Mi Familia,

It's so nice to hear from everyone!! AHHh, I miss you guys. Mom I love you, thanks for sending my stuff and the money, you’re awesome. Hey, I used your essential oils you gave me finally. I forgot I had them. An elder we were staying with had this huge rash all down his back and I was like LAVENDAR haha, he's now converted to them. It cleared up his rash pretty much instantly. Dad, I haven’t heard too much from ya. How is work and Webelos going?

Don’t have much time, so let’s get to the meat and potatoes.

We finally moved from the members home to our new apartment on Thursday, (I wish you could feel my joy) It’s super nice and awesome and actually in our area. Oh, and I'm still in Fallbrook with Elder Thompson. I've been getting flat tires like crazy! I forgot out west they had bullheads and stickers. I've had five flat tires this transfer and its only week three....So were walking as of now till I can fix them, again.

Work wise, we haven’t been having much success with finding, so we’ve been stopping my in-actives and fewer actives to bring them back. It's really cool to hear their stories and get to know them and make friendships with these people I've never met. It’s hard to describe, but I have such a love for these people who have fallen away and are searching for solace and comfort. It brings me great peace and fulfillment to know I'm helping them come back unto their savior, who misses them so much.

Yesterday at church I was asked to talk in primary about how prayers are answered. As I was waiting to talk, I was sitting back looking at all the little kids and I remembered when I was in primary. I remembered when the missionaries got up and talked to us in my primary class in Gilbert and I remember thinking “that’s who I want to be one day, when I grow up". And I realized that’s who I have become, I had traded places. There must’ve been a lot of dust in the room or something because my eyes started to well up a little bit, haha. I just love being a missionary.

I found this quote by Monson that I like a lot, helped me when I was struggling with opposition and rejection.

"Dare to be a Mormon,

Dare to stand alone,

Dare to have a purpose firm,

Dare to make it known."

I love you guys. Stay true, don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. And look out for each other while I'm gone, alright.

 -Elder Daniel

 

Dear Family,

   Wow, Anthony is growing like a weed, dude starts kindergarten tomorrow?! What!! Crazy to think that he'll be 7 and about to start 2nd grade by the time I get back. And Lizzie is in Middle school, holy crap, and you guys aren't in the Capshaw Ward anymore. Gooooodnessss, Everything is going to be so different when I get back.

Thank you so much for sending the package, I haven’t received it yet, but it’s going to help out a lot.

Also, when I send the memory card back if you guys could put all the pictures you took off my memory card back on it that would be awesome. 

 This week has been pretty hectic and busy.

 

We’re living with another companionship right now until we can get moved into our own place, and were living out of our suitcases like hobos.

 

 Transfers, transfers, transfers, didn’t think I'd make it, but I did. Transfers are every six weeks and there pretty nerve racking, you don’t know where you’re going to go or who your next comp is going to be. I’m still in Fallbrook and I still have the same companion. We lost our super tall district leader though, Elder Hansen. He will be missed, he was awesome, but he's in Escondido now. His comp Elder Orme is now district leader and is training. I'm still a greeny, but it feels good not to be the youngest in the mission anymore. So we’ll see what happens in the next six weeks.

 This week hasn’t been too productive. we lost our two baptismal dates and our other investigators aren’t progressing very well, and contacting hasn’t been as successful as usual, and we have been moving from place to place, and we get cursed and yelled at 20 times a day on the street, and people make fun of you for what you believe in and ... Its times like these, that you feel like you want to give up, and you start to wonder why your even out here in some strange place, far from home, dressed up in a white shirt and tie, walking around, every day. Its times like these that have pushed me to my limits and truly humbled me. They've refined me and made me so much stronger. They've made me realize why I came out here in the first place and why I volunteered to put myself through all this. This church is true. There is not a doubt in my heart. It is everything. I hope you guys never forget that.

 Thank you guys for all that you do, I love you and I hope all is well back home. Look out for each other and stay true.

 -Elder Daniel

How ya'll doing today!

 

Sorry I didn’t write ya’ll last week. I had no time at all. 

 

And I'm running EXTREMELY short on time today too so forgive me for how short this letter is and if I misspell anything.

 

Can you tell Jeffery and Walter and Spencer to check their emails? They never send anything back gosh dang it!! haha. I have the chance to write to them every week and I miss talking to my bros!

 

How are those planner covers coming along? Have ya’ll finished decorating them yet? Try to get them back quick because I start the next transfer tomorrow!

 

I wish I could be at the Smith Lake with you guys so bad.

 

Anyway, the work. work work wooooork.... I don’t know how my body gets up at 6:00 every morning, runs for half an hour. Deprived on sleep and drained of energy every day from riding bikes and walking all around town...everyday.. yeah. It's fun though.

 

Have I told ya’ll that it feels like a foreign mission here sometimes? Some parts of town feel like you’re in straight up Mexico, like no joke, where nobody speaks a lick of English and there is mariachi music blasting and little Hispanic kids running around the streets. That’s another thing that President Vaughn told me that I didn’t believe, “you know, It is going to feel like you’re in a foreign country." again I was proven wrong.

 

I also completely understand what Elder Nkumbule said about being grateful for the companions you’ll like, because you won’t have many of them. My companion has been getting on my nerves ALOT lately, haha. I could write you a whole encyclopedia of things he does that tick me off, but let’s just not go there. It's been really tough, but that’s what this mission is all about. It wasn’t supposed to be easy, it was supposed to be hard, so we could learn and grow and be refined.

 

We taught one of the skaters that I contacted into one night about the restoration, Chyeah!! He's got a lot of potential.

 

We’ve also gave a ton of blessings this week! We gave a sister in one of the wards a blessing who was worried about her baby who is soon to be born. We gave one of our investigators a blessing that has been going through a very hard time financially, with his health, and with his wife. I gave a blessing to my companion because he's been feeling really sick. And we gave a blessing to a member on Camp Pendleton who is a marine because he had a fever and was being deployed the next day. There is seriously no greater feeling than being able to provide comfort to those who need it so bad.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention part of our area is on base on Camp Pendleton where all the marines are stationed. We’ve been out there a ton to teach the marines who are less active or need help. It is huuuuuuuuge. It goes from small town California to vast mountainous desert with Humvees and helicopter’s everywhere. It’s pretty sweet. We run into marines all over Fallbrook, some are very cool and we’ve had some really great conversations with some, and others not so much, they got to be tough guys and blow us off. It's fun though.

 

We picked up two investigators last week, a young marine couple living just off base with a one year old son. We taught them the first two lessons and invited them to be baptized, they said that if they found out that the things that we are teaching them are true they would, and they even came to church yesterday. They’re looking for a church because they are starting a family. Hopefully I can be one of the elders that they will remember who helped them find what they’ve been looking for and changed their life forever.

 

I also forgot to tell ya’ll that the mission split and became the Irvine mission north of us a little bit before I got here, so the whole northern half pretty much got cut off. So all the areas like San Clemente, Mission Viejo, Laguna Beach, and Rancho Santa Margarita are in that mission now. We still have the cool areas though like Del mar, Carlsbad, Oceanside, and Vista.

 

Also, just to clarify I was not changed to Spanish speaking, I just have a comp who was called Spanish speaking and he's been teaching me a little bit. So we would be considered a zebra companionship, haha.

 

Another thing, don’t delete the photos off the memory card when you get it and download them to the computer! haha, I have a thumb drive that I keep them all on so I'll delete them if I need room. Thanks though.

 

well I love you all, I hope all is well without me there, look out for each other and stay true,  we are so blessed with the knowledge we have, don’t ever lose sight of it.

 

Love your son

-Elder Daniel

 

MTC District Friend

Jeff Bryant

Hey Brother Daniel! We were just at the Independence, MO Visitor's Center and met Sister Anderson. She was at the MTC with Elder Daniel and got to know him well. Here is her picture with my daughter, Hailyn.

Skateboarding and Procrastinating Prepared Me For Missionary Work 7/30/2013

FAAAAAAAMMMMM

That’s so cool that the Bryant’s saw Sister Anderson!!! Our district did pretty much everything together and we grew super close. Out of all the sisters she was probably the one I was closest to. I also gave her a blessing our second night at the MTC. Yeah that’s awesome sounds like she's doing great!!

A ton of stuff has happened in the last week!!

 One night while contacting last week it was getting late and we weren’t having much success. We were about to walk home when I felt like we should walk down main street a little while longer. Low and behold I heard a familiar sound. Across the street I beheld a group of kids skating a stair set and a bench. HALLELUJAH!!! We ran across the street through traffic and I started talking to them like I would to my skater buddies back home. I talked to him about tricks, the spot they were skating, his board, his favorite skater, and then I somehow snuck the gospel in there somehow. We ended up accepting a Book of Mormon and we set a time to come back and teach him!! CHYEAH!! And the same exact thing happened a few days ago as well. I ran into another skater, got to know him, then gave him a Book of Mormon and set a time to come back and teach him! So every time I see any skaters I do not hesitate to go up and talk to them. I also just emailed my mission president and asked if I could show them tricks, so hopefully he says yes, that would be sick.

Also another cool thing that happened. As we were walking back one night from contacting we ran into this old lady. She was about in her 60s or 70s, very frail and homeless looking and had her with her grandson outside of a bar. We got to talking and she told us she had a medley of health problems that she had no money at all, and that she didn’t know how she was going to take care of her grandson. Something told me as we were talking to her " get out you wallet and give her your five dollars" Soooo I listened and offered it to her as we were leaving. She told us that it was just enough to buy her grandson milk and bread and that she didn’t know how she was going to feed him that night until I gave her the money. So that was pretty cool.

I gave my first talk on Sunday!! We had less than 24 hours to prepare and to top it off President Kendrick told us he was going to be there to hear us speak!.... no pressure huh? haha. Our talks ended up being surprisingly great!! So I guess you could say skateboarding and procrastinating to prepare my talks prepared me for my mission! Who would’ve thought!!

Welp I gotta go guys,
Stay true and look out for each other
 

-Elder Daniel