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

Moinday, August 10, 2009

There is a boy in our ward who brought one of his co-workers to church. The person who he brought is named Ramon. He came last Sunday and then this Sunday. Sunday is his only day off work. We had a lesson with Ramon at the member's house. Last week we gave him a Book of Mormon. He said that after the lesson and after he got home, he just had a bad heavy feeling in his heart. He read the Book of Mormon and the feeling went away. He knows the Book of Mormon is true. We taught him the Plan of Salvation on Sunday. We invited him to be baptized and he said he had been wondering how and when he could be baptized. We set the date in 3 weeks on the 30th. We had to do almost nothing. He was completely ready. At first we thought he was out of our area, but then we realized that he is about 50 yards inside our area. From his house you can see the city limits sign. So we must have done something right because that was definitely a blessing.

The 13 year old girl(Maggy) and Bernardo are pretty close to baptism too. We are going to see if we can piggy back off Ramon's baptism with them.

So the work is good.

Love,

Elder Meiners

Monday, July 27, 2009

I thought that I was going to get transfered, and Elder Lopez thought I was going to stay. What really happened was Elder Lopez and I got transfered to the other district. I am now the oldest person in the Zone. We are going to live in a six man apartment. It is not meant to hold six but it will.

We had the baptism of Veronica yesterday, and a ton of people came. A bunch of investigators came to the baptism, but they all live out of our area. There is this really cool lady that came to the baptism that is from Mexico and lives in our area, but the english elders are teaching her. It's good that the English Elders have someone to teach otherwise they'd probably get pretty bored.

There is this less active family that wants to come back to church, and we found out they were never confirmed after baptism. So we'll see if we can start teaching them.

Everyone is excited from transfers, because of all the changes, so it should be a good transfer.

Love

Elder Meiners

Monday, July 20, 2009

Zuccini bread yumm yumm.

I saw all the pictures of Deep Creek. It looked pretty fun.

We got rid of the ants pretty easy. They came inside because there was a piece of candy inside. So we just put a piece of candy outside on the patio, and so they are all out there now.

Julia will love trek. It is against the rules to use toothpaste and you don't have to shower for three days, it's great. Oh, but on the first day you are going the walk all day. Then after you walk all day they will feed you some brown flavored water for dinner. Everyone is so hungry they say it's the most delicious thing in the world, but its not. But it's a lot of fun, you meet new people in the stake, and there's a good testimony meeting at the end.

Everything is going well with the work. I'll probably be transfered next week, unless president forgets about me.

Thats all.

Love,
The Elder James Meiners

Monday, July 13, 2009

We had a lot of ants this week. When we went to throw away the trash we found a new chair in the dump, that was pretty cool.

We had a few investigators at church. The nine year old girl Veronica we are teaching will be baptized in two weeks. Most of our investigators are part-member families.


To answer your QUESTIONS (about Family Home Evening):


What kinds of things did you like the most?
scripture reading ha ha just kidding, the games, especially Spoons.

Do you think having FHE made us closer as a family?
yep

What didn’t you like?
I didn't like how it took everyone 20+ minutes to gather together.

Any other comments?
We all became good readers from reading the scriptures.


That's kind of weird all the girls went To Deep Creek and "the boys" weren't there. That's the first time that has happened.

Enjoy your summer.

Love,
The Elder James Meiners

Monday, July 6, 2009

That's a bummer that Grandma Joyce fell. I hope that Grandpa Jim will still be able to get to his appointments. I will keep them in my prayers.

We watched fireworks at the park. We talked to a lot of people but didn't get any new investigators there. Earlier in the week we went to Pep Boys and we talked to a member from an English ward there. Later in the day we were tracting a street and we ran into him again. He told us some spanish neighbors he had that just moved in. When we knocked on the door the lady before we said anything immediately invited us in. They are pretty cool, we haven't gone back yet, but they are about the only poeple we found last week.

Things are pretty slow around here, but we had a few investigators at church. Not much new.

Thats All.

Love,

The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 29, 2009

This week was good. There is a part-member family with a husband who is not a member. When we went over we talked about how he felt and asked him if he would like to take the lessons. He said that would be ok, so we thought that was pretty cool.

Then at church there was this investigator that showed up by herself. At first we thought she was a member because she asked to see the bishop, and wanted to know what boundaries she was in. So that was pretty cool.

It's been kind of warm lately. About 100 degrees. When we went tracting this guy was on his way out in a hurry and said he didn't have any time. Then Elder Lopez said "Well I just have a question for you". "NO, NO you don't". Then Elder Lopez made a sad face and said "I was just going to ask for some water." The guy felt so bad he invited us in even though he was on the way out. He talked to us for about 10 minutes or so. I thought that was pretty funny.

I still don't know what we'll do for 4th of July.

Well that's all thats going on around here.

Love,
The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 22, 2009

I don't know if Julia will get her licence on the first try. It is against tradition. Danny passed on his first try but it was because the lady was so old she didn't notice that he hit the curb. He got lucky.

Elder Lopez speaks Spanish perfectly and he's really cool. Things are super slow right now. We didn't have any at church while last week we had 7. Maybe Elder Thatcher was just getting blessed on his last week.

I fell off my bike the other day. It might have been because I went off a ramp. We were getting out of an appointment, and when we left the kids wanted us to play with them. We told them we needed to go. Then a 12 year old went off a ramp in the middle of the street. It looked easy, so to make them happy I figured I'd go off it real quick. So I gained some speed and went straight into the ramp. I leaned forward so I wouldn't fall back and then I ended up leaning to far so I rolled over the handlebars and plopped on the ground. That was 3 days ago and I was feeling good enough to play basketball today, so I'm fine.

That's all.

Love,

Elder Meiners

Monday, June 15, 2009

Elder Thatcher is gone. I am with some other English Elders right now companionless. Elder Lopez will be my new companion. We did a lot of cleaning and the area is ready for Elder Lopez. There are only 2 or 3 real Mexicans in the mission. Both Elder Thatcher and I got one. ElderLopez is from Mexico so hopefully people will think we are both Mexican and let us in more. I'm really excited to have a real Mexican companion.

We had the baptism of Patricia last night. She was introduced to the church through some members in a nearby English ward. She cleans houses for a living and she cleans their house. The people introduced her to the church a long time ago, so we didn't really know about them. Then she was telling us and and our ward mission leader about them. Then without her knowing the ward mission leader invited the people whose house she cleans to the baptism. They were all crying and excited because Patricia didn't know they would be there and the people didn't know she was going to be baptised. It was great for everybody. I got to baptize her but we were in such a rush I couldn't take pictures.

I think I said I would send pictures a while ago but forgot, so next p-day I will print some out and send them.

We had a record for this area yesterday 0f 7 at church. So everything is going very well.

I will probably be here 3 more months (2 transfers).

That's all.

Love

The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 8, 2009

Family,

Actually the plan worked really well. Last Saturday when we went over to this one family we asked all the family for referrals. Immediately the daughter called her friend to see if she could come. She could not come last Sunday but this Sunday she came. She loved church and can't wait to come back next week. I didn't talk to her much but I heard from the daughter she wants to get baptized. Now all we need to do is get it approved by the girls dad. Out of the 4 investigators that came to church yesterday 2 were friends of members.

My companion and I bought soccer balls last p-day because we figured if we speak spanish we need to know how to play soccer. I was practicing and I can do a rainbow now. That's when you get the ball between your legs then kick it behind your back and over your head. Gotta blend in with the culture.

That's good that Danny is working long and hard. I don't think I ever worked an entire 40 hour week at Randstadt. The most it ever said on my paycheck was 39.75 hours. I always got there a little late. And dad and I always took long friday lunches. Way better than working.

Love.
The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Elders in the neighboring zone started looking through the phone book and highlighting any of the Spanish names.  Then they looked them up on the map and are geographically organizing them. The phone book is 328 pages long. I have highlighted 94 pages worth.

Then we made a plan where we wrote all the last names of the ward families on the board. Then we made a board for the different steps of missionary work that they could do. For every step they do they get a star sticker. The steps are: write down 3 friends that might be interested, focus on one friend, invite them to an FHE, invite them to a FHE with us, commit to taking the lessons, come to church, progressing investigator, and baptism. As they help their friends complete these steps they earn service from the missionaries. It's a way to be more organized about the referrals of the members, and to start some healthy competition to do missionary work. Everyone so far has liked it.

So we've been changing things around a bit over here, and hopefully it will get this place fired up.

Love,

Elder James Meiners

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

On Memorial day we played soccer against another branch. It was fun

because everybody was good. Then the missionaries and the Singles branch

played a game of softball. Our team was down but then I got a hit, my

companion got a hit, another person got a hit. Then a big guy hit a

grand slam and we won.

We had all our main investigators at church for the second week in a

row. They are all doing good. One will get baptized June 14, and the

other will be baptized July 5 as a surprise birthday present for her

daughter. We have been getting a lot of referrals recently, so everything

is going really well.

The Elder James Meiners

Monday, May 18, 2009

The work is picking up.  We started teaching a man named Cresencio who lives with his wife in the mountains. It takes like 25 minutes to get to their house. They were a referral from church headquarters, so that's how we found them. I felt like I was in a foreign country because as he was leading us to the little trailer he lived in he was carrying around a rifle in case anything came at us. He just works on the orchard he lives on all day, then he has Sunday free. So if we find him a ride it should be pretty easy to get him to come to church. 

The kids of the Covarrubias were in San Diego but the Covarrubias were confirmed and everything went well.

Tell Danny Happy Graduation.

The Elder James Meiners

Monday, May 11, 2009

I will send some picture of the baptism/ any other pictures I might have

in the mail. I was good talking to you.  (He called us on Mother's Day.)  I've told you pretty much all that's happened yesterday.

Love,

The Elder James Meiners

Monday, May 4, 2009

Yes, I have my mask. My luchador mask. From Tijuana, Mexico. There are some members in our branch and the dad goes to Tijuana every weekend. He has a bunch of friends down there who sell that kind of stuff. So this past week we had talked to his son and mentioned how we wanted some luchador masks (like the ones from Nacho Libre). So when we talked to the dad on Friday we asked if he had been to Mexico to get the masks, and he told us we could just go to Home Depot or maybe even Walmart to get masks. Later when he told his son that we had passed by the son told him "no, not the medical masks, the luchador masks". Then the dad was like "oh, that's why they gave me a funny look." So he was in Tijuana this weekend and we got the masks. And we got flags too. I wish we could wear those around all day.

Yesterday was a pretty dead day at church. The Covarrubias had to give their daughter a ride to Northern california, so they couldn't make it.

But as far as I know everything is still on for the baptism.

I'll call around then about 5:00 your time. That works good for us.

Talk to you Sunday,

Elder Meiners

Monday, April 27, 2009

This is one of the cooler parts of the mission. It has been nice this week-- about 80s. Except for Tuesday, the car thermometer said 110. While tracting we got offered water so many times. We always accept the water bottles because if you recycle two, that's 10 cents. My companion also passes the time tracting by picking up coins. In the last month he has made almost 4 dollars in change. Good work Elder Thatcher. The desert is way hotter than here, so it's nice.

On May 10 (Mother's day) the Covarrubias are going to get baptized. The two of them are so nice and have accepted everything. I think the past couple months they have not had work so that they would be more able to accept the gospel. I am confident that shortly after their baptism they'll find work. The Branch is small so they basically know everybody now.They've only been a few times, but they fit in perfectly.

They have 16-year old twin boys that we haven't yet started teaching. After we get the parents baptized hopefully we will be able to start working on the kids.

Happy 25th Anniversary

The Elder James Meiners

April 20, 2009

Only English Elders have to ride bikes. Our areas are bigger, so in the mission there is only like two sets of Spanish missionaries on bike. So right now I am in a car. But the mission is doing an interesting thing, they are raising the amount of missionaries in the mission to about 200, while in the meantime reducing the number of cars. But I don't have to worry about that-- our area is too big.
The Covarubias are doing really good. They don't have work right now so they spend a lot of time reading.
　
I haven't got a new pair of shoes yet because the ones I have are still OK.

Not too much other than that
Elder Meiners

Monday, April 14, 2009

The Branch hadn't seen new investigators for so long, they practically attacked the Covarubia's when they came in. I think they met every single person in the branch. The members that live on their street are going to have an FHE (Family Home Evening) with them tonight. It's so nice when members do missionary work for us. There were also a few others there. We really used the "You have to come, It's Easter. That's like the two days everybody has to go to church Christmas and Easter."

This week I went on exchanges with an English Elder. We were talking with this lady and she let us come in and teach her a lesson. There are certain key phrases we use as transitions like asking them what is a prophet, or saying the name Joseph Smith. And a few times I would do it, look at my companion, remember he didn't speak Spanish, then keep on going. But I wanted to take a break somehow, so I had him read one of the scriptures.

Then later in the day we visited another person, and when we first got there I asked to use the bathroom, and the English missionary was left with only people that spoke Spanish. He tried talking to them by repeating what he heard me say which was "puedo ir al bano" Which means 'Can I use the bathroom?" Then they told him I was already in there, and asked him if he wanted to go in with me. Then he just stood there kind of confused and got a little red, and then they started laughing. Afterwards when I told him what everything meant he thought it was funny.

The Elder James Meiners
　
　

Monday, March 23, 2009

That's exciting to hear about Kara's baby.

I am being transferred to Temecula. The richest place in the whole mission. For example, there are Elders who live there that live in the guest house of a mansion. It will be my responsibility to hunt down the Spanish people as they are cleaning houses and doing yardwork on the rich Temecula houses. I will be with Elder Thatcher. He is pretty new in the mission.

As a going away present Anabella bought me a backpack, because mine was all ripped. I feel satisfied with the work that I did here in Jurupa. A lot of the people in the branch seemed appreciative of the work that I had done there. Time to go somewhere else and do it all over again.

The Elder James Meiners

Baptism of Alejandra, Danny and Christian

Alejandra and her children: Christian, Jason, Cidney, Danny


Danny and Christian were baptised by Elder Meiners on February 22.


Alejandra was baptised by Elder Anderson on February 28.

March 9, 2009

Wow. Kara sent me a picture and she is big. (Her baby is due in one week.) I just came back from Little Ceaser's and I ate the whole pizza, so I expect I'll look like her pretty soon.

We found a cool new family this week, they speak English perfectly but prefer Spanish, which is the best. Since Alejandra is baptized now we have been trying to find some new investigators, because all we have now is Anabella and Erasmo. Things are a little slow, but good.
I can't really think of anything else.

The Elder James Meiners

March 2, 2009

Yes, I got the package. I ate all the slim jims, not all the candy though. I wouldn't want to get fat.

Alejandra got baptized Saturday and all three (with her 2 children) were confirmed Sunday. I could not stop thinking about her baptism all day Saturday, probably because we tracked all day and had nothing else to think about. I love visiting that family, too bad now that they are baptized we won't get/need to visit them quite as much. I'll send some pictures of the baptism.

Anabella and Erasmo came to church and are completely ready for baptism. They just don't feel like they know enough/ aren't ready to go against their family. So that's who we are working with now.
I'll probably only be here another 3 weeks and then go to another area. This so far has been my favorite.

The Elder James Meiners

February 23, 2009

I just wrote an email, and then it deleted itself, so I'll summarize.

Christian and Danny Cerda were baptized Sunday(by me). Because of the nose surgery Alejandra was still not physically able to be baptized. It will heal by Saturday, and we will baptize her Saturday so that next Sunday they can all be confirmed together.

Anabella came to church and the baptism service. Afterwards she asked the kids if the water was cold because she said that she wanted to be baptized. They told her it was really cold, which was true. So we are going to keep working with Anabella because she wants to get baptized and is close, but her only doubt is that she is the only one that goes to church in her family and she wants them to be there with her. So our goal is to set a date with her this week.

The Elder James Meiners

February 17, 2009

Family,

That's a good idea, I'll just tell the members of our branch that for
every referral they give us, well give them a free ice cream cone. One of
the members of our ward Brother Rodriguez is a manager in construction.
He picked up this man for work and told him a little about the church. I
haven't met the family yet but tonight we are going to visit the family
with Brother Rodriguez. We always bring the Cerda family over for FHE (Family Home Evening) at the Rodriguez'. He said he felt bad that he wasn't finding anybody
himself for us to teach, so that's when he found the man and told us
about him. He was so excited to tell us that he had found somebody.

The Cerda Family (Alejandra and the two sons) are still scheduled to be
baptized this Sunday. We have reviewed all the baptismal questions and
they're ready. So I'm pretty excited about that.

The Ochoa family is struggling, the husband prevented her to come to church this Sunday. She
knows church is a family thing, and wants her whole family to go. The rest of the family is just a little lazy, so that makes it harder for her to go. We still have high hopes for them, we just need a good talk with them at our next lesson.

We have started teaching a few other families in the past couple weeks.
One of them has a Mexican flag with the Virgin Mary in the middle, and
they say they know Joseph Smith is a prophet, they just don't understand
that their church isn't true. We have 2 other families where the kids
ask the parents questions that the parents don't know the answers to. So they
have started listening to the lessons. In one of the families, the
Esperanza family, they had a lot of questions about the Plan of
Salvation, so we taught that to them first. Then during the lesson she
burst out "I just don't understand why there are so many churches, the
Catholics, the Christians, the Mormons, I just don't get it."
So we have a return appointment today, and we are going to explain about
the Apostasy and why there are so many churches. Then we'll teach them
the Restoration and we'll see what they think.
Mostly everybody we are teaching is a family, which is really good.

Elder Anderson and I get along really well. I've been in the area for
about 4-5 months, and I hope I stay here for a while.

Keep up the good missionary work,
The Elder James Meiners

February 9, 2009

I got the pants and shirts you sent me. Right after I got them I took out one of the shirts and wore it to dinner. On the way I told Elder Anderson there was a 90% chance that I was going to spill on it. At dinner we had grape juice. It was filled pretty high and when I went to take a drink, it spilled all over me. I spilled 3/4 of the glass. The other Elder said it looked like I poured it on myself. I ran out into the bathroom to go clean the shirt. The Brother told me to take my shirt of to clean it. So I'm in the bathroom of a members' house without a shirt on, scrubbing as fast as I can to get the stain out. The Brother gave me one of his shirt to wear for later on. I walked back in to the kitchen, and the other Elders were amazed that I had gotten the stain out so fast, when in reality I was wearing a different shirt. Then he gave me back my shirt on Sunday, so I ended up with 4 new shirts in one day, 3 from you and one other.

Anabella Ochoa, and the Cerda Family came to church. The rest of the Ochoa's are a little slower. Anabella is almost ready for baptism. Elder Anderson and I will stay here for at least 6 more weeks, because today is transfers.

The Elder James Meiners

February 2, 2009

Family.

I wrote a message last week but it got deleted. ooops

We are teaching two families right now. The Ochoa family and the Cerda family(Alejandra and her kids). The second we taught the Torres family about the Word of Wisdom they started running away from us, and we haven't been able to get in since.

But Alejandra and her two kids over 8-- Christian and Danny-- are getting baptized. We found her 4 weeks ago today. It was 8 o'clock at night and we were in the most ghetto part of our area. A street with shoes thrown over the telephone pole and everything. The street is called Gould and in the Sister Missionaries Area Book it says to never go on Gould street ever. We were walking out of an apartment complex and she was doing her laundry, there was a fence in between us that was almost as tall as I was. I just yelled over the fence and asked her if she wanted us to share a message about Jesus Christ. She said we should come back tomorrow at the same time. She's really humble and has accepted everything we've said, so she's going to get baptized Feb 22.

Then there is another family-- the Ochoa Family-- that will probably be baptized in about a month. Anabella( the mom) and the two kids Leslie(16) and Ryan(9) and Erasmo (Anabellas brother) They have all come to church and there is nothing really in their way. They just need a little more time. So, if everything goes well those 2families will be baptized next month. So, that's who we're teaching.

Love,
The Elder Meiners

Happy Martin Luther King Day! 1/19/09

Family,

For P-day (Preparation Day) the zone finally decided to do something other than basketball. We played ultimate frisbee. It was awesome. I'm not as fast as I used to be, but my throw has gotten a lot better. I realized that everyday when I knock on doors I use my wrist muscles. Frisbee throws are all in the wrist so I can throw it pretty far now. I would get the frisbee, then some of the fast Elders would run down the hill and I would just throw the length of the field so them. Everyone was amazed, because every week they see me play basketball, and they see how uncoordinated and bad I am, and then they saw me play frisbee, and I could actually play.

I found out the Torres family is trying to move to a cheaper house, so they keep on looking for houses on Sunday. And Alejandra would have come but one of her old boyfriends hit her or something like that-- that involved the police. The police said they would come down to file the report on Sunday at 1:10, church starts at 1. She said she'd come for the second part but the police didn't even come until 3 or 4. But they're still doing pretty good. Our goal is to find some new people, because some of these are dropping out on us. I still think the people we have have a lot of potential, so I would like to stay in the area a few more months and help them progress.

THE Elder Meiners

1/12/09

Family,

The Torres family is going alright. They forgot that church was changed to 1:00. The 11 year old daughter reads more than anyone else. She said she just finished reading the book Artimus Fowl, and when she went back to return it she decided just to check out a small book, because she wanted to spend her time learning about Jesus. She has to read an hour a day for school, so she reads the Book of Mormon. We just need to get the Mom more into it. She agrees with everything we say, she just has a hard time going it.

We found a cool family this week. It was 8 oclock at night on a Monday and we were walking out of an apartment complex. As we were passing by, this lady doing her laundry outside we talked to her for just like a minute, her name was Alejandra. Then we went back and taught a lesson on Tuesday. Passed by Thursday to remind them of their Friday appointment, then gave them a tour of the church Saturday. They were going to go to church Sunday but her dad came up from Mexico to visit them. So tonight we are going to have them come with us to a member's house to have a Family Home Evening. We have seen them everyday for the last week and they are really cool. Alejandra says the Bible confuses her, and that she's been around to a bunch of different churches, but she doesn't really go to church. Which is good because it means they're looking, and except for church on Sunday they've kept every commitment.

I finally went to Walmart and developed some pictures.
The Elder James MEiners

Happy New Year 1-05-09

Last week I got my new companion, Elder Anderson. In the mission we have all these weird terms. For example, if you're the missionary's trainer, you're their "dad". If you'rr the missionary's second companion, you're their "step dad". If your companion goes to train, the missionary that your old companion is training, you're their "mom". My old companion Elder Farrington, after he was with me, went to go train Elder Anderson, so Im Elder Anderson's "mom", Elder Farrington being his "dad". Then after Elder Farrington, Elder Anderson had me as a companion, so Im his "step dad". So I am his "mom" and his "step dad".

Elder Anderson is so smart, he's been out for 5 months and his Spanish is amazing. I hardly have to teach him anything, I love it. He said that he likes the way I teach and he could pick up on a dew things, but he looks like he already knows everthing. It makes being a companion a lot more fun. We are going pretty good, we are working with the Torres family.

Julia, Mariela, and Aida. We gave them a tour of the church building, and they really liked it. On Sunday their son took the car, so they couldn't make it to church, but they're doing really good. We're going to try to have a Family Home Evening tonight with them.

I am really looking forward to this transfer, I know it will be really good.
The Elder James Meiners