October 22, 2008

Hey everyone,

So it was almost everyone' s birthday in my family during the last week i hope you had fun. And i hope you enjoyed your presents.

This week has been good i caught a snake, painted some houses, and went on an exchange. Its been fun and exciting.

So the snake was way fun. Sis. Adeniyi (sister ni for short) called us and told us she needed help with getting a snake out of her garage so we went over. After 20 minutes searching around in the garage we found nothing except two mice. It was pretty freaky poking all these boxes and lifting tarps and everything with a 6 foot wooden pole mind you. Still it was scary cause you didn't know where it was and you just knew it was gonna bit you at any moment. So that was intense. So finally we spotted it. It was 10 feet long ok just 2 feet long and black so that was exciting. So after and hour of work we managed to trap it in a corner than built a wall around it with boxes and things then we spent another hour with a stick and bag trying to catch this dumb thing without injuring it. So i got a bag put it on a pole. Tied a rope through it so that when i pulled the rope it would sinch up the bag. Then Elder chang lifted it off the ground enough i swung the bag under it and success ha ha. Then we drove a couple miles and released it into the wild (I'll send home pictures of the release later) So that was that story.

Exchanges were fun i went to Derwood and Elder Mackey came to Olney. I was with Elder Burnette and Elder Chandler we had a blast. We first went to District Meeting and then ate at Cici's all you can eat pizza then we went and did service at one of their investigators homes. After service we had a lesson with her. Then we went and changed and only 3 hours after all you can ate had dinner at a less active members house. After that we went and had another dinner at a members house i couldn't believe they schedualed two dinner!!! I was so full i almsot threw up trying to choke down the second dinner but i couldn't offend them so i just had to eat. I will never do that again so gross eating that much food i don't even eat that much on thanksgiving. Well that was fun.

Bad news Otho is not getting baptised so frustrating but he will come around we will continue to work with him and bring him to baptism and more importantly to active membership. So please pray for him.

I love all of you so much and will talk to you next week.

October 15, 2008

Hey Family and friends,

Hey all I hope you are doing well and hope all is well for you. I heard Grandpas funeral went well and i'm happy you all are doing well with that.

So this week the biggest news is Otho is hopefully being baptized on the 26th so thats like aweek and a half away so thats sweet!! He had an awesome expirience reading one morning and since then he just seems to know its true. I am so happy he took the steps to find out if its true He will be such a great member.

Matt is doing well and has not missed a day of church since we met with him. I'm so excited for him he will be baptized in january sometime I am so impressed by him. He is the man.

We have been tracting a lot this week and its hard on the body but i see the need for it. We met a man named Kahn and i'm so excited to meet with him he seemed very intrested. SO tracting does pay off after a while.
Elder Chang made me Ramen Noodle with egg it was so weird. ha ha Those crazy asains have weird food ha ha. well thats it for this week i hope you all are doing good. keep writing me and if you havent' written me do it, do it now ha ha love you all bye.


Hey more coming in a minute

Sept. 24, 2008

So how is everyone. Thanks for all the letters i got this week they were great. Also thanks for the big card from the block party it looked like ya'll had a grand ole time i loved those parties so thanks for thinking of me.

Big news is our baptism is off. Just some things to work out so it was pushed back for a while but i'm confident Matt will be baptised eventually.

I went on an exchange with the District Leader. His name is Elder Burnette he is way cool. It was good to have an expirience of missionary work with another missionary we tracted and had an appointment. It was fun to have some change and we even found a new investigator i'm excited for that appointment she seemed intrested so i'll let youknow.

Transfers are next week so thats big i'll be getting a new companion maybe staying here but you never know. I love olney so i hope i do but we'll see. I love Elder brooks and have learned so much from him. I'm so grateful i was given such a hard working, obediant, strong missionary to start me off right. He is such a great guy i love him. Well Sorry short letter it will be bigger next well maybe not with transfers but i will the week after for sure. thanks all i love you bye.

PS. A note to the family. If you are family and havent writter me i expect a letter soon. I want to hear from ALL of you it doens't count for you if someone else writes me!!!

Grandpa

I would like to dedicate this email though to just the family all my friends will just have to do without ... send it to kyle tho. If you could read this to the family i would appreciate it.

Starford Churchill was an example of great patience, love, humor, strength, and power. My grandpa always will amaze me because of this great patient love for my sweet grandmother. He cared for her everyday with great care kindness and love. My sweet grandmother suffered from depression so my grandpa often suffered from her depression. He was the receiving end of critical remarks of how he wasn't doing things right or good enough. Yet he always went on. He got her whatever she wanted. I will always remember each night when he would get out the cribbage board and play with my grandma. It was their game and they loved to play it.

My grandpa also cared for me while my mom was at work. If it wasn't for my grandpa bringing me countless school assignments, lunches, and permission slips I probably would have failed elementry school. But my favorite memories of grandpa have to do with summer. Each morning he would come down stairs and lovingly rip my blankets off me to wake me up. Then I would come up stairs and he would make me the worlds best toad in the hole while I talked with grandma. Then we would all watch M.A.S.H. after that we would play cribbage. Then grandpa would usually help me with my chores. He even helped me build my award winning pinederby car.

My grandpa was one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. Everywhere we would go with my grandpa he would have people laughing. He always made me laugh. Half of my jokes I stole from him no man can or ever will deliver old man jokes better than him.

Now for strength, I know of very few people who recovered as well as he did from two broken hips. He would never give up. He always just kept going. He dealt with parkinson's disease, but that didn't deter him either. He would get up and every morning go walking with tonka. Those two had a grand ole time. He was always playing with and pampering tonka. He will be so happy to see him again.

Power, I refer to as priesthood power. He lived worthy of this divine power and was a great example of this to me. One night when grandma was having a siesure I remember him yelling for us. My mom and I ran upstairs and looked in the room. He said call 911 then rolled over placed his hands on her head and commanded her by the authority of the priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ to stop and the second he said it she was still. It was amazing, few men have such great unshakable faith as he did to perform that great act.

Most importantly to me my grandpa was the first member of my family to join the church. He converted before his parents. He paved the way for my family so that I could be born into this great and marvelous truth. I will be eternally grateful to him for joining the one true and living church of God.

Starford Leroy Churchill, my hero, my pioneer, but most impotantly my grandpa.

I'm glad you all are doing well with this I wish I could attend the funeral I would have liked to sing or something, but I know it will go ok without me. But know I would like to be there to carry his casket and lay him next to grandma. They are so happy together know and I'm so happy for them.

I love you all and miss you. -Elder Medina

Note from Mom

So I have not had anything new really to put on the blog, I will have to pry some pictures out of Ammon, he did send some of his apt. He was not in any of them though. Perhaps I will still put them on, after all it was fun for me to see how he is living...what he is living with and where and all. So keep an eye on the blog, I will try to do these pictures of the apartment this week. Ammon will have to learn to put himself in these pictures. It would have been more fun to the see the kitchen if he was at the sink doing some dishes, I think that would be great fun to see him doing dishes! So not really much else to add, except I know that my boy is doing great, he is loving from what I can tell, every second of his mission. Sure there are things he doesn't like doing as much as he likes other things, but his head and heart are in the right place and he knows that ALL the work must be done and his attitude is good about it. I will ask him for more pictures today in my weekly email to him. All of you take care and enjoy the updates.

September 9, 2008

So this week was so awesome we had a "tropical storm" it rained for 6 hours straight actually longer but thats ok. I was tracting in it for 5 so fun!! I couldn't belive how soacked i was ha ha well i actually could i mean i was in the rain i'm not stupid but still i was very wet, even my socks were soaking i had a 1/2 pool of water in the bottom of my shoe when i took it off ... waterproof my eye ha ha.

We have been contuning working with Matt it is going so well! We took him to a FHE at the presidents house we were in charge of the game. He had a great time so it was good. Matt is so elect i'm so excited for the 27.

Otho is coming along alright we have some things to work out with him so his date might be pushed back but we will see how it goes.

We met a new family yesterday at dinner. The mom is named Chesley and she is so cool. She said everything Sis. Darrington and you have taught me just makes sense. She is so cool i love when members step up and find people it makes missionary work so great!

We had a guy from our ward spend the night with us and a whole day he just got called to Vegas spanish speaking and is so excited it was nice to have him come out he was so excited it just helps us even more.

Well i'm out but i love all you guys and keep writing thanks for all you do. Talk to you next week.

-Elder A. Churchill Medina

September 3, 2008

Hey fam and friends,

Thanks to alll those who sent me letters, if i have not replied to you letter I'm sorry. I will get to it soon. If you haven't writen me you probably should.

So this might be short cause my computer reset right when i finished this letter before so frustrating.

So Matt is doing well. We went to the visitors center yesterday with him and did a tour of the VC leading up to when Christ comes to America (3Nephi:11) Than we watched the Testemants it was so good cause i had not seen it for a long long time and i've only ever seen it once so it was good to see again. Kohor was really funny and how they portrayed the Gadianton Robbers was funny too but i really really liked the movie.

SO Monday we played Cricket it was so fun. We had the Rajapakse family (parents of the recent convert Indy) come and teach us how to play since they are from Sri Lanka and love the sport. I'm such a good Cricket player. And by so good i mean really terrible ha ha. But it was fun.
Otho is coming along well and i'm getting really excited for our baptisms. Well its short but sorry i'll write bigger next week love you all -Elder Medina