Picture overload!!

I finally figured out how to get the pics from email to the blog so here ya go!! Enjoy!! City of Durham. It's part of their area. Jay likes the tree lined street. Weekly planning in the nursery room. :-) Ferrari in the church parking lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Norm C. arm wrestling Elder Avery. Norm C. was born with a gimpy arm and weird leg, but he destroys with his left arm. He beat elder Avery. Elder Ross twerking in his tights. (Seems like they have a good time!) Elder Ross and I with the other district for the pool tournament! (Left to right) elder Stoddard, elder Ross in the back, elder Fa, elder wood on the bottom, elder Burdette, elder Gentry in the back the tall one, elder Briggs the glasses, elder Avery, and elder Inman. Elder Avery, the shortest one, is my grandpa. He is my trainers trainer. He is training elder wood right now, on the left. And me and elder Ross. Taking Kya for a walk (Kya is their neighbor's dog) Best tie goes to elder Ross hanging with Kya Half of our district from the MTC! (The other half is in Canada) Red sun. You could look straight at it without hurting your eyes! Elder escalante getting into the new mission car.... Haha this stingray was in the church parking lot. For some reason, there's always cool cars at our church!

The latest...

Here is Jayden's latest email. He still sounds so amazingly good! "So this week was interesting. Kind of crappy in terms of missionary work. So I had my first zone conference on Monday, luckily I wasn't called to give a talk randomly, but I was called to say a prayer haha. We had that in Yuba city where Elder Call is serving, so I got to talk to him which was awesome. A Buffalo Wild Wings just opened up in Chico last week so elder Ross and I went with another district in our zone there. We didn't go with ours because our district is kind of lame so we hang out with theirs. We have been kind of hanging out with them because Elder Gentry from their district leaves today! So we had a pool tournament and stuff. Oh and I forgot, on the way to Buffalo Wild Wings, our car started freaking out. We were on the highway, and our car started beeping like crazy, we thought we were gonna blow up! Our engine had overheated really bad, so we drove slowly to pep boys, because if we drove to fast it would overheat. It overheated a couple of times so we would have to stop the car and sit and wait for it to cool off. And it sucked because it was so hot and we couldn't have the AC on or it would overheat. So we got it to pep boys and I guess our radiator wasn't on all the way. During zone conference, they check our cars and they didn't screw on our radiator all the way so I was kind of pissed. All our coolant spilled out. So they fixed it, but it took them a few days. And you should be so proud of me! When they check our cars at zone conference, they make people stay and clean their cars and the inspector has to talk to them and tell them what they need to fix or clean, and we were they only ones who were free to go right away because it was so clean and everything was working! Haha. So anyways, since it took Pep boys a couple of days to fix, Elder Burdette and Briggs (our zone leaders) drove us around. They are really awesome, me and elder Ross actually hang out with them a lot. We slept at their house while our car was being fixed. It was fun because we just played uno and stuff. Oh, and Elder Burdette lives in the same neighborhood as grandma and grandpa Garmire! So that's crazy! So we got our car and a bunch of investigators cancelled on us. So nothing really too good in terms of missionary work happened this week. We got a lady to go to church which was cool, but she cancelled last minute "because she didn't have any cash" so whatever haha. We still got 3 other investigators to come to church! So that was good. Our ward mission leader was pissed at us because our numbers sucked this week, but it was because our car broke and we had zone conference and everyone cancelled! He just got called to be mission leader and he's really crazy about it. He was AP on his mission and he basically says his mission was way harder and better than ours and he assigns us all these dumb things! Anyways, last night, the lady who we share the house with said she is going out of town, so she asked if we could take care of her dog. So we let her chill with us haha. So pretty fun week this week haha. Hope you guys are doing good! Miss you all like crazy! Love you!!! elder Jaydawg" Man, I love that boy so much! I miss him more than I can say but so glad he is having fun and enjoying this time of his life!

One month down!!

Well, we hit the one month mark! I can hardly believe it!! It has gone much faster than I ever dreamed it would!! Here are some of his latest emails. August 3, 2015 "So I'm pretty good! Still going kinda slow but it's fun! We are in a car, and thank goodness because it's been around 102 degrees here. Up in Redding, which is a city in our mission, it was 112 degrees! Really grateful for cars! So elder Ross is pretty cool. We get along really well and we click through video games. He likes all the ones I do haha. The only thing that is hard, is that he is EXTREMELY sarcastic. Like I will ask a serious question and he will answer sarcastically, but it sounds like he is being serious so it's kinda hard to communicate sometimes. And he's not exactly obedient. Like we don't get up on time and we rarely do companion study and a couple other little things. I try to be obedient, but it's hard when he is the trainer and he is kinda in charge I guess. But other than that we get along pretty well! Elder Ross is from Heraman Utah. The work is ok, we have just been visiting a lot of the same people. So during weekly study time, we were about done and elder Ross asked if I wanted to visit anyone else and Tony Silva was on my screen. He was a potential investigator. So I had a feeling we should visit him! So we went right after planning, and he was excited to see us! He kind of said he had been waiting for us to come! It was so exciting! So we taught him the restoration and it all made sense to him! He wanted us to come back next week! But nothing too interesting this week!" August 10, 2015 "So the other day, we visited that lady who has a smoking problem. She asked for a priesthood blessing to quit smoking, because she had urges about every 20 minutes. So we gave her a blessing and came back a few days later and she hadn't had an urge to smoke since we blessed her. She also asked to be baptized so we got her on date for September 3! That was so cool! We have also done a lot of service this week. we helped several members move and we helped clean the church and stuff. One of the members we helped move has brain issues, it's sad because his mom did meth while she was pregnant and even gave him a gram of meth when he was a few days old, which stopped his heart. So that's why he's a little weird. I couldn't have guessed he had brain damage unless he told me though, he seems ok. But anyway, he's always been addicted to meth because of that so he ended up using when he was older and went to jail, and he snuck a shank into the prison and planned on killing a guard because he would rather die than go to jail. So they put him in this room with a girl prisoner, which they don't usually do but It was just for a second for some reason, and the lady was smiling and David, (the member) asked her what's so funny and she just said it's good to be alive. And then asked if David wanted to pray with her, so he did. He started crying and decided not to kill the guard. When they got to the judge thing, a few hours later, they cut his sentence in half. So he knew God cared for him. Once he was out of jail, the missionaries found him and he was converted. He's actually a really nice guy. He doesn't do meth anymore or anything! We also taught Tony, the guy I was inspired to visit, and he just is totally accepting the gospel! It's awesome! There is one lady who we visit and she prayed about the mormon church and said the thought that we were a cult popped into her head. So we encouraged her to try again and focus on what she felt, more than what she thought. She also had all these questions that we've already answered before so it's frustrating!" He sounds so, so good! He always sounds happy and upbeat which makes my heart so happy! I can't ask for anything more! I love having a missionary! It is so fun to see his growth and hear about all of his experiences! Monday is definitely my FAVORITE day of the week! I look forward to his emails so much! I can see such huge changes in him already and even he says he can't believe how much he has grown! I'm so very thankful for this opportunity for Jayden. I know he could never experience the things he has in any other way. So grateful for this amazing gospel and especially for our Savior and His atoning sacrifice. I am so grateful that my boy had the desire to serve our Savior and that he is doing it with all his heart! To end I just want to share a little bit of an email that my sweet Kaylen sent to Jayden. "I love you so much!!!!! It is hard without you but I know that it is right for you!:) I moved up 2 levels in dance! I am excited for that, I already did do all of my dances. I sang in church but it was a solo! I was scared but i did it. The theater is much different without you! I need to tell you about school it is awesome! But I cry because I miss you so much! Every thing I see makes me sad because of you haha!!!!!!!!!!! I am so glad you are serving a mission for the lord! You were the person I looked up for! But i will always look up for you! I love you but I will always love you forever i will not stop telling you! Haha! I love you! You are so awesome! I love you, Kay rae/80" Is that not the cutest thing ever?!?! I love my family so much! Having Jay on a mission has definitely brought us closer and I love seeing how much the other kids love him and miss him and want to know what he's up to!! It has really been a great experience for our family! I love my missionary!!!!