Hey, Thanks for the update on the life over in good old Utah! Well I'm not going to lie it made my year to be able to talk with all of you on Christmas! It made me think a lot of how blessed i am to have such a strong family in the church. You all strength me so much out here!
Well as for this past week of work we came acrossed a couple of new investigators but for the most part it was actualy pretty slow. some times weeks like this happen though. I hope it was just because of all the holidays and crazyness of people partying it up that got in the way. We did how ever come across one family that was pretty interesting to talk with and teach. THe Father named Juan was from New York and was actualy baptized into the church when he was over there but he really didnt understand much i dont think when he was baptized because now he's going to a Penticostl church. We asked him what was up and why he left the church and he said he was sick of hearing about joseph smith and only about him. He said that when he would go to church all they would talk about was Joseph Smith and nothing about Christ... Ha i sort of found that hard to believe, but anyway he was kind enough to listen to us and let us clarify everything. I'm pretty sure we laid to rest his worries about worshiping Joseph Smith and made it clear that the head of the Church is Jesus Christ and only Him because he is our savior. We taught him the Joseph Smith was merly an instument in the hands of the lord that brought about the restoration of the fulness of the Gospel of Christ. It was a good lesson i felt and he has 6 kids and a wife that all listened so i'm excited to see what we can do with this family. This next transfer we have some potential and now its just time to work and make all this potential come to life. I'm looking forward to the work and i appriciate all of your prayers because they really do help.
Well i cant believe this year is coming to an end. It seems like yesterday i was getting ready for early morning work outs over in the small gym of Timpanogos. Its been a years time since then and now i'm here in Puerto Rico searching for ways to help bless the lives of all that i can in a way that will last for eternity. How time can change in a year! Well i hope you all have a great New Year and make sure to set some goals! My goals are what seem to keep me going every day!
Well i love all of you, and wish the family happy New Year for me!!
Much Love,
Elder Lopez
Monday, December 29, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Feliz Navidad
Mom and Dad,
Well i'm glad to hear that he Holidays back home went great and everyone
one was able to be there at the home. As for my Christmas call goes i'm not
sure exactly what time it will be on Christmas but i heard that we'll get to
tell you on christmas eve by email or a short call or something. Well have to
wait and see. I'm going to try and use that phone card that you gave me to
use because i'm pretty sure that there are still a lot of minutes on it to use up. But if not i'll give you a call and a number you can call me back on.
Anyway this past week went great. We had out baptisim of Erick on saturday and his confirmation yesterday! It was a perfect Christmas present to see a
baptisim. We had "Nene"(Emanuel) a member whose preparing for his
mission right now perform the baptisim and the confirmation and it was a great experience for him as he's preparing to leave for his mission. Elder
Hernandez and i were the wittnesses and he actually had to do it twice but the
second time was definately good! It was a great experience and we even sang
special number to "oh Mi Padre" to the tune of "come thy fount" and it was great! The spirit was definatley there and it was a great experience. After the baptisim we had our Christmas party and ate pig and rice and some other good stuff that i didnt know the name of. Whatever it was it sure was good though! This holiday season we seem to get feed where ever we go. During the baptisim we watched a movie about the restoration that was a great because we had some non-members that were Ericks friends come to! The whole day just went great! The next day in church i got to help in his confirmation and the spirit touched me during the blessing and right then i new that Erick was recieveing the gift of the Holy Ghost and is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints! What day it was! That night Elder Hernandez and i were just like to little kids!
But right now i'm getting kicked off the computer so i got to go! i'll talk with you christmas! I love your all!
Well i'm glad to hear that he Holidays back home went great and everyone
one was able to be there at the home. As for my Christmas call goes i'm not
sure exactly what time it will be on Christmas but i heard that we'll get to
tell you on christmas eve by email or a short call or something. Well have to
wait and see. I'm going to try and use that phone card that you gave me to
use because i'm pretty sure that there are still a lot of minutes on it to use up. But if not i'll give you a call and a number you can call me back on.
Anyway this past week went great. We had out baptisim of Erick on saturday and his confirmation yesterday! It was a perfect Christmas present to see a
baptisim. We had "Nene"(Emanuel) a member whose preparing for his
mission right now perform the baptisim and the confirmation and it was a great experience for him as he's preparing to leave for his mission. Elder
Hernandez and i were the wittnesses and he actually had to do it twice but the
second time was definately good! It was a great experience and we even sang
special number to "oh Mi Padre" to the tune of "come thy fount" and it was great! The spirit was definatley there and it was a great experience. After the baptisim we had our Christmas party and ate pig and rice and some other good stuff that i didnt know the name of. Whatever it was it sure was good though! This holiday season we seem to get feed where ever we go. During the baptisim we watched a movie about the restoration that was a great because we had some non-members that were Ericks friends come to! The whole day just went great! The next day in church i got to help in his confirmation and the spirit touched me during the blessing and right then i new that Erick was recieveing the gift of the Holy Ghost and is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints! What day it was! That night Elder Hernandez and i were just like to little kids!
But right now i'm getting kicked off the computer so i got to go! i'll talk with you christmas! I love your all!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Christmas time (email dated 12/15/2008)
Hey, I'm glade to hear all is going well back home and every one is having a good Christmas season! Where are you going for Christmas day? It sounded like everyone is leaving?
But anyway as for things here in the land of Puerto Rico all is well! THis past week we had our interviews with President Martineau because the transfer is starting to come to an end. We only have a week and a half until transfers! Actually transfers will be on Christmas Eve and were all going to the Mission home to have Christmas eve there which should be really fun. I gave a talk in Church yesterday which was pretty neat! i was a little hesitent at first because
I still dont feel all that confident with the spanish but i got threw it pretty good i thought! I took about 10 min. and once i was done and sat down i thought to myself, "Wow, that was all in spanish"...it wasn't the best spanish but it was spanish non the less. Yesterday we gave the 2nd lesson to Luis and his son Jon and it went really well! This family is really awesome and i hope they keep on progressing like they have been. Jon asked during the lesson, "so where do we go after death?" and it just lead perfectly right into our lesson! All this family is missing right now i think is a strong spiritual experience. Hopefully we can get them to come to our baptizim this week for Eric! Yup thats right we have our first baptisim coming up this next saturday and Eric is looking like he's going to be good to go! We have a Cita with him tonight and we're going to
get him ready for the baptisimal interview and everything! I'm really looking forward to saturday!
This past thursday we had a Christmas devotional that we went to in Arecibo. It
was really nice and really got me into the Christmas mood! Wow its already
Christmas time, i cant believe it! Thank you so much for all of you're support back home! It's great to read your letters and they keep me going, so thanks!
I love you all!
Oh yeah and I'll talk with you in 10 days...
Love always,
Elder Lopez
But anyway as for things here in the land of Puerto Rico all is well! THis past week we had our interviews with President Martineau because the transfer is starting to come to an end. We only have a week and a half until transfers! Actually transfers will be on Christmas Eve and were all going to the Mission home to have Christmas eve there which should be really fun. I gave a talk in Church yesterday which was pretty neat! i was a little hesitent at first because
I still dont feel all that confident with the spanish but i got threw it pretty good i thought! I took about 10 min. and once i was done and sat down i thought to myself, "Wow, that was all in spanish"...it wasn't the best spanish but it was spanish non the less. Yesterday we gave the 2nd lesson to Luis and his son Jon and it went really well! This family is really awesome and i hope they keep on progressing like they have been. Jon asked during the lesson, "so where do we go after death?" and it just lead perfectly right into our lesson! All this family is missing right now i think is a strong spiritual experience. Hopefully we can get them to come to our baptizim this week for Eric! Yup thats right we have our first baptisim coming up this next saturday and Eric is looking like he's going to be good to go! We have a Cita with him tonight and we're going to
get him ready for the baptisimal interview and everything! I'm really looking forward to saturday!
This past thursday we had a Christmas devotional that we went to in Arecibo. It
was really nice and really got me into the Christmas mood! Wow its already
Christmas time, i cant believe it! Thank you so much for all of you're support back home! It's great to read your letters and they keep me going, so thanks!
I love you all!
Oh yeah and I'll talk with you in 10 days...
Love always,
Elder Lopez
Monday, December 8, 2008
What a week! (email dated 12/08/2008)
Wow, it sounds like the the christmas season back home is going great. I bet its been awesome to have so much family around and get to spend time together and visit a play games! It really does make me smile to think of you all enjoyingthe blessing that our Loving Father in Heaven has blessed us with. Just look at all the blessings we have in our life. This gospel really does work miracles and is such a blessing.
This week out here in the field was a absolutely great week. Elder Hernandez and I were able to find some good New investigators with some really good potential! During the week we cam accross and older man who is partialy blindand has been living with a lady for 28 years i believe it was. Anyway we contacted them and they let us into the their home and we went ahead and gave them the first lesson. At was really interesting as we gave the lesson becausethey really were interested in everything that we had to say. I asked them the simple question of how they felt and they gave us the best reply i've ever heard so far on my mission. They said that they really could feel that thethings that we were teaching them were true and they loved to just have us in their home. This answer really just blew me away and i couldn't believe my ears. They really have some good potential but the down side is they have somethings that their going to have to change in their life to be baptized into the church. They're really going to have to show some faith in the lord to overcome there one big probablem that a lot of people have out here. Their living together and aren't married because Gloria is recieving money from the government and if they get married she'll stop recieving it. I'm pretty sure this might be their only source of income to because Tito is going blind and cant really move. They have some walls to go through but if they can jus tfind the faith to trust in the Lord i'm sure all will work out. Anyway to make a long story a little shorter, I'm really looking forward to working with them.
This fast sunday we had a special fast for our branch here in Utuado that the less actives would find the desire to come back to church and that the branchwould begin to grow. I feel as though the Lord already has blessed us in our fasting in prayers because we had a less active named Carmen that we visited this passed week show up at church on sunday and we found 4 more new invetigators that night that have some good potential.
This week really has turned out to be a week of Testimony building and strengthening in so many different ways. Its a wonderful feeling to see the hand to the Lord in this work and I'm praying for His guidance every day. Especially during my time here in the mountains of Utuado. Remember to take time and thank the Lord for the blessing that he has so graciously givin to us especially during this Christmas season! We have so much to be grateful for!
Much love,
your son,
Elder Lopez
This week out here in the field was a absolutely great week. Elder Hernandez and I were able to find some good New investigators with some really good potential! During the week we cam accross and older man who is partialy blindand has been living with a lady for 28 years i believe it was. Anyway we contacted them and they let us into the their home and we went ahead and gave them the first lesson. At was really interesting as we gave the lesson becausethey really were interested in everything that we had to say. I asked them the simple question of how they felt and they gave us the best reply i've ever heard so far on my mission. They said that they really could feel that thethings that we were teaching them were true and they loved to just have us in their home. This answer really just blew me away and i couldn't believe my ears. They really have some good potential but the down side is they have somethings that their going to have to change in their life to be baptized into the church. They're really going to have to show some faith in the lord to overcome there one big probablem that a lot of people have out here. Their living together and aren't married because Gloria is recieving money from the government and if they get married she'll stop recieving it. I'm pretty sure this might be their only source of income to because Tito is going blind and cant really move. They have some walls to go through but if they can jus tfind the faith to trust in the Lord i'm sure all will work out. Anyway to make a long story a little shorter, I'm really looking forward to working with them.
This fast sunday we had a special fast for our branch here in Utuado that the less actives would find the desire to come back to church and that the branchwould begin to grow. I feel as though the Lord already has blessed us in our fasting in prayers because we had a less active named Carmen that we visited this passed week show up at church on sunday and we found 4 more new invetigators that night that have some good potential.
This week really has turned out to be a week of Testimony building and strengthening in so many different ways. Its a wonderful feeling to see the hand to the Lord in this work and I'm praying for His guidance every day. Especially during my time here in the mountains of Utuado. Remember to take time and thank the Lord for the blessing that he has so graciously givin to us especially during this Christmas season! We have so much to be grateful for!
Much love,
your son,
Elder Lopez
Here Comes Christmas (email dated 12/08/2008)
Wow its Christmas season and what a time to be greatful! This past sunday night we had the opportunity to go and watch the Christmas Devotional and listen to our beloved Prophet and his councilers speak! It was a great experience and I felt close to home as i watched good Old Motab Choir sing the hymns of Zion! Wow, what a great meeting it was. It really hit home the true meaning of Christmas.
Right now i'd just like to thank you all for the wonderful fiends and family you've all been to me. My testimony of Christ has grown so much out here and i know he lives and loves us all! What a great time of year it is to follow his example and stretch out our hands to help another and show our love for them.
with love,
Elder Lopez
Right now i'd just like to thank you all for the wonderful fiends and family you've all been to me. My testimony of Christ has grown so much out here and i know he lives and loves us all! What a great time of year it is to follow his example and stretch out our hands to help another and show our love for them.
with love,
Elder Lopez
Monday, December 1, 2008
Thanksgiving on the Mission (email dated 12-01-2008)
Hey, its Elder Lopez again. Another week has gone by and now i'm another week smarter and experienced on the mission. This past week we really started to try and get the members that we have in our little branch up in going in the missionary work. Utuado is a big place so we really a lot on our members to help us out in getting from place to place. Its really true that every member is a missionary. As members of this church we have the opportunity to be a flag on the hill standing as an example for all the people in the world to look to. Its a great priviledge and i have to thank all of you back home for being great examples for me to look up to. As members of this church we really do stick out because of the high standards that we have and are striving to up hold. it might seem hard at times with all the things that are going on the world but as we stand united we will not fall. Its just like Elder Uchtdorf talked about in the last conference during the priesthood session to lift were you stand. It doesnt matter where you are, Utah or Puerto Rico, we all have the sacred opportunity to be a beacon of light for the world to see. This work is truely for everyone and it truely is amazing to see in motion. I take comfort in the fact that this gospel, and this church will stand until that great day when the Lord comes back to the earth to reign in His glory. Wow this Gospel is amazing!
Well before i end this i hope all is well back home and that you all had a great Thanksgiving. Remeber "Thanksgiving comes but once a year but times to give thanks are always here"...( is that saying still up in my car with the little dollar bill with the missionary shirt?) Well love you all,
Elder Lopez
Well before i end this i hope all is well back home and that you all had a great Thanksgiving. Remeber "Thanksgiving comes but once a year but times to give thanks are always here"...( is that saying still up in my car with the little dollar bill with the missionary shirt?) Well love you all,
Elder Lopez
Monday, November 24, 2008
I'm going to miss the Turkey Bowl (email dated 11/24/2008)
Hey i hope all is well over there on the home front in Utah. All is well out here in Utuado and i cant believe how fast this passed week flew by. We had a lot of work to do this week and every night we came home i was dead tired. Here up in the Mountains it seems like everyone lives up on the top of a mountain or clear down in a valley. So which ever one it is we get to go up and come back down or vise versa. Lets just say my legs are going to be tree trunks by the time i leave this place. Here in Puerto Rico they have all the same Holidays that they have back in the states and more. I'm pretty sure the people just make up Holidays so they can get of work and have a break. Thats just fine by me though because during peoples breaks there home and we're able to find more people to talk to about our message which contains the way to recieving eternal salvation which is a pretty big deal last time i checked. We have a little small branch here in Utuado like i said last time but the people in it are way nice and feed us and feed us and then feed us some more! We had a Dia de accion de Gracias ( just a long name for Thanksgiving) Party this past saturday with a bunch of food. It was amazing and i was full for all of saturday and most of sunday. Yesterday it rained almost the whole day which sort of put a damper on being able to find people. People here in Puerto Rico dont care for the rain to much and when it does rain you dont find many people out because their all scared of ""La munga"(the cold). Anyway we had some cool teaching experences this week. We came accross a guy a couple of nights ago during our sacred finding time and i called him out and when he came out and it was sort of like all the rest that we had been having that day he just said that he was catholic. So i was like oh ok well is there anything we can help you with, and then he stopped and said yeah. I wasn't expecting that but he then let us in and said some time he'd need his tree in his front yard trimmed so and would need help so we told him we'd be more than happy to help. Then he invited us in his house we talked to him a little about what we do as missionaries and i was actually able to share and talk a lot more then i have in the passed. He even gave us dinner for that night. It was a really cool experience and goes to show that when you show a desire to truely help out your fellow brotheren your leaving a little seed and are being an example like we should be as members of the True Church of Chirst. Mission work is great and i'm gaining a greater love for it every day!
Thank you for all the support back home and have great thanksgiving this week! I love you all at home and thank you a billion for your letters and support!
Thank you for all the support back home and have great thanksgiving this week! I love you all at home and thank you a billion for your letters and support!
Monday, November 17, 2008
One Transfer Down (email dated 11/17/2008)
Dear Mom and Dad,
Well i'm here in my new area and all i have to say is its beautiful uphere. I say up here because i'm right smack dab in the middle of the island which is up in the mountains. The area i'm in is called Utuado, Puerto Rico.Its sort of being in a rain forest/ mountain conditions. Our area is full of hills and i come home every night whiped because we walk a lot of places here.My new companion is Elder Hernandez by the way. He's from Mexico and is aver a hard worker and i'm glade i got him as a compion. The first day here we had a lesson to go to so before i even could unpack my bags we were off to work. It was a great lesson i thought and i love teaching with a native spanish speaker because i learn so much about the language everytime we teach. This is going to really help me with my spanish i'm hoping.
Anyway so far here we've had some really intresting experiances with the people. We taught this one guy named Ruperto who lives way far up the canyon, so he came to pick us upand take us to his house. Well when we got there his house wasnt much of ahouse. It was more like a little schack with metal all around the outside and ontop as the walls and the cealing. As i walked in i looked up and the top and alli could see were cob webs every where with these huge spiders of every kind. Thewhole time i was just thinking to myself how could some one live here and stayhealthy. There were cars all out around the side of his place like you some time see hanging off cliffs and stuff as you drive in mountain areas, like the one at the cabin if you remeber. It was pretty interesting to say the least. Rupert lives with his mom and she's 94 years old and she's still cooking and cleaning she said, but it didnt look like their place had been cleaned in quite some time. I couldn't believe she said she was 94 years old and living inthe conditions she was. Anyway their family is a little different but thats all right cuz were all children of God right. Any way we couldnt stay and talk with them very long because we got to go to a conference that Elder Bendar spoke at!It was so awesome! Elder Bednar came here to Puerto Rico and people got to ask him questions in this meeting and it was great to see and Apostle of the Lord speak here in this little island. He was in a different church then we were sowe watched him on a perjecter at the stake center. One of the people ask the big question about getting a temple here in Puerto Rico.His answer was direct and i loved every bit of it. What he said basicly is that when a temple is chosen to be built some where it has nothing to do with the people here on earth and their wants. The Person who decides where and when a temple is built is the Lord himself and when i decides He then reavels it to the prophet. Than we went on further and said if you really want a temple here you got to have the members who will be able to support and then he told the people to "get your hearts right." It was simple statement but it hit me hard! it renewed my testimony of his calling because the spirit during that meeting was so strong!
Well i got to finish up now so remember your always in my prayers and i loveyou all!
Elder Lopez
PS. I got your tape and i love to listen to it! YOur voices all sound so good to my ears. I have a tape and a memory card of pictures to send home but i dontknow if i should send them with a normal letter or not. Also if you could send THis email to lechell and do what ever you want with it so she can put it up onthe blog that would be great because i dont have time to write another one. thanks love you!
Well i'm here in my new area and all i have to say is its beautiful uphere. I say up here because i'm right smack dab in the middle of the island which is up in the mountains. The area i'm in is called Utuado, Puerto Rico.Its sort of being in a rain forest/ mountain conditions. Our area is full of hills and i come home every night whiped because we walk a lot of places here.My new companion is Elder Hernandez by the way. He's from Mexico and is aver a hard worker and i'm glade i got him as a compion. The first day here we had a lesson to go to so before i even could unpack my bags we were off to work. It was a great lesson i thought and i love teaching with a native spanish speaker because i learn so much about the language everytime we teach. This is going to really help me with my spanish i'm hoping.
Anyway so far here we've had some really intresting experiances with the people. We taught this one guy named Ruperto who lives way far up the canyon, so he came to pick us upand take us to his house. Well when we got there his house wasnt much of ahouse. It was more like a little schack with metal all around the outside and ontop as the walls and the cealing. As i walked in i looked up and the top and alli could see were cob webs every where with these huge spiders of every kind. Thewhole time i was just thinking to myself how could some one live here and stayhealthy. There were cars all out around the side of his place like you some time see hanging off cliffs and stuff as you drive in mountain areas, like the one at the cabin if you remeber. It was pretty interesting to say the least. Rupert lives with his mom and she's 94 years old and she's still cooking and cleaning she said, but it didnt look like their place had been cleaned in quite some time. I couldn't believe she said she was 94 years old and living inthe conditions she was. Anyway their family is a little different but thats all right cuz were all children of God right. Any way we couldnt stay and talk with them very long because we got to go to a conference that Elder Bendar spoke at!It was so awesome! Elder Bednar came here to Puerto Rico and people got to ask him questions in this meeting and it was great to see and Apostle of the Lord speak here in this little island. He was in a different church then we were sowe watched him on a perjecter at the stake center. One of the people ask the big question about getting a temple here in Puerto Rico.His answer was direct and i loved every bit of it. What he said basicly is that when a temple is chosen to be built some where it has nothing to do with the people here on earth and their wants. The Person who decides where and when a temple is built is the Lord himself and when i decides He then reavels it to the prophet. Than we went on further and said if you really want a temple here you got to have the members who will be able to support and then he told the people to "get your hearts right." It was simple statement but it hit me hard! it renewed my testimony of his calling because the spirit during that meeting was so strong!
Well i got to finish up now so remember your always in my prayers and i loveyou all!
Elder Lopez
PS. I got your tape and i love to listen to it! YOur voices all sound so good to my ears. I have a tape and a memory card of pictures to send home but i dontknow if i should send them with a normal letter or not. Also if you could send THis email to lechell and do what ever you want with it so she can put it up onthe blog that would be great because i dont have time to write another one. thanks love you!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Champion Burrito
Dear Lopez family:
I had the honor of being with your son today as we moved him from one apartment to another, just before his transfer tomorrow to a new area.
Sister Reyes and I are the "housing coordinators" and after the move we then treated him and his companion to an early dinner at one of the few mexican restaurants in Puerto Rico.
You have a great missionary and it was a pleasure to be with him. Thank you for raising a great young man.
best regards
Elder & Sister Reyes
I had the honor of being with your son today as we moved him from one apartment to another, just before his transfer tomorrow to a new area.
Sister Reyes and I are the "housing coordinators" and after the move we then treated him and his companion to an early dinner at one of the few mexican restaurants in Puerto Rico.
You have a great missionary and it was a pleasure to be with him. Thank you for raising a great young man.
best regards
Elder & Sister Reyes
Monday, November 10, 2008
Transfers
Well another week of the mission life has come and gone! Thank you all for the support and letters that I've recieved, you all keep me going!
Well this week was full of new's! I had my first interview with the President of the Mission, President Martineau, and he pretty much told me after this transfer I'd be gettin transfered some where else. Sure enough this Sunday i got the word that i'm going to be getting transfured this Wed. I'm actually looking forward to this next transfer to get a new companion and learn new things. For the most part i'm starting to settle into the mission life. It gets better and better every day. It started out a little rocky, but no one ever said it was going to be ease. When times are going rough i always am able to find comfort in the scriptures! I found some scriptures that really helped me out this first transfer. One of them was in D&C 128:31 right at the very end of the verse if you want to look it up... The Scriptures have grown to be my best friend out here and i love reading them every day!
My Companion Elder Haskell's birthday was this week, so we decided to celebrate and went bowling last p-day! It was a blast and it reminded me of the good old days going bowling in High School, i still sort of stuggle so i wont tell you my score. I know when my brother Mark reads this he'll be a little disapointed, but it is what it is.
Finding people this week looked up a little bit. We came accross a guy who had been in the Army for ever and learend english and could speak it very well. To add to it the guy was amazingly nice. He excepted everything that we said to him and invited us in to have some water! We set up a return visit with him and everything but unfortunatley i'm not going to be there to teach him cuz i'm getting transfered. Thats alright though, all that matters is that he gets to hear the gospel!
So elections are finaly over and i hear we have a new President of the United States. Í'm not going to say much about who got elected cuz out here on the mission we're not supposed to talk polotics... and this way i wont say anything bad about him, you know how the saying goes, "ïf you cant say anything good dont say anything at all".
Well until next week keep it real back home! Love you all!
Elder Lopez
Well this week was full of new's! I had my first interview with the President of the Mission, President Martineau, and he pretty much told me after this transfer I'd be gettin transfered some where else. Sure enough this Sunday i got the word that i'm going to be getting transfured this Wed. I'm actually looking forward to this next transfer to get a new companion and learn new things. For the most part i'm starting to settle into the mission life. It gets better and better every day. It started out a little rocky, but no one ever said it was going to be ease. When times are going rough i always am able to find comfort in the scriptures! I found some scriptures that really helped me out this first transfer. One of them was in D&C 128:31 right at the very end of the verse if you want to look it up... The Scriptures have grown to be my best friend out here and i love reading them every day!
My Companion Elder Haskell's birthday was this week, so we decided to celebrate and went bowling last p-day! It was a blast and it reminded me of the good old days going bowling in High School, i still sort of stuggle so i wont tell you my score. I know when my brother Mark reads this he'll be a little disapointed, but it is what it is.
Finding people this week looked up a little bit. We came accross a guy who had been in the Army for ever and learend english and could speak it very well. To add to it the guy was amazingly nice. He excepted everything that we said to him and invited us in to have some water! We set up a return visit with him and everything but unfortunatley i'm not going to be there to teach him cuz i'm getting transfered. Thats alright though, all that matters is that he gets to hear the gospel!
So elections are finaly over and i hear we have a new President of the United States. Í'm not going to say much about who got elected cuz out here on the mission we're not supposed to talk polotics... and this way i wont say anything bad about him, you know how the saying goes, "ïf you cant say anything good dont say anything at all".
Well until next week keep it real back home! Love you all!
Elder Lopez
Monday, November 3, 2008
Just another day in the life of Elder Lopez (email dated 11/3/2008)
Well i'm sorry that i haven't been able to get a E-mail out for the passed couple of weeks. My E-mail has been sort of being dumb and hasn't worked for me. Now it should be doing just fine though. This passed week we've been doing a lot of finding with not a lot of luck. Its alright though because it will start to pick up sooner or later. Some good news is that we found a good Apt. to live in. Hopefully next week we'll be able to move in to it. Right now their trying to get all the paper work done for it so hopefully by next week we can move in. The Ward out here in my area isn't like a Utah ward, but it is pretty big for here in Puerto Rico i believe. The People in my ward are all nice and loveing people and are really wanting to have a Temple built here in Puerto Rico. Thats where us missionaries come in. I hope to be able to see a Temple here in Puerto Rico some day! It probably wont be while i'm here but i'm hoping to be a help in getting this island ready for one. I see the Lords help every day while i'm out here doing His will and His work. Thank you all for your support and prayers!
sorry this E-mail is pretty short, i ran out of time so next week i'll see what i can do.
Oh yeah and one more thing, When your write me letters you need to put my first name and my last name because there is 4 Elder Lopez's here in my mission...
Thanks again and I love you all! Until next week God Bless!
Elder Lopez
sorry this E-mail is pretty short, i ran out of time so next week i'll see what i can do.
Oh yeah and one more thing, When your write me letters you need to put my first name and my last name because there is 4 Elder Lopez's here in my mission...
Thanks again and I love you all! Until next week God Bless!
Elder Lopez
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sorry my emails aren't sending (email dated 10/27/2008)
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
Elder Lopez
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
You have been sent two pictures.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Puerto Rico, here comes Elder Lopez!
We'll i'm here in paradise aka "Puerto Rico"! I made it safe and sound and the plane that we took was one of those little planes with the propelers on the wings and you have to walk out on the run way because the planes not big enough to reach the little tunnel thingy...
Anyway my Mission President and his Wife Hermana Martineau are great. I feel like i'm just at home with them. Their spoiling us with some great food at their house but in the morining i'm going to have to fend for myself out in the El Campo,(the mission field).
Well i just got time enough to e-mail you this and let you know all is well. Oh yeah and my p-day is on mondays and my mailing address for my whole mission is:
Elder Bret Lopez
Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission
Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamon, PR 00959
I love you all!
Elder Lopez
Anyway my Mission President and his Wife Hermana Martineau are great. I feel like i'm just at home with them. Their spoiling us with some great food at their house but in the morining i'm going to have to fend for myself out in the El Campo,(the mission field).
Well i just got time enough to e-mail you this and let you know all is well. Oh yeah and my p-day is on mondays and my mailing address for my whole mission is:
Elder Bret Lopez
Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission
Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamon, PR 00959
I love you all!
Elder Lopez
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Last week in the CCM (email dated 09/25/2008)
Well this is going to be my last email from the CCM. I cant believe my time is done here and now i get to go out into the world and preach the Gospel to the people of Puerto Rico! Its going to be such a great experience for the next two years. I'm really feeling ansy to be able to get out of this place... I mean dont get me wrong i love the people here and all the teachers are great! But being in one building and and only using one floor of that building for six weeks is starting to get to me. i want to get out there into the world and walk around. At least on Mondays here they'd give us a little taste of what the outside world is like by letting us go to the University.
This week was our last week going to the University actually, because next week we'll be getting ready to leave for tuesday morning. The proselyting went really well though, and we ended on our best time yet. We just went this time and bore short but sincere testimonies to as many people as we could. It went way good, we actually were able to talk to 35 people and recieved 35 phone numbers. Yeah i was shocked when we got back to the class room and started to count up our numbers. It really didnt even seem like we did that much. The best part about it was that when we were leaving to go back to the CCM we ran into one of the guys that we had talked to the previews week! He rocognized us and was excited to see us. He wanted to meet with us agian next week but we're going to be gone, but he gave us his number again anyway. Latter that day i talked to one of my teachers here Hermano Mediovilla and he said he'd give him a call for us since we're not going to be here. I felt good about the whole thing and know he's in good hands with Hermano Mediovilla. I pray that all goes well with him and he's able to recieve the gospel!
This sunday we were able to watch a movie for our fireside. We watched the Testament which is a great movie! There was a part that i actually had to cover my companions eyes because the kiss for one second. Yeah i know i'm a good comp. just looking out for his best interest. We dont need to bother looking or even thinking of that stuff our here on the Lords time.
Anyway not much else happened this week. Just the usual sit in class try and learn/speak spanish. The spanish is actually getting a little bit better. I'm still about 4 or 5 months away from being able to have a good conversation with anyone but its coming none the less. Some things just take time...
So How's everyting back home? I love getting all your emails and letters. Ryan i was happy to read that your still palying ball and crushing Bombs on High School size fields. By the time i get home your going to have teach me how to hit again. Cory i hear your just bulldozing through kids in football. You might have to start taking it easy on them a little.( on 2nd thought, no dont do that. Keep it up!). Jessi you need to keep an eye on your two brothers and keep them in line k! Skyler i hear your doing great at football too. Keep up the hard work buddy. Sierra & Brooklyn I hear you 2 are dancing now. I miss dancing with you two and Jessi to the High School Musical CD. Its alright though time will fly by and we'll be back to dancing before to long. I hope your taking good care of your little sister Kelly too. And Andrew I hope your taking good care of your little sister, Hayle down in ST. George! I love you bud, and dont beat to many kids in games at P.E. ok. We'll I'm running out of time so i got to sign off... I love you all and thank you all for your emails!!!!! Next time i write it will be from the Beautifull Island of Puerto Rico!!!
With Love,
Elder Lopez
This week was our last week going to the University actually, because next week we'll be getting ready to leave for tuesday morning. The proselyting went really well though, and we ended on our best time yet. We just went this time and bore short but sincere testimonies to as many people as we could. It went way good, we actually were able to talk to 35 people and recieved 35 phone numbers. Yeah i was shocked when we got back to the class room and started to count up our numbers. It really didnt even seem like we did that much. The best part about it was that when we were leaving to go back to the CCM we ran into one of the guys that we had talked to the previews week! He rocognized us and was excited to see us. He wanted to meet with us agian next week but we're going to be gone, but he gave us his number again anyway. Latter that day i talked to one of my teachers here Hermano Mediovilla and he said he'd give him a call for us since we're not going to be here. I felt good about the whole thing and know he's in good hands with Hermano Mediovilla. I pray that all goes well with him and he's able to recieve the gospel!
This sunday we were able to watch a movie for our fireside. We watched the Testament which is a great movie! There was a part that i actually had to cover my companions eyes because the kiss for one second. Yeah i know i'm a good comp. just looking out for his best interest. We dont need to bother looking or even thinking of that stuff our here on the Lords time.
Anyway not much else happened this week. Just the usual sit in class try and learn/speak spanish. The spanish is actually getting a little bit better. I'm still about 4 or 5 months away from being able to have a good conversation with anyone but its coming none the less. Some things just take time...
So How's everyting back home? I love getting all your emails and letters. Ryan i was happy to read that your still palying ball and crushing Bombs on High School size fields. By the time i get home your going to have teach me how to hit again. Cory i hear your just bulldozing through kids in football. You might have to start taking it easy on them a little.( on 2nd thought, no dont do that. Keep it up!). Jessi you need to keep an eye on your two brothers and keep them in line k! Skyler i hear your doing great at football too. Keep up the hard work buddy. Sierra & Brooklyn I hear you 2 are dancing now. I miss dancing with you two and Jessi to the High School Musical CD. Its alright though time will fly by and we'll be back to dancing before to long. I hope your taking good care of your little sister Kelly too. And Andrew I hope your taking good care of your little sister, Hayle down in ST. George! I love you bud, and dont beat to many kids in games at P.E. ok. We'll I'm running out of time so i got to sign off... I love you all and thank you all for your emails!!!!! Next time i write it will be from the Beautifull Island of Puerto Rico!!!
With Love,
Elder Lopez
Monday, September 22, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
And the work goes on (email dated 09/18/2008)
All in all it was a good week. But honostly when isn't there a good week out here in the mission field. Elder Sellers wanted to get up at 5:50 am to read our e-mails so right now back home its about 4 in the morning. Mom i bet your up, but as for everyone else i'm sure your sound asleep.
The weather here hasent changed one bit. We dont have the trees that change nice pretty colors here, but we do have some really pretty palm trees around the temple grouds. We went on a little walk during one of our breaks around the temple and saw like 50 little lizzards running around. It was pretty neet. I loved to watch them change colors for whatever back ground they were in.
Anyway we get to go to the Temple today which i'm way stoked for! the Temple is like a fresh breath of air every time we get to go. This week i was able to play catch during gym for a little with one of the Elders here. He's from North Carolina and brought his glove. i think i might have told you a little about it in my last letter. It felt really good to get out there and to throw the ball around for a bit. The arm feels good. at least it did for the little bit i threw. Mostly for Gym i either play basketball which is fun. the only down part is with all the humididy outside i have to go in and shower after cuz i sweat so much. Its all good though its a good work out. I'm still the same size and weight as when i came in. We'll have to see how that keeps up for the rest of these two years.
We got a new hermana in our district this week, actually two. One of them just flew in from the states last night. she only had a week in the states before she had to come out here becaust Hermana Etwaroo came straight here to the DR MTC because here country Guyana wasnt gettting any visas to go to the US. She's been having a rough week especially because she just got thrown into a country were she doesnt really understand anything thats going on. It will be good that she has a companion thats in the same boat as here now.
Last saturday and monday we were able to go to the University to prosolyte. Its getting better every time we go. When we went on Saturday i just decided i was going to talk with as many people as possible and we were able to get 34 contacts and 26 referals. Thats by far the best we had ever done. We would just go up to anyone and everyone. there was this one time when there was a group of like 5 or 6 people and one of them was looking at us so i just went up and starting talking t o her and we ended up just talking with them all at once. it was great.
We went again to the Universtiy on monday and we didnt get as many references but thats because when we would talk to people it was for a long time. We ran into this one member with all of her friends. We introduced ourselves and found out that they all were learning English. so they wanted to talk with us in english. That was pretty neet but we decided to make a deal with them. I told them we'd work on our spanish with them and they could work on our English with us. so thats what we did. It Went so good. We gave them our little message on one of the comandment to read the scriptures and to always be obediant to the lords will and stuff and they were all interested. it was a dream come true and then we just let them ask there questions in English as best they could, it was great. We were able to answer all there questions. We both bore testimony to them in Spanish and in English, we even had the one member t hat was there bear here testimony to them in english. It was great! I Was on cloud 9 the whole time! I could feel the spirit and i knew they could to. As we were teaching like 2 or 3 other people came to listen to us and hear what we had to say and aked questions. After about 20 or 30 min we gave them all commitment to go to church this sunday with there friend that was a member. I hope at least one of them goes. We gave them all little pamphlets about the church and got all there numbers for the missionary's! It was a great experience.
On Tuesday we had a General Authority come and speak with us who's name was Elder Johnson from the Seventy. It was really good. the only down part is that it was all in Spanish... Its alright though i'll get used to it on the Lords time. I was actually happy with all that i could understand. For the most part it was just the natives that were involved in the lesson but i think i followed pretty well for only haveing been learning this language for a month and half. So that was really good and i got some good notes on how to become a better missionary. we were able to watch the Joseph Smith movie to which is a definate tear jurker... I love that movie and the spirit is so strong when we watch it.
Well my time is winding down so remember i Love all of you back home!
And to answer Skyler, Sierra, and Brooklyn's questions. I'm in the Dominican Republic right now learning how to speak Spanish. I'm teaching people in Spanish about the Church. I wont be back for a couple of years but thats alright cuz the time will fly by. Just remember i love you all and think about you and pray for you every night! I love you guys!
With LOVE, Elder Lopez
PS. Mom and Dad, behaive yourselves on your little trip to San Diego!
The weather here hasent changed one bit. We dont have the trees that change nice pretty colors here, but we do have some really pretty palm trees around the temple grouds. We went on a little walk during one of our breaks around the temple and saw like 50 little lizzards running around. It was pretty neet. I loved to watch them change colors for whatever back ground they were in.
Anyway we get to go to the Temple today which i'm way stoked for! the Temple is like a fresh breath of air every time we get to go. This week i was able to play catch during gym for a little with one of the Elders here. He's from North Carolina and brought his glove. i think i might have told you a little about it in my last letter. It felt really good to get out there and to throw the ball around for a bit. The arm feels good. at least it did for the little bit i threw. Mostly for Gym i either play basketball which is fun. the only down part is with all the humididy outside i have to go in and shower after cuz i sweat so much. Its all good though its a good work out. I'm still the same size and weight as when i came in. We'll have to see how that keeps up for the rest of these two years.
We got a new hermana in our district this week, actually two. One of them just flew in from the states last night. she only had a week in the states before she had to come out here becaust Hermana Etwaroo came straight here to the DR MTC because here country Guyana wasnt gettting any visas to go to the US. She's been having a rough week especially because she just got thrown into a country were she doesnt really understand anything thats going on. It will be good that she has a companion thats in the same boat as here now.
Last saturday and monday we were able to go to the University to prosolyte. Its getting better every time we go. When we went on Saturday i just decided i was going to talk with as many people as possible and we were able to get 34 contacts and 26 referals. Thats by far the best we had ever done. We would just go up to anyone and everyone. there was this one time when there was a group of like 5 or 6 people and one of them was looking at us so i just went up and starting talking t o her and we ended up just talking with them all at once. it was great.
We went again to the Universtiy on monday and we didnt get as many references but thats because when we would talk to people it was for a long time. We ran into this one member with all of her friends. We introduced ourselves and found out that they all were learning English. so they wanted to talk with us in english. That was pretty neet but we decided to make a deal with them. I told them we'd work on our spanish with them and they could work on our English with us. so thats what we did. It Went so good. We gave them our little message on one of the comandment to read the scriptures and to always be obediant to the lords will and stuff and they were all interested. it was a dream come true and then we just let them ask there questions in English as best they could, it was great. We were able to answer all there questions. We both bore testimony to them in Spanish and in English, we even had the one member t hat was there bear here testimony to them in english. It was great! I Was on cloud 9 the whole time! I could feel the spirit and i knew they could to. As we were teaching like 2 or 3 other people came to listen to us and hear what we had to say and aked questions. After about 20 or 30 min we gave them all commitment to go to church this sunday with there friend that was a member. I hope at least one of them goes. We gave them all little pamphlets about the church and got all there numbers for the missionary's! It was a great experience.
On Tuesday we had a General Authority come and speak with us who's name was Elder Johnson from the Seventy. It was really good. the only down part is that it was all in Spanish... Its alright though i'll get used to it on the Lords time. I was actually happy with all that i could understand. For the most part it was just the natives that were involved in the lesson but i think i followed pretty well for only haveing been learning this language for a month and half. So that was really good and i got some good notes on how to become a better missionary. we were able to watch the Joseph Smith movie to which is a definate tear jurker... I love that movie and the spirit is so strong when we watch it.
Well my time is winding down so remember i Love all of you back home!
And to answer Skyler, Sierra, and Brooklyn's questions. I'm in the Dominican Republic right now learning how to speak Spanish. I'm teaching people in Spanish about the Church. I wont be back for a couple of years but thats alright cuz the time will fly by. Just remember i love you all and think about you and pray for you every night! I love you guys!
With LOVE, Elder Lopez
PS. Mom and Dad, behaive yourselves on your little trip to San Diego!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Pictures from the SLC airport
I just got these fun pictures from Bret's Aunt Francie! These pictures are when Bret coincidentally ran into his brother-in-law, cousins, and his Aunt Francie at the SLC airport- on his way to the Dominican Republic MTC. Enjoy!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Another week down (email dated 09/11/2008)
Another week down here in the CCM. It was that much of an exciting week, just a lot of sitting in clase and eating and then sitting in clase some more. Lets get the fist thing taking care of first, Happy Birthday Mark and Lachelle, (i know Lachelle's was awhile back so i apologize). I'm alittle jelouse of that cake you got mark. It looked pretty scrumpshis... the strawberries looked heavenly!
Any way Dad you need to get the blue tooth instaled in my car so you dont have to bother with the phone next time and can be aware of things around you.... Ha i love you Pops!
It was pretty neet to be ablet to see pic's from back home that mark sent. I was lucky enough that the computer i'm using let me look at the pic's. I got my first letter from dad this week. it was from aug 24. i believe is the date that you sent it. It was good to be able to read a letter again.
The weather here hasent changed it still rains every day. but now its starting to thunder and lightening. Its actually really sweet to just sit and watched the rain and lightening at night time. This past sunday we ate ice cream out under the canopy before we had to go back to our rooms for the night and just watched the lightening light up the entire sky! the thunder afterwards was pretty cool to, it was a rolling thunder for sure. the thunder would last for like a whole min. it seemed like.
I went to the distribution center here to see if i could get some new G's except they didn't have the kind i wanted so Mom if you could get me some dirlux garmets when i go over to Puerto rico and send them there it would be great!!! oh yeah and i left those bottoms that i wore for baseball games in my room if you could send those that would be great too. also with the garments on the tops if you could get some crew necks and some low necks that would be cool i want to try some of the low ones for a change.
Well i only have 3 more weeks here in the CCM and than there throwing us out. i got to get my butt in to gear it seems like. theres still so much more i want to know before i leave this place. Yesterday night we got some new roomates from Nicoragua and El Salvador. Yup you guessed it they only speak spanish. they seem like really good Elders. the speaking with each other its sort of limited right know though. Their both going to San Juan West with me though. Their names are Elder Bladon and Elder Rivera.
Since we werent able to go to the University this past week cuz the rain we did a lot of staying in side. I got to play a lot of ping pong though! I finally played Hermano Ruiz who was supposed to be way good, but i beat him 21 to 14, he wants a rematch and i told him i'd love another game. Anyway i found another Elder down here who plays baseball and brought his glove with him. We decided we're going to go out and play catch today! i'm so stoked for that! Its been forever since i've thrown a real baseball!
I got a Dear Elder from Anderw and Steph. and want to say thanks for that. I Even got an E-mail from Trudy! ha i loved reading about Brooklyn, shes so cute! Thanks for that! and the Halford Fam. i love to read your emails too! I'm lucky to have the best Family and Best 2ND Family in the entire World!!!!!Oh yeah one more thing Skyler Halford behave yourself up there at Utah State.... I got eyes and ears all over the place... Well i only have 2 min left so i got to rap it up! Remember i know with all my heart that this church is true and i love this work, especially when i finally learn the language.Much Love and until next week ,God Bless
Love Elder Lopez
Any way Dad you need to get the blue tooth instaled in my car so you dont have to bother with the phone next time and can be aware of things around you.... Ha i love you Pops!
It was pretty neet to be ablet to see pic's from back home that mark sent. I was lucky enough that the computer i'm using let me look at the pic's. I got my first letter from dad this week. it was from aug 24. i believe is the date that you sent it. It was good to be able to read a letter again.
The weather here hasent changed it still rains every day. but now its starting to thunder and lightening. Its actually really sweet to just sit and watched the rain and lightening at night time. This past sunday we ate ice cream out under the canopy before we had to go back to our rooms for the night and just watched the lightening light up the entire sky! the thunder afterwards was pretty cool to, it was a rolling thunder for sure. the thunder would last for like a whole min. it seemed like.
I went to the distribution center here to see if i could get some new G's except they didn't have the kind i wanted so Mom if you could get me some dirlux garmets when i go over to Puerto rico and send them there it would be great!!! oh yeah and i left those bottoms that i wore for baseball games in my room if you could send those that would be great too. also with the garments on the tops if you could get some crew necks and some low necks that would be cool i want to try some of the low ones for a change.
Well i only have 3 more weeks here in the CCM and than there throwing us out. i got to get my butt in to gear it seems like. theres still so much more i want to know before i leave this place. Yesterday night we got some new roomates from Nicoragua and El Salvador. Yup you guessed it they only speak spanish. they seem like really good Elders. the speaking with each other its sort of limited right know though. Their both going to San Juan West with me though. Their names are Elder Bladon and Elder Rivera.
Since we werent able to go to the University this past week cuz the rain we did a lot of staying in side. I got to play a lot of ping pong though! I finally played Hermano Ruiz who was supposed to be way good, but i beat him 21 to 14, he wants a rematch and i told him i'd love another game. Anyway i found another Elder down here who plays baseball and brought his glove with him. We decided we're going to go out and play catch today! i'm so stoked for that! Its been forever since i've thrown a real baseball!
I got a Dear Elder from Anderw and Steph. and want to say thanks for that. I Even got an E-mail from Trudy! ha i loved reading about Brooklyn, shes so cute! Thanks for that! and the Halford Fam. i love to read your emails too! I'm lucky to have the best Family and Best 2ND Family in the entire World!!!!!Oh yeah one more thing Skyler Halford behave yourself up there at Utah State.... I got eyes and ears all over the place... Well i only have 2 min left so i got to rap it up! Remember i know with all my heart that this church is true and i love this work, especially when i finally learn the language.Much Love and until next week ,God Bless
Love Elder Lopez
Thursday, September 4, 2008
New pictures
Here are some new pictures, complete w/captions, Bret sent me. Enjoy!
It was a long trip to the DR
Elder Carter and me back in Provo. (He plays baseball too!)
Whooping up on another mish with my light-saber
My old district back in Provo
My Missionary name tag
It was a long trip to the DR
Playing some good old ping pong
Me and my comp looking good at the museum
A pic of me holding out the Book of Mormon for the whole world to see
The Picture of the 6 is my new district here in The DR and the temple in the background
The Picture with just the four is me, Elder Sellers, Slade and Twitchell. We're all going to Puerto Rico.
-
Our MTC here in the DR. We only use the top floor.
The DR...what a place! (email dated 09/04/2008)
Well another day down. Its a pretty crazy place out here in the DR. The weather is sort of on and off. It was really nice for most of the week and then all of the sudden it got way windy and rainny. Dont worry though its not a Hurricane though. I hurd that Haiti got hit pretty bad by a hurricane though but it was on the north side of the island and i'm down on the south. Its wierd to me how it can be poring rain and way windy and yet when i walk out side its way hot and i can just feel the humidity.
Thanks so much for the emails. the Emails are all i'm getting right now. i still haven't recieved one actual letter here yet. Sorry mom, but the scanning dads letters in didnt work, i cant open them on these computers here in the lab. It was a good thought though. looks like dad just needs to learn how to type good finaly. ha how's he doing in keeping up with little andrew?
Anyway, its official now, i've been out on my mission for over a month. Ha i know its not much of a mark but it seems like a mile stone to me right now. i cant believe i havent seen anyone for over a month now. (Except for at the airport.. ha what are the chances i'd run into cousins a brother in law and my aunt)
We were able to go to the University here which is only a couple of blocks a way. Its nice to get out of this compound every once and a while and see the out side world. In here all our classes are on the top floor and all our rooms are on the top floor. I cant remember if i told you that its just me and Elder Sellers in a room right now and then in a couple of weeks the Natives come in and we get two natives that will room with us. I hope that helps with the spanish. Anyway back to the University. We were able to go twice this week. It was a little scary to know that i was going to actually be prosolyting to real people out in the street. We walked the couple of blocks over to the University and than they sent us loose to go and preach the good word. The first day we went which was last satruday we just had to get up the courage to talk to people which we did. i was the one that usually would stop people and start up the the conversation and than they would start talking and things would go down hill from there. they talk super fast here i decided. Anyway the day went on and we were able to talk with 11 people and get 7 addresses. I thought that was a way good number and was stoked about it. But than we got back to clase and Hermano Orozco was like thats nothing you can do better. So we went again on the next Monday and we were determind to do better. this time we were able to talk with people longer, sort of. Luckly for the most part all the people here are way friendly. they love to talk! On Monday we were able to up out numbers in the prosolyting stats.. hah we got 23 contacts and 12 addresses which was a lot better than the first time we went. (Hey dad that over .500) Any way on Monday we sat down and talked with this guy that was catholic and his brother was a member of our church i guess. He was way friendly and helped us out with our spanish and we tried to answer his questions the best we could. Its was a way good experience. He asked us about our temple and how not every one is aloud to go into it. Then he said how back in the Christ day everyone was aloud in the Temple which isnt true.( I didnt know that ) But than my Genius comp new that wasnt true and it was actually on Jews that were aloud in the temple in christs day. anyway the conversation went really well because he spoke a little bit of english and we challenged him to read 3 Nephi 11. it was really good and i hope he does read that chapter and prays about it like i told him to. When we were walking back to the compound i was so pumped cuz we actually talked to real people in spanish for the most part...
oh yeah and just to let you know my Boy Sky up at Utah State, they have a ping-pong table here and i have yet to lose... I'm still looking forward to recieving that first letter maybe it will come this week...Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Lopez
Thanks so much for the emails. the Emails are all i'm getting right now. i still haven't recieved one actual letter here yet. Sorry mom, but the scanning dads letters in didnt work, i cant open them on these computers here in the lab. It was a good thought though. looks like dad just needs to learn how to type good finaly. ha how's he doing in keeping up with little andrew?
Anyway, its official now, i've been out on my mission for over a month. Ha i know its not much of a mark but it seems like a mile stone to me right now. i cant believe i havent seen anyone for over a month now. (Except for at the airport.. ha what are the chances i'd run into cousins a brother in law and my aunt)
We were able to go to the University here which is only a couple of blocks a way. Its nice to get out of this compound every once and a while and see the out side world. In here all our classes are on the top floor and all our rooms are on the top floor. I cant remember if i told you that its just me and Elder Sellers in a room right now and then in a couple of weeks the Natives come in and we get two natives that will room with us. I hope that helps with the spanish. Anyway back to the University. We were able to go twice this week. It was a little scary to know that i was going to actually be prosolyting to real people out in the street. We walked the couple of blocks over to the University and than they sent us loose to go and preach the good word. The first day we went which was last satruday we just had to get up the courage to talk to people which we did. i was the one that usually would stop people and start up the the conversation and than they would start talking and things would go down hill from there. they talk super fast here i decided. Anyway the day went on and we were able to talk with 11 people and get 7 addresses. I thought that was a way good number and was stoked about it. But than we got back to clase and Hermano Orozco was like thats nothing you can do better. So we went again on the next Monday and we were determind to do better. this time we were able to talk with people longer, sort of. Luckly for the most part all the people here are way friendly. they love to talk! On Monday we were able to up out numbers in the prosolyting stats.. hah we got 23 contacts and 12 addresses which was a lot better than the first time we went. (Hey dad that over .500) Any way on Monday we sat down and talked with this guy that was catholic and his brother was a member of our church i guess. He was way friendly and helped us out with our spanish and we tried to answer his questions the best we could. Its was a way good experience. He asked us about our temple and how not every one is aloud to go into it. Then he said how back in the Christ day everyone was aloud in the Temple which isnt true.( I didnt know that ) But than my Genius comp new that wasnt true and it was actually on Jews that were aloud in the temple in christs day. anyway the conversation went really well because he spoke a little bit of english and we challenged him to read 3 Nephi 11. it was really good and i hope he does read that chapter and prays about it like i told him to. When we were walking back to the compound i was so pumped cuz we actually talked to real people in spanish for the most part...
oh yeah and just to let you know my Boy Sky up at Utah State, they have a ping-pong table here and i have yet to lose... I'm still looking forward to recieving that first letter maybe it will come this week...Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Lopez
Friday, August 29, 2008
Dominican MTC Life ---email (dated 08/29/2008)
Well thursday is my new day to write on the computer and check emails. Its sure been a full week here in the DR mtc and it sort of dragged a little bit. I think its because its alway hard to get settled in. But now things are starting to ease up a little. I feel like i'm getting more used to this whole place and how things are run and stuff.
Food here in the DR are a lot better than the food was back in the Provo MTC. For breakfast we ususally eat cereal and pancakes. But ever once and a while we get this cinamin french toast that is a way good. Lunch time is the best part of the day though for sure. Lunch here is the big meal of the day. and when i say big i mean big. We always have rice and beans and some sort of meat. the meat changes every now and again though some time its chicken sometimes its ham somtimes its beef. The good part is that its always good. The first day we had rice and beans every one was hating life the next day and had the runs... yeah the bathrooms took a pretty bad beating. All the natives just thought it was funny. I guess it takes awhile for your body to get ajusted to so much rice and beans at once.
The weather here is pretty constant, it rains every day with out fail and its really humid. we got to go over to the University today and do our service project at the park. we went and picked up trash. the walk over there was good though, it felt good to get out of these 20 ft cement walls that surround us and the Temple. The drivers here are crazy, i dont think they really have rules on the road.
For gym i usually play basketball out side in the parking lot and it doesnt take any time at all until your sweating like a pig because its to humid. A lot of the time we'll be playing basketball and it well be raining on us but its still way hot.
In class all the teachers do is speak spanish. they hardly know any English at all so i'm pretty sure that this place is going to help me understand and learn spanish so much. All of our teachers are really good though, the only probablem is theres a language barrier between us still at this moment in time. But we're working on breaking that barrier down. The Temple here is absolutly beautiful and i'm a little sad that i'm only going to get to go to it while i'm here in the MTC. I wish that we could come over from Puerto Rico and go to seasion every once in awhile. I got to do Initiatory today and than do a session afterward. It was amazing! All of the marble that is at this temple came from Brazil. The temple here is huge for being in not so big of an LDS area. The temple by far is the Best part of the week!!The new district here is going to be really good i think. I'm excited!
Oh yeah, and just to let you, Pres. Perkins made me the district leader for my district. Its going to be a lot of work and i'm not really sure why he made me the leader because my spanish definately isnt the best in our district but it is what it is. Its a good thing to have leadership i guess... anyway on Tuesday morning Sister Perkins (the mish. Pres. Wife) took us to do Baptisms for the dead. That was really cool because they never let us do that back in Provo. I love every opportunity we get to go to the Temple.This week we get to teach the 1st lesson in Spanish, or at leas attempt to teach. We're going to have to make it really simple to be able to get through the whole lesson in Spanish. But thats alright because as time goes on we'll be able to build on it and make it better and better. Well my time is running out on the comp. so i'm going to have to let you go... I love all of you! and thank you so much for your prayers and your support! PS If you can keep on e-mailing me because the mail is really slow here in the DR. I havent got any mail yet and have only seen one other Elder get a real actual written letter. I love to hear from you and i can read my email on thursday's now.
Love, Elder Lopez
Food here in the DR are a lot better than the food was back in the Provo MTC. For breakfast we ususally eat cereal and pancakes. But ever once and a while we get this cinamin french toast that is a way good. Lunch time is the best part of the day though for sure. Lunch here is the big meal of the day. and when i say big i mean big. We always have rice and beans and some sort of meat. the meat changes every now and again though some time its chicken sometimes its ham somtimes its beef. The good part is that its always good. The first day we had rice and beans every one was hating life the next day and had the runs... yeah the bathrooms took a pretty bad beating. All the natives just thought it was funny. I guess it takes awhile for your body to get ajusted to so much rice and beans at once.
The weather here is pretty constant, it rains every day with out fail and its really humid. we got to go over to the University today and do our service project at the park. we went and picked up trash. the walk over there was good though, it felt good to get out of these 20 ft cement walls that surround us and the Temple. The drivers here are crazy, i dont think they really have rules on the road.
For gym i usually play basketball out side in the parking lot and it doesnt take any time at all until your sweating like a pig because its to humid. A lot of the time we'll be playing basketball and it well be raining on us but its still way hot.
In class all the teachers do is speak spanish. they hardly know any English at all so i'm pretty sure that this place is going to help me understand and learn spanish so much. All of our teachers are really good though, the only probablem is theres a language barrier between us still at this moment in time. But we're working on breaking that barrier down. The Temple here is absolutly beautiful and i'm a little sad that i'm only going to get to go to it while i'm here in the MTC. I wish that we could come over from Puerto Rico and go to seasion every once in awhile. I got to do Initiatory today and than do a session afterward. It was amazing! All of the marble that is at this temple came from Brazil. The temple here is huge for being in not so big of an LDS area. The temple by far is the Best part of the week!!The new district here is going to be really good i think. I'm excited!
Oh yeah, and just to let you, Pres. Perkins made me the district leader for my district. Its going to be a lot of work and i'm not really sure why he made me the leader because my spanish definately isnt the best in our district but it is what it is. Its a good thing to have leadership i guess... anyway on Tuesday morning Sister Perkins (the mish. Pres. Wife) took us to do Baptisms for the dead. That was really cool because they never let us do that back in Provo. I love every opportunity we get to go to the Temple.This week we get to teach the 1st lesson in Spanish, or at leas attempt to teach. We're going to have to make it really simple to be able to get through the whole lesson in Spanish. But thats alright because as time goes on we'll be able to build on it and make it better and better. Well my time is running out on the comp. so i'm going to have to let you go... I love all of you! and thank you so much for your prayers and your support! PS If you can keep on e-mailing me because the mail is really slow here in the DR. I havent got any mail yet and have only seen one other Elder get a real actual written letter. I love to hear from you and i can read my email on thursday's now.
Love, Elder Lopez
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Letter (dated 08/20/2008)
Once again, just click on the letter to make it big and readable.
Page 1
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Page 2
Page 3
Thursday, August 21, 2008
WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!
This morning, Bret left for the Dominican Republic MTC. While at the SLC airport, Bret just happened to run into his brother-in-law Lou, who just happened to be flying out for a business trip!!! Then Bret runs in his cousins' Curtis, and Danielle who ALSO happen to be flying that day!! As if that weren't enough, Bret's Aunt Francie happens to be a flight attendant. She heard Bret's flight was flying out to Dallas. She worked something out, to where she could get a flight to Dallas...AND she was able to sit next to Bret on the flight!! Talk about a lucky series of coincidences!! Here is a picture taken from Lou's cell phone, of him and Bret.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Email (dated 08/20/2008)
Well another week down in the Provo MTC. I know it sounds really crazy but its true i'm out of the Provo MTC and into The DR CCM wich means DR MTC. Time flew by in this place, and its had its up and downs, mostly ups. Every time i'd be stuggleing some experience would come by wether it be a talk given or a testimony born there was always something that helped me to realize that i'm on the Lords erand right now and dont have to worry about anything else. Learning a language i decided cant be done with out the help of the greatest gift we've been given which is the Holy Ghost and our agency to choose with the HG's guidance.
All of your emails helped to boosed my spirits so much and i cant thank you enough. The support i'm gettin at home is amazing so thank you all, you keep me going:) This passesd saturday we had our second teaching appointment and it was a really good one i thought. Elder Sellers and I really worked on politely inviting ourselvs in to a house after knocking a door in espanol. It took us a while to start feeling comfortable in talking to people in Espanol, infact we still arent even close to being able to feel comfortable speaking spanish to anyone that knows how to, but it will come. Anyway we got our point accross and there is only going up from here. After we introduced ourselves in spanish and told the "investigator/volunteer" that we were going to share a message about the restored gospel with them things started to go really good.During the lesson we were ableto speak English and the spirit was very strong. I love to recite the 1st vision and the spirit it brings is so strong every time. I'm even able to say it in spanish now by memory. It still a little choppy but it will come with time. At least thats what i hear. We finished teaching the lesson in about 35 min and i think that we were able to meet the investigators needs.
Sunday was really good like always this week. In the fireside that we had we learned about the power that music has to bring the spirit. It was so good Misionaries were able to share their favorite hymns and then we would sing a verse from that hymn. When the whole entire MTC sings together the spirit is so strong. It was incredable!This tuesday we had a Devotional when a General Authority comes to speak with us. This wee was the best by far! On my last week here in Provo we got to listen to Dallin H. Oaks speak! yeah i was probably like 30 ft. away from an Apostle of the Lord in our day. It was amazing! the whole MTC was singing "our saviors love" and then he walked in and we all stood up out of respect. The Holy ghost just hit me there like a hammer! He talked with us about staying worthy of the spirit because with out the spirit you can not teach. He really hit hard onthe importence of partaking of the sacrament worthily and how by doing so we are starting the week of with the spirit of the lord and as long as we stay clean can keep that spirti with us. Its through the spirit that we are able to work miracles and i cant wait to get out in the world and let the spirit guide!I love you all! Thank you for all your support again!
Love Elder Lopez
PS. my address in the DR is
Elder Bret Lopez
Dominican Republic MTCAv. Bolivar #825
Los Robles Santo Domingo
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
All of your emails helped to boosed my spirits so much and i cant thank you enough. The support i'm gettin at home is amazing so thank you all, you keep me going:) This passesd saturday we had our second teaching appointment and it was a really good one i thought. Elder Sellers and I really worked on politely inviting ourselvs in to a house after knocking a door in espanol. It took us a while to start feeling comfortable in talking to people in Espanol, infact we still arent even close to being able to feel comfortable speaking spanish to anyone that knows how to, but it will come. Anyway we got our point accross and there is only going up from here. After we introduced ourselves in spanish and told the "investigator/volunteer" that we were going to share a message about the restored gospel with them things started to go really good.During the lesson we were ableto speak English and the spirit was very strong. I love to recite the 1st vision and the spirit it brings is so strong every time. I'm even able to say it in spanish now by memory. It still a little choppy but it will come with time. At least thats what i hear. We finished teaching the lesson in about 35 min and i think that we were able to meet the investigators needs.
Sunday was really good like always this week. In the fireside that we had we learned about the power that music has to bring the spirit. It was so good Misionaries were able to share their favorite hymns and then we would sing a verse from that hymn. When the whole entire MTC sings together the spirit is so strong. It was incredable!This tuesday we had a Devotional when a General Authority comes to speak with us. This wee was the best by far! On my last week here in Provo we got to listen to Dallin H. Oaks speak! yeah i was probably like 30 ft. away from an Apostle of the Lord in our day. It was amazing! the whole MTC was singing "our saviors love" and then he walked in and we all stood up out of respect. The Holy ghost just hit me there like a hammer! He talked with us about staying worthy of the spirit because with out the spirit you can not teach. He really hit hard onthe importence of partaking of the sacrament worthily and how by doing so we are starting the week of with the spirit of the lord and as long as we stay clean can keep that spirti with us. Its through the spirit that we are able to work miracles and i cant wait to get out in the world and let the spirit guide!I love you all! Thank you for all your support again!
Love Elder Lopez
PS. my address in the DR is
Elder Bret Lopez
Dominican Republic MTCAv. Bolivar #825
Los Robles Santo Domingo
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Letter home (dated 08/13/2008)
Here is a scan of Bret's last letter home. It was easier for me to just post the scanned letter, rather than type the letter into the blog. Plus, I think it looks pretty cool :) If you click on the letter, it will get big, and you'll be able to read what it says. The 3rd page of the letter, was sent as a text document, so I wasn't able to put the scan on the blog; therefore I had to write out the 3rd page. But you get the idea.
PAGE 1
PAGE 2
PAGE 3
Basketball & Baseball.
They don't let us play baseball here but I just found out we can play softball. I guess that's close enough. So next gym time I'm going to see if I can start a game up. Most of the time I just play basketball during gym which is pretty fun. Hey, my email address is elderbretlopez@myldsmail.net I'm able to send email every Wed. So check it and write me back on there too. But keep on sending letters too. I love them! I'm only able to write on Wed. just to let you know, so it's only once a week.
So I'm sorry about the penmanship & I'm writing on a park bench, which is making this even more difficult.
I love you and hope you can read this!
LOVE Elder Lopez
P.S. I gave my ring to the guy that's in Steve Heaps ward, to give to Bishop Heaps. So you can get it from him. Write me and tell me when you've got it. Thanks for letting me see it for a while before I leave out to the field. I took pics of it to remember it by. Here are some pictures of life in the MTC too. I hope you enjoy.
Love you again!!
Elder Lopez
PAGE 1
PAGE 2
PAGE 3
Basketball & Baseball.
They don't let us play baseball here but I just found out we can play softball. I guess that's close enough. So next gym time I'm going to see if I can start a game up. Most of the time I just play basketball during gym which is pretty fun. Hey, my email address is elderbretlopez@myldsmail.net I'm able to send email every Wed. So check it and write me back on there too. But keep on sending letters too. I love them! I'm only able to write on Wed. just to let you know, so it's only once a week.
So I'm sorry about the penmanship & I'm writing on a park bench, which is making this even more difficult.
I love you and hope you can read this!
LOVE Elder Lopez
P.S. I gave my ring to the guy that's in Steve Heaps ward, to give to Bishop Heaps. So you can get it from him. Write me and tell me when you've got it. Thanks for letting me see it for a while before I leave out to the field. I took pics of it to remember it by. Here are some pictures of life in the MTC too. I hope you enjoy.
Love you again!!
Elder Lopez
The "Birthday Tie" Bret had to wear all day.
Superman missionary!
Bret and his companions
Bret opening up the package with his championship ring
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Bret's email address
I have posted Bret's email address on the side of the page, for any of you that wish to email him. He is only allowed to email back his family. But if you email him, he WILL get it, and he can respond to you in a letter. He says he would LOVE to hear from all of you!)
MTC life (email dated August 13, 2008)
Well i sent a email last week but i dont think anyone recieved it because i didn't get any reply. I sent it to kaye84057@yahoo.com so mom please check your email every wed. because i'm can email for 30 min every p-day. My email is elderbretlopez@myldsmail.net so if lachelle could maybe put that up on the blog i'd love to read emails from friends but i'm only aloude to email back my family. I sure hope this one gets to someone out there...
Well life in the MTC is going good. I just saw Jack Grazzini's dad here at the copy center. Iguess he works for the BYU copy center and has to check up on the MTC copy center every now and again. I told him to tell the crew back home hello for me. Grandma wrote me a letter and it was really good. MOm if you could send me her address i'd really love it because i couldnt really read the address that she wrote on the letter.
We get to go to the temple today and i'm way excited. The temple is a place where we can go every wed. and its just like a re-charge for the entire week. The Language is coming along. Elder Sellers and i did our first practice and contacting a teacher in spanish the other day. we struggled to say what we wanted to say but we did manage to make our point in Spanish back to him. I just asked him about his family in spanish and then tried to tell him how important family's are to our eternal lifes and than i bore testimony to him about my love for my family and that i know that we will be together forever because of Christ gospel.
Next thursday the 21st at 730 my flight leaves for the D.R. We fly on American airlines and have a couple of lay overs in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and then finaly the DR. i cant believe my time here in the great state of Utah is coming to an end for a couple of years. I'm very excited and nervous at the same time and cant wait to be able to speak the language.
Yesterday was a great day. We heard from a member of the 70 and his name we elder Gary Cloleman. NO it wasnt the actor it was a General Authority. Lachelle and mark will understand. It was really good and he strengthend my testimony a lot on my work here for the lord. Well my time is starting to run out onthe computer so i'll Talk to you next week. Love you all so much!Elder Lopez
Well life in the MTC is going good. I just saw Jack Grazzini's dad here at the copy center. Iguess he works for the BYU copy center and has to check up on the MTC copy center every now and again. I told him to tell the crew back home hello for me. Grandma wrote me a letter and it was really good. MOm if you could send me her address i'd really love it because i couldnt really read the address that she wrote on the letter.
We get to go to the temple today and i'm way excited. The temple is a place where we can go every wed. and its just like a re-charge for the entire week. The Language is coming along. Elder Sellers and i did our first practice and contacting a teacher in spanish the other day. we struggled to say what we wanted to say but we did manage to make our point in Spanish back to him. I just asked him about his family in spanish and then tried to tell him how important family's are to our eternal lifes and than i bore testimony to him about my love for my family and that i know that we will be together forever because of Christ gospel.
Next thursday the 21st at 730 my flight leaves for the D.R. We fly on American airlines and have a couple of lay overs in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and then finaly the DR. i cant believe my time here in the great state of Utah is coming to an end for a couple of years. I'm very excited and nervous at the same time and cant wait to be able to speak the language.
Yesterday was a great day. We heard from a member of the 70 and his name we elder Gary Cloleman. NO it wasnt the actor it was a General Authority. Lachelle and mark will understand. It was really good and he strengthend my testimony a lot on my work here for the lord. Well my time is starting to run out onthe computer so i'll Talk to you next week. Love you all so much!Elder Lopez
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Letter home (dated August 6th, 2008)
Dear Mom and Dad,
Well a whole week is gone now, I can't believe it. It was a very long week though, I'm not going to lie. There's been so much going on I can even describe in words. The feelings that I get here everyday are amazing. I love the comfort of Holy Ghost.
We definately have a lot of classes in here, and there's so much info given in all of them, that it's hard to remember it all. The language is coming, not as fast as I'd like, but it will come along eventually. I'm praying in Spanish now at least, and I'm working on bearing my testimony in Spanish. I could use your prayers on helping me with the language. I know you're praying for me and thanks!
My companions are all great. I told you about Elder Sellers already, he's my comp. and the 2 other Elders in our room are great too. Their names are Elder Slade from Riverton, and Elder Twitchel from Heber. We all have a great time rooming in the residency, a.k.a. "The barn." Hopefully in the next letter, I'll be able to send you some pics.
Thanks you so much for all the letters and packages. I think I got enough candy and food to feed the entire MTC. Everyone's getting a little jealous. I'm definately winning in the package and letter competition. The Baseball State ring is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! Thanks so much for sending it so I could get to see it for a bit.
My birthday was good. My whole district found out and sang me Happy Birthday. Elder Sellers gave me a tie that was orange and wrote "The Birthday Tie" on it and made me wear it the entire day. Elder Slade gave me a tie too, and wrote me a little note on the back of it. It says "si se puede" (yes we can). That's our little saying. He's having some family problems at home, so if you could keep Elder Slade in your prayers, that would be great!
Sorry it's been a while since I've been able to write, they only let us write on Wed. So that's why it's been a while. I have gotten all of your letters and mail too, just so you know.
I've seen Bishop Heap's son in here a couple of times & Alan's sister. They're very friendly and it's always nice to see a familiar face. Thanks for all the baseball updates. Sounds like this last part of the season is when the cream is going to rise to the top. Please keep on keeping me posted.
Right now I'm doing my laundry and then later on today, we get to go to the temple. Dad, don't get any ideas please!!!
Yesterday, we got to take phone calls from people that see adds on tv about the church. I was a little nervous to speak with real people about the church but it ended up being a great experience. I bore to the lady I talked to, my testimony, and I asked if she would read Moroni 10: 3-5 in a B.O.M. I'd send to her. And she said she would. Surprisingly, she sounded really sincere about it too. It was a great feeling!
Anyway, what those missionaries (the mish. you met on the plane) said about the first week was right. I think the hardest is in the past now, at least hopefully!
Well I gotta go finish my laundry then change to go to the temple. Until next letter, I love you and tell the fam. I love them too! Thanks so much for your letters! The Church is true!
Love,
Elder Lopez
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, it was Elder Paramore that spoke on Tuesday night. I just remembered Dad asked in one of his letters.
Oh yeah, one more thing. You can get on DearElder.com and type me a letter and it gets to me the same day and they're easier to read...HA. I guess you just type a letter and they print it off here, and put it in my mail box.
I love all you!!!
Well a whole week is gone now, I can't believe it. It was a very long week though, I'm not going to lie. There's been so much going on I can even describe in words. The feelings that I get here everyday are amazing. I love the comfort of Holy Ghost.
We definately have a lot of classes in here, and there's so much info given in all of them, that it's hard to remember it all. The language is coming, not as fast as I'd like, but it will come along eventually. I'm praying in Spanish now at least, and I'm working on bearing my testimony in Spanish. I could use your prayers on helping me with the language. I know you're praying for me and thanks!
My companions are all great. I told you about Elder Sellers already, he's my comp. and the 2 other Elders in our room are great too. Their names are Elder Slade from Riverton, and Elder Twitchel from Heber. We all have a great time rooming in the residency, a.k.a. "The barn." Hopefully in the next letter, I'll be able to send you some pics.
Thanks you so much for all the letters and packages. I think I got enough candy and food to feed the entire MTC. Everyone's getting a little jealous. I'm definately winning in the package and letter competition. The Baseball State ring is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! Thanks so much for sending it so I could get to see it for a bit.
My birthday was good. My whole district found out and sang me Happy Birthday. Elder Sellers gave me a tie that was orange and wrote "The Birthday Tie" on it and made me wear it the entire day. Elder Slade gave me a tie too, and wrote me a little note on the back of it. It says "si se puede" (yes we can). That's our little saying. He's having some family problems at home, so if you could keep Elder Slade in your prayers, that would be great!
Sorry it's been a while since I've been able to write, they only let us write on Wed. So that's why it's been a while. I have gotten all of your letters and mail too, just so you know.
I've seen Bishop Heap's son in here a couple of times & Alan's sister. They're very friendly and it's always nice to see a familiar face. Thanks for all the baseball updates. Sounds like this last part of the season is when the cream is going to rise to the top. Please keep on keeping me posted.
Right now I'm doing my laundry and then later on today, we get to go to the temple. Dad, don't get any ideas please!!!
Yesterday, we got to take phone calls from people that see adds on tv about the church. I was a little nervous to speak with real people about the church but it ended up being a great experience. I bore to the lady I talked to, my testimony, and I asked if she would read Moroni 10: 3-5 in a B.O.M. I'd send to her. And she said she would. Surprisingly, she sounded really sincere about it too. It was a great feeling!
Anyway, what those missionaries (the mish. you met on the plane) said about the first week was right. I think the hardest is in the past now, at least hopefully!
Well I gotta go finish my laundry then change to go to the temple. Until next letter, I love you and tell the fam. I love them too! Thanks so much for your letters! The Church is true!
Love,
Elder Lopez
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, it was Elder Paramore that spoke on Tuesday night. I just remembered Dad asked in one of his letters.
Oh yeah, one more thing. You can get on DearElder.com and type me a letter and it gets to me the same day and they're easier to read...HA. I guess you just type a letter and they print it off here, and put it in my mail box.
I love all you!!!
MTC life (email dated August 6, 2008)
Well I already wrote you a letter today telling you mostly evreything that I can think of, but now I have 30 minutes to email each week. So here's a little more.
Thanks for all the support that you guys have been giving me out here. I love to recieve your letters. I sent you Ryan's and Cory's birthday cards cuz I didn't know thier address. If you could send that, that would be wonderful.
Classes here in the MTC are very long, but it's weird cuz I never feel like it's enough time to get everyting I want to get in. All the days just sort of blend into one big long day.
Now that I look back at the week, I can see that I actually did learn a lot in one week. I'm giving some really simple prayers in Spanish. It reminds me of listening to little Brooklyn say a prayer, cuz they're short and sweet, just like hers.
The food is pretty good, but I feel so worthless at times cuz all I do is sit and eat and then go sit in class for 4 hours a day.
This week we were lucky enough to start our gym period. I can already tell that I'm going to be looking forward to gym a lot. It's the one time where I feel like I can be normal for a little bit.
My two teachers are Hermano Anderson, and Hermana Stevenson. Hermano Anderson is really a good teacher and went through an example of the 1st discussion yesterday. It was amazing. Hermana Stevenson is also a good teacher, but I think she's a little more hard to follow. That's alright though, cuz I'll catch on sooner or later. Hopfully sooner rather than later. In my district, we have 8 Elders and 4 Sisters. We're pretty lucky I guess you can say, cuz we're the only district in our whole zone with sisters. They're good to have in class cuz it always seems like they're giving the inspirational thoughts.
Anyway, my departure date for the D.R. is on Aug. 21!! That's only a couple of weeks away, so I got my work cut out for me the next couple of weeks.
Well my time on the computer is running out, so I'm going to try and send this before I lose it all. Hopefully I send it to the right email address...
Love always,
Elder Lopez
Thanks for all the support that you guys have been giving me out here. I love to recieve your letters. I sent you Ryan's and Cory's birthday cards cuz I didn't know thier address. If you could send that, that would be wonderful.
Classes here in the MTC are very long, but it's weird cuz I never feel like it's enough time to get everyting I want to get in. All the days just sort of blend into one big long day.
Now that I look back at the week, I can see that I actually did learn a lot in one week. I'm giving some really simple prayers in Spanish. It reminds me of listening to little Brooklyn say a prayer, cuz they're short and sweet, just like hers.
The food is pretty good, but I feel so worthless at times cuz all I do is sit and eat and then go sit in class for 4 hours a day.
This week we were lucky enough to start our gym period. I can already tell that I'm going to be looking forward to gym a lot. It's the one time where I feel like I can be normal for a little bit.
My two teachers are Hermano Anderson, and Hermana Stevenson. Hermano Anderson is really a good teacher and went through an example of the 1st discussion yesterday. It was amazing. Hermana Stevenson is also a good teacher, but I think she's a little more hard to follow. That's alright though, cuz I'll catch on sooner or later. Hopfully sooner rather than later. In my district, we have 8 Elders and 4 Sisters. We're pretty lucky I guess you can say, cuz we're the only district in our whole zone with sisters. They're good to have in class cuz it always seems like they're giving the inspirational thoughts.
Anyway, my departure date for the D.R. is on Aug. 21!! That's only a couple of weeks away, so I got my work cut out for me the next couple of weeks.
Well my time on the computer is running out, so I'm going to try and send this before I lose it all. Hopefully I send it to the right email address...
Love always,
Elder Lopez
Monday, August 4, 2008
Bret's first letter home
Dear Mom and Dad,
Wow, my 1st day is over now, and I'm just taking a little bit of time before I go to bed to write you. We're only supposed to write on P-days, which is Wednesday, just to give you a little heads up.
The Spirit that's here in the MTC is absolutely amazing! Everywhere I go, I can feel it and I'm loving every moment of it. My companion's name is Elder Sellers. He's awesome! He's from the Bay area in Northern Cal. He got called to be our district leader tonight and there's about 12 missionaries. There's 8 Elders, and 4 Hermonas. Today they just showed us around and how to get mail and lunch and things.
I just met Elder Carter. He's in my zone and is a ball player. He's from the Fresno area. I just let him know that Fresno State won the College World Series. He left the day before the championship game and didn't know who won. So I helped update him on everything. Everyone is so friendly here in our zone. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with the schedule, cuz right now I'm all mixed up. I guess you can call me the "greeny" of the MTC. Anyway, it's getting to the time where I gotta turn the lights out. So I'll write you again soon. Love you with all my heart!
--Elder Lopez
Saying goodbye is the hardest part
Bret arrived at the MTC on Wednesday July 30, 2008. Saying goodbye is the hardest part, but we know in two short years, we'll be able to see him again! He'll be an excellent missionary and we are so proud of him! Scott and Steph, and Mark and I weren't able to make it to the MTC, but I hope Bret knows we were there in Spirit! We love you Bret! 
Look at that handsome missionary!
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