Elder Perrin - 18 March 2009

Well last week i had my whole email all typed out, and then the time ran out on the computer and it didn't get sent. I was super ticked, and i'm really sorry i didn't get it sent off. But It was a really good long email basically detailing all of the stupid stuff that's going on here. So i'll give you an update. So about two weeks ago we got pulled out of a church class by the ward mission leader, who then introduces us to Fernando Moscol, husband of a member named Rosa Moscol. He says, fernando is going to be baptized this saturday he had an interview with the steak president. you guys need to go over and visit with him. So we were like ok, thats cool, thanks for telling us. I had never even met teh guy nor seen him in church. supposedly he's bee an investigator for like 20 years or something like that, just forever. So we call the mission president, who calls the steak president. he then calls us back to tell us the situation. The steak president told Fernando to talk to the missionaries to see if the missionaries had anything they needed to teach first, and if it was alright, then he would come and speak at his baptism that upcoming saturday. But only if it was all ok with them, and with the missionaries. that is what the steak president said, basically check with the missionaries and if you get baptized this saturday, he would come to give a talk. ok, so we go over there, and we start taalking and it's a good talk. but we find out he has never read out of the book of mormon and he hasn't been coming to church, and he doesn't have a testimony. so I say ok '" well we'd like to come by a few more times to teach you a little bit more about the church, would it be alright if we move the date of your baptism a few weeks ahead?" He was fine with it, his wife was not. She kept her cool pretty well in the appointment, she didn't yell or anything, but i could tell she was really upset. she started saying that they already made the date, that the steak president was already set to come and speak, and that he had already taken all the lessons from the missionaried a dozen times and that he was ready bla bla bla stuff like that. obviously he was not ready, so i told her we wanted to make even more sure he was ready and just go over all the important docorine of the church. so i said, " would that be alright with you sister moscol?" she yes after trying to calm her down and trying to reason and talk nicely with her. ok so the appointment couldv'e been worse. so we called them later in the week to see if we could come by, and they just told us they would call us. so alright, no big deal. But after chruch this sunday, Elder Powell comes up to me and starts telling me about Hermana Moscol, about how she came up to him in the hall and just started going off on me. I mean just going off saying the most ridiculous things about how I'm just a bad missionary saying her husband cant' be baptized and how my leaders need to talk to me to straiten me out and how i am of the devil the way i talked to them and shouldn't be a missionary and that someone needed to take my place and they don't want us over to teach them that they wanted Elder Powell and Gonzolez to teach them and just all this stuff. So elder powell told me all this, and was just stunned obviously, but i decided to let it go and not worry about it, we were just doing our job. President Stoddard knows about it all, so it didn't really phase me because hey, I delt with this kind of stuff before with some girls crazy parents throwing all kinds of crazy false stuff at me, i'll just let it go, you can't change poeple. so i just let it go, until we went over to members house to eat lunch yesterday, and she brought it up because she wanted to hear our side of the story. All she herd from sister moscol was that we said " Fernando, why do you want to be baptized?" and that its our fault he cant' be baptized and stuff like that. so she was cool, i love this member, she is like my favorite. so we told her the story and got it all cleared up with her and she said she would try to help stop any gossip. so the reason that worried me was because i don't want some stupid lady going and saying all this kind of false crap the rest of the ward, that however, would piss me off a lot and i would not have the patience to just let it go. So we went over to the church last night to try and catch the bishop so see if he could help us smooth over the situation. We get to the chappel and right as we get off our bikes, guess who gets out of thier car and walks in to the chappel? yep the Moscol family. so basically i could tell they were upset at us, and i thought maybe they are the ones with the appointment with the bishop, that could be really bad. so we waited outside of the church for the bishop to get there, and when he got there we explained everything to him. and then what he said was basiclly this " don't worry elders, I know this family, they always want to have it thier way and they like to cause problems in th ward. thats just how they are, but you have nothing to worry about i got you covered, it will be alright i know you guys didn't do anything wrong." so we were pretty relieved that the bishop was really cool about it. this whole thing has been just a pain in the neck, not only that but it's like - i'm here as missionary trying to make this ward grow, and the whole world hates us. and now we have poeple of the same church i'm serving who hate us and are against us and want to bring us down. thats really cool isn't it? it's almost of enough to make you want to just go home to where poeple love you. It has just been like a replay of nightmare i lived with Candaces parents, and it just makes me sick. oh well, i'm not giong to worry about it at all, the members of the ward love me, i'm like thier favorite elder. they would all give me a place to live if i asked them, thats how cool a lot of the members are here. so i have no worries. hey i was wondering, could you by chance send my baseball glove. it's the old catchers style glove that should be in a box. maybe if you have time and find it , i would love to have it. thanks. I got all the pictures, thanks so much it was awesome to see some recent photos. Zach needs to shave though and clean up. tell him he needs to write me. ok love you. curt

Elder Perrin - 25 March 2009

Baptism On the Way

hey how is it all going? things are good here, we had a week full of no success, but hey, that's how it goes. however we are going to have a baptism this saturday, his name is roberto. he is awesome the best way i can describe him is "running wolf' and he is really in tune with the spirits, ha ha. But he's really cool. he has all these weird dreams and stuff and he always talks for like an hour telling us about them. its crazy, his wife is going inactive right now, but he just wants to be baptized. they might get divorced, but maybe she'll come around. anyway i will send some pictures of that when i get a chance.

Is it Rachel?

i read two lines of your email and the pictures of rachel, well, they came from the girl on the far right, who sent them to an elder right next door named elder hadden. elder hadden got the pictures from her, and i was over at thier house one night and saw the pictures and was like "no way i'm pretty sure that's my cousin' and they didn't believe me, but i was like " i'm not 100 %, but like 98 % positive that is my cousin in the photo" so i sent them to you to ask rachel if that was her in the picture. so is it her??? if that is her, that is just funny.

Early Home Date

so as far as the whole thing with school, well you never really gave me your oppinion on my go home date, what is your oppinion/?? i really need to know this, because if people are going to be thinking rude things because of my changed go home date, i need to know, so i can just change it back, and miss my scholorship and a whole semester of school. and if that be the case, i wanted to know if i had a chance at still going to college in the fall, and if by chance i did, would there be a chance for a scholorship in the fall somewhere. so i need to know what you think,

Recipies, Music and Pictures for Easter

so you asked what i would want for like an easter thing, well i did think of somethign just recently. i was thinking i could use some more food recipes, some like simple food recipes that are tastey, that don't take tooo much time. maybe if you had any ideas, you could just send me some good food recipes, for like some good dinners or quick lunches or something like that. maybe there is a book they make for that kind of stuff. i don't know, it was just an idea, i would put something like that to good use. other than that i don't really know what i could use. i always enjoy new spiritual music or piano music or something like that. feel free to just send whatever. pictures are always the best i think. like i think the best way to do letters is to write a short letter, and throw in a few recent pictures every time, like it's just the best. a short letter with a few pics, you can't beat that as a missionary.

Transfer

so this pday were going to the zoo, i don;'t want to go because i have been there, but everybody wants to so , oh well, i guess i have to. next week i might be in a different area. i hope they keep me in the city, but if not i am going to have a hard time for a few weeks. riding in cars for more that a minute or two makes me really sick, i would have a hard time adjusting to that. so i'll let you know if i am in a new area.

Stolen Bike

so this week my companions bike got stolen, that was kind of interesting. it actually got stolen right off the back porch, while we were about 20 feet away too. it was a nice bike too, but then he just went and bought another that was even nicer. i was thinking of paying for half of the one that got stolen, since i might of left the porch door open. even though my bike was locked and his wasnt', i was thinking it would be the right thing to do to pay for half, let me know what you think. it would be about 160 bones for half, so let me know if it seems right to you guys. feel free to ask any questions, i'm just spitting out words as i go and i might not make any sense. i do that a lot sorry.

Member Crisis from Last week

so this whole thing with this member issue is al resolved. we had a lesson with the bishop, and Fernando, and the bishop told his wife to not come. so we all met in the chappel, and everything is just fine when she is not there. he's a really nice guy and said he just wanted to learn everything all over again. that's great we said. you know thats all we said int he beggining, and this whole issue broke loose, but i'm glad its all resolved now. cool beans.

Lots of Love

thanks so much for everything, i miss you all, things are good. i'm alive, safe, sane, i think i'm sane anyway, and happy. mom i feel ya on the mothering thing, it's hard, it feels like i'm doing that right now. babysitting a 20 year old gets kind of lame after a while, so thank you and love you. love curt

March 4, 2009 - Elder Perrin

Well, this week was pretty good. The weather was cold, but it's warming up slowly. Lets see, the latest news I have is this. Yesterday in my interview with president we were talking and this is what he came up with. He said I need to go home to work out some worthiness issues. HA! Just kidding there. Alright, so here's really what happened. So somehow my go home date got brought up. He just brought it up, it was the first thing he mentioned. And then I mentioned the scholarship I had waiting for the winter semester and all that. So then he pulls out some books, and a calender and figures out when he would have to send me home. And then he says December tenth. Yep. Dec 10 of this year. So I'm just like, well, can we maybe just do it in the middle of the transfer or just a week or two early? And he said, "Well, normally I would do that because I don't mind if the mission gets thrown out of wack because I just take visa waiter... bla... bla... bla. But we have a new mission president coming in and I would not want to do that to him so the best thing would be to have you go home a transfer early." So then he asked how important the scholarship was and stuff like that. And I said pretty important, since I will have no money when I get back and so he obviously agreed and said he was going to work it out. Alright, don't get so excited, I know that means that I would only miss one Christmas as a missionary, and only one new years, and it would leave me a decent amount of time to prepare for college. But I am kind of reluctant to do it because of, well, pride I guess. Let me know what you think. He said there is a possibility of talking with the new mission president of rearranging it, but for now my go home date is the tenth of December. I would like to have other options though, maybe different college options though, if there was another scholarship that would be possible to other schools, that would be useful information for me to know. Maybe you could make a few calls and see if I still have a chance at other scholorships to maybe a closer school or something. Just let me know what you think.

Well, this week was pretty good. We found some decent new investigators and are getting rid of a few old ones we have that aren't progressing. asi es. But things are good. Griselda is set to be baptized in a week in a half, so that is good. I'm pretty excited for that. The cold I think is going away for this week, at least I hope so. I think warm weather would give my companion some more motivation, since he's from California where sunshine grows on trees and where it's always a perfect day. Man I want to live in Cali, it's like the only spot for miles where you can ski in the morning and play a round of golf in the evening. That would be awesome. My comp is teaching me a lot about bikes, which is good. I basically don't need a bike shop anymore. I'm learning how to even true up a wheel. It's tight. Well have a good one. I'll read your emails later. I gotta run. Write back and tell me what you think!!! Love you all.
Love curt

Feb. 25, 2009 To Charlie

Well, this week was pretty good I guess. I'm still here in the city, that makes me happy. I love the area, I love my companion, I love Jesus, and I love you guys. I think I missed dad for the first time in my whole mission this morning. It was a little overconsuming, and I had never had that happen before. I really do miss dad. He could make me laugh like no other, especially if he was in a really good mood. I really wanted to talk to him and have a good time with him. So what is this diet he has got going? What happened to the good old fashion diet of eating less and excercising? What does he eat? So you got a new love seat eh and couch? Thats pretty crazy, you should send me a picture of it. In fact, you should send me a picture of the basement too. That would be cool, then I could actually believe it with my own eyes. (ha ha)

Please set an example, a really good one. That means church every week, scriptures, reading, every day, together as a couple, and praying every day, as a couple together. Callings, home teaching, temple at least once a week, and fulfilling all the words and councils of the prophet. That is probably the best thing right now, and to be happy. So I will do my best. Have a good week. I love you much

Charlie, I miss you tons, but I hope you are having fun all the time. I haven't written you a letter in awhile and I'm really sorry. I really loved the last letter you wrote me. It was cool. So how are things in school? Can you read faster than mom yet? Mom can read really fast, super dooper fast, faster than most people can talk. It's crazy! You are really good at drawing! I got your picture awhile ago, and I have to say that you're like a professional artist! Wow! I was amazed. So is it starting to warm up in Utah yet, or is it still freezing cold? Do you help dad 'build' the basement? Did he get you a really cool tool belt so you can help him carry tools and hold stuff for him?

When I was really little, I remember mom and dad came into my room one night while we were all sleeping, and dad woke me and Zach up because he was so excited to give us some tool belts he found for us. I didn't even know what was going on, but he was so excited that he found some really awesome tool belts for us, and ever since then I had a cool tool belt to use when I was building my tree fort outside. Dad would always surprise us like that because he is so awesome. Like, I would remember he would come home and yell CHARLIE! Come Here! I have something for you! Dad is cool. He would always let me help him build stuff, even though I was really little and didn't know what I was doing. I loved building stuff, and he would always help me build stuff, like my tree house. Too bad we don't have trees in Utah or else we could build a tree fort.

Well, I have a story. The other day I got hit by another car! It was crazy! This car hit me, and my bike went flying and then I went rolling on top of the cars hood and then onto the ground. It was really crazy. My companion said it looked really cool too, like a professional stunt man. Ha!Ha! And the lady gets out of her car and starts to panic and she wanted to take me to the hospital, and then she wanted to take me to her house to give me a bike. But I told her not to worry about it, because it wasn't that bad. It only hurt a little bit, not a lot. My bike actually came out just fine, so that's good.

So guess what happened a few days ago? We, met a karate man in the street. His name is Sensai John, I think, and he was really funny. He said he could teach me all kinds of stuff, so that if a gangster wanted to start a fight with me, I would be able to take him out. He reminded me of you, because of how you are doing karate, and he made me laugh too. Did you know there are a lot of mean people in Chicago? Yep. Most people in Utah are really nice, but here in Chicago, most people are a little rude. Even the policemen are rude. The other day, we were riding our bikes, and we pull into the lane to turn left, and a cop behind us honks his horn because he's in a hurry and we weren't fast enough for him. So then he passes us after honking, but then he gets stalled by the car in front who was going slow too, because he maybe was nervous. And then we pass the cop going really fast on our bikes, because they had to go through a bunch of speed bumps. He gets on his microphone and in an angry voice, starts telling me I need to stop at stop signs, and a few other things. Then he catches up to my companion and cuts him off with his car and stops and puts the wheels of his car in a pile of snow, hits the gas spraying snow all over my companion. He zooms off all angry that 2 bikes schooled him, because we passed him again a minute later and I saw his face, he was really mad.

So did you guys get the Bob Marley bracelets? I hope so. I told Zach to give everybody one. Did you know that spring is almost here? That means it's time to go golfing! Maybe I'll go golfing here in Chicago sometime, that would be really cool! Charlie you are my best friend. I miss you a lot. I miss playing with you. Remember when we had so much fun on the trampoline? I do. And remember when we would go swimming? I can't wait to play with you again. It will be so much fun. I love you a lot. Give everybody a hug for me, Ok? And hey! Stay away from pretty girls, they are trouble. Ha! Ha! Ok. Love you. Curtis