Email July 28 2013

Well like I said last week emailing is kind of a task now. I just would rather tell you in person but I’m going to highlight the best parts of the week.

-Had a couple really good lessons with a kid named W who we started teaching 2 weeks ago, he is visiting his cousin for a month or so and was just adopted by his grandma and wants to get baptized so that will happen on Sunday. That day will be full. 9:00-12:00church, baptism from 3-4 (gotta start prepping at 2), be in R by 4:30 for a dinner and my departing devotional. It will be my last day to work and we are having a baptism :) doesn't get better than that :)

-Had another investigator A who was progressing great but after our lesson Saturday he told us he couldn't do more of the church stuff right now. We were really confused and tried to get him to tell us what it was but he just said it needs to be his choice and it was nothing to do with us. So we were really bummed because he was going to get baptized the week after I left. Well we were sitting at church and guess who sits down by me. It’s A! So I guess we are still going to teach him! If it’s something that he wants he could actually be baptized on Sunday also. It’s pretty great!

-the beginning of our week was really good and then it just kind of fell apart. This next week we have some really good plans to actually have a lot of lessons. I’m glad it worked out this way because it’s looking like this is going to be the best week of my mission and it’s the last one!

Well that's about it! I love you tons and ill talk to you next Tuesday!

Email July 15 2013

 Well it has been a crazy day today.  Our truck had a "system failure" while we were driving so we had to pull off to the side and walk to the stake center which luckily wasn't too far away. The whole truck just freaked out and we thought we were going to die haha We just had a tow truck come take it. The dumb thing is that we told them we were almost back to our truck and they said they were on their way... an hour later we called and they said they would be another 20 min so we wasted over an hour of our pday waiting for the truck. So that was no fun. But this last week has been pretty great!

My birthday and the baptism were great! J made us breakfast and it was super good! I don't get a good breakfast very often. I’ve had maybe 5 real breakfasts in the last 2 years. And for lunch a couple took us to Red Robin and they sang to me and gave me free ice cream! We had 2 cool miracles happen. 1. on our way to the baptism N called and told us about a really good friend she started talking to again and she had started going to church with another friend so N said "well if you’re going to start going to church you should come with me!" So her friend came to her baptism and to church the next day and we will hopefully start teaching her this week! The baptism was great. I was able to baptize her and the turnout was great! The next day we had miracle number 2. Elder N has been sick and it attacked his voice so when he woke up he couldn't talk hardly at all. He was supposed to confirm her in church so we went to J’s and we gave Elder N a blessing that his voice would be okay for the blessing that day. When it got time for him to do his thing he spoke almost perfectly and then lost his voice again after that. The Power of the Priesthood.

We got a few referrals last week that we are going to check out this week and hopefully see some success. The only thing that is lame now is that unless we get a random move in of someone who is just ready to get baptized, then everyone we find now I won’t be here for the baptism because they have to come to church 3 times. We got some good news though. They are doing the departing devotional a week early so everyone in my group can do it together! Half of us are going home on the 6th so it would have been small if they did it with the remaining 4. But yeah. It’s been a good week! I love you tons!

EMail July 10 2013

 To Mom: 

3 things first

1. That car looks great! Thank you so much!
2. If you may recall Elder R was my MTC companion! My first comp. on my mission! haha He is a great missionary and we will be flying home together.
3. I fly out of Ontario August 6th at 3:00 our time because that morning is a Zone meeting that Elder Nn and I have to do for our zone. So we will have zone meeting and go straight to the airport haha

So we have some great news from this week! First off I’m emailing Wednesday instead of Monday because we had Zone Conference and President Interviews on Monday. So last week N finally texted us and asked if we could come over so we got the relief society president and went over and N said she has been thinking a lot about her baptism and she wants to do it. So she is getting baptized this Saturday at 7:00 :) On my birthday! :) We are really excited for her and it’s been a rough week this week because Satan is really trying to keep her away but the whole relief society presidency went over and took her some homemade Jam and just told her how excited they were for her. It made a big difference.

We had a few other neat things happen. We had a training last week about better contacting and actually have conversations with people not AT them. So on the 4th of July we got to go to J’s brother’s house in C (now part of the mission) and he had some of his non member neighbors over and a PM family that were really good friends with them. We spent a bit of time just talking to them. We played soccer a little bit with the PM family’s dad who isn't a member but we totally thought he was but had a great conversation with him. Then later I ended up talking to one of his neighbors and amazing things happened! I was just making easy conversation and he asked if I live here so I took that opportunity to tell him a little about missions but he just changed subject so I went along with it and asked him about his home in T where he moved from and about his family and all of a sudden he started asking me questions first about missions, then about the church! Just from having a good conversation it changed and they opened up ways to share the gospel. A couple days later we went to help J at his house and his brother F came over (the one whose house we had been at) and I was helping him clean out J’s garage and he told me that he really appreciated us talking to the non members at his house and how every time he turned around it seemed like we had just been gravitating to the non members. He also said how much more comfortable he was now to try to talk to his neighbors about the Gospel. We had a good talk for a bit about missions and how to make the work move faster and then we ended up a few minutes later going over to J’s neighbors house to see how they had redone their backyard and made it look like old school wild west.  It was really really awesome and F and I were talking to one of the brothers that was showing us the house and he asked if we were Mormon and we just were able to talk to him a little about it and found out his brother is taking lessons in … and getting ready to be baptized. Then it clicked that we were talking to the brothers of C  who was someone who told us to come back and teach her but had gone to college. Her brothers were just as nice and willing to let us come back so we are going to go over to teach them hopefully tomorrow! It was quite the miracle!

 Those are pretty much the highlights of our week! We had some good experiences and are just continuing to look for people to teach. The R mission has banned tracting and from what I hear ours is about to do the same. It’s a good thing though because its soooo ineffective. Well I love you tons and can’t wait to see you In a couple of weeks!

To Dad:

I can finally buy beer!!! haha well on Saturday I can ;) hah 21 Birthday doesn't mean a whole lot in our church. We have had a great week! N is getting baptized on Saturday and Js confirmation went really really well. He just fits right in with the ward. He is a goofy guy but just makes people laugh which is good for everyone to do. On the 4th of July we went to a parade in the morning with … and his family and it was really fun. There were a lot of people in it and it was about 2 hours long. We also had pretty much the best dinner ever at J’s house a couple days later. We had been doing service from 1-5, and chopping through rock solid dirt and digging a ditch for sprinklers and moving things around a really big garage. So we went to dinner and because of lack of time weren't able to go change before dinner so we washed down a little bit with his hose in the backyard and just went with no shoes. We ate outside under a covered area and had some awesome Mexican food. It was just really relaxing. It’s been so so so awesome to see how strong of a member J has become since choosing to come back to church and get his priesthood back. I think that is pretty much all that wasn't in the other email. Had some really great miracles this week which just go to show that God still does love us today :) I hope you have a great week! I love you!

Email June 30 2013

To Mom:  It got hot everywhere it sounds like. it was around 107-110 lately and our AC doesn't work very well and we live upstairs so we had a couple nights of not much rest. But last night was great! It cooled off a lot and even rained for a little bit so we got some good sleep!

Right now we don't have much work. So we are focusing this week on visiting members and less actives. During our weekly planning we prayed about who we should see and came up with a list of about 11 people that we will work with this week. We will let you know how it goes! I’m looking forward to the 4th of July here! It will be fun! Also yesterday a man who recently got his priesthood back spoke in church and did an absolutely amazing job. I wish that I could reach the level that he is on right now. He is truly converted to the Gospel. For him it took him through some pretty low points to get there but he is there and that is what matters.

There isn't too much to say for this week. It was good but didn't see a ton of fruit yet. Sadly we helped the G family move this week which was an awesome family who I liked a lot. They reminded me so much of Becky and Joey. Like a ton. They even have 2 little boys ages 3 and 5 so pretty close to Hailey and Kaitlyn. A few people have moved out which has been sad but some new people are moving in who seem great. I love you a ton and miss you but will see you in a few weeks!

To Dad:  I really like those pictures! It is sooo pretty there! I miss the ocean a lot. Someday I want to travel the world to see all the most beautiful and amazing places here. It was a pretty good week sort of. haha kind of weird.

We had transfers which was full of anxiety since we didn't know what was going on but I stayed here with Elder N so that was good. Elder U sadly isn't in the mission anymore but I got to say goodbye last week and we are going to hang out after the mission.

 We had our baptism yesterday which went great but only J got baptized.  Other than that not much else really new has happened this week. We got some new missionaries in the zone but a couple of them were like "oh great..." but we got some good ones. Like Elder D is in our zone now which made me super happy! He is doing fantastic and going to do well in the ward he is in. Also Elder G and C got a surprise and got to stay together for a third transfer which doesn't usually happen when you train. They also got a third companion who was in San B with me and he is awesome! His name is Elder H and the three of them together make a great team. They are using their tripanionship perfectly! One of them will go to an appointment with a member while the other ones work around the area so they are doing twice the work. They are a huge relief to have in the zone because of how diligent they are. Sadly at this transfer we lost one of the best missionaries in the mission who was doing awesome. But I can’t complain we got him one transfer longer than he was supposed to have.

So that was our week! This week we will be focusing on finding and visiting tons of members and sharing what we learned at the broadcast last week! I love you tons! Have a fun week!

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!

Email Mar 10 2013

Well this week was alright. We taught quite a few less actives and they went really well. Tuesday we had exchanges and I went into the Spanish ward. It was pretty fun and I was with a missionary from Mexico City. Luckily I can understand Spanish pretty well when I really try. I just can’t speak back to them in Spanish. It was neat being able to hear the conversion story of the missionary I was with. He hasn’t been a member for very long.

Wednesday we saw a couple of people and then got a call to come help do some service. We helped do some plumbing and electrical. So I now know how to do electrical. A little. haha I could probably do it if I had a little bit of help. Then we had FHE with the YSA branch and they did a carnival type activity which was pretty fun. Then we went to our ward and played indoor soccer with some non-members which was pretty fun. I don’t think they had much fun though haha. We are going to start having a lot of people coming which will be great.

Thursday we had ZLC which lasted from 11-5. After that we had an appointment with one of the less-actives we have been working with. He is doing awesome! He has been to church every week since we started teaching him and he is working on getting the priesthood.

Friday we had to take 2 missionaries to 2 different doctor’s appointments then drive to R to pick up another missionaries stuff she left in the back of a missionary car. By the time we finished that it was almost 3 so we went to try to see R. The guy I tracted into a while back to see how he is doing. We set up an appointment for Wednesday. Then we went home and Elder B had a headache so he went to sleep while I organized the area book.

Saturday we did weekly planning which took awhile and then helped someone move some boxes to a storage shed. After dinner we met with our ward mission leader and went over how we can change our ward council to be more beneficial and run the way that it is supposed to.

Sunday was really awesome. Sister Reeves, the 2nd counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency spoke in our ward! She spoke mainly to the youth about how they are the rising generation but it was neat to have her there. We only stayed at our ward until Sunday School was done then we went to our branch for branch council and met with the branch mission leader and then had church from 1-4 and linger longer from 4-5, then dinner from 5-6 and started working on our trainings after that.

Some things I have learned from being on my mission. There is a lot. haha

-Do all you can and the Lord does the rest.

-Miracles truly happen if you have the faith.

-When things happen, learn from it, don’t dwell on it and use it as an excuse.

-Charity is necessary to be a good leader

-I have a lot of weaknesses on my own but the spirit makes up for them as I teach.

-The atonement of Jesus Christ means EVERYTHING. It can be applied in any situation. We would have no hope without it. We would be miserable without it. There would be no purpose to life. The atonement is what makes us strong. It’s what carries us through our hard times and through our struggles. I don’t know where I would be without it.

Important things that have benefitted me

-I know the Gospel 1000 times better than I used to.

-I understand the importance of scripture study.

-I know how not to handle hard situations

-Christ-like attributes have all gone up.

-Being independent. (Not depending on family to live)

-Having powerful members to look up to.

Those are just a few of them but I know there are a lot more. That is a good question though and I will have to continue to think about it.

Hopefully you have a less crazy week! I love you!

Email Mar 3 2013

(This was in response to questions about training…)Well they do need new trainers but the thing is. The new missionaries coming out are all either Spanish or sisters. The amount of English Elders is staying the same so it’s not too much of a demand. But next transfer we are getting another Elder Graff! haha I don’t know what his name is or where he is from though but I just think it’s funny.

 I did have a couple cool stories this week.

 1st. We were playing basketball with some youth on Wednesday night after a meeting and I went up for a rebound and got hit in the back of the arm and dislocated my shoulder! Not very bad though and I just looked at it out of place and just pushed it back where it was supposed to be. We went to the chiropractor a few days later and he did a little adjusting and its feels a little better. Still pretty tender though.

2nd. Because of our lack of people to teach and me wanting to find a family to teach really bad I fasted to find a family. Well Sunday morning at 7 we had ward council where our bishop informed us of a family that lives in our area that was going to a ward in Rancho but is going to start coming to our ward. 6 people, non-members. Also a member of our ward who is one of my favorite people in the ward who I respect a ton. went to do his home teaching and one family had moved and so he talked to the new family that moved in and they don’t have a church yet so he invited him to ours and to play soccer with us on Wednesday nights and he said he would love to! They are a family of 7. haha the Lord works in mysterious ways :)

3rd. We went back to that family I tracted into and dropped off a Book of Mormon that we had one of our members write their testimony in and he said he is still interested and we are going back to hopefully teach him this week! Pray that his heart is softened!

4th. We got to go to the CES broadcast of David A Bednar’s talk and it was REALLY good. About submitting to God’s will and putting your trust in him through your trials. You should watch it if you get a chance.

 

Things are going alright still and hopefully picking up. I don’t have enough time left to waste any of it. I love you tons and look forward to hearing from you next week!

Email Feb 25 2013

YAY I was accepted! That’s awesome! haha I’m still going to USU though so go ahead and sign up for classes. This week has been kind of crazy. At transfer meeting we found out we are not only covering the MV ward but also the C YSA branch that covers only the stake. Soo we have a little extra work there. President doesn’t really want us to spend much of our time there though because he wants us to focus on the family ward so that’s what we are going to do. We went to sacrament at the YSA branch though yesterday and to a meeting before that. So we had our family ward meeting at 7, sacrament at 9, Sunday school at 10:15, YSA meeting at 11:00, Sacrament at 1, appointments at 3, and 4, dinner at 5, appointment at 6:30. It was a busy day but I felt like it was a blessing from the Lord. Other neat things from this week as you already heard. Our mission is getting split and they are creating a new mission! It’s really crazy!  The funny thing is that it’s changing on July 1. So I will have a new mission president and a new mission for the last 4 weeks of my mission haha kind of funny.

We also saw a few miracles this week such as we went to see a less active who someone in the bishopric told us to go see but he said not to tell him that he sent us. Well as soon as we got out of our truck he was standing in the front yard and asked if we were looking for him and invited us in. He was disfellowshipped many years ago and was kind of stubborn about coming back well he told us that he was ready. He has had a change of heart and is ready to be back. He said it kills him every time he does go to church and he can’t take the sacrament. That’s a good sign. So we are going to be working with him and re teaching him the lessons. He also came to church on Sunday! That was a nice surprise!

So we get to the S’s and they let us in and what do you know. Last time I challenged them to bring a friend to the next lesson and guess what! They did it! We taught a really good restoration lesson and the friend was asking awesome questions like "Well how are WE supposed to know what church is right," right before we talked about Joseph Smith. She was listening and being involved and it was just really awesome. She ended up as a new investigator and she promised to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She seems like she might be pretty solid too! So that was a really neat experience!

Also one last thing! There were 4 children being baptized on Saturday and Elder B and I were asked to do a little talk while the kids were getting changed. Well we got there and one of the kids who we had taught because his family was partially less active was getting baptized and he doesn’t have a father in the picture. Well turns out he wanted me to baptize him! So I had a baptism pretty randomly haha It went really well and had a good turnout. Anyways that’s about all for this week! I love you so much! Have a great week!

Email Feb 11 2013

Guess what I ate this week! OCTOPUS! Little baby ones! We went to an investigator’s house and he offered them to us and I thought what the heck why not?! So I ate one! Eyes, brain, tenticles and everything haha it was awesome! We had a pretty slow week until Sunday which I will talk about in a little bit. Earlier in the week though we met with our investigator C who just needed to stop smoking and she talked about her meeting she had with Bishop D and she said that was it, she was done smoking and she WOULD be baptized on Feb 16. So instead of teaching the lesson we had planned we started getting her baptism ready! Took us a little by surprise we didn’t think we were going to have any baptisms together this transfer but what do you know! The Lord blesses you if you work hard. So Sunday was a really awesome day! We met with a new investigator that the Spanish missionaries handed off to us and it went really well we taught the plan of salvation and focused it mostly on the guy that the Spanish missionaries said "wasn’t interested or very friendly" he accepted it all and said "It just makes sense." We are going back to teach both of them next Sunday again! After that we had an appointment with a less active guy that we have been trying to get in with since I got here. His wife is recently active in the church again and the husband just needs to get things turned around. He wants to but just is struggling. So we went in and his wife was asleep but he said we could talk to him so we sat down and we taught him the restoration and the spirit was super strong. When we were talking about how the gospel blesses families I felt like we needed to talk about being sealed and I asked him if that’s something he wants to do. He said yes and I told him "then there are a lot of things you need to change in your life." I don’t usually tell people that straight up but it got his attention and we then told him we wanted to help him and the member we had with him wanted to help him. We went through the story of Joseph smith and we asked how long it had been since he read and prayed to know if the church was true. It had been a few years so we told him to do it again and we all bore our testimonies of the church and it was so crazy how much the Spirit was there. Afterwards he told us that "that was exactly what I needed to hear right now." It was really neat. A couple of other neat things this week...

 

Elder B and I were reading in PMG and read that we should strive to find families and realized we haven’t been really STRIVING. So we began praying not just to find people to teach but to find families. So on Monday night we got a referral from a guy kind of weird one and it was just a postcard type thing that had a house and said SOLD across it. He told us someone new moved in and might want the gospel. So the next day on exchanges we decided we were going to contact it and then tract the street and I just kept telling myself that the family was on THAT street. The house we tried wasn’t home and people mostly didn’t want to talk to us... I must also mention really quick that I had been praying that when I met the family I would know exactly what to say and that the Spirit would guide my words. Well my contacts were all just going normal. Not bad but definitely not the best. Well we got to one door and a lady answered it and this is how it went.

 

         "Hello, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We are going around sharing a message about Jesus Christ and his role in the plan that our Heavenly Father has for us. Do you believe in God?"

        "Yes"

        "Do you believe that he loves you?"

        "Yes"

        "How do you know that he does?"

        "You know I’ve never really thought about that. I guess I just feel it when I pray."

        "Definitely... And he has given us so much to show us his love. This beautiful earth and even our families even though sometimes it’s kind of rough to raise a family isn’t it?"

        "Oh yes. haha"

        "Well God has done something through all time and that is call prophets to help guide us in the things we do and help us raise our families with values that will help us to always stay close. Do you know what a prophet is?"

         "Someone like Moses or Noah? They talk to God right?"

         "Right! So what if you heard that Moses was in LA? What would you do?"

(From the other room)

         "False Prophet!!"

         "Honey! Be nice! Actually come over here this is interesting!"

         "I can hear from here."

         "No come here!"

(He gets up and comes over with a kind of okay let’s get this over with.)

     So we talked about prophets and how you would want to know if he was true or not. Then we told him that there IS a prophet today and he guides the church and helps us know how to return to live with Heavenly father. But we don’t go and just tell people this and tell them to believe us but we teach them HOW they can know for themselves and how much it will bless their lives.

   By the end the husband had tears in his eyes and they told us we could come back! We are going back this next week and I know that’s the family I prayed for! Even if nothing turns out with them right now. I was supposed to meet them. After that contact we didn’t have another amazing contact like that again. It was awesome! Anyways those are my miracles for the week! Love you tons! Have a great Valentine’s Day!

Email Feb 3 2013

 To Michelle:  So since I haven’t emailed you in a couple weeks I thought I would send the "big" email to you! Sooo this week hasn’t been the most exciting but things are going well for now!

Today we had an awesome zone activity! We had a flour fight! We filled socks with flour and played capture the flag and then dodge ball out in the parking lot. It was super fun but after that we played a game called chair soccer where you set up a chair and that is your goal and you have to hit everyone else’s chair to win! haha its super fun but then the flour got like plastered to my face and was super nasty!  But it was really fun! We also had a zone conference this last week and had some awesome trainings by the AP's and the president. Nothing really new just a lot of reminders for me of things I need to do. There are so many little things you have to do as a missionary it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Also Thursday we went on exchanges and I was with an Elder C in the Tongan ward! It was super fun! We went to contact people at dairy queen while getting ice cream, we contacted people at thrift stores and looked for cool ties, we taught a few of their members who were really friendly and awesome, and we bought some valentines and wrote MORMON.ORG on them and were going to try to hand them out but would always get to nervous haha it was super fun! And we were out working all day which was awesome!

That’s pretty much all! Love you tons! Have a great week!

To Dad:  I loved my towel and all of my presents! They were really great and I use them a lot! 

It was funny in mom’s email about how she liked that I was in Cali because of places other people are going... Cali is crazy. That’s all I have to say haha It’s been a crazy experience but it makes for good stories to tell eventually!  I love you tons! Have a good week and anniversary!

Email Jan 21 2013

WEELLLLLL I’m in O! yayy!!! If you pull out a map of the areas I’ve been in I’ve really seen the whole mission. It’s pretty crazy! My companions name is Elder B. He is from Canada!! I’ve officially now had a companion from not Utah or Idaho! haha He is really awesome and we get along really well! I’m still confused at our area but figuring it out as fast as I can. We have a total of 8 companionships in the zone including us which equals 17 missionaries because there is a sister companionship of 3. Yes we have 5 sisters in our zone.... that’s a lot haha. We have a lot of really good missionaries in the zone. I miss being in a singles ward. But don’t mind it here. Good things are starting to happen in the zone already though so we are excited. There are a lot of Spanish people here. There are even a lot of posters, stores, billboards, etc. that are all in Spanish only. We don’t have a TON of investigators but we have a few and we have 3 baptismal dates. We set one after I got here and it was a really awesome and powerful lesson but afterwards that Sunday she didn’t come to church so I’m not sure what to do with her. We have been really praying and fasting. Hopefully things will work out. We are planning on getting at least 3 new investigators this next week! And setting at least 2 more dates. Most of the people in the ward are young couples going into medical areas because there is a medical school close by in P. Met a lot of really nice people yesterday but it’s just still weird not being in a singles ward anymore. Our other 2 investigators M and C are both pretty awesome. Christina came to church on Sunday and liked it. Manuel had to work Sunday which was rough. So we have dates for M, C, and M. That’s like 3 weeks in a row! That would be soooo awesome! Oh yeah so we live with members again which is kind of awesome. We live in their upstairs which isn’t very big. But is pretty nice. The members are also Tongans! Cool huh? They are super awesome! Well that’s pretty much all for this week! Hopefully I’ll have lots to write about in the next letter! Love you tons!