January 28, 2013

hey mom!

it really is crazy how fast time is going! it seems just like yesterday january was starting! time really has picked up after hitting a year, it`s nuts! with the packages, hermana ward actually got the email you sent her in the middle of interviews, so i talked to her a little about it and she said she would talk to the office elders to figure it out. i got a call from them, and the latest news is that when he sent the packages with this guy the packages went to the bus terminal, not the post office where they thought they would go. so when they asked the guy where they were he said that, so 2 elders went to the bus terminal to look for them, but when they asked the workers there said they couldn`t get them unless they had the receipt number or something, so now they`re trying to get that number and we`ll see. i`ll give them another call this week and see what the latest is. that`s interesting about the mtc, and about school too. hermana ward gave me some good news about that though. she said that with the changes in the age for missionaries, the freshman classes at all the colleges in utah are gonna be a lot smaller now, so they won`t be taking the best of the best anymore, because they`re all on missions. so that gave me hope since i know my grades weren`t that good, but maybe i will be able to get into byu now. it`s at least worth a shot.

she also gave me some other big news. so with all the changes and whatnot, all the leaving dates got changed too. so now i have the choice to leave 3 weeks before my leaving date, or 3 weeks after. so i have to choose between october 24th, and december 5th, and i really don`t know what to do. each one has its pros and cons. it would be nice to come home early to work a little, not miss another thanksgiving, the nba...haha, but then this is an experience i`ll never get to have again, and i won`t really be able to say i served 2 full years, and i want to come home with elder clarke cause it would be cool to come on the same plane to the same airport with both families, so i don`t know. i wouldn`t feel bad coming home since they are giving me the choice, if it were bad they wouldn`t tell me that, so i don`t know. i don`t know by what date i have to decide, but i imagine it`s somewhat soon, maybe a couple months. also most of the deadlines for applications for college are like october 1st, so i`ve got a few things to decide. what do you think? i imagine i`ve got a lot of prayer and fasting ahead to ultimately decide, but i`m trying to get as many opinions as i can :)

but interviews were pretty good with president. we get to talk to him and his wife, we can ask questions and stuff so it`s nice. we mostly just talked about my companion though cause things still aren`t good. we`re just not working very well together, and honestly i don`t know why. i thought it was cause he was just "trunky," but i don`t think it is anymore. honestly i think it`s just cause he doesn`t want to work, or he has something against me. it was weird though, cause president shared a scripture about paul and a companion he had in the bible, and how at first they had lots of success and everything and the people even thought they were like gods, but then they had a small disagreement and things just went south, and they had "emergency changes," and that`s kinda how it was going between me and my comp. things were fine, we didn`t have a ton of success but there weren`t any problems, at least until we had a disagreement in following the rules and things went bad, and ever since it hasn`t been good. we obviously don`t want to have e-changes, but i don`t know what to do anymore. he just has no desire to change anything. whenever i try to talk to him about things he just goes silent and won`t look at me, so we get nowhere. he now has the custom of walking far behind me and on the other side of the street. he just uses computers in member`s houses and sleeps forever in member`s houses too, and it`s tough. we have people to teach, and i want to help them, but my comp won`t help me, and he won`t let me help him. it`s draining on me too to be the only one to get up on time and do exercises alone and usually study alone and contact and mostly teach alone. it makes me a lot more tired. and then my numbers are terrible which makes me look bad, but i don`t know what to do to change it. i don`t want to just give up, but it`s hard.

we did have at least half of a good sunday yesterday though. that couple that we met is still really positive, and we had a member pass by to pick them up to come to church, so they came and that was really good. then someone else we`ve been visiting also came with another member, so we had a lot of people come to church which always feels good. it`s always such a bummer to be standing in the doors waiting for investigators and then they never show up, so i was happy about that. we had some good meetings, and it was a good 3 hours. the couple that we met actually aren`t married, so we`re trying to do everything to get them married as fast as we can before their baptism, but i`ve never done this so i`m not sure what to do haha. there`s all these papers and tests we have to do, but as far as i know everything is going fine. they`re super excited too so that helps. that`s the hardest thing though about everything going on right now. we do have positive people that are progressing, but with my comp and everything it`s hard to help them as much as we should. it makes me think of alma 16:15-17, but there is inequality between us, so kind of the opposite is happening.

so yeah that`s about what`s going on right now. things are still tough, but just trying to "perseverar hasta el fin" :) hopefully things can change a little this week so we can see some success. but as always i`m glad to hear that things are going well at home. at least i don`t need to worry about that :) we were talking to a less active member that`s coming back and wants to serve a mission, and he shared that he had a concern about leaving his mom behind, but we talked about all the blessings our families get from this service, and i said that it seemed like my family was even better off with me being gone haha, so i`m glad things are good :) hope you have another awesome week, and we`ll talk later!

much love,

elder paskett

 

January 21, 2013

hey mom!

it sounds like you and dad go on trips just about every week! haha i swear you´ve gone to yellowstone like 10 times already! i was also thinking about that, coming back in the middle of winter, and i´m a little scared! haha it´s gonna be freezing! but i´ll welcome it, it´ll be nice to actually be cold for once. the package news still aren´t good, i´m a little confused cause i talked to the zone leaders of my last area, and they said the mail guy hasn´t even sent mail off to them, cause when i talked to him he said he had sent mail one week before changes, but it just disappeared. so now i don´t know if he even sent it off or not. i don´t think he would pull anything stupid, so i have no idea where they´re at. i´ll try calling him again this week, cause i would like to see them. he told me a few things that were in them and it sounded cool! :)

this week was a better week i would say. a lot of really good things happened. the week itself was pretty average, not a lot really happened, but the weekend was really cool. on saturday we had the opportunity to have elder christofferson come and talk to us here, so that was awesome. we actually had quite a few 70´s too, and even elder amado again, and it was a pretty cool meeting. we started by taking a picture with all the missionaries and the general authorities, then we all went inside and all got the chance to shake hands with them, which is the first time i´ve shaken an apostle´s hand so that was cool haha. then a few people spoke to us about a few different things, elder christofferson basically compared us to the apostles and how we have a lot of the same responsibilities. he shared a few cool things that i had never thought about. someone compared joseph smith to being a "sincere investigator," and how Heavenly Father and Christ are the first "missionary companionship" from this dispensation, i thought that was kinda cool. also about returning with honor, and how when nephi and his brothers went to go get the plates of brass, nephi said something like he won´t return back to his father´s tent without completing the task he´s been given, that was interesting too. he then opened time up for the missionaries to ask questions, but everyone asked dumb questions haha. i didn´t have any, but i was waiting for something deep that only an apostle would know, but i was disappointed :) overall it was a good meeting though so i enjoyed it.

we did have a pretty cool experience yesterday too. so after church we went to see a less active lady that recently had a stroke, and we had a good chat with her and gave her a blessing, and that was really cool. but after we had some free time so we decided to contact a reference we had been given. it was the mother in law of a member that had gone to church with the member. the thing was that we didn´t remember their name or which house they lived in, we only knew the street. so we started walking down the street, but we had no idea where to start. we were trying to decide what to do, when my comp just said he had a feeling it was this one house, so we went over and said we were looking for someone but didn´t know their name or where they lived, but asked if they by chance knew this member that had given us the reference. sure enough it was that lady, what are the chances? so we started talking, asking why she had gone to church and stuff, and she said it was cause they wanted to get married. so we shared the restoration and talked about eternal families and stuff, and her and her husband were pretty into it. so i felt like they should be invited to be baptized, and so i asked them, and she just looked at her husband, he said yes, she looked at us, said yes, without even thinking. it was just super awesome! i didn´t expect that answer. but the Spirit was super strong so it was cool. we just have to help them get married, so we´ll keep working with them.

but that´s about it. i was gonna ask if you could look up michael well´s and spencer´s email addresses for me, i´d like to shoot them a hello. we have interviews with president tomorrow, then just a normal week. i´m glad to hear everything is going well. i hear the leaving dates are really weird now, so i´m sure i´ll have some news about when i´ll actually be coming home next week :) anyway i hope this week is awesome for you all. thanks for everything :)

much love,

elder paskett

January 14, 2013

hey mom!

as always it´s a lot of fun to see what´s been going on at home! as far as the few little questions you asked, the weather is actually changing a little bit right now. it´s "summer" right now, which means that there´s not really any rain, but there´s almost always a good breeze, so that´s enjoyable. when there isn´t wind it´s just a dry slow heat, if that makes any sense, and it´s miserable. but a breeze feels good. i really think i´ve adjusted a lot to the heat. i think before i just loved the cold and never wanted it to be hot, and i still prefer the cold, but i find myself feeling "cold" when it´s really not haha. it´s still too hot for my liking, but i´ve gotten used to it. still nothing of the packages. when i talked with the mail guy on thursday he said he had called that guy he sent the mail with but he wasn´t answering, so i don´t know. i´m a little worried that guy just jacked it all or something. hopefully not, but i guess we´ll see.

as far as things went this week, i would say it was a little better, but still not great. i´ve decided i can´t really push him too hard to be obedient, cause he just kinda gets mad and does honestly rather childish things, but whatever. i think right now the only thing i can do is just be an example, and try very nicely and softly to push him in the right direction. it´s tough, i really don´t like just doing nothing and wasting time, but it´s a job for two, so one can´t really do a lot if the other just doesn´t want to. we have had a few rays of hope that have been good though. we had some good lessons this week and met some cool people, and had a lot of hopes for them to come to church, but none of them did. that´s oftentimes one of the hardest things. just sitting there in the door at the church waiting for a bunch of investigators to come that said they would, and then they don´t. it´s really hard to work so hard and then not really see any fruits. it´s discouraging honestly, and i don´t really know why i keep going. at least during the week there will just be nothing for awhile, and you just get mad and frustrated and tired and hot and no one will talk to you and there´s nothing positive and you really do just want to give up, but then finally you have just one good lesson or meet one cool person and it seems to be enough to push you along. i just try to keep some little bit of hope that someone, anyone will listen to us. sometimes it kinda lets me down, but in the end something good does come. i´ve been thinking a lot lately, and maybe trying to "find myself," if you can say that, and things that just help me go. i was reading the conference liahona, and as i was reading the talk by L Tom Perry he said something cool that i liked. he said something to the effect of now that i´m away from home, home is all i can talk about because it was so enjoyable. and i´ve kinda noticed that´s the same for me. i´m trying to find things that i can share to help the testimony i share be stronger and have more meaning and be more personal, and a lot of the times it has something to do with the plan of salvation or my family or keeping the sabbath day holy as a family and things like that. in the moment i didn´t appreciate it, but now that i´m away from home, it´s all i can talk about basically. at least before it didn´t seem like at times we were the tightest family, and maybe it´s just my opinion now but i always tell everyone that i have a super strong relationship with my family because of these things. i share a lot the little saying of "missionaries leave their families for 2 years so that others can live with theirs forever."

we´ve met a few families like that lately that i really do want that for them. like yesterday for example, after church our zone leaders called us and gave us a reference of someone that had gone to their church but lives in our area. they said he had had a bad experience and that it doesn´t matter what we had to do that day, that we had to go visit him. so of course we went, and it ended up being super cool. we talked for a little, in the home it´s a mom and dad and 3 girls. so the dad, is a member, but the rest of the family no, he has a good testimony and wants them to be members though, and he had gone to church with one of the daughters, and he said his bad experience was that there wasn´t a single person in the whole church that said hi to him even though he was a new face. he mentioned things like how we say we have the truth and how we are the only true church, but they didn´t act like that. he said it was just a very ordinary experience, but because we are different than the rest of all the churches in the world, the meetings and members should be different and special. honestly he was right. the saying is true, that the church is perfect but the members aren´t. now we shouldn´t base the church on the members from one ward, but he said he wouldn´t want to take his wife and kids to a church where they don´t feel special. we tried to help him, and we did have a good talk. as we were wrapping up, he asked us if we could give a blessing to his daughter who has been sick for awhile, and then after her, he asked if he could have one, and then he also wanted to bless the house for various reasons. so there were a lot of blessings being done haha, but it was super cool. he seemed a lot happier as we left and really positive. so i have high hopes for him that we can help his family.

on a side note, last tuesday we went to this cool hill in panamá, and you could see like the whole city. it´s called "cerro ancon" i think, i´ll see if i can´t send a few pictures. today we went to the beach, which is always fine, but after living on the beach for 3 months it doesn´t amaze me as much haha. also, this last week i just had the strongest craving for a rootbeer float, and so i broke down and bought some actual A&W rootbeer and vanilla icecream and had one last night, and it was just amazing haha. the first rootbeer float i´ve had in over a year. i very much enjoyed it :) also, happy birthday to trev this week! hope it´s a good one! and i think that´ll about wrap it up for me. i´m hoping this week will be exciting, so we´ll see how it goes. i hope everyone else has an awesome week as well, and we´ll talk next monday!

much love,

elder paskett

January 8, 2013

hey mom!

happy birthday karissa! and just so she knows i did actually remember. i wrote it down in my agenda, so i was gonna say something anyway haha. it sounds like everyone were kind of bums though. i would love to play some just dance right about now haha. not sure if i´ve ever been allowed to bring 2 girls over to the house though...that´s good that grandpa is feeling better though. and that the basement is making headway. i don´t remember things changing this much when trevor was gone? about the packages, i still haven´t seen them, but today i talked to the office elder who is in charge of the mail and he said he´s gonna talk to that guy, and he told me to call him on thursday to see what´s up. i´m really hoping that guy didnt just jack them or something, but i guess we´ll see in a few days. and i actually just barely got that letter you sent for christmas, so it was a little late but it got here :) it seems like the mission asked for them? but it was good though, i enjoyed it :)

well, where to begin with this last week? it was a little better i would say. so for new years, he really wanted to go to this member´s house and spend the night with them, and he just so happens to be in love with one of the girls that lives there (or so it seems at least) so i really didn´t want to do that. i said we could go over for a little, and we did. it finally started getting late and i said we needed to go. everyone was asking why and stuff and i said it´s a rule to be in the house at a certain time and we were late so we had to leave. he just said yeah supposedly it is. i said no it really is, we need to go but he just told me to wait. so i just stood there waiting and waiting, and of course he just takes his sweet time, but finally we leave. he was obviously not happy with that though, so when we got to the house he grabs his big speakers and decides to blast his music super loud until about 3 in the morning. i was really kind of furious, but didn´t do anything. i just laid in my bed and did nothing. the firework show was cool though. it was super loud, and so i couldn´t really sleep anyway, but i would slept more if it weren´t for his music. so of course the next day he doesn´t want to work cause he´s tired, and i kinda let him have it. i may have said some not so nice words, but i was mad cause of what he did the night before and that we had lessons to go to and everything, so i got mad. we did have an important lesson to go to, so finally he decided to go, and had a fine lesson. we had a few quiet days where he still didn´t want to do much, but we had divisions one day and i think that helped. it at least gave him a break to think about a few things. so friday saturday and sunday were a little bit better.

we met this lady named veronica the other day and she was super cool. i guess she had met with missionaries before and when we talked to her she had been reading the BOM and loved it and like knows that everything is true, the only problem is is that a few months ago she had a baby about 3 months early, so there has been lots of problems with the baby and she hasn´t been able to go to church. the baby is getting better though so we´ve got high hopes for her. we also got this really cool reference from some members, her name is paula, and she really is cool. she was invited by these members to a ward activity and she liked it, and said we could come over. so we´ve taught her 2 times now and she likes it all. she has tons of questions and wants to learn a lot so it´s super cool. we tried to put a fecha with her the other day though, but we found her problem. she has like a boyfriend you could say, but she says she is just anti marriage and never wants to get married, but does want to live with her companion. we tried to talk to her a little bit but it´s gonna be hard. little cool side story though, so we left that lesson a little late, and we were waiting for the bus, but nothing was coming. we were almost gonna walk, but this car pulls up and asks where we´re heading, and we find out they were members so they gave us a ride. the cool thing was the hermana, cause she said, just by chance, that she always helps the elders with marriage things, and she´s helped who knows how many people get married so they can get baptized, so it was pretty awesome! so we´re still pretty hopeful for paula too, so we´ll see how this week goes :)

but really that´s about it. it was a slow week. i´m still trying to get to know my companion and stuff, what makes him tick, what he likes to talk about and stuff, but it´s been tough cause i think he´s still mad i don´t want to break rules like that. i´ve found i can´t really push him very hard or else he does kind of dumb things. it´s hard, cause i just want to go find people, but he doesn´t really have much of a desire. sometimes i can´t help but wonder why i can´t just have a companion that wants to just go to work. i would much rather just focus on investigators and other people than my companion and how my relationship is with him all the time. it´s hard to know what i´m supposed to learn from this. but i´ll keep plugging along, trying to be patient, i´ve got high hopes for this week so i pray it goes well :)

but that´s all i got, sorry it´s not very exciting. as always i´m glad to hear that all is well at home. to be honest i don´t think about home as much as i did at the start, but i still worry about everyone every once in awhile :) so thanks for everything, the prayers and support, couldn´t do this without it! i hope you have a great week, and we´ll talk later!

much love,

elder paskett

December 31, 2012

hey mom!

 

still no sign of those packages. i don´t know when mail comes here, and i don´t know if they´ve even found them yet, but i´m sure sometime in the future they´ll get here :) i´m excited you´ve got some good snow lately. if anything it´s just getting hotter here. supposedly the rain usually stops in mid december, so that means just straight sun, which means it´s really hot. i remember when i first came it was during the dry season and it was hot. but everyone says the rain has still been coming and so that means there´s no sign of it stopping. we did have a pretty good storm the other day. the weird thing is is it always seems to rain when we´re out on the street and never at night or in the morning while we´re in the house. and i just don´t like the rain at all. i really don´t like being soaked all day, but oh well, only 11 more months of that :)

 

speaking of seeing people less "korean" or "panamanian," there´s the story of "corn flakes" between all the missionaries. it goes a little something like this...so before your mission, your favorite cereal is frosted flakes. you have frosted flakes every morning with ice cold milk and you love it. but when you get to your mission, you find out they don´t have any frosted flakes, only corn flakes. and at first you just have corn flakes, all you can think about are the frosted flakes you left behind and how bad corn flakes are. but after 6 months of corn flakes, you still don´t like them, but you´ll eat them and be more or less ok with it. after 1 year you actually kinda like corn flakes, and enjoy eating them, but you still have flashes of frosted flakes so they´re not your favorite. after 1 year and 6 months you really do like corn flakes, it´s almost your favorite cereal and you have it a lot. with that good cold milk it´s an enjoyable meal. finally after 2 years you just love corn flakes, you have 2 or 3 bowls every morning and it´s like all you want. but when you go back home, your mom comes back from the store and she had bought frosted flakes, and at first you´re kinda mad cause you really wanted corn flakes, you don´t even want to eat frosted flakes. but your mom just says sorry that´s what i bought so eat it. so you mumble and grumble but decide to eat it anyway, and after that first bite just a flow of memories come back and you remember how much you loved frosted flakes, and it just changes your world. and that´s the corn flake story, and it really does kinda coincide with panamanians and i would imagine koreans too haha :)

 

so you asked how the work is different here. well, to be honest this week probably isn´t a good gauge of how the work here goes. with christmas and talking with families and all that stuff we were actually a little unproductive. it was kind of a long week. the area we have is actually really big, but there´s not too many people cause the houses are bigger too with lawns and whatnot, and there´s lots of just open space. so we have to do a lot of walking, and it´s mostly just knocking on doors. well not really knocking, more just standing outside and yelling hi until someone comes out, but you get what i mean :) panamá has never really been a baptizing mission, in all it´s history it´s never really baptized a lot. the goal this year was 1300 baptisms, and i think we had like 1250 or something like that, which is actually the most in one year, but it´s really not that many compared with other central american missions. like our goal each month is to have one baptism for each missionary each month, so theoretically about 200 baptisms each month, but it just doesn´t happen like that. like in nicaragua they have baptisms like each week, and that´s just what they´re supposed to do, but for whatever reason it just doesn´t happen here. i don´t really know why, be it the people or the missionaries or what. the church is the same wherever you go, but the people aren´t. there´s not that many just "good" members. i think this is the first time i´ve actually been in a ward in my mission, and it´s a lot better, but still tough. at least in all my other areas it was hard to work with members, partly just cause there weren´t that many, and they just weren´t very dedicated. so it´s tough, but we keep working.

 

this week really was pretty hard though. i really didn´t want to have changes, and i´m still not sure why i did, but me and my comp just aren´t getting along very well. well no we get along fine well, but he just has no desire to do anything. all he wants to do is just stay in members houses and chill with them. it´s hard to get him to do a lot. i´m all alone when i´m trying to contact cause he doesn´t want to. yesterday i got kind of fed up with it cause he was doing some dumb things. so we went to lunch, and when we left we had a long way to walk, but he wanted to go the other way because he wanted to change his shoes first. he has clothes he only wears on sunday, and i decided he´s kind of a girl. i mean we´re missionaries, we walk for a living, but he has shoes that apparently you can´t walk in. but whatever. so we got there late to our lesson, and as i was trying to see if they were there he just goes and sits on the curb in the street. i could only imagine what the people inside were thinking, seeing me on the porch and my comp sitting out on the street. so it´s no wonder no one came out, if they were even there. so we left and went to contact for a bit, but it wasn´t very good. so i contacted this house, and she wasn´t very positive, just saying she was busy and maybe another day, so i was just saying bye and stuff, and when i turned around, my comp wasn´t even there. i walked around this bush and he was already half way down the street walking away. i don´t know when he left, but judging by how far he was he must have left in the middle of the contact, and i got kinda mad. i asked him what he was doing, and he just said he could see she wasn´t positive so he just left. it was all i could do to just not scream at him. i tried asking what was up and why he doesn´t want to do anything but he just wouldn´t talk. it´s difficult because this is a two person job, and it´s not very easy or even possible with just one. so i don´t know what to do. it´s hard. we do have this one family that we want to get sealed, but upon talking with them we found that the husband did a few things and so we don´t know if it´s possible, or at least in the near future. so we don´t really have anyone right now, and it´s hard. the area has people i´m sure, but we aren´t finding them.

 

so this week wasn´t really that good, not really anything positive happened. i´m hoping this week goes better since there´s no holidays and it should just be a normal week, but i guess we´ll see. sorry it´s not the best letter, hopefully the next one will be better! :) i hope you have a great week, good luck with your new class, talk to you next week!

 

much love,

 

elder paskett