Ten Months

June 7, 2010

Hey Everyone,

Heres part of my letter to Prez Miller today,

Hey President,

We had a really great experience this week. So are we are teaching this 19 year old guy named Carlos. He is very outgoing and has been receiving us really well. We have been teaching him for a little over a month and he has really been progressing a lot, with the exception of church, until this week. He has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and told us he believes it is true. We had some really awesome lessons with him and finally got him to church this week. It amazes me how Satan tries to stop people from getting to church, there is always something they have to overcome to get there, for Carlos, he had a flat tire when he went to leave for church and had to go fill up his tire with air. Luckily he was leaving really early and still got to church before it even started. I kept telling him to pay attention to how he was feeling while he was at church, and he really loved it. Even though there was some crazy stuff said in Elders Quorum, he definitely still felt the spirit. So we went over Sunday evening and we were talking about church and about baptism, and as we were leading up to set a baptismal date with him, his 16 year old brother walked in and was like "So are you going to be a Mormon?" and Carlos said "Well yea, probably". So we ended up setting the baptismal date for the 20th of this month. He is doing great and is truly becoming converted to this gospel.

 

So yea Carlos is doing super well. Im really excited to see him get baptized here pretty soon. Oh yea and idk if I told you but the other elders are teaching this guy from Nigeria who is super super prepared. He was at church yesterday and when we were waiting for his ride with him we were teaching him spanish. It was funny hearing him speak spanish in an african accent. Hes was cool. Man if everyone was as prepared as him life would be so much easier. Im guessing there are a lot of people like him over there in Kenya, Dylans lucky haha.

Oh yea guess what, I learned how to do a Rubix Cube this transfer. I can do it super fast. Like in a 1 minute 20 seconds. Elder Holden, one of the other missionaries I live with taught me, hes pretty baller at them. I totally met a guy with Lepercy this week. He was just sitting in his car and I went to talk to him and I said how are you doing, and he said, pretty crappy (all this was in spanish of course) anyway he told me about how he just got this crazy skin disease and he doesnt know what it is and all his skin is falling off and stuff. Its super gross and super sad. Were gonna go teach him which will help. So then yesterday I was driving to church and there was a dead cat in the road and I was noticing that there was tons and tons of roadkill here in brownsville. Like a new one everyday. Any was right as I say, man theres a lot of roadkill, BOOM. I drilled a bird. This bird swooped down and hit the hood of the car and died in the road. It was kinda crazy. Oh yea and I'm gonna send you a pic of this HUGE triantula that I found in the middle of the road. I almost ran it over, but then I took a picture, and then I ran it over haha.

Oh yea so this kid we are teaching named Osmar, he has been doing alright, but we went over saturday and he was trying to drop us cus he likes being catholic. So I said "So you like being catholic cus you dont want to go to church?" Just totally called him out that hes lazy. And we went from getting an attempted drop, to a really good church commitment, and then he actually went. It was cool.

Mom that was a crazy story about almost getting you car jacked. That sucks. Just dont go to the mall for a while haha. Nobody here worries about that. They just worry about if they go to mexico in a nice car they will get jacked. Its funny. Alright well I think thats all I got for today. My email is out kinda late cus we got another 1000 lb tie bail today. It was kinda fun, only cost me $3 cus there were like 10 missionaries there. Cool well I love you guys a lot. Cant wait to get that package with the protein and pics and stuff.

Love

Elder Given

 

New Baptism

Whats up everyone,

We had a pretty awesome week this week. Jocelyn got baptized on Sunday which was really cool to see. We went by Saturday to find out who would be baptizing her and they she didnt know who she wanted to do it so we said to think about it and tell us at church. So I asked Jocelyns mom at church who she wanted to do it and she said they still hadnt picked, but she wants me to do it, but I asked her if Elder Graham could do it. And she was cool with that, so Elder Graham got to do the baptism. It was a really good baptism cus a ton of the members were there. Basicly the branch mission leader got up during 3rd hour cus it was combined and told everyone that they need to support us as missionaries and basicly told them they arent doing their job unless they support us, so then everyone came to the baptism. It was pretty cool.

Guess who Im sitting next to right now. Marcus, our way cool black guy we're teaching. Hes in the library right now just chillin. We're about to go teach him later today. He didnt come to church yet tho cus hes not ready to make the commitment. Hes way cool tho. Rubin and Christian came to church again this week. Its freekin weird, Im trying to find their motivation for going to church, there is something that makes them go, I mean theyve gone 4 times, but they dont want to get baptized. Were still working with them trying to help them keep the commandments. Oh yea Happy Birthday to Sydney and Lauren! Thats exciting that you are gonna get baptized this week! Send me some pics :) Sorry I forgot to get a card out.

Thats exciting that school is almost over, they finish on thursday down here, so everyone is gonna be out and about a lot more, it will be cool. Its definently hot, like average 95, sometimes more. We have a really good AC unit our house and the car one works pretty well. I've been carying around a lot of water with me. I dont always use my camel back, it would work best on bike I think. That would be way cool if you got that Muscle Milk to me. Im staying away from raw eggs, I was just curious.

My comp is doing pretty well. He just is uptight about a lot of stuff but Im getting over it. Oh yea and as for the masks, those are like mexican wrestiling masks. I didnt buy one but on of the other elder bought two so we were bored and taking pics with them. We got them downtown right by the border. We got rid of all those ties by filling them up in the back of our car and emptying them into a dumpster by our house. The other elders want to get another 1000 lb one next week. Oh yea I played ball for like 3 hours yesterday! It was pretty fun, a bunch of the youth from our branch played with us cus they didnt have school. they were alright. We did they big 2 on 2 tournament and I was with this 14 year old kid who wasnt very good, and we won it all. It was fun. I had a couple really good dunks, but I cant jump any more. I am getting stronger tho, we've been working out pretty good.

Oh yea and we set a baptismal goal for 4 baptisms in July. Thats the highest Ive ever set, but it was under the direction of the spirit so we're gonna get it. We are just gonna have to work super hard to do it. Well I think thats all I got for this week. It would be cool if I got some letters every once and a while, I didnt get any at all last week. Anyway, love you guys a lot,

Con mucho amor

Elder Given

Rough Week

May 24, 2010

Hey Everyone,

This was a pretty rough week. A lot of people let us down and decided to be really lame. Im gonna paste in my letter to president cus thats got a lot of stuff in it.

Hey President,
This week definitely had its ups and its downs. Within the last week and a half we have had a lot of people let us down by not deciding to show up for their baptismal interviews, or just disappear. We had a really tough time getting by a lot of our investigators this week, mostly just because we could never catch them at home. It has been tough for me to see all these people doing great and progressing, and then just hit a brick wall and everything stops. I guess the best thing I can do now is just go to the Lord for help and answers on what to do. We have these two great teenagers named Arody and Angie who we are teaching, they are both very excited about getting baptized, and it is what they really want to do, but the want to go to Mexico every weekend to visit their family. They told us that they would just stay but their parents say they have to take their 7 year old brother over there every weekend, so we are trying to help them find a solution for that problem. It was just a week of lots of things like that coming up. But, on the bright side, on of our investigators passed her baptismal interview and she is very excited to get baptized this coming Sunday. 
Elder Graham is doing really well. He is picking up Spanish pretty quick and we're just working on helping him build his confidence. Honestly though President, I sometimes feel intimidated as a trainer, because I feel like my trainer, Elder Horton, knew everything, knew every little rule about Spanish, and is just an amazing missionary, which he is. I just feel like I'm not living up to that for Elder Graham, and it doesn't help that he questions a lot of the things that we do. That has been the hardest part for me this transfer, is just being confident in telling him that what we are doing is what we should be doing, because I don't want to come off like a know it all, especially because at the same time I definitely don't know everything. That's been the constant battle that is going on in my head, because I want to be a great missionary and an amazing trainer like Elder Horton was, I just don't feel I'm even close to his level of a missionary yet. That's not going to stop me from working though. We are going to keep working hard and do our best every day. We had 152 contacts and 10 new investigators this week.
-Elder Given

 

So yea thats basicly whats going on right now. I think Im starting to figure out Elder Graham. Basicly he didnt do anything but work on computers before his mission. And he really wants to be a missionary like his dad was 30 years ago in Ecuador, where he baptized a ton of people, and its just not the same mission, but he expects the same results. Thats the most annoying part. And then back home he didnt have a life so he would go out with the missionaries for like 12 hours a week and so he thinks he knows everything about missionarywork, when really he doesnt at all. It's kinda annoying but Im getting over it. 

We had zone confrence this week, I got this cool award cus I know a bunch of scriptures, Im gonna send you the pic. I learned a lot, got to talk to Elder Guillen which was cool. Friday we went to McAllen for new comp training. That was a lot of fun. I saw Elder Yergensen which was cool, he was there picking up baptismal clothes. Oh yea last week we went to the local High school and played at their open gym, I had a sick tip dunk and then I dunked on this kid that was pretty good. And then, yesterday, I found thats kids house and his brother was making fun cus I dunked on him. We're gonna have a baptism this Sunday for this 9 year old girl. Shes pretty cool, Im just glad we reactivated the family. Her mom had been inactive for a while. Well I think thats all I got for this week. 

I love you guys, Ill try to get some letters out this week.

Love

Elder Given

 

Training a New Missionary!

May 3, 2010

Hi Family!!

Well transfers are tomorrow and we waited till we found out about what was going on till we emailed. Im staying and Valdez is leaving. Best case scenario. President definently prepared me to train this transfer by putting me with him. So I am getting a brand new missionary tomorrow which is kinda crazy. I got a lot of responsiblity now, I just gotta keep doing what Im doing I guess and just be a good example. I hope Valdez gets put with a good comp so he can stay positive. Man that kid was tough though, hardest transfer of my life. I wanted to crack so many times but Im glad I didnt. Oh yea and Elder Hernandez who I lived with in Raymondille for 3 transfers is coming down and gonna be in my district which is cool.

I dont think I got your letters yet, just one from dad and one from Grammy Maddy. Im way way way behind on my letter writing cus I am trying to finish the BOM in spanish. Im gonna finish on fri or sat! Im in 3 Nefi 25 right now! Im super stoked and my Spanish has improved dramaticly, I have no doubt I'll be basicly fluent by the end of this transfer, especially cus I'll have to be teaching a lot of the lesson.

Don't complain about the cold weather, its startin to cook here. Its been in the 90s all weekend. Im gonna melt this summer. Thats super cool that Tyler gets to baptize Sydney. Do we have any pics from when I baptized Kallie? If we do could you send me some cus for some reason I cant remember that experience happening.

I dont know the details about calling yet. Im guessing we'll get to call Sat night and tell you what time we're going to call on Sunday, but also, we are eating dinner with a super cool old lady on Sunday at like 1 our time and Im pretty sure she is going to let us use her phone so we can call so I might get like 20 minutes or so then so that will be cool, and then I think we are going to borrow a members phone so I can call for longer, dont know the details yet but I'll let you know ASAP.

We had a hilarious experience on Saturday. So I was sittin in my room, readin my spanish BOM, and I hear someone knock on the door, and then Elder Valdez opened it and some guy starts talking in spanish and valdez comes and runs to me and says hes a Jehovah's Witness. So I run and throw on my sweatshirt (so now I kinda look like a normal person) and I go to the door and start talking to him and asking him questions and stuff. Like he handed me a pamphlet that said "Where is God" but in spanish, and Im like well where is the church of God? And he starts going off about the Bible and about how Jesus has short hair and Chrtistains are wrong and all this crazy stuff. So then I hear our back door shut really loud and then like 30 seconds later Elder Holden and Elder Sibbett come around the corner in their missionary clothes hahaha. So Im preteneding to be a normal person and the other elders start talking to the JW, it was hilarious. Basicly what ended up happening was the JW ignored me and tried to bash with them and when into all their crazy doctrine. It was hilarious, I got a good laugh out of it.

So Christian and Rubin, our "gangstas" came to church yesterday, which was cool. They can get baptized now, we just gotta get them living the commandments and interviewed. Theyre cool kids, I hope they have the desire to live the commandments.

Cool that Garrett is leaving soon, hes gonna do great. Are Kyles papers in yet? They should be hear pretty soon. Wow thats crazy that Kasey and Sam come hom this summer, thats super fast. Im already about at 9 months, que loco. For real tho I love it out here and I wouldnt trade it for anything. Tyler and Hagen you are going on missions, I dont care what you say.

I love you all a lot and cant wait to talk to you this week!

Love

elDeR GiVEn