Missionary Monday times two

In the wake of Thanksgiving I realized I never put Nathan's email from last week up.  Here are both:

November 22, 2010:

"Hello family!!!  Well today is a cloudy day and pretty humid! It is definitely seeming more and more like summer is coming!  Its sure weird to be hearing all of this talk about christmas and snow!!!!

Anyway this week was pretty good!  Elder Jones was sick for a couple of days...so that thwarted the work a little.. but other than that it was good."

"That one couple that was fighting that we taught once, we finally found again...we thought hope was gone for them, but we figured we would just try to pass by one more time just for fun. Well we went by and taught them. The husband is really cool. He was telling us how he was telling his mom and others about how he knows we had to come from God because we came exactly when they needed us and said exactly what they needed to hear. So we taught him about the *restoration, and started talking about the book of mormon.. before even asking him if he would read it or anything he told us that he promised to read it and pray about it before we would come by again.  Then he committed to being baptized on the 11th...the wife...she´s catholic...ugh.. I swear.... I'm getting tired of hearing that.  You basically say to these people "If God came and told you that your religion was wrong and you needed to change to be saved would you?" and they all say, "No.. I won't change for anybody...I'm catholic."  It doesn´t make sense to me either....."

**The picture is at Valeria's baptism.

"We had our stake conference yesterday. It was really good. The whole emphasis was on strengthening the youth and getting them on missions. It was good. This is what Elder Anderson told them they need to do... and its true...if they want to see any leadership and real growth, it's gonna be in the youth that they´re going to find it."

"I'm really excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas...though I'm not sure Thanksgiving will be anyting special...but the time of the year is great and having an american companion helps too.   I´m grateful to have such a great family that is supporting me so much!!! I love you all very much! I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving, and hunting, and Christmas season start!!!"

*For more information about the Restoration of the church click here

November 29, 2010:

"Hello!!!  Well this Thanksgiving week has been a pretty good one. no baptisms :( but we found some good people...one funny story...so we have this program that I think our president made that we do as a lesson with members to get references... so we decided to do it with our ward mission leader because he would be one of the best to do it with right? So we go there and give him this whole thing about not doubting and praying for help to know who was ready and everything.  After he thought about every excuse possible to not give us names, he finally said, "Alright let´s pray."  Then we pray and he starts doubting some more...then finally he starts writing down some names...we asked him for 5...he finished writing and there were 5 names!!  Then we asked about them...... they are all members........................ hahahaha!  All I can say is that we tried."

"Thanksgiving was pretty good. Our member meal canceled which was more or less okay, because then we were able to make our own Thanksgiving meal! We had to substitute the turkey for chicken, but it was real good! Mashed potatoes and gravy of course were included but I´ve yet to get my Thanksgiving package, but I'm sure that I will be able to have a real feast once it gets to me!!!! I'm a little bummed because randomly this week on the mission newsletter they said that starting January 1st they want our families to send packages directly to our areas!! Why couldn't this have been established 2 months ago!!! Christmas is here!!!!!! I´ve started to see more and more Christmas things in store windows, but it still feels so weird being so hot here!!! Just about everyday we come home dying of heat and sweat and take a cold shower and then continue to be wet after drying off and sleep with the fan off. It's a great way to prevent the mosquitoes and make sleeping possible!!! haha"

"It was the primary program yesterday in  church. All of the stake leaders were there. Well. it was a little different then the ones I have seen in Utah...but it worked...2 of the kids that were assigned to give talks tried to start and both just started choking on their tears and ran out...but the leaders ended up just talking at the end anyway so it was all good.  Elder Jones and I have been having a lot of fun working together, but transfers are next week and I;m thinkin' he´s gonna be out of here... but who knows! "