Elder Marshal and a Baptism!

 Elder Marshall, my trainer! He is totally Awesome!!

The baptism of Paco Dejesus with his family and Elder Marshall

The scoop!

weeell, time for all of the exciting news.

lets see, Quentin l cook came and visited us last Saturday, i forgot to mention that. and he spoke to us at our mission conference. it was amazing we took a photo with him, the whole mission, and when he was walking in, he patted my shoulder and looked me right in the eye, smiled, and it was awesome. after, as we were making our way to the chapel, we all got to walk past and shake his hand. just being in his vicinity you can tell that he is truly an apostle of the lord jesus Christ. he gave a wonderful talk to us, (none of it was written all by inspiration) and he ended by giving us an apostolic blessing on the whole mission, that by our diligent service in the mission, all of us, and everyone that we hold dear would be blessed for it. it was truly comfort to a bit of trouble in the soul, especially when i have a lot of worries for others at home. it was amazing. also we had an investigator that we taught all of the lessons to, and she was ready from day one to be baptized. she just took everything in it was sooooo great. and the most amazing thing, was when we just finished a lesson one night, her and her husband were at the table, and i had just given him a book of Mormon, with a pass along card of the Nauvoo temple on it as a book mark, when i just felt a prompting to tell those two about the temple. i picked up his pass along card, and said, i want to tell you about this. This is a temple. i pointed at her book because she had a card with the salt lake temple on it and said so is that. there are about 140 something temples in the whole world, and theres even one brand new one here in fort Lauderdale. the temples are a place where we can be with our family for forever. and we can also feel the sweetest feeling there that we can ever feel. the temples are the most beautiful place on earth. they are houses of god. when i told them that i looked over to her, and saw her eyes light up and i could tell that she felt something big when i told her that and that that is what she deeply desired. almost like she had been wondering about it for a while, and had finally just got her answer. it was truly humbling. well that's pretty much it for this week if i had more time, but sadly i don't love yall.

Elder Wardell

Arrived in Florida...April 21, 2014

weeell its scoop time cuz I only have forty minutes left. yeah our mission gets an hour and a half. for email. its totally awesome! whew anyway, so on Tuesday, for the first time in six weeks, I left mexico. we left the ccm at about 230, and rode all the way to the airport, got in checked our bags, everything went off without a hiccup, up until we had to say goodbye to elder lorimier and Hermana melchor. there were a lot of tears. Hermana salima we had to say goodbye to before we even left the ccm it was saddening. but on the bright side, we will see each other again. so we got on our flight, and my head hit the window and I was out. (we didn't sleep Monday night, sooo) then I felt takeoff, and was awake for that, then fell asleep again, didn't wake up until we were getting in to dallas. we get there, go through customs, get our bags checked for the next flight, and then we had to say goodbye to Hermana leatherman and Hermana bailey. it was again sad. but we still had me elders swensen and tenny and four hermanas. it was still a party haha. we got over to our terminal. and we went to the payphones and I called home. asked if it was the wardells and then said, hi mom. :) mom was quiet for a second and then we just laughed and talked. so we got on the plane for fort Lauderdale, elder swensen sat right behind me, and we get going. and I hear this lady talking to elder swensen. she was an older lady, a Baptist, and she was asking him about being a missionary, you know she saw the tag, and we ended up teaching her about the gospel the restoration, and the plan of salvation. mom has more of that in a letter. im almost positive she was touched by what we talked about, and id be interested to talk to her a couple years from now. we got to fort Lauderdale, and when I stepped onto the jetway, my right palm was instantly sweaty. like soaked. dripping, wet. ahaha yes I had my first taste of humidity. it was very interesting. and when we walked into the airport, it was still the same I was like ayayay. haha president and sister Anderson were there waiting for us with big smiles on their faces, we got the bags loaded up, and drove to the hotel. we dropped bags off, then went to president and sister andersons house for dinner and first night orientation. we had a dinner that was roast, carrots potatoes, and cookies and ice cream for dessert. sister Anderson, Is an awesome of a cook as my mother is, I felt like I was home. hahaha well we went to the hotel, slept got up the next morning and went to transfer meeting. we started. and elder swensen and tenny got plucked away, and stayed in the same zone. luckys hahaha. and then, I got my papa. his name is elder marshall. he is TOTALLY AWESOME. he came walking over with a huge smile on his face, and gave me a big hug and was like, aaaah man I knew it! he told me he had picked me out when we came walking in. it was cool. so we loaded up and started for home. we are in north western Miami. the beach is our eastern boundary. haha we are out in the suburbs so theres not a whole lot of city but its not bad. it reminds me a lot of the show burn notice. that was the first thing I thought of when I got to our area. ahaha. we stopped by walmart on the way home to do a bit of shopping, and when got home, the inside of our car was so loaded with stuff, that elder marshall had to get our and unload a bunch of stuff before any of the other three of us could get out. im in the same apartment as my district leader and his comp. yeah so its good, weve had some good experiences so far. we don't do tracting here. we do what is called harvesting, where we knock doors, and tell people that we are representatives of jesus Christ, snd that he sent us there that day to share a prayer of peace and comfort with them. and we actually have a lot of success with it. theres a lot we have to refer to the creole missionaries and the English ones, but theres a lot of people whose lives we touch with it, and we are also one of the highest baptizing missions. well, we have a couple of investigators, one her name is Marilyn is a solid investigator, already accepted baptism we just are teaching her the lessons and she is just taking it all in its so cool. because that apparently doesn't ever happen to greenies in their first transfer, let alone week. so its good. well sadly I haven't anymore time so ill have to sign off till next week. btw I wont be able to send photos till next week cuz I don't have anyway to upload them :( so its sad, but ok anyway, till next week! elder britton wardell

Last day of Missionary Training

well its my last day in the mtc and we get to email really quick. so, heres whats happening. i leave at about 230 in the morning to go to the airport and then ill leave the airport at like six to go to dallas, and then its over to fort lauderdale.

 so yesterday, was amazing. this just cant wait for the scoop. so i had to speak in sacrament meeting and i talked about the apostasy and the restoration of the gospel. and so i started out by talking about what the gospel was and that christ established it on the earth, and after he left the apostles were in charge of preaching the gospel. after they were killed off the gospel was gone. so when i talked about the gospel i talked about how it included the ordinances necessary for salvation in the kingdom of god. which are baptism, confirmation, for men the reception of the priesthood, then temple ordinances and then temple marriage. and theres also enduring to the end and all that entails. (its not an ordanince, but its the other part of the gospel) then i talked about how when the father and the son appeared to man once more, they began their restoration. the first thing restored was the prieshood, which allowed baptism and confirmation to be restored, because those are performed through the priesthood.

 then i had an interesting thought. most people think that the restoration was the first vision, the translation of the book of mormon, and joseph  and oliver recieving the priesthood, and while those are three important parts, its not all. most people dont realize that there is more to the restoration, and that it took a long span of many years for the restoration to be complete. becuase the ordinances in the temple couldnt be completed until the temple was once again on the earth,  there were more temple ordinances restored when the nauvoo temple was built, and that was many years after the first vision. its something we dont always think about.  the word restore, in basis means to bring back, and the past tense, means to have been brought back.

 love you all, say your prayers, read your scriptures, goodbye
Elder Wardell

Note from Mom:
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we know that our Church was not
"started" by Joseph Smith, but rather Joseph Smith was called by Our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ to restore Christ's Church to the earth. Just as Elder Wardell mentioned above after Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected His 12 Apostles kept teaching Christ's doctrine and helped His work go forward. After the Apostles were killed Christ's church disappeared from the earth. During this period of time known as the Great Apostasy the Gospel of Jesus Christ was no where to be found on the earth. After the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ  through the Prophet Joseph Smith Christ's Church can again be found on earth today. We have a prophet who leads and guides our church and we have 12 Apostles just as Jesus Christ did in His day.  If you have any questions or would like to learn more please visit www.mormon.org  of course you can always ask questions here and I will do my best to answer them. 

The link below will take you to a written Testimony  of Jesus Christ from our Prophet and  the Twelve Apostles. This was written in 2000.  https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/34591/34591_000_APP_04-livingChrist.pdf

So long to Mexico

weeeell, heres the scoop for the week. ok, first off, i found one good reason to keep a journal. so you can put at least most of your week into the weekly email. hahaha. yeah what yall have been reading in the scoop, about 90 percent of it comes straight out of my journal. ok anyway, the scoop. soo last friday, was pretty much a normal day, with one exception. i decided to start reading the bible, from the beginning. so now i have two types of scripture study going on: kolipoki style for spanish with the book of mormon, the old testament, and today, im gonna start reading in the pearl of great price, because i was kind of perusing through it the other day, and its totally aweosme. back to the bible, but yeah its totally simple to read, probobly because its alot of geneology, but it is still really cool. im currently in exodus, right after moses parted the red sea.(not bad for about 3 days total of reading( i havent been reading it every day)) now on saturday, it was soo amazing. it was conference, and for the first time, i actually stayed awake for all of the saturday sessions, but i was daydreaming a little during the priesthood session. oops. i do feel bad about that though because there were some good talks in that session. i dont currently have my notes with me, but ill send them home to mom when that notebook is full, which will probobly be very soon, and ill have her put them up on the blog for me. now sunday, was awesome. there was alot of good wisdom given, although i slept through a little bit of the morning session. ( i feel bad about that too but i was exhausted i had been up till like three writing something very important.) we then watched a movie that night about a man, i cannot remember his name, who was raised in italy and from a young age, had a gift for reading and understanding the bible, and became a preacher. while he was in new york as the pastor for a congregation, he found a book of mormon, but it was one of the old ones and the name was rubbed off of the back, and the title page was torn out, so he didnt know the name. he started reading, and became immersed in the book, and when he finished he prayed to know if it was true. he told that he felt the truth of the book, and never could deny it. he started then to teach from that book, and his congregation began to grow until he was always teaching a huge congregation, and older guys in the church noticed, and came to ask him aobut it. he told them that he had found a book that he didnt know the name of, and knew the truth of the book. these old men tried to tell him the book was evil and that it needed to be burned. he told them that if he would not burn the book because of what he had felt about it, and as a result was cast out of their church. he never did deny what he new about the book of mormon(though he still didnt know the name) and was always looking for the church that his book belonged to. then world war one started, and he had to go back to italy and was fighting on the front lines. he was one night teaching some other soldiers about the lamanites who took up the covenant to not fight anymore, and when their enemies came upon them and saw that they wouldnt fight, and were not afraid, they left them alone. his superiors called him in, asked him about what he was teaching, and he told them about the book, and they sent him off of the front line. which almost certainly saved his life. he then one day was flipping through a dictionary, and found the word mormon, and finally had found the church that the book belonged to, and was able to get intouch with salt lake, ( the prophet himself) and he got intouch with the mission in england, and this brother was supposed to go from italy to england to get baptised, but right as he was about to leave, nobody was allowed to leave because of the outbreak of ww2. so he was forced to wait, and finally after the war was over, he got in touch and in i think the early fifties when he was in i think his sixties, he was finally baptised, and shortly thereafter, recieved the blessings of the temple. he died in 1966. i thought that was truly an amazing story.well, not a whole lot happened on monday or tuesday, cept for tuesday night when it was a devotional. david a bednar spoke, to the mtc in provo, it was christmas and i dont remember when but. he talked about the character of christ, and the natural man. he talked about how the natural man turns in, instead of out. he compared it to the cookie monster "i want cookie. give me cokkie now. num num num." he said, the natural man thinks. i want what i want and i want it now. he told a story about a sister who called him, back when he was a stake president. and she informed him that there had been a terrible accident with three girls, and that all they knew was that one of the girls was dead, and they were being moved to the hospital near him, and they needed him to go identify the girls. he said that he realized, that she was talkiing to a nurse on another phone on his other ear, and that he learned later that the nurse was an lds nurse, and he also figured out that one of the girls was this lady´s own daughter. he then said that he heard through the other phone, from the nurse, that the girl who died. was the sister´s daughter. he paused for a second and with tears in his eyes that brought tears to my own eyes, he said. and without even thinking, this sister said to me, president we need to get in contact with the mothers of the other two girls and inform them that their daughters are still alive. she just lost her daughter and the first thing she thought of, was the mothers of the other two. she turned out, when we would have turned in. he also talked about how when it was her daughter´s funeral day, the sister (she was a relief society president) got a call from another sister in her ward, who was sick, and she chewed her out that nobody had brought dinner over to her yet. and on the way to her daughter´s funeral, she dropped off dinner to the whining, and complaining sister in the ward. she turned out. when everyone else would have turned in. he also talked about the savior, and when he had his forty day fast, and when the devil tempted him. he said, turning the stones to bread, and jumping off to pinnacle of the temple were temptations, but they werent the real temptation there. the real temptation he said, was for christ to use the power he had, for himself. to become the natural man, and think for himself. he also talked about, how throughout his ministry he always turned out. he healed however many people, taught them, healed them, blessed them. he also talked about when the savior was in gethsemane, and when the guards came to take him, and peter, cut the ear off of the one guard, and the savior who had literally just suffered to agony of every sin in the world in the past present and future, turned out. he healed a mans ear, a man who was about to take him away, ultimately to his death. he also talked about while jesus was hanging on the cross, suffering, and dying, he asked the father to "forgive them for they know not what they do" he turned out. he also talked about while he was there how he gave instruction for his mortal mother to be taken care of, and taught to the other two who were on the crosses next to him. all the way up literally, till his death, the savior turned out. he was talking about how that is the character of christ, and it is THE attribute that we should all strive to have. it was a powerful devotional. yesterday, wednesday, i was up late writing in my journal while i was doing my laundry, and i had a neat experience. in our casa, there are four rooms with four beds, so me swensen and tenny are in one room. lorimier and lee are in another room, and the other two rooms are occupied by latinos. one of them, whose name i cannot remember, is from colombia, and speaks about as much english as i do spanish, was doing his laundry last night whil i was doing mine. (i sat on the dryer while i wrote) and it was cool how we were talking to each other and teaching each other our different languages, even if it was only a little bit. growing up in the states, i always had this kind of cocky attitude of america is the best everybody else is second rate, but now being here, and seeing the other elderes, and talking with them really makes me 1 grow to love other people more, and 2 and more importantly makes me realize that they also are children of our father, and before this life, they were my brothers, and my sisters. it gives a whole new perspective on my life when i think of them and the fact that god loves them, just as much as he loves me, and nobody is better than any other person in this life. i was not kidding when i announced my mission in church when i said my mission would be a two year lesson of humility. whew, well i think thats a good scoop for today haha and as usual mother, you may take from this whatever you wish for the blog.

Getting to teach...

weeeell heres the scoop.  last pday, we had a slight mishap with elder tenney, he popped a tendon out of place in his ankle and it sent his system into shock. we got him to the clinic, and hes all good now, they gave him some stuff for his ankle, got everything fixed up, and he just had to sleep and stay off of his ankle for a couple days and all is well now. so, last friday i came to an interesting discovery, my district is in the advanced spanish course, ahaha we had no idea whatsoever. it was an interesting thing to discover. elder tenney was still really tired that day, so after his checkup after breakfast, elder swensen went to the casa and slept it off, and i went with elder lorimier and elder lee (the other two elderes en mi distrito) haha i didnt even realize that was spanish, anyway during our morning study, me lorimier and lee taught our investigator "erik" ( hes actually our instructor hermano matias) and we taught him about what the priesthood is. after gym, elder swensen and i switched and i stayed home with tenney till dinner. saturday was a really neat day. i got alot of kolipoki style scripture study in, and we also taught an actual ivestigator. he was a friend of Hermana Falcon (our Maestra) and his name was gabriel. we talked to him about his likes and dislikes (it was over skype, and the whole district talked to him) and some of his beliefs. we got to talking about god, and he told us about how he is catholic, and i asked him what he thought about prophets of old. he said that he believed in them.i asked him if he believed they were called of god, and if god appeared to them and talked with them and gave them his authority. he said he believed that. i also asked him if he thought god was the same today as he was in the days of old. and he said that he did. i then asked him, that if god wanted to, (because after the apostles were killed, there were no more prophets) could he call another prophet. he said the figured god could. i then said, well, we believe he did just that. (we taught him in english. he spoke english and for the sake of teaching rather than learning the language, we did it in english) we then taught him about the first vision, and the restoration and the book of mormon. towards the end, we asked him what he thought of all of this, and  he said that, he respected our beliefs, but that he thought his beleifs were good for him. we still asked him if he wanted to read the book of mormon, and he said if you get a copy to me, ill read it, but it wont be in the way you want me to. which is fine, because the only way we ever "want" someone to read it, is simply reading, haha it was ok though we definitely made an impact on him. so, sunday was nice. as it ALWAYS is here. haha sudnay morning we had breakfast and then preisthood, where presidente juarez(first counselor in our branch presidencey or presidencia del rama) talked about power and authority. (poder y autoridad) it was very nice and very powerful. after that we had district meeting, where we just talked about whatever we all of us felt inspired to talk about. after district meeting we had sacrament meeting which is always uplifting and amazing. today was fast sunday, and it was truly amazing to me, to see that the thing that i had fasted for, came to be. it was a great blessing. after sacrament we had lunch, and after that, we had class with president pratt, where he talked about the atonement, now ive had a good lesson about the atonement, and have also heard amazing talks in general conference about the atonement, but never before have i had a lesson like the one we got from presidente pratt. it was truly amazing. i love listening to president carl pratt. he has such an intimate knowledge of the gospel that only comes from years of endless faith and service of the lord. i really hope that i know him later in this life. hes great. funny story about president pratt. so, it was raining, at the end of our class, and president prat went and got in his car, and drove up on the cement right in front of the auditorium so that hermana pratt wouldnt have to walk in the rain. it was hilarious because she came out looking for him, and we said we saw him running to the car, and she was like, oh i told him to take the umbrella. now president pratt doesnt miss anything, and remembers just about everything, which means that he had it planned out. and it was funny when hermana pratt all of a sudden said " oh no he doesn´t" and we see his car rolling up to sidewalk between the tienda and reception. its just funny to know, that our mission president still has a small rebel streak in him. haha. after that we had a devotional (pre recorded) where richard g scott spoke, he spoke about prayer, and it gave me a completely new perspective on prayer. one of these days ill send all of my notes to mom that i took on these devotionals and she will put them up for me,. our sunday night movie was the Testaments, which kinda brought a little pang of homesickness, because the family and i always would watch that one. it was good though. well monday was just a normal day. now tuesday was really awesome. the discussions in class were really interesting, and we had trc where we taught other missionaries as investigators and i had to be an investigator. it was cool. it was also pizza night which is always nice. (the costco pizza in mexico is actually good). and then we had a devotional. lemme just talk about my experience with a change of heart. hahaha before i came into the mtc, i didnt really care for devotionals. and the first devotional we had, i slept right through it. however, now, i look foreward to devotionals and will so definitely miss them. devotional are quite possibly one of the coolest things ever to be thought up. anyway, on tuesday night, we listened to a devotional from david a bednar, and he talked about general conference, (it was an mtc devotional in oct of 2012) and he talked about a really effective way to study general conference. his way that he talked about, was always look for three things in a general conference talk, because there are three things they will always have: Doctrince, Invitation, Blessings. he said that there is always doctrine taught which is valuable teaching, and gave three examples. he talked about how there is always an invitation, to do something that will be beneficial to your spiritual well being, and gave three examples from the previous conferences talks. he then talked about promised blessings that will come from the invitations. he also said that, because the apostles are prophets seers and revelators and hold the same keys as the prophet himself, that when they announce blessings, it is a true, and promised blessing if you do what the blessing required. those arent his exact words but i cant remember what they were. wednesday was just another normal day, and then there was today. usually the first thing we do on our pday, is go straight to email.well today, was the temple trip for our district, now the temple is closed, but we did get to go see it, and go to the visitors center and tour it. it was aweosme, and i bought a really cool picture of moses. well that will be all till next week.