January 16, 2012

Wow, what a crazy week.

Family, I am so happy I have the chance to write you. I do not have a lot of time, but I am going to try and write as fast as I can. We had a couple miracles happen this week. Last Sunday a 26 year old mother walked up to me and church and said she needed to talk to us. We followed her outside and she said that she wanted to be baptized. We met with her later that night and taught her. Then the next day we taught her. We took her to Mexico City to have a special interview with President Ramas, and she passed. I was able to baptize her the day after my birthday. My first baptism! She is amazing and her name is Zulma........... It was a little difficult pronouncing her name, but I got it down. My district threw a suprise party for my birthday and bought me a massive cake with firecracker candles. You know, the kind that you cannot blow out. Haha, those tricksters. I felt so much love this week that it was almost overwhelming, but not quite. =) I went on splits with a few people and attached a couple photos of those too. We worked hard this week and everything has been seeming to just fall into place. Personally I think it is because Elder Cuevas and I had a long talk about obedience and the blessings we will recieve through it. The next awesome miracle that happened this week was that we married Sergio and Noelia. It took a lot of work, but we did it. Sergio asked me ¨I have been with Noelia for 20 years and we have never been married. I had so many friends and family members tell me to marry her. I even had her family members tell me to. I never did, and then Elder Cuevas and you show up and tell me to get married, and I did it. How did you do that?¨ Haha, they were married on Friday the 13th of 2012. Pretty neat, eh? We baptized them yesterday and they were sooooo happy. Today, we had a pretty bizarre day. I went to Teotihuacan. It was one of the most mind blowing, eye boggling, facsinating things I have ever seen. You would not believe the ¨coincidences¨ between that place and the Book of Mormon. We walked around and took pictures on some of the ancient ruins of the Jaredites. Hhahaha, wow. I bought some things for you guys and I will send them to you guys in a package. YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THEM! =) Do not say I cannot, because you guys have already sent me so much for Christmas and my birthday, so I have to send them to you. Next, we ended up waiting 2 hours for our bus to come back to Pachuca and to our surprise the computers we used could not send our messages to president. So we are going to have to report our numbers to him at our interviews this week with him. I hope everything works out alright. I wish we would be able to send them to him. We went to Zulmas house next to eat, because her parents made a huge meal to thank us for baptizing her. Then after, they drove us to the hospital so we could give one of their family members a blessing. I can not tell you how powerful of a blessing it was. I am dead tired and hope that I will be able to do everything will full throttle tomorrow. We have a lot of work to do this week and I am devoted to getting it all done. Who told you that you needed to send me short emails so I had time to write you and President? I have a ton of time to write you both, so do not worry. How is everyone doing? I got a email from Grandma and Grandpa and that made me feel good. Tell them thanks and I love them! Oh, and that I am writing in my journal. TELL MY FAVORITE BROTHER AYD, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! AND THAT I LOVE HIM SOOOOO VERY MUCH AND I HAVE A REALLY COOL PRESENT FOR HIM FROM TEOTIHUACAN. Tell Jess, Kass, and Cam that they have to do track. If they do not, they will regret it the rest of their lives. How is Mand doing? She holding up good with another little Logie in her belly? How is Dad doing? How are you doing? HOW IS EVERYONE? I want to hear. Anyways, thank you so much family for all that you have done for me. I know that this is the true church of our Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that we are recieving so many amazing blessings through your testimonies. I love you ALL SOO MUCH. I hope you enjoy the photos!!! HAVE AN AMAZING WEEEEK!!!!!!

 

Sinceramente,

Elder Poulsen

 

January 9, 2012

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Today is a good day. It is my birthday and I am so thankful for all of the birthday wishes I have gotten from all of my family and friends at home! Such a blessing to have you guys in my life. Thanks for all of the pictures and the messages from my friends on facebook! It made me feel so special and honestly made this birthday in Mexico almost like it was from home. THANKS SOOO MUCH!! Well, today I woke up and we came with the zone leaders over in the central of Pachuca to play soccer. No, I didnt get to go to Teotihuacan, but that is okay because I want to go with more missionaries in the future. Tonight the zone leaders want to take me to Chiles to eat.. Haha. But I am not sure how that is going to work out since Elder Cuevas and I have to go to Mexico City tonight with one of our investigators for a special interview. But after that I am going to open the long awaited birthday package. =) This week was a little crazy, but fun too. I went to Mexico City with Elder Hernandez and I have a couple pictures from then. It was fun because I got to sign for my visa and see all of the other elders from my generation. Then we at ate Carls Junior! I had no idea they had that here. Then on the way home, Elder Hernandez and I had a whole bus to ourselves. It was a nice 2 hour nap. =) I spent most of the week with Elder Kleinhenz and I felt soo good. We contacted a lot of people and had some good lessons. We made your no bake cookies and some cookies called Buckeyes? I took some pictures with them too. Aso spent a couple days with Elder LeJeune and we had such a good time. I found out that some of the people I contacted with Elder LeJeune the last time I was in his area are now getting baptized! I feel sooo good! Sergio and Noelia didnt get married because they didnt have the money for it. So we are going to take them to Mexico this week to marry them I think. Then the investigator that we are going with today has a baptism tomorrow! So, things are looking up. Man, I cannot believe that today I am 21 years old. How strange. I had a bit of an interesting experience this morning. One of the guys in my zone in Elder Johnson. We have been friends and have been around eachother a couple times. But today when we were playing soccer I said something about Ely. He said, no way.. Your from Ely! IOther than that this week has been pretty laid back. They have a holiday called Las Reyes and you eat some sort of a fruit cake called a Rosca. Inside the cake there are little toys and if you get a toy in your bread, you have to buy tamales or some other thing for the other people that you were eating the bread with. Interesting eh? A lot of fun things this week, but today has to be the best. =) I wish I had time to reply to all of your emails, but my time is limited at this cafe and I need to be heading out soon to Mexico for that interview. Thanks sooo much for the recipes and the happy birthdays. It is almost like I was able to spend this day with my family and friends, actually. I fell like I did. Thanks to all the pictures and emails. Please tell everyone of them how grateful I am and how much I love them. I am going to keep all of you in my thoughts and prayers and spend this special day thinking about all of you and how lucky I am to have such amazing people in my life. I hope that I can do something for all of you when I get back, well.. I am defitnitely going to do something for all of you. THANKS SOOOO MUCH!!!! HAPPPY 21st birthday to me, and happy birthday to Nathan Hughes on January 3rd and Dillon Neubauer on January 14th, and Aydan Poulsen on January 19th! Let me know if there is anything I can do for you guys! I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCHH!!! Talk to you in a week!! =) Oh yea, and my plaq for my mission looks amazing. =)

Amor,

Elder Daniel Poulsen

January 2, 2012

Dear Family,

It was so nice to get all of the pictures that you sent me this time. It was fun and was like was at New Years Eve with you guys. I was a little jealous to hear that you guys were eating enchiladas and crab legs, but I was happy too. Haha, it was nice to see the faces of everyone in the family and the random boy who was with Kassi. Who is this kid? Hahaha, I hope you guys enjoy the photos I´m sending this time. I tried to take a couple cool pictures for you guys this week. All in all this week was pretty much like all of the other weeks. We found a couple people who I will be excited to go back and teach. I have been on divisions for most of this week with Elder Kleinhenz. My companion, Elder Cuevas, had an accident at our house when I was on divisions. He was with Elder Carrion and woke up in the morning to start the hot water heater. He opened the gas valve and forgot something in the house. When he went back outside the gas had enough time to fill up inside the boiler and when he lit a match it blew up in his face. He got burned on his face and it singed off his eyebrows and eyelashes but he is alright, he just has to stay indoors for a week away from the sun and apply some sort of cream on his face. I felt bad that I was not there to help, but he is fine. Now I will most likely be on divisions for this entire week. It was awesome to see a picture of Jon, Ben, and Adan and it felt so good to hear that they were asking about me and sent me letters. Man, I miss those guys. You will have to tell them all that they are huge examples to me and I miss them a lot. Those guys are my heroes. Thanks for Melaynas address. I wrote her a letter today and tonight I have to ride on a bus to Mexico to stay the night at the secretaries house. I have to sign for my year long visa tomorrow. I am going to give them my letter and they will send it though pouch which will get to Salt Lake and then to her from there. I hear it is a lot safer because it is sent with all of the church forms from the mission president, so she should get it. I did tell her in my letter to send her letters to you guys so you can send them down in packages. I think that is probably the safest way I could get them. Pretty bizarre that it is now 2012 and that I can say I will be home next year. Time sure flies. Elder Kleinhenz and I spent New Years together and we had a good time. We bought a super pizza, some orange soda, some cookies and cream ice cream, and some stuff for breakfast and we spent the night talking about this year and making new years resolutions. We heard we had to be in the house early since there are a lot of parties on New Years. So we were in the house by 7:00, but it was a fun night. He keeps telling me that we are going to hang out at BYU and he is going to teach me how to lift weights. Haha. I also will be going on splits with the zone leaders this week because Elder Cuevas needs to go to Mexico to marry Sergio and Noelia. I do not know how this is going to work out, but we will see. Hopefully I can still go to Teotihuacan on monday for my birthday, I need to go to get you guys gifts and take sweet pictures. Haha, i think it is ironic that you guys ate enchiladas on New Years, because down here I was eating raviolis and chicken parmesian. The lady that we ate with knew that she was going to feed two americans and decided to make a meal from the united states. It was delicious, but not as good as moms. If you could send me other recipes to good you make it would be sweet. Something a lot of people like is for me to cook food from the US. It is something fun to do on Pdays. This morning I made some massive omletes with hash browns and it was so good. Elder Kleinhenz is so happy that he was able to eat something from the states. Altogether, this week has been very fast and we just do what we do. Contact people everyday, knock doors, search for references, teach lessons whenever we get the chance and hope and pray that we can baptize. So that is about it with me. In 2 hours I will be getting bussed to Mexico City to spend the next 24 hours there. I have not slept in my bed for at least 6 days. Sometimes, being the companion of the district leader, I feel like my Uncle Brent. Haha, constantly packing and moving to a new area every day. Shoot, well my loving family. I love you all SO VERY MUCH. I hope and pray that each of you are all so careful everyday and that you have good health. Keep being the amazing examples you are to me with your testimonies. Tell my friends I love them. Tell Melayna that she has a letter headed her way if you can. Have an AMAZING first week of the New Year! WHOOOO 2012!!! LOVE YOU ALL.

Amor,

Elder Poulsen