January 30, 2012

Hey Family,

Things are going well here in Indiana, we had a pretty good week and we some pretty cool miracles that are working out to our benefit. The weather has been really warm this week and is been really nice to work in. This week we were unable to be with president Collins i guess he just got busy with the transfers and all that stuff and wasn't able to make it up to be with us, Oh well we understand, he is kinda of a busy guy. so also this week we were able to find a bunch of pretty solid investigators and to find some people through tracking. Things are about the same with elder Judkins and are at a stand still. Its just a little bit frustrating but i will manage tho! So this week we were tracking on a road and we tracked the whole thing and found a couple of people that let us in and was able to get let in by a couple of people, it was great, then we felt impressed to finish the street the next day, so we followed that prompting and waited, as we were knocking doors in the morning we were able to find a couple more solid people that told us to come back and were solid, they wouldn't of been there the night before because they work the night shift, it was pretty cool to follow the prompting and see the blessings from it we are truly blessed our area for following those promptings. we were able to have more lessons this week and it is helping elder Judkins, I read a Quote from President Eyring that said, " missionaries become good teachers by actually teaching the gospel" so that is what we have truly been working on and it has been helping him. He will be good at some time when he gives himself fully over to the lord. This week will be a long week i have a 2 day leadership conference in Fisheres Indiana Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday i will be on campus with the zone leaders for a zone blitz, the only days that will be beneficial to our area is Tuesday and Friday and Saturday, elder Judkins will be here with a Spanish elder while i am at the leadership meeting and so it id going to put a lot of responsibility on him because we have a lot of set appointments with first time investigators and will be able to increase our teaching pool quite a bit, he will be fine as long as he works hard and gets stuff done. so we will be really busy this week.

Some exciting stuff is happening this week for us, our yard is being over run with moles... its a good thing that i know how to trap them!! i have had an itching for something like that and the lord is blessing me with something like that to keep my sanity, I think that elder judkins thinks i am retarded for being so super excited about them. but I don't care!! i am who i am. but nothing to much other than that is really happening for us. i am glad that things have been going well for all of you guys and i hope that you all have a great week! i love you all!!!

January 23, 2012

Hey Family,

Things have been pretty rough this week for us. This past week it has snowed like crazy and it has been hard and miserable. At the beginning of the week we had high hopes for every set appointment that we had, we had a bunch of them too. Each day they dropped us like it was hot. Therefore leaving us with only 2 lessons taught this whole week. So nothing had really happened. Transfer calls were this morning and the both of us are staying for another transfer. I actually think that this might be my last area on the mission. I have a hunch that I will be here till then, but I have been known to be wrong before. So President Collins was unable to make it up this week so we will be teaching with him sometime this week. I am super excited to finally teach with him. Elder Judkins is still doing, and continually improving to become a great teacher. I hope and pray that he continues to improve. We taught one of the coolest lessons this week tho! We started teaching this guy from India that is here going to school and is super interested in the church. He went to temple square during Christmas break and felt the spirit super strong and referred himself to us. e has a Hindu background so it has been kinda interesting teaching some one that doesn't have a christian background the spirit was super strong in the lesson and he will eventually be baptised. It will just take a little work with him to get him to that point, this is the first person that I have actually taught that doesn't believe in Christ. I was kinda confused but oh well. its in the lords hands.  I am very grateful for Elder Judkins because he is super smart with these kinds of things and has taught me a lot about other religions that I didn't know about.. it has been very useful to help us with some teaching in our area. This week we hopefully will have a great week.We so far, have alot of set appointments and hopefully we will actually be able to keep them and teach some one this week. We will be able to pick up a couple of new investigators this week and hopefully they will be promising. But nothing too special to report this week except I am sick again. just my luck. I cant help it I am my mothers son. Anyways I love you all hope you have a great week!!!

January 16,2012

Hola Familia, Como Estas!
This week was a bitter cold week. The beginning of the week was about 55 and by Wednesday it was below freezing and was snowing. The whole city was practically shut down because of all the snow, it never ceases to amaze me at how about six inches can do that. I don't know how it does, but it does. we need to ship these people out to Taber and make them learn how to deal with snow. So this week we have battled the elements with out a car and it has been pretty darn cold, but I am prepared and got my boots and all that jazz. I may look retarded but I am warm and that's all that matters! Things are picking up quite a bit, we were able to have a bunch of lessons this week and were still able to manage to only have one person come to church. Oh well people still have their agency to make their own decisions, this area is really taking a toll on my patience due to non committal investigators that are not willing to do anything. Oh well, the  Lord sent me here to so something, hopefully I am fulfilling his will! This week I had to give a Training with the assistants present, at first it was a little nerve racking but not to bad. I warmed up to them really well, especially because I was in the MTC with one of them.It was really fun and it was very natural. I Trained on our attitudes, and how being optimistic about all things truly effects the work that we are performing. I related that to a talk that elder Ballard gave on creating success. It was fun I hope that they got the spirit of it. Elder Judkins is slowly progressing and the burden of teaching by myself is getting a little bit smaller every day. He is starting to see the potential that he has and the great missionary that he is and can become. It will be great to see him in a year to see how much progress he has made. I hope that he knows that I love him, he is a little hesitant around me kinda like I am intimidating or something I don't know. this week president will be observing our studies and will be attending a couple lessons with him as well, I am super duper excited.  I hope that all goes well and every one has a great week!
Love Jared

January 9, 2012

Message body

Hey family,
This week had indeed been alot better from my previous week. It has been really warm this week like up in the mid to high 50's its been really nice and bad at the same time, its bad because we have the car, and now that we are getting rid of the car it will be really bitter and cold. Stupid Murphy's law. This week has been great actually, We had interviews with our mission president, they were really great, i love that man and look up to him in many ways. it was also good for my companion as well. it broke the ice really well and gave trust to my companion in me. President said that for now on i am basically a trainer and am going to be retraining my companion and will now do everything as a trainer would. that means, we now have a 2 hour companion study in the mornings!! that is amazing they are always super great now that we have some more time to study and i can help him out a bunch. He is progressing finally and will eventually be a great missionary, he will just take alot of work. As for our area, its is slowly picking up school starts this week and this town is now full of people and is oozing with people that will be home. for once we actually had a couple lessons this week, some of them went really well too. alot of our investigators will settle down this week and we will be able to really get stuff done. i am super excited!

I am glad to hear that everything is going well for everyone back home i hope that the lord will continue to bless you all!!

January 2, 2012

Hey family,
Things are going well this week. We are still not having to much success due to the holidays, oh well school starts up tomorrow so we will be able to pick up a lot of the people that we are teaching. I am very great full for that. i feel like it will be a lot better week, we even have the car this week too!! so its kinda been cold here lately and today it is kinda trying to snow but its not working to much, Indiana just doesn't know how to produce snow that well. We are working with a couple of new people, we have taught them a couple things and so far they have been pretty solid. we invited them to baptism and they accepted, they are doing great but that dad gum agency is getting in the way again!! we got everything aligned for them to get a ride to church and the member that was to pick them up went there and no one was home! Arrg!! this seems to be a reoccurring thing with the people here in the Lafayette area, they just don't come...ever. If i do one thing in this area it is going to make people stick up to their word. nothing bothers me more than people who don't. Elder Judkins is doing better... i hope. we still kinda struggle with our teaching and with just having a relationship where we can trust each other. Oh well i cant really do anything about it, that i am not already doing! i hope all goes well and successful for all of ya, love you all!

December 26, 2011

Message body

Hey mom and family,
It was great to talk to you all yesterday, I am sorry that it was so short and so not very interesting, But I definitely enjoyed all of your company. Mom I told you that the Sloppy Joe's were great they tasted just as good as I had remembered them. Thank you so much. That was a cherry on the topping as I left the Plainfield area. The Schmalfeldt family are amazing they are some of the coolest old people that I have met.

I am happy that the family had a great Christmas, Our dinner appointment was great it was with the Peck family. Like as in Pecks from Aberdeen and Blackfoot, same family just kinda distant. They are a great family they are amazing it was so fun and so down to earth that i felt relaxed and good. We had some good old fashioned funeral potatoes. and we Played B-S as a game afterward. it was totally awesome. Church was amazing our Christmas program was last Sunday so yesterday just kinda felt weird and like a normal sacrament meeting. it was good tho!

Nothing really too exciting has happened this week. We had our Christmas zone conference on Wednesday and it was amazing! We played some exercise games in the middle of it, luckily for us we had President Collins on our team, so we automatically won. I love President and Sister Collins. They are amazing. The conference was so spiritual that it has totally been the greatest so far on my mission, I don't know how they do it but they just keep getting better and better. Everything was just great about it. On Saturday night our stake president took all of the missionaries in the zone out to dinner at an all you can eat Indian buffet... it rocked my world all night. Indian food and I do not get along at all... not even a little bit. Anyway, after dinner we went to his house with his family and made ginger bread houses and made a competition out of it. Of course Elder Judkins and I are the best we won overall the best. We made a stable with the baby Jesus and with the three wise men and a manger and with animals..OH YEAH no one could compete with that! It was super duper fun. All went well and was super fun and exciting for the holidays. I hope that you all had a great one as well! I love you all and have a great week!!!