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