Transfer Time? Received 9-19-12





Hey hey hey! :)

Many hands make light work!!

Sorry I didn't explain transfer week better to ya.  In case you didn't figure it out yet I'm sending this on Wednesday and not Monday :o)  Who's getting transferred?  Drum roll please..............  No one! haha.  All 4 of us in our apartment are staying at least 1 more transfer and only 2 people from the entire Zone got transferred.  Which means not much is gonna change for another 6 weeks :)  Kind of a bummer since I like change cuz it's fun to get a change of scenery but the world's not over.  Just means I'll be given another 6 weeks to help Elder Wu with Tagalog, help the San Ildefonso Branch progress and...... get the Sta. Maria kids in the Baptismal Waters!!! :)  I think their mother's heart might have finally been softened enough and they've finally shown her that they are converted enough to be baptized.  When we we told their mom that I might be transferring she got all worried and said she wants me to baptize them.  We still have to wait at least another 4 weeks for them to meet the requirements but I think that they'll make it this time :)

Elder Wu's doing ok.  I think he's really bummed that he's not transferring but he's made a little progress with his Tagalog lately.  President has asked me to help him get more excited to learn Tagalog and help him out with it so we've started doing our Language study together.  I don't think he'll be transferred to another mission.  It sounds like President expects him to stick it out and do his best.  He's a really goofy funny guy even though he's quiet at times and we're gonna have a blast and learn a lot this transfer.

What a cool family!

No P-day adventures today.  We still haven't gotten word on the ostrich-riding but hopefully that one will work out eventually :)  Me and Elder Hicken have had 12 P-days here so we're kinda running out of EPIC ideas for P-day.  Do you guys have any?  We'd love to hear em!

Soooooooo...... I'm terrible at writing in my journal at this point.....  I write spiritual thoughts in my spiritual journal maybe twice a week but my daily journal has kinda become a monthly journal hehe.  Sorry!  Don't be too mad at me!  I just need to make it a habit like it used to be.  I still have about 700 pages to fill up so I should be good :)  How's you journal writing going?

Waking up at 6:30 used to be tough but over the last 2 transfers I've been doing great at dragging myself out of bed right at 6:30 and coming downstairs and sitting on the couch haha.  I should probably start working out so I don't look like a twiggy tree when I get home but that's another habit I'll still hafta work on.

Haha, the whole reason we made Elder MacMac was to give him to a member.  We had been saving our bottles for 2 transfers when a member said she needed 100 bottles for a class.  We decided it'd be more fun to make a man than just take sacks of bottles to her.  It was pretty great watching people's reactions as they saw Elder Hicken carrying it down the street :)

Scripture of the Week: Alma 8:15
I used this in our District Meeting last week.  I LOVE all the missionary stories in the Book of Mormon :)
Alma Chapter 8 is pretty rough for Alma though.  In verse one it says he's leaving a city(area) where the people were so prepared to listen to him that he was able to speak words to them that could not be written.  In verse 5 he went to another city(area) where people came to him from all borders of the land to be baptized.  In verse 13 he went to Ammonihah...... and got spat on, reviled, and cast out of the city.  In verse 14 it says he was weighed down with sorrow and anguished in his soul because of their wickedness when an angel appeared to him and said this:  Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him.  Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you.

Whether we feel like our work or the things we are doing in our life are successful or not, we can, and should, "lift up (our) head(s) and rejoice" when we are faithful in keeping the commandments of God.

So.... yup :)  Still here in San Ildefonso.  Life feels a bit routine but I know that if I will keep my heart in the right place and do the things Heavenly Father wants me to do that things'll work out amazingly :)

Love and miss y'all tons!!!
BJ

Got a bunch of pics with the Brillantes Family since we thought I might be transferring haha :)

PPS-Kinda scary to see how big all the cousins and siblings are getting.  Weird :o)

Meet Elder Mac-Mac! Received 9-12-12

Hiya! :)

BJ and Elder Mac-Mac

Another week.  Another P-day.  Another epic adventure?  Nope, not really :)  We woke up at 3:30 this morning and took a 2.5 hour ride to the temple.  Might not be as exciting as riding an Ostrich but it was definitely worth it :)

Glad to hear you're keeping happy while keeping busy.  That's a bummer that Hunter's team lost but I guess he couldn't go undefeated in all sports for ALL of 2012 haha.  That's alright though, I'm sure they'll bounce back and not lose anymore. 

That's awesome that you saw Sarahy! :D  She really is the coolest.  Also super cool that you got to go to a BYU football game again.  After a year of just hearing results of sports games and never actually watching them I almost forgot that the fun of it all is actually being there at the game haha :)  Can't wait to get back and go to some with y'all.

Speaking of sports.... I'm not wearing red for the rest of this month :)  GO COUGS!!!!!! :D

Happy Birthday to Gma Slater! :D  It's crazy to think that I was in the MTC on her last birthday.  Time flies but drags at the same time haha.

Sorry my thoughts are kinda spasmodic today (woah... haven't used a cool word like that for a loooooong time:o)  I'm kinda sorta super tired from waking up so early.

Nothing too overly exciting happened this week...  Had a few ups and downs with different investigators and less-actives but nothing changed too much.



BJ's District



We're still trying to teach a family but they don't seem too overly interested.  They enjoy having us over but only one of them seems to understand or even care about the message.  Hopefully we can get that 1 and all of them progressing :)

Had a couple cool experiences with Less-Actives opening up to us and expressing their concerns.  With the Less-Actives it gets hard sometimes and we wonder why we're there at times because they don't seem to want to listen at all.  But by following the Spirit a couple times we were able to find the concerns of 2 of them.

We had just finished a lesson with Sister .... again.  She listened and was polite but didn't seem to get out of all our lessons before.  This time seemed the same until the end I felt prompted to ask her if there was anything specific she wanted us to teach her the next time.  Then I felt impressed to tell her that we loved her and wanted to help her.  She then expressed how they felt a little rejected by the branch and she wants to go to church but her husband feels too embarrassed.  Sounds like a simple experience but it was great to make some progress with them.  Now that we know her concern we'll hafta find a way to solve it... oh boy haha :)

Well sorry not to answer all your questions and to cut this a little short but it's naptime :o)  Just know I love and miss y'all tons! I'm sorry I don't get many letters sent to y'all.  I've been pretty terrible with that.  Just know I'm thinking of you all and can't wait to get back and tell you all about it. :)
Love ya!
BJ



WOW, now that's some intense creativity!!



P.S.-We saved plastic soda bottles from 4 missionaries for 3 months and..... built a robot/missionary.  His name's Elder Mac-Mac :)

PSS-Don't worry bout me.  No needs as of now, things are going great.  Love the packages and letters you've been sending :) Got a letter from Kylee yesterday.  It was torn open and all that was in it was a torn-in-half picture haha.  Pretty sad story, USPS said it probably got ripped by machinery... Bummer... Thanks for the letter Ky! :D  Also got one from Jason a couple weeks ago.  I'm gonna try and write ya back instead of typing your answer here though OK? :)  Ingat!

We Rode A..... Received 9-03-12



Look Ma, no hands!!



Hiya Guys!

So here's the low-down on the water buckets lady and her family.  She's actually a pretty busy lady and we caught her on her 1 off day for the whole week.  We've only been to them 3 times now but a couple of her children have made some progress. What happens when we have gone there is mom and 3 of the kids will sit and listen to us while the other 2 hide in a back room and say they're tired or have headaches haha.  2 of the 3 kids really enjoy listening to us and have been reading the pamphlets and are progressing. We taught about the Apostasy and First Vision last Saturday and one of them really caught on about the Priesthood.  I felt the spirit while we testified to them and she understood really well.  The "water buckets" lady doesn't seem extremely interested but is very kind and keeps saying "we all believe in the same God" (Jesus Christ). 

We invited them to church but they live kinda far away and don't have money to pay for a ride there.  Their next door neighbor is a member that owns a trike(motorcyle with sidecab) so we said 2 of them could go with her.  Sadly the mom said the 2 hiding in the back room would be the ones to go church :oP  They went to sacrament meeting and left before we could talk to them.  Aww man! haha.  Next week we'll encourage the 2 progressing ones to come to church and see if we can get more of them to come.

I think I saw Elder Bednar's talk in the Liahona a couple weeks ago.  I liked it a lot because as members and even as missionaries sometimes it's really hard to find a good way to share beliefs with friends.  I kinda cringe when I hear people try to force our beliefs on others but it definitely is something we need to open our mouths about.  The September Ensign was all about sharing the gospel and had a bunch of suggestions.

Elder Richardson was your Seminary teacher?? Wow!  He's older than I thought! hehe ;o)  Just kidding ma, your just as young and beautiful as ever haha :)

Yup, I was pretty excited about the baptisms too :)  That would kinda be a problem if both of their parents were still less-active and noone took them to church but they have a 15/16 yr.-old sister that was less-active but now takes them to church each week.  Sounds like the primary loves them :)  Before their baptism they had a primary activity at the Stake Center where the primaries from each branch acted in a play :)  MJ got to play King David, Manuel was a soldier and.... I forget who Jastine played but she loves dancing and got to do a dance too :)

Iza and Alex seem to be doing pretty good again.  Iza is on track to be baptized September 29.  Alex seems to be losing interest a bit and his mom didn't let him go to church....AGAIN!  Guess why this time?  He didn't want to share with a younger sibling. Gaaah! haha.  Their mom is REALLY worried that if they get baptized before their testimonies are perfect then they'll fall away really quickly.  We shared to them about the Sons of Mosiah who, even though they were baptized when they were young, fell away from and persecuted the church.  We then talked about how they weren't converted until FAR after their baptism but because they made that first step they were eventually fully converted.  Then we shared Alma 32:26-27 about faith not being perfect knowledge and how we need to act even when all we can do is desire to believe.  It was super cool and was definitely led to that story and those scriptures.  But.... the mom didn't seem to listen to us and just kept expressing her fear.... BLECH haha.  I'm sure things'll work out the way they're supposed to but I wish she wasn't so hard-headed and I wouldn't let that bother me :oP

Elder Wu's still awesome :)  He's also still struggling with the language but that's alright.  It sounds like he might actually transfer to an English-speaking mission in about a month but we'll see what happens.  The lady in the pictures is Nanay Precilla.  She's a super nice, super cool member that feeds us and works with us on Thursdays and Sundays.  She also washes our clothes for us.

Our shower here is the best I've had on the mission.  It actually sprays at you instead of just drizzling out a bit of water!  Nothing too weird in the food department lately.  I think we ate duck last night.  Sadly we haven't had any mouse hunts this transfer :)  We had a couple epic ones last transfer when Elder Miller was here but I think we got rid of em all.  No pics... Sorry again :oP  Next transfer day is Sept. 20.  Yup, didn't hear anything about the earthquake.  That's a pretty big one though yikes!  I bet none of you know how to pronounce Samar or Cagayan de Oro.... Let alone Panghulo, Baliwag or Meycauayan!  haha, you'll hafta ask Bud :)


YUM!! YUM!!



I got the package this week! :D  Loved it!  Thanks soooooo much! :)  The beef jerky was gone the first night and I'm pretty sure you know what I'm doing with the caramel :)  I loved that t-shirt!!!  Instead of wearing it I decided to hang it up in my room haha.  That teaching tools book is great!  I'm gonna use it a lot for District Meetings and lessons.  Also loved the comics :o)  Thanks a tooon! :D

Have we had any exciting P-days lately??  Did you just ask that question???  Haha, a month ago we rode a carabao right?  That's kind of inspired us to set higher goals on our Animals-to-Ride list so we went to.... a zoo! :)  

We rode a........
CAMEL! :D
GIRAFFE! :D
TIGER!! :D
Ok..... We didn't ride the tiger but it was a good thought eh?  Made for some epic pics.  Next week we can hopefully ride an ostrich we found next-door to a member's house... but we'll see what happens :)

Have a great week!
Love ya!
Da Beej

P.S.-They had a sheep herd at the zoo and they let us in the corral.  It's kinda sorta REALLY fun to chase them around hahaha.  Got a pic of Elder Wu as a Sheep-herder :)

P.P.S.-Thinkin I might need to try and ride a moose when I get home :o)

Baptisms YIPPEE!! Received-8-27-12

Happy Family

Soooo..... They randomly decided to change our Temple day and Pday on us again so here I am mailing on Monday again.  Sorry!  Don't feel bad at all about not being able to send stuff it's totally fine! :)  Our Temple day will be on Sept. 12 now. (Bummer.  He told us he wasn't emailing until Wednesday because of Temple day, so we were waiting to email him until Tuesday night. I felt horrible. Oh well, I'll just make sure he has an extra good email next week!)

Special Day- August 25th

We had a pretty good week and it all ended with..... Baptisms! :D  That's always fun :)  We got to baptize the Brillantes kids this week: Jastine (12), Manuel (9), and MJ (8).  They're all SUPER cool little kids and I was trying to think which is my favorite but I like them all too much haha.  Jastine is SUPER smart and likes acting and dancing.  Manuel is SUPER nice and a little quiet and shy.  He loves basketball and wants to be a missionary when he grows up.  MJ is SUPER makulit (ummm.... no english word... naughty? kinda but not haha) and loud but is really fun at the same time.  Their dad is a returned missionary but he and his wife have been less active for a while because his only day off work (bus conductor) and day home is Tuesday.  But he was able to get the weekend off and come be a part of his children's baptism, it was great.



Yesterday we FINALLY went to teach the Santa Marias' again.  They were the ones that were really close to being baptized but then their mom didn't let Alex go to church.  Then they started getting ready to get baptized again and were 2 weeks away.  Now?  They randomly missed 4 weeks in a row!  Awww man! :(
So we went to teach them yesterday and I'm trying to figure out what's up cuz they're great kids and seemed to understand everything.  Apparently they've been having trouble receiving answers to their prayers the whole time and every time we asked about it they were too shy to say anything.  So last night their mother helped them explain it to us and now I think we'll finally have them back on track :)  Awww man I hope that I can be here when they get baptized cuz they're super cool kids :)

  



So Elder Wu's still da bomb! :)  It's been fun having a Chinese companion so far.  I've even learned a little chinese! haha :)  Elder Wu is obsessed with animals so we've been getting a bunch of epic pictures with little kittens and stuff.

Cute and Cuddly

Sooooo.....  I'm out of time and my brain hurts a bit.... Think I'm gonna go take a nap. (Man I like the way those words sound:o)

LOVE YA!
Mahal Kita
我爱你
Da Beej :)

The OYM Challenge! Received-8-20-12

Wow!  We had another pretty good week.  Elder Wu is a really cool, nice, funny dude and we're having fun together.  I'm glad you're liking listening to my spiritual experiences cuz I had a couple more pretty AWESOME ones this week :)

Elder Wu talking to the cows!

One of the things our mission is trying to get better at right now is Opening Our Mouths and talking to more people about the Gospel and getting more new investigators.  I love messing around and being with people but I have a hard time meeting new people cuz I'm really shy around people I don't know.  On top of that some people want nothing to do with us because we're missionaries.  Because of all this, I've had a bit of a hard time Opening My Mouth so far on my mission. Our Zone Leaders challenged us this last week to OYM to more people and start handing out at least 5 Books of Mormon each week. (Sounds like a  good challenge for all of us, huh?)  I was a bit nervous about it but knew that it was the right thing to do.

So the other day we went to an appointment but they weren't ready for us yet, so we said we'd come back in a bit. When we left their house I saw a 45-50 yr. old lady pumping water into 2 buckets so I offered to help.  She said no thanks and that she could do it herself.  So I introduced us as missionaries and told her about the Book of Mormon and how it helps us come closer to Christ.  I told her we'd like to give her one and she seemed happy about it.  After I gave it to her I offered to help take the buckets back and she still refused.  I told her she had 2 buckets and 1 book but only 2 hands so she let us take them home with her.
When we got to her house she introduced us to her family and asked us to teach them a lesson! :D  She has 8 kids and they're Catholic but don't seem to believe in statues and stuff.  They said they'd read 2 Nephi 31 and let us come back on Wednesday.

WOOOT! :D  It was amazing!  Heavenly Father definitely guided my words with the Spirit.  There were a lot of things I said that I couldn't have thought up on my own.  Not only that but this was my first time trying to open my mouth in a long time.  On the first try Heavenly Father blessed us with success.  Most of the time I just hear about missionaries getting rejected.  I really felt Heavenly Father's love and encouragement in this experience :)  (YIPPEE, it worked!!)

Wow, TP!!  Happy Days!

Sounds like you guys had a pretty great, busy week too.  You're kinda the coolest parents ever taking care of us kids so well and doing such great stuff on our birthdays haha.  Wow!  You got seats in the Orchestra section?  That's pretty up close and personal! :)  Glad you had a great time.  Sounds like everyone, especially Chelsey, loved it :)

That's a pretty awesome idea Bishop Sanford had for y'all to get together. (Missionary families got together to share about our boys.) I hope you all had fun showing off to each other and talking about and missing us hehe :o)  Really crazy that you'll only have one more of those parties before I get home eh?  I'll hopefully get that HUMP/Bday package next week.

Sounds like you're keeping plenty busy and still running like a chicken with it's head cut off :)  Don't worry Mom I know you're doing a lot and you're doing it all very well.  They love you at work, they love you at home, and we love ya here in the Philippines :)  In our District Leader meeting with President Sperry last week he talked about delegating our responsibilities with others.  Don't forget that those kids back home can get a lot done for ya ok?

Also don't forget an AWESOME talk by Elder Matthew O. Richardson in Oct. 2011 Gen. Conference.  He said he climbed a Mtn. with his young kids.  When they were near the top it got really gravelly and steep so his daughter was having a hard time.  They felt like for every 2 steps forward they had at least 1 back sinking in the gravel.  His daughter wanted to be carried but he was tired and weak and couldn't.  They decided to take breaks every once in a while to turn around and look how far they'd come.  We should do that too when times get tough or we feel inadequate. I love that talk, it's helped me a lot of times on my mission :)

Yup!  We still have a baptism this Saturday :D  MJ, Manuel, and Jastine Brillantes are getting baptized.  Pretty excited.  I'll send pics.

Again Elder Wu's awesome :)  Learning a little Chinese from him.  He's struggled a TON with the language on his mission though.  Hopefully it won't bother him too bad.



Elder Wu



Transfer Day was changed to August 10 instead of  9 because of the floods.  The next one is Sept. 20.
DL's still ok.  I have 4 sisters, me, and Elder Wu in my District now.  The sisters are RIDICULOUSLY hard working.  They're great :)  Giving workshops is stressful sometimes but I'm excited to give one on finding tomorrow after my experiences with it last week.

Elder Hicken's awesome and he's still here.  The apartment's pretty quiet without Elder Miller and Elder Blotter, but Elder Hicken and I started talking and laughing and messing around a lot more. No weather problems... Just HOT :o)



HUMP day was great! :)  We burned a shirt and tie in the middle of street.  All the Philipinos that passed had "Crazy Americans..." written all over their  faces haha :)



Can't believe it's already been a year!



Don't ever be sorry for being long winded!  I LOVE getting news! :D
LOVE YA!
BJ

Hump Day Already?!! Received-8-13-2012

Hey-Ooooo, Listen what I say-ooooo......,

It was quite a GREAT wet week :)  Even though there was a ridiculous amount of rain here in my area it didn't flood much at all.  Just the rice fields were affected.  The rest of the mission was underwater for about a week though.  I'm pretty sure the members in my last area (Batasan Hills) were affected really badly because they all live right next to a really big river.  If their houses flooded hopefully it wasn't too bad.  Since there wasn't much flooding in my area we didn't have any service to do, we just got back to work after Transfer Day last Friday.
Like you said, the people are pretty used to it.  I've been told there is a HUGE storm every year on September 25, 26 or 27.  Pretty crazy.  They just pick up, build a new house and move on with life.  One of the problems is that people always build their shacks on the edge of the rivers..... bad idea cuz it floods maybe once a month during rainy season.  It's pretty sad but it's just the way of life here.

BJ, Elders Blotter, Miller, Hicken

Sooo.... Since there was a transfer day Elder Blotter is gone.  We had a blast last Thursday going around and getting pictures with everyone.  He got transferred to my last area! :D  With Mama Bagang, Novelyn, Aleli Keil, the Monreal Family... He'll have a BLAST and get a lot of work done. Elder Miller also transferred.... Bummer!  Haha, I had a blast having him as a house mate.  He got transferred to Valenzuela, really close to Meycauayan.

Sooo...... Since there was a transfer day I also have a new companion...... Elder Wu. :)  He's a Korean from China and is super nice and funny.  I'm excited to work with and have fun with him.  He's been on the mission for 8 months but since he has to learn Tagalog and English he struggles a bit with the language.  He's been bearing testimony at the end of lessons in English most of the time.  Like I said he's super cool and funny :)



BJ and Elder Wu



The investigators are going pretty well.  The other day at church I had 1 that wasn't progressing much walk up to me and tell me she wants me to baptize her haha, That's always a nice thing to hear from an investigator! :)

The Sta. Maria kids were gonna be baptized on the 25th but they didn't come to church the last 2 weeks so we have to push it back a month.  When I asked them why they didn't come they said they've made a deal with their mom.  If they don't finish their work at home they can't go to church........ GAAAAH!! :P  Their mom is LDS and everything but she's held them back a ton.  They're totally ready to be baptized but now we'll hafta wait a while... aww man!  But no worries, they're still doing and being awesome :)

The Brillantes kids are gonna be baptized on August 25th.  They're SUPER excited and so am I :)


BJ, Elder Blotter, and the crew.



This week we'll hopefully give a baptismal date to 3 more people.  Alyssa Calderon (SUPER cute and smart 9 year-old girl we met 2 weeks ago, her Gma is a recent convert and is bringing her to church now), her Gpa, and Nicole Pastrana(SUPER cool 13 year-old girl. Part of the family that owns the Carabao we rode.  We don't walk through the stream to get to their house, just to their rice field and carabao:)  Things are going pretty good here :)

[With the rain the last week my shoes have been SOAKED and haven't had time to dry out.  The Merrel's that I love are molding a little bit cuz they were wet but I'll take care of it.]

Things are starting to go well with Less-Actives as well.  My favorite family here finally started coming to church a couple weeks ago! :D  They're the Rivera family.  They have 2 young kids and have taken in Sister's 2 nieces because their mother died.  We joke around with them all the time and love visiting them.  I'll try and get a picture with them this week to send y'all.

Holy oh my freaking HUMP?????  Time flies but goes sooooooo slow haha :)  Can't believe I've been out here so long.  I'm actually one of the oldest missionaries out here now haha.  It's gonna be pretty rough looking back at where I was a year ago and having it be on the mission instead of home haha.  Gonna try and make this last year be just as STELLAR and STUPENDOUS as the first.  Thanks for all your love and support, love y'all tons :)

Hopefully I'll get that package tomorrow at Zone meeting, candy and goodies sound great right now :o)

Love Ya!
Da Beej

Rain, Rain, Go Away! B-) Received 8-08-2012

Soooooo....  From what I heard, we got hit by like 8 typhoons at the same time!  Kinda sorta freaking crazy out here right now.  A typhoon sounds REALLY bad and it can be but this one wasn't super windy like a hurricane.  It's just been raining REALLY hard for a REALLY long time.

Sorry if this is super jumbled.  Just gonna quickly tell you about the rainy stuff.... in a detailed way :o)  Apparently it hasn't rained like this in 17 years.  It might not be the most damaging or the biggest or most deadly storm in 17 years but it has rained 9 days in a row.  Yesterday it rained for at least 32 hours straight without stopping haha.  Kinda crazy.  And that's just here in Baliwag.  Apparently we're really lucky.  Where we're at hasn't flooded at all.  The rivers have raised a ton but it all went into the rice fields.  The places where the rice fields used to be look like the ocean or a lake.

Flooded Home and Rice Fields

Kids having fun in the water!

Since transfers are this week we actually had a pretty great adventure with the rain :)  Elder Hicken and Elder Blotter are training next transfer so they had a meeting Tuesday morning at President's home about 2 hours away.  They left at 4am and........ got stuck :)  That was the day where the heaven's absolutely BURST and did not stop.  All of the big city areas, including near President's home were flooded to the waist and all the jeepneys and buses had stopped going anywhere.  They ended up staying there for a day with the office elders making transfer announcements.

Me and Elder Miller were already excited to get to be companions while they went to Manila.  We ended up having a blast for a day and a half haha.  We still worked hard and taught lessons but we had a lot of fun hanging out together and messing around.  We also didn't have a cell phone so we were kind of isolated from the world.  It was quite the adventure :)

So we're not sure if Transfer Day is going to happen tomorrow because the whole mission except for our zone is flooded but we do know who is transferring.  Elder Blotter and Elder Miller are both leaving which means Elder Hicken will have a trainee and I will get a new companion.
Kinda bummed that this transfers ending. We had a BLAST as 4 Americans in one apartment! :)  It'll be fun to see what happens next transfer.

Glad to hear you're all keeping busy back home!  Can you believe it will have been a WHOLE YEAR this week?  Pretty crazy.

HOWDY!!

LOVE YA!
Da Beej

P.S.-We were at an investigator's house and let the kids go crazy with the cameras..... Woot :)