The construction sight of the Indianapolis Temple.
Elder Paxman and Elder Hjelm goofing off. :-)
Dear Mom,
Ok, so first, yes we can Skype, but I don't have an
account or anything so I need you or Bai to make me one, and then when I call
tomorrow to set things up, you can give me the info and stuff so I can log on,
and get all of that sorted out. Most likely we will be Skyping around 6:15ish
our time so definitely after 4 your time. Or if you would rather just have a
phone call we can do that too. I will let you guys decide.
(His mission President had
us send his Christmas package to the mission home so they could be distributed
at a special Christmas Conference. We
mistakenly thought this would be on Christmas day, so we sent his whole
Christmas. When we found out it was
actually on the 19th we were distraught thinking that he would then
not have any letters or packages to open on Christmas day) I actually didn't open
the box seeing as I thought it might be the 25th day of Christmas, so I indeed
have not opened it, so I am glad you didn’t mention to me anything that is in
it.
The Christmas Conference was really fun, the first couple
of hours was more like a mission training, so that was cool, and the topic was
Christ-like Attributes, which is Chapter 6 in Preach My Gospel. So that was
really good, I really enjoyed a lot of the talks, and the spirit that was there! It was really great! A guy also came and sang and he was really
good, he sang one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, which is "Mary
did you know" I love that song. After that part, we went into the Gym and
all had lunch, which was yummy (it was ham with mac and cheese and beans by the
way). After lunch we stayed in the gym socialized, played a few games and then,
a talent show. So there were all sorts of talents, and some I would say not
quite mission appropriate, for example one was the Assistants rapping and
dancing, it was really funny, but maybe not so missionary like haha. There were
also some singers, dancers, piano players and some other talents, of course
some weird ones haha. After the talent show we all went into the Chapel and watched
Mr. Krugers Christmas which was really good, and I hadn't seen it before the
mission, so it was really fun to watch. (I
swear we had watched it before…but maybe not) Then after that they told us
our family and friends had sent us packages and letters. So they sent us out by
Zone and let us pick a Tie out of a massive selection (or a scarf for sisters) and
then we went into the Gym and they had some tables set up with all the missionaries
stuff that were in our Zone. We each went and got our stuff than drove the 3
hours home, we didn't get home till about 10:45, but my companion and I had
split up, because we didn’t want to take our car. So he got there a little
earlier than I did. (That little bit of info will come in handy for a story
later). (he never relays the story….I
will have to ask him about this next time) So overall the conference was
really good.
I have been loving the 25 days of Christmas things.
My favorite stories, well, I really like all of them, but I lately
enjoyed one about the Red Marbles, that was super good, also the one about the
string of blue beads, I loved that one (maybe because I have no females to
write and a good romance story was needed hahaha). I also really enjoyed the
one about Friends and relating them to angels. They have all been really good,
and I only have the 24th left than my Christmas package!!! The Branch Christmas
party was really good, they had food, piñatas, and music. It was just overall a
fun time. Oh all of us missionaries also
sang Micheal Buble's version of Feliz Navidad, so that was fun, but there might
be random videos now of us missionaries going around the web haha.
We actually did get hit with some snow the last week or
so, about 9 inches is all in total I would say. Although the last two days it
has been raining, which is worse because then you are just wet and freezing. We are supposed to get some freezing rain
here soon which will be cool to see.
(I asked him if he drives
yet.)
My compa drives, I am still Junior Companion, which usually means he drives,
but he doesn't really like the snow so he got permission that whenever there is
a lot of snow on the roads that I can drive.
As far as transfers go I have no idea, I am guessing I
will be staying here in Elkhart with Elder Mancilla for another transfer, but he
thinks he is leaving and if not leaving going District leader here in Elkhart. We will see what happens. We find out on
Sunday. Although, I am pretty sure we are both staying. I do really want to
stay here in Elkhart though, I love it here and hope I can stay here for a
while. Although in these transfers that are coming up we will be getting at
least one new Spanish missionary, so we will see, I might train, I doubt it,
but it is possible.
As far as teaching anyone new, we found some people here
recently, but seeing as we have only taught them once we will see how things go. Less-actives, we have not found many, a lot
of them have moved, so we are trying to get in contact with them. I definitely
feel the same about the re-activating, I really enjoy doing it, when it happens
as well as teaching new people of course, I just love the work in general.
I do indeed keep in contact with the Diaz Family. I e-mail them every week. I am going to have
you search her out on Facebook here soon, she says she has tried to find me and
can't. I gave her your info hoping she
can friend request you, so who knows with the Facebook thing. Yea anyone that I
have developed a relationship with I try and keep in contact with, so that is
nice. Once we get permission from the President we can e-mail pretty much
anyone as long as they are not in our area.
We still have Electric heaters, but we do have Hot water. Our landlord is working right now on
installing the gas heater. We do have pretty much everything we need, the only
thing we are missing is a microwave, but we have been able to do without it.
As far as the other baptism pictures on my SD card, yes
that is Celeste's Baptism and that was an amazing experience. I did receive an
email from Gilda Paxman and gave them the informations about the Elder they
were asking about. That is such a nice
thing for them to do. It was nice to hear from them.
I am glad you liked the pictures, and yes I am wet all
the way down my legs from the pouring rain. I am glad you liked the little bit of deeper
things, (his thoughts about what he is
studying) because I will be including more of those I am sure as the time
goes by. My health has been good, I started the pills after I got pretty sick
to see if they will help at all, the member say I am looking healthier in the
face so we will see. Sister Cleveland asks about my health whenever I see her,
President not so much, I don't think he wants to stress about that so much.
I am not going to include a whole lot more in this letter
because I will be talking to you on Wednesday!! So if you have questions or
anything you want to ask me, write them down, so you can ask me. That way you
don't have to think too hard unless there are more that come to your head that
you want to ask. I also heard someone suggest recording the conversations we
have as a cool keepsake after the mission, I thought that was kind of a cool
idea.
I will be calling tomorrow to verify and set up everything
so be ready for that. I do not know when
we will do that, but I will have about 15 min to set all that up and stuff.
This week not a whole lot has happened work wise because
of all the holiday events, I think it will be the same this week and the next, (especially
if either of us are transferred). Well as far as studies go I did finish the
Book of Mormon, which was awesome!!! Another thing I have been thinking about is
outlook, which I have had to think about a lot lately. One of the things that I
have remembered from growing up is that a positive outlook makes everything
better, even on those days when it isn't super positive. If you can at least hope for the day dawn to
break, than it makes everything much easier. Also I got a commitment from
my District Leader to study a point in Preach my Gospel, it is at the back of
Chapter 8, using time wisely. It is in the personal study part in the back, the
second point. I invite you and dad to
look at that. I started to get a little choked up about it when I read it and
did the activity. The commitment was to do that several times before the end of
my mission, so I won't spoil what I got from that. I want you to do it for
yourselves. I would like to bear a
little bit of my testimony and end. Really, I just want to say that Our
Heavenly Father loves us so much, and that he is willing to answer our prayers
at any moment, we must needs only ask with real-intent and a pure heart and he
will gladly answer us. Also, that this work (missionary work) is not a hard
work. I had to give my first talk on my
mission yesterday and it was on Missionary Work, and I read a few scriptures
that simply say to bring about the work of the Lord, which includes missionary
work, all we must simply do is Believe, this is so true because even if we are
not sure if we can do it, as long as we believe, that Jesus is the Christ the
Holy One of Israel and the Prince of Peace, that he died to atone for our sins,
then this work will go forward and we will all be a part of it, because if we
truly love this Gospel and all it stands for, it no longer becomes difficult to
share it with those around us, even if it is just by our example.
Well I love you all so much and hope that you have a
great Christmas, and I am looking forward to talking to you on Wednesday, (and
a little on Tuesday). Love you all so much have a great week and hear from you
soon.
Love, tu hijo, Elder Paxman
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