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| The poster of the Plan of Salvation |
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| Another Lesson help |
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| The bread he brought 26 loafs for $2 ( no wonder he has gained weight) |
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| They got new beds because they have been flooded out a few times! |
Monday, November 25, 2013
Day 139 Pictures
Week 14
Familia:
Im glad to hear that all is well. I did get the package this week! thank you soo much. My friends here LOVED the american candy haha. ya the freeway is still broken haha all they do is put a tree in the hole and people will drive around it. The driving here is weird. There are little things in my mission that are like that. The showering is not bad it really isnt a trouble. Im sorry to hear about sis Oniki. I always loved the times that I was able to visit her. She always had the biggest smile on her face haha :D And no there is no Thanksgiving here haha it is an American holliday. All the holidays are different. For exampleChristmas. They dont give gifts or do much on Christmas, they wait until day of the kings. They celebrate the 3 kings that came and visited Jesus and they give gifts on that day.
As far as my week goes it was a little interesting. First off we got our new beds!!! It has been about 3 weeks. haha It is so nice to have new beds. The one picture shows our matresses on Emmanuels car haha. It was a fun night. Teaching this week has been normal, just a normal week. I did teach a lesson solo, Lehis Dream, so we decided to draw a picture of it. (it is one of the pictures, the other is the plan of salvation I drew.) I did some contacting this week too. My mission has definately became more fun now that I can speak spanish. This week was Zone conference so once again we had to travel to coatza. But because of the problems with the road we had to travel friday night and sleep at some elders house. It was the same house as last time and we had a ton of missionaries again ahah. Class went good, I had to teach a 10 min lesson on virtue haha. Then we headed for home. But before we left we went to the big store next to the bus station and I bought 'Bolillos'. Bolillos are little loafs of bread and they only cost 1 peso!!!!! I can by 26 for 2 dollars!! I love mexico. Then we came home and went to church the next day. After church we visited a family with a investigator who lives there, we taught a powerful lesson!
It was a good week! E continues to buy me different things that have to do with the despicable me minions haha I have a ton of stuff haha. So dont be surprised when you receive another package with all that stuff next week. He wants to send it because i cant fit it in my suitcase. I will also be sending DVD cases, but dont be surprised when there are no disks in them, they will be with me.
I love you all! thanks for all you do!
Love Elder Parduhn
Monday, November 18, 2013
A Story he sent home!!! -- Week 13 .
Story -- Week 13
This is a story that I encourage you
to print off and share with people! Let Kaden and Shelby take a copy to church
and share it with their quorums. It is really good. Dad and Kaden can use it to
home teach.
I Wanted to share this special story with you.... Like a lot
of things in life, it's much easier said than done but this is where faith and
perseverance comes in.
Once there were three trees on a
hill in a woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first
tree said "Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with
gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate carving and
everyone would see the beauty."
Then the second tree said
"Someday I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the
waters and sail to the corners of the world. Everyone will feel safe in me
because of the strength of my hull."
Finally the third tree said. "I
want to grow to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will
see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens
and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all
time and people will always remember me.."
After a few years of praying that
their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one
came to the first tree he said, "This looks like a strong tree, I think I
should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter." and he began cutting it
down. The tree was happy, because he knew that the carpenter would make him
into a treasure chest.
At the second tree a woodsman said,
"This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to the
shipyard." The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to
becoming a mighty ship.
When the woodsmen came upon the
third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down
his dreams would not come true. One of the woodsman said, "I don't need
anything special from my tree so I'll take this one" and he cut it down.
When the first tree arrived at the
carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a
barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he had prayed for. The
second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a
mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. The third tree was cut into
large pieces and left alone in the dark.
The years went by, and the trees
forgot about their dreams. Then one day, a man and women came to the barn. She
gave birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made
from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the
baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of
this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.
Years later, a group of men got in
the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to
sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and the tree
didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the
sleeping man, and he stood and said "peace" and the storm stopped. At
this time, the tree knew that it had carried the king of kings in it's boat.
Finally, someone came and got the
third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who
was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and
raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came
to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as
close to God as was possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it.
The moral of this story is that when things don't seem to be
going your way, always know that God has a plan for you. If you place your
trust in Him, He will give you great gifts. Each of the trees got what they
wanted, just not in the way they had imagined.
Week 13
11/18/2013
Weekly Letter:
Weekly Letter:
Well cold front 11 and 12 came monday, tuesday, and wednesday.
It was acctually pretty cold, not for me of course, but everyone else
here was dying haha. We really didnt get to do much work those days
because it rained so hard. We had all our stuff packed up for a week. It
was hard to sleep because the river was at the top and it continued to
rain hard. We were lucky though because it only flooded in our street :)
2 of the bigger cities down here, Coatzacoalcos and Minatitlan,
completely flooded out. Like over their cars!! It was so bad that the
main freeway acctually fell. Like there is a crater in our sweet little
I-15 here. So we will see if we can make it to Zone class this week. It
was kinda fun though, other than we were soaking wet all the time. This
week has also been a historical week because I decided that the cold
showers are done (now remember our water is a large tank that sits on
our house). So I took 2 nice buckets of freezing cold rain water and
boiled them on our little betty crocker stove thing until they were nice
and warm, then I got a little cereal bowl and BOOM a nice warm shower.
BUT things then got alot better. E gave me this magic stick thing
called a 'Resesistencia' which i put in the bucket of water and plug it
in and it makes the water hot in about 5 min. So that was a week maker
:). Now its really hot :P I want the cold back! We had a good week
though. We had the biggest church attendence since I have been here!! 75
people!!! I am very happy. We are continuing to find wonderful people
that love to hear what we have to say. The only problem is that they
dont really want to go to church :P Not much really happed this week
other than that. Other than this week is BUEN FUN! It is the mexican
version of black friday but it lasts for 3 days!! Thanks for your letter! I am glad all is well at home! I love you all so very much!
Con Cariño
Élder Parduhn
Monday, November 11, 2013
Pictures!! Yay!! (126 days)
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| Some puzzles he is doing with the families |
Zack made some bracelets for Hunter to take to the kids in Mexico with his picture to show!!
Week 12
Weekly Letter:
Its really weird to think
that I am almost 1/4 done with my mission. E. Craven sent me a nice
little email saying that we have been out for 4 months. The time here is
flying by extremely fast!!
Another normal week. We are continuing to find wonderful people
that seem to be interested in the gospel. I had my first splits this
week!! I ended up going with Emmanuel and E. Rivera went with the
brother of Emmanuel (Ivan). The lesson went very well! The spirit was so
strong. We taught about faith in Jesus Christ, but first we watched the
movie ´How to Find Faith In Christ´. There were about 12 of us there.
We ended up having a less active boy show up with 2 of his friends, then
2 more less active members. They were all very interested and bore
strong testimonies at the end of the lesson. This was the first time
that I was in charge of leading a discussion! and also to teach the
whole thing. It went extremely well.
My Mission has become alot more fun now that I can speak the
language. Im still not fluent but I have plenty of time to learn. There
is nothing more satisfying than being able to joke with people after
months of not understanding anything. I have also had some other
touching moments with people here. I have this little friend, his name
is Fabian, the other night (night with the movie) he asked me if I
wanted to be his hermancito (which translates to a super, super close
friend, a brother) well I didnt hear him because I had 800 people trying
to talk to me haha, but a few mins. later Emmanuel heard him say ´´He
definately wants to be my hermancito´´ I got a little emotional when I
heard this. The people here are so loving. They truly have a genuine
love for everyone.
The transfers were today,
and no I didnt get transfered haha. So I will have my 3rd transfer here
in the beautiful city of Agua Dulce. I am now the Oldest one in this
district! 3 transfers old. Emmanuel bought me some new pants this week
;) they have the pattern of the junior high here haha (it is really
cool). They are a little tight so im hoping to drop a few pounds here in
the next few weeks. It is hard though because I eat so much!! It has
been raining here for 3 days strait all of our stuff is put up high
because the flooding is off and on. There is supposed to be a Hurricane
that hits here tommorrow, but we will see what happens. It has been
really windy and reminds me alot of home.
Lastly, Zack has made quite a bit of friends here in Agua Dulce.
Since I thought I was leaving I gave out some bracelets. I took pictures
with all of them so Zack could see them. Just let him know he is loved.
;)
I love hearing from you all. Keep up the good work at home! Yall are in my heart always. Miss yall tons!!
Love, Élder Parduhn
Monday, November 4, 2013
Week 11 (11/04/13)
Familia,
Wow alot is going on at home! I cant
believe our stake split! Do we meet in the same building? To answer your
questions. The rainy season is all year. Because my mission is so close to the
beach I have rain like this all year long, its just worse around this time of
year. The 1st and 2nd days of November are Dia
De Los Muertos. It is a really cool holliday! They believe that these are the
days where God allows the dead to visit there families, so they go to the
cemetary and clean their graves, place candles, sing, and put their dead family
members favorite food on there grave. I love learning about the culture here because
it is so different, but always very cool. They also have halloween haha, but it
is not as big and the children don't dress up and ask for candy. They just walk
around asking for money.
Weekly Letter:
This was quite the week. First of
all it was Halloween, so HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! We had a good halloween. Me and my
mission leader exchanged gifts :). Then there was Dia de los Muertos. Our
mission president announced that we would be spending our days at the Cemetary
helping people clean their graves. The graves here are so elaborate! They are
all above ground and have all this detail. So we helped them clean. We met a
whole bunch of new people. It was a great opportunity to teach about the plan
of salvation! Everyone was so receptive! I definately know now why our
president wanted us to go and do this. We also had our stake conference this
week! So we traveled to the city of Coatzacoalcos to our stake center. I got to
eat Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen!!!! ;D It tasted so good haha. Then we arrived
for the priesthood session. Our mission president was there! It was so good to
talk with him. I am in his first group of missionaries. Him and his wife talked
alot about the members in our ward working together with the missionaries, a
big team. It really got everyone excited. We had a good asistencia saturday.
There were about 100 people. After conference we went to sleep at the house of
some elders in our zone. (The elders I was with at the begining of this month.)
There were 16 of us there!! It was quite the party. Then we woke up sunday
morning and fought for showers haha. Then we went to the second half of stake
conference. There were about 600 at this one haha A little difference :). It
went really well, it was alot like the first day haha. Then we went home with
Emmanuel. And had a very powerful lesson with the Familia Ocaña. They are the
family with the missionary who just left. The mom is a IPS (Investigator for
ever) the other kids who are members and their dad who is a drunk. It is really
hard for the mom because she wants to be baptized so bad but cant because she
is not married and her husband doesnt want to get married (it is a problem
here). The family is really faithful. We are trying to teach the father but he
only likes to listen some of the days. We taught a a very powerful lesson on
the plan of salvation and made plans to teach the father. This family really
needs the priesthood in there home.
It was a really good week. I miss
you all a ton, I wish I could write more but I have to go! I never get enough time.
I love yall mucho!!
Con cariño,
Élder Parduhn
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