5/27/14 Gabrielle and daughters baptized!

Well this week Gabrielle and her daughters were baptised!! The first baptism I've been blessed to be apart of. It was so awesome! The spirit was so strong you could almost feel it. Everyone was trying hard not to weep. I baptised gabrielle (the mom) and the two red headed twins, Aurora and Araina. Elder Stovall baptised Ginger. For the confirmations I did Gabrielle and Ginger, and E. Stovall did the twins. How awesome! So I fed a hawk on my fist. Rhett, is a bird I've written about before, but I was finally allowed to hanlde him. He was a sassypants bird last week and wouldn't cooperate, but this week he stepped right on my hand. With these birds you have to clip a leash to jesses on their legs, so I grabbed one of the jesses and reached for the other, and he just jumped right off. So I held him by one leg til he stopped flailing around and put him on my hand, leashed him, and fed him. it was pretty cool. We had zone conference last week too. we climbed the butte (be-uu-t). It was themed after Zions Camp. We watched the Doctrines and Convenants video for it, which is one of my favourites btw. Then we did hikes where they would make us do things like, carry a huge log up a hill, and then they told us to come back down. While at that point I was really tired, and I had fallen on the way up, so I shouted, "NO, I didn't walk up here just to turn around and walk down!" and if you have watched the Zion's Camp video, thats something that Sylvester Smith says haha. He's the main murmurer. So President started calling me Sylvester. it was pretty fun. So that was my week. Pretty cool I know. I hope things are well with all of you! Love Elder Pawson

5/19/14 weekly update

Well I'm gonna start off by saying I didn't take any pictures last week, So...yea. Sorry about that. this week was kind of slow. Transfers week, I got Elder Hamilton, and that is going pretty good. Gabrielle was interviewed by President Beesley and he also did all the girls too, so they are set for Saturday! They are way excited too. We have been invited everyone to the baptism. There are some senior couples from the office coming, and the missionaries from our district are coming, as well as alot of the ward. Most of the young women are doing a musical number too! It's pretty sweet. One of the members is trying ot see if she has enough money to buy the 3 daughters scriptrues. Its intense. We had already procured a quad for Gabrielle. The guy who served at the Bird center with us left, so we are on our own now. One of the birds, named Rhett, I sent pictuers of home before. He can only be fed on your hand, to train him to come to you. Well they had me try to feed him, and it was super frustrating!! He was just fly around or hop around and avoided me. The lady there said everyone had to go through it at one point, so thats comforting i guess. things are going good here, I hope things are well for all of you! love elder pawson

5/12/14 still in Big Lake

hey everyone! this week was aight. Pretty boring until saturday when I got my transfer call. I'll be staying in Big Lake again. My new companion is Elder Hamilton. I know him already, so it'll be cool to serve with him. I hope we get along well. Gabrielle is being interviewed for baptism this week, so that is exciting. she is being baptised a week from Saturday. Seems like its coming up so fast! Saturday we cleaned kennels at an Iditarod mushers house. Yea, the poop. It was so fun playing with all the dogs. We are going to go paint the kennels soon. After we were done we played in the puppy pen, which is where that cute picture of me and the puppy is from! haha love you all and hope you are well. Elder Pawson

5/5/14 oh ya one more thing

Guess who just walks into church on Sunday like nothing happened? Gabrielle and the girls and darrell. It was so wierd. Then she invited us over again and wants to be baptised. I have no idea what happened or what, but she is back on track now. I think she went back to her other church and felt the difference, thelack of the strong spirit of the Lord's true church. Then she felt it leave her life too, so she is back and ono track, so thats awesome! love elder pawson

5/5/14 weekly update

hey everyone. this week was a little wierd. Tuesday Elder Stovall got the call that he is going to be a Zone Leader next transfer. Which means, I'll be staying here. Probably. I like the area, but I thought I was heading back to A town, so we will see what happens. Stovall was in Anchorage for two days for MLC, and I was with Elder Babb again. It was fun but we didn't get a lot done. This whole week was pretty slow. Friday I was sick and could'nt go out...again.. Its getting pretty old. Satruday we spent the whole day doing service of one kind or another. We spent some time up in Talkeetna with Willow, clearing trees and then burning htem. That was pretty fun, we roasted marshmallows and hot dogs....over a diesel fire...mmmmm I sent some more pics of th ebirds at the bird sanctuary. The two birds are both Rhett, a red tailed hawk. and then a picture of the start of our fire. Hope you are all well, love you! Love elder pawson

4/28/14 service with bees

Hey everyone. this week was a dinger! Gabrielle and the girls, Ginger, Araina and Aurora dropped us out of the blue. We aren't sure what happened, but she texted us and told us to stop coming over. I'm not quite sure what happened. The rest of the week was pretty good, I suppose. Just doing missionary work. We are trying to find new investigators because the ones we have are all dropping off. Its hard to tract, because its kind of dangerous in some areas, so we are trying to find some referrals. One of th emembers in our area is a bee distributer, so we helped move some bee packages around. I took a picture and included it! Sorry so short, not alot of exciting things happening this week, no flipped trucks or anything. hope you are all well, love you all! Elder Pawson

4/21/14 more pictures of the truck

There are some more pics of the truck, and a picture form Elder Stovall and I hauling hay. I made a throne to sit in while she drove to the barn and then a mini throne for elder stovall. We agreed I was King Lamoni's father and he was King Lamoni. He is a king and i am the king of kings haha.

4/21/14 car accident!

Hey everyone. wow this week was intense. Last wednesday I was on exchanges with Elder Babb and I got into a car accident. I was driving about 50 on a road, and there was a freak flood (freakin' break up sucks!). Hit the puddle, hydroplaned, spun around a couple times and flew through the air, landing on the truck's side. We were only stopped from rolling by smashing into som espruce trees. Needless to say, the truck is freak'n totalled. It was a pretty cool experience. I'm not sure if I will lose my driving privileges. People have had worse crashes and still drove, and Elder Poulson, the vehicle coordinator, said he would fight for my right to drive still, so we shall see. But its a neat experience, not many people can say they flipped a truck on their mission. This week was pretty slow, we were only able to teach 26 lessons. A big part of that was my accident, obviously. The whole ward knows about it, even though it was kept hush hush. We were able to pick up some community service assignments in Big Lake this week. On Wednesdays we help clean up the library, and on Saturdays we work at the Alaska Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Its a wild bird sanctuary. They have 2 great horned owls, and two red tailed hawks. We got to feed them and we will be cleaning their cages and stuff too. He was impressed with how I knew how to handle birds. We weren't able to handle the wild birds. But I think we will be able to next time! So thats my week, enjoy it. If you ever wanna send anything letters or boxes to me, here is my address. Elder Pawson 3250 Strawberry Rd Anchorage, AK 99502 Love you all and hope you are well. Love Elder Pawson

4/14/14 dog mushing

Hey all This week was pretty good. We gave Ginger her braille book of mormon and she loved it! They have been reading everyday since then. They come to church every week and they quit their youth group, awanna or something like that, to come to youth night and activity days. THey are on date to be baptised too! Pretty sweet! We went dog mushing today, which was pretty fun. One person got to stand and one person sat on the sled while the musher took us out. He is an Iditarod musher and finished the whole thing this year. It was sweet. We took a jump and got some sweet air haha. THe Dogs are pretty cool too. We got some good pics and videos. Elder Bratt videod our whole run, and since its HD its about 800mb, so I don't think I"ll e sending that one home haha. We moved into our cabin this week, it was pretty tight. Its fun living so close to some members, we get to see them alot. Things are gonig well, hope you are all good. Love and miss you! Elder Pawson

4/7/14 ice road

Hey everyone. This week was ok. I was super sick the whole week. I'm kind of getting over it now but its been super annoying. But this week was still good. Got to know Elder Stovall a bit. He is a convert from Missouri. His dad is inactive and i dn't know if his mom is a member. Bu ti guess there isn't a lot of support from his family, he doesn't seem to email them or get any letters from them. Kinda sad. This week we got a copy of the book of mormon in Braille for one of our investigators. Darrell, the murdered, shared the gospel with his girlfriend and her daughters. She has a 13 year old daughter named Ginger and 10 year old twins named Aurora and Araina. Ginger is blind. We told her we didn't know if we could get a braille one for her, because they were super expensive. She told me, "just the thought of you trying to get one for me makes my heart skip a beat." I almost melted into a puddle when she said that. Well Sister Poulson in the office came through and we got that today. I was super impressed until I went on LDS.org and looked at how much they are, and they are only 3 bucks. 3 bucks!! Its 6 huge binders of braille. I was expecting like, 100-150 bucks haha. Well We are giving them to her tomorrow so I'm really excited. We had a funny experience on the ice road yesterday. I was driving up to the boat launch to look at the ice and see if we can still drive on it. It was coverred in puddles and the top 3 inches was slush. I was pretty confident that I could still drive on it, because it takes a long time for the ice to melt. Elder Stovall didn't want me to so I was about to back up when a jeep pulled up with some tourists from washington. One of the guys was from Big Lake and told us that they couldn't beleive we would drive on the ice. The lady asked if we really were going to drive on the ice, and the alaska guy gave us a look like, 'you would i fyou wern't wimps." So I reached down, flipped it into 4wheel drive, and gave Elder Stovall the look. He knew what I was going to do, so I said, "You bet your pants we are!" and floored it onto the ice. It was pretty scary and I was sure we were going to fall through, but we made it and it was fine. We drove on the ice road again today and it is still solid, so no drowning yet. General conference was sweet, as usual. I can't beleive I've already seen 2 general conferences. my mission is flying by! The first picture is the ice road when it was super solid. The second picture is Elder Dymock, Me, Brent and Bro Udalls from the ward in our carhart vests haha. The third pic is Elder Stovall in the truck. Hope you are well, miss you all! Love ELder Pawson

4/2/14 how i feel right now

look up Jonah 4:3 and you will see how I feel (I looked it up and here is what it says: Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.)

4/2/14 weekly update sick

Hey all sorry I'm late emailing this week. There was a wierd holiday called Sewards day. I don't even know what it is for but the library was closed. Yesterday was transfers. I actually got to stay in an area this time. I'm still junior companion too, which is sweet. My new companion is Elder Stovall, and he is the district leader. It's pretty nice to still be a jc, I think I might be able to go a full year of being junior companion. I'm not in any hurry to get any kind of leadership position. JC for life. Elder Stovall is a convert of about 5 years. He is from Kansas City, MO. He seems pretty cool. I've been sick as a dog for the last week . My face is really congested. I wish I had some of my mothers oils now, even though its witchbrew stuff, it always worked. I bought some drugs so hopefully that helps. I've been pretty miserable. I've having a great time though. I really enjoy being here and I'm loving my mission. Thanks for all your letters and packages! We really appreciate them :) have a great week! Love Elder Pawson

3/24/14 weekly update Tax line

Hey everyone! This week was great! We weren't able to teach as much, but we still got to teach 41 lessons. It was kind of rough though, we had 3 investigators drop us. One of them was the guy behind the tax line. He said we were visiting him too much. We saw him once. Another one that we had to drop was a Part member family. The wife is "active" and her husband was investigating. We would go over there every so often to see her husband, and she called the bishop and told him to "call us off," because her husband hated us. But her husband always said that he loved us coming over. We think the problem is that the wife is lying to get her temple recommend about the word of wisdom, and when we share the commandments with her husband, the spirit tells her to repent. So she wants us to stop coming over. She slammed the door in our face on saturday. I've never heard of an "active" member slamming the door in a missionaries face. Our mission president said to wait for the husband to call us before going back, problem is the wife controls the phone. It's pretty sad. and the third investigator just moved. but thats ok. We got a tuesday night meeting started for the ward missionaries, just like they do in the Wyoming Ward. It's a little different here, and maybe you guys might like to incorporate it in yours. We do half an hour of investigators and teaching needs, then spend half an hour teaching the ward missionaries how to be ward missionaries. Last week we taught them how to prepare copies of the book of mormon to give away. It was super fun! Well the pictures I sent today is a picture of the tax line, complete with 20 gauge shotgun marks haha, a pictuer of my district leader, elder dyer, and a picture from the ward missionary training! enjoy!! Love Elder Pawson

3/17/14 Melted ice road

Hey everyone, this week was pretty sweet! We taught a bunch and worked pretty hard. I'm attaching a picture of the ice road again to show you how melted it is haha. It was pretty scary driving on it, but we made it thankfully. We picked up a new investigator from ehind the tax line last week. He lives 30 miles from the church haha. They have a history of abusing the church for money help or food help, so we will see what happens, but it was nice to not get shot. I attached anothe rpicture to show you what the roads are like out here, they are really more like paths through the woods haha. Sometimes its pretty hard to actually get somewhere. But I'm loving it out here. I hope you guys are well too. love you all! elder pawson

3/10/14 weekly update

Hey everyone. Well this week was a ringer for sure. I'm pretty sure we broke the record for most lessons in a week. I heard the previous record was 50 lessons, not counting active member lessons. We had 59 lessons, and 6 of those were active members, so we had 53 lessons. 22 of them were to investigators and 31 to recent converts and less actives. It was sick! We got to go to the temple on friday with a recent convert named Brent Beaman. He is going on his mission in April to the Missouri St. Louis mission. Pretty awesome. It was so fun to see someone go through the temple for the first time. I loved it! We had an awesome miracle this week. One of our investigators wasnt' home for our lesson, so we left to go somewhere else. We turned down a busy road and saw some dogs in the middle, just running around. After we passed them I recognised them as her dogs. SO we turned around and tried to corral them. We got one and put him in the truck bed, the other ran away. We tried calling her but her phone was off. We ran out of things to do, we knew we couldn't drive the dog home in our truck, so we did the only thing we could, we prayed. We asked for anyway we could contact her. As soon as we said Amen, she turned the corner and was driving straight at us! We then followed her home mand called a member to come over, and had an amazing lesson! It was such a blessing and I knew it was because we asked for it. I included another Iditarod picture, and a picture of my companion. Thanks so much for sending him mail. He hasn't received anything for 6 months! If you want to send him more, or have any christmas care packages laying around, here's our address! Elder Pawson 3250 Strawberry Rd Anchorage, AK 99502 much love! The last picture I uploaded is a wolf that is a pet at a less active members house. He is too scared of us to let us pet him. They have another wolf that is inside the house that loves me and always cuddles with me! I love it!! Hope you are all well, love you all! Elder Pawson

3/3/14 Iditarod!

Hey everyone. This week was sweet! We taught a ton of lessons. We have a few investigators progressing and it looks like we will have some baptisms in the next month. Its exciting! We might be moving out of our apartment which would be sweet. We might move into a members cabin. We have to drive about 8 miles to get to our area, so it would be nice to live in our area. We did service at the Iditarod for the start. it was so fun. I"m going to try to send a video in the next email, but there are a few pictures here. One is Elder SHurtz and I with our trail guard arm bands, and a picture of Elder Dymock being silly. Its taking forever so I forgot what I sent, but enjoy. Things are well here. Love you all and hope you are well! love elder pawson Here's a video from the iditarod. They aren't going too fast because it is just a ceremonial start. THe real start was yesterday in Wasilla. The dogs were so cute!! i had to turn the quality down to send it in an email, but i have sweet HD ones too :)

2/24/14 Weekly Update!

Hey everyone! this week was super busy. We taught almost 30 lessons. That is more than I taught all last transfer. I'm pretty tired and ready for P-Day haha. Our area is pretty remote. The houses are super small and sometimes barely liveable. There are people who live in literally storage sheds with a fireplace. No running water or electricity. Some houses are just super duper small. Some are super run down. One person we are teaching lives in a fifth wheel camper. He murdered someone so he can't be baptised for a while. But its cool to see how much he has changed from the atonement. Another investigators house burned downand so she lives in a trailer next to it. Theres a line where the state/city stops....caring. It's called the tax line. People who live past it don't have to pay taxes, but they don't get city or state stuff, like water or police. So its super sketchy. One lady had a shotgun behind the door while we were tracting. I saw it peek out when she was telling us to go away. I tried talking about her bird but then she got scary so we got away. Crazy stuff out here in Big lake. We got a kind of referral from the bishop, who said his coworker walks her dog by the lake. So we drive over there to look for her. We found her, and parked and tried to make it look like we were just walked and tracting and talk to her, but she walked away from where we were heading. SO we followed her footprints. we thought we would just say we were tracting, but we walked so far that we were not by any houses. So we are just walking through a forest, but we were so far in we just kept going. Well she caught us and asked us where we were going, so I was just like, "Uh, on a walk!" she told us there were no houses and offered to walk us back. We had a good chat but it was kind of awkward. Well thats it from me. I sent a picture of me and elder Dymock, and a super cute puppy mauling me, and uh... oh yea. We saw a car flipped over and it was super recent so we stopped to look in it but they were already gone. They were a drunk native haha. Everyone was ok thankfully, but it looked pretty sweet. Hope you are all well, love you! Love Elder Pawson

2/19/14 weekly update

Hey everyone! This week has been alright so far. I got transferred again. My 4th area in 5 transfers. My new companion is Elder Dymock. We are in the Big Lake ward in the Wasilla stake. Its pretty busy out here, last week they taught 50 lessons. They added a second set of elders here, so thats pretty sweet. Our apartment is huge. The biggest one in the mission i think. Its a nice change from the smallest in the mission, which is what i was just in. Its a little cramped with 4 elders but it will be ok. We have a ping pong table! There was one family that was really sad to see me leave the Samoan ward. They are the Fiame family. They gave me a Western Samoa Tie, some western samoa kukui (coo-coo-ee), which are the beads in the picture. Thats kind of a big deal to Samoans. They also made me an ifaitaga (eef-eye-tanga), which is the thing that looks like a skirt. Missionaries wear that in Samoa and Tonga, and I am gonna wear it when I get home too! They are super expensive so its cool that they made them for us. They also gave us a lava-lava, which is a brightly colored and patterned ifaitaga. super cool. Big Lake is an ineteresting area. Its the far out of wasilla, so its kind of crazy. People living in like, plywood shacks and stuff. Like its super poor. There should be some good success here! love you all and hope you are well! love elder pawson :) p.s. my companion has a rough family situation and never -ever- gets mail. So feel free to send him a letter too :) I love all those quotes, thats pretty awesome, I've never thought of it that way! On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 7:02 PM, Barbara Pawson wrote: Hi, So Elder Patterson posted something on facebook that quoted Elder Bertilson. Here it is: This morning we dropped of missionaries at the airport, who are at the end of their 2 year journey. as we watched them go through security i was reminded of the first set of missionaries we took back in november. elder bertislon said something to me that was very profound. he said, "they are heroes.... and no one can tell. no one will ever know what they have just accomplished. they are heroes." this group certainly lived up to those standards. — with Vicki Hess and 4 others. I love that. It's so true. You guys are heroes.... I liked his status so much that I shared it with this comment: I love the way Elder Bertilson put that. Thank you for sharing it with us Elder Devin Patterson. I completely agree and it is one of the reasons I try to get so involved in the work. It is an honor to do what little I can to help all of these unsung heroes. This morning we dropped of missionaries at the airport, who are at the end of their 2 year journey. as we watched them go through security i was reminded of the first set of missionaries we took back in november. elder bertislon said something to me that was very profound. he said, "they are heroes.... and no one can tell. no one will ever know what they have just accomplished. they are heroes." this group certainly lived up to those standards. — with Vicki Hess and 4 others. And Elder Pena's mom loved it so much she shared it with this comment: Inspiring words from a hero.....I love my missionary and all missionaries who put their trust and faith in The Lord to serve him and our fellowman. Thank you for sharing Barbara Ann Pawson. This morning we dropped of missionaries at the airport, who are at the end of their 2 year journey. as we watched them go through security i was reminded of the first set of missionaries we took back in november. elder bertislon said something to me that was very profound. he said, "they are heroes.... and no one can tell. no one will ever know what they have just accomplished. they are heroes." this group certainly lived up to those standards. — with Vicki Hess and 4 others. We are so grateful for all that you and your fellow missionaries do and for the willingness to sacrifice a part of your life like this. You truly are heroes...and no one knows--sometimes even the missionary doesn't know...... So thank you. Love, Mom

2/10/14 weekly update

Well I typed out an entire email, and it got deleted. But suffice it to say, we still door knock all the time, pretty much every day all day. We passed on almost 30 referrals to the palagi ward. We saw a bunch of jets and C-17s and C-130s flying around, I attached some pictures. Its a real perk up when you see those flying around. And every day at 5pm the military base plays a song on the bugle, then blares the national anthem. God Bless AMERICA!!! haha. Transfer calls are Saturday. We are pretty sure we are atleast being whitewashed, maybe closeing the area. We shall see. Itd' be funny, 4 areas in 6 months haha. love you all, hope you are well! Love Elder Pawson

2/3/14 Weekly Update

Hey everyone, this week was cool. We only taught 1 lesson, and we spent about 3 straight days door knocking all day. We found 7 potential investigators... who were all palagi, so we had to hand them over to the palagi white person ward. It's ok though, we actually got to talk to people about the gospel instead of just driving around all day and getting turned down at the door. The first day we were door knocking we were by the military base, and we kept seeing these F-22 jets flying around, and a pave-hawk helicopter. Its a black hawk that is used for search and rescue stuff, its kind of heavily armored, like a mix between a black hawk and a pavelow. it was so sweet! Still no camera, but I may get it back this week, so I may have pictures for you eventually. But in any case, hope you are all well. Love you all! Love Elder Pawson

1/27/14 My 10 Favourite memories of Grandpa

My mission president said it would be a good idea to list my 10 favourite memories of grandpa, and I would like to share them with you! :) Admittedly, it was hard to come up with 10 specific events, because most of the good times I had with him I remember more as feelings and happiness, but I did come up with a sweet list :) These are in no particular order! 1. I loved visiting him in Puerto Rico. It was so fun to see El Morro and to just be on vacation in Puerto Rico with you guys. It was something I always looked forward to, and even more so when you moved to Wisconsin! 2. I loved goign to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. Sleeping in the condo and spending the holiday shopping with you guys and watching thanksgiving football with grandpa was always so fun!! 3. Costa Rica. I didn't even want to go originally! I'm not sure why, i just didn't feel like I wanted to. But while we were there it was so fun! It reminded me of the vacations to Puerto Rico, all of us just hanging out having a blast. 4. Another thing I loved is how he would always try to make fun of me or somethign I was doing, but he could never keep a straight face or would start laughing. It was awesome, and I loved it! 5. One thing I remember a lot was how we would visit in Wisconsin, and we would go play Nintendo, and grandpa would always talk about how he played those games back ni the 80s. 6. I loved watching football on Sundays with him. We always cheered for the same team and it was such a blast! 7. One thing I loved about him was how badly he wanted me to get an education, but as long as I was doing something worthwhile with my life, he was happy and supported me. 8. He took me to a brewers game once! I remember having so much fun there, and thats when I became a brewers fan, but not more than the tigers! 9. I had a lot of fun going tubing and cruising on the boat with Aunt Sue when grandma and grandpa would come to visit! 10. The biggest thing I love and will miss is just how happy he was when I was around him, or when I would call him. He was such a light in the world and will be missed, but I know I will see him again! Hope you enjoy! Love you all! Elder Pawson

1/27/14 weekly update

hey everyone! This week was good. The food is getting more manageable, mostly because we aren't really getting many dinner appointments anymore. Crazy right? I don't think the ward likes us. But thats ok. We can still work hard. Our goal is to make the ward look like th ebest ward here. Our ward mission leader feeds us when we don't have a dinner, and he wanted to make us some palagi food. thats pronounced pa-LANG-ee. it means white people. Meuli (may-UU-lee) is black people, just incase you were curious. But he wanted to make us palagi food, so we said hamburgers. He didn' tknow what they were so we were trying to explain it. It held up a pound of ground beef and said, "hamburger?" We said yea, but its like a sandwich. he doesn't speak much english -_-. He asked me what I liked and I said pork roast. So he pulls out a pork roast and asks how to cook it. I tell him to put it in a pan with some water, vegetables and what not ,and bake it. He didn' tunderstand, he wanted to cut it up an dboil it. We told him to try it this way and he seemed scared. We thought for sure we would show up and there would be a plate of ground beef for hamburgers, and a charbroiled hunk of pork ha ha. But he made the hamburgers well! and he cut up and boiled the pork roast and mixed it with corn and rice, and that was really good too, so it all worked out in the end. It has been really warm here, over 50 degrees during the day. All the snow is melting. Wasilla doesn't even have snow anymore, its insane. In April there is whats called "Breakup." Its when it warms up and all the snow disappears in a matter of days. Well thats what happening now. its so wierd. everything is wet though, which stinks. One more story from my WML. He was feeding us Samoan food one night, and there was a lot of it. Elder Worwood and I had pouned 3 plates, and we were so full. He looks at us and shouts, "EAT!" I said, "Maoga fa'afetai." (ma-ONG-a Fafa-tie) which means, I"m full thanks. And he looks at us, and in his broken english says, "Oh we're not done yet man." Then brought out a HUGE desert. We almsot died. But just thinking of him saying, "Oh we're not done yet, man." is just hilaroius. Well that smy week. Love you all and miss you! Hope you are well! love Elder Pawson

1/21/14 weekly update!

Hey everyone. Libraries were closed yesterday so I have to email today. Last week was pretty good. There is definately a lot more work to be down in this ward than any other ward I've been in. I'm learning more of the language and the people seem to really like me. I think they like me because whenever they teach me somethign in samoan, I pick it up right away and my pronounciation is pretty good too. We picked up 3 new investigators at church. THey just came into church and wanted to learn. It was definately cool. We had our zone conference last week, talked alot about how to call down the powers of heaven. It was really good, we talked about Nephi (Helaman chapter 10) and all he did to be able to have the power that the lord gave him. It was really interesting and informative. I'm a little sad that Pres. Beesley is leaving us soon! We found out who are new mission president is, Eldon R. Robinson. I wonder if how he is going to run the mission! We moved into our apartment last week, we had beens taying with the other samoan elders since transfers, the first 9 days of the transfer to be exact. It kinda stunk, living out of a suitcase and having to drive 30 minutes to our area, but it was still fun. We moved our beds into our study room and put a weight bench and treadmill and dumbells in our "bedroom" so we could try to work off the samoan food! They don't try to make me eat so much anymore. As long as I eat, and eat a plate or two, they seem to be ok. They like it when you ask if you can bring it home. Makes grocery shopping easy when you have af ridge full of food! haha. Love you all and hope you are well, talk to you again soon! Love Elder Pawson

1/13/14 Weekly Update!

Yea so I am emailing way late again because I am back in anchorage. I was really liking the 10am email time. Oh well. I'm in the samoan ward now, and trying to learn their language. Its hard but I think I can do it. The people are really nice about it, but they aren't very missionary minded. Besides feeding us of course. They make you eat so much! It makes me sick some times but you just gotta do it. Once we move into our apartment (which is occupied by elders from Kodiak for the next few days) we should have a bench and weights so hopefully we can stay decently healthy. My new companion is pretty cool. He is struggling with the eating too. He is a small guy and likes to work out and stuff, so shoving an entire quart of ice cream into yoru mouth (yes that was desert yesterday, once for each of us) is bringing him down. Once we figure otu this darn eating thing we should be ok! For dinners you don't eat with the whole family. Its wierd. you only eat with the head of the household. Everyone else waits on you (literally, like a waiter) and then leaves while you share a scripture with the head of the house. Even when they go out to restaurants they sit at a different table. Samoans are also freakin' good at singing. They sing really loud and all sing their parts. Makes our priesthood opening excercises back home look pitiful haha. I won't be sending pics for a while because I had to send my camera in to get fixed. Should be about 2 weeks before I get it back. Then I will have to take some pictures before I can send any so you will be waiting for a few weeks! sorry! I didn't break it, it just broke! Love you all and hope you are well!! love Elder Pawson

1/6/14 weekly update!

Hey everyone. Well I got freakin' transferred again! My third area now. Even worse, I'm going to the Samoan Ward!!! Northern Lights Samoan ward. I'm really worried that I'm goign to get super fat. They feed you a lot haha. It will be fun though. I'll enjoy being in anchorage again. This week was pretty slow. I only taught one lesson, to a Less active brother. We were preparing the area for a whitewash, making notes, calling people to set up appointments and what not. Also cleaning, a lot haha. Elder Poulsen was really sick too, so that hampered the work. Other then that things are great. One of the pictures I'm sending is me trapped in the sound booth. Its there in the library so you can talk on the phone inside. the handle was tricky give me a break. The other pic is my district pic. And the other picture is me with a stuffed bear at the Wade's haha. Love you all and miss ya! Can't wait to see you again ;) love elder pawson