Hello from Costa Mesa! Things are going pretty swell here. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with my district leader Elder Large. We had a good day and taught some lessons to some great people. It was fun to be with someone else for a day and a night.
This week our “investigator” Dorothy dropped us. She tried to give back the BOM so we asked her if she had read any of it. Nope. We took a member to visit a different person and still got a lesson in so it wasn’t a complete failure. His name is Scott and I think he has somewhat of a mental handicap, but he’s nice.
On Thursday we had to take our car in for an oil change. It took forever. They said it would take 1 hour or 2 at the max and we didn’t get it back for four or five hours. We spent some time at the other elder apartment and then they took us to our dinner. Bro. Pittman took us from there to the church and we went out with Bro. Lew to see some less-actives for the remainder of our day (and finally getting our car back). Friday we taught Ralph the Ten Commandments. He seems to be improving. He knows his main problem is smoking. He wants his new girl friend to come to church with him so he’ll feel more comfortable when he goes. He didn’t go this week but he might come to the big ward luau coming up in September that is being put on specifically for investigators and less-actives.
We had a good lesson with a man named Juan this week. He speaks both Spanish and English and is a new father. He seems pretty good, we just hope he will keep his commitments by reading and praying.
We had dinner with the Furman family on Friday. They are from Russia and Bro. Furman has had some really hard challenges in his life, but he is one of the most spiritual people I’ve met and teaches us a lot every time we go there. I don’t know if I’ve said this already, but he said I’m really lucky because I almost had Down syndrome. He also gave both me and my companion a watch because he really likes watches so he has a lot of them.
Friday was a ward activity that was similar to “Guess who’s coming for Dinner.” There were a number of families who hosted and they were assigned people to feed. We ate with an English lady (Sister McCraken) who happened to have signed up for us the following day. So the next day we ate with her again, but with her family instead of other ward members. They are a really cool family and I really enjoyed their company.
Thanks for all the fun pictures from Spain. Sounds like you guys had a good time. Now you know how it is to have interesting food served to you :) I had shrimp with the head and legs attached once too. It wasn’t my favorite lol. I was like, what in the world? I thought they were whole lobsters or something haha
Anyway, have a good week everyone.
Love,
Elder Curtis
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Cool Membrane Thing
Hello once again. It hasn’t been too long since I wrote, but that’s okay with me. We set two baptism dates since Wednesday so that’s exciting. Ralph and our new investigator Dorothy are working towards the 22nd but we’ll see how they progress till then. We had a good experience teaching Ralph about 3N11 and about how important it is to keep commitments such as prayer and scripture reading. He’s been going to the bar lately, but he says it won’t be hard to quit drinking. We’re going to try hard this week to get him to come to church and hopefully stop smoking.
Friday we had dinner with a lady who runs a little care facility for old people. It’s just a large (for California) one story house where she takes care of older people. She’s struggling to get more patients because she only has four right now and she can have 6 at one time. One of them died a couple weeks ago. She asked us to come give a blessing and right after we finished she passed away. Anyway, she lives there too so she invited us over to dinner.
From her, and the dinner appointments the next two days we got 23 referrals so that’s been cool. Lots of them we’ll just call to other missionaries, but it still is great to get those. Members really are important in the finding process. The people are always better from them plus then we have someone to fellowship them and help in the teaching process. In fact we taught Relief Society on Sunday about that—how members are so important. We talked about the program from elder Perry where the members tell their leaders of people they know and then the leaders assemble five names each—from RS, elders quorum, and high priests. These 15 names are people we can visit during the week when we don’t have appointments from regular contacts set up.
We have a pretty cool ward here. The bishop was recently put in and he has some good councilors. The ward mission leader is really cool too. He’s a younger guy that’s probably in his late 20’s. He has three kids so that’s what I assume anyway. He does a good job though. He’s out of town for a couple weeks so that makes things a little difficult, but we’re doing okay. Brother Ormond is probably one of my favorite in the ward though. He’s in the bishopric and has three kids. He’s probably in his late 20’s as well.
Anyway…he’s a chiropractor and practices kinesiology. He’s super cool. But yeah, he helps me out with any pain that I may have. My toe has been hurting for a while and he can tell that some of the ligaments are out of place or whatever and he can fix it right up. He can tell my ankles are off, even though I haven’t sprained them for a while. He even said he can sense an allergy in my respiratory system that may be helping to cause my sleep apnea. He uses this cool membrane thing that he rubs and when he touches a place on the body that has tension or problems it causes friction as he rubs. It is so cool how he figures all this stuff out and he does a really good job fixing you up. It’s really nice to get free adjustments :-)
Saturday we were able to get more furniture. It was great how this guy just happened to be handing out furniture for free. He’s moving so we went there and were able to get a nice couch and a desk. One of the members helped us out by moving everything in his 15 passenger van. Oh, and we got a conventional oven and a lamp too. Guess that’s about it for now. One thing is for sure though, being a missionary is always an adventure!
Love Elder Curtis
Friday we had dinner with a lady who runs a little care facility for old people. It’s just a large (for California) one story house where she takes care of older people. She’s struggling to get more patients because she only has four right now and she can have 6 at one time. One of them died a couple weeks ago. She asked us to come give a blessing and right after we finished she passed away. Anyway, she lives there too so she invited us over to dinner.
From her, and the dinner appointments the next two days we got 23 referrals so that’s been cool. Lots of them we’ll just call to other missionaries, but it still is great to get those. Members really are important in the finding process. The people are always better from them plus then we have someone to fellowship them and help in the teaching process. In fact we taught Relief Society on Sunday about that—how members are so important. We talked about the program from elder Perry where the members tell their leaders of people they know and then the leaders assemble five names each—from RS, elders quorum, and high priests. These 15 names are people we can visit during the week when we don’t have appointments from regular contacts set up.
We have a pretty cool ward here. The bishop was recently put in and he has some good councilors. The ward mission leader is really cool too. He’s a younger guy that’s probably in his late 20’s. He has three kids so that’s what I assume anyway. He does a good job though. He’s out of town for a couple weeks so that makes things a little difficult, but we’re doing okay. Brother Ormond is probably one of my favorite in the ward though. He’s in the bishopric and has three kids. He’s probably in his late 20’s as well.
Anyway…he’s a chiropractor and practices kinesiology. He’s super cool. But yeah, he helps me out with any pain that I may have. My toe has been hurting for a while and he can tell that some of the ligaments are out of place or whatever and he can fix it right up. He can tell my ankles are off, even though I haven’t sprained them for a while. He even said he can sense an allergy in my respiratory system that may be helping to cause my sleep apnea. He uses this cool membrane thing that he rubs and when he touches a place on the body that has tension or problems it causes friction as he rubs. It is so cool how he figures all this stuff out and he does a really good job fixing you up. It’s really nice to get free adjustments :-)
Saturday we were able to get more furniture. It was great how this guy just happened to be handing out furniture for free. He’s moving so we went there and were able to get a nice couch and a desk. One of the members helped us out by moving everything in his 15 passenger van. Oh, and we got a conventional oven and a lamp too. Guess that’s about it for now. One thing is for sure though, being a missionary is always an adventure!
Love Elder Curtis
Chilaxing
Hello! Sorry to get this out later than you expected. This week we got to go to the temple so p-day was moved to Wednesday. They like to have our p-day on the day we attend the temple so it’s not extra time out of our daily preaching. It was really good today to go there and to feel that special spirit. I really like that temple—even if it is smaller than others that I’ve been to.
Things have been pretty busy I guess—sounds like it isn’t much different for everyone else. It’s weird to think that Mom and Dad are in Spain. You guys sure traveled a lot this summer! I’m just chillin’ (or as president would say, chilaxing) here in California, oblivious to much besides the little area I stay in.
It’s interesting to have smaller ward boundaries and to cover the whole ward. It’s actually kind of nice in a way. There were hardly any members in La Habra so we got fed by the same people a lot since most of the members were in Fullerton. We did go there once in a while, but here there are a lot more members close by so our eating schedule is a lot more varied. It’s pretty nice to meet lots of new people.
Mom, I thought it was pretty funny when you wrote that Rachelle had “Enchelatas” for her birthday dinner. Lata means can in Spanish. It’s hard to spell foreign words so don’t worry about it, but the real spelling is “Enchiladas.” (en-chee-la-thus) I think it comes from the Spanish verb “enchilar” which means “to add chilies” or something like that. I think I told you before how different real enchiladas are, but I still like mom’s the best.
When you send a letter to the mission office, they resend it to us through the mail. I didn’t know you could do that without a new stamp, but they just sharpie out the address and name and slap a printed label on there with our apartment address. It takes an extra two or three days to go through the office.
This transfer is already flying by. I can’t believe it’s already half over. Last Tuesday we had zone conference and had a super good speaker Bro. Cordova, who I believe is the area seventy. It was really good and inspiring and he was pretty funny too.
We’ve been working with mostly less-actives lately. One in particular is the Borkton/Geider family. They are really nice, but just don’t come to church for some reason, though the mother and two girls know it’s true. The son and Father must be part of what’s holding them back. We have been able to teach Ralph a couple lessons lately so that’s been good. He also came to the temple tour we had on Saturday. He was the only investigator in our group so we just walked around with him and were able to answer all of his questions—though he was disappointed not to have a tour of the inside. :-) The main thing he deals with is smoking and the loss of his wife. He just leaves the apartment how it was when she died so it’s kind of gross. He also hasn’t cut his hair since she died. He’s about 65.
We got another lesson on Monday to a new investigator so that was really good. Her name is Dorothy and she’s an older lady. I hope she can progress. I also hope we can get more people to teach around here. I’m sure someone’s ready, but finding them is always the hard part.
It was really great to get a good workout this morning playing basketball. I really like this district so it’s fun to exercise with them. My companion has been out a year now. He’s had hard times on his mission and his life, but he’s doing really great now and we get along pretty well. He really loves the people and wants them to accept the gospel so he’s good to learn from. Hopefully I can teach him some Spanish before we get switched. Guess I’m about done so have another great week—I mean five days!
Love,
Elder Curtis
Things have been pretty busy I guess—sounds like it isn’t much different for everyone else. It’s weird to think that Mom and Dad are in Spain. You guys sure traveled a lot this summer! I’m just chillin’ (or as president would say, chilaxing) here in California, oblivious to much besides the little area I stay in.
It’s interesting to have smaller ward boundaries and to cover the whole ward. It’s actually kind of nice in a way. There were hardly any members in La Habra so we got fed by the same people a lot since most of the members were in Fullerton. We did go there once in a while, but here there are a lot more members close by so our eating schedule is a lot more varied. It’s pretty nice to meet lots of new people.
Mom, I thought it was pretty funny when you wrote that Rachelle had “Enchelatas” for her birthday dinner. Lata means can in Spanish. It’s hard to spell foreign words so don’t worry about it, but the real spelling is “Enchiladas.” (en-chee-la-thus) I think it comes from the Spanish verb “enchilar” which means “to add chilies” or something like that. I think I told you before how different real enchiladas are, but I still like mom’s the best.
When you send a letter to the mission office, they resend it to us through the mail. I didn’t know you could do that without a new stamp, but they just sharpie out the address and name and slap a printed label on there with our apartment address. It takes an extra two or three days to go through the office.
This transfer is already flying by. I can’t believe it’s already half over. Last Tuesday we had zone conference and had a super good speaker Bro. Cordova, who I believe is the area seventy. It was really good and inspiring and he was pretty funny too.
We’ve been working with mostly less-actives lately. One in particular is the Borkton/Geider family. They are really nice, but just don’t come to church for some reason, though the mother and two girls know it’s true. The son and Father must be part of what’s holding them back. We have been able to teach Ralph a couple lessons lately so that’s been good. He also came to the temple tour we had on Saturday. He was the only investigator in our group so we just walked around with him and were able to answer all of his questions—though he was disappointed not to have a tour of the inside. :-) The main thing he deals with is smoking and the loss of his wife. He just leaves the apartment how it was when she died so it’s kind of gross. He also hasn’t cut his hair since she died. He’s about 65.
We got another lesson on Monday to a new investigator so that was really good. Her name is Dorothy and she’s an older lady. I hope she can progress. I also hope we can get more people to teach around here. I’m sure someone’s ready, but finding them is always the hard part.
It was really great to get a good workout this morning playing basketball. I really like this district so it’s fun to exercise with them. My companion has been out a year now. He’s had hard times on his mission and his life, but he’s doing really great now and we get along pretty well. He really loves the people and wants them to accept the gospel so he’s good to learn from. Hopefully I can teach him some Spanish before we get switched. Guess I’m about done so have another great week—I mean five days!
Love,
Elder Curtis
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Short on Time
I guess I only have 15 minutes to write so I’ll try and make this quick. Things have been going pretty well.
We had a baptism on Saturday of a kid who has autism. I don’t know if he really needed to be baptized for salvation, but he’s been going to church his whole life so he wanted to get baptized.
This ward is pretty interesting. 70% of the whole ward is less active. Isn’t that insane? So usually there aren’t more than 100 people at church, but there are about 350 members I guess. Lots of them we’ve visited haven’t been to church for 10+ years. It’s pretty crazy and we have lots of work to do.
We are still working with investigators luckily enough. The last missionaries in this ward covered two wards so now that we are for this ward only we have a grand total of 1 investigator. Luckily we’ve been receiving some referrals so things will get better. As we work we’ll find more people to teach as well.
Thanks for sending the program so I could see all the missionaries. One quick correction would be that I won’t get home till November so you could probably have them change that. It could be December, but we’ll see.
It was pretty crazy the last two days because our car had serious problems starting up the first time in the morning. We were finally able to take it in today and get the battery fixed so it doesn’t do that anymore. Maybe they replaced it—I’m not sure, but we were without a car today so the zone leaders took us to the activity (we played basketball—it was really fun) and then back to our apartment. We finally got it back though so hopefully it’ll be good now.
I got to give the youth talk on Sunday since whoever it was wasn’t prepared, so I just introduced myself, told a short story about Joseph Smith, then bore my testimony. I gave a short missionary invite at the baptism too so I’ve been trying my best to not slip out any Spanish words lately—except in my talk when I finished my testimony in Spanish.
It was cool because we visited a less active this week who spoke Spanish so I got to use it again. A visitor at church was Hispanic as well so it’s been nice to be able to speak Spanish to them. Elder Chadburn hasn’t served in Spanish yet so he doesn’t know much. He’s a great guy though so I enjoy being his companion.
It gets pretty hot in our apartment because we don’t have AC but if that’s the worst thing about it, I’m not complaining—except we don’t have much in it since it’s new.
Our one investigator is Ralph so you can pray for him. Better go, love you all!
Elder Curtis
We had a baptism on Saturday of a kid who has autism. I don’t know if he really needed to be baptized for salvation, but he’s been going to church his whole life so he wanted to get baptized.
This ward is pretty interesting. 70% of the whole ward is less active. Isn’t that insane? So usually there aren’t more than 100 people at church, but there are about 350 members I guess. Lots of them we’ve visited haven’t been to church for 10+ years. It’s pretty crazy and we have lots of work to do.
We are still working with investigators luckily enough. The last missionaries in this ward covered two wards so now that we are for this ward only we have a grand total of 1 investigator. Luckily we’ve been receiving some referrals so things will get better. As we work we’ll find more people to teach as well.
Thanks for sending the program so I could see all the missionaries. One quick correction would be that I won’t get home till November so you could probably have them change that. It could be December, but we’ll see.
It was pretty crazy the last two days because our car had serious problems starting up the first time in the morning. We were finally able to take it in today and get the battery fixed so it doesn’t do that anymore. Maybe they replaced it—I’m not sure, but we were without a car today so the zone leaders took us to the activity (we played basketball—it was really fun) and then back to our apartment. We finally got it back though so hopefully it’ll be good now.
I got to give the youth talk on Sunday since whoever it was wasn’t prepared, so I just introduced myself, told a short story about Joseph Smith, then bore my testimony. I gave a short missionary invite at the baptism too so I’ve been trying my best to not slip out any Spanish words lately—except in my talk when I finished my testimony in Spanish.
It was cool because we visited a less active this week who spoke Spanish so I got to use it again. A visitor at church was Hispanic as well so it’s been nice to be able to speak Spanish to them. Elder Chadburn hasn’t served in Spanish yet so he doesn’t know much. He’s a great guy though so I enjoy being his companion.
It gets pretty hot in our apartment because we don’t have AC but if that’s the worst thing about it, I’m not complaining—except we don’t have much in it since it’s new.
Our one investigator is Ralph so you can pray for him. Better go, love you all!
Elder Curtis
Friday, July 17, 2009
No Doubt About That
Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer vacation. Things are going just fine for me. I did end up getting transferred so now I’m down in Costa Mesa. I’ll send you my new address as soon as I can. We are in a brand new apartment and it’s really nice (smells like new carpet), we just don’t have much stuff yet. We need to buy toilet paper and a shower curtain :) Elder Fraga and Elder Zelnick stayed in La Habra and a new elder is going up there, but I got sent down here in an English ward. It’s going to be super different from my last area and ward—no doubt about that. It’ll be a little weird since this is my first time being transferred, but I think I’ll be fine.
My new companion is Elder Chadburns. He’s from Morgan, Utah I believe. He seems pretty cool so far. He’s a little different from what I’m used to but there’s nothing wrong with that. A couple other elders told me I’ll need lots of patience with him so we’ll see what happens, but I know I’m here for a reason so I’ll make the best of what I have.
I guess this is a pretty small ward of less than 100 which is not a common thing for an English ward. I think everything will work out fine, I just need to get used to speaking/teaching English all the time.
This last week was super good. We had another great FHE with Silvia’s family, Erasmo, the Pantojas, and Sonia/Michelle/Rigo. We found some good people tracting this week and taught them some good lessons. One of them even came up to us and asked for a “Bible study” for her son. They weren’t able to do it this week so I guess the elders will go back next Sunday.
We ate dinner with the Ricos in Brea twice this week. Some people are so nice :) Tuesday night we taught English again and I even got to teach a piano lesson so Ashley who is 10 and is the daughter of Nancy Pantoja. Monse who is a daughter of Silvia and is 8 came too. It was fun teaching them the notes and a little about the piano. I left Ashley with some flashcards so hopefully she continues to learn.
Silvia is doing really well and will hopefully be baptized this coming Sunday. She’s a really good investigator and understands and agrees with all we teach/taught. Thursday night we had another FHE with the Brea Ricos after eating with them. We watched Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration. It was kind of crazy because the disc kept freezing, but we eventually got through it and it turned out well.
Friday we taught Thomas, our English less active who’s son is about to be baptized. He said he’d try to go to church more often. I think he’ll be self employed soon because he’s starting his own business so hopefully he’ll be more open on Sundays when that happens. That night we taught one of the guys we found tracting named Juan and committed him to baptism. It was a pretty cool lesson so hopefully everything will work out with him. The first time we taught him he was a little drunk so he didn’t remember anything the second time, but at least he remembered us.
Yesterday everyone was really nice and a little sad I was leaving. Nancy bought me a tie, and cake, and even a nice little card. We taught one last lesson to Erasmo then went to a baptism of Elder Gillespie and Elder Diaz. It took me a while to get everything packed and organized but thankfully I finally got it all ready on time this morning. Sorry I don’t know much about my new area yet. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to tell you a lot more information.
Anyway, hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for the continued letters and support. Have another great week!
Love,
Elder Curtis
My new companion is Elder Chadburns. He’s from Morgan, Utah I believe. He seems pretty cool so far. He’s a little different from what I’m used to but there’s nothing wrong with that. A couple other elders told me I’ll need lots of patience with him so we’ll see what happens, but I know I’m here for a reason so I’ll make the best of what I have.
I guess this is a pretty small ward of less than 100 which is not a common thing for an English ward. I think everything will work out fine, I just need to get used to speaking/teaching English all the time.
This last week was super good. We had another great FHE with Silvia’s family, Erasmo, the Pantojas, and Sonia/Michelle/Rigo. We found some good people tracting this week and taught them some good lessons. One of them even came up to us and asked for a “Bible study” for her son. They weren’t able to do it this week so I guess the elders will go back next Sunday.
We ate dinner with the Ricos in Brea twice this week. Some people are so nice :) Tuesday night we taught English again and I even got to teach a piano lesson so Ashley who is 10 and is the daughter of Nancy Pantoja. Monse who is a daughter of Silvia and is 8 came too. It was fun teaching them the notes and a little about the piano. I left Ashley with some flashcards so hopefully she continues to learn.
Silvia is doing really well and will hopefully be baptized this coming Sunday. She’s a really good investigator and understands and agrees with all we teach/taught. Thursday night we had another FHE with the Brea Ricos after eating with them. We watched Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration. It was kind of crazy because the disc kept freezing, but we eventually got through it and it turned out well.
Friday we taught Thomas, our English less active who’s son is about to be baptized. He said he’d try to go to church more often. I think he’ll be self employed soon because he’s starting his own business so hopefully he’ll be more open on Sundays when that happens. That night we taught one of the guys we found tracting named Juan and committed him to baptism. It was a pretty cool lesson so hopefully everything will work out with him. The first time we taught him he was a little drunk so he didn’t remember anything the second time, but at least he remembered us.
Yesterday everyone was really nice and a little sad I was leaving. Nancy bought me a tie, and cake, and even a nice little card. We taught one last lesson to Erasmo then went to a baptism of Elder Gillespie and Elder Diaz. It took me a while to get everything packed and organized but thankfully I finally got it all ready on time this morning. Sorry I don’t know much about my new area yet. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to tell you a lot more information.
Anyway, hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for the continued letters and support. Have another great week!
Love,
Elder Curtis
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
We were under attack
Buenas Tardes a todos!
Hello! How is everyone? We’re already on the last week of transfers again so remember to send letters to the mission office. I think there’s about a 60% chance of being moved this next transfer. President said we’ll usually stay in an area 6-8 months so I could definitely still stay, but we’ll see. Elder Zelnick is going home two weeks after transfers so if I stay I’ll probably be in a threesome at least two weeks.
Monday we had a great FHE @ the Pantojas and lots of investigators were there so it was really good. We had a short lesson and played a game. We had an investigator we are hoping to baptize at the end of this week named Silvia. Her daughter Monserrat is also preparing. That would be a really great end to this transfer, but we’ll see.
We knocked a lot more this week and even had some really good success with it so that makes the effort worth it for me.
Thursday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Gillespie and Elder Diaz. I slept at their place Wednesday night and spent all of Thursday with them and their investigators. It was a fun day and I enjoyed the new company for a day.
The fourth of July was a bit weird because we just did normal stuff. We have a new ward mission leader Hermano Muñoz who was the guy who got baptized my first week here in January. He’s a good man and takes his calling seriously so I think the Lord will help him do a good job. Anyway, we started meeting with him Saturday mornings for correlation. Then we stayed after and taught him a new member lesson lol.
We started our fast Saturday night for Rigoberto who has court today. Michelle and Rigo both fasted with us and came to church as well. I hope all goes well today. Guess we’ll find out what happened some time. We went to a member’s house in a different ward for dinner with the Pantojas and it was good. That night it felt like we were under attack with fireworks going off at the high school and all the streets around us.
Sunday I really enjoyed sacrament meeting. I looked at the people there and thought about how many people have changed their lives and are coming to church/striving to keep the commandments/change etc. It was really great. Stacy and Kimberly’s mom even bore a really nice testimony. Elder Fraga and I bore ours too since there was a little extra time left. We also had the confirmation of Hermano Erasmo.
Today we played soccer again and I really enjoyed getting some exercise and being with the whole district. I guess that’s about it. Everything’s going well. We should have a good week. Thanks for the letter Rachelle. Just got a call from Hermana Sonia, Michelle’s mom, and it sounds like everything went well at court. Thanks so much for all of your prayers!
Love,
Elder Curtis
Hello! How is everyone? We’re already on the last week of transfers again so remember to send letters to the mission office. I think there’s about a 60% chance of being moved this next transfer. President said we’ll usually stay in an area 6-8 months so I could definitely still stay, but we’ll see. Elder Zelnick is going home two weeks after transfers so if I stay I’ll probably be in a threesome at least two weeks.
Monday we had a great FHE @ the Pantojas and lots of investigators were there so it was really good. We had a short lesson and played a game. We had an investigator we are hoping to baptize at the end of this week named Silvia. Her daughter Monserrat is also preparing. That would be a really great end to this transfer, but we’ll see.
We knocked a lot more this week and even had some really good success with it so that makes the effort worth it for me.
Thursday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Gillespie and Elder Diaz. I slept at their place Wednesday night and spent all of Thursday with them and their investigators. It was a fun day and I enjoyed the new company for a day.
The fourth of July was a bit weird because we just did normal stuff. We have a new ward mission leader Hermano Muñoz who was the guy who got baptized my first week here in January. He’s a good man and takes his calling seriously so I think the Lord will help him do a good job. Anyway, we started meeting with him Saturday mornings for correlation. Then we stayed after and taught him a new member lesson lol.
We started our fast Saturday night for Rigoberto who has court today. Michelle and Rigo both fasted with us and came to church as well. I hope all goes well today. Guess we’ll find out what happened some time. We went to a member’s house in a different ward for dinner with the Pantojas and it was good. That night it felt like we were under attack with fireworks going off at the high school and all the streets around us.
Sunday I really enjoyed sacrament meeting. I looked at the people there and thought about how many people have changed their lives and are coming to church/striving to keep the commandments/change etc. It was really great. Stacy and Kimberly’s mom even bore a really nice testimony. Elder Fraga and I bore ours too since there was a little extra time left. We also had the confirmation of Hermano Erasmo.
Today we played soccer again and I really enjoyed getting some exercise and being with the whole district. I guess that’s about it. Everything’s going well. We should have a good week. Thanks for the letter Rachelle. Just got a call from Hermana Sonia, Michelle’s mom, and it sounds like everything went well at court. Thanks so much for all of your prayers!
Love,
Elder Curtis
Monday, July 6, 2009
I’ll be the first to attest to that
Erasmo got baptized! He decided to move his date to this weekend so we were finally able to do it. We’ve been waiting for so long for him to feel ready so we were super excited when he finally set a date with us, then when he moved it closer we were even more happy. After five months of teaching him he finally took that step and is now going to be an amazing member of the church. Thank you guys SO much for praying for him and having faith that he could eventually accept.
The gospel changes lives, I’ll be the first to attest to that. It helps people realize the truth and how much their heavenly father has in store for them. Thank you for your continued support of me in this important work. I know someday I will have “great joy with them in the kingdom of my Father.” I can not take credit for his change—you guys helped so much as did God.
He asked Elder Zelnick to do the baptism since he’s the tallest of us three. Then we filled up the font really high to make sure it would be as easy as possible. Erasmo had been to lots of baptisms and had seen how many times some of them had to be baptized so he didn’t want that to happen to him. :)
We’re still struggling to get Michelle and Rigo to make and keep their commitments. They struggle getting to church and reading/praying which are some of the most important things for them to do. We also had a big lesson (again) on the law of Chastity and tried to get them to stop living together. In the end it’s their decision, but we are doing all we can to help.
Our investigator Silvia is also doing really well. She lives right next to the Pantojas in the ward so it’s easy to teach member lessons—especially since we are there a lot to talk to Erasmo. She and her three little kids came to church yesterday and even came to the temple tour we had yesterday. We all went down to Newport again and had a nice walk around the temple explaining what temples are for etc. We also watched a 10 minute video about temples and finished with lemonade and cookies. That’s the program every time. We usually have them about once a transfer.
Anyway, there was a cool experience we had while we were there. Silvia told about a dream she had when we were first teaching her. Her children got taken away and she was trying to pray to the saints and ask forgiveness, but they refused and she couldn’t wake up from her dream…until we knocked on her door. We didn’t know that had happened and we taught her a lesson that day. It was neat to hear about that.
This morning we were going to go on a hike with the Martinez family who we eat with on Mondays. They are less actives, but really nice. So we started following them in the car to get there…until we realized they were going to drive way out of the mission. So we had to call them and say we had changed our minds lol (of course we also told them why). We went and washed our car instead. It looks a lot better. I like p-days—getting everything done you have to put off during the week.
Thanks for sending the blessing of Miyah. That was a nice surprise. Also thanks for the pictures. I can tell that Reesah is a really cute girl—especially from all the funny stories. Thanks for sharing fun things like that.
No, my allergies actually haven’t been bothering me. I can only think of one time when we visited someone with cats two transfers ago that my allergies bothered me. Thanks for reminding me of that great blessing.
Good job helping the work over there in Pitt, ART. Sounds like you sure do have lots of less-actives. We have a lot, but I’m glad we don’t have that many. Sometimes less-actives frustrate me because I know they know what to do to be happy…but they don’t do it.
Did Reesah and Dad get their packages/letters? Just wanted to make sure b/c I haven’t heard anything yet. Anyway, thanks again for all the prayers and support for me. I know it is helping! I’d better go so have a good week!
Love,
Elder Curtis
P.S. Did people really used to call me Shane? What a weird name…
The gospel changes lives, I’ll be the first to attest to that. It helps people realize the truth and how much their heavenly father has in store for them. Thank you for your continued support of me in this important work. I know someday I will have “great joy with them in the kingdom of my Father.” I can not take credit for his change—you guys helped so much as did God.
He asked Elder Zelnick to do the baptism since he’s the tallest of us three. Then we filled up the font really high to make sure it would be as easy as possible. Erasmo had been to lots of baptisms and had seen how many times some of them had to be baptized so he didn’t want that to happen to him. :)
We’re still struggling to get Michelle and Rigo to make and keep their commitments. They struggle getting to church and reading/praying which are some of the most important things for them to do. We also had a big lesson (again) on the law of Chastity and tried to get them to stop living together. In the end it’s their decision, but we are doing all we can to help.
Our investigator Silvia is also doing really well. She lives right next to the Pantojas in the ward so it’s easy to teach member lessons—especially since we are there a lot to talk to Erasmo. She and her three little kids came to church yesterday and even came to the temple tour we had yesterday. We all went down to Newport again and had a nice walk around the temple explaining what temples are for etc. We also watched a 10 minute video about temples and finished with lemonade and cookies. That’s the program every time. We usually have them about once a transfer.
Anyway, there was a cool experience we had while we were there. Silvia told about a dream she had when we were first teaching her. Her children got taken away and she was trying to pray to the saints and ask forgiveness, but they refused and she couldn’t wake up from her dream…until we knocked on her door. We didn’t know that had happened and we taught her a lesson that day. It was neat to hear about that.
This morning we were going to go on a hike with the Martinez family who we eat with on Mondays. They are less actives, but really nice. So we started following them in the car to get there…until we realized they were going to drive way out of the mission. So we had to call them and say we had changed our minds lol (of course we also told them why). We went and washed our car instead. It looks a lot better. I like p-days—getting everything done you have to put off during the week.
Thanks for sending the blessing of Miyah. That was a nice surprise. Also thanks for the pictures. I can tell that Reesah is a really cute girl—especially from all the funny stories. Thanks for sharing fun things like that.
No, my allergies actually haven’t been bothering me. I can only think of one time when we visited someone with cats two transfers ago that my allergies bothered me. Thanks for reminding me of that great blessing.
Good job helping the work over there in Pitt, ART. Sounds like you sure do have lots of less-actives. We have a lot, but I’m glad we don’t have that many. Sometimes less-actives frustrate me because I know they know what to do to be happy…but they don’t do it.
Did Reesah and Dad get their packages/letters? Just wanted to make sure b/c I haven’t heard anything yet. Anyway, thanks again for all the prayers and support for me. I know it is helping! I’d better go so have a good week!
Love,
Elder Curtis
P.S. Did people really used to call me Shane? What a weird name…
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