[Mason]: I am being transferred!

Dear all whom it may concern:

     I am being transferred to the Lynn Spanish ward, in the Cambridge North zone in the Cambridge stake.  Apparently this is the holy of holies for the Spanish areas or the goldmine of the Spanish areas....so I'm psyched....also if you haven't sent the package or other mail...do not because it will not make it to me for a while so ya have a great day

Con amor

Elder Mason Scott

**New Address**

12 Lowell St.

Revere, MA 02151-1429

[Weston]: Anaheim Weekly March 17, 2014

Hey Family and Friends!

How is everything going for all of you back home? The mission here in California is going super great! Having a great time out here! This week was pretty funny, we taught quite a few lessons, and even got to give a few blessings! My confidence was shaken a little bit this week by some members (telling my my Spanish sucked!) , apparently people forget I am still sort of new! Only got 5 months our here ya hear? Crazy, So close to 6 months! I have to figure out what to burn for that! Anyways, this is the week so far! Hope yours was great too! :)

Monday - So we had a standard P-day and got to play some needed basketball, we also took some funny pictures as a district, because we all have our own color of clothes. I was decked out in Blue, and my companion was in yellow, and out district leader was in green, with his really tall companion in red. The sisters were in like black and pink I think, ya no puedo recorder, disculpenme porfavor [ I can't remember, please excuse me ]. Anyways it was a pretty good day, we got our sinks fixed from the weekend prior, so our apartment did not smell as bad as normal! We have all officially determined that I am at the point in the mission where my Spanish is decent enough to communicate with the people, but still not very good, and at the same time, my English is incredibly bad now too. I cannot speak English or Spanish now. Fun. It is quite amusing. I cannot remember the meaning of words in English anymore.

Tuesday - We had a normal day. Teaching, and other stuff. Elder Etchart said, "We had a normal day". What ever that means! We taught Betty which was good, but she was mad at us because we had not visited her in about 6 days. Sorry, I could not walk and was on crutches my bad. But yeah we talked to her so that was fun. I am not able to remember what else we did, sorry.

Wednesday - We had district meeting today. It was supposed to be Presidents interviews, but they were cancelled 5 minutes after we showed up. It was so funny though because right after our meeting, Elder Maughan, the 6'7" Elder in my district is walking around the hall corner and flips out. His girl friend is a missionary in the Los Angeles mission, and she was down at our mission office for some reason, and it was so funny because they both freaked out, Elder Maughan tried to play it cool, but he has this sweat disorder (no joke) and he started pouring out of his hands and arms. It was awesome! He could not even talk! We got in the car, and he just goes, Guys look, my arm pits are yellow! It was funny! He had just the thickest sweat lines ever! He could not work for the rest of the day and wanted to faint it was so funny. Oh my!

Thursday - We went on exchanges, which was fun, because I stayed in car, even though the day before, Elder Richards and Maughan wrecked their bikes on these electrical poles. Their stories are so funny. But we taught a few lessons which pretty good, and we got a new investigator. But the address the guy gave us was fake, he sent us to an open house and we started talking to people there, so that was kind of cool! We talked to our President for a while, so that was awesome! Oh and we saw Betty, who preceded to tell me to my face, that my Spanish is absolutely awful. Confidence level non existent now. Sweet. She is hard to communicate with, I have never heard anyone speak Spanish faster than her. But what a nice complement right?

Friday - We had our normal studies, along with weekly planning, facebook, Mormon.org, and an our of fixing and imputing our area book. Then we had some empanadas for dinner. Boss! I love those things. I love food. Yes I would say I love it, especially the food I eat here. I will miss it when I am gone. Alex skipped out on his lesson, but he cut his hair super short, it was really long before. Bishop asked him to cut it so that he could bless the Sacrament. Sweet!

Saturday - We were supposed to have our Ward coordination meeting, but it was cancelled in the morning before we arrived, but we had language study with Hermano Sw... , and went over Subjunctive again. 5th week on it so far. I think I am starting to understand it, but I tell you, I am trying so hard to use it, but Hay Carray! It is super hard! But coming along! We tried to make some Horchata again, and guess what? Nailed it! It worked this time! Yes! Boom.

Sunday - We had a meeting at 7:00am so got up early again, then Elder Maughan and I during the meeting went on exchanges and went to wake up our investigators and less active members to invite them to church. None of ours came. But it was fun! "You say Hillshire, I say Farm! Hillshire. Farm. Go Meat!" We did that several times it was awesome. Our district rocks hard core! Alex is our new convert, and he blessed the Sacrament! It was so awesome! He looks so good and happy now and it really strengthens my testimony. He spoke in a new convert meeting that we had that night as well. President Bowen came, and needed a translator too. Elder Etchart and I were the chosen back-up translators for him, if another Bishop did not show up. Yikes! :) It would have been interesting!

Anyways, this week was pretty good. We currently have not baptismal dates, or any progressing investigators, so we are hitting the pavement hard these days. The good news is that being a missionary is so incredibly fun, because with the Black Tag, we are entitled to be weird and awkward when talking to people. Super fun to do! I think I am almost pro at it!.

I love you all and am so grateful for your support! I hope to hear from you all soon! Emails or letters work! If you don't have my address, my parents do! ;)

Your favorite Missionary in CALI,

Elder Weston Scott

[Mason] Buenos Dias Amados Hermanos Mios

     OK so nothing really interesting happened this week, except that we planned our investigator's Baptism and she asked me to baptize her, which is so awesome. We helped yesterday with the Primary's "Great to be 8" activity and it was fun.  We spoke about the importance and key principles of Baptism and we also were asked to demonstrated how to be baptized so I stood in the font area and each kid came down and "practiced" and we went through motion.  It was quite fun seeing all of these little kids who are the exact same age as my old class prepare to be dunked...its awesome.  Also this last week, I was able to get my suit fixed by a member, but it doesn't look too good, but I really don't care because I'm still going to wear it.  We actually have some new goals in our district to open our mouths more to people in our areas and so we decided to go tracting;  and in the Springfield, MA zone, tracting is unheard of, and this Saturday, we are tracting all day long....literally we have scheduled the whole day to do this...it is so fun.  This past Saturday, we went tracting, in the rain and it was fun...but the rain here on the east coast is freezing, especially this time of year.  Our Transfer text comes in this Saturday, and I believe I will be transferred, because everybody is saying that. and I'm getting lots of bets about me going to Boston east of providence or New Haven with Romero again.  But honestly I don't care where the Lord puts me because I will do what he asks of me.

     

     We are starting to study the Atonement in our mission and I'm so glad. one thing that I have learned that I never had thought about before is one aspect of the atonement. now Christ suffered for all of our sins, for our infirmities and afflictions and all manner of whatever we will go through in our lives. one thing that is a part of all of his suffering is being alone. Christ suffered loneliness and that is because none else could have gone through what he went through because there are people in this world who suffer from being alone. 1st Nephi 19:9 says "and the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it;and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and long suffering towards the children of man"

   Imagine how Christ felt, people thought of him as nothing, ok that happens in the world to other people, he was bullied and called names as people are, he was spat upon, his body was bruised beaten and torn for us.  He did all of this because he loves us so much that he never wants us to feel alone in what we go through. we should never feel alone in this world because Christ went through what we went through.  Christ was alone through the Atonement in order for us to never have to feel alone, and I am so grateful for him. But why do we feel alone sometimes even when we know that Christ is with us? the answer is because we let our faith "dwindle in unbelief" to the point where our faith in Christ is is stagnant and not increasing but in fact decreasing; and this is where Satan grabs a hold and he tries to pull us down to the depths of loneliness and misery.  If we continue through our trials and our times of despair, continually "feasting upon the words of Christ" and increasing our faith in He who has been where we have been, and walked where we have walked, we will be able to conquer our doubts.  Remember, that if we doubt our doubts before we doubt our faith, we will never feel alone. Christ is our Rock and last time I checked, when the wise man built his house upon the rock(CHRIST) his house stood still, where as the foolish man built it upon the sand, and we all know that his house washed...away.  The Atonement of Jesus Christ enables us to become free of all fear and doubt of being alone, and it also gives us power to overcome the natural man.  Remember, the wise man's house was built upon the Rock, who is Christ. this doesn't mean that his house wasn't hit by the same storm as the foolish man's house, because it was. by being built upon the Rock of our Redeemer, we can resist the storms of life and we will be there still, afterwards. Yo se que nuesto roca de nuestra salvacion es Cristo, y se que mediante El, no tenemos que sentir que estamos solos porque el ha sido a traves de toda cosa que iremos pasar por en nuestas vidas. [I know that our rock of our salvation is Christ, and I know that by Him, we do not have to feel that we are alone because He has been through all things that we will pass through in our lives] I am so grateful for our Savior and for his Atonement and the power that comes from it. 

So since it is transfer week next week, I will not get to email until Wednesday. also, I know I need to do my best now with what I have been given to work with and I will. and honestly no requests of anything except for the things I already wanted...that included my rugby jersey...the loose one with the tribal-looking-ness and a ball. and the other things I said earlier. all I really want right now is Work...so much that I cant possibly think about anything else but how I can help people because that's all I want to do and also learn Spanish. I had a dream that I had a chance to work with Elder Romero again in New Haven, Connecticut and I honestly would love to because I know what I have to do now with him. but anyways, I just want to help people...

Josh M.  has cancelled the last few lessons but still wants to meet, so nothing new with him. Sh...  we dropped and told the Chinese elders that she is under their jurisdiction now. also Sister Ann, as I mentioned, is getting baptized on Sunday. She had some things happen in her life that lined her up perfectly with meeting Alan Osmond, (Ddonny's older brother), and then she wanted to become a member.  Anyways, I know the Lord wants me to learn something here right now and so I'm going to do what I can.

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Mason Scott

Be Better, not bitter

Mason at the Yankee Candle Company Factory

[Mason] Mis Amados Hermanos Mios

Howdy ya'll! ok so this past week was the best week of my mission thus far but only because of yesterday, Sunday. I will get to that in a bit, but I'm doing great and I love this side of the world so much, the culture out here is what is up.  So my email will be pretty short this week compared to the last few because the electricity is about to be turned off here in the church building because they are fixing something.  So it was a classic week, where the same things happen, but we taught our investigator, Sister Underwood, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a really great lesson and it was so smooth and I celebrated afterwards because it went so well.  We also met with our Other investigator, Joshua Miner, who has been struggling to find God, but is more humble each time we meet and he is progressing in his own life to be able to find God.  His heart is opening up more and more and he is starting to change. anyways, we taught him yesterday.  Now we had wanted to teach him the restoration but we didn't feel right about it, and so we had no idea what we wanted to teach.  We decided to teach through the Book of Mormon and tell the stories of Nephi and Laban, and also Alma the younger, focusing both of these in on the Spirit and this lesson with Joshua was the most spiritual experience I think I have had on my mission and it was so amazing.  He didn't know what to say at one point and he simply said "I don't have any questions right now" while we were telling these stories, and so we kind of slowed it down and explained some things to him, and then he finally said, sincerely, "guys, what do Ii do next then?, what is the next step?" and so we challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it to know if it is true and he said "I Will" and it was so cool.  He is changing and it is such a blessing to see it. We aren't too sure what will happen with him, but he has that seed planted.  I love missionary work and I am finding why I truly came out here and it is to help these people.  My testimony is being strengthened each day because of the people I meet. 

I love it here.

Something funny this week is that our bishop said about himself  "I am culturally Retarded" to us and it was so dang funny because it is so true...

So spiritual thought of the week is short. I have come to the conclusion that our savior Jesus Christ's Atonement is simple when we teach, but when we study it and learn about it and try to understand more, we can spend a whole lifetime.  The Atonement is hard to comprehend in and of itself because of how key and vitally crucial it is in our lives. The atonement is so important to me and I don't even know everything about it and I certainly am trying to learn more, but I had this epiphany that in order to know more about the Atonement we must do our best to learn of the Man who performed it and that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our way home to our Father in Heaven and we must come closer to him each day and learn of him and be like him and by doing so we can learn more and comprehend more of the atonement. I'm scatter brained this morning sorry

Nothing much happened this week but I sure did love it, 

I bought some solar shields as a joke, and a fat tie, like a super fat tie, and it has camels on it, so look close. also this is the Rodriguez family y la nina que esta en el cubo se llama arielyz [ the girl that is in the basket is Arielyz ] and she wanted to hide, but this family rocks y solo espanol con ellos. ye ellos son miembros, pero el padre, Jimmy, es menos-activo ahora, pero hemos fijado metas con El [ and only Spanish with them and they are members but the father, Jimmy, is less-active right now, but we are setting goals with him ]  and he is planning on being reactivated. 

So ya this is my week

So whats new on your end, besides the jealous making videos you send me of snowboarding and what not.

Con amor, 

Elder Mason Scott

Be Better, not bitter

[Weston] Anaheim Weekly March 10, 2014

Hey friends!

So, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned "It was just one of those weeks...." Allow me to correct the statement haha. I meant to say, It has just been one of those transfers! Oh my gosh this week was crazy! 

Monday - Normal P-day, and we shopped at a Mexican supermarket for our food for the week. And also had a photo shoot and basketball for our activity.  It was so fun.  All of the Elders in my district have a different color pair of pants. For Christmas, Hermana Marron, a member in my ward here, gave me and my old district a pair of pants each. A bright yellow, red, and lime green pair, and my pair of pants are navy, with small sailboat patterns on them. They rock. So we decided that this transfer, that every p-day we are going to take a picture in them, and try to make a giant book of every picture we take. Sick! It is quite hilarious. Stay posted for next week, because we will be taking more pictures today! Whoop Whoop! Yeah!

Tuesday - I had a doctors appointment for my toes again, and it turns out that I had a very serious infection in my toe, emphasis on had! It is gone for the most part, my toe is just huge still, and uncomfortable to walk on. But, while I was there the doctor removed other ingrown toenails.... Yes, I have more.  No idea how or what is causing them, but dang, it is not super duper fun! I see him in another few weeks! We taught a few lessons that day, namely Alex, our new convert, we taught him about the Priesthood. He is very excited about that!

Wednesday - We had our zone meeting, which was really good, we discussed a lot of concerns(complaints) about using the Ipads, and also facebook. I am being 100% honest. The idea sounded a ton better on Paper! Missionary work is not to much more effective with Ipads right now, because of how new they are. Piloting is super hard! We basically are just test dummies for Salt Lake right now so that they can improve everything and eventually give out the Ipads to all of the United States, which makes sense, but it is making some of our work suffer a bit. I hope it gets easier soon! Haha. Facebook is fun to use, because you can talk to more of the members, and to the less-active members when you need to! It is cool. Teaching on the I-pads is cool also, but just hard. :) We are getting used to it though!

Thursday - I cannot remember too much........... Ummm, oh yeah, almost all of our plans fell through by the end of the day, which was interesting, because we had set some solid appointments, but all were cancelled, and even our back up plans fell through. But we did teach Alex, which was great, he is amazing and has come so far it is so incredible! He has such a strong testimony. During Lunch we tried to make Horchata again, but once again, the evaporated milk we bought from the Mexican supermarket was rancid. Haha! It is quite hilarious because that was the 3rd time we had tried! So funny to us right now! We are still determined!

Friday - We did our normal studies which was really good. Right now I am heavily studying the New Testament, and it is very cool to read and learn about our Savior's Ministry. It is so amazing! I realized that I did not do well enough in Seminary, which now is sort of hindering me because I made a poor decision! But all is well! I have a goal to finish the New Testament within another week, I started it this past Tuesday I believe. My memory is shot haha! Remind you of anyone.....???? (My dad ;)) But we also had Weekly planning and went to another facebook training meeting, and learned nothing new, interesting fact, Elder Etchart and I realized that we can use the I-pads more effectively then the Tech. specialists can for our mission :) Success! We taught some parts of the class which was fun!

Saturday - We had our weekly coordination meeting, which was very interesting. It got heated in the meeting because one of the Ward missionaries, the old one.., started bashing on the Sisters missionaries in our ward (for no actual reason), and they got up and left during it because they started crying. It was upsetting to our district, but our district leader talked to him afterwards, and chewed him out. It was very interesting. I am at the stage in Spanish now, where I understand about 85% of everything said. So now I would say that I understand everything people say haha. Crazy morning! Be careful how you come off to missionaries. Most of us are doing the best we know how out here. Not everyone is a perfect teacher as it says in Preach my Gospel, constructive criticism is what is needed! After the meeting, there was a baptism for the Irvine mission in our building, and the man getting baptized, asked me if I was staying for his baptism, which we weren't because we had plans, but only 10 people showed up for it, so we stayed and supported! It was great to hear his testimony! During lunch I decided I was going to wash all of the dished in our apartment due to all the mold, and cockroaches, and problems we were having so that we had clean dishes to eat food with. Well, the last dish I went to wash was a bowl of rice with cinnamon in it. We were going to make horchata again, but the ingredients were bad again (4th time is the charm?.... not :)) Haha, so I dumped it down the drain and turned on the garbage disposal, and all of a sudden, the right hand sink filled completely with rotting water. Huele Bien Feo (it smelled very bad). Yum. At the same time though, we were running our dishwasher through because it was having an issue and we were trying to fix it. We didn't know what to do, so we talked to the leasing office to fix it, and they could not until Monday. Awesome! But while we were studying, in another room because it smelled so bad, the sinks filled up to the brim of rotten water and horchata chunks. The dish washing water line is connected to the same pipe as the sinks....... Awkward....I didn't realize that.... Yum! So we got permission to sleep in our district leaders apartment for the next 2 days because of the smell. We got sick from it, nasty! We found out we may have black mold too haha. Hilarious for Elder Etchart and I! Just one thing after another! :)

Sunday - Alex was confirmed by the Stake Patriarch which was way cool! And he actually received the priesthood too! It was awesome! :) We all lost an hour of sleep because of Day-light savings, but another hour added to that because we had a meeting at 7:00 am Sunday morning! :) We were so dead all day. at dinner, a member, Hermano Avina, asked us how living as a missionary was, so we relayed our whole story of the apartment to him haha, and he said, what do you live on 17th? And we responded, yes, yes we do. It turns out that we live in the Santa Ana slums! :) Way cool! It is quite hilarious!

Well sorry to make that all sound like a complaint! But it really wasn't! It was just a funny week! :) I found out where the bed bugs were coming from as well! I had bought 2 pillows from Target, and since I bought those we had been having problems, makes sense.

This week was good, it made me realize that we all have our own trials, and afflictions, and tribulations, and they are all for our experience. I know that there is a reason for everything, and because of that knowledge, I have come even closer to my Heavenly Father. I know He loves me and will help me out if I truly need it! :) I love my mission out here! Anaheim is the best mission in the world! I get to speak Spanish all day long, and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I bear witness and testify that I know God is our Loving Heavenly Father, and that Jesus Christ has truly prepared a way for us to return to live with Them. We must do our utmost to follow God's commandments. :)

Have a good week everyone! :)

Your Favorite missionary in CALI!

Elder Weston Scott

[Weston] Anaheim Weekly March 3, 2014

To whom it may concern,

Hi! How are all of you! This week was awesome! For the most part! Can I say holy water? Santa Ana has been flooding for like the past 3-4 days there is so much water! This is crazy! It was really fun!

Wednesday - We went to the Temple, and so it was changed to be our P-day. The Newport Temple is so amazing! Oh my Gosh! It was awesome! The only thing that was not fun about it was that I had to use crutches during it, that was the second time that I have been injured and gone to the temple. Woot Woot! Haha. That was fun though. We played some basketball later that day, I kind of hobbled around and threw a volleyball about 500 times against the wall. It was nice, couldn't really do much else. Dodgeball is always fun here because I throw harder now then everyone. It is quite funny, I have so much more aim and power in my arm now that I am on a mission. Fun stuff! Over all it was an amazing day though.

"...and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob"  Genesis 49:24

Thursday - We had a district meeting, in which we learned more about finding people to teach, and also planning, it was a great meeting! Learned a lot! We also sat inside because of my toe, I still could not walk, so that was fun, but we tried to make Horchata, but that didn't work. We bought sweet and condensed milk at this authentic Mexican market, and it turned out that it was rotten. Awesome, otherwise out horchata would have been killer. I love that stuff so much. By far my favorite drink in the world. Yum. We did some studies as well.

Friday - We did weekly planning, then had to leave for a doctors appointment for Elder Etchart. I think that pretty much all missionaries have stomach problems, and feet problems.  It is very entertaining to talk as a district about what 'fun' things have happened to them so far on their missions. Alex our investigator had his baptismal interview this night as well, and passed it with flying colors. It was cool, because Elder Richards asked him to bear his testimony, and they sat in this room they were in for close to 45 minutes. He was so ready to be baptized. It is amazing!

Saturday - We had our ward coordination meeting, and it was very good, because the Bishop ran it for us. Huge difference. After we went to Hermano Swenson's house to have our language study, and that was hard. He have been learning about the subjunctive. Crazy stuff, and very complex. My Spanish is improving quite a bit. We spent most of the day getting Alex's baptism stuff ready. Got everything to be perfect. Woot Woot! Yay! We ate dinner with Hermano Swenson, and had some good old classic country food. He is from Wyoming, so that was nice. What a good day it was!

Sunday - Probably the best Sunday I have had on the mission! It was so incredible! Fast Sunday's are hard in general, but it was a very good experience this past one, and church was just incredible. The testimonies shared were quite amazing! I love the ward that I am serving in! It is amazing! But after Church we had a huge feast with the Atmojo family. Best meal I have had on the mission. Fish, Chicken, chow mein, beef, rice, asparagus, green beans, and some more fish, then some cookies, and some orange crush, it was awesome. 30 minutes after we ate, we were sitting there sharing a spiritual message with the Atmojos, and well, Elder Maughan and I got hungry again. We ate like kings on Sunday. Even better though is that after dinner, we went to finish preparing for the Baptism! I filled up the Font, and we set up the chairs. 5:00pm. Boom, we had a baptism. It was so incredible. So spiritual. Oh my gosh I cannot even describe it. Elder Etchart and I have been complemented with how organized and well-planned it was, so that was nice! Alex was baptized. It was amazing! afterwards, his mom and sister were crying, and I think that now we may have a chance at them learning from us as well.  I am excited.  Alex wants to serve a mission, and is determined to do so. He will be confirmed this coming Sunday by our stake Patriarch. Awesome right! :)

This week has been amazing! Very spiritual, and very uplifting. I love every opportunity that I have had to be out here and to meet all these people. Keep up the good work everyone, and I hope to heard from you all next week! Have a good one! :)

Your Favorite Missionary in CALI,

Elder Weston Scott

#AlexGotDunked

[Mason] Amados hermanos mios...

Ok so this past week we did a bunch of work; but I will get to that a little later. just like Weston, we had zone conference as well.  It was sweet. I wish I could tell you everything that I learned but I cant because this email would take me 24 hours to write and then some. But the most important thing I learned is that every prophet in the Book of Mormon was successful at what they were doing, be it preaching the Word of God, or keeping the Church running, or whatever it may be, they did it because they had such a great desire to serve the Lord and bring their brethren unto the truth. some of them "could not be restrained because of the power of the Holy Ghost which is in me" and some of them felt pain because of their brethren that were lost. 2 Nephi 33:3, 1 Nephi 15:5, 2 Nephi 6:3, Jacob 1:7-8,19, Ether 12:2-3  I could give you so many scriptures about these prophets, but the point is that we need to have this desire to do the work in order to actually persevere and do it. I have finally realized that I want all these people I see each day to be with me and my family...you guys...after this life and I feel compelled like its my duty, and it is. My testimony is being strengthened so much out here by how much Satan doesn't want me here.  The other night we received a media referral and we went to go visit it, and this guy comes out side as we are walking up on the driveway and he stopped us there and asked us what we were doing. we pretty much were yelled at and rebuked by this feller and we left, but it was cool because I still know the gospel is true and nothing can make me deny it. also

   Yesterday, Sunday, it was fast and testimony meeting, and it was great. I wanted to get up to bear mine but there was a massive line about five min in...and our bishop had to tell everyone to keep the short and he still had to cut people off at the end...=( but anyways I wanted to share my testimonies about testimonies. As we learn and grow our testimonies do as well. The important thing though, is that we make sure we keep them and to keep them we have to share them. we absolutely have to. People need to hear our testimonies to learn and grow, and some of those people include ourselves. We need to convince ourselves of our own knowledge sometimes to make us remember what we know is true.  When we share them, we fortify what we know to be true and it help us to become more comfortable with it as well. I used to be scared to share my own testimony, but that's because I never had done my work to convince myself of it; but now, I know that people need to here it including myself.  As I share it I become amazed at what I know and what I hold most dear in this life.  Get out of the comfort bubbly zone we live in, and share it.  Not just once but as much as you can because it will give you the strength to carry on because it will...it will reassure you faith in Christ and his love for us.  Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and He will always help us.  I wrote something down the other day that I felt impressed I should write, not knowing why...maybe for me or for someone else.  It says: "Fear proves us to be faithless, but what proves faithful? our own willingness to be courageous in times of triumph and in times of despair". Courage is given to us though Christ and our Faith becomes our courage.  Courage through Christ and we need not to fear anything.  It makes sense in my head but if Christ truly is our Rock, then we must have Courage to do all things because this courage comes from Him.  Faith is being courageous and fear is being cowardly. If we trust Christ and we know he will "deliver us" out of what ever it may be, then we, no matter what, will have the courage to do all things.  Think of the stripling warriors, they knew they were only a few in comparison to the Lamanites, but they showed so much courage and didn't fear.  This needs to be us with our testimonies. I encourage all of us to to be willing to share our testimonies as often as we can.  It can be the difference of having a good day and having a great day. 

So anyways... our investigator, sister Ann Marie Underwood, or Sister Ann, as she wants to be called, is the most Golden investigator ever.  We taught her the restoration on Tuesday and then also the Plan of Salvation on Friday.  She is reading the BOM at such a fast rate that she will be done soon.  She rocks. Friday and Saturday we were on exchanges and so I left our area and went with the Ludlow elders, Elder Sutherland.  While we were out, we get a text from Trujillo and Funk, (the other Ludlow Elder), and they say that Sister Ann has a Baptismal date. During the Plan of Salvation, I guess she said that "guys, I have a surprise, I want to get baptized on March 22nd" and their jaws dropped.  She has apparently been talking to some Utah missionaries and they have been working with her as well. She is amazing.  She came to church as well, but couldn't stay the whole time, but she loved it so much and is so excited to come again...she is sooooooooooooooooo cooooooool! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

While on exchanges, we had to drive 80 miles to go do a baptismal interview with the district leader and their investigator in Gardner.  This happens to be Elder Miskimens, my MTC companion, who is doing great.  Its fun to see him every month because he is in our zone but anyways, we then had dinner with a member and then went to an investigator who's name is Myrna...she is Golden if not more so than our investigator. she was asking these perfect Q's that Sutherland didn't quite know how to answer, but I could and it was so cool.  I knew that I was need that night to help him answer her Q's/.  She then at the end brought up some old memories  of when Tyler, Wes and I were younger and when we watched beast wars, the prequel to transformers.  We talked in Spanish because she is Puerto Rican, but her Spanish sound like Spain Spanish because of her father who is from Spain. It was cool.  I felt so happy.  I learned a lot about what the law of consecration really means and I learned that it is giving all you can, time talents, food(if you are a missionary) to people(my companion).  It has some more in depth but this applies to me because I have been trying to make things fair in this companionship but that is not how its done.  I must do all I can, even if its not fair, because that is what the Lord would do.  I know that by doing so, the Spirit will enter our companionship more so, and I will learn to love my comp in more ways.  Christ loves the world, and the world is the cause of his Pain and suffering, yet he forgave. His life was taken and yet he forgave. Nothing was fair, but he loves us so dearly that it doesn't matter. This is what I am trying to do. I want to live the Law of consecration to the best of my abilities because I know that God has put me with Trujillo and Romero to help me learn these things. Life isn't fair, so move on. if it makes my comp happy it makes me happy right?

Anyways, I love this church and my mission. I am doing great. Thanks for the flash drive and thanks for the support.

Love you all and see you in 19 months in person

Elder Scott

Be Better not bitter

We taught primary...and that's about all the pics i have for this week...sorry