Love, Elder Borgia

Hurrah for Israel!!!

2009-01-26T12:25:00.000-05:00

Thursday was one of those days where nothing happens as planned. After lunch I went to get on my bike only to find I had a flat tire, so I pumped it up and we headed out, only to have it go flat again half-way to our destination. I'm talking really flat... like wrinkly!!! So we walked to a friends house where I patched up my tire and took out the steel prickly that I found in it. Then on our way to save the world. Well... we were going to see a media referral in a part of town I've never been. Come to find out that it's a really busy 2-lane road with no shoulder. So, it was a bit scary to ride on. I got more intimate with a semi-truck than I'd ever like to again! ;) Once we were there our appt was a no show but a semi-active member spotted us and drove us back to their home for 20 minutes where they unloaded some family drama on us, and then it was off to the other side of town to our appointment whose address ended up not existing. Oh well. Such is the life of a missionary, right?

Anyway... we're teaching a cool family named the Solanos. They came to church this Sunday for the 2nd time in a row. They're Columbian, and every time we teach them they fell the need to feed us Columbian food. Fine by me!!! They've definitely been prepared to receive the gospel right now.

Yesterday was Stake Conference, and Elder Cornish of the Seventy was there to preside. It was a great meeting, and the Solanos LOVED it... they were even taking notes!

Well... the time has come for me to conclude. This is the last email I will be sending out to y'all as a missionary. I am so grateful for the experiences I've had over the last 2 years that have reshaped me into a much different man than I began as. I know without a doubt that God lives, that Jesus Christ is His Son, and that His Gospel has been restored to the earth in preparation for His Second Coming. I know that They appeared to the boy Joseph Smith, and that through Him the authority & doctrine of Christ was restored. I have come to know this through study and prayer, and the Lord promises to answer all who seek to know. Heck... He answered the prayer of a chubby, timid, unsure boy in CA... why not you?! SO... the challenge I give to each of you who don't know YET is ASK! The Lord promised... put Him to the test. I love you all very much, and I thank you for the support you've given me. See ya soon!

-Elder Borgia

PS- Any of you that can, I'll be speaking at 11am on February 8th in Sacrament meeting in Morgan Hill! The building is located on East Dunne, just about 1/2 mile from the freeway.

PS2- If you haven't joined the "I wrote Elder Borgia on his mission" club... this is your last chance! *wink*

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What just happened?!

2009-01-19T11:37:00.000-05:00

Well hello there everyone! I'd like to share with you a way sweet experience. So we tracted into a sweet girl named Yanni. However, when we were going back for our return appointment, we realized that I'd forgotten to write down her address. We knew the street she was on, we knew the building was brown, and we knew that it was apt. D. Soooo... we knocked on every single one on that street. But this story isn't about her. While we were looking for Yanni, we met a girl named Terry. It's all a blur, really, but somehow after a few minutes the Spirit was really strong, she had a baptismal date, she was excited to come to church, and she'd committed to live the Word of Wisdom. She even has LDS family members in W. Virginia!!! We walked away like "What the heck just happened?!" Another little example of the Lords hand in this work, and I quite enjoy watching.

In other news... IT IS FREAKING COLD!!! Now, before you Utards start murmuring... I will have you know that on Friday the high was 45 and with the humidity it felt more like -10. So I was riding around Orange Park with a long-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, a zip up jacket, and gloves. Who would've thunk???!!!

Well... that's it for this week. Talk to ya soon!

-Elder Borgia

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Firmer & Firmer in the... abs?!

2009-01-12T11:57:00.001-05:00

Well hello again! So my journal has been quite neglected as of late, and so I'm sorry if this won't be as detailed. Let me start off with this... never again will I have Mountain Dew anytime after 1-2 pm. I had some of the new Voltage stuff last night with dinner (which tasted very good, I might add!) and then I couldn't get to sleep until 3:30am!!! AACCKK!!!! So right now I'm fine, but I have a feeling that tomorrow I'm going to be really tired.

This week was zone conference... my last one. It's sad to think about, because large meetings of missionaries like that are awesome. It's klinda like in Alma when it talks about the great joy of the sons of Mosiah when they all meet back up. I've made a lot of close friends serving here in FL, and it's sad to think I might not see some of them again. After the meeting I went with Elder Terry on a trade-off to Middleberg. Oh man, talk about a redneck town. I felt like I was in Darien again!

So one of the things President talked about at ZC was "Firmer & Firmer in the Faith". We're trying to increase our faith as we shoot for 1050. And so he gave us a workout plan. At first I didn't really understand... in fact I didn't think that he was serious. But alas, he was, and now I'm starting to get it. Our entire mission is going to be unified in working out together each morning, and it'll also help up be more obedient in the mornings. So, each morning we're to do:

*10 10-yard forward sprints

*10 5-yard backward sprints

*10 10-yard grapevines

*10 straight jump-ups

*100 pushups

*100 situps

So, I'm a bit sore right now, as we've been doing this for the past few days. I'm not quite up to 100 pushups yet, but it'll help me to be skinny & buff... eventually ! ;)

Friday night we had a pretty cool experience. We went to Taco Bell for their amazingly cheap yet filling food! As we were waiting for our food, a guy behind us in line started talking to us about the church, and he ended up coming to sit with us. We talked until his wife came to get him, but we're meeting him for "coffee" at Starbucks tonight. I guess that'll be the perfect time to teach him about the Word of Wisdom, huh?

And lastly... GO GATORS!!! From what our neighbors told us, it was a pretty good game.

So on that note, have a great week! Love ya, Elder Borgia.

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Holidays = WAY too much junk food!

2009-01-05T15:09:00.000-05:00

Naps are of the devil!!! So I took a nap last p-day, and it felt really good, until I couldn't sleep that night! My sleep schedule was thrown off a bit this whole week, culminating with some insomnia last night. Luckily I have lots of reading material for times such as those! And don't forget the blessed Monster energy drinks to get me through!!! ;)

But really, we had a pretty good week. Friday we had a pretty cool experience... we had been tracting for most of the day without success. We were walking down a road and we saw a lady pull over on the other side of the road to get her mail. Elder Van Genderen said "Wouldn't it be cool if she pulled over to talk to us?" Right as those words escaped his mouth she yells at us: "Ya don't happen to have a Book of Mormon, do you?" "Uh, yeah!!!" So we ran through traffic to get to her. She talked very openly and comfortably with us, and so we asked her if she was a member of the church. "No, but I'm considering it" (???!!!) Apparently she has some family members that are LDS, PLUS she's a geneologist. Who does that?! It definitely boosted us in our day when we had started to get a bit worn out.

I'm grateful for miracles such as these. The Lord knows us, and He wants to strengthen us. If we seek Him in setting our goals and raising our vision, His strength will make it possible.

Happy New Year to everyone! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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...and a Happy New Year!

2008-12-29T15:03:00.000-05:00

Why hello everyone, I hope y'alls Christmas was AMAZING!!! We had a pretty good week here. Tuesday we had a sweet experience. We were riding back from an appointment and we passed a street that Elder Van Genderen said he felt like we should tract, so we locked up our bikes and started knocking doors. Pretty much no one on the street was home. :( HOWEVER... as we were getting ready to leave, a minivan pulls up and motions for us to come over. "Are you Latter-Day Saints?" a woman asks. "Yes". "My niece was supposed to send you over a month ago and you never came!" So apprently this lady's sister has been a member of the church for 10 years. The lady we were talking to had become dissatisfied with her church and wants to investigate "the mormons". (!!!) So we'll be heading over tomorrow to teach her about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How sweet is that?! That taught me to ALWAYS follow promptings of the Spirit, even if the reasons aren't obvious.

Wednesday we had an awesome district meeting... the Spirit was so strong. We talked a lot about goal setting and raising our vision, and then we knelt together to set a baptismal goal for our district. So, by February 8, 2009, we will baptize 25 people. The Spirit confirmed it!

Christmas was awesome. We spent Christmas eve at the Grieve's house eating ridiculous amounts of food, and of course reading Luke 2 and singing every single christmas song in the hymn book! Christmas morning we went over to Bishop Ross's (OP2) house for breakfast along with a few other missionaries. Then we stopped by a few more places until we ended up at the Gonzalez's home, where we spent most of the day (1:00-8:30). It was there that I was able to call home and talk to my family for a good 3 1/2 hours! Man, I LOVE my family. In these last 2 years I've really come to appreciate 100x more how much of a blessing my family has been in my life.

Then yesterday we wrapped the week up with a baptism... IN THE OCEAN! We started teaching Marvada on the 14th and she was supposed to baptized on Saturday. Well, then she was scheduled to work a double on Sat. so we put it off until Sunday. THEN she got a staph infection called Mursa on her leg that is transmittable through water! So, rather than postponing the baptism, we hurriedly planned to do it in JAX beaches in the Atlantic Ocean. (The salt water kept Elder VG from getting it too!) Then we met back at the church for her confirmation. It was such a sweet experience, even if the water was freezing cold! (We forgot it was December!)

So, Happy New Year everyone! (in a few days, I guess). Its a time for a fresh start, so don't squander it! Rather than setting resolutions to be broken, how about praying about it and making goals & committments with the Lord?! Lets make this a time of growth both temporally and spiritually. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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2 more makes 5! :(

2008-12-22T13:15:00.001-05:00

So this was a way sweet week! I started the week sending off all y'alls christmas cards (if you didn't get one I don't have your address). And because of that, I never want to lick another envelope in my life! I really had to keep a glass of water next to me to make it physically possible! ;) Tuesday we had a SWEET lesson with an investigator... watching Finding Faith in Christ. The Spirit was SO STRONG!!, which makes our job easy. After all, it's not us that convinces or converts, we just act as the guides to help people act on their own feelings.

This week I was blessed with 2 more flat tire stories, making that 5 just in my time in Orange Park. I have slime tires (which I thought would prevent these type of things) which have green slime that supposedly stop up punctures. Right. All that accompished was to spray green slime all up the back of my bike and leave a bright green trail all the way down Blanding as we walked to our next destination. Ugh.

Friday afternoon/evening was definitely the highlight of the week. The entire mission (about 140-150 missionaries) met together at the JAX W Stake Center for a Christmas devotional. Most of the time was spent with President calling up different missionaries to bear their testimonies. We were also able to hear quite a few musical numbers. Elder Kenworthy and I were able to sing a duet of "Joseph Smith's First Prayer", which was sweet. It definitely brought back memories. Speaking of memories, you may remember that a year ago at that same meeting we announced a mission goal of 650 baptisms for 2008. It definetely stretched our vision and our goals, and tried our faith (prior to this year the highest was 320). As of this weekend we will have baptized 650+ people. The Lord has definitely blessed this area. And He's not done yet... we set a goal for next year of 1050, and I've decided that we need to accomplish it by January because I'm selfish and I want to be here to see it happen!

Sunday was pretty cool. We sang in the ward choir music program, including a mens octet (sp?) of "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel". Also, the other elders (OP2) brought some people that they've been teaching that their going to switch to us. They're from Haiti and have only been here a few months. There's a few people in our ward that know French, and so they'll be doing some translating, while Elder Van Genderen and I will be doing some creative teaching. (I can hear Mama telling me I should have paid more attention in French class!)

And lastly... transfers have come and gone, and for the 3rd time on my mission I will be keeping a companion for longer than 6-weeks. (I dare not think about what that says about me). Elder VG will be my last companion. In fact, our entire apartment will be staying. The only change is that I've been asked to serve as district leader. I suppose it'll be good to keep me going strong 'til the end. President Newman told us we have permission to run that stop sign!

Merry Christmas everyone! It's crazy to think that it's come and gone so fast. I pray that, even in the hustle & bustle of the season and everything else going on in the world, we might have time to stop and honor Him who is our Savior and our King.

Love, Elder Borgia

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Is that a raisin?!

2008-12-15T13:35:00.000-05:00

This week was horrible, crazy, depressing, and there were horrible little demon goblins with crazy eyes running around screaming and giving us the heebie-jeebie's. OK... well maybe not. I just didn't want to start off yet another email with: "It was a good week". Anyhoo...

We had some sweet experiences this week, and some weird ones. We were able to do trade-offs with our zone leaders, which was great. It really showed us some areas that we can work on in our area to help move the work along. One of weird experiences... we were at a gas station buying gatorade and some guy walks up to us and handed us some anti-mormon DVD's. Then without saying anything he walked away. He didn't even have the huevos to say it to our face! Ugh. So he ended up donating 2 new frisbees to our apartment! ;) However, a few hours later we met a woman named Mary who was SWEET!!! She's already taken the discussions before, but she never acctually prayed about the Book of Mormon... so she's going to do it this time around! After we talked to her for 10-15 minutes she invited us inside and showed us all of her paintings. !!! :0 She does watercolors, and she's GOOD! She told us that she'd give us a print, so I'll have to show y'all eventually. Friday was the ward christmas party, and the theme was "Christmas around the world". They had different dished from different countries and a little presentation about how that culture celebrates christmas. It was really good, even some of the weird food. (I would have never thought to add sausage, apples, and raisins to stuffing... but I guess the Germans did!) Then Sunday was the highlight of our week. There's a girl in our ward who invited us over to teach her roommate, Marvada. The Spirit was SO STRONG and she was just giddy the whole time, and she's going to be baptized on the 27th. It's amazing to see the work of the Lord progress. Last night we went to a fireside here in OP with President Newman speaking, and he talked about our baptismal goal of 650. As of this weekend we're at around 645... and we've got about 40 more scheduled before the end of the year. How awesome is it to see that if the Spirit is there when we set a goal, and then we work for it, the Lord will help us to achieve it. Merry Christmas everyone! Talk to ya next week! -Elder Borgia

PS- I've got a few more addresses, but I could use a few more!

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Sour, then SWEET!

2008-12-08T14:00:00.000-05:00

OK everyone... so the only people that sent me their address were my grandparents... and I definitely already have their address. SO... REPENT! Send me your freaky-leaky addresses, and then you'll get mail! Anyhoo...

We had a pretty good week here. Monday after emails most of our district headed to a Mexican restaurant called La Napolera that is WAY GOOD... and a member who was there saw us and ended up paying for all of our food! That's the first time that's happened to me out here, and it was sweet! It was a reminder that there are still some nice people out there. Also, Monday night I picked up my bike from getting fixed, and it's BEAUTIFUL!!! It rides like a Cadillac! It doesn't even make any grinding noises when I pedal! Tuesday was zone conference, which is always a good boost. Our area definitely has a lot of room to grow, but we have several people who are pretty solid. Right now our biggest obstacle is health problems! For some reason, as soon as people set baptismal dates they either get kidney stones, pnemonia, or swollen feet. Go figure!

Saturday was one of those days where you know something miraculous is going to happen. Why? Because everything that could happen happened. All of our appointments cancelled, my right shoe started falling apart, one of investigator's Dad (who we found out was a holy-roller minister) called and told us to stay away from his family, and then my bike tire blew out. I didn't even know bikes could have a blow-out!!! But Sunday it became worth it, when 2 people showed up at church wanting to start meeting with us. So I'm glad for trials and opposition, because they strengthen my faith and prepare me for sweet stuff! (and they provide for some pretty rockin stories as well) The appointments were rescheduled, the shoe still wearable, and the bike tire fixed, so in the end the Lord worked everything out.

Have a great week everyone! God is our Father, Christ is our Savior, and we are under Their constant watch and care. Love, Elder Borgia

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The blessings of testimony

2008-12-01T14:46:00.001-05:00

WAIT!!! Before you read this email, PLEASE take 5 seconds (OK, maybe 10) and email me your address, even if you think I might already have it. Thank you!!

OK, so this week we... . . . . . . . .

Ah HAH! Have you sent the address yet??? I'm waiting!!!

OK... we had a pretty sweet week. On Wednesday we had a special guest at our district meeting... President Newman. He spoke about the conversion experience and where we missionaries fit in. Now, I ought to tell y'all in case you don't know... our mission president is a convert to the church, he was raised Catholic and was actually at one point going to a Catholic seminary. He spoke about his conversion, and how his life is divided into 2 segments: before and after testimony. He spoke briefly about the experience of gaining a testimony, and how it was something entirely divine and separate from the world. That is the experience we are praying that everyone will have, and it is those whom we are trying to find. The Lord is preparing many people who will recognize the gospel of Jesus Christ and act upon that.

A direction that we were given this week from President Newman was to contact all of those investigators who had missed their baptismal dates and recommit them. One such was a man named Brian who we had 'dropped' about 2 months ago. In that time, he had changed his life to truly follow our Savior and is now preparing to be baptized next week, as long as his health allows it. This is one of many amazing experiences that testifies to me that the Lord's hand is guiding this work.

Thursday we went to Thanksgiving dinner at the Raffa's, and ate way too much food. Sister Raffa called my mom to talk to her (I didn't!) but put my mom on speaker as she yelled out how much longer I have left. UGH! So, apparently my mom is counting down. I guess I should've known, right? ;) I'm just doing my best not to think about the fact that I've only got 2 months left out here. :(

Saturday I had the awesome privilege of baptizing Greg Raffa. What a special experience that was. The Spirit was so strong to confirm the truthfulness of that ordinance. On Sunday after his confirmation he came to us to tell us about a dream he'd had, which I think would be appropriate to share with you. He said that he's been like a snowflake, drifting about for 57 years. He could've landed on pavement or mud where he would've merely melted, but he's landed on a patch of snow on soft grass, gathered among other snowflakes. How awesome is that?! The Lord really has guided him to this point in his life, and it has been amazing to witness his journey.

Sunday we were able to speak in sacrament meeting. It was storming outside, so every once in a while our words would be reinforced by a flash of light and crashing thunder. Pretty effective teaching, dontcha think?!

In Sunday school we talked a lot about gratitude (imagine that!) and a brother in the ward shared that gratitude can become a form of worship and praise as we remember and recognize the blessings we receive from our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to know that I am a literal son of God. I am grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave His life willingly for me that I might be cleansed and be afforded the opportunity to return to the presence of eternal Father. I am grateful for my family, and the ordinances that seal us together for eternity. I am grateful for my testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, which has been my rock and foundation. And I am very grateful for the calling I have now and for the remainder of my life to share my testimony with all of God's children.

I love you all very much! -Elder Borgia

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Movie Time!

2008-11-24T15:02:00.000-05:00

Well everyone, Florida continues to be FREAKING COLD!!! But, in other news . . . cold kills mosquitos, so I guess it can't be all that bad. So this week we borrowed a TV/DVD player from the church to show a movie to some investigators, and we weren't able to return it for a few days. Hmmm! So we watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" and church history DVD's during lunch this whole week! This week we tracted our butts off. It's been fun, especially as Elder Van Genderen has been getting used to things. We met some interesting characters this week, although some of their comments would not be suitable for this audience. ANYHOO. . that's about it. Sorry I'm in kind of a rush this week. I'll try to have something more exciting to report next week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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A second witness...

2008-11-17T21:03:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a great week! Elder Wright left on Monday morning for the mission office, so of course in the 12 hours before he left we had to play 4 games of Settlers (he took it with him). Man we're nerdy! Then after doing emails & stuff we went to Bro. Price's house in Temecuana for a cookout thing which was way fun. There were TONS of missionaries there that I knew. On our way home we stopped by the mall to hang out. While there, I was attacked. Mom... it's OK, I'm fine, but it was really scary. I still have a few marks from it. I practically got kidnapped and held by... A LOTION SALESPERSON LADY!!! She grabbed me by the thumb and before I knew what she was doing she was buffing and glossing it, and now my thumb nail is MUCH too glossy for me to feel OK about my manliness. I mean, if I'd been a girl I'd have been totally fine with glossy thumbnails, but C'MON!!! So once she did that, she did her schpeel about her product, her lotion & stuff. She was a pretty good salesperson... she even dropped her price from $70 to $20, but I don't think she understoof how utterly poor us missionaries are. So, I left with me thumbnail shiny (in fact, even now, one week later, its shine still mocks me!) and me hand smelling like some kiwi stuff. Anyhoo...

The saga of flat tires continued this week, with Elder Brown getting 2 more! Luckily my bike was spared... this time! Wednesday we had a great district meeting. We talked about reaching our goals, and how the only thing that will stop us is our own doubts and fears. We usually do some roleplaying during these meetings, and so we did one where I was Elder Stoker's companion and we were teaching Elder Brown. Elder Stoker did most of the teaching, and afterwards I came in and testified, and the Spirit got super strong. Now, I don't think it was because of me... but it helped me realize the importance of adding a second witness. It truly gives our message power when both of us testify of the Restoration... just as the message of our Savior Jesus Christ is strengthened when the Book of Mormon adds it's witness to the Bible's. This week we had some sweet teaching experiences, inuding 3 people who set baptismal dates right there on their doorstep. The Spirit has been SO strong! The Lord has truly been preparing those who will receive us.

Thursday morning I said goodbye to Elder Brown (who is now in Jacksonville Beaches) and welcomed my new companion, Elder Van Genderen from Meridian, Idaho. He's way cool, and we're already getting along fantastickly. I just need to help him get over his nervousness.

Well... I gotta get going... I love y'all a lot! -Elder Borgia

PS- In the next 2 or 3 weeks I'm going to make some Christmas cards to send. Please send me y'alls current address so that you can get one!!!

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'Don't Stop Believing'

2008-11-10T12:33:00.000-05:00

What a week! So first off... the election... I'm very glad to know that Prop 8 passed. A similar amendment passed here in FL. Our neighbors kept us updated on the election all night, so it was interesting to see how everything panned out. It was weird to be on the east coast for it. Normally when I'm at home, once CA's votes are in, the east has already been done for a few hours. This time I had to wait patiently. Anyway...

So it seems that everyone we start teaching becomes suddenly ill. Ugh. Greg Raffa was supposed to be baptized this past Saturday, but instead he ended up in the ICU Tuesday until Saturday. So, hopefully he'll be able to be baptized this week.

Tuesday I made the prideful comment to Elder Wright that I'd never gotten a flat tire on my bike. (which reminds me of Mom's story of how she'd never broken a bone). Well... I was humbled mere hours later with a flat tire. I tried to patch it, but it wouldn't, so I stuck in an extra tube. I checked the inside for prickly things to see what caused it, but never found anything. However... I never checked the outside of the tire. So on Wednesday we were about a mile & 1/2 from home and I hear a hissing sound. I followed the sound, which led me to a large shard of glass sticking out of my tire! Ummm... that would be the problem. So I took it out, checked the rest of the outside, and then put in a new tube that has some green slimy stuff that supposedly protects the tube from flats. All clear, right? WRONG!!! Friday Elder Brown got a flat tire. AACCKK!!! So now it's been a few days, and hopefully we're safe now.

Thursday we held a "hymn sing" for our ward. A ward missionary had the idea that we could get together every couple of weeks, invite some investigators, and sing hymns. It brings the Spirit, and then we could share a quick thought and then setup return appointments. A grand idea... we even invited quite a few people... but all of 3 people came, all of which were members. So, I suppose the trial & error will continue.

Friday we had quite the horrifying experience. (Actually, it was hilarious!) So we got home and I was on the phone with our WML when we heard some strange music coming from the backyard. Now, the way our apartments are setup our backyard is up against someone else's yard. So Brown goes out to investigate the source of this nonsense, and comes back in laughing hysterically. I go out, and recognize the music as Journey being sung horribly off-key. We looked through the slits of the fence and saw this girl (probably in her 20's) dancing with a hula-hoop (sp?!) whilst her hippy boyfriend sang along. It was probably the funniest thing that I've ever seen in my life!

Sunday I got to teach a teenage girl who's deaf... so my ASL skills were tested. I'm not sure she got too much out of it. I was terribly nervous and kept on repeating myself. So I'll bet you can guess what I'll be practicing in my studies for the next little while.

And finally... Saturday was transfer calls. I will be staying here in OP (which means I'll probably stay here for the remainder of my mission). However, Elder Brown is being transferred, making him 6-week companion #9!!! I found out this morning that I'll be training again, for the fourth time. Maybe I'll actually get to keep him for longer than 6-weeks! Elder Wright (one of our spanish roommates) is going home to Utah, and Elder Woolsey is staying.

So, that was my uber-exciting week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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"Gentleman..."

2008-11-04T19:24:00.001-05:00

Well, as of Friday I've been out 21 months. How crazy is that?! On one hand, I feel like it just started. But on the other... I feel like I've been doing this my whole life. It's been a pretty good week here. Monday we started the week off with breakfast at a members home. Bro. Vinson taught me how to make stuffed french toast (w/ cream cheese). SO GOOD!!! What a way to start the week!!! This week it got cold here. We're talking highs in the 50's. I even had to put a sweatshirt on! Not that I'm complaining, though... I loved it. Wednesday we had an interesting experience. We were tracting, and were about to knock on a door when we hear a voice from across the street say "God doesn't live there." Ummm... OK? So we turned and looked and saw a few guys standing around a truck drinking. We said something general along the lines of "God loves everyone" and the man said "You don't understand... I'm a retired marine sniper, and (pointing to the other guys) he was a navy seal and he was army special ops. I ate a sandwich while I decided when someone died. Like I said... God doesn't live there." So while they were talking we had started saundering over towards them to talk to them. As we got closer, the army guy came and stopped us, one hand in his pocket and the other holding his beer, and said "Gentleman, don't come around here". We asked if he meant that house, but he interupted us: "Gentleman, don't come around here". We asked a few questions, each time getting the same response, each time him taking another step towards us. He wasn't the happiest-looking of individuals that I've ever met, and lets just say that I wasn't confident that he would play nice, so we started to walk away. After walking for a bit we passed a man getting out of his car, so we stopped to talk to him. Then we hear from behind us: "Gentleman..." The guy had been following us. So we kept walking, and he followed us until we went around the corner to the next street. Creepy, huh?! We joked that we should've gone back with a member of our war d, Bro. Carney, who heads the SWAT unit in Jacksonville. But, don't worry mom... we won't. As the election draws near, I am really frustrated... I think the postal service lost my ballot, 'cuz it never came in the mail. So, unless it comes today it looks like I won't be voting. UGH! So, I told you the creepy story first, but really it was a great week. We're working with some great people, and I know that the Lord is preparing more. I've gotta get going, but I love y'all very much. -Elder Borgia

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Domination in the Grove

2008-10-27T14:22:00.000-04:00

October is already over?! When did that happen??!! So we had a pretty sweet week. Monday was a pretty cool p-day. We just chilled, and the other guys taught me how to play some game called "Settlers of Catan" which is actually really fun, and slightly addicting. Wednesday was a trade-off with OP 2nd ward. Elder Brown went up to be with Elder Wolfley (our DL) and Elder Black came down with me. Black came out the same time as Brown, and he's Navajo! It just so happened that that day we were finishing up tracting a street named 'Navajo'! This new batch of missionaries is so good!!! I can't even imagine how these guys are going to be in 2 years. Thursday we had interviews with President Newman. He discussed a new door approach that was introduced in the past few weeks. We call it "Gathering Through the Grove". Imagine this:

We knock on a door, man opens it. "Hi sir, how's it going?" "Good" "Awesome... we're representatives of Jesus Christ... my name is Elder Borgia and this is Elder Brown... what's your name?" "David" "Well, David, did you know that in the spring of 1820 God the Father and our Savior Jesus Christ appeared to a young boy in upstate New York?"

(at this point, we get one of 3 things: a door slammed, a blank stare, or a invitation to continue)

"David, this wasn't the first time that Christ had appeared in the America's. He also appeared anciently to the Native Americans. We have a record of His teachings among them! May we come in and share more of this message with you?"

So, definitely a lot more bold & direct. It's definitely inspired. It has been helping us find people that are truly interested rather than those that are simply listening to be polite. We're already leading the South in finding new investigators, and I can't wait to see what this does. Anyhoo... so the rest of my interview was good.

Saturday was our ward Halloween party. Elder Brown & I dressed up as each other. We wore the same tie, same pen, switched nametags, parted our hair the same, and both wore our glasses which look exactly the same (that's pretty much the wildest us missionaries can get!) Sadly, I forgot to take a picture. Oh well, maybe we'll do it again sometime. It was funny/interesting to see which members actually know our names, and which ones called me "Elder Brown" for the night. It was a ward soup/chili cookoff, and we ate so much!

Then once everyone had left, we had fun playing with the sound system. Bro. Sanders was there too, and we sang hymns (& other songs) for about an hour, which is where we got an idea! Starting next week, we're going to have hymn sing nights where we get together at the church and have members bring their friends. We'll just stand around the piano and sing, then once the Spirit is there we'll share a message. Sa-WEET!!!

When we got home from the party all of our neighbors were out watching the Ohio/Penn State game and grilling. We stayed out and talked for a little bit. Tom (right next door) made elk chili and had us try some. It was good! Now, prepare yourself... I tried something pretty funky. Tom suggested that I make a peanut butter sandwich and dip it in the chili. I thought he was crazy, but I did it anyway, and it was SO GOOD!!! So everyone, you totally have to try it!

So, along with all of this fun stuff, we also had a great time teaching this week. The Lord has been preparing the way for our investigators. I won't go into details because it's their personal lives, but it is very apparent that the Lord is quite involved in this work. We've found a few people this week that were definitely prepared to receive the gospel. I love y'all a lot! -Elder Borgia

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No pressure

2008-10-20T20:48:00.001-04:00

Well, it's been another good week. We got off to a great start last Monday as we had a zone conference where Elder Coleman of the Seventy came and spoke to us. Talk about a spiritual domination!!! The Spirit was so strong, and we all got extra pumped up for the work that we're doing right now. As Elder Gonzalez told us a few months ago... "Missionary work is the most important work in human history after the Atonement" Uh, no pressure, right?! ;)

The work is going awesome here. The Lord has blessed us with some cool investigators... and we'll be finding some more in the coming week. As the year ends, our mission baptismal goal is definitely in mind, and we're on our way to reaching & surpassing it (btw... it's 650). It's also been a very humbling week as I've continued to realize that really, I don't do anything in this work. We go out and tract and talk and teach, but the Lord ends up dropping everything in our lap for us.

I love all of you very much. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Borgia

Also, a shout-out to Mama who turned, um, 39 this past Wednesday! ;)

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Looking towards the Grove

2008-10-13T15:58:00.001-04:00

Well it's been a truly amazing & miraculous week!!! Monday after emails we went and played some more lazertag. Luckily this time my legs didn't hate me quite as bad. Tuesday after our service at the bike place they had a luncheon thing. Free food = we were there!!! It's at the Methodist church that we do service, and the luncheon was mostly old retired people. As we ate the local high school came and put on a show thing. A few different thoughts were running through my mind: 1) I hope that when I was in high school we didn't sound ANYTHING like that! and 2) it made me miss high school (only a little bit though!) Mostly I just am realizing how sweet it was in high school to do things like chamber choir & drumline... things I'll probably never be able to do again. I just wished I'd realized that 6 years ago (MAN I'm old!!!) when I just wanted to get out of school. Oh well. Wednesday night I attended my very first wedding for our investigator Lacrisha and her now-husband Quinn. It was SWEET!!! Thursday we had a pretty cool district meeting. There's a new tracting approach that's being used in our mission called "Gathering through the Grove" and it's way bold. Basically it helps us identify those who truly are prepared to receive us rather than those that are just trying to be polite & listen. The Spirit was very strong as we talked about our district's goals for this transfer and as we identified a plan of action to accomplish those goals. Afterward we headed to Firehouse, which Elder Brown had for the first time. For all of you who aren't aware, Firehouse is the most amazing sandwich place ever, and if you haven't been your life is pretty much incomplete! ;) Saturday was a sweet day. We had all day to be out & about just talking to people and finding new investigators, and we were able to find quite a few. That night once it'd gotten dark we found ourselves in a bit of a spot. Our appointment had fallen through and it was definitely too dark to tract (people get a bit creeped out when 2 strang ers knock on the door at night). We prayed that we'd still be able to use our night effectively, and suddenly a guy rides towards us on his bike that we recognize as someone we'd talked to a few days before. So we just started chatting, and we ended up going to the park and teaching him about the Restoration and the next day he was at church. Sunday was awesome! The testimonies that were borne in sacrament meeting were amazing. To top it all off this week 4 people set dates to be baptized.

I have no doubt that the Lord is VERY INVLOVED in this work... even in the little details. I have seen His hand in my life and in this work.

I know that God lives. I know that Jesus Christ is His Son. I know that They are seperate & distinct Beings who are unified in Their love for us. I know that in the spring of 1820 They appeared to the young Joseph Smith and spoke a message of peace to Him. That same message applies to all of us. As evidence of this great occurence God has brought forth The Book of Mormon, which is another testament of our Savior Jesus Christ and His ministry in the ancient America's. I know that it is true! I am aware that there are several reading this email that haven't had the opportunity to read this book, which truly contains the words of Christ. I would challenge you to read this book, to ponder in your hearts it's message, and then to ASK God if it is true. I PROMISE YOU in the name if Jesus Christ that you will receive an answer, and I bear testimony that it is true. I love you all very much. Until next week... Elder Borgia

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Hello Elder Brown

2008-10-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a whirlwind week! On Monday I said goodbye to Elder Pinto, and then we headed over to the Fleming Island missionaries place where we played some volleyball. I stayed with them there until Thursday, when I picked up my new companion. So we mostly worked in their area, although we saw a few people here. We also spent some time rearranging everything to make room for the Spanish elders that moved in. Tuesday night OP2nd had a baptism which we attended, and President Newman was there, along with all 11 missionaries that went home Wednesday morning. At the end of the service he had them all get up and sing "Called to Serve". Talk about an emotional experience. It ALMOST made me cry... although not quite. But it made me realize that I don't envy those people at all. I don't want this time to be up. It's not that I don't want to go home. Rather, it's just that everything here is really speeding up and I want to be here to see it happen. But I still got plenty of time to see more miralces and fill my time with work. Anyhoo... so Thursday morning I got to the Mandarin building at around 9am and went to the trainers meeting. 17 NEW MISSIONARIES!!! CRAZY!!! So, my new companion's name is Elder Brown, and he's currently from Park City, UT... although he spent 11 years in Indiana. He's a pretty sweet guy. He's way into theatre & music... and even sang in the BYU Men's Chorus before his mission!!! On top of that, he's already a way awesome teacher... I don't even know what to train him in! Alls I know is we are going to TEAR IT UP these next 6 weeks. Friday the 3 older children of the Joy family were baptized (their youngest isn't old enough yet). Elder Brown baptized Sapphire (on the second day of his mission he got to get in the water... SCHYEAH!!!), and I baptized Charlie-Anne and Allan. That was a sweet baptismal service. Conference this weekend was definitely sweet. I think my favorite was the priesthood session... it just seemed like it was crazy bold, which I like. That's the way to do it!!! So, yeah... SWEET week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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...and always remember Him...

2008-09-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

OK, so for the first time in a little while, transfer calls have come and gone and I'm actually staying put! Imagine that! I said goodbye to Elder Pinto mere hours ago, and Wednesday morning he's gonna be headed back to San Diego, where he'll have 2 weeks with his whole family before his little brother leaves on his mission. But look at me... getting ahead of myself. Lemme tell you about the week:

Monday was a lazy p-day. For Pinto's last we played lots of RISK and Monopoly, both of which I lost. :( Oh well, life goes on right? Tuesday I got to hold a tarantula named Heffa (the pet of one of our investigators). I'll work on getting a picture up for you. Tuesday we were also able to meet with the Joy family. The parents have been less-active for a little while, but a series of events have brought them back to the church. None of their children have been baptized, so we started teaching them and they're going to ba baptized this Friday. The ward has shown an outpouring of support which is always awesome. Wednesday we had a great district meeting, and Elder Wolfley (our DL) said something that I need to work on... focus. He identified all of the times throughout the day we have to ourselves to think: studies, in the shower, on our bikes, going to sleep, while I'm jogging, etc. The list goes on & on. What I think about in those moments will define my mission. Will I think about girls or worldly songs or home, or will I direct my thoughts towards the Savior, His gospel, and teaching it to the people of Orange Park? So I've been studying myself and my thoughts and trying to focus more than I ever have before! The Lord has definitely blessed us this week. We found some SWEET people!!! One I'd like to share is Amanda. We knocked on her door and started talking. We quickly found out that she already has a Book of Mormon, and her & her husband are reading it regularly along with the Bible. (!!!) There are people that wouldn't read if I begged on my knees and paid them a million dollars, and these people are already doing it themselves! She even committed herself to come to church!!! Isn't the Lord AWESOME!!! Whew! So, with Pinto leaving this week, there were lots of people wanting to feed him, whether it be investigators or members. It seems that my quest for rock hard abs seems to be undercut all the time. Oh well... food is too good! That's the problem! This week we had Mexican, Japanese, Korean (ps to the Imagawa's... I actually had bul-go-gee... AND LIKED IT!!!... aren't you proud?!), and lots of other stuff. But to make up for that... something is screwed up on my bike, so it seems I've had to pedal twice as hard to get anywhere. Luckily it has a 2-year warranty, so I dropped it off this morning. I'm going to be spending the next few days with the elders in Fleming Island (who have a car!!!) so I won't be needing it until Thursday. Thursday 2 big things are happening... our 2-man apartment is going to become a 4-man, so I'm trying to figure out where to put all the extra stuff; and I'm going to be training again... my 3rd greenie!!! So that's gonna be fun! In closing, I'll tell ya about Friday night. Our ward had an adult pinewood derby social. The only rule was... just gravity. (no engines!) Other than that... it could be as heavy as you wanted and you could shave down the wheels or whatever. Obviously Pinto & I had no time to build a car, but a member of the ward that couldn't be there ended up asking me to race his car. I tinkered with it a little bit more, and ended up getting 3rd place!!! Well... this has been a long post. Oh well... deal with it!!! ;) Love y'all... have a great week! -Elder Borgia

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Pinto's homestretch

2008-09-22T12:32:00.000-04:00

OK... to start off, I forgot a story from last week. So Elder Pinto and I had just finished tracting a neighborhood, and as we were walking back to our bikes we saw a sherrif's car turn onto the street. He drove slowly toward us, rolled down his window, and motioned for us to come over. Apparently someone had called the coppers on us, and even though we weren't doing anything illegal, he still had to talk to us. We basically chit-chatted for about 5-10 minutes while he ran our ID information through the system and logged us in as "field contacts" so that if there's a 'next time', if they swipe our IDs it'll tell them what we're doing and that he already talked to us. So, in all reality it wasn't terribly exciting, but at least I can now say that I've had the cops called on me! Anyhoo... on to this week. We had another lesson with Tom, who I mentioned last week. We taught the plan of salvation, and the Spirit was so strong. He tried to tell us he wasn't interested... but if someone is on the edge of their seat leaning forward to listen to everything you say and they readily invite you back for the next week... something tells me that they might be interested. But more important than all of that, the Spirit was very strong and I could tell that he felt it. So, I'll keep you updated on him. This week our washing machine broke, which means that we've been doing all of our washing at our neighbors house. When the repairman came, he ended up being a less-active member just a few years older than us. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!!! Sunday was great... we've been working hard to get people to come to church, and this Sunday the Lord blessed us with 6 people at sacrament meeting... 2 that we weren't even expecting!!! I know that the Lord is intimately involved with this work! This week I've been studying charity a lot, and it's become so apparent to me that EVERYTHING relies on our hearts being filled with charity. Truly that is the great commandment: to love the Lord and to love our neighbors, and when we're filled wit h this love EVERYTHING ELSE FOLLOWS! This week is looking great... Elder Pinto's last. Amazingly, he's not trunky at all!!! I hope the same can be said of me when I'm on the home stretch!

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Feel the burn!!!

2008-09-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

OK, so on Monday last week for p-day we (our district plus Timicuana) played lazer-tag. It was way fun! However, I hurt! You see, believe it or not, I can get a bit competitive. The walls are only 3-4 feet high. So, I could run standing up and get shot at, OR I could somehow crouch and run at the same time. So due to my chubbiness & inflexibility, afterwards my legs went on strike. Also, it didn't help that when I "fixed" the back brakes on my bike I put them too tight without realizing it, so for 2 days I was riding around with my brakes clamped down. Needless to say, I was a bit tired. But enough of my quadricep's pity party. On to the great week! Tuesday we went to see a guy named Tom who had requested a free Book of Mormon. Come to find out, he's an Episcopal preacher! Still, he owns the Work & the Glory movies (for those who don't know, its a fictional story all about LDS church history), wants to study the Book of Mormon, and even said he thinks Joseph Smith might've been a prophet. (!!!) So, needless to say, we're excited to go back and see him again this week. Wednesday we had a sweet district meeting, and Thursday we had a training from the AP's while we had interviews with President Newman. The Spirit was SO STRONG! President Newman talked to us about some exciting stuff that's coming up. Starting in January, the church is going to start a media campaign here called "Truth Restored" that has been very successful in other areas. The members are getting way excited too. Our WML and Bishop had a meeting/training from Elder Anderson of the seventy and President Newman all about the members taking over the missionary work, particularly the finding. I think the day is fast approaching when the full-time missionaries won't be coming to the states... it'll be up to the members. So, yeah... SWEET week! Sorry if this is a bit scatterbrained. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- a shout-out to Papa... hope you feel better soon! But for now... I know you're enjoying the Star Trek technology!

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Porker & Miracles

2008-09-08T15:42:00.000-04:00

Well hello there everyone. It's been a fun week! Monday for labor day 2 different families invited us over for BBQ's, so I think I gained like 10 pounds!!! This week I was able to go on a trade-off with our district leader Elder Wolfley (who was my roommate for 3 months in Lake City). It was way fun to catch up on things with him and work with him. Thursday was zone conference, which is always something to look forward to. A lot of things were talked about, but the main thing that I got out of it had to do more with vision. Specifically... goals. Right now we're spending a lot of time finding new people, and I've allowed my vision to slip a little bit. I found my focus being on getting return appointments, rather than finding people who are prepared for baptism. So with zone conference as my friendly reminder, my sights have been raised. Thursday Elder Pinto was sick and we came in a bit early so he could sleep. So our apartment got a deep cleaning and I actually caught up on my journal!!! YEAH! Saturday we helped our neighbor move some saltwater fishtanks. Those babies are heavy! Also, for the rest of the day I smelled like the ocean. That night was amazing. Will Primiano (recently baptized in Kingsland) picked me up and we headed to Lake City to pick up Elder Thacker. Then we drove up to Kingsland for the baptism of Ellen Crothers, who Thacker & I taught. It's always a sweet experience to be able to see someone you've grown close with make those covenants. The best part is seeing the light in their eyes. Then on Sunday we had a miracle day. Elder Pinto & I had been fasting & praying for 2 things... more investigators from members and a family to teach. Well, the Lord gave us both. I KNOW that the gospel is true, and I know that this is the Lord's work. The true joy comes as we get lost in the work of the Lord and find Him. I love you all, have a great week! -Elder Borgia

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It's a bird... it's a plane... IT'S A MOSQUITO!!!

2008-09-01T12:23:00.001-04:00

Well, my first full week here in Orange Park went well. Lots and lots of tracting, since our teaching pool is a bit shallow at the moment. So every Tuesday here we do service with an organization called James Boys. They're affiliated with the Methodist church, and they fix up bikes and give them to less-fortunate kids. So, on top of being able to serve... I'm learning how to service bikes! We met lots of cool people this week tracting... some funny, some mean, some SWEET! My favorite is a guy we met last night. Mark's door was the last we knocked on, and he invited us in. He's really frustrated with all of the churches out there, teaching so many different things. "I don't just want SOME truth... I want ALL of it!" he said. (Ummm, excuse me, could you say that again once I get my video camera out?) !!! So we gave him a Book of Mormon and he was excited to read it and we're going to be going back this week. SWEET!!! So last night Elder Pinto & I were chillin, and I thought I saw a fly flying around the room. Well, I was suddenly on a mission to kill it. Imagine my suprise when I realize that it's a MOSQUITO the size of a large fly!!! AAACCCKKK!!! My desire to kill it enlarged 1000x. It landed on Pinto's leg and thus it's life ended shortly thereafter. So yeah... that was the week. This week is already lookin like it's gonna be SWEET!!! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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Hectic Week

2008-08-25T11:59:00.000-04:00

Wow! It's been an exciting week. I don't even know where to start, so I'll just start typing and hopefully y'all will be able to piece it all together. My last few days in Kingsland were pretty good. I was only there for 6 weeks so I didn't have too many goodbyes. For p-day we went to Fernadina Beach in Florida (about 30 minutes south) and chilled there. It was so sweet! So this week we were hit by tropical storm Fay. We were told that it might become a category 1 hurricane, and it was supposed to hit on Thursday morning, right as transfers were supposed to happen. SO... bring on hectic & stressful Wednesday. Thacker & I woke up thinking it would be a normal day. We'd heard some rumors that transfers might change because of the storm, so we called the AP's. Elder Jensen answered and said "Oh yeah... we're probably going to bump them up to today... wait for us to call you in a little bit, we'll let you know where you're going and you'll need ti find a ride." (???!!!) So, seeing as neither of us had even started packing, panic ensued. We hurriedly packed our stuff, said a few final goodbyes, and then waited at the apartment for our ride to pick us up. Elder Thacker is now with Elder Hendrickson in Lake City 2nd ward, and I'm in Orange Park 1st ward, which is a sizeable suburb of Jacksonville. So, Thursday the storm did hit, welcoming me to my new BIKE area. The winds got pretty crazy and on Friday there were a bunch on tornado warnings, so we spent a lot of time inside. But now the sky is blue and the sun is out... hopefully that'll last for at least a few days. My new companions name is Elder Pinto, from San Diego, CA. He's going home at the end of this transfer... making him the 2nd missionary I'll "kill". (Does that mean I'm a serial killer?) The ward here seems pretty cool... it's pretty big, which is a nice change. So this week, aside from my ever-constant goal of sharing the gospel, I have a personal goal of burning off all of the unhealthy food I ate while stuck in the apartment. My diet was ri diculously terrible for a few days. Being on the bike should help. Just you wait... I'll get home skinny & buff! SCHYEAH!!! Anyhoo... that's about it. Hope you were able to follow all that. Love ya, Elder Borgia

PS- my new address is:

1340 Independence Dr. Apt. C

Orange Park, FL 32065

... now you can send all of those letters you've been holding onto. ;)

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I'm out like the fat kid in dodgeball

2008-08-18T13:14:00.000-04:00

Well, transfer calls came this past Saturday. I didn't even mention it in last weeks update, since I figured I'd stay while Thacker left (he's been here 7 1/2 months). Well, we're BOTH leaving!!! Pretty crazy, huh? That's going to be 2 6-week areas in a row! Elder Reid is also getting transferred, meaning that 3 out of the 4 elders in our ward are leaving (all that's left will be Elder Finch). I'll definitely keep you posted. Anyhoo... it's been a pretty good week. Monday was a pretty chill p-day, we worked out at the Rec Center for a few hours. My goal is to be thin & buff by the time I return home... so we'll see how that turns out. We went to all 3 district meetings this week to present a training based on what Elder Gonzalez talked about a week or so ago. Our zone is lagging a bit in comparison with the others, so we're really trying to "rally the troops". On Thursday we went on a trade-off with Will (who you'll remember was baptized last week). It was SO COOL to take him teaching with us. He's in Arizona for the next 3 weeks, so by the time he's back we'll be long gone. That one experience alone totally made this area. Every area has its quirks and memories, but I will always treasure the experience of teaching Will, and how the Lord really led us to Him when He was prepared.

I've been thinking a lot the past few weeks about vision, in terms of how it relates to faith. In Ether 12:18-19 (which is in the Book of Mormon) it mentions having an "eye of faith", much the same as it speaks of in Matthew 6:21-22. To have faith in something, we must visualize that thing actually happening... we must even become preoccupied with it. So it is in this great work... the leaders of the Church, through Elder Gonzalez, have commissioned us to triple the number of people we bring unto Christ through baptism, which would be roughly 1,000 by the end of 2008. It's going to happen. All we as missionaries need to do is serve with our might and rely on the Lord and He'll take care of the rest.

I love y'all very much. Hope to hear from you soon!

-Elder Borgia

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Spiritual DOMINATION!!!

2008-08-11T13:32:00.000-04:00

This week was full of spiritual highs. First on Thursday we were able to go with a member to the Orlando temple. The Spirit was so strong! It helped me to refocus on my purpose... to help our investigators get there too! Saturday morning was the baptism of Will, who we met a little over 3 weeks ago. Talk about someone that was prepared!!! He's faced a lot of opposition, particularly from his family, but his testimony has been strengthened. Elder Thacker was able to baptize him and I confirmed him. The Spirit was SO STRONG at the baptism. Then this weekend was Stake Conference, and for most of it they talked about missionary work. President Newman spoke about the need for the members to share the gospel. Friday morning was also a cool/stressed out experience. Rewind to Thursday night. The AP's were at our apt. after having interviewed Will and as they were leaving they said "so we'll see you at the meeting tomorrow morning, right?" (??!!) Apparently they'd forgotten to tell us that we needed to be at a meeting Friday morning in JAX. So the night went on, and we forgot about it. We woke up in the morning and realized that we had no clue how to get there, and at that early hour we totally spaced the fact that we had a GPS thingy. So we got directions and headed out. Well the directions called for us to take 295-east, and we saw that 295 only goes north & south. (?!) So we took a chance and headed South. Well, we finally got there, after a phone call and 50 extra miles. Luckily we were only a few minutes late. We get to the meeting and are surprised to see that Elder Gonzalez of the Presidency of the Seventy is there talking to us. So he talked to us some more about working with the members, and challenged us to triple our baptisms (we've already doubled them). So... onward & upward I guess. So yeah... that was my great week. I hope to hear from some of y'all soon! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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August Madness

2008-08-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a good week. We've had quite a bit of time to tract in hopes of finding some new people to teach. Tuesday/Wednesday we did trade-offs with the elders in St. Mary's. I went there with Elder Finch and we were on bikes. Joy of joys!!! Actually it was pretty fun. I liked it because we were able to talk to lots of people as we rode around. We came upon a turtle on the side of the road... we picked it up and took pictures with it and stuff, and when we put it down that thing BOOKED IT away from us. We also tracted into a cool lady with a really thick Scottish accent. I just wish I could even come close to mimmicking that. Thursday night after planning I was playing around with my camera and I found something called color-swap, which does exactly what it says. Once we figured that out, we took some freaky-deeky pictures!!! I'll have to show y'all eventually. Things are still going really well with Will. He's all set to be baptized on this coming Saturday (August 9). We watched The Testaments with him this week and the Spirit was SO STRONG!!! Experiences like that definitely strengthen my testimony and wake me up out of occasional complacency. Can you believe that it's already August?! I only have 6 months left, EXACTLY, today. !!!! What the heck?! Well, I'd better let y'all get going. Hope to hear from ya soon! -Elder Borgia

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18 months!!!

2008-07-28T13:59:00.000-04:00

This has been a great week. First, to start off, although this is getting emailed to you from AOL mail... please send emails to <jsbmhca_717@myldsmail.net>. I will not be checking AOL mail. Other than the weekly update, I'm going to be trying to stick to writing letters other than emailing. I promise you that if I get a letter I'll respond to it.
OK... now that the administrative crap is out of the way... on to the week. I don't know if last week I mentioned Will who we met on Friday (the 18th). He is SO COOL!!! We've met with him practically every day since, and he's preparing to be baptized in the next few weeks. He was SO prepared... all we did was knock on his door and it was downhill from there. I LOVE being a missionary and having experiences where I can literally see the hand of the Lord in this work. Monday night we had a totally awesome game of RISK, except that I lost at the end. :( I was doing good too! Then on Tuesday we had zone conference in Lake Butler. We overestimated how long it'd take us to get there, so we woke up at 4:30am and we hit the road by 6. We never hit the JAX rush-hour traffic we were expecting, so we got to the church at 7:30... and hour and a half early. So I slept for a little while in the car. The meeting was really good, and afterwards we went to the Oak Grove chapel (the first LDS church to be built in Florida) and we had a little meeting in there. Then instead of going back to Kingsland, I went on a trade-off to Darien (again!), this time we didn't spend any time visiting members I knew... this time we re contacted some investigators I knew from a year ago. So that was pretty fun, except that I'd forgotten how many sand gnats there are in Darien. So yeah... things were sweet this week. On Thursday (the 31st) it'll have been 18 months that I've been a missionary. CRAZY!!! Well, I'd better get going. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

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I'M LEGAL BABY!!!

2008-07-21T12:23:00.003-04:00

It's been a crazy week to kick off my first 6 weeks in Kingsland. I'm getting adjusted, I even know my way around town (a little bit). However, I still haven't met at least 1/2 of the people on our board, so hopefully I'll get to meet some more cool people this week. Monday we hanged out (or is it hung out?) with the elders in St. Mary's (Reid & Finch) at our apt. and played Monopoly, which I TOTALLY DOMINATED at!!! I was a ruthless tyrant! Tuesday morning Elder Thacker and I headed up to Darien to meet with President Newman and the assistants along with the other zone leaders for our "mission council". We revamped some of our standards and the Spirit was SO strong!!! Afterwards we went to President Padgett's house (he's in the mission presidency) and had a low-country boil (which is sausage, corn, shrimp, potatoes, crab, carrots, and onions all boiled together... SO GOOD!). Afterwards is when our day really got interesting. So we had an appointment with a part-member family that was on our way back. Neither of us had ever been there, so we plugged the address into "Judy" (what we named our GPS navigator) and headed off. However, what we didn't know was that the Camden county people labeled all of the roads wrong, so it took us to the wrong place. So it took us to a dirt driveway with a gate in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, so we unlatched the gate and drove in. We drove for a while and finally got to a dilapidated trailer that was obviously uninhabited. So we sat there for a little bit and then decided to turn around and find a place to call, and when we turned the car around we saw a huge rottweiler sitting in the middle of the road. AACCKK!!! So we drove to the gate and the dog followed us, so we weren't sure how we were going to get out of there since we couldn't open the gate without getting out of the car, and if we got out of the car we were sure to be eaten! So I tried to maneuver the car around to where I could unlock the gate from the window, but to no avail. So then, in turning the car back around I ran over a cinderblock that had been covered by grass. So I went over it, and then when I looked behind the car I saw something rounded and black... it looked to me like a tire. So I thought, "GREAT! We're stuck in the middle of nowhere with a rottweiler and only 3 tires on the car!" What a predicament! So we sat there and I rolled down the window to study the dog, and after a few minutes came to the conclusion that it was a nice dog. So I got out of the car, and the dog proceeded to slobber all over me. I went over to the "tire" and found that it was actually the plastic lining to our left-front wheel-well. So, at least it wasn't the tire, right? So we stuck that in the trunk and put our attention back to leaving there. So as we were opening up the gate a van drove up, and this confused looking guy got out and asked us who we were. After introducing ourselves and explaining the situation, the man gave us directions to where we actually wanted to be, which was forever away. UGH! So yeah, that was fun. Then Thursday was my birthday, which was sweet. 21 BABY!!!
We were doing our weekly planning in the morning, and a knock comes at the door. I go to answer it, and there's Sister Nettles & Stephanie Crawford (Alyssa Smith's family) from Lake Butler with peanut butter brownies and a huge poster! They drove freakin 2 hours just for me!!! That was definitely the sweetest part of my day. So I got to chill and talk to them for about 30 minutes, and then it was back to work. Then on Saturday night us and the St. Mary's elders drove down to Jacksonville for a baptism in Mandarin, which is where Elder Finch just came from. That was pretty sweet. So yeah, it's been a great week. Time is FLYING by! Hope to hear from y'all soon! Love, Elder Borgia

Still in Georgia

2008-07-14T11:45:00.001-04:00

(Elder Thacker, rejoicing in his victory over the dead fly)
Yup... still in Georgia. I have moved about 30 minutes south to the city of Kingsland where I've joined Elder Thacker, but more on that later. First off, I'll tell you about my last few days in Brunswick. Monday was yet another lazy p-day. Tuesday was our last district meeting together, which was short and sweet. We had testimonies from the departing missionaries, and then picture time! Later on that day, we went to an appointment we had with a guy named Ira. HOLY MOSQUITOS!!! The entire time we were talking to him outside, we were swarmed! When I was teaching, I'd try my best ti ignore them and deal with it, but as soon as Elder Amesse starting teaching I started flailing my legs around in a vain effort to get them off me. At the end of the lesson we counted about 6 or 7 bites each. Needless to say, Benadryl was my friend on Tuesday. (When I get to the Spirit World, I'm going to ask what the point was for these bugs) Then we got home and there was a voicemail for us to call President Newman back... Elder Amesse is training and once again I'm serving as a zone leader, meaning I can kiss going to bed on time goodbye, and I might as well pack my journal. ;) Seriously though, I'm glad to do it. The elders in this zone are SWEET! So a lot of Wednesday was spent packing. Monday I bought some vacuum-packing bags, and when I used them on Wednesday MY MIND WAS BLOWN!!! Maybe I'm much too easily entertained/amazed, but I was amazed. On Tuesday President Newman told me where I would be serving, so on Thursday morning I skipped going to transfer meeting and just got a ride straight to Kingsland. This area is AWESOME!!! However, I am still SO lost! Elder Thacker is way cool. Luckily he's been here for 6 months already (meaning I might not be with him for too long) so he's been helping me try to get a handle on the area. In our ward boundaries (but in other missionaries area) is St. Mary's, which has a naval nuclear submarine base... the only one on the east coast. So there are A LOT of people in the ward that work for the navy. It's fun to hear them talk about it (although there's a lot of classified stuff they can't tell us). It's making me reconsider a career with the Navy (perhaps NCIS). So we'll see what happens with that. In other news, last night we went over to a family's home for dinner, and they fed us stir-fry. We were able to throw in whatever we wanted for our dinner, and I apparently went a bit too crazy on the red pepper (who would've thunk, right?) As soon as they put mine in the pan everyone started sneezing. Then it was unbearably spicy so I had to dilute it with lots more rice, so I ended up taking home about 2 or 3 meals worth! So yeah... exciting stuff, huh? Anyhoo... that's about it. Hope y'all are having a nice week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- my new address is:
149 N. Gross Rd. #24A
Kingsland, GA 31548

Here in an instant, gone in a flash

2008-07-07T11:58:00.003-04:00

Why hello again everyone. Well to start off... I'm getting transferred already, making my stay in Brunswick a short 6 weeks, and making Elder Amesse my 6th 6-week companion. So on Thursday I'll be headed to my 6th area and 9th companion. Wish me luck! This past week was fun. Monday was a pretty chill p-day. I got a haircut, and for the first time on my mission I actually paid for it! AACCKK!!! I called every single place in Brunswick to find the cheapest spot. So I got my haircut by an 80-something year old man who could hardly hear (when I said I was a missionary he thought I said I was from Michigan!), but he cut hair really well! I felt like I'd gone back 50 years and ended up in an old-fashioned barber shop. He even got out the brush-thing and whipped shaving cream all around my hairline and shaved it with a blade. Tuesday was district meeting, and afterward... FIREHOUSE!!! Friday was obviously the 4th of July, and we got up on the roof of the other elder's apartment to try to watch the fireworks... but alas, the trees were in the way. Then on Saturday morning we did service at an old guys house that we met on Thursday. We were tracting and we found Calvin, who's 80-something years old and on oxygen, digging up his side yard. So, we told him that we were going to come help. Apparently he didn't believe us, because when we showed up on Saturday he was kind of surprised. The rest of that day was mostly filled up by riding to and fro, a result of our bad planning, which we paid for with our now sore legs. For dinner we went to this place called Willy's Weenie Wagon, who apparently has some "internationally acclaimed pork chop sandwich". Well, I would beg to differ! Imagine this... decent bread, pretty good pork chops, grilled onions, SMOTHERED in yellow mustard. Not exactly AMAZING... but whatever. They say that they'll pay $2000 to anyone that can bring in a better sandwich. I'm tempted to go ask for one w/o mustard, add a bit of BBQ sauce and give it back to them! ;) Then riding home from dinner we got caught in the rain as a pretty strong storm picked up. By the time we got home we were DRENCHED! I even poured water out of my shoes! Rain like that it SO fun, seriously! So yeah... that was my week. Next week I'll let you know where I end up. Hope to hear from you soon! Love, Elder Borgia

Back in Time

2008-06-30T11:53:00.003-04:00

OK, well this was a SWEET week. Lemme tell ya about it... so on Monday most of our district got together and went bowling. Once again I was reminded of how much I suck at it, but I'll blame it on the fact that my ball was 2 lbs. heavier than anyone elses. Makes sense, right? OK, maybe not, but at least I was able to make the other guys feel better about their bowling skills. Then we went back to our apt. and chilled with the elders from Darien (Bratt & Bewley). A member gave us $ to go to a buffet place for dinner 'cuz they wanted us to try to teach one of the waitresses they gave a Book of Mormon to, so we all went together. We talked to the lady, and we'll be going back to see her soon. Now, being at a buffet, we also stuffed ourselves full of food. It had to be done, right?! Tuesday morning was district meeting, which was good, and then we went on a trade-off. Bewley came down to be with Amesse and I went with Bratt to Darien. It was so SWEET & a little bit weird to be back in Darien after a year. Wednesday morning we did "service" at Brother John Zorn's house, which this week consisted of going grocery shopping with him. My first task was to get the electric cart thing for him and take it out to the parking lot. Of course I ended up grapping the one that was only 1/2 charged, and so picture me, a healthy 20 year old lad, riding this cart which is going .01 mph through the Wal-Mart parking lot. On top of that, I had to stop and stand up occasionally to try to find where they'd parked. I felt SO ridiculous!!! But still, it was fun to be back and see some peeps there. So after service we traded back. The whole experience made me a little bit Darien-trunky... I love those people. Thursday morning we did service at the ranch again, this time it was our fun job to load & stack bales of hay. On the weekend nothing too exciting happened, so I won't bore you with that. Sunday night was sweet, 'cuz President Newman came up and did a fireside for both of the wards up here, talking about how to share the gospel with your friends. It was sweet, and the members seemed pretty excited about it. So yeah... that was my week. This Saturday are transfer calls (already?!) so I'll let you know... both of us are probably staying, but ya never know! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Where did the WAS come from?

2008-06-23T11:45:00.001-04:00

So this week we kicked off the week by meeting a crazy man who tried to argue with us. He was from the religious group "House of Yahweh". I'm not saying anything against that group... I'm sure they're very nice people. This guy, however, was a weirdee. So he saw that we were missionaries and started talking to us. Now, being the missionaries that we are, we started teaching him about what the Book of Mormon was. He had a lot of misconceptions about what it was, saying that we believed Paul preached in England and so on. Hmmmm... not us! Anyhoo... he wanted to try to impress us with scriptural knowledge, so he asked us to turn to John 1:1, which we did. "In the beginning was the word". Now he asks "Where did the was come from?" "Uh, sir?" "WHERE did the WAS come from?!" "I'm not sure what you're trying to say." "God was in the beginning, and then He stepped outside of Himself and was with Himself, so that's where the was came from." "Sir, I'll be honest... that sounds ridiculous" "Well son, that's because you're carnal and so it'll sound foolish to you." So yeah... that was our experience with Yahweh crazy-man. Moving on to Tuesday, which was a SWEET day! We had interviews with President Newman, as well as a training from the AP's while we waited. The AP's talked about effective planning and extending a baptismal commitment while President Newman stressed to me the need to be more direct. So after that, out we went into the world that is Brunswick and tried to apply what we'd been taught. As we did so... miracles happened!!! At one appointment I watched in awe as the Spirit literally changed someone's heart. His entire countenance changed, and the Spirit was so strong. Later we met with another lady and she told us that she'd gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith. I LOVE this work because I get to be a first-hand witness to the Lord's hand in this work. Sunday we had an interesting experience. We went over to Bishop McVeigh's house for dinner and he & his wife ate in one room with the Spanish speaking elders while we ate in another room with Sister McVeigh's mother, who has dementia. At least 5 times she asked us where we were from and if we were from Emery (some college). After the 2nd time, we started coming up with different answers. I was from Germany, and another time from South Africa, and we were both on summer vacation from Emery. We'd helicoptered in to stay with the Bishop for the night. For 5 minutes Elder Amesse spoke only Spanish, and at one point I played deaf. But by the end of it all, she'd forgotten all of that, and we said quite normal goodbyes and she now has no clue who we are. So yeah... that was, um, fun?! Anyhoo... I love y'all... have a great week! -Elder Borgia

Where's the road at?!

2008-06-16T10:46:00.001-04:00

So it's been a pretty good week. Monday we just kind of lazed about the apartment and made dorky videos that will probably eventually be used as blackmail against me. Tuesday was zone conference in Kingsland, which was really good. We talked a lot about the section in PMG (Preach My Gospel) about how to begin teaching. It was amazing, and I sat there wondering how I missed that stuff for 16 months of my mission. Oh well, I guess I have 8 more months to make the most of it. Afterwards we had to wait around because the leadership was having a meeting and we were our district leader's ride, so we just hung around with a few other elders. Elder Oberg and I got all caught up on how life's been going (he's my bud from the MTC that I've barely seen since). Also, a shout out to Sister Newman (President Newman's wife), who I found out reads this each week. Later on that day we were talking to a guy that was a media referral and we got SO frustrated. Our conversation kept going around in circles. We got to talking about modern-day prophets, and he kept asking "Why do I need to pray to Monson?" to which we'd reply, "you don't pray through a prophet... you pray through Christ" to which he'd say "well I'll keep on praying through Jesus and you can keep praying to Monson." (??!!) AACCKK!!! So that was fun & exciting. Wednesday we had a pretty cool experience. We were tracting and a lady opened the door and said "You don't have to introduce yourselves to me... I know who you are. You guys find me wherever I go in this country!" Her name, we later learned, is Robin, and she's a less-active member of the church, although she still has a very strong testimony. We talked to her for a little while and we'll be going back to see her. Thursday evening was fun. Early this week I bought one of those GPS navigation things because I was tired of getting lost all of the time. I set it to take us the shortest route, because of our miles limitations, and a disclaimer came up that said that the shortest route might not always be the safest route. I was like "OK, whatever". It wasn't kidding! This thing tried to take us on roads that said "No Tresspassing", through fences, and jumping railroad tracks. (we found safe alternatives to all of these, I will have you know!) Friday we had an experience where I wonder what some people are thinking. We taught a guy (who was slightly intoxicated, which might explain this) named Joe, who seemed pretty interested. As we closed our discussion, I asked him "Will you read & pray about the Book of Mormon". Pretty direct, don't you think? Not a lot of room for tangents? Wrong!!! His answer "Before I answer you that, lemme ask you a question... what do you think about the anti-Christ?" (?!) Where the heck did that come from?! So yes, that was my FANTASTIC week. I hope y'alls was equally amazing. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- I just posted up more pics & videos. Go to the link at the top right of this page to see them

UFO's!!!

2008-06-09T11:38:00.003-04:00

Another week gone by already. So last Sunday night both Elder Amesse and I stayed up until about 2am talking. Needless to say, Monday we were exhausted, and as soon as we got back from shopping we took a 2 hour nap. One thing about both being new in the area is we keep getting lost. Brunswick itself isn't too big, but our area is sprawling with a few islands even, so we're having trouble getting around. Tuesday was our first district meeting here. It's weird to be back in the same district as I was when I was serving in Darien. We have an interesting bunch of elders together... to say the least. For lunch on Tuesday we went to Pizza Hut, which was ridiculously terrible! I think they were just bigoted rednecks who hated mormons. First they wouldn't let us put the tables together so we had to eat at 3 separate tables. Then they complained about needing to make more pizzas (it was a buffet), and then they would refill everyone's drinks except for our. We even asked, and they just glared at us and walked away. So that was our warm welcome. Oh well. Later that day we were tracting and a lady came to the door in work cloths with a paintbrush in her hand. We asked her what we could help with and she said we could help paint the entry way. We did so, and then she came in to ask us what church we were from, and we were able to tell her about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. She seemed pretty excited about it. Her husband came home and was surprised to find us, and his wife excitedly asked us to teach him about it all too. They loved it! As we were leaving he said "You guys made my day! I came home from a hard day at work, and there were 2 guys painting my foyer... 2 WHITE guys!!!" So, we share the car with another set of elders, so on Wednesdays and Saturdays we are on bikes. It was HOT this week! Luckily I had my handy-dandy hanky with me to wipe my sweaty face every so often too didn't drip too much while teaching. There was one lady we were teaching, and she started going off about UFO's and how she saw one but the government is trying to cover it up and so she wants to tell everyone! It was very exciting. We also tracted into a less-active member of the RLDS church (for those who don't know, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints broke off when Brigham Young led the Saints to Utah). It was weird to teach someone who already believed that the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. So yeah... that was my fun and exciting week. I hope y'alls was equally amazing. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Back to Georgia

2008-06-02T13:06:00.002-04:00

Yessum... I'm back in good 'ole Georgia... Brunswick to be exact. Details later. But first, I gotta tell you about my last few days in Lake City. Monday we played some Basketball with our district and the singles branch. Even I played, which must have been a sight to see... me jiggling all over the court! (Sorry for that mental image!) One of the other elders got elbowed and his eyebrow ended up splitting, so I drove him down to Lake Butler where there's a member that's a doctor. He got stitched on his kitchen table! My job was to hold the flashlight. I've never had a problem looking at other people's blood, and at first I was fine as I watched him sew up his face. However, a few minutes into it I got WAY woozy and had to sit down for the rest of the experience. Another exciting thing happened. So we were a bit late coming home, so I was driving a bit too fast on the way back. A cop passed me, and I saw him turn around in my rear-view mirror. Well, there was a bend in the road, and so stoopid me decided to quickly take a random side-street and evade the po-po. Well, that was to no avail, and so I found myself pulled over on a random side-street. GREAT! So the officer came to the window, and did his usual thing. He asked what business I had on that street and I flat-out told him I'd just been trying to avoid him. He asked me to step out of the vehicle, and to stand in front of his car, where he proceeded to lecture me. However, he recognized us as missionaries, and because of that chose not to write me a ticket. I was SO relieved. And... I will have you know... I have slowed down since. Anyway... a lot of the week was spent saying goodbyes. I got to know and love a lot of people during my 10 1/2 months in Lake City. Thursday morning came, I said the final goodbyes to the elders in my apt, and headed to Jacksonville. The meeting was good. President Newman always has something profound to say. Then he announced the transfers, and that I would be going to Brunswick 1st ward with Elder Amesse (pronounced "aims"). Once again, we whitewashed in (that's 4 times out of my 5 areas!) Elder Amesse is pretty cool. He just finished serving for 6 weeks with Elder Christensen (who's now training!). I can tell that Amesse and I are going to get along pretty well. Basically... take me and make me shorter, and mexican, and more spontaneous... and you have Elder Amesse. He's from Long Beach, CA, and he's been on his mission for 5 months. Hopefully we'll be able to stay together for at least 3 months! The area is pretty sweet. It's a car area, and we have a SWEET new 2009 Corolla (don't ask me how we have a 2009 in June of 2008... we just do) that still has the new-car smell. However, we share the car with another companionship. It's not too bad though... we're only on biked 2 days a week. Still... Saturday I rode a bike for the first time since August, and my legs hate me for it. Our apartment is pretty sweet. It's HUGE! We have 7 different chairs as well as a lime-green 70's couch, all for just us 2! We even have a washer & dryer! The only downside is that it's on the 3rd floor, which makes for lots of stair climbing. Our ward is pretty sweet. The bishop is very missionary minded, and is pretty straight-forward about it. I just have to buckle down and start over with learning some names. Our teaching pool is a bit small right now, but we can tell that it's ready to EXPLODE! We set a goal to baptize 14 people in the next 6 weeks, and we know that the Lord can do it. So yeah... that was my sweet week, and that's the 411 on the SWEET area. I'll make sure to include my new address so y'all can bombard me with letters... or maybe not. Anyhoo... Love ya! -Elder Borgia

112 Eagles Pointe Dr. #302
Brunswick, GA 31525

I'm outta here!

2008-05-26T11:08:00.003-04:00

Well transfer calls came and on Thursday I'll be going somehwere else. I'll let you know next week where that somewhere else is. I'm feeling mixed about it. I'm definitely ready for a change.. it's been 10 1/2 months! ... but after spending so long somewhere you get attached to the people. Plus I'm bummed that I only got to spend 6 weeks with Elder Hendrickson. Still, change is exciting. On Wednesday we did a trade-off with the guys in 1st ward. Elder Farnesworth came to 2nd ward with me. He also served in Darien, so he caught me up on what all is going on there. We also had interviews with President Newman, which was sweet. But the sweetest experience this week was definitely Wayne. Wayne married a member of the church a few months ago and we've been teaching him. He's been coming to church every week for months, even before we taught him. He believes and lives everything, kept wanting to put off getting baptized. He does some real estate stuff... in Italy! so he has been going there every so often. Well, for the past few weeks it has fallen through. We met with him on Tuesday and the Spirit led us to tell him that the reason his trip kept falling through was because the Lord needed him to be baptized, and we asked him about this weekend. "Well," he said, "I'm tentatively scheduled to leave on Saturday". So we proposed Thursday night, and he said "I think we can manage that". So in 2 days we got everything together and on Thursday Wayne Boyette was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Those are the experiences that make the mission. So yeah... good week. Talk to ya next week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

ps- HOLY CRAP JONATHAN TURNED 16!!!!!!

How do you spell rottweiler?!

2008-05-19T11:51:00.001-04:00

This week FLEW by! I can't believe that Elder Hendrickson has already been here for 5 weeks. This week we started teaching a girl named Kendall and it's going very well. She's dating a member in the singles branch (flirt to convert, right?!) and his family is pretty awesome.

Ummm... OK so I KNOW that more than that happened, but I'm seriously drawing a blank on the rest of the week. Oh! I did get a pack of letters from my mom from all y'all cousins in "the bubble" (provo/orem). it was SCHWEET to hear from you. Sounds like everything's going well there. Congrats to McKay & Heather on their baby (McKay... did you say that YOU delivered her?!) Also a very belated congrats to Chelle & Ryan, as well as Deveren & Kiara on their new young-uns.

Another thing that happened yesterday... for the first time on my mission I was chased by a dog! (at least the 1st time I wasn't on a bike) We were tracting and came across a yard where there was a big rottweiler (sp?) out in front with no gate. We weren't sure about it so we stopped about 20 feet away and waited to see if it was mean. Well we quickly found out as it bared its teeth and charged us. So, I've always heard not to run in such a situation, but I'll tell you what, that's exactly what your instincts tell you to do! However I remembered so I only ran a few steps, the turned around. The dog got within 5 feet, stopped, then turned around. However, after he went back into the yeard he turned back around and charged us again, this time he got closer, and then he turned around again. He did this one more time, and then the owner came and freaked out on him. So, that was, um, fun & exciting.

Well, I know it was a bit of a boring update today. I'll try to do something daring & innovative this week to tell y'all about. This Saturday is transfer calls (already?!) and my official guess is that I'm gone (I've been in Lake City for almost 10 1/2 months now!) So, I'll keep you posted. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Happy Mothers Day!!!

2008-05-12T11:41:00.002-04:00

OK... so it has been brought to my attention that i use the word "SWEET" quite a bit. So... in order to try to be different, I figured I'd write this week's update in entirely southern drawl. Thus, all punctuation ends here. Have fun! (i'll provide some occasional translation in [ ] brackets.

so firstly last week i forgit to tell y'all 'bout somthing pretty dern funnny i dunno if y'all 'member 'bout some'the CRAZY folks we met in the past lil'bit there wuz william the cherokee chief man who rides his bike "to stay in such good shape" plus them crazy baptist folk who tried their darndest to argue with us well we'z wuz tracting a skreet and we met a mighty fine lady who 'vited us back next day we went back and she had some'uh'her kinfolk [family] over to meet us to she had a crazy sister when we told her 'bout what the book of normans wuz she cried out "I KNOW I'M BACKSLIDING BUT GOD STILL LUVS ME!!!" uh someones a pinch guilty huh? so anyhoo we wuz sitting thur listnen to them and in walks crazy sisters old man [husband] who we shortly recognize as William though it took us a bit to 'cuz he wuznt wearing his du-rag then the party really cut on [turned on/got started] when williams mom walked in whoz baptist bashing lady yup sirree theiyr all'n the same room t'gthr it took all the grit in me t'not laugh anyway this week wendsday we'z met funny gurl who couldnt read but acted to we axed her to read moronees promise in the mormon bible and she said "god came down and talked to some prophet and he said some cool things about Jesus and, um... that's all i know" so yeah that wuz funny i tell you what wensday we had a mightybig meetin with the zone and prezident newmans FIRRRED us up! then sunday i called me kinfolk and chatted for a mighty long time until i had to cut off the phone to go to church so that was cool and fun

WHEW! It's more tiring than you'd think to write like these southerners. It's truly a gift they have! ;) But really it was a great week. In our zone meeting President Newman spiritually chewed our butts and it lit a fire under our butts to really get going. My favorite experience from this week (and there was some good ones) was when we tracted into a guy named Randall. He said that just the day before, his friend (who's a member) had "witnessed" to him about the Book of Mormon (which, btw... is NOT a "mormon Bible" though that's what the southerners call it). He had really been touched by what she'd said and had decided to find out more about it, and a few hours later we showed up. The next day we came back with that member and taught him about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and the Spirit was so strong... he cried a few times and told us that he knew it was true. There are no coincidences. The Lord truly is directing this work. Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers, especially mine. I hope you all realize (and I'm not boasting) that I have the BEST mom in the world. She's my mentor, mother, teacher, hero, and my best bud. Her example growing up was amazing. She truly taught me to rely on the Lord as I watched her do so. I wish I could see her & hug her right now, but I can't... SO... if any of y'all see her, please give her a big hug from me. So, on that note... have a great week! Love ya- Elder Borgia

CINCO DE MAYO!!!

2008-05-05T13:05:00.001-04:00

Well May got off to a roller-coaster start. First off... lemme just say that my companion is lazy, mean, and smells funny! I mean really, what to they teach these kids in the MTC nowadays... actually, not really. Elder Hendrickson told me that his mom reads these updates, so I figured I'd say hi to her by rattling her cage a bit. So, hey there Sister Hendrickson! You're son is an AWESOME missionary.. you can't even tell he's a greenie (except for that he's highly motivated, and he's already complaining about the humidity) Anyhoo... Monday was sweet... we drove down to Gainesville. We got permission so we could buy Elder Hendrickson a bike, but we figured while we were there we'd hang out at the mall and check out the UF campus. We went into the stadium and took some pictures... it was sweet! Tuesday we went back to Gainesville for zone conference, which was pretty cool, and afterward we all went to Paynes Prairie, which is a swampy place, to check out the gators. It was SWEET!!! Thursday wasn't the best of days. 2 different investigators told us to not come back... including the golden investigator I told y'all about last week. You'd think I'd get used to it after 15 months, but it still stings just as much as it did last year. Still... the week ended well. 2 random people showed up at church that wanted to be taught! It's amazing how the Lord works. I know that this is a bit shorter than usual, but that's it for today. Expect more next week. Love ya!

Cherokees up the wazoo!

2008-04-28T10:22:00.002-04:00

This week was pretty awesome. Monday for p-day, our district decided to do something amazingly original and innovative... we played basketball. Well, lemme rephrase that: the other guys played while I attempted. Anyhoo... we met some awesome people this week, along with some crazies, so I'll tell you about the crazies first. So we met a guy named William. He was riding his bike and stopped to talk to us. We asked him what he believed, and he told us that he was Pagan. So... not knowing a whole lot about that, I asked him what it was and how he came to believe that. So he told us that he decided to be pagan because his mom was baptist and his dad was Cherokee. (i'm still working on the connection there). The discussion went downhill from there. He was bs-ing so much! So he told us about how he usually steers clear of mormons (remember, HE's the one that approached us!) because apparently there's still a war going on between the mormons and the cherokees. WHO KNEW?! That's why, he said, there are no mormons in Oklahoma. (?!) I told him that there was a temple there, and he said that its small, on the border, and the mormons never leave it out of fear of the cherokees. Hmmm. Then he told us that he used to be a sniper in the military, his nickname was "God", and that he still works for the government but he can't tell us what (with very dramatic facial movements while he's telling us this). THAT's why he rides a bike... to stay in such good shape. (he had the hugest beer belly ever). So yeah... that was fun. Merely minutes later, we met a man named Timothy, who wouldn't even TOUCH the Book of Mormon out of fear of being cursed. Where do these people come from?! Anyhoo... I told you that we met some cool people as well. Last week we met a girl named Samantha, and this week we went back to teach her. The Spirit was SO strong. Not only had she actually read & highlighted 3 chapters in the BoM, but she had tons of questions, and she set a goal for herself of reading 2 chapters in the BoM every day. GOLDEN! We also met 2 sweet ladies who were cherokee. Despite what crazy William said, they loved us! They opened the door and said that our church was very close to what they already believed and invited us in. THEY told US that Christ had visited the America's. We were like "Uh... yeah!" They also told us that their chief person preaches from the Book of Mormon, so we're going to track him down, teach him, baptize him, and convert the whole tribe! Then Friday was an interesting day. Everyone we talked to just wanted to bash. We were talking to this Baptist kid and his mom, and they were being stoopid, and so I got prideful. What I should have done was tell them to have a nice day and walk away. What I did do was tell them to go and get their Bible and proceeded to show them why they were wrong. The thing with Bible-bashing is that it never gets anywhere. Even when I plainly showed him where he was mistaken, he just moved on. At one point they told us that President Monson was the anti-Christ and we were all going to hell, but when we eluded that they wouldn't be as happy because they rejected the fullness of the gospel they yelled at us for judging them. Ugh. So we went home and cooled off (both physically and mentally) and headed back out. The next guy we talked to started being belligerent right away. Poor guy, he never had a chance. We were already all warmed up from the people before. Luckily we were smarter that time and we left quickly. So that was fun... and frustrating. Saturday was one of the most awesome days of my mission. There's a lady named Judy that I taught for the 3 months while I was in LC 3rd ward. She'd been taking the discussions for about 2 1/2 years. Saturday she was baptized. There were 12 missionaries there, and that wasn't even everyone. It was SO awesome! Then that night the stake had a roadshow, which was pretty sweet. Our ward (2nd) won, because they frickin ROCKED! Anyhoo... yeah, that was my sweet week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

New Faces

2008-04-21T10:36:00.001-04:00

OK... lots of changes this week. On Thursday morning I said goodbye to Christensen, Funderburk, and Wolfley. I headed up to Jacksonville a few hours ahead of them to pick up my brand new companion: Elder Hendrickson from South Jordan, UT... fresh out of the MTC. Elder Kenworthy is training as well (I trained him 7 1/2 months ago... I feel old!) Transfer meeting went well. The other 2 elders now living in our apartment are Elders Carpenter & Pickering, from Wyoming & Utah. I can tell we'll have lots of fun together. I can already tell that Elder Hendrickson is a great missionary. We've spent the past few days visiting some investigators, and we've been able to tract a lot. We've found lots of sweet people, and Hendrickson has also met his initial dose of psychos. Church yesterday was sweet. Brittany Knight gave a talk about her conversion story (she was baptized in December while I was here with Christensen). It is so fulfilling to see someone come into the gospel. This week is going to be great! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Shuffling things up

2008-04-14T09:57:00.003-04:00

Well transfer calls came, and I'll be staying in Lake City for at least another 6 weeks. That'll be 10 1/2 months of me being here. Sadly, my other 3 roommates, including my 6-month companion Elder Christesnen, will be leaving me on Thursday for other areas. So, that was a bit surprising. However, I received an even more surprising phone call this morning from President Newman. I've been released as zone leader!!! And... I'll be training again! So right now, my next companion is freaking out, getting ready to leave the MTC! How crazy is that?! So I'll keep you posted on that. This has been a good week. We did quite a bit of service at a members house this week. In January they had a fire in their attic, and a fireman fell through their ceiling... 3 different times. So... they took the opportunity to do some remodeling. My job has been the painter, and it's involved being high up on a ladder, which I've handled surprisingly well. Next step... sky diving! (or maybe not) Tuesday/Wednesday we did trade-offs with Starke, which was pretty fun. This week we had a lot of opportunities to do some random service. Thursday we went to an investigators house so Christensen could help them fix their tractor thing. In the meantime, my task was to rescue a calf. Yes... I am Borgia, cow-man. Apparently a cow had had a calf that very morning and then it fell into a creek and the mom was freaking out. Remember 6 weeks ago when a calf succeeded in pooping on me? Well, this one tried to, but I successfully dodged it. Friday we stopped by to teach a guy named Siras, and we ended up destroying his couch. If any of you are looking for a way to get your stress, frustration, and aggression out, I highly recommend couch demolition! So, on that note... have a great week! Love ya!
-Elder Borgia

Lofty Goals

2008-04-07T12:51:00.004-04:00

Well summer is coming back. No good. As are the mosquitos. Double no good. However... the faster this summer starts, the faster it will be over. Really, I'm not to sad about the heat, but the humidity is ridiculous! Still, we're lucky to have a car, with A/C, so I don't have too much room to complain. So this week we heard that the RLDS church (or Community of Christ, now) has released what they say is an actual photograph of Joseph Smith. The church hasn't validated it yet, but still... I thought the picture looked pretty sweet. Wednesday we helped an investigator who's remodeling his house. My job was to sand the extra grout off of the tile in the shower, while teaching a Muslim about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Can I multitask or what?! Afterwards I got an adjustment from Bishop Morse, who's a chiropractor. My back cracked so much, it was amazing. I literally felt a few inches taller. Then that afternoon was president interviews, and the AP's gave a SWEET training that got me all pumped up and ready to change the world. We talked about how, as we exercise faith, we can be tools in the hands of the Lord to bring forth miracles. We discussed how an important part of exercising faith is setting goals and then pleading to the Lord for help. Elder Christensen and I have set a goal of baptizing 10 people in the next 2 weeks. A lofty goal? You betcha. Unrealistic? Absolutely not. I believe that the God who created the universe can bring 10 people to baptism. However, we're going to work like we've never worked before to show Him we're serious. Wasn't General Conference amazing?! My 3 favorite talks were Elder Christofferson's about spiritual rebirth, President Uchtdorf's about staying on course, and of course, Elder Hollands domination about continuing revelation. I highly recommend it, especially to all southern baptist preachers! Anyhoo... I'd better get going. Transfer calls are this Saturday, and I'm probably outta here, so I'll keep you posted. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Minty fresh... all over!

2008-03-31T11:10:00.001-04:00

Can you believe that March is already over?! This week was pretty good. Last Monday Elder Funderburk bought Monopoly, so we played that for a while. The crazy thing is, it had no monopoly money!!! It just has credit cards that you use! What's this world coming to?! Tuesday/Wednesday we did a trade-off with the elders in Macclenny. I stayed up here with Elder Lehman. He served here about a year ago, so he got to see a few familiar faces. We found some pretty cool people, along with the usual weirdos. We've been here so long we've started to re-tract what we had when we first got here, so it's weird to remember who's going to come to the door before they ever do. How is it that I can remember that, but I forget people's names as soon as they tell me?! Thursday I was on a trade-off with Elder Funderburk (who's one of my roommates) and we pretty much just tracted all day... but no one was home. It was slightly depressing. But then that night a member came with us for what was probably the sweetest lesson of my mission. We were teaching 2 brothers that were SO prepared to hear the gospel. The Spirit was SO strong. Our member trade-off, Kyle, was sharing his conversion story (he used to be a Baptist and now he's getting ready to go on his mission), the Spirit was superstrong, and he invited them to be baptized... and they said yes! I've never had a member do that before, but it was AWESOME!!! Sunday I had a clutz experience. I got out an altoid, turned to offer one to Elder Christensen, and somehow in the process dumped every single one of them onto his lap and the floor. White powder went flying everywhere! I was laughing so hard! Anyhoo... that's about it. Hope to hear from y'all soon. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

I'm a gringo!

2008-03-24T12:37:00.004-04:00

This week we kept pretty busy. I love getting exhausted and then getting into bed and ZONKING for the night. Tuesday and Wednesday we did a trade-off with the elders in Live Oak. I was with Elder Johnson, who's a spanish elder, and so we went to go see some spanish investigators. They had a mexican band, and I felt really awkward, a gringo sitting in the middle of the room not being able to talk to anyone. The music was good though. Friday was our zone conference in Middleberg, which was good. Saturday we went to the Baxter's for dinner, who got baptized back in October. They are so funny! They showed us a clip from a movie called "The Tracker". It's a western, and there's a part of it where this drunk cowboy starts talking about the Book of Mormon. How was everyone's Easter? Elder Christensen and I got roped in at the last minute to do a musical number for sacrament meeting, and luckily we were able to find a few people to help us out. Church was pretty good. During Sunday school we watched a talk by Elder Holland, and he dominated as always, so that was SCHWEET!!! All 3 wards met together, and then we went to a cool family's house for dinner. That was Easter #2 out here. CRAZINESS!!! So yeah, nothing else really exciting happened... maybe next week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

random ADD nonsense

2008-03-17T12:14:00.003-04:00

OK, so you may have noticed that I switched what email I was using. Apparently windowslive mail (which includes hotmail) doesn't like MyLDSmail, so I'll be sending things from here from now on. Anyhoo...

It was a good week! Monday we went fishing again. This time I actually caught something!
Tuesday Elder Christensen and I were in Jacksonville for most of the day for a meeting, and then on the way home we visited some people he knows from when he served there. Thursday we did service helping unload food for tornado "victims". It was pretty frustrating to watch people totally taking advantage of the system. There were a few people that kept on going back for more and more! When we were leaving, we saw a lady and Christensen says "I just finished helping that lady for the 2nd time!". The funny thing is, the other 3 of us had also helped her at least once. Ugh. Anyhoo... for the rest of Thursday and the beginning of Friday, Elder Terry came up for a trade-off with me. He's only been out a week, but he's an awesome teacher. We taught quite a few people, and we also took some pictures around town, including a chinese restaurant named "Fu King" (yes, that's really its name, and no they didn't do it on purpose) and some of the tornado damage. There was one house that was turned up on it's side! That had to be an interesting sensation. Well... that's about it for now. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Twisters & a stoopid drain

2008-03-10T11:59:00.003-04:00

Well this was an exciting week. I'll start at the end and go to the beginning. Friday we woke up and it was storming like crazy. A little after 9am it rained ridiculously hard for a few minutes and the wind was blowing really hard. We later learned that right then, about a mile north of us, a tornado went through downtown. One person died, and there was lots of damage. The power was out for most of the day, which made things fun. Saturday morning we had a baptism... Laura & Kaden. It was so awesome to see a mother & son come together into the gospel. I baptized Laura and Elder Christensen baptized Kaden. We'd gotten to the building pretty early to get everything all ready, and when it was time to do the actual baptism, we found that the font had slowly been draining so there was only about 3 feet of water left. So the first time I dunked Laura her knee camer up, so we had her kneel. Luckily Kaden is only 9, so he was no problem. After the service, we put on our work clothes and headed to Laura's parents where a tree had landed in their porch, so we spent the afternoon clearing it and stacking all of the wood. Their lucky... if the twister had landed the tree a few degrees more to the right, it would have crushed their trailer. So that was most of our excitement. Hope everything is well, with y'all... love ya! -Elder Borgia

Expect the Unexpected

2008-03-03T11:28:00.002-05:00

So transfer calls came, and believe it or not both Elder Christensen and I are staying another 6 weeks, which will be 6 months of serving together here in Lake City and a total of 9 months for me in Lake City. That means that I'll spend at least 1/4 of my mission with Elder Christensen! Actually, our whole apartment will be staying! Anyhoo... this was a fun week. We started it off with a cool storm... even a tornado warning! Sadly (?!) nothing exciting happened. Wednesday night we had one of the coolest lessons of my mission, because I saw this family we've been teaching really take a hold of the gospel. The Spirit was SO different in their house right away. It's been so cool to see them come full-circle from where we met them to where they're at today. Thursday I discovered another weakness of mine... steering a forklift. It was just one of those push ones, but it was going all over the place! We also met a pretty funny guy this week. He was drunk, and trying to light the filter side of his cigarette while he told us about how following Jesus meant we shouldn't drink or smoke. On friday night I experienced another first. Some friends of ours, the Parkers, have cows, and one of theirs had a calf on Thursday. Apparently the mom got a pinched nerve or something so it's temporarily paralyzed, meaning the calf had to be bottle fed, and so we went out to help. We did that Friday night, Saturday morning, and Saturday night again. Saturday night my job was to stand behind the calf so it wouldn't back away, which leads me to another first... the first time I've been crapped on by a calf. It wasn't all that bad... I just felt something really warm squished against my leg. Definitely not something I imagined when I got a mission call to Florida, oh well. That night we also had a bonfire where I burned my shirt (a month late). So that was my fantastic week. Love y'all! -Elder Borgia

Soup & a soap box

2008-02-25T12:03:00.003-05:00

So this week was filled with some highs and lows. It's been an awesome week in terms of seeing our investigators progress, and seeing the zone progress. Remember that baptismal goal I talked about a few weeks ago? Well, there's been a huge outpouring of miracles, and by the end of next week (which is the end of the transfer) we should have 23 baptisms. I know that it's nothing we're doing... it's completely the Lord. I know that when we set our goals by the Spirit, He'll help us achieve them. Anyhoo... now let me step off of my soapbox. Tuesday we had lunch at Mexico Lindo, which is probably the most amazing place ever! As we were leaving, this drunk guy comes up to us and starts arguing with us. He keeps telling us that we're going to hell. When we ask why, we find out it's because we don't have a soup kitchen! I must've missed that requirement in the Bible... Obviously the true church would have a soup kitchen! That night we got very lost on the way to an appointment. We forgot to ask the members how to get to their house, so we figured we'd just look on a map. They just happened to live outside the ward boundaries, which is the first thing that confused us. That however, was just the beginning. We got to the right street, but realized we didn't remember the house number, so we figured we'd just look for their car. We couldn't find it, so we started going from house to house asking to use a phone to call them. There weren't a lot of people home, and when we finally found someone home, they didn't have a phone. Eventually we got to a phone, and got it all figured out. As luck would have it they'd be the one house with a dirt driveway set back a freaking mile from the rest of the road! Wednesday we had interviews with President Newman, which are always sweet. I tried to figure out from him what was going to happen at transfers, but he gave no signs or anything. Elder Christensen and I have been together about 4 1/2 months now, but I'd love to stay with him 6 more weeks. So it could go lots of different ways. We were kinda thinking we might get whitewashed... but now everything is picking up so we really hope we don't. I'll let you know next week. Saturday was a roller-coaster day. In the morning we were just goofing off, but in the afternoon we went to go see a potential investigator that we'd met about a week ago. He's probably the most prepared person I've met on my mission... and he told us not to come back. For both me & Christensen, that was the saddest we've been on our mission. Well, I don't want to end on a sad note... so... I'll tell you how things have been going at the gym. So a few weeks ago Christensen showed me some good workouts, and I can tell I've been getting stronger. Maybe by the time I get home I'll be thin & buff! (I can at least hope!) Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- Elder Christensen thinks I look like one of the devils from Hercules... whaddya think? (the skinny one)

Random brain cells firing

2008-02-18T13:35:00.001-05:00

This was a busy week, with lots for me to tell you. On Monday we just chilled... something I've come to love even more on my mission. Then that night we felt like some pizza, and we ordered the most humongeous pizza I've ever seen. 2 feet across!!! We used the box as a card table!!! It was slightly ridiculous. Then on Thursday we got to go to Orlando and go to the temple. It was SCHWEET!!! We got to go with the singles branch, including 2 who were going through for the first time. Then this weekend was a reenactment of the Olustee Battle of the Civil War. There was a big festival, so we had lots of street contacting, plus we got to watch some of the reenactment. OK, so that's what happened this week... maybe not as much as I thought. For some reason I'm not in the mood to write a lot today... maybe next week there'll be more for ya. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Just give me a freakin fish... don't worry about teaching me!!!

2008-02-11T11:40:00.002-05:00

Man... this week FLEW by!!! On Friday Elder Christensen and I were doing our weekly planning, and I told him that I literally felt like we had done that just 2 days ago. I can't believe we're almost halfway through February! So on Monday me & Elder Funderburk went fishing. It was cool to just sit and chill. I also came to the conclusion that in primitive times when you had to catch all of your food I would've been much skinnier, possibly a vegitarian... in an hour all I caught was weeds, sticks, and I once had to reel in the end of my pole that went sailing into the pond along with the hook. Tuesday was zone conference, which was way sweet. 3 zones met together... it was practically a mission conference! We talked about how our mission has gotten pretty darn good at finding, but we're lazy when it comes to lesson plans & preparation... so we talked mostly about that. I can tell that things are really gonna take off when we master that. Afterwards we met with our district leaders and set a baptismal goal of 20 for the Lake City zone. Things have really been picking up, the Lord has most definitely been blessing us... and we felt like that was the goal that the Lord wanted us to set. We tracted a lot this week, and as always, ran into some characters (although Papa's naked-man experience certainly takes the cake... for now). We were street-contacting at the mall, and I went up to talk to a lady. I asked her if I could give her a card, and she said "get away, I'm catholic!". We said that was fine, we loved catholic people, and we just wanted to talk, and she started yelling about how I was harrassing her and how she was going to mace me. This whole time I was a good 20 feet away, but apparently chubby white mormon missionaries are pretty indimidating. Needless to say, we were not able to teach her. Everyone that we talk to seems to be mentioning Mitt Romney. While we were contacting, people would be like "Well, I'm not interested... but I'm voting for Romney!" and then expect that to make up for it. Oh well. So yeah... that was my week... sorry if I bored you. Hope ya'll have a fantastic week! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Ya know that annoying song the tailor sings in "Fidder on the Roof"?

2008-02-04T12:27:00.001-05:00

So this week was a miracle week. I'll tell you a story. So a few weeks ago we passed a sheet around in church asking people for referrals. Well, a member of the bishopric gave us his friend's name, Laura, said he worked with her, and to get with him. Well, we forgot, shame on us. Fast forward to last Friday, when we tracted into a guy named Dennis who invited us back. When we went back this Monday night, Dennis wasn't there... but his girlfriend Laura was. We connected the dots, realized it was her, and Saturday we started teaching her. She is way prepared and I'm thankful that the Lord gave us a second chance to teach her. In other, not as spiritual, but just as miraculous news... I got a comforter at Goodwill for $5!!! One might ask: "What the heck does he need with a comforter in Florida?!" Well my good friend, I will tell you. You see, my roommates love turning the AC way down at night so they can hibernate under their comfy blankets. Normally I'd enjoy doing the same, except that until recently all I had was a thin dish-rag of a blanket. Now with my cheap but oh-so-comfy comforter, I can hibernate with the best of them! I know y'all could care less, but it was a profound experience for me! ;) Thursday was my 1 year mark... can you believe it?! I haven't yet burned a shirt, although it's definitely on the agenda... I'll keep you posted. Saturday we went and watched President Hinckley's funeral, which was SWEET! The last song, My Shephard will supply my need, was AWESOME!!! If I wasn't heartless, I might have cried! (In April it'll be 11 years strong of dry eyes!) On that note... have a good week! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Changes

2008-01-28T11:33:00.000-05:00

(Goodbye Elder Stallings)
Last night President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away after 12 years serving as the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was a man called of God to lead the restored church in these last days. He is now reunited with his wife and many fellow saints. Just think of how that reunion was! Sunday morning we heard from President Monson in a regional stake conference, which is especially cool considering he'll be the new President. This was a great week. Elder Stallings got transferred and so now Elder Wolfley is our new roommate. The zone is very different and I'm very excited to see what miracles will happen in the next 6 weeks. The Lord has blessed Elder Christensen I with a few awesome new investigators in this past week. In Saturday's general session of stake conference, I witnessed what was definitely a first for me... Ted Bundy was quoted! I mean, the quote fit and everything... but still!!! I didn't realize that his last victim was here in Lake City, and he was executed just 20 or 30 minutes away in Starke. Crazy, huh?! Well, I find myself rambling about serial killers, so that probably means it's time to go. Sorry for the ADD update... have a good week. Love, Elder Borgia

PS- 1 YEAR ON THURSDAY!!!

2008 Changes of Insanity

2008-01-21T13:49:00.005-05:00

go to this page for a movie of the psycho dog:
http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa295/jsbmhca_717/?action=view¤t=MVI_0551.flv
Hey everyone. So, first off... both Elder Christensen and I are staying here in Lake City at least another 6 weeks. That means that, between the 2 wards, I'll have been here in LC for 7 1/2 months! Time is definitely flying by! It's still been kind of cold and rainy, so my sweatshirt has been used often, but I LOVE this kind of weather. Saturday night the other LC elders had a baptism, so that was pretty cool. I have also decided to make 2008 the year of eating healthy. Call me crazy (but of couse, y'all already knew that!) but I'm not going to drink any soda, or eat junk food (including scrumptous Reeses!) I'll let you know how that goes! While we were tracting one day this week, we came across the scariest dog I've ever seen in my life. Luckily it was behind a fence. It was a chow (sp?), and it had the craziest blood-thirsty bark and it looked like it wanted to murder me and eat my children! I got a video, so you can look forward to that! Well.. I gotta get going, but I hope you have a FANTASTIC week! Love ya! -Elder Borgia

A diluted pun of nonsensical amazingness

2008-01-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

So another week in Florida! A week ago (last Monday) I found out that I am TERRIBLE at poker. Good thing we were just playing with chips, or I'd be broke! This week we've been contacting a lot in the Winn-Dixie parking lot (a grocery store). You meet a lot of interesting people as a missionary, and this was no exception. One guy thought he was very smart as he tried to insult me. He told me that I was "diluted". I normally use that word when talking about kool-aid with weak flavor, so I didn't really get the connection, but whatever. Then he asked me how Mr. Smith was treating me (I'm guessing he was talking about Joseph Smith) and then went "Oh, excuse the pun!" At that point, I came to the conclusion that the bald, funny looking guy I beheld in front of me had no idea what any of these words meant, and I moved on in my efforts. Man, people are WEIRD! Friday we went up to Jacksonville for a meeting, which meant LUNCH AT FIREHOUSE!!!! For all of you misguided folk that have not yet ventured into this amazing part of the world, Firehouse is a sub-sandwich place that totally leaves Subway in the dust. I cannot even describe to you the joy that fills my heart when I eat firehouse! Saturday was a day of extreme highs and lows. Elders Stallings and Funderburk (our roommates) had a baptism that we helped with. It was for a guy named Paul Weber in the VA hospital. He's not allowed to leave the building, so we did it in a physical therapy tub. Quite the experience!!! Then after that, we headed to an investigator's house where I used their computer to do 4 hours of online traffic school. Ugh. I learned such things as: construction signs are orange, where i need to stop for a school bus, and that on a horizontal traffic light, red is on the right. Yeah, it was that bad. The worst part was it was on a timer, so even if I was finished with a section I had to wait for the timer to allow me to go. I'm still twitching from the shock of it all! ;) Hope y'all had an amazing week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- transfer calls are this Saturday. Although I want to stay here, my official prediction is that I'm gone. Only time will tell. I'll let you know next week!

Happy New Year!!!

2008-01-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

(midget house in Branford!)

I can't believe that it's already 2008!!! We rang in the new year by hanging out with the ward. Well, lemme rephrase that... We spent the hours leading up to the new year at a ward party, but were still asleep by 10:30. This week was COLD!!! I know I'm not going to get too much sympathy from the folks in Utah, but it was 40 degrees during the day, and it got down to 16 at night. It was still plenty humid, and very windy, so we donned sweaters for the whole week. Thursday morning i actually saw a bird bath frozen solid... IN FLORIDA!!! Then on Thursday night, I experienced a new first... I got pulled over. I was going a bit too fast on our way home from Branford at night, and as I realized a cop was passing me, I saw him hit his brake lights and pull a u-turn in the middle of the road. I ended up pulling over smack-dab in front of the church building! The cop was nice... he didn't ticket me for near as much as he could have. So after a fine and traffic school, I should be good. So yeah... that was my exciting week. Love y'all!!! -Elder Borgia

2 weeks of craziness!!!

2007-12-31T12:06:00.000-05:00

So I didn't write anything last week... I know... I'm a horrible person, bah-humbeg!!! Christmas was pretty sweet... getting to talk to my family. Otherwise it was pretty chill. New years is looking like it's gonna be the same. Frankly, I'm ready for the holidays to be over, 'cuz all of our investigators have been out of town!!! So, lemme try to think of the juciest stuff from the past 2 weeks. Tuesday the 18th we had a mission conference in Jacksonville where we had a christmas devotional. It was sweet to see everyone. Wednesday Elder Christensen and I (just for you mom!) met with the district leaders in our zone and we set a transfer baptismal goal of 15. We're trying to stretch ourselves and improve (last transfer we had 6!) but the Spirit was definitely there, so I'm excited about it. Friday morning we had interviews with President Newman. While he was interviewing, the AP's gave a training. 14 missionaries were there to be interviewed, so we sat and listened from 9am until 2pm. AACCKK!!! Saturday night was a wedding reception for an elder that served here about a year ago, got home from his mission in August, and came back to marry a girl. It was weird to see him again as a normal person, and I had NO IDEA what to call him. Sunday was a combined sacrament meeting for Christmas, and then that night we went to a christmas play at a small baptist church that an investigator attends.

OK... week 2: Christmas Eve we had district meeting, and although we had planned on tracting and contacting the rest of the day, we ended up playing cards. Hey... it happens sometimes! For christmas dinner we went and got Little Caesars!!! Then Tuesday we slept in, went for a big lunch at a WAY COOL family named the Parkers, and then came home to talk to our families. I talked for about 4 hours, which was SCHWEET!!! Then on Thursday night was one of the sweetest experiences thus far on my mission. So we got home for the night and I was STARVING... but there was nothing in the apartment that looked good. So then I was like... BURGER KING!!! Now, I never have craved BK before, but that night we went. When we walked in, a tall black guy spotted us and motioned that he wanted a book. Elder Christensen gave him a card, and as he was getting ready to walk away, the man pointed to his ear, saying he was deaf. I asked him if he knew ASL, which he did, and I was able to teach him a little bit (man my ASL is way shaky!) and get a return appointment for this coming week. The Lord definitely knows what He's doing, because I'm the only elder in this mission (I think) that knows ASL and could have taught him, and I just so happened to be at BK that night. I've been studying up for the lesson tomorrow, so wish me luck!!! Then Saturday was another SWEET day, because our amazing investigator named Brittany was baptized, and the Spirit was WAY strong. Well, I know that was a bit longer, but I congratulate all that made it this far. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

(my fat butt on the phone with the family)

Over the river & through the woods, all over N. Florida we go!

2007-12-17T11:17:00.001-05:00

Can you believe that Christmas is next week?! AACCKK!!! So this past week FLEW by (which seems to be the trend out here). P-day was uneventful, which is good. Basically we were lazy all day! On Tuesday/Wednesday I went on trade-offs with Elder Kenworthy in 3rd ward. It was really cool/weird/trippy to be in my old area with my old companion. Lots of tracting this week. 5 hours of it on Thursday, which also happened to be the day I randomly decided to run 3 miles in the morning... not smart! We used so many miles this week driving all over who-knows-where. 3 of our nightly planning sessions were done while driving! Friday we drove down to Jacksonville for a mission council with the other zone-leaders, which was fun and exciting. President Newman is AMAZING!!! Then Saturday we helped a lady in the ward move. Never have I seen a messier house in my life. My dad would have probably died!!! So we went through with garbage bags just throwing tons of stuff away! Then that night was the christmas party. Sunday was busy, as usual. Church from 8-5! Next week will be SCHWEET because all of the wards are meeting together, so we'll be out of there by noon. Say it with me... "SUNDAY LUNCH NAP!!!" We got our christmas tree! When we were at WalMart we were about to get one of those fake trees but it was frickin $30!!! So instead we bought a palm tree for $10 and decorated it. Elder Stallings even bought some fake snow and we covered it! We also used the fake snow to vandalize our investigator/neighbor's car. BEAUTIFUL!!! Well... I don't know if I'll write an email next week. We'll see what happens. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Love, Elder Borgia

Palm trees and sunny skies in December

2007-12-10T12:36:00.001-05:00

(sing it!) - - - It's beginning to look a lot like christmas, everywhere but here. It's a beautiful 80 degrees, with leaves on all the trees, and lots of rednecks drinking beer!Anyhoo... it truly is beautiful weather for December, and it's been a great week. Monday I spent a little bit getting some christmas cards together, and if you haven't got one there's a good chance that I don't have your address, so it's on you! Thursday was our first full day working in Branford. We're going to be working there once a week to help out the senior couple there. There's a branch there, and they're WAY excited about missionary work, so I'm excited to see what the next few weeks will be! Saturday we had a really cool experience. We felt like we needed to go see one of our potential investigators, and we soon found out that we were definitely needed. Isn't it awesome how the Spirit will guide us in this great work?! Saturday night were transfer calls, and our whole apartment is staying. In fact, there's only one elder in the whole zone getting transferred! I'm glad I'll be staying here with Elder Christensen, because things are going really well. Love y'all!!! -Elder Borgia

Burnt wood retribution

2007-12-03T10:53:00.000-05:00

Finally my high-school pranking skills were used for good! So on Monday, Elder Christensen had a package delievered, and the mailman just left it on the porch (oh, so if you feel the need to send a christmas package, signiture confirmation might be a good idea, since we've already had a few things stolen) Anyhoo... so the other elders were driving by and saw it and were thoughtful enough to pick it up so it wouldn't get stolen. However, they realized that they could pull a funny prank, so they opened the package, took everything out, filled it up with rocks and burnt wood, and replaced it on our doorstep. Well, Christensen opened it, panicked for a few minutes thinking that something was amiss with the post office, and then Elder Funderburk, our undercover agent who'd been on trade-offs with the culprits, told us what was up. So, in that package was some asthma medicine for Christensen, and he has it pretty bad, so we concocted an amazingly elaborate plot. We called Sister Newman (the mission president's wife) and had her leave a message on their voicemail saying that Elder Christensen was in the hospital, and to keep him in their prayers, and we had them going all night. It was amazing. They were FREAKING out! They eventually figured it out, but I loved getting back into prank mode. They have only awakened a sleeping giant! Anyhoo... this was a great week. Tuesday we went on trade-offs with the elders in Macclenay, so Elder Farr (who was in my district in Gainesville) came up to Lake City with me, which was way fun. Saturday was awesome... we had a few appointments all set up, and they all fell through. So, we went tracting, and I KNOW that that's where the Lord needed us, because we met several people that are ready to hear the gospel. Isn't it awesome how the Lord will micromanage our lives if we allow him to?! So yeah, that was my week. The weeks are just FLYING by. Friday was my 10 month mark. CRAZINESS!!! It's December already, which blows my mind! Someone said "Merry Christmas" to me, and I about had a panic attack. Anyhoo... I'm rambling now, which means I should probably sign off. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- could everyone please send me their mailing addresses? PLEASE??!!

Sleepy on tryptophan

2007-11-26T11:40:00.001-05:00

We meet again!!! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! This was a good week. Monday we lazed about doing nothing in particular... my favorite p-day activity! Then Tuesday we got lost in Live Oak and finally found the place we wanted after going an extra 40 miles. We went on trade-offs with them, and Elder Childers came up to Lake City with me. He served in Darien, GA until a few weeks ago, so we had fun talking about those awesome people. Thanksgiving was good. We had 2 dinners, and then we played cards with some other elders. For the past few days I've been enjoying left-over turkey sandwiches. YUM! Friday we had interviews with President Newman. That man continues to blow my mind with amazingness!!! Saturday we had a baptism of 2 young boys. Their father was baptized about a month ago. It's so cool to see families coming together in the gospel. Then that night we were street contacting at a CHRISTMAS festival thing. I had a panic attack when someone said "Merry Christmas" to me. Its still frickin NOVEMBER! Well, that was my week. Looking over this email/post, I realize it's pretty LAAAME, buyt I'm too lazy to spice it up. So, maybe next week. ;) Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- I heard the Malibu fires are back. Are Beth & Brad OK?! They're definitely in my prayers.

I DUNNO 'DESE TINGS!!!

2007-11-19T11:23:00.001-05:00

Well hello y'all! Another great week in the beautiful winter of Florida that reminds me of the spring in CA. Monday was a fun p-day. Our district is pretty sweet, and we all got together to play some volleyball. Tuesday we had a great experience teaching a kid named Marcus. We went with a member of the singles branch, and we asked him (a recently returned missionary) to teach about the word of wisdom. Whhile we were teaching, Marcus was drinking a cup of coffee (imagine that!). When we told him, he looked at us for a few moments, then said: "I know what you want me to do..." and proceeded to dump out all of his coffee and committed to not drink it again. It's so cool to watch people change & progress. Then on Tuesday, guess who we had lunch with? ... ELDER GERBER!!! I can't believe that he's been off his mission for about 5 months now! He was back to visit, and so of course he had to take his last companion to lunch! ;) This week we started teaching a girl named Brittney, and she's AWESOME!!! We met with her on Tuesday, and asked her to read the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong. By Thursday she wanted another appointment and we set a baptismal date. It's amazing to watch as the Lord does His work. Then on Thursday was zone conference, whih was sweet. I love living in a 4-man apartment! It's like having 3 companions! Elder Christensen is a way sweet companion, and Elder Stallings & Funderburk are pretty fantastic as well. So yeah, that was my week. Love ya!!! -Elder Borgia

PS- rumor has it that gas in CA is at $5. Is this true?!

How do you catch a wild goose?!

2007-11-12T11:28:00.001-05:00

Wow, what a crazy week! Because Elder Christensen and I whitewashed in (Maureen, remember that means that BOTH of us are new!) ;) we spent this week on a number of wild-goose chases, trying to find everyone that the previous elders had been teaching. This is my 3rd time whitewashing, so you'd think I'd be used to it by now! Tuesday was mission council, where all of the zone leaders met with President Newman in Jacksonville and we talked about some goals that we'd like to set for the mission in the coming 6 weeks. I'm way excited to see what happens!!! This week our ward was running a sausage booth at the county fair, so we helped out. We also helped partake! Man that was good sausage!!! We were in normal clothes, and it felt really weird to be walking around in jeans! This week we started going to the YMCA in the mornings to work out. I'm SO going to be slim & buff by the time I'm outta here! Saturday was a way cool day, because I got to go to 2 different baptisms. So do y'all remember my first companion, Elder Jensen? Well, Elder Christensen served with him in Whitehouse, and someone that they taught got baptized, so President Newman picked us up and took us so Elder Christensen could be there for that. It was way cool to see Jensen again, and even cooler to ride with President for 3 hours. He is such an awesome man! Once we were back in Lake City, the singles branch that we serve in had a baptism. Her name is Stephanie, and she's the WML's girlfriend (only in a singles ward!) Then that night there was a huge singles bonfire thing that we went to with our investigators, and it was way fun. So yeah... that was my week! I'm loving it here in Lake City, and Elder Christensen is AWESOME!!! Love y'all! -Elder Borgia

Well that was unexpected!

2007-11-05T11:01:00.001-05:00

So I've been transferred from the Lake City 3rd ward to... drumroll please... the Lake City 2nd Ward & 4th branch! My new apartment is approximately 5 minutes away from my old one, and I'm even in the same district. My new companion's name is Elder Christensen, and he's way cool. He's also from CA, and we're going to have a FANTASTIC time together. We whitewashed in (this is the 3rd time I've whitewashed!) so we spent the past few days figuring out the area. But before I tell you more about my new area, lemme tell you about my last few days in 3rd ward. We spent p-day packing and burning CD's, and then over the next few days, when we had time, I said some goodbyes. Wednesday night the ward had a big Halloween party, so it was quite convenient that the whole ward got together on my last night there. I got lots of pictures with those AMAZING people. Wednesday morning President Newman called me and told me I was staying in Lake City, but I still had to go up to Jacksonville on Thursday for transfer meeting. I'm living in a 4-man apartment now, along with Elders Stallings & Funderburk. Stallings was in my MTC district, so we're having a great time being roommates! Friday was his birthday, so we went over to a members house and they baked a cake and everything for him. So, Elder Christensen and I serve in part of 2nd ward, but we're also in the 4th branch, which is the stake singles branch. It's SWEET! President Thomas (the branch president) is SO excited about missionary work, this area is just going to EXPLODE with work! So... that was my week. Love y'all!!! -Elder Borgia

PS- my new address is:
408 Allen St. #104
Lake City, FL 32025

OK, I'm getting tired of this!!!

2007-10-29T10:59:00.000-04:00

(this picture is a failed attempt at a timed picture!)

OK, so apparently both of those emails got sent, so now you got 2 accounts of last week. Anyhoo... so I found out on Saturday night that I'm getting transferred... again! This'll make my 3rd three-month area and my 4th six-week companion. I've been on my mission for 9 months and I've had 5 companions!!! Ridiculous!!! I didn't think I was that hard of a person to live with! ;) Mostly I'm just sad because things were going AWESOME here with Elder Kenworthy, and I was 99% sure we were both gonna stay. I guess the Lord needs me somewhere else, so I'll let y'all know next week. This was a GREAT week. So busy, in fact, that I didn't have time to write in my journal at all, so I'm having a bit of a hard time remembering all of the details. So here's what I could come up with... Monday night Sis. Wade cut both me & Kenworthy's hair. It was the first time that someone other than his mother cut his hair!!! We met again with our PLATINUM investigator. This past week her family had set up an appointment with their Baptist preacher for her, and she went and bore her testimony to him and laughed off the anti- stuff he tried to give her. Then we had a great lesson with her!!! Then on Saturday was mission tour. We were supposed to hear from Elder Ballard, but there was a last minute change and instead we heard from Elder Richard G. Hinckley! We got picked up the night before and we spent the night in Jacksonville with the AP's, and then was the meeting. It was an awesome meeting, plus we got to see the whole mission, which was way cool. So yeah, that was my week. Until next week... Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Sleepwalking & Demolition

2007-10-22T11:18:00.001-04:00

OK, so I'm pretty sure that the amazing email I just wrote got lost into cyberspace, so I will now attempt to recreate it. However, y'all know that I'm not the most patient person, so this might not be the most amazing email ever. So on Monday a member lady took us out to McDonalds. I have just one suggestion... NEVER LOOK AT THE NUTRITION FACTS!!! Bad things happen to good people! Maybe that disturbing discovery is what led me to do some sleepwalking this week, which apparently startled my companion. I guess I don't blame him. So, in a few weeks we're going to work at a family history booth at the fair, so I got to go learn how to do family history! In 1 hour I found out that my Grandpa Borgia's grandpa came from Italy in 1890, and that he was a building mason (not a secret society mason). Isn't that SCHWEET?! This week we went on 2 trade-offs. We went with the zone-leaders on Wednesday/Thursday, and the other elders on Friday/Saturday. It was cool to go serve in the other guys area. We met a crazy guy that started ranting about everything (did you know that the feminist movement is what caused 9/11? Who knew??!!) and we got to DEMOLISH a trailer. That is definitely an effective way to reduce stress, although fiberglass is definitely an effective way to increase itching. Well... sorry this one wasn't as amazing. Hope y'all had a great week. Love ya!!! -Elder Borgia

Here's the first one I thought got lost... just to be repetitive!
Man this week has FLOWN by!!! So on Monday a member lady took us out to lunch at McDonald's. I've learned something... NEVER look at the nutrition facts at a fast food restaurant!!! Bad things happen to good people! Maybe that disturbing discovery is what led me to sleepwalk several times this week, apparently catching my companion a little off guard. So, in a few weeks we're going to be helping out at a family history booth at a fair, so we had to go learn how to do family history, which I've never really done before. In 1 hour I was able to find out that my Grandpa Borgia's grandpa came from Italy in 1890, and that he was a mason (not a secret society mason, but a building mason). How cool is that?! The theme for this week was trade-offs. Wednesday/Thursday we were on trade-offs with the zone leaders, and Friday/Saturday we were on trade-offs with the other elders. It was perfect to have Elder Wells with us on Wednesday, because he knows a lot about horses, and everyone we ended up seeing that day had horses! Then on Friday, me & Elder Martin ran into a crazy guy. Apparently, 9/11 was a direct result of the feminist movement. Who knew??!! Then on Saturday morning we got to help demolish a trailer. Man, I need to do that more often. It was a great way to get out some frustration and tension! Well, it's been a great week, and I hope yours was equally as awesome. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Don't forget the towels!!!

2007-10-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a busy and yet FANTASTIC week. P-day wasn't anywhere near enough time to get everything done. Since I've been a district leader, my journal writing has suffered horribly, and so I tried to catch up, plus write letters, plus clean a bunch, and that just didn't all work out. Oh well. OH!!! So we went to see a less-active family, and they weren't home. However, their PIG was. It was in the front yard, and while we'd been waiting on the front steps, it had come up behind us and blocked our path. We started walking towards the car, and it charged Elder Kenworthy!!! What was it gonna do, sniff him to death?! I was laughing so hard, it was ridiculous! Anyhoo... we had interviews with President Newman this week. I LOVE that man. Saturday we had the opportunity to baptize Hope & William Baxter. Elder Kenworthy baptized Hope, and I baptized William. Man, if I could dress up in white just once a week, I'd be content! The service went well, except that we forgot to bring towels, so we dried off with table cloths! So yeah, it was a GREAT week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Jack Bauer wears JEFFREY R. HOLLAND pj's!!!

2007-10-08T11:43:00.000-04:00

Man, that talk by Elder Holland was probably the most amazing thing EVER! He's definitely my hero! That's an issue we deal a lot with here in the bible-belt (the trinity). General Conference was pretty fantastic! I loved Elder (now President) Eyering before, but now he seems to have doubled in amazingness! This was an awesome week! Wednesday was zone conference in Orange Park (which is in Jacksonville) so we had to wake up at 4:30am to get there, but I somehow managed to not even be tired!!! It was cool to see some old friends, including Elder Jensen, who I haven't seen in about 5 months! We heard some great talks, and then for an hour we went and blitz contacted in that general area, and in 1 hour we found 50 new investigators for the Orange Park elders. I'm SO in favor of having zone conference in Lake City next time! ;) Thursday we were on the go a lot, and it might have been the most unhealthy day of my life in terms of what I ate. I gained 4 pounds that day (that randomly reminded me of the grinch... "and his heart grew 10 sizes that day!") ANYHOO... Thursday was awesome. It's so cool when our days don't go at all like they planned because the Lord had something BETTER for us to do. We'd planned on tracting, but first we went to drop off a CD at a member's home, because Sister Timmerman had mentioned that she loved a hymn that I happened to have a cool arrangement of. Well, we ended up staying there for a little bit to have a discussion, and then Bro. T came in and gave us 2 referrals, and then he went with us to see them, and now they're taking the lessons! All because we dropped by, which was because I happened to have a CD with the song Sister T happened to mention she loved because both Elder Kenworthy and I happenened to ask if we could sing a song. That's more than just coinkidink. That shows that when we allow Him to, Christ will micromanage our lives. So yeah, it was a GREAT week, and I hope y'alls was equally fantastic. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- if you go to my blog at: , I just put up some more pictures. The link is on the right side of the page. Enjoy!

Gator Country

2007-10-01T11:28:00.001-04:00

Well hello there y'all! It's been another great week! Elder Kenworthy is awesome... the next 3 months should be great! (I'm assuming that's how long we'll be together). Monday we drove down to Gainesville so he could buy a bike. Man I love that town! It was so fun to go back there and see my old area. On Tuesday we were on bikes (we were running pretty low on miles!) and it started POURING rain, so we dodged under an overhang at what happened to be the local baptist church. Well, their landscaper dodged under the same overhang as us, and we had a great discussion with him for about 15 minutes! Then this week Foye Walker got baptized, and he's AWEOME!!! We didn't teach him, but I got the opportunity to interview him, and he's amazing! At church yesterday he was glowing! So on Saturday we had a hard time finding people to talk to, because the Gators were playing Auburn, and they LOST! :( It's funny how when there's a Gator game on, no one answers the door. Anyhoo... it's been a pretty fantastic week. I hope yours was equally as amazing. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

I'm a DADDY!!!

2007-09-24T11:23:00.001-04:00

Well hello there. So Monday I made an executive decision... fishing is the most boring thing EVER!!! That's what our district did for p-day, although I spent most of my time writing letters and watching others fish. The last time I fished, i was 12, and I hooked myself! Anyhoo... that night I got a call from President Newman, and he asked me if I'd train, so on Thursday I went to Jacksonville to pick up my brand new companion, Elder Kenworthy, who is straight from the MTC!!! He's from Orem, UT, and he's already my favorite companion ever! This is going to be a GREAT transfer, and hopefully longer! For Elder Kenworthy's first dinner we went to the Evans. I had called and told her we were getting a "greenie", and so for dinner we had crackers with jalepeno jelly, split pea soup, limeade, broccoli, green beans, green mashed potatoes, steak with green onions, green corn bread, and for dessert we had mint milk shakes. She even gave us green goodie-bags to take home. PLUS she was wearing a green shirt and we had green napkins. She definitely got into it! So yeah... this was a great week. Hope yours was equally as awesome. Love ya! -Elder Borgia'

PS- we found out that at the end of October Elder Ballard is coming to visit us. ISN'T THAT AWESOME!!!

My roller-coaster week

2007-09-17T11:49:00.001-04:00

Well, this past week was the 6-year anniversary of 9/11, and our country's already forgotten. I was thinking about that as I was reading in the Book of Mormon. I was thinking about the pride cycle, and how stupid those people must have been to miss that OBVIOUS cycle, and then I realized that we're still living in it. After 9/11, our whole country banded together and remembered God. That lasted for MAYBE a month... now we're as corrupt and divided as ever. Kind of sad. Anyway... now on to happier things. We had a cool experience this week. We were at a member's home, and I was playing around with my CTR ring, and I dropped it. I couldn't find it anywhere!!! We literally tore that place apart... looking under the couch, moving the furniture, and still it was nowhere. Then Sister Slack suggested that we pray. We did so, and about 2 minutes later, I was crouched down on the floor looking. I heard a thud, and there it was, right in front of my face!!! It literally fell right in front of me!!! Talk about an obvious answer to prayer! This past Friday was mission tour. We had Elder Christensen of the 2nd quorom of the seventy come to speak to us. That morning, we woke up to find that our power had gone out, so I thought I'd haver to take a shower by candlelight) However, because we have well water, when there's no electricity, there's no water. So, we packed our stuff up and showered at the other elders apartment, and we were only a few minutes late to the meeting. The meeting was great, I learned a lot, and I loved being able to see the elders from my last district. Man I love those guys! OH! So yesterday morning, I totally gashed my upper lip as I was shaving. It was literaly gushing bloog. I got it under control by the time we got to church, but it left a very obvious mark. It kind of looks like 1/2 of a Hitler-moustache... I'm considering gashing the other side just so it'll match! ;) Well, that was my week. I hope yours was just as, uh, interesting? Love ya... -Elder Borgia

PS- Elder Marques is getting transferred, so on Thursday I'll get a new companion!!!

I need to spit more when I preach!

2007-09-10T10:53:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a fairly average week. On Thursday we were driving to go tracting, and we saw a guy on the side of the road trying to move a tree branch, so we pulled over, and I stuck my head out the window to ask if he needed help. He said he was done, but thanked us. As we were getting ready to leave, he pulled up next to us and asked us if we attended church around here (he hadn't seen our missionary outfits or nametags). When we told him that we went to the LDS church, he invited us to his church, Hopeful Baptist, where he's the pastor. He said that we could "come and meet the real Jesus", then he started trying to bash with us!!! We smiled, nodded, waved, and drove away. However, the story does not end there. We realized that most of the town goes to said Baptist church, so yesterday (Sunday) we decided to attend! It wasn't too crazy... the music was good... but it was a relief to head to sacrement meeting right afterward. So yeah, that was my week, and how my testimony of the great apostasy was strengthened. Love, Elder Borgia

Who "cut off" the lights?!

2007-09-03T11:02:00.000-04:00

Well hello. I guess it's been a good week! Monday (a week ago) was a pretty lazy p-day... mostly napping while we did our laundry. I guess we're just boring like that. Today should be a bit more exciting, 'cuz we're hanging out with the other elders. Last week we were stranded at home 'cuz we were ridiculously low on miles. For district meeting on Tuesday we talked about companionship unity, and specifically comp. inventories, which are basically discussions to resolve concerns. We discussed Alma chapters 60-61, and related it to a comp. inventory. I love how it's so easy to relate the Book of Mormon in our lives. Because we were out of miles, we were mostly on bikes this week. One night we were riding home, and it was pretty dark, but there was a lightning storm. Man, that was SO COOL!!! On Thursday night we got home to discover we had no lightbulbs, our beds were switched, our closets were switched, there was kool-aid in the shower and all of our canned food was in the washing machine. We later found out that it was the zone leaders, so we're definitely going to be getting them back. BWA HA HA!!! So yeah... that was our week. Love y'all!!!! -Elder Borgia

What does "whitewash" mean?!

2007-08-27T11:01:00.000-04:00

Well hello y'all! First off... I've been made aware that last week I included some mission lingo and forgot to translate... when I said that me & Elder Marques were "whitewashed", that means that we're both new in this area. Usually they stagger it so at least one elder is already familiar with the area, but every once in a while they whitewash to start everything fresh. This is my 2nd time whitewashing, although this time it's a lot more stressful because I'm senior companion, as opposed to last time, when I'd been in Florida for 48 hours. So the swing was fantastic. It felt just like a roller-coaster. The scariest part was climbing the ladder to get up there. I HATE LADDERS!!! Anyhoo... so this week we were on bikes a lot. We do have a car, but we don't have a lot of miles, and President Newman wanted us on bikes as much as possible. Normally this week we would have had zone conference, but because there's going to be a mission tour in a few weeks, it was a "district conference" with President, the AP's, and our district. As always, we had to watch some safety video. I've decided that making safety videos is not the Church's strong point. ;) At dinner a few nights ago the couple we were eating with had both been marching-bandos! We probably had a bit too much fun talking about our past-lifes! Last night we attended a great fireside about the vision of the tree of life, and where we are in that vision. There were 3 groups of people. Some that were wandering, some that partook of the fruit and then were ashamed, and some that held fast to the rod of iron. It was a great talk! Anyhoo... it has been a great week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

"Wow, I wish I could speak whale!"

2007-08-20T10:56:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a fun and exciting week! Monday we watched "Finding Nemo" as a district. Man... I love that movie! Definitely a classic that will live on for generations to come! We've started running 3 days a week with a member guy here... it'll be good motivation to exercise more. I've set a goal to exercise every morning here so that I can get into shape. So, running and lifting weights. Our house (yes house, not apartment!) has weights, although not that much. You know it's sad when even I can bench all of the weight in the house. Elder Marques & I were whitewashed in, so we've been going to meet lots of members. One family, the Nettles, has a totally awesome swing in their backyard. You can either jump off of the big tree, or the roof. First I did the beginner jump, off the house, and today for p-day we're going to go there as a district, and I'm going to jump off the tree. Wish me luck! Another thing that comes with whitewashing is getting lost... not fun! Friday was my first district meeting here, and I was particularly stressed out because it was also my first as district leader. We do have a car here, which has it's benefits over a bike, only now we have to keep track of miles, which is no fun. We only have 1,000 miles for the whole month, which sounds like a lot until you have to stay within it. So, my companion, Elder Marques, is from Brazil. Thus, California is BORING compared to Brazil. So, here's the routine... members ask where I'm from, I tell them, I get a "Oh, that's nice". Then Marques says "Brazil" and we spend the next eternity talking about it. Really, I'm not all that sad about it, 'cuz I got tired of always talking about home, so now I get to just listen to Marques have to tell everyone the same thing over and over. BWA HA HA!!! ;) Well, that's about it for me. If you were, like grandma B, wondering about the hurricane, it hasn't had any effect here... BORING! Anyhoo... Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Hello Lake City... Welcome back to the Sticks!

2007-08-13T11:34:00.000-04:00

First off: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GRANDPA B AND THE TRIPLETS!!! Anyhoo... hello y'all!!! So, before I tell you about Lake City, lemme tell you about my last few days in Gainesville, 'cuz it was an awesome week! So on Monday I think I sweat more than I've ever sweat in my whole life. It wasn't even all that hot, but I swear it was 500% humidity. So on the bikeride home, we stopped at Walgreens 'cuz Elder Marshall wanted to get a drink. Well, my attention was grabbed by cheap little pints of ice cream... so of course I got one! Marshall thought I was so weird, but there's nothing weird about wanting ice cream on a hot day! Tuesday was my last district meeting with the guys in Gainesville... man I'm going to miss them! Wednesday we got to go to the Orlando temple, which is especially cool since we had to get special permission since it's outside our mission. On the ride home, I discovered something HORRIBLE... our ride, Bro. Gooch, is my exact opposite!!! He hates the beach!!! (?!) I can't even begin to fathom that! My mind is still recovering from that. Anyhoo... that night I burned my tie in honor of my 6-month mark. Thursday I arrived in Lake City. My new companion is Elder Marques, who's from Brazil. He went into the MTC the same day as me, but he was there for 9 weeks so he could learn English. We live in a house, all by ourselves, which is pretty sweet! Saturday I had a crazy day. I found out that I, like my Dad, am allergic to cats. I don't know why, but it happened all of a sudden. We were at a lady's house with like 5 cats, and one of them really liked me, so I petted it while we talked. Within 5 minutes of leaving her house, I was sneezing like crazy, my right eye was way swollen and filled with pus, and my nose was running like a faucet! Thankfully there's no job too big for Benadryl! Well, that's about it. It's been a great week, and I hope that yours was equally amazing. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

*PS... my new address is:
110 SE Willowhaven Ct.
Lake City, FL 32025

Leaving Already?!

2007-08-06T11:33:00.001-04:00

Well, transfer calls were this past Saturday night, and on Thursday morning I'll be leaving Gainesville for a new area, although I won't know where I'm going until I get there. I for sure thought that I'd stay here with Marshall for at least one more transfer (6 weeks), but I guess the Lord has other plans for me. So... stay tuned for more news on that! This was a good week. Monday was zone p-day, and we got together to play some softball and football. I don't think I've swung a bat since 5th grade! Out of 3 at-bats, I struck out at 2!!! Oh well... at least I enhanced my already amazing missionary tan-line. ;) So we went to dinner at the Scherers a few nights ago, and Bro. S is an amazing cellist, so I've decided that the cello is the most beautiful instrument EVER! We had some excitingness when our Chevy Malibu full of elders got rear-ended on Friday. Some stoopid person stopped right in front of us, but the person behind us didn't see us slow down, so they hit us, then the person behind them hit them. We're all OK, but it was exciting! This past Tuesday was my 6-month mark! How crazy is that?! I'm already 1/4 done! It's going waaay too fast for me! Anyhoo, until next week, LOVE YA!!! -Elder Borgia

Hodgepodge!

2007-07-30T10:29:00.001-04:00

(Those pictures were taken right bu our apartment!!!) Well hello everyone! Not much to report this week. Why is it that missionaries always seem to find the crazy people? (or do they find us?) We tracted into a guy named Donny. He said we were wrong because the Book of Mormon doesn't have all of Genesis (a lot of people don't understand it's seperate from the Bible) and then all of the sudden he asks us, "Do you know that when God said 'Let there be light', that's still happening today!" (??!!) We looked at hime, then I turned around, looked at the daylight, and asked "Do you mean the sun?" to which he replied "No! I mean there are still stars and planets being created!" to which we agreed, "But there aren't any more people! Only empty planets!" To which we had no response. When he started going off about the Hubble telescope and how he watched God make a planet, we decided it was time to move on. Anyhoo... This week were president interviews, which were good. President Newman is pretty awesome! So, we do service in a nursing home twice a week, and I've decided that I never want to live in one! EVER! Anyway, sorry for that tangent. In church yesterday two of the youth did a musical number that was AMAZING! It was the song "The Prayer" by Andre Bocelli (sp?) and Celine Dion, and they seriously sounded better! So, that was my amazing week... hope yours was equally fantastic! Love, Elder Borgia

I'm an old fart! :(

2007-07-23T10:47:00.001-04:00

Hello there! So, I'm officially old. I decided that on Monday night, when I realized that Tuesday was my birthday. I remember when I was a kid and I anticipated my birthday for months. This time around, it snuck up on me! So then, on my actual birthday, my old-fartness was clinched when I threw out my back while jogging! I should just enroll in a nursing home! So tracting has been fun this week. Quite a few people listened to us, and we told them about the Restoration and the 1st vision. Suprisingly, the only thing one lady got out of it was that we had a lot to memorize when we quoted the first vision. Not exactly what we wanted them to focus on, but oh well. We also tracted into some southern beauties, one of which asked us to come back when her boyfriend was there so we could teach them together. Well, we got there, and her boyfriend had invited over a friend, who we later found out is studying to be a preacher. So, we sat down and the first thing we noticed was a few open Bibles and well-worn, marked up Book of Mormon. So either they were going to be golden, or they were going to try to bash. Well, we realized it was the second when they pulled out a sheet of paper they had with a bunch of ways to try to confuse us and prove us wrong. Thankfully it never got contentious, and we left them thinking. I'm so glad to know that this gospel is true, because when people try to confuse us or stump us, we have the Spirit on our side! So this week I started reading the Old Testament, and I never realized how specific it got about animal sacrifices. There was like 10 chapters on how to kill sheep! YIKES! So there's a guy that lives below the other elders, and he's a kind of depressed, Jewish guy. We were talking to him, and he said: "Remember, we're cousins! Jesus was a nice Jewish guy. He just got himself in trouble by talking too much!" (??!!) I think that might have been the most blasphemous thing I've ever heard!!! So yes, that was my week, full of excitement and steamed with humidity. I hope that yours was equally amazing. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Sorry, this one's ADD

2007-07-16T10:57:00.001-04:00

Well hello y'all! It's been another fantastic week, let me tell you... I've learned a lot on my mission, and not just spiritual things. i.e: I finally learned how to shuffle, thanks to a long rainstorm and Elder Marshall. I can even do the cool bridge thingy!!! I have also become buff (well, maybe not quite), but I can now actually do a pullup. In fact, I can do 4! By the end of 2 years I'm going to be a white version of the hulk! (with missionary tan lines of course). On Wednesday Elder Marshall burned his shirt at the Castillo's for his year mark. I get to burn a tie at the end of this month! Friday was zone conference, and we got to finally meet our new mission president, President Newman, who is pretty awesome. He's from Modesto (GO CALI!!!) which makes him even cooler. I love zone conferences, getting to see all of the missionaries. It's like a family reunion every 6 weeks. So yesterday at church I decided to look snazzy by donning my glasses rather than contacts. Some people thought I was a new guy! Well, that was my ADD weekly report. Hope you have a FAN-bloody-TASTIC week!!! Love, Elder Borgia

Barbara MANATEE (manatee manatee)!!!

2007-07-09T11:14:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a very exciting week. Monday (p-day) we watched our g-rated movie for the month, which was "Big Jake" with John Wayne, and he is definitely my new hero. I also taught Elder Marshall egyptian ratscrew. The first game I won, and then he beat me like 6 times! (although I blame it on the chair!) However, we have since had another tournament, and I am once again in the lead! Go me! So Gainesville is a funny place, because it has its July 4th fireworks on the 3rd. (?!) So ,we went with our investigator Ahmy and her family, but while we were at her apt. getting ready to go, her daughter Selina was watching "Veggie Tales" and I now have the "Barbara Manatee" silly song stuck in my head for the rest of eternity! The 4th of July was good, but slow, as you might imagine. We have a zone goal to have fun while tracting, and so we've started to play the tracting game. Basically, when the door starts to open, your companion tells you a random word that you somehow have to fit into your lesson. So far we've successfully included words/phrases such as: horn, brick, hullaballoo, pine tree, Empire State Building, sea urchin, and substation. Yes... we are amazing! We tracted into a lady that is the epitamy of southern stereotypes. She came out and spit tobacco over the balcony as she greeted us. Then she proceeded to tell us she was from the Bayou, her father was a prophet, and when we explained the Book of Mormon she comapred it to voodoo, and to her that was a good thing. Yikes! Then yesterday we went with one of our investigators to a Catholic mass, which was a cool experience, to better understand that religion. It simply strengthened my testimony of the need for the restoration of the gospel. So, that was my week. I hope your was just as fantastic. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

PS- I should have pictures from the past 2 months up for you next week.

Hello Elder Marshall

2007-07-02T11:56:00.000-04:00

(That picture of Elder Marshall is from my first transfer)

Well, it's been a good week. Between Monday (when Gerber left) and Thursday (when I got my new companion, Elder Marshall) I stayed with some other elders in a 4-man apartment. Man, that made me wish I lived in a 4-man, although it's probably better that I don't. Y'all know how I can carry on a conversation all on my own, so a 4-man would probably mean a more social, less effective Elder Borgia. I got passed between those two companionships. I got to go with Elders Willard & Knox to visit one of their crazy investigators, who's a blind guy that blames all of his health problems on his black neighbors because he thinks they taint his maple syrup in a vain attempt to kill him. Thank goodness he's blind, otherwise he would have seen us busting up laughing. Wednesday night was fun... while the other elders had fun playing basketball, I had fun in the chapel on the piano singing random primary songs. SO MUCH fun! Anyhoo... so on Thursday I got my new companion Elder Marshall, who I actually served with in Georgia (he was in my district). I think that this is going to be an amazing transfer! On Saturday was my best tracting experience EVER!!! 2 1/2 hours and 10 lessons!!! I have also decided that I love old black ladies!!! So last night for dinner we went to our WML's house, and his brother was there. He recognized my last name and asked where I was from, and I told him. Apparently he began his mission in Morgan Hill 3rd ward, and he remembers me and my family!!! The mormon world certainly is small!!! So, that was my amazing week. I hope yours was also truly fantastic. Love, Elder Borgia

Goodbye Gerber

2007-06-25T10:41:00.000-04:00

Well, my time with Elder Gerber officially ended about an hour ago as he left for the mission office. I'll be the 5th wheel to a 4-man apartment, getting shared between the 2 companionships until I get my new companion of Thursday. It's been a pretty good week. Wednesday we went on a day-long trade-off with an 18-year old from Lake City. He goes on trade-offs with missionaries all over as part of his mission preparation. I wish I'd been that proactive! Otherwise the week was full of Gerber saying his goodbyes, and I don't want to bore you with any of the details. So yeah, that was my week. Happy July! (in 5 days) Love, Elder Borgia

ps- you may have noticed I've gone back and added pictures to some posts. I'll keep doing that as I upload more pictures, just cuz I'm nice like that! ;)

Pictures!

2007-06-21T15:48:00.000-04:00

So if you will take a look to the right side of the screen (its OK, do it now, I'll wait!)... you'll find a link called "My Mission Pics". Click on it, and the eyes of your understanding will be opened to Elder Borgia's mission and photographic evidence that he is in actuality in Florida! YAY!

Blast from the past!

2007-06-18T10:56:00.000-04:00

Well hello y'all!!! So as of yesterday I've been a high school grad for 2 years!!! Man I feel old, especially when I think that the kids that were freshman during my senior year are going to be the seniors, plus Jonathan's going to be a sophomore. CRAZINESS!!! On Monday for p-day we watched our one g-rated movie for the month: "True Grit" with John Wayne. I actually loved it! Who would've thunk I'd develop a love for westerns?! So yesterday (Sunday the 17th) was CRAZY! I was sitting in sacrament meeting when Elder Willard (from another ward, but in my district) came in and said that he needed to talk to me. Imagine my surprise when I came out and saw the Haney/Sandhu family standing there!!! It took me a few seconds to realize it was real! (not helped by the fact I had a dream about hanging out with David only 2 nights before!) So they hung around for the rest of church, and then we got to talk for about 45 minutes before me & Gerber had to head to an appointment. It was so cool! I haven't seen David in 2+ years, so I was so excited to see him! He's still the same David! So yeah, that was definitely exciting. Well, that was my week. I hope yours was also amazing. Love, Elder Borgia.

Iranian Steven Good (?!)

2007-06-11T10:55:00.001-04:00

Scary Elder Gerber!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! (and Adam). OK, so Monday I bought a new bike, meaning... I NEVER HAVE TO RIDE THE JEEP AGAIN!!! It was OK while it lasted, but you definitely get what you pay for (and I got it for free). So now I can cruise the streets of Gainesville without feeling like a clown. Tuesday was probably the best day of my mission thus far. I went on trade-offs with Elder Farr, who's a brand new "greenie". We worked our butts off, and talked to tons of different people. We ran into a guy tracting that tried to bash with us. He totally reminded me of Steven Good, which was slightly weird, seeing as I'm on the other side of the country. So Steven, if you're reading this... I've found your Iranian twin! (for those of you that don't know Steven, he's one of my best friends, but we bible-bashed our way through high school, neither of us getting anywhere). We also ran into a few less-active members because we were in the right place at the right time, and I think it's so awesome that the Spirit leads us to the people that need us. I LOVE being a missionary!!! Love, Elder Borgia

HALLELUJIA!!! Amen, brotha!

2007-06-04T10:05:00.000-04:00

It's been a fun/interesting/good week. Saturday, tropical storm Barry came through, which totally drenched us. It poured all Friday night until Saturday afternoon.The humidity has definitely been turned up. Right now its almost 80%!!! So for the next few months, I'd like to intoduce you to... Elder Borgia: the Sweaty Beast!!! Anyway, for some reason this week we tracted into lots of Jewish people. Who knew there were so many Jews in Gainesville?! One man told us about a mormon friend he had that lived down the street, but we'd never met him, so we went to say hello. Woah! This guy wasn't even inactive, he was ACTIVELY inactive! He was totally anti, told us we'd been brainwashed, blah blah blah, etc. He said that the church isolates us as missionaries and that we only hear what they feed us? Wrong sucka! If we were "isolated" we wouldn't be talking to losers like him! Anyway, that got me a little upset, but I'm over it now. Anyhoo... I met my first black preacher man, who gave us a rousing, animated, moistened (spit flying everywhere) sermon on the side of a road in a local trailer park. It was so cool. Friday was zone conference, which was our last one with President & Sister Marsh, so that was a great meeting, although it's sad to see them go. So that was my exciting week, I hope all is well with y'all. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

No more rednecks for me :(

2007-05-28T20:44:00.000-04:00

Well, my second in week in Gainesville was fantastic! Lots of bike riding, which will be good to get my legs in shape. Speaking of getting in shape, me & Elder Gerber are going to be running 3 miles 6 days a week. CRAZINESS!!! We started teaching a new investigator this week who the other elders ran into. Her family room decorations include Budweiser bottles, vodka, and boxes of blunts. I can't wait to teach about the Word of Wisdom. Half of her decoration scheme is out! Lol. We helped some people move, which is the cool thing to do here at this time of year, since there's lots of students and the semester just ended. 13 families are leaving!!! Yesterday there was a mix-up with the dinner calendar, which led to 2 back-to-back dinners. Man, I thought I'd explode! So yes, that was my, I'll admit, uninteresting week. Things just aren't the same without my Darien hillbillies! ;) Well, thats it for now. Have a great week!!! Love, Elder Borgia

Whoa! Big Ward!

2007-05-21T09:52:00.001-04:00

Well hello y'all! My last week in Darien was great, and yet sad, as I said goodbye to lots of people I've come to love. Gainesville is great, and Elder Gerber and I are getting along just fine. I still miss Jensen & Darien like crazy, though. My new area is a bike area, and Saturday I got 2 consecutive flats! GO ME! Church was overwhelming... I forgot how many people are in a normal ward (only 30-40 people showed up in Darien). There were 50 billion new faces and names that I'm going to try my hardest to learn. We also have a mormon celebrity in our ward... the girl from "The Testaments", who is actually married with 2 kids, one of whom stole my nametag during sacrement meeting! Fun times! I'm glad to hear that David is home safe. See ya in 20 months! ;) Well, I gots to be going, but I hope that you have an amazing week. Love, Elder Borgia

new address

2007-05-17T18:17:00.000-04:00

Humongeous spider in our apartment!

Hello from Gainesville, Florida!!! Yes, I got to my new area fine. My companion's name is Elder Gerber and I'm killing him (which is mission lingo, meaning I'm his last companion before he goes home). I am Darien-sick. I already miss it. I feel like I'll be going back to be with Jensen and all the people there in a few days. I guess its a feeling I'll have to get used to. Anyhoo... here's my new address:

Elder Jeremy Borgia
4209-A SW 71st Terrace
Gainesville, FL 32608

Leaving :(

2007-05-16T11:17:00.001-04:00

Pic 1: Saying goodbye to Elder Jensen

Pic 2: Saying goodbye to WML & fisherman inspiration Bro. Boone

Pic 3: Saying goodbye to David & Rita Huffman (owners of the dreaded FatCat motorcycle)

Well hello. Sorry that I'm writing a few days late, but it's been a weird week. I'm leaving Darien tomorrow, which is sad, but at the same time exciting. I'm sad to leave Elder Jensen and the people in Darien. It feels harder to leave here than it did to leave home. When I was a greenie fresh out of the MTC, scared out of my mind, it was Jensen and the branch here that helped me, and so I grew really close to them. Now I'm leaving, and I'm slightly terrified to start new again. It's been a good week. I got to talk to my family on Mother's Day, which was very fun and exciting. So far they haven't changed too much. I'm just scared for when I get home and Jonathan will be a junior and Andrea will be a teenager. AACCKK!!! So yeah, I hope everyone has a great week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

Borgia rhymes with Georgia

2007-05-07T12:34:00.001-04:00

Hey y'all! Another great week in the backwoods of Georgia. The weather continues to get hotter & stickier. I've experienced another first in my life. Now, any of you that know me well know that I HATE ladders. Well, this week I climbed up a somewhat shaky ladder, with a leaf blower in my hand no less!, onto a roof so I could blow it off. No problems, until I wanted to get down. I seriously sat on that roof for 5-10 minutes strategizing how I would get off. My pride stopped me from asking someone what to do. And I'm proud to say that I succeeded!!! My quest to eat healthy (which is hard to do in the land of fried EVERYTHING) has helped me to lose 20 POUNDS!!! Woot woot!!! I'll be a sexy beast of a missionary in no time!!! The work continues to go well. We're teaching a part-member family, and bringing a stubborn less-active along as our member, because he's the best scriptorian in the branch! Who would've thunk?! I've also continued to realize how different people are here. I've always heard that the church is the same everywhere around the world. That may be true, but it doesn't seem like it with people being so different. It's more like "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Baptists"! Transfer calls are this coming Saturday, and I predict that next Thursday I'll be moving. I'll be sure to let you know. Anyhoo... I hope y'all have a FANTASTIC week. Love ya! -Elder Borgia

A FatCat Disaster

2007-04-30T11:33:00.000-04:00

Hello all! This was another fun week in Georgia. The weather is definitely warming up. Combined with the fact that it's crazy dry (we need rain!), the fire-danger situation is getting worse. Theres a big fire a county up in Waycross that's been burning for a few weeks. We're not even allowed to have burn piles, which is how everyone here gets rid of their trash! Anyhoo... I drove a motorcycle for the first time this week, a Honda FatCat. It was supposed to be as easy as steering, but if anyone can screw it up, it'd be me. I narrowly missed the member's garden decoration as I plowed through their brick-lined flower garden, frantically searching for the brakes, which I finally found just before going into a bush. I looked back and everyone was just laughing their butts off. Yesterday the prank war with a member girl continued. During church, they took to decorating our car with "Just Married" and "Lovers at Last" written all over it, which got us some funny looks driving home from church, considering that inside the car were 2 guys in suits. So yeah, that was my week. Congrats to Travis & Julia! Love, Elder Borgia.

Sushi gone wrong

2007-04-23T12:20:00.000-04:00

This week was way fun. Over the weekend was the Blessing of the Fleet, which is a big festival here in Darien celebrating the beginning of the shrimping season. During the festival we ran a 5k in pros (missionary clothes)!!! It was way cool, and I did it in 25 minutes (57th out of 250 people!) The festival was good, lots of good food, and TONS of people (well, not really all that many, but for Darien it was HUGE!) This was a week of firsts... I tasted my first raw shrimp (and hopefully my last, YUCK! I think I chewed for 3 minutes!) and my first boiled peanuts (SO good!!!). Friday, me & Elder Jensen were wrestling, and he pinned me. All I could move was my head, so in a moment of desperation, I bit him! (I'm embarrassed just typing this!). I didn't think I bit too hard, but he has a nice bruise. I felt HORRIBLE, but now its fine. Anyhoo... a special shout out to my parents (happy anniversary!), Laurie (happy birthday!), and Jennifer Garner (happy birthday!). [I only know the last one because its the same day as the first 2. ;) ] Well, that was my amazing week. I hope yours was amazing as well. Love, Elder Borgia
ps: I've recently discovered something AMAZING called flatrate boxes from the post office. You get the boxes for free from the post office, and its the same price no matter how heavy it is. True genius!

Why can I see the no-see-ums?

2007-04-16T10:55:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I participated in my first baptism here on the mission. Elder Jensen performed the baptism, and I confirmed her. That was such an awesome experience. The rest of the week was great! The weather has really started to heat up, but I know its going to get a lot worse. Its been relatively warm, so apparently that means we need to gear up for a long hurricane season. Woot woot!!! This week we taught the lesson on the commandments to 4 teenagers, 3 of which were girls. As luck would have it, I taught the law of chastity. Say it with me... AWKWARD! The south continues to provide an interesting experience grammatically, but an AMAZING culinary one. Me and Elder Jensen have decided that we need to come back in a few years when we're married so our wives can learn to cook like southerners. Lol. Well, that's about it. I hope that your week was amazing!!! Love, Elder Borgia

Watch out for the Ether Bunny!!!

2007-04-09T12:59:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter!!! Mine was interesting. I got roped into doing a muscial number with the branch president and his daughter, but on Sunday his daughter chickened out, so it became a duet, 4 verses long. Talk about awkward. Yesterday I had my first low-country boil, which is when you boil sausage, shrimp, potatoes, onions, and cobs of corn together, then dump it out on the table and pick what you want from it. It was SO good! I'm definetely going to be cooking that for y'all once I get home. I would quickly like to make a clarification about last weeks post, because a few people took it wrong... although I was in a bedroom teaching an exotic dancer, that room was also the entry way, with the front door open (trailers in GA are weird). So for those 20 aforementioned seconds, my companion was in sight, and I was talking to her about the Book of Mormon. I would never let myself get into a compromising situation. Anyhoo... at the beginning of this week was crazy hot (plus we don't have A/C, so me & Jensen bought some fans!), the past few mornings have been cold (like 28 degrees!). Now, before you Utards respond with a "28 isn't cold!", realize that its 28 degrees with 75% humidity! The work is going fantastickly here. We got a family of 4 (their grandma is a member) thats taking the lessons. Its amazing to see the gospel change people's lives. Well, I gots to go, but I hope you have an AMAZING week! Luv ya!

-Elder Borgia

i said a boom-chicka-boom!!!

2007-04-02T11:29:00.000-04:00

Another week in the land of the rednecks. So there are these things here called deer-flies, and they're probably the most annoying things ever. They don't bite you or anything like that, they just hover/divebomb your head. RIDICULOUS!!! Our investigator that lives on the boat had a leak-scare, so we went and helped her wiith it. We also got to teach her again. Its so weird/cool to have to schedule our meetings based on the tides so we can actually get on/off the boat. We have a new investigator that we met this past week thats a dancer at a club about a mile away called Cafe Risque (I'll let you guess what kind of dancer she is). She's pretty receptive! Her family doesn't approve of her talking to us, so we had to talk to her in a bedroom. Jensen went to get her a Book of Mormon, so for 20 LONG seconds, I was alone in a bedroom with an exotic dancer. Man, I never expected to be able to say that! Anyway... General Conference was good. I only nodded off twice! Saturday was transfer calls, and we're both staying, so me & Jensen will be together in Darien for at least 6 more weeks. Well, that's about it. Hope y'all had a great week. Love ya!!!
PS- missionaries love mail, hint hint!

I got a free JEEP!

2007-03-26T12:50:00.001-04:00

OK, so the bugs here are absolutely ridiculous. My arms look like I have leprousy. So, during a lesson, I was itching myself to death. A member noticed and gave me this anti-itch cream and some Benadryl. AMAZING!!! This past week we taught 2 lessons to the golden lady, Sharon, that lives on the boat. She is so cool!!! It was funny, we took the WML (ward mission leader) with us for the lesson, and the first one was during low tide. Jumping down onto the boat was no problem, but getting off was interesting, considering the WML is 70 something years old, and the dock was above our heads. Thank goodness I have a buff companion, or I could've still been on that boat with Bro. Boone. Because we drove down to Fernadina for zone p-day, we were over on miles, so on Wednesday I got a bike, for free! It's kinda ghetto, but hey, its brand new & free! A prior elder ordered a bike, it broke, and so he got a new one sent out, but he fixed the broken one, so I got the free warranty one. Its a JEEP. Did anyone even know that Jeep made bikes? Anyway... my butt is sore now, considering I haven't really rode a bike in a while. Hopefully it'll help me in my quest to get fit. I've been continuing my quest to learn the piano so I can help accompany. So far its going good, as long as the hymn is in the key of C (no sharps or flats!) On Saturday we went to the county St. Patricks day parade. Man... talk about rednecks & hillbillys. We were with a less-active member (Kathy) and her ex-communicated brother (Catfish, yes... Catfish). It was so funny, he knows everyone! Every single float he would go up and talk to them! Church yesterday was branch conference, meaning a big branch lunch/dinner afterwards, mostly consisting of fried food! Then last night we went to visit a family that crabs for a living. You're all going to be SO jealous... while we were looking at the crabs, Bro. Karwacki just starts picking up some stone crab (Big mommas! they can pinch your finger off!), ripping off their claws, and throwing them in a pot. Then he boiled them, and said, "Well, go inside if you want crab!" How could we resist?! They said that between me & Elder Jensen, we ate what would've been $150 worth of crab if they'd bought it. It was SO good! Well, I know that I've bored you long enough. Hope that y'all have a great week. Love, elder borgia

2007-03-20T15:29:00.001-04:00

So this past week was good. I'm sorry I'm writing this a day late, but yesterday was different, so get over yourselves! I realize thay my last few updates have been, shall we say, longwinded... so I'll keep this short:The work is good, the Church is true....OK, you know me, and I can't just leave it at that, but I'll honestly try to make this a bit shorter. If you liked the long stuff, email me! write me! ok, anyway... this week, as part of my training, I'm the senior companion, which means I'm in charge. It's still a companionship where we discuss things, but I'm responsible for planing what we do, and making sure that we do it. I now realize that it's a lot harder than it looks. Tuesday I went on trade-offs with Elder Jenson (not to be confused with my companion Jensen... SO confusing!) in Brunswick. That was OK. Friday was a branch dinner for the Relief Society's Birthday, so we got to watch the Testaments! (a really good church movie). Then yesterday (Monday) was zone p-day at Fernadina beach, which is why I missed the email. It was so nice to see the ocean again (but its screwing up my sense of direction, to see the ocean and realize it's east and not west!) Oh, and a funny tracting story. We knocked on a guys door, told him that we were with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He said thanks, but he went to the Mormon church right down the street from the LDS church. We had never seen him before, but he said that his wife was a member. We were SO confused. Well, we're STILL confused. So yes. Plus, his neighbor was an interesting fella himself. He said thanks for coming and that he respected us, but Jesus saved him from drugs & alcohol 8 years, 5 months, and 2 days ago. Man, he was intense! So, that was my week in paradise. Write me! I promise that I'll write back! Love, Elder Borgia

From March 12th

2007-03-20T15:27:00.002-04:00

Hey y'all!!! So this past Monday we got to watch "Cars" (we get to watch 1 g-rated a month on p-day). Man, that movie is 10x funnier once you've been in the south. You have to realize that Nascar is like a religion down here. I've actually met people who act and talk just like Mater! So some sad news... Bro. Zorn's dog Creighton died this past week while we were doing yard work for him, so we dug a grave for her while we were there. Hopefully thats the only grave I'll have to dig here on the mission. Tuesday was my first zone conference (for those that don't know what that means, missions are separated into zones, which are separated into districts, kinda like counties and cities within a state). It was awesome!!! However, we did have to wake up at 5:45am to make it down to Kingsland. 2 elders from my MTC group were there (Mills and Stallings) so we had a good time catching up and telling what stories we had from a week and a half in the field. I left totally excited and inspired! Today while I was checking email, I snuck onto the BYU website to check my physical science grade. Guess what... I got a D+ on the final, which brought me to a C in the class!!! As bad as that sounds, that means that I'll never have to take another science class as long as I live!!! WOOT WOOT!!! So while we were tracting this past week, I think we interrupted a drug deal. This guy was looking at us all paranoid (thought we were cops) as he was loitering around a vacant house, tapping lightly on the windows. We talked to the kid, but he was way too cool-for-school to talk back to us. We gave him a pass-along card, though! We had a few more good experiences tracting, which so far has been pretty fun. The only thing that makes it hard is the gnats, which are getting pretty ridiculous. Someone said that if we rub dryer sheets on our skin it'll help. We'll see. We also talked to a guy with 3 or 4 toes (both feet) and seriously lacking in both the teeth and grammar departments. So, y'all know that I'm a sleep-talker (well, a sleep-yeller to be exact). Well, luck would have it that I landed a trainer who is the lightest sleeper on the planet, so I end up waking him up a couple times a night. He's thinking of investing in ear-plugs. A few nights ago, he woke up to a crash (I was out cold) thinking someone was breaking in. Apparently it was just a mirror falling, but we decided that if someone does break in, I'm probably dead. Friday we went to visit a referral we received. She lives on an 84-foot boat on the docks by the shrimping boats. She's golden! We're gonna teach her starting this week, but she's already starting to read the Book of Mormon! Well y'all, I gots to be going, but I hope you have a FANTASTIC week!!! Luv ya! love, elder borgiaPS: I need addresses!!! If you're reading this, and you haven't got a letter or postcard from me, chances are I don't have your address. SO... write me or email me, and we'll get that taken care of! Specifically, I need these people's addresses, so if you know them, please send them to me:-Steven Good-Ryan Scott-Cate Pedersen-Jessica Pollard-Shelby Peschke-Nathan Wiley-Jennifer Walker (JAWS)