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

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

Week # 07/28/2009 (Adjuntas) 1st Transfer

Email Dated: July 28, 2009
PUERTO RICO
1st Transfer
Adjuntas
Companion: Elder Kolar from Cedar City, Utah

Hola Familia
so are you wondering if I am alive? well just to let you know I am haha but our p-day got canceled for Monday and moved to Tuesday and then we couldn’t find any computers so we found this university so I don’t have too much time but yeah anyway things are going great I’m loving it I’m in the coolest area in the whole mission the biggest town in my area is called Aruba its right smack dab in the middle of the island its really really cool because it’s like pretty rural and all rainforesty and up in the mountains we have the highest point of the island in our area its way cool I’ve decided that dad would way rather live here when he retires because it’s like amazing here it’s got everything sweet beaches sweet mountains warm weather and sweet jungles too and the area I am in is just a bunch of farmers and stuff and then there town stuff too its really really cool it reminds of just like Ecuador but it’s just a lot lot lot cleaner and you can drink the water and everything it’s like one of the coolest places ever I’m really excited to take you guys back here after my mission its pretty dang cool but anyways I’ll tell ya a story real quick cuz remember that’s what I liked when I read missionary emails but anyways yesterday I decided to lead us when we went tracing and it was way fun I took us off through the "campo" and so we were contacting all these people with little farm houses out into the jungle and it was really cool I don’t think the missionaries had been there before haha but anyways we were walking on these little roads in the jungle chasing lizards and such and then I saw some vines so I decided that I would show my new trainer how they swing on vines in Ecuador :) so I jump and crab a hold of a big fat one and I’m hanging there for a bit and I start to swing and then all of a sudden it broke and I fell so I decided that the only thing better about Ecuador compared to here is that the vines are a little stronger haha but my comp thought it was kinda funny but yeah so my trainers name is Elder Kolar from Cedar Utah he’s an awesome missionary he’s only been out for 8 months in the field and so his trainer is still here too haha its pretty funny I guess usually they don’t train till a little bit later but yeah we are loving it hes way cool and we have a lot of fun. but it sounds like you guys are enjoying yourselves in mountain home and Rexburg and all over the place but yeah so this is my address po box 33 Adjuntas PR 00601 so yeah I’m expecting some letters pretty soon and you guys should be getting one soon enough that I sent when I got here. o and make sure you tell everyone my address so they can send me stuff there and for boxes you just have to send them to the mission home :) but yeah life is going great except I’m pretty sure they don’t speak spanish here because they all take the ends off all the words and mumble and just ram them all together it’s like the weirdest stuff ever I never have any idea what they are saying idk how anyone does so hopefully I start catching on a little bit cuz at the moment I’m a little bit lost but I try and contacting people and a lot of times they just look at me funny cuz I don’t answer their questions but o well I’ll learn :) but the lessons on the other hand are really good cuz I can understand elder kolar when he speaks and when we are talking about the gospel it’s still hard to understand the puerto ricans but it’s not as bad but yeah so I thought I better tell dad that I’m actually even eating bananas now and I really kinda like fruit haha people always give us bananas so its kinda cool but yeah I better take off I hope things are going good and your having fun and ill talk to you next week
love ya
Elder Ward

Pictures!!!!

Little frogs!

A Pineapple Smoothie! YUMMY!

Elder Kolar & Elder Ward - doing service in Adjuntas!

Adjuntas

A Dominican Republic Hurricane!!

Leaving the DR for PR!!

Week #6 06/25/2009 (DR CCM)

Letter dated: June 25, 2009

Hola Familia
ok so I was just writing a bit and my computer got messed up on accident so I hope I don’t forget anything it was kinda funny haha but anyways so the food here is still the exact same it never changes haha its rice with beans some kind of chicken and then either beef or pork and then we have pineapple and papaya on the side (dad would be amazed at how much fruit I eat I think it’s because I’m like craving sweets and there is no way to buy and here) but yeah we have that every day except Thursday (p-day) they through it all in a bowl and add some bananas and more water and all the bones from the meat and call it soup haha I think it’s good but I like the other stuff a lot better sister Hendricks always teases me because I tell her I miss the beans and rice whenever we eat it and she just says you’ll love your mission then haha but yeah I think the main reason I like it a little bit more is because you don’t have to worry about all the bones that you accidentally chop down on when you eat the soup. but anyways yeah the time change is about 2 hours but it’s ok I got a lot more tired here than I did at Provo but I think I’m on track and the little bit of a time change through me off a bit but yeah we are doing pretty good now I think. It’s going to be really fun for Ang to get all the kids back on track haha GOOD LUCK ANG! but anyways it sounds like everyone’s having fun working on the little house it sounds like a lot of hard work but yeah I’m sure it looks great. You guys said its hot there but come here and I bet you’ll think its nothing haha jk mtn. home is a dry burning heat here it’s like step outside and you just start dripping sweat when we do service or have gym or go contacting I’m just dripping it like everywhere (that’s one thing I’m not looking forward to in the mission haha) but yeah it’s pretty crazy hot when you go outside. so Bobby Smith is here he is actually in my district so yeah I told him like three times about elder tanner but I kept forgetting to write you about it but yeah he’s here so you can tell elder tanner that. he’s a way cool kid me and him played some football yesterday two on two in the parking lot and we pretty much dominated ahha jk but he is really cool but anyways district leader isn’t to much here all you have to do is go to some meetings and you just assign people do do stuff and you have to conduct meetings and stuff it’s not that big of a deal you just do some extra stuff everyday but yeah Elder crawly is another kid in my district and he is from Orem he’s way cool and just a funny kid. right now there is 5 sister 4 of which are going to Puerto Rico and are American and then one sister that is going to Haiti and she is Haitian obviously cuz they don’t send any other missionaries there but yeah anyways. the singing was horrible last week actually for the next meeting I decided I would just have all the elders sing it was funny because there was like maybe 7 people left sitting that we sang for and then the speaker Elder Johnson who is president of the Caribbean area missions made fun of us haha but yeah it was bad. the Spanish is going ok I just pretend like I know how to speak it but I don’t think I do haha the people in the DR speak that fastest Spanish you’ve ever heard so it’s really hard to understand the whole sentence especially when they use words other than church vocab haha but I’m learning when I talk to them I always say sorry my Spanish is so bad and they says it’s really good but I think they are just being nice and have no idea what I’m saying haha. but I love speaking with people I say hi to everyone on the streets and when we are doing service its kinda funny some people just ignore me but it’s cool I just like talking to people but I really really really really wish that I could just speak fluent haha cuz it takes me an hour to spit something out :) but yeah we go to the university on Tuesdays and teach and we are doing pretty good there we gave a lady a book of Mormon this week and told her to read 3 nefi 11 and that was cool we talk to her for like 30 minutes and then a guy for like 30 minutes and they went really good so that was fun but no we don’t ever hear from them again so hopefully good things happen. but yeah we go to the temple every p-day and its really cool they do it all in English for us though and the few other people that are there that speak other languages get head phones and then they have people that speak all sorts of different languages so it’s cool. and yeah it’s definitely not white it’s like a red pink and brown and its all mixed haha. so the flu thing here isn’t a big deal no one has it and they really didn’t even say much about not touching each other so it hasn’t been any kind of problem but who knows what will happen when the Latin missionaries get here that might all change. the ccm has a ton of rooms but the middle two floors are for couple missionaries and people traveling to go to the temple and then the bottom floor is just the cafeteria and stuff but the new missionaries that come next week will be in rooms with us and they are building two new class rooms that were supposed to be done but they are nowhere close so I think we’ll have to figure something else different to do when they get here but o well it will work out but we leave to Puerto Rico on the 21st of July so less than a month isn’t that crazy I’m so excited to go :). but anyways I need you to send me Tyson Sessions mailing address in the next email please cuz I have a letter to send him and idk what the rules on the emailing other missionaries cuz at Provo they said we could and then I heard we can’t so idk so I’ll just have to see but yeah send me his address please. but yeah life is going great and I’m having fun sorry this email is a little crazy we don’t have much time so I just write when I think of something but yeah I’m really craving candy like crazy someone gave me a mike and ike (which are like my favorite I’m sure you know) but it was like a little capsule of heaven it tasted so good I want to go to the store but they haven’t taken us yet but they did say they will this next week sometime so hopefully maybe next p-day :) but yeah so I think the coolest part about this mtc is just getting out p-day we get to do service so usually we go to the park and pick up nasty trash and its way way way hot and I get all nasty but I love it cuz I get to talk to people and they usually just look at me like I’m a crazy and ask me why the heck I’m picking up all the trash but its way cool most of them think its way cool that we want to make their city look nice so they are nice to us but yeah its way fun and then on Tuesdays we go to the university like I told you and sometimes they like try and avoid us but I don’t let that happen too often ;) I usually don’t let them get away haha but yeah when we talk to them they are way nice but I feel bad cuz I like never understand what they are saying so I just look at them blankly sometimes when they tell me something and then they just laugh so yeah I need to work on my hearing what they say skills a little but I sure can tell them a lot about the church so that’s good but yeah anyways I better get going but I love you guys and I hope all is good back home and ill talk to you next week

LOVE YA
Elder Ward

Week #5 06/18/2009 (DR CCM)

Letter dated: 06/18/2009
Dominican Republic CCM
District Leader: Elder Matthew Ward
Companion: Elder Radmall

hola familia

so life here in the DR is going great and we are having fun so lets see if i can tell ya all about it before i run out of time but yeah so ill just talk a little about the day starting on the travel to the CCM (thats MTC in spanish haha boys was i wrong when we were talking about it in the car) but anyways so the first crazy thing that happened on the way to the DR is that i tried to give a man that sat next to me on the plane a book of mormon but he rejected it so that didnt get over to well haha but yeah it was kinda funny but then we had a lot of cool stuff happen on the next flight Elder Oviatt got someone to take a book of mormon and he taught her a bunch of stuff and then right after i talked to you guys on the phone we taught a group of older African American people and that went pretty good we taught them the whole 1st lesson right there in the middle of the airport and that was fun they were pretty open and receptive but one lady knew her bible pretty good and wanted to bash a little bit and i dont think elder oviatt liked that very much so that was kinda bad but we ended up leaving them with a card and committed them to call and ask for a book of mormon and call the missionaries and they said that they would so hopefully they do but then after that we went and were waiting by our terminal and then we were sitting buy a man and his wife and they were from the DR and we talked to them for a little bit and i guess he lives just down the street from the temple adn he said he tried to go inside but they wouldnt let him so then we taught him about temples and what they are and what they mean to us and it was really cool so yeah that was fun and then we gave him a card and commited him to call as well and then we are going to send the missionaries to him because he gave us our card and we told him that we wouldnt be touring the DR but he insisted that if we got a day off that we needed to call him and that he would take us all around the DR for free because he owns a BIG chunk of the tourist industry in the DR it was really cool so i have his business card and i might have to give him a call after my mission haha but anyways so yeah that was my experience there and then we landed in the DR and thats when the spanish started haha right after the plain it was spanish from then on and it is crazy because i dont understand much weve been going to classes all day and they dont speak any english in class. the teachers dont even know that good of english so its kinda crazy sometimes its really funny cuz they will tell us somethign to do and then they will leave and we all turn to eachother and try to figure out what the heck we are supposed to be doing its pretty funny but yeah the next really exciting thing that happened was sunday (o idk if i told you i dont think i did haha but im the new district leader and i have a new companion named elder Radmall) and they people that flew in are the only people here and there is like 20 of us and then like 2 elders and a sister from haiti that only speak french but we we have to take turns conducting the meetings for the week and we were the first district to go so i had to conduct and along with conducting your district has to give a special musical number well as you all know i am really horrible at the whole musical catagory but which might be hard to believe but the other 5 elders in my district are either as bad or as worse as me so in district meeting its sounds horrible and we just are really bad and half the time its just me and another elder belting it out cuz none of us can sing but we arent emberessed so we just go but anyways we had to give this musical number and so we picked "cerca dios de ti" and it was pretty hilarious it was so bad that the sister from haiti started laughing at us we had never tried it with the piano and we did it with the piano and the piano went a lot higher than we could go and it was not good haha our voices were like cracking and everything it was pretty ugly and i think for about half of it me and elder crawley were singing a horrible duet but yeah so that was that experience that was pretty fun so now on to tuesday tuesday was way fun we got to go contact people outside the mtc and so we went over to the university that is here and we stood outside and contacted people for about an hour and half and it was really cool my companion was a little shy at first but i broke him of that pretty quick because they gave us some pamphlets and said go and so i just went right after it and was talking to people like crazy it was way fun i would even cut them off when they tried to get away from me and stuff it was pretty funny i always said the same thing i said "hola como esta? nosotros podemos hablar con usted? it was funny and then i would something like this "no hablo mucho espanol pero nosotros tenemos un mensaje cincillo sobre jesucristo y su iglesia" it was pretty funny and then we would talk for a while and they would make fun of our horrible spanish and then everytime we would commit them to call and talk to the missionaries and get a book of mormon and most of them would commit but if they didnt i would bear testimony and wouldnt take no for an anwser it was pretty cool so yeah we contacted 12 people/groups and hopefully atleast a few of them call the missionaries but yeah so that was tuesday and now its thursday and we had our long awaited p-day it was great. we went to the temple first which was an experience that was way cool seeing a temple in another country (o by the way ya know how its white in all the pictures? well i dont know if its the weather or the sun or what but the marble on the outside has all turned red over time its kinda crazy, i havent been able to take any pictures yet because President doesnt want us to but he said we will get a day sometime but ill take a picture and show you its pretty crazy) but yeah so that was cool and then we went to the park down town and did some service and cleaned up all the trash and that was way fun its not a park like in the states its more like a trash pit haha but its full of people from the university and they were everywhere and they all kept asking what we were doing and we would explain who we were and stuff it was really fun some of the garbage was pretty nasty but it was well worth it so anyways thats whats happened so far i love the ccm its so fun and your always learning the food is pretty good its the exact same thing every day cereal and oatmeal for breakfast and then rice beans bread and MEAT for lunch (lunch is the biggest meal and its way good a lot of the elders dont like it very much but i think its amazing i mean you cant have a more perfect lunch i dont think it will ever get old haha) and then usually its something small like a sandwich, salid, stew, or something like that for dinner its kinda wierd but yeah. gyms pretty fun to we go outside and play valley ball, basketball, or soccer in the parkign lot and its pretty good or you can go inside and play pingpong so usually i do a little bit of everything. the weather here is crazy today was way sunny but other than that its usually a little overcast but its good the humidity is the killer part if you step outside you just start dripping so hopefully i get used to that soon but yeah its kinda crazy but i better go because i think im out of time and ive written a ton but i hope everythings going great back home and i hope i answered all your questions i think i did o yeah nevermind i almost forgot mom you should probably wait the mtc president said packages usually get here but it takes a while but i think ill live for a little while without it i would like some candy though haha its wierd ive been craving candy since i got here but yeah dont send anything yet cuz i think its pretty expensive and i want to make sure it gets here so yeah (i tell everyone they put us in the coolest mtc so they have to give us one thing bad and thats the mail haha some elders think its the food but not me :) ) but yeah so i think that gets all the questions it sounds like you all are having fun with all the rain and work haha and even BOATING!!! :) but yeah i misss you guys a ton and i cant wait to hear from you again next week

i love you guys
Elder Ward

ps your dear elder got here yesterday so it takes a little while haha

Week #4 06/13/2009 (DR CCM)

Letter dated: 06/13/2009

hola familia
I made it to the DR last night at like 12 o clock and im doing good its so so so so cool being in another country for the mtc there is only 26 missionaries here so its kinda crazy and we are all the same time so yeah its pretty cool ill tell ya all about it on thursday (thats our p-day) o and i was going to tell you that dear elder works here to if anyone was wondering so yeah you can let everyone know about that as well but yeah the DR is was cool and im way excited that i got the chance to go here instead of staying in provo but yeah i got to go but i hope you guys are having fun and ill talk to you thursday
love you guys
elder ward

PS i dont speak spanish and everyone but the missionaries do and its kinda crazy haha ive heard like 3 english words all day haha but yeah its crazy ill ttyl later though have a great day

Week #3 06/10/2009 (Provo MTC)

Letter Dated: 06/10/2009

OK to reply to everyones questions i am still Alive the sickness has not hit me or my campion yet but there are people dropping around us like flys its crazy that first week it got a little nuts but i think its going to slow down now but its really kinda crazy ill tell you about some things they have changed at the mtc to cut down on the sickness. First as you all know they stopped letting parents and family into the mtc and it is now curb side drop off its pretty crazy and they say that is a permenant change for the mtc from now on so i think its kinda cool we were the second to last group to ever do it the normal way. Next they have now gotten rid of all the silverware and and cups and plates everything we eat with is now disposible its kinda lame cuz i always break my forks and i hate it. they have also banned all contact sports because we are not aloud to touch eachother so that means no b-ball soccer or baseball because you share gloves but they havent got rid of 4 square left so we are all good :) and then lastly everywhere you walk no matter where you are you can see a hand sanitizer on the wall its pretty funny but but yeah so that first week was crazy but its slowing down now we had one in quarentee for a week but hes out now and then we had a couple that had to stay in there rooms for like 2 days i always ask them "is it the swine flue or the i need a nap flue" and then they get out the next day haha jk but i do ask them and its really funny haha but yeah anways so about the other stuff i have yet to get my sweet rolls so i dont know about that but i think i get them today because i got some package slips i just havent picked them up yet also the translator is great i just hated thumbing through that dang dictionary so this is nice but yeah so i need to tell you TODAY I AM GOING TO CALL HOME AT 4 so dont be gone because im supposed to call and let you know about my flight plans i leave thursday morning at 3 so that will be crazy but yeah im so excited to go i talked to a lady about the DR cuz she went to the mtc there and she said it was amazing she said its all one building and your classes and rooms and everythign are all on the same flour and that there is only like 50 missionaries there at a time so that should be fun and we get to go out contacting in spanish so thats going to be way fun and funning at the same time because we dont know spanish o wich riminds me about singing in spanish this is so funny i couldnt stop laughing cuz it was so funny and then i had to read it to everyone but you said that dad thinks we sing "secreta oracion" (secret prayer) but the funniest thing about that is the first day me teacher asked me what song we wanted to sing and i opened my book and the book mark was on page 80 (secreta oracion) but the best part about that is its suck a fun song to sing i make us sing it every day at least once and its like our district song now so thats why its son funny but yeah i couldnt stop laughing another good one is 88 i dont remember the name but we sing that one a lot too because its only in spanish it doesnt exist in the english book and its a good one so we sign it a tone but yeah so i was thinking about a scripture and i have to really good ones Alma 26: 12 and Alma 29: 9 so you read them and tell me what you like best but im thinking Alma 29:9 sorry it took me so long to write and tell you though i kept forgetting haha but yeah so look at those o i took so more good pictures so hopefully i can get them sent today so that i dont have to send them from the DR but yeah so look for those o and i almost forgot so adam and chris come in on the 10th maybe ill be a curb side helper so that would be cool but if not i have that dinner to find them so hopefully i can cuz that would be way fun and ive seen some people that i kinda met at school but no one i really knew to well except Been Wheeler from mountain home him and a kid from school are companions and i see them all the time which is kinda cool but yeah so anyways other than that i havent see anyone but hopefully i get to see adam and chris cuz that would be way cool. but yeah it sounds like homes been fun and kinda crazy at the same time the rain hasnt gotten that bad at all here but yeah i guess ill be getting plenty of rain in a few months but if jason is getting after dad to get the boat out now i could see it maybe happing about mid july hahaha jk hopefully you guys get to go a lot this year and you could even use your brand new cabin so that will be fun im expecting it to be all finished and done for when i get back so tell brad and dad to get to work. well im about to run out of time so i better get going but ill talk to you on the phone around 4 so dont forget but i only get like 5 minutes but yeah so ill talk to you then i hope you guys are doing good and having fun
I love ya
Elder Ward

Week #2 06/02/2009 (Provo MTC)

Letter dated: 06/02/09
Hey guys
the mtc is going great and im having a lot of fun i havent got the translater yet but im sure it will come in no time. i was going to ask you if you sent me those sweet rolls yet from shelly because i was talking about them with Elder Oviatt (my companion) and then one of the other guys said he got some from some lady he didnt know but it was addressed to him and everything so if it did go to him that would be really funny we were just curious. But anyways is wierd that i only get to write to you guys on p-days its hard to remember everythign that happens during the weeks and remember all that you guys said during the letter you sent me but anyways about the missionaries in my zone we have three districts and the third one just left yesterday wich had 2 elders and 4 sisters me and elder oviatt were kinda bumbed when they left because the two brothers were are best buddies and they all went to chile they were the last people that made it out of the mtc before they stopped travel because of swine flue. Then we have the second oldest district and there is like 10 of them and they are all going to mexico and cali. i think and they are supposed to leave on the 15 4 days after us but they say because of the travel stop and the swine flue and stuff that no one is going to be leaving the mtc till the 15 so well see if we get out. In my district there is 10 of us there used to be 12 but 2 got moved up to intermediat and so the ten of us are left and me and elder oviatt are the only ones going to puerto rico the rest are going to argentina and colombia. Me and elder oviatt decided that we would hunt down the other puerto rico missioaries and i think we found a lot of them weve met a ton of people going to both the east and the west side of puerto rico but i think in our travel group there is 8 of us total going so that should be fun. its kinda wierd youd think they would put all the puerto rico missionaries in one district but they have us all spread out but yeah so i guess i should probably tell ya that i am alive and the swine flue hasnt got me yet but last week at church there was like only 15 of us in sacrament but i was kinda happy because me and elder oviatt and the district that left had to sing for it and so i was glad everyone was gone. I mean you guys have heard me sing in english and thats bad enough you should hear the spanish singing it might make your ears bleed haha but yeah so its hard to remember what to talk about because they only give us a little bit of time and i keep a good journal but i dont have time to read through it while im typing. o and tell andrea i forgot to bring her email to the computer with me so i wont be able to send her one this time but i promise i will next time and ill try and write some letters today to if i have time. its kinda crazy cuz on p-days we are still way busy like we have to do all our laundry and that stuff and we have study for like 3-4 hours and we go to the temple and we have devotional so its kinda crazy i thought p-day would be like just a day off but its not one bit in the mtc haha. but yeah so it sounds like adams fair well was pretty good im excited to get to see hime i really hope i do its going to be cool its kinda crazy though because i dont know if they are going to let his family come in they told us yesterday that all the missionaries that are comming in this week that their familys arent going to be aloud to come inside any of the building because of all this swine flue stuff so if thats the case i feel really bad for them but who knows maybe it will all be cleared up by then. thats really cool that you guys got to go to a live session in the salt lake i heard that its really cool and kinda crazy. everyone says that they are going to shut the salt lake temple down for some refurbishing for a pretty long time idk if thats true or not but i thought that was kinda crazy. well i better get goin before i run out of time but i will try and write some letters today. the mission is going great and im enjoying my self its a lot of hard work but i love it. and i love you guys to thank you so much for all the letters and all that good stuff i love getting letters its the bomb haha well you guys have a great day and dont have to much fun and ill probably write some letters right after i sanatize my keyboard hahaha
LOVE YA Elder Ward