Christmas 2010

Monday, December 27, 2010
Last email of the year!

**The following is the second-half of an email we received home this week. Elder Parr thought it would be funny to throw his mother into a tizzy by beginning his email with a joke. I will not include that portion of the email. : } The following was at the bottom....WAY at the bottom...of his message. Unfortunately, I did not realize it until after I had made a few phone calls and emails to check on my son. The STINKER!! I think he realized he ought not to play with me like that. ; ] Jason says I taught him that sense of 'trickery'. Humpfh! ; ) **

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P.S.

I hope you realize everything that I just wrote is NOT THE TRUTH! It is a joke! hahahhaha!! Y'all know that is soo not me! It was such a blessing to be able to talk with y'all on Christmas and to hear all that is going on and how each of y'all are doing! I wouldn't trade that for anything right now! After talking with y'all , it has given me that much more motivation to continue and to work even harder! Knowing that all of you are okay and are doing such great things is wonderful! Of course, I miss y'all and think about y'all always. But knowing that I have a family that loves and cares about me and is so supportive of what I'm doing is just the extra push to DO WORK!

The Lord has blessed me so much already with this wonderful opportunity to serve in his work! There truly is nothing I'd rather be doing right now! Though I'm far away, know that I'm okay and doing AWESOME! No need to worry here! I'm allowing the Lord to lead my path and so far so good ;)

I LOVE it here in Montana! When I get home we're going to take a family vacation up here!

My Christmas after I talked with y'all went like this...We went to a less-active member and wished her a Merry Christmas and gave her some chocolates! Then we went to go see this man. He had a stroke and is now paralyzed on his right side. We got a referral to go see him and he loves us now. We went to say Merry Christmas and before we left I was like, "I brought you a slinky to fill all your time up so you don't have to just watch tv or read!" He laughed so hard and just about started to cry! I love him! He is so sweet and has no one around so me and him connected so much. He loves his slinky! :) haha! We then went back and let Elder Miner Skype home. He took forever so me and Luke worked on some stuff and talked about Hong Kong (his mission) and he taught me how to write some chinese and stuff! He is awesome! He is going into film making and he is SOOOOO GOOD!

Afterwards, we went to a families house and had dinner. They are Hawaiian so we had some good food! Soo delicious! I colored with one of their little girls and played games with the family! It was pretty fun! Then we went to my old man Merlin's house! I worked with him doing genealogy and he showed me how he does it! He has sooooo much done it's amazing! That's what he does to pass time hahaha. So I messed around with him and we cracked jokes back and forth! We had a good time together, haha!


Christmas was fantastic! I hope y'alls was awesome too! What did y'all do?!

I love y'all soooooo much!

love elder parr!

p.s.s. Hopefully I didn't scare you too much mom :l I couldn't resist though. haha!! sorry :/

I LOVE Y'ALL!

Here are a few pictures!

We had 2 dinner appointments on Christmas Eve ;) They call me Elder Tex and gave us new ties! Pretty legit!

A HUGE herd of elk we saw on the side of the street!

We did it because we love you.

Monday December 20, 2010

One story:

We were going to go to someone's house Saturday morning and help a man chop wood for his family and then have lunch and teach a lesson. Well, he called earlier this week and canceled on us and told us not to come by. But y'all know me... I was like, pshh and blew it off. So Saturday morning we called around and found some axes from members to use. After we got 2 axes we went to his house and hid our car where they couldn't see it! haha

So, it just starts to snow and me and Elder Miner are walking to this HUGE pile of wood with axes in our hands, with our face masks and hoodies and stuff on and I was like, "Elder Miner, it feels like we're going to go do something bad! I mean, we're hiding our car, we have gloves on so there are no finger prints and we're going to bury a body in the snow!" hahaha I LOVE IT!

So we went right to work and chopped up SOOOO much wood; for like 4 hours! It was so much fun and so great to provide service! By the time we finished it had snowed like 4 inches! The family is struggling right now and he was very appreciative for us doing that but he kept saying we shouldn't have. I explained to him that that is what the gospel is all about. Each and every single one of us helping each other and making sure we are all taken care of. We didn't do it because someone told us to. We did it because we love you and desire for you to see the gospel in action!

We had so much fun and I'm a legit Paul Bunyan now! ;)

I love being out here on my mission and sharing the gospel with others! This week will be crazy!!

I LOVE Y'ALL!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ELDER PARR!!!!

Short and Sweet

So this week was amazing! I think the highlight was when I butchered 2 lambs!! My first time ever and so much fun! I loved it and got so into it! The Howard's were making fun of me because I was so excited and pumped the ENTIRE time I was doing it! haha
(** side note from mom - I debated not adding this part because I found it a bit disturbing, but to know Justin is to know that he enjoys learning ALL sorts of things! So.... it remains.)

Also we had the other ward party for Blodgett Canyon this week! It was pretty good too! Had a HUGE dinner and then Santa came! Me and Elder Miner were his little helpers and gave the kids cookies after they told Santa what they wanted and got a picture. Don't worry, we took a picture with him too ;) I will send my other memory card home soon!!!

Our baptism fell through this week :/ The man said he felt pressured and said he wanted to wait a little longer. We're still meeting with him and he is going to get baptized just not sure when. Another family will be getting baptized soon! The father is a member and has been inactive for a long time. Since we started meeting with them his daughter, who's 10, wants to get baptized SOOOO bad! His wife as well! So they have come back to church the last 2 weeks and we sat with them this last Sunday and I sat with their 2 girls (the other is 7) and we had fun and they learned so much! The man met with the bishop and he said he is good to go to baptize them but wants to get the spirit fully back before he does it. So hopefully in the next 2 weeks they will be baptized too! It's so much fun and brings so much happiness to me when I get to see families come into the gospel and how it blesses their lives! So awesome!

So I will be moving this next Monday, more than likely! We will then be with the W's. Our new address will start next week on about Monday or Tuesday. If anyone sends stuff to my address it's no big deal, they will just call me and let me know I have something and I will go get it! But here is the address where we will be next week!

336 Lorraine Lane

Hamilton, Montana

59840

Also, we got us a car!!!!!! A 2008 Chevy Malibu! So no more biking! Except I will still make Elder Miner break out our bikes and ride! :) It's like 45 degrees now! It feels awesome! Still waiting for a bit more snow to melt so I can play golf here! Their course is beautiful!!

I love you all and hope all is going well! Miss and LOVE you!

I will call home Christmas day sometime. Not positive when though. I will know next week for sure. I will know where I will be, time and that sort of stuff. So excited to talk to y'all!!! :)

Love,
elder parr



What we do FORE free time! :)

Yeahhhhh Buddy!

Family and Friends!!!!

Ahhhhh the mission is the BEST place to be! So much going on and good things happening! Here was my week:

Monday

• For P-Day the whole district got together up at the Stevensville stake center for some district olympics!!! Sooo much fun! They decided to do senior companions vs. junior companions. I figured so because in our district 3 of us are greenies and the other Elder Sherwood has been out about 8 months so I figure they thought they would win. But I don't think they remembered I was from Texas and never give up! We played arena football, arena ultimate frisbee, indoor soccer, obstacle course, poison (crazy mix of dodgeball of some sort), 3 pointer shoot out, tug of war and some other things. Let's just say us "junior companions" whooped up on them! haha More like slaughtered them like lambs, ha jk ;)
  

Tuesday

• District Meetings

Wednesday

• First time for team ups! District leader Elder Vroom and his companion Elder Greco came out to Hamilton. I was paired up with Elder Greco while Elder Vroom and Elder Miner went to do a baptismal interview. Well, me and Elder Greco went to go see an elderly woman who hasn't been to church in quite some time. We got to know her very well and taught a great lesson about scripture reading and attending church. She didn't come though, so Sunday night we went back and I chewed her out! haha jk But she will be there next week for sure, hopefully! I'm going to find her a ride so she doesn't have that excuse to use anymore ;)
• After that we went to a home to do some service! Best time ever! I got to slaughter some chickens without knives! Probably don't want to know this but...you grab them by the neck and swing them around and the head comes right off. Pretty wild experience! But we got a bunch of chickens done so they could have some fresh chicken that night and moved some trailer tops around for the ducks they have to sleep under. (there will be pictures home with the next sd card I send)
• Later that night me and Elder Miner teamed back up and saw a family. The father is less active and his wife and daughter want to get baptized. They haven't been coming to church because the dad goes hunting on Sundays but hunting season is over, I guess, and they committed to come for sure and they did! We had a baptism date for them on Dec 18 and we asked the dad if he wanted to baptize them and he said yes. So he is meeting with the bishop on Wednesday to find out what he needs to do to baptize them!!! SOOOO awesome to see a family coming together in the gospel and partaking of all the blessing the Lord has in store!
• After that we went and knocked on a man's door and he let us in. We talked to his wife, who makes jewelry which is amazing! They didn't want to hear much but B. went out and showed us all his cars! He is quite the collector! He has a midget (which is some European car, I guess) and all these old cars he fixes up and stuff. Pretty cool!

Thursday

• Saw J! Awesome lesson! We got him to turn off the tv, gave him a Book of Mormon and read Alma 22! https://lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/22?lang=eng Haha! We challenged him and he committed to pray as the king did, and he said "Boyyyy, if I pass out y'all are in trouble!" hahaha So I'm pretty sure he is going to pray this time!
• After that we went to the church for the Christmas party! It was so legit! They have this whole show planned out and people singing. It was awesome! To start they gave you a bag of "sheckles", gold coins, and you went around and had to pay for your food and if you weren't dressed in ole' time attire they wouldn't let you in (except us as missionaries of course) haha! But it was so cool! A lot of work was put into it; which was awesome!

Friday

• Met with a family. Learned how to make homemade eggnog, which was AMAZING!!! We studied the story of Job and are trying to get the father back active again. His wife and her 3 kids come every week and he is right there!

Saturday

• Learned a lesson to call for a ride, for sure! haha We walked about 3 miles on ice and snow to see this family and it took us 1 1/2 hours to get there! haha :) And of course it was freezing! But had a pretty good lesson about the plan of salvation! Hopefully he is baptized soon!

Sunday

• No one can complain how long church is because for lucky me, I spend about 9 hours on average at church now! haha Longest I've ever had church but I love it! 7 o'clock early meetings with ward mission leader and bishops, then Hamilton ward, which starts at 10. We stay for sacrament and then either go teach gospel principles or go to Blodgett Canyons meetings and then go to sacrament with them at 12:30. Then go to gospel principles or leave and go find the people who were supposed to be at church and didn't come! Then elders quorum or young mens. So we are here at the church from 7 to 3:30 just about every sunday :) haha

I'm absolutely LOVING it out here in Montana! Getting to know more and more people every day and remembering names and teaching the gospel! Nothing else I would rather be doing!

I'm doing AWESOME! :)

I love to hear how things are going so keep the letters coming! I miss and love you all!

:) I realized I will get to call home in about 2 weeks!!! How exciting!!

love,

elder parr

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Here is a random sampling of the mission experience so far,
through Justin's eyes!
These were taken while he was in the Provo Mission Training Center.



Love the scriptures, C.hoose T.he R.ight (and send more cookies)! ;)


Give them roots, especially if they're in TEXAS and they will have joy!


Provo, Utah Temple



Always having a good time!





Good friends meet up in all the right places! :)
Elder Parr and Vanhin Weaver (AKA Justin and Bryce)






The MONTANA BILLINGS GROUP