Written November 24, 2014

Family,

Mom, I didn´t have the money to buy my ice cream today, like I wanted, but I was going to buy strawberry (hoping that the natural flavor of strawberry bits turned out good). They have the usual flavors and cookies and cream is really common and also pistachio.

Josh, people here have cars, so it isn´t that big of a deal. But I still try not to show them pictures of our house or anything, because they would die.  

(I was gonna say this anyways, but now it is relevant). Bowser/Ganondorf 1 life Final Destination (anytime any place still applies, right?)

Mikey, your baby just has a ton of bling and stuff. Some people I have met shake hands so weird, haha. Love you too!

Auntie Trudy, Yeah, the plan of salvation is really comforting. Love you lots!

The group hug picture is weird, but I also understand you´re trying not to drop the baby. 

Dad,

Yeah, it turns out that lacking confidence holds us back a lot. I think for that reason sometimes everyone thinks I am a crappy missionary (or maybe it actually makes me worse). Maybe the days until I am home will be shorter than he thinks. Just kidding, but more on that to come. No one cares about duplicating work. That is the devil trying to keep you from doing genealogy. Just do it. 

Dad looks just like grandpa Crapo, says the mission president´s wife

Mom, I am all nervous about sending vitamins and food now because they said they can put the mission president in prison. If you could, see what the actual policy is so that they don´t cross with anything illicit. If medicine is illegal, it makes me kind of angry that they endangered me by telling me to bring a first aid kit and all those medicines when I came here. But, then again, I am not very sure. Because I thought that lots of people crossed the border to go grocery shopping and never thought it was that strict. Also, I crossed with nuts and stuff, I think that was bad, but oh well. Squirrels are so annoying and renters and your tree looks good and sometimes I forget to pray for you guys, so I am sorry. Love you!

This week:

Thanksgiving results: mashed potatoes and gravy, like you´d expect. Vegetables, good, except they ran out of fresh green beans and I had to buy canned (you CAN´t always get what you want). The turkey and cranberry sauce turned out really weird but still good enough for seconds. The pumpkin cereal bar was good, but not really like pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving Dinner I made for us

I am not going to get changed this transfer.

The best way to eat a persimmon it turns out is to spread it on bread, if you guys ever buy them. It´s basically a really bruised tomato filled with weird apricot jam.

I wrote josh and lindsay and ben letters, but I forgot and only took photos of Josh´s letter. Hopefully more letters to come, but keep an eye out for them.

I am getting pretty fast at eating pomegranates, A medium sized one in like 10 minutes.

When they try to commit us to do stuff, they make us say ¨Yes!¨ and if it isn´t loud enough we have to say it again sometimes, but that itsn´t the pattern we learned in the temple. 

Josh´s letter to me is never going to come because people are already receiving stuff from November. I think maybe it got lost in another zone or something.

Sometimes I feel so inadequate. Also, I noticed that the manual they gave us to manage stress says the complete opposite of what the leaders tell us frequently. (just an observation). I told the president I was really discouraged in our interview and he told me that sometimes we have to work with numbers because we´re human, but that my mission isn´t a waste and that God sees our efforts the same and celebrates 4-6 lessons the same as 25-30.

I bet you didn´t know that it snowed in Ensenada! (just kidding, it´s is just fog)

Turning 20 is so lame:

I am still having diarrhea (I don´t think it is from parasites like they said, but I think I answered the questions correctly, so they will probably have to give me another prescription). But that health problem is on back burner right now because it isn´t very severe.

A cold that began on my birthday (I am almost over it now). 

My first bad sciatic pain (cursed genetics).I went to the doctor and they said it wasn´t a big deal and gave me tribedoce injections, but said I wouldn´t have to rest that much (and I rested a bunch because I was limping all over with a lot of pain) because they weren´t that insistent about resting (if you can´t work or if the appointment is far away) and so it was just getting inflamed again but what I really need is pain medicine "I´m not an addict, just 40 mg of dilatid," like the video say," por favor". 

The doctor also made me feel really bad because she said I had bad posture and walked bad and I just felt criticized.

Anyways, today, I went to a real doctor (you know what they say about primary care doctors, just kidding they helped me a lot). and he said I need to rest a week and take different medicine but they were  thinking that they would have to send me home , but I got x rays and there is nothing wrong with my bones,  just my muscles, so they were really relieved. (the mission doctor sounded so relieved and started telling me that I was a good missionary and stuff). 

So, now my companion and I are doing our last errands before locking ourself in the house for a week. How boring it is going to be. I feel bad about getting in the way of the Lord´s work, but oh well.

I am fine though, don´t worry. After this week, I will be perfect. The only bad thing, is that I spent almost all my money (almost 150 dollars) on medicine and doctor´s visits and so I am going have to wait for the reimbursement to buy ice cream and our numbers are going to be all 0's this week.

Look, my milk has manga

I also burnt a sock on accident to celebrate some anniversary (like those dumb missionaryeis). But really I was trying to heat lentils (for hot water bottle effect) in the microwave to calm my suffering backside and the second time it burned,

I accidentally burned a sock

I love you guys a lot and just keep swimming and don´t worry and eternal family and I will send you more pictures next week and hold to the rod and it gets better and betters and love you bunches (especially yous arms) and more than apple pie and chevrolet and t hugs and gay love for josh and love you guys and eternal family

Written November 17, 2014

Family,

Josh,
Yeah, I don´t know about your internships and stuff. . They talked a lot about reverence with ipads  here and now I am brainwashed to never play games on the ipad in church because I would feel really guilty, but writing missionaries is okay.  love ya

Auntie Trudy,

I´m glad that you were able to help someone on your visiting teaching route. Those things make a huge difference, I think. And it is okay to be proud of other people (like Aunt Celia) and even yourself, but there is a difference from being proud and prideful, I think. (see ser vs estar). Yeah, family thanksgivings are great. That´s why it is one of my favorite holidays. Love you!

Grandma, I also always had a problem with touching your dolls, haha. Thanks for the birthday wishes, love you guys!

Dad, Colorado is so cold, I don´t know how I am going to live there. Or be a functional adult, because driving in the snow makes me afraid. Yeah, there are whatever chain restaurant you want here, but the other food is better, I think, and cheaper. Yeah, it is a lot of pressure to have a 4.0 from the time you are 1, poor little baby. Also, If they had asked me that question about my testimony, I would have started to question it and thought it wasn´t very strong. I don´t know why I am not confident like that. I haven´t gotten a flu shot because the mission gave flu shots in february or something and I already had mine and so they are going to reimmunize everyone in february which is not fair, because I did right and got all of my immunizations on time before I came out. 

Lindsay, Thank! Love you!

This week: 

I just wanted to clarify that I just want a bottle or two of one a day generic multivitamins, not millions of types of different vitamins. and that it isn´t incredibly urgent that you send the package because you have the rest of november and all of december for it to arrive and for them to pick it up.

Something that I was actually thinking is that you could send me stories like you did, Mom, with the vinegar bottle, but they could be stories from your life like when you were a kid or stories that your grandma told you that are from our ancestors and things like that. And you could upload them also to FamilySearch, like the vinegar bottle story so that people can see that grandma always told you that. Also, Ben can send me drawings and st uff.

If I don´t receive josh´s letter tomorrow in the Zone Conference, I am going to believe that it won´t ever come. Last week a sister missionary received more letters from Japan, like always.

Ben, I also had/having diarrhea. I think that it is kuvad. (I didn´t even eat anything suspicious really. Yeah, I made a soup from chicken feet and vegetables, but I boiled it for like an hour. 

Lindsay,  Mackenzie can probably learn Spanish too. You can make her watch cartoons in Spanish because the world is becoming so competitive that ¨my baby can read´ is obsolete and now it is ´my baby can speak seven world languages and file my taxes´.

I don´t know about being able to live a celestial law, but maybe I don´t have to be able to live any celestial law in this life (except maybe the law of chastity), but everyone acts like if we can´t live it in this life, we won´t be able to enter a celestial glory. Because like it says, if we can´t live a celestial law, we´ll never be able to support a celestial glory.

Will freeze-dried seeds sprout?

I bought some persimmons #Jang-Geum #KitchenLadies #Mom #Koreans.

Basically, they are just increadibly brusied tomatoes that you would never buy, but they taste different. It turns out that incredibly bruised ones are the good  ones, but they are really sweet (if they are fully ripe, I don´t like them). I ate one that wasn´t ripe and the ripe part was good but the other part was like a banana peel except a million times worse in that it has that stuff that sticks all over your mouth and makes it hard to move it and stuff like that. I don´t know if you know what I am talking about.

There´s a really annoying guy in our ward that is always speaking nonsense and saying that I´m rich and giving weird advice but I realized that he has the same cane (and stature) as Yoda, so now he just makes me laugh, because he is Yoda.

I don´t know if i told you guys that you can do the temple work for the descendants of any of our ancestors that have their information beyond the last 100 years, which is cool, because we have so much genealogy done, that they must have a ton of descendants. Surely, we will be able to find some names like that, right? Even if they are of really distant cousins.

Mom, I told you that thing about stories, because I was reading about the vinegar bottle and I realized that you have that talent of story telling. I will never be able to tell my kids about my childhood or that story right. Which is a shame. So thanks for always telling us all those cool stories.

This week was pretty bad, but they say afflictions purify us, so hopefully I am becoming more like Christ.  It doesn´t really feel like it, but I will keep trying.

Pres. Jibson wrote me a letter this week. I have no idea how bishops and stake presidents have time for anything, poor guys. I don´t feel like I will be able to have a calling and a family and do my home teaching and all of that stuff like that, who knows?

I am going to celebrate thanksgiving today, lets see how it turns out.

Love you guys!

Love you, eternal family, stay in the boat, it gets better and better, hold to the rod, just keep swimming, the atonement, eternal family, t hugs, love you guys, Kaden

Written November 10, 2014

New Tijuana Temple

Family,

Grandma, that sounds like a hell on earth (what you said about every other day seems like it is Sunday). Just kidding, I just thought that would sound funny. Tell Ryan and Vanessa congratulations for me, please. Also, they use chiles in everything, and I have learned a bunch of types of chiles, so we will see what we can do, but that is one of the good parts of salsa. Thank you ahead of time for the birthday present, Grandma and Grandpa! Love you guys a lot!

Dad, yeah I hope Ben doesn´t get sick either. Josh is too hard on himself and Aaron just wants to have a romance movie. I really want to go to the temple, so cool that you always get to go. 

You absolutely have to have members to teach and I would rather they were present to fellowship even if they didn´t teach at all, but sometimes they aren´t very social and that stinks. If people told us they didn´t want us to come, then it would be easier, but we are polite and they are polite and it is hard to tell sometimes. But after a while I lose my patience and ask if they want us to keep coming, haha. I think I am going to celebrate my thanksgiving next week and my birthday the week after, because it makes sense to use stuff before a transfer and buy ice cream right after one. Love you too!

Josh, Learn Spanish. Also, I don´t want a mustache as much (but you are right that it would lower you to a 5 or less). But something I was thinking about was shaving every day, except one hair and seeing how long it grows, but I just have to find one that my collar hides as a missionary. 

Mom, that is funny about the presents (i am trying to be discrete so I don´t ruin it). If you want you can send puffed rice balls or no bake cookies or something else, like gingerbread cookies, whatever you feel like. I like all of those things a lot. Ben is going to kill himself by overdosing on Airborne.

Thise wekk (look! I learned to speak german or something):

Turns out the honey that I really like is just honey-flavored corn syrup but  I didn´t know because it is deli packaged. (first world problems). (but who am I kidding?, it´s probably basically the same as pasteurized honey, unless you believe all that propaganda. But it just doesn´t taste the same now that I know.)

It turns out that fruit and nuts have a tone of sugar and fat too. But somehow I feel better about eating 30 g of sugar and tons of fat in unsweetened dried mangos and almonds than junk food.

Our investigator Araceli that was going to get baptized didn´t pass her interview, but it is really good because she was honest. Turns out she never got divorced and is married to two people. We tried to cheer her up, because she was so ready and has such a desire to serve God. When we went to her house afterwards she prayed and thanked Heavenly Father that we talked to her that first day because she was sitting under the tree asking herself why she was in Ensenada and in such an unstable job and what she was doing here and then she asked God for a purpose and we contacted her pretty much right after that. 

But it was also a week that I felt incredibly depressed and it was the first day I was feeling better and I decided that i needed to contact more people and she was the first one I was able to contact, so I felt really touched by her prayer, because she had never really told us before, but it is like those classic missionary stories that you hear. I am glad that I was able to be the answer to a prayer.

Her husband is cool, but doesn´t want to read the book of mormon, so he isn´t going to get baptized. But her daughter, that was going with the jehovah´s witnesses and was afraid to read the book of mormon for fear of getting confused, is going to listen to us now. Which I am really happy about because that way we can keep going with Araceli to teach her while she gets her divorce settled (because sometimes leaders say we should give time to eternal investigatores and I don´t know how long this is going to take her). Please pray for her. 

I fell this morning on the stairs in our house and I think that I bruised my coccyx because it hurts to bend down and stuff and also I bruised my elbows. I think I will be okay though, but acutally I was really lucky because that is how old people die (they fall down and then they starve to death because they can only eat the grapes they can reach that fell closest to them). If you have any doubts about that, you can watch the LifeAlert commercial.

Also, a sister missionary told us about a family in the ward and she said that the wife got asked by someone she knew in the mission to marry her and that she didn´t feel bad or good about it, so she said no, and now he is a stake president and has been on 3 missions with his wife and the sister in our ward is really unhappy. So, sometimes I am afraid that I am going to miss the right person when I get back.

Sometimes I have dreams still about being home and that the time went so fast, and it is true that it does go really fast. Soemtimes it is cool because I know Spanish when I get home. Sometimes I have dreams that I am stressed out because I haven´t practiced piano the entire week because I have been so busy...

¿Cómo les va con su español, Ben y Josh?  but I don´t want to forget and you guys and my wife are my only hope (and tv).

Love you guys trainloads and just keep swimming and eternal family and

love for josh and love you more than apple pie and chevrolet and stay in the boat and the atonement and t hugs and it gets better and better and hold to the rod and love you guys and eternal family

Written November 3, 2014

Family,

We actually have more people in our teaching pool, but sometimes I don´t even count them because they don´t receive us. I was annoyed once when my trainer wanted to return a lost dog and it took a long time, but if we  don´t have anything better to do, I decided it is a good thing. I always re-read the conference talks as soon as they give us our Liahona because it is really good to be reminded. And about the time I finish, I only have to wait like 3 months til the next conference.

I am going to make so many kinds of salsa when I get home, so we can have a taste competition or something.

This week:

I opened my package for my birthday when I got it and decided to open the card accidentally on Lindsay´s birthday (which seems messed up to me). and everything else on Nov. 1 or Halloween or something (because I am that kid that can´t wait and eats the one marshmallow). I really really like the mango and also the pineapple because they don´t have added sugar. Also, thanks a ton for the peach rings and the puffed rice balls and the cookies (I love everything). I was afraid I wouldn´t like the pumpkin seeds because I decided I don´t like them the other time you sent them to me, but it turns out that it is just the un-shelled kind that I don´t like and these ones are pretty good. Also thanks everyone for the card! Love you lots, Mom! Thanks for thinking of me (who knows what I did to have such a good mom). Yeah, thanks for training me early in life to celebrate my birthday different (hah). The only problem is you taught me to always do it early (so that I could sneak into summer camps), so I am already eating everything from the package.

I realized that it isn´t that I don´t want candy, (like hi chews and caramels and hot tamales and things like that) I just only want small bags of it balanced with other healthy stuff like a little bit of nuts and dried fruits and peas, because that way it isn´t overwhelming and I don´t feel sick afterwards. Because I really liked the peach rings.

Also, why does it feel so messed up to open my presents on a day that isn´t my birthday? (like when I pestered mom so much that she let me open presents like a week before Christmas...what a crappy little snot). 

Hey, it´s probably just a repeat, but Nills Jonsson and his wife, Catharina Johands need endowment and initiatory. So somebody, do it! (if it helps to find them, they are on moms side. Did you know that allegedly, we are related to King Arthur? All the work is done for Uncle Jesse, right?

I have the worst habit of smelling my shoe to see if it is dog poop or mud on it....it is always poop.

Turns out nothing happened this week. I am going to try to make whole wheat bread today and all the faucets in our house a drippy and it costs a ton, so I am trying to catch the water and use it for other purposes, instead of water from the tap, because plumbers are the devil.

I love you guys a lot and I can´t htink of anything more to tell you except that my lentil soup this week was a downgrade of my previous recipe. 

Also, happy birthday this month, Mackenzie! You look cute in your strawberry costume. You too, Ben, in your trash can.

There is a tradition of burning a tie at 6 months, a shirt at a year and a pants at 18 months and a suit at two years, but I don´t believe in that stuff. I am going to celebrate my birthday by buying a gallon of ice cream (I hope I have the funds) and if I am feeling really rich, then also fruit and milk (but I have to decide, because if I don´t have money for fruit, then I want to buy a flavored ice cream, what a dilema!).

Well, Mackenzie better say hi to me then when I skype (even though she never does it when you want her to)

Love you guys and eternal family and just keep swimming and stay in the boat and t hugs and love for josh and the atonement and it gets better and better and love you guys,

Kaden

Can't rotate this one, sorry. Kaden with Ben's pictures.

Just Aim your head sideways to view this one!

Written October 27, 2014

FAmily,

Happy Monday! I had to go to Tijuana today for my companion's visa, so we are waiting in the bus station for our bus still. What a wasted P Day. I decided to pay double the internet rate to write to you guys here, so that I didn't miss the opportunity. But it doesn't help that we got lost in Tijauana trying to save money (but it was okay, because although we wasted a bunch of time, we accidentally found the Temple).

Lindsay, Happy Birthday tomorrow!

Josh, I also try not to reteach unless I think something important got left out (most things go over the investigators heads anyways). I told my companion that the advice i give him is just my opinion so to apply what is useful but now he just tells me stuff is just my opinion when I try to critique his teaching. At least I am going to try to be more positive, because I realized that I wasn't giving enough positive feedback, even though he teaches really well. 

I mean did you teach cutting each of the 8 principles in half or three parts? because that seems kind of hard. i will try to do those things. I usually do, but people don't always make good friends and after they get baptized they forget that they visited them once. Also, the member thing about baptisms I sometimes forget for being selfish.  

Life is really hard. I don't know how I am ever going to make it back to the celestial kingdom (someone said in church we have to work in all aspects of the church to get back, like temple work and missionary work and home teaching and our other calling and cleaning) and besides that there will be my family and school/work and so a lot of days, I just don't feel like I can do it, but I guess we just need to "do your best and forget the rest, like you said.

Ben, if you want send me pictures of your shirts in the email.

Don't worry about AP Bio because if you're the magikarp of the class, then you will be able to evolve into a Gyarados with a lot of annoying work and trading in and out and effort. (Maybe knowing about that evolution will help in your class). 

Ben, I command you to go and sing to Maxine, because soon she will be fallecida and you might regret it. But like Thomas Monson said, you will never regret a good deed done (or maybe that was someone else, but it happened in a conference).

Dad, maybe you should hint that they release you, haha. Thanks for keeping me informed about Aaron. I feel like sometimes I am a bad brother to him, but i don't know. I do want to hear about him. What do you think? I hope that my personality can help people, but everyone just always thinks that I am angry or depressed (it turns out that no one can distinguish, because sometimes I am and I am the same, I guess). and I think that reserved natures aren't really appreciated in modern culture. Love you!

Mom, they celebrate Halloween here (because of cultural leaking) but also Day of the Dead (but more in the South and Halloween more here). I wish I could be home for Thanksigiving, but next time. I already told Ben I want him to sing to Maxine (in fact, it is my birthday wish from him). 

 

This week:

I received a letter from Joseph (like i do about every other week or so). I will copy and paste it, (so that you guys can enjoy it, hopefully it is alright with him):

"Well if it makes you feel better our teaching pool has three people in it and only one is progressing.So there is a sister in our district whose twin sister I took out on a date before the mission. So that means I have dated her since twins are the same exact person. Lets hope she doesn't try anything fishy. You try and go on a mission to get away from that stuff and you keep running into people you have dated. Feeling pretty cool." - Joseph

When I get back, I am going to make you guys such good lentil soup. I have improved my recipe a ton. Also, I found out that they sell whole wheat flour in the market and I bought some and made such good whole wheat tortillas, they just turned out pretty small. 

I liked the granola bars you sent me, but I don't care about if stuff is organic, so you can send me Quaker or no name granola bars in the future if you want (or not, since they also exist here). 

Mom, The shoes seem identical to me, except that they are still clean. I received your other package today, but I haven't opened it. Thanks, Mom! love you! On the other hand, I sitll haven't received josh's letter and I am really afraid it got lost. It doesn't help that Hna Woodward receives letters every week from Japan from her friend there (you think a letter would be easy to get).

Mary got baptized this week and she was really excited. She told us that in her work, a lot of the time it was like a boyfriend, because she was thinking about church and when she could go again instead of her job. A lot of the sisters were talking to her, which is really good and our other investigator, Araceli, really liked it and it turns out that she knows Hna Alejandra, which is really good. 

This week turned out a lot better than last week, but I still feel depressed sometimes. life is pretty hard (and the hard stuff in mine hasn't even begun).

i started thinking of more things I can do, so when I can't think of anything to do here and we still have time, I start picking up trash in the street. Our street is a lot cleaner now. I feel good when I do it and it is good because i think that sometimes i only did good deeds to contact people and that is messed up. I like it (but maybe it bugs my companion, who knows?). 

Somteims I can't distinguish between paranoia (OCD) and the Spirit either. (Example: Is the gas valve in the stove open?...Did I close all of the faucets?)

Sometimes it is really hard to get along with someone who is a lot like you. Why is that? Is it to make you hate yourself or realize that you stink a lot sometimes? Or realize how difficult it is to be like the people you admire? (Speaking of which, why is it so hard to take criticism and why doesn't anyone ever take my advice (aka criticism). 

I love you guys a lot and am thinking of you (but I am not getting trunky I am just thinking that I already have a year almost and along those lines). I can't wait to make you all of the foods that I have learned here, before I enter what is essentially commercial slavery with a high quality of life for the rest of my life and don't have time to do things that I enjoy (school/work). (I will just have to choose to be happy).

Love you and t hugs and love and stay in the boat/hold onto the rod, it gets better and better, just keep swimming, eternal family, the atonement and love you guys (my eternal family)

Love you,

Kaden

Written October 20, 2014

Family,

Josh, being actually Jr comp is funny, because that also happened to me. That is true about giving them good experiences. I am not sure our investigator will want him to baptize her, becuase my other companion and i did almost all the teaching, but we will see. Those practice ideas sound good, but did you teach like that? or only develop that ability for if they had something to say? I am also frequently too proud to ask my spanish companions for help. But my companion speaks Spanish, since he is from Bolivia, so I am just trying to make sure he dedicates himself to English, because that will help a lot. He is a lot more of a natural missionary than me, even though he also is reasonably shy, so sometimes I feel jealous (which is pretty crappy of me as a trainer), but oh well. 

But he is pretty patient, so it is okay.

Dad, we went on Pday and we had exchanges where I could see it from the mountain. I want to try tuna sashimi some day. Thanks for your encouragement. Sometimes it is so hard to hold on.

Mom, I have such a desire to be a good home teacher when I get back, like you said, but I am afraid that everything else will get in the way (like maybe including my companion for example), but it is really hard to juggle all the stuff you have to do in life. I am glad you like Japanese stuff now,  so that we can watch cartoons and drama when we get home. I found a sister that liked korean drama, but more like soap operas and more modern, and not the interesting historical kind we like. 

I wanted to open the box, but I forgot. All that stuff about worry and selfcontrol and all of that is true. Now I just have to apply it. 

Aunt Trudy, I also discovered that at BYU I liked Isaiah a lot, sometiems I just don´t understand all of the historical references.. Love you!

Jess, thanks for bearing me your testimony. Sometimes it is easy to forget those things, even on a mission. Love you too!

This week:

I think sometimes they associate righteousness with baptisms, like the president said that he thinks so many companerismos didn´t baptize becuase of disobedience, but sometimes I don´t baptize and I (not perfect) try pretty hard to be obedient. I am not sure that I will baptize a ton for that, but i have faith that God will give me some kind of blessing at some point for my effforts.

I am probably more guilty of disobedience of omission, like not contacting enough or every single person that I can or breaking the rule of ¨Follow the Spirit and you will know exactly what to do¨ because everyone acts like it is like that, but it isn´t really. I also recognize that I am not going to be the perfect missionary, like the Savior, so sometimes it is hard.

I am never going to write you physical letters because they told us they open them and read them (but it turns out they were talking about letters to converts) but I am still not trusting of them now. Also, they told us we left our agency when we were set apart, which isn´t true. Sigh. I still try to apply my agency well though.

Pres. Fowler told me the mission was a pattern of excellence: that if I was diligent and had success in my life, the mission would be the same. After several bad weeks, I have to start to admit that I´m a bad missionary, but maybe i have a lot to improve then, and lots of ways to be better (maybe in Brazil that is a quote from Satan, but in Tijuana our president said if we aren´t baptizing every week or at least every month, then there is a problem with obedience).

In other news, I have a leader that has a really good perspective as our zone leader. He says that God doesn´t have the baptisms in His hands like christmas presents that he gives us for being obedient, but that he is working with all of us and also working to get people to get baptized. I think that is a lot more true, but then the area presidency and the mission president say that we should always have certain numbers and everyone says those numbers come from God, but I have my doubts (but remember, doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith).

Also, we only found 0 new investigators this week, which is probably unheard of. I think it is because I don´t like to impose or insist a lot (even though we contacted 21 people and some accepted that we come other days). Maybe I need to improve with that. It has been like 3 really bad weeks in a row. (I´m in a rut, but I will keep trying ot be obedient and be better).

We talked about leaving our nets behind too and all of the ones I thought of or chose are completely psychological (pride, doubt, discouragement) so it is probably going to be a lifetime battle. I need a therapist, haha.

Also, I have had two companions now tell me that they put metal in the microwave and nothing have ever happened, but I am an eye witness to that it sparks and stuff. But then we did it with tin foil and tortillas and nothing happened. So I am doubting that now....

I am not depressed just so you know. I am feeling a little bit better today from your letters. I miss you guys and am going to keep working to overcome, and you guys too so that we all stay in the boat and are in heaven together.

Also, mary is going to get baptized this week. I am excited, but also nervous, because not one of the people I have baptized or taught and then later got baptized, is going to the church with regularity. I am going to keep trying, but I dont´know if I just teach bad or if the ward fails or if I fail or what.

i love you guys a lot and eternal family and the atonement and t hugs and it gets better and better and just keep swimming (but don´t leave the boat) and love for Josh (and thanks for the tips) and love you guys a lot

Kaden

Written October 13, 2014

love you too, miss you too. See you soon
Kaden