Post Christmas Post

Dear family and friends,

 

Christmas was wonderful! It simply went by too fast. There was quite a bit I liked about it and I'll share what those things are. Keep in mind that I already told most of you this during my call home yesterday.

 

          As I've already explained to some of you, we had a baptism on Saturday (Christmas Eve) and a confirmation on Christmas Day. Holly's baptism went through, which is a HUGE blessing. So on the day of the baptism, around 8 am, Holly's mom gives us a call and says that Holly's been puking her guts out the night before and that we might have to call the baptism off. Elder Adona and I freaked out and hauled it over toward Holly's house on our bikes in 40-something degree weather and gave her a blessing, accompanied by a member of the bishopric who was also the man who baptized her. We gave her the blessing and then told her to call us if she wanted to still go through with it or not. Just prior to the blessing Holly told us how she and her mom were arguing last night at 3 in the morning about cancelling the baptism. Holly was against the idea while her mom was trying to get Holly to cancel due to her sickness. Holly pulled through like the amazing trooper that she is, to our greatest relief, and we had a wonderful baptism. Her older sister told us afterwards that we were "miracle workers" because she did not believe that her little sister could ever be baptized. Hee Hee Hee! I love hearing stuff like that. 

 

       While we set up for Holly's baptism Henry, our other investigator with a baptismal date that I've been telling you all about, was getting his baptismal interview. He passed! And not only did he pass but Elder Stephens (our district leader as well as the missionary who interviewed him) also pulled us off to the side after the baptism and told us how impressed he was about Henry and Holly's interviews and how he was going to bring that up during our next district meeting. That was really cool and very gratifying to hear. Just before Henry's interview (so this is on Friday) we had a lesson with Henry and at the end of our lesson he tells us that he has a surprise for us. He leads us to this room in his apartment and in the middle of this room is a blue 45 gallon drum. He opens the lid to the drum, which is stuffed to the brim with shoes! Oh my goodness he has more shoes than most women do! That's impressive! He then told us to pick any pair of shoes from that drum. Naturally I went for the orange shoes with Asian calligraphy. They perfectly fit my feet too! Yeah they were obviously destined for my feet. The zone leaders who live with us were very jealous when they first saw the shoes. They even texted us during the middle of a lesson with Fred "Hey where are our cool shoes?" Oh that was hilarious! 

 

       Speaking of hilarious there's another story I forgot to tell you all that happened a couple of weeks ago that Elder Adona (my new companion) deems as "an epic part of our companionship". One of our members took us out to an Asian buffet that had baby octopi. Well for those of you who don't know, I hate seafood but I wanted to be adventurous and try it so I could tell you all that I've had octopus. After all, I have tried sushi before in Surprise and I still lived through that so why should octopus be any different? Well it didn't look very appetizing to begin with but what made it worse is that it's head was slit open and it's brains were gushing out. Still determined to perservere I cut a tiny bit of one of its tentacles and ate it. UGH! THAT TENTACLE WAS NASTY! I could barely choke it down. That became the straw that broke the camel's back. It tasted rubbery and fishy and gross! I couldn't even finish the other food I'd taken. I caught some kind of a bug soon after although it wasn't from eating the octopus tentacle. I'm all better now but I felt miserable after that. Elder Adona cracked up when he saw my face after eating the tentacle and now he gives me a hard time about it whenever I bring up something he doesn't like. It doesn't bug me now and I'm grateful that I have another cool mission story to share with everyone. 

 

             A common theme that came up with everybody I called was my new area and my new companion so I'd like to bring it up just to help clarify everything. As Dad pointed out I'm not living in a real ghetto, it's just a very poor area. I keep saying it's a "ghetto" because that's what everybody else told me. I've never been afraid for my life since I've been down here and I've never heard any gunshots, or seen any gangs, around here. However, it's still very poor and I would not want to live here after the mission. It's about 42-45 square miles (this includes the sister's area but our area is far bigger than their area) and it's what President Taylor would call a "bike/bus area" which means that we ride bikes but also use the bus whenever we're doing a lot of traveling. Many of our investigators don't live in houses, and they struggle to pay their bills so it's hard to get in touch sometimes because their phones die. One of our recent converts sell plasma for money and most of them don't even have a car which means that we have to provide a ride for them to come to church. That's the biggest pain since the members have crazy schedules so coordinating the rides isn't fun. Fortunately there's someone in the ward whose specific calling is to set up rides for people. Once we work with her more that will be a HUGE relief off our shoulders. Speaking of all that we had 5 investigators show up to church yesterday. FIVE! That's amazing considering that getting people to church is our biggest struggle. Elder Adona and I are excited for the new week, as well as the New Year.

 

I hope you all had awesome Christmases. I love you all and pray for you every day.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

Elder Boothe's Christmas Post

Dear family and friends,

 

            This week was pretty cool in terms of the stuff that's been happening. Since we had stake conference two weeks ago it felt like forever since we were in the church even though it hasn't been all that long. Holly passed her baptismal interview! She's getting baptized on Christmas Eve! Man that's what I'm talking about when I say "White Christmas". She's come a long way spiritually speaking. She came to us originally and claimed that she was going to church "because her mom made her" now she loves church. I only wish she didn't work the graveyard shift so she could've given the interviewing missionary a super hard time like we'd been plotting for weeks. Oh well! She passed and that's all that mattered. She barely quit smoking too which we've been trying to get her to do that since the second lesson. She's awesome though and I'm glad I met her.

 

          We have another baptism coming up on New Year's Eve and he's ready to go too so not only will we be having a baptism but also a baptismal interview! Man those are the best two Christmas presents a missionary can ask for. The man that's getting baptized on New Year's Eve is Henry Gobah, who is a professional soccer player for the state of Arizona. He was born in Liberia and played soccer on the Asian circuit. He told us to go look him up, before we explained our rules to him. He introduced us to this interesting cream soda/fruit soda called Vimto which is from Quebec. It tasted pretty good. We went through the baptismal interview questions with Henry and he totally aced the questions! He even gave some hilarious responses too! 

 

           Outside of these two life is still pretty darn awesome! On Friday our mission had it's annual all-day Christmas zone conference/endowment session at the Mesa temple. The Christmas conference was wonderful. We had a companionship sing "Angels We Have Heard On High" in Tongan which I thought was amazing! Both of the elders did a great job of singing too! It felt good seeing lots of missionaries that I knew there. It makes the conference that much more meaningful. I met most of my MTC district which was really cool! Apparently I'm the only one who's lost weight since I came out. One missionary was surprised when he learned that I lost 30 pounds. As part of the conference the Taylors had their son Brayden dress up as Santa Claus and all us missionaries got to sit on his lap. That was funny. The endowment session was neat, I love the overwhelming feeling of peace and comfort one that I get from going to the temple. That feeling of peace and calm and holiness is fantastic and is proof of God's love for us all. Afterward we walked around the grounds and saw all the Christmas lights which again was a wonderful sight to see. Sister Minton, the member whose basement we live in, just gave us a fake tree that we set up. Yes it looks funky which was what we were going for. 

 

           I received a lot of Christmas packages this week and I'd like to thank Dad (for the Pizza Hut gift card which I am extremely grateful for), Grandma Barbara and the Modesto Fourth ward for their amazing gifts and for the love and the thought that was put into them. It truly makes Christmas that much more special! Speaking of Christmas I am looking forward toward speaking with you all this Sunday! Wow! Time flies by so much! For this call I want you all to think about what you want to say to me so the call will be the most effective it can be.

 

Well I love you all and HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

30lbs Since the Beginning of the Mission

Dear family and friends,  

 

              Another crazy week passed and I'm wondering what the next one will bring. Elder Adona and I spend most of our time looking through different various lists for the names of some potential investigators. Our high priest group leader gave us a huge list that we're going through right now. Other than that we're trying to stay afloat with all the advance planning that's required to get members to our lessons and investigators to church. It's a massive pain in the rear because both investigators and members alike flake out on us all the time! I'm still working on patience and reacting to people's mistakes with Christ-like love because I'm not much better at it now than when I started out here, granted I'm not pouting but there's improvement to be made. We had stake conference yesterday which was not welcome at ALL since it's way out of our area and there's so many people there. All our investigators, except for one, need rides to church so it's hard enough getting them to the normal building as is but getting them to a building way out of the area just isn't going to happen. In addition to that it's been a struggle getting these people to come to church. Two of our investigators have baptismal dates coming up: One on December 24th (Holly) and the other on December 31st (Henry). Holly's baptismal interview happens this Saturday. She's been sick with the flu so at least she has a valid excuse. Elder Adona and I gave her a blessing yesterday. Henry had two random soccer games happen on Sunday and he refused his ride to church (I really hate it when investigators do that) yesterday. We were blessed with another investigator by the name of Mischa though. She's a middle aged black lady with a crazy ADHD proscribed son named Josh. She's gone through a lot and all of our lessons have had major distractions but she accepted a baptismal date for January 28th. She's got a few hurdles to overcome but her heart's in the right place and things are looking up for her. We buried her dead dog on Saturday as an act of service. It was strange but I'm glad we could help her.

 

                The pizza I mentioned last week was breakfast pizza and I made it today without Elder Adona's help! I cooked the pizza right which is why I feel like a big boy right now. I'm starting to cook more than I did before and I've already looked through Elder Adona's cookbook for some ideas and there's three recipes I'd like to try this week. I've been eating TONS of pasta lately. Speaking of food I weighed myself when we were teaching Fred Massengale on Thursday and I now weigh about 182 pounds! Do you know what this means? I've lost 30 pounds since I've been on my mission! Man that was really good news that made my day! My goal is to stay in the 170's-180's. I've been eating smaller portions and I'm still averaging about 20-26 miles of biking a day, granted I also ride the bus a lot but we still get around. 

 

                 This week's the mission Christmas conference so next week you'll be getting some goofy Christmas-ey pictures. Oh and I'd like to thank Grandma and Grandpa Boothe for their amazing Christmas package! I use and abuse that sweater vest a lot which has allowed me to tie HUGE knots and get away with it (hee hee I love doing that) and for their awesome bags of trail mix and mac and cheese. I could really use help on planning in advance since that's the goal Elder Adona and I set since we've been a companionship. Oh and I could also use prayers on finding new people too.

 

Love from,

 

Elder Boothe

Elder Boothe's First Time Baptizing

Dear family and friends,

 

                  I feel like this week's been yet another fun and exciting whirlwind week down here in South Phoenix where there's never a dull moment.

 

                 For starters I have a new companion! Elder Casey Adona from Nampton, Idaho! He's been out for 16 months and this is his third area! He is my fifth companion, just like I'm his fifth companion. Elder Adona hasn't been here for very long and he's already got a bunch of ideas for baptisms! With the rate we're going our area will truly become a fruitful field and we will start seeing weekly baptisms! Elder Adona loves to cook and pulled out two cook books and started flipping through for ideas on what he's going to make. Well I like to cook and I'm out of ideas for new things to make so I struck up a deal with him where if I bought some of the stuff for the recipes he'd teach me how to make some of the stuff so off we go! One of the recipes we're planning to make is...dun,dun,duuuuuuuuun, spicy pizza! That's right folks one of the first recipes I'm going to make is a pizza recipe that was listed on the back of a sausage container! Did you really expect anything less from me? We're also planning some other things to make too. Oh man my mouth is watering right now so I'll stop. 

 

                 Speaking of baptisms Fred Massengale was baptized last Saturday by yours truly and he was confirmed yesterday. I've never personally organized a baptism before so this baptism was pretty unorganized. It started half an hour late! Fred didn't even show up until five minutes after the baptism was supposed to start! People down in South Phoenix are pathetic at showing up to baptisms on time. Zenaido's baptism started 15 minutes late. Yeah I was not happy about that at all! The important stuff though did get taken care of. Verl Farnsworth, Fred's best friend since childhood, gave a phenomenal talk on baptism. It was the best talk on baptism I've ever heard and I felt the Spirit wrap around me like a warm blanket. The Spirit was very powerful throughout the entire event. Just like I mentioned earlier I was the one who baptized Fred. I've never done a baptism before and I was very nervous about the whole experience. I did fine though since I didn't mess up on the prayer and I didn't have to redo the baptism. 

 

                If I were all of you I'd remember the name of Verl Farnsworth because he's going to be running for President in the upcoming election. He said that he wasn't going to jump in until the end of January since he's running on the Independent ticket and he doesn't have to worry about going through the primaries. The weather here has been super chilly as of late with the temperatures running in the 50's and lower. On saturday evening Elder Adona and I biked in cold heavy rain that was beating down on us for three hours. We went from house to house looking for potential investigators and finding some names that our High Priest Group leader gave to us. That was not fun at all! We were drenched to the bone and we were shivering afterwards! Elder Adona got sick from that but he's fine now. 

 

             Before I finish I'd like to bear my testimony to you all: I was extremely nervous throughout Fred's baptism and Heavenly Father knew I was going to have my nerves nearly shot so He helped me out by sending the Holy Ghost to calm my nerves down. Seriously it was a similar experiece to when I was called and set apart as a missionary. The Spirit of course is one of the greatest feelings in the world and to have the Spirit testify to one's soul is a magnificient feeling and I can testify that I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that this is where I'm supposed to be. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God that was called to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ back on the earth. I can testify to you that I know my Savior lives and that His atoning sacrifice is the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life. With Jesus none of us could get anywhere and there would be no point to coming down to earth. I love Him very much and everyday I stive to do His will. I love you all very, very much and you are in my thoughts and prayers.

 

 In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.