Date: Monday, March 30, 2009, 10:14 AM

Hola Familia Coma estamos?
Fisrt things first i am obviously going to tell you the news I am getting a new companion tomorrow he is Latino too lol he is from El Salvador and his name is Elder Rivas if you can look him up lol i am a bit nervous lol no more even being able to think in English lol so that will be fun for me lol But you didn't receive any of my pictures?? Seriously i sent a lot, did you see the beach? Tell me if you didn't and i will resend them next week with pictures of me and my new companion lol !! Man i am a bit nervous i am staying in this sector with him lol so i will run everything obviously !!! Crazy right, my companion is going to Antofagasta! I officially broke the 6 months and its tradition for all missionaries here to burn one of your ties in which my companion told me to burn that one so i did lol. That was pretty fun i saved a little bit of it for memories and put it into a bag. But the 4 and a half months here with my companion really really went by quickly geese! I only got to do what i just did 3 more times crazy! My companion Elder Rodee only has 5 more transfers so he will be home before he knows it! Ha ha mom i like the cape theory lol i was asking my companion if he has had many stories like these ones from his other sectors and he said not as many as we have had together during his whole mission so that is pretty awesome for me to think about! We had a baptism as you can see it was the last one of the month to achieve our goal as missionaries. We needed 24 for all of our sector and that one was number 24 so that was cool. All his family is strict Jehovahs witness and lets just say from the first time we taught him we gave him a baptism commitment and he said i wont get baptized into your church i just heard you had prophets and i wanted to hear more about it. Then at his baptism after like 2 and a half months of teaching him he said who would of thought i would be here in all white getting baptized! And all his family came mom dad and brother who are from the other religion and we are teaching them next!So that was awesome! He is going to to be a great member i gave a talk at his baptism without notes and also i confirmed him a member and gave him the holy ghost in sacrament meeting in front of everyone which was a bit scary but it went very well. I am hoping our bud Nestor gets baptized before the 15 that was the plan so we are working with him a lot. We did 210 contacts this week which was our goal and that is the must that we have ever done. It felt like a ton wow. Last week i forgot to mention i did a transfer for one day only with Elder Derrington you get that picture?? He is awesome me and him got a long great! I am still a bit nervous for transfers lol but it will be nice for a change. Mom i am glad that fanny pack worked well for ya! Lol i hoped some one would use it ha ha I am still eagerly waiting for this Easter basket lol i am waiting with patience. If you can find like cds that like have teachings of Spanish and are cheap by it cause i would like something like that if you can find some that are cheap in the afternoon that would be sweet to listen to if you can find a cd like that or hymns in Spanish that would be cool.!! I am totally fluent with Spanish now i still have trouble talking in the tu and vos from because we can only speak in the usted form so i am working on the tu form cause that is what you say for blessings and prayers! But i can speak very well in the usted and all the others!! I memorize a lot of vocabulary everyday which helps me out a ton!But yeah see if you can find cds! Dallen that is funny you still work with Gary lol ill show you some real spiders when i get home lol. You dont even know what spiders are lol Bertney with 2 new jobs, stay away from waterworld boys ok lol!! I am serious lol but that does sound like a lot of fun! I am doing well with all things Spanish people tell me i have a beautiful accent and i am progressing well this girl in our ward was like hey you like rap right and i was like yeah why and she played on her phone i kissed a girl and i liked it and i was so angry lol i was like you have no idea how long it took me to get that song out of my head lol i said turn that off now lol Ill let you know more about the new companion and all next week. But all is well!!
I Love you all so very much and hope you are all very happy. Tell Scotty thanks for talking to me like ever that punk, lol But love all of you

Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 2:30 PM

WoOOOoooHHOOHOHOHO Family
How are we all doing?? Question where did Bradley serve again? English or or another language. Why was he depressed, you got to always be happy when you are a servant of the Lord. I wonder why he felt that way. If he had to learn Spanish and had a hard time with it than i can see why because my oh my can it be depressing lol its almost impossible to explain yourself or even talk sometimes in Spanish so i can see why it would make you learn to deal with depression, if i didn't have a north American as my companion i would be a bit depressed. But yeah did he tell some good stories about his mission?? That's funny you said that bitty i was thinking about the same thing as you all. I wish i would have spent a little more time with all of you everyday i felt really sad the other day when a elder said that and i was thinking i wish i could have done more with the family! I definitely can see the whole picture now that i am away from everything !!! That's great about Darren going to go on the mission i am not going to see him for a very long time like almost 3 years !! How is Austin doing with his papers he is 19!! Anthony turned 19 too if you see him say happy birthday that is weird he is 19 wow. Dallen, i am really jealous of you punk. Sounds like you had quite the bday i am very proud and happy for you my big 14 year old lol wow that's weird your growing old on me!!! I am glad Jeana's Wedding went well !! Elder Smith has already visited you guys lol that is awesome lol I BET THAT WAS SO GREAT TO SEE HIM! I want to return here after the mission the beaches are awesome, i went to the beach today and i have a few cool picks of it. I hope that makes you all a bit jealous of me lol. Tomorrow i will complete 6 months !! Crazy sauce right. I cant believe it. We are going to eat pizza that is for sure!!!! Man dall you got the wii i am sure the rest of the family is very jealous of you!! Ha ha OK and now whats going on with Elder Eddenfield, I don't know if i am just in the sector at the right time or what but i got another crazy awesome experience for ya!! I will tell you it last first things first That's funny you asked dad i gave a talk yesterday in church actually lol I gave it on the power of prayer i even said a joke, I said, I was thinking really hard about who are the happiest people in the world and than i said the missionaries, because they pray the most lol and they laughed haha I have 6 months under my belt right about now!! That's right it is going by quickly. We have cambios in 7 days!! That's crazy i will be getting a change this time!! We have a baptism this Saturday! He will be an amazing convert. Again happy bday dall. And now the story, we decided just to do random contacting on a street we have never contacted before, since we had a lot of extra time and we had not planned anything to do for that time of the day lol so yeah we decided to achieve are goal of 140 contacts for the week. We first started at a apartment complex because it is close together and we can get them done quickly, but after 2 doors my companion didn't feel good about contacting that area so for some reason we changed to another street. We skipped a few streets and decided just to start on a random street called sur 1 so we were contacting this door on the side street at like 8 at night and there was a family across the street in which had 4 girls little girls and mom and dad. The dad was under the car fixing something i am not sure what, but they were in a gate that was in front of there house. At the top of the gate it was spiked so no one can sneak over. One would have to cut themselves to get over it and it was like 7 feet high. And as we were across the street all of a sudden we heard a little bit of a smash and a bunch of girls screaming and i guy screaming and the wood that was under the tire broke and the guy fixing the car under it got smashed with his hand smashed against his body. We were not sure what was going on but after i heard the screaming a ran across the street, with out even thinking i hopped up that pointed sharp fence that at the time it didn't even matter to me, and the little girls obviously could not lift the nice size car that was definatley a bit bigger than my Honda back home and don't ask how but i grabbed that car and lifted it just enough for that guy to squeeze out! I mean that car had to have been a ton and i know i could not have lifted it alone but something obviously gave me that strength to lift that car so that man could get out!!!! My heart was pounding and they were all screaming. The guys hands were all bloody from the car smashing them to his body but he got out ok and only his hands were bleeding. The crazy thing is though i was so worried about helping him and saving his life i did not care to look 10 feet down the fence to see that there gate was open on the other side!! For them it made the rescue so much better and meaningful because that fence is not meant to be jumped and i did it with out even thinking to help them. No one had tried getting over it before. They obviously excepted a lesson from us and we will teach them during this week! I am very amazed how the Lord helps his servants. I never thought i would really be able to hop 7 feet spiked fence and lift a ton. My heart was pounding that hole night and my back was hurting but it was a great experience for me that i will never ever forgot. So that is my testimony and wow it was such an amazing experience. Next time i will look at the surroundings and go through the door lol but i know if there was no door i still would not hesitate even with the backpack on my back!! I love you all and i hope you have the best day ever.
PS that was yesterday on Dallens bday so that is my present to you to them ok LOVE ALL OF YOU

Date: Monday, March 16, 2009, 9:16 AM

Hola mi familia
Coma esta?
How are we doing today, man the weeks are just starting to fly by 2 more weeks until cambios crazy right I can hardly believe it. I am glad you enjoyed to my package, each birthday I will send one ok lol. This computer rights in Spanish a lot so it a word is like weird or doesn’t make sense it is because the computer changes it ok! And no mother our president doesn’t get to hear all these stories but I write him every week on email but it takes up the time I have to email the family so I would rather just right them to you quickly to you in English and not take up all the time writing it in Spanish to him lol. I still cant believe how fast this week went by! Dallen I know you boy you pulled that fire alarm on purpose didn’t you lol jk, but that is quite a funny story. Krystal Scott you should have gotten free Scandia and also for them to pay for your window! Which car was it? Yours or Scotty? My companions name is Scotty too lol he says he is the only Scotty 2 hottie lol so that sounds like a challenge for Scott lol. Dad if I had my scriptures on me I would give you the scripture to tell Eugene but I don’t! Look in the doctrine and covenants search for baptisms there is a scripture that says it doesn’t matter how many times you have been baptized it profits you nothing if it is not by the right authority. I wish I had the scripture on me so I could just tell you . It explains it good in the heading of the scripture. Man I wish I had my scriptures now lol. Don’t let him get baptized lol I am going to do the missionary work for him, I got every scripture marked that is already prepared for him the day I return lol. Dallen I love the list of things were going to do when I return don’t forget to add swimming and MOVIES I miss movies so much they always play them in front of us and it kills me lol I never watch them though. Now stuff from the week! First off Happy bday for dallen this week!! I am glad I will be home before his 16 bday to do the regulating lol I thought about that cause my companion has a brother who just turned 16 lol. I placed a baptism date that is set on our investigator Erik, he will be a very good member of our church, his family is all Jehovahs witnesses and he left them for our church!! He knows so much about the bible lol so we always teach him in the book of mormon lol but he is going to be baptized the 28th!! Usually we only have like 40 people in our ward and we had 55 people from our investigators and less active member coming and the ward was like, wow we can just see from how many people that are coming to church that you 2 have been working hard, the fruits of your work is amazing so we were happy to hear that! There was a person who came because of us his name is hermano Victor, his parents have converted 100 people into the church and yet he never believed the church was true. Had not been to church since his baptism at 8 years old. He is racist against Gringos also and all of this we changed he is 40 years old and his x wife also is racist. They don’t like that our church was formed in the US cause they have all the money and what not but he came to church and loved it so that was amazing. His dad came to us an was like what did you do to him? I have tried for 32 years and nothing and all of a sudden he is going to church lol So that was sweet. My companion was sick for one of our days so he was in bed all morning and we could not work for a morning and I took a picture of him sleeping cause it was boring doing gym alone early in the morning by myself lol. He is all better now. Dad I was fighting my companion on you being the happiest person in the world I fought him a long time on it but there is one person here that definitely would give you a run for your money lol His he a member and his wife has been in a wheel chair for years an he is like 75 and I mean he has to do everything for her and she has such an attitude and I don’t know how he does it but he is always so happy and singing hymns out loud every time we visit them lol haha so we thought that was funny. We did cambios for a day and I was with another Gringo elder Haake for a day and he has a year out and his Spanish still is not very good so I felt bad for him cause he has had all Latino companions so I didn’t know how he could not speak well. But we tared it up together we taught a lot and got a family who wanted to get sealed in the temple in 1 year so that was awesome. I don’t have much more than that but I am very good just working and working and trying to get the best out of everyday. What ever you do do not let Chuck get baptized lol, I will settle that with him when I get home lol. But I am glad all of you loved your gifts and I hope you all have the best day that you have ever had lol. I love you so very much. Oh yeah a couple more things, The pictures with the scarf thing was a gift from hermano Victor the one that came to church that his parents were so surprised lol and the pictures of my companion with the flame is him burning pictures of the girl that dear johnned him a few months ago lol i though it was pretty funny

Date: Monday, March 9, 2009, 12:39 PM

Hola Hola Hola mi familia!
Wow do i have some stories to to tell all of you lol but as always first things first, yes i am doing good! Yes it is still very very hot here! Has not gotten any colder but it doesn't matter that wont slow me down ¡ Yes Dad i feel pretty comfortable i could do a sector by myself right now, but as always there are a million of words that i don't know so it would be a good idea foe me to wait 2 more cambios until i learn enough vocab for everything. But i know enough and can speak well enough still i don't have full confidence in my Spanish but i can definitely teach well and make my point. Once i get a Latino companion for 2 transfers i will be ready so that i can learn a lot of new phrases. But yeah i am good there. Brito and Gala lol sounds like you are braking another guys Heart lol that is a very good thing keep it up and stay away lol until i get home to be the judge. Elder Hill was asking about brittany today lol he said he wants to write you today lol. Dallen good job with the basketball and bowling and ping pong. As always dream of reaching your brothers level lol jk, i have been playing a lot of soccer and ping pong, those are the most popular sports here so that's what we always do which is fine with me. Bet i received a setter from Lucas Hansen today which was nice he seems like he has some stories to tell lol he is definitely doing the work for 2 years lol, Kim wrote me and Pamela from eskaton lol that that was nice. I hope you get my package now i am excited to recieve your letters soon! Fun time you ready for the misión news
By the way i met the elder that lives in Rocklin that knows Scotty lol he has a big smile always lol its jaja in spanish but he is a nice kid. Elder Schillenburg or something like that. We had our 3rd zone conference and i could understand way more stuff than the first 2. General conference was really good i could understand everything which was greatl. I Gave 5 DIFFERENT BLESSINGS lol every single person this week asked me to do the blessings lol so that was quite the experiences for me got too really inspirational stories from this. One of our converts looked so bad could barely see and had blotches of red all over her body and just looked like a different person i gave her a blessing which the doctor said a week she would be better. I told her 2 days and she was healed on the second day ¡ And now the grand one, We went to our investigators house in which there are members that live there the member is suppose to have her baby in 2 days. from the time we entered her house she was talking with us in Spanish saying that she had not felt her baby in a whole day! That she was pretty sure it had died and the family looked very very sad. She looked at me and said can you give me this blessing that i need. I was a bit nervous when i heard this obviously and i looked at my companion and was like did i hear what is going on correctly and he told me in English so that they could not hear,” Yes you did, you have to bring back to life this baby.” Said Elder Rodee i said to her are you sure? which means i will go i will do. I blessed her to have the baby back and that she could have a new member in her family. When she went to the doctors right then, she felt the baby and she is having the kid today we hear! If that doesn't show the tender mercy's of the Lord i don't know what does. He brought that baby back through our faith. I was so happy and nervous at the same time! But that was definitely a experience i will never forget. I bet you can Picture how nervous i was in this situation not knowing anything beforehand and just going and doing like Nephi. So Yeah those are my stories for the week i hope you enjoyed them! Today for pday we played soccer and ping pong lol
I love you all so very much and pray for your happiñess every single day! I hope you have the best week you have ever had. Dad happy birthday tomorrow i will be there with all of you in spirit! Eat more cake for me ok lol. Hope you enjoy your present i sent ya!
Love your living boy Elder Eddenfield

Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 11:46 AM

Hola mi familia!
Coma esta?
I hope every one of you is doing just great, I am very curious right about now
for the Easter present lol I am really beginning to look forward to it lol, have
you received my package yet? Sounds like Grandpa and Grandma are really hooking
me up! They are always good with spoiling us  There awesome! When is Easter by
the way I have no idea and what day is mothers day exactly so I can write them
down But sounds like everyone is doing good britt beating the girls up pretty
badly even with one arm that’s the britt I know! Dallen kicking butt at
bowling that ta boy and dallen you know your little wrestling, I will always be
able to take you down boy lol don’t you ever forget that lol. That’s awesome that Jessica is serving a mission! I can see her being a very good missionary!! Definitely. Wow Bradly is coming home it actually seems like he has been out for a really long time! I bet he is excited, he still writing that one girl?? Lol but today was a great week in some aspects lol lets see Tuesday we visited two different family's in our ward for a little family
night to teach them and the first one just decided to feed us dinner and we were
already full at this point and we seriously ate so much 2 servings of ice cream
and 3 hamburgers 2 hot dogs each so we were stuffed and to our surprise we were so
full it was hard to walk lol, but little did we know that our next appointment
they decided to do the same thing as the last family lol and my oh my were we
sweating and dying, they looked at us like we didn’t like it lol and it was
really really good and we explained to them what had happened and they starting
laughing cause we ate all there food lol we didn’t feel so good after that
lol!! I started waking up 10 minutes early everyday so I can get a little better
workout in the morning and have more time to prepare and study which I like a
lot !! Our goal this week was to find only less active member as our zone and no
searching for new investigators and in one week we were able to find 11 less
activos and almost all of them promised us to come to church this week!! Awesome
right. Really my favorite thing about the mission now is being able to see our
work progress in the ward, the ward was small when I got here and now we got
like 12 more people who come and to see our new members and our reactivated
members take and even bless the sacrament is such a blessing. They say the
prayers in sacrament meeting and even go up to bare there testimonies! One of
them received a calling to be one of the high priest counselors! In just 3 weeks
of assisting lol awesome right lol. We have a guy who was baptized when he was 8
and never ever went to church in his life, he didn't like our church for many
reasons he has 40 years of age and from the first time we talked to him he had
no hope of ever coming to church he was positive about his beliefs and lets just
say he came to church for his first time in 32 years and loved it and wants to
come again! That is definitely the highlight of the week for sure it was amazing
I hope you all are doing the same and helping others.(If I had, I would give)
Always help others you never know what I little testimony can do, by small and
simple things are great things come to past, right
I love all of you so very much
Have the best week of your life, ttul
Love <3 Elder Eddenfield

Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 10:23 AM

Hello My family how are we all doing today? I hope just fabulous, wow I was so spoiled this week I did not even know what to do with myself, I got like 12 letters and a package!! I am going crazy I hardly had time to read all of it! But thank you so very much I feel so happy receiving that kind of stuff, but im glad you found a cheaper place to do it 100 and 60 dollars is definitely way to much to be spending on packages, I like the 9 dollars a whole lot more !. But man I am spoiled, I just loved hearing your voices! That was quite the treat let me tell ya, and only 2 months more till I can call you! That is just crazy it is going by so fast! I hope I can find time to at least write back a little to all your letters I don’t have much more time on pday we are always so busy on this day it is crazy!! But like 8 different people wrote me!! Crazy right. I cant even remember half the stuff you all said to me cause I had to read it fast but what I do remember is tell rhino work out all he wants he will loose every last drop of it on the mission lol. I am glad all of you enjoyed your time at lake Tahoe, my companions family went to Disneyland this week and my oh my he is homesick now lol he is angry!! But thanks for all the goodys! That’s good Ryan L got his first baptism and Kris is in the office in his mission, that’s impressive, right now we reactivated 2 more people so 5 reactivations and 6 baptisms in total  We are doing very well but things have been slowling down cause we are suppose to work on finding less actives and not investigators so our baptisms are slowing down. But all is going very well. We ate some pizza at one of the members houses and wow it was so good, it made me think of your good cooking!! The members are having us over for ice cream one day this week so we are excited for that ! We helped paint A members house Amanda this week haha by the way they loved your letter that you all wrote her, we translated it for her she just loved it!! You should be receiving my package within the next 2 weeks!! I hope you love that a ton. But yeah that is crazy Chris almost has a year out wow lol it doesn’t feel like he has been out that long. That’s about all that happened this week, I hope I have a better story to tell next week. and the other was just for fun. We cleaned our house spotless today! Thats cool that that Ditto is teaching Scotty how to play basketball that will be a miracle lol jk, dall good job with the wrestling keep it up, you let rhino know I will always be stronger than him lol. But wow there are so many words that I need to learn in Spanish lol some of the people we teach talk about like witchcraft man my head was spinning in circles lol I could not pick up what he was trying to say lol. But this week went by so fast and one more week closer to seeing you all again. Love all of you so very much, Hope your arm feels all better by now britt sounds like it still cant slow you down! Love Elder Eddenfield

Date: Monday, February 16, 2009, 12:22 PM

Hola Mi Familia

How are we all doing today?? Darren wrote me and said that Nikhil only has one
more transfer left lol crazy right !!! I cant believe Kriz brown and Michael Phelps that is so bad, its funny cause my companion loves Michael phelps like a ton and has a quote of his on our wall that says something like you cant put a limit on anything, the more you dream the further you go lol and he has shared that with a lot of members like before he smoked and now they were like look at the man you told us to follow like his quote lol, they were just kidding though but it was pretty funny. They were like until you smoke pot lol!! Ok now lets get to the details right, I was sitting there in our house this morning and the front office calls and that never happens unless your getting a big change and they said I was being transferred and being companions with elder mortenson from the mtc lol I was like what are you serious lol cause we both are young here and our Spanish Is only so well and they lied and tricked me lol and I am staying here and same with my companion!! So there is nothing new here. This week our light bill some how didn’t get paid and we did not have lights in our house for a whole 2 days lol it was terrible and you would have to go to the bathroom in pitch black and shower pitch black and we used the Christmas tree in our room so we could have a little light lol it was a life saver lol that’s for sure I thought the pictures were sweet what do you think?? WE reactivated 3 people in the church, that it our sectors goal is to reactivate people so that’s al we focus on and we have 3 new ones. Our converts pass the sacrament and pay there tithing it is really just amazing to see Tell Eugene that his cousin Zhanna even writes me and sends me pictures of him and he doesn’t write me. She sent me pictures of them at a wedding which was nice. Tell him im mad at him lol. Elder mortenson wrote me a letter and sent me one for britt ill send it next week cause there is no mail this week that we can send so next week. One of our investigators he is short and a little chubby like 42 years old we thought the guy was harmless you know and it turns out that he got jumped by 2 16 year olders and they had a knife little did I know that he knew karate and all that kind of Jazz and ended up doing this move to knock the knife out of there hands and beating both of them up lol!! He felt really bad about doing it though but they had a knife so I thought that was really crazy !! Our sector has been ridiculous this week with all the catholic parties we get rejected left and right but we keep working hard!! Today we played some hard core ping pong, the kid I plyed with is like number one in chile and let me tell you he was the best I have ever played I beat him still though he got me 3 games and I won 8 !! It was so intense all the pictures were when I was playing all hardcore no joke!! Crazy I was so tired, we played for ice cream and he had to buy us al ice cram afterward s!! I'm glad all of you are doing well safe and happy, good job on the sports britt and dallen  And dallen I am better now at ping pong so bring it big boy. I am glad everything is going well with great grampa at the house especially with Brittany . When ever you read good scriptures don’t be shy to send them in email I have read so much and learned so much my head always hurts lol don’t have to much fun in Lake tahoe without me lol I hope you enjoy the snow I even miss rain so much now!! There was another earth quake last night but I am so tired at night that I barely even felt it lol I am so tired at nights lol its crazy! What else um Im glad you liked my story didn’t have any quite like that this week but there will be more to come. Dallen you better have beaten Kriz at ping pong the other day. I love all of you so very much and hope you are all have success in everything you do you have the last name Eddenfield so you cant be stopped, Love your Elder.Elder Eddenfield