Hey Sorry that you didnt get my email last week. For some reason my e-mail wasmessed up and hasn't been sending my e-mails that i wrote. I'm prettyfrustrated about it to cuz i wrote some pretty long e-mails! Hopefully your ableto recieve this one. Thank you for checking my Checking account for me. I loveyou guys and i love reading your emails and letters. next week i'll makesure that i send a better e-mail but for now i'm out of time because i spentall my time on the email i sent earlier that didnt send. Well thats the way lifeis sometimes i guess. Remeber I love you!
Elder Lopez
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Weathering out the storm (email dated 10/14/2008)
Well it's been a full week out here the field and i'm starting to get how things are done around here in the Mission field. This is definatley good training for Life. I mean i have to go shope for myself and even cook, like with a stove not just a microwave... I'm even searching for a house to live in so we can start this new Area up that we've been assigned. Actually techanicaly right now we dont even have our own Area, becasue they still have'nt decided where exactly they want to put the line to seperate our area from the others. So this passed week consisted of a lot of walking and biking around in different areas trying to get a feel for Ponce.
It's been raining a fair amount here and every time it does i just think its probably snowing back home. I dont think that i'm going to see very much snow for the next 2 years of my life. While we were out toking (going house to house) this week we got cought in pretty bad rain storm unprepared. It pretty much looking like we went swimming with our clothes on. Yeah, and to make things just a little worse i was wearing my only silk tie i have out here and it took a really bad beating. Silk and rain dont mix well together. But you know what its all just part of the missionary life. I guess you could say it buildes character. Its all good though the work goes on. We had our P-day changed to tuesday this week because it was Columbus day yesterday and when there is a holiday we work because people are at home with their family's. It turned out to be a really good time to work though. We had our best success yet yesterday. We got 4 return visits and i'm excited to finaly get out and teach some lessons. One lady that we got a return visit with really needs our message and i dont think it was by accident that we talked with her. We talked with her for a little bit and bore testimony of the gospel and that we know that there is a plan for us to return to live with our Father again in Heaven and we are all childeren of our Heavenly Father. As we were talking she told us that her brother was killed not to long ago and the funeral was going to be on Wednesday. So we scheduled a return visit with here on thursday! Yeah it seems to good to be true right! I pray that we're able to teach her this week with the spirit, and that the spirit will touch her Heart so that she'll want to hear more.
In church this week they introduced my companion and I to the ward and had us stand up and be recognized. The ward is really full of nice people that i would love to talk with more often but right now my conversation skills in spanish are still limited...But i try. We had a nice dinner with some members on sunday and had potatos. The potatos reminded me of sunday dinners back home. Oh how i miss those dinners. I'm still trying to get used to cooking for myself. I'm not exactly sure on all the things i like to make yet, so right now i'm still experimenting on what to buy from the store to eat. Hopefully over the next two years i learn to be a good cook. (so if anyone back home has some nice easy recipes that they'd want to send me I'd be very gratefull!) Oh yeah and Mom you'd be proud to hear that i've been buying soy milk here because the regulare milk taste even worse than the soy... I'm actualy learning to like it. Oh yeah i'd ate some shrimp at a members house and it wasn't to bad. You learn to like everything on the mission i guess.
Thank you all so much for you support and love; All of you back home help to keep me going. I cant thank you enough and remeber your always in my prayers and i love you all!
Your's Truely,
Elder Lopez
It's been raining a fair amount here and every time it does i just think its probably snowing back home. I dont think that i'm going to see very much snow for the next 2 years of my life. While we were out toking (going house to house) this week we got cought in pretty bad rain storm unprepared. It pretty much looking like we went swimming with our clothes on. Yeah, and to make things just a little worse i was wearing my only silk tie i have out here and it took a really bad beating. Silk and rain dont mix well together. But you know what its all just part of the missionary life. I guess you could say it buildes character. Its all good though the work goes on. We had our P-day changed to tuesday this week because it was Columbus day yesterday and when there is a holiday we work because people are at home with their family's. It turned out to be a really good time to work though. We had our best success yet yesterday. We got 4 return visits and i'm excited to finaly get out and teach some lessons. One lady that we got a return visit with really needs our message and i dont think it was by accident that we talked with her. We talked with her for a little bit and bore testimony of the gospel and that we know that there is a plan for us to return to live with our Father again in Heaven and we are all childeren of our Heavenly Father. As we were talking she told us that her brother was killed not to long ago and the funeral was going to be on Wednesday. So we scheduled a return visit with here on thursday! Yeah it seems to good to be true right! I pray that we're able to teach her this week with the spirit, and that the spirit will touch her Heart so that she'll want to hear more.
In church this week they introduced my companion and I to the ward and had us stand up and be recognized. The ward is really full of nice people that i would love to talk with more often but right now my conversation skills in spanish are still limited...But i try. We had a nice dinner with some members on sunday and had potatos. The potatos reminded me of sunday dinners back home. Oh how i miss those dinners. I'm still trying to get used to cooking for myself. I'm not exactly sure on all the things i like to make yet, so right now i'm still experimenting on what to buy from the store to eat. Hopefully over the next two years i learn to be a good cook. (so if anyone back home has some nice easy recipes that they'd want to send me I'd be very gratefull!) Oh yeah and Mom you'd be proud to hear that i've been buying soy milk here because the regulare milk taste even worse than the soy... I'm actualy learning to like it. Oh yeah i'd ate some shrimp at a members house and it wasn't to bad. You learn to like everything on the mission i guess.
Thank you all so much for you support and love; All of you back home help to keep me going. I cant thank you enough and remeber your always in my prayers and i love you all!
Your's Truely,
Elder Lopez
Monday, October 6, 2008
The Real Mission
Well it's a new life here in the real mission field. The flight over here to to Puerto Rico was nice and i was releved when i finally met my mission President. He's a great guy and his wife is Awesome. The mission President and i have the same time left on our missions so we're preping the this mission to hand over to the next mission Pres.
My date to come home is Aug. 5th 2010. Yup you can start the count down....Actually it would probably be best if you didnt. Anyway my first day in Puerto Rico i stayed at the Mission Presidents house and had a real nice dinner over there. Their house was really nice and i could see myself living in one like it here Puerto Rico when i grow old. Its so beautiful here! The only down side is that its way humid here and you sweat no matter where you are. Anyway my one day at the Presidents house had to come to an end and then i got thrown around like a little child i felt like. We drove to one of the Chapels and all the Missionaries were there, except for the ones down in the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonier, and Curaco). I met my new companion there. His name is Elder Haskell from west Jordan Utah. He knows his spanish pretty good and he's a fun companion to be with at least so far. We'll see how it goes as time goes on. Once i got my new companion we got a new area too. When i say new I mean brand new. Elder Haskell and i have the job of opening a brand new area called "Ponce 5". There spliting one of the Areas here up so we get to go find a new house and start a new Area from nothing. Right now we're living with 2 othere Elders, Elder Martinez from the DR and Elder Powell from Oregon. Its a pretty big job for a brand new greeny to get to try and help his companion open a brand new area from scratch, but i think i'm up for it.
My 1st time "toking" was a good experience though. Toking is what they call tracking here in Puerto Rico. people usually have gates around their homes and i guess its rude to walk in so we stand out side and have to yell to get them to come out. Yeah i thought it was a little wierd too. Its not to bad though. As we were going we talked to this one man that was Catholic and he was interested in hearing our message but wouldnt really except anything we said. I know he could feel the spirit touch him because he was standing there moving around a lot and i just seemed like he was trying to find out what it was he was feeling. We started to talk about the trinity and my Companion shared some scriptures from the Bible and explained how God, Christ, and the HG are three different personages. We pretty much gave him the 1st lesson and i was able to recite the 1st vision to him. That was a great experience and felt so good. We eventualy had to leave and asked him to pray about the things we had talked about. I sure hope he does.
Saturday was a really special day because it was conference! How lucky am i to get out here in the field on conference weekend. Anyway we all went to the Chapel to watch Conference and unfortunitly the power to the Chapel wasn't working and we missed almost the entire first session. They finaly got it to work right before the last talk by Elder Utchdorf on Hope. I was sure glad i got to watch that talk because i felt like that talk was specificly for me. Learning a language isnt the easiest thing to do and i learned that i must have a hope in order to learn Spanish...After conference we had a BBQ with all the missionaries that are in our zone at our Apartment inbetween the conference sessions. It was good to get to know all the Missionaries. One of the Elders out here is playing Baseball at BYU when he gets back home. His name is Elder Wells. Small world huh? We talked for a while about baseball and just everything. He's a really cool guy and has been out here for a year about. He's an outfielder. After the afternoon session was over Elder Martinez had a Baptism for a boy named Ricardo. He's 14 and likes to play baseball. He's good kid and i was actually able to be the witness for his Baptizm! I felt way honord to be able to be one of his witness. Missionary work is great!The natives here speak really fast and are hard to understand but give me a couple of years and i'll get it. Well thats all thats coming to my mind that happend here in my first week on my mission thats worthy of telling. For the most part i felt out of place and didnt know a thing i was doing, but i'm still alive. And what doesnt kill you only makes you stronger right? So i guess you can just say that i'm a little more stronger now.
So whats going on Back home?
My address here is:
Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission
Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamón, PR 009559
All the letters are just sent to that address and then they bring them to us, so that will be my address for the rest of my mission. I'd love to read Your É-mails to so thank you all and God Bless!
Elder Lopez
My date to come home is Aug. 5th 2010. Yup you can start the count down....Actually it would probably be best if you didnt. Anyway my first day in Puerto Rico i stayed at the Mission Presidents house and had a real nice dinner over there. Their house was really nice and i could see myself living in one like it here Puerto Rico when i grow old. Its so beautiful here! The only down side is that its way humid here and you sweat no matter where you are. Anyway my one day at the Presidents house had to come to an end and then i got thrown around like a little child i felt like. We drove to one of the Chapels and all the Missionaries were there, except for the ones down in the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonier, and Curaco). I met my new companion there. His name is Elder Haskell from west Jordan Utah. He knows his spanish pretty good and he's a fun companion to be with at least so far. We'll see how it goes as time goes on. Once i got my new companion we got a new area too. When i say new I mean brand new. Elder Haskell and i have the job of opening a brand new area called "Ponce 5". There spliting one of the Areas here up so we get to go find a new house and start a new Area from nothing. Right now we're living with 2 othere Elders, Elder Martinez from the DR and Elder Powell from Oregon. Its a pretty big job for a brand new greeny to get to try and help his companion open a brand new area from scratch, but i think i'm up for it.
My 1st time "toking" was a good experience though. Toking is what they call tracking here in Puerto Rico. people usually have gates around their homes and i guess its rude to walk in so we stand out side and have to yell to get them to come out. Yeah i thought it was a little wierd too. Its not to bad though. As we were going we talked to this one man that was Catholic and he was interested in hearing our message but wouldnt really except anything we said. I know he could feel the spirit touch him because he was standing there moving around a lot and i just seemed like he was trying to find out what it was he was feeling. We started to talk about the trinity and my Companion shared some scriptures from the Bible and explained how God, Christ, and the HG are three different personages. We pretty much gave him the 1st lesson and i was able to recite the 1st vision to him. That was a great experience and felt so good. We eventualy had to leave and asked him to pray about the things we had talked about. I sure hope he does.
Saturday was a really special day because it was conference! How lucky am i to get out here in the field on conference weekend. Anyway we all went to the Chapel to watch Conference and unfortunitly the power to the Chapel wasn't working and we missed almost the entire first session. They finaly got it to work right before the last talk by Elder Utchdorf on Hope. I was sure glad i got to watch that talk because i felt like that talk was specificly for me. Learning a language isnt the easiest thing to do and i learned that i must have a hope in order to learn Spanish...After conference we had a BBQ with all the missionaries that are in our zone at our Apartment inbetween the conference sessions. It was good to get to know all the Missionaries. One of the Elders out here is playing Baseball at BYU when he gets back home. His name is Elder Wells. Small world huh? We talked for a while about baseball and just everything. He's a really cool guy and has been out here for a year about. He's an outfielder. After the afternoon session was over Elder Martinez had a Baptism for a boy named Ricardo. He's 14 and likes to play baseball. He's good kid and i was actually able to be the witness for his Baptizm! I felt way honord to be able to be one of his witness. Missionary work is great!The natives here speak really fast and are hard to understand but give me a couple of years and i'll get it. Well thats all thats coming to my mind that happend here in my first week on my mission thats worthy of telling. For the most part i felt out of place and didnt know a thing i was doing, but i'm still alive. And what doesnt kill you only makes you stronger right? So i guess you can just say that i'm a little more stronger now.
So whats going on Back home?
My address here is:
Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission
Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamón, PR 009559
All the letters are just sent to that address and then they bring them to us, so that will be my address for the rest of my mission. I'd love to read Your É-mails to so thank you all and God Bless!
Elder Lopez
Friday, October 3, 2008
Puerto Rico Missionaries
Bienvenidos a Puerto Rico,
Gracias por sus misioneros. Ellos son misioneros buenos. Esta es lamision mejor. Todos son animados y felices.
Thank you for your missionaries. They are good missionaries. This isthe best mission. They are all excited and happy.
Con amor,
Hna. Martineau
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