Monday, February 11, 2013
PICTURES...long over due
NEW AREA...NEW BAPTISM
Elder Houston's email:
February 11, 2013
hey family so sorry this week is a short one haha i got to chating with mom :)
but this week was pretty good! we had an awesome zone meeting and i love!!! our zone they are awesome ! we have a baptism coming up this week !! im finally going to stay in the area for!!!!! woot woot haha its an awesome couple too. adam and leah, leah is his wife she was soo prepared to hear the message of the gospel and just absorbed everything like a sponge. i came in at the end of the teaching, so she already knew everything. its wierd that i didnt have to find her or anything just kinda walked into it ha and adam on man!! he is a modern day alma the younger. he is an ex- member that had a complete change in life and heart and now is the most dilagant faithful guy .he finally got permission and is going to be re- baptized with his wife ! im so happy for them and will let you know how it all goes next week love you all so much happy valentines day!!!!
love elder houston
MORE CHANGES....AGAIN???
Elder Houston's email:
January 28, 2013
hey family!!!! how art thou?
so everything went well this past week i got all packed up and said good bye to everyone in nevada got a few pictures and said by to me boy ! man im going to miss that elder. he was the MAN he taught me sooooooo much. im so eternally thankful for him and hope i will get to see him before i head home.
oh ha we also had some fun times before we left nevada too. so i finally met sister houston !! haha the less active in nevada MO. haha too funny she was short just like us !! she is originally from cali. her grandpa is where she got her last name they raised her. she might be a distant relative but i couldnt find any family that i knew that she was realated to. oh and also my last sunday in nevada met a leavitt too !! he was related to some houstons too. some of his family is from vegas too. he called it something else like another town out there like mesquite or something... anyway that was fun.
so i got on the transfer loop and got to see alot of good ol missionary friends ha including elder treasure!!!!! :) i got to say bye!! it was so sad he got all teary eyed.. man i love that little man! he is going to be a prophet some day. so i will get to see him again ahah. that was great.
so my new area is pretty cool. there are some way cool members and a ton of work that needs to be done. like they just have not had the work done. we were talking to a member at a dinner last night and she was crying saying how she has her grand daughter that wants to be baptized and she is scared to let the missionaries teach her because her daughter, the mom is not a fan of the church and the past missionaries have not been the greatest. :( and its really sad, because one of them was my old companion from pawhuska elder hamlin the one that did not like rules. i felt so sorry for her. that should never happen ever!! it just made me want to work so hard and be so much better. my companion that i have now is a older, new missionary. he only been out for like 3 transfers and he is like 23 or 24. his past companions and him didnt get along very well. he liked to tell his trainner what to do and then his second one, the one i just replaced was not super with rules or working. haha he is a good elder and wants to work hard. me and him have had a pretty good start ha. he was kind enough to tell me how to manage my diabetes!!! haha mom you probably know how i took that haha.. but i didnt say anything. im trying really hard to be patient and full of charity.
the Lord knows what i am suppose to learn from him and i dont... so im hoping i will be humble enough to listen to Him and Heavenly Father. ha but in the mean time if any one has pointers on how to cope with a very controlling companion, my ears are all open haha colten or chase or dad you know my email haha. HEY speaking of you dad... if i remember right you owe me a letter. i sent my card. haha cant wait to hear from ya... soon.. haha. oh and i been meaning to write bishop rogers and sister rogers tell them so sorry and that i will try to send one out soon, love them and miss them.
but ya, so these past few days have been fun meeting new amazing people of Lebanon MO. oh and its not as close to springfield as i thought. its actually close to my very first area !! i got to see the elders that are serving there! ha they said they still talk about me there ahah. i thought that was pretty cool :) made me feel like a good missionary ha. i know mom you tell me i am all the time and thank you so much, but its nice to hear it from.. well not just your mother every once in a while haha...
OH so cool... so i met a family out here that are long time arizona valley livers ha. they have alot of family and history in az. like there family was one of the ones that brigham young sent to settle there. his mother was just in the news there for turning 100. the same time az. did like in febuary they are so awesome !! ha
well sorry for the boring email. this is just whats been going on. getting settled in again. everyone thinks this is where i will be staying for a while. so we will see. haha thanks mom for the doggy story. ha loved it and cant wait for the big letter. its so wierd to think that kenric and sister shelley are home now ha.
i love you all so much thanks for everything and the letters. i finally was able to get some of the Christmas cards i made sent off haha... realllly late ha sorry hope you like them. talk to you next week !!!!
love elder houston!
OH WOW...VERY SPECIAL EMAIL
I hope with all my heart that everyone will read and remember this email and remember your families and love them
Elder Houston's email:
January 21, 2013
hey family!!!
i dont have much time but i wanted to just email you all and tell you how much i love you sooooooooo much.
if there was anything that i could narrow down and say, the most important thing that i gained from my mission, it would have to be the extrodinary love that i have gained for my family.
in all the times of trouble and tribulations the ups and downs you have been my steady anchor always steadfast the blessing i will always have for time and all eternity. oh and how greatful i am for that and that made possible through the restoration of the church and even further more because of the atonening sacrifice that our Lord and King made for us to open the gates to enernal life.
all through my mission i have had reminders of things that happened through my life that have shown me time and time again of your tenderness and kindness to me and others. especially you mom and dad. the hidden expresions of your love for us kids are intertwined in our lifes and memories and will forever be there to lift us when we are down and build us stronger when we are up. when the very bells of hell are ringing and times of hardship rein down upon us, we will turn to each other and come close together like armies of stripling warriers. covering each opening or weak point that we each have with our sheilds of truth and righteousness and of each of our strengths protecting each other from the firie darts and blows from the adversary. as we continue to work together and with the Lord as our master and chief we can make it through anything and we have so far :).
im so greatful for the gospel that builds us and keeps us close so that we can keep safe. the gospel truly has in innumerable ways blesses families. i know this with every bit and peice of me heart. im so greatful for my mission opening my eyes to this eternal truth and i pray that i may never cover my eyes or turn them from this. and i am soo thankful for everyone that made it possible for me to be out here and of course, im so blessed and greatful for our wonderful, fantastic, imperfect but yet so perfect family :) that my Heavenly Father allowed me to be a part of.
i love you so much!!! thank you for everything!! hope you have an awesome week and cant wait to talk to you next week !
love elder houston
love ya
dad
mom
shalyse
chase
kael
claire
tori
tyler
hunter
anthony
and all others !!
BIRTHDAY...ICE STORMS AND A BAPTISM...OH MY
Elder Houston's email
January 14, 2013
hey family!!! wow supper sorry i have not been email these past couple weeks these past mondays we have been super busy for some reason, like this monday we had a zone outing. so we all went to joplin and had pot lock and had b ball tournament and hung out it was awesome! and i had a birthday dinner with a family, so we didnt get to do anything on monday hence we are emailing today. sorry, zone outing are fun but when you live so far away we didnt get any time to do anything on monday and i got the ok to email today cuz i told them if i didnt my mom would fly down and kick my butt haha.
but i dont have a lot of time to talk about great stuff that been going on, but i have to tell you about THE BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT OF ALL TIME!!!! haha. so get this so saturday morning and evening we got a major ice storm. like it went from 60 almost 70 degrees on friday to 20 on saturday haha. it was crazy. everyone is sick haha. but it started to rain when it was suppose to be snowing and what happened is the rain would fall and as soon as it hit a surface it froze it was crazy! and it was a wet cold, so really cold... anyway, sunday morning came around and both the church in nevada and our other area was canceled ! have you ever heard of that, church cancel ?? ha i think it is because all our ward is old people and the branch pres and bishop were scared people were going to slip and fall and break a hip. but it really was bad, like both our churches are kinda on hills and no one could get in the parking lot ha because it was so iced. any way so we just got stuck at home. and back in our last area that girl kathryn was getting baptized at 12pm. elder sudbury really wanted to ask pres shumway to see if we could go. i thought for sure he would say no. because merkley our last pres did. and all the ice too. but he wanted to so i said ok. so he called and he said YES! i was like what so we jumped in our car and by then it was heating up it was about 19. so the ice melted a little haha the Lord helped... he made it driveable, i know it because i thought for sure we where going to get stuck. like when we went to fill our car with gas, the flap was froze shut ha and the doors were stuck. the advisary was really trying to stop us. our tire was flat and we couldnt get the ice off the windshield too.... was craziness... anyway we finally make it on our way and holy cow, i dont think i have ever seen anything like it. as we where driving the sun was at that right angle where it shown through the trees and all the trees, each blade of grass, where like glass! they had a perfect even coating of ice cover them top to bottom. and as the sun hit them it glistened like a sea of glass and the trees... man i cant even described it. it was sooo cool. and the roads were totally fine they stayed warm and ice free. oh and i would have taken pictures but i was driving and we were too busy freaking out haha sorry :/. so we made it safe and sounds to cassville and with a very surprised branch, we got to enjoy the greatest baptism yet :) in my mission haha. kathryn was so excited! and she looked soo happy all dressed up in her awesome jump suit haha pure and white. we took pictures and got to be witnesses. the spirit was so powerful. as we all layed our hands upon her head to receive the holy ghost, i couldnt fight back the tears of joy.. she worked so hard to make it and she finally did. the spirit was in every corner,crack, and crevice of that building. you couldnt hide from it. and after, she bore her testimony so beautifully! and with perfect sincerity. she told of all the anti and hate she faced from her friends and old church members. and she said to the branch that she was going to need there help to be accountable and let her know if she ever strays from the path. she has such Strong faith and desires to serve God and Christ. she even talked about, thinking about a mission well she said she would think about it haha. i think she will, she already is one basically. man it was so awesome!! i loved every moment of it. if that was or is the only baptism i see on my mission that made it all worth it to finally see what comes from this work. the scripture really is true when it says even if you bring one soul onto me how great will be your joy.! oh my joy is great!
i love this work and my mission and this brings us to our next dilemma haha because of the age change in missionaries and the shorting of the mtc the next transfer is only going to be 5 weeks which will cut my mission down by a week.. soo i prayed and pondered about it and im going to try and stay longer out in my mission. it is up to president to what happens, but i am going to do all i can to stay out longer haha.. i love you family so much, but i really dont want to go home. let alone come home a week early. i will let you know as to what he says :)
i love you all and ill talk to you next week !! hope all is awesome! and i miss ya! and love you all!! sorry for the lack of emails i will try to get back in the zone ha oh and thank you soooo much for all the birthday gifts they were perfect and i am going to write them a letter too but please tell john and kim all them thank you sooooo much for the gift!!! love ya!!!!
-love elder houston
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