5/6/13

Tell Court good job on her soccer tournament! That's really cool that they got 3rd. Everything here is going well. The work is just continuing as normal haha. We're working a lot with less active members, trying to get them to go back to church. We've got a few reactivated, but there's still a lot more to work with. Mother's day here is on the 10th, so they gave us the option that we can call on Sunday, or on the 10th, so I guess we'll call on the 10th. What time should we call? This last week, we had to baptize a kid who it turned out wasn't in the church records. It was kinda weird, because he's been a member his whole life, but for some reason, there was no record of his baptism or anything. So we had to do all the ordinances again so that there would be a record of it. Today, we had a zone activity. We went and played volleyball and made hamburgers. It was pretty fun. On the 13th will be transfers. I'm pretty sure I'll get transferred because I already have quite a while in this area, but we'll see what happens. I can't wait to talk to you all on the 10th. Email me back to tell me around what time we should call you. I love you so much, and I hope you have a great week. You are the best! Love, Elder Janda

4/29/13

I'm really glad that everything is going well. That's really cool about Courtney's soccer. Hopefully that can play well and go to Hawaii. This week was pretty good. Not really much new going on. Elder Johnson, from the area presidency is going to come in a few weeks, so we're organizing a choir to sing at the meeting when we comes. It's going to be pretty cool. We starting practicing yesterday and it seems like it's going to turn out pretty well. We're also planning a talent show as a ward activity. It should be pretty cool, we just need the ward leaders to help us out more. They basically expect us to do everything which is frustrating since we really don't have time, but oh well, I'm sure it'll turn out. It's crazy that Kyle is going on him mission. I'm really excited for him. I know he's going to love it. It'll be one of the happiest times of his life. Well, I hope you have a great week. I love you :) You are awesome! Love, Elder Janda

4/22/13
I'm glad to hear everything is going well. It's so weird thinking that Mitch is married now haha. I'm sure the sealing and everything was really good. Hopefully Court does well in her games. It would be really cool they went to Hawaii. Work out here is going well. This week we baptized a lady named Rocío. Her baptism was great. She even invited some of her friends to come to her baptism and to come to church as well. Her baptism was also cool because we had been having some trouble finding new people to teach this week and a few hours before the baptism, my district leader called to see how things were going, and he promised us that we would have a new investigator in the baptism. So then we got to the baptism and the first person to get there was Rocío, and then a few minutes later her friend walked in and told us that she wanted us to go visit her and teach her. It was really cool. And then yesterday she came to church with her son as well. We're actually going to go visit them in a few hours. That's exciting that Melissa is going on her mission soon. I emailed Wesley, but he doesn't remember who she is haha, oh well. Anyway. I hope you have a fantastic week. I love you, and am so grateful for everything you have done for me. You are the best! Love, Elder Janda
4/14/13
Everything here is going pretty well. We're going to baptize this week which will be pretty exciting. That's awesome that Kambree is getting baptized! Tell them I say congratulations. There's not really much new going on here. This whole last week there have been two other missionaries staying in our house as well because they got changed to a new area and they don't have a house yet. It's been interesting, but good. The good thing is that I get along really well with both of them. Melissa hasn't emailed me. Oh and tell Mitch not to worry about mother's day. We'll get it all figured out. Besides mother's day here is on the 10th, so we might end up calling that day. I'm not sure yet. I'm really glad that everything is going well back home. And I hope you all have an awesome week. I love you so much and am so grateful that you are my mom. If it weren't for you and dad, I would not be nearly as happy as am I am or making the good decisions that I am making. Thank you so much. I love you :) Elder Janda
4/8/13
So my new companion is Elder Mendez from Puebla. He seems like a good kid and he definitely has desires to work hard and do things right which is really good. They also put another companionship in our ward, Elder Brown and Elder Cruz. Elder Brown is really cool. He's from California and has the same amount of time in the mission as I do. We get along really well. He actually reminds me a lot of Kyle haha. I did get to watch all of conference, and in English which was great haha. I'm sure I would understand it all in Spanish, but it's just not the same hearing when you are hearing a translator's voice instead of their own voice haha. There were a lot of great talks. I think overall the Saturday talks were better than the Sunday talks, but I loved Elder Holland's talk and President Monson's talk on obedience. If you want to teach about the apostasy and restoration, I would recommend reading that section in preach my gospel. It's great because it explains everything very simply and directly. Also a great example of apostasy in the scriptures is in fourth Nephi, after Christ leaves and about three generations later the people slowly start apostatizing. Oh yeah the new mission is going to be most of this mission but I'm pretty sure I'm going to stay here. When they divide the missions, all the missionaries who are serving in the areas that become the new mission will stay there and become part of the new mission. But also they are calling new missionaries there. President is actually starting to organize everything so that when they divide the new mission it's already up and running well and there is no awkward transfer phase. The new mission president is going to be President Crickmore or something like that I don't remember where they said he is from, but I heard he's a lawyer. What's your cousin's name? Well, I hope you have a fantastic week. I love you so much. You are awesome! Love, Elder Janda