Life's lessons

Hey Everybody!

Ok so this week was pretty good, we did a lot of stuff this past week it was crazy and super hectic. It is hard to plan a baptism and make sure everything goes through. So we had the baptism of Margarita this past saturday and it was just crazy. that day like an hour before she was going to get picked up for the baptism, she called us and said she can't! she said her husband said no and that if she did do that he would divorce her...which doesn't really make a lot of sense, but yeah, and so when my companion told me that, i got way sad because that whole week i was just waiting and waiting and waiting for that baptism and then when that happened i just wanted to sit down and just give up. it was bad. but anyways, we went to her house and was talking to her and talking to her for an hour about what happened and everything and she just didn't care or wasn't listening and it was tough. it was different too becuase her faith was gone it wasn't even there, now when i look at it neither was mine just because i wasn't thinking clearly and i was just sad. So after an hour we ended up giving her a blessing and she got up and said ok we are going. and just a whole bunch of stuff just hit us because she had to get baptized early and everything so we ran to the church and did a quick baptism. and she left and that was it. and that was my first baptism. my very first one.. but rather than it feeling really special, it just felt like it was a number. it didn't feel right at all. but yeah, its pretty depressing but it's still good. like even though it wasn't perfect, it happened and she will be able to see the blessings and i hope she keeps it up because it will help her out so much. So yeah there are no pictures because everything was rushed. it's funny too because i didn't have an extra pair of clothes and stuff and so haha my shirt was half way wet and my pants got soaked too becuase my garments were wet it was a mess. but yup, so that was my first baptism. man that is kind of sad. ok, i hope this email isn't negative or sad or anything. but jeez things are just negative right now haha, it's bad. but it's tough this transfer again. my companion doesn't ever talk with me!! it's horrible! why cant people be happy? that's it, when i am going back home i am going to move to disneyland with you mom, because people can't be mad over there. its only 3 weeks in the transfer... ooooo braddah.

On the good side of things, one day this week, i went on exchanges with a brother in the ward all day!! it was nice haha. but yeah so i went with him and we taught this family of four. two kids - a boy and a girl. it made me think of our family so much and it was a lot easier to teach and to talk. they are a nice family and i hope we can keep meeting with them and help them to accept the gospel.

Love, Elder Thomas

Wow! Two letters in one Day! Cha Ching!

OK so anyways back to the story with margarita. so she came to the baptism and we were just talking and without saying anything about it she said she wanted to be baptized and that she has been thinking about it and believes that she needs to do it and that it is the best thing for her family and the last lesson we had with her convinced her. she said "well... i have the faith that if i get baptized then the rest of my family will too becuase they will see the blessings of it" and that was a total change because before she said that she will not get baptized unless her husband did. It's crazy and just amazing how much she has learned after all that hard work, haha. but it was worth it to see how much it has helped her so far. so i sent some pictures too, hahaa just in case you miss my zoo lander poses, haha, and every night we have like a jamming session too but the songs we make, are soo dumb but super funny. i'll send a recording for you guys like in a week. i'll start recording again. like some of the song names are VANS and Corner in the room. it's me and elder morales and our band name is the righteous apostates, haha. We figure we can make a CD and sell it after our missions, but we will see haha. oh ok as far as this week, we have done a ton with my new companion it has been way sweet!! we contact everybody on every street and sometimes we walk with them for like 3 blocks, haha, it's been fun and we have met a lot of new people, all of them are super nice too. But you shoulda seen this past week when mexico lost in the world cup, people were like crying in the streets and everyone was drunk. it was bad, like this one guy we contacted was so drunk, he was hiccuping every other word. it was pretty funny and messed up at the same time. He said that we were rich and he was poor and he made us compare our hands with his and his were all beat up from working so hard. i was about to tell him hey man you tell me what you need done around your house to fix it and i will be there and i will help you out but i just can't give you money kus i am poor too! but he got mad kus we wouldn't give him money. but what can you do? anyways, i have to go but i will talk to you more this week with the recorder thing tonight.

LOVE, Elder Thomas

Could it be? a Baptism?

Hey! ok so the best things first..

WE HAVE A BAPTISM THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHH first one!!! Margarita actually said yes. Here i will give you the background and everything about it. ok, so this past saturday i think, yeah other missionaries were having a baptism at the ocean... and at first i was like, wow, how the heck can i do that? that would be awesome and so i wanted to go and watch. so it was half selfish: me going to the baptism, but that's okay right?? But anyways, so i thought we should call up margarita and see if she can come and so we did and she said "the beach? ok, sure i'll go." so we were/ i was really stoked and happy, my companion elder cisneros doesn't show alot of emotion, haha its funny though. the only problem we had was trying to find a ride for them, and so that was the hard part. because first of all, not a lot of people have cars and everything. so we pulled out the ward directory and looked up who we could ask to give a ride. we practically called everyone. i mean like everyone, and no one could help. so i was ready to start to fight someone or something to get out the frustration, kus all i wanted was for margarita to see this baptism and then something popped in my head, and i thought, hey, we need to pray and ask for help. at first i thought well that's kind of corny. but i did it anyways and we called this brother who is less active and hasn't been to church in like 4 months and the miracle was that he said yes! and I couldn't like control myself, i was so happy. it was crazy, it was like the best thing that happened to me. i started like dancing and everything, my companion, hahaha, he thinks i am crazy, but thats okay. But just from that, i know that it was God, there isn't any other explanation for that. it doesn't make any sense. it was a simple thing i know, and God probably could have blessed us with that before, but i think, well at least for me, that i needed to learn that we need to go to God first. there are a lot of good things that God wants to give us and help us out with, but first we need to ask him in faith, it's true what it says in Moroni. That God works with men/women according to their faith. i know that from the little time i have been out, and it's just crazy the kind of things we can do with faith, and going along with that. we had a meeting with the whole zone this past week and we watched this show called "A Man without Eloquence." It was awesome, it talked about a testimony of this guy that changed the whole perspective of Brigham Young, before he was even baptized. It was a simple testimony, nothing more than what was in his heart. But Brigham Young said that simple testimony was what made him change and actually want to read the scriptures and find out for himself. for me, that hit me hard because tons and tons of times i am like shoot why am i here? this is hard, my spanish isn't the best and i am not good at teaching and all that junk. But it gave me some strength to know that happened with Brigham Young. if a simple testimony of the truth that we know changed him, then we can do the same thing with the people we know. I know that if we just try and just trust God with all our heart, might, mind and soul, leaving our weaknesses behind, he will strenthen us in what ever thing is good for us. because he loves us. i have felt that love a lot especially on my mission, good times and the hard times. but yeah next email kus i got to send my pictures k.

What? Companion transfer?

Hey alright, sorry for not writing yesterday. I started to write but i couldnt really kus i didn't know what to say haha. plus just when i started, the zone leaders called and told my companion he was leaving. So lame. ay carumpa man. We didn't want to get transfered, but oh well, can't help it. i guess that's what the Lord wants for some reason. but, so yeah guess what now. I have a native peruvian. i think that's how you spell it, haha, but his name is Elder Cisneros. I will take some pictures next week and send some hopefully. i gotta get better at that but its hard kus everytime i take some pictures i feel like a girl. but yeah i will let you know what's happening. i gotta write a lot of letters too. but i gotta head out right now. we gotta get back to work. Oh, i got the packages too!! you guys are the best!! i am pretty much fed for the next week. had some gummy bears for breakfast today, hahaha - nah, just kidding (kind of) hahaha.

but yeah ... so Thanks a lot for sending all that stuff.

I love you guys and hope everything is going good!

Love Elder Thomas

Laying the foundation

Hey!

Thanks for the letter dad, got it yesterday. that sounds like a sick hunting trip! you got to send me some of those pictures so i know you arent lying haha. Hope everyone is having a good week and everything. Oh, ok so first story, since its pretty recent.

Ok so yesterday, we had an appointment with Margarita, the one in the picture that i sent you from the mormon batallion. so we were going to go to a member's house to have family home evening, but she called us in the morning and said she was sick and that she wasnt feeling good enough to go with us last night, so we were all bummed out. a little info on her, she had a baptismal date on the 13th of june, but she didn't feel ready. but yeah back to the story. So she wanted us to come over and give her a blessing and so we were heading over to her house to give her a blessing and she called us again and said that she felt better and she wanted to tell us how she miracously recovered and we were like oh shoot, something weird happened. so we went over to her house and she told us what happened and everything. she said that she fell asleep earlier and she had a dream. so we were all interested. i was hoping it was a dream about God telling her to get baptized, haha. so she was like yeah, and Elder Thomas was in the dream, and so when i heard that i was like whatttt thhhheee... she said that i was there and i told her that everything was going to be alright and other stuff too. and then she said something, like there was water too. and so then she woke up and was feeling better and then she told HNA Soriano, the member who lives with her and they were talking about it and about baptism and i guess i was the one baptizing her! I was like wow! that's crazy, okay when?! haha. but yeah so aparently now she is thinking about getting baptized and that she is ready or feels ready. so next time we go over, we are going to talk about it more and set up a guarantee date! so that was some way good news!

Other good news - we are supposed to have 3 baptisms this sunday. we are trying hard to make sure those dates go through and everything that needs to happen will happen. so yeah this week should be way fun. Oh and yeah, the soccer game this past saturday was sick!! so much fun oh it was way good. we had a lot of people turn out. everyone but Margarita's husband. she said he was watching FIFA world cup. so lame!! who would rather watch then play?... come on, haha but yeah one of our investigators, ademir, he is a pretty funny kid. we got him to come play, and he had tons of fun and the next day, he came to church for the first time in like two months!! the first time. it was sick. it was funny too because church starts at 9, but since its mexican time it starts at 9:30, haha. Everyone comes late. but every priesthood meeting we just skip it and go and get our investigators and so we were driving away and we both saw ademir walking into the church and we were way excited and so i ran out of the car to go say hi and introduce him to everyone. but yup that was a miracle and then we also had people in the park who were just sitting in the park to come and join in too so we got some refferals from it. so it was just really good. i hope we can do it this next week.

Oh yeah mom this one is for you. guess what? ok, you know how we were joking about how the mexican food is spicy? t he other day i tried the flaming hot cheetos and they werent even hot, so i had to add tapatio on it, hahaha. so i am getting good at eating spicy food, its like nothing now.

OK, well i got to head out and get back to work. but one last request if possible for my birthday, could i get some aloha print ties, or if i can get my ukulele sent up because we are allowed to have it and so it would be sweet to play it at some events or something. but only if its not too expensive or even possible. ok thanks!! I love YOu guys and i miss you. but eveything is going way good.

Love Elder Thomas

Elder "Daddy in training" Thomas

Hey Everyone,

Ok, so i sent out that picture. that's Margarita with the three crazy kids, its pretty funny because the two older ones are named mario and luigi, hahaha. me and my companion were joking that she will probably name the next girl peach or the next boy bowser. oh, but it's funny because her esposo is mario too and he works everyday all day from 8 to 9 at night and then he comes home and plays nintendo. so, haha, that's probably how they got those names. but yeah, so we went to the mormon batallion. it was way fun especially with the kids, because those kids are crazy and were running all over the place. so margarita would have to go run after them and she kept making me push the baby in the stroller. i have a picture (see above), its pretty funny.

but yeah, we went to this dinner party in the back afterwards and so there were a bunch of members there and they were all laughing and saying, oh practicing there elder? it was pretty embarassing, but funny too. oh and it was way weird too. this lady just straight up said Elder do you like soccer?.. "yeah i like soccer," then she said, "oh have you taken any soccer classes?" and me i was like, lady are you smoking something... and i said yeah, i had soccer classes and then she asked if i did in BYU and i was like, yes. by now i was like braddah, this lady is a witch or something, next thing you know shes gonna tell me how old i am and what my first name is haha. but it turned out that her daughter who was standing behind her recognized me from the class. so it was weird. super small world! she lives in San diego. crazy stuff. So yeah yesterday was a pretty crazy day. really good though. But i don't know about her. it's tough. we asked her if she was coming to church this sunday, she said maybe and she was like making excuses. but did we go to church every week when we were investigators? So yeah, and she can't read well too. and the weird thing is that she can't read spanish, which is kind of like a lot of people even in the branch. it's different, something i take for granted. like that would be way junk if i couldn't read. but yeah, so i was thinking about getting a spanish CD of the Book of Mormon, but my companion said its expensive so i probably won't. so yeah. oh but we have been trying to get to know magarita's esposo mario, but we never get to talk to him kus he works, but he has saturday and sunday mornings off. so we thought about setting up a soccer game this saturday and so he's coming and we got a couple more investigators coming and so me, members and some of the other investigators of the other missionaries too that live in the apartment slash attic. SO its gonna be sick, we are gonna have a ton of people there. so stoked!

Oh, we had a way good lesson with another person this week too, his name is guillermo, he's a good guy. like he lost all of his friends and his family and he moves from his brother's house to his father's house back and forth. and he doesn't really have work. he gets called in for janitor some times, but it's just some rough stuff. but thats good too at the same time becuase he knows how important it is to follow Jesus Christ and he knows he needs to and he's starting to change and stop drinking. which is sick. he came to sacrament meeting this sunday it was way good. we have a lesson with him tomorrow. that's pretty much it as for the people we have... oh no, wait ok highlight of the whole week. we went to this family in the branch, the Pozos and the husband is less active, but a really good guy. and we went to have a FHE with them and it went really good. and then this sunday we saw him at church!! oh man best feeling in the world to see him walk through the doors and we are seeing them on thursday. It's amazing like something that small just made my day.

Oh, but something that stood out to me, was yesterday we were riding the trolley and sister Soriano, she's in the picture right next to me, sweetest lady. she talked to practically everyone about the gospel and she was handing out cards and everything all over the place. it was just sick! I mean i know that she really gets it. you can tell how important this is to her and that she wants to share it with everyone. and then here we are standing by her and she is doing better then us. it's just way sweet. alot of the time at least for me, i am way shy and i sometimes freak my self out of it which is stupid i know. but i am a lot better now. just trying to be better and keep getting better.

Oh, funny story about trying to be better. we were walking by the park this other day and this guy and his girlfriend started laughing at us and started talking... so retarded. and the guy was yelling stuff like "666 yeah satan. wooo.. Satan Compel you. muah, muah, muah hah hah..." oh braddah, it was weird and dumb, so we were like yup, satans compelling us pretty strong. So dumb, i was about to turn around and go hand them a card and then knock um one in the face. kus half these guys are chubby little mexicans. but next time that happens we probably will go back and talk to um. but its pretty crazy some of the stuff people say to us and yeah... but shoot i got to go. ok, i'll hopefully have some time to write some letters today.

Alright hope everything back home is good,

Love you guys

Elder Thomas

Natural high

OK so shoot i havent got to email for a while. P-days are super crazy and so we never have enough times. so sorry for not writing in a while!! Man i don't even know what to write about because plenty things have happened. but okay okay lets see...I'll just let you know what's up from yesterday, so yesterday was sick, we live like a couple blocks away from the naval base and basically the only thing cool and important about that is the Comissary! oh we were so stoked when we found out we could go there so we went yesterday and spent like 3 hours shopping there, going through every aile (i dont know how to spell) and we got a ton of food. oh that was pretty much the highlight of the day until dinner which was the best becuase we got to eat what we bought. so pretty much things are good. haha. oh and so yesterday too we had another appointment with Margarita and her family, but we thought hey they have those crazy kids who are like little crazy looney tunes so we had our lesson in the park and the kids ran around while we talked with her, which was way good! a good idea, and so we asked her how she felt about everything and this is pretty much where she is at: so when we asked her to be baptized she was yeah, but i need to ask my husband. her husband said that it wouldn't be good because she was already baptized, which is retarded! so yeah she was like yeah, i am not too sure, i dont really want to and then we asked her to read Together Forever and she loved it! score: 1 for God, 0 for husband & Satan. and so she liked it so much. when mario her husband came home, she ran to the TV and put the DVD in and started playing it, because she wanted to watch with him and usually he won't watch stuff like that, so she tricked him into watching it and he did it. Score: 3 for God, 0 for satan. So now she knows baptism is important and she wants to do it, she wants to come to church too but she said she doesnt want to be in heaven without her family so she doesnt want to do this without him and wants him to be baptized kus if he does, she will. So me and my companion are just like oh my gosh freaky dude why? The Husband is nice but he doesnt want to talk with us and works a lot, he works *(wait - drum roll please) each day from 8 AM to 9:30 PM. now that is just inhuman. like if i were him, i would ask myself, "Self, what am i doing?" but so its tough and we just, ahhh, it's just so hard to share the gospel, something so important and so nice and just hard. but, oh well, we are trying all we can and we are like constantly thinking about people and trying to find ways we can help them. some nights i cant sleep even because i am trying to find answers or read in the scriptures, looking for something, anything, that can help them.

Oh something i found when i was reading was this. That in a couple places in first and second Nephi, Nephi talks about the things that he is writing on the gold plates, and he says that the things he writes are pleasing not to the world, but they are pleasing unto God. That sums it up. he didnt write to please the world to write things that made people happy. if he wanted to do that he could just sketch surf boards or waves or the latest fashion back in the day. but he sticks to the things of God, the things that are the most important and the things that will help us and lead us to happiness and safety. because tons of people here say oh, your church is boring or reading the scriptures or following God is boring. sure we don't have a full on rock concert at church and sacrament meeting, but so what? it's still interesting if you look at it with an open heart and with an eye single to God's. but yeah, so we have been working hard. things are good here though.

Ok, i will think of a funny story lets see...oh so these people were calling us squares when we were passing the skate park and, oh yeah, hail satan and all that poop. so dumb, so we just kept walking then i turn around and my companion was walking back towards them, haha i was actually getting excited i was like yes, i get to knock out some of these kids, finally. but we ended up just talking to them about Jesus Christ and how we teach about him and then they started talking about weed. and then they go with their stupid defense, oh how can it be bad if it's natural? I was like, oh man sign number 1, why you shouldn't smoke weed, you say stupid stuff like that, haha. but i just wanted to say like "BRO go eat some stinking poisonous plant then retard. it's natural." man i tell you. some people. but anyways, i got to get going but bye!

Love Elder Thomas