Pics from Puerto Rico

Mav sent his memory card home today with lots of pictures.  I chose just a few to share with everyone!!  Enjoy:)

 

Im sure he was very happy to find a basketball hoop!

 

That flower is huge:)

 

He looks happy!

 

His reaction to a huge snake that is on their balcony:(

 

And to think he used to hate beans....

 

I think this is the girl that reminds him of Brooklyn

 

He loves the little kids!!

 

Not so sure she was happy to have her picture taken

 

Yay for Mickey!!

 

I'm sure it tastes delicious but not sure I could eat it

 

TSUNAMI??????

 

Birthday celebration!  I missed him so much on his birthday.  I am happy to see they all got to celebrate!!

 

Beautiful!

 

Not sure why but I bawled like a baby when I saw this one.  I just want to know what he is thinking.  I really miss talking to him....

Yay, A video!

Never knew Mav could rap so well! Enjoy! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvt-Sr4HYA8&feature=youtu.be

He sounds so awesome!!!

Got this great e-mail from Maveric today...I think he sounds like he is doing great!!!

Hey everyone!

I hope that you are all doing great! Sounds like life is still more or less the same in Utah. That is sweet about Jordan Warburton's mission call and Brooklyn's cheer competition! Sounds like it was overall a pretty good week.

This week was pretty crazy here! I got the flu which was not fun, especially on Friday when I was feeling crappy and had to ride 37 miles on my bike, but I feel a lot better now so I am glad about that! Also we got to have the visit from Neil L. Anderson on Saturday which was incredible! It almost got cancelled though which was kind of scary haha. On friday morning we all got called saying that it had been cancelled and moved to Monday because their flight got cancelled by the huge storm in New York. So that was a huge bummer. But then at 8:30 Friday night they called us again and told us that the meeting was back on cus he was able to find a flight after all!!

The meeting was great. I got to meet Elder Anderson and shake his hand and talk just a little bit with him. It was really really cool. And then he gave his whole devotional in Spanish. Well kind of Spanish...he speaks 5 languages and he pretty much just mixed them all together when he couldn't remember the Spanish but it was really cool. It was great too he just talked and taught about just normal stuff. His entire lesson was about the Atonement of Christ, and honestly it was just one of the coolest experiences I have ever had in my life!

Other than that I passed the 6 month mark so that is good! haha. the last two months have gone by way faster than the first two months here did, and from what I hear they keep going faster and faster.

Today was transfers again. I am staying in Arroyo! But I got a new companion named Elder Rivas from Mexico. It was a pretty crazy morning. When they called us last night they told me that I would be training a different missionary, also from Mexico, and then when we got to the stake center to pick him up today we found out that I am working with Elder Rivas instead, and another Elder who lives with us will be training the new Elder. And then we heard like 5 different things from the Zone Leaders and the AP's about what was going on and we had no idea what was happening so we just got sent back to our area pretty much with the new elders coming to the area. Then about 30 minutes ago President Alverado called me and told me that I am District Leader now...and also that we are going to go ride bikes some morning this week from a city called Patillas to a city called Salinas, which are the boarders of the district I am in charge of. And that is super super far...so that should be fun! haha. I wouldn't be too upset if he was kidding about that! Especially because he wants to leave at 5 in the morning! But yeah. So for now I am staying in arroyo, as the District leader for 3 areas, with Elder Rivas as my companion. I am excited because Elder Rivas is really cool!

Well that is about what has been going on here this week! I hope that you all have a great week!

Love you and miss you all. Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Searle

Short on time:(

Hey guys, apparently Mav didn't have much time to write today but here's what he had to say...

Hey everyone! 

I hope that you are all doing great! This week the emails are going to be kind of short because we had some ktrouble finding a place to do email today so sorry about that! I will write more next week!

This week was really good! I got my driver's license finally! Almost hit a suicidal family of pigs with the car, and watched a dog give birth which was super gross. It was definitely a really weird week haha. But here we are all just getting really excited and trying to get ready for the visit from Neil l anderson this Saturday. It is going to be awesome to get to meet an apostle and listen to him come and just speak to us! I am really looking forward to it! 

Also I sent my SD card home today so hopefully that gets there with no problems! Sorry that this is so short this week! I hope you all have a great week and that I get more time next week to get to tell you more about what is going on haha. Well have a great week! Love you and miss you all,

Love,

Elder Searle

Another week

Here's the email we got today!

Hey everyone!

How is everybody doing? It sounds like it is pretty cold out in Utah right now. It is not cold here haha. It is still hot and sunny just like always!

This week was pretty good! We had a really good baptismal service on Saturday. The girl that got baptized is named Kiara and she is 14. She reminds me a lot of Brooklyn, they are kind of similar in personalities. It was a really cool experience and she was super excited so it was awesome. Another cool thing that happened this week was that we rode our bikes for a couple of miles with a giant group of cyclists that were riding around the whole island of Puerto Rico in two days. I don't really know why or anything, but when this whole big group of hundreds of people passed through the town where we work, we just jumped right in with them and rode until they stopped to take a break at the beach. It was pretty fun!

My birthday was good here. The hamburger that I went and ate was absolutely delicious. It was like a half a pound of meat with these things called amarillos on it. Amarillos are some kind of like fried banana that are really sweet and really good. It was probably the best hamburger that I have ever had in my life!

Other than that it was just a pretty normal week, not too much out of the ordinary going on right now. It is crazy that January is almost over, it went by really fast! That is also crazy that Anthony is already about to leave! I am sure that he will do great!

Well I love and miss you all! I hope that you have a great week! Talk to you soon.

Love,

Elder Searle

He sounds happy:)

This is the email we got today...I think he sounds really good!

Hey everyone!

I hope that you all are doing great! Sounds like it is pretty cold in Utah right now! I bet that is a whole bunch of fun haha. It is a little bit warmer here. That is definitely one of the advantages of being on a little tropical island haha.

This week was pretty good. I got to play basketball a few times with some kids at a park and that was pretty cool haha. I really like teaching them because we always get to play basketball after! So today is another Holiday here, and then next week will be Martin Luther King Jr day so another holiday. It is kind of a pain because all of the libraries are always shut down on our P-Days!! Puerto rico just has way too many holidays. But the computer I am using right now won't let me upload photos, so there won't be any photos this week.

This week I met a couple of people who are pretty cool. There is a couple that just moved to Puerto Rico, are super rich, and don't speak Spanish at all. He is from Boston and she is from Jamaica. They are both pretty old and really nice! I also met another rich guy who lives on the beach named Raul. He has a beach house, Rolex, bmw Z4 and only dresses in Ralph Lauren clothes. He is definitely the classiest person that I have seen here haha.

Not really too much happened this week that was super exciting. I saw the beach almost every day so that was pretty sweet though haha. The ocean here is beautiful, I definitely want to come back someday after my mission so that I can actually go to the beach haha.

Well I hope that you all are doing well and that you all have a great week. Enjoy the cold and the snow!!! I love you and miss you all,

love,

Elder Searle

1st week in Arroyo

hey everyone!

I hope that you are all doing really well and had a great week! i had a really good first week in my new area.

The new area is called Arroyo. It is a pretty small town, it doesn't even have a McDonald's (which is really really weird for Puerto Rico) and the ward that I am serving in is actually a branch. Yesterday there were about 32 people in Sacrament Meeting, so that is a little bit weird, but it was also a pretty cool experience too.

The area is right by the beach, well actually it is right by the ocean but there isn't really like a nice sandy beach in the area, which is great. Because it is really pretty but there also aren't any tourists that come there. It is really cool. It actually feels like a different country because the whole vibe of the town is just like old school carribbean island stuff, and my last area was pretty much just like a really dirty poorly planned city in the United States haha. So this area is definitely a lot cooler!

There are a lot of really nice people here too! People have already given us a ton of food, and most of them are just people we visit. Everyone is very generous with what they have here.

We have been teaching a couple people who want to be baptized, one is a man in his 50s who is a retired army veteran who has a lot of drinking problems that he wants to take care of. He is a little bit crazy, and he looks really crazy, but he is also a really nice guy. He lives right on the beach and we teach him on his deck thing that just hangs over the ocean. It is absolutely beautiful! The other person is a 19 year old kid named Alex. He doesn't really have any kind of religious knowledge or anything, he just really likes missionaries and says that he wants to be a missionary so he wants to join the church. He is really cool and really nice too.

the only thing that is kind of bad about the area is how far away we live. It is a pretty long bike ride and it is always pretty windy here, but it is pretty flat the whole way so it really isn't too bad at all. It also doesn't rain near as much here. It is a lot sunnier, so that is pretty tiring, but it is nice to not get rained on every day haha.

Well that is pretty much how my week was. We had another ward christmas party because the people here celebrate Christmas and the Day of the Kings, which is what latin america celebrates instead of Christmas, so today is another holiday haha, but it is ok because the Christmas food here is delicious and the party was a lot of fun!

Well I hope that you all have a great week! Love you and miss you

love

Elder Searle