May 23, 2011 Email

Hey Dad :) Sounds like you all had a fun week. I hope we have a wedding this week. I might be paying for it, which means you might be paying for it :) $150 is definitely worth opening the door of salvation to 3 people, don't you think? Well, The other elders in the ward had a baptism on Saturday, so that was good. Hopefully it will be a kick off baptism and many more will follow. We had two of our investigators who have dates in June there to witness it so that was great. I shook the hand of an Apostle on Saturday! Elder Ballard and the other members of the 70 who spoke are obviously men of God. Powerful speakers, very inspiring. The future of missionary work looks to be through the internet (Mormon.org) and also through more member involvement. I should have brought my notes so I could tell you more about it. My bad. It was definitely a high-light of the mission though, for sure. This week should be pretty crazy, I'll be going to a leadership meeting up in San Jose on Fri. Then 2 other days, I'll be going on exchanges to fulfill my District Leader responsibilities. THEN HOPEFULLY WE'LL HAVE A DOUBLE WEDDING AND BAPTISM ON SATURDAY! Today we got permission to drive over with a member to Hwy. 1 to drive on the coast and see what there is to see. Hike around a bit and take pictures. That's awesome you were able to resurrect the old Hobi cat. Ha ha, rubber duck yellow- I got to see this :) How many turtles do we have now? That's crazy. Who'd a thought? Well thank you for the prayers. They are definitely appreciated. Love Elder Flake

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 6:27 AM, Shelly Flake <shellyflake6@gmail.com> wrote:

Good Morning Dawson, We have had a nice weekend with Danielle and Steve. They had Steve's brother Shawn get married so they were all here. We took them up to the Pioneer park and Andrew showed them how to repell down the Dixie rock. The weather has been really nice and great for doing things outside but now it needs to warm up a bit more so that we can take our newly repaired sailboat out to the lake. We painted it "Rubber Duck" yellow and it looks pretty good. We had a good Fathers and sons outing up at Veyo pool this weekend. The river was pretty high so we were more careful with the little kids around the river but it was very pretty and we had a bout 100 fathers and sons there. The turtles are multiplying. It is spring and the little turtles are hatching and popping out of the ground like daisy's. I am going to be busy this next month with a few jobs that I have lined up so I am glad for that . I am looking forward to finishing the job up at Duck Creek with Andrew this Summer. We have been praying for those you are teaching to work towards baptism. It is great that you are busy and having success. Have a great week Love Dad

Hey Dani! Thanks for the pics? Say hi to St. George for me and give Alexa a hug and a kiss for me as well :) Mom tells me that Alexa recoginizes my picture and says hi to me by name! That's great she hasn't forgotten about me :) I told Dad that we might be having a wedding of our own this week. Two faithful investigators, Reina and Odilia, just need to tie the knot so they can enter the fold of God through baptism. We've been having trouble getting all the original birth certificates so they can get their marriage licenses. We'll hope and pray we get it all figured out by this weekend! So how's life? Where are you reading in the scriptures right now? I just read about the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's burying their swords. The faith of thos people! Well, I love you and hope you enjoy your time in George Town. Love Elder Flake

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 6:45 AM, Danielle Jackson <daniellejackson825@gmail.com> wrote:
que tal?

I'm writing your from St. George today! We got into town last Thursday evening for Steve's brother, Sean's wedding. He married Cari Sue Green from St. George in the temple. Friday night was the reception at the huge Cox mansion by the springs and then Saturday morning they had the wedding and after that the luncheon. It was a wonderful time. Steve had to fly home last night to go to school this morning. Alexa and I get to stay until Wednesday afternoon. Alexa sure love grandpa and grandmas house. She likes to look at the fishies and jump on the tramp and run around. It has been nice to be in sunny weather and I already have a sun burn. I hope everything is going well for you! If it's not, pray and work harder ;) We sure love you and miss you!

Love, the Jacksons

May 16, 2011 Email

Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you had a great day yesterday! Sounds like Dad and Andrew helped to make it special.

That's awesome that the ward is having another baptism. Great job Bro. Johnson! I was actually invited by a member of the Monterrey Stake Presidency last night to read that talk by Pres. Uchdorf- and all those sections in Doctrine and Covenants. I will do it tomorrow for Personal Study. The Bishop drove us over to Seaside (by Monterrey) last night for the Stake Priesthood conference. It was great. One cool thought from that was this: Many of the choices we make either allow us to be justified or sanctified. Choose to be sanctified!

I am very excited to hear from Elder Ballard this Saturday. I have been reading his book, 'Our Search for Happiness'. If only all non members were required to read that book... A lot more people would understand what the church is really all about. Sad news for our investigator G (who also is the Mother of investigators D and K) To make a long story short, she just found out that her 'husband' has been cheating on her, and this caused her to have a panic attack- she already suffers from depression- and now she is in the hospital because she overdosed on her pills. Poor woman. She is so sweet. Please keep her in your prayers. So this also means that the baptism of D and K (that was planned for this weekend) will again have to be pushed back... We had it all planned out and they were excited, but Satan got in the way! Ughhh...

Good news for this week is that we found 4 new investigators, which meant that we got to teach the Restoration 4 times this week, and that's always nice. One of them, Lorenzo, believes our message- but one obstacle we will have to overcome is that he is still practicing the Old Testament version of the Law of Sacrifice. He has sacrificed chickens, candy and even cookies. Kind of strange but he does seem interested :)

Well, we are going to keep chuggin along. It's crunch time for Reina and Odilia and Gerardo, They have continued to faithfully attend church, but they haven't done anything about getting their marriage licenses. So we are really going to push for them to get going on that, and Si Dios Quiere we will still have a baptism in May (on the 28th) and a wedding to boot :) Thanks for your prayers.

Love Elder Flake

May 9, 2011 Mother's Day Call and Email

Thanks Mom! I'm glad you had a great day. How did Andrew do with the feet wash? Today we just plan on cleaning and chilling. Maybe I'll write some letters. I've been procrastinating to write people back for a while now. oops;) This week, besides getting the double wedding going, we hopefully will be able to extend a few baptismal invitations to some newer investigators that we have.

We had one cool experience last night with Carmen, one of the cousins of Odilia and Reina. We invited her to say the closing prayer after our lesson. This was her first time praying so we ran her through how to do it before she made the attempt. She offered a wonderful prayer and she got a little emotional from the power she felt from talking with our Heavenly Father. It was cool. Yea for the Power of Prayer! She looks to be solid just like the rest of her wonderful, humble family:)

Well, hope you have a wonderful birthday! Thanks for being the most amazing Mom in the entire galaxy!

Love Elder Flake

Hey Grandma!

Thanks for the e-mail. I hope Logan is beginning to warm up a little more now that it's May. I also hope that you had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. Thanks for being such a great mother and grandmother. Especially thanks for raising my mom so well. So have you and Grandpa made any more fishing trips lately? Sorry you didn't catch anything last time. But like you said, at least you got some fresh air :) Fishing is kind of like missionary work. Some days we don't even get a bite (someone interested in our message). But on those days, atleast we went out and gave it our all!

We do have quite a few investigators right now, mostly from one family, so that's good. Hopefully we'll catch a few of these 'fish' and have some baptisms this month. Thanks for being such a great example to me grandma, and grandpa as well. Let me know how Heather's wedding goes. Tell her congratulations for me if you would please.
Thanks!

Love Elder Flake

May 2, 2011 Email

Hey Mom :)
We had a pretty good week. Saturday for the California wide Helping Hands day we helped repaint and cleanup a baptist church. Then we had a BBQ after. So we had Baptist's at our BBQ ;)

The glasses came and they work perfectly. Thank you. We went to west pinnacles for P-day today. A member took us. It was nice to hike around in the beautiful outdoors. I'm excited to talk to ya'll next Sunday! We still haven't found anywhere to skype yet, but we are going to ask a few more members this week. Around 4 p.m should work. I will call ahead before to let you know if we are going to skype or whatever. Let me know how Craig's surgery goes.

Well let the Angels kiss you and the Devils miss you, ok? Ha ha some cool white lady in a power chair that we contacted told us that the other day. Well lots of love and we'll talk to you soon. Love Elder Flake


Alexa swims? Bin Laden was killed!?! What's going on in the world! We have one of the greatest families of all time, don't we? I tell people that all the time out here. I'm excited to talk to you Sunday!
Love Elder Flake

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 7:45 AM, Danielle Jackson <daniellejackson825@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Elder Flake!

What's new?? I suppose you've heard the news that Osama Bin Laden was found and killed. So far it seems to be bringing more unity in the USA. That's good! In our news, not much new. I started my second class, Parenting Skills, which is only three Saturdays for a couple hours. Alexa finished her swim lessons. Steve is writing a book. We are all doing great! We are excited to hear your voice on Sunday! We have a wonderful mother don't we!! We are lucky to have the parents we have and for being brought up so well! Keep up the good work that I'm sure you're doing! We love you tons!

The Jacksons!!!

Easter Message April 25, 2011 Email

Yea Darrell is engaged! That's exciting news:) Thanks for the package Mom. That $10 gift card was inspired:) It's going to save Elder Mote and I for the last week of the month. I put the Easter Eggs you sent to good use by having a easter egg hunt Sunday morning with our investigator Odilia's 2 kids; Gerardo (10) and Perla (6). They had a great time hunting the eggs and we had a good time watching them. We also hid a picture of Jesus for each of them, which I think was a Dave Suttner tradition.

Our ward also had a Easter party that included an egg hunt as well on Saturday. It was a great time and we had a few investigators turn up. I kept the egg painting tradition alive by hard boiling some eggs and we bought an egg painting kit at the dollar store then after church on Sunday we went over to our investigator Gloria's and painted eggs with her kids Denise (9) and Kain (11). We also talked about the true meaning of Easter. Denise really wants to get baptized and hopefully we'll still be able to get her and her brother baptized here soon.

So we'll be on bikes again this week, and i'll be putting my new wheels to the test. My first bike started to have serious issues so i traded it and $40 to another Elder who likes to fix bikes for another used bike that he had just fixed up. Hopefully this one works out better :) The new transfer starts today and Elder Mote and I plan to baptize this time around. Gerardo, his mom Odilia and her sister in law Reina are super super super ready to be baptized and if all goes well they will be married and in the water before the end of May. Their Esposo's are scheduled to get back from working in the fields of Oxnard the 5th of May. The plan is to start teaching the esposos when they get back, and maybe we'll be able to baptize all of them together which would be sweet. Such awesome humble women. The whole ward loves them.

The mission is beginning to re-use an older tactic for getting more member refferals called 'The Harvester'. It's a flip chart that helps members catch the vision of our mission and also helps them think of specific people they know who are ready to hear the restored gospel. Switching gears, there are a lot of parents here that are struggling to raise their teenage children. One of them is Gloria Luna, a new investigator of ours- super nice lady. I love testifying to them how the Gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families. Because it's so true! My family is so blessed because of the Gospel! It's amazing!

Well, I got to jet. Be excellent to each other!
Elder Dawson Flake

Dawson's latest pictures from Salinas are at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/shellyflake/Salinas?authkey=Gv1sRgCLmKvMurlYCYkQE#

April 18, 2011 Email

Hey fam,

Elder Mote and I received some bad news this week. Hilda dropped us, and Denyse and Kain will not be baptized this weekend as planned. I guess Hilda's husband said some things that scared her away from her desires to continue learning from us and get baptized... Gloria, our investigator/mom of Denyse and Kain will not be able to make it to church on Sundays, due to the fact that she will be going to visit her son who's in Juvie near San Francisco. So there gos the support of Denyse and Kain. But hopefully we'll be able to work something out like convince Gloria to go and visit her son only everyother week. And with Hilda, hopefully we can get her to attend the baptism of her friends Reina and Odilia, who are still very solid, here at the end of May. So all hope is not lost- although it seemed like it Saturday, when we recieved all the bad news. Ha ha, and to top all the sadness off of the day, a bird pooped on my shoulder! Talk about a bad day! But it's ok. We did pick up two more FAMILIES as investigators this week, so that's exciting.

And I'm going to play basketball today! First time in MONTHS. We'll play with the other Elders here and try and get a few other guys. Who knows if I can still even make a lay-up. Also this week, I taught a District Meeting on the Atonement. But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.

-2nd Nephi 1:15

I LOVE MY SAVIOR!

To start the lesson, I read this story called 'The File Room' It's intense and it really brings home the reality/necessity of the Atonement. You should look it up. Somehow. I got it from the 'little book of inspirational stories for missionaries'. I'm so grateful for the Atonement! It's amazing! Incomprehensible! But it's REAL. Jesus Christ is the hope of Israel OUR HOPE. I hope you all can take some time this Easter to read a tleast one of the Gospel accounts of our Lord's atoning sacrifice, plus perhaps a Topical Guide scripture search in the Book of Mormon of the word Atonement. We are reading the Book of Mormon as a mission right now marking everything that pertains to the Atonement and it's AWESOME. I just read beautiful testimonies of the Savior's mission by Abinadi and King Benjamin. He is risen! Well I love you fam. Thanks for being amazing. You are in my prayers.

Love Elder Flake.

p.s Mom, thanks for taking care of the glasses. Sounds like you had a crazy adventure on the Virgin. I'm glad you're fine. I hope you felt the Spirit at the baptism. Sounds like Andy had a good time with Jonba and the gang. Thanks for the e-mail. I sent a picture memory card in the mail. I hope it makes it. I love you all!
Elder Flake

April 11, 2011 Email

Hey Mom :)
We had a good week. 2 new baptismal dates bringing the total to 7! They are all pretty solid too:) The first of the baptisms will be the 23rd of this month. Dennise (9) and Kain (11) are the kids of a long time investigator, Gloria Valerio, who really wants to get baptized, but she is waiting for her divorce papers to go through, so she can get married to the man she is currently living with. So it was decided that we would go ahead and baptize the kids first, and then she will follow later on when all that stuff gets taken care of. Dennise and Kain are awesome.

They love our lessons and they enjoy doing the 'homework' we leave with them after each lesson. They are smart kids too. The other day I asked them if they knew what the word 'gospel' meant, and Kain sure gave us a surprise when he replied 'good news'- I had completely forgot that I told them that 2 weeks earlier- it blew us away that he remembered. Gloria really wants them in the church because her older son who's 16 is already in Juvenile Prison. So we have fun teaching them. I have a few object lessons that I like to use, and some of the Hispanics really get a kick out of them. I will have to demonstrate them to you when I return.

So today we got permission from President to go the Montery Bay Aquarium, so I'm excited about that. We are going to take the bus, which will cost like $7, but we got free admission tickets at the library :)

I'm going to order some glasses online at the Bishops today before dinner- from at Zennioptical.com. Elder Simmons used it and said it's cheap and decent quality- at least good enough to last me the rest of the mish before I can get my eyes checked again and then I can get some nicer new ones.

I received the letter Grandma sent with a check a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if it was dear elder. How often does she send them? Tell her thanks for the check please :) I'm going to send a picture card home to you guys this week. The only thing I can think of for you to send in the package is Elder Mote wants a copy of Grandma Flake's recipe book- he really can cook :) That's awesome that another one of your students is getting baptized. You should definitely go and support her at her baptism. How's Juan doing by the way? And also how is Craig, Sean, and Ricardo doing? It was good to hear from the boys from the hood. Thanks for that letter. Well love ya mom, make it a great week!

Elder Flake