4/30/13 Garland, UT

Hey nothing big too big or exciting happened besides me spraining my ankle Friday night at investigator soccer and then branding cows on Saturday. I forgot my camera so I will probably have to send the pics next week. So this week missionary wise we picked up one baptismal date and if everything goes according to plan they will be on 5/11/13 and 5/18/13. We are still trying to find more people to teach so we have been tracting a lot but we haven't been having too much luck finding non-members to let us in. We found a couple less actives that we are going to start teaching and hopefully get them ready to go to the temple. As for branding and soccer I had a lot of fun doing both maybe a little too much fun. Haha when we were playing soccer I had the ball and a guy came up to take the ball away so I passed it right before he kicked it and he ended up kicking my ankle instead. The next day we went cow branding and it was loads of fun except I got really sun burnt but it was still really fun and I want to do it again! I want to work on Brother Black's ranch when I come home that would be so much fun. So that's what I did last week :)

Love,

Elder James Curtis

(PS I have a new address for the now:

Elder James Curtis

138 W 100 N

Tremonton, UT 84337)

 

 

4/23/13 Garland, UT

It has been a pretty good week here in Garland. My companion is pretty cool. He is like all work and no play so it will be an interesting transfer but I think it will be another great one. We picked up a baptismal date for this 11 year old girl named Debbie on Friday and we hope to have 1-2 more dates by this Friday as well. Not much else happened this week. We had a couple lessons and a couple new people to teach. I'm going cow branding on Saturday in a town named Howell which is in my area! I need to get some cowboy boots so I don't get any crap on my shoes. Haha I'll try to get some pictures of it so I can send to y'all. Well I hope y'all have another great week and I will talk to y'all again next Tuesday.

4/16/13 Garland, UT

So this week was pretty good. We had a couple appointments cancel but for the most part it was another good week. We are continuing to teach Amber and Ronny and they are progressing well. We finally have another lesson set up with Amanda on Thursday and hopefully things will go well with her too. So I survived the transfers and am staying in the Tremonton apartment and I will still be covering the Garland Stake so that's some good news but unfortunately I will be loosing my trainer/DL because he is now becoming my ZL. I will be receiving a new trainer tomorrow and his name is Elder Haas. Everyone has told me that he is great and that we should get along real well so that's good news too. So I learned how to tie a new knot with my tie. It is called the trinity and it's kinda hard to tie but I think it looks pretty sweet. I attached pics to show what the knot looks like.

And here is a picture of my first zone: 

Top Row (Left to Right) - Elder Torres, Yorgesen, Manuel, Aragon, Lafond, Kipp, Rogers, Curtis (Me), and Grant.

Bottom Row (Left to Right) - Sister Wright, Minarchik, Howard, Sonasi, and Elder Ottley

4/9/13 Garland, UT

I'm doing great. It has been really cold here and it has been super windy too last night I thought I was in a hurricane. It hasn't really been snowing here recently but we got some snow last night. Yeah I watched a lot of general conference 10 hours is a lot but they had a lot of great talks so it wasnt that bad. My favorite session was priesthood I have always liked the priesthood the best for some reason and this conference was no different Beck and Uchtdorf had the best talks at priesthood. I really liked when someone in their talk this weekend said that it isn't called missionary work but that is actually missionary fun. It's hard work but I have to keep in my mind to have fun while doing it or it will be a miserable 22 more months. So yeah we picked up a non-active (Amber) and her fiance (Ronny) who is not a member and they seem really interested we go visit them on mondays and fridays. They have a hard time understanding everything so we have to break up our lesson to just one topic a visit vs. teaching a whole lesson each visit. But yeah they are really nice and I could see her becoming active again and when they get married I could see Ronny getting baptised. Thank y'all so much for all that y'all have done for me to be here today! Also, this mission has really changed my view on member missionary work. They talked about this at general conference don't be afraid to talk to neighbors or friends about the gospel. They worst thing they can say is that they are not interested. So look for opportunities to help the missionaries in your area by talking to your co-workers, friends, and neighbors and I promise you that you and the people you talk to will be tremendously blessed by you doing that.

 

Love,

Elder James Curtis

4/2/13 Garland, UT

I'm doing really well and I had my first baptism this last Saturday and his name is Wyatt Hickerson he is a 12 year old boy we were teaching. S transfers are coming up in a couple weeks and I don't want to leave Garland because there a few people here I want to see get baptized and some people we found that I want to continue to teach. But yeah we have a few investigators right now but none of them are ready to get baptized yet some need to come to church 3 times first and others need to get married first. On P-day we tend to go to a gym and play sports and once a month we go to the temple and play sports after. We play volleyball, basketball, and soccer. Today we went to the new Brigham City temple and it was really cool because this was built old fashion style with different rooms for the endowment session.

There is a guy here that makes hand made knifes and gives them to missionaries for free. He made me a dagger, yes a dagger! He ordered the blade and made the handle out of elk horn (maybe elk bone but I'm pretty sure elk horn). It pretty sweet and now I use it as my letter opener. :) Here are a couple pictures of mine: 

And here's a picture that was texted to Mom from a member's phone of Easter dinner: