From July 3

I have no time to write today and for that I am truly sorry! We went to the Portland Temple today and then the Rippon's took us out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory then we still had to clean the room/car/laundry/get a new phone and now email before dinner at 5 which is in 6 minutes! Crazy! Here are the fast highlights from the week: We went to a 5 stake youth conference and sang with 80 other missionaries. We sang The Army of Helaman and the EFY Medley with the youth...It was awesome!!! Everyone was crying, it made me feel cool but I knew it was all the Spirit! We got a brand new 2012 red Toyota corolla with like 300 miles on it which means we are the first ones to drive it after it left the Tricities! So cool! Our phone broke and I went through phone withdrawals all over again. haha! but we got a new one today! yay! We are moving houses next pday so hopefully we will be able to email next Monday! I got an AWESOME package full of 4th of July stuff! Thank you Mother! It was all perfect! I love it! The mission office moved as well so please as soon as possible get your hands on the new address if you are going to be writing me! I don't have anytime left. I love you all and I will talk to you next week! HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!! And happy b-day Daddy!
From July 9

Howdy, mi familia y mis amigos! How is everyone doing?? I am doing so great! It is finally starting to feel like Summer here in "the 'couve" hah! It hasn't rained in like a week I think and it is getting up into the high 80s most days and into the 90s some days. I have to admit that I am very happy and blessed to not be serving in a part of the country where it gets hotter than this. I wouldn't not want to be a missionary in OK because of the heat and humidity, I think its hard enough here! The heat drains your physical strength so it makes tracting so much more fun! Speaking of tracting/knocking on doors, its not my most favorite activity as a missionary. If I can do anything to help it I avoid tracting! I try to set appts to see people or I make a list of less active or inactive members or investigators that we can just drop in and visit. When I have this list it makes me feel productive when I can say that we got in to their homes and we were able to share a spiritual message with them and hopefully increased their faith in the Savior. But even though we have a list to visit people, most of the time it does not provide us with new people to teach who are seeking the gospel. These people still have to be found...for example: Yesterday we were out tracting after church and before dinner, it was hot and sunny, we had knocked on several doors on the street with no luck of finding people who were prepared for our message. We were able to talk to a man that was working on his car for a little bit and we were able to find common ground of beliefs which was enough to satisfy him and he didn't want to learn anymore. So we moved on...we walked up the driveway to another house and there were two older men assembling a chair of some kind. We chatted for a bit about that and then we told them what we were doing and why. The one man, Gary, whose house we were at was not interested and he let that be known very quickly, he attempted to start arguing with us and we testified back to him. The conversation then switched back to non gospel topics and he became friendly. We could tell that he was not interested so we asked if there was anything that we could do for him. He said no so we started to say our good-byes and then we looked to the other man that was there. His name was Melvin and he lived 2 houses down the street. We asked him if there was anything we could do for him and he said that he needed a washer and a refrigerator. We said that we would keep our eyes and ears open for them and we would call him if we found any. We exchanged information and then he said, " I also have some questions for you about your church." We said that was awesome and we would be more than happy to answer them. At the same time I am thinking that this is NOT the place to have a lesson or gospel discussion that can be guided by the Spirit. The other man was just staring at us and waiting for us to get off his property. We told Melvin to call us when he thought would be a good time for us to come over answer his questions. We honestly couldn't tell if he was being serious or if he was just trying to see what we would say. Once we left we went straight to dinner and then before we went into our next appt we checked our phone and Melvin had already called us while we were in dinner! We called him back and he apologized 100 times for his neighbor that was so rude to us! It was so sweet of him to do that and it gave us more hope for Melvin. He said that he is tired of looking for churches and would like to come to church with us, he said he has a lot of questions and that he already has a Book of Mormon! We made an appt to go and visit him on Tuesday evening and I am SO excited! Melvin is not the usual type of person I could see being interested in the gospel, but the Lord has a wonderful way of proving my thinking wrong and I LOVE it when he does! Melvin is about 60-65 years old, he is slim and average height, he has shoulder length hair, a scruffy beard, yellowish teeth and a gruff voice. He is super nice and has a big smile, he has a funny disposition and he likes to joke. I will definitely let you know how it goes with Melvin! :) As for the tracting, Sister McGhie loves it! So we will be doing it more often and I hope and pray to be able to see the blessings (like Melvin) that come from it! Lets back track to the 4th of July, shall we?! The ward had a breakfast and a parade from the church building to a park near by. It was SOOO much fun we were dressing in red white and blue and I was even pulling a little girl in a wagon! Her name was Katie and she was 1 and she was super cute and I wish I could have held her (holding children is against mission rules). We had invited an investigator family to come and they actually did which made me super happy! The ward was great at introducing themselves to them! We also had Robbie at church on Sunday so that made me super happy too! If he comes one more time then he can get baptized on the 28th like we have planned! woohoo! We are moving today so we have been packing and cleaning and getting ready for that as welll....I have to go email President now so I will talk to you all again next week! I love you and I miss you! Pray for missionaries experiences and people who you and have the missionaries go and teach! The Gospel is true and I love the Doctrine of Christ!