No need for fancy words...just love

Hey Family!

So It was good talking with you on christmas. Pretty fun stuff. Sounds like a lot of good stuff is happening out there in hawaii. Things here in Cali are going way good. It was fun this morning we got to help a sister out with her back yard. man one of nicest yards i have ever seen! i mean looked like the magazines haha. her name is carmen and we are teaching her the lessons and sharing the message with her. she is a super nice lady i love that sister. so we got to cut some trees and make some borders for the garden and take some ferns out. i took some pictures. before and after pictures. it's sweet to see the difference. man we should show how good we work for free haha. we are going to go back and help somemore next week. But i forgot to tell you the story how we got to talk with her again. Well it was kinda the same deal with the other family and so it was hard to get a hold of her and set a time to come back. but we went to carol to her and she loved it. she told us to come back that wednesday and it was a super good visit. she told us how we were the only ones who sticked through the hard times with her and how she feels close to us and just feels different when we come over and we have only been there twice no joke! so it's not even that much. but she took our hands and looked us in the eyes and told us that and thanked us. it made me realize how simple God's work is. so simple it passes over our heads if we don't pay attention. God doesnt require fancy words for us to speak or huge acts of service. he requires us to love and if we love our brothers and sisters we just talk to them, love um, visit them and offer to help and the spirit is what makes those acts powerful. it's kind of like the story in the Book of Mormon with Ammon. how he just served the king and then did more. my companion and me were talking last night just how so many people are having hard times and getting mistreated. taking their hope away and leaving them with sadness and worry but i realized you know what? true love fixes everything. we can be the people to love them and help them because we know God's plan and that he still loves um and we can give them a reason to hope. that's the good stuff! i love being on my mission and learning that but i know i don't have to be a missionary to do it.

But funny thing going back to carmen, she asked what can she do for us and we told her well listen to the message haha and she told us oh yeah i have plenty time for you guys... so that was sweet! it's going to bless her so much we are pretty stoked.

Funny story.. so we were biking to an appointment and we were kinda late and i waved to this one guy and he asked a question about if their was a bike shop or something nearby. i don't know but we pulled over and started talking to him and he asked hey so you all just talk to everyone and we were like yup... then he asked well why were you going to not talk to me haha. so it was kinda funny he was getting on us for almost passing by him. good thing we stopped...

Ok well i got to go, but have a good week!

LOVE you guys
Elder Gidiyaon..haha
Elder Thomas

Scary...but nice

Hey whats up family,

We had a way good week.. a ton of stuff happened but haha i can't remember right now what it was.. my bad! Just know it was really good.. oh We did meet with a family and for the first time we talked with the dad because he was in Mexico for a few weeks and so we didn't meet him until this week. It was crazy too becuase he walked in and he looked pretty tough and angry too. so we were like oh man... but we talked with him and he sat in. it turned out good. i mean he's a nice guy. well they are a nice family. But that night we taught the plan of salvation and it was way good. it seems like a long time since that lesson, hopefully i didn't tell you this before. if i did..then my bad but it's a really good one anyways. so we started to talk about the atonement and invited them to be baptized this month. but i mean the spirit was super strong. you knew that it wasn't us asking but God and i know they felt that... because they were quiet! i mean not one noise. not even a no... and this family is a strong catholic family but they felt the spirit that they couldn't deny it and say no. it was a really good experience. the crazy thing too is that their kids listen in too but they don't know a ton of spanish so it's kinda hard for them to understand. but after we asked them to be baptized in spanish they knew it was a question and so they asked us to say it in english and when we said it in english one of the kids said yeah i would be baptized. so one of the kids wants to be baptized! it was cool. only thing is he is moving up to Fresno this week so we are gonna send the missionaries up there for them to visit with him. so we are stoked for that!

Oh we also went and stopped by this one kid that we are teaching. He's only like 15 but super cool. well after two weeks of losing contact with him, we stopped by again and talking a little bit more about the restoration and it went really good. we ended up inviting him to be baptized december 31 and he said yeah. so right now we are just helping him continue to read and pray and also come to church. we are trying to talk to his parents. but no such luck right now they are always at work. but we keep praying for an opportunity. so it will come. So far things are going good. really good. It's super cool especially right now because we go around sharing christmas messages, inviting people to remember the real reason for the holiday and inviting them to learn more about Christ. Its pretty sweet.

Anyways i'm doing really good. gotta get back to work. so i'll talk to you next week.

love you guys!
Elder Thomas