Someone broke into my car!

 Hola otra vez,

You know, this is one of those weeks where nothing really happened. I feel like I worked really hard but at the end of the week nothing really changed. I'm currently sitting in a foldable chair at my church building trying to think of some things that actually happened this week. These weeks go by so fast sometimes I forget if anything actually happened haha. I'll probably think of a title for the email halfway through writing it.

First, my friends that I'm teaching are progressing a bit more. We have found a lot of new people to teach but the only ones that will be baptized pretty soon are Buddy and Rose. Right now, they want to be baptized but they haven't set a for sure date yet. They're noncommittal about it which is fine for right now, but pretty soon I'd like them to be ready for a date. Sometimes its frustrating when things don't go our way or as planned but its good to remember that we are on the Lord's time.

Every night we've decided to read the Book of Mormon with Eric, he's a 9 year old who is super awesome. His older sister and mom were interested at one point but now it's just Eric. They still go to sacrament meeting and Eric loves primary soooo... I don't know why this family won't let us teach them. Its kinda frustrating. I think next time we're with them we will just ask them what the deal is and why they won't read or study with us but they'll go to church. Right now I think its just to support Eric because he loves church and the Book of Mormon. Eric just comes outside at around 6:00 and we'll read the book of Mormon with him on the curbside. This 9 year old doesn't really know anything about Jesus Christ and his mom is okay with him meeting with us just not her. She is apparently okay with him being baptized too. So yeah it's just wacky. No one else we're teaching seems to be as promising as them though. 

Here are a couple of fun things that happened last week. We found a crock-pot in the apartment and a bunch of slow cooker recipes so now we're going to go hard with the crock-pot. I'm honestly so excited to be using it. No more crepes, Ramen, Mac and cheese for dinner. We're feasting every night from now on. We went to primary class with Eric and that was a wild experience. I haven't been in primary since I WAS in primary. It was a lot of fun! Singing time with 9 year olds is always lit. Right now in Las Vegas its slowly getting into the 100s and its no longer fun. Now we have to plan our street contacting times accordingly. Clouds are also the best thing ever in the world. Like for real clouds come in clutch. It changes like 15 whole degrees when there is a cloud above you. Also, talking with all these people that speak Spanish has really helped my Spanish. I can understand people a lot better! Unless they're from El Salvador or something. Like I can't understand those guys at all. 

Zone Conference training

Goofing off during a video we were trying to record

Oh here is something that might be kinda interesting. My car got broken into! Yay... yeah so basically Elder Caldwell forgot to lock the car and in the middle of the night some dude opened our car and just took a bunch of stuff. He didn't touch our bibles or copies of the Book of Mormon but he did finesse Elder Caldwell's wallet. That sucks so bad. He lost like 40 bucks and his drivers license. He's not going to be able to drive at all on the mission ever so that really blows chunks. I fortunately never leave my wallet in the car so that's good. I guess Elder Caldwell learned his lesson. Some homeless dude probably is so hyped to have a 19 year old's ID and 40 bucks. We called our vehicle coordinator and he roasted us. We absolutely got flamed. So yeah, lock your car. 

Our Zone

Another thing that was pretty awesome was giving a talk (basically a sermon in our church) in sacrament meeting. I gave about a 15 minute talk and it was about how we can all be missionaries. It was honestly the best talk I've ever given. I dropped some absolute massive bombs at the pulpit. Not to flex or anything, but I can speak. I may suck at basketball and I'm not that musical, but I can talk for 15-20 minutes about random stuff. I'm pretty bad at everything but I can successfully write and speak. My companion had an interesting experience with his talk too. He didn't write anything down and winged a 15 minute talk. Like he probably did 7 minutes but I extended mine a little bit so it all worked out. He had this bass fishing analogy to missionary work and it was pretty funny. He tried this humorous approach and no one laughed so it was mega awkward. Plus he roasted our bishop at the pulpit and I was just like, "bruuuuuhh."

I like to think that missionary work really benefits from strong members. We as missionaries try to build member trust so that way they trust us with people to teach. I've found its the same way with God. Why would he trust us with the elect people to teach if we aren't worthy of those elect people? Sometimes in life we need to build Lord trust, kinda like member trust. We want to show the Lord that we are worthy of his blessings and help when we do things like pay our tithing or read the scriptures. Stuff like that. I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking of that analogy all by myself, unless someone's thought of it before. In my mind I figured it out all on my own.

I'm so thankful for the blessings I receive as a missionary, I don't know where I would be without them. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that this is God's church in the Latter-Days. I hope you all have a great week and I will see you all soon!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack 

I got the vaccine! (Part 2)

 Hola otra vez! 

Its so nice to write again this week! So many things happen throughout the week that it's getting hard to remember everything. It's for sure a roller coaster and after a couple days you're just like "what the heck actually happened." After around 30 days I finally got the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine! I got it on the 20th of May and at first it really wasn't that bad. My arm stung for the first day but other than that I was doing well. Then I woke up the next day and I just felt like I got hit by a bus. I was so tired and my body was sore and I just was like "what the actual bruh." But I still went with my day, we had two lessons that day and I just was not in the best mindset to teach. Ibuprofen really helped but once it wore off I was so tired. Then I woke up the next morning and was completely normal. Everything was fine! 

We met a new person named Lesa the other day! We asked if we could share a message with her and she was like sure I got time. So we taught her the Restoration lesson and how God loves her and all that stuff. Then we talked about prophets and the Bible and then talked about the Book of Mormon. It doesn't replace the Bible but it is another witness that Jesus is the Christ. We gave her a copy and asked her to pray to ask God if it was true. So the next morning we texted her to see if she prayed and she said that she did! She prayed at night and in the morning. We asked her about what she thought and how she felt and she was like "I felt great!" So we're just like yeah that's The Holy Ghost telling you its true and she's like "yeah I know." It was pretty cool to be honest.

Most people I teach struggle with praying over the Book of Mormon. They either forget or just choose not to. Like I literally don't get that. All you have to do is read from it and ask God with a desire to know and if you listen carefully and wait, you will feel the Holy Ghost. I taught this one guy named Wendell once and this guy was taught for like years and would never read the Book of Mormon or pray about it. That's so ridiculous! Faith requires work, like any muscle you need to exercise it. If you want to know if its actually true then read from the book and pray. Just start with 5 minutes a day! If you're taking lessons then this really isn't that much of a hard requirement because its just 5 minutes each day. Anyways that's my rant, just read the book please. 

Buddy got out of the hospital! Let's goooooo! He and Rose went to the ward picnic too and got to meet a lot of people. It was pretty cool! He is so elect but we just haven't put him on date to be baptized due to random things getting in the way. During church, Rose learned about all the experiences the early Saints had to go through and she started crying. Its kinda interesting to think that people don't even know about the early pioneer saints and all the persecution and garbage they went through. The life they lived with all the hate was brutal and then on top of that to live through everything on their trek west. Just the fact that Joseph was willing to die for The Book of Mormon, something that critics say he fabricated, was amazing! Why would he give a fire testimony of the Book of Mormon right before he knew he would meet his creator. If he made up this book, was murdered, then met God, well it would be really awkward. No man, so focused on God and gaining eternal life, would ever do that! 

Elijah, Leanna, and Eric are not making really good progress, and I honestly don't really know what to do with them. Elijah could be baptized but won't stay active at all. This ward probably wouldn't support him and I know for a fact that his grandmother is not taking him to church. I'm just in a pickle right now.

We met this lady a couple days ago and she was so interesting. This lady was never baptized or anything and she has no friends in the Church but when we ran into her street contacting, she gave the most fire testimony of temples. She said that they were the closest place you could go to feel God's presence. We're just like wow! That's so awesome! You should come to church with us and she was like no I'll never be baptized. You should've seen Elder Caldwell's face. He squinted and was like "bruh??" So one thing about Elder Caldwell is when someone says their not interested, then he immediately gives up and speed walks away. I'm kinda hesitant on doing that sometimes, some people just need you to say the right words and they will be a bit more intrigued. For example, with this lady. Elder Caldwell is about to dip and I grab him and I'm just like wait a second elder. "So let me get this straight, you believe that temples are of God and just being on the temple grounds you can feel his presence?" She's says yep. So I said, "Have you ever been inside?" No but I've seen pictures. "Would you like to go inside?" She was a bit more intrigued after that. She said that we could come over next week and talk about temples and what she can do to go inside one day. We even got her phone number. So we'll see how far this will go with her but hopefully we can help her feel the spirit that she feels when she is around the temples. 

Just a couple things before I end the email! So first of all, now the mask ban has lifted in church and a lot of other places in Nevada. It's pretty hype so now we don't have to wear masks in church. If you still want to social distance and have masks on then there is a section really far away so people can do that. But I'm like so excited just to sit there and not have a mask on. Its so cool. Next I had a fun experience on Friday. The Lord takes such good care of his missionaries. Like he is literally in the details of my life. So usually I have water with me so I don't die in the desert.  This time I didn't and I was really thirsty. We were walking down this road in 98 degrees and I was like, "yeah I'm pretty thirsty." We had already been walking for an hour. Elder Caldwell offered to turn around to the car to go get some water but I thought for a moment and said "no, I have faith." And then not even 5 steps later a random truck pulled up and said we looked thirsty, gave us some water, and drove off. 30 seconds after saying out loud that I needed some water I was walking around with a cold water bottle in my hands. Little things like that happen so much as a missionary and its crazy! 

A random walker in our apartment???

Anyways this week was pretty wack, honestly. Life with Elder Caldwell is pretty crazy. He is just insane and I'm just kinda like going with the flow. But life as a missionary is good. I'm thankful for this opportunity to be here and I hope you all have a great week! 

The view out of my apartment

Our kitchen

Our apartment

Sincerely,

Elder Pack