Sand, sand and more sand

Alright Some Really sweet news! (this will explain the subject)

So i got transferred out to the desert!! about 120 miles from San Diego haha. The town i am in is called Brawley. But yup so this is where i'll be for Christmas, decorating some cactus christmas trees out here. Its so different. it took about 2 hours to get out here in the car. It was a long, long, long drive (see the picture). it was funny becuase you get to the end of santee the last city and then you drive for about 1 hour and something more haha.. There is like nothing out here, it's a cool place. Funny thing though is that we cover a spanish branch and a English ward, but we are only on bikes so we can't go to the others places because there are outer towns, so the other elders cover it kus they got the car. And guess what... they drive a mini van. i was stoked, kus as everyone knows, i drove that beautiful red surfer mini van back home, but i dont get to drive it yet, maybe i'll get switched to that area one day, so i can teach um how to really drive a van. So anyways, right now i am pretty much an english elder, which is way fun. something different, i can actually talk without thinking first in my head.. .alright haha that didn't sound that good but yeah i like it. My new companion is from New Jersey. eastern states, another comapnion opposite coasts baby! His name is Elder Avalos. his parents i think are from Guatemala. but he doesn't know alot of spanish surprisingly, still more than me, but different from a full on native speaker. He is a pretty huge guy. He weighs more then you dad, he is about 250. he is super nice too. people told me before that he is a really quiet guy, but ever since i got here, its not that true. he is a little but not that much. but no complaints from me. So i am glad kus at first i was like shoot, i won't have anyone to talk to, l will have to make up some imaginary friends. but everything is good haha.

So lets see ... what else. We got a baptism coming up this next week, his name is Jesse. he is ten years old. and he's excited for his baptism. cool kid. his whole family are members and they just moved down here from washington. oh and then we are teaching this muchacha, her name is janelle. she loves the church, she was invited by her friend who is a member, and we are going to stop by her house tonight and teach her some more and hopefully set her up with a date pretty soon. She's awesome, she has been reading and praying and attending church activies and institute so she's going pretty quick, so we hope she gets baptized. lets see, oh i got my resource for the latest updates to the eagles. its this brother from the ward. we went to go visit them and i saw the little eagles license plate, BAM instant friend right there, really cool brother. we helped them put up some lights and we are going to go teach his friend hopefully this week.

Oh yeah another reason why Christmas is the best! People need help putting up lights. easy service opportunity. its so sweet. we can just help people and be able to get to know them and build some trust with them, so they know we aren't just robots or anything. this one lady, she is hilarious she is an investigator of the other elders. She goes all out. i got to send you picture of this stuff. super crazy. and she said her inspiration for putting up lights and decorations this year was from genesis 1:29. She puts trees up and everything. but we read the scripture thinking it would have something to do with light. but it wasnt. i read it like 10 times trying to figure out what it meant haha but still have no idea maybe you guys will know but anyways i got to head out. I love you all. hasta la vista!

Elder Thomas

The Restoration

Alright Hey everyone. ok so yes this is the Restoration of me writing emails again haha shoot i have been on a bad streak. But we always get busy on pday tryin to fit everything fun in and then kindof runs out da time. But yeah so More news i am still in linda vista with the same companion elder taylor. haha its crazy becuase he is the first companion that i actually stayed with. it was way funny too when we found out we werent getting transfered. kus we got the call and then we looked at each other from across the hall and then we started yelling haha and jumping up nd down kinda like we just won a lottery or a surf board or something. so we are pretty stoked that we can be with each other another transfer kus we like each other and we work good wit each other. we got way close to everyone in the branch and they helping us like crazy. its just that still the work is slow.. i dont know why, but we can seem to find people and the people we do talk to arent interested or they set another time for us to come back and they arent there. so its pretty tough, but we are trying to hang through and keep pushing trying to work hard. So not gonna lie too. it makes it pretty tough to write emails kus i feel like i am failing haha not i am mean i feel bad kus i dont really want to write and then it seems like i am not doing anything.. but i have realized that is pretty retarded so i am gona start writing anyways haha. oh so our weekly family home evenings in the church are going way good though! i mean its pretty legit. we have a ton of members show up and investigators. we have a lesson. then they have a ton of food too. leave it to those guys to bring all the goods for the party. and so i had to teach the lesson this past week and it was way good. not from anything i did but it was about charity and it was wierd kus plenty of people gave in their insights and it was a good discusion. and our ward mission leader shared this story that happened that exact day that really applied to him at that time. it was sweeet. 3 pointer swish by the spirit. oh what else has been happening. halloween was crazy. dang it was actually on saturday the night before, we were walking around and people were dressed up and there were tons of parties. we got so much shout outs, they werent sure if we were dressed up or not but some of the stuff they would say to us was pretty funny, except for the swear words. haha people would like, hey look the mormons, wheres your bikes, wheres your bible, and then we would get the occasional oh mormons ah i would never be one of those, but rock on. haha it was hilarious. ah man i forgot what i was talking about. oh so we were helping out this member move, his name is wilson. he is a cool guy, an RM and so he was renting to another apartment becuase the other place was a dumb right but when we got to the new house there was a miscommunication and actually he was going to be able to live there so he was homeless right then and we were freaking out because man he didnt have a place to say, doesnt have a car or nothing, or alot of money, but it all ended out good. he ended up renting at his parents house so that was a miracle right there. but that is really common with the members and investigators here. always moving because they no more money and so they live with barely anything and so we are always trying to help them see that all they need to do is put God first, and he will help you. and i mean at first i thought i dont know if i even really believe this, just giving all these members false hope and this encouragement when if someone gave it to me i wouldnt even believe it. if that makes any sense, but it really is true, and its crazy some of the stories we hear here. its ridiculous. families with no work no nothing, with a huge family to feed and somehhow they have the means of doing it. and then with members asking to have sundays off and just keep the sabbath day holy and then they miracally get it off and the boss repects them and they some how have enough money and they are happy, its pretty cool! but shoot we gotta go. but i miss you guys and hope everything is going way good!

Love

Elder Thomas

Karma...

Ok. Best story last week jeez, lets see. Oh okay i got one. but its not too good. so every week in the branch here we have a family home evening in the chapel and anyone is invited and we try to get the people we are teaching to come. and so everything was set. tons of people were going to come and we were stoked! like i mean alot! and so everything is going good. we talked to an awesome member named sister aquilar. she offered to teach the lesson and plan everything else. so we call her monday you know just to check see if she needs help with planning or teaching or anything we called her up and asked her and she was "like wait what do you mean.. wait i am teaching oh no no no no no i am not teaching i cant teach i didnt have any time." so me and my companion looked at each other and were like oh gosh you got to be got to be kidding. so she was like "no its you no its you its you." oh man so we hung up after yelling at her. nah just oh hermana come on.. so we had no idea what we were going to do/ teach and so we started thinking and came up with a decent lesson and then an activity. and it turned out way good. everyone showed up.. all our investigators and we taught about the book of mormon and then played a game called cat and mouse with ties. it was fun.

ramen, rice, spam and tuna. yummy!

Hey Everyone!

Well another month gone! Our whole apartment was stoked that it was a new month because we got paid, haha. We were all broke! But that's alright, I just ate all the snacks that you guys sent up. So here's my time to give my thanks because those snacks saved me. haha. So thanks for being so nice and helping me survive. It is definitely appreciated.

So this month, to try to save money, we went to WalMart and me and my bright ideas, I decided to get 30 ramen, hahaha, one for each day. I also got a huge bag of rice and then tuna and then some spam. So that's what my meals are like. Maybe I shoulda kept that one to myself, but I figured at least you Dad would get a kick out of that. Mom, don't worry, I work out every morning. So I hope that helps. haha.

Oh, ok, my companion is being a loser telling me that we have to go. Nah, it's all good. He said that we will come back later. Alright, so I will try to email later today. Well it was good talking to you a little!

Love yah!

Elder Sean "Santa Marina" Thomas

Hey - What's up everyone?!

Hope you guys are doing good and having some fun!

This week has been pretty slow, not a lot of things happened for us. It was pretty tough. We keep trying to visit all these people, but is has been hard because a lot of people are busy and so we have had days where everything fell through and then we are just like standing there wondering what to do. Oh, but it was way good because yesterday we had a meeting with President Donaldson and so he taught us a lot of stuff that I forgot already. Haha, good thing I wrote it down somewhere. But it was sweet because he talked a lot about the mormon.org website, because it is suppose to be way sweet. We are suppose to encourage the members to go and visit it and everything and then they picked a profile to show us. The profile was of Joy Monahan, and so we watched the video. I had already seen it before but this time with sound, so it was better, haha. This time I wasn't just watching the waves and the surfing part, haha. So we watched that and then President Donaldson told us that he wanted us to call ourselves Mormon missionaries, and so we were like, alright, you have the revelation to tell us what we should do. So after that we go and contact some people, and so the first person we see, we say, "Oh hey - what's up! We are Mormon missionaries." That was a rough sketch but right after we said that, he was like, "no, I am good, I am Catholic and yeah...bye." and then he just left. I was like, alright, have a good day and we kept trying and the same thing kept happening. Haha, it was pretty funny. But, ahhh, what can you do? So I think that we will just keep trying and get some more laughs in haha...jeez.

So earlier this week we had a dinner with a member at McDonalds, haha. We were just eating and talking and then somehow it turned into them giving all of us nicknames. It was pretty funny and so they called me Santamarina. At first I thought they called me Santa Maria, as in Mother Mary, that's the translation. So I was like, wait...what? That doesn't make any sense. But they said it again and they said it is an actor whose name is Eduardo Santa Marina or something like that and he acts in Spanish Novelas. Like the ones in Korean we used to watch (you remember that Mom? haha). They showed me a picture and I thought, that's weird, because I guess it kinda does look like me. I don't know, you should check it out (see picture at upper left). I thought it was way funny.

So there is one kinda funny story. Oh, but we learned something cool yesterday in John 21:15-17. When Jesus asks if Peter loves him three times. President Donaldson said that there are three different words for the word "love" in Hebrew that means some kind of love. The first is unselfish and consecrated love...

(email from Elder Sean "Santa Marina" Thomas unceremoniously and unexpectedly ended)

From Barrio to Bountiful

What's up!?

How's everyone doing?

So yup, now I am in Linda Vista, San Diego. It's up north from Barrio Logan and is pretty close to the Temple in La Jolla. It's also close to a place called Pacific Beach. It's really nice over there. Super nice area. It's a lot different from the Barrio. Jeez, there aren't any dark alleys or sketchy places, I felt weird at first but it's good. So yeah, well the thing about Linda Vista though is that there isn't a lot to do or that's what people say because they don't teach a lot and they haven't had any baptisms for awhile. Not saying that's all that matters, but yeah that's just how it is.

So the first couple of days we really didn't do anything or at least that's how it felt. So it was way boring, so shoot! But that all changed yesterday. So yesterday we planned for tracting for 2 hours! I was thinking - oh man, this is going to be a long day. But I tried to be positive and to make the most out of it. So we started knocking on doors and then the next thing we know, after like an hour we found 9 people with dates to come back and talk more. It was awesome! We talked to so many people it felt way good!

Later that night, we went to go visit a brother, his name is Eliseo, he is a nice guy. Eliseo isn't a member but his wife is a member and she was baptized in 2003, one year after us, so he has been exposed to the Church for 7 years. He still feels like he hasn't received an answer if these things are true and if whether getting baptized is what he needs to do. So I shared an experience with him that I had about reading the Book of Mormon. Because I felt the same way he did and I had doubts about things because I didn't understand it. I don't know if I ever talked about it before, probably not. But I remember just really wanting to know and so I grabbed my Book of Mormon and started reading and I couldn't stop. I remember reading every single second that I had and I read it and read it and it felt so good. After I finished I did the promise in Moroni and it just came to me then and I knew that it was true and I also felt it in my heart. So I just shared that with Eliseo and encouraged him to read Moroni in the Book of Mormon. So maybe that will help him find what he is looking for.

Oh, but let's see...funny story before I head out. Shoot not enough time left, but uhmmmm, ok I can't think of anything. I will tell you next week. How's that huh?! Okay, well, hope everthing is going well over there and that you guys are having a good time and everything. Miss you guys!

Love yah!! Elder Thomas

So are you sure you got the right guy?!?

Hey!

Okay, yeah I am sorry that I didn't get to write last week, but that's because Mom was at her computer, so I was able to exchange emails back and forth to kind of "talk" to her. I like it a lot better because then I am actually writing to someone and then they respond, haha. Especially because sometimes I don't know what to write. There tons of stuff hapenning but I always forget when it comes to write. I seriously don't even know what happened on Saturday, it's all just a huge blur.

So transfers are upon us again and I am getting out of the ghetto man!!! It's pretty funny though because, well...we had a meeting with President Donaldson this past week, just me and my companion. My companion, Elder Olberg, was feeling really down and out and he just has a hard time because he doesn't talk a lot and gets down on himself for that. What ends up happening pretty much throughout the whole day, is me just trying to cheer him up and help him feel better about himself and how he is doing. It is really hard and so I felt that it would be better if President Donaldson could talk to him and help him. We made an appointment to see President Donaldson and he was able to talk to Elder Olberg. Afterwards, President Donaldson wanted to talk to me alone and then he told me that I was getting transferred! I was kinda mad, ah man, I was actually pretty disappointed and angry, because everything is starting to come together in our Ward and was looking really good, the members are helping out a ton with the work after a lot of effort to motivate them and we had so many other ideas that we were planning to try out. Our investigators were progressing and we also found a lot of new investigators.

So, needless to say I wasn't happy and was actually kind of frustrated. I just sat there and asked President Donaldson why? haha. President Donaldson just laughed at me. He knew I was mad, and then on top of that he told me that there is a possibility that I am going to be a district leader...?!? Oh man, that's when I started freaking out. I came back to our home and I had to calm myself down by just thinking about surfing to relax me, haha. So I was kinda just in a daze. I don't even know, I was thinkin like shoots man, I have a hard time just trying to be a good missionary and now I gotta be an example for others? Me? Ahhh, but after awhile it became alright. I resigned meyself to put it in the Lord's hands and I know that He can and will help me. I figured that I just got to be myself and try my hardest, and so we will see what happens.

I believe that I am going to be transferred to Chula Vista. Apparently, the work is really slow there and there aren't a lot of members, nor are there a lot of Spanish speakers. So we shall see what happens over there. But hey, it's right next to the beach! haha...um nah, but we will live right across the street from the mission office, so that will be sweet. I can receive my letters on Tuesday morning for the first time on my mission. Here in the ghetto it's bad. They don't bring our letter until Wednesday sometimes. But actually for me it doesn't really bother me.

Oh shoot! Well, we have to get going already. We have two sweet appointments planned for tonight so I hope it all goes well. Last time here so we have to make it count.

I miss you all and I love you. Thanks for everything that you do. Thanks for the packages and the sweet hook ups and the letters and everything! Hope everyone has a good week!

Love, Elder Thomas