8/5/13

Querido Familia, This week has been great. It sounds like you guys had a good time in Arizona. The pictures you sent were pretty cool. And about the bike situation. I think it would be easiest if you just send me a bike. Send it to the address I gave you last week, but make sure to have me sign for it. I do not want them to just leave it at the door. And please send it soon so I can get it before this transfer is over. And it would probably be easiest to put money on my card for the helmet and pump and patch kit and tool. And can you please remind me how much I have on my card. And thank you for the package. I really enjoyed the pictures and I use the sweatshirt every morning. And Ryan and Brittany, thanks for the card announcing Easton. And now in packages I would really appreciate food, because now I don't have all you can eat anymore. Anyway my week was pretty good. We taught a lot of people, but we are really struggling to get members to come out with us. But with the end of summer coming up we are hoping it will be a little easier. We have had dinner with a ton of people and all the food is amazing. And I found out americans don't make guacamole right. It shouldn't be a paste, it should be kind of thin, but not quite as thin as salsa. I will try to get the recipe for the guacamole and send it to you guys so you can try it. One of the meals we had with members, they invited someone to eat with us so we got a good lesson from it and a good meal. It was really awesome so we will see if that seed produces any fruit, or I should say how long it takes for that seed to produce fruit. We are eating with those members again tonight, so we will follow up with that tonight. There name is the B's by the way. Anyway a lot of our investigators are slowing down there progress so that is a little disappointing, but I am sure we can help them to progress again. My Spanish is getting a little better. My accent is a lot better and I am understanding more in lessons so that is good. Anyway I hope you guys continue to have a good week. Love You! Carino, Elder Lee

730/13

Querido Familia, This week has been pretty good. I am doing better at understanding conversations, meaning I can pick out a few words and know the general topic. But my companion and I speak spanish a lot to each other, but its more like he speaks then I speak then he corrects me. Which is really good because it will help me learn faster. He also helps me a lot with my pronunciation. We have a ton of investigators, but a lot of the time we set up appointments and they aren't there when we get there. But we have taught a few people where I can see a true desire to hear what we have to say so they are always there for our appointments, which is really good. We have gotten a few new investigators this week, so we will see if they follow through with our next appointments. I really hope they do. The people we talk to, even the ones we don't teach but are in the park or something, are super nice. The spanish culture here is so much different than it is in Virginia, but I think part of it is they are more receptive when they see that we speak spanish. I am so anxious to understand and speak spanish, just so I can talk to the people. I work really hard everyday and listen to all the conversations I hear and try to understand. These people are so great. I gave a prayer in sacrament meeting on sunday and only messed up on one word. Most of the food I have had was super good. It's way different than any restaurant food. The reason I say most is because we had some cubans feed us, and they gave us some sort of fish and other wierd stuff. I didn't really like it too much but I ate some of everything and even had seconds so they wouldn't be offended. Oh and by the way my P-day is on Mondays, but no libraries are open and the computers at the Gym have been reserved for children until I think this Friday so starting next week I will probably be writing on Mondays. And also I do not know if all spanish missionaries have cars or not. Although we do have the second biggest mission car fleet in the world which is 103 cars. I do have a car in this area but I will also need a bike because we are only given 1000 miles per month and my area covers my whole zone which is 1/7th of the whole mission. So we need to ride bikes as much as possible. That is kind of ironic because we also live with the Zone leaders who cover the smallest area in the whole mission. So I thought that was kind of funny. There is no apartment number because we live in a two story house. It was donated to the church when the couple that lived there passed away. So thaty is pretty much it, I keep a daily journal so you guys can read that when I get home. Have fun in Arizona! And maybe instead of visiting the Grand Canyon You can come visit New Mexico! HAHA! Chiste! which means I'm joking. (technically it means Joke but every one uses it as I'm Joking). Good Luck. Love You All! Carino, Elder Lee

7/24/13

Querido Familia, Monday was my first day in New Mexico. It is amazing beyond words. The people we teach are really great. But anyway my first day we did a kind of orientation thing and some of the missionaries took us to go knock on doors and talk to people. It was really fun. We got to have lunch and dinner at the mission home which was really good. I was happy to have some real food for once. Anyway thats all that really happened on Monday. Then yesterday we had transfers and I was assigned my trainer who is Elder Keith. He is great and I hear he is the best spanish speaker in the mission. Even some of the natives aren't as good. He is helping me a lot with my pronunciation and accent. I am in the Valle Vista Branch and Eubank ward. Valle Vista is spanish and Eubank is English young single adult. And these are both in the city of Albuquerque. They are on the east side. So, yesterday we taught 2 people both qualify to be in the Valle Vista branch, but one we taught in english because she likes it better. The first one we taught is named B. She has 3 kids and one on the way. She is super sweet and is trying to progress to baptism. The only thing stopping her is that she has issues with her boyfriend and is working on that. The other girl we taught is named L. Yesterday was her first lesson and we taught about the plan of salvation, because she asked us about it. We also committed her to baptism. The only problem is that she works on Sundays, so we don't know what we will do about that yet. We were going to visit her again today but she has a really busy schedule because she plays a ton of sports too. So we are going to try to visit her tomorrow. We also tried to visit other people yesterday but none of them were home. We did however meet a ton of other people and set up appointments with about 6-8 of them. And today we visited a man named C who attends church in the Eubank ward. He is so close to Baptism but he is just trying to quit smoking. We set a goal for him today to be baptized on the 17th of august and he has to be 2 weeks free of smoking in order to be baptized. Anyway, not much else we have a few other appointments tonight so we will see how those go. Other than that, The work is progressing very quickly. Thank you all for the emails Its good to hear that you are all doing well. Thank you Grandpa for those histories its really good to have stories I can tell about my ancestors. Please just send my package to the mission home address which you should have and it should be in the packet I got with my call. Oh and My mission president and his wife are fantastic and they did remember us from the MTC which was awesome, but he is pretty young so I wasn't really worried. Anyway be safe and do well. I love you all tons. Carino, Elder Lee

7/22/13

Querido Mi familia, This week since tuesday has been good, not much has happened though. We had a good devotional and I sang in it. I got my suits dry cleaned. Other than that not much. Thanks for sending me your phone number Dad. So I will call home first, then Dads work. I am super stoked for Monday though. I'm excited to eat real food for a change. I look forward to speaking with you guys. By the way Aunt Robyn wrote me a few weeks ago but the letter did not get to me so she asked if I got it in a dear Elder. I wrote her a letter back, but I haven't heard from her since so I don't know if she got my letter or not. Anyway other than that it sounds like things are going good. I have to pack today so that will be weird. And yeah I was just going to CC Ben because he is pretty much family and I like to hear from my friends too. Anyway, I will let you all go now. I love you guys. Carino, Elder Lee P.S. the N in Carino should have an accent over it but I cant do that on this computer.

7/16/13

Querido Mi Familia, It's good to hear that you are all doing great. It's good to hear that mom should get her boot off soon. Although I leave on Monday, so unless you are absolutely, 100% positive the package will get to me before then, please don't send it. And either way don't send too much food because I may not be able to eat it all and that would just be extra weight in my bags. And my companion had bags that were over wieght so I told him he could put some things in my bag so he doesn't have to pay a fee. So I can't really afford any extra weight. But when I am in the field I will love to get food and stuff. Anyway thank you Ryan and Brittany for sending me those pictures via email. They put a smile on my face. Easton is so cute. I showed him off to the people in my district. They all thought he was super cute too. I sent pictures last week and I think they went through but I am not sure so please let me know if they didn't. I got my travel plans last week and I leave at 9:52 on Monday morning and I will be permitted to call while I am in the airport. I am not sure how long I will have, but don't expect anything too long. I will call home first then maybe Dads work if I can then Ryan or Brittany's phone. I have a P-day on Saturday this week so please let me know any phone numbers or you can do what we always do with Kyle and I will call home and Ryan and Brittany can be on skype or something?? except I know you guys have work so you guys work it out and let me know. and remember it probably won't be anything too long. And I don't even know if I can make more than one call. Anyway Kyle it is good to hear about all of your success. Keep up the good work. Dad, It's good to hear you are doing well, I am sorry you couldn't ride much this week. If it makes you feel better I sit in a class room all day with only 50 minutes of gym every couple days. which is probably why I have put on so much weight. By the way I am up to 15 pounds gained as of last week. I will be weighing myself today to see if I have gained more. Anyway We have devotional tonight at the Marriot Center at 7:00 and I will be singing in the choir and we were told it is going to be broadcast, but we don't know where or on what or if it will be online or not. So you guys can try to find it or not. I just thought I would let you know incase you wanted to try. It may only be broadcast to other MTC's so I don't know if you will be able to find it. But you can still try. Anyway I that's all I have, so Buenos Suertes, Yo amo todos ustedes. Sinceramente, Elder Lee P.S. My teacher said that saying Con amor at the end of a letter is not correct and he gave me another word but I don't remember what it was so I just put sincerely, but I have the other word written down so, I'll use it next time.

7/9/13

Querido Mi Familia, This week has been great, we had a fourth of July devotional and we got to watch a movie and stay up late to watch the fire- works. Unfortunately we still had to wake up at 6:30 the next morning. The movie we watched was 17 Miracles. And it turns out my district leader, Elder Hurren, has ancestors portrayed in that movie And when they talk about all the people at the end, it talks about his ancestors, so I thought it was pretty cool. That movie also got me interested in our ancestors because I know they were kind of a big deal. So, I was wondering if Grandpa could send me some stories of our ancestors. I would really appreciate that. Anyway other than that it has been a pretty average week, we had some good devotionals. And we also got our new teacher, who is awesome. He is not quite as good as the one that left, but that could be because I am a little biased. He is a really great teacher we are allowed to give him hugs so thats good. Its good to hear that everyone seems to be doing well. Mom, I really don't need any food in my packages while at the MTC because we get so much here, I have already gained 10 pounds as of last Tuesday, I am going to weigh myself again today and I'm hoping for another 5 pounds. But I do appreciate everything in my packages and I will eat any food you send me, but it will be shared with my whole zone (the food). and I leave the MTC in two weeks so try to send the package soon so I can get my patriarchal blessing shrunk and laminated. I am trying to work on my humility. Sorry I didn't send pictures last week, I couldn't get them uploaded so I will keep trying and hopefully I will be able to send some today, but I make no promises. Oh and can you also send pictures of Baby boy Easton, in my package? just have Ryan and Brittany send you some over E-mail and print them out? Thank you so much for all you guys do for me. I really do appreciate everything, even the little things. And If you guys would like, I can get Dear Elders everyday, so feel free to send those. But only while I'm in the MTC. Anyway, I love you all and look forward to hearing from you all. Con Amor, Elder Lee

7/2/13

Querido Mi Familia, This week has been pretty average. It's been a little sad, because my teacher is leaving for Mexico and yesterday was her last day. And one of my favorite districts in my zone left yesterday and this morning. But that is a good thing. Anyway other than that, it has been pretty good, we got to teach our investigators a lot last week and it was great. My teacher who is going to Mexico, served her mission in the Tucson Arizona Mission which a few years ago had the bottom of my mission in it, and she told us about one of her investigators in El Paso. So If I go down there I will try to find him, because she said he was a great person and I really want to meet him. I don't know if I told you guys but I got to meet my mission president last saturday, and he is great. He and his wife have never served a mission before so we will be learning together. Anyway it was funny, because we ran into him after meeting him and he asked if we would be going down to El Paso while we were on our mission, and we were all a little confused and we told him that it was up to him. Anyway I thought that was a little funny. I am glad to hear that everyone is doing well. Ryan, good luck on your real estate test, I know you will do great on it. Dad, sent that email about the broadcast to you so I don't know why you didn't get it because that means you didn't get an email from me at all last week. But that's awesome that you got to speak in church about the broadcast. It was so good. And I hope you all will take it to heart and do your best to be member missionaries. Brittany, it's good to hear that Easton is doing well and I'm glad to see that he will make a great missionary. Haha. It's awesome that you are going to visit Krista and Robert for the 4th of July. If you go to church there tell Mitt Romney I say Hi. We get to participate in some sort of 4th of July event here, but I'm not really sure what. Kyle, it's awesome that you are in the Hamilton Mission and I wish you the best of luck. Anyway I hope you all continue to do great and I love you all. Elder Lee

6/25/13

Querido Mi Familia, This week has been Amazing, on Tuesday we had a devotional Given by Elder Gay, of the Seventy, and I sat in the second row in the Marriot Center so he came and shook my hand and talked to us a little bit. And on Sunday as you know I attended the missionary Broadcast and that was great. However, I only ever saw the General Authorities when they came in and left, because there was a giant screen in front of me which is also why you didn't see me on the T.V. That being said, The spirit was still extremely Strong in that room because of all the Authorities that were there. Oh and BTW the general authorities have been staying and/or meeting on this MTC campus the past week or so, so the building they were staying in was on total lock down so it was pretty intense. Anyway, I got your package and it was great, but I would still like my sweatshirt and patriarchal blessing, and also I need a hard copy of my line of authority and we don't have a printer here so that would be nice. I am so stoked for today though because I get to go to the Temple again and we have devotional tonight. Also our investigator that we were teaching is no longer our investigator, she is now our teacher. I am super happy about that, because she is hands down the best teacher here at the MTC. I am super disappointed though, because she is going to Mexico to teach next week and she will be there for six weeks so monday next week will be her last time teaching us. Anyway, Thank you all for writing me who did, I am glad to hear that for the most part everyone is doing well. I am sorry to hear about Grandpa's arm swelling and I hope he gets better and doesn't try to work himself too hard. I heard that Easton is doing good, but I have yet to hear anything of his parents so I can only hope they are doing well too. Sorry to hear about Dad's finger too, but it sounds like you all are doing well other than that. Anyway I've got to go, so I love you all and hope you all have a good week. Con Amor, Elder Lee

6/18/13

Hola Mi Familia, So far the MTC is great, My P-day is on tuesdays for those who didn't know. I will usually write in the morning so send any emails on Monday please. I am learning so much here and not just spanish either. It is wonderful and extremely hard. It is probably one of the most difficult things I have done, but the spirit is so strong and keeps telling me I can do it. The spanish is hard to learn but I am really surprised at how much I understand already. We have already given 3 lessons to our first investigator (in Spanish) The first two were a little rough but the thrid one I think we actually got through to her. Her name is Elisa by the way. The food is awful and does stuff to you which is NO BUENO!! but other than that the MTC is great. I would like to hear how you are all doing next week. But in other News I get to go to the Temple today so that should be good, its what I've been looking forward to the whole time I've been here. And also this coming Sunday the Prophet will be giving a devotional at the Marriot Center and I will be in attendance, which is going to be great. On this last Sunday we had a devotional from the head of the missionary department of the church and it was fantastic and is the first devotional to ever make me cry in public then as the night went on we watched a video about Jacob and the Savior's atonement, which made me cry even more. It was really good and I have never felt the spirit so strongly before. Anyway I am really glad to be here serving the lord and yo se que Jesucristo es el salvador y que Dios es nuestos Padre Celestial y yo se que Presidente Monson es el verdadero profeta y Jose Smith es un verdadero profeta. En elnombre de Jesucristo, Amen. I love you all and I look forward to hearing from you all Con Amar, Elder Lee P.S. It's short because I'm now technically over time but it will be better next week. Please forward to anyone else that I missed. Thanks