Doing awesome!!!

Here is today's email and he is doing great!!

hey everyone!

How is everyone? it sounds like you all had a pretty good and exciting week! That is great! I am happy to hear about cheer, and track, and mom's race, and Ty's mission call! that is all great news! Super exciting that Tyler is going to New York! That is crazy he leaves almost the same day that I left too! Exciting stuff!!

This week here was really good! I am really enjoying my new area! I get along really well with my new companion, and the other people in our house, and overall it has been one of the funnest weeks that I have had on my mission. Things overall just went really well! It was definitely a little bit weird to be with a new missionary for my companion, mostly just because he doesn't really speak Spanish yet, but it was really good! I also really like being more in the city area. There are so many more people to talk too! And my area is way smaller! It is definitely a different style of work here, and I definitely like it a lot better. In the last week I talked to soo many people it was crazy! And we set a baptismal date for the 18th of May with one of our investigators so that was really cool! He is a 19 year old kid named Kevin, and he came with us to play basketball at mutual and stuff and loved it. He is a cool guy and we are way excited to keep working with him in the next couple of weeks. 

Well I am getting way excited for Mother's day! I can't believe that it is less than 2 weeks away! That seems crazy. the last couple of weeks have just kind of flown by! 

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

love,

Elder Searle

Transferred, Adidas, and dengue...

Hey everyone! 

How are things going back home? I hope that you are all doing great! It sounds like it is finally starting to warm up a little bit so that is good! I bet you are all happy about that. 

Things here are really good! I got transferred!! Now I am in Caparra, with Elder Nadauld (the person who was supposed to come be my companion a few weeks ago). Caparra is in the city so I am super excited! It is also the area right next to where I was at in Toa Baja. I am super stoked because I like the North side of the island a lot better! Less sun and more green haha. So now I am the District Leader of the district up here, which is my companion and I, Elder Astle and a new missionary who is coming in tomorrow, and two sister missionaries. I am going to be living in the same house as Elder Astle so that is sweet! I think it is going to be a really good transfer! If nothing else it will be interesting. I will be in a new area, as a District Leader, and training as well. Half of the missionaries in my District are new missionaries so that is pretty exciting too haha. 

Last week was really good. I took a kung fu lesson last P-Day from this crazy kungfu teacher here who is an inactive member. He learned Kung-Fu when he was a prisoner of war in the phillipines and it is crazy all the stuff he can do. He started it off by doing pushups off of one of his thumbs! It was a really cool experience! 

Then another cool thing that happened this week is that I went and did some service at a members house. We were mixing and pouring cement, and it got my shoes really dirty and everyone except for me was really worried about it, so when we were about to leave, the guy gave me a brand new pair of Adidas that he bought for his son a few months ago but he never wore them. He wouldn't let us leave until I took them, and I thought it was super nice of him. They are pretty sweet shoes! 

Other than that this week was pretty crazy. I was in meetings all day on Tuesday and Thursday. Didn't sleep in my own house until Friday, worked in 4 different areas, and on Friday Saturday and Sunday I was with an Elder in my District who had dengue. He is feeling a lot better now, but it was pretty rough for him for a while. I definitely don't want to get dengue! But yeah so it was definitely a little bit out of the ordinary this week. 

Well I hope that you all have a great week! I love you and miss you all so much! I will talk to you soon! 

love,

Elder Searle

Sounds good and yay for some pics!!!

Hey everyone!
I hope that you are all doing superb and that the past week has been great!
Things here have been pretty good. Probably the most exciting thing that
happened this week was that we had a super awesome service project. We went
and washed the fishing boat of this super rich member. It was soooo sweet!
His boat is super nice and we got to start the day hanging out on a boat,
but it wasn't in the water, in a Nautic Club, wearing shorts and my
Sperries with no socks, and sunglasses. It was definitely a lot of fun.
Other than that it was another pretty crazy week. I am still companionless,
and last week I only spent 12 hours in my area so that was definitely a
little different. I did way more driving around than I usually do so that
was alright haha. If nothing else it was a good change of pace from riding
my bike around i the sun all day everyday!
This week is probably going to be more of the same. I have meetings
tomorrow and on Thursday, and I won't be getting a new companion til next
Monday or Tuesday, so I will be doing a lot of hopping around again! I
actually kind of like it, it is just hard cus I don't get to work very much
with the people that I am teaching.
Hmmm other than that there really isn't all that much new around here.
Today is another holiday, I am not sure what it is though because nobody
that I ask ever knows what all these fake holidays are haha. But yeah it
was a really good week, and I am looking forward to another one!
Well I hope that you all have a great week! Enjoy all the snow out there
haha, it is still super sunny and warm here!
Love you and miss you all! Talk to you soon!
love
Elder Searle

 

Now this is the kid I remember:)

 

Love this!!!!

 

Oh goodness....

8 months, flying solo and conference

Hey everyone!

I hope that you are all doing great, and that you had a great week! Hopefully you were able to learn a lot from conference this week..I know I sure did.

This week here in Puerto Rico has been a little bit crazy! I still do not have a companion.... So for the past week I have just kind of been hopping around my district with the other Elders, and then either taking them or a member to the appointments that I had set up in my area. It made for an interesting week! The good thing was that I taught a lot of lessons this week, because I pretty much just went wherever there were lessons to be taught, and I also got to know the other Elders in my district a lot better. The bad thing was that I did not get to work a ton in my own area, which is always a bummer. Overall it was a really good week though! And it ended really well with General Conference. For conferance here we just went to the chapel and they had a broadcast set up. For the normal sessions we just went to the one in our ward, so there were 5 missionaries there and a couple of members, but for the Priesthood session we went to the Stake center and there were about 13 missionaries and a ton of members. It was a lot of fun there because I watched it in the English room and it was pretty much just missionaries haha. I really enjoyed conference and I was definitely able to learn a lot. Like always Elder Holland's talk was my favorite. I wish that I could speak like that guy haha it would be so cool!

One thing that was not super fun that happened this week happened on Friday when we were doing a service project. We went to this guy's house to help him tie rebar so that he can pour the cement for the roof of the house that he is building...and I wore shorts and managed to forget that when you wear shorts in the sun, you also have to put sunscreen on your legs and not just your arms and face. My legs got completely fried!! it looks really funny because one of my socks was pulled up a lot higher than the other one so the tan line is a little goofy. It didn't feel too good but it made for a great conversation starter with all of the people that we talked with after that. I just asked them all, especially the really dark ones, if they had ever seen pink legs before, and then pulled up my pant leg. Everybody was pretty impressed haha.

Well today is also my 8 month mark on the mission, so that is pretty exciting. 1/3 of the way done! the last two months have gone by really fast, it seems like I was just barely writing home about the 6 month mark haha. Also now there is only like a month til I get to call home so that is pretty sweet too!

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

love,

Elder Searle

Camping????

Hey everyone! I hope that you all had a great Easter. It was pretty cool here. We went camping last night and had a conference up in a mountain and just got back. It was really cool but it really cut in to our time for today, and now the library is about to close, so I won't have a lot of time to email this week.

This week was really good though! The conference was great and it was a lot of fun. One thing that is pretty crazy is that right now I do not have a companion. Elder Garfield decided to extend his mission and then this morning he got sent to the island of Antigua to work....so right now I have no companion. I am just with a couple of the Elders in my district and then President told me to just work with members in my area until Thursday, and then on Thursday I am getting a new companion. I forgot how to spell his name so I will tell you next week, but he has only been here for 2 weeks so I will be training him, and he is one of Elder Garfield's friends from highschool so that was a weird coincedence.

This week should be pretty exciting! New companion, General Conference, April Fool's day! all kinds of good stuff haha.

Well sorry it is short, but I hope that you all have a great week! I love you and miss you all!

love,

Elder Searle

Great week!!!

Today's email was fabulous.  He is doing so great!!

Hey everyone! How are things going back home? Hopefully everything is going really well! Things here are great! I had a really good week so that was good!

Yesterday we had a baptism of a little girl named Alondra that we have been teaching. It was a really good experience! She is 10 years old, really smart and funny too. She wants to be a missionary someday too so that is pretty cool! It was a really cool baptismal service too because there were 3 other baptisms from the other Elders that work in the same ward. One thing that District Leaders do is that they inteview the people who the other missionaries in their district teach before they can be baptized, so I got to do 3 baptismal interviews this week. That was a really cool experience because it was an opportunity to see how these people's lives have changed by deciding to start going to church and following commandments and stuff. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences that I have had on my mission.

There were a few other things that were really cool this week too. We did some service for this old guy in the ward who is a WW2 veteran that was stationed with the people in Japan when they dropped the Atomic Bombs. It was crazy. He has a ton of cool stories and pictures and stuff. He also has a lot of health problems from all the radiation, and one of his eyes, the pupil and iris have just almost completely disappeared. Talking to someone who was a part of something so huge in history was a really sweet experience.

There were also a couple of Ward activities this week that were fun. We played basketball, and had a Ward Family Home Evening, and then had a luncheon thing at a nautical club so that was all good too.

Well that is about what has been going on here! It was definitely overall a very good week! Hope that yoúr's was the same! I love you and miss you all. Talk to you next week!

love,

Elder Searle

Transfer!

This is the email we received today!  He is doing great:)

Hey Everyone!

Sounds like the week for everyone was pretty good so that is great! I hope that you are all doing great! And I hope that it is warming up a little bit for you out there! It is crazy that Kylie is 18 and that Brooklyn is driving now. A lot changed in the last week haha. 

Well a lot changed here too in the last week. I got transferred from Arroyo to Salinas. It wasn't a huge move, I am still living in the same house, but now instead of going 7 miles to the east to get to my area, I go about 11 miles to the west! It is still sunny and dry, but I have a car now! So we usually take the car out to the area and leave it in a member's house and then ride bikes for the day! And I got my bike back so that is great! So far it has been a lot less biking than in my last area! I am going to have to be careful to not get fat haha. My new companion is Elder Garfield. He is from Springville Utah and this is his last transfer in the mission. He is way cool and I was way excited to be companions with him. So now for the first time I have a companion who has been on his mission for more than a year, and someone who speaks English!!! So far it has been great! All of the people in Salinas are super cool, and something that is fun about being with an American companion is that everyone tries to speak to us in English. Sometimes it ends up pretty well but sometimes it doesn't haha. 

I was pretty happy to be transferred. I kind of got the best of both worlds this transfer, I got to move to a new area, that is a lot bigger than Arroyo, but I didn't have to move to a new house or anything! I think that this transfer is going to be a lot of fun. The only bad thing is that I am still in the same place that doesn't let me send pictures home in emails haha, but oh well you can't win them all. 

Right now we are working with a couple of people who want to get baptized and they are just waiting on getting married first, so hopefully they will be able to get that done in this week, and we will have their baptism within the next two weeks. 

Well that is about how it is out here! Hope that you all have a great week! Talk to you next week. Love you and miss you all

love,

Elder Searle