’s so cool, he cracks me up. He lives right next to the ocean and a swampy lagoon so he’s going to take me hunting alligators haha! We decided that I better wait till I come back to visit him though :) it probably wouldn’t be the best missionary activity!

I can’t believe its been so cold that’s crazy. I’m a goner for sure when I get back I seriously get really really cold when it’s like 70 degrees. This is not good haha.

I got Granny's and Ruby's package. It was great! Had a bunch of good stuff in it. I haven’t got to use all my toys yet but here soon I will! Haha! But yeah you can just leave it at home waiting for me. (His candy bar with Money in it from Grandma and Grandpa.)

So about the extension … I figured a bit more out. We had zone council and interviews with president so we were all talking to him about it because out of my group there are 4 of us that are zone leaders and two that are APs so yeah we were all there and they told me it was my job to get Elder Burton to extend. We got it all figured out and asked a lot of questions to president and he said he is allowed to extend for 30 days no matter what. It’s his choice - any longer would have to get approved from the First Presidency. He also told us that he’s only going to let us extend if our whole group does it so that we can do the little thing he has planned. There are 13 missionaries in my group and what he said is that our last 10 weeks so 1 transfer and the extension we would be working in two wards all together and we wouldn’t be leaders or anything just focused on those wards and working really hard and trying to make it grow supper fast so yeah that’s the plan I hope it all goes through :)

So yeah that’s so crazy that there is so many in the family now. Was everyone there? What games did you play this year? Any hand and foot? I would love to have like one whole night to just play cards, eat food and frappe and not have to worry about getting up early the next day! haha that seems so weird to me :)

Kori’s getting married? That’s so crazy! That’s cool he was an EFY councilor - I was thinking about doing that or better I think would be OYA but yeah sounds like it works out pretty good ;) hahaha I wonder if you make pretty good money doing it … you’ll have to ask him for me. Maybe he will be engaged for 6 months and I’ll make it back in time haha That’d be cool!

Well I hope you enjoyed your vacation have fun working again!

Love Ya!

Elder Ward

December 2010 Pictures

The Puerto Rico Missionaries singing Christmas Carols in the San Juan Museum of Art!

Missionaries singing Christmas Carols at the Mall!