May 5--Letter From Matt

April 28--Letter From Matt

Hi, Mom.  I loved your letter and I was so excited to hear about Jim and Becky getting engadged (I have no idea how to spell that) and, o my heavens! Cassandra is going to have her little baby boy! Hot dog! ha ha.  I feel very happy.

Well, I feel weird about saying this on Friday I will have been a full-time missionary for two years. I remember a little bit about before starting.  I thought that this would be eternal.  Unfortunately I am finding out that my current full-time mission service is shockingly final.

Thanks for what you've written and I will try to put it into practice.  This week we weren't able to see Jesus much because it was the ending week of "Semana Santa" which is a pretty big celebration.  We were able to see Carlos, Rocio's husband and talk to him for a bit.

We've been street contacting a lot more, so we've met a lot of really nice people and a few crazy people! Ha ha.  On Saturday we had a "seminary" with our mission president.  He talked about the importance of working with members, and contacting people.  We then left and contacted.  I got to see three of my former companions.  That was a very fun experience.

After seminary, we got back to our area, and our three appointments fell through.  So we were a little disappointed, but then I remembered that our ward had gone to the temple and wouldn't get back until Sunday morning (the temple is about ten hours away in bus).  That meant that no one was going to clean the chapel.  So we got out the cleaning equipment and we got to business.  The bishop showed up and was very grateful for our help.

This week I have really been trying to focus on others and think about them.  I'm not very good at it.  I have also been trying to strengthen my testimony of Jesus Christ.  I have also been trying to treat my companion well and help him.  He is a great companion.  I am glad that we are going to be companions for two transfers.

Well, I love you, Mom.  Thanks for your letters.  I really appreciate your advice and your insights.  When is Mother's Day and at what time do you prefer that I Skype?  or do you just want to wait until I get home?  I hope you have a wonderful week!
I love you!

April 21--Letter From Matt

Here ya go mom! hahaha  I love you! Thanks for your letter! I hope that you like mine, if you don't you still have an hour to ask me information!

April 20--Dear Elder--Happy Easter!

Dear Elder,

Happy Easter! 

“He is Risen, He is Risen! 

Tell it out with joyful voice. 

He has burst his three days prison;

let the whole wide earth rejoice! 

Death is conquered.  Man is free. 

Christ has won the victory!”

  This Easter morning I have been thinking again about your questions concerning Mosiah 15:9-15.  I am thinking about how it is not only very important to know that God the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct persons, but how it is just as important to know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are one, as in united and agreed.  I think this is true for many reasons, one is that God would like us to strive for the same unity in our relationships with our fellow man.  I think another reason is so that we will not be confused about their separateness. 

The Book of Mormon tells us that King Noah and his priests, to whom Abinadi was preaching in Mosiah 15, were idol worshippers, and that the people of King Noah became idol worshippers as well (Mosiah 11:6,7).   If King Noah and his people were anything like the idolatrous nations of the Old Testament, they probably worshipped many gods.  All the false gods Old Testament that I looked into were believed to be totally separate from each other with different dominions, goals, and requirements and they were even sometimes oppositional.  In fact, some pagans of the Old Testament taught that the god, Mott killed the god, Baal who then came back to life. 

Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, on the other hand are completely united.  When we obey Christ’s commandments, God the Father blesses us.  When we pray to the Father, Christ’s intercedes for us.  The Holy Ghost testifies of both the Father and the Son.  Christ did nothing except those things that His Father would do.   As the Encyclopedia of Mormonism pointed out, they are completely united in their desire to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” 

Not only that, they are all one in righteousness.  Immorality, murder, etc were a common part of pagan worship, and the gods themselves were notoriously wicked.  We know that King Noah and his people were participating in whoredoms and other evils, probably spurred on in their idol worship.  Our Heavenly Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, on the other hand are perfectly righteous in how they behave and how they require us to behave.

How marvelous is our God!  No fabrication of the human mind, religious or otherwise, has ever come close to the beauty, perfection, and love found in the truth.  The truth is that there is a loving God in heaven, and He is the father of our spirits, that His Son and our elder brother, Jesus Christ, is our Savior, who came because His father sent him, and died for us because of His everlasting love and kindness towards us, and rose on the third day with healing in His wings, and that the Holy Ghost is real, a personage of spirit, bound by loving covenant to testify to the children of men that God the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ live!  I know these things are true, Matt, and they fill me with joy and gratitude on this beautiful Easter day!

It has been a good week.  Heavenly Father is helping me be more focused on the Savior.  He is also helping me to see my many weaknesses I have worked hard this week and have gotten a lot done.  I felt very blessed today as I took the sacrament and pondered on Jesus Christ and His atonement.  I know that He lives and loves me even when I falter.

Miriam's rice crispie bunny

Thomas's traditional alien bunny, this time done with rice crispies instead of bread

Bread Bunny--Whole wheat version for Dad

Tuesday, for family home evening, we did all the Easter goodies stuff because we knew that Miriam would be out of town today.  It was a fun evening.  Katrina and I made bread bunnies, and then when Miriam came home, she and Thomas made rice crispy bunnies because they can’t eat wheat.  Then when Dad came home, we all colored Easter eggs together.  While I cleaned up afterward, Dad and kids went into the bathroom and did our weirdest family Easter tradition which, as you know, is to dump the die into the toilet as it flushes and watch the different colors of swirl around and flush down.  May I just say, that is a tradition of Dad’s invention?  He and his brother used to do that as kids.  It’s one of the few traditions that Dad had growing up, poor guy. 

Then Dad and I hid the Easter baskets and then the kids found them.  It took less than five minutes, ha ha.  Jon came over, too, awhile later, and we had some more fun visiting going on.  I sent him home with his Easter chocolate and also rice cripies which he shared with his room mate.  He texted me the next day to tell me he was totally out of chocolate and needed more candy.  He was totally kidding.  I gave everyone waaaaaay too much Easter candy this year.

I also had fun sending an Easter package to Lily.  Dad and I bought her a sugar Easter egg with a bunny scene inside.  I also enclosed a little stuffed ducky wearing a raincoat and hat.  When Lily was a baby in newborn ICU, and I was staying at the Ronald Macdonald house with Cassandra and Emerson, they were giving out free toys, so I took the duckie and saved it to give to Lily when she was older.  Well, she’s older now.  Cassandra said she loves it.  I also made her an Easter card and sent her a Noah’s Ark board book with cute pictures.  Cassandra was planning to give her the book for Easter today.

Other than that, we have just done boring stuff like yard work, putting in a new bathroom faucet upstairs, etc.  Wednesday, Katrina and Miriam went to see Les Mis again, and now Miriam is out of town, so Thomas and Katrina have been the only kids at home.  Thursday night, Dad, Katrina, and I went walking along the river.  The weather was perfect and the air was fresh and smelled like trees and water.  I love spring! 

Friday Dad and I went out on a date, and on Saturday we bought some Mexican food from a lady who has three kids.  Her husband was deported, and she is trying to survive.  The food was fantastic, and we enjoyed talking to her and encouraging her.  I hope everything works out for her family, and I hope we can buy some of that good food from her again soon!

Today we are going to walk around the temple and then sit in the grass and talk about the resurrection.  We are also hoping to Skype with Cassandra and Emerson.  Jon called today.  It was sure nice to talk to him for awhile.   

I love you, Matthew, and hope that your Easter is one filled with joy and love for the Savior and with the Spirit of God.

Love,

Mom

2014 04 15--Letter From Matt

I'm going to write a general letter this week. Yesterday was transfer day and things got really crazy. I'm grateful for all of the help that we received from the Spirit and from God. Things just barely worked out, but they worked out, and we never got into a situation that we couldn't resolve with help and inspiration from heaven :)
My companion and I are in the same area and haven't changed, but we had to help a lot of other Elders and Sister missionaries get to their new areas.
I've got some good news! On Sunday we found out that Rocío got baptised! Also María s and her husband Cezar got baptised too! That's truly amazing! I was so glad to hear about them.
I also go to hear from Manuel and Anahí, a young matrimony from Los Cabos. They are now living in Puebla (a different city in a different state) and are still active in the church. They are planning on being sealed as a family to their two wonderful children later this year.
We are currently teaching Jesus Abitia and his wife Lupita. Lupita is a member of the church and her husband is very interested in learning about what we believe. Right now we are teaching them about the Restoration of the church. Today we have an appointment with them and we are going to teach about the Great Apostasy and about the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith. It's going to be awesome.
We still haven't gotten to see Rosa María. She seems to be discouraged about something but every time we try to teach her, she says that she's busy and doesn't have time. We are praying for her and we hope that this week we'll be able to talk to her.
Yahir is doing well.
Omar is pretty much in the same situation that he's been in for a while now. We didn't see him last week but we are going to teach him the Restoration this week because we have a sneaking suspicion that although he's been going to church and receiving the missionaries off and on for six years now, that he hasn't been taught the Restoration yet...... Hmmm....
I've been working to strengthening my testimony of Jesus Christ. I try to testify of Him in every lesson and I try to follow all of His commandments even when it's hard to do. I feel like my testimony of Him is growing gradually . I need to be persistent. I don't think that it's going to be strengthened all at once. Just as a tree does not spring up all at once full grown from the ground.

I love you all and I hope that you have a great week, I'm sorry that this letter is going to a large group of people and that I couldn't write specifically to  every single one of you as I usually like to. I'm praying for you all and I hope that you have a wonderful week.

April 7--Letter From Matt

hey, tell me if you don't like it when I send letters like this ok? I think it's helpful and I might keep on doing it like this, so tell me what you think.
Thanks so much!

nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! I spelled prepare wrong in my letter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

March 31--Letter From Matt

Anticipating that we were going to be busy today an unable to write, I wrote my weekly letter on paper and took pictures of it! Here it is:

March 24--Dear Elder

Now I remember what a flibber is! Haha, I also remember those bear thingies very vaguely. I don't really remember them too much.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your letter this week mom, and i would love to comment on the things that you wrote there, but, as usual we are pressed for time, and I only have a half hour to write. I think I'm getting better at writing letters on the fly! haha.

 

This week we found a woman named Rosa Maria, she's a grandma now and has a lot of little Nietos (Grand children) An RM brought us to her house and told us to teach her. She had gone to church before in the past but had stopped coming because she got disappointed with life and as she would say she: "let the devil win" and decided that it was easier not to go to church. We invited her to read, pray and come to church this week, which she did. She wants to be a good example for her little grandchildren and bring them up in a "God fearing" way (I really don't know how to say that in English) I respect her a lot and we have a lot of hope that we can help her become a member of the church and be able to be the example that she wants to be.
We have an appointment with her tomorrow. It's fun to teach her. We haven't gotten to know her that well, but we are going to care for her as much as we can.

Carlos and Rocío haven't been progressing as much these past weeks, although we hope that we can help them and their family to progress. 

José is doing good right now. We are trying to teach his family because we want to help them to re-activate so that José doesn't just go inactive if he gets baptized. It's slow going but with a lot of help from the ward, I'm sure that they can come back.

This week, I started looking at the Atonement of Christ more in my studies and I noticed that the Atonement is extensive..... And that the Atonement is only one of the things that Christ did, the most significant for us was the Atonement, but there are still a lot of other things he did for us. So, I have a lot to study! Man do I have a lot to study, and a lot to put into practice. 

Other interesting things about this week: I got stung by a bee this Saturday in a ward mission activity. I survived don't worry. :)

Imagine your son, sitting in Mexico, in a small room jammed with computers, sweating to death. Yup. That's about what's going down right in this moment.  

I love you Mom thank you so much for everything you do! I hope that you and the family have a wonderful day today and all during the week.

March 2--Dear Elder

Dear Elder,

Hi!  How are you?  Thanks for sending the scholarship essay to us.  I sure hate to bug you about that kind of stuff when you are busy serving the Lord.  You will be happy to know that all the applications, etc have been sent off, so we shouldn’t have to bug you again for awhile.  It was hard not to get letters from you last week, but I was glad that you got to read some from us.  I was the one who had Dad tell you not to send us letters because I figured you wouldn’t have time to do that and the scholarship essay.  I hope, however, that you did have time to read our emails.  That is what matters to me most.  We heard on the news about the capture of the drug czar, and have been praying for your safety because we figure things might be more violent where you are, now.  We have faith that you are in the Lord’s hands and He is watching over you.

This has been such a wonderful week.  We have family home evening on Tuesdays instead of Mondays now, so Tuesday we all, including Jonathan, went out to eat for Miriam’s birthday.  She didn’t really want any birthday money spent on her, so I asked her if she wanted to go to the movies or out to eat with the family instead of getting a present, and she liked that idea.  The plan was to go Thursday, but Jon wasn’t available then, so we went out for family home evening instead.  It was so wonderful to be there surrounded by the kids and Dad and laugh and talk.  I’m so glad that Jon could come; we see him so very seldom.

Wednesday Thomas went to a young men activity at the church.  Katrina missed her young women activity because it was on Tuesday night, and she needed to be with the fam.  I went to bed early, and Dad read scriptures and said prayers with the kids.  It was very nice of him, and appreciated the extra sleep.

It rained a lot on Thursday, which was kind of a surprise after many days of sun, even though the weatherman had predicted it.  I went on a field trip with my class.  We went bowling and then to the mall to eat lunch.  The field trip went well.  Later when I was back home and Dad got home, he wanted to go for a drive, so we took Katrina with us for a drive.  Dad wanted to go into a sporting goods store, and Katrina and I wanted to check out the scented candle outlet, so we split up for awhile.  Katrina and I bought a candle warmer and scented wax for Miriam’s birthday to make her room smell good.

That night, Miriam gave the family home evening lesson that she had planned for Tuesday.  She showed us all how to scan a document and save it as a pdf.  I guess Dad didn’t know how to do that and had been asking her to show him.  She also showed us some stuff on Excell.  It was very informative.  After that, we had cake and ice cream for her birthday.  It was a fun little celebration.  I hope that she liked it.

Happy Birthday, Miriam

Friday, Katrina and I got to talk to Lily on the phone.  She was in a very loud mood, ha ha.  She sang Camptown races for us with lots of “doo da’s,”  At that point, Katrina told me I could take the phone off "speaker;" she could hear just fine without it, ha ha.  Lily also treated us to an ear-splitting rendition of the chorus to “Angels We Have Heard on High.”  You know,  “Glooooooooooooooooooria!”  sung over and over with an even louder and very long-drawn-out note at the end.  It was the cutest thing ever, and we totally loved it.  I told Lily that it was nice and lound and that I liked it.  I wonder if someone was telling her to sing softer, because I heard Lily say to someone, “Grandma likes it.”

Later, Dad and I went to see the Lego movie.  We ate at the theater first, which is always fun, and then went out for frozen yogurt afterward.  It was so good, that we went out for frozen yogurt again on Saturday.  We found a place that always has one low-carb flavor and one no-carb flavor, so we like to go there sometimes when we’re in the area.

On Saturday, we decided to get some things done around the house, so we went to some stores to get the supplies we needed.  When we went to Auto Zone, Dad showed the kids how to change the tail light on the van.  The weather was cold and windy, and Dad couldn’t get the tail light off, so we bought a manual to make sure we were doing it right, and we were.  When he finally got it off, the casing broke.  The van is getting old, Matt, and the plastic broke before the pin snapped out like it was supposed to.  Anyway, we replaced the light, and also the windshield wiper blades and then headed to Home Depot to look for some clear epoxy to fix the broken light.  Dad ended up repairing it with super glue.  We’ll see how long that lasts, ha ha.  When we finally got back home, we hung a couple of pictures and then Katrina and Thomas were through.  Thomas went to Hayden’s house, Katrina exercised, etc, and I took a nap.

Later that night, Dad wanted to go buy some stuff from a guy so he and I drove up to meet him.  We made another date of it and had a delicious dinner at our favorite teryaki place.  It was fun to drive and talk.  On the way home we stopped at the candy outlet and bought sugar Easter eggs for the kid’s Easter baskets and then went for frozen yogurt like I said.

The kids have been indexing and reading family history, Matt, isn’t that nice?  I didn’t sleep well last week, so I wasn’t real productive, but I did do visiting teaching, and I took some prints of the museum paintings to the one sister I’d invited to go with me to the museum.  I have been reading Les Miserables, which I love.  It is so nice with a smart phone to have a library of books with me always in my pocket.

Today, as you know, is fast Sunday.  I am fasting for you, Matt.  I don’t have meetings on fast Sunday which is nice.  Besides, ward conferences are now over, so I will have less meetings now.  That is good since I don’t think my poor aching back could have taken much more of it, ha ha.  We just got home from church.   Dad is doing some family history, I am writing to you, Thomas is taking a nap, and I’m not sure what Katrina is doing, but she has a family home evening lesson to prepare, family history to do, and a letter to write to you, so she’s probably busy doing one of those things.  There is a church educational system devotional at 6:00 which we may watch.  I want to ask each person to make a snack to eat while we watch it.  That will also be our dinner for the evening.

Well, that’s about it.  I have had a harder time staying focused on Jesus Christ and feeling the Holy Ghost than the week before.  I am trying to figure out the reason, and I think that one reason is lack of sleep, another one is less focused prayer and scripture study, and also, I think that different experiences bring out different sides of my character, and this week’s experiences did a good job to show me where my weaknesses are.  It seems like Heavenly Father intersperses unsuccessful times with successful ones so that I stay humble, but don’t get too discouraged.  I know His hand is in my life and in your life, Matt.  I hope that you feel His guidance and spirit with you this week as you go about His work.  I love you very much and look forward to receiving your email.

Love,
Mom

Nov 24--Dear Elder

Dear Cole,

Thank you for the wonderful letter.  Yes, it was short, but it was also powerful.  It means so much to me to read your words of encouragement, faith, and determination.  We read it to the family last Monday at the dinner table, but I hope that we can read it again together tonight (Sunday) and ponder and talk about what you said.

I am so glad that Nicole and all of the missionaries in the Philippines are safe.  What a terrible tragedy happened there.  Dad has been praying for the people there in every prayer he has given.  I have not done as well, but I will do better.  I have been praying for the young men and all the people that you are teaching.  I am sorry the one young man started drinking.  That is really heart breaking.  I’m glad for your successes, though.

Matt, you asked how I am doing, and I am doing very well.  I’m sorry if anything I said made you worry because I’m doing great.  Why have I not been getting much sleep lately?  For the same reason I haven’t been getting much sleep for the last decade—I’m a mom.  It’s as simple as that, ha ha.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because I realized or remembered something someone needs, and I can’t get back to sleep.  Sometimes I think that the Holy Ghost has to wait till the middle of the night to give me promptings because that is the only time I’m still enough to hear, ha ha.  Also, I am now getting old, and so I get tired earlier and earlier at night and wake up earlier and earlier in the morning, but with teenagers and night-owl Dad, I don’t get to bed any earlier.  Anyway, all of that makes for very little sleep, but don’t worry, Matt Heavenly Father blesses me, and I think things have been getting a bit better and hope they will continue to improve.

Speaking of waking up in the middle of the night with a prompting, that actually happened to me this week.  When I picked Thomas up from wrestling Monday afternoon, he informed me that he’d gotten hit on the chin and chipped three teeth during practice.  We were pretty concerned about the teeth, but nothing else.  Later that day, he told me about a “dream” he’d had while he was walking from the wrestling room to the bathroom to spit out the teeth chips.  He “dreamed” that he’d lost an entire tooth.  He was so worried about it, that he started looking around the ground for the missing tooth and asked some the other guys to help him search for it.  He told me about the dream to show me how tired he was lately.  I thought that was weird, and I told Dad, and he thought it was a bit weird, too, but it wasn’t till the middle of the night that I realized that Thomas had sustained a concussion.  Neither Dad nor I had thought about a concussion, because Thomas didn’t get hit on the head.  I really think it was the Holy Ghost helping me to realize what had happened.  The next day we had him checked, and, yep, he’d gotten a concussion.  He felt really nauseated and had a headache and stayed home from school for three days.

 The good news is that the dentist said the chips were only to the enamel and he was able to smooth it and give Thomas special toothpaste to use.  Also, he is feeling better now and is almost totally caught up on the homework he missed, so that is a real blessing.  When he couldn’t watch or play anything on screen, Katrina started reading “Rifles for Watie” out loud to him, and now he’s half way done with the book.  I don’t think he’s going to do wrestling anymore, but he’s still doing basketball, so that is good.  This will also give Thomas time to work on his cooking merit badge which he needs to have done before January.

Monday night (before we realized that Thomas should be resting because of his concussion) we went to see Katrina perform in Aida.  It was nice to have Miriam home from DC and there with us, too.  Katrina was one of the Nubian slaves, and she did such a good job!  Her face is so expressive.  Matt, she is a really good actress.  We really enjoyed watching the play, and Miriam took lots of pictures which I hope I can send you.  We gave her roses and bought her (and everyone else) ice cream to celebrate.  It was a wonderful evening.  Another play, Emma, is coming up, and Katrina is trying to convince Thomas to try out for it, too.  That would be nice.

Dad got to take a day off from teaching this week and go to see other GED programs in the state.  He had a nice time and got to eat some paella while he was there.  He said it was delicious.  He also said that he got a lot of good ideas about GED programs.  I’m glad he got a break from teaching.  He also gets to take off Dec 2, 4, and 5 for different meetings and conferences.  I’m very glad because he is kind of burned out.  I’m also glad that he gets to have a break for Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, Matt, I hope you have a good one.  Good luck baking the pie.  I hope that it works out well and tastes delicious.  Say a prayer before you start making it, ha ha, but seriously. BTW, When we visited Yelapa on our cruise up the Mexican Riviera, a woman was selling pieces of pie on the beach, so I know that there is at least a little bit of pie baking going on in Mexico here and there.

I have been reading Jesus the Christ lately, Matt.  When you mentioned that you were reading it and asked me if I had read it, I decided to read it again.  I knew it would help me in my efforts to forget myself and remember Christ, standing as a witness of Him at all times, and it has.  I am on chapter 11, and I value the reading of it more than I ever have before.  This morning I showed Thomas how to download it onto his ipod, and he said that he is going to read it.  I really hope that he does.  You may want to encourage him to do it.

The women in our ward had the opportunity to make treats for the men working on the temple last week, so I signed up to bring some.  I made gluten-free chocolate peanut butter bars because, thinking of Thomas, I figured there might be a gluten-free worker who would appreciate having a treat that he could eat.  As I cut and packaged the bars, I thought about the women in the early church and of all the work and sacrifice that they gave to build temples.  Doing that little service made me feel close to them and increased my joy to know that another temple is being built on the earth.

Also this week I made a Thanksgiving snack mix and took it to visiting teaching sisters and friends with a little note telling them how I am thankful for them.  Emily and I did visiting teaching this week, and we also took Shana (the woman at the assisted living home) on an outing to do a bit of shopping at Costco.  Jon came over and talked to us, which I thought was nice of him, It was a good experience.  Dad also saw Jon on sat while he was getting a prescription there on Saturday.  He seems to be doing good.

Dad and I went out Friday night to a Latino restaurant.  We ordered tacos and tamales.  It was delicious!   On Saturday Dad and I took Katrina and Thomas on some errands and we had a very fun time driving around, shopping, and talking.  When we got home, I talked to Cassandra on the phone awhile.  They are happy, but busy.  Lily wanted to talk on the phone, but after I said, “Hi, Lily, How are you?”  she changed her mind, ha ha.  Later, Dad and I went out to get some dinner and then returned to watch a movie.  Today we had breakfast together as a family which was nice and then after church and home teachers, we went on a drive and got a treat at the laundry.  We also read the talk you recommended to Dad, Matt, and then Dad talked to us about trusting in God and honoring Him.  It was a very good family experience.

Well, that’s all, Matt.  I am so happy for Thanksgiving time.  We have a lot to be grateful for.  I am thankful for you and for all of our blessings.  I love you very much, Matt.  Have a wonderful week.

Love,
Mom

Nov 10--Dear Elder

Dear Elder,
I’m so glad that I get to write a letter to you today, and that tomorrow I get to read your letter!  I hope that you had a wonderful week last week.

We ordered you a Christmas package last night.  It’s not much, but we enjoyed picking out what would go in it, even though the choices were limited, and we hope you like it.  PLEASE when you get it, don’t open it till Christmas.  There is nothing perishable in it, which means there’s nothing all that exciting in it, but I really want you to have something that you can open on Christmas day to know your family loves you, so please save it till then, okay?

We went off daylight savings time last week, and I miss it.  I wish we could keep it all year round.  Now it gets dark an hour earlier, around 6:00.  Poor Dad gets home after work and gets no free time in the daylight.  I know why we go off it, though, because if we didn’t, it would be dark at 7:00 in the morning when kids are trying to get to school, and that would be bad.

At first the dark is kind of nice, though.  A couple of night ago after dinner, we all sat in the living room and played what I call “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” and “Captions.”  Head shoulders knees and toes is the game where each person folds a blank piece of paper in thirds, draws a head on the first third, gives it a first name, folds it so the head is covered and only the middle third of the paper is showing and then passes it to the next person who draws the torso and gives it a middle name, and then folds and passes it to a third person who draws the legs and feet and gives it a last name.  Our favorite  one ended up being called “The Wicked The Stick” and had a witche’s face and a stick for legs.  I can’t remember what the torso was.  We mostly liked it’s name.  Captions is where each person writes a phrase or sentence and then passes it, the next person illustrates the phrase, the next person sees only the picture and writes their own caption, the next person sees only the new caption and illustrates that, etc until you decide to quit and look at all the pictures and captions.  Remember those games?  Playing them was a really fun thing to do as a family.

Yes, I have read “Jesus The Christ.”  It is a wonderful book, and maybe I need to read it again.  It’s been a long time.  Lets see here…yep.  I can get it free on my phone.  I now have a copy I can read any time I want.  Thanks for asking me, Matt.  I hope reading it will help me be more like Him.  I really am not very good at it, or at inviting others to come unto Christ.   I need to change my priorities, and my heart.  I really want to change.  BTW, make sure you read the endnotes after each chapter in Jesus The Christ.    They are so interesting, I really enjoyed reading them, too.

I am so glad that everyone survived the tropical storm.  La Cruz seems like an interesting place.  Is it called La Cruz De Huanacaxtle?   I got on maps and “walked” along the marina.  I saw some type of town square with a yellow and white arch.  I also “walked” along the beach and saw a horse, ha ha.  I wanted to look a bit farther into town, but I’m not very good at navigating the map, and I don’t want to take up all of my letter writing time doing that, ha ha.  It was funny what you said about Cuenta being a leaf.  It sounds like a wonderful place, and I am so glad that the children like and help the missionaries!  Sorry, Google maps doesn’t know where Cuenta, Mexico is, ha ha.  You are very close to Puerto Villarta, aren’t you?  I’m so glad you are planning to write more about the people here.  I am looking forward to reading it!

Thanks for what you said, Matt, about Heavenly Father’s love always being there.  I let Him down so much, and I feel so bad sometimes I’m so disappointed in myself that I give up just a bit for awhile, but your words remind me that Heavenly Father loves me and will help me.  His love is always there for me, so I want to learn to be always there for Him.

I have been losing lots of sleep lately, Matt, and it makes it very hard for me to function well, but I am hanging in there.  It is 9:30 on Sunday morning, and I hope to wake everyone soon to have breakfast together.  Won’t that be nice?  After church I have meetings, so it will be good to spend time together before church.  I hope it works out.

Yesterday was nice.  Thomas was at a camp out till about 2:00.  They camped out at the turkey shoot.  Thomas got a respectful score in shooting and got a candy bar which he gave to Garred who Thomas says shot better.  Katrina practiced the play till around 2:00.  I tried to catch up on sleep from 10 til 12, and while I was asleep, Miriam cleaned the upstairs!  I came up fully expecting to spend at least a half hour cleaning and doing dishes, but it was entirely done.  What a nice surprise!  Dad got home from the laundry around 12:30, and he and I invited Miriam to drive an hour up north  with us for lunch, but when she found out we wouldn’t  be doing any shopping there, she politely declined.  Dad and I had a nice hour-long drive, and a nice lunch.  After we ate, we walked up main street, past the stores, and enjoyed looking at the houses.  We kept walking up until there were no more houses, just pine trees.  It would have been fun to walk farther, but the road turned to gravel at that point, and it was muddy, so we just looked at the stream at the side of the road where it ran into a culvert, and then walked back down.  It was a perfect walk on a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed ourselves.



When we got home, we went to Costco and bought a mattress as well as other things and we also got to see Jon, which was nice.  He was pretty busy, though, so we didn’t talk to him much.  Back at home, we cooked the fun food we bought at Costco and ate it and watched “The Carol Burnett Show” on dvd as a family.  The kids liked her version of “Gone With The Wind” much better than the real thing, ha ha.

That is all that’s been going on, really.  I feel very blessed by Heavenly Father in so many ways, Matt, and I feel very undeserving.  I know He is leading and guiding us despite our weaknesses.  Have a wonderful week, Matt, and tell me lots of stuff about La Cruz and your week, etc.  I love you!  Thanks for the example of consecration that you are to us!

Love,
Mom

Sept 23--Email From Matt

Matt wrote this on the subject line for this email:

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Hi Mom, I'm going to answer your questions in the order that you asked me them in your letter:

   I'm doing good,

   It's been a good week! I learned a lot of things, don't worry I'm going to write more about it after answering your questions.

   Yes, I did get a package and it was great and I'm so glad that you sent it to me! I did share it with a few people including my companion.

   My companion is very good, even better because he got good news from his family today. I told him that you said "hi."

And that seems to be the end of the questions from this week. Ok, comments on your letter!

   About asking if there are people that we can serve to the members: Thanks for the Idea, I'm sure that it'll work out! especially because of the things that have been happening here lately (What things you might ask?!?! Well I'll tell you a little later!)

   About being able to serve other people, we actually have been able to help a few people! (I'll tell you how a little later in this letter)

  I'm so glad that your job is going well! I'm pretty sure that you are going to be just fine mom! You do have the ability to work and do well. 

  Thanks for telling me about Katrina and her teachers! It's nice to hear that she is such an awesome person! haha, It's also cool to hear about her scene.

  Also you wrote a paragraph about Thomas, I loved hearing about him and that he's deciding to be true to the commitments that he makes! 

  Then you wrote about Miriam! Wow, Thanks mom, that's so nice of you to tell me about everyone and how they are doing a little bit. I really love hearing those types of things!

  Ok, skipping a few paragraphs, I've noticed that with my companio we both sometimes take different sides.  I've noticed that I can help our companionship by doing exactly what you said. it's hard, because my immediate reaction is to defend myself, but  I like proverbs 15:1

"A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger." 

and 3rd Nephi 11:30 

"Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away." 

These both help me realize exactly what you said: "if I avoid contending, and pray instead,... the subject isn't an issue after all"

This part of the letter is more for all of the family

ok anyway what happened this week?!?! I dont' think that you have been checking the weather forecasts around here, because a hurricane hit us. 

(Blog Note:  Yes, at this point I was beginning to freak out.  I scrolled down in a desperate hope for more info, ha ha.  What if I hadn't?  What if you don't, Dear Reader?  Then I guess you will miss what follows.  Oh, that Matthew.... sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do with that boy.)

You have no idea how tempting it was to not send anything else! haha!

we are ok, it was a class 1 hurricane, so nothing too bad happened to us. the area where we live wasn't very affected, we had no flooding, just a lot of rain, and a little wind, a tree fell over and that's about it. But, in other parts of the city, the water got up to around 4 1/2 feet and higher, luckily, the majority of the people got out safely. Sadly, as far as we know, 2 people died in the city. It started raining Wednesday in the night and it didn't stop until Thursday night. we stayed in the house and the power went off and on, but nothing really happened at all. There are a few places in our area that got flooded, and there are a ton of houses that are full of mud, dirty house hold items and ruined furniture and cars. I have to explain something first, here, the houses are made out of concrete, so, there weren't any collapsed houses and there was no dry wall that got ruined.

Friday and Saturday, we went out and proselyted like nothing had happened. Saturday night, we called Cristina to put an appointment for Sunday, after finding out that nothing bad had happened to their house, she said that her family wasn't going to be able to see us because they were going to go help some family members clean out their houses and then they were going to help wash all the dirty cloths and cushions for the people by her house that got flooded. She then asked me: "I don't know what you guys are going to be doing tomorrow, maybe you could come and help. Aren't you on a mission to help people?" Her words hit me right in the heart: "Aren't you on a mission to help people?"

How had I forgotten about all of the people that needed help?! How was that possible? We had even ridden a bus through one of the areas to get to another place, and I had seen the damage with my own eyes. Why didn't I notice?!?! 

Thankfully we weren't sitting down doing nothing Friday and Saturday, we were preaching the gospel, and the gospel is ultimately what everyone needs, but sometimes, it's better to preach to gospel through actions rather than words! How could we ignore so completely all of the people that needed help?!?! We are Representatives of Christ, with a sacred calling "to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light... to mourn with those that mourn... and comfort those that stand in need of comfort." and we had done nothing, or almost nothing to help.  All of those thoughts were coursing through my mind when I heard those words: "Aren't you on a Mission to Help?" I could barely manage to mumble out a brief goodbye and say that we would call again during the week.

Sunday, we organized a group to go help people clean out their houses, but when we got to the affected area, almost all of the work was done. We just walked around from house to house, asking if someone needed help and hearing the answer "no." I felt pretty dang bad.

The Lord was looking out for us and for a certain family that day, because we walked up one street and asked a certain family if we could help them, and they just said, "Sure, whatever you can do would be great"

We spent like 4 hours cleaning and helping them move everything out of the house. We washed off almost all of the mud in the rooms and in the living room. 

I feel so bad that we weren't able to help out more people! But we are going to keep on looking this week!

Thanks for everything you guys! I love hearing from all of you! I love you all and I pray for you always!

-Matt

Aug 19--Email From Matt

Blog Note:  Arrggghhh!  I just realized I haven't published this letter from Matt yet.  Here it is, now.  I suggest you read the letters in order by the date in the titles, first my letter then Matt's from the same day or close to the same day.  Sorry so confusing!

Why can't we contact on the street: you answered your own question haha :) :  "I have often thought that if we members would do our duty, missionaries wouldn't have to tract at all." We, as missionaries, are lazy. It is easier to contact someone in the street or knock on a door than involve the members in the finding process. With members it is a lot of work and it can be very hard, but, it is much better than street contacting and the converts that are found and fellowshipped by members usually stay active in the church.

What other "special" activities do we do? Well in los Cabos, we did teach English, but very few people came, I think that we would have worse results here, so we don't teach English, there are building here, Culiacán has 3 stakes and it's possible that in the future they might build a temple here. Unfortunately, there is not a line of people that want to tour our buildings here... haha so we don't give tours that much either.

How do we encourage the members to help us? Well the first thing we do is we check and see how their testimony is doing, if their testimony is struggling we invite them to read the scriptures and say daily prayers, personally and as a family. If their testimony is strong, we invite them to look for missionary opportunities, we invite them to pray for opportunities to preach the gospel and we ask them if they know someone that we can teach.

How is this area different than los Cabos? Well, here, it's older, more developed in some ways, and a lot more Mexican.... I really don't know how to describe the difference... Ok, over there, there are piles of sand and dust in the street and little to no vegetation, here, there are more trees, more garbage (well not more, just.... there's more mountained garbage) more pollution. but in both places, there is hardly any grass. NO GRASS!!!! nowhere. (Almost)

What have I been doing? Preaching the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Juan, a 9 year old boy, got baptized. Now, almost everyone in his family are members. His dad's the only one who isn't a member. I felt honored when he asked me to baptize him. About your talk: Well, tell everyone that I love them, That they need to look at all the good work that they have done, give thanks and start working even harder.

I now have a question for you. This Friday night, Saturday morning (the 17th) at about 12:20am (I don't remember if the time zones are the same here.) What were you doing? thank you so much, it makes me very happy to know that everything is going well. I hope to hear from you this next monday. I love you!
-Matt