Letter Home April 7, 2014

From: Matthew Alpin
Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎April‎ ‎7‎, ‎2014 ‎1‎:‎08‎ ‎PM

Hola! 

Sister Stamm's cake was super good. I ate like half of it by myself. I have some pictures of it. Yeah I got all my birthday cards. 

That is so cool you guys had an investigator in your home! He sounds awesome. Do you remember me telling you about Matt Minauga? We baptized him when I was in South Jordan. He emailed me and he got his mission call. He got called to the Argentina, Cordoba mission! I am so excited for him. How cool is that?! I will probably be able to go when he receives his endowments!!

General Conference was so good!! It always goes by way too fast though! We watched the Saturday sessions at the Smith's. I love that family. Sunday Morning we ate breakfast with the Clawson's and then watched it at their house. Then Sunday afternoon we watched it at the Smith's again. I feel like the overall theme was to have courage and to endure to the end. I can't wait to get the Ensign and read all of them! I loved Dallin H. Oaks talk at priesthood. We missed like the first five minutes though. I didn't go to the conference center. We couldn't get any of our investigators to go. Did you catch the part where they told you to be reading Preach My Gospel? I hope ya'll are doing that. This week as I studied Preach My Gospel I noticed that it says that the priesthood is the power and authority to act in God's name (which I know and teach), but the rest of the sentence said for the salvation of souls, which I some how exclude when I usually teach it. I know it is something small, but it stuck out to me as I read it. Read Chapter 3 Lesson 4, the part about following the prophet. I LOVE the first paragraph! It talks about truth. That also stuck out to me this week. 

We have been teaching Kelton (a 9 year old) and his less active mom Brittney. We got tickets from the bishop for Brittney and her fellowshipper in the ward to go to the Saturday Morning session. She agreed to go. I was so scared she was going to cancel last minute and not go because she tends to do that a lot with church. But she went! They had a great experience too. 

We were walking and saw this older man mowing his lawn. You could tell he was struggling so we offered to help. I finished mowing his lawn for him while Elder Dean talked with him. He invited us inside and we taught the restoration and invited him to be baptized. He said he has read the whole Book of Mormon before and believed that Joesph Smith was a prophet. It was such a miracle to find him! 

Last Monday I got some sweet deals at the D.I. 

Love you All. Enjoy your Monday!

Letter Home April 28th

On Apr 28, 2014 1:17 PM, "Matthew Alpin" wrote:

Hello Family!

I am so happy to hear how involved you guys are with the missionaries and missionary work. Nothing brings greater happiness! On Tuesday when you go with the sisters make sure it is BCS ( Brief, Clear, and Simple) and speak from your heart. You will do so good! It sounds like a wonderful fireside you went to. That is something we are encouraging members to do is just invite their neighbors that they don't know over for dinner and get to know them. It is easier to share the gospel when you are friends with the person and actually know them. It is a great opportunity for them to come some place where the spirit is. Also if there is pictures of the temple or of Christ it could lead to them asking questions, which can lead to good discussion! I am so proud of you guys and your missionary work!! 

I miss the days of dinner with them family and all the chatting. 

Awesome things happened this week! Brother Tuckfield has a son on a mission. His son has a friend who isn't a member. So he told us where he lives and we stopped by. His name is Cole. He is 20 and married to Codee who is a less active member. They have a 1.5 year old son, who is so cute! They told us that just a couple of hours before we stopped by Codee was telling Cole how she wants to start coming back to church and he said he would support her. He has no knowledge of the gospel and said we could come teach him. We met with him on Friday and committed him to baptism on May 17. He is so prepared. They both are. We had stake conference this weekend and they came to it! We haven't had an investigator come to church in about a month so it was so exciting! 

At stake conference we had Elder Nash from the seventy come and speak. The title of it was "Hastening the work of Salvation through the faith, prayer, and efforts of the members, their families, and the full time missionaries." It talked about making changes in our life to improve our life and be more involved. Elder Nash shared a story of an 11 year old girl. She was from some country in South America. Her family wasn't members, but she wanted to get baptized. So she did. Then the prophet was talking about having family home evening every week. She asked her parents if they could have family home evening and they said no. She went to her bishop and didn't know what to do. He asked the 11 year old, " Do you have stuffed animals?" She said, "Yes." He told her to have family home evening with her stuffed animals. And that is exactly what she did. Every Monday she would hold FHE with her stuffed animals. I loved that story because it shows such great faith in that little girl!

Last Monday I got a card from Brother and Sister Carstens. When I served in Kearns, they lived in my stake. They recently moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho. That is only like 20-30 minutes from Rexburg. I love them so much they are the best. They remembered that I go to BYU Idaho and they wanted to get a hold of me. They searched me and facebook and couldn't find me, they tried BYU idaho's website, and searching Matthew Alpin on Google. They still couldn't find me. She searched Elder Alpin on Google and she found my blog and then was able to get my address and send me a card! How crazy is that? They said whenever I'm up that way I can stop by and visit them. I defiantly will. They were one of my favorite families. 

Oh yeah transfers were last Wednesday. I am still in Sandy and still with Elder Dean. I'm glad about that. We get along good and work hard! For future reference if anyone asks you can tell them. I am serving in the Sandy Central Stake. I've served in the Western Hills stake in Kearns and the Parkway stake in South Jordan. 

Sister Summers is our landlord. She is a widow. I love her! Her son lives right next door. So she has grandkids coming in and out all of the time. One of them is RJ. He is my favorite. We are pretty tight. He just turned 8 so he got baptized yesterday. We went to it. Sister Summers has 7 kids and lots of grandkids. Most of them were there. So the room was just packed with family. The spirit was so strong! I almost started crying. It was just such a wonderful spirit of love and support. I like big families. They are cute. Do you know the song Gethsemane? They sing it in primary. It's not in the children's hymn book though. I love it though! The words are so true and strong! Look it up and listen to it.
I hope you have an enjoyable day! I love and miss ya'll

Oh yeah! I almost forgot. Mother's Day is super soon! We talked to the Hamidah's this week. They offered their home for us to skype and call. I told them I wasn't going to skype only call you guys. Sister Hamidah chastised me. She has a son on a mission. So I will skype you guys I guess.. We want to do it at 4 PM here. So6 PM there. Does that work?

I love you guys! have a good day :)