Some new pics!

Brayden whooped Elder Graham in a classic game of shoot-out! :)

American River and the yellow bridge.

Sock City!!!!!

Old Sacramento

All going good! (Sept. 29th email)

Hello amores!

All is well here. I am glad everything serious was ruled out! That's probably the coolest award I have ever heard of ;) haha that is awesome. 

Wow that sounds like a bad day! Hopefully all is well soon. That is kind of nice that the leak is fixed, but a ceiling is cool too :P 

Haha no the weather reports are awesome! Hep me know what to expect even if it is just really all the same ;) But we got moisture a couple times this week! The past week was pretty beautiful really! A lot cooler. But it's back up again!

We are super excited for General Conference. Watching it with translation just isn't the same, so I am sure the branch will be THRILLED if someone gives a talk in Spanish. That would be so cool. It is a great time for missionary work! 

You guys have heard of Meet the Mormons right?? We get a sneak peak this friday! Whoohoo! It will be super cool. Movie night! (night meaning 9 in the morning.)

haha iPads are supposed to come soon but who knows. I am pretty sure with  the Seventy Zone Conference we are having they will introduce it though!

Well we are short on time this week. We had a good week and saw 5 investigators to church, which is great. We just need them all to get baptismal dates! But we had a good week and found a lot of cool people. We biked a lot this past week and saw blessings of finding more people. The Lord really is working here a lot. I am thankful for that. Nothing too exciting or different this week though!! Pretty normal :) 

Tell Brook good luck! That is awesome! Hopefully she gets the job :)

I got the letters and there were amazing! Thanks so much! They were great. 

Well I love you all. Sorry this is short and kinda boring! I am doing well and have plenty of food and shelter and all that good stuff :) Really I don't think I need anything :) Just keep loving me ;) 

Be safe! Love and miss you all! 

Elder Stone

Old Sacramento! (Sept. 22nd email)

Hey guys!!

Sounds like a wonderful week yall had :) That is awesome. It is so cool to hear about the temple and the rededication and everything. And all the pics and videos! They downloaded so slow that I only saw one but it was awesome. Thanks always for those!

That is a super good Mormon message. We have used it a couple times before! It is really inspiring.

They invited you guys cuz "you are in the bishopric"...riiiiggghhhht ;) jk that is awesome! :) those were always fun and it is awesome to see all the happy seniors!

I think we got a TINY bit of rain during the night this week, but it was SUPER dirty. The smoke from the King fire has been destroying the air here! But there have been clouds till today which is awesome. I had forgotten what they looked like. Hopefully rain soon :) We have been biking a bit this week so the cooler weather has been nice.

We are teaching more than them two! There is a man named Mario who is living with a LA and her kids and one that is both of theirs. They are both married to other people, his wife in Mexico and her husband around here. He would get baptized right now if he could, but she has been unwilling to cooperate. Their relationship is difficult so it is basically just super frustrating. But the goal is to talk to her tonight, we have an appointment with them. We just need to talk to her and see how we can help. It is sad to see the hurt and heartache that can be avoided when we just follow the gospel way. He is seeing all the blessings in the book from the gospel, which is amazing. She just needs to get on board.

There is also a guy named Ramon, who is awesome. He came to church yesterday. He is just a little bit crazy but that makes him fun. A great guy, and he is learning and progressing. There are others as well, but they are the most prominent ones!

I know that there is always a lot to talk about probably but I feel like I either never remember any of it or I just can't think of anything unique :) The work really doesn't change much week to week ;) We did go to Old Sacramento last preparation day which was cool! All over around downtown and like the packed huge highway and interchange. It was chaotic and fun. Old Sac is way cool as well! I have pics.

Love you guys! I hope you have a good week. Be safe and spread that gospel! I miss you all!

Elder Stone

No Braylands! (Sept. 15th email)

Heeeello!

Como estan mis queridos? We had a decent week, a lot of good things happened! Diana is progressing well. She is struggling to feel the Spirit and pray on her own, but she is trying and doing the things she needs to, so we know she will make it. It was her and her families 3rd time at church last week! It was amazing to see them there and her kids love primary and the songs, which is awesome. Things are going well. We are teaching Nikko who is 9 and he is awesome. Super bright kid.

We had a big multicultural activity on Saturday. It was nuts! A ton of people packed into a small gym. There were food samples from a ton of different countries and they were all delicious. Then they had a bunch of dances and such from the different countries. It was an awesome activity and really exhausting. It was awesome.

Everything is going normally! The work is great. It's amazing. There is nothing better.

That is crazy all the releases and callings. Changes are always hard! But good.

Sounds like you guys have a crazy week coming!!!! Good luck! I hope it is all fun. A lot of cool exciting things happening :)

Haha as far as I know no Braylands.

I feel like we are doomed to an eternal death drought. Hopefully some rain this week :) Winter or fall would be a nice change haha but the heat is fun too. I hate that it is getting dark way earlier now. Makes it harder to be effective till the end of the night! But we will have to adjust and make the best of it!

Thanks for the pics and all that!! I can't believe that is Savannah! She looks so different and big! Wow.

Well I love you all! You are all amazing! Miss you! Be safe and stay strong this week :) Love you,

Elder Stone

Living by an airfield! (Sept. 8th email)

Hey family!!

Thanks for all the pictures and the videos. Hilarious. I loved them! The Ogden temple looks huge and super pretty. That's so cool that everyone got to come :)

Utah's weather sounds way better than California's! Isn't that backwards ;) That is good you are getting some rain! Hopefully some clouds will roll around here :)

We live right by an old military airfield, and there has been an airshow this past weekend. That was so distracting to have them flying around all the time. It fascinated me and reminded me of always going to the airshows! They are awesome.

That's amazing Sawyer scored his goal! What a pro. The pictures are all awesome! I need to improve my skills so we can play later and I don't get embarrassed ;)

We had a good week! A lot of people came to church this past week, which was amazing to see. That is when they can really progress. The Lord is blessing this area a ton. There are so many prepared people. The lady that just showed up to church last week accepted a date for later on this month, and she is awesome. Just 2 days before the missionaries knocked on her door, she had found her belief in God. She was raised without any religious background, which is really uncommon with the latinos, so there is so much to learn and it is super exciting.

Elder Graham found out this week that he is allergic to soy as well this week. Haha the poor guy. Now all we need is lactose intolerant and he will starve to death! We are having a great time together though! 

We met some Egyptians and Sikhs this week, which was cool. The diversity here is crazy. Our branch president's wife, Hna. Bair, has started doing Zumba dancing classes whatever during the week, which is awesome because Spanish ladies LOVE Zumba haha. So hopefully it will be great to help investigators find fellowship and feel loved in the branch! We have been trying to visit everyone we can on our branch list so we can figure things out and help the branch grow and talking to everyone we can. It has been great and we have been busy as ever. It is the best. I love mission life so much. Even though it kills me ;)

I love you all. Thank you for all your love. I am so grateful for you! I have the best family in the world. Be safe and stay strong! I love and miss you guys!

Elder Stone 

Hola! (Sept. 1st email)

 Hola familia mia!

This week was good, and this coming week will be great! We have been talking to a lot of people and it has been fun, although you meet a couple crazies here and there. There are many people ready for the gospel here, and we are super excited! A lady we have never seen showed up with her kids to church yesterday. She talked to missionaries in Iowa 3 days before she moved here last week. So that was a big miracle! The Lord is sending many blessings to this area. We talked to this one guy who is basically the equivalent of a stake president in the Pentecostal church! That was interesting. He like started prophesying to us at the end which was different. We had a really good conversation with him though and got to testify of the Restoration. He said his name was Elder Poe and he was way cool.

I also got to give a talk in the branch yesterday on missionary work, so that was fun. Hopefully not too boring ;)

Elder Graham is great and we are doing work together. It will be a good transfer! I am not still training! When I left Lodi the training was over :)

We have been trying to clean up a little the house! It has been pretty good. Makes me feel better :P Brother Winchester has been awesome this week, we are really getting along with him. The areas got figured out and we are staying in the same one! They just re-split it but basically nothing changed for us. Which is good!

That is amazing to hear about the FHE and that they were all able to come! Hopefully they could feel God's love there. I hope the open house goes well :) I need pics :)

Thanks for all the updates!! I can't believe that Michael Fralick and Kelsea are getting married. Hahaha that is just so insane. Blows my mind! I guess we are kind of growing up??

That video of Emily cracked me up. You guys are awesome :)

Stay off the roads!!!! ;)

Yeah I guess the drought is bad. I have determined that God is just going to dry it out and burn California down ;) Just kidding it isn't that bad of a place. It was good though because Elder Graham, as we were pulling out of the driveway was like "Ya know, we kindof live in a ghetto neighborhood a little..." And I was like "ehhh kindof maybe" and then a car pulled in front of us to a guy standing outside, and sold some drugs as we passed him haha. It was hilarious. It really isn't bad though. It is nice.

Love you guys so much! You are all amazing and the best. I hope you have a great week. Keep up the good work :) Love and miss yall,

Elder Stone