For Christmas, we have a bunch of appointments. We also get to relax a little bit. We've been told by President to cut P-day off today at 2 and take till 3 on Christmas so we get some time to relax. We're going to get together with some other missionaries and open presents that morning at the stake center. Don't worry though. This ward takes care of missionaries. This is such a cool ward. We have families fighting over who gets us on Christmas. So no worries.  

The mission conference is next wednesday or tuesday or something like that. I dunno. But I'm excited to see christmas in Texas. So far it's been pretty fun. It's been like 60-70 degrees here lately. Haha today it's like 58. It's nice. How's the weather there? But yeah. It would be easier to send that other package to my apartment. But don't worry. I know i'll have a good christmas. The ward here takes care of the missionaries during Christmas.

 Well, not a whole lot is new here. I've decided that black people are hard to teach, because the three black people we've taught know the bible very very VERY well. And tried, yeah tried but unsuccessful, to destroy our beliefs with logic. 

We have a baptism this saturday for a guy named Sergio. He's excited. He even asked a member to do it. So that'll be good.

Wow it's been a long week. And so much has happened since emailing last week. On thursday we got a call saying one of the other elders in our district needed to go to the mission office and his companion was going to be with elder jones and I for the day. The assistants said "No ones in trouble, Elder Andreasen just needs to be here." So he went with another couple of missionaries. Pretty soon, elder andreasen and elder Hughes, one of the two he went up with, come back to pack up all of elder andreasens stuff. Elder Bayles, Elder Hughes comp, was sent to houston and elder andreasen was sent to Manvel with Elder Hughes. So now, I'm in a threesome. It's ok... Frustrating. Very frustrating, but like dad told me. Don't quit. Sawyer's don't quit. I'm in it to the end. Besides, I know if I stick with it, it'll get easier. I'm not backing out.

 Just like dad, I just want to go steal the babies in sacrament meeting, but there's a dang stupid rule. We're not supposed to hold babies or even let little kids sit on our laps, because some stupid people somewhere else sued for child abuse because they didn't like the missionaries. So i can't even hold little babies.

We have a baptism planned for the 18th of december. It's for a guy named Sergio. It's going to be awesome. the mission is having what they're calling  the weekend in white. Almost every companionship is scheduled to have a baptism. It's going to be awesome.

Christmas Photos

Thanksgiving 2010

I'm glad ya'll had fun in Kanab.. Without me. Gosh dang it. That was the hardest part about thanksgiving... What we did for thanksgiving is worked. We had dinner with a member family at six, and while we were in weekly planning, we got a call from an investigator around 2, weekly planning is supposed to last from noonish to about 3 or 4, but this investigator called us.. "Where ya'll at? We're waiting to start." We just met these people the night before. But they wanted us to come over for dinner, so we did, and then we went to the members house. I ate a ton... Not used to eating so much, so unfortunately, i lost a lot of it. I'm on a missionary diet, so I'm not used to lots of actual food. Haha. But it was good. The hard part was that I couldn't be with my family. And we had to work on that day. Nobody wanted to let us in to teach them, because they wanted to spend time eating and watching football. I'm in Texas, the football capital of the world! Nobody wanted to let us in. So we got 2 whole lessons that day. We needed four to keep up for the week. But it was ok. We made up our missing ones last night. But I didn't particularly enjoy my thanksgiving. I missed my family a lot.

 Well, the biggest thing that's happened this week is we found out that Maria, our recent convert from Galveston, was baptized 6 years ago. There's a family in the branch that was baptized with her. And they recognized her. So when we confirmed her, they asked the sisters about her, and now Salt Lake is looking for her records. She said she was baptized, but she couldn't remember which church it was in. I found all this out from Elder Jensen last night. I saw him at a fireside that we went to.

 

Transfers

Yes I know it's monday and usually you get emails on tuesdays but now you'll get em on mondays. We have computers in the office at our apartmemts we can use. So that's handy. Another handy thing is that there's a woman in the ward that does our laundry for us. The first thing she said to me after she introduced herself was "The laundry comes to me. Make sure all your clothes are marked." But, truth be told, it felt way weird to be leaving my clothes with her. I don't particularly like it. But hey, it saves me money. So I won't complain.

 My new address:

2301 Fairway Dr. #207

Alvin, Texas 77511

Yep. I'm in a town called Alvin. And as the name implies, it's a small town. At least that's what it used to be from what I hear. It's still to big for me. But it's ok. It's a bi-lingual area unfortunately so we're not teaching in spanish full time, which sucks. We actually teach very little in spanish. There aren't that many hispanics around dang it. I want to keep teaching in spanish, i want to learn as much as I can and speak it fluently. 

I'm being transferred. Dang it. I wanted to spend Christmas on the island, but we got calls yesterday morning. Actually, we found out i'm being transferred sunday night. President called and asked Elder Jensen if he'd train, so that said i'm being transferred.

Bob's going to live. He had a reaction to his chemo and it raised his blood pressure to 210/100 and i'm pretty sure that's bad. He couldn't breath so he called 911. But he's out now. and Good. I'm going to get a picture with him today. 

But, we gave a blessing to a baby on sunday night, and i'm not sure what was wrong with him other than the fact that he had a feeding tube in his stomach. It was loose that's why the parents took him to the hospital. But he was sitting up and laughing and smiling, nothing seemed wrong with him... But we found out the next morning, so yesterday, that the baby died. And the family is an investigator family.. So bad deal. But the dads not mad or frustrated with the church I don't think. So that's good.