NOV_20_17_MOM_LEW_From mom

 Hey there Mother!!

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! You neglected to tell me all about your amazing birthday plans for tomorrow!! Are ya'll gonna take a vacation to Florida?? France?? Or Maybe Famous Daves? Any one of those three alliterative options sounds dang good to me. I hope you have an AWESOME birthday, mom. I've been thinking about you all week. To avoid repeating too much from my birthday card (which you should be getting in the mail soon), I'll just tell you that I LOVE YOU. 

4th in line, huh? You make it seem like my homecoming is right around the corner. I've still got quite a ways left. I guess I'm behind Sam Kay, James Hansen, and Colten. I'm in good company. Can you believe I've already been out for 5 1/2 months?? It's CRAZY. Time has just FLOWN by. 

We had interviews with President Bednar this past Wednesday. We talked about a lot of things. My health being one of them. I'm still not all the way better, and it's kinda annoying the crap out of me. I haven't sent frequent emails because I'm not really getting worse, but I'm not getting a whole lot better, either. So I figured it'd be redundant if I just kept sending "Still the same." I'll let you know once I have a breakthrough. I've been doing all the stuff the doctor said to do. I'll get better. Just you wait.

But anyways, back to my interview with President Bednar. He basically told me that I am going to be getting transferred in the middle of December, as predicted. Unless there was anything that was holding me back from doing so. He wants to do what's best for me. I told him there wasn't anything holding me back. He then proceeded to give me three choices of areas: College, Urban, or Rural. I told him COLLEGE with a resounding YES. Ever since I went to State College, I've been wanting to go serve on a college campus. I think that I could do really well there. So I'm hoping he takes my choice into consideration. We'll see. Transfers are still a little ways away, so I'm trying not to think about it too much.

I'm glad ya'll have plans for Thanksgiving. It sounds like it's gonna be pretty fun!! Quiet Thanksgivings are the best, right? Yes, the Kauffman's signed up to feed us Thanksgiving Lunch that day. We're pretty stoked. The way Brother Kauffman's been talking about it, I may have to loosen a few belt buckles afterwards. And they'll undoubtedly send us home with some food as well. As of right now, we don't know what we're doing for Thanksgiving Dinner. Hopefully spend it with an investigator, but we'll see. 

Gosh darn. The BYU woes continue. We lost to UMASS?? They ain't even good. It's amazing how big of a dip there has been in performance this year. I guess it just makes us appreciated Jamaal Williams and Taysom Hill and all the rest of those seniors a little bit more, huh? UT Arlington ain't good either. Wow. We suck. I hate saying it, but it's true.

The work itself has been slow... Elder Payne and I haven't been able to get much going. We're working with some new investigators, and they haven't been meeting with us or progressing at the speed we would like. We had lots of lessons fall through this week. Fortunately, most of our recent converts are doing good. Carlos is in Puerto Rico for the next two weeks. Tyler came out with us to visit Sister Zoeller, that veteran I've talked about in the past. As far as I can tell, Carolina is doing GREAT up there in Maine. Cheryl... hasn't been to church for like a month. And keeps canceling appointments. I'm worried about her. We're gonna spontaneously stop by one of these days. But everyone else is doing good, which is awesome.

Hey Mom, Dad? It occurred to me recently that I don't know much about your missions. The people that you taught, the places you served, what it was like. You should send me an email and fill me in. I would love to hear about it. Same goes for you, John.

I hope you have an awesome week!! I love you!!

Elder Jake Gonzales

On Nov 19, 2017 9:56 PM, <perucalica@aol.com> wrote:

November 19, 2017

Hey Buddy Boy,

It is yet another lazy Sunday evening and it’s time to see what I can think of to tell you.  Everything here is much the same.  We get up, go to work, and come home.  That about sums it up in a nutshell.  I guess the only good part about that this week is that I am on vacation all this week for Thanksgiving.  I have that wonderful “Friday Night Feeling” tonight as I know that I don’t have to get up and go to work tomorrow.

Dad and I went in to see the Bishop for Tithing Settlement today.  He was asking about you and how you are doing.  I was looking at the missionary board outside his office as I was sitting there waiting and I noticed that your plaque is now 4^th in the line of succession as they put them in the order of when the missionaries will be coming home.  Sam Kay’s, of course, is first in line.  He should be finishing his mission sometime next month.  I’m sure that his family is excited to get him home.

Dad and I went to the temple on Friday night as it was our ward’s turn to do sealings.  I am convinced that it is 1000 times harder to get yourself to the temple than it is when you are actually there.  There are a million reasons that I can think of to not go which is ironic because once I’m actually there, I love it and feel as if I don’t want to leave.  There were two accidents along the way and so of course the freeway was packed and we were going about 25 mph the whole way to Redlands.  It took us almost an hour to get there.  We made it just in time to quickly change our clothes and get into the session.

I guess that we’ll just have Lucy and Jesus come for Thanksgiving.  Dad says that Wiwa and his family are planning on going to Tijuana on Thanksgiving and so they won’t be joining us.  We’ll, of course, also have John and Sarah T. here as well.  It should be a pretty quiet Thanksgiving Day.  I’m hoping that you have a place to go and that there’s lots of yummy food to fill your tummy.  I think you’ve mentioned in previous letters that there is a family that have invited you and so I’m not too worried about it.  I’m sure they’ll take good care of you.

We have a new Elder in our ward today and they’ve put the sister missionaries back in our ward and so we’re back to 4 missionaries here again.  We’ve signed up to feed the Elders next Sunday and so I guess that we’ll get to know them better then.

Well, BYU’s semi-decent play was not to be repeated this week.  They played UMASS yesterday and they just fell apart. Quite ironically, even though UMASS was playing much better than we were, they couldn’t seem to make anything work either.  The final score ended up being 16-10.  BYU finally started coming alive about 5 minutes before the game ended but by then, it was too little, too late.  I’m sorry to say that the basketball team didn’t do any better than the football team last night.  They played against UT Arlington and unfortunately, BYU couldn’t even buy a basket last night.  I think that they were like 2-20 at the 3 point line yesterday and they couldn’t hit anything from the inside either.  I guess it just wasn’t BYU’s day yesterday as for all things sport related.

So, how’s the health going these days?  Of course we haven’t been getting any updates from President Bednar recently and so I’m assuming that no news is good news.  I was looking on the Mission Blog and noticed a picture of my handsome son that was taken at Zone Conference recently.  Seeing you always makes me happy.

I hope you know that I love you sooooo much and during this Thanksgiving week I thank my Heavenly Father for you.  You are one of the lights of my life.  Have a good week.

Love,

Mom