November 28, 2011

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Hey family,

How are you all doing? things are going great! Thanksgiving is great, but it is not cool at all, at the same time. It was great!! I love thanksgiving because of the spirit that it brings into our lives, the spirit of gratitude is the best thing ever! Its was really nice to just sit back and to think of the things that i am grateful. and it never ceases to amaze me at all of the tender mercies of the lord. so on Thanksgiving we started off the day by playing some football with the ward members and with Elder Nash and Elder Thackeray. it was a lot of fun but dadgum i am out of shape. Today i am still sore from that extravaganza it was great fun tho! after that we got ready and had dinner with the Turner family, they are awesome come to find out that they are relatives of the Butts in Blackfoot. Its a small world they are an amazing and super fun family! After we got stuffed there we got picked up and went to the Perionie Family for dinner, again it was a lot of fun we played board games. on thanksgiving day we are not allowed to go proselyting so we had to spend it with investigators or members. unfortunately none of our investigators wanted us so we stayed with our members. the day was alot of fun and i gained alot of weight so all ended out good!

Due to the holiday no one wanted to talk to us they were rushed and wasn't very successful for finding people to teach. But in all honesty i don't think i woulda talked either so hopefully all goes well this next week. We did have a couple of really sweet lessons tho. The first one is with Lindsey, we taught the Law of chastity and the Word of wisdom. it was great. the spirit was super Strong and was there to testify of the truth that was being taught! The best part of the lesson is when her dad bore solid testimony of the law of chastity and at that moment they had a bonding experience that helped them both. it was amazing. We also had an amazing lesson with Nathan. we got to teach him the 10 commandments and reviewed a bunch of stuff with him. It amazes me to see him grow and to become stronger in the faith and to see him progress in the gospel. at the end of the lesson we invited him to baptism for January 7. He accepted the inviataion. his parents are very supportive of him and want him to be baptised, but the family struggles them self with activity in the church, they are getting there but sill eventually will have to come very active for their kids sake. we are working super hard to help them with all struggles and challenges that they have at any time. Although we didn't have that great of a week we were very successful with our lessons with the members. we had 6 lessons with them teaching them how to use the preach my gospel manual. it has been great for them it has been a real eye opener to them and how they can improve their efforts with missionaries! it has been really good it has been very successful thus far and i can see it continuing to be beneficial for the in the future.

Its going to be a super busy week for us and probably not that successful. all day Tuesday and Wednesday i have a leadership conference that i will be attending and Thursday we have a day of weekly planning and our weekly service and i have a meeting in Indianapolis to set some goals with the other district leaders of the zone. Friday we are helping Lindsey's dad move his appliance shop and have some lessons with some less actives set up. And Saturday we have our district meeting and a busy day of lessons with investigators hopefully all goes well we are going to be super rushed but hopefully it will turn out as good as we want.

I love you all and i hope that you have an excellent week!

November, 21 2011

Hey Family,

Man Down!, Man Down! We are down to a regular companionship. Last Monday we got a call from President Collins about Elder Vonstrahl, and letting him know that he was getting transferred. I love the Elder to death, but i am grateful to be back to normal. I Hate when every mentions that i am getting close to the end i am not that close i still got seven months do not rob me of those precious months! It has been hitting me pretty hard this week i came to a realization that i only have five transfers left and this one is almost over... I don't like it at all! But this week was a great week we got a lot accomplished and stuff rolling. This week we have implemented a program with the members to help them become more involved in Preach My Gospel and helping them to be more familiar with teaching and what to teach and what their role as members are regarding missionary work. It has been great! The ward is accepting it very well we have found that alot of the members just have never used Preach My Gospel. It is a real eye opener. As we have talked with the members the reason that they don't use it is because they don't know how to use it. the brethren has told every member to have on in a home and to study it frequently, but preach my gospel doesn't say how to apply it as a members stand point. Thus far it has been very successful. We have had a kinda slow week with our investigators, they are loosing desire and are slowly dropping like flies. Its kinda frustrating but at the same time it is a busy time of the year and it is to be expected. Nathan is doing great we are having lessons with him and his family again they are doing great, i am very grateful to he bale to teach them and to be able to help them come back to full activity. We are extending a baptismal date with Nathan this week for some time in December or early part of January! he is so progressing fast. Andrew his brother will be receiving the Aaronic priesthood some time soon he had his interview with the bishop yesterday. He is so gun ho about the gospel that is is amazing he always talks about going on a mission just like what we are doing. Those are tender mercies of the lord! Things are going very swell for us and are looking up. Tonight we have dinner with Lindsey and her family. and then a lesson that follows. i hope and pray that Lindsey will be able to be baptised some time soon. she is so ready for this covenant. and her Father is taking the right steps to coming back to the fold, i am so excited for them and their eagerness to follow the savior in all things. Elder Tatton and I are doing great!! we get along great. i am very grateful to be able to serve with him. For thanks giving we are having a lot of dinner, witch sucks but it will be alright we are having dinner with the Turner family. its crazy Brother Turner is Rhonda Butt's brother or something like that. its crazy how small the world really is. And their son was Nate Ball's mission companion when they were on their mission. We also get to play in the ward turkey bowl. we are pretty stoked about that. The only rule is that every one had to bring a non member friend to play with them. so hopefully the members will bring some non member friends to play with us. I am very excited for the holiday seasons. for the sweet spirit that it always brings to our lives. I hope that all continues to go swell at home i love you all and hope that you all have a great week

November 15, 2011

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Hey Mom,

Texas, I haven't heard about that? All has been well this week. we got our first snow fall the other day, but it didn't last too long it warmed back up quite a lot. It really boggled my mind it has been at a steady 55-60 so it has been quite nice. This week has been super rushed but it has been really really good. We had a zone conference this week and it was amazing. it is my first one that i have attended as a leader and it was really awesome. It amazed me that how i was looking at the training for my investigators to how i can apply that to my district. it was really pretty cool and really spiritually. it just boggled my mind. So this week as well i went on enxhange with elder Brooke in green castle (a not so neighboring town), it was awesome we has some sweet lessons out there it was really cool. we taught this guy Chad. he is just like my he is a welder by trade and is a big time hunter and fisher and is super duper redneck. it is really cool i have been able to teach him a couple time now and every time it is so spiritual. he is an amazing man. i ended up giving him an extra set of scriptures that i had, that i had camoed all up, he really appreciated it. and i felt right doing it so no big deal. But while i was in green castle i forgot my deodorant and there was some what looked like deodorant and i asked if it belonged to anybody and no one claimed up so i used it. well come to find out it was a high power stain remover and it was full of bleach and it tore my arm pits up! it was the same day that we had zone conference so i couldn't just go and was out my arm pits. Later that night i called sister Collin's and she just laughed, she said that, my incident is one of the funniest stories that she has ever heard. well i didn't think that it was that funny. i ended up having to call the mission Dr. and to talk to him as well. all he did was laugh as well. but all is better and i have a super funny story because of it. Any ways the holidays are going great so far, we are going to break out the Christmas supplies and use them in our finding efforts. this coming week we have alot that is planned out and ready to rock! i am super excited. So far we have 3 dinner appointments on thanksgiving and probably more and we are going to be playing in a turkey bowl with the elders quorum. I believe Christmas is also filled up. but the bad thing is that i might be transferred before Christmas. oh well. Lindsey is still doing great i love that family they are amazing. Her dad is such a nice guy he owns an appliance store and brought over a washer and dryer for free and just gave them to us and then ended up taking us out to breakfast. They are doing great and are still progressing like a rapid fire in my opinion. they are just super solid and are willing to do what ever it takes. the sad thing is the mom sometimes sits in the lessons and will listen but will sit and text some one the whole time. I HATE PHONES as a missionary! but she is still a very nice lady. I hope that everything is going well, or at least better i will keep you all in my prayers. i love you all! Have a Great Week!

November 7, 2011

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Hola Familia,

this week has been an interesting week... Yes we do have a third companion... His is Elder VonStrahl he is OLD he just passed his 24 month mark and is working on his extended part of his mission. Its been really really really interesting. He is a hard elder, Elder Tatton and i have been struggling because he is a little bit disobedient and has alot of pet peeve triggers that sets us off. I have learned alot about Humility and Patience this week and it is kinda driving me nuts!!! But all is going well, we have had a pretty rough week we have been in a threesome since Monday so its has been getting pretty hard to get use to and, is kinda being a hindrance to the work. The lord is teaching us something, and hopefully we get the picture soon. this week tho we had an amazing lesson with Lindsey and we were able to teach the plan of salvation and it was amazing the spirit was there so stinking strong, it was great because her mother was there in the room and we applied the plan of salvation to a parents role in raising their children and related it to her in her life. she agreed with most everything that we had taught and it was really well and it touched her heart and impacted her in a pleasing manner to the lord. it was really well. we also had a really great new member lesson with gabby and we taught the principle's of the scriptures and of prayer and of keeping the Sabbath day holy, in the aspects of making major decisions in her life and how she can find comfort in all those thins and find answers to her life questions, it was really an inspired lesson there was three of us and we all took one of the topics and we each had a personal experience of that and how that experience has influenced our testimonies and helped us make the right decision. it was very powerful. We also got a really disappointing text yesterday after church, it was Deborah ( one of my last baptism's) and she had gone to another church for her daughters baptisms that was not of our faith, and it really shook her up now she is unsure and is having difficutly accepting the authority of the church and the order of god. we are all worried about her and are going to have a lesson with her on Tuesday