My Belly button hurts

Hola Famila!

Lo siento por mis cartas que son bien cortas. Estoy aprendiendo como escribir todas las cosas que necesito poner en mis cartas a ustedes. Pero voy a tratar para escribir mucho mas! (Sorry my letters are rather short, I am still learning how to write letters and what to put in my letters to you) I will try to write more.

So how is everyone doing? Busy, Busy, Busy here in Sudo California. We are starting to feel the toll of having the entire zone to us for Spanish work but we're still progressing! The hardest part is just planning how we're going to drive from one place to the other in time and still have time for an appointment. But we are working hard!

We have about 4-5 people who are solid investigators but we still have to help them overcome a couple of things.  From helping people to have the faith to move to another place away from their crazy girlfriend, to  helping someone have the courage to ask her husband to come to church, or just simply helping gain/re-find that testimony they need.

Yesterday we got a call from one of the members who told us that her nieta (Granddaughter) wanted to talk with us. So we went up and had a little lesson. It was on God wanting to help us in this life and the Atonement. The spirit was really strong but I wasn't sure if she was getting all of it/understanding it. (She's 14 and a member but hasn't been to church or really had a testimony) So at the end we asked her to say a prayer and she told us she couldn't. But all three of us me, my comp, and Julian offered prayers before her to give her an example. After all our prayers she did pray. It was a simple prayer and short, but after she said In the name of Jesus Christ, amen, the spirit was so strong in that room. In fact she immediately started to cry, she cried for about 5 min. I knew that the spirit was working on her and as she pondered about that short prayer she let the spirit in her. I don't know if she has ever felt like that before. So before we went to say goodbye we went into the other room and the Grandma asked us how it went. She asked me 'how is she?' I said we felt the Spirit. She paused for a moment looked at me, nodded, almost to tears, and said 'que bueno.'  What good. She was thankful that we could help her nieta feel the spirit and perhaps start to bring her Grand- daughter to feel the love of Heavenly Father and I know that because of that she can pick herself back up and keep trying.

 In other news, the Spanish is going pretty good! There are times when I understand perfectly and then there are times when I think 'What the heck are they saying.' Haha I think I may be eating a little too much. I have been starting to feel pain in my bellybutton. Elder Stevens said if you eat too much, or have your stomach distended too much from eating you can stretch it a little and make it hurt! I never in my life had had this but because of these Latin people putting 4 servings of food on my plate at once I may be getting pain in my bellybutton. We had a district meeting Tuesday and we used little kid tables and chairs because in the Sky Cannon building they're very strict about their stuff and we need a key to use them. After the meeting we went to cici's pizza. Later that night at a member’s house, (THE BRANCH PRESIDENT'S) we had tortas for dinner. I took one bite of it and went to the bathroom, threw up all of my lunch. I didn't make much of a mess, and went back out to finish the sandwich! She even gave us eaticate to take home (leftovers).

 Also we had our quarterly interviews with President Kendrick and I asked him what do I tell all these people who ask me  where I'm going after I die?(the Mormons) Should I say I'm not sure how we're going to be judged or start explaining what we believe about death and the degrees of Glory or what? He told me 'Sure! Just tell them you're going to heaven Elder Emerick because you are! You are going to heaven Elder Emerick!'And then invite them to find out for themselves. He's a great leader and I'm so thankful to have him as a Mission President. Entonces yo espero que usds les gusta esta carta y tambien voy a mandar muchos fotos! Gracias a ustedes y tenga una buena semana! (I hope you like this letter. I am sending lots of pictures. Thank you and have a good week.)

Elder Emerick

Almost fluent in 8 weeks.

April 13,2015

Hola Familia!

So this week was yet another great week here in California! 

I would totally live here when I get back, 

if it wasn't for the raging Liberalism and outrageous taxes! 

Haha Well this week was really good for my Spanish. Si ya saben yo estoy aprendiendo 

espanol todo via, pero progressando mucho no sabia!

( If you already know everything I'm learning Spanish via , but did not know much progressando !) 

{Google Translate Translation}

 I went on exchanges in Murrieta for a day with Elder Schow. He's been out for about 9 months now, but he still has problems speaking it well. He understands everything, but speaking is still a challenge for him. Anyways we went out and as we were talking to one of the members (No one knows me in Murrieta) she said 'How long have you been out Elder a YEAR?' My mouth dropped. You could probably imagine the response I got when I told them only 8 weeks. "SI?! Solomente 8 semanas?! Pues ya sabe como hablar espanol! Como es eso possible?!!?!" "(YES ?! solomente 8 weeks ?! Well, you know how to speak Spanish ! How is this possible? !! ?) Haha something like that, so they were really surprised and shocked about how much I already know. Even my trainer is saying that my Spanish is really good. Entonces esta semana fue muy bien por mi self- esteem (So this week was good for my self- esteem) haha. Really everyone recently has been telling me how good I can speak already in the mission field. Le solomente necesita hablar! Y puede aprender! I'm starting to surprise myself too, I've been dreaming in Spanish for quite a while, not totally, but I've been having dreams where I'm talking to members or people and it's pretty crazy. This past week we started visiting the Sanie family and they have a young boy they want to share the gospel with. (They are both really inactive but still have testimonies and everything. They asked us for Priesthood blessings before we left last Monday so that was a good sign. Tonight we are going to watch,  Finding faith in Christ with them, let's hope it sparks more of that testimony and they start coming back to church! Also we visited another less active family and she has a son who thinks he's possessed or at least being haunted by demons. Well so we talked a bit about Priesthood authority and the Holy Ghost with him. He's a YSA ( young single adult) so we are giving him to the Zones to bring back to church so he can go to the young single adult branch. But it was really cool he asked for a blessing of comfort and I gave him the blessing, it was really cool. A chapter in the Book of Mormon that we used in some of our lessons was Alma 24 it’s about the Anti- Nephi- Lehis and it’s a great story of faith. The work is same old same old. We run around tons trying to meet with people and progress them towards baptism. We had a great stake conference this week and it reminded me about the importance of the Temple. It would be great if you guys could make it to the temple at least 1 a month. People here in Temecula go like every week! Crazy! Well that's pretty much sums up this week, we're busy and my Spanish is improving haha. Keep working hard and have a great week everyone!

Elder Emerick

A saint is a sinner who keeps on trying

April 6,2015

Hola Familia,

Lots of things happened so I'll get straight to it. First in our first District meeting with our new district, (It’s all in Spanish) we had a discussion that was led by me about Prayer and how we can help investigators receive answers to their prayers. Everyone told me that it was a really good discussion! So that was good. We went on exchanges after and it was the first time I had the area without my Trainer because he went to the other area, but we had a good day set some good things up and overall learned a bunch! Well that night, we had a lesson with our investigator BUT she brought a friend from work. She told us before in a text about him and he is in a bad spot right now. She told us that he had contemplated suicide and that he she wanted us to offer some help with the lesson. Well it was me and the comp that was with me during the exchange, basically I met him and I could tell he wasn't doing very good right now. So I felt a strong impression to solely talk about Heavenly Father. I told him that yes there was a God out there and YOU ARE HIS SON. YOU ARE HIS SON and he loves YOU! I could definitely feel the spirit and knew that I was being directed by the Holy Ghost. In the end we asked him to ask in Prayer if there was a God and he said he would. I don't know if I'll see him again or anything but this I do know. That he felt the Spirit, he felt that comfort and peace because I felt it, I knew it. I told Dulce, (our investigator) that I'm no professional but I knew that I was helped in that situation. Miguel Enciso was at church for conference yesterday he is scheduled to be baptized this week but we'll see what happens, he is really progressing. We met up again, a miracle again, with the Sanie family (at least the mom) remember the family we met at Farmer Boys while we were going to the Bathroom? Well we scheduled a dinner apt tonight so we'll see if that falls through, but they're really exciting Less Actives too! We almost always take Julian with us now he has such a great testimony and is so funny haha. General Conference was great! I loved Elder Redlund's talk about A Saint is a sinner who keeps on trying. That was a great talk I thought. Spanish is so so. Everyone is already saying that I have the gift of tongues and all but I'm still learning, I can understand 90% now, I think but I need to keep working on Talking! Well, that about sums up this week. It was a good one but we got to keep working! Tenga una buena semana todo!

Elder Emerick