Magic Tricks

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

Greetings from Salt Lake City. 

 

Highlight of my week:  Elena's baptism.  We met Elena through her best friend, Rita, who was baptized a few weeks ago (she was part of the huge family that was baptized together).  This past weekend, Elena, who is the most amazing 10 year old girl in the world, was also baptized.  Her words when I talked with her afterwards: "I forgot all the bad things that I ever did."  Her faith is incredible.  She invited all her friends and her teacher at school to her baptism.  She reads the scriptures because she knows that what Christ wants her to do, even though she has trouble understanding very much of it.  And one of the most amazing parts of the baptismal service was when Aracely offered the closing prayer.  Aracely wants to be baptized and knows that it is the right thing for herself and her family, but her "husband"/partner doesn't want to get married (even though they've been together for 15 years).  In the prayer, she said, "...and I pray that both me and Horacio can be baptized as soon as possible."  It killed me to see her want to do this so badly but have Horacio hold her back. 

 

Second highlight of me week: Yesterday, on Mother's Day, I got to call home and talk with my family for a little while.  It felt more like 5 minutes than 45 minutes, but when you haven't talked with them for four months, I guess that's what it feels like.  Next time it will probably feel like 2 minutes instead of 5.  Thanks to technology,  Meredith, who is in Spain, Jared, who is in Utah, Mom, Dad, and Kevin, who are in Georiga, and I were all able to talk on a conference call.

 

So, I need you to help me.  And by "you" I mean each person who spends 3 minutes a week reading these letters, whether or not they are Mormon.  I'm going to ask you to double your efforts this week and use six minutes of your time.  I have a magic trick that involves a tie that my dad taught me from his long gone days as a missionary in the Phillipine Islands (by the way dad, I use the tie trick probably 5 times a day).  But here's the problem.  I don't know any other magic tricks. But a kid who is 5 years old typically won't accept that all I can do is make a tie disappear into my fist.  They want more.  And I've got nothing.  So here is where you come in.  Spend 3 minutes sending my mom an email with any magic tricks you know.  If you don't know any, google it (I'm not too lazy to do it myself, we just aren't allowed on google).  My mom's email is jericolton@comcast.net (mom, if you don't want anyone emailing you then just use my old one).  If you decide not to do this, then picture a 5 year old beating me up because I can't make a coin disappear.  (And after you picture that, send my mom an email anyways because I know there are some of you ***cough cough Mike Rettker *** who would simply refuse to send a magic trick just because they would want a five year old to beat me up).

 

Love you all,

-Elder Colton

Spanish 101

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

Greetings from Rose Park.  We had transfers this past week (transfers
are every 6 weeks and it is when our mission president assigns us to
change areas and/companions if he feels it will help us) and Elder
Torres, my last companion, is now sitting on a beach in Tampico,
Mexico.  Maybe he's even engaged by now.  He's had 4 whole days after
all.  (I hope he reads this).

My new companion is Elder Moczygemba from San Antonion, Texas.  We get
along great.  We speak almost only in spanish and my spanish has
improved more in 5 days than it did in half of last transfer.  I feel
comfortable (most of the time) talking to people on the phone now in
spanish.  The only people I still can't understand are the Puerto
Ricans.  They must have lungs to rival Lance Armstrong.  It's like
it's a race to see who can pass out first from talking so fast.  But
thankfully there are hardly any Puerto Ricans here.

So this week I decided I would send a list of things I've learned from
learning spanish:
1. You can understand absolutely nothing of a language and still be
able to understand what someone is saying.  For the first week or so,
my understanding came almost completely from body language and what I
thought they would say based on the situation, and typically it was
right.

2. People appreciate you trying to learn to talk with them in their
native language.  No-one that I've talked with has expressed any
frustrations either in word or body language that I can't understand
everything or can't reply to them without taking 10 minutes.

3. It's really funny when you don't know any of the bad words in a
language.  We had a 10 minute conversation with a man and the entire
time I couldn't undertstand a lot of the words, which typically
doesn't happen much anymore.  When I asked Elder Torres afterwards
what some of the words were, he recommended that I just not worry
about learning those ones. Oops.

4. A smile can say a thousand words in any language.  You can't fake a smile.

5. Before my mission (and still now) I've had a tendancy to want to do
everything myself.  Unfortunately, the language kept me from doing
that for the first few weeks and I realized how to rely on my
companion to help me.

6. Humility.  Ha.  Yes.  I can admit it.  It make me realize that as
great as I like to think I am sometimes, I'm not much without help
from my companion, other people, and Christ.

7. The Holy Ghost, or the third member of the Godhead (along with
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ) absolutely exists and can touch the
hearts of people.  I would try to testify of something I know to be
true and it probably sounded as grammatically poor to the hispanics as
Uncle Brad does trying to sing sounds like to us (Love you Uncle
Brad).  But they could still feel something.  It isn't because I can
explain it eloquently.  It isn't because I know that what I say is
true.  It's because the Holy Ghost makes them feel something in side
that many of them haven't felt in their life.

I love you all
-Elder Colton

No Bad Words

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

Well, this week definitely marks one of the most special baptisms I've ever been to.  A few months ago, a member from the ward (local congregation) mentioned to my companion, Elder Torres, that a new family had moved in to the apartment next to them.  Elder Torres and his companion stopped by and the family invited them in.  There are nine of them total, two sisters and their 7 children (one has six and the other has one).  This past weekend all seven that were old enough for baptism (over the age of eight) were baptized.  The best moment for me was when after the baptisms, during a talk about the Gift of the Holy Ghost (go to mormon.org if you don't know what I mean by that), the 11 year old daughter started to cry.  And she is not the type of girl to cry.  She is a tough tom-boy.  But, she leaned over to me and said "I can't remember any bad words."  She had literally forgotten every bad word she knew (which were quite a few).  A few minutes later, while still crying, she leaned over and said, "I feel like a whole new person."  Wow.  This is a family with no husbands, only one job between the nine of them, but now has this gospel and this happiness in their lives.

 

Unfortunately I don't have much time this week.  My companion leaves to go home to Mexico on Wednesday so we've been running around trying to get last minute things done all day.

 

Love all of you,

-Elder Colton

Miracles

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

Well, an exciting point of my mission on Saturday.  Mario was baptized.  Interesting story about him: two months ago when Elder Torres first came to this area (before I was here) he met Mario on the street and started talking with him about religion.  Mario, different from 99.999999999% of the people we teach, wasn't Catholic and didn't believe much in God.  But he invited the missionaries to come to his house and teach him.  And then he invited them back.  And again.  And then decided he wanted to change his life.  He began to change his life in ways that his friends (one of whom was baptized into the Church about 6 years ago, and one of whom is going to be baptized in the coming weeks) said they couldn't have imagined.  Right after church on Sunday, he came straight up to me and said he wanted to pay his tithing right then and there and showed me the money he had to pay it (in our Church we follow the Law of the Tithe, see Malachi 3 or my little (younger) brother if you have questions).  It was powerful.  And right after he said it, his friend (the one baptized a few years ago) said he wanted to start paying tithing again also.  In a few weeks they will leave to Indiana where they will spend the next 4 months roofing there, but they will leave with a whole lot more than what they started with. 

Another interesting story about this past week, and this story involved Uncle Dave Colton, my dad's oldest brother.  More specifically, it involves how he helped two people without even fully realizing how much he was helping (most likely).  So Uncle Dave works for the Church in Europe as a lawyer (his official title is way to long and boring).  This past Winter (either January or February), he came to Utah for a conference with many of the important lawyers for the church (which probably sounds like one of the most boring meetings on earth for 99% of the people in the world to be totally honest Uncle Dave).  But, for Brother and Sister Tracy (see my younger brother if you have questions about why we call people Brother and Sister instead of Mr. and Mrs.), it was the opportunity of a life time.  Sister Tracy has a degree in international law and is now working on another law degree at BYU.  They plan on moving back to Asia after she gratuates to work as a laywer there.  And they also happen to be one of the most amazing couples I have ever met in my entire life.  I can't remember how or why, but she was invited to the dinner and both she and brother Tracy, who have lived all over the world together and plan on doing so again after she graduates, went to the dinner hoping to find out how to deal with corruption in other countries.  And poof, Uncle Dave ended up sitting at the table with them.  And Uncle Dave worked in Zimbabwe (back when he worked a a lawyer for a mining company) and dealt with corruption there.  And in their words, although not quoted exactly: "In an hour conversation with him, we basically learned a semester's class worth of how to deal with corruption.  He exuded such a quiet confidence about him and had such a desire to help us that we learned everything we could possible have hoped for an more."   They went on for a little more about him.  And when Brother and Sister Tracy say something like that, they mean it and their opinion carries quite a bit of weight from my point of view.  So, Uncle Dave, congratulations.  At least two people in this world look up to ya :)

Next week I will be sharing a story about not-coincidences (spelling?) that happen as missionaries.  This one kind of blows my mind away.  It involves people meeting the MTC and then leaving but still being connected by weird circumstances. 

Love all of you

-Elder Colton

Salt Lake City, Home to the Best People and Strangest Weather on Earth

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

Greetings from week three(ish) from Salt Lake City, home to the best
people and strangest weather on earth.  We woke up on Thursday morning
(I think it was Thursday) and there was an inch of snow on the ground.
 Other days this week it's been in the 70s.  It makes riding a bike
all day quite interesting.

Anyways, one of the most special experiences of my mission happened
this past week.  Elder Torres and I were heading to a teaching
appointment and kept running into problems: my bike pedal decided to
fall off a few times, Elder Torres' hair just wouldn't go into the
shape he likes, and Murphy's Law seemed destined to stop us from going
anywhere.  But, about three-fourths of the way there, a white pick up
truck playing some country music stopped us.  A man smoking a
cigarette called out to us and asked if we wanted to listen to a song
that changed his life.  So we listened to about half of it with him
(it talked about God's love for us) and then asked why it changed his
life.  He sang that last weekend he was driving around down town when
one of the sessions of General Conference ended and all 20+ thousand
people walked out of the Conference Center.  He said watching all of
their smiling faces (thankfully he didn't see any of the crazed
protesters) made him really happy and want to be as happy as them.
Then the song came on the radio and he decided he would change.  And
then the next day he saw us riding and felt like he should stop and
tell us his story.  And poof.  We met with him and talked with his
wife about how his life has been rough since he got out of the
military and started drinking (which is how he has spent much of his
last 30 years).  He's started changing his life in ways he said he
could never have imagined before.  It doesn't really make logical
sense that people trust a bunch of twenty-ish year old kids enough to
let them in their homes and tell them how their lives can be better,
yet they do.  Again and again they do.  Obviously there is sometime to
it.

I hope all is well at home and abroad.  And by the way, I apologize if
I have forgotten your birthday or haven't responded to a letter or
something of the sort.  In all honesty, that is probably going to just
be how it is for the next two years.  I promise I love receiving
letters and I think I've responded to most of them, but if I haven't
please don't take offense.  I still love you and if I were home then
hopefully you would know that I would remember and celebrate and talk
with you, but for a while it just won't be that way.

And by the way, my friends at BYU will probably find this interesting.
 My mom just found out from one of my Great-Uncles that James Wirthlin
and I are related.  His great great grandfather is my great great
grandfather.  Small world.  I'm pretty sure this means that now James
automatically has to like me better than you, Austin.

Love you all,
-Elder Colton

A Day in the Life of a Missionary. And General Conference

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

Greetings from Salt Lake City for the second week.  And for those of you wondering what the heck we do each day here in Salt Lake, here is one of our average days.

 

6:30-7:00-Wake up and exericise time.  Normally for me it means jump rope, sit ups, and push ups (hopefully some of my future companions will like to run).  Oddly enough, we have about 8 dvds that we sometimes give people as missionaries, so while I exercise I watch church dvds (until I finish them all).

 

7:00-8:00-Shower, dress, and breakfast.  We have four people living together, so we have to stagger our showers and go relatively quickly so we have time.  Breakfast normally consists of toast and an egg or two.  But today I bought some oatmeal so now I can at least diversify a little bit. 

 

8:00-9:00-Personal study time.  Most of the time is spent ready from the Bible or Book of Mormon.  I also spend some of the time ready the book "Jesus the Christ," one of the four other books all missionaries can read.  

 

9:00-10:00-Companionship study time.  (Mormon Translation-a companion is the other missionary who we spend 24/7 with).  We spend most of this time talking about what we learned in personal study time and then planning out lessons for the day.  Right now we teach four or five lesson a day but that number is going to start moving up.  

 

10:00-11:00-More companionship study time. As a new missionary, they give me an extra hour to study where I practice teaching to my companion (he normally acts like one of the people we're teaching).

 

11:00-12:00-Language Study Time.  After my first 12 weeks, this time will become normal teaching time and my language study time with move to 10:00, but for now I use this time to read the scriptures in spanish and practice grammar.

 

12:00-Lunch time

 

After lunch-5:00-Teaching time.  We normally have 2 scheduled appointments during this time and spent most of the rest of the time finding people who are interested.  And one of the nice things about being a spanish missionary is that we typically find a lot more receptive people than the english ones do.

 

5:00-6:00-Dinner.  Dinner for us is almost always with a member of our church who invites a friend over.  Our mission rule is that we can't have dinner with a family unless there is someone who isn't a member of our church there also (so that we don't waste anytime).

 

6:00-9:30-More teaching time.  This is normally when we have the most lessons because it's when everyone is home.  Sometimes when we have too many lessons to teach, Elder Torres and I will split up and go with members of the local ward (church).  It's more than a little scary to not have another missionary with me when I can hardly speak, but it works.

 

9:30-10:00-Plan for the next day.

 

10:00-10:30-Change and head to bed.

 

So...long days.  But fantastic days. 

 

This past weekend was General Conference for our church, which is a world-wide broadcast in which the President Monson (the Prophet and President of our church), his two counselors, the 12 Apostles, and other leaders of the Church share messages in five different two-hour sessiosn.  One of the advantages to serving in the Salt Lake Mission, is that the broadcast comes out of Salt Lake (only 10 minutes from me) in the LDS conference center.  We were able to bring four of our investigators (our word for people we're teaching) with us to the Saturday Afternoon session.  Needless to say, conference is a special time for us.  And because this is my companion's last transfer (he leave in May) we had great seats in the conference center.  Almost all of the people we're teaching were able to watch some of the the conference.  My personal favorite talk was Elder Anderson in the last session. 

 

And one of the highlights of the weekend besides General Conference: seeing people I know.  BYU is only an hour away from Salt Lake so during conference I saw about a dozen of my friends who drove down for the sessions.  Jared (my brother) and I accidently ran into each other yesterday and I nearly tackled him.  We were able to talk for a little bit before I had to leave.  And I love everyone else that I saw, but seeing Chloe and having her tell me she is getting baptized this Saturday was one of the highlights of my mission so far (it's the only time so far that I've been frustrated not being allowed to hug any women or girls).  Anyone who is at BYU should most definitely being going to her baptism on Saturday because there isn't much on this earth better to do that day.

 

Love you all,

-Elder Colton

First Week in the Field

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

  Well, here I am in Salt Lake City.  And it is fantastic.  My first area is Rose Park, which is in northern Salt Lake.  I'm in the Rose Park North Stake and we have a spanish ward that we cover.  My companion and trainer is Elder Torres from Tampico, Mexico (I don't know if I spelled the city correctly).  He's fluent is both spanish and english, so my spanish is getting better each day.  During the lessons I can only understand the overall message of what people are saying, nothing specific.  But it works out because my companion translates if I need to understand anything more specific.  Unfortunately, when it comes to normal conversations with people, I can hardly understand unless they slow down their speech so that the words don't slur together.  Give me a few more weeks/months and I'll be able to understand it all (hopefully).  We teach an average of 4 lessons each day but that number is going to increase.  As of right now, there are eight people who we are teaching who plan to be baptized this month.  There's one amazing family of 8 who all plan to on being baptized on April 28 (all of them that are over eight years old, which is the age that people can be baptized in our church).  And just so everyone knows, we aren't supposed to use names in our emails of the people we're teaching, so you won't be able to learn any of there names (we might be allowed to use last names, so I'll find that out and give last names next week if I'm allowed).  We're also working with a man who has a baptismal date for the 14 of April. 

  One of them most special families for me is a family of three, a father who isn't a member of our church, his wife, who is a member, and their two year old son.  The father initially seemed very against listening to us and has met with missionaries for many years.  In our first lesson we spent much of the time talking about why there is suffering in the world, which is always a hard topic to discuss.  But it was a powerful, powerful lesson.  We can't tell what, but something has happened in his life to make him a little bitter against God, but his attitude is changing a little each day.

  I would definitely like to give a shoutout to each of my teachers in the MTC right now, because each of them have directly impacted what I've done so far.  Hermano Sagers: I literally used the exact same scriptures with the father of this family that we shared with you when you acted as your investigator.  It fit perfectly with his question.  Hermano Wassom: Unfortunately the father doesn't want to put much effort in, so we're using some of the same ideas that we used to show Francisco that he wants to work.  And Hermano Zenger: We haven't directly used anything from Fernando (mostly because we only taught him three times) but I have been told be almost every member that my accent sounds fairly good, which I totally attribute to you working with me.  And Hermano Irrizary: your ideas about getting to people to church are going to be tested this sunday.  Ten of our investigators came on Sunday, but four or five didn't, so we're going to use your idea this Sunday to help them out.

   And by the way, we actually did end up performing last Sunday during the devotional.  I'll be honest: I was freaking out.  There are very few things on this planet that scare me, but performing piano in front of people is one of them.  But, it went almost flawless.  The mics made some funky noises in the first 30 seconds or so, but it actually relieved all of our nerves a little.  The four singers sounded fantastic and shockingly enough, I hardly messed up. 

 

-Elder Colton