Hola Familia,

Things are going very well here. We have two baptisms for tomorrow (Serge Miguel, and José Carlos) and many for the week to come. Serge is 11 and Carlos is 21, they are both great! It’s amazing how we’ve seen so many miracles since I’ve been in the offices. As you know, we have less than half of the day in our area so it can be a challenge to find and teach people. However the Lord has blessed us to be able to find and receive the people that are truly ready to change their lives and make and keep covenants!

How about General Conference? A few of my favorites were: Dale G. Renlund, who talked about maintaining your healthy spiritually changed heart. Brent H. Nielson, and the story of his son on the mission. Jorge Zeballas, “God will not require more than we can do…neither can He accept less…” However I think of all the great things said, my two favorites were during the Priesthood session: Walter F. Gonzalez, The Book of Mormon was never intended to be a bestseller, but how we can turn The Book of Mormon into the best read, and the best applied book; and Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s two important principles that sustain us in adversity — 1. WORK. 2. EDUCATION. Truly everything said in the conference was amazing and we’ll have to go back and study it again and again!

I am grateful that we have living Prophets to lead us, to help us in the process of perfecting ourselves and to help us to always do the best we can. Most of all to witness of the truth of God and His Plan of Redemption through Jesus Christ!

I am happy with how the Lord has blessed our family and know He will continue to do so as long as we continue to make our best efforts and humbly put all of our trust in Him. I pray that you all continue to do so and that the Lord blesses and protects you! I love every one of you!

-Bryce

This week has gone well. I made and cashed my first check for the mission. Missionaries are ALWAYS calling me asking for Money that they “didn’t receive” so I’ve have to be really hard headed with them. I also trained two new Mexican missionaries straight from the CCM (MTC) about all the finances as a missionary.

This week all of the missions Presidents for all of Mexico are here in the D.F. [Mexico City] with Elder Christofferson for the annual mission Presidency seminar. I haven’t seen him, but two of the other secretaries saw him when they were pulling into the parking lot. Several people have told me that I look just like him, even since I’ve entered into the MTC, people that know him have said that even my mannerisms are the same.

This week I also went with the President and Sister Bulloch to Costco to get an extension in my name to their membership, and to Sam’s club to open up a membership. Plus Sam’s club is right next to our house so next week we are going to make a budget and buy all of our food for the whole month! Mmmm America food!

Really the best thing that’s happened all week is Vicky, our investigator, passed her baptismal interview and after they invited us to have dinner on Friday night. So yesterday we ate dinner with them and it was amazing. They went all out and even made the tortillas by hand. I am really excited for our area we have two families that are supposed to come to church tomorrow, too. We haven’t been able to get in touch with them for a few days though. :/

Well, I got to get going. I hope you are all doing great. I am praying for all of you and am very grateful to have such an amazing family!

Love,
Bryce

Muy buenas tardes! [a very good afternoon]

Esta semana fue bien rápido por las conferencias. [This week has gone very fast because of the conference.] We had another baptism of a teenager who still has some challenges, however he is improving and we will still be working with him a lot. General conference was great, I got to watch the most part and in English. I liked much of what was said especial Elder Uchtdorf in the introduction of the last session, the guy from Portugal on decisions and the Holy Ghost, and Elder Eyring in the priesthood session. And of course what was said about members finding and missionaries teaching. You should all accept the challenge to find or invite 3 people you know or meet to take the missionary discussions and accept this invitation. This really means you will probably have to invite many to have three that accept this invitation. You will be very blessed if you do this! … and so will they!

I can’t remember of anything crazy of funny that happened this week although I am sure it happened. We started a 90 day program to read the Book of Mormon and mark specific things; it has been really neat. We are going to give a talk about it on Thursday… my companion in English

I love you all and am praying that you all receive the best.

Bryce

P.S. I was telling some missionaries the other day that when the Angel Moroni came to the three witnesses he also came with various things not just the plates… this included a table! None of them believe me, oh well not that important… however I would appreciate  it if one of you (Kerry or Dad?) could look up where it says it in Church History or some where…there is also a drawing and if you could send me the drawing, the account and where you found the info. It will make things fun for me! Thanks

¡Feiz aÑo nuevo! [Happy new year] I capitalized the Ñ for you mom hahaha, thanks for the good intention.

Things are going great here! We had a baptism for yesterday however his uncle died the day before so we are postponing it till later this week. His name is Carlos Copca and he is awesome and ridiculously funny and 19 years old. We really enjoy teaching and talking with him.

So I accidently broke my fast early yesterday because the bishop gave me  a “chapuline” to eat, thats a dried grasshopper. yumm actually it wasn’t very sabroso [tasty].

Two neat experiences we had with the convert family Martines Sanches was their first family home evening which we prepared for them.  We sang “Familias pueden ser eternas” [Families can be together forever] taught them that families can be eternal and  then played Uno (pretty sweet huh) and we also brought some microwave popcorn, however they don’t have a microwave so I cooked it in a pot on the stove top they were all very impressed and I gave all the credit to my mom

…Oh this reminds me of a bad joke I learned in the MTC… Why don’t you play Uno with mexicans?……because they take all the green cards   …hehehe  I love the people here so much!

The other neat experience was that Mireya (the mother) signed up to feed us lunch last week, pretty neat. And she fed us lots of vegetables, which for me is a treat.

I’ve been reading  many of the mornings in the Liahona from Nov 2008 its all the discourses from General Conference.   Mom and Dad I real liked “come what may, and love it” by Elder Joseph B. Worthlin , he put a good and humorous perspective on life, you two should read it together, I believe you will enjoy it.

Another thought that struck me, is in the discourse by Elder James J. Hamula “…being sober means being earnest and serious in assessing your circumstances and careful and circumspect in weighing the consequences of your actions. Soberness therefore yields good judgement, as well as measured conduct.” Clearly the application of the word is more broad than the reference to substance abuse, although it gives an interesting insight to what is lost with the use of mind-altering and addictive substances and how important it is to abstain from them. Applied in a broader aspect not to be drunk with emotions, such as anger, lust, jealousy, greed or materialism, all of which have the power to skew our judgment to be less than well measured.

Well… I love you all! and I hope the best for all of us in this new year.

Elder Packer

Hi everyone,

Things are well here in Pachuca. My area is so far from Mexico City. So last miercoles [Wed.] we took a bus to Mexico City at 5:45 am to the Temlpe and MTC to hear Elder Jeffery R. Holland who came to our mission to speak. It was amazing, I love how he speaks with such great boldness and authority. He started by telling about how Preach My Gospel came about and ended by talking about the importance of having obedience to do the Lords work His way.

We went to Mexico City again on sabado [Sunday] with 6 of our investigators to El Centro de Visitantes at the Temple. It was good, we watched Testaments and took a short tour.

Mexico is interesting the houses are all concrete and stucco and they don’t really creen en la basura [believe in trash cans] :6 The food is great, and I haven’t gotten really sick from it or the water yet

Any hoo, hope to hear from ya’ll soon. Adios.

Love

-Elder Bryce Packer

[Pachuca is a city about 40 miles NE of the edge of Mexico City]

Hola me familia,

¿Como estais? Thank you all very much for you letters, they have been a big help! So the last week was crazy, with the Mission Pres. stuff going on. Last martes Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the 12 spoke and 4 other Apostles were on the stand as well as general authorities. when he spoke to us he gave us an Apostolic promise. My friend in my district Elder Solomon got to break the sacrament for the Prophet and 10 of the 12 last sunday. Pretty neat.

The spanish is coming quickly. I can’t believe if my visa comes in I’ll be in mexico in two weeks. I hope you are all working to learn spanish too.  Oh yea, so my teacher Hno. Sanchez served half of his mission in Long beach CA. Kerry do you know him? Also right now he lives in Salem, UT, a few blocks from our house, pretty crazy! yea he has a ¡NO Escarbes! shirt, too.  [¡NO Escarbes! means "Don't scratch in the dirt like a chicken"]

Life is busy, all else is well. I love being here and can feel the spirit soo much. tell everyone hello. I love you all much and pray for you often. I’m out of time I’ll try to write more in a letter.

Love,

Elder Packer