Elder Meiners is Home

Elder Meiners flew home to Baltimore, Maryland on January 12th, 2010. The next night he was formally released as a missionary.

We are very proud that James was able to fulfill an honorable mission, and are enjoying having him home with us for awhile.

January 4, 2010

Recently something happened that hasn't happened fir 9 years. I have been taking good care of my teeth--brushing them/flossing them/using mouthwash --all that good stuff. But about three nights ago I was flossing between my two front teeth. The space was tight and the floss was stuck like always. Just as I'm thinking to myself "My teeth are looking good", I pull the floss out and my cap came out. My companions almost died laughing. I will need to go to the dentist when I get back.

The work is good.

I'll see you next week.

Love,
Elder James Meiners

December 28, 2009

It's my birthday. My companions will take me out to a steakhouse today. It will be good.

There was this lady from Mexico to visit her daughter. She had gone to church multiple times in Mexico, and this week we taught her all the lessons and baptized her on Sunday.

Looks like I'm following Mom's advice and going out with a bang.

I forgot to send my testimony on Christmas. So here it is: Jesus Christ lives and gives us agency by overcoming death and hell. We have the restoration through Joseph Smith. The Spirit teaches all truth, which I have felt many times.

Well, I'll talk to you next year.

Elder James Meiners

December 21, 2009

I will call around noon.

Dec 14, 2009

Yes, I got the package awhile ago.

There is nothing I really need especially because I'd just have to send it back.

The lady who got baptized is Guadalupe. Her son-in-law is now coming to church and we are teaching him. He's the only one who came to church.

On the phone call next week I'll talk more.

Elder Meiners

December 7, 2009

I'm going to send some pictures in the mail this week. And I'll let you know in the letter how I'm doing.

Love,
Elder James Meiners

(Here they are:)

Guadalupe was baptized recently.

November 30, 2009

I'm glad to hear that everyone is getting older except for you. It sounds like you are beating the system.

We had a crazy week. Immigration came to a part-member illegal family the day before Thanksgiving at 2 o'clock in the morning. They banged on the door for 40 minutes. The sister asked, "Who are you looking for?" They didn't know who they were looking for and the family didn't answer the door.

The old lady had just decided she wanted to be baptized, but has to stay in Riverside for a little while. We are going to go look at houses with them.

Love,
James

Happy Birthday Mom!

( a letter to Cheri)

Happy Birthday Mom!

We spent Thanksgiving at a members house , and they fed us regular Turkey and Mashed Potatoes. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving dinner.

I have seen lots of parents who let their kids do whatever they want. The kids are all lazy bums or super rebellious.

All of us kids turned out pretty good. Except for Julia, of course. (ha ha, just kidding) That means you did a good job. Thank you for not letting us be the lazy bums we wanted to be.

Enjoy the Christmas season.
Love,
The James

November 23, 2009

Yes, we crushed those old guys 32 to 14. 5 out of 5 times I got on base. Out of the 5 times I got on bases I scored 4 times. I did miss some catches in the outfield, but our 32 runs made up for it.

The investigators we are teaching are:

Guadalupe, a Grandma whose kids are members (has been coming to church)

Ysidra and her daughter Sandra. We found them tracting.

Freddy, nonmember son of an active family (came to church Sunday)

Eric and Oscar, kids of a recently baptized woman and less active man who served a mission (came to church Sunday)

We are going to a member's house on Thanksgiving. They used to live in Temecula when I was there. They moved here and now they are in the ward again.

Love,
Elder Meiners

November 16, 2009

That's a bummer that everybody was split up. Columbia 1st Ward does have some cool families like the Olsens.

We've had a few at church the last couple weeks. Noone that sticks out really.

We live with a missionary who extended his mission for 30 days. He just went home but there are still two weeks until transfers. That means the missionary who lives with us doesn't have a companion. He will be rotating between going out with priests in his ward, going with us, and going with another set of missionaries.

Elder Juarez is doing good. He's still getting used to everything.

We lost softball to the old people again. Not my fault. I was 2 for 3.

Love,
Elder Meiners

November 9, 2009

We found a really sweet investigator this week names Ysidra. We will visit her Tuesday. There are some other investigators too. Pretty normal things happening.

My companion, Elder Juarez, is from Canada. He's a lot of fun. He already speaks Spanish. We are keeping ourselves busy.

We lost to the old guys in softball in the ninth inning two weeks in a row. Pretty embarrassing.

E. Meiners

November 4, 2009

I have about 3 minutes left, but that is cool how Jared is coming here. It will be interesting to see if he will serve around me. 2 minute lef.t All is well. All is good.I'm glad you're not wasting your energy by worrying about me.

Love,
Elder Meiners

Monday, October 19, 2009

I'm going to train a new missionary. I find out Wednesday who it is.

That investigator you were talking about got baptized yesterday, it was cool. She got permission to be confirmed, too, so that this weekend she can go on a temple trip with the Relief Society to do Baptisms.

And tell mom not to worry about me. I'm a missionary. I'm basically invincible.

It's cooled off a little, but it was still in the nineties part of last week.

Elder James Meiners

October 5, 2009

We have an investigtor that's really cool that went to all four sessions. I sat with her so I watched all of General Conference in Spanish. Cristopherson has really good Spanish. I was impressed.

Things are going pretty good. We got shirts for our missionary softball team. My nickname is Hiccups, because I've had them for a long time.

Love,
Elder Meiners

Monday, September 28, 2009

A few days ago on Friday we went to home for the night and saw that two of our tires were completely flat. At first we thought our tires were slashed. But then we realized that we just ran over some screws. It was late but the other Elders in our apartment both knew how to work on cars. They were kind of excited to stay out and work on the car a little. We just put on the spare and put air in the tire so it could get to Pep Boys. They just pluged the tires so it wasn't that expensive.

We had 4 investigators at church. They told me 5 minutes before the Gospel Doctrines class that I would be teaching. But the class was really small so I didn't feel intimidated.

We are cycling through a lot of investigators-- picking up and dropping a lot of people. It's like we are getting a lot of work done and going nowhere at the same time. But we are pretty busy so that's good.

Thats all,
Elder Meiners

Monday, September 21, 2009

This week was pretty good. We had stake conference so not that many investigators came to church on Sunday (because it was English) but next week should be better. We have a lot of investigators but they are all at the make or break point. Either they are going to be really good and progress or fall off. Which makes it really easy to work hard, because there is a lot to do.

We play softball every week with old people. Last week I was four for four, and this week three for three. Maybe next week they won't put me on the bottom of the lineup. It's pretty easy because they are all like 60 years old and the holes in the field are pretty big. Somehow we've still lost both weeks.

love,
Elder Meiners

Monday, September 14, 2009

We just had a baptism on Saturday, that was exciting. There is a less active father and the wife was just baptized. The kids haven't been baptized but they've been coming to the first hour of church. There were 3 investigators at church. And various others that didn't come. There is a lot of potential here and there are so many Spanish people here.

Everyone talks down Hemet. But they are crazy. There is so much that's about to happen here. Its pretty exciting.

Elder Bustillos is Mexican, but he lived in Utah. He doesn't know where in Mexico he's originally from because his dad is adopted. I am as Mexican now as I'll ever be. It's the end of the summer and I'm pretty dark. In the past week there have been two bilingual people who after I spoke spanish to them asked me if I spoke English too. Another person said I looked full Mexican (but I really don't). So I guess I'm doing a good job of blending in with the culture.
Thats all.

Love,
Elder Meiners

Monday, September 7, 2009

I was talking to another missionary when I saw him at a temple trip. He said "Its on fire in Hemet right now." I asked "Oh how hot is it? like 115 degrees", "No, its literally on fire". That's where I am now-- in Hemet. I hear its really hot, but how hot can it get in September? I am now with another spanish companion Elder Bustillos. So this area should be really good. It's really spanish. Im excited to make things happen here.Not much to report other than transfers.LoveElder Meiners

Monday, August 31, 2009

Church went really good on Sunday.
130 at sacrament meeting
10 investigators3 baptized
90 in attendance at baptism

The coolest thing happened Sunday too. We tracting into this lady and she came to church on Sunday. When she got there she saw the Covarrubias(the recent converts), as it turns out they are really good friends with each other. They used to be neighbors for about a year. In fact they had mentioned sharing the gospel to her, but we didn't know who she was and we had never got her information. By chance though we met her through tracting. She will go nice with the Santa Margarita Branch seeing as her name is Margarita. We will take the Covarrubias' with us to teach Margarita the lessons. One of the Covarrubias boys came to church which really surprised us, and after dinner with them we set an appointment to come back and teach one of the daughters. The daughter said if her brother could go to chruch, she can definitely go to church.

Thats all.
Love,
Elder Meiners

Monday,. August 24, 2009

Family,

The other missionaries wanted to play basketball before playing soccer for the p-day activity. So Im pretty exhausted right now. So I'll talk> to you later BYE.





Just kidding, I'll write more. Sunday was a sweet day at church. All of our investigators that are getting baptised next week came. Everything seems in order with those three. Then 2 others came too. There were actually so many people at church the priests had to rebless the sacrament to get everybody.
Our branch is doing really well with missionary work. I had lost my camera for about a month. The other day when I was looking for my lost pen, I looked through my backpack and found my camera.

Temecula proved to be a fruitful area. And to think that I wanted to get transfered. Last transfer when the mission president was talking to me in reference to this transfer he said, "Do you think if you stayed you would survive"? I guess he thought it would kill me or something, but it didn't, this has been by far been my favorite transfer here. Everyone in the branch knows me because I've been here so long. Everyone is also really good friends with Elder Lopez.

Maryland and Temecula seem to been oddly connected. Lots of people from here go there and vise verse. Brother Staggs, Jared Yarn, Me.

Enjoy the school year.
Love ,
Elder Meiners