There is work to be done and people to help...

This picture is from the summer...I have no words to describe what they were doing.

Dear Mom,

I again sent Elder Paxman a few questons… I learned this great trick from Elder Griffiths blog. (Ben’s friend from our home ward) It’s a fun thing I like to do every once in a while.

1.  Do you use those Pamphlets when you teach investigators.  The missionaries here brought 3 to Regina.  One about the restoration, one about The Plan of Salvation and one about The Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Of course the ones they brought us were in Chinese, but it made me wonder if you use them in Spanish. haha yep the pamphlets are indeed widely used throughout the world, I use Spanish ones quite frequently, they are nice tools to use and really help people to understand things more simply.

2.  Do you feel you are service oriented on your mission at all?  I have seen on Facebook a lot lately missionaries doing service.  Like shoveling snow, working with scout groups etc.  Just service type things in the branch/ward.  I wondered if you and your companion ever do service?  We do lots of random acts of service like shoveling snow or pushing cars out, or things like that, but with planned service not as much, it just depends on how busy we are in the week and what kind of service there is to do.

3.  Have you tried using the GPS?  Does it work? We have tried the GPS It does work, but the maps need to be updated which I guess you can do for free, but seeing as we can't really search the web It is hard for me to do it, not to mention I don't have the cable I need to do it. Overall, though it works alright for now.

4.  Maryann Hair sent you a birthday card.  She was so excited because she sent it in just enough time for you to get it before your b-day and then found out it went to the Elkhart address.  Did you by chance get it?  If mail goes to one of your old addresses do you eventually get it?

I have not gotten the card from the Hair's yet, but if it went to an old address I will get it eventually, it just depends when.

5.  Have you gotten your bike back yet?  Is someone else using it or is it just being stored somewhere?  I have not gotten my bike back yet and as of right now it is just being stored, but it is in the works of finding its way to me.

6.  How many name tags do you have?  What kinds?  I didn't know this, but apparently you can order more, different types, like with magnets or clips or what have you. This is true you can get more name tags, as of right now I have two a clip one and a magnet one, the two they give you in the MTC, I will probably get more eventually.

7.  How did your meeting with the President go?  What was the main purpose of your meeting? The meeting with the President went great, we talked about the area, and how I am doing overall.

8.  Where exactly is your companion from?  What stake and ward?  What is his first name? My companion is from Riverton up near the high school, his stake was the Riverton Copperview stake the 7th ward, and his first name is Alexander or Alex for short.

9.  Do you elders in Indiana make covers for your planners/scriptures.  Our missionaries make them and they are cool!  I took some pictures and sent them in a different email.  If you don't make them, I would be happy to try to make one for your scriptures.  Apparently they make them after 9:00 when they are at home. They make the cases out of a cut off cereal box and put pictures on it using packing tape.  I think they are so cool!!  I have seen the coverings and have made a few for planners, but it is very time taking. And I am not that artsy, I usually throw on a quote and maybe one picture, it depends really, I also don't have the tape for it, and I don't want to buy it. As far as a scripture case goes though I like the ones that you actually open and they are like a cover for the scriptures, those are very popular out here and they protect the scriptures better when on bikes and what not.

10.  How do you like your companion?  Are you still getting along really well? I really like my companion a lot!! He is a little shy and green but I really like him!

11.  How is your health?  I did not like hearing that you were down to 167.  That is about a 15 pound weight loss since you left the MTC.  Do you feel healthy?  Are you concerned about the weight loss? Are your clothes getting baggy? This up and down of your health worries me. My health is hanging in there. I got really sick on Saturday and my weight is moving around so much that it worries me sometimes, but not too badly. I am at 170 as far as today goes. I feel normal and healthy every once in a while, other than that not sick but not peak shape either. My clothes are not getting too baggy although I am just tightening the belt a few notches for a couple weeks than loosening it other weeks so it is interesting. Yea it is a little worriesome, but can't let it drag me down there is work to be done and people to help.

12.  You should download a few pictures and send them.  I haven't seen a recent picture of you since you first went to Elkhart. (Christmas)  :)  I will send some pictures maybe next week; I don't have my camera with me this week.

13.  Your sister Bailee sent you a package for your birthday?  Did you get it? I did get Bailee’s package that she sent on Valentine’s Day.

I am glad you like having the missionaries over, it will help them a lot and I am sure they appreciate it. Holy Cow Maryann had a baby!!  Have I been gone that long? I am glad she is doing well, give her my best wishes

It still feels like winter here, it is supposed to be in the 20s all this week so still cold... Although we had a few days of 40 it was so nice. Yes I need new Spanish scriptures; my English ones are still fine. And some covers for those, but individual covers, one for each set of scripture, and cool ones too, they have some cool ones I have seen.

There is a Facebook group called Missionary Mommas and they are getting together this weekend for dinner and visiting.  Some of Ben’s companion’s moms will be there.  Oh goodness the missionary moms retreat... Oh boy here we go. Elder Hjelm and I only served for 4 and a half months though haha. Also look for Elder VanHaren's mom if you are there, me and him are pretty tight. Elder Hjelm has been one of my favorite companions for sure, so hopefully nothing too bad will come out, haha. Elder Hjelm and I chatted about that missionary mom stuff, it was kind of funny.  He said that his mom was a freak about it, haha and I said mine too probably, it was fun.  You should go though it should be fun, just don't be all freaking out(whatever that means, how do I freak out?) I embarrass myself enough as is, and don't need help with that.

I am still trying to stay up on the Spanish, being in a stripe, it isn’t improving, but also not getting worse, we are also going to start focusing on Spanish work a little bit more so that should be good. (Stripe=one English speaking Elder and one Spanish speaking Elder)

The work has been good, we are getting ready for our baptism on Saturday!! I am stoked, we will most likely be doing the confirmation, so that should be really cool. (he mentioned last week that a family he baptized earlier has not been out to church and dodging the missionaries because they were offended.  I told him I thought he should just email them a letter of love and hope that they are doing well and that he would hear from them soon.  Just to keep doors open or conversation open) You read my mind with the Diaz Family, that is what I had sent them last week so will see how that goes.

As far as the work goes one funny moment, we were helping some recent converts wash their dishes (the Davis family) and during it their daughter blasted me with the freaking sprayer thing, little devil. Than my companion tried to throw the towel on my head and I pulled it off my face and said oh it’s my turn now and started whipping it at him making really good cracks, and well about the fifth one I nailed him really good, but probably in not a great spot.  He instantly starts jumping around freaking out and holding his crotch while the rest of us laugh. It was funny, but I felt a little bad... OH Something COOL that just happened is we got permission to GO TO THE TEMPLE every six months for personal worship and if members go!! So I need my temple clothes prease!!!! I am so excited it has been a year since I have been in the temple pretty much and I am stoked plus another possible two temples off the list!

The last comment you made to remember to enjoy every minute because my mission will be over too soon is all too real and sad. I have started making my mission bucket list which I am excited to have and complete those goals, but it makes me sad, because I am so old. Other than that not much new is happening out here, and nothing has really stuck out to me in studies, so next week I will have more to write. Although we have been contacting less-actives so we will see how all of that goes. Anyway I love you guys and hope you have a great week.

Love, tu hijo Elder Paxman

Run forward doing all we can...

Dear Mom,

Thank you for sharing which Indy missionaries moms belong to the Missionary Mom’s thing. It’s fun for me to see.  Elder Hjelm, Elder Stone, Elder Cuevas are all Spanish and I know each of them. Elder Van Haren is from Gilbert Arizona and he is my District leader and he and I are pretty tight. Elder Rowe is Chris Rowe from North Star, I have hung out with him a couple times, he is a cool kid. I have met most of the others, but don't know them all that well. So yea it is a really small world.

Although, a sad thing has happened from the days of Elder Hjelm... The Diaz family has gone inactive.  I found out at transfers that they have not gone to church in about 6 weeks and that they are not answering their phone and barely answer the door for the missionaries; I thought something might be up when they stopped emailing me about 4 weeks ago.... It was sad to find that out, I just wanted to drive to their house and kick down their door, and give them a real talk... But it is not my task, so maybe another time... It made me really sad though... Supposedly they got offended at church, which I could see; the Spanish Branch in Indy is super bad at that they are not great at retaining members... It still made me really sad none the less... 

(Ben has asked for new scriptures his others are thrashed, and I asked him how he felt about a package that celebrated his ½ way mark.  He doesn’t really like to think about already being half way done.) As far as the scriptures go I am not bothered with either, whether separate or a quad. Color wise I would say black or Crimson I really like the Crimson ones. Also a case for those so they don't get thrashed by weather like the other ones... Oh and maybe more photos for my frame! (I sent him 3 pictures of Christ) I loved all three that you put in there, and now they don't have to be of Christ they can be anything that you think is really cool and that I would like. Actually, for the scriptures probably not a quad it might be easier to find them separate.

(We had the missionaries over this past week to teach Regina and a classmate of hers.  I shared with him what a great experience it was and that the girls want the missionaries to come back this week) That sounds like an awesome experience with Regina and that is cool that they liked it so much, I have definitely had those experiences speaking Spanish. More so at the beginning of my mission than I do now, but I still remember them. (He is talking about how even though the language is not perfect the spirit is, because I told  him that even though most of us could not understand a word this missionaries were saying as they were speaking in Mandarin, we still understood because of the spirit being so strong)

Okay, so about transfers.  First, my new companion is named Elder Hansen, he is from Riverton!!! he is English speaking and he has only been out 4 and a half months, I am still the senior companion, we are still striping, I really like him, he is nice and willing to learn, he is a good missionary and I am glad to be working with him. I did use my Birthday Visa card for dinner I took my companion and we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and it was awesome!!  Then a few days later a member took us there again it was awesome!! The work this week has been good, not a lot new because we spent a lot of time taking mi compa to members and investigators to introduce him and such. Although Drew is on schedule to be baptized here in about 12 days or so, so I am way excited for that! We teach maybe 2 or 3 Spanish lessons a week if I am lucky, so not a lot, but enough. I really enjoy it. I wish I could talk more, but it is good enough for me for now. The branch has probably about 50 active members so it is pretty small, but I love the branch anyway, they are really nice.  The only thing is they do not feed us much at all...

My belly is doing alright I now weigh 167 so I have lost weight again, but mostly fat I think because I am sure to work out every day. (This mommy is not happy about this weight loss, it means he is down 15 pounds from the MTC :/ I don’t care if its fat or not… that is a lot of weight for a young man who was not overweight to lose) I have not been sick for a while so that has been nice, and most times when I am sick I can work, other times I cannot. (I asked him if he and the Mission President spend much time discussing his health and if the President seems concerned at all.) We discuss my health a little, not a lot, he is a little worried, but not too much, we now have a medical lady besides sister Cleveland she is a Nurse Practitioner so that is nice. I don't let my sickness slow me down to much. I did not come out here to be sick all the time and even if I am I have been through harder I feel.

(In reference to my asking him about a ½ way package) I don't mind either way. I am sad that the time has gone too fast, but if we are depressed about the future nothing gets done, so might as well run forward doing all we can. As far as the missionary front goes things have been really good here nothing too special this week has happened and right now there is a blizzard outside... The Davis family is amazing they are LARCS that live in Monticello and I really like them. Jim Davis is a policeman and reminds me a lot of uncle Marty just with a lot of tattoos and stuff haha. We are working to get them to go to the temple when his wife hits her year mark from being baptized. Other than that things here have not been to eventful.  I did have to teach priesthood this last week so I will share some of my thoughts from that, that have come from past studies and such. Today, though I will talk about Abraham and the story of him sacrificing Isaac. During some studies I came across a lot of interesting stuff about this story and my favorite part about it, was someone talks about "why did Abraham have to sacrifice Isaac?? Why would God command that??" I have come to three conclusions by listening to other people and also by my own studies. One more obvious reason is to test Abrahams' obedience to the Lord, another is to give us an example of putting everything in our lives on the altar, even our own lives if necessary, and lastly and my personal favorite. I believe that God had him go through that, so that at least one mortal man would know at least a piece of what Our Heavenly Father had to feel to willingly sacrifice his own son! That thought to me was so profound and we often think of Christ's sacrifice, but what of the fathers, how it would feel if we had to put our only begotten son on an altar and willingly and mournfully watch him die and worse yet, be hung on a cross and mocked and cursed by many. It makes me appreciate the love that our Heavenly Father has for us to give up his only begotten, and that shows us just how much me we must be willing to sacrifice to obtain Salvation and Exaltation in the Kingdom of God.  Now thankfully most of us will never have to do such, but the simple example means wonders to me. Well I love you all so much and hope to hear from you next week!

Love, Elder Paxman  

It took a Perfect Son

Dear Mom,

So for today’s email I will start with answering questions.  Now of course I do not have a lot of time because it is transfer p-day, so we will see how well this goes.

Will you be transferred or are you staying in Logansport?  Will you be keeping your companion?

So I am staying here in Logansport and my companion is leaving, so I will be getting a new one which should be really fun although I have really liked mi compa.

Did you get your birthday package?  I sent him a framed photo of the Savior and Peter, but behind it I also put two other pictures, so next month he can change it out, to have variety.

I really enjoyed the package it was awesome, we have not had a chance to make the cake though so I will do that here in the next few days. I had no idea that there were more photos behind that one. That is freaking awesome!! I love the one that you got me, I have never seen it before and really enjoy it. I did think of one more thing I do need, but can wait for my year mark, and that is a new set of Spanish scriptures, a nice set and also some cases for them, my last ones are really beat up from the bad weather and the extreme cold. But they work for now so I am in no dire need of them. Overall I loved the package and I will probably go on the dinner with my new companion as a b-day thing and also to get to know him.

So, if I remember right you said you would be speaking in church one your Birthday.  Did this happen and if so how did your talk go? (I also spoke on his birthday and shared some of my talk with him.)

 I will talk about my talk later on in the letter.  I really enjoyed your talk though I liked it a lot, yours was a lot shorter than mine too hahaha. Although, I already knew the thing about the Flamingos I never thought of it in that way so that was super cool.

 I got invited to join the private page on Facebook called missionary mommas.  I LOVE it!  It has over 1800 members, all mothers of current missionaries.  They just post whatever, and when I joined, it asked me to tell a little about my missionary and where he is serving.  There are about 12 other Indy moms in the group, but so far the Spanish one I have found is named Elder Stone.  Do you know of him?  Anyway I do know Elder Stone he is from Colorado, near Grand Junction. His Spanish is really good, although I haven't served around him for about 3 months or so. He is really cool!!. What are some other people who are on the mama facebook thingy?? I might know some of them.

How has your health been this week? My health has been pretty good this week, I haven't really been sick, my intestines though have been flip flopping and I haven't been very hungry

How do you like your Mission President, now that you have had him a while?  Do you have much interaction with him?  I like our mission Pres. He is awesome, although we do not have much interaction because I am not in a position of leadership. Although I do have an interview with him soon, so that will be interesting.

What are your thoughts about the crazy weather and cold you have had this year?  My thoughts on the cold are that I do not like it, but it doesn't feel like the worst I have ever been in. Except when it gets to below the negatives that really bites haha, overall though we stay pretty warm, they also don't want us out for more than 15 min. at a time in the open air when it’s really cold. That is not good with the snow-pack hopefully things will get better with that here in the next few weeks so you won't be in such a drought this year.

Ok so now for the work stuff. So I did give my talk yesterday in Sacrament meeting, it went really well as far as people tell me. I got a lot of people who came up and told me how well I did. Although, good story about that. So that day we were not expecting many people to show up to church because of the storm and everything which gave us about 5 inches and lots of ice. So my companion and I were to bless the sacrament that day,  so we were sitting up on the stand like usual and this really tall guy came walking in and shook our hands and sat down on the stand, now I knew a high councilman was coming to give a talk as well with me for church. So that is who I assumed it was, but before the meeting started and we were finishing up the last minute things this short guy came in and talked to us and said he was the high councilman, so than I was thinking who is this really tall guy?? Now only about 45 people showed for church so that was nice because I was really nervous and all the ones who showed up I knew pretty well, although I was still nervous because of the high councilman.  Anyway, while we are singing the first hymn I nudge my companion and ask who the tall man is. He pauses and is like "oh that is the Stake President" I had a flip out right there!!! The Stake President!! I have to talk with him here!! It made me nervous and I thought I might have a nervous breakdown. J  Well long story short, I had been praying a lot that the message I would tell would be what people needed to hear and that the spirit would be there with me. Well I gave my talk which was on Service and Sacrifice; it was a really good talk I felt. So I went first and took a good chunk of time and then it was the High Councilman, and then the Stake President took a few minutes also.  We all gave our talks and I felt mine went well and people said they loved it.  Although, it was funny this lady came up to me afterward and said that I was an amazing public speaker, but that I need to speak in the mike better, she than gave me 15 min. lessons on how to do so, I laughed and said sounds great thanks for the help, she is kind of an older lady haha.

Other than that this week has just been really really good. We have taught a lot of people and are coming along good with a few of them.  Drew is scheduled to be baptized on the 1st of March.  We area also excited for the Davis family a less active, recent convert and part member family, that is working towards the temple here in April. So everything is going really good. We also housed a puppy for about 8 hours until we found the owner during the massive storm, and companion got the car stuck absolutely sideways in a long driveway at a member’s home. So overall a week filled with a lot of fun and adventure.

I will share a little bit of my talk and wrap up because of the time constraint and a lot of people emailed me because of my B-day. So in my talk, I talked a lot about how sacrifice is often a part of service that is essential yet often times not so desired.  I shared some thoughts from Elder Holland's talk about "missionary work and the Atonement" It was really good, I will share a brief piece I used that talks about why service and this life is not easy. He talks about why this life and missionary work and other things are not easy, even when we do our best and are earnestly trying.  He continues, and says he firmly believes that this life is not easy because Salvation was never easy, it took a perfect son to suffer and bleed from every pore to atone for the sins of the world, and shouldn’t we be willing to at least do a little bit for our fellow man. He goes on with a lot of great thoughts, but overall a really good talk that you and the family should read, I really enjoy it. Anyway I love you all so much and hope you have a great week, I will tell you more about my new companion and all the new stuff next week, I love you and hope and pray that you have a great week.

Love, tu hijo Elder Paxman

Man, I am old!!

Dear Mom,

I am allowed to read books written by general authorities. For my birthday I would like that pic of Christ I have told you about before or a different really good picture of Christ that might fit in a little frame on my desk or something.

We did eat with some LARCS for dinner and I did get to see some of the Super Bowl game :( I was not happy of course, but oh well.

(I told him that I get to speak in Church next Sunday on his birthday.)That is funny haha, I will also be giving a talk on my Birthday, but I got to choose the topic.  I kept my older one but might tweek it a bit, because I actually never ended up giving that talk. It is on Sacrifice and Service. The topic of yours is interesting; I have found it best when I use experiences from my own life in talks. You could always use my story of not being able to eat or drink for a really long time and somehow link it in. Another good way is to find something people can relate too, like their own hunger and thirst or even fasting and something like that. Fasting might be a good route because you sacrifice humanly hunger and thirst for the "bread and living water" So to speak. I can't believe Eric is home, that feels as though it was forever away when I was back home.

(I shared how we are trying to get our foreign exchange student to interact more, she spends a lot of time alone in her room.) Just keep working gently with Regina she will come around with time. People naturally do not like to be alone, that is why the idea of Heavenly Father and the rest of the Godhead being with us at all times and things is such a comforting thought. Now we all have our moments of wanting to be alone, but that is usually when something is wrong like too much stress or what not.

This week my health is holding steadyish so that is good, I got sick once more, but shook it pretty quick. I do feel my Saviors love more times than I deserve, but I enjoy its presence and comfort in times of hardship. The work has been alright not really moving forward rapidly, but moving.  We taught over 12 LARCS this weeks which is really nice, and we had one family who is part member and RC's come to church which was really great.  Also of our 2 most solid investigators one is going to be baptized on March 1st if all goes well.

It has been alright temperature wise, although this week it is supposed to snow around 15 inches in some big storm, but we will see. It has been the 20's temp wise except occasionally the single digits and Tuesday like -4, so a little cold. We did have church yesterday so that is good, especially since it was only my second time going to this Branch the entire transfer!!! The cold weather gear is holding up fairly well. I am able to stay warm and I am super grateful for a car because some parts of our area are a 30 min drive away! Katy is making progress, we meet with her tomorrow so I hope all goes well there. My chances of speaking Spanish have gone up a little, we now have one Hispanic investigator so that is really nice and plus the few Hispanic LA's we get to work with.  So it is going good with Spanish, still more maintaining than learning a lot, but it is better than nothing.  My companion doesn't really have the desire to learn so we don't really speak it one to another, but we are still getting along really well and all is well on that front.

So this week was actually not very eventful we taught a lot of LARCS (less actives and recent converts) We also had blitzes with the Spanish ZL's, which one of them is Elder Cozzens my trainer. We did find Martha she is a former investigator that was dropped because of inability to contact and all that.  It was kind of funny at first when we met her it seemed as though she was trying to like run-away from us to get to her car, haha but you can't run from the Mormon Missionaries!!  We were able to set up an appointment which she was actually there for.  She was a little thrown off, because she had forgotten about it, but we talked to her and she has relatives that live in, Utah and she has seen the temple and really loved it. So that was really good, so we will be teaching her again here in the next few days, other than that though not much new has been going on.

Next time I email I will kind of know what is going on at transfers because we will have gotten our calls and such on the 9th (my b-day). Oh actually one cool thing I learned was from studies.  It was that when Christ was being tempted by Satan, even though the temptation was fierce and such I feel that the temptations kind of had a hidden meaning. One of those was that he wanted Christ to doubt his Heavenly Father and other things that we so often as humans fall into. And also in the last Satan tries to get Christ to doubt his divine nature, because at this moment I believe Christ knows of his divinity somewhat, but still does not know to what extent because he passed through the veil just as the rest of us. So that was just a little something I have been thinking of.

Well I love you all so very much and hope you have a great week, and next time you hear from me I will be 20!! (man I am old...)

Have a great week and can't wait to hear from you next week.

Love, Elder Paxman