I don't feel older!

Happy Birthday Elder Paxman!!

He is 21 years old today! 

His letter is below, but I just had to add a few pictures first!

I scanned a few pictures of our sweet, cute little blonde boy.

Now he's all grown up, but still just as sweet.

I am very proud to be his mommy!

Dear Mom,

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes!! I really liked the package mom it was great! I loved the little book!! It is amazing, I want its counterpart which I think is the little missionaries quote book, or something like that! Although I want it too!

Is your camera working good enough to take pictures? Are you taking pictures?  I am taking pictures, it is hard when the camera does shut down every once in a while.

I know you don’t usually choose birthday cake, so what would you have chosen in place of cake?  I would have Peanut Butter Frosts for my B-day dessert.

Do you have any fun plans for your birthday? We are going out to eat with an awesome member named Eddie tomorrow. He is taking us to Texas Roadhouse!!! He said we are all buying the biggest steaks and eating to our hearts content!! Maybe I will even ride the saddle!!

Are you going to the temple soon with the Ramirez family?  Are you still going to be able to do that? Brother Ramirez, Erik went and got Endowed this past week and we are going this Saturday. They are getting sealed this Saturday. So we are going to go do Endowments and then go to the sealing.

What do you think of a cruise for Christmas instead of spring break?  I am do down to go on a cruise!!! That would be awesome!! Especially since I want to work on having a rockin bod by the time we go ;) bahahaha. Yea right I enjoy junk food too much. Sounds like a fun Christmas to me!! I will look forward too it. What if I have a girlfriend though? hahaha if only mom... If only.

I told him we had the kids over for homemade Café Rio salad on Sunday and thought of him for his birthday. Also that the weather was so nice we went for a Sunday walk.  I am jealous of the weather!! When I get back it will probably be in the 100's and way hot! Here it is cold and snowing off and on. It was warm the last two days though. Homemade cafe rio salads huh... I would have had to adjust that a little. Salads are for rabbits, that and I can't really eat lettuce.

How has your health been?  Feeling better?  Does Sister Steadman check up on you frequently or just let you coast along? I am feeling better, today I am doing alright. I am not sure if I should start the anti-biotics or not. I hesitate sometimes to take it. I will get it in the works to go get my blood drawn soon.  She usually just lets me coast along. She calls and checks on me probably once a month, unless I let her know that I am sick.

We enjoyed your story last week and are glad you were a good example. I know missionaries can get a little rowdy, and that is fine. But there is a very fine line. Maybe I am just a stickler though. I am glad as well that we were able to be examples for one another and hopefully rightful representatives of the church. We goof around too, but it is all in its own time and space. I am glad you enjoyed the story and everything that came with it afterwards.

How are Sergio and Judy your two new investigators doing? Is Judy an investigator or a less active member? Sergio is doing really well, we had a lesson with him today that went really well. We have one with Judy today too! So that should be really nice and fun. They are both progressing well, Sergio very very quickly. Judy is an investigator although she feels like a member a lot of the time haha.

Do you think you can get a baptism before transfers? That would be awesome for Elder Ryan. That would be amazing, but transfers are in just a few weeks, so I am thinking that will not happen, unless we stay for another, which is near impossible.

How is the new convert Carlos doing? Carlos comes to church every week and is doing well. They struggle at times, but they are still active and are trying.

How are the Seymour Elders?  Have they still been teaching Bertin? The Seymour elders are doing good as far as I can tell. We will be going on exchanges here soon with them. Bertin though is now not taking lessons which is really sad. They ran into him having a huge bible class with a bunch of other people and he told them he had found his church... This broke my heart mom... I still believe one day he will be baptized. I have felt it, I just know it!

Are you still enjoying being DL?  What do you do at a DL meeting and how often do you have them? I am still enjoying it. It is stressful, but worth it at the same time. We have them usually once a week. It entails training's and talking about the work. Helping lift and inspire on all fronts.

Have you heard from the Diaz family?  How are they doing? I have not heard from them. I am going to give them a call this week, to hear how they are doing and everything. From what I know they are still doing well and going to church and everything. We will find out here soon.

Do you feel old now that you are 21? I am trying to get back into working out really hard in the mornings; it is hard to get motivated to do that sometimes. I have been working on drinking a lot more water as well, just to be healthier and everything. I don't really feel a ton older, yet I do... So yea that hasn't changed much.

I shared a few fun memories from when he was a little boy.  Hahaha the good old days when all that mattered was how many bugs I could kill, snakes I could catch, adventures I could have and time I had with dad, good old times. Now there is a lot more to worry about, although I enjoy just feeling like a kid sometimes. hahahaha. We will always be your little kids though mom, even if we live far and grow up and do other things. That is one of the promises isn't it? Although some of those memories I would rather not remember... hahaha so yep it feels so close yet so distant, as does much of the past and the future, so might as well enjoy today, before it becomes the same.

Okay so my spiritual thought and then I will wrap up. So we had a lesson this week with one of my favorite people in this area a LA (less active) named Karina Banda.  She is an amazing lady that I have come to love. I have had a many spiritual experience with her.  So it starts with Saturday, we were there visiting, and I told her something. "So it is my birthday on Monday and I only have one wish..." She asked what it was. I said "I want to see you in church this next week. I will save you a spot and everything. So she thought about it and said YES!!!! I pinky promised her on it. (yes literally). So she told me she always sat in the back right. I said okay, then I will be waiting back there. So about 45 min before the meeting she texts and says she won't be able to come. After much time giving her a hard time, I said okay. I will keep up my promise though and sit in the back right, all alone. So I did. We also got pictures of it. So anyway, later we were going to swing by seeing as she wasn't at church. We had Hno. Creast with us, who is an awesome guy. So we went and were able to talk to her for about 3 hours!!! It was long, but I think amazing! We talked over many things. The biggest one and the one I will talk about today is this. "You make your own happiness!" I realized that I had learned this or had to learn it early in my life. We are the makers of our own happiness. For we are here to have Joy as the scriptures say. So it was amazing. I feel so strongly about this. I have had an interesting life, and it has been filled with so much emotion. Gladly probably the biggest one is joy. Sheer happiness to be alive. Enough to smile at people and see them smile back. I have tried many times to be happy in my life. It is very hard some days, but it is so worth it! I love to laugh and have a fun time as do everyone. So we just try our best to be happy and move forward. For me it is in the little things. God is in the details for me. He is in the letters from home, the smiles from a friend. The letter from a girl you have had the biggest crush on since you met her. The love of the Lord, and so many other things. I truly know and testify that we are the makers of our own happiness!! SO be happy, make it happen, it will be hard some days. I know it is, trust me. Although I know there is always something to be happy about. There are always starts no matter how dark the night. The dawn breaks even in the darkest of days. I love this gospel and the happiness it brings me. I know it can bring it to the entire human race, if they but accept it. "So love your life, perfect your life, and beautify all things in your life. That way when it comes your time to die you can sing your death song, and die like a hero going home" I love that quote. Happiness is to be had, so my challenge is to go find it.

I love you so much and sorry this email is a little shorter than some. I hope you have an amazing week filled with the true Joy of the love of our Heavenly Father, for it is always there for the taking. I love you so much and hope you have an amazing week!!

Love, 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