Divisions week 8

Hola,

This past week I went on my first divisions. I was with Elder Seville in Cienaga de Flores. The area is shared with the zone leaders so we had lunch with them. The food here is great. I still haven't really gotten much of a taste of the spice Mexican food is known for. During divisions we had an appointment that was on the far side of the area so we had to walk for an hour to get there. When we got to the house of the investagator no one was there. So we turned around and walked another hour to get to the main part of the area. Cienaga is suppoed to have bikes because of how big the area is but the are broken which means more walking. The people here are just amazing. It's interesting listening to the convestations my companion has with the members and our investgators. I'm trying to get more confident with my spanish but I'm not talking quite as much as Elder Torales. Lots of the people here are really firm in their faith. Most of the time for contacts we offer to help strengthen their faith and not change it.

Elder Torales and I had a good lesson with an investagator couple on the restoration. They are both jehovahs witness and are interested in learing more about our church since the don't really understand most of the doctrine taught in their church. They had losts of questions for us as we discussed prophets and about christ with them. It was good to know that we could clarify the teachings of the bible for them and also introduce the Book of Mormon. We have alos recently been looking at the list of members in the area and finsing the ones that are less active. By doing this we are opening up lots of opportunities to teach since most of the less active families we run into are only part member families. That means we can set up opportunities to teach and try and prepare the families for the temple. 

-Elder Boren

This will be the last mission blog entry for awhile as Dylan will be coming home tomorrow. With faith and love he will be able to return to the field in July. We ask at this time for your love and support. - Sherrie

Week 7 "Real De Palmas" first week in Mexico

I'm so glad to know that my son is having a great start to his mission. I know he will struggle at times with the language, but I'm glad that he is studying hard to learn. The area will be a challenge as well. He will grow to love Mexico over time and feel it's his second home. We just sent him a small care package as a test to see how long it takes and if he gets it. We love our missionary-Mom


Hola,

Well I'm here in my first area in Monterrey. My new companion is Elder Torales. He is a native to Mexico and doesn't know any english. That means I really have to put to use my knowledge of spanish. I'm also going to be working on teaching he english while we are companions. Should be a fun time teaching him some phrases and words. Over all he is a great Elder and its going to be a good time working with my papa. Another thing is that the trainers here are refered to as Papas and the trainees are hijos. Its just really reandom to be considered Elder Torales' hijo. He has said a few times to members this -"Este es mi hijo amado, Escucalo". Which he is refering to the first vision. 

Every branch in our zone is assigned with two sets of elders. The other companionship is Elder Fransen (The other elder from the Allen stake) and Elder Gravley (One of the elders from my zone in the MTC). Every day we have lunch at a members house with the other companionship. That means that I have a chance to speak english once a day. The food hasn't been much of a shock yet. I think the food is great. I just have to get used to the portions that they give to eat. They don't seem to mess around when it comes to lunch here. Another thing I have found I like here are there burgers. I have had burgers at members houses twice already and I think they are the best thing ever. I've never thought that putting avocado on burgers would taste good. 

Real de Palmas is not what I imagained when I found out that I would be serving in Monterrey. The buildings are so close to gether and each sector has so many people. If it wasn´t for Elder Torales I would defiantly get lost here. The people here are great though. I may not be very good with my spanish but I can understand them pretty well. Most of the time Elder Torales does the talking. I save most of my talking for the lessons and the times that I am asked questions. I hope that I will eventually be able to get a hold of the language. We have quite a few investagators right now. We are working with the daughters of a recent convert to be prepared for baptism the first Sunday in October. We also have another investigator who we challenged to baptism. He doesn't know what his thoughts on baptism are now but we invited him to pray for an answer and to also find out if what we taught him is true. Our missions has a goal for a baptism a week so we have to get working towards that goal. It may seem like a big goal or something that would be hard to accomplish but in fact it's not all that hard. We just have to put in the effort and achieve all the other goals that the mission has in place for us to succed. I've just got to work on gaining more confidance with my speaking of spanish and then I think I will be a better teacher.

The daily study cycle has been great. I've been reading a chapter in spanish each day and also a chapter of Jesus the Christ. Having this time to study in my day is great and really helps me strengthen my knowledge of the gospel and my testimony. My reading in spanish my not be perfect or all that fast but I know that in the long run it will really help when I am teaching lessons. I think having the hour a day to study is a great blessing and is a great way to start the day.

siempre y para siempre,

Elder boren

Arrival in Monterrey Mexico

Never before have we received so many missionaries at one time. We received 15 Latin missionaries and 12 american missionaries. It was quite the experience to make preparations for all of the missionaries with opening new houses, choosing who would be the trainers, and setting up the rooms for orientation. We are very excited for the growth that these missionaries are growing to bring to our mission. -President Swapp

Dylan and His new Companion.

Missionaries from America

 Waiting for their Companions

Hi All:

We hope that you are all having safe travels.

What a treat it was to have you as members of the wonderful 149th branch.  You added so much.  Your Mission President's are fortunate to have you coming their way.

Wishing you all the best.

Love, President Shallenberger

Brother Slingerland

Brother Dowdle

week 5, Travel plans are set

He got his flight to travel to Monterrey Mexico on September 15. He does have a layover in Dallas. Wish I could go see him. He seems to be doing well.


Hola,

                                                    Pinata Time 

It has been another good week here at the MTC. As you may be able to tell from the subject line, I got my flight plans Friday. My lay over is in DFW airport. I have a two hour lay over then I fly into the Monterrey airport. should be in Monterrey by 4:00 on the 15th. Its exciting to find out what the flight plans are. 

On Thursday we had skype TRC which is where we skype with another member who speaks spanish. It was interesting. I wouldn´t consider it as nice as the usual member TRC. It was still a good experience and we got to teach another practice lesson. We ended up teaching about the importance of the book of mormon and how we can use it in our lives. The person we were talking to lives in Orem but is from Chile. Luckily she didn´t speak chileno. On Thursday we also had out last lesson with Cristofer. It was an nice lesson that was mainly focused on answering any questions that he had about baptism and any of the worries that he had with being baptized. Then on Friday we had our last lessons with Ester and Emilce. Our lesson with Ester was about commandments and the blessings that come from following them. Also on Friday we got a list of who we are teaching for this last week. This last week is different because each member of the district is playing the role of an investigator for two companionships. I am the investigator for Elder Voss & Weenig and Elder Bradshaw & Ruddy. Elder Grange and I get to teach Elder Bradshaw, Elder Weenig, Elder Stirling and Hermana Leonard. The lessons I have been teaching and been getting taught have been going well. This way of teaching allows me to see what I can do better as a teacher.Friday night we had a zone wide race before quiet time. It was for all those who wanted to have a nice sprint race. I ran and got fourth among our district. It was fun and a good way to stretch out my legs. Hermana Toone from our district got some string and cups in the mail so she could make home made phones. They seemed to work well and it was amusing to our teacher. 

Fast Sunday was nice this past week. We had lots of time to read and study while we were out of meetings. We also had our mission conference on Sunday where we got to hear all of the MTC presidency speak. They all gave good talks based around missionary work. OurSunday night devotional speaker was Richard I. Heaton. He gave a very similar talk to the one he gave last time. He had some more recent converts come up and talk about their conversion stories and how they found god. It helps you realize that god helps prepare people before your even go to teach them. Our Tuesday night devotional was from Brother Sitati from the Seventy. His talk was based on the things we should try to remember. He said that we need to make sure when we begin that we have some sort f ending in mind so that we can plan and aim for that ending. It helps you figure out where you are going and what choices you need to make to get there. 

Mom:

Thank you for the picture book. Nice to have pictures from home. 

I hope that the package gets here at least by Saturday. If it doesn´t they are just going to send it back to you. Good luck to Riley with his game tomorrow. Hope he does well. ¿Jakob knows Spanish? I wouldn´t expect him to know Spanish as well as English. Is the football team not playing who they usually play for pre-season?

Thank you for all the Frozen lyrics. I have two more songs that I would like to get lyrics to is you wouldn´t mind. The first is "I can go the distance" from Hercules. The second is "Strangers like me" from Tarzan. 

Siempre y para siempre,

Elder Boren 

                                             Elder Berryhill in his fort


I don't correct his spelling, this will be kind of like a diary for him to back on when he gets home. -sherrie

4th week at the MTC....chugging along

Dylan is getting closer to when he will be out in the field. -MOM aka Sherrie

We decided to block in one of the other elders while he was in the shower. He was able to crawl out the side once he was finished. (Just like his Dad)

Hola,

It's been getting a bit busier with the lessons this past week. We have Cristofer, Ester, Emilce and two member lessons ( Thursday only ). The lessons with our investigators are going well. We have been teaching them all sorts of things and learning how to teach better and help them understand the lessons. This last Thursday we had an amazing gentleman for our Member TRC. He had served in Guatemala when the MTC was a six month period in Salt Lake. He was such a great man to teach. Our lesson for the members was on humility and its importance in our lives. Brother Chamberlin loved our lesson and at the end gave us an Articles of Faith card that was in spanish. He told us it was to help us understand the language and we could use it to memorize the Articles of Faith wherever we are. While talking with him I found out that he had served a couple mission in the DTM ( Dallas Texas Mission ). I was able to say where I was from and he could actually understand where little Melissa Texas is. Teaching the TRC lessons on Thursday is just so much fun and I wish I could teach more member lessons while I am here. 

One of the Elders in our zone had started using his clip tag as a phone to trick other missionaries into thinking that he had a phone. He tried the trick on our branch president and the president got confued and asked who he was talking to on the phone. He then stepped up his game and make a cardboard cutout of an Iphone so that it would look a lot more realistic. He is a great Elder. We have started doing more practice and trying out different ways to learn things. We have done practice door approaches which allows us to practice talking in Spanish. We are going to be doing a lot more practice like that in the upcoming week. 

We had our fourth sunday here at the MTC. It was a nice enjoyable day that we were able to take and relax for most of the time. Elder Grange and I had to get up a little earlier for the zone leader meeting though. Which wasn't too bad. Just meant we had to rush ourselves at breakfast and hurry up to the meeting. During our meetings our actual branch presidency members were there so we had some other presidency members fill in the spots. One of them was brother Monson who is President Monsons nephew. It was nice to meet him. We also got to eat lunch with him and talk for a while. Since I'm on the topic of nephews one of the other zone leaders here on west campus is Orson Scott Cards nephew. Elder Grange and I talk to him quite a bit when we have a chance since he has been here for the same amount of time as us. 

Its so surprising to realize that we only have a week and a half left t the MTC and then we are off to the mission field. I can't wait to meet my mission president and the people of Monterrey. 

Blaze seems to have some good luck getting on the cardinal couch on the first football game. I hope he enjoyed the game. How is Jacob liking band this year? Did Riley enjoy going to the temple and doing baptisms? I know that I enjoy being able to go to the Provo temple every week and enjoy my time there. Did Jakob spend time with friends at the football game or at someones house? Seems like he is enjoying his time as an exchange student. Where is Sanger? I have never hear of the team before. 

I did enjoy Blaze's picture. Tell him thank you. The seminary classes have zone leaders? Sounds a bit weird to me but might be different than the zone leaders I'm thinking of. Have Jacob and Riley gotten the letter I wrote them? And thank you for getting me the pictures. Its nice to have something from home.

I went to the consulate about two weeks ago so by the time I have to leave I should have my visa. So I should be leaving September 15th. 

Love,

Elder Boren

another Jamba Juice run. Some good looking guys!!!

Elder Berryhill got a picture of Dylan. Not sure if he is trying to be mad or just funny.

Side Note-- He asked about where Sanger is. Its a small town by Denton, TX. Our Melissa football team played against them last Friday and we lost. Blaze our youngest son sent Dylan a picture that he had painted of the Melissa cardinal. Jacob our second son is enjoying band, but he is super busy.The other one is Jakob our exchange student who is living with us for the school year. He is from Sweden. He is fitting right in.

 -Sherrie Boren

Prison Can Change You. Week 3

Hola,

This last Thursday was a great experience. Elder Berryhill, Elder Bradshaw and I had to take a trip to get some things taken care of for our visas. It was nice being able to get out into Salt Lake and walk outside of the campus for a while. We road the Front-runner to and from Salt Lake, which was a nice ride. The highlight of the trip was Elder Berryhill and my trip back to the MTC on the Front-runner. We walked onto the train and decided to sit on the second level of the train. When we got up there and started walking to a seat that was open near the back of the train this man offered two seats across the table from him. We decided to take him up on the offer and sit with him. Once we got settled down we started talking. He asked us where we were from. Then he told us that he had quit his job working a steal facility. He said he had quit so he could go back to working in dirt work. He then surprised us by telling us that the job at the steal place was just something to get him off his feet from prison. We learned that he just got out of a three year sentence in April. He talked about how in prison most people come closer to Christ but when they leave they just leave behind their new found relationship with him. He told us that this time he would rather keep that relationship and the feeling that comes with it. He talked about the church's twelve step program and how it helps so much since it incorporates gospel principals. He told a story of his brother who a year after being in prison was able to cut all ties with his old friends and be sealed in the temple. This man emphasized how friends can manipulate you and affect how you act even though you think you control your future. We also learned that he has been a member for his life he just made some bad decisions and ended up doing drugs and getting into prison. It was such a great time being able to talk to him even though we never got his name. I just hope he is able to get on his feet and turn his life around like his brother was able to. Elder Grange and I were able to have a TRC meeting with two members where we taught them a gospel principle and got to know them. It was a great experience and really fun.

We have been able to teach cristofer some more and have gotten to know his concerns and other things about him. He is a great kid and considers us his friends. We just have to work on getting him to come closer to Christ and realize that god loves him. Our lessons with ester are also getting better. We recently talked about the godhead and how they are three different people. Another lesson we shared Genesis 1:27 with her because she didn't understand that god had a body of flesh and bone. She understands it now and has accepted a baptism date. On Sunday Elder Grange and I were made zone leaders in addition to Elder Voss since Elder Weening was going to be leaving the following day. But Elder Weening did not end up leaving so we now have the four of us as zone leaders in our branch. Gotta learn more about my role as zone leader and make the most of what I can do. 

This Monday Elder Grange and I started progressing investigator TRC. This is where we teach someone who could actually be an investigator. The lessons have gone well and it helps with our teaching. Yesterday Emilce (our investigator) ended up asking about rules/commandments we have in our church. We focused on that and were not able to get to our planned lesson of the restoration. It was a good experience since in the field we will not be able to teach what we prepare every time. We need to teach people not lessons and make sure they learn what they want to learn. 

Mom - Learning the language is getting easier and easier. I feel like I can understand a lot of the Spanish. When I talk with our investigators there isn't really anything I don't understand. The only problem I have is learning to speak with correct grammar and express myself in the language. Its really surprising to imagine that I have less than three weeks left here at the MTC. It gets closer and closer. So the exchange student is not going to be living with the family he was planned to live with? He is going to be at our house the whole school year? Could you also do me a favor and send me a bunch of different Disney song lyrics? Mainly the ones from frozen, but any would do. And if possible send it through the mail because I am limited on what I can print. And if possible send some sort of picture book from home. A bunch of the other elders here have picture books and I think it would be nice to have one.

Dad - Go ahead and eat it. No real reason to ask me now that I won't be back for a while. The MTC is defiantly different that what it was for you. At least from what I can tell. We teach a whole lot more and are able to immerse ourselves in the language before entering the mission field. We have a great district and I feel like all the missionaries in our district will do great. The weather is nice and it doesn't get too hot here but it is still hot on some days. I've realized that time flies here at the MTC. We look back and can't believe that we have been here for as long as we have. Thank you for the scriptures. And if you could thank great aunt Becky for me. She sent me a package of donuts but did not put a return address on the package. It was a surprise when I got it in the mail since I don't really remember great aunt Becky that much. 

- Elder Boren

Provo Temple

Train ride to Salt Lake City

Week 2

Week 2 at the MTC in the Provo west building. Seems to be adjusting really well. We sent him a few packages with sweet treats and a new tie. The Randell's who were in our ward a few years ago bumped into Dylan at thr Provo Temple. Small world. --Sherrie

               

Its been another good week here on the west side of the MTC (CCM). Last Thursday we taught our last lesson with Fatima. We set up a baptism date with her and talked a lot about the purpose of baptism and the example that Christ made for us when he was baptized. Elder grange and I also we able to get a mini lesson on planning for teaching better. The little lesson really helped us and I think it will help us teach with more power and we will be able to help the investigators more. Later in the day when we were having study cycle I was studying in Jesus the Christ and afterwords some of us elders had a discussion and testimony meeting. It was me, Elder Grange, Elder Umpierrez, Elder Berryhill, Elder Ruddy and Elder Bradshaw. It was a nice little meeting and we could all definatly feel the spirit. Thank you for the package you sent. I think the tie is now my favorite tie. And the candy is definitely a nice thing to have.

                                         Elder Boren and Elder Berryhill. Jamba Juice

Friday morning we found out that the investigator we finished teaching (Fatima) has now become one of our two teachers. Its a pretty interesting concept and now it makes me wonder what she thought of our teaching. We also got introduced to our two new investigators. Who are just our teachers acting out investigators that they met on their missions. The first one is Chris. Christ is very depressed and doesn't feel like he is loved. He lost most of his family and grew up in an orphanage. The other one is Ester. Ester is a very christian lady who wants to know more about our church. I was finally able to go and play some soccer during gym time. I went on splits with Elder Bradshaw and we played four on four with some other elders there. It was fun and a good work out. 

Saturday we began teaching Chris. He is lacking lots of self-confidence and feels like everything bad happens to him. Its very different to teach him and some what harder because we can't relate to him. He is the kind of investigator I think I will run into often in Mexico. Just have to find a way for him to feel the love of god and know that he can turn to him for help.

On Sunday the districts that were here when we got her were leaving. That includes our zone leaders Elder Kirk and Elder Ferrin. We went over to their appartment after the devotional and talked of a while and got a bunch of pictures taken. They are all going to Costa Rica. We also got our new zone leaders, Elder Voss and Elder Wennig. The devotional on sunday was given by Jenny Oaks Baker. She is the daughter of Elder Oaks and is a professional violinist. She played us some music with accompany from her kids and also talked on the importance of faith. After the devotional we went and watched a video on the Doctrine of Christ given by Elder Oaks. It was a good talk and really enjoyable. 

   Saying goodbye to Zone Leaders

                                            Elder Boren and Elder Berryhill

This Monday we got to teach Ester. I think this lesson went amazing. I think we were able to get across real well what we wanted to teach and we were really able to get to know her well. She seems really open to our teaching and wants to know more. We left her with a Book of Mormon and invited her to read the title page and the introduction. Later Sister Dicarlo gave us a coaching session on how to study for Spanish. She said to get a better understanding of the language by reading the Spanish version of the Book of Mormon for at least ten minutes a day. 

Yesterday we played four-square and found out how intense the games can get. It was fun and was defiantly something I would do again during gym time. I also decided to start a photo log which I will do every night. Nothing much happen yesterday besides Elder Umpierrez being weird as usual. 

If you do end up making the peach salsa I would love it if you could send me some while I'm here in the MTC. I'll be sending a letter in response to Jacob and Riley later today so expect it to get there about Monday. Oh and today while entering the temple I saw The Randell girls. They are here for education week. It was nice to see people from home.

First week at The MTC

After waiting for a whole week to hear from our Elder and Brother I've finally received his email. Oh what joy.

                                             This is his district in the MTC

                                            These are the elders who will be going to Mexico


The first week of the MTC is over. My companion is Elder Grange. He is from the Logan Utah area. He is going to be serving in the Renosa Mexico mission. The other two elders in our room are Elder Umpiereze and Elder Berryhill. They are both called the the Monterrey West mission with me. Elder Umpiereze is quite a character and keeps us laughing during personal time before bed. We are on the west campus since we are going to Spanish speaking missions. So this whole campus speaks Spanish and gives us a chance to immerse ourselves in the language more. The cafeteria may not be as good as the main campus but that is the only thing the other campus has on us.

The first day was interesting. We arrived at main campus and walk through getting all the stuff we would need to start learning the language. Then we all hopped onto a bus and we shipped over to the west campus. After we dropped our suitcases off in our rooms we went to our classroom. Our teacher only speaks Spanish to us as to help us learn the language. The first day was a bit confusing since I wasn't completely sure of everything he was saying. But it wasn't a bad first day. We also got to meet our zone leaders; Elder Kirk and Elder Ferrin. They are fun zone leaders and we had a get to know you session with our district and the other district in our zone. The first day seemed a little long but now it seems like it happened so long ago. The rest of our district is Elder Wening, Elder Voss, Elder Ruddy, Elder Bradshaw, Elder Stirling, Elder Lavrey, Hermana Leonard and Hermana Tune

Day two we jumped onto the daily schedule and started with class with Hermono Raspenson. This is when our teacher learned that we were going to be teaching a lesson to our first "investigator" on Friday in Spanish. It was a bit surprising to find out that we would be teaching on only our second full day at the MTC. We had our study cycle that day to somewhat prepare what we would be teaching our investigator; Fatima. Thursday wasn't that bad. We have a daily gym time so that we can get a work out and do something rather than sit in classrooms all day. We have been more recently playing volleyball with our zone leaders. 

Day three we had class in the morning and then our lesson with Fatima at 4:20. We had some more time to prepare after lunch and it really helped when we got into the lesson. I think the lesson went well but it was defiantly not the best of lessons. Its hard to teach a lesson when there is a bit of a language barrier and your not really used to speaking in the language. We were still able to teach about gods love and about the book of Mormon. Friday we were also able to meet our branch presidency. One of the presidency members served in the Dallas Texas mission and knew where Melissa was. The branch presidency held inter views and told us who our district leader was; ours is Elder Voss. He will be our district leader for our first three weeks here and then we will get a new district leader. And once our zone leaders leave this upcoming Monday we will also be getting new zone leaders.

Saturday we had another lesson with Fatima. This lesson went a whole lot better and I felt that we were able to understand her a whole lot better. We had class and basically just a usual day. Nothing special really happened. 

Sunday was great. We had our district meeting in the morning and the presidency finished up getting to know us individually. Then we had our priesthood meeting followed by sacrament. I found out that Sister Jenson from our stake in Allen is in our zone. Our sacrament meeting was nice and in sacrament they randomly call up people to give on spot talks just that they have to be in Spanish. The ones that got called had been here for a bit longer than us. After sacrament and lunch we had time to take a Sunday walk and study. Being able to just walk around the campus was nice. After we had dinner we went to the Sunday night devotional. The speaker on Sunday was Richard I. Heaton. He spoke on discovering christ and the role god plays in our lives.He shared a great mormon message with us called "The Hope of God's Light". I invite you to watch it if you haven't and think of when the young man in the video discovers god for the first time. I also invite you to share the same challenge with the Priests quorum. Brother Heaton's talk was great and really brought the spirit.

Monday we had another lesson with Fatima and we focused on 3 Nephi chapter 11. We had invited her to read it on Saturday and decided to discuss it with her. Think this lesson went well and we got closer to her really accepting the gospel. We then had some more Spanish time and another study cycle later that day. Tuesday was pretty similar in the fact that we had another lesson and studied more. Yesterday we also went to the Tuesday Night devotional and got to hear Elder Evans of the seventy speak on repentance. It was another great devotional with lots to learn from.

Well today is our first p-day. We were able to go to the Provo temple this morning and attend an endowment session. It was a good time and we were also able to spend time on main campus. I hope you guys are doing well

-Elder Boren