Monday, December 17

Hello family!

     So things are going great. Things are way different.  There are at least 10 of the missionaries living in apartments, and in my last zone only 4 did. It's a nice area, like Deep Run, maybe slightly smaller houses..not like Brother Y.  There's some huge man made lakes, and lots of nice trees, it's cool.  I'm way lost though, the roads don't follow the same grid pattern, and there's some hills, and you can't see the strip... it's close to my last area but I feel so far most of the time.      

     So so far the singles ward is amazing.  From the missionaries in my last zone that covered the Willow Springs one, and with my brief experiences with the one back home and in Idaho, this one is way better.  There are a lot of really dedicated and missionary minded people.  I'm excited, and we've got 2 or 3 baptisms coming up, and there were 7 last transfer.  But Cimarron ward has some nice people in there, too.  I still haven't been able to meet a lot of investigators and such.. but we have some cool ones.  One guy M is from Egypt, his dad was killed there for reading and sharing the Book of Mormon, and he came here recently so he could get baptized, but he's waiting for his green card.  Then the singles ward has this guy named J who is from Korea I think, he's got a thick accent but communication works fine.  He's set for Saturday.

     Then there's another kid named J in the Cimarron ward.. he lives with his dad, is 13, and has no member relatives, or close friends.  He was baby sitting for an inactive family, saw a Book of Mormon on the shelf, got really curious, comes to church and has a testimony.  His dad has no interest, but approved baptism, and his mom is coming for Christmas and he's going to ask her.  He's a huge basketball/sports fan, and is pretty dedicated.  When I met him it was night in their apartment complex, and we went to the empty complex weight room to talk.  He reads from the Book of Mormon before every basketball game and practice.  He's just about finished with 2nd Nephi.  He's actually from VA, and used to go to Wizards games all the time.

     Oh, we also have a recent convert in the YSA, this kid named B from VA, and he has Savant's.. I've always wanted to meet one.  He's really nice too.  He has quickly scrolled through calenders from like the past century and has them all memorized.  If you give your year and birthday, of any year, he can tell you the day of the week you were born instantaneously.  Our ward mission leader Brother V showed us that.  When I was talking to B he asked if I preferred the Braves or the Nationals, and I had to go as he was asking, but he was gonna pull all sorts of ridiculous stats... It's so cool.  I don't even know how that works, like a photographic memory, do you store all the numbers, or is it photographic and he like actually recalls the cards or calenders or whatever perfectly, and then he just looks at it in his mind?

     Anyways this brings us to our apartment... its me, Elder P, K, and M. M is my companion.  We all get along super well.  Elder M has learned so much, and he's really fun to talk about things with.  We understand each others brains really well, and have the same type of questioning and understanding.  He's yet to get on my nerves in the slightest.  I think James would like him a lot too.  So like one night he quickly taught us all these very easy and simple mnemonic mind tricks... in 10 minutes I learned the system, AND the first 50 digits of pi. Just like that, I could give them to you now.  He also is the inventor of the technique to lucid dream, and has beneficial applications, and it's like so unknown, but amazing.  Yet it's simple and not that engineered, but it was an idea he had, spent time experimenting with, and has shared with a few friends before his mission, Elder O, and us in this apartment.  I want James to meet him, or at least talk to James about these new things.  Our whole apartment is very similar in ways of thinking and understanding, it's so awesome.  I am so happy right now. Anyways, we drive a corolla, P and K drive a ford fusion I think.  What other questions do you have? Thanks so much for everything!

Love, Elder Pyron

Saturday, December 15

Monday, December 10

 Dear family,

     So first off I’m getting transferred...tonight to Redrock Stake right next door.  So crazy stuff.  I’m covering the Cimmaron Ward and the Redrock Singles Ward, btw it’s a real wealthy area I hear.  It’s close though, the building this singles ward meets in is in Westcliff Ward boundaries, but no overlap besides that.  Its weird, I never thought I’d miss these people so much.  But I already miss some a ton.  Things were picking up big time so it’s real sad.  I didn't get to say as many goodbyes yesterday as I would have liked, but I’ll see people around, and I might try and write some.  Yesterday after church we saw the Ts and K for a bit, then we went to Ms for dinner, and then we went to the Js for Preach My Gospel.  I was hoping to visit the Ms, Ms, C, Rs, Ms, A, and  C and maybe some more but oh well.  The ward K moved to (1 minute out of Westcliff boundaries) meets at the singles ward building so I’ll probably see him, and we pass the M, Ms, T, and really the whole Westcliff Ward to get there. 

     After PMG I gave J and J signed ties.  It’s ridiculous how much I’m going to miss a lot of these people.  The Ms, I haven’t mentioned a whole lot in emails, but I probably should have.  C should be having his kid real soon, if not already, December 10th is what they said a while back.  Our investigators are doing good to, we  taught a long lesson with C the other day, who knows the gospel well, has been coming to church almost a year.. she home schools her two kids.  From the home school thing she is friends with some members and has been coming for a while.  She’s a really great lady, and has studied many religions, of all sorts.  We taught L again, the Spirit was very strong, and he told a story about his son a long time ago who drowned, and was being rushed in an ambulance and he was following speeding, and praying, and he miraculously recovered with no brain damage. 

     We also taught M again, he’s so interesting.  The lesson went great, he had read quite a bit from the BOM and found himself a favorite scripture.  He’s so broken and all from his past.  Wait have I mentioned him? It was our second lesson this week with him.  He’s a super rough guy, recently out of jail, almost 30 years old.  He’s white, about 6'1, muscular type build,  long black hair in a pony tail pulled tight and the bottom part of his hair is all shaved off like a Native American thing, he has a little beard with lines shaved through it, and he has scars all over his face and arms.  Our first lesson was nuts.  He was very interested and wanted baptism badly, but has a long path.  He’s very angry, but very eager.  He sits there scarily angry about the bad things he sees in the world, and about his actions in the past... but cries so sincerely with happiness and hope.  He’s clearly confused  and lost but open..  Second lesson he for the most part wasn’t so angry.  He had read from the Book of Mormon, loved it, believes it to be true, and was overall much more happy.  He brought up on his own how he knows he has a long way to go, and that Satan has chains all over him through his addictions. We didn’t even teach the Word of Wisdom.  He was sitting right next to me and smoked a ton, and it was like a cloud of smoke around me the whole time, but I left and didn’t have a hint of smoke on me.   I sat there 45 minutes...  He said he started drinking as a young child, and has a long ways to go obviously.  He gets so happy when we are there, crying, and he is just so indescribably genuinely happy.  He’s excited to fill his life with good things.  He came to church Sunday, he got there 20 minutes early, said he’d stay the whole thing, spent a good amount of time talking to us and M and D.. and he so genuinely delights in meeting happy people.  As rough as he looks the people that met him loved him.  He was wearing some big black jeans, a black unzipped hoodie, and a white shirt with skulls and stuff on it, and was so embarrassed by the reflection of the life he has lead, but was so happy to be there.  He sang every hymn, and after each song, was a little embarrassed and said he tried his best.  He was very attentive and loved it.  At the end of the sacrament meeting, he was still real happy and enjoyed it, but said he had a doctor’s appointment and apologized and left, and said goodbye to the people he had met.  It was sad.  We stopped by his house later because I had said I would get him a shirt and tie because I have one that’s a little too big, but he wasn’t home.  He walks everywhere, no car. 

     So Elder C is training and his greenie's first lesson is with M on Tuesday morning so that should be fun.  We also saw T again. Again, he’s gone, said he was drinking Jack Daniels and cough syrup. He basically stands in his front yard all day at this mad house with like 20 people, some of which are normal.  It's like 8 at night, and we're standing in his front yard, and this old Cadillac out of nowhere pulls up into his front yard right where were standing, and this guy is in there and he like yells, and a lady comes out of the house, gives him a wad of cash through the window, and he gave her a Walmart bag full of something and she goes back inside.  Then he’s like hey elders! and said he’s in the Rainbow Vista Spanish ward, just had elders over for dinner (he had their names right) and said that he was baptized 10 years ago or something, and said his wife sells tamales (that’s what was in the bag) and T is just standing there completely out of it, and then the guy says bye, pulls out and leaves.  So weird. As gone as T is, it's weird how intelligent of things he’ll occasionally say… like about the resurrection, or war in heaven even…so I’m confused about him. 

     On my last SD card there’s a picture of a guy walking with jeans pulled up high, and he’s all tatted and shirtless... I took that a while back cause he looked funny, but met T a month later and just realized that was him in the picture. So there he is.  I want to go back and get a picture with him before I head out, but probably not. 

     So Elder P is leaving Mesquite and going to Redrock and will be in the same 4 man apartment as me so that should be crazy, but good, we both work hard.  Elder M is my new companion... he’s best friends with Elder O who is one of my zone leaders who I recently went on exchanges with.  I like them both a lot… they’re both interesting, and love to learn, and are into neat things.  Elder M is a tiny kid, not into sports at all, but I’m excited, he seems real neat, and he’s really smart.  There’s all sorts of ideas that he and Elder O have that they work on together, wish I had time to explain those.  But O thinks we’ll get along really well.  And maybe in the mornings me and Elder P can go on exchanges to go play basketball.  But yeah, so that’s that, I’m almost done packing and I’m really going to miss a lot of the missionaries here as well, but there’s a few good ones in this zone as well, all my friends here in the Las Vegas Zone just about are leaving anyways Elders B, S, B...  I’ll miss Elders H and D a lot though.  We might get to play basketball in the mornings with Elders H, D and C since I cover that area where they play.  This morning we played for our last time (most likely) it was kind of sad.  But I’m really excited, and hey rich areas can’t be too bad at Christmas time huh? 

     I love you all so much!

     Elder Pyron

Monday, December 3

Hey family!

     I just read Bompa's email.  I'm doing great.  We had C's baptism Saturday which went really well. We got a car that we will have for a little over a week.  It's a dark gray Chevy Cruze, we were the first in the mission to drive one.  It's nice, but so is the weather.  We taught V the third lesson last night, she loves it and understands really well, and really wants to get baptized.  We got a new investigator L who has been married to a member for 20 years and her activity has fluctuated some.  But he's a really good guy and we're excited.  He's been out of work for two years, but he works hard on finding jobs, and doing what he can.  He really loves the church and after 20 years has seen how truly good people we are.  I was on exchanges a while back with our Elders Quorum president (only time we've ever done that) and I dropped of a Thanksgiving basket and he saw me, so we talked and he was really appreciative, and has been to church twice since, with his wife who doesn't normally come.  There a good family, they've got a nice clean home, and are really nice people.  They've got a daughter with 2 young grandkids living there as well.  So I'm really excited for him.

     We also got in with a former from the area book the other day who was really nice.  He's a guy in his 40s named B, and we talked in his home for about 40 minutes.  He has known and loved missionaries for about 10 years, but hasn't really given the message much of a chance, he just knows it's a good one.  He wants to do like weekly Bible study so that should be fun.  Our stake also just had a Christmas concert we got to bring investigators to and that was really good.  They did different Christmas songs with all sorts of genres, but the stake has a lot of talent, and they had a group to come and do the sound and all, ward members had to take shifts sleeping in the gym to guard all the sound equipment.  C was at church yesterday, his wife is expecting soon so he's off work for a few weeks.

     We've been playing basketball in the mornings, 2s with another companionship and M.  One of the other missionaries doesn't play so he writes in his journal or plays piano, but it's a lot of fun.  Oh, and our move to M's is delayed because he has finals and is home later, so were going on like the 12th or so.  And with all the new missionaries, we just heard that after upcoming transfer, Evergreen and Westcliff Ward are going to be their own areas.  That's going to be crazy, I'll probably be gone though, but maybe not so President can avoid double transferring people into a new area.  Or it increases my likelihood of leaving this transfer, on the 9th, so that two missionaries will have been here a full transfer when they break.  But probably not. 

     Time goes by fast.  I'll wrap up now, but let me know if you have any questions.

Love you all so much!

Elder Pyron