Goodbye Greenie....

 Hola Todos!

Well, today is the end of the transfer and we got our transfer details. Unfortunately, my trainee and I are getting separated. I was so sad when I got the details. Elder Caldwell is staying in Vegas Zone and I am getting transferred to the Lone Meadows zone. I am big sad. However, my new companion is really awesome. I've been with him for like 12 hours and I already love him. His name is Elder Mcgee and he is from Utah. He is another ginger haha and is so awesome. Such a hard worker and diligent missionary, which is super good. I need to work hard. Our apartment is the oldest apartment in the mission but it is still a good apartment. There is a hole in the door to one of the rooms so that's a little odd. My new roommates are Elder Child and his new trainee. 

Saying goodbye to everyone in the previous zone was a little sad but I love meeting new people and transferring. I was especially sad to say goodbye to Elder Zuniga, my MTC companion who was in Vegas Zone with me. Getting to see more of the area and experience new companions is great. I'm excited to work in the area and I feel really comfortable in this ward. It's called the Cheyenne ward and it's pretty small which is great... but I'm on bike again. Its going to start being above 110 degrees and I really don't want to bike in that weather but it's the Lord's will. 

Elder Zuniga and I

I had a bunch of weird experiences happen while I was in that area. The people were so interested. I loved them, but they were interesting to say the least. A lot of experiences that I can't unsee for sure. A cool thing I got to do last week was eat sword fish with a member. I don't know why but every member dinner we had this week we ate fish. I do NOT like fish. Like I'll eat it if I had to, but if I have a choice I won't. I ate salmon this week and then swordfish the next day. When the Bishop rolled up with some swordfish I was like "bruh.... you've got to be joking." 

I met this lady named Debbie who was not interested in a message but she literally was my favorite person ever. We met her in our apartment complex and she came to our apartment every other day and gave us cookies, meatloaf, and a whole crock pot full of a Sunday roast. Debbie became the best person ever. She said she wanted to serve the Lord by serving us but didn't want to hear our message or be baptized. We were like "Debbie that literally makes no sense" but free meatloaf is free meatloaf.

We got to speak at a baptism for a random little kid in our ward and it was so cool. Elder Caldwell gave the funniest and most spiritual object lesson ever with a baseball and a glove. Ayson, the kid getting baptized, loved it! Elder Caldwell and I signed a baseball glove and gave it to him since he loved baseball and it was so cool.

Ayson's Baptism

I got my first "aggressive driving" on the mission. Our car has a device that detects our driving and monitors our speed and stuff. So an aggressive driving means that we took a turn too fast or slowed down to fast or got t-boned by a semi truck. I slowed down too fast and the car yelled aggressive driving at me. I was so angry because I've never gotten one before and didn't plan on it haha. I wanted to go my whole mission without getting one. Whatever I guess haha.... 

Homemade ice cream

Papusa

Making El Salvadorian Papusas

I want to share an experience I heard from Elder Sheridan and Dew, my roommates last transfer. They told me this story of a guy they are teaching and its so odd. So as an Elder for the Church, we can give blessings and stuff like that for people. This guy that these Elders were teaching was blind for a year! Basically, an Elder gave him a blessing and he literally received his sight. It was a miracle! However, even after months and months, this guy is still not baptized. He refuses to be baptized yet but he knows that the blessing was from God and it restored his sight. But he is halting his progression for some reason. This is a witness unto me that signs don't create conversion. We are converted and then we see signs. I hear of so many people that claim they would be baptized if they could see a sign but that'
s not how is works. Signs don't create conversion. 

Anyways I love you all and am so thankful that you are reading my emails. I hope you all have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack 

This is the Lord's work!

 Hola todos! 

It's crazy how fast this transfer went by! Transfer details come next week! I feel like I just got here with Elder Caldwell and now we could be leaving. It's going to be sad if I get transferred because I love the people here. The Elders I live with are especially incredible. Elder Sheridan is such a funny and hardworking Elder. He literally extended his mission so he could serve a little longer. I find that so noble, at least that's just what I think. He is finishing up his last transfer with Elder Dew in the Spanish branch. Elder Dew is so fun too. He is exactly obedient and it inspires me. They are just a powerful companionship. Elder Dew just learned he was going to be district leader next transfer and training a new missionary. Anyway, the area is really good and I will be big sad if I have to leave. 

We're still reading the Book of Mormon with Eric and playing basketball with his friends. His parents are showing a little more interest now too. We met his dad for the first time and he was so nice. He literally said he appreciated us stopping by and teaching Eric and playing with his friends. He says we're making a big impact on this 9-year old. We tried to see if we could teach his dad but he said he was super busy. But apparently all Eric does at home is talk about us and how cool we are. Eric's favorite Book of Mormon character is Nephi because he is the youngest brother in Lehi's family. He loves how even though Nephi was the youngest, he was the closest with God and he chose him to be a leader. Since Eric is the youngest and is learning about God and enjoying it, he relates to Nephi a lot. We just got done finishing reading Enos with him in the children's Book of Mormon and he loves it.

It was literally so funny, so Ann, Eric's mom, tried introducing this new idea of just going to church every other week instead of every week with the kids. She was trying to find an excuse not to go but Eric literally shot her down so fast. He was like, no mom, I will go to sacrament meeting EVERY WEEK! I cant afford to miss a Sunday! Afterwards I just started laughing, like Ann just got absolutely wrecked by that 9-year-old. I was like "Well Ann, the kids have spoken. Every week it is!" Eric inspires me so much. I want to have that same attitude for the rest of my life, "I cannot afford to miss any Sundays! I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded!" He's such an awesome kid. I really hope we can help him enter the waters of baptism one day and that his family will follow.

One of the most funniest things happened this week and scariest. I was so shook. So we were playing basketball with some of Eric's friends in the street. His neighborhood is legit pretty sketch. Like I wouldn't walk around after dark here ever. We hear some rap music in the distance and we see this guy riding a bicycle towards us. This dude straight up looked like Stevie Wonder and pulling up on a 50$ bike. He's blasting some random sound cloud rapper while he pulls out this gun from his pants. He starts laughing and shooting us with a jelly gun. Now at the moment I didn't realize it was jelly but I thought we were all going to die. Eric legit screams, "It's a drive by!!!!" Everyone was getting shot with the jelly gun and those things kinda stung. It was similar to airsoft or a BB gun. Like afterwards we laughed for a bit but it was pretty wack. Apparently the biker was the dad of one of the kids.

I won't discuss some of the stuff I see here in this neighborhood. It's pretty sketch. It reminds me exactly why I'm serving a mission. Because I want to help people, I see the people here and I want them to receive so many blessings from this gospel. What's cool is that we can talk with so many people here. We can find people to teach left and right. We found this one couple named Melissa and Brandon. We taught them the plan of salvation and they loved it so much. They seem like pretty solid people to teach who follow commitments. We found them while I was on exchanges with one of the zone leaders. It wasn't the best plan of salvation lesson but it had the spirit. It also had like 40 cats. Melissa had so many cats and they were just in love with us. 

Playing a board game on PDay called Root

Bruh! Its 109 degrees.

We put Elijah on date to be baptized! He hasn't been wanting to come to church though so we need a miracle. This kid just has no desire to come to church. I literally have no idea why Karen, his grandmother who is a member, is not pushing him to go to church. He is a good kid and keeps commitments but literally won't come to church. So yeah were kinda stumped! Buddy and Rose are also doing good. We couldn't teach them this week so that really threw a wrench in our plans. They're kinda worried about baptism but we just need to meet with them and then we can ease their concerns. 

Honestly I'm so glad I could be serving here in Las Vegas. This is exactly where I need to be and there are people I'm changing. I am also changing. My life now is so different and sometimes I can't recognize the person I'm becoming. It's pretty wild. Its hard but it's also so worth it. I am literally making an impact on peoples lives. I feel so awesome! By the way for all of those who emailed me, I unfortunately didn't get anytime to email. There were a lot of people I wanted to write but I ended up distracted. But anyways I wanted to share my testimony of Jesus Christ in Spanish before I closed the email.

Yo sé que este evangelio es verdadero. Testifico que a través del la expiación de Jesucristo podemos regresar a dios. He leído el libro de mormón y yo sé que es la palabra de dios. José Smith fue un profeta de dios y podemos recibir respuestas a nuestras preguntas. Si oramos para saber si este es verdadero, recibiremos un respuesta a través del espíritu santo. 

Gracias por tu tiempo y los amo!

Sinceramente,

Elder Pack 

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 

6 Months! I'm a quarter done!

 Hola!

On the 17th of May I hit my 6 month mark! Yay!! It's like a holiday here. I'm a quarter done with my mission, which is pretty exciting. I mean I'm not counting down or anything, but it's still pretty cool. This is flying by so honestly I'm going to be done in no time. I'm not in a rush because life has a missionary is super cool and fun. Kinda awkward but the laughs are real.

Okay so this email might be a little rushed, unfortunately, because I totally forgot to write and P-Day ends in a half hour so I'm just typing on my phone as fast as I can. We're still teaching Buddy and Rose but they're in the hospital right now and we're pretty worried for them. We haven't talked with them in a week! We're also teaching a girl named Calia and a kid named Elijah. They will probably be baptized pretty soon. We set a tentative date for Calia but she said she wasn't ready for it just yet. We're just like thinking, ummm yeah you are, but you just don't realize it yet. We basically told her that the baptismal date will be a goal to strive for, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be that day. She then proceeded to set her own date to some day in December and we're like what the heck? So we're gonna work with her on that because she is so ready. 

We have been finding people like crazy here which is pretty great. I've taught so many restoration lessons and that's been fun. Elder Caldwell is getting better at teaching which is exciting to see. I like throwing him into the deep end during lessons. I'll just be like, "and my companion would love to tell you more about that." He is getting good at improvising. Training is so fun haha. 

One fun thing that happened this week is that I got to go to the Stake President's house and make cookies! During quarantine he perfected the chocolate chip cookie recipe and now makes the most bomb cookies. We had to measure every thing down to exactness and I felt like I was in a lab or something. He has perfected everything about it through trial and error. We have a bunch of cookie dough now at the apartment haha. Afterwards a bunch of other missionaries showed up and I briefly mentioned I sang to the Stake President so he made me sing a song for everyone while his wife played on the piano. He was like "before we leave tonight, Elder Pack needs to sing a song for all of us." I was like what the heck! Why? But actually, I'm kinda glad I got to do that. It was a pretty good song and I'm not going to lie I wasn't too bad so that was neat. 

One of the most valuable lessons that I've learned as a missionary is that rice and chicken is a cheat code. Rice is literally so good and it goes with everything. I learned we have a rice cooker in the apartment so I started making rice with like every meal. It's so good. I hope one day that after my mission I can be a master cook but right now I'm going to start small. Rice and chicken though for sure is a mega cheat code to life.

I know its cliché now but I wanted to share a scripture! This scripture is in Doctrine and Covenants 63:9-10

It says: 

"9 But, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe.

10 Yea, signs come by faith, not by the will of men, nor as they please, but by the will of God."

I literally see signs everyday that there is a God, but you just have to have faith first. Signs don't come until you have that faith and if it's the will of our Father in Heaven. 

Anyways I love all of you and hope you all have a great week! 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack 

Adventures with my Greenie!

 Happy Mother's Day! 

I know you all are reading this like a week after Mother's Day, but I don't care. I got to have an awesome video call with my mom on Mother's Day! I was super thankful for that even though we talk every P-Day haha. This week was definitely much better than last week (mostly because we actually had food). I felt like we were also progressing really well with people we're teaching. We had Buddy and Rose at church the other day and Buddy said he wanted to come every week! We're going to put them on date to be baptized real soon (honestly we should have done that earlier haha). When they were at church, the whole ward fellowshipped them so much! Everyone introduced themselves and told them they that they were so excited to see them there. It was so cool! It made Buddy and Rose feel right at home. 

Elijah is another kid that we're teaching and he is progressing well too! He will probably be baptized before the end of the transfer as well. His grandmother is a member but hasn't been in a while and they ran into us a while back. Elijah was interested in playing basketball so we'd play basketball and then do a lesson. He was so eager to pray about the book of Mormon, it was awesome! He was also excited to learn about the Priesthood and that he could use it. He was like "wait, I can have God's power?" And we're like "heck yeah dude".

This area is crazy! We find people to teach super easy. We meet so many people that sometimes we forgot to contact some people. There are so many names to remember. It's still super fun learning from people and talking with everyone. Just the other day this random dude from Germany invited us inside to have hot dogs. We literally just had dinner but we're like "haha sure okay!" I'm super gullible now like for all I know he could've drugged those hot dogs. 

I got to demo a house on Saturday! This guy wants his whole mansion taken down so he gave us all a sledgehammer and said go to work. So we all just started ripping drywall out and knocking out studs and tearing down everything. At first I thought I didn't need a mask but eventually I started straight up dyeing, so I got a mask to block the dust from getting in my lungs. There was this one point when we were in the basement and some elder just hit the roof and couple times and everything started collapsing and I thought I was going to die. But it was only drywall so we're okay. Also there was a lot of rat droppings in the ceiling so we got a steady fall of rat poop on us while we worked. Afterwards he got us all In-N-Out so that was cool. 

Our district after the demo

I got a tie dye shirt this week from someone in the ward. I was pretty hyped at first until I found out it was a V-neck. I hate V-necks. Basically what happened is we had a ward fund raiser and I told someone to buy me one of the tie dye shirts and I would pay them back. So I got it but the one I wanted was finessed by this dude who didn't even bid. I got scammed so the only one left was the dumb V-neck one. The one I wanted was literally so cool, it was a huge XXL and I wanted it so bad. The one I got was not a bad shirt but the neck is dumb. Whatever I guess.

The V-neck shirt I got

Training Elder Caldwell has been interesting for sure. This is not a flex or anything but when I came out on the mission and I could already just teach fairly well. I don't know, it just came naturally I guess. But for Elder Caldwell, his teaching needs a little bit of work. Our companion studies right now are just focused on the lessons. I want him to feel like a confident teacher and help him get points across easily to our friends. He's honestly improved a lot so that's been cool watching him grow that way. I think there are 5 great tips to remember to be an effective teacher.

1. Eye contact and body language (if you look like you don't want to be here or you're uncomfortable, chances are, the people you're teaching are as well) 

2. Memorize lessons points and power statements (it makes it more professional so you're not randomly hitting topics and doing whatever)

3. Ask questions (check for understanding or use questions to help them apply this to their lives) 

4. Less is more (some people aren't going to grasp things just as fast, gage your quantity of content and vocabulary to the listener, for example, kids won't understand what the actual heck you're talking about if you bring up dispensation, apostasy, Priesthood, the fall, spiritual death, and the atonement all in the same sentence. Just chill with the vocab and take time to explain what it thoroughly or don't bring it up at all) 

5. Use the spirit (this is self-explanatory, always start with a prayer) 

Anyways, just thought I'd vent all that. This goes if you're teaching in other circumstances as well. Being able to help Elder Caldwell and be his friend has also been awesome. He is such a joy to be around and his smile is contagious. He is never afraid to talk to people. As I'm writing this, he just turned to me and said "you want to learn how to fart on command?" Now he is just ripping them loose. What a guy.

Photo of my new zone

Anyways, I love being here and I am so thankful that you all read my emails. I love to write and its pretty cool that there are people who care enough to listen. So thanks! Also Happy Mother's day to all the mothers in the world and I love you mom! You're the best! 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack 

My plate of cream of mushroom noodles I made

We have no food, and we are going to die!

 Hola todos,

This past week has probably been the weirdest week of my life. So many crazy things happened and this email will only cover the tip of the iceberg. First of all, after getting emergency transferred last Monday, I'm now in the Vegas zone which is pretty different from where I was originally. Elkhorn Springs had a lot of more affluent people with not a lot of missionary work going on while this area is just popping with new people to teach. There are so many people taking the lessons in this area it's insane. The people here are a bit more humble too so when we go out and street contact, people actually listen to our message. It's pretty wild. A lot more people speak Spanish here so I have been able to practice my Spanish and I even got to refer some people to the Spanish Branch elders. I can have conversations with people in Spanish now but I still am awful at it. The communities here are a bit poorer and it can get pretty sketchy at times though. People don't mess with us though because they know who we are! There are a couple people we're teaching that were apart or the gangs here and escaped and some other interesting stories.

My new companion is Elder Caldwell and he is fresh out of the MTC. He got here at the beginning of April and now I get to finish his training! It's kind of cool being the senior companion now and getting to train. He's a good Elder and is really fun to be around. He talks with everyone and knows how to make conversations flow naturally. He is pretty rough around the edges when it comes to teaching but we are working on that. He's just a goofball and a lot of fun. 

This area is so different. It honestly feels like a different mission to me. We met quite a few homeless people so we talked with them for a while. We've been teaching some of them every once in a while and one guy actually really loves reading The Book of Mormon. There is another guy that worships Satan and believes Satan is the Messiah, that guy was weird but pretty chill though. The people here are great and I actually get to use Spanish as well. The kids around here are pretty fun too. We were playing basketball with some of the them and they kept calling me an angel. I'm super fair skinned and my hair is so blonde since I'm outside all day. We got a bunch of the kids to go to church too and they loved it! They even bore their testimony in sacrament meeting which was fun to watch. Elder Caldwell helped them a lot with that.

Gracie's baptism day!

This past Saturday was super stressful with the baptism of Gracie. Luckily, President Reece let me go back to Elkhorn Springs with Elder Caldwell to be apart of Gracie's baptism. It was such an awesome experience but things kept going wrong so it stressed me out. I won't talk about too many of the things but one thing that just makes me cringe is the musical hymn afterwards. Without telling me beforehand Elder Rehkow asked me to play a piano hymn at the end and I just suck at piano right now so you can imagine how that went. It was so embarrassing, people were laughing and I just wanted to die. But I kept going through the hymn and pretended I wasn't missing every note. Afterwards, Elder Rehkow apologized for asking me to play and I was like sick thanks. Anyway, just writing about this Saturday makes me want to die so I'm gonna stop. Hopefully Gracie enjoyed her baptism and being able to teach her and watch her progress was an incredible experience.

Me draining the font in my suit.

After getting to the new apartment Monday night, I checked the fridge because I was pretty hungry. Turns out, the previous Elders that were there just chose not to buy food for the week. There was barely anything in there! Since we can only go shopping once a week on P Day, I was like, "What are we going to eat?" Elder Caldwell was like, "I honestly don't really know, The Lord is going to provide I guess."

My companion Elder Caldwell

 Somehow we made it a week by scavenging around for some food in the apartment.  I'm not getting fed every night anymore so now I have to figure out how to make some legit stuff. Somehow we didn't die. We had miracles upon miracles of people giving us free food. We lived off the land this whole week. haha! What we had to eat this whole week was just milk, cereal, eggs, some tuna, and some bread.

My new area

The Vegas Zone

Although, I'm excited to train and I'm excited to be here. I'm a little nervous but change is good. Its so hard saying goodbye to people and all the friends I made in Elkhorn Springs. Hopefully I can see them again. The people here are really humble and willing to listen to our message. It's so nice being able to teach people and watch them all progress.

I want to share a short spiritual thought for today. It's a short scripture, but I think its really inspiring. 

It says in Alma 34:32:

"32- For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors."

I love how the Book of Mormon simply and plainly illustrates God's plan and talks about our purpose in life. Its so comforting to know where I came from, why I am here, and where we are going. 

I hope you all have a great week and I super appreciate you taking the time to read my emails! It really means a lot! My life now is so different than what it used to be and this adventure is so new. I'm doing things I'd never thought I'd be doing and actually making a difference in peoples lives. 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Me walking down Iowa Street