August 3, 2009

Hellllloooo everyone over in Utah
This week has been fantastic as always. IT RAINED THIS WEEK and we caught up to Nina Gonzalez. And dont you guys worry the TSAM is still here and cooking.
So first off we have Nina our downstairs neighbor. Nina has been in the hospital for the last few weeks getting her knee replaced. we had an awesome lesson with her. I cant go through all of it but the highlights are that she has chosen to come to The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint to learn the gospel. so we are stoked about that. She hasnt decided to "join" the church just yet but that will come with time.RAIN!!!! So for the 3rd time in 2 months it rained here in hondo. And its not like Utah rain where you can go play in it for 15 minutes before getting wet. When it rains here in texas its like a bucket of water comes from the sky and hits you in the Face SMACK! It was way sweet to feel cold for a day though. and it kinda greened thing up.
ANyway thats all for now.
Elder loveless

July 27, 2009

Alright so missionary work is a emotional roller coaster. the week has been a perfect example. This week we have gained 9 new Investiagators, WOOHOOO!!!!! But both Sylvia and johnny have been dropped, BOOOO. I guess easy come easy go.
Johnny- Johnny was in the hospital over the last week around thursday we were able to talk with him. Turns out like most people around her he has liver problems. While he was in the hospital he had alot of time to think about life though and i have to say it is one of the most rewarding thing ever to here your investigator say that he knows god has a plan for him. Boo Yah! In the end he still has some problems that he has to work out and he was dropped.Sylvia- So we have had an awesome appointment with our her and her family over the last week. Her daughter Sergina came to mutual. they all loved church last week. It was going good going good going good, and now we cant get a hold of she missed the last appiontment and we saw her and her family in the library and she completely avoided us. So we have no idea what happened to here whether we were to over bearing or she got antied or what but for now she is dropped.

Anyway that is all for now Talk to ya all next week
Elder loveless

July 21, 2009

So this week has been an awesome week but there is not to much to report on. We Found a sweet new family, we had had transfers.
Sylvia And Kids- So we found the sweetest family on Saturday. It is a single Mom Sylvia and her three kids. She has one daughter Surgina (13) and two sons Ricky(9), and Ezkiel(7). But Saturday we had a real long day with no success and so finally @ 8:30 before we were going to stop for the night we knocked into Sylvia. It turns out that she had been going through a rough time and had been praying for a church to go to, to find more knowledge and we show up. So we talk to her for about 45 minutes set up a ride for her to go to church. Next morning comes and has a fantastic experience. We set her kids up with Young womens and Cub scouts. Everyone is really excited.That is the end of the story so far because we havent been able to meet with them. But we have really big hopes for their family.
Johnny- Johnny is now in the hospital with ulsers so no new on him.
Transfers- So we had transfers this week and.... nothing changed we are both staying here in Hondo.
Anyway i was thinking about it and on August 25 i will have been on my mission for 6 months, a forth of my mission, which is crazy to think because it has flown by.Thats all for now but thanks you guys for your love and support. I love you all a ton.
Elder Loveless

July 13, 2009

Alright so this has been a great week over here in the TSAM. This week we had A BAPTISM with Eddy, an awesome experience with our next door neighbor, we had another lesson with Johnny, and when to the San Antonio Temple.

Eddy- So this week we got Eddy Baptized. It was sweeeet. He had his best friend Curtis Beck baptize him. It was a water side confirmation and Bro Beck confirmed him a member. All and all just a fantastic baptism. And like i said earlier since his family arent supportive at all with his decition, the Beck family are basically his home away from home. Eddy is a sweet kid and if he can stay out of the crap here in Hondo he is going to go far.

Nina- Alright so We just had a sweet experience with Nina our 60 year old Nieghbor right below us we have been teaching her son Alec for awhile and before that we had taught her for a while with no success (she has been doing bible studies with the J-w's and she cant remember anything past a day so). But she promised us that she was going to church this week and see what our church was like. Well right before church we went over to see if she was ready for church. She comes to the door looking horrible. She invites us in and about every third she is wincing in pain and grabbing her stomach. It turns out that she had a hernia in her stomach and she couldn't come. Earlier she went to the ER to get it fixed and they told her she need surgery. In the back of my mind i am thinking to give her a blessing, I ignore the prompting and continue talking. On the way out the door i get the prompting again this time i thought "you are going to refuse this women a witness of the power of the priesthood because you wont offer her a blessing. Come on just do it". So we give her the blessing. After it was done she waddled over to show us the dress she wanted to wear. Well we leave and go to church and about 15 minutes into sacrament meeting here comes Nina to go church. She looked greated and she not only stayed for the the 3 hours of church but the baptism afterwards and she didn't wince once, not once. so we made an appointment to talk to her and debreaf her about what went on in the baptism. It turns out when we left she got up and told herself "I am going to go surprise those boys". So she got up, put her dress on and went to church. We only live about a block from the church so it wasn't to far for her to walk. During our appointment later that night she said she "Just felt happy". And it was true when we were eating dinner before the appointment she never stopped moving, she was doing her laundry walking around the neighborhood. It was cool how she explained the feelings she felt while getting to blessing and while she was at church. She said she just felt cold all over ( or the chills) and then the pain was gone. There was also a ringing in her ear that she had been praying for it leave and in her ears and in her words: it was ringing ringing ringing and pop it stopped and i haven't heard it since. It was just the coolest experiences ever.

Johnny- This week we learned Johnny's mom is trying to ship him off to Houston. And we have had to post pone his Baptism for 2 week because of the word of wisdom. Sooo, we will see what is going to happen with him later. On a side note his two daughters and ex wife weren't able to come to church yesterday. We called them 10 minutes before church started and they said they were just on their getting to youngest boy, Juanhelio in his cloths and they would be there. I guess they got lost in transit.

Temple- We went to the temple this week. Its cool because it is a small temple but out of the small temples it is was the most expensive per-square of any other temple. I don't know what it what but it just reminded me of the Shire off of Lord of the Rings. I think it was that All of the stain glass windows on the outside where of either the forest or of grain, all the doors had circles on them and there was a very short man in there. Anyway past that it was a very cool temple.

Raschel- Tell Kelani and jimmy that my arm feels great and that her prays worked!!!!
Mom- Alice is johnny's ex wife and we are trying to first get her approval before we can get Sabrina and Vacilia baptized, But she wont give her apporval until she comes to church but she seems to be having troubles coming to church so...yeah. And Thank you for trowing away the Crisco
Everyone Else- I read your emails and i loved them i just dont have time to write back to them

see yeah

Elder loveless

Written July 6

We have been stressin out here in hondo with johnny's baptism. we got it all planned everyone's talks assigned and then he didnt show up. Not only that we talk to his daughters mom and she wants to make sure that her kids know what they are getting themselves into so they werent able to get baptized either. We had a great fourth of july though at a members house so that was fun.Johnny De la Rosa-- We have been work real hard with johnny this week. it the past johnny was a fighter mainly on the streets. Along with that he drank alot and smoked alot. Basically he has had a real rough life and his old lif seems to be caughting up with him alot, now that he is trying to change.And we knew that he was slipping with his cigarettes and fighting. So this week we have been basically in daily contact with him and give him as much support as possible. For the 4th of july we knew satan was going to test him hardcore. So we set up Bar-B-Que with one of the members that he could go to and get away from his house. and meet with him that day to make sure he was coming. We meet with him and he seemed pritty tired real loopy and we learned he has an ulser that he has to go get blood for. He said he was coming and so we left. At the bar-b-que we called him. He didnt answer. Called again. He didnt answer.We didnt hear from him till the family that normally picks him up for church came in with out him. It turns out after we left he took a nap, slept through the BBQ, and then woke up at 2 o clock in the morning and starts tring to find something to do. When he went out into the street in front of his house his ex-wifes uncle calls him over to him. when johnny gets there he starts provoking him. provokes him alittle more and the WHAM clocks him across the face. We had talked to johnny about not fighting and just walking away to he turn around after just getting hit and tries to walk away. the uncle then turns him around again and WHAM clocks him again. So then johnny got into it with his uncle. Needless to say, he was in no shape to get baptized and when Elder Tervort went over to his house his teeth were bleeding and his jaw was swollen up. Earlier in the week we went and talked to Johnny's ex-wife Alicia about her daughters getting baptized. She wanted to wait and make sure that they knew what they were getting into. but it was freakin sweet. So the mom turns to the 10 year old daughter and asked her what it meant to be baptized, expecting her daughter to know nothing about it, and sabrina, age 10 just goes off and tell her mom all about what we had taught her, all about the holy ghost, what happens at baptism when we get was clean of our sins. Then she starts going off about the sun, the moon, stars about the pre earth life tells us that she going to go to the sun. It was the most vindicating moments ever. She remembered what we had taught her. Just fantastic. Then we turn to the mom and asked her if she need to get any help getting to church to see johnnys baptism. She never came because we never had the baptism but it was still an awesome moment.Eddy-- I mentioned eddy in the last letter but Eddy is a former investigator from two transfers ago that appeared back on the map. He has been going to church with a family in our ward for a while and he is really familar with the church, Has freinds in the ward, basically he is a member but he just hasn't gotten baptized yet. the reason he didnt get baptized before was because he wasn't 18 and he didn't have a very supportive family. He now he is 18 so it solves both problems. Long story short he is getting baptized next week and he is STOKED. Nothing we do in missionary work is a sure thing but if there was ever a investigator that would get baptized it would be him.We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders this week i went to San Antonio, it was fun to speak alittle spanish again. By the way the BBQ on the fourth was fantastic we got chicken smoke with mesquite and had fun talking with the ward. Later we stopped tracking at 8 and went and did fireworks with another family in our ward, the Romeros. Oh and i think the mice have retreated because we have only caught 2 all week, which is good because the battle was starting to get alittle gorey and there was blood everywhere.
So that was my week
Mom-- it is good to hear that you are making new friend with the people around the blockRob-- What?Jannene-- Thanks for the love. And the apartment is great the only problem is that the mice seem to have the same oppinion.Raschel-- I need to work on my follow through but after that i will be the best dunker ever.G-Ma Loveless-- Thank you so much for the letters, I read them, I love them, I just hope one of these days i will be able to reply to one of them
Elder Loveless

Written June 29

Alright so i will start with the awesome news, This week we have 4 peeps with a Baptismal date, BOO YAH!!. We have Jonny and his daughter Sabrina, age 11 with a date this week the 5th, and Vacilia Johnny's oldest age 13, and Eddy Rodrigez next week the 12th. Johnny is going strong, we got his one his three youngest kids to come to church this week, which was sweet and... they loved it. Vacilia the oldest daughter was able to come to church but hopefully she will be hear of her sisters experience and get to church.
This week we have been having a war with Nature. Last week we figured out that our apartment has Mice, so we went to war. We now have 4 traps set at all time. so far we have killed 29 mice and counting. the mouse trap seems to be snapping at all times in the day. Our best day was wednsday when we caught 8 mice, at one point all 4 traps had mice in them. Our greastest triumph so far is the "two-fer", where we caught two mice on one trap at the same time, We got two-fer-one and yes we have pictures of it. I think we have scared the mice off when they saw that we were caughting them 2 at a time becuase we havn't caught any mice for two days.
Anyway everything is going good here. Everyone thankyou for you letters, love, and supported I couldnt do it with out you guys. Alright love ya all bye.
Elder Loveless

Written June 22

So Not much is going on here in Hondo.So our area from tip to tip is about 260 miles long we cover about 6 small towns out here, so it is huge.We are the only two missionarys for 50 miles so we stay pritty isolated from the rest of the mission out here. We have a truck which is nice becuase its an oven out here, This whole week it has been about 103 with the humidity. Most everyone speaks english out here even the Mexicans so i mostly speak english. My companion, Elder Trevort, is the district leader here which is cool. He is a way sweet missionary and works hard so it nice, it makes it easier to lose yourself in the work. He Got the flu over this last week and so we had two days where we stayed indoors. He is fine now i have been feelling great. We Got one investigator with a baptismal date over the last week, which is sick. His name is Johnny, oh and his daughter was sitting there listening intently so while it was our first time meeting her we got her with a target date too, Thats how we do it in the TSAM. But Elder Trevort knocked into Johnny Boy he is a single dad with 3 kids, he lives w/ his parents and everything so far has been going good. Satan seem to work the hardest on people right before they do something great and with Johnny we are starting to see that so we are starting to get nervious right now but hopefully everything will pan out. Well i hope ya all know by know that i love guys. I hope everything is still going good. I hope brother Jarvis is alright. Here is my new address for all ya all
2805 Avenue U #908 Hondo Tx 78861
Elder Loveless
Ps. Dad, HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!