Ponce Time
Typhoon Update .....
14 years ago
Monday, May 24, 2010
05/24/2010 (Cabo Rojo)
Wow that’s awesome they had their baby. (Brad (Matthew's cousin) & Brittany had a baby boy on May 21st) Let me know when they name him :) Pretty exciting -- but is he considered my cousin I don’t know how that works or is he my second cousin I’m not very good at that haha!
So Puerto Rico is awesome! Cabo Rojo is great! The guy I was teaching is getting baptized this Saturday and the other one had to go to the states for a couple weeks so he will be back in not too long and then he should get baptized as well (He’s talking about people he was teaching in his old area, Mayaguez).
But yeah so I’m way far away from the mission home about as far as I can get. haha The mission home is in Bayamon like right next to San Juan. Cabo Rojo is a cool place there are two wards in this area and they are probably the strongest wards in the island which is awesome our bishop is a pretty cool guy he was like way way way inactive for a while and then someone reactivated him and two weeks later he was called to be a Bishop. It’s pretty cool, he’s an awesome guy.
Zone Conference is just a big meeting with the whole zone and president talks and we learn and Zone Conferences are awesome.
I love being here in Cabo Rojo we are doing pretty good we have an awesome family that will be getting married on the 12th and baptized on the 19th and then we also found some others that are really awesome as well and should progress really soon. I love living with 4 elders! It’s pretty cool except it means that our area is way far away so we have to ride our bikes super far just to start working in our area but yeah its good it keeps us on our toes haha :) but yeah the mission rocks we are doing great and I’m excited for the family we are teaching WAHHOOO!
Love ya
Elder Ward
ps: stay out of the snow and thanks for ordering that I’m excited to see how they are haha :) (I ordered Matthew some Polyester Ties off of Ebay! The small and simple things that make a missionary happy!)
So Puerto Rico is awesome! Cabo Rojo is great! The guy I was teaching is getting baptized this Saturday and the other one had to go to the states for a couple weeks so he will be back in not too long and then he should get baptized as well (He’s talking about people he was teaching in his old area, Mayaguez).
But yeah so I’m way far away from the mission home about as far as I can get. haha The mission home is in Bayamon like right next to San Juan. Cabo Rojo is a cool place there are two wards in this area and they are probably the strongest wards in the island which is awesome our bishop is a pretty cool guy he was like way way way inactive for a while and then someone reactivated him and two weeks later he was called to be a Bishop. It’s pretty cool, he’s an awesome guy.
Zone Conference is just a big meeting with the whole zone and president talks and we learn and Zone Conferences are awesome.
I love being here in Cabo Rojo we are doing pretty good we have an awesome family that will be getting married on the 12th and baptized on the 19th and then we also found some others that are really awesome as well and should progress really soon. I love living with 4 elders! It’s pretty cool except it means that our area is way far away so we have to ride our bikes super far just to start working in our area but yeah its good it keeps us on our toes haha :) but yeah the mission rocks we are doing great and I’m excited for the family we are teaching WAHHOOO!
Love ya
Elder Ward
ps: stay out of the snow and thanks for ordering that I’m excited to see how they are haha :) (I ordered Matthew some Polyester Ties off of Ebay! The small and simple things that make a missionary happy!)
Monday, May 17, 2010
05/17/2010 New area: Cabo Rojo (7th Transfer)
Transfered to: Cabo Rojo
New Companion: Elder Simons from Pocatello
05/17/2010
Ok so to start everything off they ended up sending me to Cabo Rojo on Wednesday so I've been here for a while! Kind of crazy hu? But i'm way excited this area is so awesome. I love it here! It’s an awesome Ward and just a really cool area. My new companion’s name is Elder Simons and he is from IDAHO WAHOOO!!! He’s actually from Pocatello and I’m pretty sure he graduated the same year as Nate -- cool hu?
But yeah so I don’t know if they baptized anyone in my old area but I will find out tomorrow :) cuz tomorrow is Zone Conference. We have a really really cool family that is going to get baptized on the 19th (June) and they are going to get married on the 12th . We are so stoked about that! They are the coolest family ever! They have 5 kids and two of them are older than 8. It is going to be great. I’m pretty excited about it!
O yeah - I’m living in an apartment with 4 missionaries now too and it’s so much cooler! I love it – it’s pretty fun. So what is dad taking a class on? I didn’t understand that word you said (Mediation)! Haha but sounds like fun I've never been to Moscow AND I WAS BORN THERE!!!
Sounds like things are going crazy but yeah I better get going sorry I cant write much today and I still haven’t sent you those pictures but I’ll do it soon :)
love you guys
Elder Ward
ps don’t have anymore parties with the druggys and did you find some ties? :)
New Companion: Elder Simons from Pocatello
05/17/2010
Ok so to start everything off they ended up sending me to Cabo Rojo on Wednesday so I've been here for a while! Kind of crazy hu? But i'm way excited this area is so awesome. I love it here! It’s an awesome Ward and just a really cool area. My new companion’s name is Elder Simons and he is from IDAHO WAHOOO!!! He’s actually from Pocatello and I’m pretty sure he graduated the same year as Nate -- cool hu?
But yeah so I don’t know if they baptized anyone in my old area but I will find out tomorrow :) cuz tomorrow is Zone Conference. We have a really really cool family that is going to get baptized on the 19th (June) and they are going to get married on the 12th . We are so stoked about that! They are the coolest family ever! They have 5 kids and two of them are older than 8. It is going to be great. I’m pretty excited about it!
O yeah - I’m living in an apartment with 4 missionaries now too and it’s so much cooler! I love it – it’s pretty fun. So what is dad taking a class on? I didn’t understand that word you said (Mediation)! Haha but sounds like fun I've never been to Moscow AND I WAS BORN THERE!!!
Sounds like things are going crazy but yeah I better get going sorry I cant write much today and I still haven’t sent you those pictures but I’ll do it soon :)
love you guys
Elder Ward
ps don’t have anymore parties with the druggys and did you find some ties? :)
Monday, May 3, 2010
A Spanish Email to Matt's Dad!! 05/03/2010
(This is for those of you who know Spanish!)
CHACHO PAPI
Estoy viejo ya! estoy llegando a un ano. pero me encanta mayaguez en verdad es bien chevere. nuestros investigadores son buenisimo y tienen fechas bautismales este 15 de mayo. el verano esta viniendo y van para las montanas eso es bueno. ya pranto van a cazar wow es estrano que ya hace un ano. suena que Brad este bien y que vayan a tener que trabajar bien duro para cabar mi casita alli en las montanas. pero si aqui los miembros son bien chevere in nos invitan a comer y todo y siempre salen con nosotros para trabajar. en nuestra mission nosotros tocamos puertas un monton pero este translado no he tocado muchas puertas porque a mi companero no le gusta pero estamos trabajando con eso y tocamos algunas hora cada semana pero si todo esta bien y tengo animo para llamarles este domingo
les amo
elder ward
CHACHO PAPI
Estoy viejo ya! estoy llegando a un ano. pero me encanta mayaguez en verdad es bien chevere. nuestros investigadores son buenisimo y tienen fechas bautismales este 15 de mayo. el verano esta viniendo y van para las montanas eso es bueno. ya pranto van a cazar wow es estrano que ya hace un ano. suena que Brad este bien y que vayan a tener que trabajar bien duro para cabar mi casita alli en las montanas. pero si aqui los miembros son bien chevere in nos invitan a comer y todo y siempre salen con nosotros para trabajar. en nuestra mission nosotros tocamos puertas un monton pero este translado no he tocado muchas puertas porque a mi companero no le gusta pero estamos trabajando con eso y tocamos algunas hora cada semana pero si todo esta bien y tengo animo para llamarles este domingo
les amo
elder ward
05/03/2010 (Mayaguez)
HOLA FAMILIA!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!!!!
Haha! Sounds like you guys had a fun little college party haha did it remind you of the old days? So Women’s Conference was pretty good huh? But you’re not allowed to say that you didn’t teach us enough because we’ve all gone to the temple so far and me and Jase are on missions so you guys had to do something right haha ;)
But anyways last week was really cool! Crash Boat last p-day was pretty awesome except I saw all the people body boarding and I was like wow that looks really fun so I decided a long time ago that after my mission I'm coming to Puerto Rico to surf and go to the beach!
But after p-day the week was really good as well we taught some really good lessons and we have two investigators that will be baptized on the 15th so we are pretty excited about that. I can’t wait! I just hope I don’t get transferred next week – haha! But yeah what else … pretty much just the same we are working hard and doing great.
O yeah so I’ll probably call Thursday and if not Thursday then Friday to make sure that everything is working like I did on Christmas and then we can set up everything for Mother’s Day when I call you for real!
O yeah I was also going to ask if you checked eBay again?
Well I think that’s about all I got for this week I hope you are all doing great and I will talk to you soon!
Love ya,
Elder Ward
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!!!!
Haha! Sounds like you guys had a fun little college party haha did it remind you of the old days? So Women’s Conference was pretty good huh? But you’re not allowed to say that you didn’t teach us enough because we’ve all gone to the temple so far and me and Jase are on missions so you guys had to do something right haha ;)
But anyways last week was really cool! Crash Boat last p-day was pretty awesome except I saw all the people body boarding and I was like wow that looks really fun so I decided a long time ago that after my mission I'm coming to Puerto Rico to surf and go to the beach!
But after p-day the week was really good as well we taught some really good lessons and we have two investigators that will be baptized on the 15th so we are pretty excited about that. I can’t wait! I just hope I don’t get transferred next week – haha! But yeah what else … pretty much just the same we are working hard and doing great.
O yeah so I’ll probably call Thursday and if not Thursday then Friday to make sure that everything is working like I did on Christmas and then we can set up everything for Mother’s Day when I call you for real!
O yeah I was also going to ask if you checked eBay again?
Well I think that’s about all I got for this week I hope you are all doing great and I will talk to you soon!
Love ya,
Elder Ward
Monday, April 26, 2010
04/26/2010 (Mayaguez)
HOLA FAMILIA
Well everything here in PR is going great. We have the same awesome investigator! haha He is so cool! Yesterday we went to his house and he is like a professional in all the martial arts and mma and all that stuff and he travels all over the world and he was talking to us after the lesson and talking about all the fighting stuff and my companion, he’s a funny guy, well he thought he would show this youth that we had with us some fighting moves. Well he went and he lifted his leg up and when he did he completely ripped out his pants. It was so so so funny! But the guy had some dress pants that he doesn’t wear anymore so he gave us like 4 pairs. It was pretty cool. I told my comp that he should teach fighting moves a little more often and maybe we’d get some more free stuff! hahaha
But anyways, that’s really cool about the football players. Idaho athletics are moving up in the world haha :) but yeah I don’t know anything about what goes on in the sports world because no one here in Puerto Rico watches anything but baseball, boxing, and basketball so yeah I don’t ever get any news! (Kyle Wilson (BSU) and Iupati (U of I) got drafted into the NFL in the first round draft pick! - Kyle Wilson is going to play on the NY Jets and Iupati the 49ers.)
o yeah … so for mother’s day I’ll just do the same thing I did at Christmas and I will call. I'm pretty sure that they are going to have us call the day before again to make sure it works and to set everything up but yeah I'm not sure but I think I will be doing that. I was wondering how I will call Jason? We should figure something out about that haha but yeah when is he going to be calling you guys?
But that’s cool about Brian and Brandt. Haha! I'm going to have to find a good job when I get back from my mission or I’ll be hurting when I go to college.
o and Nate is in Korea right now and then he is going to go to Ukraine with Jared to teach English for like 4 months so yeah they will leave for Ukraine in July but I look at it as a really good thing because I doubt either of them will get married in Ukraine so they’ll still be free birds when I get back hopefully.
But anyways life is going great here we are working hard and teaching a lot of people and yeah it’s great. Today I get to go to CRASH BOAT I’m excited! (I looked on the internet and found out that Crash Boat is a beautiful beach in Puerto Rico!)
Love you guys
Elder Ward
Well everything here in PR is going great. We have the same awesome investigator! haha He is so cool! Yesterday we went to his house and he is like a professional in all the martial arts and mma and all that stuff and he travels all over the world and he was talking to us after the lesson and talking about all the fighting stuff and my companion, he’s a funny guy, well he thought he would show this youth that we had with us some fighting moves. Well he went and he lifted his leg up and when he did he completely ripped out his pants. It was so so so funny! But the guy had some dress pants that he doesn’t wear anymore so he gave us like 4 pairs. It was pretty cool. I told my comp that he should teach fighting moves a little more often and maybe we’d get some more free stuff! hahaha
But anyways, that’s really cool about the football players. Idaho athletics are moving up in the world haha :) but yeah I don’t know anything about what goes on in the sports world because no one here in Puerto Rico watches anything but baseball, boxing, and basketball so yeah I don’t ever get any news! (Kyle Wilson (BSU) and Iupati (U of I) got drafted into the NFL in the first round draft pick! - Kyle Wilson is going to play on the NY Jets and Iupati the 49ers.)
o yeah … so for mother’s day I’ll just do the same thing I did at Christmas and I will call. I'm pretty sure that they are going to have us call the day before again to make sure it works and to set everything up but yeah I'm not sure but I think I will be doing that. I was wondering how I will call Jason? We should figure something out about that haha but yeah when is he going to be calling you guys?
But that’s cool about Brian and Brandt. Haha! I'm going to have to find a good job when I get back from my mission or I’ll be hurting when I go to college.
o and Nate is in Korea right now and then he is going to go to Ukraine with Jared to teach English for like 4 months so yeah they will leave for Ukraine in July but I look at it as a really good thing because I doubt either of them will get married in Ukraine so they’ll still be free birds when I get back hopefully.
But anyways life is going great here we are working hard and teaching a lot of people and yeah it’s great. Today I get to go to CRASH BOAT I’m excited! (I looked on the internet and found out that Crash Boat is a beautiful beach in Puerto Rico!)
Love you guys
Elder Ward
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
04/20/2010 (Mayaguez)
HOLA FAMILIA
CHACHO!!! (that means WOW! in Puerto Rico haha and it’s going to be hard for me to quit using that word when I get back I think haha) but it sounds like things are going good and crazy back home. Missionaries coming home and leaving and volcanoes and airplanes! haha Sounds pretty exciting!!
This week has been really good for us. We had some cool experiences. First off one of our investigators, William Lopez, he’s an awesome guy. His friend is a member and he’s been going to the church a lot to help with the unemployment program here. All of a sudden one day he walked up to us and we didn’t know who he was or anything and he said I want to be baptized so we told him alright we’ll see what we can do to help him. Haha! It was awesome! So then the first time we went to the church to teach him and we sat down and he said ok what do I have to do to get baptized haha it was crazy! I didn’t think I would have an experience like this in Puerto Rico!) But we explained what a testimony is and how that all works and how he has to gain a testimony for himself and then we taught him the first lesson and read and prayed and all that good stuff! So he came back and he said after the lesson he was reading and he prayed and he asked to know if he was doing the right things. He said he really didn’t get an answer until right after he decided to go to Walgreens and his ex-wife and daughter that he hasn’t seen for like 3 years was there and she yelled at him and said come over and see your daughter and that she wanted him to be a part of her life and that she was going to let him see her once a week. So he came back two days later for the second lesson and he said he got his testimony and he was telling us all this stuff. He’s learned about the church and it was really awesome he is a way way way smart guy. He’s a doctor but an herbal natural doctor (I think kinda like Wendy’s friend but he does a lot of chiropractic stuff too). But yeah it was really cool and he asked us if we could baptize him that day but we told him we have to wait and teach more and keep praying and reading and yeah it was really cool. The only bad thing is that he has cancer and he gets really sick. So Sunday he ended up not making it to church and we couldn’t teach him one day but we saw him yesterday and he’s doing better again and really excited for his next lesson. It’s been a pretty awesome experience.
And now a funny experience … so two nights ago we went to a lesson and we had to leave to go eat dinner with some members. We were supposed to take the other missionaries to eat with us but when we called them a member answered their phone so we thought they were just joking. But I guess some how they accidently did something with the phone and the lines got crossed so every time you called the missionaries it was the member’s phone. But we were late and my comp thought the members were joking and so he was getting super mad and we couldn’t find the missionaries and then they called and we were already there and my comp was still all mad and then the other missionaries were getting all mad cuz they didn’t know what happened either, So everyone was getting all ticked off and I was trying to calm them all down and remind them of President Monson’s talk about not getting mad cuz anger only destroys. It was a pretty crazy night but at the end we gave them a ride home and everyone figured everything out and my companion said he learned his valuable lesson of not getting mad no matter what the situation. It was a nice little mission learning experience but yeah it’ll be one I’ll have to expound on for you guys when I get home. :)
But other than that, things are going great and we are having fun. Don’t worry about the ties just keep checking they’ll come on every once in a while just make sure they are polyester and old and not clip ons haha. My buddy accidently got some clip ons.
It’s really hot and we have been doing a lot of service and I ate a chilly and then worked in the sun all day and fried my upper lip really bad. We all got a good taste of picapica … the worst plant in the world … worse than stinging needle! Haha!
Tell Kori I said hi! I can’t believe that he’s home. Chacho that’s crazy and today I’ve been a missionary for 11 months :( time really does fly! Well I’ve got to go but I love you guys and have a great week!
Elder Ward
CHACHO!!! (that means WOW! in Puerto Rico haha and it’s going to be hard for me to quit using that word when I get back I think haha) but it sounds like things are going good and crazy back home. Missionaries coming home and leaving and volcanoes and airplanes! haha Sounds pretty exciting!!
This week has been really good for us. We had some cool experiences. First off one of our investigators, William Lopez, he’s an awesome guy. His friend is a member and he’s been going to the church a lot to help with the unemployment program here. All of a sudden one day he walked up to us and we didn’t know who he was or anything and he said I want to be baptized so we told him alright we’ll see what we can do to help him. Haha! It was awesome! So then the first time we went to the church to teach him and we sat down and he said ok what do I have to do to get baptized haha it was crazy! I didn’t think I would have an experience like this in Puerto Rico!) But we explained what a testimony is and how that all works and how he has to gain a testimony for himself and then we taught him the first lesson and read and prayed and all that good stuff! So he came back and he said after the lesson he was reading and he prayed and he asked to know if he was doing the right things. He said he really didn’t get an answer until right after he decided to go to Walgreens and his ex-wife and daughter that he hasn’t seen for like 3 years was there and she yelled at him and said come over and see your daughter and that she wanted him to be a part of her life and that she was going to let him see her once a week. So he came back two days later for the second lesson and he said he got his testimony and he was telling us all this stuff. He’s learned about the church and it was really awesome he is a way way way smart guy. He’s a doctor but an herbal natural doctor (I think kinda like Wendy’s friend but he does a lot of chiropractic stuff too). But yeah it was really cool and he asked us if we could baptize him that day but we told him we have to wait and teach more and keep praying and reading and yeah it was really cool. The only bad thing is that he has cancer and he gets really sick. So Sunday he ended up not making it to church and we couldn’t teach him one day but we saw him yesterday and he’s doing better again and really excited for his next lesson. It’s been a pretty awesome experience.
And now a funny experience … so two nights ago we went to a lesson and we had to leave to go eat dinner with some members. We were supposed to take the other missionaries to eat with us but when we called them a member answered their phone so we thought they were just joking. But I guess some how they accidently did something with the phone and the lines got crossed so every time you called the missionaries it was the member’s phone. But we were late and my comp thought the members were joking and so he was getting super mad and we couldn’t find the missionaries and then they called and we were already there and my comp was still all mad and then the other missionaries were getting all mad cuz they didn’t know what happened either, So everyone was getting all ticked off and I was trying to calm them all down and remind them of President Monson’s talk about not getting mad cuz anger only destroys. It was a pretty crazy night but at the end we gave them a ride home and everyone figured everything out and my companion said he learned his valuable lesson of not getting mad no matter what the situation. It was a nice little mission learning experience but yeah it’ll be one I’ll have to expound on for you guys when I get home. :)
But other than that, things are going great and we are having fun. Don’t worry about the ties just keep checking they’ll come on every once in a while just make sure they are polyester and old and not clip ons haha. My buddy accidently got some clip ons.
It’s really hot and we have been doing a lot of service and I ate a chilly and then worked in the sun all day and fried my upper lip really bad. We all got a good taste of picapica … the worst plant in the world … worse than stinging needle! Haha!
Tell Kori I said hi! I can’t believe that he’s home. Chacho that’s crazy and today I’ve been a missionary for 11 months :( time really does fly! Well I’ve got to go but I love you guys and have a great week!
Elder Ward
Monday, April 12, 2010
04/12/2010 (Mayaguez)
HEY FAMILIA!
So everything is going just great here in Mayaguez. It’s wonderful yeah -- Elder Christensen was here for 3 transfers before I got here and so yeah I know him. Right before he left he told me he left me some good food so that was rather nice of him! Haha! But yeah we are doing great Margarita still has her baptismal date but what happened was that when Elder Christensen left they put 3 new missionaries in the ward and split the area. So Margarita is in the other side so really I have never taught her but I have talked to her at church. She is an old lady that has been going to church for about 2 years. The only reason she hasn’t been baptized yet is because she cant quite give up her last little half cup of coffee she drinks every morning but she will do it soon I think and we are praying for her :)...
The other people in the area are great! We are teaching an awesome family that includes a mom and three young boys and they are awesome. They live in the same house as a member so it’s really cool! We are teaching them and she is always going to church so I’m pretty sure we will set a baptismal date with her pretty soon. Then we have another family that goes to another church but we have been teaching them and yesterday we went over with a member to teach them and the coolest thing about the member we took is that she was a founder of the church they go to! Haha! so I really really think her testimony helped and they will start progressing really soon :) other than that we have had some really good experiences and some new people that we have found and are teaching so yeah this week should be really awesome and I’m way excited to teach :)
So Andrea and Bill’s house looks way awesome. I want to go visit before they sell it! Haha! o well I guess just tell them if they sell it they have to buy a really cool different house! :) But yeah sounds like you guys had a good trip and things are going good in Mtn. Home! It’s also crazy to think that Bishop Price has not been bishop for a whole year isn’t that kinda crazy? but yeah I don’t know what else to tell ya haha I think we are going to go to one of the nicest beaches in Puerto Rico today! I’m not sure exactly but I think we are so if we do I’ll take some good pictures and send them to you guys next week... my shoes are going great no problems I think my black ones might last my whole mission I have my fingers crossed and I’m praying haha.... but yeah well I better get going but you guys have a great week!
I love ya
Elder Ward
O yeah just send stuff to the office it’s a lot easier that way :) love ya
PS: O yeah mom I wanted to ask you a favor. So the best ties in the world to have on the mission are the old polyester ties and I figured out how to get them. I guess you can get on eBay and buy boxes of like between 15-50 ties for really cheap like $.50-$1.50 for every tie so that would be awesome if you could get on there and buy me a box and send it to me and then I can send some to Jason too if you want so that we only have to pay shipping once. but yeah there’s a missionary that’s always getting boxes of them from eBay and they are like the coolest ties ever and they are durable so if you could do that I would appreciate it :)
Love ya!
So everything is going just great here in Mayaguez. It’s wonderful yeah -- Elder Christensen was here for 3 transfers before I got here and so yeah I know him. Right before he left he told me he left me some good food so that was rather nice of him! Haha! But yeah we are doing great Margarita still has her baptismal date but what happened was that when Elder Christensen left they put 3 new missionaries in the ward and split the area. So Margarita is in the other side so really I have never taught her but I have talked to her at church. She is an old lady that has been going to church for about 2 years. The only reason she hasn’t been baptized yet is because she cant quite give up her last little half cup of coffee she drinks every morning but she will do it soon I think and we are praying for her :)...
The other people in the area are great! We are teaching an awesome family that includes a mom and three young boys and they are awesome. They live in the same house as a member so it’s really cool! We are teaching them and she is always going to church so I’m pretty sure we will set a baptismal date with her pretty soon. Then we have another family that goes to another church but we have been teaching them and yesterday we went over with a member to teach them and the coolest thing about the member we took is that she was a founder of the church they go to! Haha! so I really really think her testimony helped and they will start progressing really soon :) other than that we have had some really good experiences and some new people that we have found and are teaching so yeah this week should be really awesome and I’m way excited to teach :)
So Andrea and Bill’s house looks way awesome. I want to go visit before they sell it! Haha! o well I guess just tell them if they sell it they have to buy a really cool different house! :) But yeah sounds like you guys had a good trip and things are going good in Mtn. Home! It’s also crazy to think that Bishop Price has not been bishop for a whole year isn’t that kinda crazy? but yeah I don’t know what else to tell ya haha I think we are going to go to one of the nicest beaches in Puerto Rico today! I’m not sure exactly but I think we are so if we do I’ll take some good pictures and send them to you guys next week... my shoes are going great no problems I think my black ones might last my whole mission I have my fingers crossed and I’m praying haha.... but yeah well I better get going but you guys have a great week!
I love ya
Elder Ward
O yeah just send stuff to the office it’s a lot easier that way :) love ya
PS: O yeah mom I wanted to ask you a favor. So the best ties in the world to have on the mission are the old polyester ties and I figured out how to get them. I guess you can get on eBay and buy boxes of like between 15-50 ties for really cheap like $.50-$1.50 for every tie so that would be awesome if you could get on there and buy me a box and send it to me and then I can send some to Jason too if you want so that we only have to pay shipping once. but yeah there’s a missionary that’s always getting boxes of them from eBay and they are like the coolest ties ever and they are durable so if you could do that I would appreciate it :)
Love ya!
Monday, April 5, 2010
I Love Pics!!!
Birthday Cupcake Bonfire - Elder Ward turns 20!!!
Give a bunch of Elders B-day hats and this is what you get ...
A few ninjas assembling bunkbeds!
Coloring Easter Eggs!
04/05/2010 New Area: Mayaguez (6th Transfer)
Transfer #6
Area: Mayaguez
Comp: Elder Rivera
HEY GUYS!
ok sorry it’s been a little bit what happens here in the Catholic capital of the world is semana santa (holy week) and during holy week everything closes down and everyone eats fish and so i couldn’t email cuz the library was closed and everyone was off eating fish haha
but anyways I’m currently living in Mayaguez right now since Wednesday. i was really bummed to leave a lot of the people that we had found in Ponce including the man that had the baptismal date. we found him and he felt so bad that we hadn’t taught him for a while so i think he will probably progress again with Elder Wilson but yeah and then another guy named Juan is just amazing and I’m excited to hear if he gets baptized.
This week has been way crazy because we had to do all the moving stuff … helping all these people move, building bunkbeds and just crazyness and then we had a normal work day FINALY this Friday and it was good I got to get out and work hard in the new area and we had conference WHICH WAS GREAT! they talked a ton about families and wow it was a great conference. for some reason i just got the feeling like the times are only going to get worse and worse as we get closer to the last days and they were just advising us to be strong do things we need to strengthen ourselves and our families and just seguir adalante like they say over here haha
but yeah I’m really excited to be here in Mayaguez. its another giant city but on the awesome side of the Island. I’m on the west side and really close to some of the nicest beaches in PR and i live a rock throwing distance from the ocean but yeah everything is going great. My new comps name is Elder Rivera from El Salvador and he is great. Its awesome having a latin comp because my Spanish is getting even better :)
well i got to go but it sounds like you guys had fun in England. o and i also thought it was funny about Jason because all the stuff he asked for is stuff you learn you want on the mission and i should have told him haha cuz i wear short socks a lot, the watch thing, and everyone always get the PMG shrunk they do say its illegal but all the missionaries get them haha but yeah ill talk to you guys later
love ya
elder ward
Area: Mayaguez
Comp: Elder Rivera
HEY GUYS!
ok sorry it’s been a little bit what happens here in the Catholic capital of the world is semana santa (holy week) and during holy week everything closes down and everyone eats fish and so i couldn’t email cuz the library was closed and everyone was off eating fish haha
but anyways I’m currently living in Mayaguez right now since Wednesday. i was really bummed to leave a lot of the people that we had found in Ponce including the man that had the baptismal date. we found him and he felt so bad that we hadn’t taught him for a while so i think he will probably progress again with Elder Wilson but yeah and then another guy named Juan is just amazing and I’m excited to hear if he gets baptized.
This week has been way crazy because we had to do all the moving stuff … helping all these people move, building bunkbeds and just crazyness and then we had a normal work day FINALY this Friday and it was good I got to get out and work hard in the new area and we had conference WHICH WAS GREAT! they talked a ton about families and wow it was a great conference. for some reason i just got the feeling like the times are only going to get worse and worse as we get closer to the last days and they were just advising us to be strong do things we need to strengthen ourselves and our families and just seguir adalante like they say over here haha
but yeah I’m really excited to be here in Mayaguez. its another giant city but on the awesome side of the Island. I’m on the west side and really close to some of the nicest beaches in PR and i live a rock throwing distance from the ocean but yeah everything is going great. My new comps name is Elder Rivera from El Salvador and he is great. Its awesome having a latin comp because my Spanish is getting even better :)
well i got to go but it sounds like you guys had fun in England. o and i also thought it was funny about Jason because all the stuff he asked for is stuff you learn you want on the mission and i should have told him haha cuz i wear short socks a lot, the watch thing, and everyone always get the PMG shrunk they do say its illegal but all the missionaries get them haha but yeah ill talk to you guys later
love ya
elder ward
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
03/23/2010 (Ponce, PR)
YA MADE IT!
wow i cant believe you guys are over there again (in England) and I'm 20 years old can you believe that? I'm an old fart haha i don't like being old its so weird but yeah anyways everything is going good and i did get your package it was awesome! thank you so so much i loved the calendar and the missionary card it was awesome but yeah thank you so so much i loved it and the cookies were great! i love homemade cookies so if you send any more packages just skip the candy and send me cookies haha they are cheaper anyways :) but yeah thanks a ton! :)
so this week was a good week. we were working pretty hard and trying to get stuff done. we were pretty low on the old investigators but now we got some new ones that are just way way way awesome. one of them is a sports journalist and he is like the coolest guy I've ever met. he really is amazing and he's just humble and he just keeps telling us he wants peace and happiness. he is awesome so we have been teaching him now and yeah it really is great. then there is another family that lives right next door to our bishop and he is awesome too. we have been teaching them twice now and they are great and they said that they are going to go to church this Sunday and that really should be awesome the dad is just amazing he really understands things and he's smart which is awesome. so we are teaching them and then the ones that had the date for this week well they kinda fell off the face of the planet for a week or two but we've been trying to get back in touch with them and I'm pretty sure we will be able to find them again this week so yeah hopefully we can continue teaching them :)
but yeah everything is going great we had interviews yesterday and transfers are about 1 week from now (a week from Wednesday) so we will see what happens. I'm pretty sure one of us will be leaving but we have no idea who it will be. so yeah we will see what happens. i really want to stay and keep working here but i also would like to see a little more of the island so i hope they leave me here one more transfer and then send me off but who knows :)
well you guys have fun in England and say hi to everyone for me and tell Eric he could probably buy himself a Scottish kilt and i bet they would let him play tennis in it hahahahha
love you guys
elder ward
wow i cant believe you guys are over there again (in England) and I'm 20 years old can you believe that? I'm an old fart haha i don't like being old its so weird but yeah anyways everything is going good and i did get your package it was awesome! thank you so so much i loved the calendar and the missionary card it was awesome but yeah thank you so so much i loved it and the cookies were great! i love homemade cookies so if you send any more packages just skip the candy and send me cookies haha they are cheaper anyways :) but yeah thanks a ton! :)
so this week was a good week. we were working pretty hard and trying to get stuff done. we were pretty low on the old investigators but now we got some new ones that are just way way way awesome. one of them is a sports journalist and he is like the coolest guy I've ever met. he really is amazing and he's just humble and he just keeps telling us he wants peace and happiness. he is awesome so we have been teaching him now and yeah it really is great. then there is another family that lives right next door to our bishop and he is awesome too. we have been teaching them twice now and they are great and they said that they are going to go to church this Sunday and that really should be awesome the dad is just amazing he really understands things and he's smart which is awesome. so we are teaching them and then the ones that had the date for this week well they kinda fell off the face of the planet for a week or two but we've been trying to get back in touch with them and I'm pretty sure we will be able to find them again this week so yeah hopefully we can continue teaching them :)
but yeah everything is going great we had interviews yesterday and transfers are about 1 week from now (a week from Wednesday) so we will see what happens. I'm pretty sure one of us will be leaving but we have no idea who it will be. so yeah we will see what happens. i really want to stay and keep working here but i also would like to see a little more of the island so i hope they leave me here one more transfer and then send me off but who knows :)
well you guys have fun in England and say hi to everyone for me and tell Eric he could probably buy himself a Scottish kilt and i bet they would let him play tennis in it hahahahha
love you guys
elder ward
Monday, March 15, 2010
Pictures!!! WOOHOO!!! 03/15/2010
Notice the Earring!!!
Elders Lamb, Wilson, Ward, Pliler!Helping a member clean his house!
Elder Ward on the Teeter-Totter!Boys will be Boys!!!
Elder Wilson on the Teeter-Totter!
Elder Wilson on the Teeter-Totter!03/15/2010 (Ponce, PR)
HOLLA!!!!
So yeah our week was kinda rough this week pretty much all or investigators dropped and they said not to come by this week it was kind of a bummer but o well we will try again next week. so needless to say we did a whole lot of finding and looking for people to teach. we did find a really really cool family that was just awesome. Something kinda funny - i'm beginning to notice is that all our investigators most of the time are not from Puerto Rico haha We found one family that is originally from panama and they are awesome and we have a return cita with them tomorrow so i'm pretty excited about that.
The guy that was supposed to get baptized on my birthday we couldn't see him either this week and so he won't be ready for his baptism this saturday but he did go to church which was great and this friday we have a cita with him and we are going to go back by and set up another date with him but yeah so that's kinda what went down this week it was good and we worked hard and we are excited to teach the new people we found. AND EXCITED TO FIND MORE!!! :)
But anyways it sounds like you guys are getting excited and ready to go that should be way fun to go to scotland. i really want to go to scotland and ireland sometime so i might have to make that trip before Andrea moves back haha but yeah you guys will have a lot of fun and Kennady will be so excited.
Jason sounds like he is doing good. that is so awesome about his mission he is going to have a ton of fun wow he's going to love it haha sounds like a really cool place to serve a mission.
But yeah about daylight savings time we don't have it here we always stay on the same clock so yeah we never change which is nice i think haha
but yeah i'm going to get going you guys have a great week and enjoy your travel haha!
i'll talk to you soon
love you guys
elder ward
So yeah our week was kinda rough this week pretty much all or investigators dropped and they said not to come by this week it was kind of a bummer but o well we will try again next week. so needless to say we did a whole lot of finding and looking for people to teach. we did find a really really cool family that was just awesome. Something kinda funny - i'm beginning to notice is that all our investigators most of the time are not from Puerto Rico haha We found one family that is originally from panama and they are awesome and we have a return cita with them tomorrow so i'm pretty excited about that.
The guy that was supposed to get baptized on my birthday we couldn't see him either this week and so he won't be ready for his baptism this saturday but he did go to church which was great and this friday we have a cita with him and we are going to go back by and set up another date with him but yeah so that's kinda what went down this week it was good and we worked hard and we are excited to teach the new people we found. AND EXCITED TO FIND MORE!!! :)
But anyways it sounds like you guys are getting excited and ready to go that should be way fun to go to scotland. i really want to go to scotland and ireland sometime so i might have to make that trip before Andrea moves back haha but yeah you guys will have a lot of fun and Kennady will be so excited.
Jason sounds like he is doing good. that is so awesome about his mission he is going to have a ton of fun wow he's going to love it haha sounds like a really cool place to serve a mission.
But yeah about daylight savings time we don't have it here we always stay on the same clock so yeah we never change which is nice i think haha
but yeah i'm going to get going you guys have a great week and enjoy your travel haha!
i'll talk to you soon
love you guys
elder ward
Monday, March 8, 2010
03/08/2010 (Ponce, PR)
HOLA
wow yeah this week was so fast for me kinda crazy i cant believe we are emailing again but anyways life is going great our best investigators are the ones with the date for my birthday they have gone to church a couple times now and they are just awesome and are progressing really really well and he just fits right in with the ward its great but yeah we are still teaching them and they just love everything and love learning and he goes to church and he just asks all sorts of questions and like all the classes just help him so much its great but yeah we are working with the other people really hard but only the guy and his wife came to church this sunday so we got a lot of work to do with our other investigators but yeah ill let ya know how everything goes
thats so crazy about Jason i had to stay in the mtc for 9 weeks and he only has 8 that's so awesome he is one lucky bugger! I still haven't heard really anything from him for a bit so he better write me back soon!
Sounds like you had a fun time in Rexburg. I can't believe there is snow in the world right now IT'S SO HOT!!!! haha actually to tell you the truth yesterday was like the best most cool day in my entire mission. it was so cold i think it even hit like 70 i think i'm not sure but everyone was wearing like sweatshirts all day it was so funny me and my comp were just loving it it was amazing.
I'm so happy to hear about Brad. That's so good! I told you he was a tough old bird haha but wow thats great!
You can just send mail to my address in Ponce still if you want - I'll be here till March 31 that's the end of the transfer I think I will go after that but we will see what happens who knows o yeah and I remembered something I need for my birthday haha one of those oil vials for consecrated oil! Mine's all broken!
wow i cant think really anything else - things are going awesome we are doing great and the cheesecake gets better every week :)
love you guys
elder ward
wow yeah this week was so fast for me kinda crazy i cant believe we are emailing again but anyways life is going great our best investigators are the ones with the date for my birthday they have gone to church a couple times now and they are just awesome and are progressing really really well and he just fits right in with the ward its great but yeah we are still teaching them and they just love everything and love learning and he goes to church and he just asks all sorts of questions and like all the classes just help him so much its great but yeah we are working with the other people really hard but only the guy and his wife came to church this sunday so we got a lot of work to do with our other investigators but yeah ill let ya know how everything goes
thats so crazy about Jason i had to stay in the mtc for 9 weeks and he only has 8 that's so awesome he is one lucky bugger! I still haven't heard really anything from him for a bit so he better write me back soon!
Sounds like you had a fun time in Rexburg. I can't believe there is snow in the world right now IT'S SO HOT!!!! haha actually to tell you the truth yesterday was like the best most cool day in my entire mission. it was so cold i think it even hit like 70 i think i'm not sure but everyone was wearing like sweatshirts all day it was so funny me and my comp were just loving it it was amazing.
I'm so happy to hear about Brad. That's so good! I told you he was a tough old bird haha but wow thats great!
You can just send mail to my address in Ponce still if you want - I'll be here till March 31 that's the end of the transfer I think I will go after that but we will see what happens who knows o yeah and I remembered something I need for my birthday haha one of those oil vials for consecrated oil! Mine's all broken!
wow i cant think really anything else - things are going awesome we are doing great and the cheesecake gets better every week :)
love you guys
elder ward
Monday, March 1, 2010
03/01/2010 (Ponce, PR)
03/01/2010
HOLLA FAMILIA!!!
Wow crazy crazy sounds like life is going good back in mountain home. we did get to eat our cheesecake we had to toc doors for about 5 hours straight but we got it haha :) but yeah the mission is kinda crazy about what you end up liking i think its just you get old and your taste buds change cuz really the only things i don't like now are milk and green olives but now even the green olives are growing on me cuz everyone puts them in their food here haha it's kinda weird but I'm pretty sure the whole milk thing will never change cuz i still cant even stand the smell of it but yeah i love cheesecake remember when we bought that one in England :)
but yeah anyways this week was really good we are teaching this family that is way awesome we had taught them twice and the second time a member came with us and he was just awesome he really did his work cuz we taught and then he invited them to church and said he would come and pick them up the next day and then he came and picked them up and took the to church last Sunday and he like took them on a tour around the chapel and wow he was amazing and the best part is is that he only has like a year in the church but yeah that was awesome so then this week we were on a trade off cuz one of the other elders got sick so his comp was tired of staying in for a whole day so my comp went with the sick elder and me and the other one worked but yeah we went to teach them and they couldn't stop saying how great church was and then he just started telling us that hes going to go every week and that he wants to be a Mormon it was so so so awesome in his prayer he said "porfavor bendicenos que podams convertirnos a mormones de puro corazon" it was AWESOME! coolest thing ive ever heard an investigator say haha but yeah pretty dang awesome he has a baptismal date for march 20th (pretty cool date hu? :))
but yeah so why is Jason leaving already? i thought he was supposed to be there for 12 weeks? so that means he shouldn't be leaving yet haha when did they change it? he hasn't written me for a while
so that's awesome about the Olympics and Canada sounds like you guys had a pretty good little party haha I'm not going to lie i kinda miss the Olympics a little bit but o well haha
but anyways sounds like everyone's going good i feel so bad for brad i hope he gets feeling good soon tell him i said hi and "que sesienta mejor" haha that's what i always say to people when they are sick :)
but yeah i better get going it sounds like everyone is doing good ill talk you next week
love elder ward
ps don't worry about my birthday i have a ton of money on my card anyways and if I need anything I'll just let you know ok and I'll just buy something when i need it :)
HOLLA FAMILIA!!!
Wow crazy crazy sounds like life is going good back in mountain home. we did get to eat our cheesecake we had to toc doors for about 5 hours straight but we got it haha :) but yeah the mission is kinda crazy about what you end up liking i think its just you get old and your taste buds change cuz really the only things i don't like now are milk and green olives but now even the green olives are growing on me cuz everyone puts them in their food here haha it's kinda weird but I'm pretty sure the whole milk thing will never change cuz i still cant even stand the smell of it but yeah i love cheesecake remember when we bought that one in England :)
but yeah anyways this week was really good we are teaching this family that is way awesome we had taught them twice and the second time a member came with us and he was just awesome he really did his work cuz we taught and then he invited them to church and said he would come and pick them up the next day and then he came and picked them up and took the to church last Sunday and he like took them on a tour around the chapel and wow he was amazing and the best part is is that he only has like a year in the church but yeah that was awesome so then this week we were on a trade off cuz one of the other elders got sick so his comp was tired of staying in for a whole day so my comp went with the sick elder and me and the other one worked but yeah we went to teach them and they couldn't stop saying how great church was and then he just started telling us that hes going to go every week and that he wants to be a Mormon it was so so so awesome in his prayer he said "porfavor bendicenos que podams convertirnos a mormones de puro corazon" it was AWESOME! coolest thing ive ever heard an investigator say haha but yeah pretty dang awesome he has a baptismal date for march 20th (pretty cool date hu? :))
but yeah so why is Jason leaving already? i thought he was supposed to be there for 12 weeks? so that means he shouldn't be leaving yet haha when did they change it? he hasn't written me for a while
so that's awesome about the Olympics and Canada sounds like you guys had a pretty good little party haha I'm not going to lie i kinda miss the Olympics a little bit but o well haha
but anyways sounds like everyone's going good i feel so bad for brad i hope he gets feeling good soon tell him i said hi and "que sesienta mejor" haha that's what i always say to people when they are sick :)
but yeah i better get going it sounds like everyone is doing good ill talk you next week
love elder ward
ps don't worry about my birthday i have a ton of money on my card anyways and if I need anything I'll just let you know ok and I'll just buy something when i need it :)
Monday, February 22, 2010
02/22/2010 (Ponce, PR)
02/22/2010
HOLA!
you really didn't get my old email again? that's so weird but yeah things are going good! sounds like thinks are going pretty good back home that's so cool about Brandt that should be a way awesome mission he should really enjoy that. also that's cool that Jason taught Brian kinda crazy but i didn't get an email from him this week did you? so when you get emails from him forward them to me too just in case i don't get one k.
o and yeah they changed all our emails cuz the church got a new email service thing but it said that if you send it to the old address it doesn't matter and still gets to me so i didn't worry about it. this is my new address mattheww@myldsmail.net
wow that's pretty crazy about Frank but at least he's serving his mission just on the other side of the vail :)... we always kinda joke about that as missionaries cuz if you die as a missionary you just wake up and the only thing that really changes is they give you a new companion haha
so that's really crazy about Brad as well! i hope everything goes good. I'm sure he'll be fine. i saw him get a big old chunk of sagebrush pulled out of his leg with a pair of pliers so i know he's a tough old bird :) (you can tell him i told him he was tough just don't let him know i called him old :) ) i got the package they sent me in the mail this week and I'm pretty excited about it haha me and my comp. are going to have a little beef party :)
that story about Mallory's mission was pretty cool and so true I've had a couple cool experiences like that on my mission although we don't baptize a whole lot over here in Puerto Rico you definitely see the blessings when you sacrifice. its like the story in the scriptures about the lady that throws in 2 pieces of gold for her tithing and everyone else threw in like 1,000 pieces and her tithing was the best because she threw in all that she had where the others just threw in the abundance. i always think about that as a missionary because you could be working a thousand times harder than everyone else but you still need to look for and find the way to work harder, it doesn't matter how much more or less you do compared to everyone else what matters is that you personally are constantly looking for how you can work hard or you can do better.
so something kinda funny about this week so in our mission we have these standards that are called the foundation which is 140 contacts 12 hours of tocing doors and 20 lessons and you are supposed to get that every week. well me and Elder Wilson since we have been together we have got it and we are really working hard and doing great but this other day we went to a members house to eat and they bought this cheesecake from Sam's Club and it was AMAZING! It was a real cheesecake -- i couldn't believe it! they make cheesecake here but its like a flan but this one was the real deal straight from the states and it was amazing so we asked her where we could buy us a cheesecake like that and she was like I'm going to Sam's tomorrow just give me the money and i'll pick you one up so we got this cheesecake that contains 12 slices. so when we saw that, we said WOW its perfect there is 6 weeks in a transfer so that means one slice each week for a whole transfer. so we put it the freezer and now every Sunday if we get our foundation we take out our cheesecake and we each get a slice. we had our first piece last night and boy was it good ill tell you what that's motivation enough for me to work hard :)
but anyways yeah i got the package i wrote about it last time i think but yeah thank you very very much and i got the letters and the card this week too so yeah thank you! and for my birthday I'm doing really good so yeah just the cookies would be good for me and yeah all my clothes are doing great and holding up wonderfully :)
love you guys
Elder Ward
HOLA!
you really didn't get my old email again? that's so weird but yeah things are going good! sounds like thinks are going pretty good back home that's so cool about Brandt that should be a way awesome mission he should really enjoy that. also that's cool that Jason taught Brian kinda crazy but i didn't get an email from him this week did you? so when you get emails from him forward them to me too just in case i don't get one k.
o and yeah they changed all our emails cuz the church got a new email service thing but it said that if you send it to the old address it doesn't matter and still gets to me so i didn't worry about it. this is my new address mattheww@myldsmail.net
wow that's pretty crazy about Frank but at least he's serving his mission just on the other side of the vail :)... we always kinda joke about that as missionaries cuz if you die as a missionary you just wake up and the only thing that really changes is they give you a new companion haha
so that's really crazy about Brad as well! i hope everything goes good. I'm sure he'll be fine. i saw him get a big old chunk of sagebrush pulled out of his leg with a pair of pliers so i know he's a tough old bird :) (you can tell him i told him he was tough just don't let him know i called him old :) ) i got the package they sent me in the mail this week and I'm pretty excited about it haha me and my comp. are going to have a little beef party :)
that story about Mallory's mission was pretty cool and so true I've had a couple cool experiences like that on my mission although we don't baptize a whole lot over here in Puerto Rico you definitely see the blessings when you sacrifice. its like the story in the scriptures about the lady that throws in 2 pieces of gold for her tithing and everyone else threw in like 1,000 pieces and her tithing was the best because she threw in all that she had where the others just threw in the abundance. i always think about that as a missionary because you could be working a thousand times harder than everyone else but you still need to look for and find the way to work harder, it doesn't matter how much more or less you do compared to everyone else what matters is that you personally are constantly looking for how you can work hard or you can do better.
so something kinda funny about this week so in our mission we have these standards that are called the foundation which is 140 contacts 12 hours of tocing doors and 20 lessons and you are supposed to get that every week. well me and Elder Wilson since we have been together we have got it and we are really working hard and doing great but this other day we went to a members house to eat and they bought this cheesecake from Sam's Club and it was AMAZING! It was a real cheesecake -- i couldn't believe it! they make cheesecake here but its like a flan but this one was the real deal straight from the states and it was amazing so we asked her where we could buy us a cheesecake like that and she was like I'm going to Sam's tomorrow just give me the money and i'll pick you one up so we got this cheesecake that contains 12 slices. so when we saw that, we said WOW its perfect there is 6 weeks in a transfer so that means one slice each week for a whole transfer. so we put it the freezer and now every Sunday if we get our foundation we take out our cheesecake and we each get a slice. we had our first piece last night and boy was it good ill tell you what that's motivation enough for me to work hard :)
but anyways yeah i got the package i wrote about it last time i think but yeah thank you very very much and i got the letters and the card this week too so yeah thank you! and for my birthday I'm doing really good so yeah just the cookies would be good for me and yeah all my clothes are doing great and holding up wonderfully :)
love you guys
Elder Ward
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
02/16/2010 (Staying in Ponce) 5th Transfer
Companion: Elder Cody Wilson from Ogden Utah
Area: Ponce
Address directly to Matt's apartment:
Elder Matthew Ward
Calle 3 Casa # C-21 Altos
Jardines de Fagot
Ponce, PR 00716-4017
Puerto Rico
February 16, 2010
WHAT? Are you kidding me? I sent a whole huge email explaining the whole mission switch and all our investigators and all that good stuff. I can’t believe you didn’t get it that’s such a bummer dang o well I guess but yeah I’ll just fill ya in on some more stuff.
Transfers are tomorrow but I’m staying WAHOO! We have one baptismal date but he’s kinda falling away so we are trying to bring him back a little! Then we have a couple families that we are teaching and they are really cool but my hope is to get them going to church this transfer and get them all baptized. I’m really excited about this transfer -- we are teaching some cool people!
About the whole mission thing what happened is they are combining the PRSJW mission with the PRSJE mission when the Presidents leave in July. So it will be one whole mission and be called the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. That will be cool except we will lose the islands - so it doesn’t look like I will be going down there! But we will also add on all the islands on the east side of Puerto Rico not all of them but a lot of them so that will be pretty cool except in those islands all they speak is English. So that’s what’s going on with that -- I’ll serve 11 months in the Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission and 11 months in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. It’s kinda cool I hit it exactly on the even split because the other two months were in the mtc!
but yeah that’s about all that’s new no one in my district is leaving this transfer so that’s good as well but yeah that’s about all I can think of sorry I haven’t taken any pictures for a while so yeah I’ll get on that and send you a few k
well talk to you guys next week
elder ward
Area: Ponce
Address directly to Matt's apartment:
Elder Matthew Ward
Calle 3 Casa # C-21 Altos
Jardines de Fagot
Ponce, PR 00716-4017
Puerto Rico
February 16, 2010
WHAT? Are you kidding me? I sent a whole huge email explaining the whole mission switch and all our investigators and all that good stuff. I can’t believe you didn’t get it that’s such a bummer dang o well I guess but yeah I’ll just fill ya in on some more stuff.
Transfers are tomorrow but I’m staying WAHOO! We have one baptismal date but he’s kinda falling away so we are trying to bring him back a little! Then we have a couple families that we are teaching and they are really cool but my hope is to get them going to church this transfer and get them all baptized. I’m really excited about this transfer -- we are teaching some cool people!
About the whole mission thing what happened is they are combining the PRSJW mission with the PRSJE mission when the Presidents leave in July. So it will be one whole mission and be called the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. That will be cool except we will lose the islands - so it doesn’t look like I will be going down there! But we will also add on all the islands on the east side of Puerto Rico not all of them but a lot of them so that will be pretty cool except in those islands all they speak is English. So that’s what’s going on with that -- I’ll serve 11 months in the Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission and 11 months in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. It’s kinda cool I hit it exactly on the even split because the other two months were in the mtc!
but yeah that’s about all that’s new no one in my district is leaving this transfer so that’s good as well but yeah that’s about all I can think of sorry I haven’t taken any pictures for a while so yeah I’ll get on that and send you a few k
well talk to you guys next week
elder ward
Monday, February 8, 2010
02/08/2010 (Ponce, PR)
An email to Eric and Dad!!
02/08/2010
Eric:
yeah it sounds like the super bowl was pretty good. I didn’t really ever hear anything about it haha but that’s crazy that wrestling is about over. You get to go to districts right? You better be ready to roll! I want you to write me at the end of February and tell me all about how you won state ok! but yeah that’s cool I remember the best of efy it was a good thing to listen to but yeah keep up the good work and you better get helping dad on the little house so that I can have a cabin to come home to ok
love ya
elder ward
hey pops
yeah that will be awesome if you could get all that done by the time the snow melts in the mountains and then you and Brad could go up and work on the cabin on the weekends and get it knocked out pretty quick and then the first summer that it is completely done I’ll be home to try it out haha :) can you believe that? kinda crazy huh? This summer will be my last summer in the mission WOW! but yeah me and my companion are doing way good! yesterday we had 4 people at church and we are teaching 4 families that are way awesome and we have a baptismal date set with one kid but I think the whole family will get baptized. We are seeing so much success its so great but we’ll see if I stay here another transfer and get to see them all get baptized :)
love ya elder ward
02/08/2010
Eric:
yeah it sounds like the super bowl was pretty good. I didn’t really ever hear anything about it haha but that’s crazy that wrestling is about over. You get to go to districts right? You better be ready to roll! I want you to write me at the end of February and tell me all about how you won state ok! but yeah that’s cool I remember the best of efy it was a good thing to listen to but yeah keep up the good work and you better get helping dad on the little house so that I can have a cabin to come home to ok
love ya
elder ward
hey pops
yeah that will be awesome if you could get all that done by the time the snow melts in the mountains and then you and Brad could go up and work on the cabin on the weekends and get it knocked out pretty quick and then the first summer that it is completely done I’ll be home to try it out haha :) can you believe that? kinda crazy huh? This summer will be my last summer in the mission WOW! but yeah me and my companion are doing way good! yesterday we had 4 people at church and we are teaching 4 families that are way awesome and we have a baptismal date set with one kid but I think the whole family will get baptized. We are seeing so much success its so great but we’ll see if I stay here another transfer and get to see them all get baptized :)
love ya elder ward
Monday, February 1, 2010
02/01/2010 (Ponce, PR)
02/01/2010
HEY MOM
sounds like everything is going good back at home. It’s so awesome that me and Jason both are finally out at the same time. Its great I’m really excited I can’t wait for him to get out in the real deal. Its pretty crazy that he has already been in the mtc a whole month the time on the mission just gets faster and faster. its pretty crazy I’m scared though I need to find a slow motion switch but the problem is the longer time goes on and the harder you work the faster it just goes. Pretty crazy but yeah anyways things are going really great here. me and my comp have been working pretty hard and its awesome I came into this area and the ward was kinda down we didn’t have any investigatores and things were just kinda rough but now its going great. We were working so hard to get things back up and get the members excited and i thought it would never happen but it sure is now. It’s so great! We went to church yesterday and we gave our mission leader our progress record and he just kept calling us los caballos or los monstruos it was pretty funny and then he talked in sacrament meeting and just got the people really excited about the work. It really was great and I’m way excited. We have a family of 4 -- 3 of which are baptism age and they are amazing. The kids really really want to get baptized and the mom is excited too but she wants to learn more about the church so we are teaching them and yeah it’s just awesome. They are a reference from our mission leader’s son who is 12 and it’s just great. the first time we taught them was after they went to church and they just kept asking their mom if they could be baptized and the moms fine with it but we just explained to her that baptism is a big thing and that we would like to teach them all and then they can all get baptized as a family! it was AWESOME! so I’m way excited to teach them this week. Then we have a German lady that is just loving the Book of Mormon and she is just progressing really well and I’m excited about her but yeah really everything is just going great and I’m really EXCITED!! All the hard work is starting to pay off a little and IM LOVING IT! but yeah life’s great the mission is the best!
love you guys
elder ward
ps I don’t really need anything for my birthday I’m pretty much set but you can send me a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies those really good ones you used to always make and id be a happy camper :)
HEY MOM
sounds like everything is going good back at home. It’s so awesome that me and Jason both are finally out at the same time. Its great I’m really excited I can’t wait for him to get out in the real deal. Its pretty crazy that he has already been in the mtc a whole month the time on the mission just gets faster and faster. its pretty crazy I’m scared though I need to find a slow motion switch but the problem is the longer time goes on and the harder you work the faster it just goes. Pretty crazy but yeah anyways things are going really great here. me and my comp have been working pretty hard and its awesome I came into this area and the ward was kinda down we didn’t have any investigatores and things were just kinda rough but now its going great. We were working so hard to get things back up and get the members excited and i thought it would never happen but it sure is now. It’s so great! We went to church yesterday and we gave our mission leader our progress record and he just kept calling us los caballos or los monstruos it was pretty funny and then he talked in sacrament meeting and just got the people really excited about the work. It really was great and I’m way excited. We have a family of 4 -- 3 of which are baptism age and they are amazing. The kids really really want to get baptized and the mom is excited too but she wants to learn more about the church so we are teaching them and yeah it’s just awesome. They are a reference from our mission leader’s son who is 12 and it’s just great. the first time we taught them was after they went to church and they just kept asking their mom if they could be baptized and the moms fine with it but we just explained to her that baptism is a big thing and that we would like to teach them all and then they can all get baptized as a family! it was AWESOME! so I’m way excited to teach them this week. Then we have a German lady that is just loving the Book of Mormon and she is just progressing really well and I’m excited about her but yeah really everything is just going great and I’m really EXCITED!! All the hard work is starting to pay off a little and IM LOVING IT! but yeah life’s great the mission is the best!
love you guys
elder ward
ps I don’t really need anything for my birthday I’m pretty much set but you can send me a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies those really good ones you used to always make and id be a happy camper :)
Monday, January 25, 2010
01/25/2010 (Ponce)
01/25/2010
HOLA FAMILIA
so sounds like things are going great and time really is moving at home too. haha sometimes I think everyone at home is just stuck and it will be the exact same when I get back until I hear things like getting a new stake center, people getting married, and even Eric driving -- STAY OFF THE SIDEWALK!!
But anyways it was amazing to hear from Elder Bednar. There were about 100 missionaries that were there and he comes in and he’s like ok we are going to work together today and he just invited us all not to be scared and just open up and we were going to discuss things. Like 2 weeks in advanced we all had to read two talks from elder bednar "seek learning by faith" and ''ask in faith" so we really studied hard before hand and it was great he just started with "does anyone have a question?" and then the discussion started and we listened and learned and it was amazing! It was really like a one on one experience with a prophet. It was amazing and it lasted 3 hours it was really really really great and I LEARNED A TON!
but anyways what’s new … me and elder Wilson are still working really really hard and we are learning about faith haha there is something elder bednar talked to us about that really hit me hard that I love! he talked about this kid that he went to his mission and did a thing like he did with us well the kid really admired Elder Bednar a ton. he returned from his mission got married and was married for about a year and then got really really bad cancer so the kids family sent a letter to Elder Bednar and just asked him if he could send the kid an email or a note or a letter or something just to cheer him up but what Elder Bednar did was show up at his hospital and spent the day talking with him for a while and at the end the kid asked for a blessing and Elder Bednar said yes but before I do I want to ask you if you have the faith not to be healed (in the Bible it always asks for the faith to be healed) but he asked if he had the faith not to be healed. He said if I put my hands on your head and seal you to die and cross the veil and start your work in the spirit world could you accept it? So the kid thought about that! Elder Bednar told him to talk to his wife and then he would come back and give him the blessing. so what I learned from this is that if I ask myself “do I have the faith to continue working really hard without seeing the fruits of my labors or without seeing baptisms” -- it’s something cool to think about but me and Elder Wilson are just really trying to work hard and forget ourselves in the work loose ourselves in our faith :)
but that’s awesome about everyone getting their mission calls and it sounds like everyone is doing really good! Way awesome that Sami’s dad is giving that talk (Our former Mtn. Home Stake President - President Waddoups’ is speaking at the BYU-Idaho Devotional next Tuesday). I would love to listen to it - I bet it’s going to be really really good. Crazy as well that Reed (Borgholthaus) is home too but that’s cool he knows a lot of Papiamento! It’s really an easy language. I don’t know too much of it yet but yeah that’s cool! They also encourage the missionaries to learn Dutch while they are down there too so I guess if I ever go I will maybe learn a few words. (Matthew’s mission takes in the ABC Islands – Aruba, Bonaire, & Curacao – so if he is ever transferred to one of those islands he will have to learn some Papiamento, French, & Dutch!)
But yeah life is going great and we are doing good!
Tell everyone hi for me!
love ya
elder ward
HOLA FAMILIA
so sounds like things are going great and time really is moving at home too. haha sometimes I think everyone at home is just stuck and it will be the exact same when I get back until I hear things like getting a new stake center, people getting married, and even Eric driving -- STAY OFF THE SIDEWALK!!
But anyways it was amazing to hear from Elder Bednar. There were about 100 missionaries that were there and he comes in and he’s like ok we are going to work together today and he just invited us all not to be scared and just open up and we were going to discuss things. Like 2 weeks in advanced we all had to read two talks from elder bednar "seek learning by faith" and ''ask in faith" so we really studied hard before hand and it was great he just started with "does anyone have a question?" and then the discussion started and we listened and learned and it was amazing! It was really like a one on one experience with a prophet. It was amazing and it lasted 3 hours it was really really really great and I LEARNED A TON!
but anyways what’s new … me and elder Wilson are still working really really hard and we are learning about faith haha there is something elder bednar talked to us about that really hit me hard that I love! he talked about this kid that he went to his mission and did a thing like he did with us well the kid really admired Elder Bednar a ton. he returned from his mission got married and was married for about a year and then got really really bad cancer so the kids family sent a letter to Elder Bednar and just asked him if he could send the kid an email or a note or a letter or something just to cheer him up but what Elder Bednar did was show up at his hospital and spent the day talking with him for a while and at the end the kid asked for a blessing and Elder Bednar said yes but before I do I want to ask you if you have the faith not to be healed (in the Bible it always asks for the faith to be healed) but he asked if he had the faith not to be healed. He said if I put my hands on your head and seal you to die and cross the veil and start your work in the spirit world could you accept it? So the kid thought about that! Elder Bednar told him to talk to his wife and then he would come back and give him the blessing. so what I learned from this is that if I ask myself “do I have the faith to continue working really hard without seeing the fruits of my labors or without seeing baptisms” -- it’s something cool to think about but me and Elder Wilson are just really trying to work hard and forget ourselves in the work loose ourselves in our faith :)
but that’s awesome about everyone getting their mission calls and it sounds like everyone is doing really good! Way awesome that Sami’s dad is giving that talk (Our former Mtn. Home Stake President - President Waddoups’ is speaking at the BYU-Idaho Devotional next Tuesday). I would love to listen to it - I bet it’s going to be really really good. Crazy as well that Reed (Borgholthaus) is home too but that’s cool he knows a lot of Papiamento! It’s really an easy language. I don’t know too much of it yet but yeah that’s cool! They also encourage the missionaries to learn Dutch while they are down there too so I guess if I ever go I will maybe learn a few words. (Matthew’s mission takes in the ABC Islands – Aruba, Bonaire, & Curacao – so if he is ever transferred to one of those islands he will have to learn some Papiamento, French, & Dutch!)
But yeah life is going great and we are doing good!
Tell everyone hi for me!
love ya
elder ward
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
WOOHOO! Pictures! 01/20/2010
Hey mom -- I thought I would send you some pics!
Elders Cramer, Stanley, Ward, & Pliler!Outside Elders Ward & Stanley's apartment!
(Ponce 2 District)
Elders Cramer, Ward, & Pliler!
This one is probably my favorite picture of my whole mission (so far)! You have to send it to everyone. Two "bums" sleeping on the cement under the mattress store sign! HAHA!
Elders Cramer, Ward, & Pliler! This one is probably my favorite picture of my whole mission (so far)! You have to send it to everyone. Two "bums" sleeping on the cement under the mattress store sign! HAHA! (This MOM doesn't think this is very funny! Quite sad if you ask me!)
Hope you enjoy and I think I forgot to tell you I did get the backpack and it's awesome. I think it's way better than the other ones and it was cheaper so I am way stoked!
THANK YOU!
Love ya Elder Ward
01/20/2010 (Ponce)
01/20/2010
Hola Familia
ok so sorry its been a little while again we've just been really busy and there has been some holidays again and yeah kinda crazy but now its p-day haha
Sounds like everyone is doing good up there and that Eric is enjoying wrestling and everything. I got my shoes and my bag so thats good. the shoes are a little stiff :( but im wearing them on p-day to try and break them in a bit :) but yeah elder pliler told me that his mom talked to you on that thing too it was kinda funny he's still in our district. it's me my comp, elder wilson, and elder pliler and elder lamb. so yeah we have a little district again. it's kinda crazy!
that's awesome Chris (Vogl) is getting married. make sure you tell him that i said congrats and keep up the good work :)
so about my Gator what happened? how come he has to get rid of him? i say eric takes him. i still haven't seen a picture of him haha but i hear he's pretty big but i dont want him to get sent away i want him to be a 3 foot whopper when i get back :)
but thats so crazy that everyone is coming home. i don't like it -- it's nuts when you get out on your mission time just goes too fast. it's weird!!! WOW! i just like to pretend that its still my first transfer haha
but anyways yeah here they have water and we can drink it and all that stuff really the only sickness that i hear of is dangay which is a sickness that you get from the mosquitos and it really messes ya up for a while. but yeah not too many people have gotten it but yeah ive never been sick. I'm pretty sure my stomach is a rock now ever since i got the bug in Ecuador because i was like the only one that didn't get sick in the ccm either so yeah kinda crazy but my comp had some stomach problems all last week and we had to make a couple pit stops every day if you know what i mean haha! But i just told him we could get out and work really hard and then he would sweat it all out :)
But yeah everything is going good! me and elder wilson are working really hard and having some good success. we have found some really cool investigators and we are working whith them. one guy Hiram he wants to get baptized but he can't go to church yet because he takes care of his cuyado every weekend and then we have another guy Felix el gato Redondo (he was a pro boxer but now he's 80 years old). He's awesome and a great guy except he doesn't believe in the God in the bible he believes in a God of nature or not even really a God just nature but yeah its kinda crazy. It's been really good and he is progressing well and starting to understand a little bit better and really those are the best ones but we also found this lady from Germany and she is way cool she speaks German, Spanish and English so we are just starting to teach her and I'm really excited about it so tell kyle to tell me some German words so i can talk to her :) but yeah everything is going good and I'm having fun and the MISSION ROCKS!
love you guys!
elder ward
Hola Familia
ok so sorry its been a little while again we've just been really busy and there has been some holidays again and yeah kinda crazy but now its p-day haha
Sounds like everyone is doing good up there and that Eric is enjoying wrestling and everything. I got my shoes and my bag so thats good. the shoes are a little stiff :( but im wearing them on p-day to try and break them in a bit :) but yeah elder pliler told me that his mom talked to you on that thing too it was kinda funny he's still in our district. it's me my comp, elder wilson, and elder pliler and elder lamb. so yeah we have a little district again. it's kinda crazy!
that's awesome Chris (Vogl) is getting married. make sure you tell him that i said congrats and keep up the good work :)
so about my Gator what happened? how come he has to get rid of him? i say eric takes him. i still haven't seen a picture of him haha but i hear he's pretty big but i dont want him to get sent away i want him to be a 3 foot whopper when i get back :)
but thats so crazy that everyone is coming home. i don't like it -- it's nuts when you get out on your mission time just goes too fast. it's weird!!! WOW! i just like to pretend that its still my first transfer haha
but anyways yeah here they have water and we can drink it and all that stuff really the only sickness that i hear of is dangay which is a sickness that you get from the mosquitos and it really messes ya up for a while. but yeah not too many people have gotten it but yeah ive never been sick. I'm pretty sure my stomach is a rock now ever since i got the bug in Ecuador because i was like the only one that didn't get sick in the ccm either so yeah kinda crazy but my comp had some stomach problems all last week and we had to make a couple pit stops every day if you know what i mean haha! But i just told him we could get out and work really hard and then he would sweat it all out :)
But yeah everything is going good! me and elder wilson are working really hard and having some good success. we have found some really cool investigators and we are working whith them. one guy Hiram he wants to get baptized but he can't go to church yet because he takes care of his cuyado every weekend and then we have another guy Felix el gato Redondo (he was a pro boxer but now he's 80 years old). He's awesome and a great guy except he doesn't believe in the God in the bible he believes in a God of nature or not even really a God just nature but yeah its kinda crazy. It's been really good and he is progressing well and starting to understand a little bit better and really those are the best ones but we also found this lady from Germany and she is way cool she speaks German, Spanish and English so we are just starting to teach her and I'm really excited about it so tell kyle to tell me some German words so i can talk to her :) but yeah everything is going good and I'm having fun and the MISSION ROCKS!
love you guys!
elder ward
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Week # 01/12/2010 (Ponce) 4th Transfer
4th Transfer
New companion: Elder Cody Wilson from Ogden Utah
Area: Ponce
Address directly to his apartment:
Elder Matthew Ward
Calle 3 Casa # C-21 Altos
Jardines de Fagot
Ponce, PR 00716-4017
Puerto Rico
January 12, 2010
HOLA
ok so sorry its been so long but I promise I can explain so what happened was that on Monday we ended up having to do our transfers and we had to drive to Bayamon and then we got lost and ended up clear over in the other mission on the other side of the island then we bought a map and made it haha it was kinda a little adventure but yeah pretty funny but then when we got back the library was closed for some reason I have no idea why but yeah it was all closed up so we didn’t get to email and then yesterday we went and it was a holiday so it was closed but yeah so we called president and got permission to email really quick today but yeah I kinda got to hurry cuz we have citas but
yeah anyways life is great and we are doing good! Celeste GOT BAPTIZED! That was way amazing it was kinda funny though because he had to try and do it 4 times and he had to repeat the words three times it was kinda crazy! She’s old so I can understand but yeah so finally after a long experience she got baptized and she was so happy she just kept saying how young and clean she felt it was pretty cool but anyways that was awesome my new companion his name is elder Cody Wilson and he is from Ogden Utah He is in the same group as my trainer Elder Kolar and my second comp Elder Maxwell. I’ve had a bunch from their group but yeah so anyways he is awesome and we are doing great its so so so so so so AWESOME when you have someone that is just as excited about working and getting out and working as hard as you are because its just fun and WOW I love it! We are working so so hard and having fun at the same time its amazing and we have found some awesome people :)Samuel the limber man is doing great and is reading the Book of Mormon and I’m pretty sure he will go to church next week. We found a guy and we taught him a first lesson and we asked him what the true church was and he’s the first person I’ve ever met that said it was our church on the first lesson. That was pretty crazy he told us he’s been trying to get a hold of a Book of Mormon for years and that he has gone to church a couple times so I don’t know what people were doing when he went the other times but yeah kinda crazy so we just taught him like an hour ago and he wants to get baptized so we are pretty excited about that the only problem is that he goes to Orlando every weekend to take care of his cunyado who is like completely handicap so yeah some how we have to figure out how we are going to get him to church but he says they are going to move his cunyado in the near future here to Puerto Rico :) so yeah those are some really cool people we have been teaching and we are doing great. I have gotten the shoes or the backpack yet but I’m sure I will get them soon I bet they’re in the mission home and the next person that comes down to Ponce will bring them :)o yeah and last but not least ELDER BEDNAR IS COMING TO TALK TO US!!!!!! I’m so excited he will be here on the 23 but yeah I’m way excited pretty crazy!!
Sounds like Jason is doing great and he has some cool buddies at the mtc! That’s so awesome – he’s going to love it! I’m so excited he is out I’m going to have to write him a letter soon! Well I love you guys and I will talk to you next week!
Elder Ward (Matthew)
New companion: Elder Cody Wilson from Ogden Utah
Area: Ponce
Address directly to his apartment:
Elder Matthew Ward
Calle 3 Casa # C-21 Altos
Jardines de Fagot
Ponce, PR 00716-4017
Puerto Rico
January 12, 2010
HOLA
ok so sorry its been so long but I promise I can explain so what happened was that on Monday we ended up having to do our transfers and we had to drive to Bayamon and then we got lost and ended up clear over in the other mission on the other side of the island then we bought a map and made it haha it was kinda a little adventure but yeah pretty funny but then when we got back the library was closed for some reason I have no idea why but yeah it was all closed up so we didn’t get to email and then yesterday we went and it was a holiday so it was closed but yeah so we called president and got permission to email really quick today but yeah I kinda got to hurry cuz we have citas but
yeah anyways life is great and we are doing good! Celeste GOT BAPTIZED! That was way amazing it was kinda funny though because he had to try and do it 4 times and he had to repeat the words three times it was kinda crazy! She’s old so I can understand but yeah so finally after a long experience she got baptized and she was so happy she just kept saying how young and clean she felt it was pretty cool but anyways that was awesome my new companion his name is elder Cody Wilson and he is from Ogden Utah He is in the same group as my trainer Elder Kolar and my second comp Elder Maxwell. I’ve had a bunch from their group but yeah so anyways he is awesome and we are doing great its so so so so so so AWESOME when you have someone that is just as excited about working and getting out and working as hard as you are because its just fun and WOW I love it! We are working so so hard and having fun at the same time its amazing and we have found some awesome people :)Samuel the limber man is doing great and is reading the Book of Mormon and I’m pretty sure he will go to church next week. We found a guy and we taught him a first lesson and we asked him what the true church was and he’s the first person I’ve ever met that said it was our church on the first lesson. That was pretty crazy he told us he’s been trying to get a hold of a Book of Mormon for years and that he has gone to church a couple times so I don’t know what people were doing when he went the other times but yeah kinda crazy so we just taught him like an hour ago and he wants to get baptized so we are pretty excited about that the only problem is that he goes to Orlando every weekend to take care of his cunyado who is like completely handicap so yeah some how we have to figure out how we are going to get him to church but he says they are going to move his cunyado in the near future here to Puerto Rico :) so yeah those are some really cool people we have been teaching and we are doing great. I have gotten the shoes or the backpack yet but I’m sure I will get them soon I bet they’re in the mission home and the next person that comes down to Ponce will bring them :)o yeah and last but not least ELDER BEDNAR IS COMING TO TALK TO US!!!!!! I’m so excited he will be here on the 23 but yeah I’m way excited pretty crazy!!
Sounds like Jason is doing great and he has some cool buddies at the mtc! That’s so awesome – he’s going to love it! I’m so excited he is out I’m going to have to write him a letter soon! Well I love you guys and I will talk to you next week!
Elder Ward (Matthew)
Monday, December 28, 2009
Week # 12/28/2009 (Ponce)
December 28, 2009
hey guys
I have no idea what the heck you were talking about on this email haha but I’m doing good! Today is just another p-day like always so yeah call days don’t change anything they are just normal work days and you get to call home but yeah I’m doing good and we are preparing for our baptisim. Also this Saturday was kinda cool! I got to give my first blessing in Spanish. Usually I’ve just annointed on my mission but Saturday I gave the blessing and the lady was just coughing and going crazy but yeah I was like dang she’s never going to want me to give her a blessing again haha but then the next day she walked up to me at church and she said that she was so thankful for her blessing and everything and that I gave her the blessing and that she coughed whatever she had out and that now she is healthy and doing great! it was kinda funny but yeah so i was kinda expecting to hear how all the partying was going over there at grannys and how everything went haha but i guess I’ll have to wait till next week but yeah i hope everyone is doing good and tell everyone that I said hi
O and who was the lucky bugger to get all the underwear?
love you guys
elder ward
(We sent Matthew a VERY short email by phone internet while we were over in Rexburg cuz there wasn't any internet to use! I guess he wasn't too impressed!)
hey guys
I have no idea what the heck you were talking about on this email haha but I’m doing good! Today is just another p-day like always so yeah call days don’t change anything they are just normal work days and you get to call home but yeah I’m doing good and we are preparing for our baptisim. Also this Saturday was kinda cool! I got to give my first blessing in Spanish. Usually I’ve just annointed on my mission but Saturday I gave the blessing and the lady was just coughing and going crazy but yeah I was like dang she’s never going to want me to give her a blessing again haha but then the next day she walked up to me at church and she said that she was so thankful for her blessing and everything and that I gave her the blessing and that she coughed whatever she had out and that now she is healthy and doing great! it was kinda funny but yeah so i was kinda expecting to hear how all the partying was going over there at grannys and how everything went haha but i guess I’ll have to wait till next week but yeah i hope everyone is doing good and tell everyone that I said hi
O and who was the lucky bugger to get all the underwear?
love you guys
elder ward
(We sent Matthew a VERY short email by phone internet while we were over in Rexburg cuz there wasn't any internet to use! I guess he wasn't too impressed!)
Friday, December 25, 2009
Pictures!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM
PUERTO RICO!!!
Elder Pliler & Elder Ward
Elder Ward & Elder Stanley
Elder Pliler & Elder Ward
Christmas 2009 Phone Call!!
Today Elder Matthew Ward called at about 11 a.m. That was the best Christmas present ever! We (Robert, Karen, Jason, & Eric) all had handsets and were able to all hear and talk to him together. After a while ... we put him on speakerphone and it worked out really well! It was fun to listen to the stories he had. A conversation in Spanish would break out now and again with his Dad. Even though I had no idea what they were talking about, it was a lot of fun listening to him speak Spanish so well (I'm assuming it was well!) -- it sounded good to me!
After an hour or so, Matthew called his sister, Andrea, in England to talk with her, Bill, Taylor, & Kennady (I don't think Bryson & Jayden talked to him)! Then, Matthew called us back and talked again for a while.
It was so fun to hear his voice!!
What a fun Christmas phone call -- just wondering how we are going to be able to handle the two phone calls we'll get on Mother's Day -- Jason will be entering the MTC on January 6, 2010.
After an hour or so, Matthew called his sister, Andrea, in England to talk with her, Bill, Taylor, & Kennady (I don't think Bryson & Jayden talked to him)! Then, Matthew called us back and talked again for a while.
It was so fun to hear his voice!!
What a fun Christmas phone call -- just wondering how we are going to be able to handle the two phone calls we'll get on Mother's Day -- Jason will be entering the MTC on January 6, 2010.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Week # 12/14/2009 (Ponce)
12/14/2009
Hola family
so im going to start out with all your questions first so i dont forget but first off garments i am good im just going to use the ones i have untill i wear them out cuz they are fine its just if i did it again i would get all low necks and try some mesh ones and then drylux haha but anyways about the shoes i really wanted a pair of the non water proof and the light brown... i dont think they have the light brown in the shoes that are like my black ones and yeah they are waterproof i really like them but i just want to see if otherones that arent waterproof are a little cooler. so for the christmas call it will probably be in the moring for you guys cuz i think im 3 hours ahead of you so that means ill probably be calling you guys at like 11 or 12 i think right around noon i guess but i will just call you guys and then ill tell you the number of the phone that i use and then you can just call me back cuz our cell phone is free long distance and if i dont use the cell phone ill probably call you from a members phone with a phone card :) and then lastly i havent gotten the package yet so i dont know if the cds worked but i will check the mail after when i get home today and if not it should get her sometime this week and then i will check :) but all of the other cds that you have sent they all worked fine so yeah :) but anyways i hope i answered all your questions haha so it sounds like everything is going great over there in Idaho haha thats so cool that jason went through the temple wow thats great stuff hes a lucky duck haha what kind of garments did he decide to get? o and what did you guys do after? did you go to tacanos? but anyways thats awesome dad and jason are speaking what was his excuse to have dad speak? :) but thats cool i wish i got to listen to them :( i guess ill just ask for a reinactment when i get back :) but it sounds like you guys are getting everything figured out and are going to have a nice little partyso im sending you guys are package today and it has some little gifts and surprises for everyone so that should get there pretty soon and also ive been looking hard for some nativities and there is a whole ton of catholic ones but i dont like them much because the catholic statues always make everyone look all wierd and like sad and dark and dreary so yeah i dont like those ones but ive been looking and we know of a place where all the artisans go and i guess they make a lot of them out of wood so i want to get ya one from there but the only problem is that its off limits and we arent aloud to go there.... so i talked to some good member friends and we are going to send them in to check it out and then hopefully i can get one that way but it probably wont be before christmas sorry :(that is crazy that kyle is comming home it actually seems like a whil cuz that first year seems like a long time ago because i was still in high school when he left haha crazy but when i look at that second year it went by like a lightning bolt haha i cant believe ive been out so long its almost been 7 whole months! :( CRAZY! but that will be exciting and cool that he gets to see jason right before he leaves ok so thats so awesome the wrestling coaches asked them all haha they just know that the mormon kids have good work ethic and standards and all that great stuff all ya got to do is set the example and good stuff happens right :) thats awesome it sounds like hes having a good time wrestling but anyways so now to the missionary work haha its really going awesome and we are doing great! WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE! her name is celeste and she is going to get baptized on january 2 so we are really excited about that and also i kid that has been going to church for a really long time his parents are probably going to finally let him get baptized for his gift of the tres reyes! so yeah we might be having two baptisims these next couple weeks so yeah a couple prayers wouldnt hurt for those guys ;) but yeah besides them we have two other people we have been teaching a lot ones name is tony diaz and we contacted him while he was outside boxing and hes a really cool kid and doing good so yeah we are going to keep teaching them and then other family that has these two little kids that are like amazing pro soccer players haha and they are from cuba but the mom works everyday including sundays and is only home on saturday so they are going to take some work but yeah they are good too so yeah send some prayers this way and they would be apriciated :) but anyways thats about it life is going great and im excited to get all this good stuff going before the end of transfers o yeah also something cool that happened was since ive been on my mission weve had this standard set that we need to contact 140 people unplanned do 12 horas of tocing doors and teach 20 lessons every week but pretty much no one ever really gets those but anyways so i got here my first week and i saw how awesome this area is and i knew we could get it so that first week we worked hard and got everything except the lessons we had like 14 lessons but then this week i told my companion we are getting it no matter what and we are going to work hard and get there (not that we were just focusing on the numbers because really thats not what matters) but i knew we could get the goal if we would just try our best but anyways what happened is was my companion didnt really want to do it and he has some health problems but i told him we could if we just tried and prayed really hard and i shared nephi 3 7 and nephi 17 3 and then we were just working hard and just kept going and going every day and at the first of the week he was always saying we cant we cant we cant but as we kept working he finally was like seeing that we could do it and then sunday came around and we had to teach 3 lessons get 20 contacts and 2 hours of finding but i told him i knew we could do it and so we left the house and then my bike tire popped and we had a lesson clear out in the boonies and i was like man idk what we are going to do so i ran my bike home really fast (while my companion rode his lucky bugger :) haha) and then we put my bike inside and then ran over to a members house shared a lesson asked him for a ride which was the life safer WAHOO and then i was worried about getting 2 more lessons but then in our 2 hours of finding time we found two inactives that let us teach them and WE DID IT! it was awesome it was great for me though i loved it because i learned a ton it was a testimony builder for me that heavenly father will give us all we need to complete with his commandments all we have to do is do our part and really want it :) it was great now i just have to keep that standard my whole mission haha but anyways sorry this emails so long but yeah i got to go
I LOVE YOU GUYS and tell jason to send me a letter here pronto haha
love ya
elder ward
Hola family
so im going to start out with all your questions first so i dont forget but first off garments i am good im just going to use the ones i have untill i wear them out cuz they are fine its just if i did it again i would get all low necks and try some mesh ones and then drylux haha but anyways about the shoes i really wanted a pair of the non water proof and the light brown... i dont think they have the light brown in the shoes that are like my black ones and yeah they are waterproof i really like them but i just want to see if otherones that arent waterproof are a little cooler. so for the christmas call it will probably be in the moring for you guys cuz i think im 3 hours ahead of you so that means ill probably be calling you guys at like 11 or 12 i think right around noon i guess but i will just call you guys and then ill tell you the number of the phone that i use and then you can just call me back cuz our cell phone is free long distance and if i dont use the cell phone ill probably call you from a members phone with a phone card :) and then lastly i havent gotten the package yet so i dont know if the cds worked but i will check the mail after when i get home today and if not it should get her sometime this week and then i will check :) but all of the other cds that you have sent they all worked fine so yeah :) but anyways i hope i answered all your questions haha so it sounds like everything is going great over there in Idaho haha thats so cool that jason went through the temple wow thats great stuff hes a lucky duck haha what kind of garments did he decide to get? o and what did you guys do after? did you go to tacanos? but anyways thats awesome dad and jason are speaking what was his excuse to have dad speak? :) but thats cool i wish i got to listen to them :( i guess ill just ask for a reinactment when i get back :) but it sounds like you guys are getting everything figured out and are going to have a nice little partyso im sending you guys are package today and it has some little gifts and surprises for everyone so that should get there pretty soon and also ive been looking hard for some nativities and there is a whole ton of catholic ones but i dont like them much because the catholic statues always make everyone look all wierd and like sad and dark and dreary so yeah i dont like those ones but ive been looking and we know of a place where all the artisans go and i guess they make a lot of them out of wood so i want to get ya one from there but the only problem is that its off limits and we arent aloud to go there.... so i talked to some good member friends and we are going to send them in to check it out and then hopefully i can get one that way but it probably wont be before christmas sorry :(that is crazy that kyle is comming home it actually seems like a whil cuz that first year seems like a long time ago because i was still in high school when he left haha crazy but when i look at that second year it went by like a lightning bolt haha i cant believe ive been out so long its almost been 7 whole months! :( CRAZY! but that will be exciting and cool that he gets to see jason right before he leaves ok so thats so awesome the wrestling coaches asked them all haha they just know that the mormon kids have good work ethic and standards and all that great stuff all ya got to do is set the example and good stuff happens right :) thats awesome it sounds like hes having a good time wrestling but anyways so now to the missionary work haha its really going awesome and we are doing great! WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE! her name is celeste and she is going to get baptized on january 2 so we are really excited about that and also i kid that has been going to church for a really long time his parents are probably going to finally let him get baptized for his gift of the tres reyes! so yeah we might be having two baptisims these next couple weeks so yeah a couple prayers wouldnt hurt for those guys ;) but yeah besides them we have two other people we have been teaching a lot ones name is tony diaz and we contacted him while he was outside boxing and hes a really cool kid and doing good so yeah we are going to keep teaching them and then other family that has these two little kids that are like amazing pro soccer players haha and they are from cuba but the mom works everyday including sundays and is only home on saturday so they are going to take some work but yeah they are good too so yeah send some prayers this way and they would be apriciated :) but anyways thats about it life is going great and im excited to get all this good stuff going before the end of transfers o yeah also something cool that happened was since ive been on my mission weve had this standard set that we need to contact 140 people unplanned do 12 horas of tocing doors and teach 20 lessons every week but pretty much no one ever really gets those but anyways so i got here my first week and i saw how awesome this area is and i knew we could get it so that first week we worked hard and got everything except the lessons we had like 14 lessons but then this week i told my companion we are getting it no matter what and we are going to work hard and get there (not that we were just focusing on the numbers because really thats not what matters) but i knew we could get the goal if we would just try our best but anyways what happened is was my companion didnt really want to do it and he has some health problems but i told him we could if we just tried and prayed really hard and i shared nephi 3 7 and nephi 17 3 and then we were just working hard and just kept going and going every day and at the first of the week he was always saying we cant we cant we cant but as we kept working he finally was like seeing that we could do it and then sunday came around and we had to teach 3 lessons get 20 contacts and 2 hours of finding but i told him i knew we could do it and so we left the house and then my bike tire popped and we had a lesson clear out in the boonies and i was like man idk what we are going to do so i ran my bike home really fast (while my companion rode his lucky bugger :) haha) and then we put my bike inside and then ran over to a members house shared a lesson asked him for a ride which was the life safer WAHOO and then i was worried about getting 2 more lessons but then in our 2 hours of finding time we found two inactives that let us teach them and WE DID IT! it was awesome it was great for me though i loved it because i learned a ton it was a testimony builder for me that heavenly father will give us all we need to complete with his commandments all we have to do is do our part and really want it :) it was great now i just have to keep that standard my whole mission haha but anyways sorry this emails so long but yeah i got to go
I LOVE YOU GUYS and tell jason to send me a letter here pronto haha
love ya
elder ward
Monday, December 7, 2009
Week # 12/07/2009 (Ponce)
December 7, 2009
HOLA FAMILIA
first off mother I figure I better let you know that of course I can teach a whole lesson in Spanish I’ve been a missionary for over 6 months and I think if I couldn’t teach a lesson by now I would consider myself a failure haha. no the Spanish is coming a long good I can say pretty much anything I want to say -- sometimes it just takes me a second to figure out how to say it but when it comes to teaching or the gospel stuff I can pretty much say it no problem. but it sounds like its getting cold …here I’m dieing right now in the heat haha jk its not too hot but it is a little :)that’s awesome Jason is going through the temple right now WAHOO!! That would have been cool to be there for that but o well you guys can just pretend that I was there haha I MISS THE TEMPLE! :( tell Jason that he better go as many times as he can before he leaves because once your on your mission and you can’t go anymore you really start to miss it haha o and about Jason getting his stuff I have a couple suggestions 1st off make sure you don’t buy docmartins like mine haha (which reminds me did you get my email last week and check on that web site to see if they have those hush puppies? because I wear my black shoes everyday cuz I can’t stand my docs they just fry my feet off so I kinda need some brown shoes really bad so yeah will you check for me :)) and also tell him to get a tiny itsy bitsy backpack haha I love my back pack but at times its a bit big and I just want a tiny one so I was going to ask you if you could also get on the internet and see how much a Dakine Drafter backpack is its like a little camel pack but yeah its the perfect size so yeah if you could check both those things for me that would be amazing :) so it sounds like you guys had a fun little Christmas party (I think he is talking about the Creche Exhibit cuz I didn’t tell him about any party!) haha we had a good one too we went to the plaza in Ponce and we had all the missionaries in the zone there and the city of Ponce had a huge like religion party in the plaza so like every religion came and each one had a church leader (ours was the stake pres.) and then we all had like a little booth and we just went around teaching people about the church and singing hymns and stuff it was really awesome and kinda crazy. right when we got there this crazy guy with a big microphone like ran up and was yelling at us and telling us that we were del diablo haha it was kinda funny but that was really our only run in all the rest of the people of the other religions were really nice :)but yeah life is going great! Today I went and printed off some pictures for ya and I’ll try and see if I can find a nativity but idk I haven’t seen one yet :) but yeah also my companion wanted to make some Christmas cards so we did that and we will try and send them out to everyone but I think I’m just going to send them to you and then you can mail them to all our family cuz I don’t have the addresses of everyone :) well anyways I guess that’s about all for this week we are doing great and finding lots of people we don’t have anyone really progressing yet but I’m hoping for some good stuff this week but yeah everything is going great and I love you guys and I’ll talk to you next week love ya elder wardps don’t forget to check that stuff on the internet pretty please and my shoe size is 11 in dress shoes :)
Bummer but yeah you can send those to my apartment but yeah just make sure they are durable light brown shoes I really liked those hush puppy ones cuz they weren’t water proof or anything so yeah I figured they would be cool and also on that back pack just make sure its a dark color if they have a really dark blue that would be cool but yeah just any dark color is fine and yeah thanks mom your the best o yeah also you can check eco shoes too if you cant find those ones they make good ones but yeah thank you and one more thing what’s your guys plan for Christmas will you be in Rexburg? Its coming up quick and I’ll be calling home kinda crazy hu? But yeah I’ll talk to you next week thanks
elder ward
love ya
Letter to dad:
haha man sounds like the duck hunting is going good this year. where did you guys go? just below the dam or below the boat dock? or up in hamett? but yeah everything here is going great and the Spanish is going good i still have to think about it a lot of the time but it definitely comes fast its kinda crazy. but yeah i love the Ponce area and we are doing good we are a ways away from the mission home still its actually just below Adjuntas so distance wise its farther away but yeah also something thats kinda cool that I forgot to write in the other letter is that our district got two more elders that were in another area but they moved them to Ponce so right now the city of Ponce has 8 missionaries. so when they did that they split us so I’m in a district with just me and my companion and then two other missionaries its pretty cool though cuz its the missionaries that live right next to us so we see each other a lot but yeah I’m loving it here and a lot of good things are happening. We still don’t have any amazing investigators yet but we are making that better. when I started in this area we didn’t have a single investigatore because my companion and his companion had to stay in the house for the last three weeks of last transfer because my companion crashed on his bike really bad and it messed him all up but we are starting to get more investigatores and we are doing good but yeah I love the mission it’s amazing you learn way more as a missionary than you could ever learn anywhere else I think but yeah the time just flies by and you don’t even know where it goes I swear the weeks seem like days its pretty crazy but I’m so excited to get Jason out I cant wait for him to get out and in the field its kinda crazy because its at the end of this transfer when he goes into the mtc. It is the same day this transfer ends! Everything is going great and I’ll talk to you guys next week
love ya pops
elder ward
PS: Tell Charles he better quit killin all the hens because I want there to be some ducks when I get back
HOLA FAMILIA
first off mother I figure I better let you know that of course I can teach a whole lesson in Spanish I’ve been a missionary for over 6 months and I think if I couldn’t teach a lesson by now I would consider myself a failure haha. no the Spanish is coming a long good I can say pretty much anything I want to say -- sometimes it just takes me a second to figure out how to say it but when it comes to teaching or the gospel stuff I can pretty much say it no problem. but it sounds like its getting cold …here I’m dieing right now in the heat haha jk its not too hot but it is a little :)that’s awesome Jason is going through the temple right now WAHOO!! That would have been cool to be there for that but o well you guys can just pretend that I was there haha I MISS THE TEMPLE! :( tell Jason that he better go as many times as he can before he leaves because once your on your mission and you can’t go anymore you really start to miss it haha o and about Jason getting his stuff I have a couple suggestions 1st off make sure you don’t buy docmartins like mine haha (which reminds me did you get my email last week and check on that web site to see if they have those hush puppies? because I wear my black shoes everyday cuz I can’t stand my docs they just fry my feet off so I kinda need some brown shoes really bad so yeah will you check for me :)) and also tell him to get a tiny itsy bitsy backpack haha I love my back pack but at times its a bit big and I just want a tiny one so I was going to ask you if you could also get on the internet and see how much a Dakine Drafter backpack is its like a little camel pack but yeah its the perfect size so yeah if you could check both those things for me that would be amazing :) so it sounds like you guys had a fun little Christmas party (I think he is talking about the Creche Exhibit cuz I didn’t tell him about any party!) haha we had a good one too we went to the plaza in Ponce and we had all the missionaries in the zone there and the city of Ponce had a huge like religion party in the plaza so like every religion came and each one had a church leader (ours was the stake pres.) and then we all had like a little booth and we just went around teaching people about the church and singing hymns and stuff it was really awesome and kinda crazy. right when we got there this crazy guy with a big microphone like ran up and was yelling at us and telling us that we were del diablo haha it was kinda funny but that was really our only run in all the rest of the people of the other religions were really nice :)but yeah life is going great! Today I went and printed off some pictures for ya and I’ll try and see if I can find a nativity but idk I haven’t seen one yet :) but yeah also my companion wanted to make some Christmas cards so we did that and we will try and send them out to everyone but I think I’m just going to send them to you and then you can mail them to all our family cuz I don’t have the addresses of everyone :) well anyways I guess that’s about all for this week we are doing great and finding lots of people we don’t have anyone really progressing yet but I’m hoping for some good stuff this week but yeah everything is going great and I love you guys and I’ll talk to you next week love ya elder wardps don’t forget to check that stuff on the internet pretty please and my shoe size is 11 in dress shoes :)
Bummer but yeah you can send those to my apartment but yeah just make sure they are durable light brown shoes I really liked those hush puppy ones cuz they weren’t water proof or anything so yeah I figured they would be cool and also on that back pack just make sure its a dark color if they have a really dark blue that would be cool but yeah just any dark color is fine and yeah thanks mom your the best o yeah also you can check eco shoes too if you cant find those ones they make good ones but yeah thank you and one more thing what’s your guys plan for Christmas will you be in Rexburg? Its coming up quick and I’ll be calling home kinda crazy hu? But yeah I’ll talk to you next week thanks
elder ward
love ya
Letter to dad:
haha man sounds like the duck hunting is going good this year. where did you guys go? just below the dam or below the boat dock? or up in hamett? but yeah everything here is going great and the Spanish is going good i still have to think about it a lot of the time but it definitely comes fast its kinda crazy. but yeah i love the Ponce area and we are doing good we are a ways away from the mission home still its actually just below Adjuntas so distance wise its farther away but yeah also something thats kinda cool that I forgot to write in the other letter is that our district got two more elders that were in another area but they moved them to Ponce so right now the city of Ponce has 8 missionaries. so when they did that they split us so I’m in a district with just me and my companion and then two other missionaries its pretty cool though cuz its the missionaries that live right next to us so we see each other a lot but yeah I’m loving it here and a lot of good things are happening. We still don’t have any amazing investigators yet but we are making that better. when I started in this area we didn’t have a single investigatore because my companion and his companion had to stay in the house for the last three weeks of last transfer because my companion crashed on his bike really bad and it messed him all up but we are starting to get more investigatores and we are doing good but yeah I love the mission it’s amazing you learn way more as a missionary than you could ever learn anywhere else I think but yeah the time just flies by and you don’t even know where it goes I swear the weeks seem like days its pretty crazy but I’m so excited to get Jason out I cant wait for him to get out and in the field its kinda crazy because its at the end of this transfer when he goes into the mtc. It is the same day this transfer ends! Everything is going great and I’ll talk to you guys next week
love ya pops
elder ward
PS: Tell Charles he better quit killin all the hens because I want there to be some ducks when I get back
Monday, November 30, 2009
Week # 11/30/2009 (Ponce Area 2)
Email dated: November 30, 2009
EL DIA DE PAVO!
haha I had a great dia de accion de gracias haha it was the day after transfers so yeah I didn’t know what to expect but we actually ended up going to a really cool guys house that’s only been a member for about 6 months and he’s the only member his wife and 4 kids aren’t members so we really want to work with them but yeah it was good. We had turkey rice and beans and pasteles (they are like these little things that they started feeding us around here at the end of October and I guess they cook them all the way through January too. I guess its a festive food but its made from platanos or guineos or whatever they decide to use and its just like all mashed up and they put meat and all sorts of stuff in the middle of it and then wrap it in a leaf and tie it up and boil it. Its like a puertoriqueno tamali but yeah I like them :) ) also this family had a little bit of American food like appetizer things it was breaded shrimp and then like these little codeanblue (idk how to spell that I’m not French) balls and like fried taco things haha (I don’t know how to describe all this stuff) but yeah it was good and we just stayed there with his family for a bit and played some dominoes for a little bit and then went out and went finding -- tocing doors and visited some other members it was good.So that’s a bummer that Kyle and Tanner aren’t going anymore I thought for sure that they would both smarten up and get goin I was all excited dangit o well I guess maybe while Jason is out they will realize what they are missing and get in gear haha Anyways it sounds like you all had fun and that it was a good thanksgiving. Did you get any killer good sales? My companion wanted to get up early and head to the store to see if we could get some Black Friday sales but I had to inform him that we probably shouldn’t do that. haha he’s a funny guy! But yeah I love Ponce so far. Its a really big city I already knew a ton about it cuz I was always here already and I went on a trade off in the area that I’m in now but yeah its good there are 6 missionaries in the city of Ponce which is cool so sometimes we’ll be riding on our side of the street in our area and they’ll be riding on the side in their area and we will see them haha and one of the companionships actually live in our area in another apartment complex so we see them sometimes too but yeah the thing I love about Ponce is that there are so many people haha ITS GREAT! in Adjuntas there wasn’t as many people so it was hard to talk to a ton of people. so now there is like a ton of people everywhere and when there’s more people, you talk to more and when you talk to more, you can teach more, and when you teach more you baptize more so yeah our agenda for this week is already chuck full of citas so I’m way excited. We found a guy my first day here and we’ve taught him two lessons and he’s way cool and doing good so I’m excited about him too but he’s going in for a knee operation so we can’t see him till Saturday. but yeah Ponce is great and so far from what I can tell it should be an area with a lot of people getting baptized but the missionaries that have been here for the last while were a bit bagga haha but don’t worry we are changing all that around :)My companion Elder Stanley is great! He’s from Las Vegas and he’s a good guy. he only has 4 months left in the mission and so I think he’s getting a little excited to get home but I keep him working pretty hard :) he’s also hyper glysimic and so he has to eat every now and then so that’s kinda been weird for me because I usually like to just eat a giant lunch and then just work the whole day but yeah I kinda felt bad cuz we did that two days ago and then he got really nauseous and sick so now we just like stop at burger king and get him a milk shake or something but yeah I love him he’s a great guy and he’s working hard and we are going to see some good stuff happen this transfer I KNOW IT!!So anyways I don’t even want to think that it’s almost Christmas! That’s so crazy! Its going by way too fast WAY WAY too fast!!! But yeah I actually decided something that you can get me. I would really like if you could get on the internet and go to that Hush Puppy site and see if they have those brown shoes still on sale because I mean my doc martins are good I just think my feet are going to melt away cuz they are so so so hot here! In Ponce its like 10 degrees hotter than Adjuntas and yeah my feet don’t handle the heat in the doc martins and they are my only brown shoes so yeah if you could look on there and see if they have them and send me those that would be great they are the ones that are just plain leather and like a light brownish color and they aren’t water proof or nothin but other than that I think I’m good with everything I actually might try and send some stuff back again like my doc martins if you can get those other shoes sent :)but yeah sounds like everything is going great up there in Idaho! Thanks for the email and everything and I’ll talk to you guys next week.
LOVE YA
elder ward
EL DIA DE PAVO!
haha I had a great dia de accion de gracias haha it was the day after transfers so yeah I didn’t know what to expect but we actually ended up going to a really cool guys house that’s only been a member for about 6 months and he’s the only member his wife and 4 kids aren’t members so we really want to work with them but yeah it was good. We had turkey rice and beans and pasteles (they are like these little things that they started feeding us around here at the end of October and I guess they cook them all the way through January too. I guess its a festive food but its made from platanos or guineos or whatever they decide to use and its just like all mashed up and they put meat and all sorts of stuff in the middle of it and then wrap it in a leaf and tie it up and boil it. Its like a puertoriqueno tamali but yeah I like them :) ) also this family had a little bit of American food like appetizer things it was breaded shrimp and then like these little codeanblue (idk how to spell that I’m not French) balls and like fried taco things haha (I don’t know how to describe all this stuff) but yeah it was good and we just stayed there with his family for a bit and played some dominoes for a little bit and then went out and went finding -- tocing doors and visited some other members it was good.So that’s a bummer that Kyle and Tanner aren’t going anymore I thought for sure that they would both smarten up and get goin I was all excited dangit o well I guess maybe while Jason is out they will realize what they are missing and get in gear haha Anyways it sounds like you all had fun and that it was a good thanksgiving. Did you get any killer good sales? My companion wanted to get up early and head to the store to see if we could get some Black Friday sales but I had to inform him that we probably shouldn’t do that. haha he’s a funny guy! But yeah I love Ponce so far. Its a really big city I already knew a ton about it cuz I was always here already and I went on a trade off in the area that I’m in now but yeah its good there are 6 missionaries in the city of Ponce which is cool so sometimes we’ll be riding on our side of the street in our area and they’ll be riding on the side in their area and we will see them haha and one of the companionships actually live in our area in another apartment complex so we see them sometimes too but yeah the thing I love about Ponce is that there are so many people haha ITS GREAT! in Adjuntas there wasn’t as many people so it was hard to talk to a ton of people. so now there is like a ton of people everywhere and when there’s more people, you talk to more and when you talk to more, you can teach more, and when you teach more you baptize more so yeah our agenda for this week is already chuck full of citas so I’m way excited. We found a guy my first day here and we’ve taught him two lessons and he’s way cool and doing good so I’m excited about him too but he’s going in for a knee operation so we can’t see him till Saturday. but yeah Ponce is great and so far from what I can tell it should be an area with a lot of people getting baptized but the missionaries that have been here for the last while were a bit bagga haha but don’t worry we are changing all that around :)My companion Elder Stanley is great! He’s from Las Vegas and he’s a good guy. he only has 4 months left in the mission and so I think he’s getting a little excited to get home but I keep him working pretty hard :) he’s also hyper glysimic and so he has to eat every now and then so that’s kinda been weird for me because I usually like to just eat a giant lunch and then just work the whole day but yeah I kinda felt bad cuz we did that two days ago and then he got really nauseous and sick so now we just like stop at burger king and get him a milk shake or something but yeah I love him he’s a great guy and he’s working hard and we are going to see some good stuff happen this transfer I KNOW IT!!So anyways I don’t even want to think that it’s almost Christmas! That’s so crazy! Its going by way too fast WAY WAY too fast!!! But yeah I actually decided something that you can get me. I would really like if you could get on the internet and go to that Hush Puppy site and see if they have those brown shoes still on sale because I mean my doc martins are good I just think my feet are going to melt away cuz they are so so so hot here! In Ponce its like 10 degrees hotter than Adjuntas and yeah my feet don’t handle the heat in the doc martins and they are my only brown shoes so yeah if you could look on there and see if they have them and send me those that would be great they are the ones that are just plain leather and like a light brownish color and they aren’t water proof or nothin but other than that I think I’m good with everything I actually might try and send some stuff back again like my doc martins if you can get those other shoes sent :)but yeah sounds like everything is going great up there in Idaho! Thanks for the email and everything and I’ll talk to you guys next week.
LOVE YA
elder ward
Monday, November 23, 2009
Week # 11/23/2009 Going to Ponce! (4th Transfer)
Email dated: November 23, 2009
4th Transfer
Ponce 2 Area
New Companion: Elder Stanley from Las Vegas, Nevada
I’M LEAVIN! :( :) had to put a double smile because I’m happy to go to a new area and talk to new people but I’m also sad to leave my little Branch up here in the mountains they are awesome. Our mission is going through all these changes so now what we are doing and I’m pretty sure all the missions in the world are doing is that we don’t have transfer meeting and we have zone conference every month now. I guess they want to focus on doing missionary work by the month now or something but yeah so I know where I’m going and who my companion is already. My comps name is Elder Stanley from Las Vegas he’s a pretty funny kid I went on a trade off with him for a day my second transfer. We are going to be in the Ponce 2 area haha kinda funny cuz that’s still in my district and I’ve gone there at least once a week so far on my mission haha so it’s like I’m right next door kinda funny but yeah Ponce is like one of the bigger cities in Puerto Rico so I’m going from one of the small ones to one of the biggest haha but yeah it should be good except it’s usually like 10 degrees hotter down there which isn’t cool. I leave Wednesday morning -- I don’t know what my address is but you can just send stuff to the office and it will get to me just fine. Oh and if I go to the islands ever you just send letters to the office and then President takes them over when he flies over like twice a transfer but yeah you just can’t send packages when your in the islands!
So to answer dad’s questions if we can watch movies the answer is YES! you know all those movies that the missionaries hand out (like cordero de dios, como hallar fe en Cristo, Familias puede ser eterna, etc..) haha yeah those are the only movies we can watch :)
But anyways that does sound like a good movie haha (We went to the movie “The Blind Side” and I told Matthew a bit about it! Very GOOD movie!!) I would like to see it so yeah you can just buy it and save it for me. I love football movies! but yeah tell Jason he better get crackin and get to the temple and get all his stuff ready and tell him that I said a lot of days those mesh garments don’t sound too bad haha
We had Thanksgiving planned with an awesome family here in the branch that I just love. they have a bunch of kids and they’ve been members for about 30 years or so they were one of the first people to get baptized in Adjuntas but yeah they are awesome and have a bunch of returned missionary kids and then 3 foster kids that are ages 12-14 but the problem is I get transferred the day before so I don’t know what I will be doing Thanksgiving. I would imagine it will just be a good day of missionary work cuz a lot of families will be home and then we will probably have a dinner at a members house in Ponce.
But anyways I think I answered all the questions haha but yeah life is going good we just gave out a baptismal invite yesterday and the guy accepted his name is Nestor and he’s a really nice guy that we met at the beginning of the transfer. He was living with a girl and a bunch of kids but they got in a fight and she left or something and his house on his farm burned down a couple months ago and he didn’t have insurance so the Lord is doing a good job of humbling him so yeah he wants to get baptized but he still has a lot of work to go. Other than that we don’t have any really strong investigators but we will find them I have one more day left to get them haha :)
Well I better get going o and I ended up getting everything in the mail like a couple days ago so yeah I have my card and everything and tell Jason I’m going to write him a letter today.
I love you guys and have fun in Utah
elder ward
4th Transfer
Ponce 2 Area
New Companion: Elder Stanley from Las Vegas, Nevada
I’M LEAVIN! :( :) had to put a double smile because I’m happy to go to a new area and talk to new people but I’m also sad to leave my little Branch up here in the mountains they are awesome. Our mission is going through all these changes so now what we are doing and I’m pretty sure all the missions in the world are doing is that we don’t have transfer meeting and we have zone conference every month now. I guess they want to focus on doing missionary work by the month now or something but yeah so I know where I’m going and who my companion is already. My comps name is Elder Stanley from Las Vegas he’s a pretty funny kid I went on a trade off with him for a day my second transfer. We are going to be in the Ponce 2 area haha kinda funny cuz that’s still in my district and I’ve gone there at least once a week so far on my mission haha so it’s like I’m right next door kinda funny but yeah Ponce is like one of the bigger cities in Puerto Rico so I’m going from one of the small ones to one of the biggest haha but yeah it should be good except it’s usually like 10 degrees hotter down there which isn’t cool. I leave Wednesday morning -- I don’t know what my address is but you can just send stuff to the office and it will get to me just fine. Oh and if I go to the islands ever you just send letters to the office and then President takes them over when he flies over like twice a transfer but yeah you just can’t send packages when your in the islands!
So to answer dad’s questions if we can watch movies the answer is YES! you know all those movies that the missionaries hand out (like cordero de dios, como hallar fe en Cristo, Familias puede ser eterna, etc..) haha yeah those are the only movies we can watch :)
But anyways that does sound like a good movie haha (We went to the movie “The Blind Side” and I told Matthew a bit about it! Very GOOD movie!!) I would like to see it so yeah you can just buy it and save it for me. I love football movies! but yeah tell Jason he better get crackin and get to the temple and get all his stuff ready and tell him that I said a lot of days those mesh garments don’t sound too bad haha
We had Thanksgiving planned with an awesome family here in the branch that I just love. they have a bunch of kids and they’ve been members for about 30 years or so they were one of the first people to get baptized in Adjuntas but yeah they are awesome and have a bunch of returned missionary kids and then 3 foster kids that are ages 12-14 but the problem is I get transferred the day before so I don’t know what I will be doing Thanksgiving. I would imagine it will just be a good day of missionary work cuz a lot of families will be home and then we will probably have a dinner at a members house in Ponce.
But anyways I think I answered all the questions haha but yeah life is going good we just gave out a baptismal invite yesterday and the guy accepted his name is Nestor and he’s a really nice guy that we met at the beginning of the transfer. He was living with a girl and a bunch of kids but they got in a fight and she left or something and his house on his farm burned down a couple months ago and he didn’t have insurance so the Lord is doing a good job of humbling him so yeah he wants to get baptized but he still has a lot of work to go. Other than that we don’t have any really strong investigators but we will find them I have one more day left to get them haha :)
Well I better get going o and I ended up getting everything in the mail like a couple days ago so yeah I have my card and everything and tell Jason I’m going to write him a letter today.
I love you guys and have fun in Utah
elder ward
Monday, November 16, 2009
Week # 11/16/2009 (Adjuntas)
Email dated: November 16, 2009
haha you crack me up but good work on the missionary work now you just have to get her to come to the good part CHURCH haha but it sounds like your doing good haha. So you and kelli went to the temple? When is Jason going to go through? I don’t know how hot it is in the Philippines but tell him that I kinda wished I would have tried some mesh garments out sometimes haha and don’t let dad see this email cuz honestly I like the crew neck ones better too haha even though I told dad I wouldn’t it’s just so much better with a collared shirt haha I definitely like the other ones better when I’m wearing a t-shirt but with the collared shirt I like celestial smile all the way haha (you might have to delete some of that when you send this email out haha idk :)) but that’s cool that you had the temple pres. and stuff come down that’s awesome its crazy cuz sometimes I wish I was in a states mission cuz I miss going to the temple I love it and also I miss all the big wards and stakes haha don’t get me wrong I love it here but its just a giant sized blessing to have a temple and a big ward and everything :) but anyways everything here is going great we haven’t really found anyone for a while either we are spending about all day everyday tocing doors and looking for people to teach we just haven’t had that much success but we are working hard and we will find someone :) but yeah o so I got a funny story I’ll tell ya about so Friday (which happened to be Friday the 13th) was just a funny day so it starts out that we forgot to turn our phone ringing on which is our alarm clock and usually we wake up at 6:20 but the phone didn’t go off so we woke up at like 6:35 and sinned right off the bat and then we did all our studies and all that good stuff which went good but we went out to teach and in the first 30 minutes of the day all 5 of our citas fell that we had planned idk how we even contacted them all in that time but it just so happened like that and they all said they would be gone and we couldn’t teach them so then we went tocing and it was a way hot one Friday and then mid contact I was talking to this guy and all of a sudden a big giant bee stings me right on the tip of the figure and man it hurt but I was talking to this guy and man it was just a mess but really funny at the same time but yeah it cracked me up and I don’t want to complain in my email or anything but I just thought it was a funny Friday the 13 experience haha well I better go run and check dad’s email but I hope you guys are all doing good I have checked the mail yet so I don’t know if its here but I think it should bebut I love you guys and everything is going wonderful transfers end not this Wednesday but the next so yeah we’ll see what happens haha but yeah love ya and I’ll talk to you next week
elder ward
(Matthew’s email to his dad was quite hilarious this week so I just had to share it with all of you!)
WHAT?! Man I feel out of the loop I didn’t know they were selling wolf tags now I can’t believe that that is crazy but brad missed hu? That’s a bummer but where were you hunting? Man those crazy wolves -- sounds like there is way too many of them. so you and brad better get out there and shoot a couple haha but I was thinking if you get one you can skin him and tan him and make me a big old Indian hat with the tail hanging in the back and the face right on front and then all 4 legs hanging down hahaha it would probably be better to do that with a coyote but yeah. What did you end up doing with your bear and your elk? I think the best would be to rug the bear that’s what I’m going to do when I shoot one haha :) well everything is going good and it sounds like you having fun but I’ll talk to ya later
Love ya
elder ward
(Andrea’s email)
hey HOWARDS
Puerto Rico es perfecto! :)
but anyways transfers are this next wednesday but i dont know if i will be going or not yet i will know this saturday if i stay or not but yeah if you want you can just send it to the mission home and it will get to me just fine :) but anyways that would be cool if kenna baught an airplane that sounds fun you should let her do it :) but they are dancing hu? i dont know how to do any of that dancing stuff but i did have a roommate in college that was catholic and a ball room dancer but he was pretty different haha but anyways yeah i dont really need anything for christmas for real missionaries just live out of a suit case and dont really have room for anything and ive got plenty of clothes and stuff so really im great but thanks but i still would like a big box of home made cookies or maybe some peanut butter bars man i havent had those for a while haha but yeah anyways everythign is going great hows the england life? i was just thinking do you guys know when you are going to leave england? and are you going to try and go somewhere crazy afterward? anyways ill talk to you next week ( i almost didnt get to talk to you this week but good thing i refreshed it before i left hu :))
well i got to go ttyl > > love you guys > > elder ward>
haha you crack me up but good work on the missionary work now you just have to get her to come to the good part CHURCH haha but it sounds like your doing good haha. So you and kelli went to the temple? When is Jason going to go through? I don’t know how hot it is in the Philippines but tell him that I kinda wished I would have tried some mesh garments out sometimes haha and don’t let dad see this email cuz honestly I like the crew neck ones better too haha even though I told dad I wouldn’t it’s just so much better with a collared shirt haha I definitely like the other ones better when I’m wearing a t-shirt but with the collared shirt I like celestial smile all the way haha (you might have to delete some of that when you send this email out haha idk :)) but that’s cool that you had the temple pres. and stuff come down that’s awesome its crazy cuz sometimes I wish I was in a states mission cuz I miss going to the temple I love it and also I miss all the big wards and stakes haha don’t get me wrong I love it here but its just a giant sized blessing to have a temple and a big ward and everything :) but anyways everything here is going great we haven’t really found anyone for a while either we are spending about all day everyday tocing doors and looking for people to teach we just haven’t had that much success but we are working hard and we will find someone :) but yeah o so I got a funny story I’ll tell ya about so Friday (which happened to be Friday the 13th) was just a funny day so it starts out that we forgot to turn our phone ringing on which is our alarm clock and usually we wake up at 6:20 but the phone didn’t go off so we woke up at like 6:35 and sinned right off the bat and then we did all our studies and all that good stuff which went good but we went out to teach and in the first 30 minutes of the day all 5 of our citas fell that we had planned idk how we even contacted them all in that time but it just so happened like that and they all said they would be gone and we couldn’t teach them so then we went tocing and it was a way hot one Friday and then mid contact I was talking to this guy and all of a sudden a big giant bee stings me right on the tip of the figure and man it hurt but I was talking to this guy and man it was just a mess but really funny at the same time but yeah it cracked me up and I don’t want to complain in my email or anything but I just thought it was a funny Friday the 13 experience haha well I better go run and check dad’s email but I hope you guys are all doing good I have checked the mail yet so I don’t know if its here but I think it should bebut I love you guys and everything is going wonderful transfers end not this Wednesday but the next so yeah we’ll see what happens haha but yeah love ya and I’ll talk to you next week
elder ward
(Matthew’s email to his dad was quite hilarious this week so I just had to share it with all of you!)
WHAT?! Man I feel out of the loop I didn’t know they were selling wolf tags now I can’t believe that that is crazy but brad missed hu? That’s a bummer but where were you hunting? Man those crazy wolves -- sounds like there is way too many of them. so you and brad better get out there and shoot a couple haha but I was thinking if you get one you can skin him and tan him and make me a big old Indian hat with the tail hanging in the back and the face right on front and then all 4 legs hanging down hahaha it would probably be better to do that with a coyote but yeah. What did you end up doing with your bear and your elk? I think the best would be to rug the bear that’s what I’m going to do when I shoot one haha :) well everything is going good and it sounds like you having fun but I’ll talk to ya later
Love ya
elder ward
(Andrea’s email)
hey HOWARDS
Puerto Rico es perfecto! :)
but anyways transfers are this next wednesday but i dont know if i will be going or not yet i will know this saturday if i stay or not but yeah if you want you can just send it to the mission home and it will get to me just fine :) but anyways that would be cool if kenna baught an airplane that sounds fun you should let her do it :) but they are dancing hu? i dont know how to do any of that dancing stuff but i did have a roommate in college that was catholic and a ball room dancer but he was pretty different haha but anyways yeah i dont really need anything for christmas for real missionaries just live out of a suit case and dont really have room for anything and ive got plenty of clothes and stuff so really im great but thanks but i still would like a big box of home made cookies or maybe some peanut butter bars man i havent had those for a while haha but yeah anyways everythign is going great hows the england life? i was just thinking do you guys know when you are going to leave england? and are you going to try and go somewhere crazy afterward? anyways ill talk to you next week ( i almost didnt get to talk to you this week but good thing i refreshed it before i left hu :))
well i got to go ttyl > > love you guys > > elder ward>
Monday, November 9, 2009
Week # 11/09/2009 (Adjuntas)
Email dated: November 9, 2009
Madre su espanol es excelente so anyways to start out that’s pretty cool that you guys had your primary program cuz we had ours too haha well actually we had stake conference so because the wards are really small they do a combined primary program right before conference starts but yeah it was really cool and reminded me of the funny kids. This one little girl did not want to say her talk at all it was funny. They also sang familias pueden ser eternas tambien haha :)ok so what are you doing with a bunch of pieces of wood your sanding? 800 is a lot haha but it sounds like everything is just about the same back home haha. (Super Saturday) They don’t have any pawn shops here :( well at least I haven’t seen one haha and they don’t have any guns really either because there is nothing to hunt so the only guys I ever see are the ones that the police have and I always ask them what it is (even thought I can usually tell before hand haha) but yeah it’s a good way to start a conversation except now I know all the policemen in town I think and haven’t got one teaching appointment with any of them :( but yeah talking about the police reminds me when me and my companion lost the keys to the car and went to the police station to see if they could unlock our door and they just handed me a slim jim and said bring it back haha man that’s funny :) I think I told you that story though at least I hope so hahaSo that is way crazy about Chris (Chris Hipwell is on a mission in SLC) and his parents going there all the time man that would be weird but I’m not going to lie sometimes I get jealous of those Idaho Utah missionaries that have giant Stakes of people that would love to help the missionaries haha ;) At least that’s how I picture it and it all makes sense to me now why they have so many baptisms! But wow that’s so weird that Kyle is coming home kinda crazy hu? Man I can’t believe it he’s going to be an RM he’s going to BYU right? man that’s weird but something kinda cool that I just realized that he will only have a semester more of school than me when I get back so we will be about the same :)So that scripture sounds like a pretty good one of Jason’s. (Jason’s scripture for his Missionary Plaque is … Alma 26:12) That was one of the two I sent you remember? But something really cool about all that is that his scripture if you read the story of the sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger well the sons of Mosiah and Alma all convert and the sons of Mosiah are all supposed to be kings but they decide to leave and go on missions instead and Alma does the same thing but the sons of Mosiah take off to go teach the lamenites and Alma stays to do his mission -- well Jason's scripture is Ammon after he had all the success with his brothers and my scripture is Alma (Matt’s scripture for his Missionary Plaque is … Alma 29:9) but I just think it’s cool because they were like best buddies who left out on their missions to different places but they just really have the same look on things. haha but yeah read the stories I LOVE IT :)but anyways now to the good stuff so everything is going really good and we are starting to get investigatores and we’ve been teaching a lot more now :). the family is doing good we had a lesson with them yesterday and the branch pres and his wife came with us so that was good (they are both returned missionaries and are like 27 years old so yeah they had preach my gospel on their missions too so they can teach great and know the language haha) but yeah then we also have another returned missionary that is 22 and he is the second counselor and he has been helping us on the weekends and he’s way awesome too but yeah we are teaching and finding and everything is going good we haven’t got anyone to church yet but we will :)anyways I’m like out of time though I’m talking too much ahha but I better get going I hope everything is going great and you get Jason’s stuff done on time haha I’m doing good and I don’t really need anything for Christmas -- tell dad I heard about Jason’s Christmas present and wouldn’t mind one of those waiting at home for me haha (I guess I better find out what this present is … I don’t even know!!!)
love you guys
elder ward
(This is a portion of Andrea’s email from Matthew)
Yesterday I got ribs for the first time of my whole mission it was the best we went and visited a member and they were about to eat so she is like come eat with us and she pulled out ribs I WAS IN HEAVEN!!!But anyways so for Christmas I don’t really need anything. You can just send me a batch of cookies and then I can lug them around in my giant belly instead haha but yeah I don’t really need anything :)You can tell Kennady that we will have to go on a special trip to Puerto Rico some time because I know she wants to go so bad :)
But anyways I hope everything is going good with you guys and tell everyone hi for me thank you so much for the email and everything ill talk to you later
love you guys elder ward
Madre su espanol es excelente so anyways to start out that’s pretty cool that you guys had your primary program cuz we had ours too haha well actually we had stake conference so because the wards are really small they do a combined primary program right before conference starts but yeah it was really cool and reminded me of the funny kids. This one little girl did not want to say her talk at all it was funny. They also sang familias pueden ser eternas tambien haha :)ok so what are you doing with a bunch of pieces of wood your sanding? 800 is a lot haha but it sounds like everything is just about the same back home haha. (Super Saturday) They don’t have any pawn shops here :( well at least I haven’t seen one haha and they don’t have any guns really either because there is nothing to hunt so the only guys I ever see are the ones that the police have and I always ask them what it is (even thought I can usually tell before hand haha) but yeah it’s a good way to start a conversation except now I know all the policemen in town I think and haven’t got one teaching appointment with any of them :( but yeah talking about the police reminds me when me and my companion lost the keys to the car and went to the police station to see if they could unlock our door and they just handed me a slim jim and said bring it back haha man that’s funny :) I think I told you that story though at least I hope so hahaSo that is way crazy about Chris (Chris Hipwell is on a mission in SLC) and his parents going there all the time man that would be weird but I’m not going to lie sometimes I get jealous of those Idaho Utah missionaries that have giant Stakes of people that would love to help the missionaries haha ;) At least that’s how I picture it and it all makes sense to me now why they have so many baptisms! But wow that’s so weird that Kyle is coming home kinda crazy hu? Man I can’t believe it he’s going to be an RM he’s going to BYU right? man that’s weird but something kinda cool that I just realized that he will only have a semester more of school than me when I get back so we will be about the same :)So that scripture sounds like a pretty good one of Jason’s. (Jason’s scripture for his Missionary Plaque is … Alma 26:12) That was one of the two I sent you remember? But something really cool about all that is that his scripture if you read the story of the sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger well the sons of Mosiah and Alma all convert and the sons of Mosiah are all supposed to be kings but they decide to leave and go on missions instead and Alma does the same thing but the sons of Mosiah take off to go teach the lamenites and Alma stays to do his mission -- well Jason's scripture is Ammon after he had all the success with his brothers and my scripture is Alma (Matt’s scripture for his Missionary Plaque is … Alma 29:9) but I just think it’s cool because they were like best buddies who left out on their missions to different places but they just really have the same look on things. haha but yeah read the stories I LOVE IT :)but anyways now to the good stuff so everything is going really good and we are starting to get investigatores and we’ve been teaching a lot more now :). the family is doing good we had a lesson with them yesterday and the branch pres and his wife came with us so that was good (they are both returned missionaries and are like 27 years old so yeah they had preach my gospel on their missions too so they can teach great and know the language haha) but yeah then we also have another returned missionary that is 22 and he is the second counselor and he has been helping us on the weekends and he’s way awesome too but yeah we are teaching and finding and everything is going good we haven’t got anyone to church yet but we will :)anyways I’m like out of time though I’m talking too much ahha but I better get going I hope everything is going great and you get Jason’s stuff done on time haha I’m doing good and I don’t really need anything for Christmas -- tell dad I heard about Jason’s Christmas present and wouldn’t mind one of those waiting at home for me haha (I guess I better find out what this present is … I don’t even know!!!)
love you guys
elder ward
(This is a portion of Andrea’s email from Matthew)
Yesterday I got ribs for the first time of my whole mission it was the best we went and visited a member and they were about to eat so she is like come eat with us and she pulled out ribs I WAS IN HEAVEN!!!But anyways so for Christmas I don’t really need anything. You can just send me a batch of cookies and then I can lug them around in my giant belly instead haha but yeah I don’t really need anything :)You can tell Kennady that we will have to go on a special trip to Puerto Rico some time because I know she wants to go so bad :)
But anyways I hope everything is going good with you guys and tell everyone hi for me thank you so much for the email and everything ill talk to you later
love you guys elder ward
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