What a week! I have sure seen a lot of blessings this week. My companion is “stellar”! He has a super optimistic and ultra friendly personality. He’s super excited about the work and is really easy to get along with. He is close to the spirit and really great at being obedient. He’s also a super athlete. He played soccer, tennis, and cross country in high school. He was also into drama and was in several plays including high school musical (he was the main character Troy Bolton). He has a super voice and we love to sing together. I sing the melody and he sings tenor, then he sings melody and I sing bass. We love to do it at lessons and even tracting. Most mornings we go running. He’s been running six days a week for the last year so he’s in pretty good shape. When I’m too worn out I just ride bike and he keeps right up with me on foot.
We’re working on following the spirit more in our lessons so we don’t have it set who will say what—we just follow what we feel. It’s been incredible to recognize the spirit working in me. I just start talking and end up saying things I never meant to say and/or never thought of.
The apartment is nice here, though the laundry is a lot more expensive lol. It’s crazy how many rabbits are down here in So. Cal! We see them all the time. Our downstairs neighbors have a little garden so there are always little birds in there. At the top of the fences are planes of glass so whenever we leave the birds try to fly away and one usually smacks into the glass :D.
This area is amazing! We have super solid investigators! The Weig family is super close to baptism. We taught them 3 times last week! They should be ready by the 12th or the 19th. Their names are Hans and Rozlynn and they have four kids under 5.
Hailey Tweeter is 17 and we taught her yesterday. She is already friends with the young women and young women leaders and she even went to girl’s camp up in Garden Grove. He best friend lives up there and is a member so that’s been a big help for her. She has a date for the 19th and is on the way there.
We also taught the Moaddeli family. They live right under the brand new bishop. He invited her to church on the day he got sustained (last Sunday) and she accepted to have the lessons. She also had them in Japan so she is also preparing for the 19th. We had her husband sit in on the lesson so we weren’t alone with her and at the end he said he was interested and wanted to be baptized. It’s a huge thing for him though because he’s from the Middle East and was previously a Muslim. He’s not ready to set a date yet but we are okay with that for now.
Other people you can pray for we are working with but who are not as close are John Geyer and Jocelyn. We had 7 investigators at church on Sunday. That’s the most I’ve had my whole mission!
The new bishop is great. He’s only 34 and is tall and skinny. He’s super nice and really mission work oriented. The ward is great and it’s pretty big. UCI is in our area so there are a lot of people in the ward who go to college. I think there are like 5 nurseries! Sacrament is pretty loud because of all the kids but it was still good. Saturday we went to a high priest BBQ. It was held at a part-member family’s home. They have a lot of money :) As do many others in the ward. I’m definitely not in a third world country! Hopefully I can still learn and grow from the experience haha.
Last evening we went to a baptism of a different ward. Elder Grange knew the kid (15) getting baptized so he spoke. They asked me to play the piano. We even got Hailey to come and she really enjoyed it. She said it was “really inspiring,” and indeed the spirit was really strong. Anyway, I’m super excited for this transfer. Thanks for all your prayers and support.
Love,
Elder Curtis
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Whitewashing
Hello! Guess what? I got transferred again! In fact, both me AND Elder Chadburn got transferred. Elder Chadburn went up to Brea and will be on bike. I also heard that Elder Fraga got moved to an English ward :) It’s really crazy but I’m excited—my new area is great. Now I’m in the Harbor Hills ward. It’s not the city of Harbor Hills, but I hear it’s really good.
My companion is Elder Grange. He is from Anchorage Alaska, though his family moved to Idaho right before he went on his mission. He’s been out 14 months and just got released as a zone leader. He’s super cool and I’m way excited to work here with him. He actually used to cover this ward so he’ll be able to get us up to speed quick since we are whitewashing the area (meaning we are both entering the area at the same time). It doesn’t really count since he’s been here before though. However, when he was here he covered two wards and it’s been split since then.
We are getting a ton of new elders every transfer since our “capacity” or whatever you would call it has been raised to 190 missionaries. We had like 120 last I heard, but it’s going up, hence all the areas splitting.
It’s a little weird that this happened, but I like change so I’m not too worried. I didn’t have a ton of time to get super attached to the people in Costa Mesa, but I will look back with fond memories. There are some super good people there for sure. Harbor Hills is in the same stake as CM1 (Newport Beach Stake) but now I am in the cities of Corona Del Mar (which means crown of the sea in Spanish) and Irvine.
My new address is 17614 Rosa Drew Lane Apt. 5d Irvine, CA 92612. It’s a pretty nice place. It’s just as new as my last place so it’ll be nice. I’m a lot closer to the ocean now so I’ll see it a lot more often. To live this close to the ocean you have to have a lot of money so there are lots of rich people here. :) Plus the houses and neighborhoods are nicer etc.
This past week has been pretty good. We taught Ralph twice with two different members—Bro. Kolb and Bro. Ormond. It was good and he’s doing well, he just needs to go to church, quit smoking, and get an answer. I know someday he will, but it’ll probably take a while.
Wednesday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Reidhead, who was Elder Large’s trainee companion. It was super fun, he’s a really nice guy and I enjoyed the day. I was in their area again and Elder Large went with Elder Chadburn. It was a pretty good week—we found some people for the new elders to see and work with. I hope that area really starts to pick up and do well.
Overall, I’m grateful for the opportunity I had in Costa Mesa with Elder Chadburn. It wasn’t easy work, it wasn’t an easy companionship, but as we did our best and relied on the Lord, things went well and I really am glad to be E. Chadburn’s friend and ex-comp.
The future is bright. “My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.” I am glad to be a missionary and be here in So. California in Orange County. I hope God continues to pour down his blessings on each of you. He loves you and is in every part of your lives. Nothing is without reason. Albert Einstein said “coincidence is just God’s way of staying anonymous.” As we press forward with faith and rely on Him, He will pull through in the end. He always does, he always has. I know the church is true and can bring strength to our lives. Hard times are there just to help us grow and learn and in the end, we will have rest from our labors, sorrows, and trials here on earth. I love you all and hope you have a great week. May the spirit be with you.
Love, Elder Curtis
My companion is Elder Grange. He is from Anchorage Alaska, though his family moved to Idaho right before he went on his mission. He’s been out 14 months and just got released as a zone leader. He’s super cool and I’m way excited to work here with him. He actually used to cover this ward so he’ll be able to get us up to speed quick since we are whitewashing the area (meaning we are both entering the area at the same time). It doesn’t really count since he’s been here before though. However, when he was here he covered two wards and it’s been split since then.
We are getting a ton of new elders every transfer since our “capacity” or whatever you would call it has been raised to 190 missionaries. We had like 120 last I heard, but it’s going up, hence all the areas splitting.
It’s a little weird that this happened, but I like change so I’m not too worried. I didn’t have a ton of time to get super attached to the people in Costa Mesa, but I will look back with fond memories. There are some super good people there for sure. Harbor Hills is in the same stake as CM1 (Newport Beach Stake) but now I am in the cities of Corona Del Mar (which means crown of the sea in Spanish) and Irvine.
My new address is 17614 Rosa Drew Lane Apt. 5d Irvine, CA 92612. It’s a pretty nice place. It’s just as new as my last place so it’ll be nice. I’m a lot closer to the ocean now so I’ll see it a lot more often. To live this close to the ocean you have to have a lot of money so there are lots of rich people here. :) Plus the houses and neighborhoods are nicer etc.
This past week has been pretty good. We taught Ralph twice with two different members—Bro. Kolb and Bro. Ormond. It was good and he’s doing well, he just needs to go to church, quit smoking, and get an answer. I know someday he will, but it’ll probably take a while.
Wednesday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Reidhead, who was Elder Large’s trainee companion. It was super fun, he’s a really nice guy and I enjoyed the day. I was in their area again and Elder Large went with Elder Chadburn. It was a pretty good week—we found some people for the new elders to see and work with. I hope that area really starts to pick up and do well.
Overall, I’m grateful for the opportunity I had in Costa Mesa with Elder Chadburn. It wasn’t easy work, it wasn’t an easy companionship, but as we did our best and relied on the Lord, things went well and I really am glad to be E. Chadburn’s friend and ex-comp.
The future is bright. “My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.” I am glad to be a missionary and be here in So. California in Orange County. I hope God continues to pour down his blessings on each of you. He loves you and is in every part of your lives. Nothing is without reason. Albert Einstein said “coincidence is just God’s way of staying anonymous.” As we press forward with faith and rely on Him, He will pull through in the end. He always does, he always has. I know the church is true and can bring strength to our lives. Hard times are there just to help us grow and learn and in the end, we will have rest from our labors, sorrows, and trials here on earth. I love you all and hope you have a great week. May the spirit be with you.
Love, Elder Curtis
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
How to Jog Him
Hello :-) Transfers are this weekend so send letters to the mission office. Things are still going pretty well. Jonathan dropped us this week and Ralph still doesn’t feel worthy to come to church but life is still good.
Does anything remind me of those missionary movies? Tons of things actually. That’s what I’m doing out here—preaching, teaching, having hard times, having good times, punching my companion…just kidding. I don’t slam doors into my investigators either :)
We still are visiting lots of less-actives and trying to get more investigators. We do some knocking, but that isn’t always effective. It’s a great way to find mean people though haha. I thought it was a joke that people slam doors on you, but it isn’t! Remember that BOM cartoon movie where Alma is knocking doors? That happens to me sometimes. They open the door, and then close it before I can even say anything. It’s okay though, they probably think we’re really weird and even annoying. One guy said, “Come on guys!” Elder Chadburn: “Come on what?” “It’s Saturday night!” slam. We were like, uh…so? We should have said, come on in? ok. Lol It’s fun to be a missionary. There are lots of nice people too.
We had a lesson with Marla, a recent convert/less-active, on Tuesday and watched the Testaments. Hopefully she felt the spirit. I don’t think her husband did though. He’s not a member and he even slept through a bunch of it.
The ward is really trying to invite lots of people to the Luau we’re having next month. Not very many have reserved a spot yet so one of the members is getting really nervous and wants to start inviting people from the second ward. We hand out a lot of flyers to people and lots want to come, but since it isn’t till September 12th people put off reserving a spot till it gets closer and Bro. Lew (who is organizing everything) is getting frustrated. I hope lots of people call in as it gets closer. It should be really cool. We are having free food (Hawaiian) and Polynesian professional dancers coming so it’ll be authentic. It’s all about missionary work so members can’t come unless they bring a less-active or other friend. I hope we can find some people to teach from it.
On Friday we ate dinner with the people who live under us. They are both into religion for their careers so they were excited to talk to us. It was an interesting night and my companion tried really hard to convince then through just doctrine/proof. It didn’t really work well, but I got to share the restoration and invite them to pray so it ended well at least. I guess it’s something really tempting to try and do when you know the gospel is true. You start studying and come to see how everything supports what you know, but when you try to explain that to others it just doesn’t work as you think it would. I really believe in just teaching simply what we believe and then asking them to study it themselves and pray about it, because unless they feel the spirit they aren’t going to change. It’s hard sometimes to teach that to my companions, but I think they already know it, just have to learn to implement it.
We continue having really good lessons with Ralph, but he’s just scared to make that one step to start on the path to change and I’m not sure why. He reads and prays a little, but he needs to clean up his house, start trying to quite smoking, and come to church. I’m not sure how to jog him into action, but I guess that’s why I need to use the spirit.
A guy in our ward is the producer/director of a show on Nickalodeon called Yo Gaba Gaba for pre-school age kids so if you ever see it, remember I know the guy that makes it. I really like the members here; they are really cool and diverse.
Guess that’s about it so hope you all have a good week. Thanks for the continued letters, support, and prayers.
Love,
Elder Curtis
Does anything remind me of those missionary movies? Tons of things actually. That’s what I’m doing out here—preaching, teaching, having hard times, having good times, punching my companion…just kidding. I don’t slam doors into my investigators either :)
We still are visiting lots of less-actives and trying to get more investigators. We do some knocking, but that isn’t always effective. It’s a great way to find mean people though haha. I thought it was a joke that people slam doors on you, but it isn’t! Remember that BOM cartoon movie where Alma is knocking doors? That happens to me sometimes. They open the door, and then close it before I can even say anything. It’s okay though, they probably think we’re really weird and even annoying. One guy said, “Come on guys!” Elder Chadburn: “Come on what?” “It’s Saturday night!” slam. We were like, uh…so? We should have said, come on in? ok. Lol It’s fun to be a missionary. There are lots of nice people too.
We had a lesson with Marla, a recent convert/less-active, on Tuesday and watched the Testaments. Hopefully she felt the spirit. I don’t think her husband did though. He’s not a member and he even slept through a bunch of it.
The ward is really trying to invite lots of people to the Luau we’re having next month. Not very many have reserved a spot yet so one of the members is getting really nervous and wants to start inviting people from the second ward. We hand out a lot of flyers to people and lots want to come, but since it isn’t till September 12th people put off reserving a spot till it gets closer and Bro. Lew (who is organizing everything) is getting frustrated. I hope lots of people call in as it gets closer. It should be really cool. We are having free food (Hawaiian) and Polynesian professional dancers coming so it’ll be authentic. It’s all about missionary work so members can’t come unless they bring a less-active or other friend. I hope we can find some people to teach from it.
On Friday we ate dinner with the people who live under us. They are both into religion for their careers so they were excited to talk to us. It was an interesting night and my companion tried really hard to convince then through just doctrine/proof. It didn’t really work well, but I got to share the restoration and invite them to pray so it ended well at least. I guess it’s something really tempting to try and do when you know the gospel is true. You start studying and come to see how everything supports what you know, but when you try to explain that to others it just doesn’t work as you think it would. I really believe in just teaching simply what we believe and then asking them to study it themselves and pray about it, because unless they feel the spirit they aren’t going to change. It’s hard sometimes to teach that to my companions, but I think they already know it, just have to learn to implement it.
We continue having really good lessons with Ralph, but he’s just scared to make that one step to start on the path to change and I’m not sure why. He reads and prays a little, but he needs to clean up his house, start trying to quite smoking, and come to church. I’m not sure how to jog him into action, but I guess that’s why I need to use the spirit.
A guy in our ward is the producer/director of a show on Nickalodeon called Yo Gaba Gaba for pre-school age kids so if you ever see it, remember I know the guy that makes it. I really like the members here; they are really cool and diverse.
Guess that’s about it so hope you all have a good week. Thanks for the continued letters, support, and prayers.
Love,
Elder Curtis
What in the World?
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
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
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
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