July 5, 2011

Dear Parents

That is great to here that everything is going well over there. My 4th of July was pretty good. We had a stake breakfast in the morning, soccer and basketball, pizza at the church and watched the Legacy. It was a pretty good P-day if you ask me.

I am now with Elder Lake and he is great. He is from Palm Valley, CA and he has only been out for like 9 months. He has a lot of energy and we get along well. This week was really eventful either so sorry this is so short! Have a great week and I love you soooooooo much!!!

Elder Strong

 

July 11, 2011

Dearest Parents

I just want to let you know right off that this week I have been thinking about extending and I came to the conclusion that will do it. So instead of coming home on the 3 of November it will be around the 23rd (right before Thanksgiving). I am super excited about it! It will be a good Thanksgiving present for the family. You can let me know how you feel about that.

Other than that, things have been coming along. My companion and I are just starting to get things started up again in the area. We have struggled the past two weeks but we have found some really great people with a lot of potential. One lady we found as we were fixing the tire of one of our investigators. She stopped and decided to help because she said she felt she needed to. We went by the next day and it turns out that she is really cool. We are just focusing on getting people to church right now. Sorry I don't send pictures like Scott, I am really bad at that. I don't take too many pictures anyways but I will try and do better these last few months. Love you very much!!  Elder Strong

 

 

July 16, 2011

   Since the last time I wrote in here Janet dropped off. We had some BD’s drop off for July except Mayra. We finally set BD’s with the Quintanilla girls for Aug. 14^th. We had them pray about it, but the Mom didn’t feel the Spirit as strong as we would have liked. On the 4^th of July, we had a Celestial P-Day. First in the morning we went to the Church for a Stake Breakfast. The whole Mission, Hidalgo, and McAllen Zones were there to sing the National Anthem. After, we played soccer for about an hour and a half. We then got together to watch “Legacy” before we went home for the rest of the night. Our area has been struggling the last couple of weeks and we are looking to make it better. One miracle we received was during Leadership Conference. Elder Pope and Elder Brandley stayed with us. We learned a lot from them. Elder Brandley was with me and we went by George. He said that he wasn’t feeling good and that we should come back another day. As we were talking, his wife walked up and said that the tire on her Durango blew out. We volunteered to help and drove over to the car. We were the only ones there, and a lady stopped to ask if we needed help. She went to get a friend to help us out and also brought us water. We set up a time to come to her house the next day. The next day we taught her and she is super legit. She is going through some hard times, and wants to get closer to God. She accepted a BD for Aug. 7, so we will see what happens with that.

 

 

 

July 21, 2011

   All this week we have had mini missionaries. They started on Tuesday after District Meeting and are going to be with us until Saturday. I am with Franky who plays basketball with us on Mondays and E. Lake is with Pepe. Our first day we tore it up! We found 8 new people and had one member present. Paulette has let us down the last couple of days. She cancelled on the Church tour again, and didn’t come to Church. We still have high hopes for her and we know she will get baptized in August.

Elder Strong, Franky, Pepe, & Elder Lake

Elder Metcalf, Elder Strong, & Another Elder With Baptism

July 25, 2011

Dear Parents

This week was a great week for us. We had mini missionaries from the stake working with us all week and were able to split our area in half. We found a ton of new people to teach and are excited for them. The mini missionaries were worried that the mini mission would be boring but we showed them how fun the mission is and they are both super exited to go on their missions next year. On Sunday I was able to go back to Donna and baptize someone that I had been teaching when I was there. It was cool to go back and see all the members and people. Her cousin was also begging me to come back and baptize her when she is getting baptized! Hopefully I will still be in Alton so it will be possible. Elder Civic from the quorum of the seventy should be coming to visit us in September. Anyways that is all that happened for us this week. Thanks for all your support and I love you mucho!  Elder Strong

 

July 27, 2011

   So Paulette is dropped along with Mayra. We are working with a girl named Claudia who is doing really well. I haven’t actually taught her yet, but she is going to Youth Conference and she came to Church last Sunday with her Mom. Her Mom is a little crazy and has deep Catholic roots, but she is fine with her daughter getting baptized. She has also been to Church also, so hopefully her heart will start to soften as she keeps coming to Church. The Quintanilla’s are doing well. They almost didn’t come to Church Sunday because Bro. Quintanilla worked late, but the girls woke him up and got him ready to go. Billy Canchola didn’t come, but we are going to make sure he comes this week.

 

July 27, 2011

Dearest Padres

It was great to hear from you again. I read Scott's email to you about letters getting more and more boring and for me that couldn't be more true haha. I can never think of anything to say. We had interviews this week and we had our cars checked by a senior couple missionary. He is a little bit like a Nazi and we didn't pass. I thought it was pretty clean. We also biked a whole bunch this week to prevent going over miles. We still went over but oh well. We had appointments 6 miles away from our house so we put a lot of miles on the bikes too.

Sorry to say that I won't be having a baptism on that day and time but I will have an interview for a baptism at that time so we will just count that. They should be getting baptized on the 14th. I got to ride a 3000 dollar bike this week. That part member family that will be baptized let us borrow it when my companion got a flat tire. It was super fast. Anyways That is all for me, have a great week! Love you

Elder Strong

 

August 4, 2011

   This past week at Church was great. Bro. Quintanilla was out of town for work, so it was all up to Sis. Quintanilla to bring the girls to Church. They missed Sacrament Meeting, but came to the rest. I think that was a big step for Sis. Quintanilla and hopefully, little by little, she will also have a desire to be baptized. The Canchola family also came. Billy looked like a pimp in his white shirt and tie. Ray did really well in Gospel Principles, and even offered to say the prayer at the end. Claudia came to Church too. She went to Youth Conference a few days before, and the Bishop had all who attended go up and bear their testimonies. Claudia went up and did a great job! She is super excited about the Gospel, but her Mom is still holding her back, so we don’t know if she will get baptized in August, but I’m pretty confident she will get baptized in September. We found out about transfers at ZLC on Wednesday. Elder Lake and I are staying together, but the Zone is getting a big makeover. We are really excited for the changes and have really high hopes for the Zone in the upcoming months.

Investigators with Elder Lake & Elder Strong

August 6, 2011

   Today we were on exchanges with E. Marsden y E. De La Fuente. I stayed in Alton with E. Marsden. I got to know him a little better, and found out that he is just as weird as I thought. He is a great missionary, though, and I learned a lot from him. Almost every appointment with an investigator fell through, so it wasn’t the best day to show teaching skills, but we had a fun day. The Quintanilla’s canceled on us this week and we were going to prepare them for the interview questions. We are going to prep them and teach them a few more things. Billy is doing well. He finally kept a commitment and read. We talked to Ray today about receiving the Priesthood and found out he has problems with alcohol, so we are going to focus on helping him overcome it and to be worthy to receive the Priesthood. Hopefully we have a great day at Church tomorrow. Yessy and Yobely are bringing friends tomorrow, so hopefully we can start teaching them.