Elder Paxman and Elder Ryan
Mission Christmas Conference.
Dear Mom,
I am doing pretty good.
How was the Mission Christmas Conference? Did they feed you? What other activities were there? The Christmas Conference was really nice. I
enjoyed it. Although I forgot my camera so I will not have any pictures of it,
that is okay I only went for my camera like twice was all haha. Yep they fed
us, gave us our packages and they also had a talent show. We also played bingo and a few other things.
We also received spiritual training to start the meeting off. Oh and they
fed us baked potatoes, which was pretty good.
Did all the Elders and Sisters receive a
Christmas package? All the
elders and sisters received a package which was really cool.
Did you receive our packages there? I hope you didn’t open them, they are for
Christmas morning. I have
not opened the two packages you gave me. I got three packages, two from you and
one from gma and gpa. I did open gma and gpa’s package and there was grandmas homemade bread in
it. I salvaged some of it. It was great!!
How have you and Elder Ryan been enjoying your
12 days of Christmas? We have
really been enjoying it, so that has been awesome thank you so much for that. I
have really liked all of the stories; there hasn't been one that I haven't
liked.
I received a picture of you holding Share The
Gift signs, where was this taken and who sent it to me in a text? Was it
at a Branch Christmas party? Yea it was a branch family home evening slash
Christmas party and I had President Nehring take those and send them to you.
If mail is accidentally sent to your old
Seymour address will you still get it? Yes the Elders that live in Seymour still live
in the same place I did, so it will get to them and then to me.
How is the work? Any success in finding new investigators? The few new investigators are still in the
works. The work this week was freakishly rough. It was a hard few days and it
has been a hard last week, but we are hoping to change that, there is always
room for improvement. We are teaching hardly anyone, we haven't been able to
contact hardly anyone lately so that really bites, but we will go on. Bertin has
gotten a new job and can hardly even meet with the Seymour Elders, so things
are going rough on that end which makes me really really sad... So yea we will
see how everything goes with him in the next few weeks. My companion and I are
still getting along great! We are really working on just staying motivated and
getting out and doing the work. It is hard at times, but we see the blessing of
our work and sacrifice in just a short amount of time. As far as new things going on... Not a lot, we
are really working on teaching members and strengthening the branch since we
are having a hard time finding new people to teach. Although, we still spend a
lot of our time searching.
How is your weather? Has it gotten any colder? Have you had any snow? Weather
has gotten a little colder not much and it is still not snowing here. Which
bites, but hopefully it will
Do you have plans for Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day? Yes we are going somewhere for both Christmas Eve
and Christmas so that will be really fun! I think the Seymour Elders might come
up to Columbus, if they do I will probably spend a little personal funds,
because we will go out to eat or buy something to cook at home.
So for Christmas, will it be a phone call, Face
Time or Skype? Any idea on time? Okay as
far as I know it seems we will be skyping, the family we will be with on
Christmas does not have an apple device so we will probably skype. It will
probably be around 4:45-5 a clock your time. I will call on Christmas Eve to
talk some more about that and if we need to change it. I am also excited to
talk to you all for Christmas!! It should be really fun.
All the concerts with Brooklyn seem like a lot
of fun. I hope it all went well. Red Robin sounds delicious, I haven't even seen one of those
out here. They probably exist, but who knows where. hahaha Mom, I hate to tell
you this, but the little dance recitals are probably just beginning, you will
have a break for a few years till grand kids come along, and then a ton more.
So sorry about that one hahaha.
I told him my shopping was almost done and I
had changed our usual Christmas day menu and taken the Chips and Queso off
since he is the one who loves that the most! That will be nice when all of the shopping is
done. THE chips and queso better be back on the menu for next year!!! haha
Mom I also hate to break it to you but in about
a week it will only be 6 months till I come home!!! It is scary how fast the
time is going!! By the time I am done training Elder Ryan I will be 21 and only
have like 4 and a half months left... So that is a scary thought for me!! All
of my friends will start coming home here soon. Within the next 5 months almost
all will be home. It is weird, I would have been one of the more recent ones to
come home, but now I will probably be dead last hahaha. But you are right the
up side to that is that hopefully everyone and there dog can come to my
homecoming!! That would be awesome to see all my friends again! Plus we can
have shades and everything like you said. Mainly, because I do not want to
roast again like last time haha. Heck yea it is far off still, freaking
goodness mom, you are more trunky than I am going to be
I sent him a picture of the Tree of Life in
Draper and told him about it. That looks and sounds really cool!! I would
like to see that one.
Okay so now for the spiritual note of the
letter and also stories!! First, a somewhat humorous story. So one day we are
sitting downstairs talking and Guapo a son of the Nehrings and a member in the
branch says “hey Elders are you here”, we come up the stairs and stop as there
is this tan puppy standing at the top of the stairs looking at us... I am like, "look a puppy"!!! We then pet it and Guapo comes out of the bathroom and is like
could you elders watch this for me. I got it for my daughter and it is a
secret. So I need it to stay somewhere for a while. So we were like sure,
service right? When really in our minds we are like "We get to have a
puppy!!!" So we have been watching the little terror for about 3 days now.
It is a monster haha. Since it is an adorable puppy it chews everything, and it
has not entirely been potty trained so it has used the bathroom several times
in the house... So that has been a pain, but for the most part it is pretty fun
to have a puppy in the house haha. So I get to have a puppy till probably about
late Christmas Eve or early Christmas day!! I took pictures that you might get
to see later on. So we have had some fun adventures with that. Another funny
story my companion got hit on by a nurse, which made me laugh really really
hard. Okay now the more spiritual stuff. So this week has been way hard to be
motivated, I am not even entirely sure why. So one day we go out to visit an
elderly member named Hermana Lopez. We arrive at her house and we knock and
after a few seconds we get this eerie feeling... So we call some people, things just didn't seem right. So we check around the house and make sure everything
is okay on that end, and it was. So we get our ward mission leader on the
phone and he says I will call you back. So we go to the car and say a quick prayer
whether we should try and go in the house or just wait. Well my companion and I
receive similar answers, except mine was to go in now! And his was to wait for
Brother Creasy our branch mission leader. So we get him on the phone and decide
to follow Elder Ryan's impression. We go and see if the door is unlocked which
is not the greatest sign, and we decide to wait for him. So he and his wife and
kids get there. We walk in and we call for Hna. Lopez she mutters something and
Mary his wife goes around the corner first and Austin or Hno. Creasy stops us
and says stay there Elders. Hna. Lopez had fallen and could not get up... We
call 911 of course and do all of that stuff, and we find out she had been
laying there since Tuesday and we found her Saturday!!!!! I from this
experience learned a lesson that I had learned earlier in my mission. That is,
when the Lord or the Spirit or our Heavenly Father tell you to do something,
you do it NOW!!! I thought on my impression and realized that I could have
gotten her aid about 45 min earlier when we first arrived, if I had just
listened... I have had other situations where I had delayed responding to the
Lords call and things have not worked out alright. In this life we are granted
the ability for Heavenly help always. I kicked myself for several hours as I thought
that I should have known better then to wait... Everything worked out in the
end, but still it gnawed at me... When the Lord calls we go! No exceptions!! I
have learned this many times in my life, but it seems that we end up learning
the same lessons over and over again in this life... We must be worthy, ready,
and willing, to respond to the call of those around us, or even the call of the
Lord if we are so blessed to be his chosen instrument. So those are my thoughts
from the week, in a short story. I know that as we respond to the aid of
others, whether physical or spiritual we will be great instruments for the Lord
in bringing about righteousness and happiness to the sons and daughters of God.
Well I hope you have a great week and I am
excited to be able to talk to you shortly I love you so much and hope
everything goes well with the Holidays!!
Love Elder Paxman
and Christmas Juan
o<[8{D
(See his hat with a pom pom, his eyes, mustache and big smile.)
P.S I have had the strangest desire lately to
start to learn French... No idea why. So that is another idea of something you
could send me with the camera :) Whatever works they were just thoughts. Love
you!
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