September 2011

dear family.

thanks for the package. i appreciate the mms. who knew they didnt exhist here in puerto rico. oh yea i also exercised half self control i only opend one present early. the football. yea. 

when we were tracking the other day we passed a baseball diamond in which there were some puerto ricans playing softball. they invited us to play. so i called the other elders and they met us over there to play. there were a bunch of families there so it was a cool atmosphere. elder girffin played college baseball so he hit a homerun everytime. me..... i hit the ball every time but it didnt even makeit outhofo the infeild. never really learned how to play baseball. but i do appreciate that nationals jersey i got at home.

thanks for the birthday presents. it was way sweet. and tell the grnadparents thanks as well. i will send them a letter but i appreciate all the love. it reminds me of a verse in alma 50:16. it doesnt really apply to this year but next year i jst dont know if i will remember it that far in the future. oh yea and the tie and corsage was way sweet. not going to lie it doesn't matter how many emails or packages or emails i get or pictures. i am never satisfied. haha. but thanks for being my parents. ill eat at sizzlers for my birthday if you all want to come.  elder aldous in th e apartment was singing or whistling that song form robin hood. reminded me of that movie i watched a bunch of times as a child. thanks for the memories. keep making the younger childern play sports. build character.

another though i had this week was about 2 nephi 4. when nephi is about half way done with his life i believe. he praises the lord saying how he will never put his trust in the arm of man. i realized that is the problem with laman and lemuel. they always see lehi and nephi as a man. when they leave jerusalem and go to the desert. crazy ideas of this man. when nephi breaks his bow. it is becasue he is a man. they never relize that they are men OF GOD. they only look at them for their faults and nothing more. so just need to realize and not hold past transgressions on people. like and learn. and do all that you can to be better.

love elder scroggins

they do not have all the american luxuries here. such as grapenuts.

it was a pretty good brithday. we went to cold stone. as we were leaving we see our stake president in the parking lot. he waves us over to talk to him. turns out he is getting released the next day and president Vinas is here in cabo rojo organizing the stake presidency. so got a birthday wish from a seventy on my birthday. pretty sick. 

you can preach all day to the brick walls of puetro rico aka la gente but you will not get anywhere if you are not going by the spirit and teaching those that are ready to LEARN. be humble... i love The Lord. never change. only get better?

love elder scroggins

Picture Time

 Of course they are!

 Always need for help...especially after all the hurricanes and tropical storms.

 This one makes me want to visit Puerto Rico.

 Great Creation.  All About Brian!  Love it.

 sweet memories...

First watermellon in 10 months.  So good.

Sweet Week!

This week has been SO SWEET. it started out kinda rough with our investigator chris not "dropping"us but he is moving to the united states. he says that he is going to look up missionaries up there but he really appriciates the book of mormon. that was kinda a trial.

Monday was the sweetest day ever. we pass by a cool family that we had met a couple of weeks ago and left a book of mormon. they were cool but when we tried to passs by there agian they werent home. we had tried a coupel of times since then but just never there. but when we passed by on monday we show up and heis super excited to see us. he has been reading and is in like nephi chapter 13 or something like that. more reading than the members do here sometimes. we answer his questins and then teach him pure docotrine from 2nephi 31. discuss it. bear teasitmony and invite to be baptized. he accepts becasue he know that is what we should do follow the example of Jesus Christ. his wife didnt accept but that is becasue she has "been baptized already." now we kinow her need though.

my companion elder marzariegos blew a tire last night on our way back from cabo rojo last night and we called him adn he ran to pick us up and drop him off in hormigueros. i love this family. they ARE SO READY!!! his name is manuel and carmen ayala. they have a little girl cammile that is 3 and does not stop talking. ever. kind like andrew??

back to the side of elder scroggins that you all know and are aquanied with. football season startign up agian. usu vs auburn in jordan hare or logan? how is unlv's team looking this year. what position is adam playing and let me know abut his games. that is so crazy that emmalee is in high school. teari it up in sports. gorls basketball. i want emmalee to paly girls volleynball or tennis, basketball and golf or softball. shes fraking tall!!!!!! make her do it. i lvoe yo uall in the family. i am not quite a holocaust victim but i am about 200 pounds now. bout 35-40 less then wheni came on the missoin. its the 20 mile bike ride we do 2x a day. we like so far form our area.

hope rachel and brandon are doing well. thanks for the ties. i am wearing one right now. i hope all is good in las vegas.

The Hurricane Before the Hurricane

Now a couple of exciting stories to keep you on the edge of your seat. so last Wednesday i think, this guy names Jose (its a real creative spanish name i know) came up to us and was telling us to be careful(it was the night of the storm and we were heading home through the pueblo, it was dark and no one was there). then he said he respected us and all this stuff, but then all the sudden turned on us and started asking us for money. we stared telling him that we didn’t have any money and that we needed to go, but he was starting to get a little agitated, and told us to pull out our wallets, I had a $5 and gave it to him. so that was scary. when we got home the other Elders started telling us how this crazy guy named Jose robbed them a couple hours earlier. Pretty crazy huh? Well two days later, our neighbor was yelling at us for no reason ( he was drunk) and causing a lot of commotion. Well out of nowhere, guess who shows up?  That’s right Jose, with a horse on a leash in one hand, and a beer in the other. He asked us if our neighbor was giving us trouble and we said yes, so he started yelling at our neighbor and through his beer can on his porch. Finally our neighbor left and José started talking to us in very foul language about how he just got out of prison of 21 years for killing his dad, and that he was going to kill our neighbor for us. we were like, ümm no, its okay, we'll be alright" then like before, he starts asking us for money. this time there is all 6 of us together. he was telling us that he had a gun at his house with 15 shots, and that he could kill us if he wanted. so then Elder Hammer is like, ümm i got $3. so we gave him the money and he left. after he threatened to kill us. so we all went upstairs in our house and locked the door and grabbed our newly bought machetes and called president. He didn’t answer, but his wife did and told us to pack our bags right away. So we started packing when we got a call from president. we told him the story and he told us to stick together and go out and work. So we did and we haven’t seen José since.
I was called to train and be a district leader these past couple of weeks.  We moved to Mayaguez. 30 minutes from our proselytizing area.  Church shortened on Sunday because of the hurricane. Hurricane preparation made. We put all the shutters on and picked up all the trash all around.  Hurricane got moved to Monday. Stayed inside on Monday and president made us clean the house. Hurricane never came just a bunch of rain. A nice shower of water when we went to work on Monday evening. Crazy rain sporadically on Tuesday while on a trade off in Aguadilla and today Wednesday completes the one week anniversary since I have last written. The lord has really blessed me and my companion, both elder mazariegos and elder cluff with success in finding the new investigators. we taught a man named Jim last Monday when we went outside to work. It was cool to find out that he believes that jose smith could be a prophet of god but he also says that all things of God and churches are good.  He needs some work on a testimony through prayer.

Until we meet again my fellow servants,

Elder J. Brian Scroggins, Jr.