Picture of Mission Conference taken from Indiana, Indianapolis mission Facebook page
Elder Paxman is the fourth from the Right.
A picture of the apartment he is living in via my google search.
Dear Mom,
I am doing pretty great mommy!
We
have had a ton of Rain. How has our weather been? Has it started to get cold
yet? Or is it still quite hot and humid? Lucky, we haven’t had rain for what feels like weeks and
it has been high 80's all week!!
I'll bet you’re excited for Spanish training this next
week. Will you get to see President Coffin when you go to Indy? The training will actually not be in Indy, it is in Kokomo Indiana,
so about a 3 hour drive or longer for us. Although we got a wonderful surprise Saturday!
President Coffin got a hold of us and we all went out to dinner! It was great
to see them again! Natalia face timed them too while we were with them so I got
to see her too. It was nice to spend some time with them, and get fed, because
that never happens in this area hahaha. I was going to get a picture with them,
but we ended up being a little rushed at the end, so I wasn't able to get
one... But hopefully I will see them again before the end of my mission,
although we will see what happens with time.
Due to the question of if your address gets delivered mail we
sent your package to President Nehring. Ok
cool sounds good to me with the Package.... Although I thought of a few more
things I need... hehehe. First laminate sleeves that have three whole punches
in them so I can put my Preach My Gospel in them so I can write on them and
later erase it for the things that I am studying that week, and for protection
against rain and other things. It almost
got really wet the first week I was out. Also some Cologne, however you spell
it, the smelly stuff you spray on to smell good and be awesome. I didn't bring
any and my suits sometimes smell like moth balls... This is not kosher... (I don’t understand this because we had them
all dry cleaned before he left.)So either get me a new bottle of Black to
send out or one called Bleu de Channel I believe it is a little more expensive
but it is a lot nicer, and will last longer.
Did you get daddy’s letter in the mail? And is the picture I sent you of your
apartment correct. I googled searched… I
have mad searching skills. I did get the letter and the
picture, so the mail is working. The
picture you shared indeed looks like our apartments when they were new, hahaha
is my guess anyway. I have no way to download pictures so I can't send them to
you... Sorry. I am taking a few though, although sometimes the camera takes
really bad pictures, so you will have to take a look at some of them and see
what you think and if you don't like them or something maybe get a new camera,
dad and I talked about this before I left.
I shared with him a story about Bailee and Kyle hiking. While they were hiking a rear view picture of
Bailee bending over picking leaves may have been taken and posted to Instagram. I sent him a screen shot of fit. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA so funny thing about the picture... I looked at
it first before I read the description, but only for a brief second and wasn't
really paying attention. So I thought to myself.... "Man... Kyle has
gotten some freaking lady hips since I have been gone!!!!"
BAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I than realized it was Bailee after I read the email and it
made me laugh really really hard, almost hysterics. I then indeed laughed at
what Kyle had written, he is already getting corrupted by our awesomness
bwahahaha. Anyway so that was really funny, my eyes are still kind of watery
from laughing so hard...
Oh yea so about the Aux cord I
cannot find it anywhere.... although those are really easy to get mom, those
are the ones you just plug into the speaker and IPod so you can listen to it, it’s
like the one you have in the van. I thought I packed it and the charger, but I
have not been able to find either so if you could look again that would be
great! Otherwise I have found some temporary solutions. As far as my personal
funds go, I sadly have been using a lot because of the lack of member meals. Although now I think I got everything sorted,
so that won't happen as much anymore. Also I finally got an MSF Card so that
should help too.
As for the bike, I should be
able to wait 3 weeks and that would be fine with me to buy his bike, it is a
really good bike. I remember seeing the back of it a lot in Cumberland haha. My
bike will hopefully not break until then. Mom, that is crazy about the Tomatoes and canning,
it seems like some very painstaking work.
I told him about the experience the girls and I had at the women’s
conference. Yeah it will never be as
awesome as when Dad and I go out to the Priesthood session and dinner. One reason is because I always get a very
attractive hostesses or waitresses number and second, because it will not have
Dad or I there. ;P Olive Garden!!!!
Freak we always go to Chili's because Olive Garden is expensive, so maybe that
means when I get home we can upgrade to Ruby River or something tehehehe. I
really like what President Uchtdorf said that is really cool, I like that a lot. Thanks
for sharing.
Do you guys have plans for General Conference next
weekend? Where will you be watching it? We will probably be watching it in a church building in North
Vernon, which is about a 20 minute drive from here.
How are things with your investigator Betin? Was he someone
you and Elder Gooledge found or was he an investigator that Elder Rowberry had found and is
now yours? How is he progressing? How often do you meet with
him? Do you have any other people you are meeting with or teaching? Elder Rowberry had found him
and taught him I think 2 times, and then we stepped in. He is doing well, we
have a hard time getting him to church because he doesn't have a car and we are
having a hard time putting him on a baptismal date for several reasons. One of
which, is the fact that he feels that his family feels like he is slowly
separating himself from them with the step towards baptism in a different
faith. So we are hoping to get his families address in Guatemala and send some
missionaries there!!! I think that is pretty cool. I also felt inspired to
extend a promise to him. And that was. "If you make this covenant of
Baptism and strive to live worthy to it all your life, I can promise you as a
servant of God that your family will follow in your footsteps; I don't know
when or how, but they will. So that was really cool, to feel that prompting to
say that. We meet with him and most of our investigators twice a week that is
the goal anyway, sometimes we can only do once, and sometimes we get lucky and
get three in. We found 5 new investigators this week, and I know that by
Obedience to the Lord's command we will continue to find more as we improve and
strive to be obedient. So we now have quite a few, there are two more which I
feel have some promise. They are Carlos and Freddie and they are both really cool and have
potential, I will probably include more about them in the future, but for time’s
sake, I will not today. Although Carlos has a fiancée that is white and hardly
speaks Spanish and he is Hispanic and hardly speaks English and he thinks he
might have an evil demonic spirit that resides in him.... 8/ Other than that he
is doing well. Freddie is a really cool guy we have only taught like three times, his
wife and child live in Kentucky and he drives back and forth a lot. I think
both of them have a lot of potential so we will see here in the near future how
it all pans out with them.
You received a Facebook friend request from a sister named Pany Ourai Davis who lives in Monticello. Do you know her
and should I accept the request?
YES!!! Accept the friend request from Monticello!!! I served there while in
Logansport!! I told you about the Davis family they are way awesome! So yes please
do that. Remember to accept that friend request from her, we call her Gabby or
sister Davis but she is awesome!
How often do you interact with the sisters in your area?
Do they live near you? Do you like them are they nice? How often do
you interact with the Elders from Columbus? Are there only the one set
Elder Rowberry and his companion or are there others in Columbus? What did you
do for P-day last week? What are your plans for this week? We interact with the sisters pretty frequently so it is
nice, they are very friendly and one kind of reminds me of Brooklyn, at least
in the way she acts, which makes me laugh sometimes. We interact with the
Elders in Columbus about 2 to 4 times a week and I love both of them dearly,
especially Elder Rowberry. He is under a lot of stress right now, I think just with
training, being a district leader and also having to deal with the fact of
going home in not that long at all. I
feel bad for him and help him as much as I can. There are like 5 sets of Elders
in Columbus and a set of sisters, although they are all English speaking. Last
week we went up to Columbus and had P-day and this week we will do the same
which I really enjoy doing.
I know I asked before but are you driving or is Elder Golledge?
If he is the driver is he good or does he scare you? Ha ha! Are you still
getting a long and do you feel like you have things in common? Elder Golledge is driving and is a maniac!! haha kidding. We are
getting along really well, and I think it will only get better.
How is your cooking going? Making anything good to
eat? Have you eaten with any members this past week? I eat a ton of eggs and Froot Loops, these are really the main
staples in my diet hahaha... We got fed Tacos last week that were amazing with
a great spicy salsa. YUM!!!! I loved it.
I really like the Branch here,
it is really small though. I use my Spanish frequently, everyone says my
Spanish is the best out of many of the Elders, but I don't know how true that
is. I am still learning and trying to get better, because it is very rough
sometimes. Anyway stories, mainly only one. So this week we had Elder Perkins
of the quorum of the seventy come to the mission and give a big training. He
was really cool and so was his wife. At lunch time we ended up sitting with
them! So myself and a few others got to pick their brains for a good hour or
more, and hear a ton of amazing stories. He associates a lot with the First Presidency
and the 12 so he had lots of stories about them. One cool thing he told us is
that Conference is never themed or given certain topics. Speakers are only
given how much time they have to speak and that is pretty much it!! So it is
all straight revelation from Heaven!!!!! So I thought that was pretty amazing.
Other than that he gave a really good tid bit on Faith. Which, I have always
been very key on due to my Patriarchal Blessing. So it was amazing to hear all that
he had to say, and also see some of the Elders and sisters that I hadn't seen
yet. Like Sister Warner. I also got to see
Elder Pendleton again which was awesome. He and I will definitely be spending time
together after the mission. Also I have been getting emails from Drew which it has
been awesome to hear from him!!
So my Spiritual thought of the
week is actually about Faith. See there are to me anyway, different degrees of
Faith. Namely like first, Belief, then knowledge, testimony, wisdom, and then
Faith unto Power. Now I believe this is the Faith that allows us to move
Mountains as stated in the scriptures like the Brother of Jared and Enoch. (Which
by the way are probably two of my all-time favorite people in the scriptures.)
Also do we doubt or fear even the slightest, because we know that Doubt and
Fear are opposite to faith. So I have really been studying Faith over the last
week and will probably continue to study if for a good amount of time. I
usually pick one Christ like Attribute from Chapter 6 in Preach my Gospel to
focus on in a transfer. I believe I am doing Faith for this one. Well I know
that by Faith miracles are brought to pass, and that yes not many of us have
that Faith unto the mustard seed without a fragment of doubt, but we can all
strive for it, strive to put our doubts aside, until the day it is obtained. I
am grateful for all those who have supported me in my times of trial and lent me
there Faith, so that I could make it through the dark times. I only hope now
that I am doing the same for someone else, whether and investigator, a member,
or a stranger who reads this blog, I hope I can help someone in any way I can.
Especially for me, there is a reason I am back out on the mission, for all
intents and purposes they probably would not have let me come back, unless it
was a direct cause of revelation. So I hope to continually seek and find what
that reason is, even if there are many. I have always felt a tie to the
missionaries out here so maybe that is it, or to an investigator or recent
convert. Although not knowing is half the fun, it makes things more interesting
and makes you work as hard as you can in every way to find what your purpose
is. I think that is the same in life, if we were to know what was to happen
tomorrow we would go about mindlessly waiting for it to come. Since we do not
know, it makes every day an adventure to be had and a story for the future!
Well I love you all very much and I hope everything is going really well for
you at home! I hope to hear from you soon and my prayers are always with you!
Love, Elder Paxman
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