Elder Jefferson Given: Texas McAllen Mission (Spanish Speaking)

Transferring to Kingsville

2010-08-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

July 26, 2010

Hi Family!!

Here are some cool pics for you. They are some of the really cool members from down here in Brownsville. Im gonna print out some pics today at Walmart and I'll try to make a disk thing as well.

Anyway I got a call from my Mission President on Sunday morning before church. He told me that Im getting transfered up north. I'm going to a city called Kingsville and Im gonna be district leader over some missionaries. My comp is a kid named Elder Marsdin or something like that. He was in Elder Grahams district in the MTC. I think he'll be alright, I'm way excited! The only bad part maybe is that Im gonna be on bike. So for the hottest part of the year I'm gonna be on bike which is kinda lame but I guess it will toughen me up. Transfers are tomorrow so I gotta pack up all my stuff. I have so much stuff its kinda rediculous. I've got a ton of ties and weights and stuff now but I'll make it work.

I'm super disapointed to be leaving my area right now. Its just started to blow up. We had 6 people at church yesterday and 3 of them were Jehovahs Witnesses! I was very surprised they came. We had 5 at the Spanish branch and 1 at English. The guy that came to English is this guy named Alex. Hes super shy and kinda weird but hes progressing a lot. He is very excited about baptism and Im sure hes gonna get baptized on the 22nd or before. This one day we showed up to his house and he had a pile of printed out papers under his BOM and I was like oh crap in my head. I thought it was a bunch of Anti stuff. But he had actually printed off a bunch of stuff from mormon.org about Thomas S Monson and and Law of Chastity and stuff like that. He's a way cool guy.

Another person I'm gonna be sad to leave is this lady named Aurora. Shes like 24 and has a 3 year old son, but lives with her dad and brothers. Shes way cool. She came to church and loved it. We had a lesson with her in the church and it was great. She really feels the spirit and Im sure shes gonna get baptized. Right when we get all these cool people I stinkin get transfered! Like they are gonna have probably 3 or 4 baptisms in August. We hooked them up. This missionary is coming in here for his last transfer to replace me. Hes a really good guy tho so he'll do well.

I'm officially a tie hustler. I have this new theory I guess for getting really good ties. Cus most missionaries down here have a few good ties, but I'm trying to have a bunch of really good ties. So lately I have been trading like 5 decent average kinda good ties, for 1 sick tie. And so now I have a lot better quality over quanity.

There has been a huge change in my life this transfer, I'm glad I finally learned how to rely on the Lord. I figured out I couldn't do anything a while ago, but I just figured out how to rely on the Lord and life has been great since then. I have had some super awesome personal studies lately. Like I used to kinda struggle through parts of personal study when I would get bored and I wouldn't know what to study, but the last few weeks I have been spending like 45 minutes a day in the BOM. And I'll read like 2 chapters in 45 minutes cus I'm really just analizing and applying everything. Its kinda cool how much more I have learned. I love studies now.

Life's been great. So I guess its time for more trials up in Kingsville now. I'm pretty sure 2 of the Elders in my district are super lazy which is going to be annoying to have to get them to wake up on time and work and stuff, but I'll have to figure it out. Anyway I think thats all I got for today. I gotta go pack today, we tried to get another tie bail but they didnt have one. Oh yea and if youre planning on sending me stuff for my bday, send it to the Mcallen address cus idk the Kingsville one yet.

Cool well I love you all a lot. Tell Grammy Barbie I got her package and it was way awesome! Exactly what I needed. Next time I email you I'll be a few hours north and 20 years old!

Love

Elder Given

Fun Week!

2010-08-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

July 19, 2010

Whats up Everyone!

Well I think I got to everyone except dad haha. I haven't got that much mail in a long time haha. The package was awesome, thanks a ton. Mom I still havnt got my asthma meds so idk whats up with that, I could really use those soon. Glad to hear that girls bball team is turning around cus that thing was a mess haha. Glad youre loving it too. Glad Tylers team is doing alright. It would be cool if that kid would write me every once and a while haha. Thats crazy the Jensons are moving and that everyone is thinking about it. That would be nuts if everybody left. Are you guys thinking about moving? haha I hope not.

Anyway we had a couple crazy things happen this week. I totally kicked a dog in that face while riding my bike yesterday. It was chasing me and I swerved at it but it kept going, so I tried to kick it and missed, but then the second time I got it real good, before he got me. There are so many stinkin dogs here its annoying. Oh yea and last night when we were riding home, it was like 9:15 and we were like 3 or 4 miles away so we were trying to book it, and then my companions seat fell off his bike. So we were trying to fix it but it wouldnt go on, so I just put the seat in my backpack, and my comp took off. So we go like 200 yards and I tell him to switch cus I could tell he was tired. It was a long day. I'll tell you about that in a sec. So we switch and I rode the rest of the way home on his bike with no seat so I had a stand up the whole time. It was a pain but I like the challange.

So that day our whole district was fasting to find a prepared family, so after church we went home and took a quick nap and then took the bikes out to go find our prepared family. So we decided to do this one trailor park. So we started at like 2 and then had a dinner appointment at like 5. So we knocked doors from like 2-445 and then had dinner with a member. it was fish but it was actually really good. So after dinner we went and were about to go just visit some people but I felt like we needed to go knock more doors, so thats what we did. we ended up knocking this trailor park from 615-9. It was a pain in the butt, we talked to a lot of dumb people not gonna lie. Might have found a good family tho, we'll see, we're going back tonight.

Found a cool guy named Alex this week. We had a super spiritual lesson with him in the church on Saturday, but he still didnt come to church on Sunday. I was annoyed about that but oh well, we'll get him next week. But yea its been a week of ups and downs. Next week is transfers so we'll see what happens then. Oh yea mom I think you were asking about if we have AC and we do. And in our car. So I stay pretty cool, dont worry. Well I think thats about it for this week.

I love you guys a lot and thanks again for the package.

Love

Elder Given

Did Everyone Forget about me???

2010-08-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2010

Whats up Everybody?

Its kinda lame not getting letters from anyone! I guess Im just at that point in my mission where everyone forgets about you and doesnt write you. That's cool tho I'll probably start getting letters again in about 8 months. Anyway, Im dieing right now. Im freeking sick again. I woke up at 4 AM this morning and I was just burning it, so I went to go get some water or something but I just felt crappy. So I stole a fan from the other elders, and put it in my room. So I tried to go back to sleep but then at like 445 I was still awake and my stomach was Killing me. Then I threw up a bunch of times. I feel like crap. I'm drinking a bunch of pepto bismal and I've got some powerade. Still not feeling so great tho. But whatever, I'll get over it. I already did once this week. I was super sick on Tuesday- Thursday, but I still worked. Hopefully the Lord will bless us for it cus jeez, Brownsville has been the biggest trial of my life. I love it here at times but its been super rough. Every time we have someone about to get baptized, something crazy happens and they dont get baptized, I just cant catch a break here. And especially for how hard Im working I would have expected to have a lot more success. We have a bunch of super lame investigators right now who wont do anything. We've been praying to find a prepared family and I know we'll find one this week.

I had a super fun day on Thursday, I went on splits with Elder Anderson, over in his area which is downtown Brownsville. Their area is usually a bike area but the other elders they live with crashed the car twice so they lost driving privladges so now downtown is a bike area. So we go to leave that morning and it is just coming down. I guess we had another tropical depression or somthing, and it rained a ton. If there is too much rain we aren't aloud to drive, so we had to take the bikes out, which was actually really fun. We road through the rain and the flooding for a while, thats probably why Im so sick, but theres nothing I could do about it. We just had a really fun day, and had a lot of success. It was kinda completely different from what Im used to. So that was fun.

But then Friday I was talking to our District Leader, who is Elder Hernandez, from back in Raymondville, and I was asking him how Graham did in leading the area. He told me that he got lost and that he said he gets nervous when he contacts people, and then he said "I just think he needs to be trained better" Wow that really ticked me off. Especially cus its not my fault if Graham doesnt know the area, he hasnt been paying attention when we are in the car and so he doesnt know how to get to places that we go to multiple times a day. And I've been working on helping Graham not be nervous for months, and there is only so much I can do in regards to that.

Alright well I think I've put way too much frustration into this email. Im sorry. There are a few good things going on here. We had a lesson with this guy last night and I felt the spirit tell me that we need to kneel down for the prayer, so as we finished up I taught him how to pray, and then invited him to say a kneeling prayer. The spirit was way strong, and he started crying. It was way cool. He has a lot of potential if we cfan get passed his dogs.

The mosquitos are driving everyone here crazy. They are HUGE and there are a billion of them. Flooding here is not a good thing. Its super bad and we have been getting attacked.

My new favorite basketball team is officially the Miami Heat, not questions asked haha.

Okay well I think thats all I got for today. Im probably gonna go home and sleep for the rest of the day. i love you guys a lot, just try to get me some letters, and some letters from my amigos. Alrights well I guess I'll talk to yall later

Love
Elder Given

July 6, 2010

2010-08-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Hi Family!

Hurrican Alex was no big deal. Didn't even do anything to Brownsville. I was super excited for it tho. We got the call that the hurricane was coming on monday, and then we found out we would be getting evacuated on tuesday, and then we actually left Wednesday morning. We left at 7am for McAllen, which is like a 1 hour drive more or less. Actually it was kidna funny, the Zone Leaders called and told us to leave right at 7, but we were a little bit late getting everything ready and we didnt leave until like 705. Sure enough at like 702 the rain started pounding super hard and as we were loading our stuff into the car, we got soaked! It was kinda funny tho. So I drove all the way to McAllen in the rain, and we made it their safely.

It was cool cus we got to meet President and Sister Trayner. I love them. They are way way way awesome. I loved the Millers but I just have a really good feeling about President Trayner. Hes actually pretty funny and he speaks a lot of Spanish to us. He showed up to our training and just started it all in Spanish, and then would switch into Spanish at random parts of the training. He's already got TexMex down hahaha. Hes got great vision for the mission and I know we are going to progress a lot with him incharge. We had trainings from 10-5 on Wednesday, thursday, friday and saturday. It was like the MTC again, but it was cool. I learned a ton. We are really focusing on teaching simply now, its cool. SO yea, Wednesday, we had training till 5, and then after that we went and worked in the APs area. Kinda lame, but we found this super cool old guy. Then Thursday after the training, they said that the HUrricane had cleared up so they let us go back to brownsville. Oh yea and we stayed at the APs house in McAllen and I basicly traded a tie for 2 45 lb weights so I was stoked on that. (BTW tyler how much can you bench? I maxed out at 165 the other day and I weight 190) anyway so we went back and worked for like 2 hours on thursday and then Friday morning we had more trainings in Harlingen. SO we went to that and then had a few hours to work after it. Oh yea at that one they had me give a training to everyone about the importance of our investiagators reading the BOM, that went well. So we only had a few hours to work Friday, and then Saturday we had training again but this time in Brownsville, and we had a testimony meeting at the end of that and it was really cool. I can tell President Trayner really loves us. So we had a few hours to work Saturday night and then Sunday came. So in order to get investigators to church you have to have some really good lessons with them during the week, and that didn't happen cus we had barely any time to work, so we didnt see the results we wanted. This one game came tho, the same guy we went to mass with. He still says he Catholic tho.

So Carlos was supposed to get baptized this week, but he has some doubt that is holding him up and we haven't figured it out yet. I'm still trying to figure out what we need to help him understand. Once he gets over that doubt hes set, he'll get baptized.

Oh yea back on Tuesday we drove by H-E-B which is kinda like Ralphs grocery store, anyway we saw just a ton of people fillling up sandbags. I guess the city just dumped a bunch of sand and gave people bags and told them to fill them up if they wanted them for their house. So we went and helped people fill sand bags for like an hour, man that killed my back but we got to help a ton of people. It was kinda funny in church on sunday they had a special meeting 3rd hour about hurricane preparedness, kinda funny that they did that right after the hurrican hit haha. I hope we get another one before I get transfered.

We had a really cool lesson with this black guy named Alvin. I met him a while back, and we just now made it to his house to teach him. We talked with him about what he wants in life and he said he wanted to quit smoking, so we invited him to do that, and he grabed the cigarette that he had in his hand and ripped it up and threw it in the street. It was really cool the see him with that real desire to quit. Hes a cool guy.

How was the 4th of July? We had to be in at 6 so that the drunk people didn't shoot their fireworks at us. We just went over to the church and we got the watch the Other Side of Heaven. It was pretty cool to watch. Alright well I think thats about all that happened this week. It was fun, Im safe, just sick, but dont worry. I love you guys a lot. Im gonna try to send you a video so let me know if you get it. Talk to you all later.

Love

Elder Given

Hurricane Coming!

2010-08-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

June 28, 2010

Hi Family!

So we were in H-E-B today buying our groceries and we get a message from our Zone Leaders saying that there is a hurricane heading our way so we need to have a 72 hour kit ready. Im super excited!!! Its gonna be fun. Mom dont let grammy barbie or anyone call president miller and freek out and get me stuck in corpus for my whole mission. Thats what happened to this one kid and hes been up there for like a year and a half, so yea, no freeking out, we'll be fine, the Lords got our back. So we might end up stuck in a church for 3 days, which would be kinda crappy.

Anyway President and Sister Miller are leaving tomorrow which is sad. I think President Trayner will be awesome tho. We had our last zone confrence with president this week. It was all the missionaries in the valley so it was cool. Usually its just Brownsville and Harlingen zones, but this time it was mcallen and mission too. So it was 4 out of the 7 zones in the mission. My whole MTC district was there which was cool. Got to talk to Elder Brandley and Yergensen for a while. Sister Miller gave everyone hugs which was cool. She totally broke down at the end tho. Its gonna be weird without them but it'll be good.

We got cussed at kinda gnarly the other day. It was crazy i walked up to this lady that was getting something out of her car and I was like como esta, how you doing (I actually said both languages cus I couldnt tell which one she spoke) and she turns and looks at me and says,"Im gonna........... I was like okay... and then just walked away cus I didnt want to push it. It was pretty funny. Im glad I can laugh about that kind of stuff.

I figured out my companions problem. Hes getting way too much presure from his parents. He sent home a box full of ties like I did a long time ago, and I guess his dad sent him a letter saying he thinks he isn't focused on the work, in regards to sending home the ties. I told my comp he needs to stand up to his parents and tell them hes a big boy and can do what he wants. And if hes not wasting the Lords time then its okay. So that was annoying cus thats why hes so messed up in the head. Im still working on fixing him. He just wants to be a super missionary right now, which isnt gonna happen if hes always feeling super pressured.

Im gonna paste in my letter to President

Hey President,
This was another week of ups and downs. I learned some really good things that I know is going to help me progress. I loved how we focused on teaching simply in Zone Conference, it was exactly what I needed. So the next day during personal study I was reading through 2nd Nephi 25. 2nd Nephi 12-24 is all the Isaiah chapters and honestly I still haven't figured out how to understand them, so I didn't get a lot of of those chapters. So chapter 25 starts out and Nephi basically says, I know some of you didn't understand the words of Isaiah, so I'm going to make it as simple as possible, and then he proceeds to teach the Gospel so simply. All he focused on was Jesus Christ, he taught why he is important and why it matters. So it just clicked in my head, if I want to teach simply,that's what I need to teach. So I went out and applied that right away and we had a really awesome lesson with this guy named Javier and he really opened up to us. I am very grateful for the inspiration that I received and I am continuing to seek more and more.
On a sad note though, our investigator, Carlos, didn't get baptized. He was doing super solid all week, on Friday he even bore his testimony to us about why he wants to get baptized. So then we set up to go by on Saturday, and had a member set to go with us, and then he calls us and tells us he's with his family so he wasn't home. So we set up to go later that evening, and he still wasn't there. So I talked to him around 9 Saturday night and asked him how he's feeling about still doing the baptism. He said he was totally down to do and and excited, if he went. I was like wait wait wait, why would you not make it. He then told me about how his mom might be planning something for them to do, but basically it was just excuses. Sure enough he didn't show up for church and we didn't make it by him on Sunday so we'll see what happened tonight. I'm sure hes going to get baptized soon, it's just a trial of our faith we have to overcome. We ended the week with 148 contacts and 9 new investigators.

So yea thats what went on this week. I just read your email you sent. I think thats hilarious that I was right about everyone worrying about the hurricane. We'll be fine. Thats awesome that Tyler played so well. Give him a high 5 for me. Crazy that Laundy is gonna be playing for the Knicks, I totally know him. I'll probably be sending Dylan a package today. Mom thats super cool that you are coaching. Go and just do everything to put a good name out for the team. Wait does that mean you aren't going to orlando now? Good luck, just teach them everything that you taught me and you'll do great. Well I think thats all I got for now. I love you guys a lot and cant wait to get that tape.

Con mucho mucho mucho amor

elder given

June 21, 2010

2010-06-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

I got the package this week. It was awesome. I loved the pictures, its crazy how everyone is growing up so fast, everyone is so tall haha. The protein is great, I love it. I wouldnt buy it again tho. Elder Sibbett was telling me about this sweet mass builder stuff that they have online for like 30 bucks and it is way more and way better. So maybe I'll get that next time. I've learned how to budget my money so I can buy protein.

Anyway, we had a pretty cool week this week. I think I told you about our investigators Carlos, he is doing really well. He came to church yesterday and had his baptismal interview, he's way set. The only thing that might have been holding him back was that he hadnt recieved an answer about the BOM yet, so on Friday we decided to fast with him. So Saturday Elder Graham me and Carlos all started fasting and we fasting all Sat afternoon till Sunday after church. After church he prayer and then we went by later that night and he told us he had recived an answer and that he knew the BOM is true and all that stuff, so hes set on getting baptized this Sunday, at Stake Confrence in Harlingen. So that will be 2 stake confrence baptisms in a row for me. Last confrence the Quinteros got baptized. Either I'm gonna baptized Carlos or one of the members probably, havnt asked him yet. We'll see. Hes a really cool guy, I hope he goes on a mission. Ohhh I dont remember if I told you, Junior, who is a recent convert from Raymondville, who we helped baptize and stuff, me and Guillen kept him active, anyway, hes been a member for 6 months now and he just got put in as 1st councilor in the branch presidency over there in raymondville, so thats way cool. Im hoping Joe Quintero gets a calling soon, I guess hes had to work on Sundays occationally tho, but Elder Guillen said the whole family is doing really awesome and making a huge impact on the area. Elder Guillen was super close to baptizing the Quinteros neibors before he left so they'll probably be baptized soon.

Cool well mom I had a question, is it cool if I send a package to Dylan for his bday? I would like to but idk how much it is going to cost. Let me know what you think. Oh yea and there is a book I'd like for my bday, its called 1001 pitfalls of spanish or something like that. Elder Sibbett has it and he says it amazing so if you could find a cheap one on amazon or something that would be cool. Oh yea and if you could send me a Rubix Cube that would be cool. I can totally do it in under a minute, I have a video on my camera of me doing it in 40 somethin seconds.

OK, well Idk anything esle thats is going on in my life. A bunch of good ball players got trasfered down here so we are about to go ball it up and its gonna be fun. Whats going on back home? Anything exciting? I feel like nobody lets me know.

Alright well I love you guys.

Elder Given

I'm Staying in Brownsville!

2010-06-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

June 14, 2010

Hi Everyone!

Yep Im stayin down here for another transfer which is cool. Im staying with Graham for another one. Elder Sibbett is also staying, but Elder Holden is leaving which is sad. He is a cool kid, we get along really well. Elder Guillen and Horton are both getting transfered down to brownsville, so my two favorite comps are gonna be in my zone now. Horton is our ZL, hes taking Elder Reillys spot, and Elder Reillys going to Raymondville which is way cool.

Anyway, life is good. This is gonna be a really good transfer, I have a feeling its gonna fly by. Im pretty sure im gonna get transfered next transfer, we'll see tho. I like it down here, Im gonna try to get my spanish super good this transfer. I had a super cool experience this week. We found this guy who invited us in and just started crying. He told us about how he got a DUI and went to jail and how his family, home, job and basicly everything was gone when he got out. He is living with his mom now and his life sucks. He says he doesnt believe in God anymore, so it was kinda crazy. We were teaching him and as we were teaching him I had this thought come to my head like I dont know how to explain it, basicly it was just the spirit. It said, Tell him he'll get his family back if he keeps the comandments. Or something along those lines. And I thought about it again, cus thats kinda crazy to promise him that, but I felt the spirit as I thought about it again, so I promised him and told him what he had to do. And so we taught him and had a good lesson, but he didnt go to church. But we are going to keep teaching him and I know that as he starts keeping the commandments, there will be a change in his life, and he will get his family back.

The other Elders had a disaster baptism yesterday. I can laugh now cus she got baptized but man it was bad. First, one of the speakers couldnt show up, then, they forgot to fill the font, then, the bap clothes didnt fit, then, no members showed up for the baptism, then, the worst part, when he went to baptize her she threw her foot up and swallowed water, so they had to do it again and she was laughin really hard, and then they did it again, and her foot came up again, and all the memebrs were like trying to tell her what to do, it was soo funny, then he finally got her all the way under the third time. It was stinkin funny.

I figured out what car I want when I get home. I saw it and I loved it, and it should be cheap. It was just like my old one but better. Its a 1993 Mercedes 190 E 2.6, black. So if you can find me one of those that would be way cool. This guy had one and it was way nice. So yea, you got a year to find that haha.

Heres part of my letter to Prez that I dont feel like typing,

I am happy to be able to stay in Brownsville for another transfer. Elder Graham and I have a lot of people on the brink of being baptized so we just need to help them make those steps. We had 150 contacts and 12 new investigators this week. Satan really got to one of our investigators this weekend. We are teaching this awesome guy named Carlos who is really doing great and really progressing. He was scheduled to have his baptismal interview yesterday, but he didn't get to sleep until 7AM Saturday night, or Sunday morning because his cousin and friends randomly showed up and decided to stay up and drink and whatnot. Luckily Carlos told us he didn't drink, but he didn't wake up for church, and didn't get interviewed. We went by Sunday night and he felt bad, so we taught him repentance and invited him to repent and that is exactly what he plans on doing. I have no doubt he will be baptized this month.

I forgot to email you last week about 2 of our investigators, named Arody and Angie Gonzalez. They are from Matamoros, but live with their Aunt(who is a members) here in Brownsville. Their father is a less active member. His name is Tomas Gonzalez and their mother is Marisa Garcia Rosas. They are not married by law. They live at 320 Calle Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez en la colonia Los Ebanos, Matamoros. They told me the missionaries already go by sometimes. Arody actually came to church for the third time yesterday which was exciting, and we are going over to his Aunt's house to eat tonight and we will be talking about baptism with him.

My testimony of faith grew this week. So we went to watch this movie, Jospen Smith, Prophet of the Restoration, with Carlos on Saturday, and we get to the church and I realize that we dont have keys to the library so we couldnt get out the TV. So we're trying to figure out how we can card into the door or something but we couldnt. Elder Graham had given up but I told him to have faith, that God would help us do it. I really was just bluffing, but it worked out. I went out to the car to grab my wallet to try to card in our something. And Elder Graham was like, Elder, its not possible we already looked, but I said to have faith, cus I was doing my works now, cus faith without works is dead. And just as I said that a member pulled up and helped us get the keys and we watched the movie. It was pretty sweet. Carlos is totally getting baptized in a couple weeks. Hes a way cool kid.

Anyway thats crazy about Hagens party. Thats like more than I had at my last 5 parties combined. haha wow time is totally flying by. It hit me today, we were at the grocery store and I saw some magazine that said its been 1 year since Michael Jackson died, which is crazy cus I totally remember that happening like a few weeks ago haha. I'll keep the Risenmays in my prayers. Is Tiff married yet? I feel like I have no idea about whats going on in the real world haha, nobody ever writes me back, its kinda funny. People stoped carring after a few months. I'll start getting more letters in like 8 months tho haha. Is Ryan Ricks gonna go back out on his misison soon? Has anybody left since Dylan left? Anyway I think thats all I got for today. I love you guys a lot, cant wait to get that package. Tell Grammy Barbie and Papa thanks for the package, I'll get a letter in the mail for them this week.

Love

Elder Given

Ten Months

2010-06-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

June 7, 2010

Hey Everyone,

Heres part of my letter to Prez Miller today,

Hey President,

We had a really great experience this week. So are we are teaching this 19 year old guy named Carlos. He is very outgoing and has been receiving us really well. We have been teaching him for a little over a month and he has really been progressing a lot, with the exception of church, until this week. He has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and told us he believes it is true. We had some really awesome lessons with him and finally got him to church this week. It amazes me how Satan tries to stop people from getting to church, there is always something they have to overcome to get there, for Carlos, he had a flat tire when he went to leave for church and had to go fill up his tire with air. Luckily he was leaving really early and still got to church before it even started. I kept telling him to pay attention to how he was feeling while he was at church, and he really loved it. Even though there was some crazy stuff said in Elders Quorum, he definitely still felt the spirit. So we went over Sunday evening and we were talking about church and about baptism, and as we were leading up to set a baptismal date with him, his 16 year old brother walked in and was like "So are you going to be a Mormon?" and Carlos said "Well yea, probably". So we ended up setting the baptismal date for the 20th of this month. He is doing great and is truly becoming converted to this gospel.

So yea Carlos is doing super well. Im really excited to see him get baptized here pretty soon. Oh yea and idk if I told you but the other elders are teaching this guy from Nigeria who is super super prepared. He was at church yesterday and when we were waiting for his ride with him we were teaching him spanish. It was funny hearing him speak spanish in an african accent. Hes was cool. Man if everyone was as prepared as him life would be so much easier. Im guessing there are a lot of people like him over there in Kenya, Dylans lucky haha.

Oh yea guess what, I learned how to do a Rubix Cube this transfer. I can do it super fast. Like in a 1 minute 20 seconds. Elder Holden, one of the other missionaries I live with taught me, hes pretty baller at them. I totally met a guy with Lepercy this week. He was just sitting in his car and I went to talk to him and I said how are you doing, and he said, pretty crappy (all this was in spanish of course) anyway he told me about how he just got this crazy skin disease and he doesnt know what it is and all his skin is falling off and stuff. Its super gross and super sad. Were gonna go teach him which will help. So then yesterday I was driving to church and there was a dead cat in the road and I was noticing that there was tons and tons of roadkill here in brownsville. Like a new one everyday. Any was right as I say, man theres a lot of roadkill, BOOM. I drilled a bird. This bird swooped down and hit the hood of the car and died in the road. It was kinda crazy. Oh yea and I'm gonna send you a pic of this HUGE triantula that I found in the middle of the road. I almost ran it over, but then I took a picture, and then I ran it over haha.

Oh yea so this kid we are teaching named Osmar, he has been doing alright, but we went over saturday and he was trying to drop us cus he likes being catholic. So I said "So you like being catholic cus you dont want to go to church?" Just totally called him out that hes lazy. And we went from getting an attempted drop, to a really good church commitment, and then he actually went. It was cool.

Mom that was a crazy story about almost getting you car jacked. That sucks. Just dont go to the mall for a while haha. Nobody here worries about that. They just worry about if they go to mexico in a nice car they will get jacked. Its funny. Alright well I think thats all I got for today. My email is out kinda late cus we got another 1000 lb tie bail today. It was kinda fun, only cost me $3 cus there were like 10 missionaries there. Cool well I love you guys a lot. Cant wait to get that package with the protein and pics and stuff.

Love

Elder Given

New Baptism

2010-06-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

Whats up everyone,

We had a pretty awesome week this week. Jocelyn got baptized on Sunday which was really cool to see. We went by Saturday to find out who would be baptizing her and they she didnt know who she wanted to do it so we said to think about it and tell us at church. So I asked Jocelyns mom at church who she wanted to do it and she said they still hadnt picked, but she wants me to do it, but I asked her if Elder Graham could do it. And she was cool with that, so Elder Graham got to do the baptism. It was a really good baptism cus a ton of the members were there. Basicly the branch mission leader got up during 3rd hour cus it was combined and told everyone that they need to support us as missionaries and basicly told them they arent doing their job unless they support us, so then everyone came to the baptism. It was pretty cool.

Guess who Im sitting next to right now. Marcus, our way cool black guy we're teaching. Hes in the library right now just chillin. We're about to go teach him later today. He didnt come to church yet tho cus hes not ready to make the commitment. Hes way cool tho. Rubin and Christian came to church again this week. Its freekin weird, Im trying to find their motivation for going to church, there is something that makes them go, I mean theyve gone 4 times, but they dont want to get baptized. Were still working with them trying to help them keep the commandments. Oh yea Happy Birthday to Sydney and Lauren! Thats exciting that you are gonna get baptized this week! Send me some pics :) Sorry I forgot to get a card out.

Thats exciting that school is almost over, they finish on thursday down here, so everyone is gonna be out and about a lot more, it will be cool. Its definently hot, like average 95, sometimes more. We have a really good AC unit our house and the car one works pretty well. I've been carying around a lot of water with me. I dont always use my camel back, it would work best on bike I think. That would be way cool if you got that Muscle Milk to me. Im staying away from raw eggs, I was just curious.

My comp is doing pretty well. He just is uptight about a lot of stuff but Im getting over it. Oh yea and as for the masks, those are like mexican wrestiling masks. I didnt buy one but on of the other elder bought two so we were bored and taking pics with them. We got them downtown right by the border. We got rid of all those ties by filling them up in the back of our car and emptying them into a dumpster by our house. The other elders want to get another 1000 lb one next week. Oh yea I played ball for like 3 hours yesterday! It was pretty fun, a bunch of the youth from our branch played with us cus they didnt have school. they were alright. We did they big 2 on 2 tournament and I was with this 14 year old kid who wasnt very good, and we won it all. It was fun. I had a couple really good dunks, but I cant jump any more. I am getting stronger tho, we've been working out pretty good.

Oh yea and we set a baptismal goal for 4 baptisms in July. Thats the highest Ive ever set, but it was under the direction of the spirit so we're gonna get it. We are just gonna have to work super hard to do it. Well I think thats all I got for this week. It would be cool if I got some letters every once and a while, I didnt get any at all last week. Anyway, love you guys a lot,

Con mucho amor

Elder Given

Rough Week

2010-05-29T08:43:00.001-07:00

May 24, 2010

Hey Everyone,

This was a pretty rough week. A lot of people let us down and decided to be really lame. Im gonna paste in my letter to president cus thats got a lot of stuff in it.

Hey President,
This week definitely had its ups and its downs. Within the last week and a half we have had a lot of people let us down by not deciding to show up for their baptismal interviews, or just disappear. We had a really tough time getting by a lot of our investigators this week, mostly just because we could never catch them at home. It has been tough for me to see all these people doing great and progressing, and then just hit a brick wall and everything stops. I guess the best thing I can do now is just go to the Lord for help and answers on what to do. We have these two great teenagers named Arody and Angie who we are teaching, they are both very excited about getting baptized, and it is what they really want to do, but the want to go to Mexico every weekend to visit their family. They told us that they would just stay but their parents say they have to take their 7 year old brother over there every weekend, so we are trying to help them find a solution for that problem. It was just a week of lots of things like that coming up. But, on the bright side, on of our investigators passed her baptismal interview and she is very excited to get baptized this coming Sunday.
Elder Graham is doing really well. He is picking up Spanish pretty quick and we're just working on helping him build his confidence. Honestly though President, I sometimes feel intimidated as a trainer, because I feel like my trainer, Elder Horton, knew everything, knew every little rule about Spanish, and is just an amazing missionary, which he is. I just feel like I'm not living up to that for Elder Graham, and it doesn't help that he questions a lot of the things that we do. That has been the hardest part for me this transfer, is just being confident in telling him that what we are doing is what we should be doing, because I don't want to come off like a know it all, especially because at the same time I definitely don't know everything. That's been the constant battle that is going on in my head, because I want to be a great missionary and an amazing trainer like Elder Horton was, I just don't feel I'm even close to his level of a missionary yet. That's not going to stop me from working though. We are going to keep working hard and do our best every day. We had 152 contacts and 10 new investigators this week.
-Elder Given

So yea thats basicly whats going on right now. I think Im starting to figure out Elder Graham. Basicly he didnt do anything but work on computers before his mission. And he really wants to be a missionary like his dad was 30 years ago in Ecuador, where he baptized a ton of people, and its just not the same mission, but he expects the same results. Thats the most annoying part. And then back home he didnt have a life so he would go out with the missionaries for like 12 hours a week and so he thinks he knows everything about missionarywork, when really he doesnt at all. It's kinda annoying but Im getting over it.

We had zone confrence this week, I got this cool award cus I know a bunch of scriptures, Im gonna send you the pic. I learned a lot, got to talk to Elder Guillen which was cool. Friday we went to McAllen for new comp training. That was a lot of fun. I saw Elder Yergensen which was cool, he was there picking up baptismal clothes. Oh yea last week we went to the local High school and played at their open gym, I had a sick tip dunk and then I dunked on this kid that was pretty good. And then, yesterday, I found thats kids house and his brother was making fun cus I dunked on him. We're gonna have a baptism this Sunday for this 9 year old girl. Shes pretty cool, Im just glad we reactivated the family. Her mom had been inactive for a while. Well I think thats all I got for this week.

I love you guys, Ill try to get some letters out this week.

Love

Elder Given

Training a New Missionary!

2010-05-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

May 3, 2010

Hi Family!!

Well transfers are tomorrow and we waited till we found out about what was going on till we emailed. Im staying and Valdez is leaving. Best case scenario. President definently prepared me to train this transfer by putting me with him. So I am getting a brand new missionary tomorrow which is kinda crazy. I got a lot of responsiblity now, I just gotta keep doing what Im doing I guess and just be a good example. I hope Valdez gets put with a good comp so he can stay positive. Man that kid was tough though, hardest transfer of my life. I wanted to crack so many times but Im glad I didnt. Oh yea and Elder Hernandez who I lived with in Raymondille for 3 transfers is coming down and gonna be in my district which is cool.

I dont think I got your letters yet, just one from dad and one from Grammy Maddy. Im way way way behind on my letter writing cus I am trying to finish the BOM in spanish. Im gonna finish on fri or sat! Im in 3 Nefi 25 right now! Im super stoked and my Spanish has improved dramaticly, I have no doubt I'll be basicly fluent by the end of this transfer, especially cus I'll have to be teaching a lot of the lesson.

Don't complain about the cold weather, its startin to cook here. Its been in the 90s all weekend. Im gonna melt this summer. Thats super cool that Tyler gets to baptize Sydney. Do we have any pics from when I baptized Kallie? If we do could you send me some cus for some reason I cant remember that experience happening.

I dont know the details about calling yet. Im guessing we'll get to call Sat night and tell you what time we're going to call on Sunday, but also, we are eating dinner with a super cool old lady on Sunday at like 1 our time and Im pretty sure she is going to let us use her phone so we can call so I might get like 20 minutes or so then so that will be cool, and then I think we are going to borrow a members phone so I can call for longer, dont know the details yet but I'll let you know ASAP.

We had a hilarious experience on Saturday. So I was sittin in my room, readin my spanish BOM, and I hear someone knock on the door, and then Elder Valdez opened it and some guy starts talking in spanish and valdez comes and runs to me and says hes a Jehovah's Witness. So I run and throw on my sweatshirt (so now I kinda look like a normal person) and I go to the door and start talking to him and asking him questions and stuff. Like he handed me a pamphlet that said "Where is God" but in spanish, and Im like well where is the church of God? And he starts going off about the Bible and about how Jesus has short hair and Chrtistains are wrong and all this crazy stuff. So then I hear our back door shut really loud and then like 30 seconds later Elder Holden and Elder Sibbett come around the corner in their missionary clothes hahaha. So Im preteneding to be a normal person and the other elders start talking to the JW, it was hilarious. Basicly what ended up happening was the JW ignored me and tried to bash with them and when into all their crazy doctrine. It was hilarious, I got a good laugh out of it.

So Christian and Rubin, our "gangstas" came to church yesterday, which was cool. They can get baptized now, we just gotta get them living the commandments and interviewed. Theyre cool kids, I hope they have the desire to live the commandments.

Cool that Garrett is leaving soon, hes gonna do great. Are Kyles papers in yet? They should be hear pretty soon. Wow thats crazy that Kasey and Sam come hom this summer, thats super fast. Im already about at 9 months, que loco. For real tho I love it out here and I wouldnt trade it for anything. Tyler and Hagen you are going on missions, I dont care what you say.

I love you all a lot and cant wait to talk to you this week!

Love

elDeR GiVEn

Loving Brownsville!

2010-04-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

April 26, 2010

Whats up everybody!

Wow this was a really weird week. I got sick on Friday night. My stomach was just torn up. It lasted till about lunch time on Saturday. It was tough and it affected how hard I worked on Saturday but oh well, I got over it. We worked pretty hard and me and my comp are starting to get along better. I can’t wait to see what happens at transfers next week. We'll see where we all end up. We are working with some cool people right now tho. We have Rubin and Christian, who are the gangsta teenagers. They almost went to our stake super Saturday thing but ended up not going for some reason and then didn’t go to church either. It might be cus we taught them the word of wisdom haha. But hopefully we can get them baptized. Then we got this guy Alfredo, he’s super cool when he’s not drunk. We had super super awesome lessons with him and set a bap date with him. He’s a funny guy. I like invited him to be baptized, and he just nodded his head and put out his hand to shake mine, it was cool. Then he gave me a hug after the lesson, the spirit was super strong, the Holy Ghost was totally guiding that lessons cus my Spanish was really flowin that time.

Oh yea and before that lesson his daughter came out, who is like 25, and he was like "do you think my daughter is pretty?" and I was like well, we cant say yes or no. and my comp didn’t know what he said cus it was in Spanish and he just nodded his head haha. It was funny cus she is actually really pretty. Then he said something like oh well would you want to marry her? And the daughter was like yea cant you have like 7 wives? hahah so I got to explain that to her in Spanish. It was fun.

We're also teaching a guy who knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but he cant go to church. So we're going to keep working with him and try to get him to at least come to Sacrament. He is a really cool guy tho, named Geraldo. Then we got this kid Giovani. We started teaching him my first week him cus he was outside with his dad and his dad called us over and told us to talk to him. So we have been teaching him and he is really progressing, prays really well now, reads sometimes, just wont get up for church. We're giving him a chance tho cus hes only 13.

So we had interviews this week with Pres Miller. Before I was going in we were outside chattin and there was this CES guy there and I guess he emailed you dad. He called this other missionaries seminary teacher and the missionary got to talk to him so that was cool. Anyway, right when I got into my interview P Mills was like "You have no idea how much good you are doing for your companion!" and went on about that. It was prettty cool. He didn't even sit in front of me, he sat next to me, it was kinda weird but cool I guess. He is such a good guy, I’m gonna miss him a lot. I guess our new MPs name is Elder Trainer or something like that and he’s a lawyer. We'll see how that goes.

I played some ball this week. We were walking through a park and I was talking to these teenage kids and I was like "who’s the best here" and then "cool can you dunk?" obviously I knew what I was doing haha. So I through a couple down for them and it was cool. I can still get up sometimes. I think we're going to play today, Alburt our investigator wants to play. Oh yea Alburt is Daniels dad, he’s been coming to church for the last 3 or 4 weeks now so that’s cool.

I think I’m gonna send you guys a bunch of my pictures that I printed out, and then you can scan them or whatever and then send them back. I think that would be cool. Anyway I’m pretty sure I’m going to be calling for more that 45 minutes on Mothers Day. I’m excited for that!! Well I think that’s about it. I love you guys a lot and can’t wait to get some letters this week.

Love

Elder Given

Baptism in Brownsville!!

2010-04-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

April 19, 2010

Hi Family!

Wow we had an amazing week. We had a baptism! It was this kid Daniel that we have been teaching. He's 11 and way cool. Earlier in the week he decided he wanted to get baptized, so we got him interviewed, and he was good to go. His parents were happy and it was awesome. Then they call us Fri night and tell us they want to wait until next week so we were like whatever that works. But then we went by Sat and talked about why its important and stuff and they called us again that night and they said that he wanted to do it Sunday now. So we did it and it was awesome. We had my comp do it, cus it was his first baptism, and Daniel thought i was too tall to baptize him hahah. It was cool cus it finally got my companion excited about missionary work. That kid has been tough to handle but we're doing it.

This area is amazing. We had 5 people at church. They are all gonna get baptized hopefully. We got our 17 year old "gangstas" again which was cool. This guy Alfredo came. We taught him 3 times this week and for 2 of them he was drunk. But luckily we got him when he was sober on Saturday and he promised he would go to church and sure enough he did! It was my first pure Spanish investigator I've ever taught. I got a email from Elder Brandley saying Raymonville is going to be a ward soon!!! How cool is that. I love that place. Oh yea and the other guy that came to church is Alburt, who is Daniels dad. He is way cool, and even said the closing prayer in the baptism. And he played ball with us last p-day. It was so much fun, he's alright. There are a couple elders who can play so it was a lot of fun. I was stoked to get him there. I dunked on one of the zone leaders hahah, it was a sick (cool) dunk too.

So I am almost done with Alma in the Spanish BoM. I'm reading like 20 pages a day now so I'll be done a week from Friday. I love reading it, its helped a lot. Oh yea and I got the package, thanks, I've got a couple cinnamon roles left haha. And I think I got all the letters. Hopefully I'll have time to write back. We've been super busy on our PDays lately. The weather was pretty crazy this week, lost of thunder and lighting and rain. It was sucky for the bike elders but it was fun for us haha. MY KNEE IS FINE! It wasnt for like 2 weeks tho haha. Ill tell you about it when I get home hahahah.

Cool, well I think that's about it. We had a really really really good week and we are going to be having some more baptisms in the next months or so, so thats excited. We have just been working hard and whatnot. I love you guys a lot and cant wait to hear more about whats going on at home.

Love

Elder GIven

Brownsville...A letter to his Mission President

2010-04-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

April 12, 2010

Dear Family,

Wow that totally stinks that my memory card was stolen out of my letter. I definitely didn’t have any tape on it. Someone jacked it. Stupid Brownsville postal service. I’m mad. There were some sweet pictures on there. Like all the way back from Christmas! So dumb. At least I printed a bunch of them. I guess I'll send you all my photo things next time I send a package. Speaking of that I do want to send one soon cus I have some ties I want to send home and a tape hopefully soon. Guess what. I’m bout to go play some basketball after this! Im so stinking excited!!! Its gonna be fun. Hey so I'm gonna paste in my letter to president cus its got some cool stuff in it that I don’t feel like typing again.

Hey President,

We had a pretty good week this week. I learned a lot from Zone Conference and started doing my best to apply it right away. I have been focusing on asking good questions and really getting the investigators to tell me their testimonies that they already have. We ended up with 163 contacts and 13 new investigators. The Lord blessed us this week and we were able to find some cool people who had the desire to go to church and actually did it. It's amazing what happens when you focus on church basically all week. One of the best lessons we had this week was with a recent convert. His name is Eliseo and he was baptized in January and has been struggling with his testimony. So we talked with him Sunday evening and honestly as soon as we started talking I felt the Holy Ghost guiding everything I said. Basically we ended up going over Moroni 10:3-5, and I had him read it and then asked him how will we know if the Book of Mormon is true, and he said he didn't know. So I had him read it again and then asked the same question, and he said by the Holy Ghost, and I said exactly. Then he was confused on how the Holy Ghost would feel and didn't really know, so we pulled out Galatians 5:22-23 and read that with him. He still didn't get it because he thought he would see all those things in his life if it was true, so we explained that if he felt any of those feelings then it was the Holy Ghost testifying that it was true. And then it clicked. It all made sense for him and he was like I get it now! So then I asked him to pray right then and there about the Book of Mormon. So he did and while he was praying I was praying so hard that he would feel the Spirit, and as he finished his prayer, the Spirit was so strong. I asked him how he felt and he said he felt really good and peaceful, and I asked him what that meant and he said it means that the Book of Mormon is true. The Spirit was so strong, there was no denying the truth of the Book. I am so grateful for my testimony and for the witness that God has given me and now my testimony has grown that God will truly answer every ones prayers. It was an awesome experience.

Elder Sibbett and I made a goal this week to finish el Libro de Mormon before Mothers day. When we made the goal I was in Mosiah and he was in 2nd Nephi. So we are really going to be working at that, reading the necessary amount of pages every day in order to finish on time. We really want to improve our Spanish and we know that is the best thing we can do to help it. I can already see my Spanish improving. The Lord has truly blessed me with the Gift of Tongues and I am so grateful for it. As for companionship unity, it's going alright. I am really trying hard to get along with Elder...., but I am going to be honest it is really difficult sometimes. Usually we get along, its just sometimes he doesn't want to do what he know he needs to, or just has a bad attitude about it, and I just don't deal with his complaining. I basically tell him to "man up" and lets go work. It irritates him but I do it with good intentions. He just doesn't like doing things that he thinks don't matter like studying or planning or waking up on time. If he doesn't care about it, he won't do it. So I'm just trying to be an example to him and only tell him what to do when in completely necessary. Other than those few times we do get along pretty well. I will continue to work on it and do my best.

-Elder Given

So yep that’s a little of what happened this week. That’s the longest letter I’ve ever written him by far but I thought they were good things to tell him. So yea I guess there is a promise by Gordon B. Hinckley that if you read the BOM in you mission language then you will basicly be able to say what you need to. So I’m gonna power through it. I read like 15-20 pages a day (cus its longer en Espanol like 624 pages) I decided in like June or July I’m gonna read the whole BOM in English and Spanish in one month. Its gonne be sweet. I love that book. Its true. We had 5 investigators at church this week so that was cool. So Thursday night we taught this 17 year old kid named Christian, not even at his house, it was at his friends house. Basicly we taught him why he needs to go to church and gave him a really solid commitment, and sure enough, he went! and he brought his friend named Rubin. The guys at church were telling us that they are like the biggest gangtas in the school!!! hahah I love my ghetto people. So we're gonna keep working with them and get em in the wata. This other family came, its the Branch Pres's daughters family. So the 10 year old kid is hopefully getting baptized this sat. and eventually his dad too. We found out the parents arent married. Oh yea and so the kid is 10, guess how old the dad is. Okay you obviously have no idea, but I thought he was like 28ish, HES 22 YEARS OLD!!!!!! And he has a 10 year old. Gross. kinda crazy. He might be playin ball with us today tho.

So elder Holden is bugging me right now so I’m gonna write about him, cus he’s reading this haha. He fell super hard on his bike last night and messed up his shoulder, hopefully he gets put in the office. hahah jk that would be terrible. So hopefully I get some letters soon, I’ve been letterless for a while. Oh yea we had Zone Conf this week and I talked to Elder Guillen. JOE AND ANDROMEDA ARE GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so excited! I guess Joe was supposed to be this week and they are idk about Andy. I love Raymondville, that place was awesome.

One of our investigators is trying to talk me into watching new moon with him haha. Not gonna happen tho obviously. Good to hear Bishop read my letter, did he do it in Sacrament meeting? The weather hasnt actually been too bad, just a little raining and thundery but the temp has been really nice. We've been working hard and the Lord is blessing us for it. This transfer is already half over which is crazy. Time is starting to go by faster and faster. Well I think that’s all I got for this week. Nothing too exciting. I love you guys a lot and cant wait to get some mail.

LOVE

Elder Given

First Transfer to Brownsville!!

2010-03-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

March 29, 2010

Hi Family!!

I LOVE IT HERE! Its so awesome. I love love love love love it. Okay so my area is Brownsville Southmost. The Border Wall is in our area and we can totally cross it. Actually we do sometimes. Like there are houses in between the wall and the river haha and I guess they are part of the US so we go by. Its way way way cool. We teach a TON in Spanish!! I've learned so much Spanish in just this week its pretty crazy. Oh yea so my comp is Elder Valdez. He's from Oceanside. Kinda a chill kid, I'll talk more about that later.

Anyway, hes only been out 3 transfers, so I'm Senior comp. He was with this guy Elder Klc last transfer and Elder Klc trained Elder Yergensen in this area. Elder Valdez doesnt know the area, so basicly we're white washing. There were 3 investigators when I got here, thats terrible. So we did lots and lots and lots of finding this week. We found 29 new investigators, thats a ton, kinda rediculous. Prob 20 were in Spanish. Oh yea and Valdez doesnt know hardly any Spanish, so I teach basicly the whole lesson by myself. Even in English sometimes, he has issues talking. Its tough, I feel like Im training.

We're in a car area. We've only ridden our bikes once. Oh yea, and they opened up the area right next to ours, its called Chaparral. And the two missionaries who opened it live in our appartment, Elders Sibbett and Holden. Sibbett is my homie, he was in the MTC with me. We're way stoked to be livin together. The branch is way legit. So much better than Raymondville. They know whats going on. Hopefully its gonna be a ward soon. They need like 6 more Mel Priesthood holders I think, somethin like that. So I want this place to be a ward before I leave. I have a feeling Im gonna be here a while. I really do love it a lot here. We eat with members like 4-5 times a week. We had some tacos 3 times this week and they made me sick. They tasted real good but they are super greasy and I got sick from them. Our appartment is brick, its small but works. We have a washer and dryer which is nice. AC works. Oh yea and Elder Guillen is training a brand new missionary in Raymonville haha. I miss Raymonville, it was fun there, but I know I need to be here.

This place has been in the dumps since Elder Yergensen left. He had like 7 baptisms here so there are obviouly legit people, we just gotta find them. We have a zone activity thing today that im super excited for, were gonna BBQ (or as the people here say, were gonna make a BBQ) and play some beach Vball. One of the ZLs here is way cool, his name is Elder Reily, hes from San Diego. Hes way athletic, bout to play football at Col. St. after his mission. Hes a cool guy, anyway, he organizes all the stuff. Oh yea we have a bench in our house too! Im bout to get buff again.

Glad to hear Tyler got his permit. Is he gonna get a car? I didnt get any mail this week, its all probably in Raymonville now, kinda annoying. I did get that package tho! It was awesome. I loved the tape, Im working on sending one back. So Eddies taking over at Los Al, thats kinda crazy. I guess coach K is a good guy. So nobody ever told me about Jack. Is he actually going to UCLA to play ball? Where is Tim going? Anybody know about Cameron yet? Crazy that Todd and Benjamin are already home, that was fast. Im already pushin 8 months. Almost a 3rd done! Loco. I love it tho. Just gotta start baptizing again. Its been a while. There are gonna be a couple in Raymondville soon that I'm sad to miss. We'll find some legit people here in Brownsville tho. Okay well I think thats about it.I love you guys and hope to get some letters this week.

Con mucho amor

Elder Given

Awesome Week and Maybe last day in Raymondville

2010-03-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

March 22, 2010

Hey Everybody!

We find out about transfers today! Idk whats gonna happen. I could totally see me leaving but at the same time Elder Horton, Hernandez and another missionary were all here for 5 transfers. We'll see. I'll try to send out a letter as soon as I know.

Anyway it was a fun week, crappy at times but fun. We had 250 contacts this week, 61 one day. Those are both records for me haha. We just talk to EVERYONE. I have seriously talked to like 2500 people here in Raymondville, pretty crazy. And even though we had a ton on contacts we still had a ton of lessons. We were able to get members out to 15 lessons and just taught a ton!!! Close to 50 lessons this week haha. Its so true that when you teach more you become a better teacher.

So I'll start off with the crappy lessons. So we took out Junior with us, who is a way good member to take out cus he knows a lot. Anyway, we take him to this girl Marissa, who we set a Bap Date with the time before. So they realize they went to school together. (Juniors 23 shes 21) So thats always good. So we teach about the BoM and about authority and she felt the spirit and started to open up and whatnot. We were in the process of extending a church commitment, and then her mom walks out and is like "Hi Im Marissa's mom, blah blah blah, we have our church" Snatches the BoM out of her daughters hand and hands it back to me. It sucked. It was honestly the best lesson we had all week and Satan ruined it. Junior said hes gonna try to talk to her on Facebook tho haha. So then, we go to another lesson with this lady Bebe. We had gotten members over there 2 times earlier in the week, and she had kinda showed some signs that she did some research online. So we were expecting polygamy to come up. Sure enough, about 5 minutes in it did. So good thing I studied it that morning so I was able to destroy that doubt, but then she kept saying all this stupid stuff about how we just need to accept Jesus to be saved. It was dumb. I got mad, I tried not to but I did get mad. It was really frustrating. She tried to say she read half the BoM but she hasn't.

Oh yea I went on splits with Elder Horton this week. It was fun, like my first transfer all over again. We had a pretty good day. And on Wednesday, Elder Guillen and I went on splits with some members. I went with Louie, who is a 16 year old kid who got baptized a few months ago, and Elder Guillen went with Junior. It was so much fun. Guillen and Junior went to our set up lessons, and me and Louie went and knocked doors. I taught Louie how to contacts, and it was pretty funny, the first door he did by himself the lady was a jerk. She was like No, Were not interested, Bam door slammed. Luckily Louie is a cool kid and just laughed about it. Hes so going on a mission.

Oh yea HAPPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER!!!!!!! You better pass your permit test boy, its so easy!

Anyway, thanks for the college bball updates, but I already know all of them. Matt sent me a bracket so I printed it out and filled it out. I got 21/32 in the first round and I mission like 7 in the 2nd round I think. Kinda crappy but alright for not knowing anything. I still picked Kentucky last summer to win it and they are so going to. There is this number we can call that tells us the updates for the sports scores, so I do that on the nights when there are games.

Mom good to hear about what your learning from church. Joe Quintero totally taught that same lesson in church. I guess Pres Ramos called him and asked him to do it. So he studies it and then planned it out, and then like timed himself teaching it to his kids with questions and everything. He's such a smart guy. It was a really good lesson. He's so cool. Hopefully he gets a calling soon. I guess the sisters are going to go teach his mom this week so thats cool.

I finished the Doctrine and Covenants today. It took me about 6 weeks I think. I didn't enjoy it as much as the Book of Mormon. I love the BoM. I am in Mosiah right now. Love it. Dad how far in are you now? Probably like Helaman? Good to hear you got a job mom, that should be fun for the summer, and hopefully set up for a job in the future.

As for Prep-Days mom, we dont really do anything. There isn't much to do in Raymondville, and we don't have the miles to go to Harlingen, and that's not even that fun anyway. We played Monopoly with the Sisters at the park one time. That was alright, I won haha. Our appartment is pretty nice, it gets the job done except for the heater/AC. They both don't work. Its whatever tho cus it isnt hot yet. I do my laundry every week mom, it costs $3 to do it now. My favorite food I have had here is Choriso, I think thats how you spell it. But we had it with Hermana Barreras homemade tortiallas and beans, it was soooooo good. I loved it. Basicly every meal with a memeber we eat with Tortiallas and beans. I love both of those now, a lot haha. I had some BBQ one time at this guy JTs house. He is a guy that lives in the sisters area but we are going to start teaching him cus the sisters dont like him. He's kinda ghetto, he's killed someone (it was self defense) and he has a huge bullet hole in his truck door hahah. True story, anyway he made us some really good BBQ one time. I usually love the food down here. There isn't anywhere cool down here accept for the Island. Also known as South Padre Island, which I think is where the Druckers go. Its basicly just a huge party. Tons of Beer and half naked people. Its a big deal I guess, its the only thing cool in south texas, but we arent allowed to go out there haha.

Well I think thats about it. It was a fun week, we worked super hard, didn't see the success we wanted tho, nobody came to church. We did everything we could to get them there tho so Im not going to worry too much about it. I love you guys and cant wait to get that package!

HAPPY Birthday TyLEr!

Love,

Elder Given

March 15, 2010

2010-03-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

March 15, 2010

Hi Family,

I got bit by a dog! haha and it was the Quinteros dog! It was last night, I was unlocking our bikes from the Stop sign and they had followed us out to the street barking, and when I turned my back to it, it totally bit my leg! Its half pit bull haha. But it wasn't hard, didnt hurt that bad or rip my pants. So anyway, we had an AMAZING week. We just keep working our butts off and things are working out well.

Did Tyler get his permit?

Okay so last Sunday, we had a branch fast for the missionary work here in Raymondville, and we just destroyed it this week. So we shoot to get 10 lessons with member presents every week, which is usually pretty tough, and in order to get 10 we plan a TON of lessons and try to get members to all of them, and usually like half or a third fall through. But this week, Everything was working out. It was legit. We ended up with 17 member presents, which is unheard of in little Raymondville. The Lord really blessed us a lot this week. Joe Rios came to church again. We got 3 members over to his house this week which was key. We commited him to live the WOW and hes getting ready to get baptized on April 11th. Hes already been to chruch twice. We just gotta get him married or seperated. Hes way set on getting baptized tho, hes legit.

We had interviews with pres this week. Mine went really well, he said "Im going to be a leader in the mission" and that Im probably gonna get transfered in a week, so we'll see where that takes me. I think Im going to either Edinburg or Lorado. We'll see tho, Im down for whatever. I got your letter dad, thats way cool about the March Madness, I Love the BOM, I started Jacob this week in Spanish and English. Ive been learning a ton lately. It was prettty cool cus last night Elder Guillen and I couldnt fall asleep, so we were talking about how we had a really good week, and then we were like, what can we do to work harder, so we talked about stuff we can do to be even better. Its pretty cool, we arent satisfied, we need to baptize!

We spent 2.5 hours at the Alejandros house yesterday, they are some way cool members. Sis Alejandro got baptized in Sep, and her daughter Frances, and her Frances' boyfriend Raymond got baptized like 2 months ago. Anyway Frances just turned 16 so we went over there and hung out with the members and thanked them for all the support they have given us. Elder Guillen took a bunch of sweet pics at the party so I'll send you some this week. WE'RE GETTING ANOTHER TIE BAIL THIS WEEEK! Im so excited. Its spring break here in the Valley, whens your guys spring break. Found out our way cool 17 year old investigator has a kid, never would have guessed, not really surprising tho.

Lets see what else happened this week, we road 15 miles one day, that was fun. Oh yead we went on splits again on Tuesday, but with the other Elders from our district, and I stayed In Raymond. with Elder Peterson who goes home in July. So we had a decent day, and we went to Juan, who loves cutting hair, and he cut Elder Petersons hair. SUPER SHORT! Like a 0 on the sides. It was bad, and the day before interviews, we just laughed about it cus there was nothing we could do. He just called up Sister Miller and told her to tell her husband not to yell at him haha.

Tyler are you doing anything for your Bday? I got Kallies letter, her hair is so long! OSS looked like a lot of fun. I love you guys a lot. I think thats all I got for this week.

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Given

March 8, 2010

2010-03-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

March 8, 2010

Hey Everybody,

We had a pretty good week. We've been working super hard and we're starting to see the fruits of our labors. I'll start with all the drama. So Brother Serrato, who baptized Joe Joe, and is one of the coolest members, is in jail. I guess he has some other kids with this other woman and he got behind on his child support cus he hasn’t been able to work cus of the weather. Anyway we took him out for a lesson Thursday night and he told us he had to go to court the next day and that there was a slight chance he would have to go to jail, and sure enough he did. Its pretty sad cus now Sister Serrato is all alone with her 4 crazy kids and they wont have any income. It’s not good. We had to go help her start her car this morning so she could take her youngest to the Doctor. This is why we need home teachers.

So to answer your question dad, I love my companion. He’s way cool. He started his mission in Washington, baptized like crazy. Got sick, stayed at home to long cus he started school, and then got sent here in Sept. He worked at an auto shop for 5 years and knows a lot about cars. He’s pretty athletic. Not good at basketball though. He is slowly getting worse at both English and Spanish while he is in Raymondville longer. He’s hilarious though!

And the coolest thing is I’m totally seeing myself help change my companions. Elder Brandley is ZL in Corpus now and he is over Elder Fowler, and he told me that Elder Fowler has really changed since his transfer with me, he’s really working hard and is doing really well. Ive seen the same change with Elder Guillen, he came to Raymondville just kinda feeling whatever about missionary work, cus he had a gay comp for 3 transfers in Corpus (and Corpus is the tough area) but He's really been getting excited lately and is down to work hard. It’s way cool. So Pres Ahlstrom knows what he’s talking about, or the spirit does haha!

The Viveros came to church! Actually only to like 45 minutes worth but they came. Not even the first 45 minutes. Okay let me go back. So we had a couple really good lessons with them this week, and they are super super excited about going to church and getting baptized, and then we went by Thursday or Friday, and the mom tells us that her husband got taken to jail! I guess the immigration people stopped him and took him basicly at gun point. So Udine, the mom, was all crying and so were the girls. It has been really though for them. But according to Elder Guillen, Hispanic women are usually over dramatic and emotional so it’s probably not as bad as she says.

But the good thing is that they did come to church, they didn’t make it to sacrament, but showed up during Sunday school. They really liked that, and then they went to Relief Society. I guess the girls didn’t want to leave their mom so they went too, and they were complaining and stuff, and according to the Sister Missionaries Relief Society was a "disaster" and the Viveros left half way through. So we stopped by later Sunday afternoon and Udine said she really loved it, but that the girls weren't ready yet. So they'll be back, once the dad gets out it will be a lot easier for the girls too. I guess he might be getting out today, its just a matter of how long he'll stay out. But my whole mindset of illegal immigrants has changed since I've been here. I used to be like all anti Illegal Mexicans and stuff, but I don’t care at all anymore, and when they take break apart families like they did with them, it really annoys me and makes me sad, but there’s nothing I can do.

I went on splits with the ZLs on Wednesday. I went with Elder Sheilds, who is Elder Hortons companion, and we worked in Harlingen. I did not like working outside of Raymondville! It’s weird cus part of me hates this place, but more and more of me is loving it. It’s really weird. I guess I’m ready to get transferred now. And when I say I hate this place a little, its only cus its really difficult at times and the people are driving me crazy sometimes. It doesn’t stop me from working though. I love working. Time is flying by! 7 months already! Crazy.

So Shelly’s engaged! Its funny cus I sent her a letter earlier this week and she said something about ring shopping and I said that next time I hear from her she'll probably be engaged, sure enough, I was right haha.Thats so weird, Dave's a cool guy tho. Oh yea and Dad I see Pres Miller like twice a transfer. Interviews and Zone Confrence. That’s it, unless we have something special in McAllen, which is very rare. No idea who the new mission pres is gonna be.

I bought Monopoly in Spanish this week at a garage sale. It was only 3 bucks and it was brand new! So we play that for like 30 minutes sometimes at night. We still haven’t even finished a game yet haha. Dad my Spanish is coming along. I understand a lot, pretty much everything, and I can get my point across pretty clearly. I’m gonna keep working, cus I don’t want to be an average speaker, I want to master it! I just have to put in the work. It’s a lot of fun though. I’m almost done with Segundo Nefi en El Libro de Mormon.

Oh yea and Juan came to church! The guy who we almost died with and that cuts our hair! It was way cool, Joe picked him up and he loved it. It was way cool to see him there. Well I think that’s about it. I hope I answered all the questions I was supposed to. I still haven’t heard anything about BYU. I guess I'll just have to wait. I have actually been thinking bout just going to JC for a year in Cali, to play ball, but we'll see tho. Utah St. is also a strong possibility. Next year I need to apply to a couple schools. I love you guys.

Send me a cassette!

Love

Elder Given

P.S. mom I got your pics, thanks!

March 1, 2010

2010-03-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

March 1, 2010

Hey everybody. It was a weird week. We worked really hard again this week and got members out to lessons with us, but people were retarded and chose not to come to church. We helped this guy Juan (the same on we helped and almost died with, and the guy who cut our hair) anyway we helped him do some work again, and he was like "I don’t usually promise anyone anything, but I’m promising you guys that Ill be at church" But he didn’t show up. I guess he got stuck in Harlingen Saturday night. I was annoyed. We had some good lessons with that awesome family we found but when we stopped by Saturday the mom was sick, but said they would most likely being going to church unless she got worse. So we stopped by Sunday morning and their car wasn’t there! We still dont know what happened with that, there car has been gone since Saturday evening or Sunday morning, hopefully she didn’t get worse and have to go to the doctor, she has cancer and stuff so hopefully she’s okay. Joe and Andromada were supposed to come to church again too, but I guess Andys Grandpa died Sat night so they went to some random church. But, Yesenia (Veronica Quinteros sister) came to church so at least we got someone. We'e gonna talk to Joe and Veronica about if she’s gonna get baptized or not cus she can whenever she wants now.

Dad I got your letter. Sad that they lost to Mater Dei. Sounds like Timmy ended the year really strong! Where is he going? Demar was in the Dunk Contest!!! Thats crazy!!! Remember when we played him? hahaha. Has there been any surf? I heard there were like Tsuami warnings and stuff cus of the earthquake. That might be fun. Some warm water from the south and some legit waves haha. Mom I never got a letter from you, but I did get that one from papa. I still wanna know what the deal is with Jack and stuff.

Did I tell you we got a new car? The APs brought it by last week. Its basicly the same, just silver. Its an '07 Mazda 3. Angela and Derick tried to leave Raymondville last week but couldn’t, they’re just depressing now, I don’t like seeing them.

It was weird, yesterday this old guy in church was teaching Elders Quorumn and he randomly asked me like "Elder, (I guess he forgot my name haha) Your parents are probably gonna be pretty excited when you go home right? I’m like well, yea. He’s then like, you'll probably be even more excited tho right? And legitly in my head I was like, no, I don’t want to leave. Its weird but I really do love it hear and I love being a missionary. Its gonna be really weird not being a missionary, that’s a long time away tho so I’m not gonna think about it!! hahahah

President Ramos is hilarious. I swear he’s just crazy but I love him. We just laugh all the time. He calls the Sisters, Elders. At the end of coorilation meeting, he had one of the Sisters say the prayer, and after he was like "thank you Elder" it was soooo funny, cus he had been saying dumb stuff the whole meeting. So me and Elder Guillen walk out fast cus we were laughing so hard, then I’m like 10 feet away and I hear Pres Ramos say, "So you Elders have a car?" hahahah One of the Sisters was like "its Sisters!!!" It was hilarious. He just doesn’t get it at all.

We did a lot of service this week, like 4 hours worth. We had to drive this one member all over Raymonville for like an hour cus he got a flat, so we helped him pick up his check (which was $100 for the whole week) then took him to buy a used tire for $20. The people here live on nothing. Its crazy. We are so blessed, I can’t even imagine what Dylan is going through. But everyone does have money for drugs and alcohol, I don’t get it.

Well I think that’s about it. Not a very exciting week, a member said she’s gonna make her husband get a bail of ties for us this week haha so that could be fun. I love you guys. Tell everyone I say hi

Love

Elder Given

New Address in Raymondville!!

2010-02-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

Hi Family!

Glad you got my packages I sent! You can do whatever you want with the ties. I dont want any of them. Give a nice or decent one to JT and Zac and Chase. Maybe some to Ian or Auddy or whoever else wants some. Ill probably send another box in the next month. At least hopefully I will. We're trying to get a 1000 lbs bail not a 10000 lb bail mom haha. If you didnt figure it out yet my new adress is
401 E McCharen Ave #8
Raymondville, TX 78580

The sisters stole our house and apperenly have been cleaning it since we left. I dont feel bad tho cus we did clean a lot. The sisters are pretty cool. I can see them doing a lot of good in Raymondville. They should be having a baptism this Sunday, not really from their efforts tho. President Ramos was sooooo confused when he first saw them but it was funny. And on Sunday, the Sisters lost their keys and were 15 minutes late to Sacrament Meeting. One of the members, Brother Abbey, made a joke about thats why the men have the Priesthood keys and not the women.

Whats the deal with Jack!?! Is he going to UCLA? Im so excited for him!!! I love that kid. And he got a dunk!!! Wow that kids on top of the world. Send me a pic of his dunk if there is one. Was it a break away? Thats cool the Varsity manned up and beat Marina. Tyler good job and way to play hard the whole year. Keep growing and working hard and you'll be starting next year for sure. Justin isnt very good. Keep me posted on who they play and stuff.

Dad thats cool about that girl youre teaching at institute. Teach her about how the BOM is all that matters. When she knows its true, every other doubt about the church goes away. (Chapter 5 PMG) Thats cool that you are teaching her tho. Have you read PMG? Im sure you have but if for some crazy reason you never have, you should. It makes so much sense haha.

Anyway we had a terrrrible week this week. Not at all because of lack of effort. We worked our butts off but everything fell through. We didnt get anybody to church even though people promised us. We found this cool lady, Maria. We taught one of her daughters like 3 or 4 weeks ago and then have gone back and taught her other daughter, then taught her, then last night we taught the son. So we've taught the whole family now. She had a very solid comitment to church but didnt go for some reason. We gotta get members over there so she'll go to church. We also found this cool old guy. His name is Mr. Montezuma (like the ride at Knotts) and he wanted to come to church but Idk what happened with him either. We're going over to his house after this. THe cool thing about him is that we took Ramiro over to teach him. Ramiro is a guy that me and Elder Horton found my first weekend here and taught him and set a Bap Date with, but then he lived in the other Elders area. Anyway, he got baptized and came out with us for the first time. HEs a really shy guy but talked a ton in the lesson, like most of the lesson. It was pretty stinkin cool.
We played bball in Harlingen on Pday, it was actually really dumb and I cant jump anymore. Its really sad but whatever. On our way home Brother Lopez called us and told us to go help him and Pres Ramos cut the sisters lawn (our old house) so we went and did that and after that we went and helped Joe put some new roofing on his house. I guess CPS came by his house and told him he needed to redu the roof cus it was falling through. So we helped him do that. THat family has been faced with so much adversity lately. They stay faithful tho cus theyre legit. On their way down the Brownsville(the first south city in Texas) last night, Joes engine blew out! So im not sure what the deal is with that. We called him back last night but his phone was off. Im pretty sure he was sleeping cus he had to leave to take a load to Dallas or something today. He'll be back tomorrow tho I think.

Ive been praying for Aunt Mary my whole mission basicly. Hopfully she starts doing better. Tell them I love them. Cant wait to get a cassette back from you guys. Well I think thats about it. I love you all and cant wait to get those letters!
Love
Elder Given

February 8, 2010

2010-02-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,

This was a pretty good week, kinda a tough week but it was good. So sorry again about last week, I felt bad not writing very much. I have been stressin out lately cus we haven't had any solid people. We have a bunch of decent people but no one who is really progressing a lot. We only had 1 investigator at church yesterday. It was this little 9 year old girl named Tess. Shes hilarious, reminds me a lot of Kallie. Her mom is an inactive member and her grandma is a less active, but both Tess and her Grandma came Sunday. It was nice to see them there, the members really love Sis Rosales (the Grandma) so hopefully they'll keep comin. We also have officailly re activated a in active member. Her name is Monica and we just randomly found her one night tracting and she told us she was a member. So we invited her to church and she came, and now has come 3 weeks in a row and is making friends with the members! Its pretty cool. Shes kinda crazy but thats okay.

So transfers are going to be insane!!! We got a call 2 days ago telling us that there would we sisters coming to Raymondville West! (Im in East) So the Senior missionaries came down and looked for a place for them to live with Elder Hernandez and Cosper. They found this place right in the middle of our area, its pretty nice. So the next day Elder Herandez went on splits with the ZLs (edler Horton) and Elder Hortons comp, Elder Shields(from Gainsville, FL), came over here with Elder Cosper. So Elder Shields told us what is supposed to happen if Pres Miller doesnt change anything. Sister Fefitas area (San Benito) is going to get Elders, and some sisters, probably Sister Fefita and her comp or one of them and some other sister, are going to come to Westside Raymond. They are putting Elders in that area partly cus the Branch President doesnt respect the sisters at all, so thatll be good. It'll be fun to see how Pres Ramos reacts to the sisters haha. Oh yea and Elder Shields said me and Elder Guillen are probably staying :) Im actually excited about it, I like Raymondville. BUT, we found out that WE are going to have to move out, the sisters are going to get our house cus its nicer and in a safer place, and the other appartment is the the middle of our area. So thats whats probably gonna happen. I still might leave tho, nothing is official till this evening. I'll send out a letter tomorrow if I get moved.

Thats cool that Grammy Barbie came to visit. Tell her I love her and I say hi. Im glad Tyler is playing really well. Sounds like their team is really really good and Varsity is doing well too. I'll go to Alumni night at some point. I bet Kallie had a ton of fun at outdoor science school. I still remember when I went, that was a really long time ago. Tell her to write me a letter about it. I havnt heard from her or the twins or Hagen in FOREVER! You guys need to write me :) Thats awesome that the Sisters back home are doing so well. Make sure you do your best to fellowship the new members or they will fall away just as fast as they came. That is the biggest problem we have here. Like 3 or 4 of the recent converts since Ive been here arent coming to church. Its really sad, its cus nobody fellowships tho. So treat the new members like your friends or family, have the same mindset like they are Sister Ahlstrom or Shelley or someone. Be friends with them.

I finished reading the BOM last week. I started when I got to Raymondville so it took me like 4 months. My testimony has really grown a lot since Ive been out here. Testimony Meeting was so Powerful yesterday. First off, Pres Ramos asked this guy named Daniel Flores to give the opening prayer (he just calls on the spot as hes up there) and Danny has been in and out of activity since he got baptized over the summer. Anyway, President Ramos helped him say the prayer and it was awesome. Oh yea and the Quinteros showed up at church at like 815 but no one was there yet so they stopped by Joes moms house who lives right by the church, and then went back over at 830. So they got there before us, and I talk to Joe and Kurt about doing the Sacrament. Joe had called us on Friday and asked where the Sacrament prayers were in the BOM so we told him and he also found them in the Gospel Principles book and he studied them. So he was ready to say them, and I taught him and Kurt how to do everything, and I got this cool kid Erwin to help teach Kurt how to pass and stuff. I sat up there with Joe and helped him do it and it went really well. It was awesome to see them help do that. Then, it was testimony meeting and Joe shared his testimony and some of the members. It was really powerful. I bore my testimony on the BOM and i challenged all the memebrs who hadnt read it yet to read it. It was awesome. Then Junior, who got baptized back in November shared his testimony and I cried. He talked about missionary work and all this stuff. He's only 23 so hopefully he goes on a mission, he says he wants to. We try to take him out every week. Hes a good guy.

We also took Joe out for some lessons this week and it was AMAZING! We try to role play our lessons during comp study and we did one sarcasticly of Joe basicly teaching the whole lesson, and thats basicly what happend. Joe and the investigator did the talking for like 80% of the time there. THats exactly what we want. The spirit was really strong, and we set a baptismal date with the guy we were teaching. Joe is so cool.

Well I think thats about it. I saw a chick fight last week, dont know if I told you about that. It was pretty funny. Oh yea and Im sending a big package home today so look out for that. You guys will like it a lot. Cant wait to get the letters and memory cards this week.

I love you guys a ton.

-Elder Given

February 1, 2010

2010-02-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

Hi Family!

Not a lot of time today. We didnt have anyone at church this week, but the Quinteros got baptized and Joe and Kurt got the priesthood. It was cool, they're an awesome family.

Transfers are week from tomorrow. I think I'm gonna get transfered but we'll see. I'd be happy either way. We got a tie bail this week! 200 LBS worth. I got a ton of high quaulity ties, and I'm gonna send a box home. the best part is that it only cost me $11! How cool is that. I bought some more weights, another 35 LBS and a curl bar for only $5. I'm gonna get buff.

Found some cool people this week, none of them came to church tho. Hopefully they'll progress this week. Following the spirit is the most important thing in missionary work. I'm so sick of tracting my area though cus I've done EVERY street and EVERY house, but the spirit directs us to find the prepared people, just like the Quintero family.

Well I think thats about it. Sorry this letter is so short.

Love you guys a lot.

Love,

Elder Given

January 25, 2010

2010-02-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hi Family,

This was such a cool week. Very stressful at times but very cool. Friday night was the wedding for Joe and Veronica. We spent most of the day helping them set up and clean and stuff. So it started at 6 and at like 559 one of the members asked us to give her a blessing, so we go in the house and give the blessing, and right as we are finishing we hear everyone clapping and stuff. We totally missed it! I was so mad. First of all Pres Ramos did it in like 3 minutes, and then we totally missed it. But whatever, they were happy and thats all that matters.

Everything went well that night. We ended up having 4 baptisms. Joe, his son Joe Joe, Ana and then Veronicas 13 year old brother Kurt all got baptized. I baptized 3 of them, a member, borther serrato, baptized Joe Joe. It was really cool. When I was baptizing Joe, he like didnt got all the way under, so I had to like push him down, it was kinda funny. Hes a big guy haha. I forgot my camera so I didnt take pictures, but Elder Guillen took pics so Ill send them to you this week and you can scan them or whatever. Oh yea and we had a lesson with them last night and broght them a picture of the San Antonio temple, so thats there goal for 1 year from now. THey are so cool. I hope I can go with them when they go.

Guess what. I got some sweet weights this week. I got 90 lbs worth for $10! Such as good deal. im stoked on it. I've been lifting kinda a lot now. Everything is great! The only thing I cant handle is the freeking Mosquitos. They are really bad now. We load ourselves down with bug spray haha.

Stinks that Varsity lost to Marina. Good to hear that Tyler is doing really good tho. Keep workin hard. Have you guys sold my car yet? It's been like 6 months for sale. Has there been any surf with this gnarly storm?

Oh yea and Mom about teaching the judge. Hes just a really cool guy we found. Hes not like a judge judge. He doesnt make a lot of money, I dont think he went to law school. I think you just run for it haha. Good to hear Tyler, Cassidy and Hagen are doing well in school. Tell all of them to write me! Well thats about it. Just a really good week and Im gonna keep working my butt off.

I love you guys!

Elder Given

January 20, 2010

2010-02-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

January 20, 2010

Hi Family,

The library was closed for MLK day so that was lame. I'm already really low on time but I'll try to get everything in. Got the pictures and the letters. Loved it. Sounds like you guys are having a lot of fun. Its funny cus I sent out letters to all the kids the same day I got the package. Anyway Basketball sounds like a lot of fun. Dad I laughed at your letter, the part about Tim sucking it up but then draining 9 3s. He does that. He probably had crappy games away and then went of at Los Al. I stoked for Camerons dunk, I love that Kid. I already know what play they ran to get James the lob. Carolina, they tried running it for me, worked in practice. Im glad Boswell got hurt, he's really annoying and cocky. I just dont like Edison haha. Whats the deal with Dylan? He seems way happy in our emails, what kind of stuff is he going through. I feel so out of the loop haha.

The weather has been nice the last 2 days. Like 75-80. I hope it stays like this for a while. Church was awesome this week. The Quintero family all came. thats Joe and his wife Veronica (who is a member) and then their 5 kids, Joe Joe, Ana, Maria(?) Lezy and Diego, and then Veronicas sister Yesenia and brother Kurt. Joe, Joe Joe, and Ana already had their bap interviews last night and are ready to go, Kurts and Yesenias will be on Saturday. I would say Kurt will most likely get baptized and Yesenia is like a 70% chance. Shes knows its right shes just not ready. But they are so so so cool. Im in Raymondville for them. I had such a strong feeling that we had to go to their house the first time we taught them, and we just clicked. Joe wants me to baptize him, which Im really excited about. Maybe the kids too, not sure yet. So they will be getting married this Friday (already got the license) and then baptized Sunday inbetween and Spanish and English sessions of stake confrence.

Mari has been annoying lately. She doesnt want to do anything anymore. Idk whats gonna happen with her. Heres a funny stroy about your not so smart son, and being realy really really lucky. So on the 9th we were driving out to Sebastion, and I decided I wanted to drive a little fast for some reason, not gonna say how fast I was going but I got pulled over and got a ticket. On the ticket it says I need to go to court in front of the judge Juan Salinas Jr. Juan Salinas is one of our investigators who we had just set a bap date with earlier that week! So I feel lame, but after our lesson last saturday night I told him about the ticket and he told me to call him Tuesday morning about it. So I called him, he asks me what day I got the ticket on and then says, okay well dont worry about it anymore, its gone. Yea!!! Im so lucky. The Lord provides a way. Ive repented and dont drive fast anymore. Hahah

Hopefully we'll be getting a 1000 lb tie bail this week or next week!!! Im so excited! Its only gonna be 25 bucks for 4 of us. Thats 25 total! How legit is that! so hopefully I'll be sending a box full of sweet ties home soon. Oh yea and I bought this Creatine stuff at Walmart. Its kinda like proteain but helps you gain weight and get stronger. I was talking to Elder Yergensen about it at zone confrence. It was only 15 bucks and will last like 3 weeks. We'll see if it does anything.

Okay well Im totally out of time. I'll add more to my email next Monday cus we dont have a lot of time today. But mom dont worry, Im not Homesick at all. I'm happy to say I haven't been hit with anything yet so I'm glad. Hopefully I wont ever have to. Cassidy, I'll write you back this week. Tyler keep working hard and send me a letter haha. I love you guys a ton and love hearing from you.

Love

Elder Given

January 11, 2010

2010-02-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

Hola,

Fue un buen semana y nuestros investigadores estan progresando mucho y estamos trabajando bien duro.

Yea so we had a decent week. Should have had a baptism but Mari decided she wants to be scared again. Hopefully we'll be having 5 baptisms on the 24th tho! 3 for sure and hopefully 2 more. I was happy to see my recent convert get out of jail haha. And I guess we're still closing meetings "en el nombre de nuestro Padre Celestial, Amen" hahah

Mari was just kinda retarded this week and decided she was going to avoid us for a couple days. Basicly she was converted to Elder Fowler and got offended when he left. But she totally knows that the church is true and that being baptized is what she needs to do but she’s not doing it. We took some really good members over this week and had some amazing lessons, but she decided to not show up to church. I still don’t know what’s up. She hasn’t answered her phone since yesterday. I talked to her Saturday night for like 25 minutes and told her that she didn’t have to be baptized yesterday, but to pray about it. She agreed and then wasn’t there to go to church and didn’t answer her phone. Idk its really annoying. But we do have an amazing family we are teaching! Im so happy about them. Joe and his soon to be wife Veronica are so cool.

So, Joe wasn’t at church cus he’s a truck driver and had to take a trip up to saint loius, but, Veronica came to church with her 5 kids, and her sister and brother. Her sister is like 15 or 16 and her brother is 13. They liked church and one of the members asked if they would be coming back next week and Veronica answered for them and said that they would be there every week! So we went over to there house a couple hours after church and set baptismal dates with those two for the 24th as well. Yesenia, the 16 year old, has been to church twice already, and Kurt, the 13 year old just went for his first time. So theyre way cool. They decided they are going to get married on the 22 of this month and then baptized on the 24th. They are so prepared its aweseome.

The 24th is stake conference so it is in Harlingen, when we told them about that Joe was like "Well Jesus walked 60 miles to get baptized, Im sure I can make a 25 mile drive to get baptized" He’s so awesome. And the other night we called him to talk to him, and it went straight to his voicemail which said "Hey this is Joe, leave me a message and Ill call you back, oh and if its the missionaries, sorry I couldn’t call you back today, but just know Im reading and staying strong, so Ill talk to you guys later" YEA! It was so funny/cool. Then I talked to him last night on the phone and he was all asking if we could give his wife a Book of Mormon of her own. Wow they’re cool. Oh yea and theyre 9 year old kid Jo Jo was hanging out at the Serratos house (who are members with 4 kids from 7 down) for like 3 hours after church! They’re so getting baptized. Im so happy for them.

I hit my 5 month mark earlier this week. That’s pretty stinking crazy huh. Dad I got your letter that you wrote on Saturday, and Cassidy I didn't write you back yet for the 2nd letter I got, you just write me back and Ill write back for the 2 letters that I get from you, if that makes sense. I love my speedometer thing I have. I hit 30 MPH on my bike the other day! haha it was cus I had the wind behind me tho. I love riding bikes. Just not when its 34 degrees!!! Holy cow it was cold this week. It was in the low 30s all thursday and friday! I froze my butt off but I think the cold is gone now. It was bad tho. We had to ride our bikes to a lesson and and it was literally like 30 degrees, and we were riding against the wind. I was light headed when I got to the persons house hahaha. But I tough it out, life goes on I guess haha. And it hailed for like 5 minutes so that was cool. Almost snow.

So yea Derick got out of jail.I saw him right after he got out and I told him that if he does anything stupid im gonna slap him....hahah. He agreed and said he’d stay out of trouble. I really hope he does. They didnt come to church tho cus Angela was sick. I hate excuses.

I had some really good tacos the other day. We helped some members fix some things at their house, and then after they made us some tacos. There were like 3 HUGE platters of them. I had like 10 tacos, I got so sick that night, but they were so good hahahah. Ive been eating pretty good lately, I made myself tacos 2X this week and I made some burgers and stuff like that. Its pretty easy.

So I think that about it. I’m really really excited for the next two weeks. I get to see Elder Yergensen and Elder Sibbet and Thursday at Zone Confrence. Thatll be fun. And Im getting along really well with my companion. Hes just a funny guy. We work really well together. Well I love you all and cant wait to get some pictures or letters from you.

Con mucho mucho amor para siempre,

Elder Jefferson L Given

January 4, 2010

2010-02-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

Hola Everybody,

Happy New Year and Yea I’m still in Raymondville!!! It was almost the best case sinario. I got a new comp, Elder Hernandez stayed, but Elder Brandley is gone :( Hes gonna do really well tho in his new area, hes white washing. My new comp is Elder Guillen (you pronounce is Geeyen). Hes from El Salvador origionaly. He only lived there till he was 5 tho. Hes way cool. So he was origionaly called to serve in Washington, Spanish speaking, but after 9 months he had to come home cus he was sick, he just like never got better I guess, so he was home for 7 months and then came here. Only a transfer ahead of me. So Ive been out on a mission longer than him this time counting the MTC haha. But hes an awesome guy, we get along great. We're always laughing and stuff. Check this out, we had 191 contacts this week, we usually go for 140 haha.

Mari didnt get baptized yeterday :( Basicly she was nervous and avoided us all day Saturday and Sunday morning. We finally got ahold of her sunday during 3rd hour. She is gonna get baptized this Sunday tho, we just need to have daily reading with her. Oh yea and she want me to baptize her :) So that family that I was telling you about last week that came to church came to church again :) They're way cool. We went over later last night and we were teaching them and Joe was like, well my wife thinks she was baptized in your guys church when she was in junior high. So we looked her up on the computer after that and sure enough, she was! Pretty funny, so now we just have to get them married and then baptized. They really want to get married so it works out pretty good. Theyre awesome so far, I hope they keep stayin awesome.

So how was that 24 hr BOM reading thing? Sounds way cool. Wish we would have done it. I'm gonna write Cassidy back today. Tyler how'd you lose to Woodbridge? They suck! haha just dont lose in leauge thats all that matters. Go undefeated. Really sad to hear about Michelle Carlton, shes not suffering any more tho. Thats so crazy that Laci is married. Anybody else my age got engaged yet? New years was alright. We went out to Harlingen to the Senior Missionaries house. I dont think of them as senior missionaries tho cus theyre so cool. We screwed around. I talked to Sister Fefita for a while. Shes way cool. Did you know she is the Violetties cousin? Pretty cool. Mom dont get your hopes up for Mothers day. It will be the same. 45 Minutes. the only way it could be different is if I use a members phone, but we'll see. I doubt Ill use skype.

Oh yea I just remembered. whos that huge black kid on Tylers team? And is that giant freshman any good? how tall is he? Guess what. Im about to play basketball today! Yea we're going out to Harlingen to play. Im so excited. Im gonna dunk on people.

Dont get scared but somebody got shot in Raymondville 2 days ago haha. I guesss what happend was he was beating his wife and came out with a bat and a BB gun and the cops shot him 3 times in the chest. pretty crazy. He was mike lopez's uncles brother in law

Well thats about it in Raymondville. It was an awesome week. Cant wait to get some letters from my friends soon. Love you guys a ton!

Con Amor

Elder Given

December 21, 2009

2010-01-31T20:00:00.000-08:00

Feliz Navidad everyone!

I can't believe it is coming so fast! We'll be talking on the phone in just 3 days. Yep I'm calling on Christmas Eve too! But only for like 5 minutes. Then we'll get an hour to talk on Christmas day. I cant wait!

This was a good week!!! And kinda crappy but mostly good. I had a mission changing experience, and some retarded ones. Ill start with my most retarded one. So we were on our bikes on Saturday, and like always, I was doing wheelies cus my companion is realllllllly slow. So I do one good one for a couple seconds, and come down. Then I go up to do another one, and I start to overrotate I guess, like I pulled to hard back. And cus my bike is so tall my feet barely even hit the ground when Im sitting on the seat, so I couldnt just put my feet down. I fell hard hahahh. I fell to my right and just ate crap. I barely even braced myself. I scrapped up my right elbow pretty bad and my hand is all cut up, then the next day I found this HUGE bruise on my inner left leg. It must have hit something on my bike. Im fine tho dont worry. Im a graceful faller haha. I laughed it off. I still do wheelies, so I guess I havnt learned my lesson yet haha.

Okay so church yesterday, or should I say Sunday Mass again! What the heck!?! He said it at the start and the finish yesterday, thats not good haha. Anyway, Michelle showed up with her kids which is awesome. This was her 3rd Sunday in a row, so she could be baptized, but Ill tell you why not yet later. For some reason (divine intervention) we didnt start Sacrament metting (aka mass) until like 9:07. This worked out so well cus Mari was running late. She showed up right when the first prayer was said!!! Crazy huh. If we wouldnt have started late she wouldnt be getting baptized next Sunday!!! Sacrament meeting was pretty good. Our retarded high council rep guy that is supposed to train and help our branch didnt show up, so the 4 of us elders had to speak. We talked about what Christmas is like away from our families haha. Sunday school was really good and I guess relief society was terrible! But our investigators liked it and the other elders had a baptism after so that was cool. I guess the water was freezing tho haha.

So about Michelle, she lives in Sebastian, which is like 10 miles away from Raymondville, so we only go out there 3 or 4 times a week. We didnt catch her at all until Friday night. So we go over the bap interview questions cus her interview was going to be saturday. She answers the first two questions awesomly, then we get to the thrid question which is about any serious crimes. So Elder Fowler is like, for example like have you killed anyone (mostly joking) and then shes like yea.... Im mean not really but I feel like I have, we're confused and really trippin now, we're like what? Yea I had a couple abortions... nooooo. But she can still get baptized, she just has to get interviewed by President Miller or the Stake Pres. She also might have a record, she used to be a bad girl. Shes awesome now tho. THe worst part hasnt even come yet tho. So we get to chastity, and shes like, well we're not actually married. WHAT!!!!!!!! We made the mistake of assuming, cus she talked about how they were fighting and thinking about getting a divorce, so we thought that meant they were married, but noooooooo. If you live together for 6 months in Texas, its called common law marriage, which means youd still have to get a divorce, but you cant get baptized with that!!! So gay. But I think they might actually get married. They have 3 kids together so they should. So we'll so what happens with that.

Mari had her baptismal interview last night, she went into it thinking she wasnt ready, but she came out smiling, and she passed. I was so nervous. I was doing push ups cus I couldnt handle it hahaha. Im so excited for her. Shes awesome.

I got 2 packages this week :) I didnt open any of my presents yet dont worry haha. I sent my lame christmas presents out on friday, it should get ther by wed at tha latest. Howd you like the christmas card? I finally got a letter from JT! I havnt gotten one from him since I was in the MTC! Still love that kid tho.

Okay so my mission changing experience. On Wednesday,I was super frustrated with my companion. Hes just reallly really lame sometimes a lot of the time. We had house cleaning checks on Friday, so we decided to clean a lot of it on Wednesday for some reason. So we start cleaning and my comp goes in the room and shuts the door. We're scrubbin floors, taking out trash, cleaning the kitchen, all that stuff, and hes in the room, doing nothing. We're like Elder Fowler, its your job the clean the dishes, he basicly ignored us. So we kinda finished cleaning, and Im just sitting on the couch, fuming, Im so mad. My comp is just being retarded, hes like, im not washing the dishes. none of them are mine blah blah blah blah blah. So the thought comes to my head, Love you companion. Ive heard that so many times but I didnt want to do it. THen I think, how bad do you want to baptize someone this month? Bad enough to wash the stupid dishes? So I get up and start washing the dishes. This is about 45 minutes into lunch, and there were a ton of dishes. (We get an hour for lunch) So I start cleaning and my comp comes out from his nap and lays on the couch where I just was. So an like 45 minutes later, Im thinking to myself, I want my comp to either tell me we need to leave, or come help me so it goes faster. He didnt do either. I wanted to see if he wanted to work bad enough to tell me to leave, cus I always have to tell him. Long story short he didnt do crap, but I didnt say anything. We took a 2 hour lunch and I clean for most of it. I didnt even say anything but Elder Hernandez kinda went off on him. He was like, Elder Fowler, youve been here for two hours, why didnt you wash the dishes? He just made excuses. But I just tried to be as Chirstlike as possible and let him do his thing. I kinda went off on him in a way but in a good way. I made him realize that he was retarded basicly. But the moral of the story is that all our member present lessons worked out that day and we had 4! So be Chirslike and things are better.

Well I think thats about it. Ill talk to you on Friday. I think I just want to talk to the family. We don't get a ton of time. Love you all a ton!

Elder Given

December 16, 2009

2010-01-31T19:47:00.000-08:00

Hi Family!

I hope nobody freaked out on Monday cus I didnt email. The internet was down at the Library so we couldnt do it, then yesterday we didnt have a lot of time so we just postponed it until now.

We had a pretty awesome week last week. Church was pretty cool even tho the first words Pres Ramos said in Sacrament were "Welcome to Sunday Mass everyone..." hahahah so we're Catholic now? hahaha. I just laughed, hes getting better, he just has a few kinks to work out. We ended up with only 2 investigators at church but it was Michelle again and her son Derick and her daughter Hallie. They are such cute little kids, I really think Michelle and Derick are gonna get baptized(Hallie is only 6) They are so awesome and theyve been to church twice already. Our other awesome investigators are Mari and Mike Lopez. Mari didnt come to church cus she had a bad dream Sat night, and thought it was the Book of Mormon cus she read it right before she went to sleep. So we went over Sunday night and basicly destroyed her fear and doubt, so now shes way solid again. Shes gonna get baptized.

We went over to Mikes house Sunday night too and when we got there he was playing video games with his cousin and blasting super ghetto music and stuff. So they finished their games. There was basicly no spirit in the home. Then we put in "finding faith in Christ" and when that was over the spirit was so strong in the home. There whole family was the Mike, his wife Julie, his parents and his 3 kids, all sat down and watched it with us. We had a really powerful lesson and commited them all to be at church next Sunday. They agreed and things were great.

Then we went by last night, and everything had blown apart. We dont really know whats going on exactly, but Mike and his wife are having problems, Mike is really making good steps at repenting tho, he comited so strongly to live the Word of Wisdom a few nights ago. All we can do now is pray and hope things work out with them. Oh yea and we found out that theyve beeb together for 7 years and arent married! They have 3 kids, but only one of them is really theres, the older two are from Julies previous marriage, BUT SHES STILL MARIED TO HIM! So Mike cant get baptized til they work all this out, Julie has to get divorced and then they have to get maried. Not looking great but we're praying for a miracle. Does this story remind you of anyone? Derick and Angela? yea. Thats the only reason why I dont like it.

Angela was at church sunday tho so thats good. WE dont really worry about them anymore, we gave it to the branch basicly.

Okay and y'all dont need to worry bout me. Im gonna be safe. I know a lot of people are scared that I might get hurt or something, but we're smart and even the most ghetto crazy people here like us. But tell Grammy Barbie and Papa thanks for the second package! I got it right after I sent out my thank you letter for the first one. The warm clothes they sent are awesome! Ive been wearing them a lot, right now actually!

I sent out Christmas cards this week. You probably have them by now. I've sent out about 37 so I have only 3 left. Hope you all like them! Mom I got our family one, I like it a lot. Kinda immodest for a missionary tho hahhah. I really liked the random letter from Chris and Liz. Could somebody try to get me her address so I can write her. Actually Tyler next time your at the Bakkers just check out what # it is and write it in your phone, and then email it to me before monday. Or text auddy and have him tell you. Chill thanks. What happened to all those other addresses I asked you to get? I got awesome letters from Tyler and Cassidy this week. Sounds like Tyler is doing amazing in bball! Your team is awesome, keep working hard. Dont lose another game this season!

So Mom how much are you teaching at Los Al? Do you have like a long term sub job or something? Do you know what school Shaun Norum is at? Oh yea and who did Laundry dunk on? What school does he play at (not Laundry the other guy) and what kind of stats is Laundry putting up this year? The Varsity team played Mater Dei!!! No way I wish we could have played them last year! Too bad they lost tho.

Piano lessons were crazy this week! I had to teach Michelle's two kids, and then Mari's son and her neice and newphen. I taught 5 kids how to play 2 songs on the piano! It was sooooo stressful. They were from the all from the age 6-8 and I taught them how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and part of Jingle Bells. It made there moms happy so thats all that matters.

We had an awesome Zone Confrence in Mcallen this week. It was a special Christmas one so it was more missionaries. It was so awesome. I got to see all my old budies from the MTC like Elder Yergensen and Sibbet. They are both doing really well. Yergensens comp is an idiot tho. Hes been calling someone in the middle of the night and talking to them, and I guess he got CHEWED OUT by pres miller in his last interview. Pretty sad but theyre doing well now. We found an awesome new investigator this week. She lives right across from Mari, her name is Estela. Shes gonna get baptized next month. Her real test tho will be to see if she is at church this sunday. I think she will be.

Well I think thats about it. We worked super hard last week and are going to work even harder this week. My companion is really annoying me but Im just praying that I can love him more. I really hope I get transfered in 2 weeks but I know Im not going to now because I want to haha. I think Elder Brandley is going to leave and Elder Hernandez is going to train again and Elder FOwler and me will stay. Thats my guess.

Alright well I love you guys. Christmas is in 9 day!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Given

December 7, 2009

2010-01-31T19:43:00.000-08:00

Wow it was freezing this week!!! On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday it was soooo cold! It got down to like 36 on Friday! There was ice all over the houses that day. Hopefully snow will come around Christmas cus it started to heat back up again. It was crazy tho how cold it was. I wore my black suit for the first time in a while. I had on 2 pairs of socks, basketball shorts on under my slacks, a long sleeve shirt, and then my suit jacket haha. It was so cold, pretty crazy. People here are retarded when its cold. I got more doors slammed in my face this week than I have my whole mission hahah. Everyone is out of their comfort zone cus they are not used to how cold it is so they dont want to talk to us. We only had 92 contacts this week. Thats TERRRRIBBBLLEEEE! I blame my companion for a lot of it but Im just gonna step up and do everything I can this week.

Besides the freezing cold and the crappy contacting it was a pretty good week. I think I told you about Eric and Michelle Figueroa before. But anyway Michelle came to church with her 3 kids! Eric didnt come for some reason but Michelle is awesome. She has a couple friends there at church so that helps a lot. Her kids are so cute and liked church a lot too. Mari, are other lady who came to church last week, didnt come this week. I guess her son flipped out and didnt want to go :( But the 1st Presidency Christmas Devo was last night and she came to that :) Im still sad she missed church tho cus it was actually a pretty good sunday. The testimony meeting was really good and I felt the spirit a lot. I bore my testimony, in spanish, it was alright, my problem was that I didnt know what I wanted to say in English, so that made it even harder to do in Spanish hahah.

Oh yea and I got chewed out by the Branch President. He called me into his office before church and was like "Um who was here last night" Elder Fowler and I were there teaching music lessons. He was like well someone left the side door wide open. You guys need to make sure you are locking the doors blah blah blah he just went off haha. The thing is we didnt even go back to that part of the building so it was someone before us. He wasnt like pissed at me he just talked really loud and intense, but he always does that so I dont take it personaly. Hes a good guy, I just think its funny he chews out the missionaries when we are the only thing holding this branch together. Scratch that, its us and the spirit haha.

Okay heres the sad part of my letter. Derick is in jail. He was doing a crap load of Coke and went back to Angelas house at like 2 in the morning and started pounding on the door. He kept pounding and pounding, so Angela let him in cus she thought he would break the door down (he was high by the way) so he comes in and starts beating the crap out of Angela. Yelling at her and all this terrible stuff, almost killed her, but the Crystal, who is Dericks sister, but was staying with Angela at her house with her Boyfriend and 2 kids (she has a husband who is in jail tho so thats a whole other issue) anyway her boyfriend goes and pushes Derick off of Angela, Derick turns around and punches him, they exchange some blows, and then Derick broke a broom handle on his head! Shortly thereafter the cops came and took Derick away to jail, charged with 2 felony counts or however you say it. I have no idea whats gone on since, we were told not to even deal with it, leave it to President Ramos. I almost cried that morning when I talked to Angela on the phone. Im just not gonna talk about them anymore. I loved Derick so much and he just threw it all away. Elder Brandley read my a scripture a few days ago, basicly is says, when the devil is cast out of people he comes back pissed off and even harder. Thats basicly what happend to Derick and he couldnt handle it. Enough about them.

Mike Lopez. This guy is pretty awesome. Hes super ghetto tho too and he might have killed 2 people. Im not sure tho, we have to find out this week. He has two tear drop tatoos on his face which usually means that you've killed someone but im not sure. Anyway hes still and awesome guy and the only reason he wasnt at church is because he car broke down the night before, and his wife wouldnt let him get a ride cus she made him fix the car. He felt really good when he prayed about the BOM so now we just have to help him realize that that is the Holy Ghost and that he needs to act on it. I really think he is going to be baptized, if his past isnt too sketchy. Oh yea and his little daughter has a crush on me hahah. Shes like 5 or 6 and she draws like little hearts on papers and throws them at me and smiles hahahhaah. Maybe she'll get her dad to go to church.

Dad if you ever talk to Sister Galik, tell her im really good friends with her last companion, Sister Mandrigal. She is in my district and she is awesome. She leaves in a couple weeks tho. The 21 I think, so she can be home for Christmas, the crazy thing is tho, her dad is the mission Prez in Panama so shes just gonna go be a missionary there for another 6 months hahah. Shes a really awesome missionary. Tell Sister Galik she says hi.

Wednesday was one of my favorite days on my mission. Me and Elder Brandley went on splits together. We have been together since day one in the MTC so its pretty awesome that we got to be comps for the day. We did work that day. We were in his area, on bikes, and we had like 4 lessons, 5 new investigators, set to Bap Dates, and had like 20 somethin contacts. We worked hard. I wish we could be comps. My comp is so lazy. He complains about being fat all the time but he wont do anything about it. He doesnt work out and he says hes going to eat healthy, but then he just eats his crappy food and the mooches our good food off of us. The other day he was like, I need to find a good cardio exercise, just not running cus I hate running. Im like, well you can use my jump rope if you want. Hes like no that hurts my back. I guess I got annoyed by that cus then I was like well then just ride your bike faster so you actually break a sweat so that you can be in shape! Seriously tho he rides sooooo slow. Dad youre right I will be able to do wheelie all over the street haha. And Im not actually senior comp, he is, he just has to be told what to do all the time. He used to do all kinds of illegal crap on his mission. He used to go to the movies and stuff. Hes seen a bunch, no wonder his numbers have sucked his whole mission. Hes trying to change tho, he just cant leave on time to save his life. I swear we leave 30 minutes late every day. I hate wasting time. Im just going to keep praying for charity. He had surgery on his ingrown toe this week so hes been complaining about that all week. I really dont think its even that bad cus he'll run to go get his guitar, but when we're contacting he complains about it. If he cared as much about playing his stupid guitar as he did about leaving on time, we would be able to do so much more work.

Tell thank you to Aunt Mary and Aunt Tootie for the hair cutters that they sent me! I already used them and they worked really good :) Mom should I buy a christmas present for all the kids or what? Its your money so tell me how much you want me to spend. Im gonna print christmas cards today and send them out. Its gonna cost like $40 for the cards and the stamps combined I think.

We went to church on Saturday. The 7th Day Adventist Church! hahah one of Elder Hernandez and Brandleys investigators invited them so all four of us went. It was really interesting and there wasnt any falst doctrine preached, just the fact that we were there on saturday. It was funny tho cus they had this Spanish preacher guy come in and he was all intense and rolled his Rs really gnarly like and then the guy that was translating to English would try to copy his intensity. It was really corny. Basicly the guy taught 1 princliple for like 40 minutes. It was lame. My favorite part tho was there fellowshiping. If we had the kind of fellowshipping they had, we would not have nearly as many less active. Everyone in the congregation came and talked to us and asked us to stay for lunch. It was crazy. Id probably go there if I didnt have the truth in my life. Oh yea and they have a bunch of black people!!! Like half the congregation! I didnt know there were that many black people in this town haha.

I got some good letters this week. I got one from Jack! That was cool, and I finally got one from Dylan. It took over a month to get here! Got another nice letter from Cassidy. IS Tyler ever going to write me? Tawny sent me a stinkin long letter. It was pretty awesome. Im still working on writing her back haha. I started cooking more creativly this week! I bought some ground beef and some bacon and made some bomb hamburgers and some bacon. And I make Cinnamon Roles twice a week and eat all 8 of them in like 5 minutes. Its like being at home when mom makes them, but without the competition haha. I've become a smart shopper. I can buy basicly everything I want, and never be hungry, and do it for about 30 dollars. Last week I spent $31 and got 19 items hahah. Ive been eating well. I think I officially like beans now. I had them last night and didnt even think while I was eating them, at least with a tortilla, Ive never had them without a tortilla so who knows. I havn't had to eat anything that was bad yet so Im surviving

Well I think thats about it. I can't wait until Christmas this year. Its gonna be really weird but fun to be able to talk to everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and is happy. Can Tyler dunk yet? Oh yea Jack told me he was throwing down before he got hurt. Is that true? Alirght well I cant wait to hear back from you guys. Nos vemos en augosto de 2011!

Con Amor

Elder Given

November 23, 2009

2010-01-31T19:38:00.000-08:00

Como estan?

So we had transfers this week. We just finished our first transfer, which means I'm not a greenie anymore haha. Transfers were wednesday, so we decided to go to Olive Garden for lunch after our district meeting in Harlingen. It was our all our disctict, Elder Horton, Hernandez, Brandley and me, and then Sisters Mangrigal, Osborn, Call, and Woods. So we're sitting there gossiping on what we think is going to happen for transfers and then Elder Hernandez's phone rings. Its the assistants to the President so we all start lauging cus we know what that means. It means that he got called as District Leader, so he's talking to them on the phone and we all try to figure out whats going to happen to my comp, Elder Horton. So Elder Hernandez confirms it after he hangs up and we all laugh cus he was shaking. He was super nervous about it but hes a great missionary. Then like 5 minutes later, our phone rings and its President Miller! So I give the phone to Elder Horton and he gets called as Zone Leader! So that means im getting a new comp. So I end up with Elder Fowler. Hes pretty cool. Hes been out for about a year and a half. Hes a really good guy. So now Elder Hernandez is our DL and Elder Horton is the ZL in Harlingen, so Ill still see him every Tuesday at district meeting.

So yea Elder Fowler has been out for a long time, his Spanish kinda sucks tho, which im acutally kinda stoked on that tho cus its making me learn a lot more.

I had a full conversation with this lady in Spanish and I didnt even reallly have to think about the spanish! so cool. Hes a good missionary and we are really going to work hard. I know we are going to see lots of success in Dec. We had 60 contacts our first full day together!!! Thats rediculous. Thats like 3 days worth in 1 day haha. i know if we keep working hard we'll find those who really are prepared. Oh yea and Im driving now. Basicly Im training him on the area and like leading and stuff. Pretty rare for a 2nd transfer missionary to do that but I guess the Lord knows that I know what im doing. Or I atleast know the area.

But besides all that the week was disappointing. We had 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 people at church again! IM SO FRUSTRATED WITH THESE LAZY PEOPLE!!! I love them but they just are lazy on sunday mornings. This one family promised us they'd go to our church a couple weeks ago, but then didnt go last week cus she didnt want to wake up. So we stop by yesterday at like 815 to see if they were going and awake, and they tell us to our face that they're going to another church! So annoying. And our 2 families who told us they wer 100% going FOR SURE, didnt show up. One of them was sick, and im not sure about the other yet. Im really hoping the Lord is just trying my faith and that next month we will fill up the chapel. Im definently not going to stop working, you know that for sure.

We're going to Brother Abbys house for Thangsgiving. Hes an awesome guy. Hopefully he'll have some college football on haha. Anything you want to send me would be really appreciated mom. I think the biggest thing I want is pictures. I love pictures. That letter that Cassidy sent me was awesome. I loved it and all the pics were way cool. Oh yea and for Christmas, I'm just givin you time, but it would be cool to have a mile tracker thing for my bike, like the one dad has, and a hair cutter thing. I learned how to cut my own hair. Elder Hernandez taught be :)That letter from Cassidy was awesome. I loved all the pics, more of those would be great. Thanks Cassiddy!!!

We had rain again this week. And it was the day we picked to be on our bikes haha. It was pretty fun riding around in the rain. Im weird but I love riding my bike. Im learning how to do wheelies. I can do it for a couple seconds now haha. I had two cool drug experience haha. This was like tuesday I think, me and elder horton were walking down the middle of the street, and there is a car, next to a fence with the door open and there is a girl in the car, a guy behind the fence and another guy inbetween them. So the guy in the middle says, like all loud, " so you want extasy or coke?" the girl in the car said something, then the guy in the middle goes to the guy at the fence ( the guy at the fence was like 70) and grabs the drugs and makes the exchange. Im like No Way! Right in front of us! THis is worse than Los Al hahahah. So like 5 minutes later when we were walking back we went and contacted the old drug dealer guy haha. So then yesterday, we were contacting again, and we see these two guys BBQin outside, so we walk up. As we get close the guy is like "Im just gonna tell you im smokin week right now so..." haha so we ended up talking to him for like 5 minutes, while he was smoking. We smelled like weed the rest of the night hahaha. Probably not good as a missionary but I thought it was funny.

Anyway it was a decent week. I can do 50 pushups in a row without stopping at all now. Im getting a lot stronger. Tyler is not going to be stronger or bigger than me when I get home! hahah. Well thats all I got ta say. I hope all is well and I cant wait to get letters this week. I wrote one to Ryan so hopefully it'll help him out. Tell him I love him.

Have a very HappyThanksgiving and Ill talk to you all next week!!!

Love,

Elder Given

November 16, 2009

2010-01-31T19:29:00.000-08:00

Hows everyone doing?

Life is pretty good here in Texas. We had a great baptism yesterday for this couple, Claudio and Ruth who the other Elders have been teaching. The members were really supportive and gave some really good talks.

They are really starting to understand what baptisms are supposed to be like. We have English classes every Tuesday night that Elder Horton and I teach and Claudio and Ruth were there along with another couple in our branch, the Lopez family. It was so great how they bonded and made friends cus I know thats whats gonna keep Claudio and Ruth in the church.

So Derick and Angelas wedding was interesting. We go to help some of the members set up at like 11-12 and it was looking kinda decent. Then we came back at like 4 to drop off some food after they had finished decorating and they made the chapel look really good! I was very impressed with the members and how hard they worked. THen the weeding comes at 7. It was just an awkward wedding. Presient Ramos just like read what he was supposed to out of the book. All crappy. Spead through it and the wedding was done by like 720 haha. Derick and Angela were so happy though. So then Derick gets baptized and we eat. It was seriously so fast but it was such a good night. I love those two and they've been doing great with the exception of one day.

So we have this new family that we've been teaching and they are pretty cool. They actually have been reading the BOM and enjoying it and were going to come to church but for some reason they didnt. Oh yea we had 00000000000000 people at church again. Im reallyy annoyed about that but whatever. Anyway we showed up at their house the other night with some members from our branch and I see Eric standing outside, like trippin out. So I go up to him and im like what up Eric? Then he sees its me and hes like oh cool its you guys, and then I realize that hes holding a gun. So then he tells me about how someone was shooting at his house right before we got there! Crazy. I guess some local gang is trying to mess with him cus he used to live in the other town like 5 miles away and Im guessing he was in a gang. But hes out now and has kids and he doesnt even know these people. So we taught him, hes a good guy. We're going back tomorrow and hopefully they'll be at church this week so they can be baptized on DEC 6th!

We had kinda another cool experience this week. It was like Wednesday morning and I was looking through the area book at some Former Investigatros. Im looking at this paper about a guy who has been to church like 5 times, but never got baptized, hasnt talked to missionaries for like a year tho. So Im like yea we gotta go by him, maybe hes ready now! Elder Horton didnt really want to but he was hoping that the spirit was directing me in this decision, which we'll find out later that it totally was. So we go to try to find this guy and he isnt there. So we go contact this street and we teach this guy. His buddy shows up half way through the lesson and he tells us to come to his house the next day on another street. So the next day we go over to his house when he tells us to and he isnt there. So we contact this street, and we find who we were lead to. This guy grew up in the church, hes like 21 and has been inactive for 2 years. Basicly he got a girl pregnant so he stopped going to church. Anyway he was really nice and Elder Horton told me the members have been looking for him for like a year and havnt been able to find him. So basicly the Lord lead us to him cus the way we found him was so random and so unplanned that it had to have been the Lord. So I think we're gonna take this guy out to lessons with us and stuff. Hopefully get him back to church. Ill let you know how it progresses.

Theres this other girl we've been teaching and I honestly think she knows our church is true but shes scared. So we have this lesson and basicly tell her that she knows it true and that she needs to do something about it. Something we said hit her, Im not sure if it was in a good way or a reallly bad way but she stopped talking. Like the last 15 minutes of the lesson she didnt talk at all, and this girl always talks! She kinda reminds me of Tawny, she just a cool girl. She didnt even say goodbye to us tho! So I think we're going back either tomorrow or Wednesday to see if she'll talk to us now. Pretty funny tho.

Theres this other old guy who we were teaching named Terry. He says he doesnt have a religion cus none of them do it exactly right. So we told him hes found the perfect religion, Gods! Basicly he said he'd read the BOM but decided to go to the internet instead and found some stuff he didnt like. We go back and explain what he found and give him some more to read. Then the next day he gives us a call and is just like, "Um hey could you guys come pick up your book please" So we go and he gives back the BOM and doesnt really want to talk to us. In the BOM are these papers. He printed off all this anti mormon stuff, one about the Meadows Masacer or whatev and the other one, which is my favorite: How to help a Mormon believe in Christ. ahhahahaha. I thought it was really ironic since our purpose as missionaries is To invite others to come unto Christ... It made me laugh pretty hard. So the next day we go back, even though he told us not to anymore, and try to give him an Ensign with Christ on the cover and its all the apostles sharing their testimony of Christ. He wouldnt take it though. Im glad Im able to laugh at stupidity like that haha.

The JWs stopped at our door the other day. I opened the door and smiled and said, how you doing? They looked up at me, said something in Spanish, so I was like como estan? They looked at me again all frightened and just handed me some paper and walked away. Haha what kind of missionary is that! Speaking of that Ive got a funny story. We were on our bikes 2 nights ago, and we stopped at this light and there was a cop at the stop light with his window down. So I decide I want to contact him so I do. I just rode over there, asked how he was doing and gave him a pass along card! It was pretty funny, I more did it just to do it haha.

Hows dance going for the girls? I bet its a ton of fun. Guess what? Im learing how to play the piano again. We teach piano lessons every Tuesday night so I practice a little then but whenever my comp has to interview someone or whenever Im bored, if theres a piano there I go play it. I can almost play a whole him with both hands again! I figure 1 hymn a transfer and I'll be able to play pretty decently when I get home!

Dad I have no idea what Spiritual Crockidles is haha. Happy Birthday tho! Im putting a card in the mail for you hopefully today, but if not tomorrow. Thanks for Jacks address. Im gonna write him soon. I told Tyler a bunch of people I wanted addresses for so hopefully he gets them soon. Well I think thats about it. I hope all is well. Oh yea send me some pics soon! I love you guys. Say hi to everyone for me. All is well in Ray-Town

Love,

Elder Given

November 2, 2009

2010-01-31T19:17:00.000-08:00

Hola,

Life is going pretty good. Had the worst day of my mission though yesterday. Elder Horton and I have been working our butts of and doing everything we can to get people to church, but only 1 person showed up again. We seriously called like 10 people, stopped by like 7 houses, and nobody would wake up. So lame cus we seriously do everything possible and they choose not to do anything about what we teach. I guess they cant wake up for 9 oclock church. It mostly frustrating cus the other Elders in our ward had 8 people at church! Im happy for them but it makes me feel like Im not doing good enough when I know I am. We are meeting all of our goals, working our butts off, but I guess we just aren't finding the prepared people. I think Ill get over it tho haha.

Anyway we had a huge storm last week. After I wrote my emails, we went to Walmart and it was kinda cloudy. We go home and change our clothes, cus we are gonna go to Harlingen, which is the bigget city I guess, where the stake center is. So we change and it starts POURING! It was so crazy. We ran out to the car and were totally drenched in like 5 seconds! I'm not even joking we couldnt even see out the windshield for most of the 25 minute trip. It was fun tho, and we made it to Harlingen safely haha. Once we were there we were kickin it with a bunch of missionaries in the area, playin some basketball, and volleyball and just having fun. It was really crazy how fast the storm came in tho. Gotta love Texas haha.

So my basic schedule is this: Wake up at 630, work out till 7, shower, eat, write some letters, start personal study at 8, comp study at 9 and then language study from 10-11. Then we start workin from 11 till about 2 or 3, we have lunch for an hour, which usually includes a nap, or some letter writing, then we work till 9, usually 930 and plan from either 9-930 or 930-940 haha. Then I eat, screw around, and go to sleep. It usually goes by really fast and is a lot of fun. Tuesdays we have District Meeting in Harlingen, with our district which is the 4 of us in Raymondville, and 4 sisters in a town by Harlingen. We have English Classes that we teach tuesday night at the church. Friday we have weekly planning from 11-230, which helps us out a lot. Then Sunday we have church from 9-12, and dinner at the Lopez home from 5-630. Monday is Pday, we still have our normal studies in the morning, then we go email right now, from like 1115-1215 or 1230. Then we go shopping at Walmart for about an hour, and after we usually clean and then either play some ball at the park, in Harlingen if we have enough miles on our car, or we sleep. We have that time till 6 and then its back to work, but we have dinner with the Barreras at 7 usually. So basicly thats our schedule.

I have enough money to survive. I spent about 25-30 bucks a week. We go to bed at 1030 (usually 11) every night. I guess its enough sleep haha. The library is really close, like 2 miles. Raymondville is tiny haha. Walmart only a couple miles away too. There arent really very many other stores. Theres a Stars, which is basicly the same as Sonic, and a Whataburger or something like that. Theres a McDonalds kinda by the Walmart. And we have a H.E.B. which is kinda like Ralphs I guess. Other than that theres just random shops and stuff. Our church building is TINY! the chapel holds like 50-60 people. There are like 5 classrooms and 2 offices for Presidente and the clerk. Its so funny Presidente Ramos just calls on people to pray while hes conducting. Hes like the first oracion (prayer) will be...hmmm....Hermana Lopez. Haha he totally just picks them randomly. Hes only been a member for 2 years so hes figuring it out slowly. His Tex Mex is so bad. He tells stories and says one sentance in English, then one in Spanish. Gotta love it tho, makes me laugh. I havnt been asked to play the piano, my comp plays. I can still play a little bit tho. If I had time to practice I could pick it back up fairly easily.

So did you get my pics? I dont need you to print any of them cus I do it at Walmart. Dad could you email a couple good ones to Dylan for me tho. Gracias. Got letters from the Grandparents this week which was nice.

Oh yea mom, for Breakfast I eat cereal every morning, and twice a week I have cinnamon roles that I buy from Walmart. 8 for myself haha. Lunch I either have MacNCheese, usually a Turkey Sandwhich, or a Quesodilla. The tortillas here are so bomb. Dinner is usually about the same. Ive learned to eat tortillas with everything tho at meals at members houses. Basicly you mix everything together and scoop it with the tortilla haha. It isnt too bad. I actually kinda like rice now. Still cant stand beans!

So we met this crazy lady who is really cool. Basicly shes been with the same guy for 12 years, they arent married, and he does some job and she wont see him for a month. Shes met with the missionaries a lot and sees that we help her life but shes never been baptized. So she basicly told us her whole life story the 2nd time we talked with her. Not even gonna go into that. Her husband is cheating on her through MySpace and her kids are terrible. The oldest is 13 and wants to be gangsta and life all the other thugz in Raymondville. We talked to him about gangs and why smoking weed is bad. Then there is this other girl who is always at there house who is 13, her life is Hell. Her dads in prison, her mom basicly sold her for drugs. Now she lives with her grandma, and hates her grandma and tries to hurt her cus she hates her life. She wants to die, and has tried to commit suicide. She is an extremely cute girl for how young she is and I guess some pastor or priest or something did some terrible stuff to her so now she doesnt believe in God. So we are really trying to work with her and make her life happier cus I feel terrible for her. Thats part of the reason why I felt like crap yesterday. By the Way they told us all this the 2nd time we talked to them. People really trust missionaries I guess. So we're trying to help these people as much as we can. Its really pretty sad tho. Ill let you know how it progresses.

On a happy note, note tho we did have a cool experience. It was Friday, we didnt have a lot of time to work with, so we had to pick between driving out to La Sara, which is like 10 miles away, and we barely had any miles to spare, or to stay in Raymondville. We didnt know if we would even get to talk to the person we were looking for in La Sara so that was our issue. So we were really confused, not knowing what to do, so we decided to pray. Both of us felt like we should go try to find Joe in La Sara. So we did and sure enough. He was there! It was a really cool experience.

For Halloween we just kicked it in Harlingen for the night with all the missionaries, from like 6-9. It was a lot of fun and I had Ice Cream for the first time in almost a month haha.

Alright well I think thats all Ive got to say. Hope everyone is doing well. Tell Tyler to write me. Love you all.

-Elder Given

"Service is Legit"

2009-10-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

October 26, 2009

Whats up everyone!?!

Time is flying by, feels like it was just P-Day yesterday! Once again Happy Birthday to Kallie! How was your party? Did you get anything cool for your birthday? Glad you liked my card and all the ties and stuff. Sorry it made you cry tho haha. Sounds like Cassidys team is doing really well and that Cassidy keeps improving! Whats her teams record? I've only heard of them losing 1 game so far so sounds like they are really good. Hows varsity doing? What about the football team?

Sounds like the Halloween dance and party was a lot of fun. I think we are having a branch party but I'm not sure. I know Elder Horton and I are having a pumpkin painting/carving thing on Thursday but thats mostly for this one girl who we want to get baptized. On Halloween night we have to be in at 6. I'm not sure what we are donig yet.

Thats really sad about Sister Carlton. If she is in pain then its probably for the best then. I'm still praying she gets better tho. I totally forgot about the twins Flat Stanley thing. I'll do it today and put it in the mail tomorrow.

So life is pretty good here. Yesterday was a really interesting day at church. Actually I'll just go back to the week in general. We invited probably like 50 people to church. I thought and was hoping we would get about 5. We only got 1. We gotta start doing something to get people to church, cus they can't get baptized if they aren't at church. Anyway that one person was Derrick. He's my favorite, I'll tell more about him later.

Oh yea we only had 1 investigator, but we had this innactive guy come who we talked to. He basicly hated us when we first talked to him, but as we talked to him more he opened up (by the way this was like a week and a half ago) and he was actually kinda nice by the end of the lesson. So I had totally forgot about him, but then he showed up at church! He's been innactive for 10 years!!! And he said he's coming back next week, hopefully he brings his family.

So after Sunday school I went to go help the Presidente with something, and he handed me and Ensign. Hes like, pick an article and go teach Elders Quorum. Haha I was like okayyy cool. The lesson ended up being alright tho cus I basicly used it as time to teach our investigator Derrick. I just thought it was funny how I had to do it on the spot tho. I love our branch.

Used my bike kinda a lot this week which was fun. I love riding it. It works really well, thanks Mom and Dad. We are able to talk to tons of people when we are on our bikes. We ended up having 148 contacts this week which is cool. Our goal is 140 every week.

We helped some people move into their house yesterday and the day before. Usually people don't let us help them but they really needed the help cus they were all tired and it was hot so we just helped them unload the moving van. It was acutally kinda fun and they said we can come back whenever they want. Service is legit.

My memory card on my camera is full so Im gonna be sending that back tomorrow with over 200 pictures on it. There are some funny videos on there too. Tyler are you putting my pics on Facebook? I finally played basketball last week! I couldn't jump tho it was kinda sad. I blame the cement court and the high rims tho haha. It was fun tho. Whats the latest with Los Al bball? Anything interesting happening? Is Tyler ever gonna write me? Oh so check this out. We came home the other day, and I went to make a sandwhich, and my comps bread had been chewed on. Like threw the plastic! So we think there are mice or something in our house which is gross. We cleaned up a lot tho so I think that will help.

Is anyone in our family a Pentecostal? We contacted this lady who was Pentecostal and she was so loud and just like "PRAISE JESUS" but every time we asked her to pray about our message she was like "NO". Which we get a lot so that's not what annoyed me. She was all talking about how she was feeling the spirit and stuff and then started mumblin something all loud and then just kept going. Apperently she was "speaking in tongues". They just dont get it do they? It's so sad but really hilarious. She was like "can you speak in tongues? I can. Praise Jesus! Amen. I can speak in tongues. I go to church every Sunday. Amen! Can you speak in tongues?" That was basicly what she was saying for like 20 minutes. haha thats why I love missionary work.

People are so stuborn tho. We're like, if you knew these things were true would you change? And they're like nope. Then we say, so if God told you to do something, and that what your doing is wrong, your going to keep doing it your way? Yep. Woooow. But then we just move on because they obviously aren't getting it. But honestly it is pretty fun. Stuborn people make me laugh. They don't get it and they wont let us help them figure it out.

Okay enough about annoying people. Derrick and Angela. I think I told you about them last week. Derrick got interviewed by President Miller this week, cus he was down here for Zone Confrence. And he passed!!! We were scarred cus he has a scetchy passed but he's good to go. He just either has to get married or seperated. That's what we've been working on a lot but he keeps putting too much on us. I love that guy tho. He's gonna be such a big help to us as missionaries cus he can relate with all the super ghetto people we have been teaching. I try but I can only pretend to be ghetto hahah. Hopefully next time I talk to you he will be married!!! Alright well I think thats all I got for this week.

Mostly just want everyone to know how much I love and miss them. Can’t wait to here back from everyone.

Con Amor,

Elder Given

Working hard and getting plenty to eat...haha

2009-10-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

October 19, 2009

Hows it going family?

Sad to hear a bunch of you are sick! Tyler dont worry your braces will come off eventually haha. Addy has swine flu? Crazy. Whats Cassidys volleyball team record? Sounds like shes doing great which is good to hear. Im sending out a package today. Its got some clothes in it that I dont need anymore and some stuff for Kallie and letters for everyone.

BTW Happy Birthday Kallie (for tomorrow) and guess what? My companions birthday is tomorrow too!!! He's gonna be twice your age tho :) Sounds like Hagen did a great job on his talk in church. Must take after his dad. Did he speak with Mike? Oh yea so my bike, I didnt even get it until Friday of this week when we went back up to McAllen for New Comp Training. Its great. I love it.

New Comp Training was way fun cus I got to see all my buddies from the MTC and we told all our stories and stuff. The weather has been pretty nice lately, around 80 so we decided to ride our bikes Saturday. It was fun and I wanna do it more often. Its a really good bike, definently worth the money. It was also nice to finally get some letters this week! No surprise the first letter I got was from Tawny. Then I got a letter from Dad and that package the next day. The package was soo good! I only have 2 cinnamon roles left haha. I gave some to my comp and our roomates tho so don't worry. The cookies were really good too. When do I need to send Lauren and Sydneys Flat Stanley thing back?

This week flew by soooo fast. So there is this thing, kinda like a goal but its more of a way of life in the mission, called 20-20-2. Which means if you have 20 contacts a day, 20 lessons a week then you'll have 2 baptisms a month. Basicly its revalation and it works like everytime. So obviously that’s what we're striving for. We ended up with 153 contacts this week. I’m pretty stoked cus thats a ton. We have over 30 twice. And we have 14 new investigators ( which means we taught them a lesson and made a return appointment) and we have like 25 lessons( which includes at least 1 prayer, usually 2). So basicly we worked our butt of and it was fun. But at the same time I feel like it was unsuccessful cus we didnt have any investigators at church. We called, arranged rides, made sure people would be there, but people used there agency to not show up. All I can do is work harder and pray more I guess.

Our kid that got baptized last week scared us this week. Basicly he’s not all there, is what we decided. We couldn’t find him until Saturday, and we had to get confirmed Sunday. All the little kids that live by him said they heard he was smoking and that he didn’t want to talk to us. But we ended up finding him and talking to him, he barely wanted to go to church but he did. It all worked out but he’s just weird, I don’t get it. We'll see if we can find him this week, it doesn’t help that his grandma hates us.

Oh yea so last Moday, after we went and bought food, we had lunch with the new brach presidente, and it was some bomb BBQ, so I ate a ton. Then we had double dinner appointments that night! Back to back at 7 and 8! So we go to this members house at 7 and she made some chicken for us, it was alright but I was still full. Everytime I finished my plate she would be like "sirvense mas elder!" which means serve yourself more elder! She made me eat like 4 plates! I almost threw up haha. So then we have our other appointment, which was with Derrick and Angela, who I'll tell you about later. Derricks hopefully getting baptized on the 1st of Nov. Anyway Angela(who is a member) made us Navaho Tacos, and they were actually kinda good but I was so stuffed that it took me forever to eat. I almost threw up but it was funny.

I’ve got some good pictures on my camera to send home probably in a week or two. You can send me some pictures of the family or whatever too if you want. I’ve got a picture of this Elder who I went on splits with on Wed. He’s under 5 feet tall. I think he’s like part midget or dwarf or something, he’s really cool tho. Anyway it was really funny cus it was big ol lengthy me and little tiny Elder Cutler. So we've got some pictures that’ll make you laugh.

Our grass in our yard was seriously like 2 feet long! We were told one of the members was supposed to cut it, but he never did so we had the branch president come over with his tractor to do it but we had to help him some. It was crazy how long it was. It looks so much better now haha.

We taught this guy from Honduras today. I couldn’t understand I thing he was saying but I guess he was really prepared and we set a baptismal date with him for Nov. 15. I'm excited cus I think hes really serious about it.

So our Branch basicly got changed to English cus the Branch President prefers English over Spanish. He kinda switched back and forth the sometimes. Typical Tex Mex haha. Even stupid me spoke some Tex Mex yesterday! I was saying the prayer in priesthood ( cus we do everything) and for some reason I was praying in English, which I havn't done outloud in a long time, and in the middle I said "te damos gracias por" which means we thank thee for, I really dont know why I switched to Spanish for a phrase but Elder Hernandez, Elder Brandleys comp, was laughing at me haha. It was pretty funny but that is so typical of what people do here. I’m actually struggling with it a lot tho. It’s hard to learn cus I can never practice cus people always wanna talk to us in English. Most can speak both but they see that we're white so even if we talk to them in Spanish they answer in English. Oh well tho, when I need it the Lord will bless me with it.

Oh yea so Derrick and Angela. Angela has been a member for like 10 years, but is kinda crazy. She used to have lots of drinking and drug problems but she’s cleaned up lately. Her and Derrick have been together for 8 years but aren’t married. Derrick is really changing his life and is planning on getting baptized soon. We are really helping them try to keep the word of wisdom. I really love them and really hope Derrick can get baptized. They have to get married tho and his interview is on Thursday so they gotta do it fast. Im nervous but I have faith its gonna happen.

Alright well I guess that’s all that’s happened this week. It’s going by really fast. Tell everyone I love them and to write me. Especially Tyler, I havn’t heard from him in forever!

Love you guys a lot and thanks for all the support

-Elder Given

2009-10-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hey family!
So I'm here at the Library in Raymondville Texas! I love it! Its so great here. So basicly our town is tiny and is kinda like that town on the movie "Cars". It has a main road that goes through it, but then a freeway was made around it so now there is like no one here. But the people who are here are great. We can talk to basicly anyone, I haven't had one door slammed in my face yet haha.

The Branch here is pretty crazy, but the members are great. There are some really really awesome families. Its funny there are two families with like 4 little kids and they all love missionaries. They drew us pictures and stuff. It was so cool. They always see me and yell GIVEN! But surprisingly we speak a TON of English. We teach about 75 percent of our lessons in English. I dont really like it, but whatever. This is supposed to be one of the more spanish areas, and I guess one of the most dangerous haha. We've had 3 meals with members and they were all pretty good. Probably because I'm always starving. We haven't gotten to shop for food yet, so we've been eating our comps food, which isn't much. Oh yea so my comp is Elder Horton, and he and his comp, Elder Hernandez were here for 2 transfers before us and were doing really well, so they split them and made them both trainers, sooo me and Elder Brandley are here. My comp is the District Leader so we get the car. Its actually been pretty cool the last couple days tho, only like 80-85 haha. It really gets hot tho but I still love it. I just don't like all the bugs. I got bug bites allllllll over my legs. Oh and the kids here are crazy, like the teenagers. Basicly they have nothing better to do then drink, do drugs and do other things. Its not good. Drugs are really easy to come by but we had to teach this 12 year old kid about the word of wisdom and really worry if he would keep it. I still love the people tho. They're really nice and whatnot.

Surprisingly I haven't had any tacos yet. Had some really good spaghetti tho! Ive tried a bunch of stuff but nothing has really been terrible, except some beans I had yesterday but whatever.

My companion is great. He is a super hard worker and is gonna be a great trainer for me. He follows the spirit really well. Hes from St. George and has a scholarship to play soccer at the U of U when he gets back. We basicly do anything and everything to get our investigators to church. We were calling people at like 730 yesterday and aranging rides and stuff. We had 3 people at church so not bad. The branch is soooo different then ours. There is 1 priest, actually 2 now after our baptism, and that's all the young men, like 3 young women and just a bunch of random people. I'd say like 40 percent of the people actually wore church clothes. Maybe even less. Most people had jeans on. And we got a new branch president who is a recent convert and is really gonna help our work. The last one was way worn out and didn't really care about missionary work, I guess he was Brach Presidente for like 10 years! They need us to do like everything at church. We and the branch president, run the place. I bore my testimony in Spanish yesterday. We think the branch might be changed to English soon. Also hopefully it will be a ward before I leave!

Oh yea so we had a baptism yesterday, pretty cool. He is a 16 year old kid names George and he almost didnt get baptized. We had to get consent from his parents cus hes under 18 but his parents live in another city outside our area and they dont have a car, but we ended up being aloud to have his older brother sign it so it all worked out.

Our ward mission leader is a great guy. His name is Brother Abby, one of the few white people here, and he will do anything for us. He bought us food our first two nights here and gives the other Elders and bikes rides all the time. He really does his calling well and cares about the work. Our house is really nice. We have one room that we all sleep in, we have 2 study rooms, a living room, and a nice kitchen. We just need to fill that kitchen with some food haha. I heard we might be losing our house tho cus the owner might be selling it so that would suck. We've commited 4 people to be baptized since I've been here! We had a legit one yesterday, he is seriously so prepared and hopefully his wife and son will be too. I have a really good feeling about him.

I've been sleeping really well, I basicly pass out at night, and my bed is long enough and really comfortable. We made a goal to have 20 contacts a day and we've been really living up to that. We actually had 31 one day. Im pretty comfortable talking to people now so thats good. There are so insane dogs here tho. They like run out infront of cars and bark at them. We almost hit on yesterday! They always basicly try to attack our car! So stupid but whatever. I havnt gotten 1 letter since Ive been here which really sucks. Tyler tell my friends to write me haha. Give them the address I gave mom. Actually here it is again: 204 Alamo St. Raymondville, TX 78580. I need some letters. I only have like 45 minutes to email and only to family so yea. We are about to go shopping at Wal-mart soon! I'm starving, I had watermelon for breakfast haha. Well let me know how everything is going. Sounds like Coach K might actually do a good job. Hows school going for everyone? Cassidy hows volleyball? WEll I think thats about it. I love you guys and am loving it here! I'm happy and slowly learning Spanish.
Love,
Elder Given

This letter made me cry!

2009-09-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia,

Hows its going? Things here are pretty good at the MTC. Thanks so much for the package!!! This pictures were amazing and the Cinnamon Rolls were the same as always....AMAZING. I just had two after I got back from the temple. So bomb. You dont need to print me off any of my pictures, I printed a bunch here at the book store. Thanks for all the cards from the kids and whatnot. Kallie made me laugh the hardest tho. Miss you guys a lot. Thanks for Dylan's email. Sounds like hes doin way good and I liked his pictures. Im gonna email him today if I have any extra time.

CRAZY about Los Al bball! Tyler just work your butt off and youll be fine. I'm way stoked for Coach Smith, I love that guy. I was actually thinking bout him the other day cus me and Elder Harword were talking about my plan to be on his team at BYU in 2 years. I really hope it works out. So once I get back, Im gonna come home and work my butt off shooting a couple hours a day and getting in better shape. Then go up to the tryouts for the team and earn a spot. Harword legitly thinks I would have a really good chance at making it. There's another kid who just got into the MTC this week that is commited to play at BYU and he's going to McAllen! So I could have two buddies on the team when I get back that are gonna help me get on that team. Hopefully tho, Ive been praying already.

So sounds like seminary is going good so far. Nice big class and I already know Sister Hiatt is gonna be a great teacher. Dad Im glad your getting tons of work, how was that job in Vegas? Did you hit up any buffets? haha. It's totally starting to cool down here. It was pooring yesterday morning. I really really want it to snow! Cassidy sounds like you and your team are doing really well! Keep up the good work! Im sure your athletesism will come with time and work.

OH YEA! Jeffery R. Holland spoke to us on Tuesday! So cool! He is so intense and so entertaining, but we can totally tell he just cares so much about us and about the work. I feel so blessed to get to here from 2 apostles while im here. So Sandy leaves today at like 4! She is gonna do great. Its funny that we've talked more here in the last 7 weeks than we did before. Didnt even realize we'd be in here togehter before I got here! haha. We get our travel plans on Thursday! I can't wait. It will tell us exactly what day we leave. Either two weeks from today tuesday or wednesday. I thought I was ready until I called this lady in the RC in Spanish! It was so crazy! I could barely understand her! Needless to say I've been working way hard now. Yesterday I memorized over 75 words. Hopefully they actually stick tho. It's funny I actually have been looking forward to the temple now. I don't know I liked the temple before, I just wasn't exicted to go. Now I'm stoked to go so that's good.

I'm considering possibly going to Utah State if I don't go to BYU. A ton of my friends from here are going there. We have time for that tho. I've been getting all kinds of dunks now in gym. I had this sick lefty 180 tip jam on this kid who is really good. I was so stoked. It was way clean too. Then the next day I jumped through this kid, like all the way through his body and tip dunked it and then hung on the rim with him directly under me. So sick. My list of people I've dunked on is up to 15 haha.

We got to host all the new people getting droped off on Wednesday. Me and my comps had the best job. We had walkytalkys and would like tell each other which spots are open and whatnot. They have 25 drop off spots now where they used to have 12 a couple weeks ago. We got 400 people into the MTC in a little over an hour. Way fun. Oh yea and that speach that you saw on the video on the camera. Elder Burningham is the one who gave it and he left for Florida a weeks ago. He "left" me his speach to give to the new elders coming in haha. I feel honored that he trusted me with it. We'll see how I do on Wednesday.

Well I just wanted to let you both(mom and dad) know how much I love and appreciate how you raised me and how you set me up for success in so many ways. I owe everything I am to you and I hope you really know how much I love and appreciate you. I never thought I'd miss everyone this much but I do. Absolutly not even thinking about coming home tho. I realized in the temple today that I promised to give all my time talents and whatnot to the Lord, so thats exactly what I'm doing. I'm gonna work my butt off while I'm here and come home with no regrets. I just can't wait to actually get out there! Alright well I think thats all for this week.

Love you a lot! Elder Given

September 14, 2009 Miracle donation from Japan and most hilarious missionary story yet!!!

2009-09-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia,

This was kinda an uneventful week but I feel like Im learning tons of spanish. Yesterday was exactly the half way point. Its totally flying by. Can't wait to get out of here tho. I love it but I wanna be in Texas. I'm working super hard in my new companionship. We are doing are best to not waste any time and are talking a ton of spanish to each other. We speak spanish at all meals now. I'm pretty sure I can teach the whole first lesson is Spanish now. We'll find out on thursday. Were gonna practice a bunch tho before then. Im surprised at how easy it is seeming, everything clicks most of the time.

I bore my testimony in church yesterday, in Spanish. It was pretty cool, I said basicly what I wanted to say. I was the only person in my district to do it. My comps and I decided this week that we want to be a lot more mature, that representatives of Jesus Christ need to be more mature. Obviously we havn't been screwing around, we just used to occationally get off task or whatever, or laugh at jokes that we shouldn'. So we are really working on that and also on following every rule. I feel lame doing it sometimes but I know the blessing will be great if I follow all the rules.

I got the package, loved it. Loved the pictures and the leters. Are you going to send me some shoes and a memory card tho? Thats soooo AWESOME about the person that gave us that money from Japan! If you are reading this, whoever you are in Japan, muchas muchas, muchas gracias for the money! You have no idea how grateful I am. It will help pay for my bike!! And to Grammy Barbie and Papa, thank you so much for paying for this month. You spoil me way too much :)

So have you sold my car yet? Or my phone? Hopefully, I've been praying for that. Coach Lopez will take that program somewhere. Tyler, I hear you actually started working out with Auddy so thats good. Hows off season with Eddie? I bet you guys do a lot of abs and running. Work your butt off kid. Your sophmore year is when you need to get in really good shape for varsity. Do work. Cassidy hows volleyball going? Do you play. Oh yea I think I know one of the girls on your team. She was at Deweys house a couple times cus shes friends with Deweys sisters, Niki and Dani. Do you have any classes with them? Seminary starts tomorrow Im guessing! Have fun with that haha. I'm just kidding you guys have a great teacher, it will be fun. HOW CRAZY IS IT THAT BYU WON! I'm so disapointed I missed that. I'm guessing it was number 1 or 2 on sportscenter that night. What a crazy upset. They announced it over the pulpit in our stake confrence like meeting we had yesterday hahaha.

I bought this photo ablum at the book store. Its pretty nice and holds 204 pictures! and its was only $4.71! So great, so if you wanna send me some more pictures go ahead, such as Costa Rica pics or bball or something, idk. We got a new teacher for our classes. She is brand new but she is way good. She is teaching us a ton of spanish and doesn't have to cry every lesson like our old ones haha. Speaking of teachers how are everyones teachers so far? Kallie you got the same teacher for the third year in a row!?! And Lauren and Sydney are in the same class? So cool. I miss you guys a lot. How's being in the middle of the middle school Hagen. I hated 7th grade but that doesn't mean you have to. I havn't gained any weight in like a week :( Im stuck at 182. I really need to gain another 8 lbs in the next couple weeks!

So Idk if I explained what the RC is here but its a place where we go and make phonecalls to people to see if they got there BOMs our whatever. But on another floor it has the same things but it has inbound calls and chats. I love doing it. We have people call in and ask us about the gospel or whatever. I chated with this guy for like 80 minutes on Saturday, he was mostly trying to bash but I bore my testimony like 5 times. I tried to help him the best I could. Then yesterday I went and this guy was trying to say we dont need to be baptized, so I showed him Matthew 3 and whatnot. He was saying its not literal and all this stuff. I'm supposed to love him but I'm not gonna lie he was an idiot hahah. He kept saying how we dont need works to be saved and stuff and how works will drag us to hell. I'm like have you read James 2? I think he was a JW. All you can do in that situation is just bear your testimony. It sucks how bad peoles understandings are of the Bible. On a funnier note I had a guy call in and ask if God is magical haha. I was like well, he can do anything but I wouldnt say he's magical. I could tell they obviously wern't really interested. Then he was like (sorry if this is innapropriate) can God make monkeys come out of my butt? hahahaa I was like sorry dude Im here to answer questions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Then he hung up. You just gotta laugh at how dumb people are sometimes.

Especially cus I fall into that category a lot. I had to get up to use the bathroom at like 4 AM this morning, so I went out, did my buisness, and when I went to go in my room the door was locked! The door is never locked! I was like what do I do? I didnt wanna wake up my comps but I had to. So I knocked quietly but trying not to be loud if that makes sense, and finally after like 5 minutes I decided to say a prayer and sure enough he opened the door all confused haha. I was about to sleep on the ground outside my door if he hadn't opened it right then. Well that's prettymuch whats going on in my life, how are things back at home? Is it still hot, its starting to get cold here. That's okay tho cus im in church clothes all day. Can't wait to here from you guys! LOVE YOU!
Su hijo, hermano, y amigo,
Elder Given

September 4, 2009

2009-09-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia,

How is everyone? I gave a talk in church yesterday in Spanish. I was super nervous but people told me I did good. It's funny everyone tells me I'm doing really good at Spanish but I dont believe them. I have so much room for improvment, all I can do is work my butt off and let the Lord help me with the rest. We started this thing where we only speak Spanish now when we have our tags on, so basicly all day. It's pretty crazy but I like the challenge. It's really gonna make us a lot better at spanish. Love the shoes. Had a dunk in them the first game I wore them in. Packages are always good. Did you say your sending more pictures this week?

I heard about you guys going to the beach with the Hickens. Leah wrote me last week. She said something about Dad and Scott doing headstands? haha So cool that the twins can surf. Not surprised tho, they are related to me :) Thanks for Dylans address mom but I already had it, I'm waiting for him to write me. I should hopefully get a letter this week. Heard any other news about him tho? Thats cool that your reading Jesus the Christ mom, I havn't been reading it as much any more cus it puts me to sleep sometimes cus I'm always tired during personal study. It's good when I do read it tho.

Sounds like Cassidy is doing really good in volleyball. I'm not surprised that she is 6 foot! Keep me updated on how your team does, and Varsity. Thanks for the stamps. I got kinda a lot now cus Elder Taylor left me like 20. I definently didn't need the envelopes cus I got some out of the free box a couple weeks ago but thanks anyway. And don't send anymore gum cus its against the rules and I'm trying to be obedient.

So the most consistant person at writing me is Tawny. I get a letter from her every week. JT is usually every week two. Gramm wrote me this super long Dear Elder the other day. It was kinda funny tho. Chase and Zac wrote me once so far and so did Leah. Hopefully that letter from Dylan comes pretty soon. Tiffani wrote me a couple weeks ago but I havn't heard back from her yet. Got a great package from Aunt Kathleen and Aunt Mary. Awesome cookies!!! Gracias for ordering my bike. I'll make sure and be extra careful when Im there and always lock it up.

I was playing ball on Saturday and I went to dunk it super hard and hit my finger on the rim. I broke part of the fingernail and was bleeding all over the place. So I went over to the trainers office and got it all fixed and kept playing. Being in the training room was kinda funny. Brought back some memories for sure. So I had a pretty good week in bball. Last Tuesday I had a lefty tip jam which I was pretty stoked on. Then the next day I was playing with Elder Hardward (gonna play at BYU) and I went up for a tip jam, kinda through him, and dunked it hard. So basicly I dunked on him, it wasn't straight on him but I still count it cus he's 6'10", I told him we're gonna be on the same team in 2 years anyway so its cool haha.

Oh yea I got a letter from Japan. Enjoyed it a lot!! Sent my pics home today. Make sure you back them up on both external harddrives please. Theres like 230 pics I think so enjoy. Im only up to 183 lbs. I cant gain any more weight and Im so over the food. Its all good tho.

Richard G. Hinckley spoke to us last week. Way cool, sounded like his dad. My best friends here in the MTC leave tomorrow morning. Its gonna be sad but Im way stoked for them. We'll be the oldest district now. Crazy how time flies. Almost 6 weeks! I've really started to miss you guys a lot lately, mostly the kids. I know im supposed to be here tho so I'm not worrying too much about it. Love you guys a lot tho.

Taught the whole first lesson in Spanish a couple days ago. Went really well, surprisingly isn't that hard. Just need to be able to relate it better in spanish like I can in English now.

So whats the deal with Los Al bball? Oh yea ask the Risenmays if they know Elder Orme. He said he knew them. Hes new in our zone, seems like a nice, kinda awkward guy. Alright well I'm basicly out of time. Love you all a lot. Can't wait to here back. BTW its raining super hard here right now.

Love it. Adios, Elder Given

A visit from Richard G. Scott!!

2009-09-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hola,
This was a very interesting week, Elder Taylor, my comp went home. He was having really bad anxiety I guess and it was just a bunch of stuff adding up. He was only getting like 3 hours of sleep a night and whatnot. I knew he was having problems but I didnt think it was that bad. On Wednesday tho he talked to some high up people here for like 2 and a half hours, while I sat and did nothing. Then that night his dad came and talked to him cus he lives like 10 minutes away. That was one of the biggest problems for him, he was too close to home. So then he talked to some kind of doctor saturday morning and he told him that he needed to go home, basicly as a medical reason to get his head fixed. So he left Thursday and 2 pm. He hopes to be able to come back in about 6 months and hopefully end up in McAllen. I really really hope I see him there in a few months.

Im doing pretty good tho. He asked me, Elder Hansen, Elder Burningham, and Elder Cockrell to give him a blessing before he left. All 3 of them are in the older group and leave in 3 weeks but they are like my best friends. So I gave the blessing and the spirit was so strong it was crazy. Elder Hansen said the blessing was really good. I think Elder Taylor will be back. So now Im in a tripod, or threesome, whatever its called with Elder Navarro and Elder Rudd. They work super hard so its gonna be good for me. I like them a lot and we teach pretty well together so far. Speaking of teaching I can basicly teach the first 4 principles of lesson 1 in Spanish so thats legit. Gift of Tongues is a crazy amazing blessing, especially when you get it from an Apostle of the Lord. Yea, we had an apostle speak to us. So sick. So we are sitting in our Tuesday night devotional, like 5th row cus we know shortcuts haha, anyway we're all noticing all this stupid stuff like how it isnt showing who the speaker is on the slideshow, theres an extra security guard by the door, a lot more old people were there, so we're hyping it up sooooo much, kinda expecting it to be a letdown like a 70 or something hahahah. So Richard G Scott walks it. It was so crazy. I just got the chills as I was typing that. The spirit was so strong. In the middle of his talk he asked, how many of you are learning languages, so like half the place raised their hand, then he said: okay well as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, I give you the gift of tongues. WHAT! It was so cool. Like I felt it hit me. Like a flipping wave. So crazy. I can't even describe it. So needless to say Spanish is going a lot better now.

Another amazing experience I had this week was seeing one of my best friends gain a testimony for the first time. I think I told you about Elder Yergensen last week, anyway he never really had a testimony and he was just here hoping to get one. He was really close to leaving but I kinda helped him stay and told him to start reading the Book of Mormon and whatnot and praying. So hes in his TRC lesson on Thursday night which is like a "real" investigator, and he starts sharing his testimony of family and it totally just hits him. Like this kid is a huge football player who never crys, and he just started balling. After we both finished our lesson he was still all teary eyed and I didnt know what happened yet so he was like, Elder Given come here, and he told me everything that happened, and how he knows the church is true and stuff. It was so cool. Im so proud of him, I love that kid, or Elder haha.

Alright so on a random note, I figured out that I've legitly dunked on 5 people here. Im gonna try and take pictures with a bunch of them hahah. Oh yea and im up to 182, hopefully I can keep increasing, Ive started to slow down, but Elder Taylor did leave me and ton of food so thats good. So I was telling you bout Elder Hansen earlier. He basicly is my best friend here. He is so awesome, hes form Wyoming and is going to Philly spanish speaking. Anyway his companion is a wack job crazy guy who never talks and is just a weirdo. He has endured him pretty well but he flipped out the other day and just like ran out of class and had to be alone cus his comp is a physco. So anyway I talked to him that night and Im gald we can just help each other out when we need to talk. We got a new district this week. The majority of them are way cool kids. They actually hang out with us and stuff, I like them so far.

I said the opening prayer in Sacrament meeting yesterday, in Spanish. I thought it was pretty good but when I got done President Watkins got up and said how good it was and made an example for the younger districts of how if you work hard the Spanish will come. I was stoked.

Oh yea and thanks for telling me about Forever stamps mom. I should have saved those. I didnt understand how they all work until I used my last one and someone told me. I got some more regualr 44 ones tho now. So the whole Coach May thing is no surprise at all. Eddie coming back blew my mind tho! So Russell is still gonna teach another year? So does that mean Eddie is taking Ms. Mais job for this year and then Mays job next year? I was tryin to figure out who would stay if Eddie wouldnt had come. James still might transfer now, prob not tho since Coach May is staying at Los Al and can sign him at some Pac-10 school. Eddie walked in on such a legit job. Tyler you got some good teachers. Work hard in bball and in school. What teachers did you get Cassidy?

So time is totally flying by. This week went some fast. Im lovin it. Could you get my Kyle Poes address in Utah. I wanna write him. Thanks for the package that's coming. I think I told you everything I need. Tyler could you get some sweet Facebook pics for me and print them out off my profile por favor. Crazy that Dylans gone. Next letter I get from him will be straight outtaa Africa. Dad, Im gald you're having great classes so far, and I had already written Tawny before you even told me to haha. And guess what, I've been writing in my journal every night. Oh yea and I had to get a flu shot. They said it was "optional" but I figured Id get it anyway. I paid for it with my card. And Listerine sucks. Elder Taylor gave me his crest mouthwash tho so that will work while im here. Our district went from 11 people a week ago, to 7 today. We lost the 3 hermanas to Guatemala and Elder Taylor. It seems so small in class now. Im reading Jesus the Christ. Its gnarly. Okay totally out of time! BYE!
Love,
Elder Given

- Show quoted text -

2009-08-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia,
So I said goodbye to Ryan yesterday. He left thismorning at like 3 or something. He had to fly back to LAX tho before going to Chile so I thought that was funny. I guess he was gonna call his parents from LAX haha. HIm me and Sandy took some pics last night so you can put them up at church or whatever when you get them. I got a nice package from Grammy. Still havnt finished all the food yet.THANKS GRAMMY MADDY!!! Could you please send me my Los AL bball sweatshirt. Its pretty cold in the mornings sometimes when we have to do our service or whatever and its only gonna get colder. I want snow tho! It might happen. Still want you to send some pics if you can. Mom, sorry you didnt get the job, im really surprised, do you know who got it? Way to go Cassidy! I knew youd make it. And way to pass up mom in height! Maybe if you grow fast youll pass up Tyler too haha. Speaking of Tyler, you need to stop being lazy. Play some bball. Work out with Auddy. Also I want you to do that crazy 15 minute ab workout and write down all the exercises and send it to me por favor. Im getting buff haha. Im doing a bunch of push up and pull ups. Oh yea and hows it goin with that chica Tyler? Cassidy you better hook him up! We had the Ohker Mountain Temple Dedication yesterday. It was pretty sweet. Spirit was super strong. Dad... Thats cool about the Institute. Scooters a funny kid. Doesnt he put his papers in soon? I BROKE 180 lbs! Im stoked on that. I just need to keep it on. Ok so Idk if I told you bout this Elder here but hes one of the best athletes I have ever played against. His name is Elder Hine. He's from St. George but he can high jump 7'2". He commited to BYU for football his sophmore year of HS. Then the other day he does this crazy backflip 360. He just ran, jumped off one foot, did a gainer, with a 360 and landed and kept running. So insane. I have been learning a ton of spanish on my own. I have been studying really hard and have made a couple hundred flashcards and know prettymuch all of them. And I've been memorizing a bunch of stuff such as the 1st vision in English and I just did it in Spanish yesterday. Definently couldnt be doing this without the Lord. Straight up. Say Hi to Kyle Poe for me. Crazy I'm not gonna see him for 4 years. Could you tell Tiffani to write me so I can have her new address por favor. This week flew buy. Its crazy. Time is so irrelavant here. I dont even get it. I'm not gonna lie I get pretty exhausted tho. It's sometimes very difficult to stay awake during class, especially when we are talking bout planning for the 5th time. My companion has been having kinda a tough time. At the beggining of the week he was sick and wasnt getting much sleep(ive been sleeping great) and he was just feeling terrible. So he met with the Branch Pres and basicly said he wants to go home. After they talked for like 30 minutes Pres Watkins came and got me out of class and told me that Elder Taylor wanted me to give him a blessing. I was super nervous but the blessing went great. The spirit was really strong. I'm glad I got the opportunity to do it. He's doing better now but hes still not sleeping well. I think he's gonna be okay tho. In case you didnt know mail takes FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRR. Thats the one of the few things I hate about being here. Prettymuch everything else is great tho. I'm glad Im here, learning a ton. Spanish hasn't been too hard yet. I'm just waiting for the tought times to come. So far so good tho. So hows home? Getting ready for school? HAHAHA. Say hi to everybody for me. Cant wait to here back. I'm out of time so I guess this letter is over.
Love,
Elder Given

2009-08-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia,
Hows everything going? Its still great here. Thanks for all the letters. I wrote a bunch back in the mail on Saturday so you should get it today or tomorrow. Mail seriously takes forever though, It's annoying. I still havn't gotten any letters from my friends so I'm hoping that changes when the mail comes today. Thanks for the package. I'm wearing my close right now and the food is great. So did Cassidy make the Vball team? I'm guessing she did. How did Dylans Farewell go? Is Kyle back yet? One of the sister missionaries in my district was really good friends with Mike Jenson so thats funny. You guys should send me some pics of myself and mi amigos for my room. I'd appreciate that. I'm getting pretty good at spanish. I hate it tho haha. I can pray pretty legitly so that's cool. My companion had a little homesick overwhelming issue thing on Wednesday so he talked to a counciler in the Branch Presidency and we ended up giving him a blessing. Hes doing great now. My branch President is so tight. He retired when he was 32 and lives in some super nice area of Utah I forgot what its called. He's just a great guy. So the new district in our zone showed up on Wednesday and they have 2 kids taller than me! One of them isn't very athletic but he says he plays volleyball. The other is 6'10" and is gonna be on scholarship at BYU when he gets back. I really like the kid but honestly I think im better than him. I think we're gonna end up being good friends tho so whatev. I have aclamated to the altitude now so I'm having way more fun at bball. Ive been draining three's and I straight up dunked over this kid, it was pretty funny. OH YEA BEST PART SO FAR, IVE GAINED 8.4 lbs as of saturday!!! Im gonna weigh myself at gym tomorrow and I hope to be over 180. I just eat a ton and sit around all day. Ryans been telling me to do that for years haha. So there is some kind of time manipulator here at the MTC. We do so much work and studying its not even funny, and the days seem long but go by fast. And then when you look back at the week it flew by. I dont get it haha. Me and a bunch of my friends decided that a bunch of us are going to stay at our house for a while when we get back. Thought Id just give you time to prepare :) One of the fun/stupid things we do here when we have time to think is translate phrases into spanish that dont make sense at all. Like the most common thing we say is "está frio" which translated means its cold, but we pretend it means its chill haha. We're so lame but whatever. I have been following the rules like errybody told me to. It would be so easy to be lazy and take super long naps and sleep in or stay up late, but Ive been doing everything Im supposed to just cus I was told so many times to follow the rules. One of my really good friends in my district is this kid Elder Yergeson. He's the one that kinda looks like Clark but his attitude is kinda similar to Clay Blackledege. He picks bad times to say things in class and people got mad at him but Ive been kinda mentoring him and trying to tell him how to act. Hes a good kid I just kinda question his standards. Im gonna change him tho. Ryan leaves in 6 days. Crazy. Oh yea IDK what dads email is. I guessed on it last week and idk if I got it right so could you send me peoples emails (On dearelder) Anyway so how are things back home? Tyler you better be working out. I am. I do a ton of push ups erry night and now I can even do pull ups haha. It rained here last week. I really hope it snows some time before I leave, that would be sick. We had this guy speak last night who like helped right Preach My Gospel and the talk basicly blew my mind. It made how I need to teach understandable. I am going to re read it and try to fully comprehend it cus it was crazy. I took 2 pages of notes. I actually got homesick for like 10 minutes the other day. Im fine tho. Honestly I just need some letters from my friends. Its really weird not talking to anyone. I love the family letters tho. Lauren and Sydney should draw me some more pictures :) Alright well I gotta go. Can't wait to here back from you guys.
Adios
Love,
Elder Given

2009-08-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia,
The MTC is great. Supposedly the first 4 days were supposed to be the worst days of our life but I really thought they weren't that bad. I'm not gonna lie they were really long but we learned a ton so I tried to just stay focused. My companion is way cool. His name is Elder Kyle Taylor and hes from Lehi. He just got his call 2 weeks ago and he isn't even 19 yet! We are getting along way good and both have a great attitude on the experience in general. My district is way cool. There are 8 Elders and 3 Sisters. 7 out of the 8 elders are going to McAllen and one is going to Calgary Canada Spanish speaking. The hermanas are going to Panama City. There are some really cool people on my floor. One of my new best friends is this guy from Wyoming. Hes like 6'4" 230. Basicly just a big lovable funny guy. And hes actually pretty athletic. I dunked on him tho haha. Im kinda dominating gym time. There are a couple good players including this one guy from St. George so its pretty fun. We both throw down a lot. Dont worry Dad we're aloud to dunk in games if theres defense. I decided I'm gonna gain 20 lbs while I'm here haahah. Im eatintg a ton and have at least 2 glasses of chocolate milk at every meal. Guess what! I ate spagehti with sauce at dinner last night! And I ate some other things that looked disgusting so you should be proud. Thanks for the cinammon rolls mom! I just finished them last night. They were way good. We basicly have classes all day and have no time to do anything we want but its good I guess. I've been working really hard at Spanish and I can decently pray and testify. The teachers are amazing. They really want us to learn a lot and just be successful. We had a lesson planning workshop and I learned a legit way to plan lessons now so I got that down I think. Ive been writing in my journal so thats good. I've been sleeping pretty good. It takes me a little to fall asleep but once im out im out till 615. My bed is fine, pillow is kinda weak sauce but it gets the job done. If you didnt figure it out my Pday is monday. We dont really have any time to write letters during the week except Sundadys and Mondays. You can give me letters whenever you want tho. I only get 30 minutes on the email. It straight up shuts off if youre on too long. I have 12:45 left haha. I've seen Sandy basicly every day. She came up to my companion and I and gave us a little mini lesson on Heavenly Fathers love (Lesson 1 Section 1) Shes gonna be a real good missionary. I didnt get to talk to Ryan until yesterday but it was real good seeing him. Hes doing great. Hes already been here for 7 weeks! I forgot how funny that kid is. I can print some pics here so I think I might do that today and send you a couple. Oh yea theres this Elder in my district who played 2 years of Football at Utah State and is just rediculously ripped. His face totally looks like Clarks so it makes me laugh. Last night we had an AMAZING fireside talk on Charity. I took over a page of notes. Kinda rediculous how good it was. I take like 2-3 pages of notes evreryday. After the fireside we watched this sweet Joseph Smith movie. The spirit was super strong.

I'm really having a good time here. I guess time is supposed to start flying now so youll be hearing from me again in no time. You should write me back via Dear Elder or in real mail cus I cant check Email until next week. Alright well I love all of you. Mom, Dad, Tyler, Cassidy, Hagen, Kallie, Lauren, and Sydney.
Adios,
Elder Given