So Sorry I'm So Slow Posting!

It's been almost a month since I updated Paul's blog, so I am now enclosing a months worth of e-mails. If you want to send him a letter for Christmas, remember the Pouch will only take one page letters, not in envelopes, so use his Mexico address. He would love to hear from you! Russ and I were in Cabo the first of the month, and threw Paul kisses from our cruise ship (he was only 2 or 3 hours away). The other picture is from the MTC.
November 3, 6:46 pm “Sweet!” well what a week! me and my new comp are tearing it up. but i cant really think about anything else right now other than jesse! i feel like dad right now im freaking crying like a little girl! that is so awesome you have no idea! wow. but i really dont have time to tell you about everything. I’m sorry. we haven’t had water in three days and we’ve had to get up at 5 to take our investigators to stuff. this work is amazing i love it so
much! i don’t know why the lord does all that he does for me at times but he does and i sure do appreciate it! thanks for everything.-
much love,
elder castleberry

November 3, 10:39 pm “little more time” hey i just got done emailing everyone and we have a little more time before we gotta go out and tract so i’m just gonna share an experience or two with ya. so last night we were out getting information from people i don’t even know how to say it. actualsizing the lists of the ward? i don’t know. but it is crazy stressful cause no one’s ever there but we went to this one apartment place and it was november second (day of the dead or something like that)(good bread) so every one was drunk and we couldn’t get in anywhere so after we couldn’t find this person we were just walking to this other place and said hi to these people through the window and they let us in for some reason and it was just amazing. this lady is probably gonna get baptized she was freaking out she’s like i know its true i know it and she was like crying and stuff saying how much she could feel it in her heart that she new the church had been restored. it s super cool to have experiences like that. especially after having such a crazy week! i don’t know what else to say about this week. my comp is bomb!
love ya tons tons tons!!!!
elder castleberry

November 10, 4:24 pm “que tal” hey ya i got your love and kisses you blew to me thanks tons! so yeah if your wanting to get me a package to me you should send it to me now. or like last week. cause it sucks the mail here. cause i’m in the baja so its slower. because they have to send it over the sea. its lame. but i don’t know what to tell you this week because i don’t even know what happened between this week and last. it just all mixes into one! its going by super fast right now and its kinda scary. i always feel like i’m in an incredible rush. its tough having a mexican for a companion because its just in their nature to be super slow at everything! its ok though he’s a stud. oh he’s a convert of 2 years i don’t know if i told you that but thats really cool to have someone that has that excitement of the gospel with them all the time. it reminds me of how cool it is! and how excited i should be about all this stuff. i’m not gonna lie i kinda wanna be a convert. i’m super jealous of every person we teach. i wanna hear the joseph smith story for the fist time! would i accept it? how could i deny it? oh man its just crazy. i love being a missionary i really do its awesome. super easy too. i don’t know who said it was hard. what fools! well yeah. everything’s super good. i love ya tons. and yeah. the church is true.
bye!
elder castleberry

November 17, 5:15 pm “how’s the snow?” hey--i miss ya tons. this week was pretty good. well we had the temple re dedication and president monson spoke at it and so did elder eyring, wow how do you spell that guys name is that right? nbd. but yeah it was super good. we didn’t have church just went to the church to watch the re dedication it was a super good experience, we did the hosanna shout or whatever that thing is it was super funny. i had a ball. my comp didn’t know what on earth was going on he’s only got 2 years in the church so he’s still way new with every thing its really funny. he’s a stud. we’re teaching like mad. we have really spiritual lessons which is good. the problem is that the lessons are way too long! its tough to have the people understand everything that we tell them in a short time. oh well we just gotta get more in tune with the spirit or something i don’t even know. its all going good. i miss my good family back home. i think about every one all the time and its amazing how much i talk about every one in all my lessons. its really a huge strength to come from such a family. i have learned so much from every single one of my brothers and i´ve even learned more from my sister! she rocks! looking back at my life before my mission its interesting to think about that pretty much every experience i’ve had has prepared me for this time in my life. i don’t know what i’m gonna do after! cool. well i love you tons.
keep on keepin on.
elder castleberry.
p.s. i wanna leave you a challenge and everyone else in the family to pray again to know if the book of mormon is true. i got that challenge the other day and i’m so glad i did it. the feelings of the spirit are un deniable. this really is the fullness of times we are all so blessed. i love this gospel more than i can even try to express, i know with out a shadow of a doubt that its true. love you all!

November 24, 3:46 pm “you rock!” hey, you rock. i love ya tons thanks for keeping me up on everything. geeze i don’t even have to live there and i feel like i’m there every monday. super weird. but anywho everything is still going good. i’m loving it out here. its not super super hot everyday now its just pretty hot. and i just got a warning that i have like a minute left so thats not good. sorry i got really distracted today in my emails. no bueno! shoot i gotta send this or you´ll get nothing. but i love you. the work is super good right now and i miss ya!
choose the right!"
elder castillo!


November 24, 3:40 p.m. dear dad, i love the little things in life, the little conformations that we get, the little promptings of the spirit.  i got that as i read your letter and i thank you.  just something little that has helped my testimony grow just that much more. the testimony of a father cannot be described. its something we have to feel. i feel that confirmation every time you talk of something you know is true. thank you for this example. i realized this week that i wasn´t meant to be anything that i am today. and i feel that me, more than some other people were meant to just fail miserably in life! but i made it through and all of it is not thanks to me at all but to you and mom. for raising just great kids. i have learned from all of them and thats the advantage i have above others. all the good qualities from all my brothers and sister and parents i have tried to adapt. thats why i have to go out and be the best instrument i can be. thanks dad for everything. you talk about me being nice to my mom and i know i wouldn’t do that if you weren’t 10 times nicer. you lucked out with her dad! i love you tons! this is a great work, thanks for not letting me fail.
love you,
elder castleberry

A Little over a year ago. . .

A little over a year ago, Paul and his buddies were all graduating from high school and seminary. Today, the ones in the picture are all on missions, except Jesse, who is getting baptized this evening at 7 p.m. He didn't want his friends to know--he wanted to tell them. It was so hard not to mention it in my e-mail this morning. We love Jesse and are so excited for him!

Paul's E-mail sent October 27, 4:33 hola!
buenas!
hows it all goin back home? why are you all partyin so much without me? seriously, a cruise! what the heck! i haven’t been able to go on a cruise in so long. since like last summer when i went on that one cruise in europe. remember when i went to europe? that was super tight! but anywho its all good here i got a new companion finally and he’s really cool. i think i’m just glad to get rid of my last companion cause he was a total slap! i told my new comp about what he did and he’s like wow. that’s terrible. oh and my new comp doesn´t speak english so that’s gonna rock my world! its all good. i’ll learn faster that’s nice. i’m still in la paz my comp went to cabos. so maybe you´ll see him when you’re there. elder pineda. he speaks pretty good english so he´ll understand you. maybe. but this week past was super cool i was teaching tons cause he finally let me. and its the coolest thing ever! i love teaching about joseph smith there’s really nothing like it. after that first vision when you look up and see this random person all teary eyed its just incredible. i love it so much. there’s no denying the truthfulness of this message and the spirit that’s there. its amazing that he was 14. who would believe that if it weren’t true! some little kid saw God? yeah right. it´s foolish right? but no! its true! i learn so much everyday i love it. the message of the restoration alone is nothing. its all in the spirit that testifies to the people. now i see why without the spirit you CANNOT TEACH! oh its so cool. i love this so much. its truly amazing. we´ve got some super bomb investigators it’s sweet! this church is true its amazing. the work is going on and it always will. keep strong in everything you do and always remember your faith!

amarte,

Elder Castleberry

3 E-MAILS IN 1 DAY!

"party in Mexico" not really a party here. it´s just work work work and it´s pretty sweet. im starting to get the hang of it here i think. it took longer than i thought cause in atlanta i was in the flow of it super fast. i thnk thats just cause my trainer there was a little more helpful. and i cuold understand him too that always helps. but yeah i love seeing the ocean. i see it everyday! haha i tract on the beach pretty much. dont you know where la paz is! haha its really cool. and they have shells everywhere, like way super cool shells too. you would love it here ma. i bet you could walk down the beach with a huge duffel bag and fill it up in like an hour with super cool bags. i dont know what to tell you about what happened this week. it was hot everyday. i dont really know who we found and didn´t this week. all the weeks kinda mix together its really weird. it seems like yesterday i was in the backyard snowboarding! its´crazy how fast time flies. buy yeah the spanish is slowly coming along. im teaching 3 things in the first lesson and its super tough for the joseph smith story cause i never say the same thing. so i mess up alot. but like michael jordan says`:i have failed over and over and over again. this is why i succeed. i freaking love that quote! MJ is the bomb.com. and its really true. you kinda start to look for opportunities to fail cause you know if you mess up someone will fix you and then you dont mess up again. well. you usually mess up again but you get closer and thats all that really counts right! i dont know what other cool things happened this week. i miss yáll alot. and love yall too!

keep it real,

elder castleberry

p.s. could you please send me a print of the king follet serman by the prophet joseph smith. its when he spoke at a guys funeral. its super super sweet. i´ve only read it once and i wanna get some more out of it. so if ya could that would be great! thans love you

p.p.s. holy freak your emails are long! but do you think i should just start writing an email to everyone? and just answer your questions in a general type email? i think that would be a good idea. then ali wouldnt be so worried haha she told me she wrecked on her 4 wheeler i started bustin out laughing cause she said she broke ribs. then she told me she was kidding and i got all upset. is that bad? haha just kidding! oh im still super funny huh? your so lucky to have a son like me!

love you!

WOW!

E-mail received Monday, October 13, 1:26 p.m. Yeah. . . monday. . .hello!
Hows it all goin? Sounds like its super! i had a pretty sweet week. there was a hurricane so it was really freaky tracting in all that rain and wind. and the telephone wires fallling, and all the palm tree branches were on the floor; it was super scary. but its cool its back to being very very hot every single day. nothin like AC. . . it´s gift from the gods when we get into someone’s house who has it. (can i say that?) oh well. but yeah, i had a really cool week. we saw a dog get nailed by a car and go flyin and this lady started screamin. blood everywhere. should i tell you that? i dunno, it was super freaky! but pretty cool too. yeah. but we had a really good week in finding people this week. finally a little success. we’re probably gonna baptize this family if we can get the slap son to clean up his ways! stinkin drunks! he´s comin along though; it’s good. its super interesting to think about how we make it through all the things we make it through. i´ve been thinking a lot about that this week, about how have we made it. how did a 14 year old kid defy everything that satan threw at him and change history? is it just our faith in God or something much more? i was thinking a lot about this. how do we do it? and i´ve come to a conclusion that may be a surprise, and the answer lies in our virtue. what a power this is. virtue. it allows us to do it all, and when vice comes in its way, it will be destroyed like a sand castle in the middle of a raging flood. this is how it’s done; if we can always remember that vice with all it is, will never, for it can never, stand for one moment against virtues up lifted arm! what a blessing! well, my time is just about up so i gotta go do some work. but i´ll just leave you with my short simple testimony that i know without a doubt that joseph smith truly was a prophet of god and that he really saw our father in heaven and his son jesus christ that brilliant morning in those trees. i also know satan is out there trying to stop us. but just remember, no unhollowed hand can stop the work from progressing! i love it! this church rock! it´s such a blessing! thanks for everything!

much love,



Elder Castleberry

Conference was Great!

hey,

yeah the week wasn´t too bad here. we didnt get to watch conference on saturday. we did get to see priesthood session and that was good. for what i understood! and we did get to watch it on sunday which was super great. we were recognized in the letter the president sends to the whole mission for getting alot of people to sacrament. that was pretty cool. there weere like 10 elders on the list. good stuff. but the only tough part was that we had to watch it all in spanish so it was super tough to get anything out of it cause its on super crappy speakers so it´s all fuzzy sounding and i just didn´t understand what was going on. its ok though i got some good stuff outta it. oh i think that my spanish has finally passed up my sign language! i mea i know more spanish words than sign words now i think. it would probably still be easier to get around with sign cause if i cant say something i just act it out any they´d get it. and spanish uses way weird stuff it tlking and i dont understad when you´d use a lo or a le or a la or a los or les or nos, etc. etc. etc. it´s all messed up! haha oh well its coming. i can actually understand alot and im starting to wish i didn´t because the people are so freaking stupid! we knock on a persons door and say hi were missionaries and what ever and they´re like no im busy i gotta mow my lawn, were like uh, your yards all dirt.. oh yeah but the dogs in the back im really busy sorry were like can we help? no im leavin right now.. oh i thouht you were mowin your lawn? and something about a dog? yeah... they´re idiots. they make up the worst stuff about it all. i dont under stand at all. its ok though everything is good. love ya tons!


adios!

eldercastleberry

Seattle!

E-mail from Paul September 27, 2008:
i though i told you to stop goin on trips without me what the fetch! haha just kidding. your funny mom i love how much you worry about everything. yes mom im watching what i eat. i watch it on the plate move around and i watch my fork stap it and i watch in go in my mouth. then i watch it come back out a couple hours later. its a very interesting process. im sitting there thinking why do i have to eat this. but dont worry. we only eat once every day its crazy! we dont get to eat dinner! just one big lunch that the memebers make for us. we eat at 7 in the morning then at 2 at a members then when we get home at night at after we plan and everything so at about 10. its tough work mom im always so hungry! but i dont really thing about it which is weird. everyonce in a while i hear my stomach and im like wow. i dont even feel that hungry. its super cool. but the language... oh the language... its spanish. ya you can learn it. its not that hard. thats sweet they´re both goin to mexico! were all gonna be speaking spanish when i get back! haha im gonna love talking to pretty much all my friends cause theres not very many who speak spanish. im gonna be like oh you dont know spanish im sorry. cafe rio wiht jacksons gonna be the best i bet haha! but anywho. ya i dont realyl wanna waste time writing a thing for the newsletter i think you could do it better than me anyways. i have like no time to email as it is! gosh i hate this whole half hour thing. it takes me awhile to write you and we have to write the president too and that takes awhile to tell whats goin on! its super lame oh well. but snap you havin a great time out there wihtout me huh. you lukcy dog you! well alriht thanks for all you love. and wheres this package! haha just kidding i guess it takes like a month or 2 to get here. lame huh? send a bunch of stamps for me so i can write friends will ya? the stamps here are so expensive. it costs like a buck 50 to write to the states! and i cant send packages cause its just way too much money. but ya i gotta write the president now i have like 3 minutes!

love you


your favorite!!

Viva Mexico!

(note- For time......sake, I just copy/paste paul's emails, I really enjoy reading them the way they come so I figured anyone else would too)

well where do i start! ok first of all im in the wonderful state of baja california sur, in la paz it´s awesome! and my companion is a mexican and his name is elder pineda he´s way cool and he is very helpful. eventhough i cant really understand nothing its all going very well! i love it here. the people in our ward are so sweet! it´s super hot out and i have only half my luggage and i have tons of blisters! it´s ok though no worries they´re almost gone now. its been super these last couple days walkin around. we havent been very successful in finding new people which is very depressing but we did get a baptismal date so thats good! ok and it sounds like everythig is goin very well back home thats good. i heard you gave a great talk mom! spot on! oh the missionary that didn´t show up was just late and he got on the flight just after us so he actually caught up with us in dallas. it was a close one though it was cool. shoot i only have a half hour to write people and i still have to write the president this is super lame i think. but its ok. i love ya tons mom thanks for being such an awesome example i love you tons!!

adios!!

Elder Castleberry

p.s. you should send me a bunch of beef jerkey!

Converting Convicts (unedited)

Sup!

so ya i'm just chillin here in atlanta, it's really sweet. there's tons of spanish people! it's cool cause they're from like all over. it's awesome though cause i'm starting to like understand people after just a week here. i dont speak much when we teach but i bare my testimony so tahts all good right? :) haha but anywho. my new companions name is Elder Adams. he's sweet he's from sandiego and he's like really really good at spanish, like better than all the other missionaries. people think he's actually from out of the states it's funny. people like ask where he's from and he says he's from honduras and they believe it cause he talks just like a honduran. but ya, tons has already happened it's so freaking cool! we taught this one kid who's way interested, he came to church and he's pretty much getting baptized. but we dont know if he can cause he's on probation for a drive by shooting. he's in a gang called vato loco's. they're nuts, but all his gang members are in jail right now cause the drive by, he was only in jail for a month cause they couldn't find the prints on his gun, funny huh? so he's way interested. then we taught this black guy, in english which was weird, and he was way religious he like started claping his hands praising jesus, it was funny, then we had him pray at the end and he had us all stand in a big circle and hold hands while he prayed like yelling "OH LORD JESUS! THANK YOU FOR THESE WONDERFUL MEN OF GOD, BLESS THEY'RE SOULS!" it was funny he said a bunch of stuff i was laughing so hard. but all is well here, i finally got my luggage and stuff so that is nice. ya. there's been way cool experiences. i live in tucker right now and were white washing in so tahts been really tough. our area is like way huge. we drive around so much. there's four people living in the apartment and it's a two person apartment, we actually live outside our area, weird huh? but ya, me and my companion have to sleep on these air mattresses cause we dont have beds taht stinks! it's alright though. we go knockin doors everyday and it's funny if we knock on a persons door who's not latino or doesn't speak spanish we just say wanna be baptized! haha then ask is there's latinos that live there. we dont teach in english usually. it's really cool, i'm lovin it. i'm havin the best of times i really love it here! hope all is well back in wonderful utah! it's going super great here in the ATL!!!

Habla Georgian?

Well, apparently the VISA dept is a little behind so Paul is heading to Georgia today. Here is a letter I got from him yesterday: (I only have an idea what his spanish said...)

Hola!
Me gusta su rosado papel, muchas gracias! Tambien gracias por sus palabras de sabiduria! Tu eres me hermana favorito en el todo mundo! Gracias por su testimonio, you tengo mucho feliz porque sabe la verdad, su testimonio me da mas fuerteleza por mi testimonio. Gracias!
Sorry, I don't even know what that all says, but i'm in the referal center all day. That's just where I sit on a nice chair all day and listen to people try to tell me that I'm wrong. I shut them down then get the missionaries going to their house. It's so cool!
I talked to this one guy yesterday who is really interested and he's probably getting baptized. It was super cool talkin to him and teaching the lessons over the phone. I go to Georgia in a couple days so i''m pretty excited about that. This should be fun! I'm finally getting out of here! Thanks for the letter and support. This is such an amazing work. I love it! and you too.
Much love,
Elder Castleberry

Stuck!

8-5-08

Hola! so I’m still stuck here in this spiritual prison paradise it's great here though. sometimes. most of the time. well it's tough cause I’m so stupid sometimes but then I just know things that I don’t even know. did that make sense? ya it's weird here. anywho. sounds like you guys just decided to party without me! that’s really cool! I wanna go golfing so bad! that would be sweet if they let us do that on p-days. I wonder if they've got any sweet golf courses in Culiacan. probably! hopefully I can go. that would be off the hook! but ya not much happened this week. nothin really cool anyways. I mean I sat in class all day. ate a lot of food. got fatter. well actually that’s not really true. I’m really sick of the food so I have a pb and j every day and I lost 6 pounds! haha I’ve still got a nice little pot belly but that’s alright I love bein fat. si, estoy gordo. learned that the other day, and soy listos. I love learnin nice things in spanish. haha I say estoy cause I’m not always fat I would use soy if I’d always been fat. we learned that the other day and I was the example that’s why I’m' telling you that. ya really boosted my confidence. great stuff. the soy listos is like them tryin to make it up to me. that means like I’m smart I guess. but estoy listos is I’m ready. ya, Spanish is messed up, those two words mean like the same thing and they don’t make sense at all. it's annoying. it's all good though I love it. were tryin to speak in total Spanish just cause were supposed to be doin that right now anyways. I’m so bad at it! I sit there say a word and sit there and say um...um...um... between all the other words. conjugating is just so lame. all the irregulars! why can’t we just all speak the same language! wow sorry I’m on a tangent my bad. ya we don’t know when we’re getting our visas and no one here can help us no matter how much we ask ha-ha we go to the travel office everyday and just say to them hey just wonderin how the visas are coming. I don’t think they think it’s very funny. and they said we won’t get reassigned. cause Mexico is weird and sometimes they just show up and take all the missionaries. ya it's lame. that would be sweet if I get to see Jackson. kinda. well no it would be cool. I’d rather just be in Mexico though! sucks here!

Tuesday Greetings

(July 22)
hola como estan! i'm still here in the mtc and it's getting kinda lame. i'm so sick of the food! i loved it for a little while but they go on like a week rotation. i've just settled for makin myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday. it's pretty lame. i'm getting a lot better at spanish. we taught the second lesson in spanish yesterday to this new group and it was amazing! we did so good it was sweet. it was their first week here and they taught us too. i hope that we didn't do that bad our first time. i dont think we did. i thought we did alot better. thats probably just cause i always think i do better than everyone at everything i do. hmm... probably because i do better at everything i do. well for the most part. i'm sure i could ride a bike better than ben! haha poor guy. mom maybe we're gonna need to put the training wheels back on for him when he goes down the big hills. i think they have mountain training wheels. just put him on those for a little while untill he's ready for the real stuff. oh i wish i was there to scrub his scars, i guarantee he was crying like a little girl! no offence to ben, and dont tell him i said this, but he's probably the biggest baby in the family. no not really. sorry i probably shouldn't have said that but i'm not gonna go erase it cause that would take too much time. ya right now i'm not thinking before i write and i'm not sure tahts the best of ideas. i love my brother no matter how big of a wuss he is! or no matter how bad he is at riding a bicycle. well here at the mtc there's nothing fun to do. and i'm pretty much out of cup of noodles so you may want to help me out there. well i've only got two weeks left so i'll probably be alright. so nevermind. i love playin basketball at gym, i'm so amazing, i think i'll go pro when i get back. actually i usually play 4 square so i'll probably go pro at that. that would be sweet! someday 4 square will be as big as football in america and soccer everywhere else i'm sure of it. and i'll be the michael jordan of 4 square. bad example, he didn't play football or soccer. how about pele, i'll be the next pele. k thats pushing it. i doubt you wanted to hear that so i apologize. but about here, the mtc. i'm still learnnin and stuff. still tryin to learn spanish, do my spanish speaking brothers have any advise for me? :) any way to speed up the process. i've got some of the verb trees memorized. it's horrible, i got the first vision memorized in spanish thats pretty cool i guess. even though we dont even use it anymore. cause were doin the second lesson now. my buddy elder hart is awesome i love him so much. he's my bff. (he made me write that) he really is pretty funny though. he's the creater of the infamous castleberry land, we've got a map of casltleberry land and a castleberry land creed. it's so cool. k i'm just gonna end this letter, were working here i swear. haha love you all so much. keep being awesome. and send packages cause those are sweet!

much love,

Elder Castleberry

a.k.a. elder c-bear.

p.s. benjamin, learn how to ride a bike please, for me? love you.

Hola Familia!

(June 16th)
hola! today's my p day and i just set up my email so you can email me or write me letters and send me lots of packages and all that. I would really encourage the letters to come by the plenty. we have dinner here at 4:30 and its just the worst! it's alright tho i buy a hot pocket every night before i go to bed. i feel like such a fatty. i don't really know what to write to you guys. i can say some words in spanish, i can bare my testimony in it and pray. i cant do either of them very good, i pretty much just use spanglish! it's all good tho. i'm learnin to just do it to it ja know what i'm talkin about! it's super fun here at the mtc. all the people in my district are pretty cool. they're like the total nerd kinda cool. like mom. so it's fun:) me and my fomp are doin super good to eachother it's awesome, our ferst lesson is a killer! oh ya i've had to memorize so much stuff! fun fun. but i'm gonna go eat my sac breakfast now. i'm goin to the temple after this it's gonna be SWEET! K i love y'all so much!

peace with love,
Elder Castleberry

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mom thought it would be fun to post some of Pauls Mission Letters on a blog. I pointed her in the right direction and she is excited to add to it.... as soon as she gets back from Girls Camp. Check back in 2 weeks and it should be underway!

more pictures of MTC

click here to see more PAUL pictures

Wednesday, June 4th Elder Paul Charles Castleberry, the last child of Russell and Kathleen, entered the missionary training center prior to serving in the Mexico, Culiacan Mission.