Umm...CRAP

So transfer calls came last night!  They usually come Saturdayy night, but Roswell had a Stake Conference, so they held it back til Sunday.  I think I told you about how transfer calls work when I got called as trainer, but I'll share it again.  The APs stay up and call people all night.  We don't know if the call will come at 11pm or 2am, we just stay up (some people do) and wait!  Usually I just sleep and wake up, but so far every one of my companions likes to stay up.  Elder England and I got home from teaching a Recent Convert lesson at around 9:15pm and finished planning up real quick since today is P-day.  I was writing in my journal and  we were joking around about who was going where and all of a sudden the phone rings...at 9:45pm .and its President Augustin!  Weird.  Anyway...I am leaving Seminole and Elder England!  I am really happy.  Hahaha I know that is terrible to say but its true!  And...I'm gonna be a freaking ZONE LEADER!  AH.  I dont know how to do that!  I'm only 4 transfers in the mission field!  That doesnt happen!  Haha.  It's scary, but I am really really excited for the new challenge!  Even worse though..I'm gonna be in my first full spanish area!  I still don't speak spanish, so that is a little scary haha.  Anyway, I'm gonna be serving in Hobbs Spanish.  Apparently our apartment is really big and nice, and since we are spanish we cover the entire city, so that will be cool.  I'm nervous out of my mind, but pumped.  Some advice I got from Russ comes to mind:  Don't take yourself too seriously, its like correcting somebodies grammar...you might be right, but everybody is going to hate you for it.  Hahahaha.  I hope I can apply that well.

Most of the lessons we had scheduled for this week canceled.  But we did get a couple new spanish investigators, still no one attending church.  We have a Recent Convert who just moved from Arizona named Luis in the branch.  He works a ton, but he gets one hour off on sudays, just enough to come to church!  Yesterday he showed up in a bright pink suit....IT WAS SICK!!  I wish I had my camera with me, I wanted a picture so bad!  He's pretty sweet.  His English sucks, he sounds Cubano, but he's straight from Mexico.  He's the one who feeds us at the restaurant once a week.  I don't know if I told you about that but...he feeds us once a week, real good Italian food. 

Another RC in the branch named Ignacio is a boss.  He's 57 and doesnt know english at all.  His wife is still in Mexico trying to get money enough to hop the border. He doesnt have work right now, so we've been helping him apply for a lot of things, that's why i Know his exact age haha.  He let me dress up in some cowboy stuff! I looked like a champ, I'll send you a pic.  I'll miss both those guys!  

Well...I'm really sorry this is another shortish one but nothing ever happens out here!!  I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say in the coming weeks!  Oh, I don't know my address in Hobbs, so I'll let you know that next week.  Love you so much!!!!!!!!!!!  And thanks for all you do:)

Love,

Elder Caleb

Warm!

Caleb Porter	2:47 PM (1 hour ago)
to me

This week was a BLESSING!!  It never got below 50, I think, and we had temperatures up to 90!  Oh my gosh, it felt SO good.  Finally after enduring all that crappy cold we get some warmth and some good finds!  Since it was so warm outside, everyone was out!  In each mission there are a set list of goals for, its call the Standard of Excellence.  The Standard amount of finds (talking to random people, not including knocking) is 70 people.  That is 70 souls touched and 70 souls given an opportunity to accept the Restored Gospel.  Before this last week the most I have ever had was 50, and that was an unreal week.  In Seminole the missionaries usually get 20 or so but....WE GOT 70!  IT was insane.  Since we don't have any investigators we were able to spend a lot of time just biking around, it was so nice!  The first 56 weren't really interested, and that was a little discouraging, but on Sunday we set the goal to get 14 for that day and we reached it AND at least 10 of them were actually interested!  Oh my gosh, it was so amazing.  I look forward to this next week to teach them all.  Obedience=Blessings.

I was thinking about some of the advice I got before I left on my mission, trying to decide what has helped me the most.  I decided it was Mom's advice to SMILE!  Attitude is a straight choice, every day.  We have been given an amazing gift of AGENCY.  We can choose every day to be happy and to smile.  I love that.  If we can be happy, then what else matters?  I'm talking true happiness here, none of that Satan's counterfeit crap.  Even though the mission is so hard...it is SO sweet.  I love it!  EASILY the happiest time of my life so far.  I am grateful for that choice I get to make everyday of whether or not I want to have a good day or a bad day.  So anyway...SMILE!

P-Day last week was a dream.  The internet was down in Lamesa, a small town 30 miles from Seminole, so the elders there got to come down to Seminole for the day.  This was the first time I've had more than just my companion on P-day.  So what did we do??  We played ball.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!  3 hours of basketball on some random court outside a school in the freezing cold and I was in heaven.  I am the worst basketball player in the universe, but I love it so much!!  Elder Ross, one of the elders from Lamesa, is from Morgan Utah and probably knows all our family out there...I don't know any of them so we aren't sure haha.  I miss sports a lot though!  man, it was sweet. 

Thank you so much Mom, for the Valentines package, I gained like 6 pounds from it!  Haha.  Thanks Ben's family and Joe's family for the Valentines stuff as well!  I am so blessed.  Love you all and have a good week:)

Elder Porter

Not Much

Not a lot happened this week, for real!  It was 15 degrees on Tuesday, but it felt like 5 with windchill.  That's what the local weather said haha, it was a pretty rough day.  I felt like I was literally warmed by the Spirit though.  Elder England was real mad the whole time, but I was able to say way more happy than usual!  It was a blessing:)  

I love the branch, the members are stellar.  We don't get fed, and even if we did we would have to bike a really long way to get to most of the members houses haha.  We just picked up a new city in our area, Plains.  We'll need to get a ride so we can do some work down there .  No branch mission leader here either.  

So now I'll just send pics I guess!

                                                          Really cold.

 
                                          Somebody's first time doing dishes.....not mine though
.

                                                              Bikes in the snow

                                                                              Cold

Cool Lizard

Super Bowl

Man, that was an insane Super Bowl huh?!?!   The early safety was a dream!  Just kidding...I didn't get to watch the Super Bowl and man was that hard for me.  I'm over it though, the better team won, I guess.  

To answer a few questions: 

Elder England has been out for a year this week.  He is about the same as me at Spanish.  He's a really great guy but sometimes I want to rip him in half. He loves to sing and rarely stops, he's pretty good though.  He also has the worst attitude ever, that is really really hard for me to get over.  Seminole is a whole lot colder than Ft. Stockton, in fact, it snowed yesterday.  The town doesn't have a superwalmart, so i kinda know what its like for my friends in other countries hahahahha just kidding.  We aren't allowed to drink the water here because it is too oily and will turn our teeth black.  It's pretty flat though, at least.  I enjoy it though, its still the same work no matter where I'm at, so its good.  

Like I said, it snowed yesterday.  It was pretty discouraging waking up to snow, especially when you know you'll probably be biking around in it all day.  Church got canceled, so I was hoping maybe we could just stay inside all day, that wasn't part of the plan though!  I really miss having a car!  I think I'll be forever grateful for whatever car I have.  We go 15 miles a day on average, I bought a little thing for my bike so I could figure that out.  Sometimes we go more sometimes less, but right around 15.  My legs are gonna be huge. Heck yes.  With snow on the ground, Church getting canceled, and the Super Bowl on it was the best day ever for a non-missionary haha.  

I really don't have much else to talk about!  The work is pretty slow, so we knock around a lot.  There are a lot of hardcore Mennonites and Baptists around here who don't usually give us the time of day. I keep getting opportunities to use Spanish though, so that is sweet.  I helped a Spanish guy change his tire yesterday and it was pretty cool to talk and learn about other things than the Gospel. There is a Recent Convert who just moved here from a town named Andrews who owns a restaurant, so we get free food:)  Thats about it!  Sorry! 

Love you so much!

Elder Caleb 

Mission Life