He is super quiet and thinks I talk too much, haha...

Hola Familia!

Well transfer info! I.....stayed haha and Elder Morales went to West Valley. I am District Leader still but now I am training as well. My new companion for now is Elder Tracy. I am training him for 3 weeks and then he will head off to Argentina and then my new comp will come from Argentina. So I will train two people this transfer, yikes! haha. So I’m still here in Rose Park. I still live with Elder Torres and his new companion. So a little bit about Elder Tracy... He is from Highland Utah and knows Sam Avila from school...remember him? He is super quiet and thinks I talk too much, haha. But I know it is what we both need for these next few weeks so we will do it gladly!

Also I switched districts..Now I have my ballin’ buddies Also I have 4 sisters in my district who are doing really well.  They taught 50 something lessons this week! Also we got Elder Rogers back in the area, he lives like 3 houses down from me and I see him all the time so that is sweet! I don’t know when he is going to Brazil, haha.

And Jessie to answer your questions we don't know anything about the new mission right now, we only know that 60 missionaries will be leaving in a few months. And those that are in the south or west zone next transfer will be heading to the new mission so we still have some time until we find out exactly what is going to happen but I WILL GO WHERE THE LORD WANTS ME TO GO!

Elder Tory came to visit at transfers so I talked to him a little bit and he is heading off to Hawaii in April, lucky him because that's when the weather gets good again! Terripia is out in Wyoming right now and he says it is freezing. Shuster is out in Toeele and Blakley and Heaton are in West Valley.

This week was tough for us. We are trying to find solutions of what to do; many of our current investigators aren’t responding well.  We do have a baptism  this week on Friday so that will be Elder Tracy’s first one of the mission so he is getting pretty excited about that.. Well that is pretty much all that is going down here. Hope all is going well there!

Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

E L D E R  C R E E R

He never complained, never whined, never talked bad about anyone...

Hola Familia!

It got up to above 70 this week which was great!! Then the next day it snowed...ridiculous! Things are going pretty good here. We have transfers this Wednesday. The week was a pretty tough one. We taught the most lessons I have so far on my mission (34) so we were pretty busy but it seemed like not a whole lot of them produced anything that's why it is quality that counts not quantity.

 We had 2 more baptisms this week. They got married last week and then they got baptized this week. They love us to death, haha.  They had me make another cake for them for after their baptism since they loved the first one so much. They also said that if we got transferred they would kidnap us and I think they were half serious...but we will see :)

The most exciting thing that happened this week was that the mom of the boy who prayed and felt he should be baptized March 31st and his brother, who was baptized a few weeks ago wants to be baptized now and will be baptized in April. She said that she had been seeing a difference in her kids and wanted to know what they were learning and why they were different. So we had a lesson with her and she asked if she could be baptized. It was pretty exciting. I knew that it would happen though because earlier in the week when we were role playing,  I had a really strong impression that we should invite her to baptized even though she hasn't shown any interest in the past. I later found out that my companion had the same impression. So we followed the Spirit that was trying to guide us and it worked out just as God planned- I assume. It was cool to see how excited the kids were that their mom was going to get baptized too.

I got the hang of being a District Leader now. I am super busy with all my appts. but also I give a ton of rides to the people in the district especially when the weather isn't that great. I gave a training today about charity and faith. I decided to base the training on Christ, since that is who we represent and who we are helping people come unto. I looked at the example of charity that Christ showed us. To sum it up really short- He laid hold upon every good thing. He never complained, never whined, never talked bad about anyone but always looked for the good in them. He loved everyone unconditionally no matter what. Even the people who were the farthest off the path, He looked only at the good in them, never criticized. So of course it is easy to say that we need to lay hold upon every good thing ourselves so that we can have charity, but how can we really do that? The question is Moroni 7:20 and the answer is Moroni 7:25. The way that we can lay hold upon every good thing is by increasing our faith. Faith is the first principle of the gospel so that means that is probably really important, huh?. So we talked about how we can increase our faith. When we increase our faith we believe more in Jesus Christ. And if we REALLY believe more in Jesus Christ then we will understand the importance of becoming more like Him..aka the charity. When we become more Christ-like we will automatically have more love for people. When we have more love for people we can lay hold upon EVERY good thing.

So that is pretty much what happened this week. Hope all is going well there and I will send the transfer info next week.

Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

(Picture is of bowling on p-day with the Winns)

I am loving every bit of my mission...

Hola Famila!

Goood to hear that UNC beat Duke! That is how it is always supposed to be! Things are going pretty good here. I kind of hurt my arm a little bit playing dodge ball so I can't really work out right now or shoot very well. Things are going good here in Rose Park. Transfers are in a week and a half...and I think that I will be leaving but we will see. I already had two investigators tell me that if I left, they would call Prez Winn haha so we will see what happens. We had two marriages this week. The first one is the one that I made the cake for. You sent me that recipe but I didn't really follow it haha I did my own thang. Annd they said it was the best cake they ever had in their life and they asked me to come over and show them how to make it so I guess it turned out great! 

The next wedding we had was for this couple that has 3 baptized kids and one older one that isn't baptized but I will be working on him. It was really cool because the couple that got married second both got baptized right afterwards and the little girl who is 9 in her closing prayer said that she was grateful that her family could be united and brought together and she also asked to help her parents remember that they said "I do" haha I thought that was kind of funny. 

Anyways we had a couple sweet miracles this week. The first one was with a kid who is 10 years old and his older brother just got baptized a few weeks ago. When we were teaching the family this boy was never super interested. Then one day for some reason he just came to church and said he liked it so the next day we decided to stop by his house and just talk to him. When we had the lesson he told us he wanted to be baptized so we asked him to ask God if March 31st was the day that God wanted him to get baptized. So in his prayer he asked God if he should get baptized on March 31st and right when he was done he just started smiling and I asked him if he knew why he was smiling and he said “Yeah”, so I said “Why?” and he said “Because I’m getting baptized!” So that was pretty sweet. He came to church this week too so he is super solid!

The other miracle that we had this week was with a guy who is the husband of the couple that got married and baptized this weekend. His wife has been on date to be baptized for a couple weeks now but he wasn't able to come to church so he couldn't be baptized. However, two weeks ago he lost his job and we found that out on Wednesday. So we had a lesson with the family and invited him to be baptized and he said “yes”, then we asked him to pray for his date and he didn't get his answer that night. So we invited him to pray that night and ask again-  then we would come and follow up the next day. So the next day we saw him and he said that God wanted him to get baptized on Sunday with his wife. So that's what happened!

It was a testimony booster to see these two miracles this week. I definitely know that the Lord is on our side and that He will do whatever it takes to bring His families back to him.

Things are going great here and I am loving every bit of my mission. I know that as I continue to see families be baptized and then sealed in the temple that their lives will be blessed more than they can even imagine right now.

Well all is good here. Conference is coming up in a few weeks..Are you guys coming?

Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

If I could give Him a plate of cookies to influence Him...

Hola Familia!

So I have some pretty big news...OUR MISSION IS SPLITTING JULY 1st! Isn't that nuts! We had a mission meeting this week and the prophet said that because we have been having a lot of success we are going to be splitting the mission. Now there is going to be The Utah Salt Lake City mission, Salt Lake City South, Salt Lake City North (Ogden), Salt Lake City West, and Salt Lake City Central! 5 missions in Salt Lake. They already have the new mission presidents too.  The boundaries are all changing and everything. Everything that is in the west zone and south zone will be part of the Salt Lake City West Mission. So that means all of west valley and whatever is in the south zone. So whoever is called to serve there on the June 13th transfer will be changed to the other mission. The rest of the people that aren’t transferred will stay part of the Utah Salt Lake City Mission. And that is where President and Sister Winn will be serving too. The cool thing is that our mission will be growing bigger. We are going to lose West Valley and the south part but then we are going to extend all the way to Bountiful and Layton! Pretty cool huh! I will go wherever the Lord wants me to go, but if I could give Him a plate of cookies to influence Him I would want to stay with Pres and Sis Winn. :)...so transfers are in two and a half weeks, then another transfer and I will know what mission I will be a part of!

Things are going really well here in Rose Park. We are having a lot of success and the Lord is blessing us a lot. We had another baptism last week. It’s the lady who went with faith to her boss to get Sunday’s off of work so she could go to church with her family.  Her story was amazing and the fact that she got baptized was a miracle in itself. So for our baptism, the AP's came, Pres and Sis Winn came and they brought investigators. We also had 4 investigators there as well, and some missionaries from my district had investigators there. So it was a packed house. The baptism was going very well until I was in the water with her and the doors that are supposed to open so the rest of the people can see the baptism wouldn't open. They tried for like 10 minutes and they couldn't get them open so we had just the investigators and my comp and Sis Winn and the witnesses come and squish together in the back so they could see the baptism. This sweet lady told me that she didn't think that Satan wanted her to get baptized but that she was going to prove him wrong!  

Well that is pretty much everything. Wish me luck on my cake that I have to do for the wedding haha I hope I don't mess it up!

Love Ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

She told her boss she wouldn't be working on Sundays so she could go to church with her family...

Hola Familia!

This will be short. The reason is because we had a visa waiter last week and we had to take him around to the Mexican consulate and go get his flight plans and then we took him back to the airport today. We went back to Paisa Grill today with the ZL's..the Tongans including Elder D-and Elder M- who is one of the ZL's but also the raining heavy weight champion of the mission. He has destroyed all of the food challenges here and I told him about the Pasia Grill taco one and so we all went today. Now when I broke the record and got 29 tacos, I weighed 170...Elder M- weighs like 100 more than that haha so long story short. Elder M- tied me at 29.

We had another baptism this week and everything went really well. We have two marriages lined up next weekend so that is exciting!

I will just share one of the miracles that I had this week before I log off. We were teaching a lady 2 months ago when I first got to this area and then she just disappeared. Then two weeks ago we found her again and arranged for her to get married. She really wanted to get baptized too but the problem was that she was working on Sundays. So we committed her to ask for Sundays off so that she could go to church. She asked her boss like 3 or 4 times for Sundays off and he just told her no. So then we had a lesson with her and we shared the story about when Nephi went back to get the plates and particularly 1 Nephi 3:7. We promised her that if she asked her boss one more time for Sundays off that he would give them to her because going to church is a commandment and if it is a commandment then God will always find a way to make it happen. So the next day she went to work and told her boss, not asked, that she wouldn't be working on Sundays so that she could go to church with her family. Her boss said okay and gave her Sundays off which was great! Things got a little complicated with the boss threatening to cut her hours altogether.  She prayed that her boss’s heart would be softened.  She somehow found herself in an interesting position where she found a paper her boss needed that had confidential information on it.  When she returned it to him, he accommodated all of her schedule concerns.  It’s true; the Lord often works in mysterious ways…

 I gotta go now but I hope all is going good back home.

Love Ya Lots!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer