Congrats Lindsey and Carlton!
I'm glad that Lindsey was better for the wedding and that everything went well. The power and spirit of the Temple! It's a beautiful thing. Well we had a very powerful experience here yesterday. We were teaching a young, 20 year old married mother named Cristian the first. I guess she has been taught a few times and has been attending church on and off for the past 10 years ( Her grandma that she is living with is a very strong member of our branch). She pretty much knew the church was true, but she was scared or timid about committing. We had an awesome supporting cast there consisting of President Clark ( a former Mission Pres. in Spain) + the Gonzalez duo- our second counselor and the relief society president. Everyone was chipping in and the spirit was strong. Then I read the first vision while holding the picture of Joseph in the Grove and the Spirit hit us all, hard. Cristian began to cry and explained that she had never felt this before and Pres. Clark explained it was the Spirit and what it meant and then Elder Medrano hit her with the baptisimal commitment. It was beautiful. So she is getting dunked on the 24th of July. I've been waiting for a lesson like that for a long time. I love being a missionary. Thanks for all of your love and support.

Elder Flake

Hey fam, I love ya. Thank you Carlton for taking my sis to the Temple. I know you two will find success and happiness through out all this life and eternity. Please send Butch my congrats on the call. I'm glad Mom, that you can now relax and enjoy the rest of summer. I love you all tan mucho. Elder Flake

Hey Dad:) Sam turned up again huh? Ha ha! That little rascal. I'm gald you had a nice Fathers Day- you deserved it. Hope you and A-Town had a fun time camping. With love, your son.

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Dan wrote:

Hey Dawson, I was just here at the comp when we got this email from you . Sorry I ddnt take time to write this morning. It has been a busy day with work and trying to help mom with the wedding

I was outside doing yard work and ran into our old friend Sam the turttle. He has been missing for 2 years.

Thanks very much for the fathers day letter. It was the perfect thing to get for fathers day. I had a wonderful day with all the praise from family, I am a very lucky man to have such wonderful children. Have a great day Love DAD

June 22, 2010 Email

Hey Bro!
How is it being !16!? Loco! I hope you survive the driving test. Just say a silent prayer for yourself and the others driving and you should make it out alive:) You're not driving with Coach Turley are you? Congrats on completing your duty to God! It's funny how everyone always procrastinates those until the last minute:) One more to go! You can do it! So you're a Priest now? You'll have to let me know how your first blessing on the Sacrament goes. i've blessed the bread and water in Spanish a few times here. This last Sunday i miss-pronounced a word and had to do it twice. But it's no big deal. Just take it slow and you'll be fine. I never heard how Lake Powell went. Was it a good time? Well give Lindz and Carlton my best at the wedding, alright? Love Elder Flake

Hey Fam,
All is well In Cali. We finally had a lesson with the whole family of Alex. There is a really cool object lessson on Faith that I need to show you when i get back, Invovling fire and a tea bag. It's pretty cool. Anyways we did it with them and it went well and hopefully things will continue to progress with them. President has been making a push for us to do quick in-n-out blessings on homes with our members. We got about half the branch this past week and we hope to get the other half this week. We bless them to recieve revelation on who among their friends/family they need to invite to hear the missionaries. Hopefully it will bare fruit.
Played B-ball for 4 hours yesterday. I sure was tired after but it was fun. We played with some India Indians that we met on the street the other day. And they got game suprisingly. One of them shot lights out from beyond the arc. So Lindsey and Carlton's big day is finally here huh? I'm very happy for both of them and apologize for not being able to attend:) You both are in my prayers and congrats! And happy birthday Alexa! Love you!

Elder Flake

June 15, 2010 Email and Pictures from Fremont

Another good week:) We are getting more men from the branch helping out, and we have a list of all the spanish speakers from the rest of the stake that we've already dipped into a couple times. It's always nice to have a non-missionary with us at a lesson and a few of our investigators don't have an adult male in the home so it helps us to get into their homes. Hence we had 9 member present lessons this week, the most I've ever had. Hopefully these members catch the joy of being in the Lord's service and will continue to help us out.
With the Branch we are still trying to get all we can ready for the stake temple day on the 28th of July. We've been visiting their homes and watching a 10 minute temple video called 'Between Heaven and Earth'. Many of our members have never been into the temple so this should be really good for the branch. With the World Cup started I'm kind of nervous to see how the church turn out will be this Sunday. I've heard it's not pretty. But we are using it to our advantage by having a Father's Day BBQ/World Cup party this Saturday that we should get a good turn out for:)
Stake Conference was this last Sunday. There was a 70 presiding, I don't recall his name but he was a former mission president in Ukraine and he told a really funny story called 'balcony Faith' that i'll have to tell you someday. He was awesome. We are still working with Xochitl and Alex, and we picked up a few more new investigators that we are excited about. Hope you had a great B-day Andy and Happy Fathers Day Dad and all other Dad's as well.
Love Elder Flake

Follow the link below to view pics from Dawson's Fremont area:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=shellyflake&target=ALBUM&id=5483384328544334625&authkey=Gv1sRgCM_10Nv8vaOrSg&feat=email

June 8, 2010 Email

This week was good. We are starting to find people who are searching for the truth. A really cool thing happened last week. We found Xochitl-(An Aztec name pronounced So-Chill) She prayed us to her apartment. That morning she was doing some meditating and basically told God she was ready for the truth. So God sent us to her door that afternoon. We had an appointment with her neighbor a few doors down, but they weren't there so we knocked on Xochitl's door, under the impresion that it was where a potential lived that we had tracted into a week before. But it wasn't and Xochitl answered instead and she immediatley invited us in. We've taught her 3 times now and she has agreed to be baptized. There are a few obstacles we need to hurtle though first. One, she needs to get married to the man she is living with, who we still haven't met. Two, she has cancer. And three, she has a lot of different beliefs that we need to clear up. But we all agree that us knocking on her door was no accident. So please pray for her. She's cool, and very nice.

We are still teaching Alex and now also his 18 year old sister. Hopefully his parents attribute his better grades/behavior to our visits because Alex does. he's an awesome kid. We just need to get his parents on board... There are a couple more we are teaching now as well. And also our branch mission leader is coming out with us now:0 He finally came to an appointment with us, felt the Spirit, and now looks like he will be more willing to help us. Things just keep getting better here:)

i hope i get atleast one more transfer in this area after this one... The field is white, even in Fremont:) Love Elder Flake

June 1, 2010 Email

Hey Mom:) AO is off to Germany huh? and Steve Ott as well, ha ha cool. Give them both my congrats please. Congrats to Morgan as well, Pittsburgh? Cool... This week has been good. For the most part we have been worknig with the branch and will continue to do so. The stake is making a big push to get everyone up at the temple on the 28th of July. So we are going around to each of the members and showing 'Between Heaven and Earth' and commiting them to do their genealogy and be worthy for this temple day. Had a really cool experince this week that I don't have time to tell but I'll send you a letter. I love you so much and hope you don't stress out too much this month Mom:) We are at the same spot in the B.O.M by the way, Ammon is the Bomb!

Love Elder Flake

May 25, 2010 e-mail

Hello from Cali. Things are picking up slowly as far as teaching appointments go. But out of the people we are teaching, none of them seem real solid. One cool finding experience I had this week: We were walking through this parking lot and I spotted this guy, kind of hidden, just chillin, sittin on the curb. And I felt inspired that we should talk to him. So we go up to him and we end up teaching him the whole first there sittin on the curb in the parking lot. It was cool. We have a return appointment with him later this week. We have also been busy visiting less actives, some who haven't had a visit for a long time. Bro. Valentine, one of the few white people in our branch, who speaks just a little more Spanish than I do, has been helping us out quite a bit lately since he lost his job at Nummi( A big car manufacturer here). He has been a good help. O, and I heard today that Pres. Obama is going to be in my area tomorrow for something at this solar power company? I'll try and slip him a Book of Mormon if I run into him:) For P-Day Elder Medrano and I climbed Mission Peak. We climbed it from a different trail that was a little tougher. We made it though:) But we almost didn't because this bull came running out of the bushes at us-probably because I was wearnig a red shirt. But me and Elder Medrano went all Matador on it and chased it off. It was a little scary there for a second though. O and one other funny thing that happened this week. For service we were helping to bus tables at this community dinner honoring volunteers- the mayor was there and like a 100 or so honorees. And so I'm bussing tables and I'm filling this Indian guys water And it gets near the end so I tilt the pitcher just a tad more to get the last drop and that's when disaster struck. A bunch of Ice comes fliyn out and goes all over this turban-cladded guy's lap! So i start to give him my deepest apologies as I'm cleaning up and to my pleasant suprise he jokes in his Indian accent "It is ok, hot weather out today, no?" Ha ha so it was still kind of embarrassing, but atleast it was the chillest Indian man in the world:) Any how i have to go but hopefully things continue to get better here. I'm noticing small changes in my self for the better so atleast all this work isn't going to complete waste:) No, we have been blessed to help some families and have helped a few inactives get back to church. I alsohave a good feeling that with the Lord's help we will be able to help somebody come into the waters of baptism and bask in the joy of the Gospel this new transfer. Please pray for hearts to soften and doors to open here in Fremont. Thanks, with love, Elder Flake

-- Thats crazy you guys are already getting out of school! Congrats Andy on survin your year as a Soph. And give my congratulations to all my buddies that graduated this year. Gps and translator are great. O and my guess for Adam is Japan. I'm doing good. And I love you so much!

May 18, 2010 Email

Hey Mom!
I hope you had a wonderful celebration of the Day of your Birth:) I'll try and get you a better pic some time this week. Thank you so much for the package! I was just expecting the translator, (which is a really nice one by the way, gracias:) but I got a lot more! I'm set on cereal for another week, Thank you:) Congrats again to Andy on the Scholarship. So this week...Elder Medrano got this weird sickness so we were apartment bound for a couple days. He was just really dizzy and had a headache. But he went to the Doctor yesterday and said he's fine and he's feeling better. With Medrano, we're teaching more lessons than before, but we still aren't finding anyone who realizes what we have! They are either like that's nice... but I'm Catholic. Or "i already believe in Christ, so I'm good". They just don't get it... But we know there are prepared people out there, it's just a matter of finding them. In P.E.C this week, we went through the whole list of members in the Branch, wasn't a very big list, but we circled all the less-actives and we are going to be hunting them down this week. Our philosophy is to start with what we got, the foundation, and use the members to try and build off of it. We had Zone Conference in the woods earlier this week, It was really nice up in the hills and we had some nice, spiritual experiences. My favorite part was just when we were given about 30 minutes to go off by ourselves and write in our journals. i had a good experience just sitting under a tree and writing my thoughts. Then also we had our once a transfer zone party which was fun. It was raining so we met in a chapel instead of a park, but we had a nice BBQ, played some B-ball and volleyball, and had a good time. Thank you for your prayers,

Love, Elder Flake

- Also thank you for your letter Dad, ha ha it was funny. It's probably a good thing you ate those cookies :)