April 14, 2014

Hola Familia/Amigos

Before I begin, lets start this out with a SHOUT OUT:
“Congratulations! Dakota and Jayme!”

Holy Cow this week has been pretty dang eventful! It’s been so crazy! I
do not even know where to begin! There have been so many things that
have gone down! Where do I begin?

How about we start with what went down last Monday during our preparation

Day, we got a call from President Alba, and suddenly Elder Dunlap and I needed

to be moved out of our apartment by Tuesday night, because poor Elder

Kruitbosch, or Jake now, went home on Tuesday! So his companion Elder

Johnson was going to move into our apartment to hang out with the Zone

Leaders this week until transfers! But then we found out that the transfer of

Apartment’s was permanent! So now we are living in a 2 man pad, which is kinda
nice! Because it’s quiet and we can actually study! So Monday was
very wild! However, the Beach was a lot of fun. We played
football on the beach. The teams were the North Zone vs. South
Zone! The South Zone, which is mine, totally killed them! They couldn't even
compete with us! So much fun!

Tuesday, we had a great district meeting about General Conference and
were had so much fun with an Easter egg hunt to look for eggs
that had quotes from General Conference on them! Then when we all came
back we had to somehow act out the quote and name the talk! Kind of like
Charades! It was pretty interesting and very exciting! I got the
biggest donut too, because I was able to find the most Easter eggs!  And no,

 I didn't break the rules of No pushing or shoving! Ha ha! The
rest of the day, Tuesday we pretty much just packed and moved and deep
cleaned both apartments! The one I moved into was disgusting! However,
now it’s pretty clean!

Thursday, we had a huge Zone activity where we made about 20 gallons of
grape kool aid, and stood on the corners of streets with signs and
handed out free grape kool aid to those who were walking around the
campus here in Santa Rosa! Its a JC, but there was still a ton of
people and it was so much fun! Aww man I loved it! I was talking to so
many people! However, the whole purpose for this grape kool aid thing
was to invite people to our Easter Sunday fireside that we had
yesterday! It was so much fun!

Friday! Holy cow. So with transfers being Wednesday we receive transfer
doctrine on Friday, so that way we have time to prepare and to say our
goodbyes to all our loved ones here in our area! I am going to miss
this place! I hope I get to come back one day to serve in this branch
again! It’s amazing! Friday started out with probably the
most disturbing thing I have ever heard in my entire life! I will cut
it short and just leave it at the fact that I have some rowdy
neighbors! Gosh Dang! We couldn't study whatsoever! It was Nasty!

Friday, during the day was probably the hardest weekly planning session
I have ever had in my entire life! Knowing that most likely I was
leaving. However, it was kinda nice, because in the 12 week program
which is a program your trainer does with you, the last week you have
the Greenie weekly plan all by himself! Which was kind of nice! Yes, I
still helped him, but I made him make all the major decisions
according to what he felt was correct!

Friday night while we were in a lesson with Agustin and Vianey, I

was telling them that I was going to be receiving a phone call that
night, to see if I was going to be leaving or staying here in Santa
Rosa for another transfer! Well sure enough right as I finished saying
that, the phone started vibrating and I looked at it, and yep it was my
Zone leaders! Dang it! They told me to answer it so I did!

Sure enough I am being transferred! I am heading to the most dangerous
city in the Mission, and one of the most dangerous cities in the state
of California! I am headed to Vallejo! When telling Agustin and Vianey I
was leaving! My heart immediately dropped and I was super sad! I don’t
know what I am going to do without Agustin! He truly is my best
friend! I know I was sent to this mission for him! He is amazing!

Saturday we had some service projects to do! Which was pretty
interesting concerning one of them I was just tossing mattresses off
the balcony to another missionary Elder Tooley down at the bottom! It
was super easy and a lot faster than walking every single one of them
down the stairs and such! Ha ha! So much fun! Man do I love doing
service! The 2nd service project consisted of detailing a car! Elder
Wright worked at a car detailer before the mission! It was a lot of
fun to be able to detail this BMW! This car was so nice! I learned how
to wax it and everything! It was a blast! Aww man I cannot wait to be
able to watch my green baby when I get home! He will be looking so
good! Ha ha!

Saturday night after our 3 hour long dress rehearsal for the fireside
we had Branch Correlation with our Ward Mission Leader! It was so much
fun! That family is great! They just recently went through the Temple
as well! In fact, they were the ones who went through while I have been
here! We were talking about chicken and how before I left I
wanted to have a Chicken Fight! Well, he was telling me how he
has 3 guys and 5 girls! I told him to make the guys happy he need more
women! But when I said this his wife in the kitchen didn't know what
we were talking about so she thought I was telling him to get more
women! As in Wives! ha ha It was so funny! She freaked out!
That family loves me! It’s so great! She later asked me if I want a
spankin! ha ha! I cannot even express how funny the story was in
Spanish! It was so great! Everyone in the house thought it was so
funny!

Sunday was probably my favorite Sunday in the mission!  Such a
miracle! I cannot believe how talented some of these missionaries are
here in my mission! We had an Easter Sunday musical fireside! To
Celebrate the Life and Resurrection of Jesus Christ! It was a
spiritual blast! I was asked to give the closing prayer as well! We filled
the entire stake center and probably half of the gym! It was
incredible! I hope I will be able to get it on video to send home to
you guys to be able to watch it! It’s amazing! SO Powerful!

So, I hope you guys got it all! But this week was crazy! So much going
on! It was incredible! If you guys didn’t get much, just remember, that I am

going to be Transferred on Wednesday, so do not send any mail until next

Monday when i get you all my new address or just send it to the mission home:

5301 Badger Rd.
Santa Rosa, CA
95409

Well I love you all! I hope everything is going well back home! Miss you all!

Love, Elder Albertson
p.s: All the photos of members and such will come next week when I finish taking

Photos with all the members!

April 7, 2014

Hola Familia/ Amigos

Gosh Dang it! Here I am sitting at this same table, writing
another letter home! Not that I hate writing letters or anything! Just
the fact that time flipping flies! I don’t even know what to say! The
mission definitely feels like I have been out here for quite a while
but at the same time, when I look back I’m not quite sure where the
time has gone! I hope it is the same for you, whether you are at home,
or in the mission field! No matter where you are in your life right
now, just know that we are on our "4 minutes" and we all need to be
preparing for our time to come!

General Conference this week was absolutely amazing! It’s amazing how
much you actually get out of General Conference when you are a servant
of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! It’s such a blessing to have a
living prophet today, and to be able to heed his council! It’s such
a miracle to be able to listen to the apostles as well, as they
testify of Christ, and teach us the things that we need to be able to
continue and endure to the end!

It was such a blessing, Saturday night to be able to watch the priesthood
session, in Spanish, with my recent convert! I truly can testify in the
name of Christ, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, truly does change
lives. I have never seen it preform such miracles until I met Agustin!
He truly is my find! I found him! He is the reason I am serving in the
Santa Rosa, California Mission! Agustin's life has truly changed. He
was able to attended his first General Conference this week with me!
He was so excited to be able to listen to the Living Prophet it was
great!

After priesthood session President Alba had all of the missionaries
here in Santa Rosa, gather for an Ice cream social after the priesthood
session! It was a great time! I invited Agustin as well! He was pretty
much the character of the entire night! Everyone was gathered around
in a giant circle with Agustin as we were all talking! We got
one of the English Elders to ask Agustin.... Me Quieres Besar? Will
you kiss me? ha ha Super funny! All of the Spanish Elders understood,
and President Alba, but the English Elder who asked him, had no idea
what was going on! Super funny! Ha ha I love messing with English
Elders! Cause they are so clueless!

Gosh Dang, today I cannot get over the fact of how powerful General
Conference was! There is no DOUBT in my mind that The Church of 

Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the true church that still stands today!

 "Doubt your Doubts, Before you doubt your Faith"

This week was a little slow with missionary work, just with everything
that was going on! It was a little wild! However, we did have a
small competition start up here in the zone! It has gotten quite
interesting! So we have started what we call an Interpretative Dance
Competition! So what we did is, we all have ipads that have Ring tones
on it, so we use 1 ipad with the ring tone and another iPad to record
what we are doing! The dances have gotten pretty interesting! I will

send one of them home, although my mother may or may not decide to put on
the Blog! It is getting pretty fun!

Well, just incase you are all wondering, I happened to watch all of the
sessions of General Conference at the church! It gets a little hard
sometimes, because my knees start to hurt real bad sitting for that
long!

Monday I think I ate the best most interesting food on the mission so
far! It tasted kinda Funky!  It was tacos but he used cow cheek!
It was pretty interesting at first I thought it was tongue, because of
How chewy it was and slimy and such! But then when I asked him, he
told us it was cow cheek! It was pretty interesting! Nothing like what
I'm sure some of you are eating though! Benefits of being in America!

OH MY GOODNESS! Last night on our way into ward correlation with our
ward Mission leader, I was able to meet a little guy who reminded me
of Konner so much! It actually made me super sad! Or otherwise in
mission terms, I got trunky! Which means I was thinking about home! Ha
ha. I couldn't get my old job at A&R outta my head, or my greatest
cousin Konner! His Name is Adrian! He is a little boss!

Other than that! That’s my week in a glimpse!

I love you all!
Love, Elder Albertson

This is my buddy Adrian!

 His shirt was sick! It said IRISH SWOOSH 

with a Basketball under it!

Aww I love this little guy!

 Birthday Party!!

 Car wash!!

Service Project

This is at a member's home.  He lives in the middle of this big Vineyard

From left to right:

Elder Albertson, Elder Jeske, Elder Debora, Elder Dunlap,

Elder Despain, Elder Mathusek and Elder Wright (Compliments of Sister Hardy)

March 31, 2014

Hola Familia/ Amigos

    Holy Crap! This week went by so fetching fast! I cannot believe that
I’m sitting here at the church again typing on my iPad, sending
another email home! Gosh It’s always so hard to describe my entire week

to you all in an email! If only I could just call y'all once a week to report

how my week was it would be so much easier! Ha Ha

    So, I feel really bad, because last week, I completely forget to mention
one of the craziest experiences I have  had on my mission
concerning “Evil Spirits” residing in peoples homes! It was quite crazy
especially since I have never really been exposed to that before and didn’t

really believe that it could be possible! However, now I believe it!

   So last Friday Elder Wright, Elder Mathusek, and Elder Despain,

the trio of Elders that are in my district had a crazy lesson in one of their

 recent converts homes that they had just barely moved into!

I don’t know if you could call ita home since it’s a camper that their living in!

 Elder Wright called me freaking out about what to do!

He explained  his experience in the home as if he felt very dark the entire

time  he was visitin in the home. Jose the husband of Cristina who was recently

baptized was acting super weird! None of them could speak whatsoever!

They basically said they needed to go and cast out “Evil Spirits” that are

residing in the home! So Saturday morning all 5 of us Elders returned to the

home and basically we explained how we felt being in the home! No Joke!

the minute I walked in the door I felt sick to my stomach and not good

whatsoever! It was the worst feeling I have ever felt! So we talked with them,

and explained what we were going to do! So we all knelt down, and offered a
prayer! During that prayer we used the Authority of The Melchizedek

 Priesthood and we cast out the evil that was residing in that home in
the Name of Jesus Christ! Immediately after I said that, we all
literally got the chills up ours arms and everywhere and then we felt
normal again in the camper! It was one of the most powerful
experiences I have yet had on my mission using the Priesthood! It was
amazing!

    This week was definitely not as crazy as that experience I had nor was
it as exciting. Well at least I cannot remember! However, most likely
immediately, when I send this email I will remember something that I wanted

 to share with you all but forgot to talk about! ha ha

    So last week we had the opportunity to Help Agustin reframe his house!
Unfortunately, Vianey who lives with him, ran her car into the house! I guess
she tried to park the car in the living room! Ha ha.  It was a great
experience! It’s so much fun to be able to actually do service projects
like that and talk Spanish the entire time! I actually know exactly
what’s going on the entire time, as well as I was learning the Spanish words
for the tools! Such a blast! Agustin is such a BOSS! It was funny to
watch his face when we took out the wrecked wall only to find how horribly framed it

had been before! Oh man, he was not happy! Ha ha

    I’m going to miss Agustin so much, when I leave this area! However, he
told me on Sunday after I told him I was most likely going to be
leaving the area in about 2 weeks! He said “NO!”, and then told me he was
going to call President Alba, and tell him that I needed to stay! Ha
ha! We will see how that goes! I’m a little nervous but at the same time
I’m prettty sure President Alba will get a kick out of it!  It’s
okay though, he also told me that after my mission he will pay for me
to fly down to Cabo San Lucas to visit him! When I do,  we
will go through the temple together! Aww! I am so happy for him!

    Wednesday we had interviews with president Alba! Such a great
experience! I always love being able to talk to President Alba!
However things were a little weird because we had an interview or a
chat with Sister Alba as well! It was super awkward because she was
just talking to us about things that were not related to Missionary work at all.

    Sunday we had our investigator Oscar make it to church! I’m a little
concerned though, because he said he didn't understand hardly
anything, so things will be interesting to see if he wants to go to
the english ward, or continue to get his Spanish skills back and come to the
Spanish Branch!

I’m super sorry my email is short this week! But we really didn’t have
anything too exciting going on this week!

I love you all!
Love,
Elder Albertson