Josh's quote for this week's email was "What's the use of gold and goose? It' s no excuse for being mean. Cause when we share, we get the share of friends dodaloo do do dodaloo do do dodaloo do do dodaloo..." Lyle the Kindly Viking..I've never heard that before, but maybe you have! Enjoy!

Hey all,

How are you this week? We got some big news on Wednesday, that the mission is gonna get divided on July 1st, 2013. We don't know much more. President Ghent sent us a letter and basically said not to worry about what will happen for now, to keep working, and at the end of June, they'll let us know what our assignment is. If what I heard is right, President Ghent will be the president of the south mission (called just Quito) and another North American, Robinson or something like that, will be the president of the north mission. As I know more, I'll let you know, but that's about all that I got today. I just hope that I am still with President Ghent. He's a great guy, and we were gonna be the last group to finish with him. But, what happens will happen, and it'll be a good thing. The mission is really big, and now we'll be able to open up a lot more sectors for missionaries, especially in the Orient.

I have mastered breakfast, just nailed it. More specifically, I've mastered eggs. I have scrambled eggs with mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, celery, beans, onions, broccoli, avacado, and peppers almost every morning, and without the yolk, just for you, Dad. Pile on that some delicious herbal tea, a banana, and a little bowl of cereal, well, big bowl of cereal, and skim milk that I finally found. We've got a good exercise routine down, running Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and stuff in the house on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Plus, a papaya now and then when I feel like having a little treat. We're like the only people in the mission who make breakfast. We did divisions with the Zone Leaders, and they were astounded at what we did for breakfast. Now, everyone wants to do divisions with us.

I became really good friends with one of my Zone Leaders, Elder Dearden. He plays soccer for BYU, and he is super fun to be around. He left today with the change, so hopefully I'll see him again sometime. Since disobedience is a big problem in the mission, 6 Zone Leaders got "bajared," or aren't Zone Leaders anymore, to go and train a new missionary that comes tomorrow. Almost all of the Zone Leaders right now leave in July or August, so another factor is that we need new Zone Leaders to replace them, and they need to get trained now. Elder Pande is training now, he was a great Zone Leader. They'll be some big changes coming up, I'm sure, to prepare for the split of the mission, because we'll need a lot of leaders to fill the spots for two missions...


We're doing well with our investigators, and in the next couple of weeks they'll be ready for their baptism. We have a goal in my district to have 20 baptisms in the month of March, to put in our part of the "miracle of March." We're gonna work really hard to get it done. If we work hard, we should have about 8, and with the other 2 companionships in the district, we should get the other 12. If we do it, we're gonna celebrate hard core buy ordering really expensive pizza. No one left from my district other than Elder Dearden, so I get to be with Elder Nelson still. We've been in the same zone for almost our whole mission, which is so much fun. He's an awesome guy, and has really funny stories about things that his Dad says. Plus, when I do divisions with him, we can go to Gringoville and eat American things to our hearts´ content. We should be with the Dowlings on Thursday for dinner..

What else happened this last week...Oh! So, we have this lady, Miriam. Her son got home from his mission in Bolivia like a month ago, and she isn't a member, but ever since he came home, she's been listening to the missionaries and coming to church. She always said that she was reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if the church was true, but hadn't received her answer. Then, she said that she didn't see the need for the Book of Mormon because the Bible says everything, and that she wasn't really reading the Book of Mormon. Machetied her. Then, she started reading, still no answer. Machetied her on real intent when we read and pray, and she gave the closing prayer of that lesson, and started crying at the end, then left the room before she could say anything else. Her son told us to go, and that he's talk to her. I thought I might have been to harsh or something, so I was a little worried. When we came back, she said that she had felt the Spirit super strongly, and that she knew now that the Church is true, and she's getting baptized the 9th. Sometimes you gotta be harsh with people to make them see the importance of everything. That was a really cool experience for me, and I'm glad that the Lord let me have this experience to build both my faith and Miriam's.

We have the Dad of a member family that we're working with, he's the only non-member. He said he didn't know if he would be ready for baptism for a couple of years, and we were really strict with him, too, in a loving way, of course. He's preparing for the ninth now, and came to Church this Sunday for the first time every, after like a year of missionaries visiting him. He gets along really well with us, and we're usually very calm and relaxed with him ,and that makes the difference, I think. Many missionaries are very rigid and teach, teach, teach, and don't really get to know the people. I've learned how important it is to just relax in the lessons, and really focus on their individual needs. It's a lot more fun that way, too...

Con amor,

Elder Thomas

I got the pictures to work! This is Josh with Esteban

Part of Josh's breakfast of champions