TSUNAMI

Friday, March 11, 2011
Tsunami Warning
We have received alerts from the church that parts of the Philippines is under a Tsunami Warning. We have moved all our missionaries that live in the lowlands to higher ground as there is a chance that during the night the rivers will rise. We are keeping a close tab on everyone. We will publish posts as soon as we have additional information.
Our prayers are with our brothers and sisters in Japan, particularly Sendai, where our oldest son served. Your prayers for this part of the world are much appreciated!
Sister Carlos

BUSY!BUSY!BUSY!

man i really dont know what to write about this week... we did a lot of stuff and were always soooo busy, if we werent doing one thing we were heading to another and whenever we had time for work we were just teaching so it was way way aweosme, it makes everything go soooo fast. tuesday we had our distrit meeting and it was sweet we had some problems in the district we had to fix and talk to some elders but it was ok, then that night naylor and his comp spent the night cause wednesday we went to a big meeting which took like almost the whole day but it was good, i learned a lot im so excited to share with others, then we got home and RAN to each one of our apointments to get them in. then thursday we did our weekly planning so that friday we could go watch others, when we went to the peoples we were suppose to watch friday it wasnt could when we got to there house, but we had to talk to them and they got it figured out and we watched there planning then went home and went straight to work again, saturday we had a baptism we had to get ready for, then after that we had to many people we needed to go see so we had to go on splits and went and taught tell it was dark. sunday was AWESOME we ended up having a lot of people start going to church this week and it was there first time so that means we are getting knew preogressing investigators again which is awoemse after all the baptism we have been doin. then we had to go and prepair a lesson cause we were suppose teach the leaders of all the branches in our whole zone, as in a TON of people likle over 200 leaders, but it ended up we didnt get to cause of lack of time. so we went and ran to a bunch of apointments and it was all awsome. so the week was pretty full and it doesnt look like it will ever slow down either, if anything it will probably start getting faster haha :) love it! hope everything is going good at home, love ya all!

sweet! thanks for the little updates i like hearing that kinda stuff! ya we had our big conferance thing, it was pretty cool cause the night before naylor got to sleep at our apartment, i tried to go to bed but they were sitting on my bed so i couldnt and we ended up staying up pretty late, i didnt wana be the party pooper so i just let it go haha but they meeting was pretty sick! ya they took some pictures so i was wondering if u would see that. Thats nuts chelsea is about to graduate, only one sport left and its all over. thats sweet everyone is up there right now!
Our trip to the caves was so awesome, it was the whole district, it was a district ativity, we were suppose to go to waterfalls today but then everyone backout out and so it was going to be just us and 2 sister missionaries so we didnt go....
the zone is awesome, there all way way good, we just got a few "prospective" missionaries that dont make the best decisions but where trying to help them out, this week i get to go on a split with the worst one of them all :) so we will see how that is! we didnt interview anyone but we got 2 more baptisms this week... the city is way difrent, the people in the city are defianlty way harder to teach but its all good we have some places out in the bukids so we teach a lot out there and are work is going AWWESOME! even though we are baptiseing a lot of people we are getting knew ones to progress so that is SOOO awesome. my comp is alright, we get along no problem. and his parents just dont write him, there family is just like that. and we are averaging 40 member pressents a week still so the area is awesome! is the flash drive coming? SWEET man i have a ton of pictures too so hopefully i get it soon! i love ya mom, thanks for the updates, the mission is going amazing, its going way to fast too, u wouldnt belive how busy i am

We started March off with a bang with all 14 of our zone leaders coming in for their council meeting. President asked each companionship to report on the great things happening in their zones and any concerns they had. We love to hear these young leaders council together and share ideas. It's been a while since we posed for a ZLC photo.

THE CITY IS EXPENSIVE!

thanks for feeling me in, ur pretty much the only one that does, chelsea does to a little but not really about the family. so that is cool they got there gifts! hoped they liked it, i couldnt think of anything for kellon haha. man i have so many pictures to send home, im thinking about buying another usb and just sending it home for u guys but then i might have to get money out of my account again... man its so hard to live in the city, i dont really spened money at all and all of it is gone so far, and im not talking about personal im talking about my support, its the same for my comp, its cause we have to spend so much on little rides everywhere, kinda like taxi thing, its rediculeous so what were going to do is keep track adn them get money back frm the mission cause we spend WAY TO MUCH! well mom thanks for everything, dont worry i really stay focused now haha its way better like this! plus we stay so busy we dont really ever have time to think about home or anything really.
This week was so full of missionary work. from monday to sunday we were either teaching or interviewing or getting stuff ready for a baptism, we also went to a way way far away baptism on the farthest corner of our zone and so we had to spend the night at the closest elders apartment casue it was so early in the morning, thn i had to conduct it. it was nuts. our baptism was way awesome thought, there was 5 of them and they were all sooo ready for baptism, now we are going to try to work on getting there family to follow. Man time is flying so fast rihgt now! its nuts. i cant belive that a week just went by. man i have no idea what i could write. there was seriously a thousand diffrent things that happened this week. so this week i totally witnessed the reallity again the scripture, "WIckedness never was happiness"!!! man this week we should have had 6 people baptised but in the interview somthing came out that is called a special case and she just needs to talk to pres, Then i was SOOOOO happy to be able to teach her the process of repentance and the great feeling of being forgiven and how no matter how bad her sin was its could become as white as SNOW! man it was so aweosme, it just gave me a reassurance for myself as i was teaching it the reality of that, how no matter what ive done or anyone else, as long as its not killing on purpose or denying the holy ghost, i can be forgiven, doesnt mean its easy thought, like we read in mosiah about almas repenting experience, Nye untill death, and i totally saw that in her as i was teaching, she felt soooo bad, and it was the right kinda of feeling bad, it was that godly sorrow, not because she wasnt able to get baptised or any other reason, but that she just felt really really bad for what she had done. thats how it is suppose to be! ah it was awesome and i cant wait tell its over and she can feel that aweosme feeling of forgiveness!!!

FIRST WEEK IN SANTIAGO

So the new area is awesome, we still dont get a washer and dryer and stuff but we get a shower head and that is better then a bucket, and my new apartment doesnt have as many rats at all as my last one so we can actually leave our foot out side of the fridge and it wont be eatin by morning. ya im not sure about when i am going to come home... but i really really need to get my school started so ill have to talk with president pretty soon but that is still a while away :). man my new comp is BOMB, dont try to find his parents cause they dont even write to him, im sure they wont write to u. but he is a stud and we are doing really good in our area it is awesome. it was wierd changing from that training mood to someone else who can actually teach too, and really good, so it was hard at first but i love it now and we have talked about it and our teaching is aweosme now, right in sync and stuff so its great! the missionaries here are awesome, im already starting to love them. i miss my other onse but these are good exchanges and i cant wait to get cool with them all too. ya i got the package and i loved it! the only thing it was missing was pictures, maybe the most important :) joke but i want some when u can get me some, i also have a lot of pictures i want to send home... and ya i did spend some, i needed some extra cash to carry around.
i totally walked into a good teaching pool we are making it even bigger now too. this week we taught 40 poeple with member presnet. that is amazing haha its my all time record and my comps, it was just awesome, needless to say we didnt waist any time walking or whatever we were always teaching and its going to pay off! im just thankful for the oppurntunity im here and everything, im learning a ton and everything. i love it. well i hope everything is going good at home. love ya mom

well what can i say about this week?... well i am finally getting settled in and stuff and starting to get everything down so that is nice! our work this week was awesome. we just taught and taught and taught, which is how it is suppose to be so its been awesome! man i dont even know what to write, all we did was teach.... i guess one thing i kinda got enlightened on that i could share about that is really important is about our priorities LOL. so this week i met and taught a lot of knew people here that arent really in to religion. they all love god, and know he is true and there all some what religious but most of the time its just untill there... and while we are teaching them about this truth and what that really is and how we can bring it to them, all i can see over and over again is just a lac of interest. everyone wants to think there good, they want to think that they just need to not kill and do really bad things and god wil have mercy on them and all i can do is get so frustrate and feel sooooo sad for these kind of people. i remeber reading in the bible, not going to lie, i cant remeber, but it said we should always be trying really hard to always increase our status. even as members at church, i ofter ask my self if i have repented of all my sins and if i were called to the judgment seet at this moment if i would be saved, i love this thought, lots of time when things like this pop in our minds we try to chace it away as fast as posible cause thoughts like that can be scary, or somtimes its just easy not to think about those things because the current concerns we are facing right now seem more important at the times being and easly distract our attention. But these kinds of questions are the onse we ALWAYS need to be asking ourselfs. i love chanpet 5 of alma, how alma asked all these questions to the people he was teaching and just made him think. i asked this to a women this week and it blew me away how easy the blew it off, she doesnt want to have to thnk about that, to stressful. i guess the only message i want to share with u at home is we always need to be asking ourselvs these questions, the ones that are not easy to dwell on but the ones in the over all long run will save and help us the most. while pondering if we notice there might be something keeping us from obtaining our full potential, change, immediately haha, even for me. being a missionary u are always thinking of these things and u still make little mistakes but i always pray for Gods help to over come my weakneses and i can honestly i am trying my best and in the end that is the most important. i know jesus already payed for all our sins, he already suffered for them and to not use that pain and suffering which cause jesus himslef to sweat blood from every pore would just be foolish! its payed for, Gods merciful hands are always stretched out to us, he wants to help us and we just have to be humble and accept and live his plan throught faith in Jesus christ which leads to our repentance. i love u and i want to be with u forever. take 10 min out of life and step back, reevaluate yourself and see what things are keeping u back from ur full potential of becoming a God or godess and quickly fix it. i love ya all. take care...

SANTIAGO ZONE LEADER

ELDER RINER AND ELDER HAYCOCK ARE THE NEW LEADERS FOR THE SANTIAGO ZONE

THE NEW COUPLE MISSIONARIES IN CHARGE OF HOUSING! YEAH!!!! THEY ARE REALLY NEEDED!

THE BREESES HELP IN THE OFFICE AND THE LARSONS ARE THE MEDICAL MISSIONARIES. SOO HAPPY TO HAVE THEM! THEY ARE HELPING COLTON WITH HIS INGROWN TOENAILS.

Well this week was a pretty cool week. so i have pretty much known for a while now that i was moving, and even where i was moving, but it was still hard to hear it last tuesday at my last district meeting when they called out all the names of the people moving. my last district meeting was awesome and i am going to miss all those guys, but hardman took my spot, so the work will go on :). so tuesday and wednesday we said good bye to everyone and taught a lot too. man it was SOOOOO sad. it was a really really good experience too. i didnt relise how much i loved some of these people and how close i had gotten to them untill i had to say good bye. ill just tell about one, aderacion. ive told u about her before, man i LOVE this woman. but my last day she was going to a funeral later that night so i had to say goodbye on my way to a csp. so i went by her house and i just wanted like a little good bye and stuff and then just leave. so i went there and she was just telling me how sad it was i had to leave and stuff, but we were being cool, then she gave us snakcs, and she brought out the book of morman we gave her and made me write in it, AHHHH! so i just wrote a sweet little note for her in it and i got up and i was like, "sister, we have to go..." and then we just exchanged take cares and stuff and it was sad, but then i started to walk away and as i started walkin off she followed me out of the gate and then i just hear this, " Take care elder riner." in like the SADDEst voice ever, i looked back and she was balling, and i just turned and put my head down ballin too, i LOVE THIS WOMAN, i couldnt even control myself, it was soooo hard. i guess she also yelled something like "Maybe ill go to america" but jackson just told me that i didnt hear it. and that was the last thing i saw of her. i was just thinking how hard it was, how i had to do all i could to love these people and then in one day leavn them with little hope of ever seeing them again. i was so thankful that opurtunity though and i relised how much god has helped me really really grow a love for these people, the whole day was just like that. hard! it was like saying good bye to my family all over again when i had to leave home.. it was aweosme! even jackson took me leaving pretty hard. i love that guy and he has a GOOD start with his mission, im way proud of that stud! then thursday i got to talk with everyone, it was soooo sweet seeing everyone one, then i got my knew comp, elder haycock. and now i am here in the city of santiago, its one of the biggest cities in my mission. its way way sick. ive already gotten settled right in and met all the peopple and everything its aweosme! the mission carries on and i am already falling in love with these knew people i am meeting in my knew area. there is a ton of potential, the branch is legit and is about to become a ward! sweet. man, its just been like a long stressful week. im really glad im all settled in with my knew stuff and im ready to work as hard as i can her for this branch. my comp is way way legit and it will be a awesome cycle.
Man i took a lot of pictures but i dont have a think to send them home on... if u get me that i will send these pics home., i have a lot of them too. alright i love ya all. c ya~