Arizona

Week 42

     I would hate to be in Flagstaff after going though the summer here.  Let's see what is going on here. I'm in a new area, so hopefully you didn't send any Halloween packages to me there.  If you did it's not a big deal, I'll get them eventually.  Transfers are in a week, so I'll just wait till it happens before I send you my new address, because it could change.  We had a baptism on Saturday.  She was a 60 year old women named Glenda, who loved the way she felt when around LDS people and says that she could see the spirit with them and that's why she was interested.  She also described her feelings after baptism as floating on a cloud and can't wait for Sundays, to take the sacrament and feel like that every week.
     There is another baptism scheduled for the 9th, a 14 year old girl named Jenny.  I could get transferred next week, so I might not be here for that.  Jenny's mom is a less active member who is pretty much active now.  Facebook is going really well it's a great tool.  Teaching in person is always better than teaching online.  I haven't done any church tours since I have been in this mission, but I only did like 1 or 2 in the other mission; but there are some areas that do like Flagstaff YSA ward missionaries. They do their studies at the church and anyone can just go in from like 8-10 Tuesday through Saturday, I think, and get a church tour.  That just depends I guess on the area.  It could start to happen more places, I don't know though.
      I haven't seen an age group that has more success than others and the same with money (even though I'm sure there is a difference when people have a lot of money), but I just got put in one of the most rich areas in our mission and haven't noticed a difference at all.  Then again I have only been here for almost a week now, so I can't really say.  We always have more focus on the Book of Mormon because that's what everything depends on.  If it is true or not.  If they know it's true then everything else should (not always, because people are stupid) be easy.  There isn't one thing that is hard for people to accept, some are completely fine with tithing and some aren't.  Some believe in Joseph Smith right away and others take more time. There really isn't any trend at all.  I don't have a favorite thing to teach.
     Yes I would say my testimony has grown even though I haven't learned a whole lot of new things. Like I would say when I was growing up in primary, I didn't like the classes at church because they were boring and the same every year.   Good thing they completely changed the whole program only a couple of months ago.  It will be so much better now.  The gospel is pretty simple and that's how it should be.  By trying to make it complicated we just miss what's important: Our testimony and how we feel.  Often it's not things that we learn that have a great impact on us, but the things that we have always known.  We just need to hear them or read them at the right time, to get the greatest effect.  Or that's how it is for me.  I hardly learn something new (I do learn new things, but it's not constant).  But just being reminded of things that I all ready knew, just might not have thought about in a while, have an impart on me.  Besides it really doesn't matter what deep doctrine I might learn.  There's not any deep doctrine that is necessary for anyone to know.  Like I said the gospel is simple, the commandments are simple and the question everyone needs to answer for themselves is simple, Do I know my Savoir?  I hope we can all answer this last question with a yes, whenever we hear something that is true we will surely know it.  Knowing the Savoir will lead us to have a desire to do his will and follow him.  Knowing our Savoir means wanting to give anything up to follow him the best we can.  So do you know your Savior?

From,

Elder Swift

Arizona 21 Oct 2013

Week 41

Yes I had a great day on my birthday, it wasn't a zone meeting, but zone interview.  They are almost the same thing though.  The sock game is a game that Sister Taylor made and its all about table manners and the correct things to do when this or that happens.  Like when to arrive, what to do if you get a phone call, and what to do if you get food that you don't like.  I did get my birthday card I think the next day on Thursday.  Well on face-book we do a lot of things.  We can set up appointments, we can challenge members to share videos and links online, and we can get on chat and have lessons with people.  Feel free to send anyone to look at my face-book page, just make sure to tell them to send me a message if they want to add me as a friend:, because without a message I will most likely ignore it.  Feel free to send them on my page just to look at it and learn.  Even more better I think would be to send them to your favorite video on mormon.org or lds.org.   After spending all summer here it can feel kind of cold when it's in the 70's.  It's ridiculous.  Nothing really exciting about investigators, but we have found many people who seem very interested, just haven't had a lesson with them yet.  Side bag; I don't think I need one, only the new missionaries, but if I do I'll just let you know that I need one or that I just got one.  Don't worry about it for now.  Make sure to send some pictures of what the hair salon looks like now, I really liked the old look a lot.  So hopefully it will look even better.  Hope you have a great week! (Exclamation Point!, conference joke)

From,

Elder Swift

Birthday

This is a picture of Caleb at Zone interviews on his birthday!!!!

Arizona

Week 40

     The brownies were really good and yes I did share.  When did you send the card, I think I already got it like a week ago.  I just can't remember right now.  I'll find out before next week though.  Not really teaching anyone new.  One of my old friends is now in the Phillipines so we have talked a little bit online, but because of time difference it doesn't really work well.  Elder L. is from Utah.
     It is cooler at night, but we are not wearing suits.  It doesn't get very cold until 10 or 11 pm so we are already inside by then.  I don't know how many miles we ride a week.  I would say at least 10 a day so at least 70 a week.  Nothing new happens from day to day.  I already told you the missionary schedule.  But on the 10th we did have a little birthday party for another Elder in our house.  We just ate some snacks and played with Nerf Guns (this was after we did all our planning so don't worry). This ward is having a Halloween activity at 6, but the thing is I think the same day at 7 is the stake trunk or treat and the two won't be at the same building.  I doubt that the ward activity would only last 1 hour, but it might.  Is our ward doing anything for Halloween?
      Oh and thanks for saying Happy Birthday!

From,

Elder Swift

Arizona 7 Oct. 2013

Week 39

     This week is going good.  I didn't have a favorite conference talk.  I watched conference at the church like I planned.  We don't make teaching appointments for that time, but we can have appointments to watch conference with the people you teach at their house.  Conference was really good, I think Sunday was better than Saturday though.  Nope we didn't have any investigators at conference this time.
     I did get the package from Talitha.  The picture of Jesus in our window is a regular 5X7 inch picture.  There is also a small temple picture though.  The weather is pretty good, it didn't get that much over 100 on the weekend.  There are still four elders in our house.  There haven't been any good stories about teaching and I can't remember meeting anyone unusual.  But after the first couple of weirdos its just normal to see one now and then.   Right  the Bishop emailed me so I emailed back.  So far I have always emailed everyone back, with a least a short sentence or two.  Not a lot because I know they can read my emails on the blog.  I think Anthony is going into the army or something. There is actual a missionary like calling that you can do while your in the army and stuff.  He might just do that.

From Elder Swift

Arizona 30 Sept 2013

Week 38

     I suppose you can comment on my post, but there really isn't much of a reason to.  But feel free to like the posts and share them and become one of my followers on Facebook.  Haven't taught anyone yet online, but I might have a lesson later today.
      The weather is a lot better now than it was last month.  It's starting to cool down and some days its not even getting into the 90's.  Yes I have gotten sick once or twice, but nothing really bad.  Still worked those days.  Our combined meeting at church was on family history.
    We only cover one ward now, it's the Villa De Paz ward.  The Bishop is great.  I did get a new companion.  Things are going good, not a hole lot of appointment right now.  A lot of people are busy and going out of town.  I haven't heard anything thing about general conference, it will be interesting to see how it goes and what happens.  Member have always been the ones that are suppose to do all the finding.  Not really anything unusual happening, no bike accidents.  I'll be watching general conference at the church.  They our definitely broadcasting Priesthood, but all men are suppose to go to the church to watch anyway.  I think that we are playing some soccer and maybe volley-ball today.

From,

Elder Swift

Arizona 24 September

Week 37

Not much has changed, same amount of tracting, same with half car and same with wards.  The weather did cool down though.  It was nice for Arizona, only 89 for the high a couple of days.  For now, but it could change soon.  Nothing really exciting today.  Transfers are tomorrow, so don't exactly know what's going to happen here.  I'll tell you when we find out.  I really can't think of anything else to say.

From,

 Elder Swift

Arizona 16 Sept 2013

Week 35

     Well it nice to hear that it is still fall some places in the world.  Here it is still summer.  I think I heard that they changed the name of the fair from someone.  I will always call it the Puyallup Fair though. 

      So classes are starting again at BYU-I.  Tell everyone to join the hot kool-aid rec soccer team. 

      Lets see; we set a couple baptism dates with people for October 12.  Which just happens to be the ward temple trip day, so we still need to work that out.   I gave a talk this Sunday in one of the wards about member missionary work.

      We do try to visit a lot of part member families.  We stay at dinner for an hour at the most and we do leave a message about missionary work every time.  Well, cool thing, in one ward a couple weeks ago they had a homecoming and farewell talk and there was I think 392 people at the sacrament meeting. 

     We really do the same in the morning and afternoon.  We don't do much tracting: its just to hot.  So we try to visit less actives and part member and investigator and potentials.  We really get most of our people from referrals.  Lets see, for an hour every day we can get on facebook to work and try to find people through members.  It will eventually be 2 hours when we each get our I-pads and things, but no one knows when that will happen.

Elder Swift

Arizona 9 Sept 2013

Week34


     I did get the box, what do you mean that you left it on my door step?  Well I guess you have seen the house I'm in now then.  Yah, I like the shirts they were cool.  One thing though is the Hawaiian punch water bottle flavor things don't really taste good, and I don't like seafood unless it is shrimp, some bigger fish like salmon and cat fish and some sushi. It's just 4 missionaries in the apartment and no members.  We usually drive from lunch to dinner because we are a half car area, so it's not too hot and yes I do have a water backpack.
     Holbrook was in this mission about 5 years ago, but it has been in Farmington New Mexico mission since it was created. So it's not actually in my mission anymore.  Well we e-mail at the church building in this area.  So it didn't matter that it was a holiday because we have a key.  Each mission around here is getting somewhere in the 20's and 30's missionaries each transfer right now and only like 10 are going home.  I do still have to same companion; next transfer isn't till the end of the month.  Things are going good.  We were able to teach a fairly new investigator and also had two of her kids join in on the lesson.  The three of them came to Church.  The oldest one just got suspended today though for having marijuana so that's going to be fun.  Nothing else really exciting going on here.
     Played golf today and it was sprinkling the whole time so it was really nice.  Then it started really raining soon after we got back home.  That's it for this week,

Bye From,

 Elder Swift.

Arizona 2 sept 2013

Week 33

We did get rain, it was pretty strong, but only lasted a couple minutes.   Thanks for the recipe.  I'm going to try it sometime in the future, not sure when.  So last Wednesday we had a zone conference that talked about many things.  A couple of them were:  rules vs. principle and 9 bad ants (it's a book), some other things, and Facebook.  It took me I think 3 hours total, spread out over a couple days, to clean up my Facebook, (deleting all old activities using an activity log, Scrabble had every single play I ever made or was made against me).  So I am now a Facebook missionary.  I still need to get my Facebook page approved before I can actually do any teaching though.  Sounds like you had an interesting time at Church on Sunday.  If all your friend are members do what I said in the past, GET NEW FRIENDS. (not replace old ones, just get some more)  Sounds like the garden is going good, the big tomatoes really only got red once before.  I remember we took all the extra green ones to church once and someone ended up talking the laundry basket too.  We helped someone move this morning.   Had to get up really early so we could still do our studies.  Nothing else really going on. Have a nice week.

From,

Elder Swift

27 Aug 2013 Arizona

      Things are going good.  I got the package.  The 2 baptisms went well.  One is 9 years old.  Parents were less active; got active so that the dad could baptize the son.  The other is 17 years old; family are members, he was adopted and we taught him and he got baptized, his dad baptized and grandpa confirmed.  That's actually true for both of them, the dad baptized and the grandpa confirmed.
     Happy Anniversary, hope you had fun on your trip to Canada.  Grandpa Swift is 90 years old, wow, he is getting up there.  That is going to be a big part,y right, I mean it is 90 after all.  86 is cool too (Grandpa Rucker), but it's not divisible by 10 so its not as exciting.
     Tofu is nasty. I thought it tastes like what ever you make it with or from, but without meat to make it taste like meat, it must be horrible.  Tyler said that there were a lot of drunks in Kiev, there are tons on the Navajo reservation as well.
     I have been practicing making my fry-bread, it's getting better every time I make it. Our last 2 dinner appointments the parents had their kids over.  So we got to commit some YSA people to do some things, to help out the other missionaries.  We went golfing today, it started out bad.  I did get some good drives though.  One was really close to the green and another went too far and passed it.  And another went a lot farther then the other two, but it was like a par five and not a par 3 or 4 so it only got half way.  It was a lot of fun.

     So who is your friend/family that you are going to invite over?  Do you have a mormon.org account?  If not then make one.  If you still use Facebook, like all the Prophets and Apostles pages.
     We got our AC fixed.  It was broken for about a week.  It was one hot week.  We got got it fixed I think last Wednesday.  Well that's all that's going on for me

From,

Elder Swift

Feeding the Missionaries

Some people from the ward Caleb is serving in had them over for dinner and sent us two pictures.

Elder Swift and Elder Rushton

19 August 2013

Week 31

That's cool that Sister Zenkner saw my last companion.  Is Penelope still really loud and won't let Dad be around her?  It's fine to let the Elder in your ward use my bike.  So we are going to have a zone conference in about 2 weeks on how to use Facebook.  So pretty soon I will be on.  On about Thursday or Friday sometime mid-day our AC broke.  It is so hot inside. T he other Elders that live with use got a window AC from someone so we use that in the room we sleep in.  We had two baptismal interviews last Saturday, they both went good.  It looks like we will have 2 baptisms this next Saturday.  I tried to deep fry cookies, it didn't work.  Then I tried to cook them with a little ice cream in the middle.  It tasted good.  The ice cream melting into the cookie. Do you know how to make baked Alaska?  I'm thinking of trying it.  I made some cheese cake.  I replaced the whipped cream with cookies and cream ice cream.  It worked out pretty good.  Not really any thing else going on.  The new elder in our house is Tongan, he just started his mission and he is from California.

 Lets see.. Something to the ward... Families should do things like inviting non-member friends over for dinner, FHE, and church activities.  Every family should at least find one person/family to do this with.  That's my Challenge to the ward.  Things are going good.  It's really hot.  They say I just need to get past Halloween and then it starts to cool down.  Also a good thing to do is to do FHE out of PMG (Preach my Gospel).  Let's see what else can I say... Feed the missionaries.  Every Sunday before sacrament meeting starts get up and say hello and introduce yourself to every one that you don't know.  There is a chalk board right next to us and there is a quote on it.  "It is not enough to want to make an effort... It's in the doing that we accomplish our goals." - Pres. Monson.  That's all for today folks, hoped you enjoyed the show.  Good-Day and Good-Night.

From,

Elder Swift

Arizpna, 13 August 2013

Week 30

There are not really many interesting stories.  There isn't something that is the hardest or the easiest.  I know that one young man is like going to Spain I think, but that's it.  Yes, I got the things for my Bicycle.  The average day here is the same as in the last mission.  I don't have a favorite thing to teach and I don't have any interesting stories about people either.  Well, Deon Yazzie that got baptized, is now getting the priesthood to baptize Owen his best friend.  I taught both, but Owen didn't go to church for a couple of weeks, so he didn't get baptized back then.  If you want want to know how teaching the gospel feels like, get some non-member friends and start talking with them.  It feels a lot better when they're your friend and you care about them.  There are a lot more people speaking Spanish here then in my last mission.  I'm not going to pick up any new words if that's what you mean, and they talk to fast that I couldn't understand anything even if I did know the words.  Nothing else really interesting going on.

August 5th 2013

Week 29

      We are at church from 8 am to about 2:30 pm.  Because the 2 wards overlap, we go to the Sacrament meeting of one, then all three hours of the other.  I have talked in Sacrament, but the only Sunday School teaching I have done is with the primary on their missionary lesson day.  In my first zone we called it Gospel Principle class  because that's what's on the book, I don't know why people call it Gospel Essentials here though.  We do have that class though.

      Jarom is back. I still have about 1 year and a half years before I will even possibly have the chance to see him.

     Most people do what we ask.   I don't really have a favorite investigator.  The white handbook clearly states, "do not ask family and friend back home to pray or fast..."   Each night we plan out our next day, who we want to see and when.   Yes we have a full ward list, so does every missionary everywhere.

     The weather is hot, not really anything else to say about it.  I like the weather at home a lot better.  I would like home better in the winter as well.  I like to have some snow.  

    Don't think there is anything I need, I'm doing good.  Played some more golf this morning.  Just did the driving range actually.

     Nothing really exciting going on that I can think of, except what's in the emails I already sent.  I should be on Facebook by the end of the month or sooner.  So I was able to find 18 golf balls this week just lying around in streets and stuff, because we live near a golf course that is in-between houses.  So if you hit poorly it can go into the street.  I actually found more but we didn't have time to stop and grab them.  My companion found 4.  I would just get to them faster I guess.  We also sometimes pick up air-soft plastic bee-bee things, if we knock on a door and no ones home.  Some houses have hundreds of them every where, so we never get them all, maybe just like 10 at the most.

From,

Elder Swift

Arizona

Week 28

     This week has been good.  The weather is hot as usually.  All I still need for my bike is a lock and inter-tube and patch kit and it should be fine for a long time.  Sun City is in our mission.  Not in my zone, but pretty close by.
      We had a pancake breakfast for Pioneer Day in one ward.  We have been getting a lot of referrals recently.  There are more member here, I'm not sure if there are more active members.  The two wards we have are 1/3 of the size of our home ward.
      We got rain like one or two days this week.  I didn't see any flash floods.  All the big rain is close to where we are, but never right where we are.  We made up a guy for fun because I heard of other Elders who have done it and it worked.  So we thought we would give it  a try.  We get dinner every day here with members.  The week of transfers p-day is on Tuesday and transfers are Wednesday.  If you are transferred or not you get to do a quick e-mail home to tell your parent and let them know your new address. Transfers are every 6 weeks and you could stay or not.  But most USA missions have been increasing the average time in one area, to more around 6 months.  But it's not quite there yet.  Yes, my companions have all been great.
      I haven't got in any bike accidents yet.  Just some close ones, but we never hit each other, or anything else.  We live right behind a golf course.  We went golfing today and I got a lot better at the end then when we started.  One of our ward missionaries is moving to Leisure World.  I can't really think of any funny stories or things to share right now.

Bye, Elder Swift

Aizona--Hot!

Week 27

     I doing fine and I am drinking water and;  they tell us to drink water on fast Sundays. We don't really run into to many people who speak Spanish and I have no idea how many Spanish missionaries we have in the mission. We drive to church. I have played golf, maybe later today. And I haven't gotten a new mission shirt the last one was a present and I can't go online to get a new one. 

      I will probably just go with the December release date. It rained the most since I got to this area and it was only an inch or 2. We do shopping and laundry and stuff on p-day and if people really want to we might play sports. Usually people like to play basketball; I haven't play tennis since I have been out.  WE have grass where we live. There are a lot of bike lanes on the medium to small used streets. 

     It is the holy ghost that converts, but it is our job as missionaries to do the finding whether it be by working with members a getting referrals or knocking on down. The Holy Ghost can't testify of truth when the truth is not present and that is our job. With out missionaries the Holy Ghost would not be able to convert people. And with out the Holy Ghost missionaries wouldn't have any reason to teach people. How one missionary acts can make a differences in the number of people that are being taught.  So missionaries can work hard and make a difference. I'm was called to this area so that I would make a difference and would change things, that's how all missionaries are called to their areas. 

     Any way it's still hot down here. I met someone from my last area that moved out of my ward months ago and into the ward I'm in now. We watched the "Work of Salvation, or I thing that's what the missionary broadcast was called, for district meeting last Wednesday. I found a shinny penny from 1956 that was cool. 

     In daily planning one night we decided to do some tracting the next day, so we made up a guy, what he would look like and what he would be wearing. We met that guy the next day when we went tracting. SO we did things like height, cloths, and hair color. We helped someone clean up their back yard a little bit. They had a lot of garbage to put on the curb. The next day was like over load trash day or something.

      There's a persons who brings us bags of snacks on Sunday right before sacrament starts. After district meeting some sister missionaries were giving out tons of food, because they helped a member move, who decided not to take any food with them at all so most of our zone got a lot of food. There was more than one district meeting going on at the same time. SO most of our zone was there. Nothing else exciting really going on so,

Bye,

Elder Swift

Mission President

Here is a picture of Caleb with President and Sister Taylor.

This is the logo for the Arizona Phoenix Mission.

This is the banner for the Arizona Phoenix Mission.

Phoenix Mission

Week 25

     This area I'm in now, I have only gone tracting once for like 30 minutes or less.  I got the package, I think it was left at the door.  The gummy bears were a little melted, so I froze them.  Did you know that's the first time I have had pistachios?  I think they taste a lot like peanuts.  Thanks for the package, I love the water bottle it's pretty "cool".

There is no limit on us being out on temperature that anyone knows about, so I'm out all day long in the heat.  We just bike everywhere. That address I sent is where we live, but its not actual a resort place at all, but a golf course goes through in-between the houses.  We get to play at the golf course for free, so next Monday I think that's what we will do.

There are some rural areas in our zone.  We cover two wards: Garden Lakes, and Villa de Paz.  My new companion is great; he works hard.  We do have a few people we are teaching here, not as many as my last area, but I can change that.  I don't really have anything to say in letters other than questions you ask.  I haven't been in this area very long so I can't tell you a lot about what is happening with the people.  But things are going great.  Hope you have a nice week, bye.

From,

Elder Swift

Phoenix Arizona

Week 24

Right now it is 116 degrees and it's going to just get hotter.  It's not to bad though.  They say no one ever gets used to it, they just deal with it. Our address says that we are in Phoenix -

Elder Caleb Swift

10126 West Sells

Phoenix , AZ 85037

So with this mission, when its transfer time we have p-day on Tuesday and not Monday.  I did get the bike but I still need to pay for it, it was one that they had at the mission storage and it was a Schwinn bike.  I think its called Ranger or something like that.

My companion is Elder Rushton and he is from Vaughn, Montana.  He has been out for 9 months.  I have no clue how many missionaries are in Phoenix.  There were 16 in Flagstaff, so 16 came into the Arizona Phoenix mission.

 Not really any thing else going on.  Packages are OK to be send straight to our address in this mission if you want to.  Just don't send them within a week of transfers to be safe.

It sounds like the reunion was a lot of fun and I think it might be interesting to see Malachi teach a gospel essential class.  Tell Julia I say thank you and I love you too.

I live in a four Elder apartment, I hear they have a lot of them in this mission.  The other two Elders are Elder Empey and Shin and it's weird because they are actually in a whole different district than me and my companion, but we are in the same apartment.  Things are going good.  Feel free to send as many packages as you want. 

From,

Elder Caleb Swift

New Mission

Week 23

New Mission address:

The new mission office address to send things to is:

18001 N 79th AVE Suite C50

Glendale, Arizona  85308-8394

It's was over 100 degrees a couple of days, but the temperature went down a little bit.   So it's 90's now.  I don't have air conditioning in Flagstaff.   I did meet the new mission president and his wife.  He has been there for about 2 years now.  Yes, there are a few thing that are different between the two missions. Transfers are today, don't know where I'm going, but I am changing areas.  Yes I have had some real Mexican food.  The only difference is that it tastes a little better since it is more authentic. Nothing really exiting happened this week.  Don't really have any thing to say. We have a baptism this Saturday that I'm going to miss and I was going to confirm them in church the next day, but now they have to find someone else.

Elder Swift

Flagstaff 24 June 2013

Week 22

 Yes I went to the mission president broad cast. Missionaries have been using internet for missionary work forever. That's what they do at temple square a lot. Now there just might be more missionaries doing it, and they said it would take like a year. I don't think our mission would use it that much, but maybe you never know. And of course member should be doing more work, they were suppose to be doing that much work this whole time.

     It stays in the 70's for the most part here. And I can see tons of stars at night.

 My comp. is Elder Hall he is from Jerome Idaho. It's different for people some just listen while other ask a lot of questions. There is not really a common difficulty with people here. Maybe just getting them to act. The typical day is exactly the same as it was before. The new mission president will come here some time later this week. We talked to this guy for like an hour ( about church stuff) on Friday, I got a cool knife from him. He's not interested at all, just friendly. Some days like Monday it can be 0 doors knocked while other days it can be in the 20's. Yes, we park are car and walk around a little bit. A lot of the houses are twice the distance apart as home and our neighbors. Well at least where we have been tracting recently. My comp has a tennis racket and so do the members we stay with so we are going to try to play some tennis today.

Still in Flagstaff

Week 21

Things are good, my new comp is good. We had I think 4 investigators at church. Both wards gave the fathers candy bars so I ended up getting 7 candy bars myself. We go to both wards every Sunday. On Monday we email, shop and play games. The website for the missions won't say what the new new boundaries will be until the first of July.   No I haven't seen any crime, all the people here are smart enough to do it when no one is looking.


Elder Caleb Swift

New Mission?

 Week 20

     My week has been good. I picked up my new comp on Tuesday. The grass is always greener on the other side of the door, or something of this sort.
      Lessons per week is different every week. We had 2 new investigators this last Tuesday. I have already heard a lot about the mission boundary change at home from RMs and missionaries parents. When we went to the Grand Canyon a member took us. I think 8 of us went.  I will never get any more rain since I going to be in a different mission come July first because I'm still in Flagstaff. I will be in the Phoenix (North?) mission. So I'm going to need a new shirt with my mission on the back as well as a new missionary plaque.

Nothing really interesting happened this week.

Elder Swift

Baptisms

Caleb seems to be doing great on his Mission.

 They went to the Grand Canyon on one p-day.

Here's one baptism day.  Caleb's companion is in white so I guessing they were baptizing the man in the wheel chair and the other man is a ward member and was in white to help the new convert into the water.

At this baptism neither Caleb nor his companion were in white so I'm guessing the one in the white tie is a ward member and performed the ordnance and the other person in white is the one that got baptized.

4 June 2013

Week 19

Things are good and it's sunny every day here.  I'm staying in Flagstaff this week, my companion is going to the reservation. Deon is progressing, but not Owen. They haven't had all the lessons, but they have had most of them. There are a standard 5 lessons - 3 main lessons, 1 lesson of commandments that is usually broken up into multiple lessons or parts put in with other lessons, and there is a lesson after baptism that we usually just put into the first three when reteaching them after baptism. We don't have to go in order as long as we cover the main point in the lessons, at any time, we can do it however we want. Investigators have to go to church 4 out of the 6 weeks before their baptismal date and 2 of the 4 have to be the two weeks right before the baptism. I haven't done any church tours yet, but I guess I could. We probably over all have more success with people in trailer homes just because there are more of them, but % would definitely be lower (in trailer homes) for the number of people we talk to and the number of people interested. You know funny thing about Fast Sunday meetings, like no one actually shares their testimony except the little kids. All the adults usually just say something they did or what the're thankful for, none of which is part of a testimony meeting. And this can really turn off investigators depending on what some of the more crazy people in the ward say.

Any way things are great.

From,

Elder Caleb Swift

28 May 2013

Week 18

The weather is good and it's not that hot here, but it's still hot. Things are going good, it hasn't rained in a while. I will find out about transfers on Saturday and the move, if any, would be on Monday or Tuesday.  They tell us the transfer information over the phone.

The baptism last Saturday was for Sierra and it went great.

I don't know what is easiest. I don't really have any preference on liking something the best. I still have my same companiion, Elder Dean from Vancouver, Washington. I don't really care if I go or stay in Flagstaff for this transfer. Favorite investigators are Deon and Owen, Owen is actually a different missionary's investigator, but he is always with Deon when we teach.

The wards are smaller here and just about everyone hunts. Also instead of like the few weird families in the ward, there are a few normal ones, and pretty much no-one wants to do missionary work. They are all friendly and nice but they mostly don't want to do anything.

They weather here is more like it is in Spokane but still less rain. Homes are pretty much the same as Washington, except there are a ton of trailer homes.  All Hispanic people go to the Spanish elders so we teach white and Navajo and that is pretty much it. I haven't seen any interesting rocks and I also haven't gotten sick from any food. I have no short or long term goals except the monthly and weekly goals we set every month and week for stuff like number of lessons, baptisms, and investigators.

Both Bishops are nice and so is the Mission President.

From,

Elder Swift

MTC Pictures

Here are some pictures from when Elder Swift was at the MTC.  We didn't get to post them during that time because we did not have them until his SD card came in the mail.

 This one Elder had a suit made out of duct table which he used for pajamas.

They found this hidden stash in their room where previous MTC missionary students had hidden things so Caleb had us send him some things to leave there for future missionaries.

 They also found this in the room.

 They got to go on a trip to the Provo Temple.

 Walking distance.

At the end of his time at the MTC, Elder Swift was ready to go out and start missionary work at the New Mexico Farmington Mission.

Flagstaff 6 May 2013

Week 15

Yep I am doing fine.

I'm not sure what time that I will call, but it will probably be after 5 pm or around that time.  Do I really need to call, I haven't been gone for that long?  Just kidding, I'll call.

It has been pretty hot in Flagstaff; it's not like it's hotter than Washington though.  There is just not as many clouds blocking the sun.

My companion's great and he is working hard.  The teaching is going well, one of the kids in the family is progressing the other one just hasn't been there when we stop by so we don't know.

We are trying to walk a lot more so we don't go over our mile limit, and we will have enough miles to go to a gym in the mornings. The ward members don't really drive us around, but I'm sure if we asked they would.

I haven't had any more strange food yet, dry bread is fry bread just not fried in oil but cooked with-out oil.

We don't teach in Spanish because we have a set of missionaries for our whole zone that teach all the Spanish people.

So what does Malachi's house look like now?  What color?  Tell Andrew good luck with baseball, for me.

Bye from,

Elder Swift

29 April 2013

Week 14

The week was good.  My last companion said he would send me some pictures of me and the person I baptized.

My new companion Elder Dean is from Vancouver Washington.  He has been out for 9 months.

Weather is OK here. It's been sunny about every day.

We got 4 new investigators.  Almost 2 of them have a baptismal date and we almost got a 5th investigator, 3rd with a baptismal date, but he wasn't at our lesson.  The zone leaders got a call from a mom saying her kids want to be baptized.  So they had the first lesson and set the date with her three sons.  They didn't know what area it was in, but once they found out they told us.  So when we went over, only two  had a lesson with us, so we count only two of the three as our investigators.

I will know what mission I will be in 100% for sure after the next transfer, whoever is in Flagstaff then will be in the Phoenix mission.

My companion is our designated driver, so I don't really get to drive.  There is really no point because most likely I will be leaving the area and he will be staying.  Also my previous companion had some crazy thing about driving and he wouldn't let me drive even when he was throwing-up up and feeling really sick.

That's every thing I can think of, it was just a normal week.

Tell every one I said "Hi".

Sincerely,
Elder Swift

April 22

Week 13

Things were good this week. We had three baptism. I took some pictures of it on my SD card.

 You can put sugar and cinnamon on fry bread and its really good that way with honey. It tastes a little different from elephant ears though. At one of the baptism on Saturday they had a lunch for all the family there and I got to eat some mutton and some Fry Bread and Dry Bread made with blue corn. The bread was really good, but the mutton was just OK.

Transfers are going to be this Tuesday and I will be staying in the same area, but I will get a new companion. I don't know anything about my new companion except his name is Elder Dean. Things are going good, I forgot my wallet today so it took a while to get on a computer at the library. I had to wait while they looked up information. I won't be able to go shopping either, but that's okay. I don't really need to get anything this week, it can all wait till next week. Hope you have a good week.

From,

Elder Caleb Swift

15 April 2013

Week 12

This is fry bread.

The weather this week has been nice. There hasn't been anyone new that we are teaching this week. The wards we serve in are great. I have never substituted in primary and I haven't heard of any other missionaries ever doing that either. I still have the same companion, there is a 2 transfer (3month) trainning program. So next Saturday we will find out what will happen and if I will stay in the area or not. My first transfer happened the time when we had to move housing. In 13 days will be the end of transfer number 2 and we will start on transfer number 3.  Often we call transfer the whole 6 weeks, and on the last day of the transfer or the first day of the next one, is when we actually move around.

The Boeing Everett plant sounds pretty cool. I would be open to working for Boeing in Washington someday. I like the weather in Washington.

It is starting to get hot here, but since it is after April General Conference we don't have to wear suits until next General Conference. Most of the days here are sunny now.

I have never been in a neighborhood that is dangerous. There is no part of town that we are not allowed to go, that I have heard of.  Some people are rude when we knock on their door, but other than that everyone is nice and no-one ever threatens. When writing this email some person walked by and said "good luck finding God."  I thought that was hilarious. There are 6 of us missionaries here e-mailing right now.

I have about 200 more cool pictures you might want to see. I took 100 of them today, but I'm not going to send the SD card I have until I have another one back, so I don't miss any cool pictures.

We haven't had any baptism yet, we dropped one date completely, but we have three solid dates coming up for this week.  One of them already went through the baptismal interview and passed. One will have their interview later today and the last one will have their interview on Wednesday. : )

Sincerely,

Elder Caleb Swift

P.S.  I went to the Grand Canyon today.

Pictures at Flagstaff of missionary apartment

8 April 2013

Week 11

The week has been good.  Yes, I watched all of conference, I'm a missionary after all.   I would be missing the Washington rain if it didn't start raining and hailing here today, so I'll be good for a week or two now.   So the area I'm serving does have a good amount of pine trees, but on the res. there are just about none.  Or that's what I hear.  The trees are more brown here, but they are starting to become more green.  There are a lot of rocky hills out near the edge of the reservation.  My area goes up to the border of the res.   All the snow has been gone for two or three weeks.  Yah, the first full day of not wearing a suit jacket it starts to rain, it's great.

 I still have the same companion for now, but I might be taking over our area soon.  We are have been going on splits with the ward members  about every Wednesday.  We are trying to start doing splits on Friday too.

I go on exchanges with every companionship in our district once a transfer and also once a transfer with the zone leaders.

On Saturday during conference I was eating some of that Easter candy I got, by the end of the day I had had so much sugar I could feel it in my throat.  It was awful.  After priesthood session the people we went with took us to D.Q.  That was a surprise, but they said that it was tradition.

 Well I got to go so I can learn how to make some fry bread.

Sincerely,

Elder Caleb Swift

Pictures at Flagstaff, Arizona

For Caleb's first area he was assigned to Flagstaff, Arizona.  Here's a few pictures.

The missionaries assigned to Flagstaff.

Antelope near the road.

These pictures were taken on the drive out to Flagstaff.

A few days after Caleb got to Flagstaff they started getting snow.

Beautiful night lights.

This is Caleb's first companion, who is his trainer, Elder Munns.