Un Misionero con Lentes de Sol

Day: the busiest pday of my life so far

Pushup Count: 124

Que tal mis amigos? Today is the last pday of the transfer, so we're running to a million people's houses so Elder Vasquez can say goodbye just in case he gets transferred. I'm hoping he doesn't leave us, but he's been here for 3 transfers already, so there's a high chance. Highlights from this week:

- Joel gave us a whole tray of magic cards so that we could make our own standard decks. With the standard decks we can play games in about 20 minutes, instead of over an hour, so we've been able to actually play during our small amount of free time

- I bought 2 player life and then Elder Vasquez destroyed me

- In district council we talked about sharing testimony during lessons, so I've really been focusing on that and our lessons have been awesome! 

- Joel gave me some cards

- "I'm brown, but I'm not that brown" 

- We went to the temple! We had to wake up at 5:30 and drive for an hour and a half to Valencia to meet everyone, and then drive another hour and a half to L.A. before we finally got there. Tons of driving, but so worth it! We got to see a bunch of Elder Vasquez old comps and dls which was super fun. The Los Angeles temple is huge! We got back and went straight to a lesson  we were super tired

- I absolutely destroyed a 13 year old in pool

- I taught one of our families how to play crud (or poison) and we had a blast playing it

- Joel gave me some cards 

- I blessed the sacrament in Spanish for the first time (it's way better) 

- I got to play a hollow body guitar for the first time, and he already had it set up with some great overdrive and distortion, so obviously I had to shred 

- I beat Elder Vasquez at magic in like 4 turns 

- We teach a little kid named Jonathan, who chased Elder Vasquez down with a orbee gun  

- A Dominican lady at the farmers market tried to set up Elder Vasquez with one of the girls working there  

- "You need to add some color to your family!" (the Dominican lady) 

- I got some sick new lentes

- We've officially listed to one of Elder Vasquez's songs a millions times — you can't convince me it's less

- Joel gave me some cards

- I ate the most American food I could get at a Mexican restaurant — literally just fries covered in nacho cheese and pico 

- We taught an amazing lesson to one of our friends who said she's been thinking about baptism! Please pray for Rosalinda! 

- We were doing service and they called us outside cause they needed help, but turns out they just wanted to buy us ice cream! I love nice people 

- We made brownies without a recipe because the Hermanas told us to but never sent instructions.... They turned out tasting almost like muffins but the APs loved them so I think we're going to quit our missions and go win cake wars

- We dug up about a thousand tumble weeds and killed two black widows (we left an assortment of about fifty more spiders alone) 

- The thrift store where we do service hooked me up with some awesome CDs that I can't listen to for two years  but they look cool! 

- "I'm exposed! Like a naked baby" (Joel says some funny things when he plays magic ) 

- We get to go to the nice Walmart today! 

- Joel gave me some cards 

The desert is cooling down! I'm having a great time, feeling the spirit, and learning a lot. I love hearing from all of you, so if you haven't emailed me yet, repent and shoot me an email :) 

Spiritual Thought:

The temple is amazing! You can feel so much of God's love for you when you go. I invite you all to try to go the temple this week, even if you just walk around outside. I know that if you do, you'll feel for sure that God loves you! 

Os amo mucho! 

- Élder Page

Fotos!

Me and my ZL Elder Kirby

The CDs

Mis lentes nuevos

El templo

The van...

El Vasquez y yo con el templo

Nuestros amigos Luis y Maria

Un Misionero con un Bautismo

Day: one where we get to leave the zone!

Pushup count: 118

Hola a todos!

The days are flying by out here in the desert. Lots happened this week, including two exchanges and a baptism! Highlights:

- Our apartment has been taken over by fruit flies and we are losing the battle

- We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders and I got to lead my area! Our ZL Elder Kirby has a base pass, so we went and visited all the members there

- I asked someone on Facebook what brings him peace and he said weed.... 

- Elder Kirby and I ate dinner at 10:20 that night

- I got to drive a car! A real car! (except I almost forgot how to )

- We ate a whole case of blackberries in about three minutes

- Elder Vasquez literally couldn't fit in the driver's seat after I drove 

- I kinda failed quoting the first vision because I only know it in Spanish...

- We had exchanges with the DL, so I went to Rosamond with the DL's companion, where we walked around for about three hours at the hottest part of the day with no water 

- On exchanges I had to do a Spanish contact alone because the Elders there only speak English

- We had an interesting interaction where a lady asked us what WE thought about the scripture we'd just shared with HER 

- We saw an entire truck bed completely full of just empty Arizona green tea containers

- Black widows. Nuff said

- We saw some teleporting insects that were pretty terrifying

- "Like a jackhammer to my bowels" 

- Jordyn got baptized on Saturday! We had an absolute party cleaning and filling the font (that's all they trusted us with), and then on Sunday we got to participate in her confirmation

- A member bought us a giant donut from the Simpsons world at Universal studios 

- Elder Vasquez wants to replace me with a potato

- We bought matching shirts 

Spiritual Thought:

Listen to "When thou art converted" by Elder D. Todd Christofferson, it's a good one. As a mission we've been working on our own personal conversion, and I invite you all to work on your own as well. And remember - God loves you!

P.S. Comment down below, what's the first day of the week?

Fotos! 

Un Misionero con Muchas Frutas

Day: One where we got to drive through mountains! 

Pushup count: 112

Que tal y'all? Yes, my spanglish is improving haha. This last week flew by! We've been super busy, and time is weird when you do the same thing every day. Here's some highlights from the last few days:

- I got to play volleyball and relive my MTC glory days

- Elder Vasquez gave me a haircut and even faded me up (and it didn't take an hour ) 

- A random guy in the Walmart parking lot told me that he recognized me, so that was fun

- We made a ad for free Bibles on Facebook, and the only response we've gotten is in Czech

- Unfortunately, we had a family that we were trying to figure out how to drop because they haven't been progressing. We weren't sure what to do because we didn't see them very often, but then the mom texted us and basically dropped us... So I guess that makes our job easier

- I beat Elder Vasquez at Magic after quadruple kicking an overflowing chalice, bestowing an aura creature on my already 11/11 horror creature, and then attacking 20/20 with menace... I'm such a nerd

- Lots of zoom meetings - I thought those ended with home MTC but I guess not

- We did service and ran into a lady we had talked to earlier in the week, pretty cool how God puts people in your path

- I went through "initiation" with a family the ward, which was just waxing my nose. It was really funny because earlier that day I had told Elder Vasquez how much I liked doing that haha

- We met with a new friend, a youth who was introduced to the church by a friend - he's super excited to learn and we're excited to teach him! But it's all because a youth in our ward decided to invite a friend to activites, so don't underestimate your ability to share the gospel

- I went to a Zoom meeting in a white shirt and basketball shorts - 100% true story

- We made pizza and played Life - that was a good night

- We got to do role plays with Elder Geary and his trainer, who was my trainer's old district leader. T

So that was a little crazy, but it was fun to see Elder Geary

- Our sports card friend at the farmers market hooked me up with an '86 Walter Payton and a super bowl MVP Peyton Manning 

- I bought a bunch of fruit at the farmers market, and the berries went moldy the next day haha

- Something is definitely living in our ceiling 

- We cleaned out a closet in our apartment and found a semi anti-church book... It makes me wonder what the previous missionaries were doing 

- We watched a dog have an all out brawl with a park swing... 

- We had a fun time searching for black widows behind our toilet 

- I had the best Subway of my life

- Do you know where imitation vanilla comes from?!? 

My Spanish is actually improving, I think. I can even kind of participate in lessons! Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard, and it feels like the more I learn, the harder it gets. But overall, we're doing great out here in the desert. If things are slow for you right now, just start doing the same thing every day and time will start to fly . But first send me an email, I love hearing from everybody.

Spiritual Thought:

You are never out of reach of our Savior's atonement. No matter what you've done or the mistakes that you've made, you can always turn to Christ. He will free you from guilt, pain, and sadness. I'm not saying that He's going to take away your trials, because He won't, but He will make your burdens light and help you bear them with ease. Read Mosíah 24:8-15 for a great example of that. But most importantly, your Heavenly Father loves you - don't forget it!

Fotos!

I keep saying I'll take more pictures, but we'll see if that ends up happening 

Our Magic game

A couple sky pictures, I wish that my camera could actually capture them

En el carro

Un Misionero con un "Collectable Card Set"

Day: Another one where we have to drive for 2 hours

Pushup Count: 106

¡Hola mi gente!

It's official. I'm letting my (secret) dorky side out again. Our amazing friend Joel gave me my own Magic the Gathering deck, which he insists is called a "collectable card set", so that I can play with him on p-days. It's super complicated and hurts my brain, but it makes me miss d&d nights just a lil bit. With that said, this week has been un poco loco - here's the highlights: 

- They have 12 packs of cucumber lime Gatorade here!!!

- We met a lady in the street who asked us to bless her baby.... (don't worry we clarified when and why we give blessings, and she and her husband actually seemed really interested)

- I won a round of gagaball

- Free taco tuesday at Taco Bell is a missionary's dream

- I ate the best green beans in my life

- I got to go on a trail run, but Elder Vasquez wanted to walk 

- I went on exchanges with our awesome DL Elder Wulfenstein (more about him in a sec)

- We helped a guy move, and he almost flooded his house while we were there 

- We told someone at the park that we have a prophet on the Earth today, and he was like  then he declined a meeting with us...

- An older lady asked us what the best way to preserve food is because "you mormons preserve everything right?"

- Elder Wulfenstein is literally Ian Fulwider and it scares me so much  they look similar, have the same voice, and they both play the violin... whacky

- "Extra prison blessingssss!" 

- I got Carl's Jr. for the first time - super mid

- On exchanges Elder Wulfenstein pulled out his violin and I asked him if I could try it... he didn't know I could play, so when I started it was a bit of a shock haha

- I pulled a goathead out of my shoe at the beginning of a lesson, and then I just had to hold it my hand for an hour :/ 

- We had a lot of appointments fall through this weekend, which was sad

- Last night we were invited to have dinner with the James family... the entire James family. Which is pretty much half the ward because everyone in North Eddy is related 

- Our water supplier, a super sweet old man in the ward, showed me his giant model train collection and display

- Our friend Joel passed the sacrament for the first time yesterday, it was so cool! 

Anyways, things are great here in the desert. I love getting your emails, keep 'em coming :)

Spiritual Thought:

2 Corinthians 12:9 - "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me".

I've definitely been feeling weak, especially when it comes to understanding and speaking Spanish. But all it takes is saying a little prayer and opening my mouth for Christ to help me. I know that He will strengthen us when we're feeling weak, and all we have to do it ask. 

Mucho amor, 

Élder Page

Fotos: 

I'll let you figure out what they are