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!