Please send me some snow.

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the emails this week. Please send me some snow :) sounds like you have extra. I would love some right now. Its been really hot and humid right now as we are heading into the hurricane season there is a lot more rain. No worries a hurricane hasn't hit Puerto Rico in about 30 years apparantly but we sure do get a lot of rain this time of year. Sounds like things are going well at home, and everyone is just sort of winding down with school. Have fun in Spring City this weekend! Sounds like you did a really great job on your seminary graduation talk, Ab, that's supper cool. PS are you still sending me emails? I haven't gotten any if you have, just checking to see if your email is still being weird.

Well things this week have been really good. we were able to get out and knock a few more days! Hermana Thornton still isn't feeling too well but she's being awesome and just pushing through it. One day we found this really awesome girl who is about our age named Neldys that we taught out in front of her house sitting on a wall. She is awesome and the spirit was really there. Her dad was having surgery that day and she was really nervous about it. But the spirit was really strong. So slowly we are getting more investigators to teach. we've been teaching a lot more in Corozal which is a little far away.  We have two investigators out there that we just started teaching. We are really excited about one family especially. Probably one of the coolest things that happened this week was that we met with a less active family that is amazing. We talked with the bishop awhile ago and asked him who he felt that we could go visit that could really use our help because there are so many less active families that we can't focus on all of them. Well he told us the name of one and we have been trying to find out where they live but they moved. We finally figured out how to get there last monday night. They invited us over for dinner on tuesday and it was amazing. The wife served a mission and the family has been sealed in the temple but they stopped coming to church becuase of a problem with some other members. They haven't been very receptive to visiting teachers in awhile so the bishop and his wife were excited to hear that they not only opened the door to us but invited us over for dinner. We had an awesome dinner and talked about her mission and they told us about how much they loved the temple and how many times they had gone to the different temples. We invited them to come back to church and they said that they had been thinking about it recently because they want their children to be able to receive the blessings of the gospel and their kids don't remember anything. Wow, the spirit was so strong and I just know that this family is ready to come back. We testified about the Book of Mormon and even the Mom who was there and told us that she was going to a different church, when we left she was flipping through the pages of the Book of Mormon. Wow, I'm really excited to work with this family.

Anyway things here are going well. We are working more with the members to try and get them excited about the missionary work and give us more references and I think that the genealogy activity we are planning will be really great once we start getting it under way. Anyway things are going well. I'm sending a few pictures I don't have a ton.

But these are some from transfer meeting and zone conference (you've got to love the pictures where everyone is squinting and looking at 20 different cameras :) ) and some pics of us making pastelillos de arroz at a member's house (think mexican tamale but rice instead of maza and banana leaves instead of corn husks).

I slept through the earthquake.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the emails this week.

Sounds like things are going well at home. Mom and Dad sounds like the yard is going to look great. Are you doing the home tour this year? Hopefully you'll get to relax down there this summer and not just work all the time. Wow, Ab sounds like you are in high demand, talking and singing in sacrament speaking at seminary graduation that's really cool. Sounds like you are really busy. Have you had your madrigals concert yet? What are all you girls doing for the summer? Are you working? Have you started working at the front desk at the club rach or teaching tennis? PS-what is a crew regatta?

So this week has been pretty crazy. I don't know if you heard but there was an earthquake in the north west tip of Puerto Rico in a place called Moca. It was about 1:00 am in the morning and I didn't feel a thing even though it was about 5.8 on the riechter scale (spelled right?). Sunday morning my companion said did you feel that shaking last night and I was like what? I have no idea what you are talking about. But then we got to church and everyone was talking about it. As far as I know no one in our area had anything damaged they just felt the shaking, closet doors and dishes in the cupboard rattling etc. Pretty crazy I slept right through it. I've never thought of myself as much of a deep sleeper. No worries though everything is fine here. Pretty crazy though.

Other than that we have been just doing the same old thing. We found have a new investigator named Isabela who is amazing. She doesn't really have a religion and she has the cutest little family. She and her husband are awesome. We testified of the family and there was a really special spirit there. She doesn't really know much about the Bible at all but I know that she felt something different. When we asked her what interested her about the message she said very quietly that she just wanted something to believe in. It's so true there are so many people out there that just need something to believe in especially when life can be so hard. We are really excited to go back and teach her, there was really something special about her and her family.

So today we experienced probably the biggest downpour I have seen since being here in Puerto Rico. I mean this was the aguacero of all aguaceros. We happened to not bring our umbrellas and had to run from the doctor's office to our car which was parked on the other side of this huge parking lot. The rain wasn't letting up so we just took a run for it. Here were these two american girls in skirts just booking it as fast as they could down the flooded sidewalk and across a parking lot by the time we got to our car we were completely soaked, mascara running down our face and not a dry spot on our clothes, it looked like we had just jumped in a pool. We couldn't stop laughing for the longest time. So any of you planning a trip to Puerto Rico anytime soon remember to bring an umbrella even when it looks sunny in the morning.

Love you all!
Have a great week.

Long time, no talk!

Hey everyone,


Well I'm sorry I don't really have anything extremely life changing since now andlast sunday but that's the cool thing I guess. It was so fun to talk to on Sunday. Wow, I couldn't stop smiling or laughing all day. Too much fun; you are all crazy! I saw the pictures of your Mother's day adventures looks super fun and tasty,send some of that my way will you :) PS Erin love the glasses. Thanks for the blogs I'm way excited because I got tons of email this week except for Abby that is I don't know why but I'm not getting anything from her e-mail address and I everything I send gets sent back to me. Make sure you are sending it to brooke.barker@myldsmail.net. Thanks for sending me copies of the blogs.  I don't have time to read all of them but I'm really excited to read a little bit each week and catch up with you all. Thanks also for sending me the email from Karina, that was really cool to read about her, I'll be praying for her and tell her hi from me ps tell her I would love some of her spicy Mexican food right now.

Mom, I think I would just like two white if thats okay green might be a little much with some of my colorful skirts. Thanks for doing that you're awesome.

Here is a shout out to all the people that might be reading my blog or ward members and family friends that have said hi via my family.  I say "hi" back and I'm doing great. Puerto Rico is amazing. Send me a letter and I'll try and write you back as soon as possible. Thanks for all your prayers. I miss you all! Oh and ps congratulations to the million of you who are engaged.

Well things here are good. We are working with our awesome recent converts that we have and looking for more people to teach. Lots of potentials so we're hoping that will be able to start see some of them be able to go to church and start progressing. Prayers would be appreciated. We are working on getting together a big genealogy activity/open house with the ward and possibly the stake. We are really excited and hoping that we can get it under way. It will take a lot of work but we are hoping that it will help the members be more excited about preparing to go to the temple and also help find new people to teach and to lesson to the church. Other than not much n.  It's hot and rainy at the same time and it's not even summer yet so for now I'm still alive haha. No worries Dad I'll put more sunscreen on.

 Love you all.

It's hot chocolate weather...the low 70's

Hey!!! Thanks for the emails. Sounds like everything is going well it's so fun that everyone is back home again. I apologize for the mouse that was living in my vacuum cleaner. haha that's really gross. Hey Dad, that conference sounds really neat I am really jealous. You'll have teach me all sorts of cool stuff when I get home I'm sure you'll be pro at everything. We are trying to encourage members to go to the genealogy center in our stake center so that they can get excited about the genealogy work and prepare their own names for the temple. The ward is planning two temple trips one for just the youth and one for the ward to go to October General Conference in 2011. Apparantly the temple prep class is very well attended. Hey Erin, that's awesome that you finished your novel draft. You still haven't told me anything about it yet. You'll have to give me a brief summary. I'm really excited to read it when I get home. Hope school isn't too busy you are probably almost done right? Ab, you'll have to write me and tell me about the dance. Mom said that you got asked twice. That's awesome. I haven't heard from you in forever I'm sure your super busy with AP tests and I'm sure its that time of year for Madrigals concert but let me know how things are going.


Well things here in Puerto Rico are well... wet. Its quite funny actually because its like low 70s and people are wearing jackets. Two different members gave us hot chocolate yesterday! Its really not that cold! haha but in comparison to how it usually is I guess people are inspired to bring out the hot chocolate. I hear that it's still snowing in Utah. That's crazy.

This week has been pretty slow, we've been trying to find a lot of less active members and teach a few investigators that we have. We have a new family to teach the wife has come to church a few times with a member named Maritza. She doesn't have a phone and lives ridiculously far away so we haven't been able to coordinate with her until this week when we went out to Corozal to eat lunch with Maritza. Maritza took us to her house and we met her husband and even though he didn't have much time we taught him a quick intro to the plan of salvation, and left him a pamphlet. While we were teaching his kids came home from school and the oldest daughter who is probably about 11 or 12 went inside and brought out a book and started reading in the hammock. Well it just so happened to the gospel principles manual. She had already read several chapters. We are pretty excited about this family, they are passing through some really hard times right now and they really need the gospel. We are hoping to be able to drive out there today but Angel, the husband just called from a telephone he borrowed and told us that it is raining ridiculously hard and there is a lot of fog so we might have to stop by another day if it doesn't stop raining in a few hours.

Hey here are some photos that I haven't sent.

Remember the photos with us studying with the laundry well this is what happens when we leave it outside and it rains a lot. haha. I love rain...

Photos from the Baptism with Jose and with Luis (the one with the mustach) and also with Madeline and the Bishop

Well guess what?! This sunday is Mother's Day. Do you know what that means? I get to call home!!!! So you better all be there. I can call for five minutes or so on saturday to set up a time to for the next day. Got to go but I'll talk to you soon!