Happy Birthday and a Baptism

Hola Familia,

This week was crazy. I don't think I've ever had so many things happen in one week. First the Nietos were baptized! I was also able to speak on Baptism as well at the service. It was great, I was so happy to see the both of them join the church. Now their daughter looks to be getting baptized soon as well and his other son and his family are looking into the church as well! It's just crazy to see them all blossom like that. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to teach them. They're definitley a family I'll have to have you all meet. Also we were able to set a baptismal date with an investigator named Victoria that we picked up last week. I wasn't able to make it to that lesson because I was at the baptism but I'm excited to see her baptized soon as well! We also found another lady named Guadalupe who has solid potential to be baptized as well. So in just one week we went from having no solid investigators to a bunch of people close to joining the church. We also were able to go on exchanges with the AP Elder Farley. He's a good missionary and we worked really hard with him on Tuesday. Also I had lunch with Elder Ramos' Mom and brother Jordan. They are really cool! They told me to tell you thank you for helping him in his mission experience and for making Somerset a place that he enjoyed very thoroughly. Anyways the work is going good here, I feel like Oceanside has been a great area for me, I've definitely learned a lot of good things here. We will probably be going to do K1 Speed again for a district activity here soon. Also ask the Elders there if they know an Elder Called Elder Ricardo Garduno. He's the Uncle of one of our investigators here in Oceanside. Apparently he's serving in the Pittsburgh Pensylvania mission too! I haven't looked at my mail yet but I'll be sure to tell you if I received anything. Well that's all for now, I'll start sending some pictures that are a little overdue! Les quiero!

Elder Emerick

The Nieto Family

Brother and Sister Nieto and their son who baptized them

20 years

Happy Birthday Jacob 20 years

Birthday bash by the Cuellar family

Ocean Side CA

Steelers in CA and rain

Hola Familia,

This week was the last week that Elder Rodriguez and I will be together. Now they just tell us where we are going and who our new companion is. We don't have transfer meetings anymore. It stinks because those meetings were awesome, but I guess it's kinda cool that we already know what's going to happen that Sat morning. Anyways Rod is going to Valley Center and I'm staying here for at least another 6 weeks. My new companion is Elder Dowda, it'll be cool working with someone new. This'll also be the first time my comp has been younger in the mission than me, he came in the transfer after me. Also they're taking out a Sister missionary area in the Ward, so that means we'll be covering more area. And this area in particular is the sketchiest area in the whole mission, with exception to maybe Escondido. Even so Oceanside is considered a pretty ghetto city. Which is all Spanish missionaries want! So the Steelers won, that's awesome, at least they won a game in the playoffs. So the family that we stopped by last night is the Villa family. They aren't in our ward but they all speak spanish or at least understand it. They really love missionaries and are an awesome family, Elder Rodriguez wanted to say good bye to them so we went by. We started talking about other missionaries that have left already and they asked to look up my family so I just gave her John's Instagram account. Then it was super funny to have John confused and not knowing what the heck was going on. I'm not even going to answer that one question, as soon as she said what John sent in that message I knew Dad told John to send it. But it was funny. jaja As I said this won't be my last month here I'll still have to mid February. PK is leaving in June I think. He'll be replaced by President Thomas. I'll just get the razors with the Card you sent me for Wal-Mart. I should have enough money for now. Escondido was my favorite area so far but Oceanside has been pretty cool, this past District has been one of my favorite Districts though. Among the Spanish missionaries we are all pretty cool so for the most part everyone I'll be in a District with will be pretty awesome. Could you make sure that my Driver's License get's renewed somehow? I want to be able to drive if I need to for the latter parts of my mission. I've been meaning to ask that for a while but have kept forgetting. I'm sure as you saw in the picture you received that I am using my Jacket and it's working well, especially with the cold rain we've had this past week. Ay El Nino ya viene! jaja Anyways I'll send some pictures, hope you guys have a great week! Les quiero!

Elder Emerick

Leon Family

El Nino

Hungering for the Spirit

Que tal Familia,

First the n in ano needs to have an ~ but I can't do it on this computer, Chale. Anyways my dead year is over! The year in which you haven't seen me at all is done. You never were around me when I was 19 but when I'm 20 in a few weeks, we'll see eachother, hence the dead year is done! It's weird to be over halfway done.I remember when I was thinking wow I'm 1/24ths of the way done! But now I really am half way done. As far as stuff going on here, we are going to have transfer calls this weekend. But now we aren't going t have transfer meetings. This isn't anything new because lots of missions don't have them. But we'll see how it goes. I'm excited to see what happens! I could go back to Escondido, go to Vista, or stay here! But you never know, it'll be interesting. We had a really cool lesson this week! The spirit was super strong from the beginning to the end. We taught a less active Part member family that hasn't been to church in over 12 years. They told us how they hungered for the spirit back in their lives, to be more united as a family. They really want there daughter to learn more about the gospel, and the husband who's not a member wants to learn more as well. So we'll see how things go with the Reyes family! For the New Year we just hung out with the YSA Elders that live next to us and just waited till the clock hit 12:00. It was pretty cool. We had to be indoors by 6:00 so we didn't do too much that day. I didn't eat pork and sauerkraut because latin people don't even know what that is jaja, we ate Tamales! I've worn my jacket and it's just what I needed. It'll be great when it rains and stuff, fits fine too. Since I've been wearing it, it's been pretty chilly at the night time. I'll close off by telling about our lesson in Gospel Principles class. Hno Flor gave a great class about the Priesthood. He told us that authority comes from God and through Jesus Christ, which we all knew. But that the Power is through us. It took everyone to get what he was saying but it finally made sense to me. WE have the power. If we are WORTHY we can do anything through them who give us authority. That's why Jesus was able to perform all that he did. The power was in him, so much greater so because he was perfect. Just imagine if we were all perfect, and the things we will do when we are. Everyone has the power of the Priesthood, we just need to be able to exercise it. I thought that was a pretty cool way of looking at it. Anyways I'll see if I have any pictures to send. Les Quiero!

Elder Emerick

me eating a sandwhich

Cat wanting my sandwhich

Christmas in Carlsbad California

Hola Familia,

I hope you all enjoyed the time we had to Skype. It was fun to see you all and just talk and see how you all we doing. I'm glad you all enjoyed your Christmas and are continuing to do what you do. This week we had a huge Christmas party in Escondido with all the missionaries in the mission. It was good to see all our friends from other parts of the mission and have fun with them. Right now we don't have too much going on in our area. You could say this has been one of the toughest area's of my mission so far. As of right now we are just working with some Less active families that are part member families as well. So just working to find right now! We had a cool time at the party, there was a talent show, lunch, they handed out presents and other gifts from the mission and then we ended with a devotional. It all was super awesome

I don't have too many needs or wants on the mission. We live a simple life. haha Thank you to everyone who sent me gift cards, letters, money, and anything else. It was all greatly appreciated, thank you! Since we've been working with less actives recently I wanted to share what I sent to President in my recent e-mail to him. "As far as the work goes in our area, we are working to get some less active people back into church. They are both Part Member Families and have great potential. I asked the one member the question, "Even though it's been over 10 years since you've been to church, could you see yourself coming back?" She responded with a firm, 'absolutely.' I feel that when people go less active they feel that they are too far out of God's grace to return to him. This past week our Bishop gave a great lesson on overcoming the challenges of life. The natural man in all of us takes a life-time to overcome. The reason we come to church every week and serve the Lord is because every time we do that, we win one more battle against the natural man. Every week when we partake of the sacrament, we overcome another challenge. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve a mission. I'm thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even though the work has been slower over the past couple months, I know that we can 'turn it around' any given day, and it can start today." I know that is true! We all feel like we reach a point that we can't come back, deep down, that's how all people feel. As missionaries and members, we need to help to make these people feel welcomed and loved. That's how we overcome the trials of life, through the gospel. I hope you all enjoy your New Year! 

Les Quiero muchisimo!

Elder Emerick

Vamos Fiestar

Hola Familia,

Well as far as anything exciting, it's been pretty normal here! Just been doing the same missionary stuff. Going by members, eating, preaching, sleep, repeat. We've been working with a few people and actually had an investigator come to church. We will be looking to meet with a Part Member family this week to see if we can teach anyone who's not a member in the family. We had our Ward Christmas Party this Saturday and it was a good turnout. We had lots of non-members show up and it was a great experience. I ate a ton of Tamales and we had lot's of great food; like always. It's been a little chilly the past couple of days and I had to buy gloves at Wal-Mart to keep my hands warm as we bike at night time. It gets really breezy later at night and the gloves have helped. I did want a Jacket, I guess I'll see what I got on Christmas! I also received the package yesterday. At first I was excited because I thought you sent me chips, and then when I saw that they weren't chips I was a little disappointed for a second. Then I saw all the cookies and stuff. Thank you! Some of stuff fell out of the container, but for the most part everything stayed pretty good. I shared with the other Elders. It looks as if I'll be calling either in the morning time, mid-day, or later in the afternoon. We still haven't made plans with anyone, but I'm sure we won't have problems getting to call. I guess you could say I've kept some stories about Escondido that I haven't shared yet, I'll probably tell you them when I call so I can see your reactions.We actually had a member come out with us on Tuesday and he invited all the people he knew to the Dinner on Sat. I don't know if anyone came but he was more than willing to help us. We get feed pretty well by the members here. All you have to do is ask. I feel that a lot of the members hate feeding Sister's though because of Past missionaries not eating what they give them, or saying they have alergies and can't eat what they give them or stuff like that. You can really offend an old Hispanic lady by not eating there food. jaja To be honest I don't know where I'll be. We might not be getting any new spanish missionaries for a while, so they'll have to close some areas and make larger areas with fewer missionaries in each Ward. Escondido already has been cut down to 3 companionships (Usually 5 cover it) We'll see what happens. I'd like to stay here for atleast a few more transfers but if I have to go somewhere else, I'd like to go to Vista. It's super hispanic there, almost the same as Escondido. Other than that though, not much to report on. Like I said I've been reading Jesus the Christ and it has a lot of information on the birth of the Savior and stuff like that. Super cool. We'll also have a Mission wide Christmas party/devotional on Christmas Eve. Should be fun! I'll send some pictures now, Les quiero!

Elder Emerick

Someone from the Branch drew this

Our District with Santa at the Christmas Party

Legoland and Fake SNOW

Que hubale familia,

This past week was super eventful. First to start off, last P-Day we lost the keys to our apartment. We spent a good couple hours looking for them but to no avail and had to stay at the YSA's apartment till the morning. They live in the same complex practically behind us. So it was all good, now we both carry copies of the key. Our new district is super cool, we have two new hermanas, Hermana Ross, and Hermana Parris. We all get along great and have fun together, needless to say it'll be a pretty good transfer. Speaking of our district we went to LegoLand today. Yes it is allowed, and yes members gave us tickets. To be honest, it wasn't at all that great, but as a missionary where you get no adrenaline rush or feel normal; it was pretty cool for the first time. I wouldn't pay to go a second time, even after the mission. There just isn't any good rides or stuff that I'm all interested in. There was a part of the park where people could go and play with fake snow, I guess for Californian's it's pretty cool. But it was nice to have the feeling of snow in your hands. Other than that I just got a lot of pictures of structures made out of 10000000 lego blocks. We saw the Christmas devotional last night at the Moreno's house, it was a great meeting with a lot of good music and talks. As far as missionary work goes for us right now, we are still trying to concentrate on finding, and are using the navidad.mormon.org website to share with people and ask referrals from members, in fact we received like 6 referrals from one member. Hopefully something will come out of it. Sharing a Ward with 3 other companionships (4 Companionships in the Ward) makes finding a little tougher, especially when you only teach the hispanic people living in the U.S. Even though there are hispanics, it makes it a little tougher when most of the people you live around are white. jaja I'm not sure when we're going to call yet, it may end up being a little later in the day. Well better get on sharing those pictures. Les quiero!

Elder Emerick

Elder Emerick and an Elder from Switzerland

Raccoon

Pier

Elder Rodriguez me and FAKE SNOW

Hermana Frei

Elder Schow

Thanksgiving Dinner

Yes that's the Ocean in the background

Que hubole Familia,

Alright so to start off I'll answer some questions. Nope I'm not getting transferred, good thing too. If I got the 6 week shaft it would have been almost as bad as leaving Escondido! jaja As far as we know nothing will change in areas or companionships. I thought we might get put into a trio again but I guess not. As Elder Rodriguez would say you dropped the ball with not sending me an e-mail last week Dad. jaja I'm just joking I saw it. Me and Elder Rodriguez will stay together for another 6 weeks. All the Elders are staying in our District (Elder Winterhalter just came her with Elder Schow last week) but Hermana Andrade is leaving and Hermana Parker is dying. So we will have a couple new Hermanas in our district next transfer. Rod will still be our District leader as well. I enjoy California, No voy a mentir, but it is SUPER EXPENSIVE and the people aren't the nicest at times so I think I won't be living here anytime soon. As far as school goes, it'll take some more praying to find out what I'm going to do there. Christmas is here! I fell that the work will pick up as the holiday season moves in and people may be a little more willing for us to stop by, especially the hispanics. It was weird even for Thanksgiving (A holiday they don't even celebrate like us) we had the craziest Thanksgiving Party at Hermana Orozco's house. You would have thought it was New Year's Eve. jaja To be honest, I've felt like a seasoned missionary since Escondido, but I'm not going to get a big head about it. With the gift of tongues if you get all big and mighty about it, the very next person you talk to you'll struggle. So right now I'm just trying to keep myself from being prideful about it. It seems pridefull of me to say that I'm trying to not be prideful but there ya go. jaja I can't believe it's been a year. It's all down hill from here. Something I'll change is that I'll try to talk to more people. As missionaries we already do it, but I can improve. Again I do feel like I could teach anyone to speak Spanish, but pride... in short to answer your question, si. I'll definately work it into my life somehow. O Sea con mi marida, mi trabajo, mis pasatiempos, lo que sea. The missionary life is normal to me. I'm sure that once I return home it'll take some time to get accustomed to normal life again. Some old Hermanas that just recently returned home came to visit the mission and the old Wards that they served in. They told us how hard it was to call each other by their first name. So it'll be interesting. As far as work goes here, it's been one of the slower areas in my mission. Elder Rodriguez and I are going to see what we can do this transfer to stay busy and find new people. His mom might send him Tamales in the mail. Both his parents are from Mexico so they are pretty legit. He found out this week that his brother is engaged which kind of blind sided him when he read the wedding invite. It was pretty funny. Also I'm starting Jesus the Christ. It's super good. I wonder why the church doesn't put it in it's seminary program. Other things that are going on, we will probably go to LegoLand for a district activity this transfer. That should be pretty cool. That's the thing about Carlsbad. There's so much stuff to do here it's crazy. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a families house in Del Mar. As a Spanish Missionary I would rather be in a poor town like Escondido than in a richy rich place like Del Mar. I haven't been able to go by the Pier or actual down town Oceanside where are the sketchy gang stuff goes on. But I want to see how it is, over by Pasole and Central. Well I hope you all have a good week! I'll send some more pictures! Que Dios les bendiga!

(That's a super Catholic saying that we hear all the time, means "That God may bless you") De todos modos nos vemos!

Elder Emerick

The back of Jacob's Planner. He put John's picture to inspire Himself.

Thanksgiving at the Hollman House Elder Heath Elder Rodriguiz and me

My District

Del Mar

Del Mar

Del Mar Means by the SEA