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