Dear Familia,

Man this week has been a lot better!! It's been so good to finally be able to really focus on the missionary work and not be soo soooo soooooo homesick.  I'm still home sick for sure but it's almost manageable now, instead of completely impossible :)

Mom:  Thank you for sending my Ipod!! I listen to those Micheal Dowdle songs every morning when i study and it really helps me feel the spirit!  Don't worry about the hospital visit, I didn't even get stitches.  It closed up pretty nicely with some butterfly band aids.  Elder Kay is kinda like me... and puts things off so that would be why you haven't gotten that note yet he said he will send it to you when he writes it. 

Dad: Yard Sale? I hope you win that city counsel position thing! That would be a legit thing to come home to! It's crazy to think that you only have 19 probably less now ahhhahah my zone leader is telling me it's time to go,  it kinda really infuriates me!!! i love you all and will try to write you more next week 

Love Elder Sahagun

Dear Family, 

Everything has been going just super fantastic, okay it's been hard, but my goal for this week has been to be positive.  I want to tell you a little experience I had that has changed my perspective   So every week we have the opportunity to go to the library and familiarize ourselves with mormon.org.  I was watching one of the 'I am a mormon' ones about this 19 year old professional rugby player.  He was offered this huge chunk of money to keep playing professional rugby but turned it down to serve a mission the thing that bothered me was how happy he seemed.  He had given up so much but was happy and I realized that was because he knew all that he has to gain.  So I decided that it's not about everything I'm giving up,  it's about the gift I have, to give everyone to lift them up, and all I can gain from that.  Don't get me wrong things are still incredibly hard and it is an uphill battle getting into this mindset every day, but it has definitely helped me through.  So Boom, there's my spiritual thought.  So I think it would be a good idea to keep some money on my card every month just for emergencies.  Let me tell you a story that will help you understand why.  We were playing basketball with a sweet potential named Dontavia, this sweet black 17 year old who balls it up.  Anyways the ball was going out so I ran really fast and saved it and slid on my knees and banged both of my knees into to sharp corner.  I got cut up pretty bad, when we went home and showed the Zone Leaders my cut they said we should go to the hospital.  So the next day we went to the hospital and even with the insurance I had to pay like a 40 dollar co-pay thing and that is a big chunk of my msf which is suppose to be used for food, which we are running low on.  So it might be good to keep some emergency type of funds on my other debit card. 

Mom- 

I sent a letter with some pictures and told you all of the stuff I have eaten and I think you will be very proud of me when you read it.  The food here is pretty good!  I'm not gonna lie.  I have had to try a lot of stuff that is just disgusting but for the most part it is pretty good food.  Virginia is so diverse though with all that I eat it's almost like I'm on a foreign mission.  Elder Kay and I even tracted into a little Asian lady who didn't speak a lick of English we had to try and communicate using small words and hand gestures.  It was quite the experience to say the least.  We have dinners every night! I don't think I've cooked for myself more than five times so far, the ward is so good about feeding the missionaries and they just love us! I have to say that I miss my good old home cookin', no one holds a candle to mom's home cookin' :)   They are all very nice and super hospitable and you can really feel their love for the missionaries and the work that they do, and it has made things a whole lot easier.  That's so cool that you had the missionaries over! It's cool to hear the other side of things, and the effect we have on families.

Here's a little bit from a letter I got from Nick in the mail today:

So you want to know what a day in the life of Elder Kay and Elder Sahagun is like? Well honestly it would depend on the day. Everyday is so different than the next. On Tuesdays and some other days we volunteer at a food pantry. We help weigh and sort food and all that fun stuff. We stop by the Worthen's as often as we can and visit with them. Every Saturday we teach our only truly progressing investigator his name is Robert. We found him one day smoking on his lawn when we were tracting. We've been teaching him for about four weeks now. This poor guy has it pretty rough. He's a schizophrenic, bi-polar,who's done drugs and stuff and he still lives with his mom. He is really nice once you get a chance to talk to him. The last time that we saw him he told us that he had decided to quit smoking and that he wants to come to church this next Sunday so he can really decide for himself if he wants to stick with it. It was pretty cool to hear all that and mainly with him I have learned how to love people not for who they are but who they can become. He has so much potential and I'm so excited for him!! Every Friday we go to a recent convert's house for dinner. The Wagner's, I'm not gonna lie being around that house is hard and and has been a great test of my patience and of holding down weird foods. I'm telling you you'd be so proud of some of the things I've muscled down. One night at the Wagner's was seafood. There were muscles,clams, Salmon, Shrimp, Craw-fish , and yes I tried and ate all of them all and no I did not enjoy any of them. The craw-fish was probably the nastiest. So let me explain to you how to eat these things. Step 1:Take the live craw-fish in both hands with the tail in one hand and the head and claws in the other. Step 2: Pull on each end of the craw-fish until it has separated into two pieces. Step 3:Take the tail end of the craw-fish and suck everything that is inside into your mouth and finally the last and most trying step. Step 4: Chew and swallow. Some of the other things I've tried consist of lamb, peas, carrots, beef stew, and probably a whole lot of other things I can't remember. Oh at one at the houses we had some interesting Mediterranean Food. Man the things I'm willing to do in the service of the Lord surprise me at times.We also go and help out at the local nursing home for people with Dementia and Alzheimers as often as we can. On Easter we went there and helped the old people with an Easter Egg hunt. I pushed this old black lady around in a wheelchair and she would tell me when she saw an egg and I'd push her over to it. After that we did a egg toss with hard boiled eggs. I was surprised at how coordinated some of these 80 and 90 year olds were. Man I love those old folks. They just warm my heart.

Keep writing me letters and praying for me. Let me know what's going on at home.

I love you all so much and miss you.  The church is so true, and I'm so thankful to be a servant of the Lord at this time. 

 I can't wait to hear from you all.  Did you notice that? :)

Love, Elder Sahagun 

Dear family,

 I'm been having a very rough time, this has probably been one of the hardest month and a half of my life. I've been super homesick and my anxiety doesn't help with it at all.  It's getting better though I think.. at least I hope so.  I'll tell you all about my missionary experiences in my letter I write today along with some pictures to help illustrate some things.  Just know that i'm safe and making it through day by day.  I will tell you how crazy it was when they announced a temple in Cedar City!!! We were watching conference at the chapel with the other missionaries and everyone else who didn't get it on there house.  When he made that announcement I dropped my notebook and was like WHAT?!?!?! i had to explain to a lot of people later that that was where I used to live ha ha  anyway I love you and miss you all very much, keep praying for me and all the other missionaries in the world, because missionary work is hard if you'd believe it ha ha ;) I love you  so so much! 

I've been having a lot of bike problems too, me and Elder Kay that is.  One day when we were riding down the road he noticed that his pedal was a little lose, so naturally we didn't think anything of it and just kept on riding.  We got to the next stoplight of this insanely sketchy intersection.  it has no cross walks or anything so you just have to know, and then go! so it was a good time for us to go so we started pedaling our little hearts out.  So about the middle of the road Elder Kay's Pedal comes clean off but he just keeps on going and yells, Pick that up! so i stop in the middle of the road and scrambled to get all of his stuff together and went across the road.  So for a while we were trekking it out on foot.  Once we got his bike fixed i was super excited to get back on bikes, So we set out to teach this guy we had tracted into and all the sudden my ride felt a little more bumpy than normal and i looked back and yeah you guessed it, my first flat tire.  we had to cancel with our appointment later that night we went to go get an inner tube at Wal Mart, on my bike it says 20" so I bought a 20" inner tube wouldn't you know it, the wrong size.  So had to return that.  bought another tire and that one turned out to be the wrong size too.  so it turned out that we needed to go to the bike shop where i had bought it at which is close to Midlothian, which is way to far away to drive to on a normal day.  So today I will be buying, hopefully for the last time, an inner tube. In the mean time I was riding Elder Harrison's bike it is junk! Actually yesterday we were riding out to go visit a less active kid with a crazy controlling mother and that pedal broke too! So we walked all the way back to the apartment to get another bike that we could ride.  I was pretty upset and wondering why all of this stuff was happening,  but little did I know  that God was about to answer my question.  As we were riding away Elder Kay said Hi to one of our neighbors,  this little black girl who looked like she could of been 14 years old. She looked like she was in pretty bad shape, she asked if we had a cell phone and we gave her ours.  All of the sudden this younger black guy comes storming out and starts ripping into us " uh uh no y'all need to get stepping off my property go on get out" we tried to explain that we were just letting her use our cell phone and he said. " well y'all better do that on the other side of the street before Shtuff get real... he didn't say shtuff.  so we walked a little further into the street she called about ten numbers and finally we asked if she was alright,  she said that she was fine and just needed to get out of there.  By what she explained and looked like hinted that she was in a very abusive relationship. I realized then that if I never would of had all of those bike problems we never would of had to go back to the house and we never would of been there for her when she needed us.  It's incredible how short term our perspective can be at times, and all that time God's looking down with his eternal perspective knowing that all of our trials are for our good.   It is just a matter of putting our trust in him,  anyway I have to go now. Tell dad that I will write him a letter, ahhrrgghh communicating is so stressful at times. I love you all and will write a letter with more stuff love you !

Elder Sahagun 

Dear Mother,Father,Family, and whoever else reads this, 

I was so happy that Sister Worthen called you, she is the sweetest old lady you'll ever meet.  She is about 80 something and her husband is about 87 or so, we go over there every other day and help him get some exercise.  The first day we went there we called their house first and asked if there was anything we could do for them and she said, " i usually don't say yes, but i do need your help" so we went over there and she invited us in.  Her husband was sitting in a chair across from us and he stuttered a little bit when he spoke which was weird.  She started to explain how he had a condition and that's why she asked us to come over.  Right as she started to explain a little about what his condition was brother Worthen started kicking and flailing involuntarily.  It turned out that he had a condition that no doctors can explain, where he has seizures but doesn't black out he just stays awake.  and this poor old lady was having a really hard time trying to take care of him all by herself.  The day we came over she said that she was ready to just cry and give up and just really needed help and she said that it was in that very instant that we called.  We gave brother Worthen a Priesthood blessing and the spirit was so strong.  Before we had come Brother Worthen had had 20+ "spells", after we gave him a priesthood blessing he had two.  This last week has been super hard, I've been wondering what in the world I am doing so far from home,  and questioning if i can do this for the next two years of my life, and I realized with that experience why I'm out here.  To help the people, member and non-member, of Virginia.  It's still been really hard since, but I know that it will be worth it. Well that's my missionary story for this week.  So anyways....... Elder Kay is my companion, he is pretty much exactly like me, he didn't like to study, he loves music and sports and is super laid back, and I love him to death!  he is from Mapleton, Utah, which is up north close to Provo.  He's been super cool and helped me out a lot.  I'll send you a letter with pictures and stuff.  Yes, Please send Taylor (my guitar) to California, and please tell Chad to play her nicely and love her like a crazy cat lady loves her first born kitten.  yeah, also, please send me my iPod   I Am DYING without music so if you could do that that would be awesome,  well I don't have a lot of time left so I love you and miss you guys A LOT!!  the church is true!! and I will send you another email next week. Love you guys!

Love, Elder Sahagun