Tuesday, December 22, 2009

December 21, 2009


On my birthday the best thing happened, Rut Noemi had her baptismal interview and she passed, but more importantly, her mom signed the paper giving her the OK to be baptized, which has been the probolemor. So that was basically the best thing that has ever happened! She was baptised this last Saturday which was wonderful.
Oh man, it has been way hard this last week. If there are one or two things you could pray for this week it is to help the people of Chelatenango to soften their hearts and for us to find a family that will be baptized, and in one year go to the temple. Yesterday we had 5 appointments and they all fell through, and at 3 of them, other people answered the door and said they were not home when we knew they were there. It was just really sad, so we tried knocking on doors and all the people were just like, "No thank you." I feel like that painting of Jesus when he is overlooking Jerusalem and gives the scripture; "Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem", and is sad for the hardness of their hearts. But we are still trying hard, and working for our goal to find families.

I love prayer, it is a wonderful thing, because no matter what language you are speaking, Heavenly Father knows what you are saying.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A message from November

In Doctrine and Covenants, it says "I am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise". Well, this week was really hard, knocking on puertas, talking to many people in the mercado todo. We have a mission goal for each week to have 140 lessons, which is talking to people about the church and stuff and seeing if we can talk to them more. We had talked, in one day, to over 50 people and no body wanted to listen. It was a hard long day, but we kept trying. The next morning we read in the scriptures and talked about how we need to work with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength, and to truly lose ourselves in the work, so while we were talking I took one of my handkerchiefs, tore it, and we made a Title of Liberty for a missionary that says: "Todo carazon alma mente y FUERZA, no TENGA culpa ante Dios". Which means: "All heart, might, mind, and strength ( and the command of) don´t have fault or guilt before God, but culpa is stronger then fault or guilt, but i can´t think of any word for it). So that day we left our house pumped and full of the spirit. It was my first day as a missionary, I felt, my really first day. I had wasted too much time to find the meaning. At our first appointment we talked with this lady and we truly talked with the power and authority that missionaries should have. The words in Spanish flowed out of our mouths, even I was able to speak strongly and directly; so much so that she really had to think and ponder about what she was doing and why we were really there. We left that appointment, and the next house we knocked on we found a family and they are super positive and seemed really interested, so hopefully we will be able to continue with them. Then on Sunday a whole family of non members came to the ward so we are going to teach them this week, too. Ultimately we completed the mission wide goal of 140 lessons to find we completed it with 149. This week tried our patience and tried our faith in what we are doing, but as it says in the scriptures in Mosiah, when the people of Alma were in bondage, the Lord tries the faith and patience of his people, and if they endure it well he blesses them. For them, they were lead out of captivity. For us, we found 2 whole strong families. We kept trying and did not give up and we kept our part of the deal of 140 lessons to find. God does not lie. When He promises, He promises, it is the same with everything.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Transfer Time!

"Well, I got transferred today. I am no longer in Villa Mariona, but am now in Chalatenango, which is only a few hours away(from San Salvador, we think), so not too bad. I am really excited because my companion Elder Guarando seems to be on fire with the work. It was a little hard these last few weeks because my companion was going home, but I think this transfer is going to be a great time to work. He also told me a little while ago that I am the new second Counselor in the Branch Presidency, so pray for me to be able to do all of my duties. And if you have any advice, I am wide open to receiving it!

We had two baptisms a week ago and we are expecting 2 more this week, a young man named Luis Torres and a lady who has been coming to church for 2 years and finally has the desire to be baptized. We are waiting for the proper papers for her soon to be husband's divorce and their new marriage papers to be finalized."

To Grandma he wrote:
"Well, my Spanish is coming along. I still have a lot to learn, but I know more now then I did a month and a half ago, which is how long I have already been here in the mission field. Pretty crazy!"

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tender Mercies


I asked Colin if he had any experiences with tender mercies from the Lord since his arrival in San Salvador that I could share with my seminary class. This is an excerpt from his letter.

"As you know the people here live in the most humble of circumstances. If you put Lindsey's and my room together, that would be the size of their houses. They have it divided into section so they have a place where there are beds and then a section with a little gas stove and a sofa and some plastic chairs and a small tv. That is about it. But they are happy! They don't need more because they have their family. One of the cool things here is how important families are. But I would have to say, that for these people, just living is a tender mercy from the Lord. It is very dangerous for these people . Everyday people are killed by gangs or any other form of dying, and I swear, in almost every prayer they always say 'gracias senior por un dia mas', which is 'thank you Lord for one more day'. It make you wonder, are we really thankful for what our Heavenly Father has given us? I know we know that He has given us our lives and that He can take it away, but the fact that He hasn't is a tender mercy. It was King Benjamin that said that we are so unworthy to live for all of the sins we commit, that we are lower that the dust of the earth because even the dust obeys the will of the Lord. So what we need to remember is just how lucky we are to live in a country that is so safe. That is a tender mercy, our safety. The fact that we can go out after it is dark or go on a walk or go to dances or just hang out at a mall or park and not have to worry about if we are going to come home alive.
Always give thanks for our lives, our families and our knowledge of the true and everlasting gospel of hope, peace and love...I know he love us, I know he love me and I know he love you.Be thankful for everything, because they are all gifts from God."

Saturday, October 17, 2009

A Quick Update

"Thing are going well. As I said before my companion is good but this is his last month, but for a last month he is still working super hard. One thing we learned at the MTC was that we should never be over at a member's house for more than 40 minutes. So we have been going over that, but now we are working on improving it.
I really do like it here. The kids are always flying their piscushas (kites) miles in the sky. I don't know why, but it makes me happy because the kites are cool. One thing I do not like are the number of dogs...But the people are nice and always say hi to you when you say hi to them.
We have a super nice little lady that cooks our lunch for us. She is a recent convert and has a store in the front of her house. I showed her the pictures of my family and when she saw the picture of you (mom) she asked if you were my sister. I think that it is because you... have all of your teeth:)"

A Letter from the President

"We are pleased to inform you that Elder Price has arrived safely in the El Salvador East Mission. We are excited to have him join our mission family, and can see that he is well prepared to start serving.
He will be serving in the Apopa Zone, in the Villa Mariona Area with his trainer Elder Rosado from Guatemala. A trainer has a great responsibility to help your son develop missionary habits and to continue learning to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Trainers are selected very carefully through prayer.
Letters from home are a very important part of missionary life. Please write weekly and focus on positive and uplifting things to help him maintain a healthy attitude. The mail system in El Salvador is very reliable.
Approximately every three weeks we will be seeing Elder Price in interviews or Zone Conference. We will take good care of him. We know the Lord will bless you and him as he faithfully dedicates this time to teaching others to follow the Savior Jesus Christ.
Very cordially, President and Sister A. Moroni Perez"

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Colin arrived in San Salvador on Sept. 15, at 5am. This is from his first e-mail...

9/21/09
"Everything is going well. My companion is Elder Rosado and he is on his last transfer, but he is a hard worker and the people love him, so he is a good example. I am in Apopa zone and it is the biggest in the East mission.
I wish I could have an 80 degree day of California weather! Oh my goodness, I sweat all the time. It is crazy and I am not lying, I am sweating ALL THE TIME!! I sweat through ties, everything. I have to drink a ton.
The people are all nice, but I am so sad when I don't know what they are saying to me. I feel bad and silly, I hope I will be able to pick up the language soon, it is so mentally draining that by the end of the day I am dead
. Elder Rosado has me do the door approach, and I think the people feel sorry for this white boy sweating all over the place, so they let us in and Elder Rosado teaches the lesson.
Thank you for all your prayers, I know that is what is helping me so much! Please pray for me that I will learn the language."
-
9/28/2009













"Well, everything is going great. There are a billion dogs just running around and it is crazy. I got my first offer for someone's daughter to be my girlfriend, so I just tried to think in Spanish as fast as I could what to say, and the first thing that came to me was "gracias, pero ya tengo una novia", which is "thanks, but I already have a girlfriend" hahaha! After our appointment with that family, Elder Rosado said that my face was as red as an apple! but it was pretty funny.
Hopefully we will have 2 baptisms by October 10 and hopefully a few more by the end of the October, so that is going good."

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Elder Price has left the country!

The day finally came, Elder Price finished up at the MTC and has departed for El Salvador. He had a 2 1/2 hour lay over at LAX on Monday night, ( yes LAX!!! but per missionary rules, we did not go see him, even though the thought did cross our minds:-)) and was allowed to call his family during this time. What a joy it was to hear his voice. Colin was upbeat, and excited, and sounded like a real missionary. He loved the MTC, but after 8 weeks was very anxious to get out and start the real work. Colin was able to call Lindsey, Mike, us and of course Grandma Collene and Grandpa Mike. The flight lasted through the night, leaving LA at midnight and landing in San Salvador at 5 am. We are certain he arrived safely (no calls from the mission President!) and are anxiously awaiting word about his first assignment. We will let you know as soon as we hear from him.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

A visit from Elder Scott


"On Tuesday, Richard G. Scott came and talked to us and that was awesome!!! He said that he would like to do something that only and apostle can do and that was to invoke the blessing of the Gift of Tongues upon us, that the language would come easily, and that we will be able to learn it.

"In a change of course, Elder Scott said that he was going to talk about other stuff that he felt that we needed to hear. He then went on to talk about all the helps the spirit can be to us.
-Sometimes promptings come when we don't think we need them.
-They are always when we need them.
-Be careful to not just cast them off.
-Sometimes we get them even if we don't understand the reason.
-It takes skill to listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
-Practice listening.
-He can prompt us when others might need help.
-We have all that is needed to be successful as we allow the spirit to guide.
-The spirit will prompt you of danger.

Elder Scott told us of a time he was driving in South America in a sandstorm and he felt prompted to stop the car and just wait until the morning to continue. When he woke up he saw that in front of his car was a huge cliff that he would have driven off of had he not listened to the promptings of the spirit.

After this he blessed us again, but with something that he doesn't normally do. Elder Scott said, "I am going to invoke a blessing of safety. According to good judgement and following the spirit, I invoke it upon you." So tell grandma not to worry, but that I have the blessing of an apostle that I will be safe. So yes, that was the crowning part of the week!

Our TRC appointment went well. All in Spanish again. I have been studying a lot and after 19 years, I am finally starting to get a glimpse of how amazing this gospel is."

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Spanglish

I thought our Spanish speaking friends and family might be interested to see Colin's linguistic progress.  Here is a total Spanglish sentence from the letter he wrote me this week:

"pues, cosas son buenas aqui, este semana pasada, yo estudie mucho sobre cosas como, sanctificacion, y como nosotros become it, y es muy interesante y muy intense!!"

(quasi translation: So, things are good here, this last week, I studied a lot about things like, sanctification, and how we become it, and it's really interesting and really intense!!)

Love that boy!
-Linds

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Everything is Coming Together

Colin sent us a beautiful letter about his experiences teaching TRC's which are opportunities for "outside people" to come into the MTC and help the Elders and Sisters practice the things they have been working on in class. This particular letter discusses how Colin and his companion Elder Denninghoff had been teaching a woman and her 7 year old daughter about the need for the restoration of the gospel and the need for this woman to be baptised by someone who had the proper authority. They were speaking Spanish and Colin felt that he understood about 95% of what the woman was saying! The past week Colin has been working on understanding the needs and concerns of the investigator and addressing these issues. He wrote:

"I told them that Heavenly Father loves his children so much that He restored His church again upon the earth. Then we connected that to her baptism question, then from that we went into the atonement, and from the atonement we talked about God's plan for us... bringing us back to the feeling that she felt...and that that feeling was the love of God. At the end we talked about how the Gospel blesses families and this is when just everything we talked about came together. I was getting choked up, the lady was getting choked up, the daughter stopped writing in her notebook and squeezed in close to her mom and they were holding hands so tightly that they were turning white... I closed it by saying that I know that this gospel is true, it had blessed my family, and has brought us so much joy and peace and happiness and that this message isn't meant for one person, that it was meant for everybody and that was why I am here, to share it with other people... and that the gospel brings happiness and unity into a family. It was just awesome how everything went together. I could never have done anything like that on my own. It was just so apparent that the spirit was there you could almost touch it. The church is true."

"p.s.
Evan, you better go on a mission or I will give you a round-house-kick to the face!"

Friday, August 7, 2009

New Photos!!!

The El Salvador San Salvador East District
Enjoying a photo opportunity after visiting the Provo Temple.

Colin and his companion, Elder Denninghoff.



"Oh, yeah!"
"Man, it is great here! I am learning so much, and I am reading the scriptures, and just leanrning a ton of stuff. It is great!"

Monday, August 3, 2009

The Interview

My companion and I are continuing to improve, but we still have a ton to learn. Spanish is still going well...but last Sunday my companion and I had our interview with a member of our Branch Presidency and he was actually a Mission President in Argentina and is from Central America. So in this interview we started talking and he said, "Your teachers tell me that you two can speak pretty good Spanish." We just answered saying that we spoke a little, but not very much. Then he said, "Oh, good! Teach me the first lesson in Spanish." We stared at him, mouths down to the floor, then looked at each other, opened with a prayer and started talking. We jumped around between principles and skipped a few, but what would you expect, it was barely our second week there! We asked him if he would keep some commitments and then closed. We were really surprised at how much we knew. He told us that we did a really good job and that we just needed to work on our eye contact, but he understood everything we said. So now we are practicing more in Spanish!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Daily Schedule

"Every morning I wake up at six (even though we are supposed to get up at 6:30) so I can be first to the shower. Then we are in class by 7:00, breakfast at 7:30, back to class at 8, then lunch at noon. Then we have P.E. for about an hour, then we are in class by 2:00, then work in class until 5pm when we have dinner. Back in class by 5:45, then more class until 9:00. We plan for half an hour what we are going to do the next day until 9:30, when we head back to the residence hall and just relax a little from the day. I write in my journal until 10:15, have companion prayer and either read the scriptures more or just go to bed. So that is our day! Pretty intense and a lot of work. We have 3 hours set apart each day for MDT and this is when we have 1 hour of personal study, 1 hour of companion study, and one hour of language study. It seems like it would take forever, but when you are getting super deep, time goes by so fast. That is how it is with everything here though. If you get into it the time flies and you have a great time. It is when you aren't doing anything or have a bad attitude that it stinks. So you just always have to stay busy and learn... The Spirit is so strong here, I love being...exactly where Heavenly Father wants me to be."

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Exerpts from Elder Price's e-mail 7/23/09



Today for my first p-day we got to go to the temple, so that was nice of course...
Things are going awesome, I am so happy I am here. One of the things we get to do is to call people on the phone that ordered bibles or videos, and we get to ask them if they liked it and would they like something else. It is scary and I am still not used to it, but it is fun and great practise...
We also have these things called TRC's where we prepare to teach a lesson for volunteers from outside the MTC and we act as if they are an investigator. In the beginning it was hard, but as soon as the spirit came it was so much easier. I still stuttered and was a little nervous but I was saying good things and I know that it was the spirit that was directing me in what to say...




Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The First Letter Home 7/16/09

Well, I am doing great! I don't think that I have ever been so tired in my life and it has only been a day and a half!! We wake up at six in the morning and work straight the whole day until about 9:30 at night. So a 15 hour work day is something I'm going to have to get used to. It is intense here, like EFY on steroids x 10. I can pray, bear my testimony and say my purpose of a missionary en espanol. I have also memorized Section 4. It is crazy and I love it.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Farewell Sunday

Mike, Lindsey, Colin and Evan enjoying their chance to be together!


Thank you familia Price for your love and support.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Newport Beach Temple

Colin with Mom


With Grandma



With Grandpa and Dad

Bon Voyage

Colin wanted to thank his friends for the impressive farewell gift :)

It Begins

During our curbside whirlwind we dropped Elder Price off at the MTC last week and here is his address while he will be there (approx. 8 weeks from 7/15/09):

Elder Colin MacGregor Price
MTC Mailbox #199
El Salvador San Salvador East
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

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