March 31, 2010 Email

Dawson ran into his St. George buddies Elder Anderson and Elder Smith at the MTC.

Elder Flake and Elder Burton

They must be in California now...low riders and missionaries with attitudes!

Elder Flake's alter ego...

Thursday was awesome. We got 2 families, 7 new investigators that day! But then one of the fams, a grandma, mom and 3 kids dropped us 3 days later :( She said her husband didn't want us over... They were so golden too. And the other family was a mom and her 16 year old son Gabriel, cool kid. They weren't there for our last appointment so that's not a good sign but we're trying them again today. We had an awesome first lesson with them. I shared the first vision then bore my testimony about Joseph Smith and the restoration in Spanish:) It felt really good and we know they felt the Spirit. So Our District got to go up to the Oakland Temple Tuesday! (Which day was also our P-day) It is BBBEEAAUUtiful! Up on this green hill overlooking the whole bay area. We did a session then watched the family presentation (Where you rotate through the different rooms/videos - they have the same one in STG) at the visitor center. It brought the Spirit and was awesome. I love you family! And I love the happiness of this Gospel! So we took BART, this commuter train thing-fun:), and a bus there and back. After the temple, we were at the bus stop right before the bus arrived, and it started to hail like mad. It was crazy. Oakland is pretty ghetto. So the work might be pickin up a little now, so we'll hope that continues. Hope everyone is stoked for conference! Happy Easter!!!

Love, Elder Flake
Hi fam I love you:) Thanks for fasting with me last Sunday. Just a few matters of business... I will send the watch for Drew :) cause I got 2!!! nice rhyme eh? you should have gotten my letter with a pic card by now or else something is amiss. And I hope Dani had a happy b-day and wish Brandy a happy B-day from me too. So I've been out a month now, crazy, Huh? I haven't received a package yet from you but I look forward to it's arrival. Hope you guys get to watch all 10 hours of conference and have a happy Easter! I hope you are feeling better Mom. I love you all tons and stuff!

Elder Flake

Response to Steve:
Wow, thanks for sharing that experience from your mission. That's cool. I haven't had any frying pan in the head experiences yet, but I've had a lot of little ones. One was yesterday while me and my comp were in the Celestial room of the beautiful Oakland Temple. We were thinking about what we needed to do for one of our investigator families, and the thought came to get them up to the visitor center there. And I shared that with my comp and he just smiled cause that is exactly what he was thinking. So hopefully we can do that. A pic Dani sent me looks like you might have a mustache but I can't really tell... It's pretty week if it is ;) Ha ha j/k at least you can grow one. So you'll have to let me know if Duke seals the deal. My money's on Mich st. You'll have to let me know how them Jazz are doing. I heard we traded Brewer... Well thanks again for the e-mail. If you have a better pic of your stache you'll have to send it ;) O and for exercise in the mornings me and my comp go shoot at the church and I've been working on changing my shot to normal! After all these years! If it turns out to be successful you better watch out in a couple of years :) Well have a nice break from school! Love Elder Flake
Follow the link below to his pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=shellyflake&target=ALBUM&id=5454964846322236497&authkey=Gv1sRgCK7s9vGIoNXIVA&feat=email

March 22, 2010 Email

Hey fam :) We had a baptism this Saturday! Too bad it was just an 8 year old one:( I guess the last convert baptism in this branch was almost a year ago. Quite the drought. This upcoming fast Sunday though we are having a special branch fast for missionary work. Hopefully this will get the members a little more missionary minded. We don't really have any solid investigators right now. The Santiago's aren't really progressing any more and we have a few other investigators that are the same story. There is a family though, that we have an appointment with tomorrow that we are excited about. They actually sought us out which is definitely a good sign.
Let's see... A 16 year old young man named Jack Champion spent a day with us as apart of the stake's mini mission activity the other day. He was cool and we had a good experience with him. We get to go to the Oakland Temple a week from tomorrow:) That will be awesome. It's tough not having much success. But I'm sure the elect are out there and I have faith that the Lord will lead us to them. May the Lord bless you.
-Love Elder Flake---

Hey fam. Sorry I didn't have time to send you a letter this past week. But I am for sure sending you one this week with a picture card. Sounds like all is well. I'm glad Andrew still enjoys digging holes:) The Turtle's out of hibernation yet? I'm doing good. I get more than enough food and me and my companion still get along just fine.
Your in my prayers, Love Elder Flake

Hey Dani. Thanks for the scriptures and the updates. Ha ha I'm sure you will be blessed for dropping the T.V service:) It was nice growing up without that and stuff wasn't it? Being outside is much more awesome. That's funny Alexa doesn't like grass. She's not allergic is she? Played some more b-ball for P-day this morning. I'm getting pretty out of shape. I think we are going to start getting to the church in the mornings though to shoot and run around. The green hills around the city are really pretty. I guess they are supposed to be turning brown here soon though so we're going to have to take a hike before that happens. What did you do on your mission when times got tough? Well for now we're just gonna keep on chugging.
Love ya tons, Elder Flake

March 15, 2010 Email and Pictures

Hola! This week was pretty crazy. As a mission we had a goal of getting 20,000 contacts this past week. That's 34 contacts a day per companionship. Tracting wasn't giving us enough people, so the last couple days we had to cram in a ton of contacts by handing out pass-along cards in the parking lot of the mall. We talked to 78 people in one of the days. Contacting is pretty fun. So because of this activity we have a ton of people we get to teach now. So this week should be a bit different. It will be cool to see the fruits of this inspired activity. I got to play some b-ball with some Elders from my zone this morning. It was fun. Sorry this is short but I got to go. Pray always, Love Elder Flake

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Lindsey and Carlton are running a marathon?! Awesome! Ya Andy, I think you could do it if you trained good. Your still young, your body can take it. Sounds like you got a pretty big job ahead of you Dad. Good luck. Portland sounded fun. Sorry about the rain. It was raining quite a bit here for a while, but these past few days have been very nice. I have a couple funny stories but I'll have to send them to you in a letter plus some pics:)

Love ya tons

First Email from California, March 8, 2010

Hola Familia!
Before I forget, my address is 3975 Mclaughlin Ave. Ste A San Jose 95121
It's actually the mission home address, but how they do it out here is they divy all the mail out to everyone from there. So ya, I'm in California :) I'm in one of the most Northern areas in the mission, Fremont. Are apartment is actually in Newwark which is right next to Fremont. We are just a half hour South of Oakland next to the Southern tip of the Bay. It's a super diverse area. India Indians, Middle Easterns, Chinese, Filipinos, some Hispanics, of course, and a few white people. It's quite a bit different than Utah, but fun. My comp is Elder Burton from Riverton, Utah. He's been out about a year and I'm his first kid (trainee). He's an awesome Elder who's been in this area for awhile so we don't get lost so that's good. His Spanish is really good so hopefully that will rub off on me. Real Spanish is a lot different than MTC Spanish, that is one thing I've found out thus far. I've got my work cut out for me in that department but I know I can do it. Another thing I've learned is that Hispanics are super nice, and they make lots of really good food. If I eat like I have been this weeks dinners, I might be in trouble:) So ya, the area I'm in hasn't had a ton of success in the past, but my comp and his last companion have been prepping to the point where we think we're about to start reaping.
One family we are working with that seems pretty golden is the Santiago family. The Dad is awesome, he gave up smoking, cold turkey, and he knows it's true. Hopefully we'll have a baptismal date for him, his wife and two kids this week. We have a few other investigators as well. But the difficult thing with the Spanish culture though is that because they are so nice, they commit to baptism after the first lesson, just because they think it would be mean to say no, then you try to get another appointment with them, and they just end up dogging you. Kind of frustrating.
The branch we are working with is pretty small, we had about 50 at church on Sunday. The Presidency is awesome. We've had dinner with all 3 of their families already. President Gonzalez, the second councilor, is especially awesome. He's been a member for only 3 years, but he is always wanting to teach lessons with us when ever he can. What else... I bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting yesterday. I know I probably didn't make much sense in my broken Spanish, but some members told me I did great and they at least understood what I was trying to say. So ya I'm excited to be here and I think me and Elder Burton are going to have some success together. Hope all is well back home.
Love Elder Flake

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Hey Fam, Sammy sounds really cool and I hope you have fun in Portland. Let's see, We have a car, Elder Burton drives and he scares me some times but I guess I just got to get used to California driving. My P-days are Mondays... We were going to get up at 4 this morning and hike mission peak with a few other Elder's in our District, but it was raining:( So we went back to sleep. My mission President is really cool, animated. He's excited about the work and in his year and a half here he has brought a ton of improvement. Well I love you:)