Seward's Homecoming Dance

Dear Family,

I don't think I have a story that will top my Jello making story from last week but I'll sure try sometime. So last week we were able to go to the Trail Center and the zoo with Mark and Merlin, both railroad guys and oh boy was it fun!! Mark is borderline crazy but he sure made the trip fun! We got some new quotes from him that aren't really appropriate to put here but just know that they are pretty good! We didn't have that gorilla attack us while we were there because when we went to see him they just barely fed him so he was a little busy with that, but it was still fun.

So a funny story that happened on Wednesday, I got asked to Seward's Homecoming Dance! LOL!! So long story short, she was asked by her boyfriend to go but he dumped her like 2 weeks ago and she was sad and didn't want to go with anyone at all but when we were visiting them she said she'd go if I went with her. She was somewhat joking of course but I technically still got asked...too bad this didn't happen when I was in high school. ;)

Someone that we have been teaching is Alex and he has been taught by the missionaries before. His good friend is in the branch and we have been using him to see Alex. He should be watching some of general conference next week with us but he has been doing well. We had dinner with the people that he knows and we had a good meal and a good lesson with them. Both Alex and Ty are on the cross country team so they get along great.

We also helped another guy named Mark that is over Foodnet, once a month they get a load from Pepsi Company of their expired/bad/damaged pallets so we went to the Pepsi Company and we loaded half of the bed of his truck up with pop and stuff in Lincoln. We also got a new saying, someone cut him off while we were driving with him and he called them a "jerkweed" I haven't head that one before!!

We helped a family move Saturday and oh boy are we still sore!! The move didn't start out the best, the dude got stuck in his yard and got mad and left but come to find out he only destroyed that plastic cover on the tailgate and that was it. We took a break for a bit then came back together and got almost all of their big stuff moved so that was good but oh boy were we tired!!

That's about our week, nothing too crazy. We do have a muddy car from all the rain and backroads we take and our phone broke again so we are phoneless so that's fun...This week is transfers so we will find out on Thursday what happens for my last transfer. Crazy to think I'm almost done...so weird!!

Love, Elder Searle

Contestants for Chopped

Dear Family,

Do you guys remember my story about how hard it was for me to make a PB&J sandwich with all those ants?? Well I have another story like that...so we were going through our apartment and we had either Beenie Weenies, Ramen Noodles or Jello. We are holding those Beenie Weenies till we have NOTHING left...so we decided to make some Jello, how hard could Jello be?? So we were making it and were looking for a pan that would work, well the best thing we found that was big enough was a lid. So we had it balanced and figured it would just be better to remove the handle so it wouldn't wobble, great idea!! It was flatter than the road kill we see out here, so we poured our Jello mixture into the lid and we were so proud of ourselves when we noticed it was leaking....well, we were so caught up on how flat it was that we didn't realize the hole was from the handle we removed...DERP!! So we had red counter tops and Jello falling down the counter tops. BUT... we poured it into 2 pie dishes so we saved the Jello, too bad the Jello tasted like crap!! I'm not sure if it's cause the Jello expired 2 years ago or if we didn't boil the water long enough, looks like we should have just used the Beenie Weenies. :)

Also to show how good of cooks we are, I made some broccoli cheddar soup stuff and it was alright, just didn't really have any taste so I was looking around trying to find things to improve it and the best thing I came up with was cereal! So I just poured some cereal into it, Elder Pacheco didn't like it but I thought it helped. :)

Here is our miracle for the week, so we got a text from a member saying that he had something for us and wanted to meet him in Seward, well we told him we'd be in Milford for a bit so he came to us and brought us Pizza Hut (which was awesome!) Well, he slipped both of us $100 and told us to go buy some winter gear. So of course we were like "oh no, no, no not this much man" Then I was telling him I will be returning to my people in the mountains soon so I don't need anything but he told me to go buy some nice ties or something. So that was our miracle, looks like those Beenie Weenies will be staying in the cabinet. It was even a better miracle for Elder Pacheco because his family was worried how he'd get his winter gear and he will be almost set by the time we go get his coat. There was a lot of gear left at our apartment from the past elders and a lot of it fits him so he's almost good. I have the windows open and in shorts and he's freezing, poor Arizona boy is so cold.

We had our hog roast that the branch did and it was fun, played Minute to Win It games and it was pretty fun. We went to Taylor's softball game and enjoyed that, also taught mission prep class again to all 3 priests we have here, we also did a legit District Meeting with them and they enjoyed it. We also got a new investigator this week, he used to meet with the missionaries before but lost track fo them when he moved and he has just been busy, but hopefully we can get the ball rolling with him again.

I bought a new suit!!! IT'S AWESOME!!! It is the strangest creme colored suit I've ever seen!! It was a whole $1 for the suit coat and I got the closest matching pants I could find for $4 at a thrift store in Seward. I wore it to District Meeting and that might be the only time I ever wear it. Everyone said they liked it but that could be just because it is totally different than our normal black and gray suit and then BAM!! Elder Searle the Wombat King in a gross creme suit!!

Oh the picture of Fred the Fuzz that's on my knee is from Tami and Brandy, It looked super funny because with my shorts all you could see were his feet so it looked like someone was crawling up my leg, but yes, Fred the Fuzzball on my hairy whiter than white could ever be legs. 

So yep, very interesting week and a lot of funny stories, hopefully you guys enjoy those and yes we are working hard,  having fun, we aren't starving missionaries yet so don't worry Shorty. ;)

Today we are going to the Trail Center and the Zoo with Conductor Merlin the Train Man and his friend so it will be a good day. Well, hope everyone has a good week!!

Elder Searle the Wombat out!!

 My new $4 suit!! 

 Elder Pacheco

 Elder Searle's drawing on the banana box

22 Month Mark

Dear Family,

Happy 22 month mark to me and Happy Birthday to the greatest mom in the world!! I hope you enjoyed the picture of me and the wombat that I had sent to you. So to explain the wombat...our Zone Leaders gave everyone in the Zone a spirit animal and I am the wombat...I'm not sure what to think about that but Elder Pacheco sure had a good laugh after the Dolzals showed us the picture of one. He isn't very happy what he got, which is a toad, they were going to give him either an ox or a gorilla but they felt like a toad was best.

I feel and look so beat up lol!! I got punched by our recent convert cause I was teasing her so she gave me a dead arm..twice..and yes, she's only 14 years old BUT I've had a bruise for 2 1/2 weeks now! Then I cut my wrist from moving a TV, sliced up my elbow moving a custom 1000 lb. (felt like it!) entertainment center up from someone's basement. Then to put the icing on the cake, I got CHIGGERS!!! A whole 16 bites on my FEET!! OH MY GOSH they itch SOOOO bad!! I woke up in the middle of the night trying to claw my ankle out of my foot and I thought a had spiders attacking me. So we bugged bombed our place cause I thought "oh no, I'm not having ANY spiders attacking me again! Then we went to Mama Dolzals and had her play mom for me and turns out they are chigger bites. I couldn't get a very good picture of them. I don't want to wear shoes because they rub and make them itch sooo much. Just imagine having 3-4 mosquitoes bites in one spot, that's what 1 chigger feels like and I have 16 of them, they take a month or two to fully go away. I'm just getting old and beat up.

Had exchanges with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Pawlenchuck in his area and our first night sucked. It was raining, I didn't have a rain jacket and no one answered their doors or phones. Except one girl answered but hung up when we told her who we were. But, we were walking by some apartments and I found 2 $10 bills, there was no way to figure out who it belonged to so I decided to give them to my companion to help him out with money since he's low for the rest of the month. The next day we went street contacting at UNl campus and handed out like 20 cards and found someone that acted super interested and we talked to her for about half an hour. Then we were walking down the main part where they have booths and everything set up and we talked to some catholic kids so that was good.

Driving into Lincoln today we saw the Nebraska flag blowing in the breeze so I got a picture of that, it looked pretty cool. It's pretty close to the stadium but I took the pic for you guys to see. 

I think that's about our excitement for the week, on Saturday our branch is doing a hog roast so that will be pretty legit.Other than that, it should be a normal week. I've been enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having. It's sooo nice, my companion thinks it's freezing though, that darn Arizona boy is going to freeze when it really gets cold. ;)

Love, Elder Searle

Country Cruisin'

Dear Family,

Hey Hey Hey! How's all y'all country people doing in dem mountains!? :)  This week was pretty darn awesome, especially seeing how we were able to watch the Nebraska/BYU game and oh boy was that a good game. This week also consisted of my first district meeting as a District Leader, my companion cutting down the wrong bush for an older lady, fishing, eating grilled pineapple and raiding a member's fridge.

Let's start with the district meeting, so the zone leaders had a meeting in Omaha, well Elder Colby just bought himself a cowboy hat so he wore that to the district meeting and wore it the whole time he gave us training and I wore my funny rainbow rooster tie! Elder Colby is training and I bet his kid was so confused what was going on, but it was fun! Then that night, we were at our place and I was like hey, I'm going to carry around some Plan of Salvation pamphlets in my hand, I have some in my backpack but I'm going to carry some, well, that night we went and saw a lady and she was like "I just don't know why I'm here or where I'm going?" And I'm all like "well, here's a pamphlet for you!!" So that was a pretty legit experience.

Wednesday we went and helped a lady cut down some of her flowers and she also decided to make us lunch instead of giving us $10 and a Subway coupon. She just told us what she wanted cut down and everything. She has a hard time going up and down the stairs and getting around so that's why she just told us while we were inside what to do. Well, my companion was like ok and went outside and went ham on a bush. Well, turns out it was the wrong bush! We were looking around her yard for the other bushes she wanted us to cut and then we went inside and was like "where were they at again?" That's when we learned we cut down the wrong ones...oopes!! Oh well, she still gave us food so I guess it's all ok? 

Thursday my boy got some packages in the mail and his family sent him his fishing pole and tackle box and he really, really wanted to use it. Well, we had dinner with a family out in Garland and they had this pond thing by their place cause they live in the country, so my boy got to fish for a bit and that made him happy. 

Then the Nebraska/BYU game, HOLY COW!! That was so awesome!! Now us missionaries won't be able to do ANY work for AT LEAST a week or two since we are all now hated...I kid..it's not that bad. I can't believe the one game we got to watch was the most intense game ever!! It went well watching it at the Dozals, even though they were pretty sad Nebraska lost...it was still a great game though. :)

Then Labor Day, I think everyone just really wanted to play football again so we played some football at Mahoney Park with a good group of Elders and some members and it was pretty fun, then we went and played basketball and now all of us are pretty much dead...none of us could walk and we all had a headache after, but it was fun and we all lost 20lbs. :P

There isn't anything too exciting for this week, I will hit my 22 months out mark on the 11th and then it's mom's birthday on the 13th!! I didn't forget!! :D 

Love you all!!

Elder Searle

Elder Pacheco happy to be fishing 

New Rules and a Great Reward

Dear Family,

We started off the week with Zone Conference in Grand Island again and it was pretty legit. One of the things that we did were we all sat down and went over the rules we had and changed some/added some. Well, we no longer have to suffer with ONLY MoTab and conference talks. Don't get me wrong, they are great but not if that is the only thing you can listen to 24/7. Also our mission president gave us a challenge a month ago to memorize 12 scriptures and to pass them off to our district leader or in my case, the zone leader. He said there would be a great reward, well, he finally told us what the reward was at Zone Conference. 

If we pass them all off, we will be able to watch the Nebraska vs BYU game at a members house!!! WOOT!!! That's going to be sooooo awesome!!! So I had to memorize the crap out of the ones I had left and I got them all! I just have to pass them off tomorrow at district meeting since the zone leaders are going to be there. So Saturday we will be watching the game at the Dolzals. :)

This week went by really fast and we were busy most of the time, we planted the remaining 2 trees for Conductor Merlin the Train Man and we (I say we but it was either my companion or Merlin) cut the phone/internet line while planting one of the trees so we had to get that fixed.

So some things we did this week, we made banana bread with a family, not to worry, no banana bread will ever compare to my moms! We sat at Napa for like an hour waiting for them to change the oil in the car, drove about 400 miles in a week, got to play at a playground while we waited for C to show up and that's about it. This week should be pretty fun seeing how we will be watching a football game! Love you all, take luck and have fun and hopefully the Huskers will destroy BYU!!! :D

Playing on the playground :)



Questions mom asked-

What have you enjoyed about Nebraska? 
Seeing all the different religions and walks of life, especially if you compare it to little Morgan. Everything is green, but I would like the dry air and dead grass over green grass and the humidity here.

How is your new mission president?
He is pretty awesome, right now he gave us a mission commitment to memorize 12 scriptures in 30 days and for those that do it, they will get a great reward. I'm guessing the great reward will be we now know 12 memorized scriptures. :) I have the first 7 memorized.

What has surprised you about your mission?
How tired we are everyday. :)  I guess how easy it is now, now get me wrong, it is very hard and challenging but all you talk about is what comes from the heart, pretty easy when it comes down to that.

Do I ever hear from people that I taught in other areas?
Sort of, I text them about every other month. Since I'm going home soon I will text them and invite them to my departing testimony meeting, so I'm just waiting for that.