1 Shoe Down

Hi!!
I got the box thank you mom! I do need more vitamins because my trainee can't really read english so he just thought they were candy and he ate half the bottle while I was in the shower! hahaha  He had a very upset stomach for the rest of that day. haha But those aren't the pants I was talking about haha but thank you because they did have $5 in them that I bought bobba with :) The khaki light tan pants are the ones I can wear!

We got permission to skype but idk if I'm going to because I feel like that is a little irreverent so I'm still deciding on what to do. Yeah I'm sure you would remember Nate we called him Ktuck or Kentucky and he had a super bad southern accent you would always say he was one of your favorites because he was super polite. But I'm super happy for him now its just time to end this drought in the Korean branch! He's getting baptized Feb1st.

Yeah I really like that family we did service for, the old lady Sister Lee and is probably one of my favorites in the ward. Shes so nice and she always gives us free kimchi! :)  I sat with her yesterday at church and Sister Choo turned around and said "why" I said "why what" she said "out of everyone here and those beautiful girls over there why do you sit with Sister Lee" (Sister Choo loves to mess with me because I'm pretty much the only missionary that can take it and I'm the only missionary who will mess with her back. But Sister Lee and Sister Choo are friends, so it's ok.  Shes the person who lets me skype at her house for skype lessons) And I said well because I like Sister Lee and she is just as pretty as the others.(Shes super old like older than grandma so its okay haha) and they both just laughed and AT THE SAME TIME pinched my cheeks and said " Oh poopy puppy" which is just a way of saying someone is cute haha

 

Running man is going good so far I've been pretty stressed about it actually but its all coming together now. every running man episode has a theme and the theme I came up with is "inception" and I'm tying that into Lehi's dream. And theres a bunch of different activities but each team will have a portable dvd player and a usb that plays a little video that gives clues on how to prepare for the next event and that will be there liahona and the person in the video is the Holy ghost and the last game is capture the flag and the team who wins the previous activity will get an extra flag called the flag of liberty and we have these silver spray painted pvc pipes that are going to be the flag poles and there flag has to endure to the end and hold on to the iron rod haha. I tried to make it churchy but secretly haha.

P.s. the mission office just called me and I have now been moved from being a full time regular misisonary to a Korean speaking tech Elder haha. Yeah idk what that even means! But pretty much I have to go to the mission office like everyday now and I'm being trained on the Ipads and how to use them and then I will go train part of our mission on the Ipads. I dont know why I got choosen for training, I 'm tech retarted haha so we will see how this goes!

Yeah I got a letter from Bro. Jenkins and from the youth in our ward. And pretty much I guess we have a bunch of new kids in our ward? Thats pretty cool then. But I really need to write him back I've just been super busy lately but I think I will just send something back through FB. 

We have a golden investigator!!!!! Yeah I'm pretty much super freaking happy about it because it never happens in the Korean culture over here but it just shows me that my prayers aren't going unheard and when I do everything that I need to do and everything I can do God pretty much has no other choice but to bless us with someone to teach. 

I finally was able to have a meeting this week with president about English class and he likes the way I presented it to him and what I would do with the money if I were to be funded and how I would turn english class into a finding method. And so he has to now get okay through salt lake but within the next couple weeks I should able to start an english class and citizenship class and I'm super excited about it. Because here in Irivine trackting is a struggle. Prophets, apostles, my misison president and the scriptures always say to find the poor in spirit. But covering Irvine and Newport everyone is super filthy rich!!! So I've been praying a lot on what to do because when I was in Cerriotos and Anaheim area I loved tracting because its not as wealthy so people are way more willing to listen. Anyways I've been praying like crazy on help and for simply just patience on not to give up or what I should do. And that day I was at Target getting materials for Running Man and this Korean lady about mid 30's in front of me was paying for her stuff and she couldn't understand the cashier and her kids were being roudy and she just started to cry. I asked her if she was korean and ended up translating for her and she asked how come I could speak fluent english and some korean so we talked for a bit and she said she'd pay us to teach english and I told her I already have a small group of people of around 6 that I teach english for free, and right there BINGO haha. Its really awesome because I thought everyone is super rich here the Koreans and chinesse people are probably the most poor in spirit a lot of people have just moved here from korean and don't speak much english if any and they're in a place where they can get by with only speaking Korean but it is still very inconvient at times and also a ton of teens and adults stress so hard about the test and citizenship class so these people are able to see through us helping them that the mormons arent crazy devil worshipers and that we truly care about them. And when these people are learning a new language thats super hard they get frustrated and will sometimes just break down and tell us everything about their life so it then builds this bridge of trust. Yeah so as you can see I'm super happy for this to get started because this is what the viet elders do and last year they had an all time high of 8 baptisms and their goal was 4 and they all came from english class. I've set our district goal at 10 and I think we can reach our goal.

Love you mom, thank you for everything. Tell Brad thank you so much for his letters I appreciate them so much they always make laugh or smile because he always adds in some news from back home or high school sports updates. I just have not a lot of time to hand write back so I feel bad but tell him I'm super appreciative! 

Love Elder Meza

Please send me my khaki pants :) also if you could with the pants send me my other church shoes my penny loafer slip on's. one of my shoes got stolen at a member meal because we take our shoes off outside the house. But seriously 1 shoe! like who does that!? haha. That's not even because they needed a pair of shoes they're just being punks when they take 1 shoe. hahaha

 

Baptism from Skype

Today was our quarterly asian zone conference at the mission home so that was fun as always.  Its crazy I've already been out for over 6 months. Time really does fly out here. I've already decided I'm going to extend a transfer because I got jived being at the mtc for over a transfer haha. All the libraries were closed yesterday so I couldn't email but this week has been great! My new companion can only speak little to no english. My Korean is barely better than his english haha so its way funny!

So because of me we can now go to bath house when ever new elders come and yep we did it again, I made my companions procelyte in bath house haha. I told my companions that if they didn't get at least one  lesson each I wasn't going to take them to our member meal that night haah, but of course I was joking. But it did work we each got an other lesson and I got this man named Bill contact info.

I have to hurry because we have a lesson coming up. But this week was the first time I translated and it was SO hard haha I've never had to be more focused then that in my whole life! We got a referal from some english speaking elders and she is Golden and we meet her again tomorrow so I'm very excited for that. When I came to the south I realized how uneffective tracting is in Irvine since everyone is so rich they don't need any help.....so instead after talking with President Bowen and getting funds from a local Korean bank, I'm starting a english and a citizenship class. We now advertise for that while we tract and I expect big things to come from it! Also Running Man is coming soon and I decided to try and make it secretly churchy so the theme is "inception" and I'm tying inception into Lehi's dream and they'll get a lihahona to guide them through the game and what not so it should be really fun we are expecting a huge turn out. 

On Feb.1st my good friend from CHS Nate is getting baptized, I don't know if you remember him but it is the first baptism in the mission to come from skype and we have gotten special permission to skype during the baptism I'm super happy for him. It's so crazy talking to Nate through Skype about the gospel because we were both stupid kids in high school and we always did dumb stuff together and we would laugh saying we never could have ever pictured us both being where we are now and now he's getting baptized so its just awesome to see how the gospel can change the lives of so many including my own.

My new comp Elder Park is from Busan. He's so freaking funny! He found out what deoderant is and freaked out about it because Korean people don't where deo because they don't sweat, like no joke. He's a convert. He was converted in 07 and I feel way bad because his parents write on his FB asking him to come home and just saying how much they miss him and want him to just come and I can't even imagine how hard that would be. It reminds me a lot of Elder Kim but he's handling it very well and instead of getting discouarged or doubting his faith he just bares his testimony instead.

Love you mom!

 Love Elder Meza

Trainer!!

Happy Birthday Aunt Carrie, you are the best!!

This week was way awesome! A lot of good things happened this week and I think this week more than ever I have noticed progression in the language the most! I'm really excited for tomorrow though we get our new missionary! :) I'm so excited to be a trainer. Sorry I'm super busy because we need to clean up and wash our car and get ready for the new elder and I still need to get a haircut.

Something cool I found out this week about myself: I know what I want to do for the rest of my life now. Being on my mission I've been able to learn so much just about myself and one thing I've really come to notice is how well I do with kids. When elders have a teaching appt and the family has little kids they always bring me because they know I can interact well with them. So I've decided I really want to become a doctor maybe even a pediatric doctor but I really want to do like ER type stuff. I know I have a long way until this happens but it was something cool I learned about myself. 

 

 

So quick story my friend Nate Agnew from Clearfield is in the military and long story story short we got to skype teach him and he's being baptized! :) My first baptism is a white boy who I was friends with and is going to Japan! 

I love you!

Love Elder Meza

Carrie's Cooking for Keeps

Cookbooks from Nikko's Aunt Carrie (my sister)

So my sister published an incredible cookbook that everyone should send with all newlyweds and missionaries.  She sent it to all of our missionaries in the field and they are loving it. When I skyped Nikko at Christmas he said that they used the direction on how to clean the fridge already.  It is called Carrie's Cooking For Keeps, available on Amazon in a download or book.
 So Carrie asked Nikko what kind of treat he wanted, and this was the response.

Look Familiar? This is a recipe from your cook book. My companion really loves cooking and he is very good at it haha he loves your cook book he's always looking through it! We didn't quite have enough eggs this morning but my comp made due with what we had and made us those egg wrapped in ham muffin things this morning. Holy cow it was scrumptious!

ummm those lemon cookies you sent last time were awesome and so are your peanut butter bars as always.

Thank you so much!

Love Elder Meza

Teaching on Facebook!

(I asked Nikko if he was in contact with any of the guys that were out in the field)

Yeah I still talk to a few of the guys, mainly just Stockton though. But Like Andrew and John normally email every week and TFox as well. Yeah I had no idea Jayden Garcia was in Texas haha (waiting for his VISA) I thought he was in Africa, that's crazy I wonder if he does language study in the mornings.

I've lost around 16lbs on my mission but I've never been this fat haha I loose weight like crazy but I'm just getting super out of shape haha. Our new apartment in Irvine has a super nice Gym so we go every morning and I'm starting to get back to the stallion that I am.

My son comes next tuesday so I'm super stoked for that, but a bit nervous at times I fell inadequate due to my Korean but I know president gets divine revelation for his missionaries so I know training will work out just fine!

Facebook is SO dope! We teach lessons up the wahoo on Facebook. It's 10x easier to find people haha its crazy how much nicer people are and its a lot easier to find younger famillies now!

If you find my brown pants will you send them? Please :) they're like the blue ones you sent but only brown. My shirts are getting GIANT around my neck because of how much weight I've lost. I don't understand how I can loose weight and still get fatter at the same time. Makes no sort of sense haha.

Yesterday I committed all the youth to bring at least 1 friend to running man (youth activity Nikko has been getting ready for.) and they all said they would show I'm pretty stoked about the turn out we will have. It should be really fun! I've been stressin hard core trying to make it perfect. a lot of my time lately has been focused on running man but we did have a few awesome spiritual experiences this week. I think 2 sundays ago was the first time I was able to see how important the sacrament is for myself. The more I've studied the atonement the more I see how important and how great the sacrament is. It's truly a blessing. I've been studying the atonement a lot lately because it's something that is just so hard to grasp. Like  I understand what it is and I know what it is but sometimes its hard to apply for yourself. I've really noticed the atonement in my life on my mission, espically with learning Korean. Korean has tried my patience more than anything in this world haha. I noticed I was starting to get a little on edge and I was getting easily frustrated and I found myself constantly praying to not loose my temper. Then one night during nightly prayers for some reason it just clicked. I'm now able to see that the atonement isn't just for our sins but everything. Any trial we have god is there to help us and he his able to do so through the atonement we just have to let him is all :)

Anyways I'm short on time

Lovel Elder Meza