A New Companion

..................I have no idea what to write this week :P We spent a grand total of half a day in our sector this past week because we had to travel so much for different meetings Elder C had in Maipú, so I have no idea how our investigators or members are doing. So I guess I`ll just say the little I know about my comp so far. ¿Listos?

Elder H, from St. George, UT. Recently he told me he torn is MCL in his second week here and is now suffering with the following: He can`t sleep more than two hours, anxiety, depression, and a general lack of energy. PLEASE pray for him! He just finished his training (so yes, that makes me senior comp, but all that really means is that I have more time in the mission) and is SUPER bummed about everything that`s wrong right now. We get to go to Santiago once or twice a week for different appointments he has with doctors. Hopefully being in the tranquilidad del campo va a ayudarle. (tranquility of the countryside will help)

That`s a bad habit I have :P Starting a sentence in English and finishing in Spanish haha. I had a dream a few nights ago in Spanish, I struggle to have a full conversation in English (maybe that`s why it takes me so long to email....hmm...) and Spanish just plain flows easier. If I think about what I`m going to say, I think it in Spanish and, as a result, I say it in Spanish. Trevin might have to translate my talk when I get home if I`m already like this at almost  months hahaha :P

Anyway, that`s all I have for this week.

 

Mom - Keep doing what you do best: loving your family :)

 

Dad - Don`t go getting all hopped up on new technology! Hahaha, I´m gonna need in on that when I get home!

 

Trevin - ¡Freaking hombre! Hay que esperar a ser super bakan por cuándo puedo verle en vivo. ¡En serio! Pero felicitaciones por su partido el otro día :)

Anna - The scriptures say something about how if we help others silently and without notice, God will reward us openly. I know that`s you and that you have and will receive many great blessings for all that you do.

 

Allie - Way to be awesome! All the stuff you`re doing now is really gonna help you be just as good of a mom as ours is :)

Alyza - Good job for being modest! When I can, Dayday is gonna send you some more candy, ok?

Love,

- Elder Daylon Crider

Funny stickers Daylon found somewhere - one says "Missionaries need love too!  Just at arms length"

The coast
 

 

A Lonely Birthday

Sorry I didn´t get to write yesterday. Loooooooong story short: We went to the snow, Elder C is in República for special meetings today and tomorrow which means I´m with interm comps. Because of all the traveling I couldn´t write yesterday.

Birthdays away from home suck. That just needed to be said, sorry. We all know how much I don´t like the attention, but a bit of recognition would have been nice. Granted, the Sisters called in the morning and the RS President called at night (we didn´t have the Branch FHE because of Branch Conference Sunday). Not even Cervantes remembered and he was the one telling everyone not to forget my birthday :P

 

Tricia will (hopefully) be proud of me for what I did on my birthday though: I wrote a poem :) I don´t have it with my because this morning was super crazy, but let´s see if I can´t remember it...(I will be sending the "official" version home when the mail strike - still ongoing as far as I´m aware - ends)

...........................yeah I don´t remember how it starts, but here´s a few exerpts:

"No midnight text from my girlfriend,

Though the Sister missionaries did call

To sing me a happy birthday

In Spanish, which I could not understand at all.

.......

 

Many thoughts are thought

Many prayers are said

By those who know and love me

Before they go to bed.

......

 

And today, just now,

At the turn of my nineteenth leaf,

I realize that I can do much more

Than just rely on my belief

 

As a servant of the Lord

My call for these two years is this:

Help the children of Almighty God

return home for a hug and a kiss.

 

And though at times it may seem hard

To keep on pushing through,

With my eighteen years of knowledge

I know this much is true:

 

Every soul is great

Every child is pure

God is my Heavenly Father

And of Christ as my Redeemer, I am sure."

 

It´s sorta lame when you can´t read all of it, sorry :/

 

Anyway, I´m only supposed to be on for 30 minutes today so I will make my response to your email short

1. See above (my question was: how was your bday?)

1.5 No  (my question was: Is the mail strike over?)

2. Hit the "Windows button" and voila! You have your desktop back and can do the majority of your work there. Granted, they took away the start button from you, but that´s what shortcuts are for, right? Good luck! I´m here to help when you need it :) (my question was: how to I use Windows 8? haha)

3. Because Elder C has to do so much in Maipú and Santiago, we aren´t in our sector much so we only had 2 lessons last week :/ (my question was: anything new with your investigators?)

Family - I love you! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, I´ll write better next week, provided there´s time....wait!!!!!!!!!! We´ll be in Maipú for changes Monday, so we may or may not have time to email until....Tuesday night/Wednesday. I´ll make time to tell you who my new comp is, but if I don´t write next Monday, I won´t have time to respond to your emails at all, sorry!

Lots of love,

- Elder Daylon Crider

p.s. "Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it´s a cinch" - Pres. Monson

 

 

Investigators...Finally!!!

Aaaaaand this week´s emails is exactly why I didn´t say anything about my toe before :P haha, I still love you all :)

So, contrary to the Doc´s advice, I refused to stop working. Granted, we did stay close to the house and weren´t out as long as we normally would be, but I was still on my feet. The extra time we were in the house I began reading Jesus the Christ (hence my lesson on prayer about a month ago "randomly" from Jesus the Christ haha). It´s got a lot of big words and all I have is an English-to-Spanish dictionary :P haha

Normally not much happens during the week besides the usual visits to members and our one "eternal investigator", and unfulfilled compromisos, but this week a few new things finally happened :)

We were walking down the street (I don´t remember from where nor toward where we were heading) and a lady on the opposite sidewalk called us over. D. is is an ex-alcoholic (sp?) and wants her husband to overcome it too. She remembers having been taught be Sisters when she was much younger and when she was trying to beat her addiction those memories helped. She wants us to meet her husband and help him. She´s super willing to do what we ask and already has a friend in the branch from oh so many years ago.

Second, we started doing a "recorrido" or tour of the church building on Saturdays. It´s the starting point for always having the church open as announced in the June 23rd New Mission President Broadcast. Although only two people showed up, they agreed to be baptized at the end of the month :) (FYI, they are in the Sister´s sector so they aren´t our investigators)

Third, WE HAD AN INVESTIGATOR AT CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D B., our Eternal Investigator, with her member "husband" and non-member daughter-in-law finally came to Church for the first time since I´ve been here :D She loved it and it made me super happy, in case you couldn´t tell haha

Also, I saw a quote that gave me a better perspective on things in general, but also about a specific challenge. In my rough translation, it says: "God gives His toughest battles to His most able soldiers". I´d encourage you to ponder on that for a few moments before you keep reading....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now for my lesson, which comes from a talk I heard in church yesterday:

Similarly, I´d encourage you to ponder this question, maybe even make a note of your answer(s) before moving on: Why do we obey?

Simply put, it comes down to 3 reasons:

1) Fear of the consequences of NOT obeying - a.k.a. Telestial Kingdom

2) Desire for blessings - a.k.a. Terrestrial Kingdom

3) Love for God and Christ - a.k.a. Celestial Kingdom

Unfortunately I had a clear recollection of a conversation with my Heavenly Father earlier last week. I remember saying that I was going to do a certain thing because "we really need the blessing" that comes from obeying. As a result, in my personal evaluation I had to place myself in the Terrestrial Kingdom. However, thanks to the redeeming power of Christ, we all have the opportunity to improve ourselves each day and progress a little further to the Celestial Kingdom.

An interesting note that just came to mind: in the Celestial Kingdom we are together with our family. That means we should all be helping each other remember to do the little things (reading even just a verse of scriptures in the morning, saying our prayers, attending church, wearing a smile, etc.) and when we are reminded we should realize that, as Nephi said, it is not our leaders or our parents or our siblings who ask us to do things, "but it is a commandment from the Lord" (1 Nephi 3:5) "and I must obey" (2 Nephi 33:15).

 

I love you all and I encourage you to kindle and build a burning desire inside of yourself to obey out of love for Him whose you are. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mom- A simple solution for all the challenges that I got out of your email: Alma 42:27.  I think Tricia would find that one interesting as well if you two wanted to discuss it.

 

Dad- What up dude?? You´ve got a serious backlog of questions to answer for me! (ex.: Is your dad part Native American?)

 

Trevin- Hermano mío, ¿Cómo está con su lectura del Libro de Mormón? ¿Han terminado como familia ya? jaja Hace 2 años empezamos y espero que han terminado jaja

 

Anna- Have you made any new friends at school yet?

 

Allie- I told your story (I hope it´s ok!) about what you told me about your reasons for being baptized with someone we met on Saturday and your example helped her decide to be baptized too :) Thanks for being awesome and helping me teach people from so far away!

 

Alyza- Are you giving Gigi lots of love and huggies for me?

 

Love always,

- Elder Daylon Crider

p.s. photos :)

1 - is my bowling score from last week that I forgot to send haha (I got second by 10 points :P)

2 -is a cake of Banana Bread topped with Nutella that I made from scratch. (there´s a video where the other videos were last time)

 

 

A Secret Revealed

Part 1. Haha, I´m not sure if I like having the world know that I....attempted to sew :P But I guess I´ll send home some other videos of things I do so that hopefully relatively soon everyone will forget about my sewing haha (I don´t have any for today, sorry)

About needing new pants.... Two of my three pants that match my suits had rips, but now both of them are patched up, if not fixed haha, so no.

Because of the story in Parts 2.1 and 2.2, I don´t have time for a lesson, sorry :/

 

Part 2.1 So, now that it´s all done with I guess I´ll tell the history of what happened over the past two months....

In June I noticed that my toe was looking super ugly and inflamed. It didn´t hurt, but that was because of how infected it was. So I went to the local doctor and got some antibiotics for it. While I was there he told me that after the inflamation had gone down and it wasn´t infected anymore, I would need to get part of the nail (obviously the infected part) removed. So on July 9th I went to INDISA, which is basically a doctor´s office and hospital combined.

 

While there, they removed part of the right side of my toe (the biggest toe on my left foot is where all this happened) that was still under the skin. I´ll send a few more pics in just a minute of another post-op and two after they removed the stitches and you´ll be able to see that my toe still looks like it´s all there :) Granted, there is some dry blood still underneath my toe, but I´m way too scared to lift it up and try to remove it. Hopefully every time I shower a little of it gets removed haha

 

Everything is fine now, I can go back to playing soccer on Pdays haha :) It never hurt, I was supposed to stay off my feet as much as possible for 10 days after the surgery, there was a lot of blood at the end of each day for about two weeks, it took about a month to fully heal, I didn´t yell when they pulled out the stitches, the mission paid for it in full because it happened in the mission....that should answer most of your questions haha :)

Part 2.2 Oh, in the surgery he put two giant needles of anesthisia (sp?) in my toe, one on each side where it connects to the rest of my foot. And after it wore off (before I was able to buy the pain killers he prescribed to me) IT HURT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Another fun story....the Mission Medic person told me that if the inflamation didn´t go down, we couldn´t do the surgery in Chile...I´d have to be sent back to the States. And so, as a result of that and many many many many many many MANY prayers, I am now able to swallow pills on the first try and with just a sip of water!! :D I fell so accomplished :) hahahahaha aaaaand a little pathetic, but still :P (p.s. the pills were about this size: I________I in length and about O (the outside of the line) in width and height)  (From Mom: Yes, Daylon left on his mission without the ability to swallow a pill, so you never know what miracles will occur on a mission! Also, I am sparing you the disgusting toe pictures, you can thank me later)

 

 

- Elder Daylon Crider

No Mail :(

The Chilean postal workers have been on stike for about a week and a half and we have NO idea when it will end. They say that everything sent here will be marked "return to sender", but who really knows if they´ll get back to you. As a result, don´t send anything until I give the "go-ahead" that things are coming through again. If you have already sent a package or letter and you don´t get it back by the end of the month, it´s not getting to either one of us, sorry. And of course this strike had to happen in August...happy birthday to me :P hahaha It´s ok though cuz I think the Sister missionaries are planning something seeing as we have an FHE next Friday as a Branch.

I wanted to send this email asap so we don´t have too many problems, but I won´t be sending any other emails until much later. We´re going bowling today :) ....and we´re sorta late cuz I was insitant on sending this email...oops!

Love you all,

- Elder Daylon Crider