Email Dec 26 2011

(Kevin's "other brother" Brandon's in-laws live in the ward where Kevin is serving.  They were able to get together for dinner!!)

So I’m not going to say much but yes it was great to be able to talk to you all for Christmas! I’ll just put a little about how our Christmas went and what we did for the sake of everyone that might be reading my blog. Well we woke up with a phone call from our zone leaders at 5:45 in the morning and they said they were on their way to our apartment with the AP's so we woke up and waited for them. When our ZL's and AP's got there we opened all our presents and made quite the mess of our apartment. After that we got ready and me and Elder H had church from 9-10 and wished our ward members Merry Christmas after that. Then we headed up to a family’s house in our ward and played games with their two little daughters and then ate a brunch! It was fantastic! After that the mom asked where we were eating dinner and we said that we would be eating at our apartment and she would not allow that so we left for a little bit to another families house to skype home which went really well and I loved it! Everyone is growing up so much! After that we went back to the member’s house and played more games and ate dinner then went back to the apartment and rested. It was really one of my favorite Christmas's I’ve ever had. Thanks to everyone who sent me presents and letters. I really enjoyed everything I got and appreciated it. It’s good to know of the support I have from home.

Cool story from today though. We went to a potential investigators house where we had met a 17 year old girl and she said she and her family would want to hear the message we had so we went back when they told us to but they were gone. (Of course) so we went back today to see if there was a time we could meet with them and she let us in to teach her right then and there! We ended up only teaching her and her friend but we met most of the family including one of her 3 older brothers, her mom and her dad. And they were all super friendly to us and we taught the girl and her friend about the Book of Mormon and they said that they would read and said we could come back Thursday!! It was super awesome!! Except transfers are next week so I could be leaving... we find out Saturday! Love you all!! Have a great New Years and I’ll write again next year!

Dec 19 2011 Email

Thank you for Josh's address and for the package! Yes I did get it and I was really excited! I also got a package from Grandma Kay and from Granddaddy!! Our tree has lots of presents under it so far! All of them are mine and my companions though and I’m hoping that our roommates get some packages this week! But yeah this last week turned out to be really good besides Thursday and Friday!

Tuesday we met with a guy that we have been meeting with who is pretttyy crazy but when we met with him his sister asked if she could sit in on the lesson and she has decided she wants to take the lessons too! We worked out a day separate from her brother to teach her because they don’t get along to well. We also taught to less active members that night and they both went pretty well!

Wednesday morning we set up 6 return appointments. 4 for the next day and a couple later on in the week and we went down to Trader Joes to talk to people around there and as we were walking there we went around the back of the store because its faster and there was a homeless guy there and he turned around and asked if we were Mormons. We said we were and he asked if we could read him a scripture from the Book of Mormon that tells what we believe. So we read the scripture in 2 Nephi 25:26 about we believe in Christ, we talk of Christ... and we just sat down and talked to him about Joseph Smith and a little about our church. He was super funny partly because he was a little drunk but he was telling us about how he used to be so athletic and what not. (By the way he was pretty young. Maybe in his mid-late 20's) but he was saying how he didn’t want to drink anymore, how he wanted a job, and asked how he could be part of our church. We told him he has to be baptized and go to church and he was a little interested. We then left him with a Book of Mormon and told him maybe we would see him again sometime. It’s a little hard to set up return appointments with a homeless man but hopefully he is reading the Book of Mormon. That night we went with the Young men/Young women to a place over in Upland that the whole street is decked out hardcore with lights and tons of people walk the streets to see them. So we went with the youth and organized it so they could hand out pass along cards with candy canes tied to them. We took 80 cards and ended with 3. I only personally handed out 5 and Elder H didn’t hand out too many either.  The youth did a really good job! It was really fun too.

Thursday and Friday, literally EVERY appointment that we had canceled on us. ALL of them. It was the most disappointing days I’ve had and I was super bummed but we made up for it on Saturday and Sunday.  Oh but we did have a good storm on Thursday! Luckily we were in our apartment complex trying to see an investigator in there when it started so we ran back to our apartment and it POURED down rain and there was lightning and thunder and it was super close. So later that night after it had stopped we went to dinner and just a few streets up it had snowed! There was snow in the whole top of our area so we got to throw snowballs in California!! The family we ate with is the C family and they have recently bought a house down kind of by Stahlie farms and are in the Washington fields stake so they are really close to you guys! But they gave us presents and it was really neat! The members up here have been really good to us!

Saturday we taught a lesson to T and J. The lady that walked to our mission office and talked to President. I think I told you about it. But we met with them and taught them about the Book of Mormon and she said since church last week she has been praying every night and has felt the blessings and knows how the Holy Ghost feels and so we asked if her and her friend J would be baptized on January 14th and they said yes!! Later that night we went to a less actives house we have been to a few times just to take our Christmas picture in front of their super pretty tree and after we got them they asked if we had time to sit down so we sat and just talked and I connected with them really well and they talked about how they love desserts so I told them about chocolate waffles and yogurt pie and told them we would come over sometime and we can make a couple yogurt pies and they were really excited. We then just taught a little message to them about service and when we left they said "our house is your house and our kitchen is yours whenever you need anything or a place to be" they are super super nice so I was wondering if I could get a couple simple dessert recipes from you that I could make over there and also the one for yogurt pie. It is a good opportunity to be able to be in their house and I think I might start doing cooking things at people houses more often and so we can just chat and they can get to know us better and then have food and teach a lesson. I at least want to try it out and see how it goes.

Sunday we had 6 investigators at church and 2 people who aren’t quite yet investigators technically but will be soon I hope. T brought her 15 year old son and her 9 year old daughter and they both had a really good time. I guess lots of our youth if not all of them knew her son and were really nice and friendly and he seemed like he enjoyed it but he will definitely take more work than his mom. He has lots of piercings and seems kinda like a punk but we talked to him for a minute and he seemed super nice. After church we met with T, J and T’s daughter!! We taught about the first part of the plan of salvation and J and T were saying how excited they are to be baptized and we asked her daughter if she wanted to be baptized with her mom and she also said yes!! We set 3 baptism dates this week!! Hopefully we will set more next week! We also got to meet with a less active member and he was another super friendly guy. Said he wants to feed us dinner sometime and when we read our message to him he pretty much bore his testimony about it. It was really neat and hopefully we can get to work with him!

This next week me and Elder C my roommate are performing for the stake seminary! I’m playing guitar and we are both singing the little drummer boy! It should be pretty fun but I’m nervous!

Hope you have a great week! Love you!

Dec 12 2011 Email

(Please see prior post for Kevin's new mission address)

About my area. Yes it is suppper pretty! The sunsets from up here are normally amazing and I have a few good pictures of some. We are also going to get a Christmas picture today with the four of us in our apartment and send out some Christmas Cards! It’s going to be an awesome picture and you guys will love it :) I’m only going to send them to family and to a couple friends. It’s currently raining though so our original idea isn’t going to work but we will still get a good one!

I’m SUPER excited for Josh to go to the MTC I know he will have a great experience and he will be blessed as much as I have. I have really started to notice the blessings that I’ve been getting even if I don’t notice them at first I notice them after awhile and I am so grateful!

As for this week we had a pretty tough week because of so many appointments falling through at the beginning of the week but we ended up with 70 contacts which is the standard of excellence for our mission and we were really excited to hit it! We ended up later this week being able to teach a few more lessons and ended up with 12 total lessons for the week which is pretty decent.

We had a cool story about a referral we got from President G.  Apparently the lady that lives across the street from a guy we have been teaching sees us a lot and has wanted to talk to us but hasn’t gotten up the courage so she ended up walking down to our new mission office which isn’t too far but still far enough and walked in and said she wanted to meet with me and Elder H!  We contacted her and played a little phone tag and weren’t able to meet with her before Sunday but she said that she would walk to church Sunday morning. We ended up getting her and her friend a member ride and after church she said that she LOVED it and would be back next week and that we can teach her!

Another really neat story.  We had a Living Nativity program set up for last Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night and we stopped by this partly autistic kids (just barely autistic like the only thing that’s wrong is he is a little bit socially awkward but he is a cool kid) house that we have been teaching to invite him and his family but his mom and sister were gone so we invited him and he said if he wasn’t drunk and had nothing better to do then he would go to it. We got to go see the program Saturday night and talk with lots of people and S was there!! He got there at 6:30 when it started and stayed through all 4 of the shows and then helped clean up! We introduced him to lots of ward members and they were all really nice and talked to him a lot it was really good! We also found out he went to church yesterday! He just went to a different building. Attended all 3 hours. Stayed an extra hour and then went to sacrament meeting at the singles ward also! Luckily lots of people there fellowshipped him so we are going to stop by this week and see what he thought!

We have also been making some really good progress with an investigator named D that lives in our complex.  The first couple times I met him he really wasn’t convincing when he said he would read but then last Monday night we took a convert member and had an awesome lesson on faith and he just admitted and said he should have been reading and that he really does want to gain a testimony of the book so he really would read this time. We have another meeting with him tonight so we will see how it goes! Oh and good news about the 70 contacts! We got about 7 or 8 people that said we could come back and share more about the church! I was pretty excited about it! I’m also getting really excited for Christmas! Our apartment is decked out and looks super awesome!! I’m excited to be able to skype with you! Well that’s about it for this last week! It was a good one and hopefully this week is really good too! I love you lots!!

NEW MISSION ADDRESS!!!

Elder Kevin Graf
California San Bernardino Mission
6541 Woodruff Place
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91701

Dec 5 Email

I’m really excited to see Brandon!!! He is coming the 29th supposedly!!

Well this week has been pretty lame. Our appointment with both people fell through... but crazy story about one of them. her name is T and we went over and I guess her mom had to leave or something so she gave us her dad’s number so we could call and schedule something so we go to call her the next night and the number is already in our phone as a less active/part member guy. So we were confused because it wasn’t his address that she was at. So we went to the address where the ward directory said he was and the lady was really nice and told us it was a bad time but to come back this week. Then we found out that the T's (T's family) moved! So we got a return appointment with some strangers!! yay!! But yeah turns out we found out where the T's moved to and we talked to the dad and he is completely okay with us teaching his daughter and possibly his wife if she is interested and other 2 kids! That would be really awesome! We taught some pretty good lessons and set a baptismal date for the 24th! But it doesn’t look like it’s going to stick.

Some other crazy things from this week. I’ve been sick... bleh. I’ve had a cold since Thursday. I started to get it Tuesday but Wednesday it was gone. Then Thursday it was back and bad. So we didn’t get a whole lot of work done but there is a lady in our ward who has like a van with tons of medicine in it. I’m not sure her exact job but she said if we ever needed anything to call her so we did and she gave us some cold medicine and made me and my companion lots better! I feel pretty good now. Just a little clogged nose and a tiny cough but I’m tons better than before. The other reason we didn’t get much work done is because there was a very large windstorm Tuesday night! Like supposedly 80-100MPH winds. It was the worst there has been in 10 years! How crazy is that!? There were huge trees that were uprooted all over the place! The road outside our apartment was blocked by 2 huge trees! It’s almost been a week and there are still trees all over the place because the city workers have been so busy. So we did lots of service cutting up trees and all that good stuff. I got some pictures so I’ll send those possibly back with Brandon who can give them to Brian who can sometime get them to you! Yeah so lots of crazy stuff this week! Now that I’m feeling better we are going to teach lots of lessons this week and make up for last week! Oh so we have also been decorating our apartment for Christmas! Using stuff we bought at the dollar store such as stockings that we hung over our fireplace that we have been using! It’s been super awesome! And we are all pitching in to get a fake tree! It’s going to be awesome!

Transfers are going to be January 3rd and I could leave then just so you know! Well I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!

Address change

Kevin does not have a "direct" mailing address right now, so please continue to send mail to him at the mission office. However, THE MISSION ADDRESS WILL BE CHANGING JAN 1! I will post the new address when we get it.

Nov 28 Email

Well I’ll start off by telling you about my companion. He is from Idaho and his name is Elder H. He is going to be a super awesome companion and I have the feeling we will get along really well and have some pretty good success! As for the area I’m in well I’m going to tell a little story. Last night we ate dinner at a couple’s house in the ward and they were talking about how their daughter married someone from St George but I didn’t think anything about it because lots of people have said that. So we eat dinner and share a scripture thought and then the dad says "Let me show you a picture of the guy my daughter married and just see if you know him." He picked up a picture and what do you know it was my "Big Brother" Brandon Stocks! We ate dinner at Steph's parent’s house last night!! It was a really big shock to me! I didn’t even know her family was from here. So yeah I’m in Rancho Cucamonga. It is an awesome area and the ward seems pretty awesome too! It’s a very wealthy area which means that some people just are kind of jerks and don’t want anything to do with us. Oh well it’s their loss. As for the week we taught a few lessons but I’m still trying to figure everything out in this area so I’m not going to go into many details about who we taught and about what because I still don’t really know! haha we ended up tracting a bit the last couple weeks and we prayed before we left and picked a street that felt right and both days we tracted we got a return appointment! One was with a sophomore boy in high school the other was with a freshman girl in High School so we will hopefully be meeting with them this next week! I’m really excited! It was a really big shock when we asked "would you be interested in hearing more of our message?" and the boy said "yeah actually I would." so we set that up for Tuesday and when we knocked on the girl’s door she answered and when we asked if she would be interested in hearing more she said "yeah let me go get my family. Come on in." It was the first time we got invited into someone’s house while tracting!! But she said her dad apologized and said he was too tired because it was his only day off. But we set a return appointment for her on Wednesday! Yep it was pretty awesome! I’m really excited that its Christmas time! We are going to start gathering Christmas Decorations and what not to decorate our apartment with and see if any of the members have an old extra Tree around that we can use! Oh yeah I’m in an apartment and its a super nice one too! It’s me and Elder H. And another companionship Elder C (came out the same day as me), and Elder. It’s super awesome and we all get along really well and have a good time at nights when we are all back in. Oh and about "not looking as slim as I was" that’s because when I came out I was between 125 and 128lbs now I’m between 139 and 142lbs hahaha but it’s okay because I’m in a bike area now so I’m working it off/working it into muscle. So all in all its been a really good week and this next week should be awesome too. We have 6 set appointments already so we will see how they go and we are going to keep looking for more. I love you all so much and miss you!!
Just a couple other things! I’m so happy that Josh had his Farewell!!! I’m so excited for him!
I’m already half full on my memory card and we are adding to it every day. There are a lot of cool picture opportunities in my area. You will see them soon! A couple more Christmas ideas. blank Cd's (:

Nov 21 email

I’m actually excited for the holidays! Well it’s been an eventful week!

Okay so Monday night we ate dinner with the B family whom are basically awesome and I always just feel at home around them. But anyways after dinner they came with us to a new investigator’s house and we was having a really rough night and just opened up and vented for about an hour and you could tell it helped him out just having people to talk to about what was going on and it was some pretty crazy stuff but he really seemed to take a liking to the B’s so that was really good.

Tuesday- we went and saw J. Yes it was J that got baptized last week sorry for not saying that hah but we sat down and she talked to us for about an hour and a half and gave us advice about our futures and how she thinks we are just extraordinary and that we can go far and she said she was giving us the advice because we need more people like us to go far in life so it was really interesting stuff and we just had a good long conversation then taught a little bit about temples and what we do there. That was pretty much the highlight of Tuesday. Just did the usual knock some doors and what not.

Wednesday was a very rough day. Every single one of our plans fell through and we ended up tracting a ton that day with pretty much no luck. Nobody was answering the doors and the ones that did just politely turned us away. We did have a very good dinner with the M Family again. The ones that have the kids I love. The one from the picture. Yeah except that the mom wasn’t there so her nonmember husband fed us and we got to have a good talk with him. I’m going to be sad to have to leave them because J M was starting to seem a little bit more interested in the church again. He has had all the lessons but I’m not entirely sure what is stopping him from baptism.

Thursday- we had a service project on Thursday that was helping to serve Thanksgiving dinner at a blind house. It was actually really fun and we met some nice people. They had a piano and while we were waiting for the blind people to get out of their classes and come to dinner I sat down and played and a few older ladies came and listened and talked to me and then when they announced that there were missionaries volunteering they also said "we also have an excellent piano player who might be our entertainment tonight!" haha but I never did because I was busy and didn’t have enough songs to play. I didn’t have my music with me so it was all by memory anyways. After that we went to this lady’s house who is like 83 and she talked to us for 2 hours and we kept trying to get a word in and she would just keep going. It was really funny and she kept saying "okay I need to shut up now and let you talk" and then she would start talking again hah we ate dinner alone that night and then went back to see T who we had seen Monday and he was doing a lot better. He made us cookies and we sat and talked for quite a bit. He also was quite the talker. But I can really see him jumping into the church and being an awesome member!

Friday- we got a call around 11 that the bishop storehouse needed our help so we went there and it turns out there were only like 8 volunteers and it was the busiest day of the year with like 103 orders that needed to be filled and they usually start around 9 but they had just started when we got there. It was a bad situation but we helped for a few hours and the W’s who are in charge of the storehouse were very very thankful. We then met with S who I baptized and had a good talk with them. S isn’t so shy anymore. When we first met her she wouldn’t say a single word to us. Now every time she sees me she gets a big smile and gives me a big wave. After dinner our plans fell through and so we went up to see Brother C who is in the ward and is just a super awesome guy. we took brownies over and when he answered the doors I said "we brought a scripture message and some brownies." and he smiled and let us in and gave us some pizza and we had a pretty good talk and met his youngest daughter who was visiting from BYU and when his wife got home we shared our scripture message and had to come home.

Saturday- most of the day was used going up to W in the mountains for a baptism of one of Elder T’s old investigators. For dinner we went to the L’s who turns out her brother is the Bishop of the Knolls ward!! I’m sure you know who he is if that is the case! After that we went to the choir practice again and on the way home we got “the call”...... I’m getting transferred. I don’t know what to think about it. I’m sad to leave the ward but I’m excited to go to a new area so I find out tomorrow where I go and I’ll let you all know next week!

Sunday- took lots of pictures and said my goodbyes.
That’s about all for the week. Next week I’ll let you know about my area and all that good stuff. Love you all!!

Nov 14 email

First of all yes I did get your package and it was awesome! I loved all the pictures and goodies! But... I’m not sure why you sent me mascara. (Note from Pam – apparently the mascara I bought when I bought the stuff to send him got left in the bag!!) Haha I’m glad your talk went really well and I would like to read it! That’s also a really neat story! I’m currently writing with a dog sitting at my feet under the computer desk haha the J’s have 3 dogs and they are super awesome! I’m glad grandma is doing good now! That’s pretty scary. We gave a blessing to a lady that fell down just last week. I’m not sure exactly how she is doing now but hopefully better.

Well this week I only will have to write about Thursday - Sunday! Not really a whole lot has been happening. We dropped by an investigator’s house to see how he was doing because we hadn’t seen him for a bit and they let us in and we got to teach them a lesson so that went pretty well. We also stopped by a less actives house and apparently it was a good time to go. She was having a really hard day. Some things from her past were coming back and it was some pretty bad stuff that it wasn’t her fault but she was crying the whole time and we read scriptures about the atonement and about how one day we will rest from our afflictions and she told us how much of an answer to her prayers we were and she knows everything will work out but she just doesn’t want to have to have bad memories resurface and it was just really hard. I’ve never wanted to give somebody a hug so bad you could just tell how hard it was on her. Other than that we only had a couple other meetings with investigators.

We had the baptism on Saturday and it went so well!!! Elder T did a good job baptizing and she was just so happy! Ever since the Spirit really started to work on her she has been so happy and is always smiling. When we were at her house this week she brought us out two cups and she said "Here you go I made you some coffee." Then we took them from her and looked at them and she started to laugh and said "I’m just kidding its hot chocolate!" haha it was so funny! I knew it wasn’t coffee because I would have smelled it but she just thinks she’s super funny. We also got out the binder to make the record for her and she said "You do it on paper? I figured you would carve it into some brass plates or something!" and then she would just laugh! She is quite the character! But yeah she was so happy after her baptism! And on Sunday I was the one that got to confirm her which was really scary for me because I had never done that and I had to do it in Sacrament meeting! But I did good and she turned around after and said "I’m so glad that it was you that got to do this part." It made me feel so good! Also in sacrament meeting 5 year old C sat by me and he is a stud. He is such a funny little kid. The whole B Family is so awesome!

Ohhh last Monday we had dinner at the B’s family’s house who are also super amazing! They make me feel at home. But yeah she asked what we missed that our moms used to make and so I had her make tater tot casserole. And they all thought it was pretty good then she gave us the left-overs and we brought it home and Brother J loved it and ate almost the rest of it! hah so yeah this week has really been pretty easy. We met with the couple that was supposed to get baptized next Saturday and J is ready but her husband J is definitely not but he is getting there. So we will continue to work with them but J doesn’t want to get baptized until J gets baptized so they can together.

I’m also not sure if I told you but there is a Christmas festival type thing here every year and missionaries get to sing at it. It’s called the Crèche festival and so each Saturday night we get to go practice for it and it’s really fun. Especially being able to be with a bunch of other missionaries! Well by next email we will know who is getting transferred so I will let you all know! I love you lots!! Be safe and stay warm!!

Nov 9 2011 Email

Ward History: I’ve been on my mission for 3 months now and it’s been a great experience. We have had 3 baptisms and 3 on the way. It is incredible the challenges that are out in this world and even the challenges that I have on my mission. I know that this will be the greatest time of my life though and that I will never regret serving a mission. I know that the Lord does provide for us missionaries and for everyone that will accept him and keep his commandments. We just need to trust in the Lord.

Well the last week and a half has been pretty good! Not so much last week but this week is going super good! We have just been packed with lots of people to teach and new people to meet. I’m finally getting better at knocking on doors. It was hard for a while because I just wouldn’t know what to say but we have 2 return appointments with people we met knocking on doors. We had one funny experience this last week where we knocked on a door and this darker lady answers the door and glares at us and I introduced us and she said she knew who we were and then asked if we had read the sign on the window. I looked around at all the windows and saw no signs anywhere and she came out and angrily pointed at the window and then noticed it wasn’t there and just felt dumb and went back inside and told us to leave hahah. It was really great! We also had a funny moment while we were walking past a bus stop. I walked toward a Hispanic guy and said "hey how're you?" and he just put his hands up and said "I didn’t do nothin." over and over and I kept trying to tell him we weren’t the police we were missionaries and after about a minute of this he put his hands down and got a big smile and then said "hey guys how’s it goin?" and shook our hands haha. He wasn’t a member but he knew who we were and we talked to him for a minute and he seemed really interested. Now it just depends on if he actually calls to get the Book of Mormon or not. Those are our two funny stories! As far as awesome stories there’s one involving J of course because she is just awesome! She is completely committed to the church already and it’s just super awesome. She said she had a dream about us one night and we were dressed in white just smiling at her and the next day was S’s baptism and she came to that and the first person she saw when she walked through the door was me dressed in all white just like in her dream and she said it was basically a confirmation to her that this is what’s right. We continue to have amazing lessons with her and we found out that a member came to her house (we aren’t sure who but we have an idea) and was talking about how tithing is a pain and asked her why she wanted to get baptized and just saying stupid things and J replied by telling her that she sure wasn’t sounding very Christian and that paying tithes is the least we can do for God for all he has done for us and just stood up for the church! She isn’t even a member yet!! This last time she also told us how much of a blessing we have been to her life and how much she loves us and it was just super awesome! We had an awesome dinner last night at the part member’s house. The kid who I’m with in the picture dressed as jack sparrow. It’s his house. That family is just really awesome I love being over there and being with them! Their kids are the greatest! It’s really crazy that Christmas is coming up so soon! Well that’s about all for this last week and a half. We had some good days and some not so good but that’s how it goes! I love you tons!!

We finally got pictures!!!!

 Kevin at the Provo Temple when he was staying in the MTC

                                                Elders at the MTC

Still an amazing artist!!!

 The view from the house where he is living.

 Yikes!!!!!!

 Kevin loves girls of ALL ages :)
(That's a soccer tatoo on his cheek)

Picture from the mission president's wife of Kevin getting his flu shot - does he look excited or what????

Oct 31 Email

So for this week! It was pretty eventful!

Tuesday: there was a new missionary meeting for the newer missionaries and so the district leader sent his greenie to go with a car full of missionaries and came with us for the day. It was pretty fun and we got to teach J again like every Tuesday. She just seems so much happier than she was when we first met her; it’s incredible. Anyways we planned on teaching her about the Word of Wisdom because we knew that she drinks coffee and tea. We got there and just talked for a bit and then she just said "oh yeah and I haven’t had coffee or tea for a week... why is it that we can’t drink those?" I was super shocked and we explained it and she accepted it and said she won’t drink either of them anymore! It was amazing! Our dinner that night fell through - luckily the district leaders’ dinner didn’t so we went with him! yay! After dinner the mom that lived there pulled out a bunch of stuff from a church class she took awhile back and taught us a ton about like how the temples were back in the day and about where the new temple is supposed to be built before Christ comes again and it was super awesome.

Wednesday: we went on exchanges and the district leader came with me to my area again and we had a very successful day. He interviewed the two girls for their baptisms and we got the program all figured out. We also got to visit two less actives we haven’t seen for a while, one of which actually let us come in and sit down and introduced us to his family, which he hasn’t done the last 3 times we had been there. I guess having the district leader with me was just good luck! We had a pretty full day and didn’t have much time to do anything else.

Thursday: was just a disappointing day but we did get lots of service in at the bishop storehouse because they had hardly anybody there helping and there were 89 orders to fill which is a lot above average.

Friday: we had president interviews and we just talked about better ways to bring in new investigators. We were there for a while because we gave two other elders a ride and had to wait for them to get finished. We then went and saw a member family and just checked in on how they were doing and if they needed anything from us and they were really nice. They are an awesome family! Later that night we went to go practice for this choir thing in Upland... well we got there and it turns out our zone leaders gave us the wrong date and so we sat there for a while and then called the APs and asked when it was and found out it was the next night... that took up the rest of our night.

Saturday!!! We woke up and got all ready for the baptism. I squeezed into my white baptism pants and we greeted everyone who came. It was a really good program. Brother J gave a talk on baptism that was really good and S’s nonmember brother read a scripture about baptism. It was really neat because there were a lot of non-members at the baptism from both families. After the talk I got the opportunity to baptize both S and M! It was a really good experience and afterwards you could just see how happy they were - it was really awesome. After that we just went and did some tracting and had lunch and everything and then that night we had our ward Halloween party! It was so much fun! I loved being with all the members! I sat down and got to know a lot of the youth that I hadn’t gotten a chance to really talk with at church and make friends with many of them. It was also awesome to see all the little kids in their costumes. I got lots of great pictures!

Well that’s pretty much all for this week! It was a really great week! I’m including pictures that I hope work this time! I love you!!

Oct 24 Email

Sounds like you’ve had a pretty busy week! That’s awesome that you get to talk in stake conference! I haven’t had to talk here yet but I’ve said the opening prayer in sacrament twice now. I’m sorry to hear Lyndsi was sick! Glad to know she’s better though. Yep Sister B is definitely a spiritual giant in this ward and I’m glad you’re going to get the opportunity to meet her! I can’t believe Stephen is leaving already! It’s crazy!

This last week was really good for part of it. We had lots of plans fall through and a couple of the days were just kind of bleh days. But on Saturday we went to see M, one of the 10 year olds getting baptized this Saturday, and we finished up the lessons with her and then we started asking her questions about who she wanted to do everything. We asked her who she wanted to have baptize her and she didn’t know. Then she asked if one of us could do it. We said we could and immediately after we said yes she pointed at me and said I want you to do it! It made my day and I’m really excited for this weekend now! Then on Sunday I was talking with S and her family (the other 10 year old) and her mom said that she wasn’t sure her grandfather would be able to make it to the baptism and that they wanted me to do hers. So I get to baptize both girls this Saturday!! I’m really excited about it. It’s going to be a good baptism! The only thing is that S’s family is from Hawaii and her full name is really long haha hopefully I get it right! 

We also got a new investigator which was a pretty cool story. We went to see a less active member we had never met and we knocked on the door and she wasn’t home but her non-member husband was and he invited us in, got us some water, and said if it was okay with us he wants to study with us and learn more about our religion. We talked for about 45 minutes then his wife got home and we found out she hasn’t been active in the church basically since she was baptized at 8 but she also wants to learn more. We set a date that they are going to feed us dinner and we are going to have a lesson also. It was really neat!

The last cool experience I had this week was on Saturday night we were about to go up to see a less active and a less active family popped into my head that was on the way and so I suggested we just drop by and see if they are home. Sure enough the mom was home who we had never met. Turns out it’s been quite awhile since she has been to church and she was talking about how she was taking care of her step father-in-law and he had passed away Thursday. It was very odd because we had studied Alma 40:11 that morning so we shared the scripture with her and she said that we were great missionaries because we had been an answer to her prayers because she wasn’t sure what would happen to her father-in-law after he died and that scripture answered it. It was a really awesome experience to see that and I know that the Spirit put their name in my mind and it wasn’t just a random thought. We also had a lesson on Wednesday with the couple that has a baptismal date but hasn’t been coming to church and we really pounded down why church is important and I told them that really if they wanted to get baptized it was really important that they are at church the next four weeks before they get baptized, annnndddd they came to church yesterday!! We actually had 5 investigators at church! It was all 5 with baptismal dates so that was very good. Other than that it’s been a pretty normal week. Sorry this email isn’t that long but I put in everything that was exciting/new about the week. This next week should be a really good one and then it will already be halfway through the transfer! I’m super nervous already because I don’t want to leave this area. Well I love you all so much and hope that everything is going great for you!!

Oct 17 Email

Sounds like your trip went really well!! Yeah I just saw that picture hahah. It wasn’t too bad (of Kev on the Mission Blog getting his flu shot)! My comp said that he hasn’t had any pictures of just him on the blog and I’ve had two already! haha I’m going to send my memory card home soon. It isn’t full yet but I have a cheap way to get it home and a very safe way... you’ll find out soon (: also you never told me that Sister E in my ward called you when she went to St George! She is a super awesome lady! She and her husband have the cutest little boy! hah it was weird because I found out a girl I was friends with in high school is her niece! Small world! Your letters are great. I loove them! It’s funny that you met some of the elders! I’ll have to try to find them now!

Well now for this last week.

So really this week up until Saturday was pretty much just a so-so week. Had a day that was just a bummer of a day where nothing happened. didn’t really get to teach many lessons.. Oh on Tuesday we did teach the 75 year old J and she is progressing like crazy! At first she had some objections to getting baptized and had some pretty strange ideas about things that had happened to her in the past but she is really just progressing really well and just understands everything almost better than I do. Her mind works really well and she completely understands scriptures that I had no idea what they meant and after she explained what she learned it just blew my mind! She is a painter and writes some books and I can see her in the future after her baptism sometime painting a VERY neat picture for the church about a story in the Book of Mormon or something like that or even writing a book that helps explain the Book of Mormon. It would be awesome! Then Wednesday we met with 10 year old S who this whole time I thought was 9... Woops. But yeah she and her mom are getting really excited for the upcoming baptism and her older brother who is about 13 told his mom that he wants to have a part in the baptism! He isn’t a member but goes to church with them and hopefully at the baptism we can talk to him about also taking the lessons! Thursday and Friday were ehh days BUT just a couple really neat spiritual experiences I had. First off, we made a goal to get 4 referrals and contact them all. Well part way through the week I was thinking "how can we reach this goal? We ask people for referrals but they don’t usually have any" so it was really up members and such to get referrals and I wasn’t sure how to reach the goal. Wellll what do you know. That night we got a phone call from some other elders and said they had 2 referrals for us! haha it was really great!

So I’m going to skip up to Saturday which was an awesoommee day! We taught 5 lessons! 2 to investigators, 2 to less actives and 1 to a guy preparing to go to the temple! One of the investigators it was our first real lesson with him and it went really well! I liked it because he asked some really deep questions and you could really explain things to him and it made sense to him. He really taught me a bit too just about some things that he believed. But awesome story… that morning I prayed that throughout the day that I could use the BofM to answer questions that people ask us. Well while we were teaching D and he was asking all these questions. Every single time he asked a question I immediately had a scripture come to mind. It was really awesome and I know that it wasn’t just me that my prayer really was being answered. The other investigator was the other 10 year old and we made it a really quick lesson and such because she has a very short attention span. The less-actives we actually called up a member to go with us because it is his home teaching family and he came and we had some good talks about church and just things going on. Then we went to his other home teaching family who is also less active and I’m not sure what they talked about because I was having a good conversation with her 11 year old son who isn’t a member who the missionaries worked with awhile back. So that was fun! Yeah I wish every day was like that with lots of lessons to teach! We are working on it.

Also on Sunday was the ward primary program and it was super cute! There was one little girl who stood in the front to sing and she wouldn’t hold still and she was singing SUPER loud! We were laughing so hard! I love primary programs! Also J the lady we are teaching absolutely loved it and came over and told us how much she loved the way the kids were being raised. I really love this ward I love all the little kids. After sacrament they all walked past me and I gave them all high fives haha. It’s also nice because there are a few families that are younger and the husbands are RM's of not tooo long and so it’s funny talking with them. I’m still pretty frustrated because we cants seem to get the less actives/investigators to make it to church. I just don’t really know what to do… oh well hopefully next week! I love you all and miss you!!

Oh also I forgot to mention..... I've gained 8 pounds!! hahaha

Oct 10 2011 Email

Well this week has really flown by! Last Tuesday we met with the lady we have been working with that we asked if she wanted to be baptized but said she had a few problems with the church. Well we taught her about personal revelation and how you can go to God with any question and He will answer you. We had a really good conversation and we talked about some of the Scriptures she had read and she got to Enos 1:27 and she started to cry and said that she had cried when she read it the first time and just how much she felt the Spirit when she read it. Then she just said that she thought about baptism a lot and she really does want to be baptized but not too soon. So we set a date for November 12th! We currently have 5 baptismal dates although 2 of them can’t happen which I will talk about in a little bit.
Wednesday it rained alllll day and it was awesome! I absolutely loved it! We worked at the Bishop’s storehouse again and its fun because I know a lot of the people that work there now so we just have a good time. After that we had our regular Wednesday appointment with S the 9 year old and she is still progressing toward baptism and her family is a lot more comfortable with us now and I got to talk to the son that’s a sophomore for a little bit and he doesn’t seem so nervous around us anymore. That night we visited some less actives and one of them we happened across said that he wishes he had never left the church and just doesn’t really know how to get back into it because it would have just been easier to stick to the normal LDS lifestyle than to leave and try to come back. We asked if we could stop by once a week though and just "practice teaching" the lessons so that we can get better and he happily accepted and said that he thinks his non member wife would like to sit in too! So that should be pretty good.
Thursday went great though we went around and tried to meet less actives. One lady let us into her house and was really nice but just hasn’t been to church because it was forced on her as a kid and she just hasn’t wanted to go back. We just got to know her and she loves to do embroidery or however you spell it and I was like "my mom loves to do that too!" She kind of opened up a little after that and she was fine with us coming over and it was a good thing we went at the time that we did because she said that she goes to sleep at 6 because she works at 3 in the morning in Orange County so we just happened to catch her at dinner which was 4 haha But yeah hopefully we will be able to visit with her a few more times. We went up by our house then and were trying to meet some other people and I had to go to the bathroom sooo we looked up a member’s house and decided to just stop by and use the bathroom, share a scripture thought, and ask for a referral. Well we knocked on the door, the lady answered and we just asked if we could use the bathroom and she just said "uhmmm yeah I guess... I don’t usually let people but I know what it’s like to go door to door." So we just thought okay sweet we get to use the bathroom. So I went to the bathroom and then came back and my comp used the bathroom and so I just talked with her and asked her what she did door to door and she sold Bible books for children, which is pretty neat and we just talked for a bit and I realized... this lady isn’t LDS... we then thanked her and were leaving and told us she wanted to give us some books so we were like alright. After she walked away from the door I told my comp that I didn’t think she was LDS but he just said he didn’t know and sure enough she brought back two 7th Day books. haha wow it was definitely interesting. Later that night we were supposed to go on splits but our appointments canceled and so did one of our members. The member we were with just asked what we normally do at night when we have nothing to do we told him sometimes we walk the streets and contact people at bus stops and stuff and so he was just like "alright let’s go!!" He turned out to be awesome!! He was soo good at talking to people it was insane and it taught me a lot! He would just walk up to a bus stop with people at it and say "hey how are you all doing? Would any of you like a card about Jesus?" and a couple would raise their hand and we would go talk to them and share our message with them. It was super awesome! We got 10 contacts (share a message about the church and leave a commitment such as call this number or look at this website) in 30 minutes which we had never done before! As of then I have loved street contacting and can do what he was doing. Not quite as well yet but I let people know what we are about and the people I’ve talked to seem at least more interested than ones we have contacted in the past.
Friday we had mission tour!! Elder Packer came and talked to us and it was awesomee!!!!!!!!! But.... it wasn’t THE Elder Packer. It was Elder Packer of the 70. President Packer’s nephew I think. It was still really cool though. It went from 8 in the morning till 4:30. He talked a lot about ways to become a better missionary, and a big one he focused on was dress and grooming. I’m doing fine though so it wasn’t really anything new or shocking to me. He also talked about how the mission president is called of God and we need to realize that he gets direction for our specific mission. It was good because he didn’t really beat around the bush about his topics really he just went right in and nailed them. After that is when I met Elder C my "brother" and waited for our flu shots. Yep they gave us flu shots, which is awesome! Lots of people actually didn’t get them but I decided it was worth it over getting the flu. My "brother" Elder C is really awesome and we are a lot alike. He is only one transfer older than me so he will be here for pretty much the whole time I am. I say brother because here with the companionships it’s like a family thing I guess. So my trainer is my father, my follow-up trainer is my mother, since my trainer trained someone already the last person he trained is my brother. My trainer’s trainer is my grandpa. It’s all just really crazy haha.

After that we went to visit a member that we visit every week who is still struggling with things. We were sitting in the car before going and wondering what we should teach her that would really help her and Elder T gave an idea but it didn’t really feel right and then I got the idea that it would be good to talk about the atonement. He didn’t really seem like he wanted to but when we went up and just started teaching her she led it into the atonement perfectly by talking about her struggles. She’s had and then she said something along the lines of "I’m trying to do better and I’ve repented why is it still so hard and why do I have to always feel this kind of pain?" So I just started in with the Atonement and she really liked what we had to say! It was a really good lesson and she just takes things in so well! Later that night we did a little bit more street contacting. It wasn’t quite so good but I still enjoyed it and we got a few contacts.
Saturday was good because everywhere we went I felt like it was the right place for us to be. We finally contacted a guy we have been trying to get a hold of and turns out he is really cool we talked for a bit and then he asked "so with your church how do they want the world to be? What do they want for the world?" We thought about it for a minute then I just said "well our church is all about family and what we would really like is a world that would be like a giant family." It was definitely the right answer he was looking for. He opened up and totally agreed and apparently that’s really what he wants for the world too.   He hates all the garbage in the world and the way people disrespect others. He thinks that "we are all humans and we should all just love each other and get along." We get to go back next Saturday and talk to him a little more. Also Saturday morning we got to attend a wedding in the Bishops office! Those two people we have been teaching that want to be baptized but couldn’t because they weren’t married are now married! But sadly they haven’t been to church enough to be baptized... So we just have to work on that now. Not really anything else to exciting for Saturday or Sunday.. yeah it was a good week though and went by really fast. We got transfer calls this morning only 1 person is leaving from my district and our district leader is going to be training somebody so I won’t be the newest in the district anymore! nah I’ve had multiple people tell me that if they didn’t already know I was a greenie that they wouldn’t think I was. That is always a good thing to hear. But yep that’s all for this week! I love you sooo much!!

Oct 3 2011 Email

Well this is the last week of my first transfer! Because of the new training program we are 100% guaranteed to stay in our area and with our trainer for 2 transfers so I’ll be here in Colton for at least 1 more transfer.

This week really wasn’t the best as far as mission work goes. So I’m not going to do the day by day because not a whole lot happened. I did get to see and talk with Elder S last Monday for a while during our zone football game and a little after and that was really good. Our FHE appointment canceled when we got there so that was pretty disappointing. As the dad was telling us that he would have to reschedule his little girls started to cry because they wanted us to play games with them haha it was cute. Tuesday we did absolutely nothing. We had district meeting, a big meeting with President G to see how the new missionaries are doing, went to pep boys again to get our brakes fixed and that took almost 3 hours, went to dinner kinda late, and by the time dinner was done we had to be home. It was lame. Wednesday we had a couple of good lessons. We taught the older lady J and asked if she wanted to be baptized and she said that she’s getting there she just doesn’t agree with a couple things like how "we don’t accept gays" sooo we are going to have to help her see that there’s just some things we kind of frown upon. After her we went to see the 9 year old S who is getting baptized and we taught her the 10 commandments with hand symbols for all of them. They changed the date of the baptism to one day earlier! haha yay! After that we went and helped an older member move from Colton to Grand Terrace. Everything was going pretty well except one lady was wearing sandals and she went to push the garage door up but it was one that comes out first and then up and it caught her toenail and ripped it straight up in the air. It was realllly nasty. Thursday we got to meet with a referral we got that was supposedly golden. Turns out they are in the Bloomington ward boundaries though. We went and met with them anyways because we had an appointment and they were pretty neat but had a couple weird experiences. Such as there is a ghost living in their house but don’t worry it’s a nice ghost. haha We told them about conference and hopefully they got to watch it. We then went to go see the recent convert that has been struggling pretty bad and it turns out he got locked up for a night and it had kinda turned things around. He got into an adult school so he can finish off getting his credits to get his diploma and he asked if we could come see him again this next week. Hopefully everything is still going well. We had dinner after and then went to see T and her husband. T being the one that was baptized last month. And taught a little more about the restoration and cleared up anything that was unclear and went a little more in depth on it. She really enjoyed it and it’s really fun going over to see them because they are so neat! Friday was a great day! Elder T and his trainer got to go to the LA temple and see someone they baptized get married. So I went with Elder T from Salt Lake to some visits. He is in the Samoan Ward and it was super awesome! We met with these 3 guys who are all pretty close to being drafted into the NFL and met with a recent convert who was really awesome. He is also the zone leader so we had to go pick up supplies and take them around to each companionship which took up a lot of time. But it was a really fun day. After we switched back companions we ate dinner and then went to see a lady who’s been really nice to us and we are trying to work with. When we pulled up she was outside with all her neighbors sitting around and she was preeetttyyy tipsy from her wine. Everybody else was fine and she came and had us sit down with them. All the neighbors were really nice to us but one and she just pretended we weren’t there. Oh well though hah we had a good talk and then left and went home. Saturday and Sunday were devoted to conference ha. Saturday for both sessions we were at the stake center with a bunch of missionaries and then for Priesthood session Brother J gave us a ride along with two other young men in the ward and then after that he took us to dinner along with two other people from the ward and it was really fun. Sunday we watched the first session at the house we are staying at and the second with a really cool member. Conference was definitely amazing and I got a lot more out of it here on the mission. I loved Elder Holland’s talk in Priesthood Session it was sooo good! I also loved Tad R. Callister’s talk on Sunday morning about the Book of Mormon and also Elder Cook’s talk about tragedy on Sunday afternoon. It seemed like the general focus of this conference was service, missions and being worthy/sticking to our morals. It was really good and I got a lot of notes! Well that’s really about it for this last week! I love you so much and am so glad to have all the support!

Sept 26 2011 Email

Monday- it was Pday so I did all the normal things. Laundry, went to the store, wrote home, we got to go a member’s house and practice on their very out of tune piano and wrote letters and all. We ate dinner at a member’s house and they gave us steaks that were really awesome. After dinner we went to a recent convert’s house and taught her and her husband and three little girls about FHE. We had a little lesson and a game and they all loved it and we are going back again tonight! After that we went to see one of our investigators who was having surgery on her eye the next day and talked to her for a bit and told her about blessings and she said she wanted one. So we gave her one and she seemed to like it. She is an awesome investigator and we are getting really close to baptism with her.

Tuesday- We had a district meeting which went pretty good my district is pretty awesome. After that and lunch we went to see a recent convert who has really been struggling badly. He is getting back into bad habits from before he was baptized and he is to the point where he said he doesn’t even want to think about God or church or anything because he feels too guilty. He said being good is just too hard and he wants to take an easy path. We tried to tell him that eventually his easy path is going to end and it will be even harder than just staying on the good path. He is a good kid though and he always loves to see us and he comes over to talk to us. I just wish we could do more but it’s really all up to him at this point. We had another member dinner after that. And after dinner we went to another recent convert’s house and talked to him more about serving a mission and about the Holy Ghost and did a little studying out of Preach my Gospel. After that we had to head home early and get ready for exchanges!

Wednesday- we had exchanges and I went with the district leader to his area which is just above ours. It was a pretty great day even though we didn’t get a whole lot done. I learned a lot from him and since that I’ve been doing a lot better on my tracting. We tried to go see a lot of less actives but all of them were gone except one who Elder M said he hadn’t been able to get a hold of in the 5 months he’s been here. She was sitting on her front porch and she talked to us about how she’s not really doing too well. She has a problem with her legs and she can’t really walk and the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her and she is having some marriage problems. Elder M asked if there was anything we could do for her and she asked for a blessing. Elder M gave it and it was really good. She was tearing up pretty good afterwards and she said she loved that feeling. After visiting with her we left and had no success anywhere else so we went back to the apartment and a member brought dinner to the four of us staying there. It was just Burger King but it was still pretty good. We exchanged back after a little while and went to bed.

Thursday- went to the Bishop’s Storehouse and did service again and Thursday was pretty slow but it was okay still. We ended up tracting for most of the day because plans fell through but we ended up with 11 contacts and the daily goal is 10 so we did alright at that! But yeah really it was just kind of a disappointing day. We had a recent convert lessons which we ended up not really teaching a ton but answered a lot of questions that she had still. She is way awesome. She is the one who got baptized on the 10th. When we got home it was awesome because I had a package!!! It was the first one I’ve got in Cali! It was from Brian and had some goodies and a tie and a few other things. I’m actually wearing the tie right now! Yeah it was a good surprise.

Friday- Friday was probably more disappointing than Thursday haha. We knocked on probably 40 doors and only had about 5 contacts. It was pretty awful. We got to go do a little BofM study thing with a single mom and her two kids. The mom just went through the temple for the first time a week and a half ago and it went pretty well. She’s a really funny lady. When dinner time finally rolled around we went to this Asian couple’s house and they gave us salmon which tasted pretty good. And the husband kept telling us over and over about how the doctors he works with have an obsession with this nurses shoes and he talked about shoes the ENTIRE dinner. It was really funny but kind of odd. After dinner we had an appointment with that single dad who was "Golden" and he wasn’t home. It was extra disappointing because we had a member there to teach with us. So we went to plan B and went to see the Jacobs family who is a really cool family. Almost all the kids are baptized but they don’t go to church and the only reason the mom doesn’t go is because they don’t have a car so we have been trying to set up rides for her but she always has an excuse. We went there and it turns out that her husband who we haven’t met yet and the member we were with are good friends so they talked for most of the time and then we just talked a little about scripture reading and how much it does for us. It went pretty well.

Saturday- Saturday was quite the adventure. We went to pep boys to get our brakes replaced and we were there for 2 1/2 hours but before they can do repairs they have to get a hold of our vehicle coordinator and it was her Pday. so they know what’s wrong now but they couldn’t fix it yet so they put it back together and we get to go in this week and wait for another 2 1/2 hours. yayy... after we finally left though we went to the house of the two people I talked about that are planning on getting married and can’t get baptized until they do get married. We taught a good lesson about Joseph Smith and the boyfriend said that he really does want to get baptized so we set the date for both of them to get baptized on October 22nd. Now if that sticks that’d be awesome but I’m not sure if it will. We then went to pick up dinner because the person signed up to do it called and canceled. After dinner we went to see a referral we got but hadn’t been able to get a hold of and they were home! But she said it was a bad time so we just talked for a little bit she was really nice and we asked if there was any kind of service we could do and she said she will need help taking things to the DI sometime soon and would love it if we could help! So yeah it was pretty good!

Sunday- Sundays are really fun days to tract I found out. Everyone is in a spiritual mood and pretty happy it was fun and we got to talk to quite a few people. One lady waved us over to her and when we got there she told us about how her granddaughter stole her wallet with all the money in it and drivers license and asked if we could keep her in her prayers. We agreed and talked for a couple minutes and then she confessed and said "I thought you were the police who were supposed to be coming over here and after I waved you over my husband said no that’s the Mormons. But I said oh well they can help to pray for me" haha it was really funny. We were pretty tired though because it was fast Sunday so we decided to go visit the senior villas and we went to see some members who haven’t been capable of making it to church for a while. We just got to talk with them and we could tell they loved the company. One of the ladies said she hardly ever gets visitors even though her kids live pretty close. She isn’t even that old just can’t walk and is in kinda bad shape. She talked to us for a good hour and half about her life and all and it was nice just to see that she was glad we were there. After that we finally got to go eat dinner at a member’s house. It was a really good dinner and the members were pretty nice and somewhat talkative. After dinner we went and followed up on our second counselor’s family to see if they gave out the pass-along card we gave them. It turns out that their 4 year old and 7 year old have been showing it to their friends! haha what awesome kids right? We gave them another one because the 7 year old wanted to give it to a friend. We ended up with brownies and had a good little scripture thought. After we left we went to contact some less actives but didn’t get a hold of anybody so we came home.

All in all it was a pretty good week and went by pretty fast. This next week I’m hoping is pretty good too. Thanks for all you do and your support! I love you all tons!

Sept 19th Email

Well this week went alright. Last Monday night we went out to dinner with the first counselor and his family and it was really good. They are a funny family! They have a 17 year old son and a 19 or 20 year old daughter. Their son M and I had a lot of the same interests so we talked for a little while while Elder T talked to Brother B. After dinner we were on our way to see a recent convert that was kind of going downhill but we got a call from Sister J (whose home we live in) and she asked if we could go to the Loma Linda hospital and give a blessing to an older lady that had recently been sent there. We turned around and went over to Loma Linda which is actually not part of our mission but part of the Redlands mission. It was a really good experience. I didn’t give the blessing but Elder T said I have to give the next one. After that it was time to head back to the house so we went and planned for the next day.

Tuesday was kinda extremely boring. We had new missionary orientation from 9-4 and it was terribbleee. It was pretty much everything I’d already learned on my own while being out here. Anyways after that we went back to our area and decided to go see the recent convert that’s been struggling since we hadn’t been able to the day before. We got there and he wasn’t home but most of the rest of his family was. We talked to his mom who is less active for about an hour and a half and tried to show her the importance of going to church and she said she didn’t want to make her son think she was just going to try to make him go. We told her that that shouldn’t stop her from getting the blessings of going to church and that if she just told him that it’s his choice if he wants to go but that she is going with or without him that it wouldn’t be a problem. She said she did want to go to church so she said she would go on Sunday... she didn’t, but her son came! It was really good. We hadn’t really had a chance to meet him yet and it was a little nerve racking because I guess with the other missionaries he hasn’t been too friendly or nice to them but he was way nice to me and every time he saw me he would come over and shake my hand and say hi so I guess either the other elders were crazy or what. After our visit with his mom we went to dinner at a member’s house (the members here are awesome about feeding us. We have had 2 days that no one fed us dinner and the calendar for the rest of the month and most of October is full.) They were a really cute family. They had a four year old girl and an 18 month old girl and they were just way cute! They were both showing off for us and just being really funny. The dad was extremely quiet and the mom was really chatty and nice. We had a good conversation and left with a scripture thought about being an example to those who aren’t our religion. We left and decided to try to contact a kid who we tried every day for the first week to get a hold of and we finally caught him at home. He is a recent convert and is super awesome. Apparently he had been out of town at his dads and had been going to the ward over there. We talked to him about possibly serving a mission and he said its definitely been on his mind but he is trying to decide between that and going into the military. We just told him all the greatness that comes from serving a mission and that he should pray about it. That’s all we really had time for that day.

Wednesday we got to go serve at the Bishop storehouse. I’m not sure if I told you that we did that last week? But yeah they have the big warehouse here so we went and did service there. It was mostly getting food into orders that people wanted so that they could ship it out to them. We do that every Wednesday from about 9 - 1 and the next two weeks we will be going Wednesday and Thursdays because the people in charge are going to be gone. After bishop storehouse we had an appointment with 9 year old S who is getting ready to be baptized. We just talked about different commandments. Her mom is a less active member and the rest of the family is non members. Now today was definitely interesting after this point. We decided to go OYMing (open your mouth) at a bus stop. We talked to a few people and one lady seemed extremely interested. We started out by giving her a pass along card and then she kept being interested so we gave her a restoration pamphlet and she KEPT being interested and we ended up actually giving her a Book of Mormon! She was really appreciative and said she would start reading it with her husband and if she had any questions she would call us. We haven’t gotten a call yet... but we keep hoping that she will sometime. Her bus came and she got on and left and these two black guys got off the bus and came over and one of them was like "PRAISE JESUS! How ya doin’ brothers? Did ya’ll know that there’s more than one Jesus?" We looked at each other and I said "nope that’s news to me." So he whips out this tiny bible and shows some scripture that if you twisted it ALOT it might make sense. But really it was pretty ridiculous. We talked to these guys for 45 minutes and every time they thought something about our church was wrong we found somewhere in the scriptures that showed we weren’t wrong but they weren’t listening much they basically just said "all you have to do is rely on the Bible and on Jesus. No other books or prophets or nothin." We had to leave though so we thanked him for the talk and told him had to go and he was pretty chill about it. Oh also the two guys were high as can be. hahaha It was really funny. We then went back to the house where a member brought us some food. We ate it and just relaxed for a while then decided to go to a less active family. They were home and listened to our message about why church is important and said they had been thinking about going to church this week. (Which they didn’t) They just have struggles. Their son died a few years ago and the father had a stroke sometime in the past and is partly paralyzed including speech so all he can say is yes, no and sheesh. It went pretty well but like I said they ended up not coming to church. After we decided to go to a bus stop again and this is where the night gets pretty interesting. We park and walk through the parking lot when we see this guy taking a picture of this lady at her old beat up van so as we pass we look in to see what he’s taking a picture of and what do you know. There’s a donkey in the back of the van! We talked to the lady for about 10 minutes and found out for the last 11 years she has been "saving donkeys" or "beasts of burden as the scriptures call them" and how she has saved 15 in the last 11 years. From where I’m not so sure.... I don’t tend to see donkeys just wandering down the streets anywhere. But anyways of course being missionaries we start talking about Jesus and she says "yeah me and Jesus are on a good note with each other. I’ve only done one thing bad in my life anyways." and I’m thinking wow! Only one thing!? She’s doing awesome! Way better than me at least! And she says after a pause. "Yeah I killed a guy." unexpected? Yes very much so. She continued. "Yeah like 6 weeks ago... I think he was trying to rob me and so I hit him and he fell and his head went sllleeechhtt" so yeah... if you see an old van with a donkey in the back and a crazy looking lady driving watch out she’s a killer! hahah It was quite the unexpected story!

 Thursday was pretty boring especially after the day before. The only thing really awesome that happened was that while we were tracting we knocked on a door and a lady answered, looked at us, and said "shoot you found me." She let us in and we found out she used to be a member but since she moved into her house ten years ago she hasn’t been to church at all. She struggles with smoking so she feels guilty and all when she does go to church but we had a really good visit with her. She gave us cake and water and we asked if she had anybody that she knew that might be interested in what we have to teach and she said that her friend might! We are now going to go back to her house this Friday to teach her friend and she said if we can get her friend to go to church she will 100% for sure go back with her friend! So hopefully all goes well. I know we didn’t end up there by accident. That’s really all that happened on Thursday worth mentioning.

Friday we got to teach a guy we tracted into a couple weeks earlier. He is a single dad with two kids. An 11 year old boy and an 8 year old girl and they mean the world to him. You can tell how much he loves his kids when you’re around them. We taught him about how the gospel blesses families and gave personal experiences about the blessings we have gotten from the gospel. He said he is really looking around for a church that can teach his kids how to grow up and be good people and he loves how the Mormons are all so nice and like a big family. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him to read 3 Nephi 11 and pray to know if the BofM is true and if what we taught is true... Next time we teach him we asked if it would be alright if the kids joined us so they could learn to and he was all for the idea! He seems golden and I hope that we can help him to understand why it’s so important to be a member of the church and come closer to Christ.

Saturday morning we had an appointment at 9 with a couple that the girlfriend has already said she wants to be baptized but the boyfriend wasn’t sure. He doubted his faith. But we went and had a good lesson on faith and he said he has had a lot of trials in the last week and he has seen that his faith has grown. I asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said YES! He just said he wants to pray about it first to know if it really is the right thing to do. the only problem is that they aren’t really financially stable and they need to get married before they can get baptized for some reason but they can’t get the $75 they need to get married so once that gets worked out everything should fall into place. The rest of Saturday was really pretty disappointing and I was a little bit down but I made it through the rest of the day.


Well now it’s Pday and hopefully it goes pretty good. We are going to go to a member’s house in the ward later to practice piano and write our letters. Well I love you all lots! Also I’m not sure if you heard about the story with Travis but it’s really cool! If you haven’t heard ask grandma! And only Devon lives in my mission.. Everyone else is in the Redlands mission. And about BYU getting beat.. yeah we were at the house and the J’s were watching it  so we could hear what was going on... it was brutal.