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