I Went to the Mountains - May 20, 2012

Hola Mom! I really really loved talking to you. I can’t believe how much time flew by. I like talking with you and felt like I was just about right there sitting in the living room. This week we had a couple training meetings for the District and Zone leaders. I had to talk on both days about changes with finances. It was kinda hard cause I got a sore throat this week and my voice was gone. After the conferences we went on divisions. I went to Mazate and the people we went to interview were asleep and the woman was not home. So we went to visit someone else. It was not very productive of a night. The road to get there is a little rock road. It was raining really hard and driving on the road in the pickup was crazy. The road was so uneven with big dips and hills. On the way back I was having fun on that road. My comp was talking on the phone and I was driving over this terrible road kinda fast. We were all bouncing everywhere; he was struggling talking on the phone. I just kept laughing. I really loved driving on this road. You know how I love driving trucks and cars off-road. The next day we went back to Mazate for divisions, but before we left we had to do some errands here in Reu. When we got there for an interview the zone leaders said they had gone to do it. So we didn't really need to be there. We went to get a reference from a member. We parked our truck in a field by this house and asked them if it was ok. We contacted the house and found out that one of the women there was an inactive member. We set up an appointment with them. We went to the member that had the reference for us. You'll never imagine where she took us, back to the house we contacted. We talked with another woman that was an inactive member and her husband. They are a great family. The husband really understood what we were teaching him. It was kinda late when we started talking to them outside their house. We spent about 45 mins talking to them standing in front of their house. They don’t have power so we were reading from the scriptures and teaching using a flashlight. So we set up an appointment to come back when it was day and we could all see better. Saturday in the morning 4 of us from the office and President’s son played basketball against a Guatemalan team. It was a really good game but really hot. We never really practice and don’t normally play together as a team. It took some time to really get our strategy worked out. The other difficult thing was there were only 5 of us and about 12 of them. We played for about an hour. I and everyone else were so tired from playing the entire time. They got to switch out players so they had a bit of an upper hand. I think we are going to play against them next Saturday. That should be fun. After the game Elder Evans and I went to San Pedro in the mountains for the stake conference. It was raining all day. At the Saturday adult session only about 8 people were there. For the priesthood session only 9 or 10 showed up. It was very different for me being at a stake conference where you could count the number of people on two hands. We stayed at the zone leader’s house. It was a bit chilly but I really liked it. I wore a long sleeve shirt and did not sweat at all. That was so nice. I really love the weather in the mountains. It is like early fall in Utah. Today the conference was a lot better. There were about 578 people. President of course gave wonderful talks about baptism and the importance of member missionary work. The other really good talk was Pres Perez from the Xela temple. His talks about missionary work and the temple were amazing. I learned a lot. He said there is a lot of doctrine he wants to share but it is things only for the temple. I would love to spend an hour in the temple talking with him and learning so much. I want to talk with the temple president when I get home and learn even more doctrine and things from him there. He shared some great scriptures about temples and the blessings of ordinance work. I thought of you during his talk. I really want you to get a current temple recommend. How is your progress with that? So I really liked the mountains. The weather was great and there are some great members there. I think I am going to San Pedro and San Marcos in a couple weeks when President does interviews. I will be doing inventories of the houses and getting them the things that they need. I’m excited to go back. I might want to talk with President about the possibility of going there at some point when I leave the office, have an area there. I do have to admit though that I dozed off for part of the conference. I was just really tired. I slept for a long time in the car on the way back. The car rides still put me out every time. Well it sounded like you and Jess are doing very well. I felt bad though after our Skype. I didn't even say hi to Scott. I saw him once in the background but I didn’t say anything. Tell him sorry and that I say hello. I hope he is doing well. I have some more pics I will be sending to you soon. I hope you have a wonderful week. Tell the family I love them all. I pray that you are safe and healthy. Have a wonderful week filled with happiness and love. I can’t wait to read your letters and talk to you again this next week. I love you so much and words during Skype and now cannot express how thankful I am to be your son and have you in my life. I can’t explain how much I love you. So know that if I was there I would give you a big J hug. Love you so much, Elder J