Email June 17 2013

Things are going great! I’m really enjoying this last leg of the mission and finally feel like I know what’s going on! It’s been a great and long ride but is going to end even better than it started! I’m sorry to hear about your finger that is not good at all! That’s really good to hear about Jordan though! He is a great kid and is going to be great at teaching Lyndsi. I will be finding out next Tuesday whether I come home on the 13 or the 6th apparently though the president said that because it was kind of thrown on us and we might already have plans for before the 13th we would be able to go home on the 6th still so I just need to think about it.

The baptism on Saturday went really really well. He had a lot of support from the ward and was just happy to be getting baptized. Other than the baptism this week was kind of rough. We realized that we really overworked ourselves the first 3 weeks and it took its toll on us this week. This next week we have plans to pick it back up and make sure we end this transfer really well. We were supposed to have a baptism this next Sunday too but there is too much stuff going on and so we have to push it to the 30th and we are doing it at 7:00 which means that we might have the last baptism of the San Bernardino mission! That would be pretty funny!

Other than the baptism the real highlight of the week was Wednesday when I had my temple trip. It was great to be with the missionaries that I came out with and spend time with them. The temple was great and I was able to ask a lot of questions about what I’m supposed to do when I get home. I feel good about being a PA and think that I will pursue that when I get home. It just feels right. I also got the impression that my mission was just supposed to start me in my missionary work and that I would do more missionary work back home than I did here on my mission. It was kind of an interesting thought and I was kind of confused but it’s true. As I have watched the way our member J P works with everyone he meets and always brings up the gospel there is a lot that members can do and I want to be like Josh in that way. I think a big reason I was sent to this ward was to meet J because he has become somebody that I want to be like after my mission.

After the temple we went to café rio and then to the mission office where my interview was supposed to be at 6 but didn't end up happening until 8:30 so I was at the office from 2-9:30. It was a long time. The interview went really well and we just talked about my mission and everything and afterwards he gave me a blessing and it was really neat to be able to have that experience with President Godwin.

That’s pretty much the highlights of the week. It’s been pretty slow but we are recommitting ourselves to do awesome this week! I love you tons and hope you have a great week!!

Email June 3 2013

Okay well I didn't email last week because the library was closed and so we were told that we didn't get to email that week. I wasn't too thrilled with that but what can ya do? I have a lot to email about this week because a lot happened in the last 2 weeks.

Last week.

We saw 2 really big miracles. That guy we taught on his doorstep is awesome. We went back to teach him and when we finished his sister came in and said hold on before you leave I have some questions to ask you. She is REALLY interested! We taught her and set a baptismal date with her. Throughout the rest of the week we ended up getting the whole family as investigators there are the parents, their 2 kids, and N’s daughter have both now come to church! She is sooo ready for baptism. It’s been amazing to see how much happier she is than when we started teaching her. After one of our visits we got a text from N that said this: “Thank you guys. It felt very good to end the evening with your visit. Your words to me are priceless. It doesn't matter what others think, I am certain I want to become a lifelong member of your church. I know my life will be fulfilled so much more after I’m baptized. Your duties as missionaries will not have been in vain.”  It was super super awesome to get that and she is just so awesome!

The other miracle was when we were knocking on doors and we were on team-ups. We had one of our APs with us, and we knocked on a door and this teenager let us in. We taught him and his mom and dad about baptism just from the Bible out of Matt 3 and they accepted to be baptized. The son spoke English the dad spoke a little English and the mom spoke hardly any but we gave the referral to the Spanish elders and they taught the mom and said that she really is interested! It was really really awesome. Those were our major miracles from last week.

THIS WEEK

It has been a rough week. We knocked on a lot of doors and lots of people were just really rude. They would tell us how we were just deceiving people and that Joseph Smith was a false prophet and just definitely not respecting our religion at all. So that was pretty rough.

Saturday we had exchanges. I was in the Spanish ward on bike with Elder Graff. haha it was fun introducing ourselves to people and see their confused looks. Well it was 104 degrees on Saturday. And from 11-3 nobody let us in. So we biked around in the heat and it was no good. Finally we had a really good lesson with one of their investigators. We talked about the atonement and baptism and invited her to be baptized and she said no. We then talked to her about how she could know if the church was true and the Book of Mormon is true. We told her how to pray and how her answer would feel. We then had her pray right there with us to know if the Book of Mormon was true. After the prayer we asked how she felt and she said. "I know this sounds weird but I feel clean. I feel peaceful." We were able to help her see that that was the Spirit and told her she could feel that ALL the time after she was baptized because of the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit was really strong! After that we biked around some more and right before dinner we both ended up with flat tires because of a patch of dirt we had to ride through for 2 seconds and we got stickers in our tires. So we spent the rest of the night walking and inviting their investigators to church. It was fun being with Elder Graff though and even though he has only been out for 3 months he is doing awesome!

Well that is pretty much it! I love you tons and I’m glad you had a great birthday! I will get that stuff all sent in this week!

Email May 20 2013

Well my new comp issss................................................. actually not new! He’s an old comp! It’s Elder N!! I was super excited and we are doing awesome so far! It’s crazy how good of a missionary he has become. He has definitely become a better missionary than I was at his time and has a lot of really awesome strengths. We had a really good week but I only have a few minutes to email so this will be the only email to the family.

We had to do stake coordination this last week which takes up a ton of our week. Almost a full day plus we had transfers where we got 3 new companionships in the zone. There are now 6 missionaries in the Spanish ward and they split one of the English wards to have 4 missionaries.

Although our week was crazy when we were able to get out and look for people we saw miracles happen. We devoted all our time to trying to find and we found 3 new people this week. 1 was a former investigator. One lives across the street from J but I want to talk about the last one we found.

We had some extra time so we decided to knock on some doors. We knock on one door and a lady answers and it turns out she used to go to her brothers in Long Beach to ask the missionaries there questions. She said we could come by this next Tuesday. So that was really cool! Then we saw a guy sitting on his porch so we talked to him and he said he would listen to our message because he "is looking for the true church and has been praying for an answer" WOAH! We had a really good lesson and set a baptismal date with him. After I recited the first vision Elder N asked him how he felt about that and he said "I feel awesome! I feel peaceful." Holy cow that never happens! So we will be seeing him again on Wednesday! That was really the highlight of the week and it was just cool to see that even though we were REALLY busy with other things that as we were diligent we received blessings. Just thought id share that little miracle with you! We will let you know what happens with him and next week I’ll have more time to email.

Today the computer lab was down and so we just barely got on after waiting for awhile but have somewhere to be in a few min. I love you tons though!

Email April 8 2013

We actually haven’t had much wind here. It’s been breezy but not windy. Which is good because the other day we took a bike day! It was sooo much fun! Biking is so much more fun when you actually know how to ride a bike well! The streets here are perfect for it too because there are only a few main streets and everything else is residential so you can get where you want to go by taking side streets because most of them connect. So that is fun.

I got an email from Morgan today and it sounds like he is doing really well. It really has brightened my day to see everything going on with my friends. Some getting baptized, lots on missions, it’s so crazy!

It is really crazy that conference has come and gone again. It was really weird when President Monson said until we meet in 6 months and I thought... "I will be at home...” It was really crazy. It’s coming quicker and quicker.

I really enjoyed conference and the values that they talked about. Mostly what I got out of it was that 1. Families need to be raised in a Gospel Centered home. 2. Member missionary work is extremely important and 3. No matter what the world is doing the standards of the church stands strong.

I really enjoyed the talk that President Uchtdorf gave in the Priesthood session about the 4 names that we have as men and priesthood holders. I also liked President Monson’s talk on Sunday morning... Mostly because I went to watch that session with a question in mind that I wanted answered and that was "How can I become a better/the best missionary I can be?" and his entire talk was on obedience. It’s interesting because I have been really working on that and doing even the small things that most people don’t think matter. Like, Make your bed, Write in your journal, clean your apartment, talk to EVERYBODY. Things like that and as I’ve been doing that I’ve noticed a lot more blessings.

As far as things this week we had kind of a rough week for a couple of reasons… it was transfers and we got a new greenie in our zone and he and his comp are on bike and had some meetings in R so we were the drivers for that. Then our brakes were having major issues that presented a very serious problem haha so our truck got worked on in 2 different shops. Luckily the second one was close to our house and in our area so we just took a partial bike day and I LOVED it!  I want to take a bike day at least once a week because our area is really not a hard bike area at all. So we didn’t really do anything from Tuesday-Friday... it was crazy... but on Friday we went to see that family of potential investigators we got from knocking on doors and taught them part of the first lesson, told them about conference, and set up a time to teach them again. We found out that the mother is going through cancer right now and her sister in law who is a member is encouraging her to listen to us. We had a really powerful lesson and promised her that the gospel would help her through her trials. Not take them away but give her the strength that she needs to overcome them.

Sunday night we also had a neat experience where we went to see a member who just got active about a year ago. She is having some difficulties because her husband won’t come back to church with her and so she is doing it alone. While we were there she brought up a concern that she was feeling guilty about something and felt like she shouldn’t pray because of it. We read her 2 Nephi 32:8 and told her never to feel like that. We then had a very spiritual experience and just let her know that God loves her and she should never leave him. She talked about how hard of a time she is having and how she feels like the better she gets the more trials she has and we promised her that the Gospel would help her through those trials and that if she backed away from the Gospel she would still have trials but she would no longer have the strength of the Gospel to help her through them. It was really neat and the spirit was strong.

Well that about sums up our week! Oh yeah funny story though! So the missionary that is training in our zone is Spanish speaking and I told him. If you get Elder Graff lets stand up and hug each other in transfer meeting. (That’s what the trainers do when they get called with their greenies; they get up and go hug their greenie and sit on the stand.) Well that was while I was sitting next to him but I ended up getting up and moving to the back side to sit by Elder U. Well lo and behold Elder C gets Elder Graff as a companion. So I’m sitting in the back laughing because there are now 2 Elder Graffs in Ontario and I look up and Elder C is coming up the aisle towards me with his arms open. So I get up and we hug each other and everyone is laughing and his greenie looked sooo confused! haha it was super super funny. Anyways there are 2 of us in Ontario! He is from Washington but has many ties to Santa Clara. crazzy! Well I love you tons! Have a great week!

Email April 1 2013

I missed being able to do the Easter hunt on Easter. I have been hearing from people I haven’t heard from. Mostly other missionaries who are now out on their missions. I found out Morgan Potter is in the MTC on his way to South Africa! That made me super happy to hear! Not really much has changed. It was a rough week. The baptism went great!

 

I’ve been tired lately... really tired. And stressed but we went to the chiropractor that’s in our ward this last week and I mentioned that I was stressed and he asked what about so I just told him mission things not wanting to say much more and he seemed to get what I was talking about and just said "If there are things you can change, change them. If there are things you can’t change, give it up to the Lord." It was just some simple advice that made me think a lot. So I’m just going to keep doing what I can to improve myself and the blessings will come. Either sooner or later. So that’s been my week! Love you so much! I get to talk to you in about a month and a half!!

 

I sure did enjoy my package! So there isn’t much to tell for this week. Not too exciting. We did get to go to W’s baptism and it was awesome! She was so happy! She is going to be so awesome! It was also really neat to see a lot of the people from my old ward. They kept telling me how much they missed me and it made me feel good! I asked about if one of the S girls got her mission call and found out her open house was that night so we after the baptism we went up there to their house and we went in and when I walked into their main room her mom was sitting on the couch and did a double take and FREAKED out because she was so excited! She even made a comment while I was there and said "It’s like one of my sons came home!" It made me feel really good. Other than that we have continued to look for more people to teach and haven’t had a ton of success and I’m still really frustrated. I don’t know what else more I can do.

 

Easter was really good too we had a big Tongan party that we ate our lunch at and I was stuffeeedd. Then we had to take Elder C to his departing devotional and went to a couple really quick appointments. Nothing really special happened and it felt like a normal day. We got transfer calls Sunday morning. Nothing is changing with Elder B and me. We will be together for another transfer. That really is the highlights of the week. I love you tons and hope your week is great!

 

Email Mar 24 2013

I really like those pictures! You did a really good job on them!  There are so many people out here with drug problems and things of the sort. It’s really crazy and really sad to see.

Things this last week went really well. I’m just going to focus on the neat experiences that we have had.

On Thursday night we went to teach the Less Active that is coming back to church regularly and we got there just a few minutes early and Brother W from the Bishopric was already there waiting for us and talking to Bro S’s neighbor who is his brother in law. Well we went over to talk to them and Brother W said, “M is going to join us for the lesson tonight. We had a really good lesson about Reading, Praying and Church. Brother S was just bearing his testimony about how much they helped him in becoming a happier person and telling his brother in law how much it could help him. We are going to go back and teach them both again this week!

We also had exchanges on Saturday with the AP's and I went out to F with Elder S. We had kind of a different exchange but it was really good! It was their stake’s Youth Conference and they were doing a 24 hour mission. So they had their companions and name tags and went around to 4 different stations and we were in charge of one of them. Ours was the importance of planning and goal setting. You would think that would be the most boring one but we made it really fun and people told us that they liked ours the best. We were just super interactive with them. We were getting them to focus on some friends who weren’t members and how they would invite them to do things like go to mutual with them and what not. So then after those 4 rotations they lowered it to 3 and us and a few other missionaries did a finding station where we taught them to go door to door and had them practice going down the hall and knocking on classroom doors where missionaries would answer them. After that they came back in the room where I was and me and another missionary would help them evaluate and go talk to them about how it went and what could do better, then they would go do it again. It was really awesome! Then we went to a baptism in R and took some of Elder S’s Investigators. It turns out it was Elder U’s baptism so I got to see him! He is doing really awesome!

So now for another couple of miracles. As you know we have been praying for families. Well we got a call from some of the R Missionaries and they said they had a referral for us who was really interested. So we went by and it was a family and we are meeting with them this next week. Then on our way out of their apartment complex I started talking to a guy and he said his wife had talked to us before. We were in a hurry so I just asked if we could come teach him sometime and he said "yeah sure!" It was really awesome. So through much prayer and fasting things continue to look up. I decided to fast again yesterday and we got a call from bishop this morning about a non member who came to church a couple weeks ago that wants to meet with us. It’s him, his mom, and his brother. We also got a text from a girl in the singles ward who said that for our dinner this Thursday she is bringing her non member friend and we will be teaching him! So many miracles! All because of prayer and fasting! I was feeling really stressed again earlier this week and I decided to read the scriptures before going to sleep and I read D&C 58:4. It made me feel a lot better.

Things are looking up and it looks like we might have a really amazing week this week! Also W gets baptized this Friday! Soooooooooooooooo excited! I love you so much!!

It was a good week for a couple good reasons! I got an email from Maxx Pope last week. He got baptized a couple months ago. It is really weird because before I left on my mission I was told that the hardest part was coming home and seeing that your friends are all the same and nothing but you has changed. I’ve been really set on that but things ARE changing a lot! Maxx got baptized, soooo many of my friends are on missions. Those are like the biggest changes you can have!

We are just trying out something new that I hope continues for a long time! We have a notebook that says "Missionary Experiences- (name of ward) " and we go teach members a lesson about praying in faith and about "going about doing good" from PMG and then tell them for the next week we want them to pray for missionary experiences and we are going to focus on their family and praying specifically for their family and when they have an experience they write it in the notebook and in a week we pick it up and talk about what happened. Then take it to another member and so eventually they will have a notebook full of the missionary experiences the ward has had! We just started it last night so we will see how it goes. I’m very much looking forward to this next week and seeing what happens! I love you tons! Have a great week!

Email Mar 17 2013

The big letter was to Lyndsi: 
We just barely started teaching a new person who is about your age. He is really awesome and he is probably going to get baptized! But I decided to send you the long email this week so let mom know so she can put it on my blog.

 So this week was really good. We had our zone meeting and it turned out good but we had to rush the last little bit of the training because of time. We trained on the Ward mission process and on talking to everybody and having a desire to do missionary work. I guess it went well because this last week all of our numbers went up a good bit. Our zone is doing better right now than they have in the last 2 years and we have one less companionship. We only have 14 missionaries here and our numbers have almost doubled since I got here. The funny thing is that I don’t know why. I haven’t done anything crazy or motivational I don’t think. The same thing happened in S B. when I got there the numbers went up. It’s nothing I’m doing though. Just have good missionaries in the zones.

 We spent a couple days just strictly trying to find more people because our teaching pool is quite low. We started teaching one of our members nephews and he wants to get baptized we just need to talk to his parents about it. We also have been trying this thing where we are going to meet all the members and get them working on missionary work. So we find an area that has a lot of members. We park our truck. And we try the active and less active members and between houses we knock on doors and talk to other people on the street. It hasn’t been super effective yet but we are out working the way that we have been told to work so I know the Lord will bless us.

 Oh also I just got off the phone with the N missionaries and W is getting baptized!! Yay!!! I’ve been waiting for this forever! I’m super excited for her! So now back to the email.

 We also had a ward party this week that was really simple and really fun. Everyone just brought some of their favorite games and some snack food and we played games and just got to have fun. I played a game called curses and throughout the game people curse each other with cards that say things you have to do for example, "talk with your teeth clenched" or "you cannot bend your elbows," and if you don’t do your curse and someone catches you and they call you out on it than you flip your curse card over. If you get caught 3 times you lose. haha it was a super funny game.

 Sunday was also a really good day! We had both wards and had some really good talks in each and then had a fireside that night about marriage/dating and what girls look for. We didn’t know that was what it was about before we went but oh well... haha so that was most of our week. Nothing extraordinary this week but I think this will be a great week this next week! I love you tons! Have an awesome week!