The Aguilar family
The water tower
Water tower again
Again
Dare to be different
The Aguilar´s - Grandma, Grandpa, Daughter Aurora, and Grandson Edwin
A wounded visitor to our house Hi all,
We are doing well. This area is a lot tougher than the area we were in, but we have found that if we move forward in faith that the Lord will bless us and the Holy Ghost will lead us. Last week we found several of the inactive families that we were assigned to help return to church. We actually got two unordained young men to return to church and they were interviewed by the bishop, presented for advancement, and ordained. I got to ordain Edwin Aguilar, and we have an appointment to teach his non-member mom. After church on Father’s day we were invited by Sister Aurora Aguilar to eat dinner with her entire family. Her mother and father are members of the church. They went on a mission several years ago, and they have seen to it that two out of three of their grandchildren were baptized. Only one of their three children was baptized, the youngest. Edwin’s mom Aurora and the oldest son were not baptized, and Aurora’s oldest son Fernando was not baptized either.
Altogether we have found about nine people in this area who are possible candidates for baptism. We have found that there are only four really good days for us to, Wednesday – Saturday. This is because Sunday and Monday are our marathon days, and we don’t really get much more than studying, and a few pass-by visits just to check
I think we told you about the improvement in the water system here in this area. I’m sending a few photos of one of the water towers. Each of these towers serves two or three hundred houses. They are huge. I’m also including a picture of a wounded butterfly that we rescued fro the birds that were eating birdseed we put out for them each morning in front of our window. The butterfly died, but at least he died in dignity. We will try to bring him home with us. The other pictures are of the Aguilar family. I don’t know all of their names yet, but they are an awesome family and the patriarch told us that his house was our house. We will baptize his daughter and try to baptize his oldest son and his daughter Aurora.
We are currently in the middle of the rainy season. It rains almost every day. The rain is usually so hard that an umbrella is not much protection, so we get home as fast as we can once it starts. We won’t melt, but walking in the rain is dangerous, because of the creative electrical services here. Sometimes electric wires are on the ground or sidewalk, and the wires are worn and bare. If you step into a puddle of water with a bare wire hidden in it, it could be a shocking experience. One of our elders found this out the hard way. He lived through it but it definitely got his attention. If I get a chance I’ll try to get some pictures of the Mexican wiring nightmares. This is a very interesting country and culture.
We love you all, and we pray for you all every single day. Please have a group hug for us every time you are together.
All our love, hugs and kisses, Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa.
4 comments:
Andrews most recent email to us.
Mom and Dad
What’s up? I’m doing amazing. I think that yesterday was the best day of my life. I’m not sure if I could pin it on that yet. But it is definitely the best day of my mission. So it started like most walking Wednesdays do. With mowing sister Swazuks lawn. I love that little old lady. She is amazing. I taught her how to drive her riding lawn mower. That was the funniest thing to watch. She kept missing stuff and went all crooked.
She always feeds us when we mow her lawn but she also got a new grill which she is afraid of using because of the fire. She is a little helpless at time. So one of the things we do to help with that is teach her how to do stuff. But this time I cooked on the grill. I really like doing that so I was ok with that also. After that we went to tract. We met an awesome lady. So I have to explain the weather to help you understand the story better.
So in Pennsylvania we have rain that the missionaries call, “PA piss mist.” It not enough rain to use an umbrella without looking gay but it is enough to completely soak you after about an hour. It’s almost like the misters that they sometimes have at amusement parks. So it’s like that when we knocked on her door. She was a nice middle aged woman named Sue. She had two big dogs that would not allow her to hold the door open only half way. So she stepped out into the rain. We started talking and she kept asking good questions. These are normal question that we get all the time from people who sincerely are looking for truth. As we talked the rain grew from PA piss mist to rain then to hard rain. But she was so intent and inquisitive that we kept talking. The spirit was present through our whole conversation. We gave her a book of Mormon and set up a return appointment. So far a normal to good day.
So all of this is on walking Wednesday. So we walk to the Agles for dinner. They are a great family. Brother Agle used to be Bishop Agle. He was the first bishop when the cranberry ward was created. Their son is a little weird but he plays the bag pipes. How cool it that. He played praise to the man for us. Throws things are so loud. But they sound awesome.
We gave out another BOM to a lady who is just nice. Then we get to the thing that made the day amazing. Bettina. She was a fallow up. We set up an appointment for seeing what she thought of the reading for Wednesday. She mentioned feeding us but I thought she was joking. We show up and she invite’s us in and asks us what king of pizza we wanted. So she orders pizza.
She has two daughters. Ashley and Mia. Ashley is seven Mia is three. They are the most adorable little girls I have ever seen. Bettina is German. She is from Berlin. So she taught her daughter’s German an English. So they speak both fluently. They thought we were cute so they would talk about us in German to each other and their mom. Bettina is going through a pretty rough divorce at the moment. Her husband was abusive and cruel. So she kicked him out of the house. The daughters don’t like him. But they want a dad. Ashley asked in German to their mother if she could marry us because they liked us. Bettina warned us about that the first time we met her. So she had her translate the question into English for us. It was so cute I laughed so hard. When we explained that wouldn’t work she said that was ok we could marry her instead. Ashley didn’t want us to leave.
Bettina had real more out of the Book of Mormon than we asked her too. She liked us so much from the first time we talked with her on her porch that she mentioned us to her friends. Her friends told her what you might imagine a good friend would. They told her we were polygamists and that we marry girls at 14 years old and all that good stuff. She told us that we left such a good impression on her from the door step that she couldn’t believe that was true about us. So she asked us we explained it to her and she completely understands.
We are giving her a church tour on Saturday and she is going to be at church on Sunday. It was the beat visit slash follow up in me mission experience. I can’t explain the great feelings that were there. She asked us all the right questions and the spirit was so strong I think I might have even started speaking in German. HA HA I cant wait until Saturday.
I also got a hold of another lady who we tracted into a few weeks ago. She has read a lot of the Book of Mormon she says. I don’t know what, “a lot” means but we will see. So this will be the second appointment with her also. And she said she wants to buy us food and that she would like us to help her out in her back yard and teach her. We offered to help out in the yard the first time we visited. So she is taking us up on that. That is this Friday.
We are also still teaching Sara and Sean. So the mission is going amazing. For p-day today I went golfing again. We were having a great game and on the seventh hole we got a call from the dentist. Elder McGonigal was scheduled to get two wisdom teeth pulled at one and they wanted to move up the appointment an hour. Sao we had to end golf early to make the appointment. That kind of sucked but its ok.
Thank you very much for the birthday presents. I made the cake for myself and Mcgonigal and I sang to me and I blew out the candles. It was fun and we really like the new CD’s. Thank you for every thing you do. To answer dad’s questions my cloths are doing fine, except for the fact that I sweat way too much into the collars of my shirts. But so does everyone crazy enough to wear a collared shirt and tie when its 90 degrees out side. The nasonex seems to be helping I have to get another prescription for it. My allergies are settled way down. I think its being on Nasonex regularly and the pollen around PA it lessening up quit a bit. For a while there you couldn’t see very far into the distance because it was so thick.
But again thanks for all you do love you very much. Bye Bye.
Elder Andrew Rich :)
Mom and Dad
Everything here seems to be going along nicely. Everyone seems to be doing well. Dani and Preason were over yesterday and it was great to see them. Sean was there to. Its great to get family together.
You would be inerested to be at our place on occasion to watch Sean. It might be a good thing your not here right now. Sean brother is going through a UFC faze. Ultimate fighting championship. He has bought those sparing gloves and so has Dan Reis, Shane, Gabe, Garrett, and a couple of guys he know. So basically all of his friends. know. And they spend every day practicing submissions and fighting. And I dont mean patty Cakes. I mean fighting. They swing for the fences and blood is not uncommon. I think they are learning a lot as far as fighting goes but I still don't think I like it. But Sean is so hard to communicate with and to find common ground I dont want to lay into him over this just because I dont like it. Its not that bad a thing. Its not bad at all. I just dont want someone to go home with black eyes and then have to deal with parents who are angry with me or even worse who want to sue me. But the kids love it and they try hard to be careful of hurting feelings. Its an interesting thing. Things have changed through the years. I remember in High School we had boxing and people could box and I boxed a lot. There are not very many places to do that sort of thing.
Nothing big going on except for the wedding planning which is all consuming for the women. Right now you cant get two women together without a discussion on babysbreath.
I got to see Jessica for a little while this week. I dont get to see her very often. She is doing really well and so is Levi. I guess Levi has just a couple of semesters to go until he graduates with a business degree. Jess is working part time for a while. She got a little burned out with the full time schedule. The were working her 5 days on 1 off and 5 on and 1 off. She got tired of that so she went part time for a while for a break. They were intending on looking for a home in the spring of 09 but now they are thinking of looking this fall. Home prices are really good and they both have steady jobs and prices may start to increase next year. They are as low as they have been in 5 years or so so its a good time for them.
Dani is still working full time at WAMU. Preston had decided on a career. He wants to be an airline pilot. He is going to start college next year and has already gotten some books to start studying. His current boss at the ultralight factory is an airline pilot and he got some books for Preston and has been really supportative. Dani will go back to school starting this summer and has 2 semester to finish her degree. They are both happy.
Summer is here. Pretty hot to. 108 degrees last saturday. Almost whereever you are on this globe 108pretty hot. The pool is up and running which is nice. The lawn is growing like crazy where the water gets to it and dying where it does not. The circle of life.
Corinne is working hard of course. They love her. St Als asked her to consider sitting on their financial board which is a good sign of how they think of her. She said she is interested to be considered but does not know if she can put in the time it would take. She is busy 100% of the time at that place. Its a good thing to because home loans are dead.
Gladys and Stella are doing fine. Gladys at our house and Stella at Danis. Did you know that the Bushes have a cat. It has 6 toes on each hand and belongs to Josie. So they have a bird and a cat and all are well.
We've gone through an expensive streatch. Our Dryer died and needed to be repaired. Then the motor on the pool pump, then the filter assemply on the pool They were here fixing it for 4 hours at 90 dollars and hour and about $300 in parts so thats going to sting. But the pool is open and I love it. I love spring and summer is ok then fall is great and Im going to look for a job in palm spring for the winter. Im not much of a fan of the cold.
I dont know if you knew it but Corinne had a problem with her arm. Its a nerve problem and it is much better but she was in real pain for about a week. She was at a 10 of 10 for pain for about 4 days. Id never seen her in that much pain, and it was constant. She is much better now. But boy she hurt for a while. The nerve is getting better. something about how she works causes it to pinch and they are working to find out how to fix here work environment to fix that.
Andrew is doing well and loving it.
Love Cordell
From Cordell
I just had the funniest thing happen. I read the following on one of your posts,
"Saludos a todos para un feliz ano nuevo con mucho éxito. Nosotros amo todos de ustedes en nuestras familias. Gracias por sus supo y oraciones por nosotros."
I of course had no idea what it ment but I want copied and I went to freetranslation.com and pasted it in and did the free translation. This is what came back.
"Greetings to all for a happy new anus with a lot of success. We I love all of you in our families. Thanks by its knew and prayers by us."
That what you get for free I guess.
I almost died laughing!
Cordell
Dear Mom and Dad
Andrew had a minor medical issue and needed our medical insurance card info and called to get that info. So we got to talk with him for about 5 minutes this week. I got so emotional at the suprise I could only say I love you then I couldnt talk. Fortunatly Corinne held it together and got him the info. So he emaile us this week and I thought I would post it for you to see.
Love Cordell
Hey Mom and dad
What’s up? I’m doing really good. I just gave my insurance stuff to the pharmacy and I hope it all works out ok. It was really fun to talk with you on Tuesday. Sorry mom that I introduced myself as elder rich. It’s a habit for me now. It’s actually really weird to go by my first name.
Like for instance Bettina our awesome investigator calls us by our first names and so do her kids and half of the time they call out our names and we don’t respond because we just aren’t used to it. The first three or four months that I was out when I heard someone say Andrew I would always look over to see who was calling me. And everyone who is named Andrew at church really messes with me. But now I hear the name and I don’t even turn my head. I actually really like hearing people call me Andrew for some weird reason.
As far as what’s new; not a whole lot. Bettina our investigator really like everything we teach her. She didn’t really like the relief society. She said that they were crying and she didn’t feel like she felt as much as everyone else and she was freaking out because she wore dress pants instead of a skirt. She is so awesome. The ward is really good with our investigators, maybe a little too good, like they might kind of overwhelm them. She got invited to like three different events in the week. But she said she felt better at our church than she has at any other church she has ever been to. I wrote president this past week and asked to stay in cranberry one more transfer because I really love it here and I’m not looking forward to moving. Bettina goes to visit Germany in three weeks and I’ll be gone by the time she gets back so I really want to stay to see her and the kids when I get back.
We are still working with our other investigators but they have stagnated a little bit. We are still trying but with less and less success. Amy a cool lady Buckway and I met wants to have us over for dinner still so that exciting. Things are really going well. So I love my mission.
How are thing with wedding planning going? How’s Nicole? How is the working out coming? Mine is still going great. We got and Olympic weight set so that will make it more fun. I have to do a lot less push ups now because the weights replace that. How is the rest of the family? Well love you and talk to you later.
Elder Andrew Rich :)
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