Email Dec. 28th 2009

Hey Mom Merry Christmas Mom and hope you have a happy new year as well I didn't have too much happen this week after we talked other than we saw a fight and a guy pulled out a gun, but he was drunk and couldn't do anything with it before he got the snot kicked out of him by a store owner. The Christmas party was pretty good it was fun and one of the families actually the same one that let me use their phone gave a little Christmas present so I got something for Christmas. Anyways tell me how the parties go and how everyone is doing oh and tell Cha Cha happy birthday for me I forgot to say that last week.

Mission home address:

C. Sierra de las Vertientes No. 310

Col. Lomas de Chapultepec

Del. Miguel Hidalgo

Mexico, D.F. C.P. 11010

Elder Davis

Hey Mom Not much to say this week it was pretty slow. We had the Christmas party later the same day I called it was pretty fun we had Carne asada and some other stuff it wasn't a bad little dinner and devotional thing we had. That same night we were out looking for Christmas lights and we saw a fight and a guy pulled out a gun, but he was too drunk to do anything with it before he got the snot beat out of him by a store owner. Anyways I attached a couple pictures of our little bathroom/shower hope you enjoy. Oh and I will give you the address of the mission home too. Talk to you next week Mom.

Love you

Elder Joshua Lamoni Davis

(Love the bathroom pictures!?... I need to have a serious take with this boy!)

Christmas Phone Call

We got our call from Josh on Dec. 24th at about 2 pm. He sounds great, at peace and enjoying his mission. We are grateful for his safety and look forward to our other calls that we get with him. Some Info that we were able to extract from him were:

His companion's name is Elder Javier and is from Tabasco, Mexico. He told us that a family from the ward is from Veracruz, Mexico and that they knew some of my family on both sides, small, small world. He has to walk and take the Metro everywhere (I'm not going to think about that too much) and he has about 10 investigators they're teaching right now.

It was great to hear his voice even though its only been a few months that he's been gone. We enjoyed every minute.

News from Mexico....FINALLY!!!!

Well after 3 weeks of being in the mission field here's what we have:

2 emails and our first pictures!!!

Email from 12/21/09

Hey mom Here is the baptism. His name is Luis Alberto and he was a golden investigator. Not many people came it was small and kind of quiet but I know the Spirit was there so it was amazing! I call home the 24 or 25 so keep your cell phone on you in case you aren't home. Bye love you all and I will talk to you next week.Love Elder Davis

Hi mom here are the pictures of the mission so far and I had my first baptism yesterday it was awesome and supposed to have another one next week. I get to call home the 24 or 25 I'm not sure which one so keep your cell phone on you just in case your not at home when I call.

Feel free to caption these photos since there were no particulars provided such as who, where, what, why and how. We're working on that.

Last few emails we have recieved from Josh

Emails from November 20th, 2009

Hey dad I got your letter from dear elder means a bunch thank you. I hope you have been enjoying your reading time I know I do it's the best thing I get to do here so it is precious to me. I heard about Bishop Edgley talking at stake conference and we had him here it was a great talk. I also heard Elder Taufa that Duce Latui's dad died so I thought I would tell you that. Tell me how the Bulldogs are holding up if they are out or in still just let me know and tell Dallin I'm waiting for that letter i want to talk to him before he starts wrestling season now that he is big time now with Lane hurt and what not. Anyways I have to go but i will talk to you next week. Bye dad I love youlove Elder Davis the younger

Hey mom, I got your dear elders and I also got Dad's too. Thanks for sending those I felt better we got our flights plans last night and I fly to Georgia then to Mexico city but there is a 4 hour lay-over in Georgia. I guess the plans don't mean anything unless we get our visas but I have been praying for it to come in. I hope all the kids are staying focused in school and that they are behaving bien. Anyways we are supposed to get Elder Oaks for Thanksgiving and I am excited to go to that other than that we just have one more week left. This next week will be our teaching week so we plan on having tons of lessons next week so to prepare for teaching out in the field. As far as necessities come I am fine here but if there is anything that you think I might need then you can go ahead and send that anyways that's it for this week and I'll be sending an e-mail next week with more info on travel so you'll be hearing. Love you all so much and you're in my prayers.Sincerely,Elder Davis

Emails from November 27th, 2009

Hi mom Got all your letters and the package this week thank you I neededthat. Thanksgiving here wasn´t bad we had Elder Holland yesterday morning and Elder oaks came earlier this week on Tuesday so it´s been a good week. I hope thanksgiving went well for you guys at home and that everyone is enjoying time off school. Well don't have much to say other than we got our flight plans and visas alright. I will be calling home Monday so be ready for it. I fly to Atlanta and have a 4 hour layover there so that's when I'll be calling talk to you then. Love you Mom and tell the family I love them. Elder Davis

Josh finally transfered to Mexico City he's been there 2 weeks. We didn't hear from him for what seamed an eternity, there was a long silence - 2 weeks to be exact, Can you ground your missionary?

This is what we got:

Hey Mom Don't have tons of time but I forgot to write last week. I got all the Dear Elders and even got some when I got here Shelem told me she called you so I hope you're not too worried. We have had so much success and we'll even have baptisms before Christmas! I miss you and love you all and tell the kids I'll write next week. Les Quiero mucho Elder Davis

We found out a few days ago that my 1st cousin Shelem Mora is in one of the wards that Josh is in, she's up there studying. Can you believe that?! We are just grateful for small coincidences that keep us in touch with Josh. We would have gone crazy had we not heard from someone he was okay.

Week 7

Hi mom,

I missed you too this week, I got zero mail! People here are sick too, my comp had the flu this week and he was put into quarantine for the rest of the week so I have to stick with other people in my district. The nurse gave us all medicine to take so we wouldn't get it either and apparently it's expensive stuff so thankfully it was no charge to us. So Ammie was Rambo? Did he walk around with his shirt off and you painted on fake abs :)?! I knew Kenyon and his friends would do something like that, that's the typical nerd thing to do. I heard that the cops came to the house because the band was making too much noise. That was cool about the Fear Factor things with actual gross things, that sounds pretty amazing fun and Danjee would be able to tell what they were because he's a "farm-boy." We've only gotten area authority seventies and other not as well known GA's here except for Elder Perry so that's sweet about some one from the Presiding Bishopric spoke at stake conference. I wonder if President Lawes saw that we had to write in-prompt-to talks and thought it would be a good idea to do that for stake conference?! If he did that's too funny. I have gotten better about eye-contact, but I can still improve. I still look away a lot still so I'm trying. The Spanish helps with my speech as well, it forces my mouth to not be lazy so I haven't been mumbling. I sent a letter to the boys, hope they liked it and I also wrote Abuela this week too and it was in Spanish I hope it was all correct I look forward to being able to converse in her native tongue. we didn't do much stuff for Halloween all we really did was play around in our rooms with some of the stuff the guys in our zone got from packages and such. I got the package from Adriana and Onca I need to thank them both for the stuff it was a nice surprise. That address book would be nice so I'll be waiting for it this week. As far as mail goes I don't care a whole bunch, but it would be nice to get letters during the week as well, instead of waiting until Friday to be able to read it. If there is anything that you want to tell me either the Dear Elder letters get printed every night so it's all good which every way works best still I don't want to impose I know how busy you are. I'm working my hardest and trying my best to learn everything I can. Keep Brother Ashby updated as sell, he wants to hear from me so he can tell the mission prep class. I hope everything is going well finance wise as well, remind Dad to take that real-estate test he invested a lot of time into that, it could be a good thing to have. I love you Mom, hope it gets easier for you as time goes on, it does for me, be strong for me Mom. I hope to hear back soon.

Love your son,
Elder Davis

Week 6

Hey guys,

How are you all doing? Are you helping Mom and Dad out around the house and other things? I miss you all so much, but I'm happy missionary work is hard, but it's really fun. I hope you guys are reading the scriptures everyday and praying, it is really important! I love you guys and thank you for the letters, I really loved them. So what were you guys for Halloween? Did you have lots of fun? Did you get a lot of candy? Tell me what you guys are learning in school. I watched conference there and it was cool, and when we all stand up and sing it's amazing to hear all the missionaries singing the songs. Which talk was your favorite? My favorite talk was by Elder Holland and the Book of Mormon and it's cool because I get to tell people the same things and so do you some day! Did you guys like President Monson's talk about the "warm-fuzzies"? On Monday for family night I want you guys to put "warm fuzzies in the jar you made at Dyna's house for all the service you guys do during the last week. When the jar gets full tell me so I can send you a special card or something.

I'll tell you a little something about what goes on here. We wake up every morning at 6:30 and we wither have gym or MDT which stand for Missionary Directed Time or we have a service assignment, luckily we don't have to do service on our p-day sorry Dad ;)! We have breakfast which is like cafeteria food so it makes you fart all day long? (Sorry about the f word, and for the ones about to come..) Then we usually have class or more MDT to study in the scriptures or Preach My Gospel. Then we have lunch which is more cafeteria food so we fart some more, it gets really stinky in our classroom sometimes! Then we have class some more with a different teacher usually till dinner. Dinner is the same, you know what that means, and then we have more MDT or a devotional or some big meeting like that. On Tuesdays we have a general authority come and it's awesome to see people that talk in General Conference and stuff, like we had Elder L Tom Perry come and he was so cool to watch in person. I hope we get the prophet here soon so I'm crossing my fingers hopefully! We also do this thing called Referral Center were we talk to people about the Church on the phone or on the Internet on chats and it's cool because they are real people in the world not like when we practice with each other or thinks like that. We also do something called the TRC where volunteers come in, they are usually members, that act like investigators and we teach them, we have to teach only in Spanish now so it's just a little bit scary, but I'm learning so it's all good. Then sometimes on Sunday we walk to the Temple and just look around and talk. The Temple looks so pretty against the mountains, it's really cool looking. Other than that, that's pretty much it that we do here.

Be good OK? Listen to Mom and Dad they know what's good for you even if you don't like it sometimes, do it anyways and you'll feel good. Lala that means you too little girl! One more thing I want you to do is go to school and make one new friend, can you do that? I'll be writing you to find out. I love you all so much I hope to hear from you soon!

Love your older brother,
Elder Davis

Week 5

Hi Mom,

Sorry I sent Dad a letter before you, but I said I would write him and didn't get around to it so I did it this week. How are you? Is work still busy? Anyways it's going really well here I've never had such a short month in my life, it was crazy fast. I only have one more month and then it's off to the biggest Spanish speaking city in the world, which is full of crime and all sorts of worldly vices, fun hush?! Just kidding mom I'll be fine I don't want you to start breaking down and crying (I just want to hit him right now, not cry). I just started the lessons in Spanish this week a whole week ahead of schedule so the language shouldn't be a problem. My teachers have been pulling me aside and been telling me that I probably speak the best in the whole zone, so it's been a bit of pressure having that kind of example on others. I just hope they don't put me in a leadership position I don't like the attention already. I keep seeing more and more people from Arizona and Queen Creek, it's a Small world here at the MTC so I've been not so lonely, it's not so bad. In a week and a half we'll be the oldest district here in our zone so a little more added pressure at that point. Other than the email I sent should just about cover it for now, so I'll give you a little more Spanish now:

Me gustaria compartir mi testimonio a ti. Yo se que mi madre es la razon por todo que me he aprendido hasta ahora. Yo se que la familia puede ser eterna y que la familia es ordenado de Dios. Yo se que Jose Smith fue un profeta de Dios y el se vio a Padre Celestial y Jesucristo. Yo so que el evangelio restaurado esta en la tierra hoy y soy un misionero de esa iglesia. Se Que tenemos un profeta en la tierra hoy, Thomas S. Monson y que eso hombre fue llamado de Dios. Se que podemos una manera ser como nuestro Padre en los cielos mediante la expiacion de Jesucristo. digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

I love you mom hope all this stuff is written right(it's not, but pretty good start) I'll be writing a letter for the kids this week too, sorry it's taken so long.

Love,

Elder Davis
"Joshie"