Letter form 8/11/2014

Hey,

Well sounds like you had a great experience with kenzie and the tire blowing on the honda. I know I am super excited when I get home to go to school and do some stuff like make friends that aren´t guys! Can´t like being with guys all the time-can drive you nuts. You wouldn´t think that when you are younger but it sure does. Not to mention half the women in this country walk around half naked. Man being a missionary can be tough. 

Wow how does that work losing to the team you just crushed in the super bowl for your pre season opener. no bueno. You will for sure have to keep me updated on BG and how they do here in this next year cause I would love to see them start to get really good here again with all those boys that will be coming up here in the next couple years but I guess they would all be a year older or about the same age as Brenley. 

Yeah my companion is Elder Streiff. He is from Billings Montana and is 6 foot 3 so I look like a midget with him.  I know we are only a week down but we get a long the best out of any of my companions. We are working hard and doing a little bit of the dirty work more than I would like so that means knocking doors and contacting but we have to cause we don´t have many investigators. My last companion was a little difficult to deal with. But it is what it is. 

Yeah working with the less actives is a big thing right now we have so many less active members that we are constantly working with. And really there are so many people to baptize  If we reactivate people they have family that aren't members and friends and it is just freaking awesome and like a chain reaction when reactivation happens. The last two weeks I have been passing by this family to bring them to church super less active but super nice hopefully they start coming by themselves. 

Love,

Elder Billingsley

Letter to Mom

Hey mom,

Sounds like conference was good and enjoyable since you didn´t have the monsters. Wow he had Bria with him all night. They must have watched tv the whole time. Nope I haven´t gotten a package yet but I probably will this week cause we have a conference with president and the ayudantes. I really need to write them and the Breaux's. I hear from Bro Ferqueron through emails that he sends me about the Lewy's but that is about it. 

Crazy how the summer is almost over. For me here not really they say it cools off at the end of September or beginning of October. So it is pretty safe to say that the heat is killing me here. I have never sweated so much in my life. But somehow my shirts are still white-ish.  I am doing awesome. Trying to rebuild this area as far as missionary work because my last companion was a little difficult but it's alright I have a great companion right now and we a kickin it into gear. Wish I had something spiritual to write but not really right now.  But I have really been enjoying my studies lately. I just finished the Book of Mormon for the second time on my mission and right now I am reading the four gospels. It is really good stuff. 

Anyways love you 

Elder Blake Billingsley

Letter from 8/5/2014

Hey,

Wow, Cole is a beast. Wish I could have been there to watch him play. I can´t believe kenzie is going to tour the campus. It is so crazy that when I get back we will be going to our first year of college together, well maybe not together but at the same time. Yeah, if she thought that the sister missionary´s were crazy I can guarantee that McKenzie wouldn´t recognize me on the street talking to people. We talk to so many people and the same people a lot of the time. In fact I think I am weird for doing it sometimes but it´s what you got to do. 

Well right now we are in transfers and my companion left so I am waiting for my companion to show up this tarde. Everything here is going alright. We need to grow our base of investigators big time but we do have some good investigators. They just won´t get baptized and they have been taught everything. It drives me nuts. Hopefully one of them will get baptized this month.  

i am a little frustrated with things but it is all good. I think I have 6 more weeks here in Catarroja and then we will see where I go. They tell me that there are some big groups of people coming in the mission here towards the end of the summer and that we might be receiving  ipads in September or October but we would have to pay for them. It would totally be worth it. It would eliminate all paper work the area book the agenda forms. All of it will be the ipad and maps. Ward list and everything. It would make life so much easier. The hard part would be putting all of the area book on the app that we would have. I am not sure that is just what they say that it is a possibility in the next couple months. 

Well the work is good here, but I can´t lie i do have a really tough area but they tell me my new companion is a work horse so I am ready this area needs some help bad. I don´t like talking bad about people but I am glad to have new companion, but things are doing good. We are teaching lessons but we can teach more. So hopefully that will change and we can get these people baptized soon. So every month the mission sets a goal. The goal this month is as a mission for the month to find 2000 new investigators and to invite someone to be baptized everyday. President has promised us that if we do it we will baptize more and see more miracles.

Love Elder Blake Billingsley