OTHERS April 2013

Motschiedler Madness

Its been an eventful month for the Motschiedlers. Little Harris was very cranky for the first 5 weeks of his life and required lots of serious bouncing at all hours of the day. We discovered he had a protein allergy and was allergic to the cows milk in my system. When I wasn't very successful at eliminating dairy from my diet, the doctor suggested we put him on a dairy free formula along with a probiotic drop and within days he was a new baby. We're a much happier household with this baby and don't miss the other one at all! Since then he's been sleeping great and his smiling and cooing. 

Desh has loved being a big brother. He's very sweet with him and shares his toys and gives him lots of hugs and kisses. When Harris cries, Deshy yells out: Uh Oh, Baby!!! Desh's vocabulary has continued to improve. He's putting words together to create sentences and repeating everything we say. He gets to go to My Gym on Saturday mornings with Daddy, which is a lot of fun for him.

I have been busy with two kids and play dates. I'm also working for the school from home and doing bookkeeping for our apartment complex. I've started working out again to try to lose the baby weight.  It all keeps me very busy but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Ken is busy at work. He was asked to learn a new software program that his company is preparing to implement and train his coworkers. He is also busy with our business, still looking for more apartment complex to purchase or land to build on, and getting ready to sell our current complex. Its been a real eye opener but also interesting and exciting. 

Overall, we're all happy and healthy and looking forward to warmer days ahead.

Allyson

Missionary Email from Irma Mica Duran

April 1, 2013

Transfers were today and I'm still here with Irmã Baer! Oh man, I'm so excited for this transfer! This is Irmã Baer's last transfer and I know we're going to see miracles.

Boa Páscoa ontem! Yesterday we went Praia, an Elders' area, to have Easter dinner with the their branch President and his family. Praia is where the US Air force Base is at. IT WAS AWESOME! It was little America! It was SOOO weird to talk to so many people in English, but more weird to talk to people from AMERICA!?! Wow. =) President Brown is a fireman in the Air force and he and his family have literally traveled all over the world following him around on his deployments. They're from Utah and have 3 boys and 1 little girl. It was so strange seeing little blond haired, blue eyed children running all over the place. They are a sweet family =). Their house has all the luxuries from back home. Let me tell ya, the whole time all us missionaries were saying, "You have what?!" or "Oh My Gosh! Look at that!" There we 6 of us. This island only has 6 missionaries. We were all there. It was so much fun! The Browns gave us all little Easter Baskets with AMERICAN candy, como...reeses cups, laffy taffy, nerds, twix, a cadberry egg, jelly beans, and starburst. Ahhh...heaven, man. (Ps: the islanders here say "man" after everything. On the main land they say "Pa" after everything.) BUT! It gets better! We had HAM in a CROCKPOT! OOOHH! We all freaked out. They don't have crockpots here. I know. Sad days. We also had salsa, 7 bean layer dip, fluffy rolls, funeral potatoes, asparagus, brown sugared carrots, koolaid, several different kinds of pie, and MILK from the USA! Oh man! Tenho saudades, pa! The Browns also have US plug-in-outlets and a toilet just like at home where the water swirls down! It was SO weird and cool! It was so great to visit with them. They gave us boxes of cookie crisp and honey grams as parting gifts. You guys have no idea how good you have it. =) Seriously.

Look, I have to go. I love you all! I hope things are well in your lives. I pray for you all every night. Keep the faith. God is real. He loves His children. I know this is the true Church of Christ without a doubt. Christ lives! And he will come again. I promise you this with all the authority I have as a representative of his. Be safe and please protect yourself from the world by reading your scriptures, praying daily, and being active in the Church. I love you!

Com Amor,

-Irmã Durán    

Missionary Email from Elder David Boggs

April 1, 2013

Hola!!!

This week was a little slow. But it was still a good week. I can't believe that it is already april! time is going by so fast! Gonna send a shout out to Rebecca Gage. Your birthday is on thursday. hope it is amazing! i would send you a gift but i dont have the funds! oh well. Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anywho. Awesome news. Kevin and Carolina got baptized. he is 9 and she is 8. they wanted to get baptized together which was really cool :) the baptism was a nice way to celebrate Easter.  President Reyes (our branch president) did the baptism. Elder Foell gave a talk, the someone in primary welcomed them officially into primary, and i sang. it was a simple baptism but it was really nice. i made sister Gomez cry... i sang "I need thee every hour" in spanish. i love how singing in spanish is easier than speaking :) Yesterday was a great day :)

We had a training meeting on ...*checks planner* wednesday. we had to go all the way to frederick (sp?). i slept most of the way there. there were 12 missionaries piled into a van. it was a good meeting. lots of good information :) then friday my companion had to go to a leadership meeting so i went in a tripanionship (say that ten times fast) for the first part of the day. working with english elders is interesting. i can definately say i like spanish work better :)

The Gomez family... well sister gomez and her oldest daughter. are getting ready to go to the temple!!! and we probably get to go with them!! im super excited! but i knever knew how hard it would be to teach about the temple. thank goodness for the "preparing to enter the holy temple" pamphlet thingy. it's super helpful just an fyi :)

The weather is finally starting to feel like spring! its wierd wearing short sleeves though :)

Love y'all!

~your favorite spanish speaking missionary in Annapolis

Elder Boggs

Some photos from David.....

May 25th

April 1st

Sister R, Kevin & Carolina

Also from David....

April 8, 2013

Hola de Annapolis!!

Holy crow. Conference was AMAZING!!!!! It was a little weird not having mom's potatoe salad inbetween the sessions but i still really enjoyed it! watching it and being able to think "i'm one of those" every time they mentioned the number of serving missionaries really cool! Of the 20,00 with calls, 19 are coming to the MBM at the end of April, 26 in June and last i heard 20 in July. This mission is getting HUGE!!!! there are going to be soooooooo many new missionaries!!!

New temple in Cedar City ? I almost cheered! but i probably would have gotten a few funny looks for that so i didn't... Any who...

One of my favorite quotes from Conference is from Boyd K. Packer. "There are few things more powerful than the prayers of a rightous mother." I couldn't agree more. The faith of a mother when she prays for her children is more powerful than any other force in the universe. It's amazing to think of being loved by such an amazing and strong woman. Love you mom!!!!!!!!

The talks were amazing! It seems as if the General Authorities are getting more and more blunt. It is amazing to be able to listen to the Apostles and Prophet! It would be cool if the entire world were to watch General Conference. So much good would happen if everyone would just live by the standards that were talked about this past weekend! I cant wait for the May Ensign to come out!

guess what i did last monday? I ran into a parked car. never slam your face into a car. it hurts. a lot. I was unable to open my left eye and could hardly move them and i was slightly out of it so we had to head home for the night. It made for an interesting bike riding recovery this week. but i am well and fully functioning! I love being a missionary!

Gotta run! love Y'all bunches!

~Elder Boggs

Missionary Email from Sister Chelsy Boggs

April 8, 2013

This week has been good. Slightly exhausting.  It’s kind of surprising how much General Conference can wear you out. I can’t tell you off the top of my head what my favorite talk was but they were all good. I know one of my favorites was Saturday morning.  I don’t think I have ever heard Elder Perry that gruff before and elder Packers talk sounded to all of us missionaries in oak ridge like a farewell testimony. All though we are hoping it wasn’t. It is so cool to think that I am one of those thousands of missionaries out in the field that they report on. Being a missionary is an awesome thing. I took notes the whole way through, I didn’t color and I stayed awake! I have to say I missed watching conference at home though. Sis Connelly, one of the ward missionaries fed us both days, in between sessions. We had hamburgers and hotdogs on Saturday and grilled chicken and funeral potatoes on Sunday. She also fed us Sunday before conference. We had scones! They were soooo good. They taste really good with fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar on top. We had an investigator at all four sessions of conference, and he came to Sis. Connelly’s for food too. Bill came to conference. He soooo is ready for baptism, I just wish he would realize it. He is a dry Mormon. He does everything. He is even better at reading the BoM than some members!

I got my first taste of deer this week, it’s really good. David F. fed us this week on his birthday. I personally think he wanted to spend his birthday with someone. Man he can cook. Have you ever had mashed potatoes made with cream cheese? It is heaven.  Anyway so he fed us dinner, we brought dessert. We made him a birthday cake and sang to him. We had a lesson afterwards so it was a good evening.

Anyways sorry for the short email this week. All the other missionaries in the District are coming to hang out with us. The weather is perfect outside so we are taking advantage of it. And we still have to go get haircuts and do shopping.

hope ya'll are doing great and i hope to hear from ya soon.

--

Love always

Sister Boggs

OTHERS March 2013

Timpsons not Simpsons!

Violet is growing and talking more than we ever imagined.  She's very active and surprisingly coordinated too!  You should see this tiny 3 year old ride a razor scooter!

Lucas can read now and can count to one hundred all by himself.  Kindergarten really agrees with him!  He's happiest around his close group of school friends and is eating currently us out of house and home.   We hope its just a growth spurt.  

Caralee is growing too!  Out, that is.  She's almost 4 months pregnant now and is due in August.  Hope to find out the gender of the baby in a few weeks.  She's still in school full time, happily trucking her way along. 

Nick is busy at work and busy with his added duties at home while Caralee is a tad tired.  He's been making pots and mugs on a potters wheel in the garage for fun lately and loves it!  He's quite the artist!  

Missionary email from Elder David Boggs

this week has been great. i started carrying an index card around so io can write stuff down and have it do i can remember what i wanted to write about. but i didnt start carrying it till saturday... so the information starts on saturday. well sunday technically.

on sunday nights we can choose what to watch after the devotional. either talks or a church movie. this week we watched the testaments in spanish. it was awesome :) i actually understood a lot of it. probably because i jhave practically the entire movie memorized in english. :)

we have ore sacrament meetings at 7:30 in the mornings and for those who don't know, my singing voice isnt the best before at least 10 because im normally super tired. one of the elders in my district was the music coordinator (sp?) for that week and i told him saturday that i was willing to be the musical number. just a side note, this was saturday night at probably 8:00 and our sacrament meetings are in spanish so the musical numbers are in spanish. and i had no pianist. so sunday morning roles around and i go up to elder runs through (yes thats his real name. its the translated version though) and said would you like me to be the musical number? he asked me what song i would sing so i said hymn number 73 (spanish hymn book) which is "yo se que vive mi Señor". i wasnt nervouse until  after the first sister gave her talk. then i started getting super nervous. 1 cuz im still not entirely comfortable with my pronounciation and 2. i was going to be singing a capella. my pitch pipe is a live saver. so in the middle of sacrament meeting at 8 in the morning, i sang "i know that my redeemer lives" a capella in spanish. i think i shocked everyone. everyone kept telling me that the pronounciation was great and that they didnt hear me mess up at all. (i did a couple times though and singing a capella is really hard cuz you never have time to breathe when its a solo.)

my companion keeps telling me that i should try out for a devotional musical number. which intails having the words to the song memorized and singing infront of close to 1500 people. and thats just in one room. there are cameras and two other rooms full of missionaries. and the mtc presidency. and it seems like its the entire world cramed into one room. its super huge! but it sounds fun :) so im probably gonna do it :)

so i was looking around on family search and i have found  way back to adam an eve twice. through two different lines. and through both of those were a lot or european royalty. a couple kings of france and before france was france , saxony kings, a couple scottish barons. and on top of all of that. i found Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire twice. thats pretty cool :) not sure how correct it is though. charlamagne is through mom's side. its awesome :)

in one of our classes, brother warburton had us read a couple verses in John chapter 14. verse 18 really stood out to me. it says "i will not leave you comfortless. i will come to you." its really cool because Christ is basically telling us that He is there when we need Him and He is always waiting to help us when we need Him.

at the end of the same class we were learning about the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. we then did a mini lesson role play thing. we were to invite our investigator (in our case brother warburton as a guy named Jesus) to be baptized but they were supposed to have a concern about it. we were told to pause (not as a sales tactict) to listen to the spirit to know how to address that concern.  it. was. amazing. during role plays ii had never felt the spirit very stongly but during this one, i felt it so strongly i was shaking. the concern was that he didnt know what his parents would think. they would probably be mad at him. right when he started saying that, i knew exactly what to say but i paused to make sure that it wasnt just me thinking it. the thoughts didnt go away and they didnt feel wrong so i said something along the lines that his parents will respect him for the decision that he makes and that even if his family isnt supportive at first, they will still love him. he then said he didnt know if they would kick him out or not and he wouldnt have any friends. as he said that, John 14:18 popped into my head and as i was thinking about it, the poem footprints also popped into my head. the digest version of what i said is no matter what your parents do, Christ will always be there for you and he will carry you through the hard times if you trust in him.

Henry has agreed to be baptized on march 9th. heis going to a baptism this saturday to see what its like. and we are going to continue to teach him up till we leave. Ruben said he would pray to know if baprism was the right thing to do or not and he will tell us what his answer is when we talk to him on friday.

some of the missionaries in our district get to be investagators. its gonna be awesome :) i get to be one of them and we get to make our own character :)

hope everyone is doing great. lookin forward to hearing from everybody :)

(a thing that brother warburton said)

The church is true, the book is blue, Moroni is on the ball, and i love you all

~elder boggs

Missionary email from Sister Mica Duran

Hey! I've been emergency transferred to the Azores! I'm serving with Sister Baer in Angra! I found out last Tuesday night at 8pm and I was in Angra Wednesday morning at 9:30am. Wow! It all happened SO fast. It's crazy beautiful here. It's very green, hardly any graffiti, and just flat out cute! You can see the ocean from our apartment  =). Things are great. The branch is awesome! It's really strange to see so many Portuguese in church and walking the street. I miss talking to black people. They're SO elect! Not saying that the Portuguese aren't, I'm just not used to being promted to talk to them.  =) Everything is great. I'm learning to love it here and I absolutely LOVE Sister Baer. She was the person I've worked with the most on my mission who was not my companion....and now we're companions! It's a big change being here. Everything is very calm and I'm adjusting from the city life in Lisboa. I feel like one of the reasons I've been called to this area is to help my ankle heal faster/more. Yes, my ankle still hurts and it's been giving me more grief lately. Sister Baer is a doll! She's been told by President to be careful with my ankle and she's taken that quite literally. =) She's extremely considerate and goes the extra length to make it more comfortable for me. I'm very grateful for her and our friendship. She's from Utah (of course!) and has a facebook page where all her emails from her mission are. If you'd like to read some our adventures look up "Sister Aubrey Baer." Her parents are Mike and Lori Baer.

The time here is one hour behind Lisboa. I stayed up to 2:30am packing my bags and left at 6am. Yikes! I could only bring one bag with me. I'm SO glad I brought that travel scale from back home. So, I basically stayed up for 46hrs straight. Haha. It was awesome... -_-.  It was only a 2hr flight. Not too bad  =).

Next Monday we're going shopping for clothes. Neither of us like shopping, but we need to go. We've both lost a lot of weight and we're swimming in our clothes. Sister Baer is almost done with her mission...Just 9wks left. WOW! I'll probably be her in the Azores for several months. It gets hot here. O_O

Today is Elder Later's Bday and we're going bowling after this! Pretty cool, huh! Oh man, I love bowling! It's so crazy...there things to do here on Pday! I'm stoked  =).

That package you sent me will sit in the office until I come back from the islands. I hope none of it was perishable. Ugh...
The address for my snail mail is the Elders' address because we don't have keys to our mailbox, haha.

Rua Beato João Batista Machado
Nº15 R/C ESQ
9700-28 Angra de Heroismo
Terceira, Açores Portugal

The area I'm in was opened up to Sisters last transfer and Irmã Bear opened it up. She's so awesome!  =D


Congrats to Jordan, Stephanie, and baby Ryan! He's adorable! I'm praying for your little family.  =)

I have to go. BOWLING! I love you all. I hope you're all well. Heavenly Father knows best. The Church is true and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Please share it with others.  =) Until next week.

Love,
- Sister Duran 

OTHERS February 2013

Motscheidler Madness

The Mott Quad welcomed John Harrison Motschiedler on January 24, 2013 at 3:58pm. He weighed 8lbs 13 oz and was 21.5 inches long. He goes by his middle name with lots of nicknames already (Harris, Harry). Desh is a great big brother to Harris and is pretty indifferent of our new addition. We think he's adorable and love having him in our family.

Missionary Email from Chelsy:

February 4, 2013

Last district picture. the new faces in there are Elder Rutland (tall one) and Elder Hunter (short one)

exchanges with Sister Asay 

So good/interesting news. I will not be transfering. Sister Kalani will be transfering. I will be staying in Rogersville for atleast 6 more weeks. There is also a chance i will be training 2 goldens. Sis Mann from the office called last monday morning and said that she was bringing up a bunkbed and 3 dressers. so we did a quick deep clean of the apartment and then at 4 got to help bring in the new furniture. then on friday we got permission for the elders to come into our apartment to help move furniture around. Sis Mann said that we had to switch rooms. Our office is now our bedroom and our bedroom is now our office. So the elders moved our desks and our HUGE map thingy. We are getting 14 new sisters this week and at least 6 the next transfer so things are quite a bit hectic. No one is quite sure how training is going to go cause as it stands we have only 15 sisters available to train this transfer and training lasts for 2. Elder Rutland (zone leader) says that i will be here for only one more transfer then i will leave my golden(s) and get a new one next time. so we will see. 

Weather here has been interesting. One weekend it snows and is cold the rest of the following week. then the next weekend we have an ice storm where we get like an inch of solid ice on our car. then it gets warm and we dont have to wear jackets for a couple of days then it rains and washes away all the ice and snow then the temps drop to below freezing. We had a day where it didnt get warmer than 25 degrees. There was one night that it was 16 degrees when we got home. Then thursday night it snows, doesnt snow friday but snows all day saturday and sunday. Church was almost canceled yesterday. We only had sacrament meeting and that lasted a whole 33 min. The only people that were there were Sister Anderson and her daughter Vonnie, President Stockinger and his 3 boys and us and the Nielsons. We were surprised that the Stockingers made it cause they road was solid ice. We are supposed to have dinner with them tonight so we will see if that happens. hope ya'lls weather has been treatin ya nicer than ours has. Elder Lynn and Elder Degraffenried are both being transfered. So i will be the only one left that was in the district 6 months ago.

Last Monday we got to start doing stained glass with the Leishmans. We got to cut out the glass and grind them down to the right size. We got to take the foil home to put around the glass pieces. We will be going back today to finish. we get to sauder (sp?) the pieces together today.

We have finally been able to teach Barbara the full fist lesson. We had to teach it in 2 sections but she seems to be able to understand what we are teaching. She is definitly really lonely and still greiving for her daughter and is still sick (so she says) but she is getting better. She has more color, more energy and is more talkative. She still has not come to church and wont pray with us but we are getting closer. We are hoping to extend a baptismal date either this week or next week.

Darren didnt come to church yesterday (but neither did most of the members). He asked for a blessing on Friday, so Elders Lynn and Hunter gave him one. He asked us for the Book of Mormon on Cd but we told him how he could get in for free on his phone, so we are going to follow up on that. He asked us (me and Elder Lynn) some questions that we have to research. He wants to know how we can say that all sins can be forgiven when in the bible it says "thou shalt not kill" and that you cant be forgiven for it. I know that there is a talk somewhere that talks about that and military people, so that is my homework for the next couple weeks. Unless you know of anything that goes along with that. He will also not be moving to Greeneville.

We picked up a new investigator this week. Her name is Debbie. We met her at the Big Kahuna. We gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray about it. We set up an appointment to see her but she cancelled and cancelled the next one we set up. hopefully we will be able to actully meet with her this week. but if she keeps canceling the appointments we may have to drop her. She currently goes to a cowboy church in morrisetown and performs on a drill team with them.

Jeannie is playing hard to get. she calls us to talk with sister Nielson but wont talk with us. When we see her at the senior center (which is next door to library) she does everything she can to not talk to us very long. the last time she was in the hospital the doctor told her that she couldnt drink coffee, or smoke but she is still smoking. she has not come to church in a while but hopefully soon.

Love always

Sister Boggs

Missionary Email from Mica:

February 4, 2013

It's been a great week! We had an awesome zone conference and got the help we needed through the training. We were asked to read a talk from Tad R. Calister about being a consecrated missionary. It talks about putting everything you have on the alter and doing your best no matter how you feel.  It's pretty cool, you should read it  =). Yesterday was a great day. We found 9 novos and marked 1 person for baptism! I'm so undeserving of such success. People were just falling into our path. I'm so grateful and every miracle makes it so much more real that this is the same church that Christ organized when he was on the earth. I have no doubt that he still leads his church through his leaders. What a privilege it is to help others know the same thing. I'm incredibly blessed. 

A quick story. THe first district meeting of the transfer, our new Elders walk in and this STRONG smell of garlic filled the room. WE later discovered that they didn't have time to buy food on p-day and that one of the Elders was so hungry that he ate a garlic clove. HA! He started choking and his comp had to help him.  =)

 I'm sorry this isn't very long again. I'm at the dumb computer where you have to push the keys extra hard to work. I love you! I'm doing well! I hope you are too. Até próximo! 

Com amor,

Sister Duran

OTHERS January 2013

Motschiedler Madness

We had such a fun month of Christmas celebrations!

Desh is obsessed with TRAINS and tractors and anything with wheels so of course we had to go to Hillcrest Farms in Reedley and ride their steam train. My parents came with us and we had a lot of fun wandering around, eating funnel cake and riding the train. Deshy even got his first cup of hot chocolate. He loved it, of course. It was a fun Christmas this year because Desh understood (for the most part) what was going on. He met Santa and didn't even cry. We walked Christmas Tree Lane and loved seeing all the lights. He discovered the Polar Express and now I think our household has the movie memorized.

Now that the holidays are over, we are busy getting ready for the arrival of the next little Motschiedler boy due January 30th (although this mama is hoping for a week early arrival). This month will be a busy one for us with the baby coming, along with some visits from some of our favorite people: Ken's best friend and business partner who lives in Australia will be here for a few weeks with his fiancee and their combined children, along with my favorite sister Shelley who will be here for the baby and McKay, Amanda and Macy will make an appearance at the end of the month. We're so excited to see everyone and can't wait to party!

Chelsy's Missionary Email

This week has been a emotional roller coaster. We will start with the good first. We had 3 convert baptisms and 1 child of record baptism on Wed, confirmed Sunday. Nate, Joy and Josh were baptized. It was an amazing event, even though the water was not quite knee deep (on Pres Riner). There was quite the turn out too, 50+ people and a lot were less actives/non members.We have talked with Pres Riner and they are going to see about starting a YM program by the first of the year. We will be starting the new member lessons this week.

Danny, was not able to be baptized this week cause he is still smoking. He was able to give up hard drugs and coffee but smoking is still causing him trouble. We tried to extend a new date on Sunday but it wasnt the right time. He doesnt really think he can give up smoking. Why is smoking harder to give up than drugs? We couldnt get out to see him last week, but not for the lack of trying. He was busy busy this week. We will be going out to see him this week to continue his lessons. He is still making progress, he came to church yesterday with his beard trimmed and cleaned up. Almost didnt recognize him.

Cheryl is doing good. As of Saturday she had been clean for exactly one week. She still has not come to church but is attending ARP. Im not exactly sure what to do with her next. Probably start re-teaching her the lessons.

I have to admit I am extremely nervous for tomorrow. Not quite sure how I feel about getting a new companion. But I will ETTE, i have to. Sad news :,( my SD card decided it wanted to be mean and delete EVERY picture I had taken since I left the Fresno Airport and Sister Miner lost hers. So at this moment the only pictures we have of our 3 transfers together are the ones I have previously sent home and all those taken since wed. :( oh well, its life....

Dont know if I will be able to email again before Christmas so MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! and hopefully I will get to email you again before the new year.
--

<3 span="span"> Love always

Sister Boggs

Chelsy and Mr. Snowman

 Chelsy with her new companion, Sister Kalani

Mica's Missionary Email 

Well, it wasn't the most exciting week. About 3 weeks ago we had about 9 progressing investigators and now we have 2. Kinda. We've no idea what's happened. We're working on it. Paciência. Anyway, I'll be skyping home on Christmas at 11am YOUR TIME. It'll be 7pm here and we'll get about 30-40ish minutes. Definitely not long enough. I would suggest that you use Jennifer's or Thomas' computer to do Skype because your computer is a bit stupid with the sound and video chat. I might need their skype usernames too. just tell me who/which username to call and be ready on the receiving end.  =) Yesterday we went to a member's birthday party. His name is Thomas and he's the secretary for the ward. He turned 45. He's super nice and was one of the first people to remember my name. So after church the more active members of the church went over to his house and ate, enjoyed each others company, and ate some more. Foi bom! Someone made a Jesus cake and no one had the heart to cut up nosso Salvador, haha. So we cut all around it, but finally one little girl wanted to eat the hand of Jesus. I'm glad it was the innocence of child that started the cannibalism. =) On Saturday we had a our ward christmas party. It was more of a weird cultural talent show than christmas related. Our ward is awesome, awkward, and very funny. =) The first person was an old woman who has a severe problem with shaking, so it always sounds like she's singing opera, but she can't help it. She read a two page poem! haha! then her husband did some magic tricks that no one could see and he totally could have burned the church down. ha, portuguese people.  =) and the whole time the announcer guy was saying " Fantástico!" It was very fun. After that there was a teenager who played the titanic song on a recorder flute thing. He did a really good job  =). These people are amazing. Well I have to leave. I need to write president. I love you! See you in a week! Work hard! Merry Christmas! 

Love, -Irmã Duran  =)

Mica and her companion with Silvino - he was baptized on December 23rd

On Christmas day we gathered at Jennifer and Jeremy's house to skype with Mica who is serving a mission in Portugal. She gets one 40 minute phone call home at Christmas and one phone call on Mother's Day. It was so great to see her looking so well. It took about an hour to troubleshoot her computer issues, we were all worried that it might not work out - skype can be tricky sometimes! And Portugal is one the entire other side of the world! But it all worked out in the end. Jeremy had a great set up for us - surround sound speakers, projector, and laptop. It was sweet. This was the first time our entire family has been "together" since moving Marcos and Melody into their new house last summer!

Mica had a great Christmas dinner with an LDS family - they served a traditional American meal instead of the traditional Portugal meal which is loaded with fish (Mica is not a fan of fish).

OTHERS December 2012

Boggs Christmas Breakfast 
at Fowler and Gettysburg church building 

Saturday, December 22 at 9:00 AM!

Are you coming?

Daily Duran

We can’t really recall anything until Thanksgiving for the month of November. Thomas had his hardest time in the month and Amy was busy taking care of everything else. We know stuff happened, but it was all a blur until Thanksgiving. We had a nice time visiting with everyone at the Turkey Bowl with all of the Boggs family. We spent Thanksgiving at the Wards family celebration and called it an early night when Thomas had had enough.

Clare is sick again with another ear infection this time in both ears. She is usually such a happy girl so when she is cranky, not getting into stuff, and eating less we know she isn’t feeling well. She started a real bad cough that sounds like a seal. She is always so sweet. Anytime she does anything wrong she goes up to Amy and says, “Sorry” and gives a hug.

Bella is learning a lot in Joy School . She has her number song down and can almost count up to 20 (sometimes she forgets the number 4). Her hair has not been cut since she was born and sometimes we ask her if we can cut it like daddy’s and she says, “no, I want it on.” We had some nice warm weather in November and she loved going to park and picking at all the leaves that were barely showing a change in color.

Amy has been doing everything everyday all day long. She takes care of the girls, Thomas, the house, she does primary, teaches Joy School , and even goes out for some 3 and 4 mile runs. She had a blast getting the house decorated for Christmas. She put up the lights outside, setup the tree, and put garland around the house. She will probably do more decorating when there is time.

Thomas had a hard month, but the worst is over. He is doing a lot more now. He is working on getting his energy, stamina, and endurance back up. He smoked a turkey for Thanksgiving and everyone ate it leaving no leftovers so he smoked another one just so he could have some turkey sandwiches. 

Letter from Elder Mathias Boggs

Family!
  Heya!  I am here in the mission!  Woooooo!  Made it safe and sound and am doing well.  Glad to be here that is for sure!  So, I am in a city called Sebalum.  It is a small little town and very nice.  I actually love it here already.  It is in the zone of Antique.  And guess what!  They don't speak Ilonggo!  So I really CAN say that when I got to the mission field they weren't speaking the same language as I learned in the MTC.  haha.  The language is Kinaray-a.  Haha.  But in all reality, it is very close to Ilonggo and if you speak either one everyone can understand you anyway.  Really they just change the pronouns, and then have a few different vocab words. But it is not too different.
  My companion/trainer/dad is Elder Baldwin.  This is his 5th transfer I think.  He has spent all of his time here in Sebalum.  He is really cool and we get along just fine.  I am also in the same house as one of the elders in my batch whose name is Elder Buchanan.  And then (This is for you Myley) Elder Hidalgo is Elder Buchanan's trainer!  So it is us four in the appartment.  I really love this area though.  The philippines are so pretty.  So green and sooooo picturesque.  It is so cool.  And the area I am in is really picturesque. Less city and more spread out.  I like it.
  Traveling was crazy and of course we never got any sleep.  Got about 12 hours of sleep in 3 days if we were lucky.  But two of those days were one hour sleeps during the night.  So it was crazy.  But now I am settling in.  The water here is not safe for us to drink so we have purified bottled water in our house.  Our house in unfinished and apparently they just moved in about a week or two ago so it is pretty un-put-together so far.  Haha.  We sleep in one room and live out of our suitcases.  Yuck.  I Hate living out of a suitcase.  It makes me feel sloppy.
  Transportation here is great.  Tons of public transportation mainly consisting of Jeepneys and Tricicabs.  Jeepneys are loooooong vans pretty much with two long benches inside and you just all pile in and pay the driver and go.  You pretty much fit about 30 people in each one.  Tricicabs are just motorcycles with a little cart on the side that four of us can sit in.  So pretty great.  You can ALWAYS get a ride along the main roads and it is super nice.  I also LOVE  the style of diving here.  In some ways it reminds me of Korea dad.  People just kinda pull into traffic and just weave around.  It is sweet.  But then it is a TON less crowded than Korea.  Everyone just takes public transportation.  Pretty much you go as fast as you want.  You drive pretty much wherever you want.  And you just get to where you are going with as many passengers as you can.  Haha.  But it is super safe too.  Everyone is super careful and let each other into the traffic without problem.  In all honesty it reminds me of how I walk.  Just weaving around people and getting where I have to without running into people.  Haha.  I like it.
  So yeah.  Any other questions or anything?  Lemme know!

Love you all family.  Thank you for everything you do and for the blessing you are to me.  You are the best family in the world. I mean it.  Thanks for your love.  I am doing well and will do all I can to be the best missionary I can be.  Love you.

until next week,

-Elder Boggs.

An email (and photo) from Sister Mica Duran

This is Marcelino! He has been marked for baptism 3 or 4 times and we FINALLY got him! Prayer and fasting....makes miracles happen.  =)

WARD WIDE WEB

JEREMY's extended family cousins from Montana were in town for Thanksgiving. We spent some fun time with them bowling on Thanksgiving Eve and eating Thanksgiving dinner with them. 

JENNIFER planned a quick and easy Relief Society Meeting for December. A Cookie Exchange! It was a fun and yummy night. And the flyer was totally cute too :)

TREVOR is getting into the Christmas spirit! He had a great time creating his gingerbread In N Out out of graham crackers and royal icing. He is also very much enjoying winter water polo. 

LOGAN did his winter program the last week of November. Doesn't he look studly in his tux shirt and bowtie? And the very next week he went to Sonora on his 6th grade trip for 3 days. He's got a great group of buddies - they always have a great time together.

LIZZIE had a very special job at her winter program - playing the xylophone! She was the only one that played several different notes on her instrument and sang at the same time - what talent!

JACKSON just wants his 2 front teeth for Christmas! What a fun thing for our boy to lose his teeth at just the right time of year! He also looked very handsome all dressed up for his winter program performance. He knew every word to every song and loved practicing at home for weeks before the show.

Our family is making an extra effort this year to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. It has been fun to provide small acts of service to others and remember what is most important in our lives. Family, Faith, and Friends. We wish you all much love and a Merry Christmas!