July 18, 2011

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Hey Mom,

This week was a great week, we got a lot done. This week was pretty intense, we went on two exchanges this week. One of them we were in a threesome, it was fun but Three is just a crowd. All in all we had alot of success. The other exchange was with my zone leader,  Elder Nash. I love my zone leader he is from Pocatello, and I knew him before I came out, he is such a great missionary, he is a stud. Such a great example to me. We had some really sweet days. Tuesday evening we did some service for an elderly lady, that is a former investigator, it was really awesome. e helped her lay some outside tile under a porch swing. Once again my talents helped us.  She told us that we could come back and start teaching her again. It was sweet, we definitely saw some miracles with her and how she is in the process of being prepared for the gospel. We also did some service at a horse ranch for a lady that rehabilitates horses and also works with special kids. She is a firm supporter of the FFA.  Every year for national convention FFA members go and help her do chores and build barns and all this sweet stuff. She has grown to love the work ethic that I have and knowing that I was in FFA, she invited us to be group leaders this fall and I will organize this with all the surrounding missionaries. I am excited with this it is such a sweet way to introduce people to the church, and to get our church name out. All I have to do is talk to President Collins about it some time. I feel like he will let us. We had some sweet lessons, two with Bob and one with Mike and some with some recent converts and less active members. They were all spiritually fed and there in attendance. Bob is still doing great he is attending the addiction recovery class once a week and is still doing great he is still coming to church every week and is on fire. Mike, we had a really great lesson with Elder Nash, we talked about the importance of coming to church and to partake of the sacrament.  It was great, he actually came to church for the first time, it was great we had the quietest sacrament meeting I have ever been to, the spirit touched his heart... we also had a lesson with Gabby, it was great. She is so solid, she is 17 and wants to be baptized. We had a lesson with her at a members home. The family is the Simpson family, they are originally from Idaho.  He taught seminary at Highland and Pocatello, American Fall and Aberdeen. It was coo,l Sis Simpson is the sister to BIG JUDD, they make a mean hamburger. It was great Gabby is super prepared, she is talking it over with her parents this week to see if they will let her be baptised. So far so good with her. We finally got air conditioning in our apartment, oh its super nice. There is a lot of cold air now. Everything has been great. I received 2 wedding announcements this week. What the heck? Everyone is getting married? Oh well, it's still cool. Today I get to have dinner with my old companion Chase Crandall. It's going to be sweet I am excited.

All is well, things are going great, thanks for everything. I love you all tons.

July 11, 2011

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Hey Family,

 

This week was great. We were able to get a lot of stuff done,  even tho I had food poisoning, all went well. Plainfield is just amazing, the area itself is really awesome, it reminds me a lot of Arco.  With out the mountain's and such. We so a lot of work here. I was able to go on an exchange with my district leader this week. We saw some amazing miracles. Oh it was amazing. We started off the exchanges by doing some service hours at a old peoples home. We played cards with them and talked about the church the whole time.  It was truly amazing. We also had an opportunity to do some tracting on the exchange. We saw miracles while we were doing so. We tracted into a guy that was not to interested in the gospel and when we started to walk away, I noticed that the guy had 2 jeeps in his front yard. I felt prompted to just hold the door and to just start talking to this guy about jeeps and rock crawling and all that good stuff. As I did, this the guys prospective totally changed, he was more open and more willing to talk to us. As a result we were able to have a short lesson about the restoration, it was amazing. I was able to relate jeeping to the gospel and how we have to endure all things that God puts in our path and kinda like a train with boulders and trees. We definitely felt the spirit and we were able to help him in some way. It was amazing. Later that same night, we continued to do some tracting and we tracted into a guy that readily let us in and wanted to talk to us. At first he was really sincere and left the room to get some water. Some time later he came back and said that his friend would be joining us. Well. his friend arrived and just wanted to bash with us. I was ready to bash. Instead we just bore sincere testimony about the things that we knew to be true and it turned out to be a great lesson, even tho they tried to preach and convert us the spirit wasn't with them as they talked but was there when we spoke. It was just great, it straightened my testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. This gospel has changed my life. I love it so much. I am very grateful for this time that I have to serve my Savior and my Heavenly Father. It's truly the best thing ever. As for my own area, it has been kinda slow, not too much has been happening. We were able to attend a "Why I believe" fire side last night in my last area with Bob Vaught. It was great for him to hear all the testimonies of all the recent converts in this state it touched him well. This week he has been struggling with his family, we have the strongest impression that his mom is not doing well. Last night after our companionship prayers, Elder Wise and I at the same time said to each other that we have to teach Bob the plan of salvation again and to put an emphasis on the part where we can do stuff for family that is passed on and also to explain that family's can be together for ever.
 A totally great experience that we had to have the spirit confirm that to the both of us at the same time. We also have an investigator Gabby, I have yet to meet her, she went to California on a trip and visited the San Diego temple and has been reading every day and praying every day she explained to us over the phone that she had goals to enter the temple and other great goals for her in this life. She is 17 and her mother is sceptical about her joining the church but she really wants to.  It will be something that will bless her life tho. All in all this week has been one of the best weeks that I have had and definitely one of the most spiritual  have been in my life. i love you all i am grateful that for all you letters. but please stop reminding me that I have already been out a year. Its gone by too fast.

Love you all

Got Mail? NO!

It has come to my attention, that we aren't writing enough snail mail letters to Jared.  Shoot,  that is sad that his mailbox is empty and he looks so sad and depressed.  So everyone start writing letters to Elder Bair 342 1/2 N. Center  Plainfield IN 46168.  And Yes, I will try very hard to take my own advice.

July 5th 2011

Wow. WHERES WALDO?

Everybody keeps asking me where I am at? COME ON! It's just another transfer, no big deal. Due to satisfy the desires of man. I am now serving in Plainfield Indiana. It is just south west of Indianapolis, I am still in the same stake so I should be able to go back to those baptisms. So don't feel too heart broken. I am Follow Up training a greenie:( its awesome.) My new companion is Elder Wise, from Bountiful Utah. He is great, kinda awkward but amazing, we get along so well. This week went well, we are working our butts off... literally, its so hot. But also with some missionary work. We have extended a baptismal date this week to a guy named Mike, he is super awesome. He has some serious issues tho, but nothing that can't be work out by the atoning blood of our Savior. We also have some sweet investigators that are super solid. First we have Mike,  then Bob. Bob is awesome, he is super solid also, he will be baptised some time soon. He does not quite have a date as of yet we just had a sweet lesson with him this morning. He wanted to learn about tithing, and so the windows of heaven were opened to his understanding. I love him he is awesome. We have an super awesome ward. They are so awesome and so willing to do missionary work. I love the fact that people in wards are missionary minded. There are still alot of move ins and outs in this ward also. You might hate this, but I tweaked my back again this morning. Oh well it won't hold us back. Forth of July is a Joke as a missionary. It was still our preparation day so that was cool. We didn't really do anything too exciting fireworks were set off by the city on Sunday? For some stupid reason why not on the holiday? Other than that we had dinner with the Brown family. They are awesome they just moved in from the white river ward... which is where my last disctict leader was so I was there alot. It was awesome to know some one in this ward. Oh and I got a call Sunday evening from a Matt Johnson... yeah the same Matt Johnson that lived in Plymouth, they are planning on moving to this ward. Exciting. Earlana Jones from Plymouth... kinda fell off the deep end has not been going to church or reading since the missionaries got pulled out of the area. But now they have two great missionaries that will get her baptised. I love this work so much. There are alot of great things going on. I love it. The Lord is really been blessing me lately. I am very grateful for all the prayers.

I love you all.

June 27, 2011

Hey Mom,

Well today is the end of six weeks and once again I got a transfer call. I  am once again leaving an area. I now see why all the missionary's have depression problems and anxiety problems. Right when we get this area good and on fire I get transferred. This week was an awesome week we had a lot of awesome lessons. and We went on 3 exchanges with our leaders so I was only with Elder Belliston for 3 days this week. With Tracy Price we had 2 lessons with her and we committed her to baptism on July 30. At both of the lessons she has kept the commitments that we had left her and she is recognizing that this IS the Lords church on the earth at this time. It has been amazing to see her change and welcome that happiness into her life. We also committed another person to a date this week. His name is Nick Clark. He is 11 years old and he is a son of some less active family that we have been teaching. Its been push and shove to get the members to help us out. They actually set the date yesterday. It was awesome they are super solid. Nick for an 11 year old knows so much about the gospel and it blows our mind. He will be awesome as a member. On our exchange I was able to work in White River... Its the straight up GHETTO of Indianapolis, there are shootings and all sorts of crime and stuff like that.  It was super fun. We saw much success, I was with Elder Williams ( the District leader) and we had 4 lessons that was great. We had taught a family from Africa (Kenya) that his companion and I first started to teach and they are awesome. They know that the church is true and so we set a date of sJuly 30 as well for them. In the middle of the lesson they just stopped and looked confused. They asked to learn more about Joseph Smith so we called an audible and taught the restoration again. It was just what they needed. We watched a short 20 minute movie with them and then Peter bore the most solid and sincere and honest testimony that I have heard in a long time. He says that once he becomes a member and learns more and goes through the temple, him and his wife are going to move back to Kenya and to help the church grow there. Unofficial missionaries basically. They are so awesome.

Elder Belliston is going to be training this transfer, he is pretty nervous.  I know that he will do fine, he is a great missionary. Who knows where I am off to?  Where ever I go "thy will be done". There for the longest time, there was a conspiracy going though our district, that the district leader was going to be zone leader and that I was going to become the district leader. The other missionaries would go to become a trainer and a Sr comp. Well all came to pass... except me becoming the district leader so I am pretty happy about that. It relieved some stress for a little bit. It has been great this week, it has been warm but not too hot so it was nice. For some silly reason it rains every p-day therefor making it hard for us to do anything fun and worth while. But today i got a lot of packing to do.

Its good to hear that all is going well back home and that every body is having good fun with everything. I love you all.  I hope that you all have a great week.

Love Jared

June 20, 2011

Hey Mom,
This week went well. We had a a lot of success. We were able to have a lot of lessons this week and were able to get a lot done. We have 4 really promising investigators that are progressing very well. they are all super solid. The first is Tracy,she is good, she knows the church is true and has been praying and was suppose to come to church yesterday but flaked because of Fathers day.
We will be giving her a baptismal date tomorrow when we have another lesson with her. Next we have Hal Smith, he is an older guy an old oral surgeon. He was referred from Salt Lake and loves the church. When we got to his house he was like, " sorry guys I am only on page 142 in the book of Mormon." so he is doing great. He has also been praying and he will be at church next Sunday. It's going to be awesome. Then we have Sarah, she is awesome and she found us. She totally accepted the law of chastity and the word of wisdom and is doing great.  She will also be at church next Sunday as well. William Apple, is kinda a slow investigator, but is still doing great, and his wife is awesome for supporting him into the church. We also have a bunch of other really awesome and really promising people that are going to be awesome and super fun members.

That's Awesome that Amber and Kody are inviting a new one into the family. Totally awesome. Super happy for them.  It's crazy that all them little rugrats grow up so fast. It will be really weird getting home and not recognizing them anymore. That's just the part of life.

As for Indiana its still not as exciting as Idaho, its really hot and muggy. Lately it has been raining often and hard. It is really green everywhere because of the weather. As much as I hate umbrellas I actually went and got one... and they are still super gay looking. They do their jobs.

I am doing well I have been still sore from my back but what can I do but live with it. The mission isn't going to do anything about it. I have been great, I finally got the shoes and will be getting some shirts today. I just wanted to double check to make sure I had permission to get some.

All is well. I love you all.

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Elder Bair

June13, 2011

Hey Mom,

This week was great. We were able to get alot done. We had a couple of really amazing lessons, we started off having a lesson with a referral named Tracy Price. She is amazing. She is super prepared. The Lord knows what he is doing with her. When we got to her house, she just started hounding us with questions and her own beliefs. It turns out that every thing that she said that she believed  was the same thing that we believe in. It was awesome. The members that we took with us were great. Bro. Merrill is originally from St. Anthony so he has some Idaho roots. As like most of this ward does. We had dinner last night with the Grahm family he is from Preston and is the same age and graduated the same year as Josh. It was pretty cool how they hated snake river because we always kicked their butt, in everything. We had interviews with President Collins, it was really awesome to talk to him,.  He is an amazing man. We also did some service in downtown with 2 other zones in our mission. We worked at what's called PBS kids in the park. So basically  we dressed up as mascots and ran around all day with little kids. It was really fun and also really hot. This week also we did alot of biking to our appointments because we don't have the car till later tonight. It has been hot and I am out of shape. The full time car for 7 1/2 months has been nice. Last night we had a fireside called "Why I Believe."   What that is, is when all the recent converts in this area get to gether with president Collins and the missionaries and it is a testimony meeting for all the recent converts and how they came to know that the Church is true. It is always an amazing meeting. That's super cool that Aaron and Eric are having a double wedding, that sounds fun.  I didn't even know that Stetson was engaged. That's crazy, and he is marrying the Clement girl? That's cool  tho. Sounds like everything is going well. I love you all.

Elder Bair