AUGUST 29, 2011

Well Im one seventeenth done with my mission and im already so sad!!!!!! i dont want it to end and i'm already done with transfer!!!!!!!!!! everyone says that these next two years are gonna go by so fast and that makes me sad because i love being on a mission so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! well its official, im gonna be staying in the same area for another transfer!!!!! i know that the Lord still has work for me here and thats why He wants me to stay!!!!!! two elders from my district are leaving, elder francom and elder redmond. im gonna miss them, they are great!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well this week wasnt a very eventful week except for the baptism on saturday!!!!!! Kailyn got baptized and it was so great and she was confirmed yesterday and that was great also!!!!! on saturday morning i got to go to another baptism because a boy named trevor was getting baptized and he was taught by elder treasure and elder francom!!!!! he is 17 years old and his baptism was so great because it reminded me of my baptism and he is so excited to be a member of the church and i was so excited for him!!!!!!! On monday we set another baptismal date with this boy named James!!!!! he is 18 years old and it is great and he is so stoked to get baptized!!!!! his baptism is going to be on September 17!!!!!!!! this week was just a lot of tracting because a lot of people canceled their appointments with us!!!!! but it was so much fun because i love tracting!!!!! i got to see connie and gary yesterday and they are progressing so much with the book of mormon, i love it!!!!! i know that they are going to be baptized soon!!!!!!!! nothing really interesting happened this week so im sorry if this letter is kinda boring, i hope more eventful stuff happens this week!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 22, 2011

This week was a HUGE week for me!!!!!! I had so much responsibility this week!!! I went on two exchanges this week and for both of those exchanges i stayed in my area and my companion went over to the other missionaries area. Which means i was in charge of my area for both of those days!!!!! The first exchange was with elder treasure!!!! he is such a funny kid and i can see us being really good friends when we get home. he is from idaho and he is going to go to byu when he gets back. he has been out for just about nine months!!! I was so nervous on tuesday because that was my first day taking over the area and being senior companion and i kept thinking the area was going to burn down and i was going to mess everything up!!!!!! BUT I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!!! that day has actually been the best day on my mission so far!!!!!! The spirit helped so much and we were able to have such a successful day!!!!! Something that i love doing as a missionary is talking to EVERYONE!!!!!! we can just go up to any person we see and start talking about how their day is going and then talking about the church!!!! Well elder treasure and i went to go check on some potential investigators and it turns out that they moved out of their apartment, but their next door neighbors started talking to us and they invited us inside!!!!! They are our new investigators for the week and they are hilarious!!!! They are brother and sister and they are in their 60's!!! They used to go to a pentacostal church but they LOVE mormons and they talk so much!!!!!!!!! The girls name is connie and she kept telling me that i have such a strong spirit beaming off of me and she kept telling me that im going to be a prophet when i get older haha (yeah right). then she kept telling elder treasure how funny he is!!! we taught them the restoration and they told us to come and visit them everyday!!!! even though we cantn visit them everyday we are gonna try like twice a week!! then elder treausre and i went to some other teacher appointments that i scheduled and they all were home and we got to teach a bunch of lessons!!!!!!! then for my second exchange which happened on friday was with the zone leaders. so elder seager came over to my area and i got to be with him for the day again!!! elder seager is great and he is such an awesome missionary!!!!! him and i are already good friends and he is going to byu also!!!! that day was very successful also and we went to go see connie and gary again (the pentacostals) they were so happy that we came over and connie said that she has been reading from the book of mormon and she LOVES it!!!! they are going to come to church this sunday and i hope that they have a great experience!!!!!!!! and she told elder seager that she sees me becoming a prophet and she told elder seager that he is really smart i have learned so much from elder seager, he is such a great zone leader!!! He started talking about leadership positions with me and asked me what i would think if i became a distrcit leader and a trainer next transfer and i told him that i would NEVER be able to do that!!!!! i told him that im fine with being junior companion for the reast of my mission and he said that is definitely not going to happen!!!! and i got really scared because i feel like that if i get a leadership position im going to stress out and want to do a perfect job and id get mad at myself if i dont do a good job!!!! he taught me a lot about patience and he made me feel so much better and he said that the Lord has so much in store for me and he said he sees me being a zone leader very soon. he was a zone leader his third transfer. i dont see that happening to me and i dont really want that to happen!!!!! then the reast of the week was great!!!!!! we had Kailyns baptism interview and she is getting baptized on saturday which is going to be so awesome!!!!! she is the first person that i commited to baptism and set a date!!!!!!! chelsea kimball if you are reading this i had dinner at a members home on thursday night and the wife looked and acted exactly like you!!!! i could not believe it!!!!!! you guys are exact twins!!!! the couple is in their mid 20's and they are such great members and just moved to texas!!!!!!!! i hope yall have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 15, 2011

This week was very eventful and i loved it and i had so many spiritual experiences!!!!!!! and i have learned so much!!!!! we had a baptism on saturday which was one of the highlights of my week!!!!!!!!! i didnt get to start teaching LJ since he already started getting the lessons before i came to the mission but i got to end his lessons and witness his baptism which was so inspiring!!!!!! He is about 30 years old and has cancer. he ended his last chemotherapy treatment last week which was so great and he is doing so much better and is in remission!!!!!! he was so stoked to get baptized and he could not stop thanking us for this opportunity!!!! it was so great!!!!! earlier in the week i got to go on exchanges with elder mchardy!!!!!! he is so awesome, i talked a little bit about him in the last email!!!!!! i was kinda down earlier in the week because i feel like that im not as good of a missionary as everyone else because im so new but elder mchardy helped me realize that it does not matter how new you are and he told me that im one of the best missionaries he has ever seen because of my testimony and my personality!!!! so it was great that i got to spend the day with him because i learned so much!!!!!!!! We got some new investigators this week which was so great!!!! they are a young couple and we are going to work more with them!!!!! Then we got to teach carey and anthony figueroa. i dont think i have talked about them before!!!! they are a young family and they are so great!!!! they are in their early 30's and they already seem so mormon!!!!! they are friends with members of the church so we all went over to the gustavesons house and we taught carey and anthony the plan of salvation and it went really well. carey said that she wants to get baptized!!!!!!! Yesterday i had a really neat experience!!!!!!!! there is this girl in the farmersville branch and her name is kailyn and she has been going to church for a few years but she hasnt wanted to get baptized!!!!! my companion and i split up on sundays since the ward and the branch start at the same time so the ward and the branch mission leaders come and pick us up and they are our companions for the day!!!!!!!! i dont really like it that much because after church we go out teaching and i would rather have another missionary with me to teach than the mission leader but i have come to learn that Heavenly Father wants me to learn from this!!! so after church yesterday, the branch mission leader and i went over to kailyns house to just drop by. i havent met her yet because im still pretty new and have not met every single person in the ward and the branch!!!! and soon as we walked in she told me that she doesnt want another missionary pressuring her into being baptized, and i told her to NOT WORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i got to know her a little and the spirit kept prompting me to talk about baptism and i really didnt want to because kailyn has been through so many sets of missionaries and i didnt want her to not like me!!!!! but i just started asking her about why she doesnt want to be baptized and i cleared up her worries and then i went over the baptismal interview questions with her and she said that they werent bad at all, then i just felt like i should ask the question "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the Preisthood authority of God?" and GUESS WHAT SHE SAID?!?!?!?!?!? YES!!!!!!!!!!!! i was so stoked!!!!!!!!!!!! it has taken her so many years and she has gone through so many missionaries and she has finally said yes!!!!!!!!! i know im exactly where the Lord wants me to be and he has prepared people to be taught by me!!!!!!!! This week was great!!!!!!!! I hope you all are enjoying the last couple weeks of summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 8, 2011

Well this week was SOOOO mega hot!!!!!!!! It was 114 degrees one day and they say that we are about to break the record of 42 consecutive days of the temperature being over 100!!!!!!! i love tracting at night because its a lot cooler outside and everyone is at home so it makes it a lot better and a lot less sweaty.  I probably drink about 20 water bottles a day!!!!!!!! they want us drinking at least a cup of water every hour!!!!!!! This week was definitely a change cause i went on two exchanges this week (exchange means i trade companions with a missionary in my district for the day) on wednesday i went over to elder francoms and elder treasures area for the day and elder treasure was my companion!!!! the big change is that their area is a bike area which means i had to be on a bike for the WHOLE day!!!!!!! it made me appreciate even more that i get to be in a car!!!!!! it was a lot of fun being with elder treausre and we definitely had a lot of funny experiences with me being on a bike for the first time on my mission!!!!! im not used to riding a bike with a backpack on so i kept falling over for like the first hour!!!!! It was really cool cause while we were tracting we ran into an RLDS family and I dont really know that much about their religion. they invited us inside and they showed us their Book of Mormon and it basically is the same as ours except their chapters are set up a little differently.  Their church organization is really different from ours because they dont have a prophet because they believe prophets come through bloodline and they believe that women can recieve the priesthood!!!! We couldnt really teach them and give them our message because they believe the same exact thing, they are just members of the wrong LDS church!!!!!!! Then the next day i was back in my area and it was nice to be back and this is when my spiritual highlight of the week happened!!!!! We went to go contact this referral we recieved from the spanish speaking missionaries and we went inside her house and we taught this lady about the restoration!!!! We had a member with us which made the lesson even better!!!!!!!! We taught her the restoration and she listened and she had really good questions and we could tell that she is so interested in the church!!!!! We said the closing prayer and we were about to go but then on her wall i saw a plaque that said "the Lord is my rock and salvation" and as soon as i read that, Helaman 5:12 popped into my head. And i felt so strongly that i needed to have her read that verse. So right before we stepped out the door i grabbed the book of mormon we gave her and turned to Helaman chapter 5 and had her read verse 12. as soon as she got halfway through the verse she started crying!!!!!! it wasnt as awkward this time as it was last week because now im starting to get used to investigators crying!!!!! as she finished the verse she said thank you and she said she is so excited to read the chapter we told her to leave!!!! I know that the spirit was prompting me to tell her to read that because that is exactly what she needed in her life at that moment in time and the spirit helped me with it!!!!!!!!! i love teaching with the spirit, it is so great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then the next day i went on another exchange with the zone leaders!!!! so i was with elder seager for the day!!!! elder seager is so great and i have learned so much from him. he graduated high school in 2010 but he left on his mission after high school inseatd of doing a year of college, so he has been out for ten months. his first name is cody also which we thought was cool!!!!!!!!! and he stays at the montage in laguna every summer and he loves newport!!! the zone leaders are over in allen so i got to spend the day in allen!!!!! we found a bunch of new investigators and we met a bunch of weird people, i meet weird people everyday but its hilarious!!!!!!! we met two deaf people and i got to use my sign language!!!!!!!!!!! miss smith would have been proud!!!!!! we had a meeting with the stake president and the bishops on saturday with our district which was so great. our zone is the allen stake and we have 10 missionaries in our zone!!! there is a missionary in my district named elder mchardy and he is such a funny kid, he is kinda like me but im more hyper!!!! he calls us every morning at 6:30 and yells good morning into the phone and then hangs up!!! this week has been great and we have a baptism on saturday and we got a bunch of new investigators!!!!!! i dont even really miss music that much because church music is so much better and i love it!!!!!!!!!!

"When the spirit touches your soul, it leaves a mark"

AUGUST 1, 2011

Ok so I just realized that i forgot to tell yall about my area!!!!!!!!!!! Well my companion and i cover a ward and a branch. The ward is called the Melissa ward and the branch is called the farmersville branch!!! the cities we cover are kinda po dunk and the houses are falling apart! my area is huge so we get a car, which is so legit because i dont have to worry about riding a bike for the rest of the summer!!!! im the driver because my companion cant drive!!!!!!!!!! but last week was another awesome week!!!!!!!!!!!!! on tuesday we had zone council and the stake president talked to us about always having the spirit with us and how important it is!!!!! i loved it!!!!!! then afterwards we had lunch with the zone at this place called cici's pizza!!! I've never been there before because they dont have it in california!!! It only costs 5 dollars and you can eat as much pizza and dessert as you want, it is DIVINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my zone is great, we only have 12 people in the zone. and i love my zone leaders!!!! one of our investigators right now is named brynne and she has 4 kids and they are all so great!!!!! we watched the restoration dvd with them and they loved and i know that they truly could feel the spirit because it was so strong while we were watching it, and i saw brynnes eyes water up!!!! hopefully we can commit them to baptism!!!!! one of the hard things here in texas is that no one is married!!!!!!!! couples have been living together for like 10 years and have kids together but they just dont get married, i guess they think its just easier that way. so we need to have brynne get married to her boyfriend cause she cant get baptized until they are married. another problem is that everyone here smokes!!! its really kinda gross!!!!! me and tracting love each other!!!!!!!! it is so fun and i LOVE meeting all new people!!!!!!! the other day we were tracting and this black guy called us over and he had long dreads in his hair!!!! as soon as he saw me he knew i was from california and he was so wasted!!!! he said he was from compton and i told him i was from newport and he automatically loved me, he didnt like my companion that much. we talked to him for a little bit and he told me that i smoke pot and i told him that i dont smoke and he said that he can tell i smoke pot from the way i talk!!! i guess there really is a southern california surfer accent cause everyone here says that i have a surfer accent and everyone at byu told me that also!!!!!!! then we visited this less active lady and she had 40 cats!!!!!!!! as soon as i saw all of them i knew that caitlin and chelsea would LOVE being in that house!!!!!!!! the lady is totally anti mormon now and she fought with us about temples and things. as soon as we left the house i started getting red bumps all over my arms and i thought maybe it was because of the cats but then a few days later i realized that i have heat rash!!!! its all over my arms and it itches!!!!!!! i hope it goes away soon!!!!!! the good part is that it isnt affecting the work and thats all that matters!!!!!!!!!!! the other day we were tracting and we met this guy named roy and he is 20 years old. he said that he has been searching religions for the truth and guess what popped into my head as soon as he said that?!?!?!!? GOLDEN OPPURTUNITY!!!! he wants us to come back this week and teach him so we are looking forward to that!!!!!!!!!!! we have a baptism scheduled for next saturday and we set two more baptismal dates for the end of august!!!!!!!! my spiritual highlight of the week happened on saturday night!!! we were out tracting and we got to this door and a 60 year old women answered the door and we said our normal greeting and she said she was really busy at the moment and we normally dont bare our testimonies at the door but the spirit was telling me so strongly to. So i just flat out said "Heavenly Father loves you so much and he cares about you and i know that he is there watching over you and he wants to help you with everything" and as soon as i said that she just started crying and i had no idea what to do!!!!!!!! she wanted to give a hug but of course i cant hug her and she told us that when she gets back from her trip this week she wants us to come by and teach her!!!!! it was so great to have the spirit tell me to say that and thats what the lady needed at that exact moment!!!!!!!!!!! this one guy named tyler, in the farmersville branch comes out on splits with us a lot cause he is leaving for his mission in september and he is going to australia!!!!!!!!!! he was up at byu this past year also but i didnt know him cause he living in heritage. he is a stud and he is gonna be an awesome missionary!!!! this message is for all you people that were in the cdm ward!!!!!!!!!!!! GUESS WHO IS IN THE FARMERSVILLE BRANCH?!?!!?!?!?!? ELDER CARMONA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yesterday at church it was my turn to go to the farmersville branch since my compnaion and i split up on sundays since the ward and the branch start at the same time and last sunday i was at the melissa ward!!!!!!!!!!! but as soon as i walked into sacrament meeting yesterday i heard someone yell cody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i was like oh my gosh who knows me by that name and i turned around and it was elder carmona!!!!!!!!! for all you people that dont understand, elder carmona served in my ward like a year ago!!!!!!!!!!! it is so cool that he is in the branch that im serving in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well it was an awesome week and i hope this heat rash goes aways soon!!!!!!!!! it may take a while for me to get some of your letters cause the office is having a problem with forwarding letters and they said that they will get it fixed soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Third Letter From Cody- July 25, 2011

 

First of all i miss the mtc so much, i never thought that i would miss it so much since i wanted to get out to texas so badly. But on last monday morning we had to wake up at 3:30 am, yes thats 3:30 in the morning, so we could say goodbye to the 4 elders in my district that are going to arizona cause they left for the airport at 4. Then we started getting ready for our departure. our bus to the airport left at 5. there were only 5 of us, counting me going to texas because the 6th elder, my companion, hurt his shoulder so he had to stay in the mtc for an extra week!! My district in the mtc was the best and i already miss them a lot.  When we got to the aiport everyone kept staring at us cause now we totally stick out cause we are missionaries with the black name tags!!!!! I loved talking on the phone to people when i was waiting to board my plane!!!!! there was a total of 19 of us going to the texas dallas mission. 14 were spanish speaking and then the five of us are english speaking!!! we were greeted by president and sister durrant at the airport which was so cool and then we went to the temple to take pictures!!! then we went to the durrants house and we had lunch and orientation which was a lot of fun!!! Then after we had dinner we were told that we were going out teaching with some of the other missionaries that have been out here for a while!! i was like WHAT?!?!?!!?!?!? i just got there and i already had to start teaching!!!!!!! These two zone leaders took elder flitton and i out to teach!!!! I was in a trio going to texas cause my companion had to stay at the mtc.  Well i went with elder olvera and elder flitton went with the other elder.  elder olvera and i taught a lesson to this black guy. even though i was SO nervous, the lesson went SO well and the guy made a return appointment and said he was going to read the book of mormon!!! then when we got back that night we slept at the ap's apartment which has so many beds and then in the morning it was TRANSFER MEETING!!!!!!!!! time to meet my companion!!!! they announced me and my companions name and then of course we hugged and then it was time to get to my area!!!!! my companions name is elder sullenberger and he is so great, i love him!!!! he is such a great trainer and he helps me out so much!!!!! we finally got to my area which is called the melissa/farmersville area. we cover the melissa ward and the farmersville branch!!!!!! right when we got to the apartment we dropped off our stuff and went tracting for 4 hours!!!!!!!! it is so hot here and you HAVE to drink a lot of water or you'll pretty much die!!!! The week has been great!!!! we got 12 new investigators and set two baptism dates which elder sullenberger said is the best week he has ever had!!!!!! One of our investigators is this family and they are so nice and when we met them they seemed mormon!!!! they came to church yesterday which we were so stoked about!!!! another one of our investigators is this couple and the girl is HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!! she is so crazy and outgoing and i love her!!!!!! she says the funniest things and she is from brazil!!!!!!!! they didnt come to church yesterday but we are hoping they come soon!!!!!! i love my zone leaders, they are awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im in a trio now because elder parker needs to wait for elder child to get here from the mtc. elder parker is so cool and i love him too. so far the first week has been great!!!!!!!!!! yesterday at churcha all of the members tried talking to me but i couldnt cause i had to go to so many meetings!!! and i had to talk to my investigators and ask them how they liked church. so it was really hard to talk to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love tracting and i love teaching, it is so cool to be able to talk to people about the church and the investigators love my enthusiasm!!!!!!!!!! I hope all of you are doing well!!!!!!!!!!!! write me letters!!!!!!!!! you cant write letters to the mission office and then they will forward the letters right to my apartment!!!!!!!

Second Letter from Cody- July 13, 2011.

I cant believe i am almost out of the the MTC!!!!!!!!!!!!! after the first week time goes by so fast here!!!!! my distrcit got our travel itinery this week and we are scheduled to leave the MTC monday morning at 5 for the SLC airport and then im off to texas!!!!!!! i am so stoked to get to texas but im also kinda sad about leaving the MTC cause i have become so close with my district, they are all so great and we have become good friends!!!!! we are all still trying to learn to love my companion but i only have five more days with him. Also i probably have like 100 mosquito bites on me right now!!! i did not know that utah has so many mosquitoes but its really annoying cause mosquitoes love me so i hope there arent that many in texas!!!!  the sunday before you leave the mtc your district gets to sing a hymn in front of everyone at sacrament meeting and my district is going to sing "come thou fount" which i am so stoked for. we have been practicing and it sounds so good.  The wife of our branch president told our district that we are all wimpy singers but we are going to BLOW HER MIND on sunday, im stoked!!!!!!!!!! we have gym everyday which i love so much cause we get to go outside and play on the fields by the provo temple, we havent gotten a chance to go in the provo temple on our p-days cause the temple is closed for cleaning so i wont get to do temple work until i get to dallas. i play sand volleyball and i have gotten so good at it!!!!! we all get so hyper while we play and we do the funniest things and we all just laugh the whole time. my district thinks im the funniest kid and they all call me elder popular haha cause i get so much mail!!!!!!! I see mark and thomas and other friends from byu a lot which is so great!!!!!! i love class here and i learn so much, my teachers are so great and im gonna miss them a lot!!!! they love me cause i am always so enthusiastic and positive about everything!!!!!!! one of my teachers is a convert and we have almost exactly the same conversion stories. we have to prepare a 5 minute talk every week for sacrament meeting and then they randomly call two people up from our branch to give the talks, i havent been called up yet, but i definitely have been preparing the talks. i get to leave the mtc today cause my companion hurt his shoulder so he needs to go and see a specialist so itll be interesting going to the outside world wearing a black name tag and being a missionary, maybe i'll get to teach some people!!!!! at the mtc we get "investigators" which are just people that volunteer and pretend that they are interested in the church. two of my investigators have commited to getting baptized which is good!!!! Our devotional last night was about Jesus Christ and the atonement and they showed videos of everything that he went through. it just made me love him even more and made me even more grateful for everything that He did for me.  It also made me realize that i am an actual representative of Jesus and that I wear his name!!!! i am so blessed to be on a mission right now and i know that its going to be great once i get to texas!!!!!!!! they keep us really busy at the mtc which is nice, we are always moving around all day!!!!! and i learn a bunch of new things everyday. this week we are learning about teaching the word of wisdom and the law of chastity to people which are kinda awkward subjects but if you teach with the words of the spirit then it isnt awkward at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I miss everyone and i hope you all are doing well and enjoying your summer, it is so hot here but i know its even hotter in dallas. my time on the computer is running out and the red thing is flashing!!!!! ill get more time on the computer once im out in texas!!!!! this will be my last email from the mtc!!!!!!!!!! TEXAS HERE I COME!!!!!!! FIND TEACH BAPTIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!