Went to the Temple

No letter from Nikko this week.
So as much as these children of ours change when then go out, they still will never understand, until they are a parent,  the panick of a parent whom has not heard from their child.  I had the conversation with an employee of mine who reminded me that before email they waited for snail mail, which often came only every other month, and yes I feel grateful to get weekly emails.

So after Nikko's Pday came and went, I sent a few email that sounded more and more urgent.  Then I posted on his facebook page (Nikko is a facebook missionary, I'm sure you all know by now).  "What happened, are you ok, did your Pday get changed?"  Last night this is the reponse from my facebook post.  "Nah it's just we get to go to the Temple tomorrow so Temple days are Pdays!
Nice to know. Mabey that means I will hear from him tomorrow.  I will keep you all posted.

Jody (Nikko's mom)

Fasting for Kimber

Sorry I don't have much time this week. But I couldn't email earlier because I had a training meeting for the I pads today that was SO long and president told us to email our parents whenever we get the chance today. So right now we are doing Facebook but I currently am flippin blocked from sending messages and friend requests because Ii've sent to many and I guess I've been reported as spam! what a shame.....I could have helped them towards their salvation instead they reported me as spam...hope they repent. hahaha. 

 Also I'm confused on the status of Derek's girl? Is she going to be okay? I thought she was doing good now? I see the stuff on FB so I thought she was doing good now? I pray for them every time I pray. In the mornings before my studies and when we leave and pretty much whenever I'm not with investigator. Even my companions do. My district heard of what was happening and this Sunday they all fasted with me for her and I guess one of our Elders was at branch presidents house and they heard of it as well and it really touched me that they as well fasted and are praying for Derek's girl. Several members have come up to me and told me that my family is in their prayers and I don't know how they even found out but I  felt very blessed. I hope and I will continue to pray for Derek and Tawni. Send my love their way.

This week not a whole lot happened we have done a lot of translation for our English class and it has been stressful but I 'm staying positive about finishing it because I know it can help turn this program around. I set up a meeting with President and the District leader of the Viet Elders (By the way I'm super tight with the Viet and Chinese Elders. We are all super close and I get sad when any of them leave haha) anyways this Friday I'm meeting with President and their District leader (Elder Anderson-also I know his family I went to school with his cousins and am super tight with his family haha) but the Viet Elders already have an amazing program going for them. About 3 years ago they were the lowest baptizing program at 0 per year.  President at that time met with the 2 Viet Elders who by the way were white and told them I don't know how you're going to do it but start an English class. Currently they have an English class that is ran like a business and last year had 10 baptisms 7 from english/citizenship class. 

Our book is expected to be done this week and we will have it published and copyrighted and I think we will sell them for $6 (We will sell them for however much they cost to make) but I will send one home for you guys to see whats been accomplished! :) I'm super stoked to see that my plans are coming together and faster than I expected. I have a vision for this program to go from the lowest baptizing district in the mission to not just one of the highest language programs and not only one of the highest in the missions but one of the highests in all of Cali.  I'm super blessed to have a district that backs me up and helps whenever needed and a mission president who has bended his back backwards for me.

Anyways I'll let you know how the meeting goes! I love you mama! :) You're the prettiest lady ever  to walk this earth and God truly blessed me to give me a strong mom to deal with a brat son haha.

Love your ONLY AND SUPER FLIPPIN AWESOME AND SUPER HUMBLE son Elder Meza

Working on a new area

This week has been awesome! I've been talking to you a bit about how I suggested to President about opening a new area. I had gotten all the Korean district together and we discussed where we could go and what would be the best place. So after serving in the North (currently located in Anaheim) I realized how much time we waste traveling in that area because the north area only works in Fullerton because it's pure Koreans and it takes about 30-45 minutes to get to depending on what time of the day. Well this week  I was able to get the korean district to meet with president to disucss opening a new area and to relocate the north. I conducted the meeting and presented why moving the north would be good. He did agree with that and then I presented a request to open a new area that we would call "West" so instead of North, Central and South we will have north, east west, south. Central's house and south  will just stay where they are and central will now be called east. Part of the problem is central's area is to big. Idk if you know a lot about orange county and the geography of it. But central currently covers cypress hawaiin gardens to hunington beach all the way up to yorba linda haha. So the far west side of orange county and the far east side of long beach will be the new west area. And there is only one avaible house in far west garden grove and I guess it used to have missionaries but its super ghetto and the area is kinda rough so they took those missionaries out but I found out that those same apartments is where 2 inactive and a 1 less active families live and they will only let missionaries visit and the the less active family used to be one of our strongest families and he used to be our elders qourm teacher so I really want to bring them back. Our housing coordinator really doesn't want to put us there but I begged to have us live there because its the only place to make the new area work and run well, and so he said if  I get to open up the new area we can do it haha. So something cool to note is I'm the first missionary to talk president into opening a new area and picking where current ones go!

Also I have an amazing plan to open and start a huge english class with classes of 40 people at the church and we will also do a citizenship class. I'm almost done translating the materials we would use and we just finished the citizenship book I'll tell you more about it next week. I plan to get everything for citizenship class finished by the 15th and we even might get funds to get us a projector and 2 laptops. Also I met a lady who  runs all the newspapers in Orange and she's good friends with the lady who runs the Korean newpaper so she is letting us put adds in the Newspaper and I hear a buisness is going to call us soon and might donate and do a story on us so I'm super excited I'll let you know how it goes!

Thank you mom I love you!

Love Elder Meza

Facebook is an effective finding tool!

My week has been really good but extremely busy. I've had a ton of meetings for the IPads and a lot of training sessions to get the last few groups of missionaries who don't have them to be on them. We had zone conference this week and it was really good I was asked on to speak on how we can make FB an effective
finding tool. And a lot of the missionaries are having a big problem adjusting to the ipads and FB because they're just old fashioned but thats okay so far I'm loving it! I've been able to see a lot of success from both things. Especially FB, last week we tracted so much and had not jack sqaut for results and then in like 2 hours of Facebook we had gotten 4 new investigators haha. I've tried a ton of different methods on FB and my district makes fun of me because of all the weird stuff I do to try and get peoples attention long enough to share about the restoration. But a wise man once told me this regarding missionary work "If it's not illegal try it out!" haha and ever since then I'm always trying different things but because of it I've been able to teach a lot of korean people lately. This week we have a meeting with President to discuss opening a new area and I might get to go lead that area I'm super excited but kinda sad at the same time because I'm super close with a couple of our investigators here and I will miss them :/ But also I translated the citizenship packet so its in english and korean now and this week we are going to start having a citizenship class down in Irvine and I'm super stoked. A lot of people have already said they would love to come to that so I'll let you know how that goes

I can't believe Dallin is already home that is so crazy! Time goes by so fast. It makes me sad knowing I've already been out for 8 months. I already asked president if I can extend a transfer and if he said if it was up to him he'd love for me to stay but it's not up to him since he will be leaving soon which also makes me kind of sad. He's such an amazing guy who has helped me out so much!

Tell the family thank you for everything they do and that I really appreciate everything!  And that Ii love them all.

 Thanks for everything mom I love you!
Love Elder Meza

A new area?

This week has been just a very typical week.  One
cool thing though is our recent convert is making SO much progress. At
first she didn't even want to come to our Korean branch and she now
she comes to all activites and atteneds church, she even called us
yesterday and asked about modesty and what she can do to be better.
Its so awesome I can see her serving a mission and being an amazing
missionary! Also I 'vv been praying a ton on what to do to find
Korean people to teach because the work is super poopy when it comes
to tracting in the south. Everyone here in Irvine is flippin
Chinese!!! So I was praying and I felt that I should go look at our
areas and see who covers what area and see why we weren't having success. It then
hit me, it's because our location isn't very good. The north team lives
in Anaheim but has to drive 35 min north everyday to go tract in
Fullerton and La mirada because in Anaheim its just Mexicans. Also
Central has messed up boundaries haha so I suggested to pres. that now
we have enough elders that we could open a new area and move the
norths apartment and he think that would be a good idea as well haha.
So this saturday I'm meetting with him to discuss where we should and
what we will do with companions and he's asked me to open the area so
I'm super stoked! The other new area will be actually in the Long
Beach Mission but it will cover Cerritos Hawaaiin Gardens and Fountian
Valley and Hunigton Beach! so I'm pretty excited.

This upcoming week we have zone confrence and I have been asked along
with another one of the tech elder so speak on staying focused on FB
and keeping to our purpose and then I get to talk a little about Nate.
FB is so weird I hate tracting on it but yesterday I had 3 other
lesson and got a new english class student so I can't complain to much
haha. Anyways I'm about to drag my district to zone activity and
literally drag them hahah  these Korean's hate sports but ill teach em
:)
Love you mom
Love Elder Meza

Ward Youth

Ipad

Got the Ipad!!

Hey mom running man went way better than expected! The Elders quorm of my branch said they'd make food, so we estimated around maybe 30 people for burgers and what not. 50+ people came! So luckily since we are the Korean branch we had back up raymen in all of our cars and everyone got fed! About 10 people were non members that showed up and they loved it and we are now actually teaching all of them but one so it turned out amazing and the youth had a lot of fun with it and were super appreciative so I was very happy with it.

 

This last week has been the busisest week of my entire mission. Last week I had to finalize everything for running man. My friend Nate was baptized! :) I had to prepare a talk in Korean for the baptism and I have had 2 -  4 hour meetings with the Ipads and only 10 people in the mission know a code that disables and enables certain things on your Ipad and since I'm one of them I have to go through and put the codes in on every single Ipad! Plus I'm still in the middle of training my son. But I like it. I really like having responsibilty I think I work better when I  do.

 

Anyways the I pad are way cool its way weird to use that instead of a planner I'm kinda bummed that I don't get to take a bunch of planner homes anymore.  Also its crazy that our area books are in there to it actually is 10x more convient now. I have another 2 -2hour meetings this week on I pads and training new people so that should be fun.

 

Back ground info real quick on our recent convert: she is a home stay student from Korea and actually lives with members and they are white so they attend the local ward. Her mom actually served an LDS mission so she was pretty familar with the church but her pops is an anti mormon so idk how that relationship works ...but love is love haha)

Anyways it made me gain a huge testimony of the spirit and how he works because one day 차정은 texted us saying she wanted to be baptized and we thought it was the language barrier between her and her home stay family (sister Powers) so we called her and asked and she really just wanted to be baptized it was crazy haha we couldn't believe it! This is where it gets cool. Her mom came to visit from Korea last monday and could only stay for 1 day and so her host family took her and her mom to the church saying there was an activity going on and she escorted her to the baptismal font and told her mom "Mom these missionaries have been teaching me the last 3 weeks (pointing to us) and said I'm getting baptized in 10 minutes" her mom started balling and walked out of the room she was so happy it was the coolest thing I've ever seen! I even gave a talk on the gift of the holy ghost in Korean it was just really awesome!

btw she now is preparing to go serve a mission of her own!!!! Its crazy how the spirit works because we weren't seeing any progression in her at all, and one day we just left the usual commitment to pray about our message and she said she did and she just felt like that would be the right choice so I'm super grateful for the way God works.

I got your packages thank you so much.

Yeah I'll need some money for a new pair of shoes because it is no where to be found.
Thank you mom I love you!
Love Elder Meza!

Baptism!!

  I had an amazing week this week! Oh yeah by the way we are baptizing 차정은 today and I have to speak at her baptism tonight at 730pm  I'm so excited and happy for her.  Anyways I'm at zone activity on my new ipad but I'll email you later today just wanted to tell you about the big news!

Sorry I'm really crunched for time right due to the baptism later today. I force my comps to go to zone activity because none of the Korean Elders like sports so I go every week and they go play piano in the church haha so I'm grateful they are willing to go with me.

But Running man is actually this saturday and it should have a good turn out so I'm really excited I'll send you pictures of it next week.

Yeah I just need more vitamins my other shoes and pants thats it. Thank you mom I'm sorry  I dont have much time but I love you tell Aunt Carrie I'll send pictures next week. Her peanut butter bars were amazing and my AP loved them, haha he came running out of the mission office chasing my car down as I was leaving and he says "hey I was just wondering if I could have another one of those chocolaty goodness!" and then he eats it and yells "WHO MADE THESE?!" haha he says thank you so much he loved them haha

Love you mom 

Love Elder Meza

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

 

Letter before Christmas, sorry I forgot to post

This week has been a very busy week.  We had a our branch Christmas party and it went awesome 4 of our investigators showed up! Our branch trips out when they see me and my companion bringing investigators anywhere because my Korean is still poo,  so they just get so shocked when we bring these people who can't speak any English, it's awesome. Today isn't our pday but libraries are closed tomorrow so we can email today. I got all the packages and cards I think! :) Thank you all so much to everyone! I sent home a couple Christmas cards but our mail isn't being sent for some reason so it will probably get there after Christmas haha.

Today we are meeting with someone we met on Facebook.  I'm actually pretty skeptical that this is really working haha. Also we have English class and we are meeting my favorite investigator Sister Kim then we are going to "heart attack" a members house (Cut out hearts and tape them all over there door with cookies and nice notes ) Sorry I don't have much time today I'll see you Wednesday I love you!

Love Elder Meza

Transfer!!

Happy New Year to all,

 

Transfer day! I've been transfered back to my home town of the Irvine. My last companion Elder Ham is  in the english program for now haha. Oh and by the way I'm a trainer! :) My son comes on the 14th. He is straight from Boosan so I'm pretty excited since he can't speak english haha! I was pretty upset that they transfered me to the south and put my companion in the english program because they totally white washed our area! But I'm glad we took good care of our area book to help out the missionaries in that area now. The day before transfers we told our investigator that is our most progressing (the one from the Grand Canyon) that either me or Elder Ham would be leaving the area and she got up and left bawling her eyes out. It was so sad I almost cried seeing her cry. She has really become someone I care about and we have a very good realtionship built on trust. By the way she has a baptismal date so I'im super stoked and happy for her. It's so crazy how Elder Kim found her on a tour bus and reffered her to us. But anyways the night of transfers she called us and asked which one of us is staying and we told her that we were both going and she broke down so hard, I felt so bad so we got permission from the the north team to pick her up in the south!

After skyping on Christmas I went to Corona with that same investigator and met her daughter for the first time who is 8 and we ate and played tennis. I used the stocking you sent and filled up with some candy and we bought her a bionacal (she loves bionacals) and we gave her it.

It made me think of the christmas when I went to my dads and how you weren't sure if pops would give me presents so you went all out haha. I kept thinking that whole day, even though I'm tired and can't stop thinking about the family and seeing Marcus and Tayla, I want this christmas to be the best christmas this little girl has ever had. Because shes only 8,  she doesn't really understand whats going on so I just did everything I could to help her have fun. And it was a great day that little girl called me a couple days later and asked when I could play again ,haha it made me smile.

Take care! Sorry since its transfer day i don't have much time.

Happy birthday mom and grandma!!

Love Elder Meza

Short and sweet

Dear Mom

Yeah I loved the package! I think if you wouldn't have sent tuna I would have gone 2 years without it because it's one of those little things I just don't think about. Me and my comp were gratefull because we both love tuna!

I liked the jacket but it was to big and i'm going to just get a sweater. I need a sweater so I don't have to wear my suit jacket. :)

Tell Aunt carrie I also loved her package and with all that garland me and Elder Ham are going to go decorate our investigators house the one I told you about last week. She's having a rough time and will be alone these holidays and she will get to be with her daughter and she wants us to spend the afternoon with her and her daughter so I'm stoked! :) I'm not sure when I will be skyping yet. It's not really hard me to get access to skype so just you tell me the time and I'll be there haha

I love you

사랑으로 김 인수 장로

엄마님 사랑해요!

Investigator from the Grand Canyon

Hi Mom,

 

(I told Nikko that in church sacrament prayer had to be repeated and was reminding him when that happened to him) I remember doing the sacrament prayer and messing up. It's okay though we learn from our mistakes and the prayer really does need to be perfect it's such an important thing that I had to realize on my mission and it is such a blessing. Yeah President Thomson is a great guy, I feel really blessed to have had him as my stake president he is the reason I was able to get out here when I did and it's all because he had faith in me and saw something in me I didnt and still don't see, but he is someone I'm really grateful for.

Yeah Elder Kim told me how cold it was! (His first mission companion came to meet before going home to Korea) It's starting to get "California Cold" here haha. Which is nothing compared to Utah cold. But never the less it's pretty stinkin chilly! I hate wearing my suits because I don't want to pay to get them dry cleaned and it's been raining a ton lately! So I'm super excited to get the package you sent with my sweater :) Anyways Elder Kim is awesome huh? I know you showed him some baby pictures I hear...haha i knew it would happen. He did tell me that he was so very happy to meet you and really appreciated that you took the time to be able to talk with him. He's someone I'm very glad I got the chance to get really close with,  Elder Kim  is someone who will be a friend for life And I feel very grateful for his example and constant patience with me learning Korean and adjusting to mission life. I really hope to go to Korean someday and spend time with him and his family and hopefully I'll be able to actually talk and have a sincere conversation with his parents by then because they don't know a lick of English haha.

So when Elder Kim was with his parents he went on this tour around California and to the grand canyon and such and there was this Korean Lady, Tina Kim who I guess heard Elder Kim speak English at one of the spots to a white person and saw his area code somehow and was really impressed with his english and asked if he could pay him to teach her english. And he told her he was going to Korea but he there's other people like him who can do that for free and he gave us her contact info. We contacted her and met her the next day (This all happened this week) and found out she has never even heard of our church and was shocked when she looked us up and saw how many church buildings we have. And she found out she lives next to one of the local wards in Hacendia, but didnt realize it was church since there was no cross haha. But we met her Thursday at a costco and taught her some basic english (She knows barely any english) and shared a scripture in 2nd Nephi about how God has an everlasting love for her. And she told us how shes has had all these trials all of the sudden and has been praying for help and she believes we are the answer and she said that meeting us was so weird how it happened but a dream come true. She calls us her Angels from heaven. We continued to meet her Friday, Saturday and she came to church this Sunday! MY companion let me lead the lessons and I've been getting really frustrated lately with Korean and getting really down on myself about how I felt I wasn't progressing anymore, like it felt I just hit this brick wall that came out of nowhere. But when we teach her English she really knows like NO english haha She can say Coorlrlr and Dank You. haha. And it forced me to define English words in Korean and I realized how much more Iknow than I thought and when we teach lessons its normally in english haha but her we have to use Korean which is SO awesome and it forces us to make our lessons really simple. She came to church and we met after and shared the video The light of Christ mormon message ( watch it! compares how the light of Christ is always there so there is never darkness but is sometimes dim so that we only have enough light to be guided by faith and makes us search for anwers so that we can cherish those answers and they become our testimony that we hold dear to our hearts)  because she has a really hard time feeling god's love so praying is difficult for her. We shared the scriptures 1kings 19:11-12 and then shared 3rd Nephi11:10-12 and She asked me how I came to recognize the light of Christ (This is at carls JR. btw.) Myself nor my companion really knew exactly what to say to be able so she could understand and we kinda rambled for a second and I said a quick prayer in my heart to know what to say so that I could help her recognize and feel his love her like he's done with me. And right there I had a prompting to share 1 Nephi 1:20 and it talks about how God gives his tender mercies to his blessed people because they strengthen us. Me and my companion testified of the truth of this and then she kinda shocked me by asking me to tell her a real personal experience of how I know this is true and not just the traditional I know this is true because of the Holy Ghost she wanted a life experience. Immediately I thought of you and my dad. I began to tell her my parents got divorced when I was at a young age and that we moved from Texas to Utah to be with the family on my moms side. I told her that when a was little I didnt understand what divorce really was and that when I was little due to ignorance, I was mad and frustrated  that my dad wasn't around and I would be mad at my mom because at first I thought it was my mom's fault for why I didn't see my dad. As a boy growing up I was always angry. I didn't have a dad to do guy things with. I further said how not having a father in my life I started to rebel at a young age and thought I could do what I wanted. I told her how as I got older I became more rebellious and started to get in a lot of trouble and just did bad things and became a lot more disrespectful towards my family and mother, and that my mom used to stay up crying due to my actions and then I still somehow always blame her. I told her about how there was from the age 15-18ish where I thought there was no God. I truly didn't believe because why would he do this to me or even to my mom? Why would my dad leave his family like that? Then I told her how for some reason my heart was softened and I truly saw how much my mom did. How she worked TWO jobs to support me and her and to give me everything she could. How she worked two jobs to buy me things I didn't need because she was always sorry for not raising me with brothers or sisters and a dad. Even though it wasn't her fault. I told her how she continually would cry and cry again because of my actions and would do nothing but show me everlasting love when I would give nothing but a headache in return. I told her when I fell away from the church she never got mad at me or never showed less love she gave me my free agency and instead of forcing me to go to church like some parents did, she continued to do what was right. I told Tina it wasn't easy for my mom she had a hard life growing up she had nothing when she moved to Utah she worked countless hours to put a roof over my head in a nice nieghboorhood with food in our fridge. She patiently went through all her trials with just the hope that something better was on the other side. She went through financial struggles trying her hardest to not let me know of them, she went through physical trials as well as her many emotional ones, and how my mom had to have surgeries for reasons I didn't understand. And I expressed how she did this all while raising an ungrateful child. Once I came to realize these things and when it hit me how i felt so bad, and how I could never make up for doing the things I do. But I expressed how you were the light of Christ for me and my life. I was never in the darkness that I thought I was in. I was never abandoned by God like I thought. He just showed me the light through a different source. Although for a few years my life may have been surrounded in darkness it was never the complete darkness I thought it was. I realized God had always given me sufficient light to guide me to my next step but he didn't just make everything bright and didn't revil all these things to me at once because he knew what I needed to get a testimony of him being there and he knew what it was going to take for me to not only obtain that testimony but to hold onto it as well. I think he knew how prideful of a person I was and knew I would have forever been carried away in my own pride if he wouldn't have given me the trials he did at a young age. God knew I could get a testimony of him but I think he knew I would have never cherished it like I do now if he didn't make it so I would see just how bad and how dark life can be without us letting him be apart of everyday life. I concluded by saying at the age 4 and even at 16 and 17ish i would have never guessed that having a loser dad would be a true blessing in disguise. And that God may not take away our trials but instead give us the strength we need to endure them or the patience that we need to get through them. And I told her how I'm living proof that God doesn't take away our trials because he knows what we need to become perfect like him. After all this was said and after she finally stopped crying she said "I want to be able to see life from a different view and feel God's love for me like you have and I want to have the patience and faith your mom has"

After she said this and after my companion translated that for me I couldn't help but begin to cry a little bit (JUST a little bit) And then me and Elder Ham begin to tell her how she can and how it all starts with sincere prayer. And we plan on meeting her again wednesday.

No matter what happens with Tina Kim whether she gets baptized or moves to Vegas and I never hear from her again. I will always be grateful for meeting her because of the testimony I have gotten from sharing those things with her. I think you're a way better example of living proof of how God visits people in their afflictions and helps them get through their trials.  And I know the only reason I cherish it so much is because of the things I have gone through. I know that you are aware of the fact I made a lot of stupid choices but I don't know if you know how many stupid choices I did make and  just how "dark" my life was becoming. I think it was close to the point where if I would have made just a few more dumb things, my life would have been permanently effected. 

 

It's taken me until my 3rd transfer to really see how awesome the Book Of Mormon is but holy cow this is the coolest book ever! Elder Ham got really bad food poisoning tuesday and we had to cancel all our appointments that day because he couldn't take two steps without throwing up. I originally was just going to sleep all day and maybe watch some of the LDS movies we have from the mission office, instead I decided to read from the Book of Mormon. I was in like Alma 17ish and to be honest I only decided to read because the day before in personal study it was starting to get to the wars and I was super interested and suprised there was wars in the Book of Mormon...in Detail! haha. So I sat down and read all day and read close to 200 pages and in 3rd Nephi 27 and am almost finished! I have gained such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and have all the sudden just been reading it at such a faster pace and actually understanding it all! Which to me is SO crazy because I hate reading. And if there was one thing I hated more than reading was "fancy talk" old english. I remember before my mission I tried to read it a little bit and it was going through my eyes and out my nose! And the other day I read my patriachal blessing and it says how I'll enjoy reading good books and will be able to read them quickly while understanding them fully. And it was crazy to just see that once I had a stronger faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and sincerely praying for desire to read this book and to be able to understand it, how I went from reading one chapter a day during my 1 hour of personal study time and trying so hard to understand what it meant and make sense of everything, to reading around 10-13 Chapters in an hour and being to be able to fully understand it and better yet Remember it so I can share it with people I meet when I need to.

Sorry this is so long haha this was just a week of a lot of great personal revelation that I wanted to share with you. The investigator with the Bapt. date that me and Elder Ham fell through on us and we haven't met him a couple weeks so please keep in your prayers. We're supposed to meet him this week so we will see. Also tell Derek I was market contacting and started talking to this guy and found out he is a member and actually he served in Korea (I was orignally confused why this white guy was at a korean market haha) and also he served with Derek! I can't remember his name I wrote it down but left it in the apt. I think his name was like scott hutchinson or maybe Richard something...? He was short and chubby and a little odd never the less he did know Derek. But we're going over to his house to eat this week I'm excited. 

 

Is Colten getting married? Is she cute? if so is she blind? hahah Jk if Colten is a cutie :)

I love you mom!  You were the best mom and dad that any could ever ask for!

Love Elder Meza.