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

October 31, 2011

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Hey mom,
This week was a pretty good week. I am not getting transferred... Six months YES!!! Elder Tatton is staying as well... downer is that we are getting a third companion. But its all good. Nothing really new has happened this week. We picked up some new people to teach, no one real promising tho. Lindsey is great, she's so solid. We had an amazing lesson with her at her home with her father as well as her mother. Her dad is sweet, he is less active, tho I have the feeling wants to come back.  He helps us teach his daughter and still has a testimony and still knows that the gospel is true. He will need some work, but is amazing. Her mom is a bit anti, and could pose a problem to the whole baptizing thing. We pray that her heart will be softened all the time. They are an awesome family. Even tho her mom isn't too interested she sure is a nice lady and offers to cooks us cakes and all that good stuff to fatten us up..(not helping the diet too much) We had a trunk or treat this week it was fun. It was a chili cook off as well. We and the bishopric were volunteered to test the chili. There was about 20 pots there, our poor apartment stunk so so bad.  But all is better. It was really fun. I love this ward. The people are so genuine and so awesome, it is great! The bishop is just right up my ally and is a total motorman. Its awesome, his family use to race cars in atomic city and on snake river speed way. Its pretty cool. All is well. I have to take off a little early, I have to go meet some of the missionaries that are headed home from my district. I love you all.

October 24, 2011

Hey mom,

things are going pretty well this week it was an interesting and pretty fun week. This week we decided to go on a different approach other than Tracting. We have been doing alot of service this week. over all we contributed about 11 hours of our physical labor. it was great. On Monday we went golfing and it was great, its was funny because we all suck at golf so it was alot of fun to just hit the ball. After gold we had dinner with the Taylor family, and it was great we shared a message about the mormon.org campaign, it was good, brother Taylor was a bit stubborn to make a profile and we explained what to put on it that would make him stand out to why he was a mormon. he really couldn't think of anything to put on it all he has delt with is cars and motorcycles, he has had over 100 cars and over 50 motorcycles in his life. We continued to talk about that for a little while and after i explained if i was browsing mormon.org his profile would be the one that stood out to me because i can relate to. i think that it made him really appreciate it alot more. after we talked about motorcycles for a while, and he took us out to his garage to show us his toys it was good for that old man to relate to someone so young. Tuesday we got everything all situated for our district service project, it was alot of fun. it rained most of the week and it kinda sucked because we lost the car on Wednesday. but After we got things all sorted out we had a member pick us up to take us around some less actives. we went to see this old guy. oh man he is awesome. it has a rough situation his wife is very ill and is also anti of the church, but he still wants to come to church but cant make it because of his wife. he is sweet. he reminds me of uncle Jessy from the dukes of hazard its super cool. we then went with a different member to go and contact a referral from the bishop. Lindsey and Harry, are awesome. Harry is such a stud totally motorcycle buff and i get along with his very well. His daughter Lindsey is awesome, she is so prepared for the gospel. they have family members in Utah and Lindsey spent the summer out there with them and was strongly introduced to the church. When we arrived at their home Lindsey started to cry and said" I have been waiting for you to come for 5 months". it really touched my heart because we didn't get the referral until just a couple weeks before. they came to church yesterday and everything and are on tract to be baptised in November. On Wednesday we had district meeting, i gave a training and i thought it went really well. This district has a real problem with setting goals, so i trained on that i feel like it was effective. after District meeting we went to strides and stacked alot of hay and cleaned their hay loft and got it ready for the service project. while i was there Debbie, (owner) asked if i would draw up and design a horse shoe pit so i did that and made a materials list. while the ffa students were going to be making it the next day. we had a lesson with Jessica, it was a rough lesson she wasn't there mentally and the spirit struggled to be there due to her, we are feeling that she is getting baptised for the wrong reasons and is just doing it for the boy in Washington. so elder tatton and i have alot to do to help her grow a sincerer desire for her self and not for some one else. Thursday i was on exchanges with the Avon elders they are really awesome and we got work done. On Friday we had the FFA service project it was awesome, too bad no one i knew was there. ffa is such a great program and it was great to be the two best there, a Representative of Jesus Christ, and to help the FFA, some of my greatest joys in life thus far. it was alot of fun all the missionaries were group leaders and so we didn't actually get to do any of the work. we helped a family move and it was absolutely disgusting how gross their stuff was garbage everywhere but we still saddled up and helped anyways even tho it was gross. Church was great we gave talked in sacrament meeting, that's the 2nd one i have gave in this ward...its probably time for me to get transferred. they went well i have overcame my fear of talking in front of crowds and it was really enjoyable i winged it the whole time. as elder tatton was saying his talk i realized i studied the the wrong topic so i called and audible and ran with plan b(there was no plan b). all worked out. this week was great i hope that all is going well back home. we are both feeling alot better and are doing well. i love you all!!

October 17, 2011

Hey Mom,

Things are going pretty well with us here in plainfield. we have both been sick again this week. i am getting so stinking tired of being sick this is week 4-5 of being sick this transfer. But the bad thing is that it is really effecting the work. It is really frustrating. Even tho the week wasn't that good i had a lot of fun. On Monday we had an amazing lesson with Gabby and she is doing awesome, we have invited her to go with us to some lessons that we will be having in the coming weeks to young teenagers that we are teaching. Elder Tatton and i both strongly felt the urge to take her to some of the lessons that we are going to have. She is great! On Tuesday we did a bunch of tracting and didnt have very much success in doing so. later in the evening we had a lesson with Jessica, it was amazing we set a baptismal date for November 1, and she is extremely excited about that! The lesson was amazing the spirit was super strong and she know that she is on the right path in life. after the lesson she gave us both haircuts... not to shabby but i do have a couple of spots that are not the best, but oh well, she is doing great she also came to church yesterday and is doing great she has been making some changes to quit smoking in her life. On Wednesday i was able to go on exchanges with my buddy Elder Nash. dad, you might know his dad, he is something in bingham county for agriculture. but it was alot of of fun we had some sweet lessons and i was able to do a baptismal interview for them. after the exchange we were waiting for elder tatton and elder Jones. we made a bucking bull with a rope and a workout ball. it was alot of fun he did high school rodeo and it was just fun. i have a video of it and i will send it home its funny. we are still teaching Katrina she is doing great she is sooo ready to be baptised and she wants to so so bad, but her mother doesn't want her to yet she doesn't feel like she is ready, but Katrina is 15 and has been wanting to be baptised since she was 8. so this week we are going to take our bishop over to the lesson and he is going to talk to her and hope fully she will change her mind. We are also teaching a couple Bruce and Cindy, they are awesome, unfortunately i have never had a lesson with them when ever we have one that is set up i just so happen to be on exchanges with a member from our district. bu they are doing awesome, we have placed copy's of the book of Mormon and they have read through 1st nephi and are going to continue on with it and to make things better, they have also been praying about it. its amazing, they will be baptised. that's about all that we have done, sister Hickman finally had her twins and so it is a little bit difficult to get the new member lessons for Andrew and to be able to teach Nathan as well but it is totally understandable with twins. they are both healthy and doing great. we are still a little sick but we are both doing better and hopefully we will continue to improve. i hope all continues to go well with everyone at home. i love you all.