Rain, Rain, Go Away!

As you've probably heard on the news, it has been very rainy here in Indiana over the past few weeks. They say that last weekend we had more rain than in 1913, when they had record rains and flooding. The area around Columbus had over 10 inches of rain in a day. Madison has not been hit quite as hard, although there has been some flooding in the downtown area. It has also been very hot for this early in the season, so we have days in the 90's, which creates strong thunderstorms.

On the last weekend in may, a small group of scouts from our ward went up to Indianapolis to do a 20 mile hike on the Monon trail. (A nice, flat paved trail on an old railroad that goes through Indianapolis.) Isaac and I were with them. We camped overnight at Camp Belzer, a scout camp in Indianapolis. Then one of those strong thunderstorms moved through in the night. All the tents were severely buffeted, and ours got a broken tent pole. We ended up spending a damp night with our tents set up under a picnic shelter. In the morning we found a tree down in the campsite next to ours that had smashed some picnic tables to splinters. That made us feel like being damp wasn't so bad after all. The rest of the day turned out to be nice, and we got our hike done, so now Isaac has earned his hiking merit badge.

Congratulations on the new job, Denisa. I hope this one works out well for you.

-Newel

Samuel's Mission e-mail June 9, 2008

Everyone:
Well, this week has been a fairly sort-of standard week. Let's see... On Tuesday we helped Lir Torres, one of the less-active sisters in Downey 1st, clean up her apartment, had our correlation meeting with Bell Gardens, and did some street contacting.
On Wednesday, we had our temple day, so we went to the temple, cleaned a bit, and so forth until we had our appointment with Jose Cabrera. In the evening we visited Maira Perez and the Aguilars.
On Thursday we had weekly planning and interviews with President, so it was fairly late when we finally got out. We visited the Taylors, a family with a recent convert in it in the Bell Ward, had our Downey 1st correlation, and street contacted.
On Friday, we had district meeting (In which Elder Chadwick talked about adapting our teaching to people's needs. He talked about the way Cookie Monster on Seasame Street 'eats' cookies by smashing them all over his mouth and compared that to teaching the wrong thing to people, and thereby coined the phrase "Casting your cookies before muppets"), we taught Erica, and we helped Brother Langham in the Downey 1st ward disassemble a bed and put a new one together. In the evening we visited the Aguilars. Anna Gonzalez, the "wife" of Hermano Aguilar, was very distraught because her father was dying (probably has died over the weekend), so we talked about the Plan of Salvation and the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
On Saturday, we taught Gustavo (Gus), and we went up to the mission home to the Information Center (a room in the mission home set aside as a temporary visitor's center until the visitor's center is remodeled) with Rosie and watched the Joseph Smith movie.
On Sunday, Rosie was confirmed, we did some tracting, and we had dinner with the Cordovas. The only reason I mention that is that Elder Cordova is an area authority seventy who lives in Bell Gardens. Unfortunately, he had to be in Utah, so we only had dinner with his family.
Well, I believe that's it for this week. Just remember, hard-heartedness leads to heart disease!
Elder Samuel Stephens

Moving on and moving up

It's been just over a week since Creed's final graduation ceremony. We had both sets of grandparents at our house and had nice visits. The graduation was at the Marriott Center. I think schools are too big if they have to hold graduations there. The nice thing about a small school like Johnstown was you could actively participate in any activity you were interested in. That isn't the case when your high school has 3,000 students.

A couple of days later (June 1) we went to Katelynn's birthday party. She turned 3 and she pretty much controls any portion of the universe that is in her immediate presence. I feel a little sorry for Tagg because he is going to be the recipient of much of her attention. The other day Lindsay noticed he had red marks on his face. When she asked how they got there, Katelynn said that her shoes put them there.

The week after graduation Creed and the older boys in the ward traveled to Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon in Arizona. They spent several days camping, exploring, swimming, and jumping off every waterfall they could. The pictures were amazing. Anette made me promise to take her until she found out that all the portapotties were so full that they had to use sticks to make room when they needed to use the facilities. Now she no longer wants that experience.

Creed is back to work this week until Friday. Then he and I are going to Alaska with some neighbors for a few days of fishing. Luckily our weather has been pretty much the same as Alaska's, so it won't be a big adjustment to be in cold, rainy weather.

After that trip, it will pretty much be nose to the grindstone for both of us the rest of the summer. Hopefully we will catch enough fish to carry us through.

Mariana's 6th Grade Field Trip

On May 22 and 23, Mariana went with her class on a Field trip. I went along as a chaperone. We visited the planetarium in Louisville, the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) in Nashville, and the Parthenon in Nashville. The Parthenon is a full-size replica of the Parthenon in Athens, built for Nashville's Centennial and World's Fair. This one isn't a ruin, and comes complete with a 41-foot tall statue of Athena. The next day we visited the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. That is a really neat place to visit, and we had a great time.

-Newel

Samuel's Mission E-mail June 2, 2008

Everyone:
Rosie's baptism was great! But, I'll get to that in a second. I'll start back up where I left off.
Tuesday of last week, we took Elder Gathro's project up to the mission home. It was a life-size cut-out of a missionary (Elder Hyrum Gene--Hy Gene for short. Yes, it has to do with keeping our apartments clean). We also had Rosie's baptismal interview and visited Luis Magana.
On Wednesday we had Zone Conference. Elder Gene was introduced, and it was explained that he'll be assigned to whichever companionship has the cleanest apartment in the mission, and he'll share a bit of his money with his companion. We also visited Jose Cabrera, did a bit of street contacting, and visited the Aguilar family.
On Thursday we had our weekly planning, tracted a bit, and visited Maira Perez and Luis Magana. On Friday we had companionship exchanges with the zone leaders. The zone leader who was with us, Elder Alexander, is an old companion of Elder Chadwick, so they spent some time reliving old times. We did some street contacting, we taught Erica Nevaro, an investigator of Elder Gathro's who's been out of contact for a while, and Oscar, who we met in the street and is kind of crazy. We also did a bit of service for some members in Bell Gardens, we went over a last few things with Rosie for her baptism, and we visited the familia Aguilar again.
On Saturday we did a lot of tracting in Downey. We met this lady named Esmerelda who seemed really prepared, so hopefully all will go well with her.
On Sunday, we had church. The Medinas had invited another friend of Justin's to church, and he came! His name is Gustavo, and he came to Rosie's baptism, as well. Rosie's baptism went very well, even though she was incredibly nervous about it. She bore a pretty powerful testimony afterwards. We also did a bit of tracting and visited the Taylors, a family in Bell Gardens in which the husband just recently got baptized.
Well, I think that catches everything up. We actually don't have Preparation Day today--we're going to the temple on Wednesday--but we have a bunch of appointments Wednesday evening so we took two hours out of Wednesday to use today. We have those appointments because we just barely found out about our temple day. Communication and organization in the mission... often leave much to be desired. Oh, well. I guess that's why it's an adventure, no?
Elder Samuel Stephens

Samuel's Mission E-mail May 30, 2008

Everyone:
Well, due to Memorial Day, we couldn't e-mail on Monday, and for reasons I'm about to explain, today is the first day of the week we've had time to get to a library. So, now, to get to that reason: I am now in a trio. I'll explain more in a bit.
Tuesday of last week, we did some tracting, checking less-actives, refs, and former investigators, etc. In the evening, we were put in a trio. I am now with Elder Gathro from Florida in addition to Elder Chadwick. Elder Gathro's companion had to go home for some reason, so our areas have been put together for the rest of the transfer, which has caused some interesting scheduling fun. So, I'm now in both Downey and Bell Gardens. Bell Gardens is a much more Spanish-speaking area, so I've been speaking Spanish again.
So, on Wednesday, we had our first day of working as a trio. We did a bit of tracting, did our service at the care home, and then we tried to visit several appointments that Elder Gathro had. None of them were home, though, but we did visit some other people in his area. In the evening, we had Downey ward correlation meeting and talked about Rosie's baptism, and we visited the Aguilar family (yes, another Aguilar family), who are a part-member family where the wife and a son are working towards baptism.
On Thursday, we had weekly planning in the early part of the day. In the afternoon, we visited Jose Cabrera, who is the non-member in another part-member family. In the evening we visited Manette, who is one of the less-actives here in Downey, as well as Maira, a recent convert in Bell Gardens, and Luis Magana (the n has a ~), who is an investigator in Bell Gardens.
On Friday, we had our district meeting, in which we talked a bit about the elder who went home and how important it is to stay with your companion. In the afternoon, we tracted, we taught Rosie the last couple of things she needed to know before her baptism, we visited the familia Soliz who are another family in Bell Gardens that were having some trouble coming to church recently (we found out the brother didn't know how to tie a tie), and we visited the Aguilar family.
On Saturday, we did a bit of contacting in a park, had lunch with the familia Garcia, and we worked on getting to know some of the members of the Bell Gardens ward.
On Sunday, I went with Elder Gathro to the Bell Gardens ward while Elder Chadwick stayed with a member in the Downey 1st ward. In the afternoon, we did a bit of tracting with some youth in the ward, did a bit more getting to know members, and tried to visit some of the Bell Gardens investigators who didn't come to church.
On Monday we had a crazy preparation day. We did our purchases and cleaning, and then Elder Gathro had a painting project he had to do for the mission which took most of the day and some of the next day. In the evening we visited Maira again and the familia Aguilar.
I think I'll leave the rest for telling next week. This whole trio thing has been very interesting, and I'm glad we've got a lot of work going on in Bell Gardens. I'm just a bit worried that we're getting pulled away from Downey too much. But, Rosie's baptism is this Sunday, so I'm pretty happy in general.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Update

My tounge is all better except for a little numbness where the lesion was removed and my back feels better than it has in years.

I don't think we sent this picture before so I will try to send it now.

Dad