Zack thought he needed to model his coat. He says he looks like an Angel in it because angels always have big trench coats in the movies.

This is the belt buckle that Jessie sent him for Christmas. She found a website that sold them and Zack totally loves it.

Ya know, I've never really thought that my making the best of whatever situation i'm in was something that prominent about me, but I guess I was wrong. Every companion I've had has said something about it. So I guess that's a good thing.

 

Alright. So anything new happening here in small old Port Lavaca... Not a whole lot. It just got cold, real cold on saturday and not it's just getting colder. There's a freezed warning from President Saylin today, saying to work with members as much as possible, like go teach them so we're out of the cold, but the problem is, we don't have many members in our area. But no worries. I have a good warm coat that my trainer left me before he left. It's got two parts to it. Like a liner and then an outer shell. It's warm so don't worry about me. It's really only 41 degrees right now, but the wind chill sucks. It's so cold with the wind. But that's ok. I'm too darn hot to freeze. Haha

 

I got mad at a 15 year old less active the other night. We went by to see him and his family the other night, he lives with his dad and his 13 year old sister, they're all less active. The dad works crazy hours so he was asleep when we went by, and the the first thing Kenneth said was "My dad's trying to f'ing sleep." He started to say something else, but I don't remember because I was ticked. I got after him. I called him out on so many things that night. His sister was talking about how he'd hit her early that day and so we talked about that, talked about not swearing, and treating his sister good. He kept trying to interrupt but I wouldn't let him. Then he's like dude you don't understand me. I said whatever. I know you're ADHD. I know how your mind works. I know how you think. I know exactly what it's like. Don't give me that because I have the same thing. That shut him up. After wards, Elder Olguin was like "That was cool. He needed that. You like busted through every wall he had set up to me. I could never get through to him. And you just busted through." He said that Kenneth's dad isn't the greatest Dad. He never gives any discipline and Kenneth's looking for discipline in his life, just can't find it. So I gave it to him. And he seemed to like it. He was quieter the next time we saw him, and he stopped himself from swearing.

 

Dear family and friends of the Texas Houston South Mission,

President Saylin and I want to thank each and every one of you for your generosity and kindness to the Texas Houston South Mission during our Christmas in the mission field.  We had an overwhelming amount of support for our zone conference game (which was soooo much fun, by the way!)  and each and every missionary received a care package!  The garage of the mission home was filled to over flowing with hundreds and hundreds of packages!  Our six children called it our "Savior's Workshop."  That's much better than our "Santa's Workshop!"   It is difficult to describe the feelings of gratitude we have for you.  As package after package arrived, tears filled my eyes to feel of your love for these wonderful missionaries who sacrifice much, yet who are so blessed. 

I hope that as you had an opportunity to talk with them on Christmas Day, you were able to sense the depth of their souls as they serve the Lord.  I am always humbled by their rapid growth and by their testimonies of this sacred work.  

I hope and pray that you know of our love for your missionary and for you.  May the Lord's sweetest blessings be yours because of your service to all of us this year.

Happy New Year!

Much love,

President and Sister Saylin and family

Ok. First things first, I did get transferred. I'm now in a little place called Port Lavaca. It's a little fishing town in the southern most part of our mission. We're about a 45 minute drive from Mexico. It's a bi-lingual area, and mostly english, again. Dang it. But that's ok. I fit in here. Lots of people running around in redneck trucks and boots. Haha. I really like it here. I just wish there was more spanish going on.

The branch here is tiny. There's only about 50 active members that go to church every sunday, and there's a ton of less active. The building is incredibly small as well. It's about 1/3 the size of a usual church building. There's only a half court gym as well and no pews in the chapel. The curtain to close the chapel from the gym closes it off to about 12 feet of the chapel. It's tiny. There's room to add more onto it, and plans to add on as well, but there's not enough active members to do so.

 Well, my new address is

Elder Zack Sawyer (naturally)

1200 Alcoa Dr. Apt. #40

Port Lavaca, TX  77979

 So aside from my new small area, and my area is port lavaca central, the actual port lavaca area is a car area, and it's about 250 by 120 miles. And I did the math and it's about 30000 square miles. It's ridiculously large. My companion is awesome. I didn't think I'd get along with him very well, but I'm getting along with him great. His name is Elder Olguin (like Ol'-Geen) He's not even a citizen in the U.S. He's only a resident. He's originally from Chile. He was born there and moved to Payson when he was about 8. He speaks native spanish, of course. So even though there aren't a lot of spanish speakers here, I can speak spanish with him. Which is great. He's awesome.

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.