There was a huge water animal...

Hola Familia!
My new comp is Elder Morales. He came out on his mission from Texas but grew up in Mexico. The funny thing is that he was the senior comp with Shuster and I am the DL.   So now with Elder Morales and I we have a super companionship, haha.  It has already showed because we added 7 people together this week and had a baptism. The area is looking really good right now. It is really cool to be serving with someone who has so much experience because we can both focus on the area and when I am doing DL stuff he has no problem with the area by himself. They usually don't make things like this so we will probably be transferred after this transfer but I will enjoy it while I can. He is really awesome and we are having tons of fun.

For the baptism that we had this weekend it was for a 9 year old kid. Both of his parents were baptized a year ago so we found him and he just turned 9 so he was all ready. The cool thing about him is after every lesson we would go play soccer with him for 20 minutes or play Jenga or something. Annd they used to live in Pasco!! He was wearing a Pasco shirt the other day and I told him Richland was better. hahaha. They talked about how they always went to the park where the play ground of dreams was and they loved the river. His mom told us a story a couple days ago about one time when he was swimming in the river there was a huge water animal..that’s what she called it, that looked like a giant fish/beaver that jumped out of the water and ate a fish right in front of her son and she freaked out and didn't take him to the river after that. I tried to make it seem like I knew what water animal she was talking about but the only conclusion that I could come to was a FEVIRD..part fish because it was swimming..part beaver because  it can walk on shore and part bird because it can fly. That is about the best I can do with the description! hahaha.

Anyways things are going good right now. It snowed again yesterday so it is really nice to have a car. We have 3 marriages scheduled for the next month in our teaching pool and we had one last week.

We have a baptism next week lined up and this lady is amazing. When we found her the first thing she said was “Hi I am A-- and I am not baptized.”  Haha.  So now she is getting baptized next week! Crazy how the Lord provides for us if we are doing the things we are supposed to.

Well hope all is going well!

SIempre Crean,

Elder Creer

When they see we care about them they will recognize what we say is true...

Hola Familia!

So transfers were this week and Elder Tory went back home to get ready to go to Hawaii. I stayed with my comp in the same area and the new missionary that is in our house is Elder Torres who is from Mexico too. He goes home right after General Conference. I am now a District Leader. We have 3 new missionaries in our district. One is from Alaska and he is 6 foot 6 and plays ball, then the one from Mexico who plays soccer and makes really good food and the other one is from Hawaii and he plays the guitar and sings. It looks like it will be a pretty fun one.

I gave my first training to the district last week and I think it went well. The training was all about charity and who we represent. As missionaries we are called to represent Jesus Christ which means if Christ could be here teaching these people then He would be. But since He can't be here then we are. He called us through a prophet to represent Him and help His people come unto Him. We talked about the way Christ taught the people and the biggest thing Christ did was show charity to everyone he met. The people Christ talked to and taught knew that He cared about them and they knew that He loved him. And because they knew He loved them, they listened to what He said. As missionaries we need to be the same way. Since we represent Jesus Christ we need to show everyone charity because before they care about what we say they need to know how much we care about them. When they see that we truly care about them and what is important to them they will recognize what we say is true. The district seemed to really like the training so I think it was successful.

 I’ve noted a recurring theme in life.  That is that as we turn to Christ and are progressing; including going to church and reading the Book of Mormon, we get blessed a lot. For people here, it seems to be in the form of getting new jobs and getting a lot of help from God. Then they stop doing the right things. They forget how they got to the point where God was blessing them. They are forgetting the work they put in to get blessed. I think it is a pretty simple concept so I don’t know really understand.  If I score 30 points in a basketball game- that is obviously a good thing. The only way I got to 30 points a game was from practice. So to get 30 points again or more I need to keep practicing. If I stop practicing, then I am no good anymore, like now. (haha) So the same is true with the gospel. When we keep the commandments and do the right things God is going to bless us but as soon as we forget where the blessings come from and stop doing the right things then the blessings stop coming, just like the points in basketball. So what we are trying to do with our investigators is help them realize what is happening.

We do have a car now so that is sweet because it snowed again yesterday. Well that is pretty much the latest here. Hope all is going super duper over there. Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

God leads His prepared servants to His prepared people...

Hola Familia!

We had another baptism this week; he is 12 years old. He had kinda a rough past. He was baptized last night and he was super happy. His mom couldn't come and he had little support from the branch but he loved it!

We had a cool miracle this week. A couple of weeks ago another Elder told me about a former investigator that he had taught on splits like 6 months ago and how she almost got baptized.   So we found her address in the Former section of the area book and her phone number. We tried calling her a bunch of times but her phone was disconnected and the address was wrong in the area book. So one day we were knocking and we met this girl and for some reason I just said we are looking for L---, she said “That's me. I'm L---.” I asked what her last name was, and she said “It's me- L--- D---.” She was the exact person that we were looking for earlier in the week but was impossible to find. She agreed to come to church on Sunday but wanted to come to the English ward. So we said “perfect!” We explained to her what Fast Sunday was and what a testimony is. Half- way through the meeting she leaned over and said “I want to go up.”  So she went up and we translated her testimony. She explained her part of the story of how we found her. She said the night before we knocked on her door she had said a prayer asking God to help her find a way back to the church. She testified that she knows if we pray and really believe that we are going to get an answer then we will. She described her feelings of happiness that she had when she saw us and how she knew God loved her and answered her prayers. It was a miracle to her that we found her, for us and for her.

It was ANOTHER witness that God has a plan and everything is going to happen when He wants. We had tried to contact her a week before and couldn't find her, then once she asked God for us to come we found her. Maybe God knew that she needed to have the experience to strengthen her faith and that's why He waited a week before He led us to her. God leads His prepared servants to His prepared people.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention about when we played soccer with all the little Spanish kids we are teaching, it was a big game-- like 2 on 2, haha. Half of the field was ice and the other was really wet grass. To make a short story long, I got a little too competitive when the 12 year old girl kicked my trash and scored two goals on me. I decided to execute and scored two goals in a row and then it got serious. The playing conditions were rough and the competition fierce. My comp was on the break away and right before he tired to score a goal he slipped...and landed in dog crap hahahaha. All over his suit and it was sooooo funny. But me, being the competitive one I am took this opportunity with a man down to take the lead. I took the ball and dribbled down the field like Ronaldino and right when I tried to juke the 12 year old girl, I slipped and....fell in dog crap and this time it wasn't funny at all. The bottom pant leg covered in the nasties- haha. So instead of helping me up, the girl scored a goal and trash talked me. You are probably wondering why we would play on such a field, right. Well fyi both times we hit the ground we broke the ice that was on the field and were unpleasantly surprised with what lie underneath.

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

I have seen miracles because of keeping the faith...

Hola Familia!

Things are going pretty good here; it was a pretty tough week. We baptized almost all of our teaching pool and so this whole week we were concentrating on finding new investigators. We were just knocking doors and going through the list of formers to try and find someone new to begin teaching. We worked hard all week and weren't having much success, but this was a test of our faith. It came down to Saturday and we added six new investigators and three of them have agreed to get baptized so that was cool.

When things are getting the hardest and when it seems like we aren't going to have any success, something great happens right after it. I have seen miracles because of keeping faith until the last second so that has been kind of cool.

We had another baptism this week. This whole week Satan was working really hard on him to try and convince him not to get baptized. We visited him every day this week but we seemed to make little progress. So we ended up taking them to Temple Square to take a tour with the Sisters from Temple Square... The Sister missionaries were great! Long story short, we went into Temple Square and he didn't want to get baptized, then we met the Sisters, then we left and he wanted to get baptized, haha so he was baptized last night!

We had interviews this week with President Winn which went well.  My District Leader Elder Montgomery and his companion Elder Fore are like the funniest people in the world so this transfer had been great with the district.

                                      

Well that is all I have to say today. Hope all is going good there.

 Love Ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

It's cool to see the progress of a missionary...

Hola Familia!

To answer your questions:  We are still playing ball every week. Right now there are a couple ballers in the zone. Elder Dreyling is from Florida he had scholarships to play for a couple small schools in Florida. He is really quick. Then there is Elder Orr who is from Oklahoma and grew up on a farm. He is lights out; all he does is stand and shoot threes because he had 3 knee surgeries. He is like 6-5 with tons of range, and he always wears OKC thunder stuff. Elder Rodgers, the Crawford’s friend is in my district too.. He is like Noah Hartsock, haha he just has a soft jay inside the key, money every time.

The greenie breaking is going pretty good. It's cool to see the progress of a missionary when you are helping train him. He is pretty happy too because we have had the opportunity to help investigators progress to baptism.

We had another baptism Saturday night. They are really nice and always invite us over for dinner. The food is really good because she is from Mexico and I like authentic Mexican food!

So we are walking right now because both of our bikes broken. My tires are flat and we tried fixing it like 10 times and we can’t and then my comp was riding his and the pedal broke off, haha so we are just walking now.

Hope all is going well at home, sounds like the snow storm was crazy! Thanks for the package, I shared the turtle bars with my district and they loved them.

 Love Ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

New Year's Eve Mission wide activity: