November 11, 2013

Hey I am doing fine. And you? Well this week was a little slow and boring. hahah But that's alright. So this whole week up to Friday we could only work for like 3 lessons a day. The rest of the time we would go back to the house to rest. So we were in the house a lot of time. I was in the office Monday night. But after that i could now go back to my area. Friday night the mission doctor took me to the doctors office. They took out my stitches there. The doctor said i took really good care of the wound. Which i did. haha So i don't have stitches. But i still need to clean the wound every day. Because the skin is not quite attached still. It looks really different. And the doctor said i can't do any exercise until after a month. so like in December. But he said i can walk and everything. So we are now working on full cylinders. I will have another appointment with the doctor like the 28 of november to see how i am progressing. That should be good. It now doesn't hurt as much. Every now and then it hurts, but a tiny tiny bit. Somehow the first councelor here found out and talked to me. He was really nice and offered help if i needed it. this week we worked hard, with what we could do. We will have the zone conference this Friday. So we have to get the food. I called a member from my first ward. He will be providing the food with his brother. They are great guys. So that will be fun to see them again. Well thanks for all that you do. I will go so we can chat. :)


Love Elder Parker
love you all.

November 4, 2013

Hey everyone how are you doing? I hope you can get this message mom!!
I am doing good don't worry about me. This week was full of events.
So this Tuesday we had the council with the President and the zone leaders.
It went really well and I got to see some good friends. I got a package for halloween
from you and letters. Two dear elders and a letter from Court from Nicarague still hahah.
I also got a letter from Elder Kaden Ashcroft. He wrote me a great letter. Thanks for the package and letters.

The surgery was Friday morning. The mission doctor drove me to a clinic or small hospital. We entered they checked my hernia
and then they told me to change clothes. So I changed clothes and put on this weird looking tunic thing.
So they put me on a bed and first shaved my belly hair haha. Then they put an iv in my hand.
They sent me into another room where I put on these weird looking socks. It reminded me of Avatar.
Then I walked down a straight narrow hallway into a white white room. With air conditioning luckily.
I laid down and the doctor said, this is going to hurt alot. I was like oh no.
He tried to inject three shots around my belly button but he said my skin was like twice as thick as the normal skin.
So it wouldn't penetrate so he pushed really hard and I could feel it penetrate the second layer. Which hurt a ton.
Then after my stomach was frozen or whatever you call it he opened my belly button. By the way
I was awake the whole time and could feel everything. But it didn't hurt. He cut a bunch of stuff with scissors,
had his finger in my bellybutton (because that was where my hernia was) and I don't know what else he was doing. Finally he pushed the
fat hernia back in where it belongs and he said the hole was like an inch or more wide. Which is pretty big but not too big. He stitched the hole
back up and then stitched the belly button back together. The whole surgery lasted like 50 minutes. But it felt really weird.
I then left with the doctor from the mission to the mission offices. Where the President got there and his wife. They asked how I was doing
and then bought me some subway. :) I stayed in the office the whole day. Then went home in the night, slept at the house and went back to the
office in the morning for the next day. Then yesterday I went to church and after went back to the office to rest. I am doing good.
It still hurts but it is getting better. I will be getting the stiches out this Friday at 11. Everything is fine.
I should be able to work today. But walk really slow. I walk like a space alien with a 90 degree angle hahah not quite a 90.
Saturday the President bought me chinese food.

The tours of the temple for the visitors is going great. I was there watching, because I couldn't work. A lot of people left crying because of the spirit.
It is a great experience.
It has actually been cold again here. Which is a blessing.
I ate some weird food called chicharon. It is like pig skin.

We had a great lesson with Ana that investigator.
I cried really hard when I bore my testimony of Jesus Christ.
It was an extremely spiritual lesson.
Oh yeah, I played the piano in sacrament meeting. I did pretty good actually!!

I love you all. Sorry its so long. I hope we can chat. Love you all.

Love Elder Parker

October 28, 2013

Hey mom thanks for the email. Well this week went by really fast! It was a good week. We are working really hard and walking a ton. Last Monday we got to eat in Little Caesars. It was my companions first time in his life eating there. He said he loved the crazy bread! Hahah So I am pretty sure we will go there more often to eat those Mondays. This week we walked really far. We walked to one of the highest peaks in the area. It was crazy how high it was. We could see the whole city. It was probably like 3 miles of walking or more. But I couldn't measure how far. haha

The weather has been spectacular!! I guess there was a cold front rolling in. So almost the whole week it was cloudy and actually kind of cold in the night. One night I was actually cold. What a difference right? But I thiink it already went away because today is hot and a clear sky. Tomorrow we will have the council meeting for the mission. So I will get to see President tomorrow and spend like 8 hours over there with all the leaders. I love the meetings we have, I'm excited. We got to teach that lady named Ana again. Well just English this time. She wants to practice her English. So I taught my first class of English in my life. It was pretty interesting. I brought an Ensign in English and I taught them how to pray in English. There were just three people who showed up, a member, Ana and her cousin who wants to learn English also. It was fun and they learned how to pray in English. They loved it. It's not as easy as I thought teaching English. Maybe because I can hardly remember English now. hahah

Wow we had a miracle happen this Saturday. So Friday night we were planning to see who we should teach and visit. We were thinking and I was like, the family Montero.. So we put their name down. I don't know why I said their name, but I said it. So we left the next morning looking for them. Finally we found the house. They are activie members by the way. So we get there, and the grandma opens the door. She is a temple worker here in the temple. She says please come in. So we went in and she said, why are you here anything that I can do to help you? We say we would like to visit her and see how she is doing. She then tells us she is really sick, she is really old by the way. So she was like, can you give me a blessing? We said for sure. So we gave her a blessing .And she was really grateful and said she knew the Lord sent his angels to her to help her in time of need. I felt great to be an instrument in the hand's of the Lord.
Well I love you all so very much. I will go so we can chat a little bit. Happy Haloween!! Love Elder Parker

October 21, 2013

Hey!! How is everyone doing? I am doing great, this week went by really fast. Mom, I hope everything goes good with your surgery. I will be praying for you. This week nothing really huge happened, actually... si!! hahah We had the start of the visitors center this Saturday!!! Wow, it turned out great and like 40 people showed up which is huge. A lot being members but still that is a great start. The President has always told us, if we get one person to come here it is a success. So we felt really good. I didn't really get to participate this time in the visitors center. Only three companionships got to give the tours. We will have our turn in a couple weeks. But I am really excited for it. I just got to be there for about 3 hours to observe and see how everything was working.


I was able to talk to a good friend of mine in the mission named Elder Turner. He is a zone leader also but ends in 4 months. He is so funny and so amazing. He has been a great support here in the mission. We were talking a long time and I was explaining about what side I used to play in safety in football. We were both standing there, he on the right and I on the left and i was like.. well I liked that side. It was so funny. Because it was out of nowhere and so innocent I was like.. yeah I umm liked that side a lot. We laughed a long time. My companion is from Oaxaca! Which is really close to Chiapas. He has like 21 months in the mission. He might entend the mission a little longer. He is very obedient and excited to work with the ward here in Tuxtla. We are working well with the members. Oh!! I got to see Elder Jensen!! It was the best ever. We had a huge meeting with all the missionaries here in Tuxtla with the bishops and ward mission leaders. So I got to sit by him and everything! It was such a nice time. What a blessing it is to have the gospel in our lives. Thanks for the emails. I will go so we can chat. I love you all. Bye Love Elder Parker

October 14, 2013

Hey everyone! :) how are you all? I am doing great. Well we are here still waiting for the call for the transfers. They should have already called us to notify us but we are waiting. So i can't tell you if i will stay or go yet. But i am sure i will stay. it is my first transfer here. This week went really well. Thanks for the emails. Well the visitors center will officially start this saturday at 5. It is actually something really huge here. My companion and i had the idea and we told president in an inverview. Now the whole city and threee stakes of tuxtla will be involved. It will be every thursday friday and saturday at 5 to 8:30. It will last until Christmas. So we are pretty exciting. the president feels like we will havea lot of success. The other day i saw a really nice tennis court. I contacted the owner and he told me the price and schedule. I am thinking about playing tennis on one of these pdays to relax and have some fun. He lends the equipment and it costs like 50 pesos an hour. Which is a little expensive but worth it.
We were able to have another baptism this saturday. The dad got reactived and he was able to baptize his son. So it was a really spiritual baptism.

We found a lady that i would like to count the story behind it. So when i was in Terrazas this lady arrived at the church with a friend. with the sister xochitl. Which is the sister that lended me her computer for mothers day. The one who her husband isn't member. Anyways, her friend, Ana, she has like 65 years or so. I was talking to her and she was really friendly, she was like when can you come to my house to teach me about the church. She told me where she lived and i was like hijoles... Because she didn't live in my area. So i was a little bummed. She we left and i didn't think much of it after. Well.. Like 5 months later, here in my area, we left a lesson and a lady passed in her car, stopped in the middle of the road, and said hey... do you remember me? and i was like wow... It was ana. She was like hey when can you visit me? And she said i live right here. And it turned out she lives in my area now. That was such a cool experience because i know it was a casualidad that i was transfered to this area. So we put an appointment for the next day. Then the next day we get to her house, and i told my companion elder.. taht looks like the car of sister xochitl. So we knocked went in and sister xochitl was there also!! She was really excited to see me and she told me her husband always talks about me. So we got to teach the sister ana about the authority and baptism. Sister ana is a widow. Her husband died. She is really spiritual. She would be a perfect member. So we had one of the most spiritual lessons that i have had here in the mission. I felt so good. We invited her to be baptized and she said she wants to be sure and will pray. But she is willing to keep listening.!! After the lesson i felt really good and the spirit was strong. Then yesterday she made us dinner with sister xochitl. It was really good food. We ate rice with coconut juice on top(food from colombia) and fried bananas and sweetened pumpkin. It was a really nice dinner. She introduced us to one of her sons.

On another note, should i save that letter from Grandma to read it with you guys? I love you all. Thanks for your prayers. I fasted for the family yesterday.
Love Elder Parker

October 7, 2013

Hey family!! Thanks so much for the emails. :) I am so glad that you are all home safely. I am glad you got to have a great week. That is so good to hear. I am doing good here! The conference was something amazing! It was definitely needed. I felt like the speakers were directly talking to me. I felt the spirit so profoundly. I know this church is true and that the speakers were inspired of God. We are still working on the visitors center. Last night we had a meeting with the three stakes here and President Cardenas. We will officially start it the 19 of October. It is bigger than I thought it was going to be.

Happy birthday mom!! Sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope this email goes through so we can chat for awhile. We will have transfers next week. But I am pretty sure I'll stay here. :) Thanks for all you do for me. We also had the conference with the President and all the leaders. It was so spiritual. I loved when the President talked to us about John 17. He talked about Jesus Christ and how He lived with the Father before and how He already knew He was going to be betrayed. He talked about why He talked in parables, I think it is in Matthew 13. It was really spiritual. I got to see some good friends. I saw my old companion and he said in my old old area in Terrazas a lady got baptized that him and I taught together. It was such a peaceful feeling because she was amazing. She had lost her husband with a cruel crime that they killed him, but we taught her the plan of salvation. She was able to get baptized!!

It rained pretty hard a few days. Wow, after Conference on Saturday it rained like no other. It actually started hailing also! But luckily everyone was in the church. Last night at like 2 all of a sudden the lightening and thunder struck. and I woke up and it was pouring rain, luckily I got to shut the windows on time. But now it is clear and hot hahah.

I thought I should get your opinion. On Tuesday I got some letters. One of them is from Grandma Parker. I don't know if I should open it or wait to open it with the family. It will be the last letter I have received from her. Well I love you all so much. I hope we can talk. I love the gospel. We are an eternal family. Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. May we all walk tall. :)

September 30, 2013

Hey family. Well I love you all. I hope this email can get to you. I have gotten all your emails now. We had to look for a different place to write home. We came to a really nice internet place so I could get ahold of you guys. It has air conditioning here. Well... I know that Memaw will be waiting in Paradise. We will get to see her in the Celestial Kingdom. I am really sad. I sure did miss her. She would always write me. I didn't get the chance to write much to her. I feel bad about that. But I loved getting her letters. She always made me excited and felt her love always. She is really amazing. I love you all. I hope everyone is doing good.

We are doing good here. It has been raining a lot here. But now it has stopped and has been extremely hot. Tomorrow we will have the council with the President and the leaders. Should be fun. I finally sent my suit to the dry cleaners hahah About time. I guess like 10 elders will sleep in our house tonight because of the council we will have in the morning. They live about 5 hours from here. I am really excited about the General Conference. Should be really exciting!! The visitors center went huge! We haven't had it yet, but the President talked with the three stake centers and we will now have it for all of Tuxtla, not just our stake here. So we will have a meeting this Wednesday or Tuesday so we can get rolling with it.

So I guess you leave to Nicaragua tomorrow? Well I don't really know what more to say. We had another baptism. It was really spiritual. It was a wife of a member. She has like 70 years. They can now be sealed in the temple in a year. I miss you all. I love grandma Parker. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Parker

September 23, 2013

How is everybody doing? I am doing great. I don´t know what is wrong with the emails. Are my emails getting to you? I am getting some of yours. Thanks for the pictures and emails..
Happy birthday Nathan!!! Happy birthday Josh!!! Happy anniversary mom and dad!!!! I love you all!!!
This week was a really amazing week. A ton of things happened this week. First off this Tuesday we had divisions. I went to a place called Coita. It is outside of Tuxtla by like 1 hour. I went there and got to work with another missionary. He is from Utah, Taylorsville. He said he knows Liz Lucas and Jake Adams. That was a fun day. Wow.. I was so surprised over there. It is like a little town with a ton of green trees and stuff. But I saw a full on basketball gym!! It was like the gyms in Vegas. It was a huge building and all of a sudden I heard some basketball squiks so I went to check it out and it was a full on gym. It reminded me of Glory Road over there in El Paso Texas hahah. It was a nice gym and they were playing a full on game. That was a surprise. Then another surprise. We were headed back to Tuxtla to end the divisions when Elder Jones called us. I guess they had a problem over in their area with security issues so they came and slept at our house for two days. Elder Jones and his companion. The President told them to. So I got to spend a little time with Elder Jones and Elder Garcia. It was fun. I got to work with Elder Garcia one day in my area, and Elder Jones worked with my companion. The last night we bought some pizza. It was a good time. Elder Jones is one of my good friends.


Thursday morning we had interviews with President Cardenas. It was great. I love talking with the President. My companion and I and President are planning over here a visitors center around the temple. It is a huge project but we are really excited. We will be planning it the same week of conference. So that we can invite everyone to the general conferernce also. So that should all take place next week.


It rained a lot again over here!! I think there was a huge tropical storm for Sinaloa and Tamaulipas. But that is far from here. We are just receiving the rain. hahaha We had a funny experiecne with the rain also. It poured rain. So we ran under the intersection. There we were surrounded by rivers in all the roads. We couldn´t cross the roads to get to our lesson. The cars could hardly drive against the pressure of the rivers in the roads. It was so crazy!! And we were laughing so hard. So I said Elder Martinez... I have an idea, we can´t lose time waiting here all day. So I said, when a truck comes, we will signal them so we can jump in the back, they can then drive us to the other side of the road like 10 yards and then we can jump out and follow walking to the lesson. So we were like deal... we waited forever but none of the trucks stopped. Finally one truck stopped, we communicated really fast and we jumped in, he took us to the side and we hopped out and that is how we got to the lesson with dry shoes. hahaha It was the funniest thing and everyone wsa watching laughing. Sorry if that story is hard to understand, you would have to see it to understand. Thanks so much for the package!! I loved it. And the President told me I can wear those pants also. Thanks so much. I loved the package. Thanks for the letters also. We also had some baptisms this week. We baptized Jordin and Arlet. They are 2 teenagers of 11 and 16 years old. It went really well. I loved the baptism. I love you all. I hope this gets to you. Sorry it is so long. Love Elder Parker