riding bikes is fun to do, to do, to do...

Hey there everyone!

            So this week has been good even with no car.. haha we get to do lots of biking so im getting strong! Oooo good thing I’m not in the singles ward haha. So Roxboro has a lot of hills it seems that none of it is flat and in order to get anywhere we have to bike a lot which im ok with because the members of the branch (only about 60 come to church) give us rides to most of all our lessons.     (So im wondering how long it will be before Roxboro gets a car again…..)  

           It's interesting coming here because when Elder Moore was telling me all about our investigators it seemed like none had been invited to be baptized and then this last week we were able to set 5 dates (almost 7)  its going to take a little more work ....

 I know that the lord will guide us. J

          

            So its been a good week as we did a lot of teaching. This next Sunday im giving a talk on………. (Can you guess?) MISSONARY WORK who would have known but what I will really be talking about is the role of prayer in missionary work, then going and doing it.

            I love you all and I pray the lord will protect you as he has protected me J take care everyone!

Love elder MAUGHAN      

that's a lot of food...

hey hey hey there yall!!

well another week goes by..this is crazy. you know i feel like sometimes there should be 8 or 9 days in the week cause there just seems like there is so much to do. this week has been crazy....we are moving this week and have transfers next week and appts and people to teach and lots to find and even more to see if we can find again...and shutting down cause theres so much to dooooooooooooooo.... nah its good somehow well manage to get it all done.

so i thought it might be interesting for you to kinda see what my diet has been like these past couple months shortened into one example of what ive eaten this past week:

Last Wednesday(pday): apple and chicken ceaser salad made at home

Thursday: rosario and agustin surprised us with "breakfast" at 11:30 when we showed up for our appt...4 chicken tostadas, homemade horchatas. lunch appt with 1 1/2hrs later--mexican vegtable soup with LOADS of whole mushrooms, chiliquilas which is like lasagna mexican style---instead of pasta for the layers its tortillas and theres chicken or pork instead of beef and jalepanoes instead of tomatoes, kiwis and oranges. dinner 1 1/2 hrs later 2 chicken salad sandwhiches and mexican hot chocolate.

Friday: macaroni and cheese with corn flakes in it, bran muffins, dates, pizza, salad and turkey for lunch. no dinner.

Saturday: ham, potatoes, chips and salsa, ensalada, mexican bread. dinner=vanilla milkshake

Sunday: rice, refried beans, tortillas, this chicken and mushroom faijita thing.

Monday: pepperoni pizza, nopales which is cactus with rice, tortillas and LENTILS! :p meh...very..interesting

Tuesday: rice and beef tacos for dinner.

Today: granola bar and apple.

can you tell which days i feed myself? aka wednesdays...hahaha

anyways: this is the last pday before transfers and i feel some pretty big things comin up. we have a lot of changes i think happening here in the rockford area..so well see... we are also moving this weekend and that has been crazy trying to pack, clean house and still do some good work out there. our apt is pretty big and its like a big job to clean up this mess that the elders before us and before that left on the walls and in the stove and blah one big mess...

work wise this week we went to a funeral and a baptism all on the same day. one right after the other. and i am so gratefull for this gospel and the knowlege we have. the plan of salvation--this life would seem really pointless to me if i didnt know why I was here or that there we things I needed to do like be baptized in order to live with my Heavenly Father again. i mean funerals are just that much more comforting for me cause their not gone gone forever. but with a lot of the hispanic culture it is very difficult--this funeral was full of people wearing black black black...and here i was wearing my bright red jacket...at that funeral i decided what mine would be like...no black allowed at my funeral. there are gonna be colored happy balloons and happy flowers....my coffin hahahaha i wanna have a bright pink one...something that says happy...:) i want people to share stories about things that happened in my life and to laugh and not be sad and miserable. this gospel isnt sad and miserable but its happy and joyful and just like baptism is a necessary thing death is too and we shouldnt be afraid of it. just one more step on the journey.

anyways besides all that we have 5 new investigators this week and MAN THIS WORK IS JUST AWESOME!!! we are just put in places we need to be at the time we need to be there. the lord has a plan and when we are trying to be obedient and follow his commandments and are willing to do all he asks he uses us.

well i love you all so much! i miss you and hope all is well. till next week when i might be in a new area! ;)

love you! paz y amor!

Hermnana Maughan

Timothie is Rockin in Rockford!

hey hey hey familia!

so first off chris holy cow. the email i recieved from dad was the first one i read. what a testimony in the protection of the lords missionaries.  

for us here transfers are on feb 2nd and im anxious to see what happens.... changes are coming i can feel it. pres has some tricks up his sleeve.  but do you know what today is?? today is my 1/4 mark of how long ive been out on my mission. chris hit his the beginning of this month--his is every 6 months and mine is every 4.5...so this is the first and last marking point we will hit together. and not only is it my 1/4 mark but is also herman laytons 3/4 mark...so today the annual quarter mark ritual of burning a tie will be taking place. :)

this week i have really loved this week. we are teaching some awesome people and i jsut love this. we are teaching this family and we have been going over and seeing them and its just so fun and they just have desire to learn and have so many questions and awesome stories and they love making crafts. so their my kind of people. but they finally came to church on sunday!!!!! it was awesome! and they loved it! :) i cant wait to go see them again this week :) :)

Twice a week we have been going to the Rockford Rescue Mission and helping there. we ususally serve food and what not. but i seriously love going there. we get a chance to talk to some of the people and i believe i talked to you about this a bit earlier but there is this program specifically for men with addiction problems that come and they basically like live there and take classes and work together at overcoming their addictions. and i have such a cool opportunity to talk to some pretty awesome people. who have such strong testimonies in their savior and having faith. it is so fun and cool to see how relationships build and that it gets easier and easier to go and talk to people there shamelessly about the gospel. i really feel that most people really like talking about religion especially with someone who has a firm belief in one. its just not a usual conversation people have with others so having this badge on saying that i am a representative of jesucristo really is awesome.

we are moving next week the 28th and 29th and this should be an interesting stich what with being in all this snow and stuff and the fact that we are moving not one set of missionaries but 2 into completely different appts. so we have been working on that this week to see that everything can be easy peasy lemon squeezy on those days.

we had zone meeting last tuesday and that was aweomse i think  i mentioned a little about it last week. but it was pretty motivating and uplifting. we are now able to go on mormon.org cause theyve updated that site up and its super super nifty. check it out and watch some videos even make your own profile so that others can get to see that mormons are real and normal people with just a little bit of extra-ordinaryiness to them :)

  

its about a 2-3 hour drive to get from here to the chicago temple. and mom i had no idea that youve been there! thats so cool! its a pretty teeny tiny temple but still beautiful all the same. the blessings and peace that come from the temple are pretty beautiful themselves.

other than all this stuff the work moves forward and pushes on. i seriously love being out here and am so grateful that the lord worked extra hard to get me out here cause this has seriously been some of the best experiances de mi vida. its hard and fun and so worth every minute of it. whoever can--do it and go on a mission! ITS THE BEST!!!! :)

I love you all and look forward to hearing from you soon and recieveing butt loads and butt loads of letters in my mail box this week! ;p

What a different week!

  What a…. different week

 I'm in Roxboro which is a little branch and I'm with Elder Moore who has been out for 3 months so I'm follow up training.... and I guess I'll jump right into what your all wondering about…

 I did get into a car crash….

We were going to teach a family and we came to a stop sign. I stopped looked to the left and there was a car coming but they were far away then I looked to the right, no cars then back to the right and they were still far away so I decided to go…. He was covering some ground really really fast, and hit me on my door and then after the hit I can remember spinning at lest once and then I blacked out for a few seconds. I don’t remember hitting the ground but I woke up and asked Elder Moore if he was ok and he said yes.  I look and my tom tom is on my lap so of course I turn that off,  put it away and then I try to open my door and it wouldn’t open so I crawled out the back passenger side door and then went to the other car and he was hitting a little so I started to ask questions to keeping him out of shock and then running back and forth from him to Elder Moore who’s door was stuck against the ground and couldn’t open his door (we didn’t flip) and when the fire fighters came and took over I made the calls to the mission president  and things like that and in the end no one was hurt to bad. Elder Moore only has a little bruise on his finger and I have a few thanks to the seatbelt and airbags that saved my life...so and after this I think I'll stick to my man van haha OH wait it's already sold I think??? (haha that was a joke I just don’t want to drive for a little while.)
                So its amazing that I'm here and the Lord truly showed his tender mercies to us.

 My time is getting short. I'm doing great and I'll send pictures.. 

 Love you!        
Elder Maughan