February 23, 2011

Hey mom!

Great to hear from you this week! This has been a good week so far for you and hope the week is going well for you there as well. Seems like you had lots of fun with everything that went on last week. Looks like you guys had lots of adventures and that's good! It's good to see lots of pictures again because I always love it when I get to see pictures of things that you are doing back home. It's always good to see everyone's face and see that everyone is happy and still going well back home. I miss everyone and the pictures help with that. Thanks mom.

I can't believe how tall both Danica and Danielle are now! That pictures with you and Danielle standing outside the pie shop. Wow! Danielle is growing now! Haha, good for her though. It looks like they just grow each time you send me pictures. Good to see that they are maturing and helping you out more and more at home.

Things are going great here! As I mentioned last week transfers happened and the two other elders were replaced with sister missionaries. The sisters' names are Sister Adjei from Ghana and Sister Moeakiola from Tonga. They both been on their missions for quite some time now and Sister Moeakiola and I finish our missions at the same time. They have been really helpful contacting more people and receiving more investigators each day. Our area is really flourishing. We have about 6 really really strong investigators who we hope to get baptized by early March. The work has been great just in the first week of this cycle. 

Other great news! David A. Bednar will be here on Friday to speak only with us missionaries up in Scarsdale! It will be another great opportunity to hear from an apostle of the Lord. It will be really exciting and I can't wait to tell you all about what he talks about. Should really be a good time.

Thanks mom again for e-mailing me this week. It's always good to hear from you and see that you and everyone are doing well at home. I miss you all and I love you all very much. I hope the rest of the week goes well for you and that work comes easily. Tell everyone I said "hi" and that I miss them and love them. Thanks mom. I miss you and I love you. I will talk to you again next week! Take care until then! I will keep you all in my prayers always.

Love always,
Your son Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

February 16, 2011

Hey Nicki!

It was good to hear from you! Hope all is well there in Idaho with

school and all. It's good to hear that you're doing well. Mom and dad

always e-mail me and tell me that you're doing good so that's good to

hear. I'm glad you're enjoying BYU-I. Continue to work hard there so

you can make mom and dad proud. I know they support you 100% in your

work there and your decision to go there so don't let them down. Work

hard and keep it up!

Things are going great here in New York. We just recently baptized an

eleven year old girl if you didn't know already and also we got three

more baptism dates for March 6th! Things are definitely going good

here for us. The weather has been getting better too. Almost San

Diego-like which is good. I can go out without a jacket and it feels

fine. Don't know if I'll say that come summertime though. It will be

hot! Hope the weather there in Idaho is getting better.

That's cool that there is a good group of deaf people that go to

BYU-I. Can you understand the interpreter? I couldn't understand a

lick of anything in the MTC but now if I were to watch an interpreter

I would probably catch on really quickly. I'm enjoying the English

program but I do miss the ASL program and miss signing all the time.

Will definitely love it when they put me back there but until then I'm

doing my best out here. I was just recently called as a district

leader again so that's some good news. Maybe there will be more

leadership roles for me in the future. That would be fun to

experience. Sometimes I think it's kind of overwhelming but I will do

my best. I was called by the Lord for a reason and I will find out

what that reason(s) is.

I can't wait to teach you all the sign I know and how to finger spell

fast. You'll be all pro and stuff and it will be fun because we'll be

able to communicate using sign language. It's always cool how we can

sit on the subway here and we'd be a couple of seats away from each

other but we are still able to have a good conversation and share

laughs and stuff. It's fun.

Thank you so much for writing me Nicki. I miss you and I love you

lots. Hope all continues to go well there in Idaho. Keep up the good

school work and stay away from the boys. :P Hope to hear from you

again soon! Talk to you then ok?

Love always,

Your big brother Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

Hey mom!

Good to hear from you this week once again! 

This past week has been great! The weather is clearing up! It

is still really cold at night and in the mornings but the afternoon

weather almost seems comparable to that of home and it's really nice

to be able to go out and not have to worry about a jacket. Maybe there

will be no more snow. It's just been lots of sun the last couple of

days so it's been good.

Earlier this week on Monday we visited with our investigator family,

the Fernandez family. They are a great family and like always were

ready to learn more about the gospel. We talked about church and we

invited them to attend this coming Sunday. They accepted and said will

come to church on Sunday! That's not even the best part though.. we

then got on the subject of baptism. The father of the family, Anthony

was talking about his baptism and so we got into talking about that

more to the point where we extended a baptismal date to the three, the

wife, Sue and the 10 year old boy, Maurice and the 8 year old girl,

Jordae. They all accepted and now will be baptized on March 9th! Woo

hoo! Three more baptisms! Isn't that great news? I knew from the

moment that we met the family they would become baptized. Their great

interest in wanting to learn about the gospel and the participation of

the children were just good signs of things to come. Elder Ibisagba

and I are very excited for them.

On top of that Julia who was baptized two weeks ago was confirmed a

member and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost this past Sunday. It

was good because she was excited for that part. Her mom was in

attendance too which was good because she hadn't been to church in a

while because she had surgery which prevented her from traveling lots.

But I think now with the good weather we will be seeing Julia and her

mom, Roberta at church more often. We are still waiting to hear from

Julia's dad if it will be okay for us to teach him. He has expressed

great interest in wanting to learn about the gospel but as the saying

goes, "actions speak louder than words" so we will see if he will

contact us soon. Every time we see him we always ask if he's ready to

learn but nothing yet. We keep him in our prayers that soon he will be

ready to learn about Christ's gospel.

Transfer calls just happened last night. Only a few moves are going on

in our zone. Elder Ibisagba and I are still companions but the other

two elders in our district are transferred out and now are replaced by

sister missionaries. And just before I started typing this e-mail I

was called once again by President Smith to serve as a district

leader! More leadership for me again. Hopefully I can do a good job

here. I know President Smith trusts I can do a good job only being out

here for one cycle. Will be interesting to see how things go in these

next 6 weeks. I am still wondering how much time I will remain in the

English program. Maybe for not too much longer.

I also see you are all still very busy with branch activities. That's really good. It's also

good news to hear that the branch just keeps expanding and expanding.

Always good to hear that things are going well there. Hopefully the

hard work of the missionaries there will pay off big time and the

branch will be able to transform into a ward. That would be great to

see coming back home. It was always a goal of the deaf branch here to

become a ward. Would be good to see both the branch at home and the

deaf branch here accomplish that goal.

Thank you mom for continuing to keep me in your prayers. I know it

helps and blesses me a lot as I also keep everyone at home in my

prayers. Don't worry about me here. I'm taking good care of myself. You

and dad taught me well! I miss you all and I love you all very much.

Continue to do good there and I'll do my best out here. Thanks for

writing me this week. I'll talk to you again next week! Take care!

Love always,

Your son Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

February 2, 2011

Hey mom!

Good to hear from you this week! Things have been great here despite the bad weather but we're trying to get through it all. It's been really snowy and rainy and it's been icing the sidewalks so it becomes really hard walk but we're doing the best we can. I hope your week has been better! I heard the weather has been good there from dad. That's good to hear that you are enjoying good weather back at home. Like I've mentioned many times before, I miss the San Diego weather! It will be something I'll be thankful for when I'm finally back. Can you believe that it's just 26 days till it's only one more year till I come back home?! Time really does fly by when you're lost in the work. We've been really busy lately!

Julia our investigator will be baptized this Sunday! I will be baptizing her! Whew! It'll be my first actually doing the baptism here on the mission. I'm excited/nervous just because it will be my first but it should go well. I already had the opportunity to baptize a lot before my mission. We're really excited for her baptism. Other than that we received 4 new investigators in the last 5 days! They are all pretty solid!! We will continue to teach them and hopefully they will be baptized in a short while. They each have their different situations and questions about the gospel but we hope to work with them to help them anyway we can so they can enter the waters of baptism sooner or later. It's been a busy week just trying to get to everyone and teach them and also battling the weather. It's tough but just like every week we just keep going and tackle each day with a positive attitude. Days go much better and time goes by faster when we do. It's been great working here in Olmstead. The Ward is really supportive of us and help us a lot with work and they feed us lots! Haha. I hope to enjoy being in the English program as much as I can before I go back to the ASL program.

Thanks again mom for e-mailing me this week. I hope the rest of the week continues to go well and the good weather continues too! We hope the bad weather here will let up soon. It's a struggle but we're getting through. The mission has been really fun so far and I just continue to experience many great and new things. This will be a time I will never forget. Thanks mom for helping me get to this point. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have dad and you to support me. I miss you and love you so much! Stay safe and I'll talk to you again next week!

Love always,
Your son Elder Derrick Joseph Castro