Being "Genios" . . .

February 7, 2015

Dear Family,

Wow, it sounds like you guys had a really good week!  Sounds like everything is going really well for you!  Cool to finally see some pictures of Sean, since he has been home for like a week!

Any way, this week has been really busy!  On Monday, we had a missionary get hospitalized again.  He a collapsed lung a little while back.  Well, he went in for a check up on Monday, and they told him that it had collapsed again!!  They put him back in the hospital, and then told him that he was going to need surgery.  So that was Monday, just kind of helping him, making sure he had the things that he needed, and also a lot of planning for the leadership counsel that we have every month!

On Tuesday we spent the whole day looking for things to finish up the planning.  We also had to go buy a ton of stuff for the house, the mission, and the consejo.  Then all of the zone leaders started getting in and we went to pick them all up.

Wednesday was the day of the consejo.  I was looking forward to just a really relaxed morning, because we were all completely ready.  Turns out that life had different plans.  All of the planning that was made on Monday with the doctors about for the Elder's surgery fell through.  He needed two units of blood from the blood bank just as a back up plan for his surgery, just in case.  I talked to the doctor, talked to the Red Cross, and got everything set up.  When the surgeon went to go start the surgery, he started asking questions that they didn't tell me anything about, so I missed the entire morning trying to get things figured out with the blood for the surgery, because obviously they couldn't start the surgery with out the reserve of blood.  Anyway, in the consejo, I was able to teach the main part of how to help people make and complete commitments. 

So in Alma 18 it talks about when Ammon is teaching King Lamoni.  In verse 23 it says that "ingeniously committed the king" to listen.  I took that word and challenged everyone to be "geniuses" ("genios" in spanish) in how they extend commitments.  Then I made an acronym with different letters to teach how to make and set commitments with people!!

G:  Ganar Confianza...  V. 21:  He gained the confidence of the king by supporting and serving him, and then the king was willing to do anything for Ammon.

E:  Escuchar...  V. 20:  He listened to the king's questions that he had as well as his doubts.

N:  Necesidades...  V. 14-16:  He found out by the spirit what the king's needs were to be able to find the solution.

I:  Invitar...  V. 22:  He invited without obligating the king to do something that made logical and spiritual sense that would better his life.

O:  Osado...  V. 24:  He spoke boldly to the king, without fear or confusion, stating exactly what he knew to be true.

S:  Seguimiento...  He gave follow up constantly on the way to completing the goal.  Anytime that it came up, he was thinking about it and asking how the goal was coming along.

So that went really well.  It was fun to see how all the people were taking notes, as well as having fun with my little presentation.

On Thursday I honestly don't even remember what we did.....

On Friday we had an exchange with the Zone leaders of Independencia, our own zone.  It was a lot of fun, and lots of things happened that were a first for me in the mission!!

Today, P-Day, Elder Peña went to stay with Elder Sigler in the hospital, so I just stayed in the office with Jensen and Whittier.  Then we made dinner for a sister in our ward who always makes us food, so we paid back the favor.

Well, I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan

Set Goals & Celebrate Little Successes . . .

February 1, 2015

Dear Family,

This week was a great week.  We have been working super hard, and even though it doesn't seem like it to us sometimes, we are accomplishing a ton of things out here for the mission.  We have lots of big goals and things that we are trying to put in motion, and it is a little bit hard for me sometimes, because we aren't going to see the success immediately... However, it is always great to see the little successes that we have, that let us know that we are progressing.  One of the best success stories that we had this week was that we had transfers, and that is always a very hectic time for all of us here in the office, especially for us as the assistants.  Everyone seems to need something, and because there are only two of us (and most of the time we are always together) it makes it a little bit hard to be able to get everything done.  In the past, transfers has just been this huge, draining endeavour.  This time it was very different.  Everything just seemed to go more or less according to plan, and everything was planned out to the letter of what we needed to do.  For me that was a great accomplishment, because part of my specific role as one of the assistants is to make sure everything for transfers is planned out.  It was amazing, because everything was finished and accounted for by 3:00 pm.  Hopefully that will make it easier for the assistants in the future to be able to use all of the planning formats and things that we have come up with to continue to have smooth transfers.

So on Monday, in the devotional that we always have, it was Elder Van Katwyk's last time.  He is one of the Office Elder Secretary type people, and was getting transferred after being there for six months.  He was in charge of the baptism records.  We got to hear his testimony and it was really good.  He was getting transferred to Bani to be a district leader out there, so hopefully that all is going well for him now.

On Tuesday we had the actual transfer of everyone, and for the most part things went really well.  We had one person who got mixed up on the times, and she got there late and missed the bus that goes out to the South, but we just immediately called to her area, set up an exchange with the companion that was going to wait for her, and then set up the way for her to get out there as well with one of the trainers and her companion.  All of that went really well.  We also got to meet all of the new missionaries who just came in.  There were only 9, and 7 of them were sisters.  It was a really good group.  They all seem really excited to work, and the three latina sisters seem really prepared as well.  One of them, a sister from Costa Rica, even knows english perfectly, so that was really cool.  Anyway, we had our meeting with them and it all went great.  Then, when all of that was done, we just went and bought the pizza for the people who were finishing and then just sat at the house waiting for the president to come back from the temple with the people who finished....  We just kept waiting and waiting and waiting, with no word from anyone.  Turns out that they missed their session at 5, and had to wait until the 7:00 pm session.  Then we ate with them, and received a little bit of bad news...  The flights to New York had been cancelled due to inclement weather.  We made the plan for all of that, then went to bed.

On Wednesday, we basically just spent the whole day running back and forth to the airport with people, and it just consumed the entire day with all of the traffic.  It is always interesting to see how airports work!!  For example, with a sister who was going home to Argentina, she had a layover in Colombia.  They told her that she had to go through the immigration process in Colombia because her layover was a certain number of hours, and it didn't matter that she wasn't immigrating to Colombia, she still had to do it!  We called to the Travel Agent, and he was able to do all of that stuff on line, so she was totally fine.  When we finally got home, we just crashed!

Thursday I also completed a small goal of mine...  I have now officially visited every zone in the mission.  San Juan was the only one that I had never been to, and we finally were able to make it out there.  We were closing an area that was really far away and not having much success, and moving the missionaries in the area to a different area that needed to have 4 instead of 2.  We got out there pretty early, at about 10:00 am.  It was a three hour drive, and we were hauling.  It is about the distance from Salem to St. George, so we really made some good time.  We finally got out there, stopped at the Zone Leaders house to drop some stuff off, said hi to them, and then keep going.  Something that really surprised me about San Juan is that it was legitimately cold...  What?  Yeah, it was a little bit chilly up there!!  Any way, we got to the area that we were closing, and started loading stuff into the trucks.  We just had the two pick up trucks of us and the Office Elders, and we just went to work.  We were loading in tons of stuff, and we realized (as the good dominicans that we now are) that we could fit every single thing into the back of those two pick up trucks from this house.  There were a bunch of desks, beds, mattresses, tables, boxes, dressers, and suitcases, but we managed to make it all fit.  We took everything apart that could be taken apart and made it fit.  We got them all moved and started back to the capital.  It was a long day, especially because I had to drive over 600 kilometers and help move, all in the space of about 8 hours.  Needless to say we were drained.

On Friday, we started another small goal that we have, which is to do exchanges with all of the Zone Leaders to help them to become even better leaders.  We started with the Zona Central, which is probably the most difficult zone because it is right in the heart of the capital.  Every appointment that we had fell through, so we spent the whole day contacting and teaching when we could, and still ending up teaching 3 lessons on my end with Elder Merrel, and Elder Peña taught 4 with Elder Mendez.  It was really interesting, and we found some people who are legitimately interested.  It was also really weird because I came across the first person that I have ever met that is Atheist....  It was weird because he told us he was atheist and all of that, and I asked what he was abstaining from being atheist.  He turned on me, asked me if I was stupid, and told me that being atheist means that he does not believe in God.  Obviously I knew that, but then I told him that he was acknowledging the existence of God by denying to believe in Him.  I told him that he was just abstaining from believing in God, but not denying that He existed.  It was very interesting because he just got this really weird look on his face and said that he had never though about that before.  We left a card with the number on it to call if he would like another visit.  We found a woman who didn't want to accept any commitments because her husband wasn't going to change, and so I basically quoted to her almost an entire movie from the life of Brigham Young, who is one of my favorite prophets...  A little weird, but we just went with it!!  Overall it was a really good day!

Saturday was pretty normal, just trying to get everything ready that will happen in the course of this next transfer.  We have Zone Conference, Zone Leader Conference, our training meeting, and all of that!!  We also have an upcoming visit to our mission from Jeffrey R. Holland on the 12th of March, so that will be amazing!!  Very excited for that.  So we spent the day planning everything, then we went to the store, bought what we needed, and came home and slept.  Overall it was a great week!!

The most important thing that I learned this week was with the little success stories that we have.  It is often hard to think that we are progressing because there are not a ton of visible results, but we should celebrate the little things in life.  We should realize that even the little victories lead up to something greater!!  It is always amazing to me how all of that is prophesied in the Book of Mormon, and that we can just learn more and more about as we study from different points of view.  When Captain Moroni was trying to take back the lands that had been stolen from the Nephites, it doesn't say that they went in and did it all in one day, in one week, or even in a year.  It says that through the course of several years, they began to march, overtaking one city at a time until they reached their final goal of having all of their lands back.  It was amazing to me that over all of that time, and all of those different battles, that they named ALL of the cities that they overtook.  They celebrated their small moments, their small accomplishments, and they were able to finally reach the end goal. I encourage you to put goals, and then put smaller goals to reach the larger ones.  Celebrate the completion of a goal every day.  Look for ways to become better, and I promise that the Lord will bless you.

Well, I hope you all are doing well.  Love you lots.

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan

Happy New Year . . .

January 4, 2015

Dear Family,

Sorry for not being able to write this weekend.  It seems like there is always some sort of situation that we have to deal with!!  Today we had some missionaries get attacked and robbed, so we have been working with that.  They are fine and no one got hurt, so that is good!

I hope that you all have had a good last few days, enjoying the beginning of your new year!!  2015 is officially here.  I hope you all had a great time, and that you are enjoying the last little bit of your vacation!!

So this week was anything but a vacation for me!!  We have had a ton of things going on lately.  The President has had his son and daughter here for this last little while, so they have been doing lots of things, going out and teaching as well as spending some tourist time!  So we met them a little while ago.  His daughter served a mission in Brazil, so she goes out and teaches in Portuguese, which people who speak spanish can understand, and she can understand spanish as well from her Portuguese knowledge, so she was teaching.  The president's son served in France, so he has been teaching the French investigators.  His girlfriend also came, but her mission experience didn't really help her out at all... she served in Taiwan.  But so anyway, all of them have been going out and teaching lately.

We have spent the majority of the week running people around to the doctor.  One Elder hurt his ankle, this time the other one, We have an elder here, who had a small heart failure, so we have been going around with him trying to get everything figured out!!

On New Year's Eve, no one was feeling in a very receptive mood, so we went and talked to the members and helped them to understand how they can help us with mission work in this area.  It seems like it went fairly well.  Then we went back to the house and I went to bed.  I just wasn't feeling New Year's this year...  I set an alarm and woke up at 12 to welcome in the new year. The next day we wanted to do something cool, so we went to every cool spot we could think of.... and EVERYTHING was closed!!  So, we ate at Carl's Jr. and went back to the office.  We went to play Frisbee, and it got too dark too soon!  So we went to buy stuff to play ping pong... and the store was closed!!  It is like saying that WalMart was closed... it just doesn't happen!!  So, defeated, we went back to the office!!

We just keep working here.  It is something that is hard, but it is going to be a huge benefit to me in the future.  It is crazy to think how fast the time is going by, and a little sad at the same time...  I just realized something...  That in less than six months, I will be home.  It is very weird to think about.  But, I am happy at the same time because it shows progress in my life, and in six months it will be time to move on to a new phase of life!!

So we have a cool investigator named Maria.  She works in the home of our ward mission leader.  She has had a lot of questions about the plan of salvation because her mother recently died.  We have been trying to help her understand the plan in order so that she will be able to accept the answer to her actual question, which is "Where is my mother now?"  It is a principal of teaching and of life that we all need to learn.  Everything has a divine order to it...  We can't run before we walk.  There is order to all of life, and we reach our final goals by learning the order and setting goals to accomplish each part of the order!!  Definitely something that I will need to continue to apply after the mission!!

Our big plan for this year is to reactivate lots of people!!  We have the goal to reactivate at least 2 people every month while we are here in the office!!  Hopefully we can reach that goal!!  I actually need to make some phone calls to some of these people to be able to see if they would be open to receive the gospel again!!  Hopefully this goes well!!

Well, I love you all so much!!  Happy New Year!!

Love you all,

Elder Garrett McEwan

English or Spanish? . . .

December 20, 2014

Dear Family,

This week was a very busy week with very little rest.  We were able to finish up everything for the transfers, which was really good!!  On Sunday, we also went and ate with one of the sweetest member ladies.  She is a returned missionary, and she is about 32 years old now.  She is not married, but she is just really amazing!!  She treats the missionaries like they are her kids, even though she is not that much older than us!!  Any way, everything on Sunday went well.

On Monday we were going all over the place.  It was pretty crazy, It was a little bit funny!  Everyone was calling us to ask special permission to "Go to the capital on tuesday" because they had stuff they wanted to do Monday!!  It got to the point that I could tell what the person wanted before picking up the phone!!  Any way, we were able to get everything figured out, and everything went well.  We also dropped a missionary off at the airport who is going to Peru.  His family came to see him off, and it was a great experience.  He had been in our mission for a full transfer waiting for his VISA, and he finally got it, so we sent him off!!

Tuesday we went to the chapel in San Geronimo to have the transfers.  Everyone actually took the schedule seriously, and got there on time!!  We were a little bit worried about the bus. On Monday night we found out that it was Elias Pina, almost in Haiti, and about a four hour drive away, and we needed it to be in the capital at 6 in the morning...  So they left at 2 in the morning and were able to make it there on time!!  We got everyone loaded up, and it all turned out just great!!  Then we had the trainers and trainees capacitation meeting.  It was a great experience, and I spent basically the whole time translating.  The president has us say lots of things in english to help the new guys.  I wonder how much of the spanish they understand.  The english I am not going to lie was a little bit tough...  It is kind of funny!!  I can hear english and translate it into spanish basically with out thinking, and I can hear spanish and translate into english, but speaking for myself in english is a little bit rough because it just comes out easier in spanish!!  Any way, we got all of that figured out, and immediately started getting people off to their areas.  We wanted the people in the south to get on the 2 p.m. bus so that they wouldn't have to wait until the 5:30 p.m. one, so we took off!!  I got a phone call saying that luggage had gotten misxed up between a sister and an elder, so we picked it up and took it with us too to send on the bus!!  We got them there just in time, and they all went off to their respective areas.  Then we went and changed money for those who were going home, and then we bought pizza and picked up our stuff to go stay the night at the CCM with the people who were going home.  We ate, and then we played ping pong!!  It was great!!  Also, we needed Pedersen and Jardon to help us because we only have 2 people in the office who can drive, Van Katwyk and I, so they helped us!!  We just talked and got caught up with everything that has been going on, then went to bed!

So on Wednesday after about 2 hours of sleep, we were up taking people to the airport!!  It was early, but we got them all off and everyone was fine!!  Then we went back, cleaned the rooms in the CCM, and went out to work!! 

On Thursday we were supposedly having the PDAY that we missed last Saturday, but the PDAY consisted of waking up a little late and then going to work ;)  Any way it was a good day, and we were able to get some things done!!  The President invited us to eat with him, but I was feeling a little bit sick, so I was unable to eat. 

On Friday I was able to do all of the references for the year!! That is something that falls under my calling as assistant. In the past it's been a bit relaxed, so there were 85 to do...  I have to call all of them and get their information and everything then put them in the system and assign them to a proselyting area.  I was able to finish all of them, but it was a little funny!!  I am sitting there with all of this guy's information, his full name, phone number, and part of his address.  I ask him for the rest of his address to be able to send the missionaries to his house, and he tells me that they are already visiting him.  I say that that is perfect, and that I just want to be able to put him in the system because the church is a church of order...  and he wouldn't tell me!!  I read off all of the information that HE PERSONALLY put in the church system, and he wouldn't believe me.  Then I asked him who the missionaries are that are teaching him, and he wouldn't tell me that either!!  I got a little frustrated, so I told him all of my information and that I just was trying to help him, but he yelled some bad words at me and hung up?  Haha just life I guess!!  We also picked up a mini missionary and took her to her area, so we only have one companionship in the mission that is working in a trio!!  That is a big accomplishment because that means that these people are going to be able to work at their full potential.

I just wanted to thank you all for the twelve days of christmas that you guys sent to us!!  It has been a lot of fun to open them with Pena, and he says to tell you thanks for him too! 

So on Christmas day I will be calling on Skype.  I will get on the email to make sure that you guys are ready for the call right before.

Well Family, I love you all so much.  I miss you lots, and I can't wait to talk on Christmas.  Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan

Great Week of Conferences . . .

December 14, 2014

Dear Family,

It was so great to hear all of the great things that are happening to all of you guys right now!!  It sounds like you are all just having a great time!  I am so grateful as well for your continued support while I am out here on the mission.

So this week was full of things happening!!  On Monday and Tuesday we had the Christmas Conferences...  and it started off on the wrong foot!!  Turns out that the Area Presidency was having some kind of banquet Monday at the same time as our Conference in the same place with the same catering service, so we had to change all of that stuff!!  It was a little bit hectic because we found out about all of that stuff on Saturday night, but it was ok and we were able to get everything figured out!!  We had the Conference in Azua on Monday, and we had to drive a ton!!  We made it there, luckily, at 7 in the morning.  We then had to go back to Bani to get more tables...  a half hour drive back!!  We went, got all the tables loaded up, and got the conference started!!  I was doing things the entire time, so I missed the majority of the conference!!  It seems like when ever there is a conference of some kind, all of the missionaries get sick right before coming!!  I spent the entire conference running people around to the doctor and to different farmacies...It is a little bit stressful sometimes because I am having to pay for a lot of the stuff with my own money and then wait for the reimbursement, but I guess it is good.  It is something that I guess is just preparing me to have a family, with kids asking all the time for money!!  Any way, the food turned out great, and there was a ton of it!!  Finally, a conference with food that was amazing!!  Then we watched all of the skits!!  Those literally had it all!!  From funny jokes to inside jokes to songs that the missionaries made up...  It was great!! Then when the conference finished, we took pictures and went home!!

The next day we had the conference in the capital.  It also started off with a problem with the tables, just because the Bishop of the building that we were at did not show up....  So I spent the whole morning getting tables again!!  I missed the entire morning session of the conference!!  The food was even better, and there was even a chocolate fountain!!  It was really cool, but I did not eat out of that because I KNOW how unhygienic those things can be...  Especially when there are so many people!!  150 people from different countries dunking a marshmellow in a chocolate waterfall in two different languages?  Does NOT sound appetizing to me!!  The skits were also very funny as well!!  Lots of laughs, good acting, and some funny lines as well!!  We did (as usual) have one awkward moment when a missionary from Mexico said the "N" word in a rap...  He doesn't know english, so for him it was normal, but it definately caught the president of guard!!  Any way, then we finished up all of that and went home!!

On Friday, we had the big activity at the President's house for the netire capital!!  It was a great success!!  The choir from our ward and from Las Caobas sang, and it was amazing!!  They sang really well!  We also had two sister missionaries sing, and they stole the show!!  It was seriously like listening to snow white sing!!  I was honestly just waiting for all of the little lizards and rats and cockroaches to come out, hypnotized, to do their bidding!!  It was great, and there was a turn out of about 300 people, so it was great!!  Really had a great time!!

Saturday was the day that we finished up the transfers.  It is a very good thing that I made up the formats for all of the things, so all we had to do was fill in the blanks with the names!!  We got it all set up, and then went and celebrated in CHILI's!!  It was fun, I got a soup and salad with a frozen strawberry lemonade!!  Then we took some sisters to San Cristobal to sing in a baptismal service, then went back to our ward party!! 

Today was Paulino's last Sunday, so he spoke!!  We had a great Sunday, and I have had a huge change about how I feel about Sunday!!  It legitimately is a day that I look forward to!!

Well, that is what has been going on!!  Also, I am very glad that you got my Christmas Package!!  Hopefully it made in there in one piece, because it is very fragile!!

So for Christmas...  We will be Skyping in the afternoon.  Not sure at what time yet, but we will be in contact.  As the assistants we always have to be on our personal emails and the assistant;s email just to make sure that nothing get's sent to us that we don't know about!!  So, I will let you know!!  All that I know is that the 25th is an all day PDAY, as well as the 31st.  The PDAY for those two weeks will be changed to those days!!

I love you all so much!!  Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan  :)

Great Leadership Learning Experiences . . .

December 6, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you so much for your email this week!!  I am so lucky to have such a great family as I do!  I love you all so much!  Thank you for sharing your experiences with me!!

So this week was very long and interesting!!  We have been super busy every day this week.  We had a trainers capacitation meeting on Wednesday, another one on Thursday, and the Zone Leader Council on Friday.  Next Monday and Tuesday, we have the Mission Christmas Parties, one in the South and the other here in the Capital.  It has all been super busy, because San Juan also has their district conference this weekend.  We also have the transfers coming up at the end of the week, as well as an activity for all of the wards in the Capital at the president's house. Elder Paulino is going home, and then we have the week of Christmas!  We have to plan Zone Activites for Christmas day, service projects through out the week, as well as help with a Flash Mob for the Institute and make a choir to sing at the park next to the temple.  I guess we could say that we have been super busy lately, and that we will continue to be busy until 2015!

So on Wednesday,we had the first of the two trainers capacitations.  It went really well!!  It was a lot of fun because I got to see my son, Elder Fallentine, and my grandson, Elder hansen.  They are both doing really well, working hard in their area, which is actually the neighboring area to Los Girasoles.  Any way, we were able to pull the meeting off with out a hitch, and ate really good food as well!!  It was like a late Thanksgiving dinner, so that was awesome!!  My part in the capacitation was fairly simple!  I spoke a little bit about budgeting and helped them to make an example budget plan.  I also spoke a little bit later about Preach My Gospel and how important that is, as well as gave them a little calendar to study Preach My Gospel.  Finally, I just spoke in the division that we did between the trainers and trainees about Conversion, and how important it is that we are truly converted before we try to convert someone else!!  It went really well!!

Thursday was the other capacitation, this time in Azua.  It was really great to have the opportunity to go back there and see everything that I used to see every day!!  I got to talk to my old Zone Leaders, as well as with Elder Castillo and his trainee.  They said that the area is going well, and that Alexis is getting baptized this next Saturday and so is Evelyn, two people that I taught, so that was really awesome to hear!!  Also, Mercedes, one of my converts, is getting her eyes operated on finally, so hopefully all goes well with that!!  The meeting went well.  The kids were a little bit tired because they had to travel a lot more than the people from the Capital, but it still went well!!

Friday was the Zone Leader Council.  We had everything ready, and then the president told us that he wanted a copy of our new ZL manual that we did for everybody, so I had to run home and print off 15 copies of a 46 page manual....  let's just say that that was not a short trip home.  We were able to get it all printed off, and went to the ZL Council.  It was a lot more calm in this meeting for me because I did not have much participation!!  :)  I had a half hour participation talking about the new Christmas program "El es la Dadiva", so that was super easy!!  I could have talked about God's love for us and His Son Jesus Christ for 30 years, and I only had 30 minutes, but it went well!  Then we took people to where they needed to go to go back home, and went and taught some lessons.  The lessons have been a little bit hard for me lately because the people just aren't progressing.  They might go to church fairly often, but they don't keep the commitments to read the Book of Mormon and they aren't praying for answers!  It is hard and a little bit tricky at times to try to help them along because I don't want to offend them because they are my companions family members, but I really want to help them understand that we aren't just there to be their friends and have a bible study class, but that we are there to help them change their lives!!  Hopefully all of that will start to pick up soon after the transfer finishes!!

Elder Peña is doing great, we are having lots of fun!  We are both just trying to get accustomed to the office life and trying to find what we can do to improve the things that might not be functioning the way that they should be here in the office!!  We have some big plans for when the transfer comes, one of which includes the idea to only work in the office in the morning and try to be out teaching in the afternoon!!

Dad, congratulations for applying for the new job!!  I know that it is hard, but things happen for a reason, and we need to put our best foot forward.  It is never easy to change something that has been done for so long in a certain way, but there is always room for improvement!!  That is something that I learn more and more every day here in the office.  Some of the things that we do here have been done in the SAME way for YEARS!!  If something doesn't work, we have to find a way to make it better.  If we are not progressing, we need to find a way to progress!!  I love you so much and I wish you the best of luck in the new job hunt!!  I LOVE YOU!!

Family, I love you all so much!!  I hope you have a wonderful week, and I can't wait to talk on Christmas!!  Love you!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan

Word from Elder y Hermana Clawson . . .

I sent a message to mission office couple, Elder and Sister Clawson, thanking them for taking care of and teaching Elder McEwan as well as to check on the Christmas packages that we shipped on Friday, November 28 for Elder McEwan and his companion. The tracking information said they were delivered and signed for at the mission office by Ramona and it's only been 4 days!!

I wanted to share the sweet message I received from Elder y Hermana Clawson:

December 3, 2014

Dear Sister McEwan,

Thank you for your kind words, but, we’re sure that the learning part is coming from President Nuckols and not us. It is very possible that his packages are here.  We mostly deal with the packages that come through the local post office. Usually, one of the elders or Ramona, (who cleans the office ) will sign for packages which come directly to the mission office.  If one of the office elders receive a package, it is given directly to him or placed in his area.  Right now, Elder McEwan and his companion are with the President and his wife in a training session with some missionaries and then they will take some elders to the doctor.  We can check with him If we are here when he returns.

Elder McEwan is a fine, young elder.  We are amazed at his maturity and business mind.  He is one of two elders that we have seen who have exhibited these qualities in the 18 months that we have been here.  You have done an excellent job with him.   As he continues to be faithful in his service to the Lord, he will one day become a strong leader in which others will look to for guidance.  We love and appreciate him.  Elder y Hermana Clawson

p.s. Your son returned and he has received the packages. He has not opened any of them J.