April 13th, 2015

Hey my awesome family! It sounds like it has been quite the week and that you have quite the week coming up! I hope that yall can survive all of the craziness. That is some crazy sounding weather! It has been raining here like crazy but that is about it. That's awesome that Jessa is doing so good in Volleyball tell her to keep up the good work!! That's crazy that school is almost over for the year, it has gone so fast! Is the guy Danee married a good guy? Things here are going pretty good! I went on exchanges to Thibodaux this past week and I saw my very first Alligator in the wild! He was swimming down one of the Bayou's I almost jumped out the car to go and shot him with my .22 I felt like I was on swamp people haha. So I am happy I feel like a true Cajun missionary now. We have a senior couple in our district now, the nelson's, and he is super funny. he takes us on some pretty wild tangents sometimes, like Obama being that antichrist and then his wife gets mad at him and tells him to be quiet, so the keep things interesting haha The work is slow right now and Elder Perazzo is ready to go home, but good timber doesn't grow with ease the stronger the wind the stronger the trees :) So I know that as I keep trying my best, praying, and reaching out to others the best that I can it is all going to be alright. I love being a missionary! If I could call you guys and grandpa whenever I wanted and if I could drink a little more Dew from the Mountains I think that I could be a missionary for a long time. Thanks for all of your prayers and love for me. I don't know how I got so lucky to be blessed with such an awesome family but I'm so grateful that I get to call you mine!! We have transfer meeting on April 29th and I'm not for sure if I will still be here so we might want to wait on the package, you guys spoil me rotten. I love you so much!! Hope you have an awesome week!!!! Love Mud :)

April 6th, 2015

Hey my family!! I sure love you guys!! I'm glad that you had a good Easter and a fun vacation to Utah! I'm sorry that jakes shirt is so huge I thought that's what you told me though haha I can't believe that Brooklyn is a married woman that is crazy!! General Conference was awesome!! It is always so good to hear from the prophets. This week has been a pretty crazy one! We had a huge 7 hour meeting in Denham Springs on Thursday were some people from Salt Lake came and instructed us. It was really good it was just really long since it takes like 2 and a half hours to drive there, but it was good for me it built some character. haha We met this crazy drunk guy the other day too and he grabbed my hand and kissed it and then put it up to his forehead and starting praying. I had no idea what to do, so I just laughed while he thanked God for the 2 angles on his porch. We also went to a Baptist church yesterday morning to watch one of our investigators be in an Easter play and it was crazy! I have never seen that much jamming in church before haha But life is good! I am so grateful that I get to be a missionary!! I hope that I can work hard so that I don't miss anyone that I am supposed to be out here to help! Thanks so much for all of your love and prayers!! I love you with all my heart and soul!! Mud :)

March 30th, 2015

Hey my awesome family!! That sounds like it was an awesome and busy spring break! I think that they should give you another week off to recover from all that partying though. That is awesome that you got to grandma's and grandpa's they are awesome!! And thanks so much for the package it is awesome! I am excited to look for you guys on the Saturday session of conference. And would you please tell bubba congrats for me? This week has been a crazy one! We had a surprise meeting on Tuesday where they split our zone into New Orleans Spanish and New Orleans English instead of nola north and south zones. So I became the new district leader for our new Thibodaux English district. I think that they got the wrong guy but I will do whatever they tell me :) We also had one of our less actives that we see every week pass away and a big move that we had to help make so it has been quite the week. But it all ended really well yesterday with our 5th sunday potluck. It was awesome!! Everybody brought huge pots of gumbo's, jumbalya's, redbeans and rice, crawfish and a bunch of deserts and we all had a big meal together. It is tradition that the missionaries serve it to all of the ward members so I got to get my lunch lady on for a little while haha This ward is a lot like ours just really real and loving to each other. It is fun to be here! A lot of people fell through on us this week but we will just keep trying cause that's how things are being a missionary. Things here are good, the people are awesome and very loving and I am grateful that I get to serve them. I am learning a lot and being humbled a lot as I meet and learn to love more and more people. I love you so much!! And I am so grateful that I have such an awesome family cause I know that a lot of people don't. Hope you have a great week!! I love you!!

March 23rd, 2015

My awesome family!!!! Thanks for all of the updates, they always make my week!! I can't believe that everybody is growing up and doing different things on me, where is the pause button at? that is crazy that you only have 8 weeks left of school!! I'm glad that the truck got fixed and is running again too I will sleep better at night now :) I'm not going to lie I have really been missing march madness so I am Very grateful for the updates. This week has been a pretty good one!! My new companion is Elder Perazzo and he is from Falon Nevada he is a really good guy! He is just super mellow and nice and we get along really well together. Our mission is changing a lot in the next couple of months cause our mission president wants a few less missionaries so all of the old ones are going home and not as many are coming out so it will be very interesting how things work out, I can't believe that I am turning into one of the "old" missionaries it is kind of a scary thought! I just found out yesterday that our bishop is moving and I am really sad to see him go. He is a really good guy! His name is Justin Anderson and he is a football coach he coached at Nickel State for awhile and he just got a job at BYU and he is really excited. But he told me to keep it on the down low so don't tell anybody in the ward, cause me and my companion are the only ones that now. I just couldn't hold it in anymore haha So we have really been working on talking to everybody in that we see so I have been doing my best to take it to heart. Elder Perazzo looks at me like I am crazy sometimes but I kind of figure that the worst they can do is call me a few mean names (that steve probably has already called me haha) and so I just talk to everybody. So yesterday I talked to this 89 almost 90 year old lady and took a picture with her. I felt prompted to tell her that she was still looking as beautiful as ever and I took a picture with her. It really made me happy!! I love my new friend dorris :) Hope yall have a great week!! I love you!!!!!! Love MUD!!!

March 17th, 2015

My awesome family! It sounds like you have had quite the week! That is so awesome that Jessa rocked her dance competition!! But if they all dance like jessa does than I know that they must be pretty awesome! Is Stockton's brother and Aggies fan or does he just really like dad? I wish you all luck getting mom out of bed early this week I know that that is always a struggle ;) Thanks so much for the package that you sent!! And please tell the moultons thanks too! I got them on the same day and the other missionaries about passed out that I got 2 packages on the same day, I felt very loved! I am feeling lots better thanks for all of your prayers and support in getting me through that. It is getting a lot better. This week has been a pretty good one! It has been really busy and productive. Our ward isn't very big so a lot of the time we are just asked to do things like teach primary or young men gospel principles or something like that so it keeps things very interesting never quite knowing what we are going to be doing that day. This week we got to help with the sunbeams and I forgot how awesome sunbeams is. We played with Playdo colored pictures, we didn't get a snack but it was an awesome class. I hope that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam too so that I can keep coloring and playing with playdo haha We had the chance to do some more service this week and help Elder Jones plant his first tree. It has been fun to get to help teach him new things. He is kind of a punk sometimes but I really do love him and I am going to miss him. The missionary work here is really getting better! I know that the lord is blessing these peoples hearts to be ready we just have to get out there and talk with them! I love yall and am so grateful for all that you do!! hope you have an awesome week!!! Love Mud :)

March 9th, 2015

My family!! That would be the best care package ever if one of you was in there! haha Tell the poor bishop to keep hanging in there that is sad that sister Dalton isn't doing very good. That also makes me really sad about the truck, I love that truck...but $5,000 is a lot of money. I hope that Jessa gets feeling better too, I have been fighting a cold lately too so you can tell her that we are twins this week. It sounds like Jake and Melissa are doing pretty good and there Boise trip sounds like it will be a lot of fun! Things this week have been great! Lee got baptized!!!! and I got the chance to give him the Priesthood yesterday it was awesome! He is so ready to be a member of the church it is crazy. He lost his wife about 9 months ago and he is super excited to get sealed to her a year from now. I hope that he can keep this fire going for along time. So you know how after somebody gets baptized they kind of hurry to get dressed again and get back out? Well Lee whipped out his blow dryer and spent like 5 minutes doing his hair while everybody waited haha He is a funny guy. I am super happy for him! thanks for your prayers for him!! Next week is transfers so I won't email until Tuesday, and there may be a chance that I get transferred this one because there is a pretty big group going home but we will see. Hope that you have a great week!!! Thanks for all of you love, support, and prayers. It couldn't be done without you!......and there would be a lot less rocks in Louisiana :) Love Mud

February 23rd, 2015

Hey my family!! How's it going? I am glad to hear that you survived the week, I can't even imagine a dance recital that big...dad is a strong man haha It is so crazy to hear about all of these people moving and growing up. It seems like just yesterday we were over at the moultons and I shot Darin in the eye haha Jordan can't be old enough to go on a mission yet! 12 degrees that is freezing!! People are settling down after Madi Gras which is really nice. It has been a pretty good week this week! We had a service project with this crazy old lady and we were chopping down a huge tree in her backyard. The problem was that she only had like a 8 foot ladder so there wasn't a whole lot that we could do for her unless we fell it right into her neighbors barn. So we were trying to figure out how we were going to do it when her nephew showed up and he grabbed the chainsaw and yelled "I'm from the south I don't need any tools like that to cut down a tree!" and he just went ape crazy and started cutting it down right towards the neighbors barn, so we got out of the way and prayed that we weren't going to have to fix a barn next week. And truthfully I can't tell you how, I have cut down quite a few trees in my lifetime and there is NO reason that tree should have fell how it did he didn't wedge or direct in anyway. But the boss man upstairs must have laughed at us and our prayers and he guided that tree down safely. He really does always have our back :) Elder Kipishka of the Seventy came and spoke to us at zone conference on Saturday and it was awesome! He is from Germany and is just a happy guy through and through. He is always smiling kind of like Bro. Hoskins. It was one of those meetings were he rebuked us and told us how we could be doing so much better than we are, but since he did it with a smile on his face it didn't hurt quite as bad haha I am having so much fun being a missionary!! We are teaching a guy named lee forret who is getting baptized on the 7th of march I am so excited for him!! Hope that yall have a great week!!!! Love Mud :)