Bad boys, bad boys...wach you gonna do?

Well..Hows it going Family?

This past week went by way quick. we were super busy, it was pretty nice. Everything is going really good here. We are still teaching Marco and he's getting married this week to his girlfriend, and then we actually switched the baptism to saturday instead of sunday. he is pretty excited. I want to try and do a musical number with my companion like nearer my God to thee and i can just play it on the Uke. Well see about that one... Speaking about hawaiian stuff, so there is this one family from hawaii the Espinoza family and they had us over for dinner last night. Kalua Pig with cabbage, oh man that was so good. we were joking how he invited us over as one peace offering... haha il tell you why. it's a pretty funny story.

So last week we were talking to the Ojeda family because w are teaching the kids and somehow the idea of making pizzas came up. so we went to church last week and made some pizzas from scratch. they were bomb! after we made the pizzas we had a lesson there and it was good. We taught about the restoration and the spirit was strong. the cool thing too was they understood easily too. but after the lesson we realized we had to leave to go to another one and so we didn't have time to clean up... so we left thinking we'd come back in an hour and finish cleaning up. so we are in the next lesson and everything and the other missionaries that work english sent us a text asking us if we made pizzas... we were like, yeah thinking they ate all the leftovers haha... but they told us to come back to the apartment so we left the appointment and headed back home when they told us. Bro Espinoza went to check up on the church kus he is the building watcheroverer... and he saw the mess and thought some punks came in and threw a party so he called the cops... so after the other misionaries told us this... haha we ran to the church and they found out it was us and we got scoldings but it was pretty funny. so just so everyone knows the missionaries still can get the cops called on them. we learned our lesson after that one. that's for sure.

Oh and what was cool was this past week we finally got a hold of a less active member who we have been trying to get a hold of for like 3 months and we had two lessons with her in just this week. which was sweet because she really wants to change and come back but she has a hard time leaving the old lifestyle. but it showed me that God has given us alot of things to give us the chance to change and follow him and therein receive the blessings from that. So we testified about the Restoration and how we have a living prophet that guides us and we have the priesthood to act in God's name to access the atonement of Christ and then we shared how the Atonement cleans and erases everything and we can be made saints through Christ and after that you could see the light in her eyes with the hope she was getting.

The same thing happened with this one brother who has a problem drinking. He's a way good guy, super nice and everything but he just has that problem that just drags um down and he wants to get out of it. so we shared the power of the atonement and how he can access it and that it's gonna come through the small steps. but after a while he will be able to see a huge change of heart... and it was just sweet to see the power of healing that Christ has. it doesn't matter what problems we have, we can be free of all those things through Christ and having Faith in him and taking those small steps of repentance everyday of our lives and feel at peace after we have done that. nothing else gives us that chance but Christ. So it's really cool to represent him and share his teaching with other people even though there are alot more people that can do it better then me. i'm way thankful.

anyways hope everything is good.. and i guess i'll see yah next week
Love,
Elder Thomas

Milk and cookies, yeah baby

Hey Family!

So yeah i put some pictures for you guys so you can have some updates. That's our apartment with all the Christmas decorations we put up. alot of it was from some members haha, and we still haven't taken it down...still going strong with the christmas spirit haha.

This past week was crazy! we were super busy having a good time and having alot of appointments. We went to the Mormon Batallion twice and it was sweet kus i haven't been there forever. so it felt good to go back because the visits we have there are always way powerful. you can feel the spirit super strong. The first time we went there, we went with a brother we are teaching, his name is marco...he is a stud! way good guy and super interested. so anyways you probably remember me talking about him before. but we went to the place and watched the new Jospeh Smith Movie and it's so good because it talks about faith and sacrifices and it was cool because after the movie i shared a scripture in moroni10:32. and i was actually reading it a couple days earlier and i read it and it hit me hard with the spirit and i thought about marco and when i shared it that night - same thing... felt super powerful and the spirit hit it home right to his heart... which was way sweet!! kus usually like i read the scriptures and i study for people and i'm just eating it up... loving it haha but when it gets to the time to share i feel like it doesn't come out as good. but this time it did and it was way cool to see God's hand in that. because after that we commited him to baptism for the 29th and he accepted!! he actually said Amen so i'm pretty sure thats a yes haha. So we are way stoked for that. and he came to church again this sunday and loved it and loves reading the scriptures we leave for him. so he is super solid! it's really cool to see.

Then you remember how last week i told you how we biked down to that one family and woke um up to get them ready for church, well we did it again haha... but this time with a car... so million times better haha. so they came too. and i mean church was da bomb.. .so much people came it was packed full!! so much that we ran out of bread and the bishop goes up there and says oh well... we never had this happen before but it's really good so just wait while we get more bread haha. oh man i was cracking up. So yup everything here is going awesome and the work is shooting faster than i don't know, something way fast. We are having alot of stuff to do! Oh and then this one night we went with this hermana to go visit a family but the family was not home so we asked if she knew anyone that lived close by and she said well yeah. so we went to go see one but she wasn't home so we were heading back while we stopped by this one house we actually got in and this lady was super nice. we had some milk and cookies.. ohhh man vanilla oreos. super good. so as you can tell the visit was really good. come to find out this sister was a member... she was baptized 40 something years ago... and so we taught her and she's been trying to find a church. she just kinda turned away from the church a long time ago but not because of anything wrong about the church... it just happened. but she's searching again and hardly remembers anything. so we are starting to teach her again. she's excited and wants to come to church next week too. So a ton of stuff. Just loving it out here like always.

Hope you guys are doing good and everything I miss yah and love yah alot Cuidense
Elder Tomasito

The work is going well (15 foot face waves!)

Hey Family!

So yeah this week was pretty good here in San Diego - some good stuff is happening it's pretty sweet! This past week we went to go visit a family we used to teach and we taught them again and it went way good. We invited them to church, which they never had been to yet, so on Sunday morning we stopped by and woke um up and got them to come to church haha it was pretty funny stuff. we just waited there until they all got ready! It felt good though, when we were all sitting in church just because man they are gonna get blessed for following God's commandments.

This past week it was funny. well everyone here knows i'm from hawaii and i like surfing so like on thursday or something people kept telling me how big the waves were because there was a swell that came in - aparently 15 foot faces. but i don't know about that one. so i said we should go check it out and to make it centered on our purpose. we stopped by an investigator's house who lives by the beach haha nah well we already had it planned to go see him. so we to go see him and he is doing way good! he lives with his girlfriend who is a member but less active. they are super nice and he is actually doing really good. he is reading the Book of Mormon and everything, coming to church and so he is solid. we are going to see them tonight and invite him to baptism... so we are stoked about that.

Um lets see what else. shoot sorry we don't have a lot of time kus we gotta meet other missionaries and head out to the midway today. We were late to email because we were eating some food. Dad that was bomb the meat thanks for the package. we have been pounding that down and we only have a little left now. but it was way good. eating like kings haha so yeah thanks!

um well i love you guys alot. take it easy
Elder Thomas

Bring on the spam anytime

Hey family!

Happy new year.. new years here was pretty good. lame part was that we had to go in early to be safe. there wasn't any fireworks either becuase its all illegal here. so that was kinda wierd. i'm used to all the chinese red firecrakers. but it was cool... on new years eve there was this family moving out of the apartments we live in, so we just started helping um carry stuff. they are a way sweet family super funny! kus they would always be chilling outside the apartment and they would see us walking and they would just joke around. they would always tell us eh.. what are you guys doing, take the tie off and go rest, you need a break, don't worry we won't tell your bosses or anything, just take a break haha. so they would always joke and we would joke back. we were pretty good neighboor friends. so it was pretty sweet that we could help um out. it was fun we did two trips. they moved to a house down a couple blocks and so we would load up the u-haul and then ride our bikes to the new house and meet um there to unload. Actually, thinking about it... this whole week was full of service. Because we helped carmen out with her yard. the one i told you about last tuesday. shoot, i even brought the camera to send some pictures but i left the cord haha, close..

Anyways, Oh i got to tell you about this one night. we went on exchanges. i went to with the english elders because they teach a couple hawaiians and so they asked me to come. it was some good stuff. the funny thing was right before that we went and ate some mexican food kus we were hungry and haven't taken dinner and i was full after that but come to find out the appointment with the hawaiian family was dinner too. i was like ahh no, but they brought out the food and it was rice with hawaiian stew and spam.. oh, man it was the bomb. i even got two plates. so even though i've been living mexican pretty much two years... still got the hawaiian side going haha, i always got some extra room for the Hawaiian grinds.

we had a couple cool experiences too on the street lastweek. Well we stopped by this one brother's house who we caroled too and we started talking to him about our message a little more and it was cool because he told us how this new year he set a goal to grow closer to God and so i thought sweet, well what better way to get closer to God than reading the Book of Mormon since it's another testament of Jesus christ. so we invited him to read it and testified how it will change his life. it was cool because it just was a simple conversation. we stopped by a ton of other families and we have alot of potentials to start teaching, so we are super stoked. it's gonna be pretty crazy. so we are starting the new year pretty good.

hopefully everything is good over there too. love you guys alot and talk to you next week

Elder Thomas