Skyping with Elder Lawrence December 25, 2015

It was so much fun to Skype with Elder Lawrence on Christmas day!!!  He looked amazing and sounded so great!  We love him so much and are so proud of the wonderful missionary that he has become!!!  Here is a little video clip of him sharing his beautiful testimony with us in Spanish.

6 Months and Merry Christmas!!!

Hey Hey fam :)

Wow... I really can't believe only 6 months left in my mission... it kinda scares me! haha Like I am excited and everything but yeah wow!!! Time flies! :)

I am doing way good this week!! Everything is going great with me and Elder Landt! I can't believe that we have already been together for two full transfers! The time went way fast!!! Yeah we will see what will be happening this week if I get transferred or if Elder Landt will or if we will stay together!!! I will be kinda sad if I leave because Mara and Mailen are super super close to being baptized! I think I will for sure be here to go to their wedding but I don't know about the baptism... we will see though!!

I am glad to hear that Kam and E ended up with some good grades! That's pretty awesome! and that's pretty drama filled all that stuff that's going on with the cheer coach! Haha we will see if they get a new cheer coach next year!

I'm pretty jealous that you might get some snow on Christmas!  If you do, you will have to take the web cam outside so I can see it! haha :) speaking of skype, yeah that time sounds perfect! So I will plan on skyping you guys at 2 o'clock here. So that should be about 10am your time! Elder Landt is going to skype before me so I will probably go just right after him which should be right around 2:00pm! well, our plan to skype with these one members wasn't sounding too good because they said their internet keeps going in and out, but they gave us their web cam to borrow and we talked with the bishop and he got everything worked out for us to skype at our church! It's a pretty nice computer and good wifi so I think everything should go smoothly!!! I will give you a call or something if plans change but yeah just plan on that! :)

Well I am going to keep this email a little short because we will be talking here in a few days on skype! I am wayyy excited! All the missionaries are getting excited to skype and so am I! Get some questions ready or something! haha :) I love you guys tons!!! I hope you guys have a great/safe Christmas week and Chistmas Eve!!! Enjoy the cold! Cold Christmas's are where it's at! haha Chau chau. :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

 We made this giant awesome pizza with a part member family!!!

 Weird random picture from Zone Conference this past week!

Elder Christensen and Elder Mortensen... both studs!

December 14, 2015

Hey Hey familia! This month really is cruising by!!!

Sounds like you guys had a jammed pack week!!! Oh, I gotta tell you before I forget, I loved that wedding video of Bryson and Taylee!!! That was way good! haha man I totally missed out on an awesome wedding! But it's all good, I am super happy here. :) Looks like Kamrie had fun at Sadies and stuff! That's cool you guys chaperoned the dance! Also I am glad to hear the ward party was a success! No I don't think we even have a ward Christmas party planned here so that's super lame.

Everything is going good here!!! Man it is getting sooo hot though! I am way glad I have that little chap stick sunblock thing or else my face (especially my nose) would be completely fried by now!  We have some sweet plans for Christmas though! We are going to go spend Christmas back in Albardon! Elder Mortensen invited us to go up there with them and spend the night! We are going to make some Asado and play some sports! It's going to be way fun! Oh by the way I'm a little jealous that it might snow there this week, because it's going to be like 100 degrees here! haha

Our investigators are doing good! We got 2 new sweet investigators this week! Named Eli and Brian! They live in this barrio that we never really worked in before! They are super cool and super sincere. We didn't have a ton of time to talk when we first met them but we shared a good scripture with them and set up an appointment to come back. They are way cool though!

We also had an awesome lesson with Mara and Nestor this week!!! We shared a scripture about Christmas and how Jesus Christ was born for us. They really liked it a lot. After the lesson Nestor told us he had some news for us... he said "Elders I have to let you know that me and Mara wont be going to church again until we are married" and that made me way sad when he said that..... but then he continued by saying "but I have my vacaciones (Christmas break) the 20th of December, and we will be finishing our tramites and be getting married over the break so Mara can be baptized!" and we were soooooooooooooo HAPPY!!!! That was like the best news I have ever heard! Also Mailen (Their daughter) just turned 8 and she wants to be baptized too! We are hoping to baptize them both on the same day! It's going to be sooo awesome. I am going to be pretty sad if I get transferred because I won't be able to be there for the baptism or anything... Transfers are on the 29th so we will see if I stay for 1 more transfer or if I am leaving!

Oh yeah I almost forgot to tell you, President Goates is counting Christmas as our P-day for that following week so I won't be writing you guys on the 28th! Yeah just a little heads up. :)

Well yeah just wanted to let you guys know I am doing great! I am loving the area and the people in it. :) Let me know what time you guys are wanting to skype at and everything! Like in the morning or afternoon or whatever. We are still working on finding a good place to skype... we have a couple options but I just want to pick the best one!  I hope you guys have a great week! You guys are the BEST. I love you!

Love, Elder Lawrence

PS... Kody is thinking about Dixie too and I am pretty positive that's where Lincoln is going... I told Elder Landt I feel like Joseph Smith when he was trying to find which church was true, but I am just trying to find which of all the schools I should go too! haha but yeah we can talk about this later. :)

 Just a little girl with a turtle!

 Elder Landt broke my scissors trying to cut some cardboard, but fear not, my sewing kit came in handy and some thread saved the day! haha

 Happy Birthday Mailen!!!

This was the bounce house at Mailen's Birthday party!

Just me chilling with Santino and Gordo, I don't really know Gordo's real name, but yeah Gordo means fat in spanish. 

 Mailen

Selfie at the party!

December 7, 2015

Hey Hey whats up fam! Sounds like you guys are all doing good! Yeah I can't believe it's already the 7th of December! This month is cruising! Everything is going great here!

That's pretty lame about Dad's new work schedule! I hope it's only for 6 months! That's pretty cool that he can take his lunch break and go to Sacrament meeting! Yeah you should try to get your Fridays off too so you guys can hang out and go to the temple that day. :)

That's cool E-dog is already starting back up in baseball! Hopefully he likes it. but hey, if he doesn't he can always do tennis like me! If he was to play all four years of high school he would be a total stud by his senior year! How awesome would that be?? but it's up to him. :) and dang Kamrie has a ton of tardies! haha is she on her phone a ton? I feel like in all the photos I see of her she is holding it in her hand. haha!

Glad to see all the decorations up in the house! I love all the decorations! I think Elder Landt and I should buy a tree or something because we have nothing this year for Christmas decorations! I am also way excited to skype! I will probably give you more details in the next few weeks so we will know better what time and everything! I have talked to a couple members so I think we should be good to have a good computer and everything to skype! :)

Like I said everything is going good here!!! This week was a little harder than usual, this past week we had kinda dedicated all the mornings to finding a new pension, because our contract is going to expire and our dueños (owners) want to raise the rent! So yeah we talked to the Pensionista and he told us that we should go find a new pench! So I have been on and off the phone calling a bunch of houses we have seen and we tried to meet with a couple of them but they only want to sell the houses and not rent them out and we can't own houses as a mission... so we are still looking! Other than that our investigators are doing good! Yeah sometimes agency makes me mad, don't get me wrong because I love that we have the freedom to choose but yeah just sometimes people here just choose to do nothing! This lady in our ward shared this little story thing in her testimony yesterday and I want to share it with you guys:

So, There is a man sitting outside on his porch doing nothing, just sitting there watching people go by... Is the man doing good or bad? Is he doing good because he is doing nothing bad?..... or is he doing bad, because he is doing nothing good.... yeah, it just gets you thinking a little bit!

We are just going to keep working hard! We invited a couple of people to be baptized this week but both had reasons to say no for now... I am just going to keep working way hard and inviting more people than ever! This is like almost my last 6 months so I am just going to keep working hard as ever! Thanks for your guys support and prayers always! I love you guys tons! I hope you all have a great week! I laughed way hard that I accidentally sent my email last week to only Kody and not you! Glad you caught that because I would have never noticed! and no I haven't received a letter yet from Grandma for Thanksgiving but I will be excited to get it now! :) That's cool about Amanda Perry getting her mission call as well!

I love you guys! Have a good week! :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

             (Sorry the photos came out weird... I am using a computer from the 80's I think)

Pictures 1&2...These kids are part of a part member family that we started going by a couple weeks ago! The kids are awesome and have been coming to church more now!

Pictures 3&4...These are our zone jerseys!!! They totally butchered my last name! haha! whatever I still like it. :) It is number 10 because this is the zone that is known for getting 10 with member!

Picture 5...Street art

,

Happy Thanksgiving! and 17 months!!!

Hey Hey Fam!

Happy Thanksgiving! I totally forgot that it was Thanksgiving week!  We totally spaced it and didn't do anything for it! It's alright we had a way awesome Asado yesterday with some members and I feel like that kinda made up for it!

First I want to say thanks for the Thanksgiving videos! I laughed way hard!! I loved all the things everyone said! I see that Grady is growing out a sweet beard once again! haha But yeah thanks for all the pictures and videos! I am thankful for the best family ever! I love you all tons!

Glad to hear Bryson and Taylee had tons of fun on the cruise! I miss the cruise! we gotta still keep that in mind for afterwards haha! and that's lame you guys didn't like Mockingjay part 2 all that much.. yeah I have totally missed part 1 and 2 now! I will have some catching up to do when I get home!

We are doing way good here! Our investigators are doing good! We found a way solid new family! Their names are Gaston, Lorena, Brian, Joel and Gonzalo! They are wayyy awesome. The very first time we met them they were just like "Hey do you guys like churizo?(sausage)" and we were like yeah and so they made us a ton of churipan! It was way good! and we got to know them way good that day and what they are all about. The dad was baptized back when he was super young but now that his family isn't around he hasn't been to church in like 20 years. His wife hasn't ever been and same with the kids. We are hoping they will come this week with us! We made one of the cookie packets with them the other day from the package I got! It was funny too because on the package it said "soften the butter, do not melt." and I was just like "oh whatever I will just melt it and then put it in" So Lorena melts it on the stove and then I tell her to pour it into the batter and then boom, all the chocolate chips are instantly melted! haha so they looked like brownie cookies or something! Everyone was like "why don't they look like the cookies on the cover??" haha The cookies still turned out way good though. :)

We also re-found this lady named Sonia and she is super awesome! It was funny because she told me that I looked a lot like one of the first Elders that talked to her. Well she showed us that the Elders had wrote their names in her Book of Mormon over a year ago. She pointed to one of the names and she is like yep that's the Elder you look like! and guess who it was? Elder Willard! haha this is the area that he was born in! (started the mission in) yeah she said he didn't speak Spanish but she remembers him looking like me! haha I thought it was funny, I guess we look a little alike, just a little. :)

So guess what, we will be skyping in less than a month!!! wha hoo!!! I am super excited! It really has been a way long time since we skyped last! I will have to start asking around to some members if we can skype in their house... I have a couple families in mind so it should all work out. :)

Well, everything is all good in the hood here! Its getting pretty dang hot here. I have been using that sunblock stick for the past week and I think it saves my life! I am loving the mission! I have made some way good friends here in this area. I put Elder Landt on phone duty for this transfer and I think he is liking it! I always wanted my trainer to let me carry the phone and do the calls but he never did. So yeah everything is going way good here with Elder Landt! We are happy and working hard! I hope you guys have a great week! Oh and don't worry I have been writing pretty good in my journal recently! I love you guys soooo much! be safe and remember who you are. ;)

Love, Elder Lawrence

This computer I am on today is super slow and I kinda forgot to take photos this week so here is one photo from this week. We did some service again for Mara and Nestor and we planted a garden!

November 23, 2015

Hey Hey family! My now even bigger family! Bryson is officially a married man! That's way crazy to me. I feel like when Bryson was on his mission nothing really changed at home, but the second I go, everyone starts getting married and growing up and stuff! Haha its just crazy. But hey, I am super glad it all turned out great! I was praying a TON for you guys!!! I was praying that maybe the weather would be bad here so that the weather would be good there in Hurricane! and guess what, it was mega windy on Saturday here!!! haha so maybe it worked! :)

It really sounds like everyone had a great experience with the wedding! All the food sounded great as well! I want some bread bowls and soup and pumpkin pie and stuff!  It all sounds great. :) I probably would have been super sad on Saturday because I couldn't be there, but a tender Mercy happened just before that day... I got your guys Christmas Package!!!!!! What happened was we were in the offices on Tuesday because we had the 2nd part of the training meeting that day, and I go to look in the box that holds all the letters for missionaries to see if I got anything and there was a package slip for me! The package had arrived 8 days before which is exactly the amount of days it will stay in holding until it starts costing money, so I sign it and Elder Romero happened to be going that day to get more letters and packages and so he was able to pick mine up for super cheap!!! It just happened to all be perfect timing!!!! So instead of being sad on Saturday, I just ate jerky and pistachios!!! haha :) Thanks a ton for the package! I love it!!!

So yeah the meeting with the 70 went good! His name is Elder Ulisses Soares! He is from Brazil! He talked a lot about planning and setting goals and stuff! At one part he asked us to pull out our agendas and he was going to look at them or something and I was kinda freaking out... like don't get me wrong, my agenda is way good filled out!! but yeah it was just funny. :) It was awesome because I got to introduce Elder Landt to basically all of my old comps except for Elder Connolly! He met Apodaca, Perez, Willard, and Lillie!  It was way good seeing all of them too! They all are ending their missions pretty soon!

Speaking of endings of missions, we got an email today from President Goates saying that all missionaries will be staying a week later in their missions because the MTC changed the English speaking missions from 2 weeks in the MTC to 3 weeks... so yeah instead of coming home the 14th of June it will be the next week after so the 21st of June! Not a super big deal to know right now but yeah just thought I would tell you! :) I think this is for every mission in the world!

Well I don't have a lot more time to write! I will write more about investigators and stuff next week!! I am loving the area and everything! I cant believe I have already been in this area for 3 months! Thanks for all the support and prayers! I loved all the photos from the wedding and I liked the cut out of me!!!! haha :) I am not sure if I really am that tall but we can all just imagine that I am. ;) I hope you guys have a great week! I love you guys tons! save some wedding cake for me! haha

Love, Elder Lawrence

Just when I first got the package!

 Thanks again so much for the package! It's the best!

 Chilling on the bus after the conference! We decided to go with a funeral theme to the meeting. Black suits, black ties!

 Someone snagged some photos of me at Bryson and Taylee's reception. Just chatting with people and me posing with some peeps for a photo! Hahahah I hope this is as funny to you as it was to me!

November 16, 2015

Hey Hey mi familia!

Everything is going great here!! I can't believe how fast the time went because now Bryson and Taylee are getting married this Saturday!!! I feel like it was just yesterday that Bryson proposed and everything!!! I really wish I could be there, but I know I am exactly where I need to be. :) You will just have to make sure and have someone film it all for me!!! I have been keeping the wedding and everything in my prayers so I hope it all goes smoothly!!!

So yeah we got our transfer calls!!! and fear not, me and Elder Landt are staying together! I am way excited that we are staying together for another transfer! We make a good team and I am working harder than ever! We have some way solid investigators and are always looking for new ones! I am feeling a baptism this transfer. :)

This week it was pretty hard to get a ton of work done in our area! We had to go to the offices Wednesday night so that we could do my tramites Thursday morning early, but then we had to stay till Friday so that me and Elder Landt could both finish up our tramites! Now we are just waiting on our DNI's to come. I had to go and take a new photo for my new DNI and my face looks more full (not fat) than the photo I had to take a year ago! hahah ;) While we were in Mendoza on Thursday night we got to go work in my old area! We tried to go visit Ariel but he wasn't there :( but we were able to talk to his kids and they remembered me! It's already been 3 months since I left the offices!

So tomorrow morning everyone is going to Mendoza because someone from the Quorum of the 70 is coming to talk to our mission! We have to wake up at 4:30 am and be out of our pench by 5:00 am!!! haha I will be tired for sure, but it will be way cool because we are going to be able to see all the other missionaries in the mission! 

So something cool I found out with Transfers is that Elder Apodaca is going to be training!!! He is way excited. Him and Elder Perez are both in their last 2 transfers! Pretty crazy stuff! Also there is a new Secretary and Financiero now!!! Yeah mine and Elder Mortensen's replacements in the offices are already training someone to replace them!!! super crazy! The new Secretary is named Elder Ruesch, I don't really know him too much but he should be good! and the new Financiero is Elder Oveson! He is a boss! I remember doing his tramites and he is just a way good Elder and I can totally see him in the offices!

Well just know, you are all in my prayers a ton this week!!! I will keep praying for good weather and that everyone will travel safely so don't worry! I know everything will go great! I know it will be such a special day that you will all always remember! I sent Bryson a quick little email so you should tell him to look at it. :) I love you guys soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo MUCH! Good luck this week! The next time I email you all Bryson will be a married man!!! That is super crazy to me. I hope you all have a great week and I can't wait to see tons of photos from the wedding and the reception! You guys are the best family ever. :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

 Cool old catholic church from my area in Godoy Cruz Centro!

 The dynamic duo... Elder Landt/ Elder Lawrence

 I am becoming a way big fan of the action photos

Just a good little Hurricane High School reunion in the offices! haha :)