Dear Mom,
My new address for now, until new house is acquired... (I
will get to that later)
is 1722 10th street Apt. A, Elkhart Indiana ZIP# 46516
So that is my address. So for your other questions yes, I
did get transferred!! My new area is 3
hours and some change away from Cumberland!!!!! I am way freaking north in the
Tundra!! Hahaha. I love it up here. It
is much more my speed. My goodness. As for the housing…. We are temporarily living
with six elders in one house. The
Assistants told us that we have to find a house and move into it in the next
few weeks. So I will be close to this address if I do move and there will be
elders living in this address that will get me the package. It doesn’t look like we will be moving for
about a week, so we will be good there for now.
My new companion is named Elder Mancilla. I served around him at the beginning of my
mission. He has been out for 14 months and just got done serving in his last
area training in English speaking. He is fluent in both languages. We are
getting along really well so that is good. We share a car again, but we have it
most of this week because of the need to find a house and move into it. So send
the packages and then if my address changes I can let you know the new address.
Crazy week I know. Our apartment is nice I have been sleeping on the couch so
that is ok I guess. We are living out of
suitcases for now. But the assistants called telling us to find a house, saying
that we had to find one within these parameters and get all that sorted
out. Until then we are living with 4 English
elders. Today I will finally be buying some groceries, so I will spend probably
about 20 bucks today for Kefir and one or two other things just to get me by
with minimum till we get a more secure housing situation. Although, I am loving
living with the English Elders. It is a
split floor house, the upstairs lives an English set with 2 Elders that are
awesome and super fun. One is thinking of giving me one of his girls to write! And the other, Elder
Reeder is a bud back from the city who I served near and saw on P-day activities
etc. Than we live in the bottom with Elder Ladezma who is being trained and is
from the Philippines. He is really cool
and learning English, although, I feel bad for him he has no family and his
home just got wasted from the Typhoon..... So he is really struggling... But we
are trying to keep him going and help him through. He has really been
contemplating going home. His trainer Elder Owen, me and him are super close. I also served around Elder Owen in the city
when he was new. He is a young
missionary and we get along like 2 peas in a pod it. It is awesome. So it has been super fun with
that.
As for the house itself, I have a real shower which is
awesome, but they almost always give me last shower (because I don’t complain)
although the water is freezing cold. So that has also been an adventure. The
insulation is bad, so it gets cold at night but other than that it is great! The lack of space stinks we are living in the
front room, and sleeping there, and studying there... So that is interesting.
Overall the housing is super fun.
The area to me is nicer than the last, out of the big city, but I am way used to it by now. No more tornadoes,
although it has been freezing!! I don't think in this new area I have had one
day of sun shine. It rained for the
first three days and then dropped to 25 and has snowed ever since or been
overcast and freezing.... (If any of you
saw the BYU vs Notre Dame Game, his new area is 13 miles East of South Bend so
that awful snow is what he has been having.) It is so cold here, the city (Indianapolis) is still semi-warm. It’s
to be expected, I am only like 20 min away from Michigan and Lake Michigan so
we get pretty good lake affect.
I have been back to full health pretty much, I am healthy
so can’t complain. Other than that I have a cold which I hate... But it could
be worse, so I am doing pretty good on the health front. Food wise has been hard,
but today we can buy food that goes in the fridge finally, so that is good,
because we won’t have to be eating out as much and I can now eat somewhat
better food.
I am not sure what the plans for Thanksgiving are. The branch here is doing something from noon
to three, and then I think we are eating with the branch president’s family
that night which will be very nice.
I did get to say goodbye to my investigators, most of
them anyway, a few I did not. I also got
email addresses and now I just have to get permission from president to email
them. Also a recent convert female
hugged me…. that was weird, haha but whatever haha. The Diaz family was coming to
church and I think they will make it and
then I get to go back and baptize them and see them.
(We sent him Christmas CD’s)
I
have been able to listen to several of the CD’s and I like them all!! It is nice to have music, although I left
them and my camera charger in my last area.
Urgh! My camera has now died, so
I am low on pictures for now but I will take some soon. I should be getting that stuff back in about
a week, then I will take a lot of photos and send you the SD card.
The new area is awesome with people. We got double transferred in and are opening
it!! But we have been doing really well with it. We only taught four lessons
this last week but we have over 20 set up for this week. We should be well on our way shortly. Most of
the people we are teaching are formers (I
don’t know what he means by formers) or were investigators when the area
closed a long time ago. We have two planning to be baptized in December and
hopefully more in the coming months. The work overall is going great, although
house shopping is taking up a lot of our time as of late and so we haven’t been
able to teach a ton. This week we are
going to teach a lot and meet members and house shop so this week will be
another crazy one.
My language is good, not great but manageable and it
improves daily!! Although, I think it might take a hit with a native speaker
because he talks a lot more than Elder Hjelm did, so I talk less. But we are working on that and also it is
still improving. The thing that I am
way bad at right now is my conjugating, there are a ton of forms and I am way
bad at it but getting better.
Wow dad is looking at Pinterest and getting crafty?!?...
Man dad is taking a hit without me being there to help hahaha kidding. Also I
distinctly remember a time walking into the fire station and watching all the
big husky fireman making bracelets.... So yea haha. No Fireman ornaments on the tree, will be weird.
Making new ornaments sounds fun and being able to decorate the tree. I remember how that would get sometimes, ha
ha, good times.
I think Grandma and Grandpa are so going to Europe or
Asia, like maybe Japan or like France hahaha or Spain that would be awesome!!
Poor Brooklyn, I hope she gets feeling better. I hate feeling sick a lot. That cat is a high maintenance
creature and it would be funny to see pictures of her shenanigans if you can
send them. What the random, you saw two llamas walking down the middle of the
road!! That is interesting and really
funny. I seem to remember there are a few farms with a few of them up in that
area. Korea for Cory, that is intense
and awesome. I know near the time I get home we should have a whole grundle load
of missionaries out on the field from the home ward.
A story… We were out stopping by formers (maybe he means a former investigator) home
one night and we go walking up to the yard and see a dog. We are like ok, I wonder if it has a chain? I
look around and see it in the snow and was like okay good it looks short and it
is on the side of the house. We start
walking up and the dog makes a run for us.
We take a step back and it just about kills us, the chain was forever
long and the dog got to within a foot of us!!!!. Ok so we try to walk around it
and the dog blocks any way of getting to the door. We try for about 5 min to calm the freaking
bear of a dog, because it was huge, and we want to get to the door... This doesn’t
happen so we decide we will come back another day in the day time. (it was 730
at night and freezing) As we start walking across the street we see the guy
step out and take the dog, so we run across the street and try to catch him but
he goes inside. Now this is one of those houses with 2 doors one goes into a
little indoor landing thing and then one into the house. We go walking up to knock on the outside door
and we look around to make sure the dog is actually gone, we can’t see him so
Elder Mancilla goes up to knock on the door when all of the sudden this dog
head pops out of a hidden dog door made out of the same material as the house,
so it blends in perfectly! Instantly
this little noise comes out of my companion like a high pitched squeal mumble
like hummannnnababa and we look at each other and sprint for safety, the dog
tears after us!! Elder Mancilla also
shoves me back to save himself, that dirty little bugger almost got me munched
hahaha!!! It was super funny and we
laughed about it later. Anyway we
escape and try for another 5 to calm the dog than I realize the owner had a wire
attached at the gate that rings to the doorbell!! Man we are idiots sometimes.. hahaha we finally
got a return appointment for them.
This last week I have learned a lot about the pre-earth
life and obedience as well as just going with things. This week has been so
crazy but we have been able to do so much and experience a lot in a very short
time. So my testimony has definitely grown so much, on how we are called to not
only serve in our missions but our areas as well. Also two of the English
elders were almost at each others throats when we got here and now they are
getting along. Us being here has helped,
the Lord works in mysterious ways and everything happens for a reason, that is
one thing that I know for sure. Well this letter has been long and I still have
to write other people so I love you all so much and hope you all have a great
week and that things continue to go amazingly well. Love you all and have fun,
for this life was meant to be enjoyed even in times of hardship.
Love, Elder Pecoso Paxman
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