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