Haha yeah the almost car wreck.  It was our fault...but to his credit it was raining as well and makes the roads slippery.  But yeah I my companion is a way better driver than the first one.  But you combine a Utah driver with California and you don't get a very good combo!  Well i do have a testimony that the lord is looking out for us because sometimes I wonder.  Anyways we are alive.  The companion that freaked out.  He isn't doing well.  He's sick or something...but he wont talk to us and help us know whats going on.  We will have to talk to President again.  But we went to the doctor this week for him.  It was a good experience for me.  When we were there the doctor did some tests and then was like what causes dizziness.  And from the tests I said inner ear.  He was like "Exactly...why aren't you in Med school!"  Haha i was like well i'm a pre-med major and plan on going back.  He said that if I keep my GPA and get like a 30 on the MCAT that i'll get into Med school easy.  That was a huge comfort to me. He was a super cool doctor.  I could of talked to him for a lot longer about it but I was able to.  He told me some good study information as well.  He told me to get a MCAT study book and just study for about an hour a day and you'll do fine on the test.  It was just a big comfort overall. 

This week has gone really fast.  We've had our ups and downs especially with our companion being sick and not letting us know what we can do to help.  Whatever...there is nothing else we can do. 

Today we went bowling as a zone.  We played 3 games.  It was the worst bowling of my life but it was really fun.  I need to get back into shape.  Too bad it wont happen on the mission.  I'm fixing my diet as much as I can...its starting to help. I was starting to gain way too much weight.  But now i'm getting semi-back into my old self.  As much as I can here. 

I saw President Wade and his wife on Saturday.  I had a good little chat with them.  His wife was like we are so happy that you're in the mission here and we want to keep you as long as possible in our mission.  That was nice...in a way.  At least they like me here but they also said they haven't heard anything about my visa.  Hopefully that changes.  I've learned a lot here but i'm ready to go to Brasil.  I get giddy when I hear spanish.  I don't even know what i'll be like when i hear Portugues. 

We are hoping to have a successful week.  We just got 3 referals....finally some referals.  So we have 6 investigators right now.  That is a good number...hopefully we will be able to get some more and start getting them to progress towards baptism...which is important.

Overall things are good.  There are definately days that are really hard and I don't want to keep going but somehow I get through that day and the next is always better.  I just have to remember to take it one day and step at a time.

We didn't get snow here unfortunately...my companion from Utah and me were praying for it.  It has been cold here though.  In the 30's at night.  It was suppose to snow though.  I really miss the snow...i don't think i'll see if for 2 years though.

Well i hope all is well.  I love and miss you all.

 

Elder Parsons

Hey,

It was a crazy week.  We have been running around like crazy because of our baptism.  We ended having to make the program for it, so we were running around all day trying to get it made and then we went to the church to make copies and found out you need a password to make copies so we had to run to the Temple Visitor center across the street to make copies.  It was a stressful baptism.  I gave a talk as well on the Holy Ghost.  I guess it went well, that's what i was told at least.  Will got baptised the guy that Elder Wilde and I were teaching.  It was great to see him go through with it.  He was so excited after his interview!  We were suppose to have another person getting baptised but she called us saturday morning and said she needed more time.  She just disappeared.  We haven't been able to get in contact with her since then.  Her parents don't even know where she's at.  They called us asking if we had heard from her yet, because we left a message with them to give to her.  Hopefully she's fine and just left town for a little bit.  I saw Elder Wilde at the baptism this week.  Man am I glad that I have new companions.  I get along so much better with them.  Good things are happening.  We have 2 new investigators that we are teaching and another one that is starting to progress finally.  All people need to do is read and pray and they will know if its true.  But when they don't even keep simple commitments like that of course they aren't going to know if its true.  Oh well...everyone has their agency all we can do is present the information and what they need to do to find out for themselves if its true.

 

We have exchanges with the zone leaders this week.  It was a good experience to see another person's teaching style and how to do things. I really enjoyed the outcome. 

 

So last week we got close to a car wreck.  It was a little nerve racking I wont lie but nothing too bad.  But our other companion freaked out.  When we got back to the apartment we got out of the car and were walking to the apartment and looked back and Elder P (other Elder) was still in the car.  He hadn't moved.  We went back and he was in shock big time.  He wasn't there at all. It took us like 40 minutes to get him with us enough to get to the apartment.  He said at one point..."We're not going to die?"  I knew it was bad when he said that.  The kid driving felt so bad.  But our comp just freakes out about everything.  After about 2 hours he was fine.  Also he's got fainting issues.  We think we've come to the conclusion that he has sleeping issues.  He's been tested for everything but sleep disorders.  He's really stubburn and acts like nothings wrong but he doesn't remember a thing that happened on Friday.  Its kind of scary.  President knows about it and is forcing him to go to the doctor.  I'm glad about that.  I really feel like they will find something this time and he'll be fine.  But the problem needs to be addressed.

 

The weather isn't so nice anymore.  Its been raining and cold.  The "mountains" more like big hills here have snow on them.  That doesn't happen much i guess.  There is ice in the morning as well.  Its freezing at night.  I miss the warm.  If its going to be cold it needs to snow.  None of this no snow and cold. 

 

We got to go to the temple this week!  It was so nice to go.  I miss it so much.  It felt like going through for the first time again.  I can't believe how much i forgot of it.  It was really nice to get to go through again though.  I wish we could go every week.  I miss that about the MTC...other than that I like the field more.  Its crazy how fast this transfer has gone.  There is only 2 more weeks until the next transfer.

 

 

Well things are pretty good here.  Still waiting for my visa.  But it will come when its suppose to.  There are a lot of good things happening here. 

 

Love,

Elder Parsons

 

Hey,

The weather is amazing here right now.  It is summer.  It was almost 80 yesterday and it looks like it will be the same here today.  We had to have the windows open in our apartment all night because it was so warm.  Our apartment isn't very good at staying warm or cold.  Its always the opposite of what you want at that time.

A mission is so short.  I'm beginning to see that.  I've already been out for 4 months.  Its crazy to think its been that long.  Time really does fly by.  I'm trying to get a more long term approach to the mission.  I'm getting used to my companions and we are getting along well now.  That is so much of a benefit.  Time is really going by fast now.  I still have to continue to find ways to be motivated.  Its not that i don't work its just harder some days.  I need to get to the want part not the i have to do this stage. 

I'm still hoping my visa comes.  Not so i can go see scantily clad women in Brasil.  I just want to start learning the language and being around people that are nice.  Or at least they are suppose to be nice there.  Americans tend to be a little rude at times.

But there is good things happen here.  We have two baptisms on the 19th.  I'm excited for that.  But who knows if i'll be there or not.  We will see.  We are trying to find more good investigators.  We are teaching a lot, but we only have 2 progression investigators.  The rest are progressing really slow or not at all.

  

We were helping some members move some flooring into a house the other day and the guy was like has anyone every said that you look like Kevin Bacon.  I was like...nope.  I don't even know what he looks like...i guess me :P.  Also i talked to Eva this week.  The one that thinks her husband is a prophet...well she's not interested in meeting with us anymore because her husband had some prophecies about us.  I'm bummed because she was a good investigator but this is what she told me.  Her husband first prophecy was taht the mormon church wasn't true.....but it continues.  She had called like 2 weeks ago and said she couldn't go to church becasue she had a boil in her nose.  And her husband had a prophecy as to why she got the boil.  He said that she had put her nose in places that she shouldn't have (investigating the church) and thats why she got a boil.  God was punishing her.  She was like i cried 5 days and 5 nights because of this and i can't go through it again. Sad but her husband was just getting scared of us.  He knew she had felt the spirit and was serious about joining.  Well nothing we can do now.  Elder Wilde and I had been teaching a man that just came back into the church after 41 years of being inactive. He is a good guy.  His testimony is really strong now.  He has helped alot in keeping recent members active because of his experiences.  He talked about how he let members in the church and bishop..etc drive him away because of things they did and said.  He has now committed to never let that happen again. I'm so excited for him. It's true if we have a strong testimony we wont let others drive us away because we know the truth.  Unfortunately members aren't perfect...sometimes not even nice but the church is true and always will be.  My testimony is growing a lot.  I'm trying to solidify it for the hard times.  We are also teaching this family that is preparing to go to the temple and be sealed as a family.  They are way cool.  They always feed us after as well which is a bonus and not. I'm on a diet.  I only drink fat free milk now and stuff like that.  I don't like being this out of shape.  But anyways at the end we got onto the subject of weight lifting.  He used to compete and trained a pro baseball athelete.  I got some really good information from him about supplements and routines.  It was a good talk.

Well have a good week.

Love

Elder Parsons

hey,

 We were at a members home last night they have the coolest kid.  He is like 18 months old.  So much fun.  Transfer calls came in.  I'm getting a new companion.  I'll be in a 3-some until i get my visa.  Last week someone got there visa thats going to Salvador.  They are finally coming!  I'm way stoked to leave.  Everyone that i've talked to has so much awesome stuff to say about Salvador and Brasil.  It will be fun.

The mission has been a great learning experience here.  I love learning more about the gospel.  I'm in helaman right now in the Book of Mormon.  It is so hard to put it down.  Everyday the book of mormon gets better!  I love it.  I'm also reading Jesus the Christ.  That book is so amazing.  I've learned so much from it.  I'd recommend reading it.  Our mission President gave us a challenge to do an activity in Preach my Gospel.  Its on page 114 under mission president 3 bullot point.  He promised and increased faith in Christ and the gospel if we do this activity.  I'm trying to finish the BOM fast so i can start over and do this activity.  I thought i'd share it with you all because it can increase everyone's faith not just a missionaries.  I've definatly found that as i've studying the scriptures.  It is amazing what that has done for my testimony.  It grows every day.  I don't really like the trials.  But i love the growth that comes from trials.   So i guess in a round about way i do like trials. 

I know that this is the true church and that Joseph Smith restored it.  And that the book of morman is true.  If we read it everyday we will have our testimonies strengthened.  It really is as simple as that.

Elder Parsons

Hey,

  Well i'm still here in the field. I'm definately learning patience.  My companion is not my first choice of a friend.  He seems so young and imature.  I didn't realize how blessed i was in the MTC to have companions that we mature for their age.  It will be good for me though because i do need to be more patient.  It just makes this even harder. 

  Right now the work is dead here.  Pretty much all we are going to be doing for a while is tracting.  I hate tracting...but it is a huge part of the mission so i guess i should learn to like it.  We went tracting the other day because we were waiting for one of our appointments to start.  We tracting this nice neighborhood.  It was the best tracting experience i've had to date...which doesn't take much to make it better then getting cussed out and door slammed in your face.  Anyways we tracted this road and the worst thing that happened was we got attacked by a dog.  But the dog didn't go after me really i ran away before it got to me it almost got my companion a bunch of times though.  But we actually ran into quite a few nice people.  Most weren't interested but we got let into one house.  That was kind of a nice experience.  They were a super nice family, but they weren't very interested in our message they were very strong in their faith.  But we did tract into this one guy that let us come back and teach him that night.  He was super nice.  Hopefully we will be able to go back and teach him.  Right now he is super busy with the christmas season.  Everyone is; no one really wants to talk until after christmas.  After tracting we went over to our appointment.  It turns out the kid wasn't very interested in learning more. But he's a really cool guy.  He's in film school right now.  He wants to make a documentary of us.  I think that would be kind of cool.  We will see, i don't think the president will let us though.  But we might have his sister and his mom to teach now.  They seemed pretty interested.  So hopefully something good comes from it.

  I love going over to the members homes for dinner.  It is such a nice escape.  You are liked again, its almost like my little sancuary.  There are a lot of interesting people in the wards here though but it makes for an interesting conversation.  There is this one guy in the ward that is so cool.  He is the best missionary minded member i've met in my life.  I guess he's been where most of the lessons come from.  We have 2 investigators right now because of him and 2 recent converts that we are teaching.  His house is one of the places i like to go. 

There is this missionary in my district.  I love the kid.  He is from the Philipeans.  He made me feel welcomed from the start.  He is really short like 4 foot 0, but his heart is super big.  Right now his is super sick.  His been to the hospital a few times but they don't know whats wrong.  He faints mulitple times a day.  We had to go over to his appartment the other day and help them take stuff down to the car for their baptism.  And he fainted when we were there.  We were walking him to the car after he woke up and i was helping him down the stairs and he kept saying he was fine but i was basically carrying him.  If i let him go he would have fell.  I wish there was something i could do for him.  He has such a big heart and he just wants to help others.  But there's not much i can do.  He just needs to follow the doctors and rest.  Hopefully he gets better.

  There is a recent convert in the ward of the other missionaries in our appartment that is from Brasil.  I got to talk to her yesterday!  It was so cool.  She was telling me all about Salvador.  I'm so stoked.  It sounds like such a cool place.  I will have a lot of stories that is for sure.  Hopefully i don't die, because there is a lot of messed up stuff that goes on there.  But she said it was beautiful.  She said you'll have to go to the Amazon as well and the south to experience all of Brasil.  I just want to go to Brasil.  California is retarted.  The weather here is horrible its always cold and rainy.  I've never been so cold in my life.  But i'll probably be the hottest i've ever been in Brasil.

Well i love and miss you all i hope that everything is well.

Elder Parsons      

Last letter in the MTC

Hey,

It was a super fast week.  It was a good week though.  I'm getting reassigned to the Sports mecca city for mormons.  Thats just a hint. The weather has been really messed up here.  It was freezing cold until Wednesday and now its pretty warm.  Almost all the snow we had is gone.  There is maybe a inch in spots.  It is kind of nice to be in the warm weather again.  On Sunday we had a really good speaker.  He works at the mtc and we've heard from him before but he does a really good job.  He shows us whats important.  On Tuesday we have Julie Beck from the relief society presidency.  She did a fine job.  It wasn't really a motivational talk or spirtual it was more just about experiences.  She talked a lot about Brasil.  That was a good and bad thing.  Made us all want to be there.  But it will happen soon enough.  This wednesday was super busy.  In the morning we went to Pysical Therapy.  I loved it because i got to work out in their gym for an hour.  We are going again today so i'm excited.  After the PT we got to host and then we had TRC in the middle of hosting.  The morning flew by.  I only got to help host one sister before TRC.  This week TRC was awesome.  It went so well.  I have never felt so comfortable speaking and hearing the lesson.  It was good to go out on a good note, because i wont hear portugues for a while.  

Things are really winding down here.  It is crazy how fast time went.  It will probably only get faster.  I'm really nervous to leave the MTC but i'm glad because this place is getting old.  Also our Districts attitude has gone downhill lately.  It is pretty lame.  I don't like being around all the negativity.  I'm hoping that i'll have a pumped trainer who wants to succeed in the field.  It would make things a lot easier for me at least then trying to teach myself how to be a missionary.

 

Love you all,

Garrett

MTC Days Continued

Hey,

This past week went by really fast.  Every week goes by faster and faster.  This past tuesday for the devotional we heard from Per G. Malm for the second quorum of the 70.  He gave a great talk. He was a really funny guy as well.  He talked about how we are more prepared than we feel.  I sure hope he's right.  I guess we need to have faith as well, it will all work out though no matter.  He also talked about how its not a coincidence that you are on a mission right now.  There is a reason you're here now and not some other time.  That was right to me.  At the end of his talk he said "if we do the Lords work in the lords way....where are the limits?"  There aren't any if we do it that way. 

We get our temporary reassignments on Wednesday if we don't get our visas.  I get to call home then.  So if i get to choose the time when is the best and whose phone?  I don't think i get to talk long.  Maybe 5 minutes, so don't plan anything big.  The first two weeks i was here they got like 25 visas.  Since then there have been 5.  So they've slowed down a lot.  Who know's when they will come.  But I know i'll get it...its just a matter of when.  When we get our visas in the field we fly out as soon as possible.  We don't even wait for the next transfer.  I wouldn't be too disappointed to go stateside to see what a mission is like here and then go to Brasil.  It would be interesting to contrast.  I just hope i got to a warm spot because i don't want to get winter clothes for a short period of time.

It is really cold here.  There is hardly any snow.  They shut down BYU on Tuesday i think because there was suppose to be the worst storm in 65 years here.  There were maybe 12 MPH winds and a half a inch of snow.  Lamest storm ever.  I really wanted snow.  

My companion's back's been hurting him so we have been able to get off campus twice this last week and at least 2 more times this next week!  It felt so good to get out of the MTC grounds.  I was crazy to see the outside world again.  People that aren't always wearing suits and dresses.  But it was very liberating.  I can't wait to hit the field.  I'm nervous but I getting to comfortable here.  A mission is suppose to force you out of your comfort zone so i need to move on to the next step.  

Thanksgiving was surprisingly good.  It looked like it was going to be horrible at the beginning because of the schedule but at the morning fireside Elder Holland came and spoke with his family!  The first thing he said was we are going to be your family for the day.  That was pretty cool, if i can't be with my real family then being with an apostles family is a good second.  It was awesome to hear from him.   He is such a great speaker.  And his wife gave a really good talk as well.  He had his grandchildren sing a primary song to us it was really cute.  Made me think of Caiden and Bailey.  He had a lot of good things to say.  I wrote them down but i forgot to bring what he said.

- Elder Parsons