11/24/14

11/24/14

Well I had my very first zone meeting this week!!! :) That was really interesting :) It was pretty fun because we had a breakfast there because the sisters had to all sleep in one house. We did as well but the sisters wanted food in the morning so we made breakfast sandwiches. Then we had all the different topics that we had to talk about. What was fun was the training about three different types of questions, Informative, rational, and application. President taught us about how we need to use the combination of the three to make sure that our investigators truly understand and like having us come to their house. He is trying to teach us how to teach like the Savior and I am really liking the new(old) methods ;p I am really trying to put it into practice :) We have two different investigators that are going to be baptized in December!! It should be really cool!! I am actually really excited for it :)

This week was really crazy and this next week will be even crazier! We are getting the visit of Elder Costa. He is the area president of Brazil! That is going to be pretty cool! But I might have an interview with him so that is pretty scary but cool at the same time!!!

Ummm other experiences cool....This week I had 10 elders in my house......that was like the craziest thing in the world!!! It was just a mess, but in the end no one died...so that turned out okay!!!

Love,

Elder Pachner

11/17/14

11/17/14

Well this week has been really crazy!! I am actually in São José right now which is really close to Flopria because tomorrow we are going to have the leadership counsel! I am really nervous because I don’t actually know what to expect and I don’t have anyone there in Videira to teach me what the Zone leader actually needs to do. I mean I get the basics:  write down the zone numbers, do divisions with the District leaders, do the zone meeting, lead and inspire; but I feel like there is a lot more things that I am missing.   I am hoping to talk to Pres. today or tomorrow.

Well I was pretty sad to say good bye to Navegantes but here in Videira it has been looking good! I have been drinking a lot of homemade grape juice which is really good actually!  I have been climbing up a bunch of hills!!! I took a lot of pictures these past weeks but unfortunately I do not trust the lan house here to not give my camera a virus so it is going to have to wait until next week!!

My companion is really cool! His name is Elder Mesa! He is from Argentina! He is a really humble elder and you can really tell how much he wants to be here through his prayers. It is truly an inspiring thing.

I am serving in a branch! It is actually cool because the church started not far from here! But it also means that the people are pretty hard but there is no problem with that, I am trying to butter them all up and make them laugh so that they can feel comfortable around me. Unfortunately the branch has had the frequency of 40 members for the past couple years....and the missionaries have been baptizing but the people aren’t staying in the church. If you guys have any ideas of how I could help or deal with this situation I would love it!! 

So the new people that I have met here!! Let me see one of the most fun people that I have met here was a recent convert who is 8 years old! She is really funny!! She came running around when she saw us and she showed us her cat...whose name is Dom Tom Mimi Hucela which means in English Dom Tom Mimi Spanich :P she is really funny and her mom is pretty cool as well! Both she and her mom were baptized but not her dad yet.

The other really cool family is a recent convert who is 17 years old. She is really cool and she is really trying to do everything right.  She loves to read so she is like already half way done with the Book of Mormon.

Ummm alright well now I am here in São José! I am actually here with my Trainer Elder Arine!! It is really strange to see him after so long and the first thing he said is that my Portuguese was a lot better ;P  

This town is really small......and yes six elders in one apartment is chaos!!! Well this week we spent one whole day just cleaning the apartment to give you an idea. I refused to kneel on the ground because it was sooooo dirty!!! But yes this time I have a bed :) Just not a dresser ;P and yes there are always exposed wires...this is Brazil! This area is way rural compared to where I have been working!!!  The church started here because the family (Blind or Wisse) I don’t remember came from Germany and they held the first meeting here in Ipomeia! They didn’t actually have a chapel.  The first chapel was built in Joinville which is way far way but still in Santa Caterina.  

I love you so much!!! I hope that everything is going well at home.  Know that I am here on the Lord’s errand :) I am so happy here :) I am sooo tired but it is all so very worth it :)

Love, Elder Pachner

11/11/14

11/11/14

              

Well this week was a pretty crazy week. I got a call from the assistants that I would be a zone leader here in Videira! I am ZL1 and I don’t actually have another ZL here to help me.  My companions name is Elder Mesa! He is from Argentina. He finished his training this past week so this is his first week as a fully trained missionary. He seems to be a really cool guys and he is already speaking Portuguese soo well! It is pretty clear so far that he is going to be a great missionary. We have 6 elders in our apartment.....yeah it is pretty much trashed. They are already searching for a new house because this one is soooo bad! But that’s okay it will all work out in the end, life in just an adventure and on the mission there is no lack of adventure. I traveled about 8 hours by bus to get here and next week I will be traveling by bus back to Floripia (Florianopolis)  for 10 hours just to go to the leadership counsel....alone...because my comp isn’t an ZL which is really weird.  But other than that is should be all good! I am now serving in the mountains! It is super hilly but it should be a good area! It is where the church started in Brazil!!! But it is still a district if that tells you something  ;P

This past week was good! I had some little difficulties with my companion but when I looked back on the whole transfer I realized how much I had grown and how the Lord had prepared me to take on this new job as Zone leader because before I totally was not ready. 

One of the sad things was saying good bye to the adventistas....they cried a lot...it was really sad. Saying good bye to Marcelo and Maeinha, that was super sad as well but it is soo true what one member said. When people enter our lives and then leave again they leave a part of them and take part of us! It sounds a lot prettier in Portuguese ;P but you get the point! It was an interesting experience.

I had one cool experience. Last Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and during this past week one of our investigatores commented that he thought it was strange that everyone bore their testimony about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith. So I thought about that and when I prepared the training I prepared about chapter 12 helping your investigator keep the commandments. It talks about bearing your testimony and I also read a wonderful talk by Elder Holland called Missionary work and the atonement. It talks about how we must bear our testimonies about Christ! It was something that I realized. I can understand how others could get confused and think that we worship Joseph Smith because there are some people who only bear testimony of him. I learned that we must bear our testimony about Christ; that he lives that he loves us and that he is our personal savior! It was a good experience and I felt the spirit very strongly as I bore my testimony on the living Christ.

That was my week I forgot a lot of things but I promise that I will try my best to remember this next week!

I know that Christ Lives. I know that he loves us so much! Here on the mission I have the privilege to see that love change the lives of so many people. As a priesthood holder I get to feel that love as I give others blessings in his name! I know that Christ is the Savior of Mankind and that only through him can we be saved.

Love, Elder Pachner

11/03/14

Well this week was an interesting week. We had a good p-day. What we did: woke up, pumped the iron (and by that I do not mean a spoon), ate breakfast, then we studied for an hour and then had weekly planning! It was good and then we went to a buffet to eat....I was feeling really lazy that day....and then we went to the lan house to send you guys emails. It was great and then we went home and I wrote letters and then we went to a member’s house because it was Elder Nascimentos Brithday!!!!!!! That was fun! ohh and in the morning we smashed eggs and put flour all over elder Nascimento because it was his birthday :)

Then Tuesday we went over to Itajaí because we had to go get our bus tickets because my companion needed to go the dermatologist. Yeah usually we would use the ferry boat to go but our president told us not to use it so we had to get a ride from a member and we ended up losing about the whole day of work. But something cool happened as well. My companion needed to get his pants fitted so we started searching for someone who could do it...so we went to the first place and they were closed. Then we went to the second place and we knocked the door and this man told us that the seamstress (I had to ask Elder Young how to say that in English) was in the other part of the house. It was interesting because he looked familiar and then we started talking to him it turned out that he had gone to the chapel and we had been told that he was a member but it turns out that he wasn’t. We went by and we started teaching him and his wife (who is a member). It was just cool because it is an experience like Madison was talking about; there are just little things that happen and if we don’t pay attention we write them off as coincidence when really they are meant for something.

Then Thursday we went to Blumenau....it was super weird! It is the German colony here in Santa Caterina! It was funny because I felt normal! I didn’t look different than anyone else! The only difference is that I was a whole lot tanner!!  

Then Saturday we went to go teach our investigator who is marked to get baptized on the 15! We were going there planning on teaching the law of chastity but when we got there her whole family was there too and they wanted to sit in for the first time....so we changed it to the gospel of Jesus Christ! It was super cool and they really liked it! We had a member come with us and he helped a lot!!! I looked at him and I realized the difference between coming home from your mission and relaxing and coming home and still trying your hardest to keep with reading the scriptures. But he was awesome!! He speaks fluent English! He served in Chicago!!

But anyways that is about all that happened this week!! :) I love you all and I hope that you have a wonderful week :)

Love, Elder Pachner

10/27/14

10/27/14

Well to answer your questions I have now been in this ward for about 6 months.....this is my fourth transfer here and remember that I got emergency transferred so I have an extra two weeks here. It is a huge ward here! We have about 200 members!!! It is actually scheduled to divide here soon. 

This week we had some amazing, funny, a little nerve wracking, and spiritual experiences. 

Amazing: well we went to this investigators house and we were planning to teach her the law of chastity and then my comp started to get sick. He just said lets teach a quick lesson on baptism and get out of here so we did and it turns out that she is ready. We set a date for the 15 of November and she was like....yeah I can prepare to get baptized! I was like what??/  How crazy is that! She just accepted without a problem :) 

Nerve wracking: well we were in the ghetto knocking some doors and we came up to this one house and this guy covered in tattoos and piercings comes out and we start talking to him and it is a really sketchy place.  We are just teaching and then out of nowhere this guys walks up behind me and says to make me jump “what’s up American” and I was like I´m gonna die :P but then nothing happened and we walked in the guys house and taught him about Jesus. We told him to pull out his bible and he asked if he needed the Old or New Testament and his friend says “Wait why is there an Old and a New Testament. Did they change something from the old to put in the new” ....yup! So that was interesting :P

Spiritual: The other day I lost the cell phone.  That wasn’t  much fun! It wasn’t in our house or in my clothes and I was kind of in despair. We had searched the whole day and the only chance was this one member whose house we had been at the night before. We asked her if it was there and she told us that it wasn’t. So that night I got on my knees and I just asked for one thing I asked to get the cell phone back! As soon as I finished the prayer the other elders phone rang and my comp picked it up he was like “Oh Hi.... you found it! Great!”   I just walked immediately back into the room and gave thanks for the immediate response to my prayer :) It is good to have these experiences sometimes!

I love you all soo very much!

Elder Pachner

10/20/14

10/20/14

Well this week went well. We had some fun experiences. Well after emailing this past week I got trunky. I don’t know why it just kind of happened....So I decided to by chocolate because I was trunky and then we took a picture with my most trunky face that I could make.  :P

Well this week I got boxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and letters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whaoooo!!!!!!!!!! That’s what I am talking about!!! I got two boxes from you guys and then I got a box from the family of Elder William....I mean I assume it is from them because his fiancé kept writing thanking me for taking care of “my angel” hahahahaha ;P It was really funny and I am going to mess with him and call him Meu anjo ;P (my angel) but it was really super nice of them to send me a box.

I went on a division with the Zone Leaders!! He was really super cool! His name is Elder Vauterlaos or something like that. I don’t know how to spell it :P but anyways I had a great time serving with him and it was fun to see how they work! They are really cool people. Anyways it seems like I have a curse with divisions whenever I go on a division all of my appointments fall....but it still went well and I found stuff to do! 

Unseen miracles!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well we went to the zone meeting and I was talking to Sister Gregory and she had just been transferred from Jardim das Acasias which was my last area and she told me about Julia an old investigator that we had been teaching. She told me that she is going to be baptized this next week!! She has been going to church now for just about 3 months!!!!!!!!!!  She is ready to be baptized and she said that Julia had remembered elder Schoen and I! It was really cool to hear about it! It made me feel really good because it just goes to show that not always you get to baptize the person but still your effort matters. That makes two in jardim das Acasias and who know how many others in Araranguá. And there will be people here as well once i leave :) I really love the feeling.

Um let me think about another thing that happened this week. We were teaching our investigators and my companion and them got into a little bit of a bible bash and it just started going bad. They had said that they believed the Book of Mormon to be true but still didn’t believe that the church was the ONLY church of God on the earth. So we started talking and finally we found their problem...I have no idea why but she said that we worshiped Joseph Smith and I got of got a little bit frustrated with her, but in the spirit kind of way.  I bore my testimony to her about the Savior. I told her about my love for the Savior and that I knew that the church was true. It was really cool and I felt the spirit very strongly. It was cool because the dad who usually doesn’t pay any attention to our lesson, well he was studying at the table and while I was bearing my testimony he looked up and listened to me. It was cool everyone got silent and the spirit was super strongly in the room. We promised that we would teach about Joseph Smith the next lesson and that then they would need to pray to see if he was truly a prophet or not. 

Every day I see the need to develop a testimony. Just mere faith in the church will not help you when the problems come. We need to have the foundations; we need testimonies so that we can build a house of conversion! It is so very important and it is just something that I have grown a testimony about!  I see members everyday who are struggling with various stuff and the answer is pray, have faith, and rely on your testimony to bring you through the rough patch in which you find yourself. It is something I love so much about the gospel! 

Anyways I love you all and I hope that I can write emails like this every week but it just seemed really easy to write today I am going to send pictures of my shoes ;P they are really different :)

Love, Elder Pachner

10/13/14

10/06/14

 This week was interesting. I received a new companion.  His name is Elder Tineo he is from Peru. He is actually a pretty cool guy and I am really hoping that this transfer will go well for us!! 

General conference....That was a really good general conference! I really liked all the talks about receiving personal revelation and testimonies.  It was so good! I really liked it because one of the speakers used one of my favorite scriptures.  Alma 5: 45-46.  It is about how we know all these things and how he gained his testimony! It was through a lot of prayer and fasting. Testimonies amaze me. It is something so very special and life changing but at the same time something extremely simple to get. All we have to do is ask, seek, and knock. It is something so incredibly simple but at the same time it seems as though difficult to some. We invite people not to believe in our words but to ask God. It is something simple and to the world it looks weak and small but to us it makes all the difference. It changes how we act, what we say, and who we are.

 I am thankful for your testimonies that always brought our family through the tough times. I am grateful for my mission for my new found testimony of the gospel and of the savior Jesus Christ. I love you all with all my heart! I love this gospel!   I know it is true. I have felt the spirit testify everyday on the mission that this gospel is true. I have felt it and still feel it now as I write.

Love,

Elder Pachner

10/13/14

                      Well this week I had a really good week and all is well on the eastward front...haha seeing as I am farther east than you guys....Yeah I know it was a dumb joke but it’s okay because I am forgetting my English so it doesn’t have to be good. 

This week we had the bomb diggity of a district meeting. It was a really fun topic. I talked about fear! Yup it was actually really fun and I asked everyone what is fear, like the definition and everyone was like  ummmm its a feeling that you don’t like.  Then we went to 1 John 4:18 where it says that it is a lack of love. It was a really good message about how we need to love all the other people and how we need to talk to all the other people. I asked them...are you afraid to tell your family that you love them?  Everyone said of course not and then I said great because everyone around us are our brothers and sisters, literally, and the only difference is that we just can’t remember all the experiences and fun times we had with them. So let’s go tell them that we love them by sharing the only message that can truly bring them happiness in their lives. It was fun :) I love that about doing the district meeting and learning new things and about feeling the spirit as I teach! :) Also I would like to make a challenge to all of you guys. Talk to one of your friends about the Book of Mormon or the church. Every day we see people passing by and who knows but that we could be the ones that they need to accept the gospel.

Anyways I really love the mission and I promise that everything is going well :) I am just at a hammering point right now. But I trust in the forger’s hand. He knows the limits of the metal and will take it to its limits of flexibility and strength but afterwards it becomes a sword that very rarely breaks under the pressure. 

I know that my redeemer lives! I know that he sent me to this family for a purpose and I am so glad that he did. I love you guys so very much! I pray for you every day and I pray for you guys individually at times! I promise I am trying my best here on the mission and I am becoming much more than I was. I am learning so much but one of the things I am learning the most is to be so very grateful for the family that I have. I love you guys. I wish I could send hugs and kisses over the internet but I don’t think that works....but I will try. :P

Love, Elder Kade Joseph Pachner

9/24/14

9/29/14

Well it looks like all good things must come to an end. My son was transferred yesterday.  :(  He went to the farthest area in the mission! It was actually really sad to see him get into the bus all alone but that is the way the mission goes. It was funny he wrote me a note in my journal of companions and he wrote it like the Book of Mormon and he wrote the first book of Laman because he was my first son! (First companion I trained) So I will be getting a new companion this week. It is going to be good!

This week was full of good moments. It was awesome to see Marcelo baptized! It was one of the happiest days of my mission! I am really grateful for him and for his dedication to the gospel. He is only 17 but is already ready to go on a mission :)  His little brother already wants to be baptized. 

This Sunday we had 230 members at church and 4 investigatores :)  We sang in the chorus!!! It was cool because they were able to see Marcelo get confirmed and that was really cool. He asked me to confirm him and I was super nervous but I felt the spirit :)  He is a really good kid. 

This week we went to the church of the Adventistas of the Seventh Day. That was really interesting. Our investigators invited us and so we were like sure whatever sounds good. It was unfamiliar but alright. They sang a lot of hymns. 

Okay I am going to be honest I did not write notes in my planner about what happened this week so it is really hard to remember!!! Sorry!@!! I promise that next week I will have more!

Love, Elder Pachner

Sei que Jesus Cristo Vive! Que ele nos ama que é por causa dessa amor que ele tem para nos que ele sofreu para nos. Sou grato por o poder do arrependimento. Espero que todos nós podemos olhar para isto como um presente e um prazer de usar.

Em Nome de Jesus Cristo

Amen

9/22/14

9/22/14

This week we had an amazing adventure! It wasn’t really that much fun but I will talk about that later. 

Well this week I will be making a year on the mission :) (I realized that this sentence makes absolutely no sense in English but I cannot remember how to actually phrase it.....so yeah) 

So about this adventure. It was Thursday and it was raining and the area where we are working is like an hour away from us so I was like Elder lets go ride a bus there today :) and so we went to the bus station and we asked the attendant which bus would take us to Bairro São Paulo.  She said Escalvados.  I looked at here and I was like are you sure because Escalvados is really far from where we work and she was like yup I am sure so we got on the bus and we went. Well long story short we ended up about 40 km or 25 miles from home. Like it passed where the bus usually turns around and then it kind of just kept on going and I was like elder we will just ride it out until it stops and it has to come back. Well that didn’t happen for some time and in the end after about 1.5 hours the money taker came back to ask us to buy more tickets to go forward and I told him our situation and he kind of looked really confused at us and then he said that it would be another $16 each to keep going and I was like “sir I don’t have that money.” So he pulled the cord and allowed us to get out and then gave us directions to walk back to the town we had just left so we walked for about 10 min until we got back and then I looked into my wallet and realized that to buy a passage back I was 1 real short so I started thinking....and praying. And then the idea came to me. We went to this store and we asked if we could buy something on the credit card and then have them put one more real on the price and give me the one real in trade. They said sure but that the limit to swipe the card was 10 real so I bought a bunch of junk and then we bought our passages and went back home. Just to give you a measure of time we left at about 2:30 and returned at 6:30 4 hours!!!!!!!!! But I was grateful for the idea and the clear head that I had. It was a bad situation (because we didn’t have cell phone service as well) but in the end it turned out just fine and I know that it happened for a reason but I just don’t know why. Anyways adventure time complete: P  I don’t want any more for the next year ;P

This week we had 5 investigators in church :) That was super duper awesome!!! I felt really good! The members really noticed...too bad this is the last week of the transfer and I am probably going to get transferred out :P

Um I don’t know if you got it yet but I sent a letter to you guys with my testimony. 

But after this one year on the mission I can say that I am truly not the same person. I have changed so much this past year and I know it has all been for the better. 

I know that this church is true :)

I love you!!

Love,

Elder Pachner

9/8/2014

This week it rained....and rained...and rained!!! But good things do come from rain!  

Another cool experience that happened this week is that we talked to our other investigator in the neighborhood são paulo and we taught her about the restoration of the church :) It was fun because she asked why every other church seemed to gang up against our church and say weird things that weren’t true. I was very straight with her and I was like do you remember the church in revelations?  The church of God that all the other churches were against....yeah we are that church :) It was good because she understood and this week she should be coming to church with us!!!!! :)

This week during district meeting I taught about accountability. It was a good topic and it was amazing to see how the Lord had helped me do all of the different trainings during district meeting so that they would all be linked in the end....I don’t know if that makes sense....I think it does. But yeah it was a really good training and I felt the spirit so it was what the Lord wanted me to do :)

One thing that I love about the mission is that you are constantly learning new ways to teach the same lesson. The other day we at this less actives house and I started teaching about the man who built his house on the rock and I was just teaching normally when the inspired question came to my brain....what does our house protect? Our house protects our family and that is the real reason why we must have our lives centered on Christ because if our families are centered on Christ no matter how hard the wind blows and the rains pound upon the house  it will  not fall and our families will be safe. I love that. It is so true and it was something that I had never thought of before and something that I had never heard of before and I know that it did not come from me but it truly came from the Holy Ghost who knew what would help the man at the time. It just amazes me at times because as of myself I knew almost nothing but with the spirit guiding my thoughts and words I can do everything.

I love you all so very much! And I am so grateful for all the work and effort that you guys put in so that our family can be safe and dry on top of the rock.

Love, Elder Pachner

September 1, 2014

Sept. 1, 2014       

So there was a huge bike rally this week here and that wasn’t to fun for us :P  You know it isn’t exactly the right place for the missionaries to go and hang out at :P

Well let me start off by telling you what cool things happened this week.........................................I drew a blank......

Okay I will just talk about the spiritual cool things. We went and taught our friends/investigators this week. We talked about families and temples. That was a fun lesson because I had to start with the bible.  I started with the tabernacle and explained how that was the temple and how God always asked his people to build temples for him because it was specifically His house. I explained about Solomon’s temple and then I went and talked about the difference between temples and churches.  I talked about the synagogues and how in the bible it talks about them and the temple as separate places. They understood that more or less and then elder William started talking about sealing and how extremely important that is. It was a cool experience because he started talking and they didn’t really understand and we talked about how God always instituted marriage and everything.  Elder William bore his testimony.  I then offered my testimony about when our family was sealed. I told them how we were all sealed together as a family so that Ashley and Jacob would always be my brother and sister. I bore my testimony that I know the church is true and that I KNOW that the sealing power brings families together and was ordained by God. Then we invited them to become baptized and then they started crying....they said that  they felt like they didn’t feel the change yet and that they were comfortable in their church but they didn’t want  this to end our friendship. They cried because they thought we weren’t ever going to come back but we told them that we weren’t there to convert them we were there because we love them and we want the same happiness as we feel for them!   Yeah that was like the best part of my week. This week we are going to teach about Joseph Smith.

It is going great with my companion. He is like a little brother to me or like a brother who is the same age because I don’t beat up on him but I still have a little bit more experience than him but at the same time I learn things from....It’s a complex relationship :P

Love you guys so much!!!

I am learning so much here and I promise I will return a much better person :)

I love you all,

Elder Pachner

8/11/14

8/11/14

This is week saw a good week :) We had a good week and our investigators went to the baptism of the investigator of the other elders!!!!!!!!!!!! It was super cool even though I was kind of freaking out because not many members came to the baptism. (If the elders there have a baptism go! Even if you don’t know the person just people being there helps!) but it still turned out well! I kind of did terrible on playing the piano! Elder Shields did a special number for her but I got super nervous and I couldn’t play at all it was frustrating because an hour before hand it was perfect :P   But it happens :P

Also we had a cool experience.  We cut our hair this week so we went and talked to our barbers about the gospel!  It was actually really cool we each taught the barber that was cutting our hair and then we talked about a lot of different stuff.  Then we were sitting there afterwards talking and they started talking about apocalypse.  I don’t know like everyone here loves apocalypse ....sorry I meant Revelations. It is called apocalypse in Portuguese :P   But she started talking about how it talks about all the different churches in the last days and I looked at her and said, that is what we are saying...we aren’t saying that we are just another church we are saying that we are the church of Jesus Christ restored to the earth through the prophets.  When I said that it hit me very strongly.  I had not been planning to make a declaration of that sort but it just came. It proved to me that the promise is true; to open our mouths and they shall be filled. It was a super cool experience and a great way we had to share our testimony! (They invited us back and our now our investigators ;p)

What other cool things have happened...I was able to do an interview for a baptism! THAT IS SUPER COOL and it helps me know that there are people out there :)

I was thinking this week about the types of missionaries that there are: the planters, the cultivators, and the reapers. It looks like in this area I am most useful to the Lord as a planter but honestly I am okay with that :)  I know that I am doing what I must to have a truly successful mission :) 

Love, Elder Pachner

8/4/14

8/04/14

You guys sent so many pictures that you forgot to actually send me a real email ;P

But it is okay I can imagine that you are all having a good time over there boating while I am sweating it out over here during what should have been winter. It is like 80 degrees during winter......I am going to die during the summer :P but I don't worry I just remember that I am almost half way done and that this will be my last summer on the mission?!?!?!?!?! isn't that just crazy!! Time has flown by like crazy!!!

This week was a cool week. We were teaching some of our investigators and they were asking about  the a scriptures that they didn't understand in the Book of Mormon. It was about the spirit world and so we started teaching about the spirit world again. So we started explaining and they told us that they don’t actually believe in the spirit world!  We started to explain and show them in the Bible where the Bible talks about the spirit world. In first Peter and then we talked about the thief at the side of Christ asking him to remember him.  Christ said that he would go with him into paradise.  When Christ was resurrected he told Mary that he had not yet gone to his father. So we were just like, so if this is what the Bible is saying then how could there not be a spirit world. It was very different and then we invited them to read the Book of Mormon because that was truly the only way that they could be able to know that the plan of salvation was true. It was a good lesson and it showed me how much it truly helps to study the lessons because if I had not actually studied in the morning I would not have been able to answer their questions.

I love you guys and I hope that all things are going well at home! :) 

Love you, Elder Pachner