Challenges, Driving and "My Apache"

My second transfer is almost over. The time has gone by so quickly. This week was a hard one though. We had five appointments with investigators cancel on us and three members cancel dinner on us all within three days. One of our investigators won't talk to us, she told members that she is ignoring our calls on purpose. So all this has made the week pretty discouraging. But Yesterday we had a very good day. We spent two hours in primary and Elder Gnehm and I played ''Nephi's Courage'' for the children, I was on the guitar and singing and Elder Gnehm was on the morroca ( I have no idea how you spell that) They all sang along it was pretty cool. We also taught one of our investigators (the only one who would meet with us this week) and she has been keeping all her commitments and reading from the Book of Mormon. She always has some interesting questions for us each meeting, so we do our best to answer them. Elder Gnehm bore his testimony in Sacrament meeting yesterday and said how General Conference is like the Super Bowl for us missionaries, it is so true. I really can't wait for General Conference. You better watch all of it!

Elder Gnehm and I went on exchanges this last week and I got permission from president to drive, It was pretty weird because I haven't driven in such a long time. I was with a missionary named Elder Henson and we were doing service when I got a call that one of the members of the ward was being rushed to the hospital and they needed us to go give her a blessing. So we drove down there and gave the member a blessing it was a really great experience. The member is 82 years old, we try to visit her once a week and she loves it when we do. When we arrived at the hospital she said that ''I was her Apache.'' She told that to a lot of people at the hospital it was pretty funny.

We're hoping this week turns around for us. It's spring break here so a lot of members are out of town. I think some of our investigators are leaving as well. So we will probably end up doing a lot of service this next week. It was really hard to not be really discouraged this week but I was reminded again and again the words ''Fear not I am with thee, O be not dismayed, for I am thy God, and will still give thee aid, I'll strengthen thee help thee and cause thee to stand, upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.'' This hymn always seems to play in my mind whenever things get hard.

-Elder Pedro

-Img_1045 - Sorry this is the only picture I have, blame my companion that it is so blurry! but this is us playing ''poision'' at the Hathaways

New Investigat​ors, John 3:16 and Cornhole

Hola!

I don't know what's going on here but we are still having a lot of success. We decided this week that we would again focus on finding people to teach, and we found 2 new investigators. One of them is named Kyle and we have already taught him 2 lessons he is doing great. He is truly prepared to hear the gospel. He is the next door neighbor of some members of our ward and they invited him to dinner and we ended up teaching him the restoration after. He is really good friends with their son Shane who is preparing to go on a mission, and he has noticed the change the gospel and our church has had on Shane. It shows how powerful example can be in how others perceive us. The other investigator we had was named Greg, I told you about him like a month ago, he was the one who I noticed his name on a piece of paper so we went and visited him. We finally got back there and the first thing he asked was about the Book of Mormon, he said that he has always been interested. We taught him about it and invited him to read more. Yesterday at church we had a family from Minnesota come and they brought their 80 year old grandma with them to church who lives in Erie. She has been reading the book of Mormon and had lots of questions so we're hoping we can start teaching her soon.

We are still teaching Joanne. We don't know what direction to take with her. She is reading the Book of Mormon every day, coming to church and praying. But she is still struggling with some word of wisdom issues, and they still aren't married. We taught one of our investigators Sister Cartright yesterday it went really well. I think she is noticing her Husband as he gets more involved with church and how he is changing and it’s having a big impact on her. Again another example of the Power of example. He is getting his own endowment in a few weeks and I think we are going to go with him!

The weather last week was so nice; it was in the mid-70s. We did a lot of service too. We have been helping the lady that lives across the street with her backyard (which is huge). We spent a combined total of 10 hours working in her yard. We were raking leaves and picking up branches and twigs. It has been pretty fun. Yesterday the weather got crazy! The wind was blowing at 50 mph and there was dust all over. They said it’s going to rain this week! But it will warm back up. I can't remember if I told you but Colorado has a lot of graffiti going on, so 3:16 is everywhere it’s pretty funny I’ll send you a picture of me by one of them.

-Elder Pedro

IMG_1030 - We found a frog outside our door so we had to take pictures with him
Img_1036 Just hanging with my pal Thomas S.
Img_1038 John 3:16!
Dscn0099 - Playing Cornhole with Elder GNehm if you look closely you can see me rocking the skinny tie.
Dscn0131 - They asked me to sing a song in primary next week so this is a rare picture of my practice session.

Finding, Tracting and Tile!

Hey!

This last week we focused on finding, and made sure we tracted at least an hour a day. It was pretty hard because no one would listen to us this week, they would open their doors and close it once they saw who we were. We did tract into an older man who we had a nice talk with and he said he was thinking of changing churches and he invited us to come back when his wife was home. So a couple of days later Elder Gnehm and I went and visited him, he let us in, Once his wife saw us she got really mad and told us to leave immediately she said her husband has Alzheimer's and he didn't want to listen to us, It was pretty discouraging. We did have a success with tracting this week though, her name is gabby and we taught her the first lesson in her front yard, she was really receptive and wants to start coming to church. We have found an investigator every week but one since I've been out, Elder Gnehm said he hasn't been this successful and finding his whole mission.

Joanne is still doing good we had a great lesson on faith. On Saturday we went up to Longmont and got to do service for her Mother. I think it changed her Mom's perspective on Mormon's. We spent four hours chipping out her old Tile. It was pretty hard work, my hands our full of blisters now but it was worth it. Thanks to Bill I was pretty pro with a hammer and chisel. Her mom wants us to come back to help in a couple of weeks, its good that her mom is starting to like us.

This last Friday we had another trainers meeting, so I got to see all the missionaries that came out with me. We all shared experiences and what we've learned our first two months out. It was so nice to hear what they have been up to. President Toombs gave a really good training on the power of prayer. Its always good to hear from him.

The weather has been so nice this last week, its supposed to be 70 degrees today. We even pulled out our short sleeves for today. The last two nights we have had BBQ with members. One of the house's we ate at they had family from Monument, Colorado eating with us, and they knew some friends I have from there that go to BYU it was pretty cool. I'm really getting excited for spring, but I hear that they usually get a big snow storm in march/April. Well I hope everything is alright at home. We listened to Dad's CD the other day and decided it's great spirit-inviting music.

-Elder Pedro

-Img_1015 - ha Elder Gnehm told me to post with a sledgehammer
-IMg_1017 - My MTC District at the trainers meeting.
-Ds\cn0045- Working with Joannes Mom.

Zarahemla Cafe and Badfish

Hey

So this last week has been pretty interesting. I got really sick last week, for two days and I did nothing but sleep. I feel bad for my companion Elder Gnehm because he was bored for two days straight and couldn't do anything. I think he watched all the Work and the Glory videos and just about every LDS video he could find. Last Tuesday we got new missionaries in our mission so my group aren't the newbies anymore. I was able to attend part of the ''new missionary'' meeting and I got to see their nervous and anxious faces. I went out to eat with a few of them, seems like there are a lot from the East coast.

I just realized that I forgot to tell you about an interesting guy we met last week. He's and older guy and let's just say he has the same name as a character from 007, and his first name is James. He is a less active member who we decided to randomly visit last week. It was hard finding where he lived because he lives in a trailer park and we had to go walking through the mud to find his trailer which was tucked away in the back.We knocked on his door and he told us to come in, the first words he said to us were ''I bet you haven't talked to a cross dresser on your mission yet.'' And Sure enough he was wearing some very interesting clothes. We sat down in his kitchen and started talking with him a bit, I looked into his living room and I saw all these guitars, microphones and amps and asked If I could play. It was so cool, he had a Les Paul and a Fender Telecaster. So I jammed for a bit, and then he told me he was going to record me, so he set it all up and recorded me playing ''Badfish'' by Sublime. and then I added some more guitars onto the mix, it sounded pretty cool and he blasted it through his speakers. He told us to come back in a week and he'd have it all mixed and mastered. So we went back a couple of days ago, and he had the song all done and he burned me a copy of it. He was under the Influence so he was telling us some crazy moments from his life. And he told me the funniest thing I think I've heard out in the mission field, we had just finished listening to my version of ''Badfish'' and he looked over at me and said ''you know, I caught a Badfish once'' and he went on for 10 minutes about some crazy fish that he had caught it was so funny.

We are still teaching Joanne, I wasn't able to attend the lesson because I was sick, so Elder Gnehm took Elder Osbourne one of the Zone leaders, while Elder Stanger stayed and watched over me. It went really well though, they talked about some of the commandments and also the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a couple of appointments set up for this next week, we are hoping that we can get a date set for her baptism this week. We also picked up a new investigator named Kelly, her husband is a member and they just moved into the ward about six weeks ago. We taught about the restoration yesterday and she was so receptive towards it. And is going to read the Book of Mormon, she has been to church a lot, but never has received the discussions. We take brother Hathaway to almost all our lessons with investigators he is an amazing Member missionary and is great at fellowshipping them and inviting them over to dinner with his family. So we stay in contact with him almost every day! And we eat with his family once a week they are so funny. We met an RLDS person yesterday too, he was sick but wants us to come back next week.

Last night we ate with members and it was so cool. We came in and they sat us down at their dinner table and they brought us out menus that said ''Zarahemla Cafe'' it had all these options and they were all terms from the Book of Mormon, We had no idea what they were. She told us that there was going to be four courses and we had to choose at random what we wanted for each course. Then she would bring out every one's first course. For my first course I got Ammon Arms (french fries with ketchup), Eve's Temptation (Apple Pie), Tool of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's (a spoon) and a Cimeter (a knife). One of her son's got only utensils his first course. Then we would have to wait ten minutes for our next course, I was really glad that I got my utensils right at the beginning. It was pretty fun though! The same family took us out to a 50s diner it was so good.

Today is our P-day and I am pretty excited. The APs invited us to come to their Members house, I guess they have a recording studio and have every instrument you can think of. I think I most excited to play a Bass guitar again. We are also eating with the Stake President tonight he is a great man. Well this next week is going to be a busy one for us we have quite a few appointments lined up. I hope all stays well with you guys! love ya.

Sincerely,
Elder Pedro

Img 1011 - Just me!
Img_1009 - Just me! playing guitar
Img_1002 - Just me! at the Zarahemla Cafe