double email

Date: March 8, 2014 10:02:59 AM MST

Hello Family!
So you guys are probably just starting to get ready for the big trip to MEXICO!!!! Eat some delicious food for me, okay? Good! And yes I am in the Spanish Coast and you guys will be in dirty Mexico. But then again, the tourist areas are probably really nice and honestly Spain isn´t that clean :P Oh well. You all will have so much fun! I´m excited for you! Send me lots and lots of pictures! So just thinking about some things that I want in the package. Honestly I don´t really know...The one thing I do know is that I want Jif Peanut Butter. Lots of it. Some other things, PB candy, Cool aid packages, Doritos (the original kind), Lucky Charms, Ohs cereal. (these are just things I can think of that I miss, you don´t have to send them all...unless you want to :) )
Sounds like you all have been doing lots of fun things. Seeing miracles and strengthening your testimonies and making wedding plans...I hope I do have a bit of say about my own wedding when I get back but I do trust the both of you, so good luck! :) As for the BYU stuff. For right now, I´m not sure what I need to do. Coming back in Winter 2015, I don´t think I can even register yet. What I am going to do is make a 4 year plan with Elder Castillo. He has helped lots of missionaries and has a lot of experience with helping high school kids sign up for school and is really just very knowledgeable about all of that, so he said he would help me out. Once it is time for me to sign up for classes, I believe President Deere gives us permission to do that online. So the only things I can really think assistance wise is to check up on my Harris Family Choir Scholarship (was it the Harris Family? I don´t remember) the BYU half tuition is probably okay, but the Choir one, I´m not sure where it would have gone. I mean, the world´s not over if I loose it, but it would be helpful. Oh and the Regent Scholarship, not sure where that would be either or how I would get it back. Also when do I need to apply for FAFSA? That would be a good thing to find out. Oh and taxes. Do I need to do any taxes? I mean I had a job and other missionaries (such as my comp) are getting tax returns and stuff. As long as I don´t get thrown into federal prison I´m happy, but I´d be even more happy with a nice tax return, even if it only is 10 dollars. Those are the only things I can think of that you could help me out with, not too much right ;)
So Dad asked some questions. Really he always asks questions, but today I´m actually going to answer some :) My life is good. Normal missionary life, minus the normal. We are in the office the better part of the day. Honestly with 220 missionaries, 100 apartments, 100 phones, 220 credit cards, and lots and lots of money that comes through the mission, I have enough work that two people could probably work full time and not get it all done. Instead I just work double normal working hours and still don´t get it done. But our goal is usually to get out for the very very least one appointment a day. And when I say appointment I mean any type of missionary work. Whether that means knocking doors (which yes we do) or looking up old investigators or just handing out Spanish/English class flyers we try to do it every day. And honestly it´s really hard. It´s hard to know where the line is of when we have things we need to do in the office and when it is time for us to put it aside for a moment and get out to work. We are here to keep the mission running. We sacrifice some of our proselyting time so that the 218 other missionaries don´t lose any of theirs. So in the end, the work we are doing is just as important as any other job in the mission, it is just hard to feel like a missionary at moments. It becomes more of a job. A job that we get very good at, but a job. But really, I wouldn´t trade it for anything. It is exactly what I needed when I needed it. The Lord knew that rough times were up ahead, so he put me in the place and with the people I needed to be with to handle it. Honestly, I´ve never had less time in my mission to think or worry about myself and my own problems. Granted outside the office there isn´t much time either, but here in the office I wake up, get ready, study, then we´re off until lunch. Then we eat, and then we´re back working again. Then we pros, and then either come back to the office or go to bed. Then we wake up and do it again. It´s exhausting, but often very enjoyable and fun, and we get a lot done. This week we were cleaning the computers of old files that had been restored after a crash so we could get a new hardware and I went through probably close to 5000 documents on the computer deciding what we should keep and what we should dump. It was crazy. But I did it! Things like that, those little victories that seem meaningless take so much more meaning when it means that things are going to be running more smoothly so we have less bumps and the missionaries have more time to work and in that time will find someone to teach the gospel that will get baptized, go to the temple, and gain eternal salvation. That makes it all worth it. I hope you all have a fantastic week and that everything goes swimmingly on your cruise :) Don´t eat too much, don´t get seasick, DON¨T DRINK THE WATER (.02€ if anyone catches my reference) and have fun!
Lots of love,
Elder Charlie Flint

March 15, 2014

Man! It looks like you all had a great time!
Lucky ducks :) So first off. The only other request I have for the package is American deodorant. The weird crystal stuff is just kinda not working as well as I would like and I´m a stinky guy! Not really, but still I would like good ol American deodorant. Other than that I really can´t think of anything. Hey, I did notice that Logan is wearing my swimsuit though! What the!? No biggie I guess, just make sure you clean it really well before I get back :) And Micah, you get a smile on yo face boy! You´re in Mexico! And you´ve got a big brother who loves you! I really do, I love you all. I miss you sometimes, did you know that? Not very often, but every once in a while ;) So I definitely don´t want the camera. I would lose it with my luck! I should have one coming back to me soon. Let me tell you the story. I left the new one in the Castillos car and kinda  forgot about it. Well another Hermana had lost her camera and the Castillos thought the one they found in their car was hers, so they sent it to her. Oops. Probably should have said something. But hopefully someday I´ll get it back.
So I have very little time to write today. I just wanted to say one or two things about hope today. We had a concilio the other week and Hermana Deere gave a talk about hope. I really liked it and learned a lot. It is so important for us to keep that hope. At times things seem so dark, so hopeless, but there is always a little light to hold on to. As she was talking a thought came into my head. When the Savior was in the Garden of Gethsemane and suffering on the cross, what gave him hope. Obviously hope is a Christlike attribute so he had to have it somewhere right? But what is it that he could have hope in in a time so dark and so difficult. He knew that he would suffer and have to drink of the cup, so where was his hope. Now there are probably a few answers but the one I heard, and the one I felt was this. He had hope in us. He had hope in me, and in every single one of you. He had hope that we would use that sacrifice, he had hope that we would become whole through his stripes. He saw each of our faces and he gave his all because he hoped, with all his heart that we would do all we could to be with him again. He loves you, I love you and don´t you forget it.
Con amor,
Elder Charlie Flint