September 26, 2011

Hey family... i loved the emails! i was laughing at them they were kind of funny... thank you very much! sounds like you all are doing good. i always love hearing what things you are doing and the fun you guys have. i can totally imagine some of those things happen or things that are said... its pretty funny!

about the country music... alot of the church music i have is country and i love it!.... but i dont think i will be listening to those other country people that you are listening too... thats probably a little to much for me.

it is kind of weird to think that all of these holidays are coming up this fast... i still remember just barely having them i swear... i remember Halloween like it was just a couple of weeks ago! its very crazy the time is kind of starting to pick up. in my mission we have 17 transfers and im on my 12th one right now so i have 5 transfers left... its kind of a bummer if you think about it. i have just loved every bit of the things that i have been doing... and for how much i have learned thus far... i cant wait to learn even more!

We had a special training as a mission on Friday... it was about working with members. it was so cool. i never want to knock on another door as long as im on my mission... we are going to just be working with all of the members and it will be really good for us for the members and for their friends whom they have been holding back on sharing this message with! i am so excited to start implementing the things that were taught to us. well i guess we have already started to do it... and we did it with the rozsa family last night and that went so good!

we have still been teaching Brandy and Carlos... they are super awesome! i have really enjoyed teaching them these past couple of weeks! they have such a strong desire to do good and to want to follow the Savior. Carlos is ready right now but Brandy wants to make sure that she is done with the bigger sins... she wants to totally give them up before she is baptized, so then she wouldnt be a hypocrite and obviously we understand. but they are both 19 and so cool! and it is because members set a good example for them and they see the good that the church can bring to their lives.

we have so much potential in this area, but people just wont commit. and that is really frustrating because they truly just do not understand what they are missing out on. i try my hardest to show them and teach them, but they just want to do their own things. they just dont get that the scriptures show how we should live our lives and what we need to be doing to prepare for the next life. when i read the scriptures sometimes i have a fear because i know that i need to change or do better and i repent and do better but alot of people just think that the scriptures are more like guidelines and it is a little bit lame.

My companion and i are doing pretty good... we dont always agree on things, but we get over it. one of the biggest things that bugs me is that when i get bold with people... and tell them how it is... he sugar coats it and tells them it is ok... then later on we will be talking and he will say "i think we are just to relaxed and soft with people" as im pulling my hair out of my head. ha but that is the only thing... everything else is well.

things are going good here though... i still love it! i think it will be a good last couple of weeks here... we will have a baptism on the 9th and we are excited for that! conference weekend is coming up and there is nothing better than that right? it is going to be a good one! it seems like April's conference was one of the best that i have listened to, but this next one is going to be even better. Priesthood session will definitely not be the same without you dad... i will think of you for sure.

well i have got to be going... i love you very much!

hope you have an amazing week and that you will involve the Lord in your life everyday.

Love you...

Love Elder Emery

September 6, 2011

Hey guys

well we had an interesting week... it was kind of a downer but kind of not. i wish i could just talk to you guys it would be so much better... emails just dont seem to cut it sometimes when you just want to have a normal conversation you know what i mean?

anyway we had a few problems arise this week... first Daniella. the girl who was baptized a couple of weeks ago... she was antied this past week and she told us Sunday that she will not be attending anymore services and that she will just be going back to the Catholic church. this was very hard to hear... i was very sad and i didnt know what to do... i still dont know what to do because we went over to her house last night and talked with her and we really could not get anything out of her... we finally just told her to pray and ask because God will not lie and if he says that you will gain and answer by the Holy Ghost then you need to plead with him to find out if what we say is the truth and we talked about other stuff. it was so i dont know if heartbreaking is the right word but it hurt we just cant seem to figure out how to best help her. it seemed like things were going so well but then someone had to open there mouth and spread false doctrines about us and she doesnt want anything to do with us now.

Then something else happened... Sunday we get a call from a Lady asking us for help and so we went over to see what she needed. she is on on parole and she needs help with money and a place to live because she doesnt have any money and she needs to find cheaper rent because she will be getting kicked out of her apartment on the 26th and some how she got our number to come over and help her with this problem. Basically what we told her was that we could get in contact with the Bishop and we can see if he can help because we personally cannot really get involved in these type of situations.. we didnt say it like that but that is pretty close. she started to cry and told us that she does not want to be living on the streets and that she is going to commit suicide if it comes to that. she said she almost took her life once with a gun. i didnt really know what to say other than we will do our best but you know taking your life is not the answer and i said other stuff.

Why would people bring these problems to us expecting us to fix them... im only 20 years old how am i suppose to deal with some of these different things? it has been very stressfull and frustrating these last couple of days and that is not all of the things that have happened... just some of the bigger ones. it has just been a rough week. the Wedding didnt go through either.

Yesterday we did have a Barbeque with Sandra... that was great and it was nice to just relax and take a break. some of our potential investigators should be progressing investigators by the end of this week... which will be good! we have been waiting for these two for about a month now and they are just about ready to start the lessons we are just waiting for a couple small things!

The Lord does bless us for our efforts and even though it is hard right now i know it has purpose we just have to seek counsel from the Lord and not seek to counsel him and so we will learn from these experiences once we get through them.

this morning i was reading the last 3 chapters in 2 nephi and they are so great i know that the Lord does love us and he wants all to partake of this Gospel and so that is why i go out every day with a passion to find the people our Heavenly Father has prepared for us... through the Lord i will do my best to Convey his message to everyone we come in contact with and we have the Holy Ghost with us to teach these people of the Restored Gospel here on earth.

I love you guys i hope all is well with everyone of you!!

Thank you for your love and support you are the very best!

Love you

Love Elder Emery

September 19, 2011

Hey everyone! happy Monday... it seems like the week went by super fast!! which is always good!

This week was ok... we had Leadership training on Wednesday and that was awesome. i Love president Pike, but when we had Leadership training with him it always seemed like it took forEVER and it was because brother Pike would do everything so... i dont even know how to explain it, but it was like there was only one way to do things with him, but with President Becerra you have things that are uniform and also things that are flexible and it makes everything alot better, because then you know that you can kind of do it the way that you think it is effective which is nice.

He taught us alot and he even opened it up to question and answer and that was cool to here some answers to questions that i have had... it has just been good Learning the way that President Becerra teaches us... he wants us to be interactive so he asks us alot of questions to kind of have a teach everyone, and it makes sense because we are the ones teaching the District Meetings and things like that ya know what i mean? it has been good!

you asked why we have not been eating... well our Ward Mission Leader is suppose to set up all of our dinners for us and he has not been doing it, but i talked with him yesterday about it and he said that he will do better and i guess that is all that we can ask for right? i dont even mind not eating... the ward here is really missionary minded and they have friends they are working with and we need to get into their homes so we can take the next step with their friends. i have only lost a few lbs not too much. My foot is good it continues to get better i went to the Doctors 2 weeks ago and he said it have improved so much and by the end of this month it should be fully healed! so i am pretty excited about that!

We Finally started teaching Brandy and Carlos... we have been waiting to start teaching them for like 4 weeks now... them have been coming to church for almost months now and they were just seeing if this was really something that they wanted to do and it is! we had a great first lesson with them and invited them to be Baptized and they said yes! so we are excited about that! they are both 19 and they just want something more in their life so this is the pathway they have chosen! i think about my patriarchial blessing and what it says about youth... and then i look back on the different baptisms that i have helped with... most of them are youth and i love it!

we have an investigator who believes everything that we teach and believes the Book Of Mormon but he isnt interested in changing... how does this happen? i still do not understand... oh well.

anyway that is about it for this week i hope everything goes well for you guys this week

i love you very much and i do pray for you all the time!

thank you for the package... it is good! i will send my memory card home here... um probably this week i will get it sent off.

Love you all have a wonderful week!!

Love Elder Emery