Week 13 - It's Winter!!

December 15, 2014

Hola familia y amigos!!

I freakin love the mission. It is so much fun its incredible. It is also super cold here in Sun Valley!! This past week a cold front came in and froze all of us. Thankfully our heater works now in our house and we stay plenty warm during the nights. We also got some snow yesterday and today, which is fun. The mountains around us are all white.  It is so pretty!

So Elder Rivera and I are doing great. He is my "trainer" and so we stay together for the first 12 weeks of my mission, and he basically teaches me the ropes. 

"Posterity Picture" - with my "dad" (Elder Rivera)
and my "Grandpa" (Elder Newey)

He considers me his son and I consider him my Dad because that's just how everyone does it in the mission. Its kinda fun cuz everyone has their sons and their dads. This week I got to meet my "grandpa" who is Elder Rivera's "dad,” Elder Newey. He is no longer an Elder…he already finished his mission, but he came back to see everyone. It was fun to meet him.

This week was a little bit slower as far as the lessons went. We didn't have any lessons with our golden investigators, Juan and Laura or Victor, which was a disappointment. Every time we stopped by, they weren't home – and when we called they were busy. But we are still hoping to be able to help them progress more this week. We have been praying like crazy that we can have one baptism in the month of December, and we know the Lord will pull through if we keep working hard.

Sun Valley, NV

We spent two days on our bikes because we didn't have any appointments. So we just ride around in areas we haven't gone yet, and knock on houses that look like they have Hispanics inside of them. Its kinda funny because we have gotten to know how to stereotype the Hispanic houses based upon their cars, yards, and flags flying outside their house. We are usually pretty spot-on and I’d say about 90% of the houses we knock on end up being Hispanic. Our area actually is pretty big. About half of the homes are trailers, and the other half are houses.

Rivera and I with the other
Spanish Elders in Sun Valley

I don't know if you guys have gotten the chance to check out my area on Google Maps, but you should!  We have from 7th street north in Sun Valley, and also a small triangle of Sparks that is over the hill from Sun Valley, closer to where we live. Most of our work is right in Sun Valley, but we will often spend some time in the other small area. If you look on the map the other small part is the triangle formed between Los Altos Pkwy, and Sparks Blvd – and everything west of that. It is all part of the Red Hill ward. Most of Sun Valley is the trailers, but the other Spanish elders have the southern half of the valley that has all trailers. We have some trailers and some houses.

So Christmas is 10 days away!!  Holy cow!!!  I can’t believe it!!  Mom – thank you so much for the 12 days of Christmas, we absolutely love opening one each day!  It is like the favorite part of our day. 

The First Day of Christmas...opening the
package from my mom.

We were going to go to McDonalds this morning for breakfast because there is one halfway between the church for sports and our house, but the other elders left their card at the house so we will go tomorrow. I love sharing the Christmas spirit with everyone, and I love saying the words "Merry Christmas" to everyone we see!! I just love it, it is so much fun. This also means that I will be able to talk to you guys in 10 days!! I am not sure what time, but I will probably face time you guys using Verduzco's iPad. We also have a few other back up plans with iPads, so plan on FaceTiming me. But also – would it work better to just call by phone?? Because I will do whatever works best for you guys. Apparently we will be having a mission party at a church building for like the three zones here in Sparks and Reno, and I am not sure what time that will be going down, but I will know next p-day so I will fill you in.  Please let me know what works best for you guys.

We love having a car!!  Who needs a truck when you
can use your bike rack to carry tools to the
service projects?!? 

We are so blessed to have a car!!  I wish we could use it to give rides to people, especially cuz it is so cold outside now.  We always see people walking around in the cold, and I wish we could just give them a ride!  It would be a great act of service and a perfect chance to talk Jesus Christ with them. Also to be able to pick up investigators for activities and stuff would be awesome. But oh well – we just aren’t allowed to drive other people.

Well guys, you are the best!! I want to leave you with a scripture. It is 
1 Timothy 4:12.  Read it tonight for family night and talk about how you can be a better example of the believers, which won’t be easy because you guys already are great examples!

But thank you for all of your support and your letters!!

I love you guys!!

Love,  
Elder Todd

We gave the Flores family some stickers and pencils
that my mom sent and they loved it -
as Chuckie is clearly showing haha!

The 12 Days of Christmas! 

Pig, anyone?

Did some more service for the Lira family...
spray-painted all their doors 

Week 12 - A Day in the Life of Elder Todd and Christmas Time is Here!

December 8, 2014

Howdy guys!! How goes it in VA?? Life is awesome in the Lord’s work. I can’t believe that I have already been here a whole transfer! I got my first transfer call last night...and I am staying with Elder Rivera in Sun Valley haha so no worries.

So I want to give you guys a little sample of a day in the life of Elder Todd:

Morning sports at the church

5:55-6:05 am About 10 different alarms go off, all over the apartment, forcing us to get out of bed to turn them off.

6:10 am   We are out the door to go over to the church which is 1.3 miles away to play basketball or "oompa loompa ball" (which is like indoor football). There are usually about 8-12 people there for sports.

Chef Todd cooking eggs for everyone

7:00 am We return to the apartment, and take turns showering and eating breakfast. (I always race upstairs to get in the shower first because our hot water heater is TEENY (like it fits under the counter in the kitchen). I usually make two scrambled eggs and eat it with a bagel and cereal for breakfast. We usually make a big smoothie with frozen fruit for everyone. Once a week I make french toast for everyone which is fun.

Breakfast with the homies

8:00 am Personal study. I usually switch off between reading the Book of Mormon and studying “Preach my Gospel.”  But I also mix in the Ensign magazine, my patriarchal blessing and other study stuff.

9:00 am Companion study. We talk about what we studied in personal study, read three pages out of the "White Bible" (the missionary handbook), watch a short DVD segment from "The District" and then do a role-play of something we will use later that day, like practice teaching a lesson, (which takes a while) or just street contacting someone. We then discuss our investigators and study other things.

10:00-12:00 We either have more studies if we don’t have appointments (because I am still in the 12-week training program) and language study, or we go to appointments.

12:00 noon.  Lunch for an hour. We usually come home if we are nearby, and do something like quesadillas with sausages and rice or frozen taquitos or frozen pizzas.

Isaac (front and center) is awesome!!
He feeds us well
if we don't have dinner plans.

1:00-5:00 pm We contact people! During these hours we usually don’t have many appointments, so we just visit people who are considered our "potential" investigators, or just go tracting.

5:00 pm  Dinner. We are blessed to usually have dinners with members, and the few times we don’t have dinners with the members, we usually eat with some of our close investigators or Isaac or Hermano Verduzco (our family away from home). They usually take us out to eat – which is fine with us!

6:00-9:00 pm  These are our most productive hours...we usually have appointments during these hours and most people are home – so if we just stop by we can usually teach them. The Hispanic people are SO friendly and welcoming, and so they often invite us in if they are home.

Nightly planning with Elder Rivera

9:00 pm  Return home and start nightly planning. This is when we plan what we will do during our next day, literally every hour of the day. We also plan what we will teach to those we will see the next day, and what we will study. We also set our goals for the day as far as how many lessons to teach. This is very important. It takes about a half hour, and then we hangout for the last hour of the day or so.

10:30 pm Lights out and bedtime!!

Thank you guys for fasting for my families, we fasted for them too. The support means a lot, and the fact that James fasted too just brings tears to my eyes!! You guys are the best!!

Christmas party at the church with the Spanish group

This week was awesome. By far the highlight was the Christmas party we had for the Spanish group on Saturday night! I posted lots of pictures of it.  It was so much fun and we had like 9 investigators show up and 2 less-active members!!  And that was just from half of Sun Valley...the other elders had a bunch show up too! The turnout was great, the food was delicious, and it was by far my favorite night of my whole mission. 

This is the Christmas tree that
Juan and Laura gave us!!

We rode over to the party with a few investigators, but then when we showed up, a family of three was sitting there and when I saw them I couldn’t stop smiling!! It was Juan Rivera, and his "wife" Laura Lopez (we are not sure if they are married yet) and their five-year-old son, Adrian. I actually think they have the most potential out of all of our investigators, and they are like family to us! They have fed us dinner twice already, and gave us an awesome Christmas tree with lights and stuff for our apartment!! They are awesome. Please keep them in your prayers.

I love the Flores kids so much!!!

The familia Flores hasn’t made much progress this week...they are always home and we can teach them whenever but they just don’t keep their commitments!!  I gave their grandpa a blessing in Spanish this week cuz he has been sick, so hopefully they can see how that helps and want to keep their commitments. But I love their family so much. Their littlest boy, Chuckie, has opened up to me and loves me - haha!! He is always showing me his toys and stuff.  I love it!!

We haven’t been able to contact the familia Lira since last week...kind of a bummer. We have stopped by many times but they are never there! It’s just the workers working on their house. But we are hoping to catch them soon, because they said they are moving in this week, so we will see. Hopefully the fasting works.

I love you guys!!!! Have a great week!! The church is true!!

Elder Todd

The house homies (me and my three roommates!)

With Juan, Laura, and Adrian at the Christmas party!

Elder Rivera and I found Hawaiian shirts in the closet,

so we showed up to the Zone Activity wearing them!!

The Sparks (Nevada) Zone

Week 11: Thanksgiving, Dogs in the Night, and the New "He Is The Gift" Video

With Elder Rivera (right) and our two roommates

December 1, 2014

Hello everyone,

I had another great week! I am having a lot of fun. Because we opened a new area, we have been working on building up our pool of people to teach. We now have a pretty good-sized pool and we are hoping to turn it into a group of new members! I honestly think that the group we have has tons of potential. Everyone we talk with seems really interested, the problem is just getting them to progress on their own and keep their commitments. The Hispanic population is really nice and open, but because of this, they agree to like everything. Each week we have like 5 or so people tell us they will be at church, and then we even call them Sunday morning and they will say they will be there, but then they don’t show up, so that part can be frustrating, but we just need to give it time. 

Turkey on Turkey Day

But Thanksgiving was good for me! It didn’t feel like Thanksgiving at all, though. We had a breakfast appointment with this German woman and her 5 CRAZY dogs, and it was actually really good food. Her dogs were like loud as heck and barking so that made it interesting. And then we played football as a zone in the afternoon from like 2-5, which was super fun because I have been dying to play some football since last football season! It was actually really nice on Thanksgiving Day…like 60 degrees and sunny so it was perfect! We were all out in our shorts and t-shirts which was really fun. Then we had a dinner with a family from Australia, which was fun. Their family actually reminded me of our family, except they are in the next phase of life. They have 6 kids too, but their oldest is like 10 years older than me and is married and has two kids. Their youngest is in middle school, about Grace's age. But they had a normal thanksgiving dinner with turkey and potatoes and stuff so that was fun. 

With all the Elders at Isaac's house on Thanksgiving

Because there are 3 sets of elders in our ward, we all usually eat dinners together, so we went with all 6 of us to those meals. Then after dinner we went over to Isaac’s house for another "dinner" but it was mostly just a hangout for an hour with like 10 other elders. I posted a picture of that. And that was just about it for my Thanksgiving Day. Every Thursday we do a long weekly planning session, so we did that too. Our mission president told us that we could only go to two meals, so unlike the elders back at home in Virginia, I didn’t go to 5 dinners…haha.

So the big thing that came out this week is the new "He Is The Gift" video that the church is putting out worldwide this December.  It’s a 3-minute video to emphasize the true meaning of Christmas and remind everyone of the greatest gift we have ever received…which is the gift that Christ gave us of His life. It’s a great, powerful video that you guys should check out!  The church is taking over YouTube starting December 7th and continuing for the rest of the month.  The header and all the advertisements will be by the church. They will also have billboards in Times Square in New York City for a lot of the month. Here's the video - it's awesome:

On a different note, one night this week I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard like this whining noise and I couldn't figure out what it was, so I sat up in bed and this little dog came running up to me!!! I was so baffled and i was still half asleep so i was literally scratching my head as to what was going on. The members who own the house were out of town, so we were in charge of feeding their dogs and stuff. The dogs can get in and out of their house on their own, and they are good dogs, but we had left the door to our loft open that night, and the dog just marched in and somehow the door shut behind it, so it couldn’t get out! So anyways, i woke up and saw this dog and i had no idea what the heck to do with it, so i decided to just leave it.

Freakin' SUNSHINE (the dog) on my bed!!!

So i went back to sleep and ignored it, but then like a half an hour later I woke back up and it was now on my bed, still whining!! I was so confused and bewildered; I had never slept with a dog before!! So this time i was like all right – it needs something, because a dog doesn’t just whine for no reason! So then i got worried that like the dog needed to pee or something and the thought occurred to me that it might pee on my bed or somewhere in our loft!! So then I was like HECK NO – no more of this dog non-sense!! So I tried to get it to follow me to the stairs, where i could take it down and open the door, and thankfully it followed me without too much effort. Then i opened the door and it ran out. Who knew a cute little dog named “Sunshine” could cause so much trouble for me!! 

Another funny thing that happened this week:  we were in the middle of a lesson and we got a text on our phone from an unknown number that said "Please help…my llamas r out" and because we were in a lesson we didn’t make a big deal out of it.  But Elder Rivera showed me the text and we both looked at each other like "whooo in the heck is that...?"  So we texted them back and were like – who is this and tried to figure out who it was! It turns out that it was a crazy investigator from a different area who got the wrong number and was looking for some different missionaries. But apparently they have 12 llamas and they get out a lot, so the missionaries are always over there trying to bring them back – haha.

Helping to remodel the Lira's house

Speaking of service, this week we were able to help the Lira family big time! They are remodeling their house and tore a ton of drywall and wood out of their old trailer. Literally like 3 tons of garbage. And so a guy in our ward has a big 25-foot trailer and a huge truck that we used and piled all the garbage onto, and took it to the dump! It was like a three-hour ordeal, but of course that was right up my alley – so I was loving every minute of it!! And Brother Lira couldn’t believe it all. 

Hauling the Lira's garbage away on a 25-ft trailer

We paid for the dump and everything, and he was overwhelmed with all the help we gave him! We still haven’t had the chance to teach them too much, but they are moving in in two weeks, and hopefully once they are settled then we can actually teach them. It is hard to teach them because whenever we go over they are working like painting or something, so we are kinda waiting on them. 

The Flores Family's Dog

But the Flores Family is doing great. They are progressing slowly. The kids are actually making the most progress, and the parents told us yesterday that they are really interested in what we have to offer because after we taught them about the Book of Mormon and how to pray, their oldest son, Junior, has been really excited about praying. And they said that he has never been so excited to pray, so we must be doing something right. This got us excited and we are going back tonight to teach them more. Please keep these two families in your prayers.

Also keep Victor Andrande in your prayers. Elder Rivera was teaching him when he used to be there. He didn’t get baptized, but was really interested so we went back and found him and he agreed to be baptized this Saturday!! But he didn’t come to church yesterday, so we have to push it back a week, but he has lots of potential. He is doing everything we ask of him and loves learning about what we have to teach. He is 18 and a senior in high school and he is way cool! His grandma and cousin are both inactive members, so we are trying to get them all to come back to church.  Please pray that he will follow through with getting baptized this month. We have a mission-wide goal to have 100 baptisms in December, which is one per companionship across the mission. We have all been praying that we can make this happen, and we hope that Victor can be our baptism for this month. 

Hey Mom – I got the thanksgiving package!!! Thanks for all the food and treats, and thanks to the rest of the family for the notes you all wrote me. I love getting mail from you guys. Everyone is jealous of me because I get so much mail and packages, so that is fun.

Well I don’t have much more time, but I love you guys!! Thanks for everything. 

Love,

Elder Todd

Umm..yeah.

In the back of the tractor-trailer