Thursday, September 30, 2010

September 27, 2010 Email

Hey Mom,
Sounds like you are all doing well :) Ya, it's too bad about them cougars, (At least I'm out here and don't have to suffer through watching them get whooped:) we have a white member of our branch who gives us an update on them every week when we eat over at their place. Brother Tomlinson is his name and he and his wife are both really good cooks and they are fun.
So Elder Simmons and I are both staying here together for our 6th transfers. And Elder Simmons is going to be the new District Leader! He was really suprised but he'll do a great job. I had a really good teaching experience on exchanges in the English program this week. It was a part-member newly wed couple- the wife is less active and the husband, Collin, didn't know much about the church or God in general. It was a fun, spirit filled lesson. It was really cool to see his response to some of life's great questions answered so simply through our doctrine. Then the next day I took over the Spanish area on exchanges again with Elder Fultz this time. It was a little harder being the only one who could speak Spanish, but it went ok.
We also had a part in a miracle in Guadalajara, Mexico this week. The nonmember brother of Hermana Ibanez in our branch lives there and something went wrong with his lungs so he got put in to the hospital and Hermana Ibanez called us and we went over and I had the idea to try and get a hold of the missionaries there in Mexico to go give him a blessing so we called our mission office to get the number of that mission and then we dialed what must have been like the 20 digit number to get a hold of the Guadalajara mission office and they sent the missionaries to the hospital and gave him a blessing and now he is recovering and wants to meet with the missionaries. It was just crazy to see how our church really is world-wide and we could even pull something like that off. I'm really excited to go through the temple again this Wednesday. It's been 6 months. Then of course we have General Conference this weekend so it should be a great week:) And yes Mom, I got the camera memory card and the package:) Thank you very much-everything was fine. Give Grandma my thanks as well please- those Flake bars are cool;) Tell Megan congrats on getting hitched for me as well please. Well, I love you Mom. I'll try to send you the memory card this week if not the next. Peace and Blessings!
Love Elder Flake
Hey Lindz!
Thanks for the e-mail! I've been meaning to write you but it just seems like there is never enough time to write! I'll try to get you a letter this week. It sounds like u and Carlton are doing great and a lot of good in the big city:) Sounds like it's going to be a great experience for you. I'm doing good:)
My 6th transfer just started today and I'm making some goals to improve my efforts. Life as a missionary is great. I'm super excited to go to the temple this week + conference this weekend. We are starting to teach 2 really cool guys - one of them is a minister in a Christian church, hence he knows the Bible really well, hence we got our cool stake president to come with us this week to our appointment with him. We're excited for that. Then the other guy is this 79 year old man named Elias. He has some awesome inspiring stories and has a really strong spirit about him. Well I love you Lindz! Tell Carlton hi :)

Monday, September 20, 2010

September 20, 2010 Email

Hola from Hollister :)

This week was ok until Friday morning when it became sad. We arrived at the little home of Marcia to pick her up to take her to her baptismal interview - when she informed us that she wasn't going to be baptized this Sunday as was planned. A phone call with her very Catholic mother and a comment that she took offense (A big problem in the branch) to from a member put a stop to that. I reminded her of the progress we've seen in her - she is a very guarded lady, she wouldn't even answer our questions when we began to meet with her and her member niece, but in our time teaching her she has opened up quite a bit and even prays out loud with us after not even knowing how to pray a few weeks ago. She agreed to continue meeting with us after our chat and we have confidence that she will still be baptized here in a few weeks. She is an uneducated lady (she can't read), but is very sweet and is in touch with the Spirit.

Speaking of in touch with the spirit, there is a recent convert here, Porfirio, who was baptized the day before I got here, is a spiritual giant. When ever you talk with him you can't help but to feel good. He lives in a shack next to the field where he works, and he is a very humble man. After meeting with him the other day, I was saying the closing prayer and I asked for us to feel the Savior's love and immediately I just felt super warm and happy. It was nice.

One other experience this week was we were just about to get in our car after dark when we see this scary looking guy wearing black, baggy clothes and this crazy beard walking up to us. We both got a little nervous, but to our pleasant surprise, he only asked if he could have a B.OM:) He smelled strongly of Marajuana, but he was still able to carry on a nice gospel conversation and we are going by his place tomorrow. We will probably have to give him to the English missioinaries, but he seemed like a pretty cool guy. Thanks Mom for the story of Lizzie Shrout, she sounds like she was a special lady. It is good to here missionary success stories. Thank you James Mcarthur:) Hope this e-mail finds everyone doing well,

Love Elder Flake

Hey Bro!

Good to here from you! You sound so grown up! Being the man of the house, fixing cars and all that Jazz:) That's crazy you prayed in front of 5,000 people! I'm sad to hear Ely is not doing so hot:( The brakes went out when I was driving him too once:) I stopped about a foot away from another car after pumping the brakes and gearing down and any other thing I could think of to stop. God is good:) So you're in auto shop, huh? What other electives are you in? Who are you hangin out with? You're going to have to take me and mi companero rock climbing when we get back. Elder Simmons is a pretty cool dude. The other day he climbed a drain pipe on the side of a thirty foot building to the roof for kicks. He's a crazy dude. crazier than me even;)

So you reading the D&C dude? It's got some great missionary tips in there. I hope you are taking Seminary more serious than I did. It will help you a ton, trust me. Oh ya, I saw on Nick's e-mail that you were #1 on his list of guys to date his Sister Hannah, ha ha bro, way to be:) You've got a good rep - Keep it Up! Take care of Elias and the last baby turtle and Moma and Papa and the hood for me! Love you bro!

Elder Flake

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

September 13, 2010 Monday Email


Things are still going well here in Hollister. We got 10 member present lessons this week and 5 investigators at church which are both the most I've ever had. Hopefully we didn't tire out our members. We mostly use the men that are currently unemployed to help us out. Sean Fisher, the recently returned missionary has also helped us out a lot. It's good for our investigators to see members who are real people:)
Marcia, the aunt of a member in our branch, should be getting baptized this Sunday. We should have quite a few baptisms coming up in October as well. This area has a lot more going on than the last one I was in and it makes things exciting:)
We're still not sure what we are going to do for P-day. We probably should tidy up the apartment a bit... Elder Golden, another 70, is coming to speak to the mission Tuesday. Then we got a Temple trip planned for the 29th and then there is conference. Fun stuff:) I can talk to people in Spanish:) It's fun;) I'm glad that guys had a good time in Hawaii & I'm super glad that you're all having opportunities to do missionary work! Keep it up!
Love Elder Flake

Sunday, September 12, 2010

September 7, 2010 Email Hollister

Hey fam :)

Cristian got baptized! And I got to go up! It was wonderful! She looked so happy:) I got to give a talk on the Holy Ghost. It went well. An R.M from here, Sean Fisher, took us up. He's cool. Then Sunday we got to go on another roadtrip to the Oakland Temple with Salvador, an investigator who wants to get baptized but just has to get a divorce with his X in Mexico before he can enter the waters. He is really funny:) We got to walk around the beautiful Temple and watch "The Prophet of the Restoration". I think I enjoyed it more in Spanish than I did in English:)

So the week has been pretty good. We even got to play some good games of b-ball with some members of the English wards yesterday for the Holiday. So it sounds like all you all are doing some pretty good missionary work in your regular lives. iBien Hecho! Another idea that our mission is starting to do to get more refferals from members is leaving this challenge/opportunity at dinner appointments and such: We give the member a 3X5 card and they ask a friend/aquaintance "Do you like to read?" And if the person says yes then the member can explain the B.O.M without even revealing its name, and tell them they can get a free copy to them if they just write there name/address on this 3X5 card. Then the member returns the card to the missionary and they can even write their testimony in the copy that the missionaries will hand deliver to the friend/aquaintance:) I leave this challenge to all of you back home. Pretty easy, no? We hope to get a few good referrals from this.

Well thanks very much for the package Mom:) I'm enjoying the jam very much. Elder Simmons is too. We get along great. We both love this work and are having a blast:) We are still running together every other morning and I'm starting to get back into shape. Well I got to go, send me a bag of sand from Hawaii so I can stand in it or something:) I recently discovered that canned coconut juice stuff. It's good:)

Pues, Love Elder Flake