New Transfer, New Companion!

This transfer has been nuts! We've seen a lot of success and we have pretty good teamwork in teaching. Things have been super successful and fun with Elder Fletes, we've seen miracles since our first day. We have 9 investigators on date for baptism so we are pretty excited about that. Elder Fletes is a convert of less than 2 years, but before he talked to missionaries he never read the Bible or anything. Elder Fletes is super humble but he doesn't like to seem dumb so he told me that when he would get home from church he would read the Bible and the Book of Mormon until 9:00 at night. So he knows a lot of Bible stuff and loves to bash. 

The few Hispanics that are actually Christian always answer the door with a Bible in their hand ready to prove that Mormonism is wrong and Elder Fletes gets really excited and quotes like a hundred other scriptures. Normally you aren't really supposed to do this, but the thing is the Hispanics really respect someone who is intelligent, especially in scripture, so we get invited back and have a chance to teach the restoration and set up more lessons.

The work has been good so far, I have a learned a lot from my new companion and we are making some really good progress together. Nothing is more amazing than visibly seeing the gospel bless the lives of a family or an individual.

Packing and Unpacking

Hey! So this week has been pretty crazy, I wasn't expecting to transfer out at all and my new companion just finished up training, so he only has one more transfer over me. His name is Elder Fletes, from and so far it's been so rad. It was really sad to say goodbye to my dad(trainer) though, it didn't feel real to leave him. But luckily I can see him some Sunday's since he's in a neighboring Stake.

Originally we were supposed to move in with the zone leaders and Elder Bottari and I thought that the sisters were going to live in our house, so we spent most of P-Day trying to make the basement spotless. It's not that we didn't keep it clean or anything, more that Elders have been living there for more than a year. So when we finally cleaned everything and got packed Elder Gunn gave us a ride to our new apartments, and dropped me off at the Zone Leaders first. Except when I got there they told me that they just barely found out Elder Fletes and I were living somewhere else, so we got the address and Elder Gunn took us there. At first it seemed like we were pretty close to our old house, and then we thought it was funny that it was in the same neighborhood, and then I realized that it was the same house I just left from. So I had to unpack everything again which was a bit of a pain.

But once we got our area book we realized how much potential this branch has, we are in the River 9th Branch, we shaping up to really make this area blossom. We have many investigators that sincerely want the gospel in their lives and the only thing holding them back is "big change" they have to make.

My new companion is from Mexico and is a little worried about the upcoming winter, he told me that sometimes his town gets up to 120 degrees! So this weather has felt like his winter so far. Luckily we are pretty prepared in terms of clothing. Work has been amazing in this new area and we are excited to baptize a lot of families this transfer.

First Transfer!

I don't what in the world happened when I left but apparently the worlds been going nuts since I've been gone. Apparently the Cubs won the World Series, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are going to be President, and the worlds on fire. I miss a lot of stuff from home, but man I'm glad I don't have to worry about that kind of stuff right now.

Things have been actually fairly successful this week. We had set up a ton of lessons this week like 3 or 4 everyday. And a few of them actually came through! I'm so excited for the investigators we do have that actually seem excited, which right now is like 3 but we think it'll work! Our new #1 is a man from Venezuela and his family. We found him by a miracle actually. We were talking to this member lady in Woodgate and asking for referrals when suddenly this man walks out of his apartment and just stands there not really doing anything, so we immediately stop talking to the lady and hurried over to talk to him. He's never had missionaries over and accepted a lesson. Then he just walked back into his apartment, as if the only reason he came out was to talk to us. He lives with his wife and has two young sons. 

So fast forward a few days we come with this newly wed couple to there house and nobody answers, so at first we were really sad and we took the walk of shame back with the members. After we left them and everything Elder Bottari told me we had to go back to leave a note or something. So we go back to their door and as we are writing a note they walk up and let us in! It was an amazing lesson and he was super understanding of everything and even though he didn't accept baptism right away he told us that he wants to be able to say he is ready for baptism eventually. 

We had an awesome FHE with the Shade family last night from Mexico. We invited our 15yo recent convert Denise who is really close with their daughter. And the Shades invited a friend named Julio. So it was both a RC lesson and a new investigator lesson, with members present! It was such an awesome and fun experience.

Elder Bottari for the past few days has been telling everyone that that he's leaving, so we've been preparing to say goodbye and everything and he stayed goodbye to everyone else already. And we had a "farewell" breakfast at the Gunns, our MLS couple, just in case.

UPDATE:
We found out today that both Elder Bottari and I are leaving the area! He's going to be DL in English assignment in West Jordan East and I'm going to River 9th! And we are getting replaced by sisters! So we are being "pinkwashed". We are so stressed because we still have so much to do and this is only my second transfer and I'm already leaving. I didn't feel super connected with the Ward yet. Oh man I'm so stressed! I really don't want to leave this area, everything about it was amazing.

First Transfer!

I don't what in the world happened when I left but apparently the worlds been going nuts since I've been gone. Apparently the Cubs won the World Series, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are going to be President, and the worlds on fire. I miss a lot of stuff from home, but man I'm glad I don't have to worry about that kinda stuff right now.

Things have been actually fairly successful this week. We had set up a ton of lessons this week like 3 or 4 everyday. And a few of them actually came through! I'm so excited for the investigators we do have that actually seem excited, which right now is like 3 but we think it'll work! Our new #1 is Andres and his family who are from Venezuela. We found Andres by a miracle actually. We were talking to this member lady in Woodgate and asking for referrals when suddenly this man walks out of his apartment and just stands there not really doing anything, so we immediately stop talking to the lady and hurried over to talk to him. He's never had missionaries over and accepted a lesson. Then he just walked back into his apartment, as if the only reason he came out was to talk to us. He lives with his wife María (different María) and has two young sons. 

So fast forward a few days we come with this newly wed couple to there house and nobody answers, so at first we were really sad and we took the walk of shame back with the members. After we left them and everything Elder Bottari told me we had to go back to leave a note or something. So we go back to their door and as we are writing a note Andres walks up with María and they let us in! It was an amazing lesson and Andres was super understanding of everything and even though he didn't accept baptism right away he told us that he wants to be able to say he is ready for baptism eventually. 

We had an awesome FHE with the Shade family last night from Mexico. We invited our 15yo recent convert Denise who is really close with their daughter. And the Shades invited a friend named Julio. So it was both a RC lesson and a new investigator lesson, with members present! It was such an awesome and fun experience.

Elder Bottari for the past few days has been telling everyone that that he's leaving, so we've been preparing to say goodbye and everything and he stayed goodbye to everyone else already. And we had a "farewell" breakfast at the Gunns, our MLS couple, just in case.

We found out today that both Elder Bottari and I are leaving the area! I'm going to River 9th! And we are getting replaced by sisters! So we are being "pinkwashed". We are so stressed because we still have so much to do and this is only my second transfer and I'm already leaving. I really don't want to leave this area, everything about it was amazing.