Gool Ol' Intercambios!

 Letters I got from Mason Ju and Kinley. I was just so happy they wrote me 
that I took a picture.

Pictures that Sis. Mohler (the office missionary) took when the Lees
were dropping off the packages. She showed them to me
when I came to pick up our zone's mail and I had her email them to me.

We won't have to buy groceries for weeks
thanks to the Lees! You guys are awesome! Special shout out for the apple beer.
Elder White and I used it to toast our successful intercambios.

Notes the Lee crew left on my door

So something happened and I was just looking at my blog and I realized that I never saw those two pics of me that Sam and Ben drew. They must have fallen out or something. Let them know that both are really good, but I think I declare the winner of the drawings to be Ben.  I do have to give credit to Sam, though, for accurately describing what I say to people in the streets when I contact them. I would be lying if I said those two phrases hadn't left my mouth while wearing the plaque.

Easter package made it, but one of the bunny's eyes didn't. Que triste.

 Look at how personalized and decorated my study desk is.
I receive so much revelation there. 

BOSS picture of me and Elder White out hitting up Vegas and sharing the good word 

My good bud, Elder Crabb, at leadership training

Me and crazy Elder Fowlke. I love him and, get this, he was in the same
MTC Zone as Hermana Voigtlaender! 

Elder Hartsock, another good friend in the mission). He will be playing BYU basketball come this next fall! He's a SUPER good ball player and he was telling me that the BYU team in fall 2016, (when I get back) is shaping up to be one of the best BYU's had in a long time!

Sister strange, Elder Gee (another good friend), me, and Elder Hartsock

Got to go back to the Flamingo Ward with Elder Maldonado 

And got to see Elder Labriola, too...

Because Johvanny and Silvia from my first area (Flamingo) got baptized!! It was SWEET!! And the church is true and I am super happy for them! I have now officially taught 3 people on my mission who got baptized. What's up!

Our current area

Searching out more people who want to hear the truth and be happy

April 13, 2015

Intercambios means exchanges and this week I got to do a lot of them! I spent a whole day with Elder Clapp and a whole day with Elder White (both English speaking missionaries). So much fun with those two guys!

Elder White is the Australian I told you about and after spending a whole day with him doing the work, I like him even more. Super down to earth guy and very real and humble. If there's anyone who has a reason to not be humble, it's him. He plays guitar, is good looking, all league rugby player back home, but nope, he's a solid down-to-earth guy. We did some tracting and we went to this neighborhood that was a bit nicer because I figured it would give us equal chances to contact both in English and Spanish, but 90% of the people we talked to were Hispanic. I felt bad because Elder White literally just had to stand there as me and this one guy talked in Spanish in his doorway for about 15 minutes haha! But he said he really wants to learn Spanish and so he really liked getting to spend the day together! 

The exchange with Elder Clapp was really good, too! He's from Knoxville, Tennessee and is actually related to Johnny Knoxville for any of you fans out there! haha! He (Elder Crabb) is a stud and we found out we were both into the very same things. Lots of fun talking to him and spending the day together. One story from that day is that we got to go call bingo at an Senior Center for service (clearly we were not in my area haha I went to his English area for the day). It started off rough just because all the old ladies were mad because the handsome Australian man with the sexy voice wasn't there to call that day (Dang you, Elder White and your attractive accent!) But once they got over that, we started playing. 

There ended up being a controversial play. A man called bingo and when we read off the numbers on his card it was discovered that he had technically scored the bingo a few rounds earlier and therefore the LAST number we called wasn't in his winning row. So all the other old folks (there were like 25 of them in there) began to rebuke this poor guy and tell him the bingo didn't count and he was all confused and then we were like alright I guess we'll just keep playing, but 2 numbers later he says, "Wait, so I didn't win?" and just looks all sad and the other people were like "No, too bad!" and I was half feeling really bad for this guy and half just dying on the inside at how hysterical the whole situation was. Man. Missionary Work. 

We also had leadership training and talked about humility and diligence. My favorite topic from the training was "How to Give Christlike Correction". It was really good training and it touched me. I know I will be using what I learned about how to correct in a Christlike way not just on my mission, but in my future career, in callings, and in raising my family! Christ really did set the example for us in EVERY aspect! How incredible was He and how peachy keen is it that I get to be his missionary. :)

So yeah, we did that, and other than that we've just been doing the usual stuff that we do as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Con Amor,

Elder Alley

Courtesy of Elder White, here's some Australian/New Zealand slang (cuz he's from both actually)

Lots of anything = Heaps

What part are you from = Whereabouts there?

Sunglasses = Sunnies

See something exciting = OOOOYYEEE!

That guy's cool = He's the man! 

PS I did get the Easter package after all! They had delivered it to the apartment's main office, but the office forgot to give us a notice to come and grab it. Thanks for all the candy!