October 29, 2012 Letter

Hey familia,

This week was really good with Elder Sosa. It was our first complete week together and he only has like 9 days left on his mission. He likes to work hard but sometimes I have to get him refocused because I catch him daydreaming about home haha. He is from Vera Cruz and is a really good missionary. He is teaching me alot of great things to help me personally. I am glad to hear all is good in Indiana and I am glad you all got the time to spend with gram and gramps. I feel like I can say whatever I would like to say when it comes to the church and about other things it is about 75% which is fine for me right now. I am dreaming in spanish and it is hard to talk in english as a matter of fact sometimes if I need to. I do not need any shirts or anything, actually I want to send a package to you guys with my sunbrero, and some candies along with my memory card of photos. I just need to find a box and send it to you guys already. I had an interview with the president the other day and we had a good laugh about me being in Texas! I really like my president and I will have him for all of my mission. This wednesday we will have a talk from someone from the chorum of the 70 I think. So I am looking forward to that. Also next week is Cambios so I will have my third companion in 3 weeks haha. My companion thinks I will be training a newby! I hope I am ready for that :)

Also my camera is not charging so I cannot send or take pìctures at this moment. So I bought a new cable today but it still is not working I am not sure why not.. Also I bought to dumbbells today because I am on day 8 of p90x tomorrow and the bands just are not doing the job. That was a birthday present to myself so I hope that is ok haha. 

But we are working hard in La Rosa. We are working with a handful of investigators but it is hard to get them to progress sometimes. I feel like sometimes people don´t know how much they need the true church in their lives. If only they could see the end from the beginning like Elder Uchtdorf says.

I hope all is well and I love all of you! 

Elder Cramer

Two weeks of letters

Oct. 15, 2012

Hey familia!

I like all of the halloween ideas haha. Pumpkin mania in the cramer family. I have not heard much hype about halloween here. I am not sure if it is a big thing or not. But count your blessings that it is cool weather in indiana because i am still getting sunburned each day here in La Rosa haha. And the ward here is good. The thing that is lacking is references because we dont have many investigators. So we have to focus on less actives which is fine. We had 116 people attend church 2 weeks ago and this week we had 135. That goes to show you how much we are working with less actives because we dont have many investigators. Nontheless i really love this ward. And yeah i went on exchanges the other day with our district leader Elder Wagner. He is a really good missionary. I really like exchanges because i get the chance to see how other missionaries teach and preach. The more experiences the better i feel like. And i always like to hear compliments dad :) Thanks haha. But the thing is we never really hear  compliments or recieve recognition until we leave or are no longer there haha. But it does not have to be that way. That is why it is important always to tell the ones you love how much you love them or if someone has done something for you we should always give them a kind word. Because that is what i believe jesus chrsit would do. I really enjoyed conference as well. The talks i felt were really inspired and i am glad i had the chance to hear them in english! I just downloaded the priesthood session to my ipod beacuse i could not understand it in spanish. I am doing good here in La Rosa. I have not really given too many blessings. I still struggle with all the words that i would like to say but i am always trying to understand the holy ghost a little bit more every chance i have. I gave my companion a blessing of health the other day when he was not feeling the best. I think it is always a great feeling to know we are doing the work of the Lord through the priesthood. Our district this week has really focused on the confidence of the members and how we can win referneces to further expand our investigators. That is what we are going to work on this week to retrieve as many as we can. In our mission we have had in the past a ratio of like 1 of every 2 references was baptized. Hopefully we can keep that up haha. Yes in the MTC we used the videos of the district to learn. It is a really great program actually. My favorite is Elder Christianson. Because he listens to people really well and he is BUENO. Actually many of the people in this show are working in the MTC and i have seen them in person. They are kind of mini famous in the Mormon world haha. Anyways that is all for now. Hopefully i can get my creditcard soon along with all the other mail that i have not recieved yet haha.

Love Elder Cramer!

Oct. 22, 2012

From Paul to Logan - I'm adding this so his letter makes more sense.

Hola Handsome Elder Cramer,

Good evening!  It is Sunday evening and we just had the Sister missionaries over for dinner and to talk about the investigators in our ward and how we could help them move forward.  We shared with them your last letter about the Soccoro family and their 17 year old daughter.  We also shared the explosion experience with the dog.  We all had a good laugh with that.

How are you?  We got your question regarding the credit card not arriving yet.  Were you able to call the mission office?  Did they receive it?  We have confirmation on our end as mom said that they did sign off on it as they received it.  Let us know if you have it or the mission office has it, otherwise I will call them to confirm.

We had stake conference this weekend and I was under the weather and stayed in bed most of the day to recover.  We also had celebrated Bree's birthday- she is now 15 and proudly says that she has one more year until she can date.  After she pronounced that statement, I changed the age to 18.  Bree doesn't like my new rule!!  Oh well!!

I am looking around for a costume that would be fun at work.  I hope to find a fun one and that also would fit me.  

And guess what, Mom and I are back on the P90x.  You will not even recognize us.  I'm feeling good.  What do you think?  My abs are really coming along!!!!!  Mom looks great too!!

Hey hey,

I am really liking your p90x results dad.. The abs are really coming in nicely and Mom must be pushing you hard with the Push ups haha! This week was really good when it came to less actives.. We had 6 people come for the first time, 2 for the second, and 3 that reactived this week. We also had an investigator assist which is wonderful and her name is Maria Del Rosario! So in terms of less actives we are doing great and helping herd the sheep of those who wondered off back into the fold of god! 

Last night after all of our meetings we arrived at our house to plan and Elder Ruiz recieved a call that he need to pack his stuff and get ready to leave. This was unexpected but with our president we never know. So my new companion is named Elder Sosa. And he is way cool and this next week we are actually going to start p90x as well haha. But the thing is he only has 2 weeks until he leaves for his home. that is why this change is a bit odd. But he thinks i will train a new missionary in the next change. so i hope i am prepared enough to do that. But this week i have a few different goals.. I want to learn all i can from Elder sosa, i want to try and remember names of people and the streets, and i really want to focus on my example if i am going to prepare to train someone new in the mission. This ward is really great and i am glad that i am hear and with my new companion. My camera right now is now charging correctly so i am going to buy a new cable. And i have not yet sent the memory with fotos and videos because i wanted a testimony of Elder ruiz and i am going to ask for the Testimony of Elder Sosa as well. And i will give mine in spanish and i will talk to the family. Also i am going to send a sumbrero that a member gave to me. So i hope to send this package this next week or the following. 

All is good here in the rosa. I like all the updates and i hope all my friends and family are doing good. I finally recieved the greenie package from momma gardner but because of all the changes i didnt have a chance to send a letter back but let her know i recieved it and i am sending one on the way!

Elder Cramer

This letter was Aunt Debbie and Uncle Kenny Fowler

Wow debbster those doctors are going to think you have a Jimmer crush on them if you keep spending all your time in their office! haha well I am glad you are getting all healthy. I was thinking the other day about Zac the other day. and how really he is one of the most pure people on this earth and what a blessing it is to have him in our lives to show us the pure love of Christ. And then I thought about you and Kenny. You both have sacrificed a ton to take care of and nurture Zac and grandma. The blessings that you both will receive is tremendous. I think of before this life you and Kenny volunteered to take care of Zac and take care of grandma. And in by doing so I know that you both have grown a ton spiritually debs. I hope that you never get discouraged in this divine calling. The work of the Lord is often the most simple and sacred things that many people do not have the spiritually capacity to see. Look and Search for the blessings that you have, but not through the eyes of the world, but through the eyes of the spirit. Take a few minutes each day to open our guide, the Book of Mormon, to obtain that extra guidance that we need daily. I promise you, you will be able to see and feel the difference.

I love you and I hope all is well in the states! 

Elder Cramer

Weekly Letter October 8, 2012 - A Couple of Funny Experiences

Hey family!

I really like this new area. There are about 116 people that went to the church the other week and the members are so nice. This ward is like 2 times the size of my other one. And well we are just starting to get references which is good. This last week we did not have many people to teach so we just kept visiting less actives. We had 15 lessons this week with less actives which will hopefully pay off in retention. But we are always pushing the members to do a little bit more in the work of the Lord. I think General Conference will help many people and like you said dad, Elder Holland is always a good help to get the work moving forward. He is my favorite apostle and Bednar follows closely behind him. I really admire Elder Holland because he always says it like it is. Direct but with Love at the same time. I love his passion for doing what is right and not caring about who thinks otherwise. I really like Elder Bednar because just by the way he talks and presents hisself I can tell he is a man of God. His knowledge and insights about the doctrine make me want to study. But yeah I really love this area and I am glad it is starting to cool off a little bit. I had to wash my clothes for the first time without a washer or a drier. We hand washed it in this cement block thing. Makes me really appreciate what we have at our house and how foolish I was for not wanting to help more with the laundry. Also I had 2 experiences this week that were pretty funny I thought! 

1) We visited a less active family. Family Soccoro is their names. And they are just a family that likes to joke around a lot and as well have not gone to church for a very long time. We had to give them the Book of Mormon again because earlier their house burnt down and they no longer have theirs with them. But during our lesson the mom of about 40 something years of age said this to me "My daughter here has 17 years of age and if you want you can marry her".. I had no idea what to say so I just did what every smart Gringo would do... I pretended to not understand her and then avoided the situation and asked her to say a prayer instead haha. Sometimes being White among all of the others is a benefit :)

2) My companion and I were walking to visit a less active lady but on the way there was a really mean dog that stuck his head as far as he could out of the fence barking his head off like he had mad cow disease. So my companion and I walked around him in the street. After our lesson my companion remembered and went in the street but I had forgotten and I walked close to the fence. The next thing I knew I saw this head lunge out of the cage and bit my scripture case really hard (Thankfully!) But the thing is I had my deodorant in my scipture case as well and the dog bit through the case, through the can, resulting in a huge explosion! So I had no idea what happened. It was like dog, fireworks, and a lovely Old Spice smell all together in one small event. My companion could not stop laughing and I screamed like a girl. But I think it is funny but my scripture case was destroyed but luckily not my scriptures.

Anyways this week was a day of progress and my companion and I will hopefully have a bit more lessons with investigators this week to come. I hope the family is doing good and I really enjoy all the updates. I couldn't believe how big Ryan looks in his video that he showed me. :O Anyways I hope that we can all leave our ships and our nets and follow Christ in the work of the Lord this week like Elder Holland said. This is the way we can really show Christ that we in fact do Love Him.

Love you all and I hope all is well!

Elder Cramer

October 1, 2012 Letter

Amigitos y mi familia!

¡Que Tal! The area La Rosa is the bomb. I enjoy this area even more than my other and that is saying something! I came exactly at the right time because it is starting to cool down and the weather is perfect. The mountain range is really close to this city and I love the view that it brings. Also in the distance we can see a huge stature of Jesus Christ in the mountains which is like the 3rd biggest statute of Christ in the world or something like that. My new companion Elder Ruiz is by far my favorite up to this point in my mission. He only has 2 and a half months left in his mission and he is teaching me tons of great things. I think our lessons this week were pistola! And the members here are fantastic and are eager to help us in the Work of the Lord. We had an attendance of 116 people in our ward this week and we are shooting for 120 this week to come. We split our area in half when it comes to missionaries so we have half and the other pair of missionaries have the other half. We had 4 less actives attend the church this week and for that we are stoked. My companion and I have a great relationship already and I am really thankful for that. I think it is so easy to appreciate this companion because of the other one that I had. I know that this area indeed is a grand blessing and I hope to aide the people here in this area to the best of my ability! I am stoked for this Saturday and Sunday because here on our mission it is required to watch every session of conference and I intend to Note it up! But hopefully I can understand a lot of the talks because I believe it will be in Spanish.  And I already wrote Kelcie and Kolten back in the mail so hopefully that comes pretty soon. I couldn't be happier here in La Rosa. It really is a wonderful area to be in! Woot Woot. One thing I would like for you to do dad for me is personally thank Brother Svedine and Sister Butcher for being wonderful seminary teachers because I can remember a lot of stuff from what they taught me surprisingly because I fell asleep a lot haha!

I want my family at home to know I love them oodles and I hope each one knows I am praying for them!

Love Elder Cramer