March 2

My questions for Matt:

1) Did Elder Vicznesky return home?  His Mom had told me that he was coming home on  February 25.

2) How was your actual move to Grants?  

3) Did you stop in Farmington on your way?

4) How did you handle being on the interstate again?  Were you the driver?

5) How is Elder Hozman and is he truly from Peru?

6) Are you in a home or an apartment?  I looked your address up on the internet and the only picture they had looked like a small apartment building.  Somewhere else it said that the property had a duplex and a small home on the lot.

7) The address you gave us was 226 Monroe, Grants NM  87020.  Is there any number or letter that we should add to that for clarification?

8) Do you still have a vehicle and, if so, what is it?

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Mom,

I am doing well in Grants! That's exciting that Quin got his mission call! I think that sounds like a pretty awesome mission. I hope the best for him and I guess I'll see him in about two years!

1) Yes, he did. I don't have too many details about it, but he packed his bags and left for home last week. 

2) The move wasn't too bad, it just took a while due to the weather and snow we were having. I drove to Farmington on Monday night and then rode the transfer van to Gallup on Tuesday and Elder Hozman picked me up there and we drove to Grants and got here in the afternoon! I am the designated driver and one thing that I needed to be reminded of is about how to merge onto the freeway and the importance of reaching the speed limit before you get to the merging point... haha. Also, the interstate has a speed limit of 75 which is kind of crazy. 

3) Yes, I did. 

5) Elder Hozman is from Colombia but he moved to Utah about two years ago to go to the University of Utah and the confusion with Peru is that his parents are now living in Peru because his dad works for the Church. He's a good guy, he speaks pretty good English but he has a bit of an accent which makes him a little difficult to understand for some others, but I understand him just fine. 

6) I am in a home and it's pretty nice. We have a lot of space. 

7) Nope, just the address. 

8) We have a Nissan Frontier just like we did in Blanding but it is a 2015 instead of a 2014. Not much of a different, just the dash is slightly different.

No worries, I got an email from BYU today that referred me to the website with the decision and I have been admitted! 

Yeah, I'm sad that I wont be able to see Jim and Chris and everyone else get baptized, but that's just how missionary work goes I guess. We have a pretty awesome new investigator named Bridgette here in Grants. We found her tracting the other day and we taught her and committed her to be baptized on April 11th! She said she would come to church yesterday but didn't make it so we are going to stop by today or tomorrow and see what's going on. We also are teaching a lady from the Philippines and committed her to April 18th and brought a member of the ward who served his mission in the Philippines so it was pretty cool. Grants seems pretty awesome, but it is differently VERY different from anywhere else I've served. There's not as many natives here as there was in Blanding or other cities in our mission, it's more of a New Mexico/Latino town. But we have our own Walmart and tons of stuff, so that's pretty awesome. This is the first time I have ever had a Walmart in my zone, let alone my area haha. The ward is pretty good sized and very nice, so hopefully we'll be able to get some good work rolling along!

Sounds like everything is going well at home! Good luck to Aimee with her campaign, it is pretty hard to believe that that time is here already. Years fly by pretty quickly! 

I love you all and I know that this gospel is true! It's been pretty awesome to be here in Grants because a lot of the members of the ward are converts who have joined the church and stayed fully active throughout their life! It's pretty different because the only places I have served is on the rez and then in Blanding which is just a small Mormon town, so being here it feels like I'm in the "real mission field" or something. I don't know how to describe it haha. I guess it just seems more like what I imagined a mission would be like before my mission, because thus far I haven't had any areas that I could have predicted before my mission. There's not a real big presence of the Church here, pretty much everyone is Catholic and I've been able to meet some pretty awesome members of the Church who are converts and are still very committed to the Church and the Gospel!

Love, 

Elder Schaelling