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