July 6, 2011

Hey Everyone,

 

So this week has been a pretty good one. So last monday after i wrote we went to the Ojeda family´s house for FHE. We watched "The Testaments" and had a quick little lesson. In that family, all of the kids except the oldest brother Martin are members. Also the parents are nonmembers, so the lesson was kind of directed towards them. Tuesday afternoon we went to the familia Taboada´s house for lunch and a lesson. We worked a lot with that family this week preparing them for baptism. After wards we had District Meeting, a few lessons with investigators, and then we went to an investigator named Cecilia´s house. She was there with her niece, Soledad. We talked a little bit about the Book of Mormon and about the movie the Testaments which we had watched with them on Sunday. When we got there, Soledad was really against us and our whole message. But we taught the Restoration to her and Cecilia, and she made a 180 degree turn. The spirit was there helping us a ton, thats about all i can say for sure. After that appointment we went to the Taboada´s again to teach some more points.

 

So on wednesday we had to leave the apartment at 7 for a meeting with Nauel, the Ward Mission Leader. After we went back and studied and all that jazz. For lunch we went to the Carballo family´s house. They own a little bakery, which was pretty cool. We had Milanesa. I am so sick of Milanesa. It is just a  piece of chicken or beef, breaded, and fried. The problem was i was full after two pieces, but sister carballo made me keep eating. I wanted to throw up everywhere. Then we handed out some Baptismal invitations, contacted, stopped by a few investigators houses, and then headed to the chapel so Elder Palmer could interview a baptismal candidate.

 

On thursday i woke up feeling pretty horrible. I just didn´t want to do anything. We went to a member house for lunch, Then stopped by an investigators house. She wasnt there but her daughter and the daughters baby were, so we taught them the restoration. About 5 minutes in the baby got hungry, so she did what all these women do here. Just started breastfeeding right there as we talked to her. That was probably one of the more awckward moments of my life. You just have to keep eye contact at all times. after we went to a new converts house, Oscar Soto. He is super awesome. Then to the church  for the baptismal interviews for the Taboada Children with the Zone Leaders. That night was literally the first night we had been into the apartment on time.

Friday-

 

So friday was a really long day. We had lunch at Natalia´s. She is a member, but her husband is not. We tried to teach him but he was really tough. He doesnt really believe in god, so that made it pretty hard. After we had a few appointments, but all of them fell through, so we contacted for about three hours. Finally a nice, older lady let us in. She is pretty hard core evangelical. Her son is a lifetime missionary, and her grandson is a preacher, but the lesson went well. Then we went to contact some references. We got to the first house, and asked for Miguel. They said Miguel doesnt live here. So we asked for Alejandro, and they said next door. We went there, set up an appointment, and then asked where Miguel lives. They said back at the first house. funny right. After we went to a members house for a little bit. The kids were all rocking out to american music, but had no idea what was being said.

 

Saturday was a good day. We went to a few members houses in the early afternoon, and then went to the chapel to prepare for the baptism. So here is the story of the family getting baptized

 

The parents, Mario and Belén, have been inactive members for about twenty years. As mario tells it, he had been hitting a pretty low point in his life recently and had starting praying for help. A few days later the missionares clapped his house. That was about two weeks before i arrived. so we have been teaching the childeren, Lucio, Melani, and Valentin, and at the same time reactivating the parents.

 

The baptism was awesome. We all got dressed up in our white clothes, took some pictures, and then got started. IT went awesome. Elder Palmer baptized Lucio and Melani, I baptized Valentin, and another boy from the other ward was baptized by his brother. After the service we went to teach Natalia, the daughter of some converts of about 3 years. But she is just not having it. She wont read, wont pray, and we really dont know what else to do.

 

Sunday was a good day. The children were confirmed in sacrament meeting by the bishopric, and then we went out to visit some investigators.

 

This week has been a little bit easier. I think one turning point was thursday morning i was sitting there thinking about the next two years, and how long that was. I was thinking "I hope i dont get a companion that is lazy and doesnt want to work or that breaks rules". And then i realized, i am being that companion kind of. I better fix this. so it has been better. One awesome thing is that a Walmart is being built in my area, which will be done in about a month. So that will be sweet.

 

As tough as the mission is, i know this is where i am supposed to be. To see all these people whose lives have been changed through the gospel is pretty heartening. I have been reading in Jesus the Christ about when the Apostle started their ministry after the ressurection. They had no fear, because they knew the power and importance of the message. I hope i can get to that point. I love you all

 

Elder Mellor

5/12/2011

Sorry  i only have one minute to write you. Case is looking super cute and i love that kid. Would you send me some pictures to hang up. I hope you are all doing well. i love You.

 

Love, Sam

Letter from Sam

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: William Mellor
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: from mom. I think I already sent this!
To: Kim & Sue Mellor


Hey everyone,
 
This week in the MTC has been kind of crazy. All the schedules in the MTC were changed on Monday, so it has taken some getting used to. They got rid of all MDT time, which is alright because it ended up being wasted anyway. Also we no longer use T.E.'s. We just have one scheduled TRC every week. All of our study time is scheduled for us, which i like because I wasnt of fan of having to decide what to study when. Since we got here we have had some awesome sunday night and tuesday night speakers. For my first Tuesday we had Richard G. Scott. It was really good and we were lucky because the district from our zone that had left the day before never got to hear from an Apostle. The next sunday we had the Director of MTC operations, but his previous job had been an executive producer for the mormon messages commercials for the last like 30 years. All he did was show us old mormon messages, but he applied them to our mission and it was really good. For our Devotional this week we had another Apostle, Dallin H. Oaks. This was only the second time in the History of the MTC that two Apostles had spoken in consecutive weeks. We have a pretty awesome zone. There are three districts, with 17 elders and 4 sisters. 15 of the elders are going to argentina and all the rest are going to Stateside spanish missions. Hopefully we will get a new district this next week, because it feels like ours is really small.
 
Its crazy how time works here. The first three days felt like weeks, but after they were over it seemed like  a flash. I still can't tell if i have been here two weeks, two days, or two months. But i'm having a lot of fun. The days are long and tough, but it is worth it. I do need to know if i have had all of my Hepatitis shots, so if you could mail or email that to me, whichever is faster preferably. My P-day is on thursday, so that is the only day that i can check emails. Im glad the delivery of Baby Ry went well, and you definitely need to send some pictures in the mail because i cant print these ones on my off. Tell dad that cool about the backhoe, although im sure finding and fixing whatever part is broken will take at least the next year like usual. I love you all and i miss you.
 
Sam
 
 
 


 
On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Kim & Sue Mellor wrote:
Dear Sam,  

I am sorry I didn't write right away.  My whole week has been kind of a blur also.  Michelle went into the hospital Thursday morning at 7 and by 12:02  baby Ry was born.  Your dad was in on the delivery.  This delivery seemed to go better than the other two which is nice.  I was then BUSY with two cute little girls!  

Your dad flew home Sunday and I came home last night.  Baby Ry has a high Bili though and so is under the "lights" at their home.  It is a bed that when he isn't eating he lays on and is velcroed  in with a light underneath and a light on top.  They go back in this afternoon and have another blood test done to see what his numbers are.  

I read your letter that you sent home.  Sounds like a rough few day.  I am glad things are going better.  

John has a JV game in Ritzville this afternoon that your dad and I are going to go see in just a few minutes.    

Your dad stayed at the hospital last night with a sick baby with pneumonia.  The baby's name was Rye. 

Well I better go get your dad and head to the game.  I will attach some pictures of Ry and Elle and Liv.

Think of you and hope all is going well.  I love you and I am so proud of you and appreciate your sacrifice in serving a mission.  Love, mom/.

Letter from Dad

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Kim & Sue Mellor <ksmellor8@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Elder Mellor,

    I hope I'm writing this early enough for you to get it today.  We just got in from Auburn last night and basically spent two days in airports.  It was fun to see Lauren and you know how much I like to keep up on all the fashion trends.  How's the spanish.  I'm jealous that I'm not learning it with you.  I did manage to draw out the timber frame garden shed on the airplane so hopefully we can get it framed this summer.  Not much else is new here except as you know its mom's birthday and tomorrow we are driving to Seattle for Malia's wedding.  Can't believe how fast everything is going. You're half way through the MTC.  Have you heard whether or not there are any problems with visa's going into Argentina.

   Well, I've got patients waiting so gotta go.  Keep up the good work.  I'm proud of you.     DAD

 

 

How was the trip to auburn. Tell lauren she needs to write me. Dad that is pretty awesome about the garden shed. You definitely need to send me picture. And liv needs to hurry up on that picture album for me.

 

This week was pretty great. We got a new teacher named Hermano Chandler, because Hermana Carlson graduated and you cant teach at the MTC unless you are a student. Hermano Chandler is really great though. He is exactly opposite personality wise from Hermano Wells, which is really nice because i couldnt handle six hours of just hermano well. On saturday we woke up to about three inches of snow. Elder Gifford from Vegas was pretty excited, but it all melted by about noon. We had a substitue teacher named Hermano Jimenez. He is from Mexico. He taught us alot about Latin-American culture and things we should and shouldn't do while we are there. One interesting thing was how we say "i'm sorry" so much in America. We say it for everything, even if we don't mean it, and it has really lost its meaning a lot of the time. In Latin America they will only say it if it is something serious or that they really feel sorry about, which i thought was cool. Sunday was fast sunday. It was really great even though i was starving all day. We spent the whole morning writing our talks for church, because we have to write one even for fast sunday. Than we had mission conference instead of priesthood. It was really good, but really long so i  fell asleep a few times. The presidency talked a lot about internet safety, which i think is a precursor to them giving laptops to missionaries in the near future. Fast and Testimony was really good. Everyone gave powerful testimonies, mostly about the atonement. Then we had our temple walk. That night we had President and Sister Bertasso of one of the District presidencies speak to us. THey talked alot about how the lord will answer our prayers, whether they be big or small. I love sunday nights because we get to watch movies. We watched Mountain of the Lord which was about building the Salt Lake Temple. It is a really great movie. Nothing really happened on Monday except that night Elders Harris, White, and Robinson locked themselves out of their room . I learned that night that you can open a door with an envelope, dental floss, a hanger, and a vacuum. Tuesday night Devotional was given by Elder Stephen G. Wells of the Seventy. He talked a lot about faith as missionaries. And on Wednesday morning we had our third TRC. We taught an Older lady named Sister Gonzales. She was nice but pretty tough on us, which was good. I am loving the MTC and the mission. It is not always easy, but i know it will be worth it. I really learned a lot about the atonement this last week. It made me think that Christ has already atoned for all of our sins. Now it is our job as missionaries to make sure that all of those drops of blood he shed will be taken advantage of. I am loving the gospel more and more every day, and i am excited for the next two year. I love you all so much

Who is this Hermano?

This was from sam from the first few days in the mtc. Anyone who has watched Arrested Development will appreciate it.

Hey,

How is it going. I'm technically only supposed to write my parents, but since you are the only one that wrote me, i think this is alright. The MTC is great. They got right into things. I literally dropped my bags in my room and went straight to my class. We have two teachers, Hermana Carlson and Hermano Wells. I know right. All i could think of that first day is Gob saying "who is this Hermano." I swear those first few days felt like the longest days of my life. I kept thinking how am i supposed to study for that many hours every day. But now i look back and they are all a blur, and all i can think is i don't have enough time in the day to study all that i want too. But the language has been going awesome. My companions name is Elder Crane. He is from Riverton, Utah. He is a great guy, kind of like me in many ways, so we seem to work well together. We have ten elders in our district, all going to Resistencia. Their are over 100 missionaries in the MTC right now going to Argentina. We had a big meeting with the consul from Argentina yesterday, which was pretty good but not really all that informative. But overall the week has gone by so slow and so fast at the same time. I think the highlight was definitely our devotional last night. We heard from Elder Richard G. Scott. He talked a lot about humility, so i definitely got some good info out of it. Also the food is good, but it always seems like either all three choices are really good, or they all kind of suck. The language isn't bad, and i think it will come. You definitely need to send me some pictures of Baby Ry. I'm excited to see him. I love you all.

Elder Mellor

P.S. I probably wont email mom and dad this week but i will write a letter.

April 25, 2011

Hey,

The MTC is going well. The days are long and hard, but it is so worth it. Thats awesome that case loved the water park. He is going to be so big when i get home. You need to send me some pics really soon. Please send me your address so i cant write you, because im techinically not supposed to email anyone but mom and dad. I love you all.

Sam

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Lizzy Cox <rollem8@yahoo.com> wrote:

hey sammy,

how's it going? how was your easter? devon and i had to talk in church so we didn't get to go home, but had some people over dinner.

how is the mtc? good food? devon and i are starting a diet today and i already want to quit. i'm hungry!!!

case is doing well. getting taller and taller. he started saying JESUS today which is pretty cute. he can also "MOO"! everything moo's! ducks, horses, deer, etc. it's pretty funny, but he's a great mooer!

this last friday we went to kellogg and went to the indoor water park. case wasn't too sure at first but ended up loving it. he went on every slide! i tried the surfing thing and fell so hard. i still can't move my neck normal yet.

hope you are doing well. we love you! thanks for being such a great example.

love, the cox family