July 21st, 2014

Hey I don't have much to report this week because unfortunately Elder Wyllie and I have been sick all week with a nasty stomach virus. So it has been a pretty sucky week for both of us but we are slowly starting to recover from it. Umm....so last Saturday on July 12th we had a baptism for Ceilidh Clark. It was super awesome she was super prepared and we didn't really have to do any teaching at all. Of course we still taught all of the lessons but she already knew so much and knew the answers to almost all of our questions before we would ask them. Well I don't have too much else to talk about so I hope all of y'all are doing well at home and hopefully I will have more to talk about next week :) I love y'all tons!! 

So I have attached a few pictures from the past few weeks. One is a picture that a random lady took of us as we were walking to church a couple weeks ago. One is a picture of me in my sleep apneia machine. One is a picture of Elder Wyllie and I. One is a picture of our baptism that we had a couple weeks ago.

--

Love,

Elder Curtis

P.S.  I also added some pictures taken at dinner with The Grandview Ward Mission Leader and his wife, Jeff & Sonja Jones last Saturday.  Elder Curtis and Elder Wyliie are in the picture.

Walking to church

Ceilidh Clark's baptism

Elder Curtis & Elder Wyllie

Eating dinner with Jeff & Sonja Jones

Trying out a CPAP machine

July 7, 2014

So I am super tired so I am going to be really lazy this week and keep it super super short and add some pictures. So Elder Wyllie and I are doing great together and we will be having a baptism this week on July 12th!!! Ceilidh (Kaylee) Clark is 9 years old and is super smart and knows pretty much all of the lessons so we only have to go over some of the bigger words and covenants with her but fortunately her mom sits in on the lessons with us and helps us to explain the lessons better. So we are super excited and super motivated to go out find more and more people to teach and baptize. I will definitely have more pictures for y'all next week but I love y'all very much and hope you have a great week!!

-- 

Love,

Elder Curtis

P.S. - Those 4th of July pictures were from a members camera because I accidentally left mine at home :( Oh and someone saw us walking to church took a picture of Elder Wyllie and I as we were walking to church and then offered us a ride to church. So here is another picture of us. 

June 30, 2014

Hey I was able to find a computer to send an email this week. So today we only have a 2 hour p-day because they are going to give us an all day p-day on Friday for the 4th of July. Supposedly Idaho Falls got 2nd place last year for best firework show so I am super excited to see how great it really is. So we have been having a great week we have been teaching like crazy in order to be able to reach our monthly goals that we set for the area. We have been having a hard time trying to get in contact with our investigators because they are all busy between work and family that is the most common excuses that we have been receiving from them. Fortunately we have a super solid investigator named Ceilidh (it is gaelic and really pronounced Kaylee) and she is 9 year old girl that Elder Tovar and I found but the family wanted to wait for July for her to be baptized. Her family doesn't really come to church because the mother travels a lot and because there was a situation with them wanting to wear kilts to church and the Bishop wouldn't allow the son to pass the sacrament and the father and son got offended so we are trying to work with the whole family through the baptism of Ceilidh Clark. She has been coming to church with a member family for a while now and we never realized it but made us feel bad for a little bit for not noticing but at the same time it was one of those tender mercies/miracles that we have been praying for to be able to have a baptism this month. Our mission has recently changed some of its goals. In the past the goal for the mission was to baptize 1500 per year and we have been able to get really close but have never been able to accomplish it. So our mission president, Pres. Brinkerhoff, had a meeting with L. Tom Perry after a regional stake conference and L. Tom Perry wants each missionary to be baptizing 10 people per year which has increased our mission goal to 2500 per year! Well I have to go now but I love y'all very much!!

 

Elder Wyllie and I are continuing to grow tremendously together and we have set some pretty hefty weight loss goals for the next 5 weeks so we are currently trying to start waking up at 6am to get an extra 30min of workout time. I will be doing a lot of cardio and just trying to eat better and less so can be skinny again. haha

P.S. - The Mission office address has changed:

Idaho Pocatello Mission Office

135 South 7th Ave

Pocatello, ID 83201

My home address is still the same.-- 

Love,

Elder Curtis

June 24, 2014

Email from one of the ward mission leaders James worked with.  I thought this was nice of him to send us:

James is an outstanding young man.  He will do well throughout his life because he has been taught well by his parents.  He does love his parents.  Right now he is working hard and working to be the best he can be.  What he hasn't figured out yet is he doesn't have to be perfect to be a highly effective missionary.  We've had 4 missionaries so it is easy to talk to him.  I am hoping I can get to talk to him more.

 

Well, it is late this evening.  It was excellent hearing from you.  Thank you ever so much for your kind effort.  Have a fantastic week!

 

Your Friend,  Ken Gilbert

June 23, 2014

Well nothing too adventurous has happened this week with Elder Wyllie but we were able to set a baptismal date with a 9 year old girl named Ceilidh (Kaylee) Clark and her family has been planning for a while now to have her baptized in July so we went over to her house to set up a date. The baptism will be on July 12th so we will be having a baptism soon. We had to wait so long to be able to set that date because we were waiting for the parents to find out when family was planning on coming into town. Her Grandpa will be the baptizing her so we had to wait and see when he was coming down. As for Casey and Christine unfortunately neither of them came to church this week so that was a bummer but we will hope for next week. So other than that we have had a pretty slow week and were unable to teach too many lessons this week. This week should be better though and hopefully we will be able to find more people home. Elder Wyllie have been having a blast working together so we are looking forward to being together another transfer. Well like usual I don't have too much to talk about this week but I love y'all very much and am super thankful for all of your support!!

P.S. - The family history center will be closed next week for 4th of July so I am not sure if I will be able to send an email next week. 

-- 

Love,

Elder Curtis

June 16, 2014

So this week has been really good Elder Wyllie and I are continuing to work really well together. So this Wednesday is transfers but we found out that Elder Wyllie and I will be staying together for another 6 weeks! We have some great potential investigators and we should have a baptism in July. Unfortunately Casey Forkenbrock was out of town all week and wont be home for a couple days but we found a new investigator yesterday and her name is Christine Price and she is super awesome and only believes in the bible right now but is open to finding out more about the book of mormon. So things are going great in the area we are finding more and more people to teach now we just need to start getting them to church :) Well I love y'all very much and am grateful for all the support!!

--

Love,

Elder Curtis

June 9, 2014

I will start off by apologizing for not being able to send a mass email last week. We were off doing p-day shopping and horsing around for most of the day and then we forgot that we still needed to send off some emails. Instead of mailing off a mass email to mom and dad I decided to send a personal letter to each of them and about my current struggles. Um....so on that note on to this week we have been having a good couple weeks. We have been teaching a ton but we do not have a lot of people currently in our teaching pool. We have a couple in there but we are always praying more investigators. We have found a lot of people out and about and we will stop and talk with them and share a message but most of them have told us that they respect what we are doing but are currently not interesting in having the missionary discussions. Currently are only progressing investigator is Casey Forkenbrock and she is the one that we did the service for when we pulled out her stumps out of her front yard. She is a private investigator and doesn't know her schedule from day to day so our lessons have been just random stop by and hoping that she will be home. Unfortunately the only thing really stopping her from being baptized is coming to church. She will always tell us that she will definitely come to church as long as nothing gets in the way but most of the time between work and family coming into town something has stopped her from coming every week for the past month. We have talked to her about putting Heavenly Father first in her life and have promised her blessings many many times and she is slowly starting to realize that her priorities are out of order. So she is starting to realize the importance of things we ask her to do and soon she will come to church and feel the Spirit stronger and start to gain a testimony of what we have been teaching her. Well I better go now but that is a little update on the current missionary work going on in my area. I love y'all very much and hope that y'all have a great week!!

P.S. - I hope y'all are all reading Preach My Gospel and I will share an awesome quote that I have found as I am currently reading PMG from cover to cover instead of by topic.

“The most important of the Lord’s work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own homes.”

May 27th, 2014

Well I said I would email on Wednesday but we had a couple appointments fall through so we decided to email today instead. So Elder Wyllie and I are doing great together. We were able to teach a lot of people last week. Not all of them said we could come back but we are trying to work harder at talking to everyone and at least sharing a short message or scripture with them instead of trying to just set up appointments without a message that usually fall through. We have been able to see a lot of success come of it. We have been able to set 2 baptismal dates together and we are currently working on setting many more. The current baptismal dates that we have are for a guy in the Westhill Ward by the name of Joe Goyen. The other is in the Templeview Ward by the name of Casey Forkenbrock. They both have a current baptismal date for June 21st, 2014. We are praying that they will continue to progress and that we will be able to continue to meet with them and that their desire to learn more and that their testimony will continue to be strengthened. This week we will be having Zone Conference on Thursday, May 27th, and these are always really fun and have some great trainings. The only downside to Zone Conference is that it is from 8:30am-4pm so we get to sit in a chapel almost all day so it can be very tiring sometimes. Memorial Day was just another regular p-day for us. Which means we do our normal morning schedule routine and then from 10am-6pm we have free time to do emails, shopping, and zone activities (usually sports). The tree stumps were finally removed and taken to the dump after a lot of digging, axing, chain sawing, and truck pulling. That was quite the adventure but it was a lot of fun. So we have been biking a lot now that the weather is nicer and Wyllie found a bike that was left at the transfer site (the church building that we meet at during transfers). So far we have done around 40 miles together but unfortunately Wyllie will be losing his bike because the bike that Wyllie found belongs to another missionary. So he will be losing the bike on Thursday and then we will be back to walking. Um.....I believe that is all that has happened in the past week. It was a pretty eventful week and we are hoping for an even more eventful week full of teaching and sharing a message with everyone. I love y'all very much and hope y'all have another great week!!

May 19th, 2014

¿Hola como esta? Well this week has been super fun. Elder Wyllie and I have been doing quite a bit of service in the mornings and after noon for a lady by the name of Casey Forkenbrock and she is one of our investigators in the Temple View Ward and she has a lot potential. We are helping her to take out a couple of tree stumps and there is a picture below with us (Elder Wyllie, Curtis, Sherlock, and Araya) around the smaller of the 2 stumps. We were able to get that one out in around 3 hrs but we are currently still working on the much bigger stump. We have been able to teach Casey once and went over the restoration and she was really receptive and open. On saturday I was able to go out with Amanda and Mary and that was a lot of fun to be able to go out to lunch with them! We went to Olive Garden and have a great meal and be able to catch up on what all is going on in the outside world. Oh and unfortunately I found out last night that I still have high blood pressure and so I will have to call the mission doctor soon to find out what I need to do or who I need to go see. Elder Wyllie and I have some pretty high goals that we have set for the coming week that we both feel like if we buckle down and work hard that we will be able to achieve these goals that we have set. This area has a lot of people and a lot of potential for missionary work. Our hardest part is just catching people home for our scheduled appointments but we are going start a new tactic and start teaching wherever and whoever is home. Well I better go now but I hope y'all are all reading Preach My Gospel and follow that advice that we received at General Conference. I love y'all very much and hope y'all have a great week!!

P.S. - Here are a couple pictures. One is a picture of a service project that we are doing for one of our investigators. The other is a picture with my new companion Elder Wyllie.

May 5, 2014

Well Sorry I don't have a lot of time mainly because Elder Tovar is leaving today and we have to be ready to drop him off at 1ish and we still have some errands to run. Not a lot happened this week. We mostly spent time going and setting up appointments for this coming week and saying goodbye since he is going home. My new companion will not be Elder Badoni but it will be an Elder that came out with Elder Hernandez. I don't know anything about him yet but I will know moreon Wednesday we he comes up. Well I better go so Elder Tovar can finish getting ready to go home. I love y'all very much and look forward to Skyping and phone calls on Mother's Day!!

P.S. - Here are a couple of pictures from the shirt burning.

 

Pictures

James and Elder Badoni

Jake, Justin,Geoff, and James (I hope those are in the right order says Amanda)

James and Elder Tovar

April 14, 2014

So this email is going to be kinda confusing but it all talks about the last week.

The Blue is in response to dad's email and the red is the rest of the mass email. 

Sorry but this was easier and less time consuming.

Thank you so much for your email this week. Especially for the last paragraph. That is definitely what I needed to hear. It has been really really hard to be working in back to back areas that don't have a lot of work us yet. We are constantly getting hounded by our zone leaders because my companion is the district leader and we are having a hard time finding people to teach and our numbers have been really poor these last few weeks. Our problem right now is that we set up many appointments and they have all been falling through lately and our zone leaders feel like we are either not working or not being obedient. It has been really hard to have to deal with them and worrying about the area at the same time. Obviously what we are currently doing is not working and I am not sure what else to do and the zone leaders are not giving us any advice other than referring us to the finding section in PMG. Yeah that is my current struggle right now is trying to deal with the leadership while helping the area to progress at the same time. I have really been working hard on my patience. I have learned on my mission that I struggle a lot with patience and humility and it is something I am striving to be better at but it is really really hard sometimes. I am and hoping and praying for a better week. 

P.S. - Oh yeah Dad, Bro. Geddy told me that you need to put your cell phone number on the church directory so he could have texted you the picture of Jake, Geoff, and Justin Nordin.

So I was a scrub this week and forgot to bring my memory card reader for my camera. This week was pretty awesome because I was able to see Jake Carstens, Geoff Geddy, and Justin Nordin. So now for the awesome story of how I was able to accomplish this. Lol Well it all started with mom talking to me last week about how Jake was getting married this week in the IF Temple. She didn't know what time but she was able to find out what day he was getting married and unfortunately without a time I didn't think I was going to be able to see them. Well we were on exchanges on Friday and Elder Badoni (my former companion) were together while Elder Tovar (the district leader) was on exchanges with Elder Crow. Well I was with Elder Badoni in his area on Friday and we had a lesson planned at the Temple Visitors Center. Unfortunately the lesson fell through but while we sitting there waiting for him to show up we found out that they have a list of all of the weddings and times. So I asked if they new what time Jake was getting married and they found it and I was able to surprise him while they were outside taking pictures. We were not able to go to the sealing or stay for very long but it was really fun and cool to see them. So that was the highlight of my week but other than that it has been a really hard week (for more info on why it was so hard read the blue). Well I have to go now but I love y'all very much and I will definitely have pictures next week of Jake, Geoff, Justin and I together. Have a great week and I will talk to y'all next week.

April 7, 2014

Well this week has been really great! We had a few miracles happen this week. Currently the mission has a goal of every companionship baptizing in the month of April and this area has a really really small teaching pool. So for fast Sunday we have been praying for a miracle that we would find someone to be able to baptize this month and on Wednesday we got a referral from our Zone Leaders for a lady that would be moving into our area from Shelly, Idaho. She has already been taught all of the missionary lessons and apparently she is super excited. She is what missionaries call a "golden investigator" or someone that was prepare by ministering angels before the missionaries ever started talking to her. This has been a really great experience to be a part of and it has really strengthened my testimony on the power of fasting and prayer. We also received a couple other referrals but we have been unable to reach them yet so they are our other blessings from the fasting but we are still trying to get in contact with them. And I don't know if y'all have heard but we got a little bit of snow last week and on Sunday we got about a foot and I have pictures below with me in the snow. One of these days I will be more prompt and send a better email. I better go do some shopping. Have a great day and I love y'all tons!!!

P.S. - During general conference I learned that I am supposed to be asking y'all about what you have be studying recently in Preach My Gospel. So what have y'all been studying lately??

March 31, 2014

Well hello hello how have y'all been?? So I now have a little bit more information for y'all about my new area. I am currently serving in the Idaho Falls West Stake and have 4 wards that I cover: Grandview, Mountain View, Temple View, and West Hill Wards. Unfortunately I was unable to get the pictures but I have a video of it that is apparently too big to attach in this email so I will try from my gmail email but if that doesn't work I'm not sure how else to get the video to y'all. So every week the elders and sister get together for a zone activity and there a 2 gyms in a church building in the area. So we get to choose which sports we want to play and one is usually basketball, which I personally suck at, and the other is usually something called gatorball, which is kinda like indoor soccer and handball mixed together, and that is the one that I usually play. So last week when I said I was going to play soccer I was really going to go play gatorball. It is really fun and I have thought about introducing the game to the missionaries back home. I am usually one of the better players but that is because I have little history playing soccer. ;) Well I am sorry this email is so short but I have to go do some shopping before we go play some gatorball. I love y'all very much and will have more for y'all next week.–-

March 24th, 2014

Well I couldn't dodge the bullet twice. Unfortunately I am getting transferred to the other side of Idaho Falls :( I am super happy to be staying in Idaho Falls though. It has been really fun to get to know this town and the people in it more and more. Especially since I used to come here like every weekend and only knew the major streets. Now I have really gotten to know half of IF and now I get to go and learn more about the other half. My new companion is going to be Elder Tovar and he actually came from the Ogden mission with me. I didn't know him too well other than that. I feel like it is going to be a good transfer but I am going to miss Elder Hernandez a lot. We had a lot of fun together and it has been a great 3 months. We did burn our shirts this last week but unfortunately the Elder that took the pictures has not been able to give them to me yet. So next week for sure I will have pictures for y'all. Sorry for being a scrub. The area is doing good the members are starting to work with us more and more and we have be seeing quite a few miracles in our area. For example, since Elder Hernandez has been here we have been trying to teach a couple of families but they were not ready for missionaries yet. For the past few weeks these families have been coming to church on their own. Which is awesome but they still are not ready for missionaries so we are currently working through the members and the primary to help these families. One day the missionaries in this area are going to be blessed with a couple baptisms but it will take some time and as long as they are patience and show true charity for this area they will continue to see the same miracles that we have been able to see. Well I better go to some shopping. Then I will be getting ready to go dominate at some indoor soccer :) I love y'all very much and hope y'all have a great week!!

March 17th, 2014

Hello Hello family and outside world. How have y'all been? Well I don't have much to report like every other week but I will try to use mom's email and questions to inform y'all how I am doing. Well since it is St. Patricks Day I had to get a green dry erase marker and draw on my hands because out of all the many ties I have now none of them have green in them. Lol well life is going great here with Elder Hernandez we are continuing to work really well together and are getting along really well. I am still struggling with the journal writing because y'all know me better than everyone and know how much I hate to write. I am currently at Exodus 2 and have been really learning a lot about how the old testament has a ton of hidden treasures in it. One for example is how every single prophet that has called and will be called is a prime example of Jesus Christ and someone we can see and model ourselves after. A lot of people can quickly see the similarities between Heavenly Father = Abraham and Jesus Christ = Isaac but in my book I learned that if we look towards all the prophets that way we will be able to see Christ shining through all prophets. My contacts are doing great and I am pretty used to them now except when it is a really windy day they will dry up and feel really uncomfortable. Overall though I love them and they feel really nice most of the time. Tonight we are planning on going to a members house for dinner and to burn our shirt (me) and tie (hernandez) so next week I should have pictures for y'all for sure. Well I have to go run some errands and play some gatorball (it's like soccer and handball mixed together). I love y'all very much!!! Have a great week!! :) 

3/10/14

Well this is going to be a fairly short email. Yes I know all of my emails are short but this one is going to be even shorter, sorry! Well we are continuing to work with all of investigators but unfortunately we will be going into the finding stage again because we could always use more people to teach. The Crose family told us that they will be really busy in March. So currently we wont be able to teach and meet with them again until April. So that is another reason we are trying to find more people to add to our teaching pool. We slowly but surely making progress in the area and the members are starting to help us more and more. My current goal right now is doing better with my journal writing here is what I sent dad to talk about my current goal.  I am currently working really really hard to keep a journal. I made a goal at my year mark to start writing in my journal more and more. I am currently struggling because I have found out that I am quite lazy when it comes to journaling. I have read my patriarchal blessing multiple times on my mission and towards the end it talks about how I need to keep a journal so that my posterity can learn from my experiences. So there is always room for improvement but I am currently trying to be better and write more in my journal daily. So sorry I dont have much more to report but Elder Hernandez and I are doing great and are having a lot of fun serving together. We find out on March 20th about what will be happening with transfers. Transfers are on March 26th. Well I love y'all very much and hope that y'all have a great week!!

P.S. - I have not been able to burn my shirt yet. I will send pics as soon as I do it.

3/3/14

Well this week has been about the same as previous weeks. We are still struggling trying to get the Crose family to come to church. We are still consistently trying to increase the work in the area and on Saturday I had a personal revelation we went out on visits with our ward mission leader. I slowly started to realize that this area requires a different kind of missionary work. As we were making visits I decided that instead of trying to share a message at every door contact that we had but instead we would just get to know the people in the area more and build a friendship first and then they would be more likely to let us in again in the future to be able to share the missionary lessons with them. We had 3 solid contacts that night and I felt like Saturday night was one of the most productive days we have had since I have been in this area even though we were unable to share a message that night. I know that is contrary to everything that I have been taught but nothing else is working here. I really feel like this is what needs to be done here. Once people realize that we are more than just missionaries and when they really do feel that and know that we care for them personally and see them as more than just a baptism is when they will open up to us more and that is when we will start seeing the success in the area. Oh and I forgot to mention that we have still not received our iPads but most likely we will be receiving them in April sometime. Supposedly I heard that missionaries are getting them when the enter the MTC now but oh well we will get ours soon enough ;) Oh and for y'all that are trying to follow with my bible reading I am currently at Genesis 48 and I recommend that y'all skip Genesis 38 because it is quite graphic and weird. Well I have to go do some shopping now but I love y'all very much!! Have a great week!

P.S. - For my year mark it is tradition to burn a shirt so I will be posting pictures of that as soon as we actually get around to doing it. The pictures that were in the last email were actually not pictures but just funny little smiley faces that gmail has. So it was nothing too big that y'all missed out on. LOL

P.S.S. - Mom thank you so much for not emailing Pres. Brinkerhoff the week that I did not send a weekly email. He has enough to worry about in the mission field. Thank you again!

02/24/2014 (1 Year!!)

Well hello hello. Sorry for not emailing last week but the place we go to do emails was closed last week for presidents day so my companion and I decided to take a stress free pday and just chilled and relaxed at the apartment for most of the day. We had a great mission conference with Elder Bednar! It was really weird because at the beginning he told us not to take notes and that taking notes that you can't find or don't use is "stupid". Yes he actually said that notes are stupid. The reason why he did not want us to take notes is because the whole conference was centered around learning from the spirit and to not focus on what he was physically saying. In contrast, he wanted us to write down the promptings of the spirit. It was a really weird experience because I walked in thinking that we were going to get a conference talk but instead he had a 2 part Q&A session with us. The first part consisted of a Q&A of the 3 talks that he asked us to read prior to coming to this conference. The second part consisted of a Q&A of questions that we wanted to ask an apostle and he made sure that we didn't ask any ridiculous like where is the sword of Laban.  It was a really fun and spiritual experience! Unfortunately we did not get to take a single picture with him or shake his hand but we were able to take a semi-small group picture with him and our mission presidency. So that was really cool and spiritual experience. So as for the area not a lot has happened in the past couple weeks. We are having a hard time with helping our investigators come to church. We are always looking for more people to teach though. Our wards are starting to catch the vision and they are starting come out with us more and more. It is really cool to see the excitement that they gain after coming out with us. Well I have to go do some shopping now. Hopefully next week we will be able to have some success and that I will have much more to report. Thank you for all the prayers that y'all have said to help me. I love and pray for y'all everyday! There is nothing more powerful that the power of prayer. I have learned and gained a strong testimony on prayer in the past year and how there is no such thing as a prayer too small or too big. I love and miss y'all very much!! Have a great week! 

P.S. - My expect date of departure is exactly 1 year from today, February 24, 2015.

P.S. - I am currently at Genesis 38 in my Old Testament reading but I am also reading the Old Testament institute manual so I am reading quite slowly but I am learning a lot and it is really cool to learn some deep doctrine :)

2/10/14

Another week has come and gone but this week has been very eventful. The area is starting to pick up which is awesome and we were able to extend a baptismal invitation to a family, they accepted, which was pretty sweet. I was able to help set up Elder Hernandez to invite this family. The family we invited was the Crose family and we invited Kristan (single mother, mid-30's) and her son Adryk (13 years old). She has another son but he is only 6 years old right now but we will continue to work with the whole family. Unfortunately they did not come to church this week but they still have enough weeks to be able to come in order to be baptized on March 8th (this the current date for their baptism). They accepted but she also wants her brother (a return missionary) to be the one to baptize her and her son and she would need to contact him and plan a day and time. In addition to that excitement I was able to see Tolan on Thursday and we went out to lunch together which was really fun to be able to see him again. I have attached a couple pictures below one is a picture with Tolan and the other is a picture with Elder Felton (he was my companion when we covered the Paris Idaho Stake). Elder Felton goes home on Wednesday and so I was able to get a picture with him before he went home. I also went to the eye doctor to get contacts this week which has been pretty interesting trying to get used to them. It still takes me awhile to get them in and take them out but I am getting quicker. They gave me a trial pack to use for a week before we order some after my return appointment on Wednesday. Oh and I forgot to tell y'all last week but we found out at interviews that we will be having a mission conference coming this Saturday, Feb 15, where we will be meeting Elder Bednar!! I have a suspicion that there will some talk about iPads and that we may get our iPads on Saturday!!! For obvious reasons I am getting pretty excited about meeting an apostle and hopefully he will have some presents for us ;) Well I have to go now but I love y'all very much and thank you again for all the letters and support that y'all have given me :)

An extra picture for your viewing pleasure:  James and Elder Hernadez eating dinner with Amanda's friend Erin.  Erin mentioned she was moving to IF on FB, Amanda replied with "My brother serves there," and Andrea, a friend of Erin's saw that and mentioned she was serving dinner to an Elder Curtis in IF that very night.  Erin needed to go to IF to make arrangements for the move, so she asked if she could join too.  And so James was surprised by dinner with Amanda's old friend Erin and new friend Andrea.

Address

(This is Amanda, the sister, speaking.)

I know James would appreciate letters.  If anyone feels so inspired, his address is:

Elder Curtis

1460 E. Benton, Apt #4

Idaho Falls, ID   83401

2/3/ 2014

Hey so this week has been a better week. It was my companion, Elder Hernandez's 20th birthday on Friday and a family took us out to Texas Roadhouse which was really fun. This has been pretty slow as well but the lessons we were able to have were really great. Our teaching pool is slowly starting to increase and the area is starting to see some success. We are praying that we will be able to have a convert baptism this coming month. We had a miracle happen this week and someone Elder Badoni and I tried to teach last transfer, we were unsuccessful because of the parents, came to church this week and his whole family was there. So we will be going this week to try and start teaching. His name is Kason Kingsford and he is 9 or 10 and it was a true miracle to find out that he came to church on Sunday. We were also able to have some really good interviews with Pres. Brinkerhoff this week and he is truly inspired and a great man. He helped me to understand one of my main jobs is to help Elder Hernandez become a great missionary. He also talked to me about how the Stake that we are currently serving in has one of the highest less actives in the stake boundaries and basically I felt like he was telling me that my 2nd job is to help those who are struggling to come back to church. After that he said most likely these less actives will have some unbaptized over-age youth for us to teach. So it really helped to know that he is not too worried that we have not reached the mission standard of excellence, which is every companionship baptizing monthly, and that we need to start with bringing less actives back to church and then the Lord will bless us with baptisms. I am truly grateful to have him as a mission president. He has really helped me to grow a lot in the past 6 months. Thank y'all for the super inspirational and encouraging emails and I am looking forward to the letters that should get here soon :) I love y'all very much and very grateful that Heavenly Father has put me in such a great family and I know that I have y'all as a family for a reason. I love Heaven Father so much and am very grateful for all that he has done for me. I know that if we put our trust in Him nothing is impossible. I know that He is always there for us and He is just waiting for us to talk to Him. We just need to humble ourselves and ask for help and He has promised that He will be there to lift us up when we are down. I hope y'all have a great week! I love and miss y'all very much!!

P.S. - I have attached a picture of my companion and I and also a picture of the wonderful steak I had :)

01/27/2014

Well I promised y'all some pictures last week so here are a couple of pictures of me at my study desk. Since those pictures were taken I have moved my desk to a different wall and hung up a Texas flag bandanna on the wall. This week has been really slow trying to build up the area and we did not have any lessons and unfortunately we were not able to meet with those I talked about last week and have lessons with them this week. We are having trouble with getting into doors. We have some really good prospects. We go out almost everyday with the ward mission leader in one of our wards and are working with our other wards to make it possible to work more with all of our wards. Alexus Dutton unfortunately has not been able to come to church yet and when we were walking around making some visits we found out this week that her mom is making her come to church with her. Her mom goes to Calvary Chapel which is our local anti-mormon church :( To be honest this week has been a little bit of a struggle. I am starting to loose the fire and the motivation. So I thought y'all would like to know that missionary work is very very hard especially in a slow area. Some days it is really hard for me to go out and do the work and have the continuing faith to find someone to be able to teach everyday. It is hard being a senior missionary and making sure to keep my companion is staying motivated everyday and helping to grow and become the missionary our Heavenly Father wants him to be. So request time I know y'all are really busy with your everyday lives but I could really use a good pep talk. If y'all can find time in your busy schedules I would love a hand written letter with some encouraging uplifting notes and your testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have just finished reading Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price and now I will skip Joseph Smith-Matthew and Joseph Smith History to read the Old Testament. Currently I am at Genesis chap 8 and I have gained a great testimony of the plan of happiness and each of our potentials. I know that our Heavenly Father has great expectations from each one of us. He loves us much! He wants us all to succeed. Lucifer and even Cain had great potential to go on to be great people but they chose a different route and because of that they have lost out on many many blessings that our Heavenly Father was waiting to give to them. I know that through Jesus Christ and only through Jesus Christ can we all reach our potentials of being "noble and great" souls in the kingdom of God. We all chose this life and knew that we would go through many trials but still we all celebrated with much rejoicing anyways! I love Heavenly Father very much and I am grateful to be serving a mission here in the Idaho Pocatello Mission. I am very grateful Jesus Christ and his sacrifice that he did to make it possible to be able to live with Heavenly Father again someday. I am very grateful to have the family that I have and for all the love and support y'all have continued to give me. I love y'all very much and miss y'all very very much too. 

                                                                                                        

P.S. - I was told by a less active family that we were teaching that I should share a short message about Jesus Christ that I shared with them and in a previous talk I gave a while ago. So I gave a talk on faith in Jesus Christ which made me think of past talks I have had with dad. I remembered dad has told me time and time again in the past about being truthful in everything that I do because it takes a lot of time and experiences to build a trust in someone but at the same time it takes one thing/lie to loose all the trust that you have in someone. Well as I was giving this talk I realized that Jesus Christ, being a perfect being, has never done one thing for us to loose our trust in him. This is amazing and something we must remember everyday because of the Atonement he knows us perfectly and descended below all of us that we may all have a shoulder to lean on and someone to help lift us up when we fall. Anytime that we may feel like we are all alone and nobody understands there is always at least one person, Jesus Christ, he is always there waiting for us to call upon him to help us through anything. I love this idea very much because we can always rely on him because of the Atonement he knows everything that we have done and what we are going to do and he is the only one that can help us every time. I have a very strong testimony of this I have a very strong testimony on prayer and how Heavenly Father hears and answers all of our prayers no matter how big or small they may be. I know that our Heavenly Father loves each and everyone very much and He is waiting to bless us everyday as long as we are doing what He has asked of us to do. I stand as a witness of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

1/20/2014

So we have a had a fairly eventful week here in the area. We were able to go out with our ward mission leader almost everyday which has been really awesome and we were able to teach many lesson, most of which were to less actives) but we were able to find 3 over-age youth in this hunt to clean up the ward records that we will be able to hopefully start teaching. One is Jaden Crystal and he is 14 years old and his friend who lives across the street is currently serving a mission. We were going through the unbaptized over-age youth list when we found him (we found all 3 from this list) and we were able to share a lesson with him and invited him to be baptized on Jan 22nd and he accepted! His mom is a non-member as well but she wasn't as excited about the idea but she agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. The next was Tyler Shaw and he is 14 years old as well and as we were talking with him we found out that he was interested in learning more. His grandparents live next door and are active members and we were going to visit them when he happen to be there so we decided to share a quick message with them and left a soft commitment with him. We found out that he is currently really busy with school but that in couple weeks we could probably start teaching him. With that soft commitment I basically said if he were to find out for himself if what we have to share is true would he act on it and be baptized and left the invitation. He accepted as well but we did not set up a date for him mainly because we don't know when we are going to be able to start teaching him. So that was another awesome experience that we had this week. The third was a girl named Alexus Dutton and she is 10 years old and wants to be baptized. Like Tyler we went to go talk to relative that lives in the ward first (Alexus' Aunt) and she happen to be over visiting so we started to talk with her and that is when we found out that she wanted to be baptized! So we started talking with her and her aunt to find out what is currently holding her back from being baptized right now and she said that her mom wants her to start going to church first and learning more about the church. Unfortunatly, she did not come to church this week but we are going to try and start teaching her and hopefully we will be able to see her this week and we hope to be able to leave a baptismal invitation with her as well. 

Well that is the highlights from the past couple weeks and next week I should have a couple pictures for y'all :) I love and miss y'all very much and hope y'all have a great week!!!

01/13/2014

Well sorry this email is going to be even shorter than my normal emails. I got distracted emailing old friends (Tolan, Jordan, and Chris) for awhile and lost track of time. This week has been kinda hard we are constantly going through different list trying to find people to teach. We found a new investigator this week which was awesome and we will be trying to extend a baptismal invitation to him this week on Wednesday. His name is Jaden Crystal and he is 14 years old and was taught in the past by missionaries but never got baptized. He is really good friends with a member accross the street who just left on a mission to go to Dallas Spanish Speaking. Well I need to go run some errands now. Sorry again but I will make sure to do the mass email first next week ;)