16 Oct 2017

Things have been awesome this last week. We have things set up for Derrek's baptism next week and he's excited for that! I'll be heading back for it so I'll be home for about a day and then I'll be gone for a few days. We got to go to Idaho Falls for a sealing of someone Elder Hamblin and I both taught. The sealing was amazing and it's awesome to know that they are partaking of those blessings! It was a great day! We had to be quick at the temple since it was out of the mission, so we didn't have time to get a picture 

It still doesn't feel real, but I'll see you guys soon!

Love ya all

Elder Hoffman

9 Oct 2017

 Hey everyone!

This week has been good! Elder Hamblin and I have been having fun and getting along; we've also had quite a few good lessons.

We have been teaching Derick more frequently in preparation for his baptism. He's really excited for it, and it’s been great to see someone take hold of the gospel. He's been really engaged in seminary, and he's enjoyed young men. He was talking to us about his favorite conference address. It’s been a great blessing to have the opportunity to teach him.

We also had a lesson with Jaycee and she's a ball of energy. She's primary age and just a goofy kid. We taught her the restoration and we built a tower with her and talked about how Christ organized his church, but how parts of that tower were taken away, such as prophets and apostles. So we removed some of the bottom pieces and the tower collapsed. But then we talked about how the church was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the Church returned the way it was when Christ organized it. She's excited to be baptized as well, but we haven’t set a date yet, we are waiting to see a little more progress from her and the family in keeping commitments.

 Everyone in the wards know I’m short on time so it’s been fun... every time I see them they'll ask not how much longer do I have, they just ask what day do you go home. But it’s been fun we had dinner with the Capson family last night, one of their daughters was just baptized on Saturday and we stood in on her confirmation. They are active but we invited a couple investigators to the stake baptisms. We also taught one of the kids who was getting baptized, Emmit. His family has spurts of activity so we taught him a couple lessons, and also attended his baptism. Anyways we were having dinner with the Capsons, and there little daughters made me a surprise, it was a nice little note and a bag of candy. It was nice.

But I’m not sure I’ll send out an e-mail next week, it'll be pretty busy.

But I just wanted to leave a good message of what I’ve learned.

 So one of my favorite words became awake; at least in the scriptures. Lehi in 2 Nephi 1 he asks his sons Laman and Lemuel basically to wake up before he dies. Three times in that chapter he asks them to awake. They don’t listen and I imagine Nephi was just outside the tent listening, because in 2 Nephi 4 Lehi dies and during a prayer Nephi says to himself Awake my soul. And just the idea of really being awake in the gospel. Some people straight up are a sleep, some people day dream through it, some are just there and just go through the motions. But to be awake i feel takes and active effort. When a player in a sport isnt fully engaged or just seems out of it, its not uncommon for the coach to yell wake up. But to be shorter in writing I've come to realize the importance of daily discipleship and that the gospel is about being humble enough to follow the way the Lord has established, and its about becoming. It says we will be judged according to our works, so are we trying to do the things we've been asked, and the desires of our hearts, so what we are becoming. The Latter part gives a lot of hope, because we aren't perfect, but if we desire to do good it counts for something, but what we truly desire will reflect at least in part of what we do.

So I just encourage everyone to be faithful, desire to follow Christ and let that desire grow with in you or continue to grow. And if you want to know how to be like Christ read about him.

I love you all and am grateful for everyone who has supported me in my mission. Hope you all have a great week and I’ll see many of you soon!

Elder Hoffman

2 Oct 2017

Hey everyone,

I’m going to keep this pretty short. But the week has been good. We got one of our investigators to young men’s and he got along great with the youth, so they have been a great support for him! We did dodge ball and it was pretty fun. We had a good lesson with Maria and she is making progress on quitting smoking. One of our usual lessons fell through she was pretty sick with something contagious, but we encouraged her to watch conference. Conference was really good; I really enjoyed Elder Stevenson's talk on not having spiritual eclipses. Were if we just focus too closely on small unimportant things they can eclipse the love of God and his great light. We also clogged our sink this week so we figured out how to do some basic plumbing. We had a bucket and stuff set up to catch the water from the pipes, so at this point we had everything drained so we moved the bucket. And while we were cleaning the pipe, elder Hamblin got his hands all dirty. So he decided to wash his hands..... with all the pipes undone... so water just started pouring everywhere. We had a good laugh about that. What added, is before we did anything he announced to me "plumber 101 make sure you don’t use the water while fixing it." So what does he do?  He turns on the water haha.

18 Sep 2017

I got my new companion Elder Hamblin on Thursday morning and we had a pretty busy day. Lots of planning and correlating. We taught Derek and the lesson went really well. We also taught him the plan of salvation and he seemed a lot more comfortable than last week. He’s really taking a hold of the Gospel; seminary is probably helping him a lot. But it’s cool to see someone who's sincere.

We've moved a couple people this week. A Lady named Beth; we've helped her a lot. She's a member she's just got a rough life. Then we were just walking and it was one of those right places right times. A moving truck rolled up so we offered help, turns out it was a family that’s working on coming back to the church and they were hoping to find the missionaries. After we helped them move we stopped by Tammy she’s going through a rough time with family stuff. But we were able to help her.

It’s been a good week all and all.

11 Sep 2017

This week has been good! So we got transfer calls, and this is the last one I'll get..... So I am going to "die" in old town, and I'm going to be joined by Elder Hamblin! I served in the same district as him down in MontP, so we know each other pretty well. Should be a lot of fun!

We had a lesson with a young man named Derick and he took seminary last school year and again this year and decided he wants to be baptized. So we set a date with him for Oct 14th! We have several other people working towards baptism but they have to work through a few issues first, but the work is going great!

Sacrament in the first ward was nuts. There were three baby blessings and they reorganized the Elder's quorum and the young men and several other ward positions. By they time the sacrament was passed and the business was finished it was quarter to so the four speakers had about 20 mins collectively.

We've been busy which has been great!

4 Sep 2017

This has been a really great week!

We were able to meet with Maria after a couple of months of trying to catch her. We had a great lesson and got some regular lessons scheduled! Likewise we were able to meet Aaron after a long while of not being able to get a hold of him, and we'll be meeting twice a week with him now.

We had a really great lesson with Tammy! She wants to be baptized and it might be a while before she can be but she has that goal, She has been to church every week, this week  I think she had work but showed up for about 30 mins at sacrament. Which I thought was awesome because a lot of people would have just made a really easy excuse.

Any ways a lot of exciting stuff is happening in the area! And plenty of interesting things but I’ll talk more about those another time. Haha

They are also doing a lot of road work but I’m not sure why they need such strange rocks. Elder Gatlin and I laugh every time we see the signs.

28 Aug 2017

 This week has been good

We saw the eclipse Monday and I’ll send some pics now

We had a couple lessons fall through but we had a really good Lesson with Tammy. We just had a good discussion on faith, and how we can build and nurture our faith. She is making a lot of changes in her life but it’s awesome to see some one that wants to improve.

Likewise we also had a good lesson with a lady named Wendy and she also has been turning her life around and she has to do a couple of things before she's able to attend church so we've been sharing the talks from sacrament meeting this last Sunday was about the temple.

We went up to the Pocatello "P" today and that was fun. Most of our P-days have been mountain biking/hiking. I got a lot of pictures to send of the hikes.

The first ones I’ll send are during the eclipse when it got dark.

21 Aug 2017

Hey everybody!

This week has been a little slow. Two of our investigators have been in and out of the hospital, one is getting a lot better, the other I think she's improving but she's going through cancer treatments so it’s been tough on her.

We met the Hallenan family again, and they are doing pretty, well. When we stopped by they were all outside, a black widow was sitting in their kitchen up in some spot where they could really squish it and they were trying to devise a plan to kill it. They did its dead now. But we also talked to them about the importance of scripture study and family prayers. It was a good meeting and we showed them the gospel Library app which they were pretty excited about. They a really nice young couple and they have two kids that are about 3 and 2 and they are funny little kids. One likes to act like animals and give you "flowers" (Normally weeds and leaves). But they are a really good family and they are making steps back towards the savior, which is awesome to see.

There’s been a lot of excitement about the eclipse that just took place. We were just out of the Totality range, so it got pretty dark but we didn’t get the full night time effect. You could see the darkness over by IF, if you looked north well we were on top of a mountain to watch it so we could see the darkness move across the Valley. But it was pretty cool. We went and bike/Hiked up Kinport which is the tallest spot in Pocatello if I remember right. And it was a good hike, we walked the bikes most of the way once we started ascending and then we hid the bikes and just cut through the brush so we could more or less just go straight up the mountain. It was pretty cool though. The ride down was pretty fun though.

I'd send pictures but I just realized this computer can’t upload them so I’ll get them to you guys later.

14 Aug 2017

 This week was good,

We had zone conference up in Blackfoot; it’s always good to hear from President Hancock. He did a Q&A session at the end, and it was like write a question, so some one, I think it was someone going home, but someone submitted the question what time is a good time to get married. President’s reply was....... *drum roll*........ After the mission. Then he moved on to the next question, which happened to be "what do I do if imp attracted to a girl in my area"...... These were very deep questions, the answer was you don’t do anything or you get a new area. There were better questions like questions about how to help investigators progress and all that good stuff.

The big thing he wanted us to was to improve our studies. The sentence that stuck out to me in PMG is "while learning from a teacher is good, it is more important to have meaningful spiritual experiences on your own." I reason that it’s because when you have that independent witness, you become a lot firmer in your faith, where as if your faith is based in someone else, what’s going to happen in that person goes through a difficult time.

We also had a really good lesson with Tammy, one of our investigators. I've really been trying to work on explaining things simply. So we read a lot of scriptures with her but throughout the lesson we stopped and made sure she understood, and took a minute just to emphasize the key points.

The tough part about this week we had a family we were trying to meet with that got evicted suddenly, due to a disagreement with the land lord. It was raining and they had nowhere to go and there wasn’t much we could really do for them except just be there. They have found a place to stay temporarily but we aren't sure where they are.

The rain was actually a really good thing though, with all the fires many people were fasting that it would die down. Then it rained the next day, so the fires around Pocatello at least are under control.

We also went mountain biking this morning that was fun.

7 Aug 2017

Hey everybody!

This has been an interesting week weather wise, There have been wildfires like all over the state I think there's like six going on through out the state. But there's a pretty big one outside of Pocatello and we've been getting smoked out from it. Sunday we woke up and there was ash all over the valley. They are really good at controlling it so it doesn't hit Poky though so I'm not to worried.

The rest of the week has been pretty good.  We had a good lesson with Dawn and she attended church this week so we are pretty excited for her. We were suppose to have a lesson the other week but she was admitted to the hospital so that's understandable. But the day she got out she gave us a call to set up the appointment which is pretty exciting.

We got to volunteer at a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, we were scorekeepers. That was pretty fun but some of the teams got a little intense for a fund raiser event. But no one got hurt.

Its been a pretty good week all and all

Love you guys

Elder Hoffman

Below is what a picture of the sky normally looks like and a picture of all the smoke. None of that is clouds just smoke. We also found a mantis outside our apartment.​​​​​

31 Jul 2017

 This week has been pretty great!

We got to talk in sacrament this sunday so that was fun. We also got pushed into performing for a talent show at a ward picnic, and now a different ward wants us to do it. Id rather talk than perform infront of people but owell, were going to do that too in a couple weeks anyways. The thing that really made me ok with doing the performance at the talent show, Is it came to the last act and they were just looking for people to perform because they didnt have enough. Anyways 10 mins before they started one of the young men signed up and didnt say what he was doing. Then he got up there and had the dj put on "i feel like a monster" by skillet or whoever, and sang to it. So i felt like the ward talent show could end on a more uplifting song

We had a lot of appointments fall but a couple kept and they went really well.

Hope you guys have a good week.

17 Jul 2017

We went mountain biking this morning. we me this guy named Dax the other day he was on his way up to the trails, and he passed us and was like when is your p-day. So we ended up meeting him this morning to bike. It was a blast Elder Gatlin's bike wasn't exactly a mountain bike so that made it a bit tough for him but it was good!

 

The week has been pretty good but a lot of cancelled appointments. That was a bummer. But some good things happened. We were walking down the street towards a lady and she started to stumble and as we approached her she asked for a blessing. Her name was Angela and she was a really nice lady, she's had some rough times and just got done with some surgery. So it was an odd setting for a blessing I guess but we moved behind the building for some privacy and afterwards we just talked to her a bit We didn't say much she just had a lot that she wanted to vent about. Afterwards she was visibly better physically and spiritually. I’m glad that we felt to walk that way; we were actually on the wrong road for where we were supposed to be going. But it all worked out!

As I was studying this week I really enjoyed Alma 7:22-24. He talks about how we should live if we want to see the priesthood take effect in our lives and in general if we want to live after the manner of happiness. It’s more so a list of attributes but as we study these attributes and apply them that’s when things happen and when the joy of the gospel enters our lives.

Have a good week everyone!!!

10 Jul 2017

So last week we didn't really get time to e-mail because of the 4th and the FHC was closed.

But our 4th of July was eventful... So we were still suppose to proselyte but that was a little tough cause it was the 4th. But we were walking around not sure were to go and we wandered past the masonic temple. and there was this lady on the grass, panicking. I'll be honest, at first I thought she was just on drugs. But then she called to us for help and we saw that her legs had all sores that were bleeding. So Elder Gatlin handed me the phone and we call the paramedics. So that was a little crazy. But to be honest, when we first saw her I was ready to just pass her by. Then like I thought to myself man I'm about to be a Pharisee. So the story of the good Samaritan popped in my head and the rest is as written. Then later we went to a BBQ.

The week has been a little slow but we have been setting up a lot of appointments for this week so things should pick up. There's a big push in the mission for the use of the Book of Mormon, for good reasons. The Book of Mormon is a testament of Jesus Christ and when people learn that and the Spirit testifies that to them, then everything else gets resolved.

Love you guys and enjoy your week!

19 Jun 2017

This has been a pretty good week, to start off if by some odd chance someone has sent me mail, and I’m going to be transferring down to Pocatello. I'll be back in old town! Not the same area as last year, but just adjacent to it.

This week we had some awesome things and at least one funny thing. But we have been trying to catch the Moseur family for several months. Never could catch them until Thursday! It was probably a blessing too. Its blended family type thing. But they have a daughter who usually lives in North Dakota but she is spending the summer her. It just so happened that she had been taking the lessons in North Dakota. We didn’t know any of this so we had been talking to the Mother for about 40 seconds and then she told us and asked us if we could come back and start teaching. They have another Child that always lives with them and she said it would be good for him to take the lessons as well. So Elder Frizzell and Turner will start teaching them next week!

Then we were going around with a member just trying some visits, and we pulled up to this address we had. There were two houses on the same drive way so we weren't sure which to knock on. But as we got out of the car this kid jumps out of a truck just ahead of us with a gun in his hand, and asked if we were "Mormons" we said yea and figured out it was just a BB gun He goes well were Catholics. We figured that he lived in the one house so we asked if anyone was in the other house and he said it was under construction. So we turned back towards the truck and the kid points at the house we thought was his and says, "well aren't you gonna tell them about the Mormons." We replied "isn't that your house" Then he says "nope, I’m gonna go shoot some snakes" *kid runs off*. We met who actually lived there he was going through the death of his father, so we left him a plan of salvation pamphlet and he said we could come back.

All and all it’s been a good week.

Love you guys

5 Jun 2017

I don’t have a whole lot I want to say this week, but the big thing that happened is the Idaho Falls temple was rededicated. So we got to watch that Elder Eyring gave a great talk on the comfort temple blessing bring into our lives. He told it a lot better than I will, but as he was working at BYU-I he went down to I.F. for someone’s sealing. As they were leaving the temple matron told his wife that the Teton dam had burst. Two of their children were with a sitter and the others were working on a farm not far off from the dam. The roads closed down and they had no contact to Rexburg. They spent the night at a motel. As President Eyring prepared for bed his wife turned and ask "you’re not going to sleep are you!?” So President Eyring turned to her and said, "we have good children and we have been sealed, no matter what we will see our children again, people will need help tomorrow and I plan to be ready." He went on to say that in that moment the spirit gave him a perfect assurance that the ordinance that they had performed was true and as real as anything in this world. 

It's been awesome to see so much excitement and enthusiasm in the re-opening of this temple and of course that a few years down the road another temple will be built in Pocatello. As I continue to learn and understand more of our Heavenly Fathers plan, his love, and his character the gospel just becomes so much dearer to me.

Love you guys

29 May 2017

So we things were really busy on Friday so we forgot to get pictures, but that’s ok. Friday Lexee got baptized and it was a really awesome program, she had a lot of support in the ward and it was just amazing. It was years of preparation and we just happened to catch the harvest, but she's really a special kid and throughout the lessons and baptism we think it’s really softened her mom’s heart. Her mom isn’t a member, so we are hoping that she'll recognize that she was feeling the spirit at the
baptism.

We have been finding that a lot of the recent converts out here never received the new member lessons so we are doing a lot of work with them.

Another awesome thing that happened is we were out knocking some doors, and we saw a family that we have tried to meet with but the mom tends to flake out on us. But we saw them doing some yard work for a rental home that the grandma owns. So we offered to help and they were like we don’t want your nice close all ruined, so we biked home changed and went back, then spent a couple hours helping them. At the end we were having a pretty good time, they are an awesome family and hopefully we will get to see them some more this week.

It’s just been good all-around we calculated one day that we biked about 25 miles. But that was a more than normal day. I was with Elder Lasalosi that day (not elder Turner) and he got tired so he decided to grab my bag as we were riding and I towed him about 6 miles all together so hopefully im not putting on any weight.

22 May 2017

It’s been a crazy week. So since last Friday we have been teaching Lexi every 2-3 days, we made preparations for Landon's baptism, had zone conference, and exchanges.

Teaching Lexi has been awesome she is a stellar kid and has an awesome grasp on the gospel. While I was on exchanges with Elder Boatwright we had a lesson with her on the plan of salvation and I think a bit of what we said went over her head, but I think it was a good one for the parents to hear. Friday we taught the rest of the plan of salvation and then the gospel of Jesus Christ, this time it involved a lot of pictures and drawings and Lexi really enjoyed that. I think kids have a much better understanding of the gospel than we tend to give them credit for. She is preparing for her baptism this Friday and we are pretty excited for her!

On Thursday we had Zone Conference with Elder Sitati. He had a very happy personality; he talked mostly about improvement and the importance of having the spirit in a companionship. When he talked about improvement he had us do a few things from the Christ like attribute activity in preach my gospel. Mostly those focused charity but also around faith, virtue, patients and diligence. Any ways in PMG you give yourself a 1-5 rating five being you always act in that manner, 1 being never. So he talked about the progression of improvement. If you’re at a 2 you don’t just jump to a 5 and become depressed if you can’t, he said you move step by step and celebrate with each improvement. You move from sometimes doing something to doing it often, then celebrate that you are doing better, then often to almost always, and celebrate and then you strive to always have that attribute. It was a good meeting and Elder Sitati is certainly an inspired man.

Saturday was an amazing day. Landon had his baptism and was confirmed the following Sunday. His family has been less active long enough that he's about ten and hasn't been baptized, but with the temple open house coming he had a strong desire to go and to start getting into church. He planned to have his grandfather baptize him but then dad realized it’s something a father should be able to do. So the family has really benefited just from Landon's desire. The service was great, I could see how happy his aunts and uncles were that he made this choice and helped his family through it.

It’s been a great week and the Lord has prepared so much for us, we just have to go and do.

15 May 2017

Things in the mission are going good! A lot is happening and it’s just an exciting time in the area. We have a boy named Landon and he is preparing to be baptized this Saturday. We had a good review with him and it’s been awesome to see his desire to be baptized help the rest of his family. They have not been active recently and his mom and dad are members but have never been to the temple. So it’s been really cool to work with the entire family. 

We had a huge miracle this week.  Wednesday when Elder Turner came in, Bishop Dalley gave us a call so we went over to meet with him. I figured he wanted to talk about Landon, but he brought up a girl named Lexi. She has been attending church with her neighbors since she was about 7 and she is 11 now but her parents never really approved of baptism. With the temple dedication coming up, she was in tears because she couldn’t attend because her parents never permitted her to be baptized. This caused a softening of their hearts and they are now in full support of her choice to be baptized. Over the next couple of weeks we will be teaching her a lot to prepare her for baptism next Friday. It’s awesome to see the miracles that have come about with the temple dedication, and also to see the result of several years of preparation come to pass.

 The Lord’s work is an awesome service to be engaged, and it’s the coolest thing to see the gospel enter or re-enter the lives of these families.

On a different note we have had a good number of service opportunities. We have helped a couple times in building a greenhouse, and we also got to help in a color run that the stake put on. It’s been a pretty great week. Plus the call home was pretty sweet.

Love you guys

Elder Hoffman

Elder Holmes and I also went to the potato museum for his last P-day​

8 May 2017

Sorry I haven't sent anything the last couple weeks; sometimes I just get really bored with e-mailing it’s not like actually talking to people so it gets boring at times.

But things have been good recently we have been finding new investigators, and we have a boy named Landon on date to be baptized. His family got really busy for a couple of weeks, but we were able to catch them and prior to this he already accepted the invitation to be baptized. We talked with them and we were able to get a date set and they were able to make it to church again for the first time in a couple of weeks. So we are excited to see the progress they are still making!

Transfers are upon us once again so Elder Holmes and I will be splitting up and Elder Turner will be joining me in Thomas. I don’t know much about him but I've never been with a companion that I have known prior so this seems to be the usual. All and all things are going well.

I've really enjoyed the challenge that president Monson has given us to read the Book of Mormon each day. It’s pretty easy as a missionary but I love the why behind it. He can see the difficulties in the world especially the opposition against our faith.  Reading the Book of Mormon helps prepare us for the trials of the world but more importantly when truly studied and not just read, it keeps our foundation in Christ solid. There are so many things and people in the world today that oppose Christ for one reason or another and honestly I think that’s why the world is in such disarray, because people either don’t believe in Christ or don’t act upon that belief. I feel Christ is more of just a nice idea to many people in the world today and not a role model or example as should be. The idea of Christ is nice, but just doesn't bring much into our lives unless we act upon all his teachings. It does take a bit of work and sacrifice to really follow the savior’s teachings, but the blessings are far greater, and the person you become is a truly joyful person.

Anyways that’s my little update to everyone

Love you guys

Elder Hoffman

17 Apr 2017

 Things have been pretty good this week! Things have been a little slow in the area but we set some good goals and plans to get things going again, and with a lot of prayers and help things are starting to move along.

We had an investigator that just disappeared after his girlfriend and he broke up, but we've been praying for him and his friend reached out and got him his own quad and talked to him a bit and he's going to start investigating again.

Easter was really good, and I like the videos the church put on mormon.org. The great thing about Easter is that we know that Christ rose and that he is alive to help us through our struggles and to give us strength. To change us from our fallen state to something better, so we aren't just going to be raised from the dead, but we will rise as something better, and we can have that image of Christ in us.

But anyways I love you guys, sorry for the short e-mail

Elder Hoffman

We found a 5 legged cow

3 Apr 2017

This week was awesome! Especially the last two days, it’s always good to hear from our prophet and apostles! Plus they announced a Pocatello temple! We must be doing a pretty good job here, haha. I really did enjoy the session though and I've noticed that of late a lot of the talks have been focused around basic truths of Christ, the atonement, and our spiritual identity, which means that’s probably things we need to make sure we are holding closely to in these days. President Monson didn’t say much but did speak on maintaining a strong testimony of Christ. The commitment that I heard him ask of us is to study the Book of Mormon daily. If we realize it right now or not we need the spirit to be with us especially in these times, and I don’t think there are many better ways to feel the spirit each day than to spend some time enveloped in the scriptures.

 The other thing that has been on my mind is that of Charity, this last week I was reading out of 4th Nephi and verse 13 stuck out to me. "And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land; but there were mighty miracles wrought among the disciples of Jesus." But when I read this the thought came to me that as we are loving and charitable, which means there will not be contentions, we will see mighty miracles in our live and in the lives of those we love! I think the world is in deep need of charity, people are so quick to find fault, even when among other missionaries I see them finding fault at times given missionaries aren't perfect but if anyone should understand that people have struggles shouldn't it be us. People are so eager to know that they are "better" that someone else, or just to find reason to be upset with others, and it gets nobody anywhere. I had a psychology teach who once said he didn’t believe that love was real; people only love others when it’s a benefit to them. I suppose that there is a part truth to that, but not that love isn’t real, but love isn't natural. We often talk about the natural man and the natural man is selfish and never really loves others just what they give him. So to be charitable is to put of the natural man and to truly become like Christ! To put another’s needs before yours, to be patient and loving towards those who have struggles, to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. As you do those things the Lord wouldn’t be able to stop blessing from coming into our lives.

Anyways, it was a good week with lot learning. I hope you all had a good week!

27 Mar 2017

This week has flown by and we received our trnsfer information.  Elder Holmes and I will remain together.  The only change is that I am now the district leader.

Things went well this week.  We did some service for Terry, one of our investigators.  He needed an irriagaion ditch cleaned out.  Most of the week however was just meetings with ward leaders.  We have a rather finite pool of just non-members in the area so we spend a lot of time trying to meet with ward members on how we can help them be missionaries in day to day life.  Sunday was really good.  We had Daniel show up at church again.  We talked with him a bit afterwards and he agreed to start meeting with us for the lessons.  We are looking forward to teaching him.  We tried to approach him a couple of other times but the friend he comes with is brought by his grandfather.  The grandfather has always made it a little hard to comfortably talk with Daniel.  He's a great guy with a good heart but he just says whatever goes through his mind.  So it was always a little awkward.  The very first time we met Daniel, the grandfather introduced him and talked about how he was already going to pay for his missiona dn all this stuff and we didn't even know Daniel had any real interest.  Things have progressed well in any case.

Something that has been on my mind recently has been reaping what you sow.  How iif we want joy we should bring it to others.  If we want to feel the Spirit we need to make opportunities where the Spirit can dwell.  Or even better, share spiritual insights with others.  Besides the obvious part of that, I think in our lives we are constatntly sowing, it doesn't really stop.  Many times we are not mindful of what we sow; especially as a missionary.  There are times when we are just going between appointments or houses and my mind isn't really on the work and I've started to poinder how much would improve if even when it wasnt' study time, I was pondering things of the gospel or how we can help different people.  With that last part, there's a scripture that I read this week that really impressed me.  Luke 6:45 "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringesth forth that which is good; and an eveil man out of the eveil treasure of his heart bringest forth that which is eveil:  for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh."  If we want to be kind, uplifting and happy people we must trasure up that which is good and good about others.  Pharisees and many others found fault with Christ who was perfect.  Even so how much easier is it for us to find fault one with another, we being imperfect.  But that's not what life is about.  If we are fault finders we will treasure up to ourselves that faults of others.  We will not speak kind things because that is not what is in our heart.  Thus we will sow faultfinding and it will return to us.  So treasure up that which is good and positive and uplifting and we will be good, positive and uplifting people beacuse that is what is in our hearts.  Then we can expect the goodness, positivity and upliftment to come back to us.

Anyway, that's my rant for the week.  Hope it can help someone somewhere along the way.

20 Mar 2017

This has been a really good week! I got news that someone I was teaching back in IF is preparing for baptism! We also have a lot of new potential investigators. So it’s been a pretty good week!

Monday- Pretty usual did all our weekly prep and then we went to one of the bishop’s family home evenings. Mostly so we could meet the Bishop, he has been out of town since I came to the area.

Tuesday- we had an unexpected exchange. We had them planned for next week but the District Leader had to move them up a week so they happened without a lot of notice. I lead out the area with Elder Creel. He's got a really good heart, and has a funny guy. But the exchange went pretty well it was mostly just going around and setting up some appointments and getting some of the fellowshippers to follow up with a couple of our investigators. We had a lesson with the Falkners, they are a family that is returning to activity and we mostly just talked to the parents. She expressed some concern for some of her kids spiritually. So we talked about faith, how our faith is to go forth and do good then trust that the Lord has a plan and he will work things together.

Wednesday- was a pretty slow day; things just didn’t quite pan out.

Thursday- We had a first for me, just something I wouldn’t have expected. But we have people from the wards come out with us each night, and a priest was signed up to give us a ride. So we went to meet him and we saw like three people in the car. He brought two friends that weren't members... So we were going to correlate with one of the relief society presidents but we cancelled that and just tried to find any place we could share a message. So we taught a less active member and then just a couple of members from the ward. The Lesson with the members didn’t start of directed at them but the two friends started asking some questions, so the lesson turned towards them. One of them is coming to church this next week and we are hoping to teach him, the other is going to be taught by the zone leaders. It was a really good night and it was an awesome blessing.

Friday- We had district meeting about using the book of Mormon in teaching. It really is the most important tool of conversion. Of course for conversion to happen the spirit needs to testify of something, but when the spirit testifies of the book of Mormon then, everything else just falls into place. That’s why as missionaries follow up is a big thing for us, because our words can only spark the spirit, but when people are reading the book of Mormon and know its truth, then they become converted to the gospel and not to the missionary. So if you are trying to help others into the gospel the biggest thing you can do is to help them read and pray about the book of Mormon.

Saturday- not much happened, but on our way home that night we rounded a corner and we saw this car in the middle of the road a little ways down. Elder Holmes turned on his brights, then was like oh I probably shouldn’t and turned them back off, then while the car was still in the middle of the road all its lights just shut off. The car just vanished like we kept going down the road but it wasn't anywhere. It was weird.

Sunday- Sundays are usually the same for us we got to church from like 8:30 to 4:00 have dinner then we had Stake correlation meeting for basically the rest of the night.

Hope you all have a good week

love ya

13 Mar 2017

Hey everybody!

This week has been good but nothing too exciting to report.

Something that just stood out to me this week as I was studying was Nephi in 2 Nephi Chapter 4. He asks the Lord that he may "shake at the appearance of sin." I thought about why he chose that wording. As I thought obviously to shake means to fear it but what was it that he feared. So to summarize the thought, Nephi was scared of sin its self but to commit sin, He wanted to be afraid of the Idea of committing sin because he knew that sin causes in some degree or another a separation from the spirit. Also him having an understanding that our purpose in life is to become like our savior, sin in any degree holds us back from being like Christ and having a fullness of joy. Nephi didn’t want to just be less sinful than Laman and Lemuel; he wanted to be exactly like Christ is. At least personally I've found times that I justify action by looking at others and thinking well im doing better than them. But that shouldn't be the case. I thought about when Christ says become like a child, and I thought about how a child can take even the smallest thing and feel the most guilt about it. Like they could take an extra cookie from the cookie jar and if they get caught they think mom and dad are going to kill them or banish them from the house forever. So I think also as we live through life, we become exposed to more serious transgressions and become a bit jaded towards guilt of smaller things that are still wrong. So to finally summarize this, we shouldn’t, judge how we are doing based off of others, expectations of the world or that we aren't as bad as we use to be. These are things Satan puts in our minds to block our spiritual progression. I'm not saying you need to beat yourself up every day because you weren't perfect, but we should evaluate ourselves frequently and think of ways that we can become more like Christ, and seek to not justify any wrong doing. We should indeed fear the inhibition that comes with giving in to temptation. I hope that this all made sense and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Scripture reference 2 Nephi 4:31

6 Mar 2017

Hey everybody

Monday- In the evening we had a visit with the Gonzales Family and it was pretty good. The wife was baptized not too long ago and the husband’s interest in the church is not too great, but they are a really nice family. They have a couple of children and their youngest boy is hilarious. Half way through the visit he walks out and his mom goes "sugar, are you wearing different pants?" and the boy goes "Well Duhhhh, I peed my pants" Then he got in I fight with an imaginary person and he was getting beat up like he was throwing himself around, and we asked why don’t you fight back. His response was well I can’t hit a girl! So at least he's chivalrous.

Tuesday- Pretty slow day it was tough to catch anyone. We had interviews with president but that was about it.

Wednesday- we had exchanges so I went with Elder Saydee to the ysa area. We had a pretty good day. We shared the plan of salvation with a family. The Kids were pretty smart and there was good spirit about the lesson. Then we caught this guy named Moses and he has been recovering addictions, and we had tabbed a Book of Mormon for him to read, to help him out whenever he is temped. Hopefully he will use it.

Thursday- Between weekly planning and a couple of other things we had to prepare we were pretty wrapped up in paperwork stuff today. We did have a lesson though with the Hansen's and it’s going well with them. The parents are both members and are a little less active but mom is coming around a lot and so are the kids. The youngest son sparked it he wants to be baptized to watch the temple dedication and hopefully this will help the parents have the drive to make it to the temple.

Friday- we had zone training and that was pretty awesome. I took some notes but I don’t have them on me. I just remember Sister Clark had a training on seeing potential, and she couldn't find the picture she wanted so she tried to draw a guy painting a bird while looking at an egg. When I saw it I thought it was a bird flying into a window, but the trainings were really good.

Saturday- We helped fill sandbags; they are expecting a lot of flooding and are getting prepared for it so we spent about 4 hours helping fill sand bags. It was pretty fun and there were a lot of people there.

Sunday was good! The testimony meetings didn’t have any gaps it was great, we had ward council. We were in meetings until dinner then after dinner we talked to Bishop Hawker about some people and things are looking really good!

Hope you all have an awesome week!

Love you guys

27 Feb 2017

Hey Everybody!

This has been a really good week, for starts Elder Holmes and I get along great so that makes everything like 10 times easier!

We did some service early this week. Really all we did was move a couch into a trailer but it helped us meet a guy named Terry. He's not a member and he has been reading the Book of Mormon to see how it lines up with the Bible. After we helped him with the couches we talked to him for a while and we went back later this week to help him build one of those snap together sheds in the middle of a blizzard. That was fun.  Terry is a super nice guy. He made us some lunch and we are hoping to have some more formal lessons with him. Since he is already reading the Book of Mormon, we just pointed out Moroni's promise and invited him to pray as he read.

We also had Zone conference this week. That was sweet! The focus was around spiritual promptings. The bulk of it was, if it feels like a prompting it probably is, so go with it even if it doesn’t make sense. A lot of times we wonder is that the Spirit or just me, and if it invites to do good then don’t worry about it just go and do good. As we show faith in following through in what we think might be a spiritual prompting it shows Heavenly Father our faith and that we aren't going to ignore his Spirit when it comes to us. So he will give it more abundantly as we follow through in heeding those promptings.

The funnest part about this week was probably when Saturday at 2 we got a call from Bishop Hawker asking if we could speak in fourth ward tomorrow.... So we gladly accepted.  I was actually really happy because I love speaking in new wards. It gives people a chance to get to know us. So we spoke on coming unto Christ and what really stuck out to me was just repenting daily and using the atonement. In Moroni 7:34 Christ says to repent and come unto Him, then to be baptized and continue in faith. But what stuck out was to repent and come unto Him. He didn’t say repent then come unto me. We can’t truly come unto Christ unless we repent and we can’t truly repent unless we come unto Christ. The two are inseparable. A lot of times we feel we shouldn’t come to Christ until we feel we have resolved everything around our issue and we feel clean enough to come to Him. But that isn't how it works. We don’t wash the close before we put them in the washing machine, because we don’t want the washing machine to deal with those dirty clothes. Anyways that was the gist of my talk.

It was a really good week and I hope you guys had a good week too!

20 Feb 2017

So this week has been pretty awesome! It was a little sad to leave Montpelier, but Blackfoot is awesome, and Elder Holmes is an awesome comp to work with.

We've seen a lot of things go well just in the last couple of days. Our first day together we had a lesson and with very little time to prepare the Spirit helped us a lot with teaching that lesson. We have a few people who will hopefully start investigating and things are just going really well here. I don’t have too much to say today but I love all you guys

13 Feb 2017

Things are going well, out here in Idaho, The big news this week is that transfers are upon us. Im shipping out to Black foot west and will be joining Elder Holmes. Im pretty excited for the move! I'll miss Montpelier but it’s nice to get a fresh start!

Monday- Welp for p-day we skinned an Elk and had a district Family home evening. We had a lot of plans for the evening but they all cancelled.

Tuesday and Wednesday- We went down to Cokeville, we are still trying to figure out everything the other Elders had going on, we visited a few people that I remembered, one was a less active family more so the father, and they have been very inviting and friendly. They have been making changes and are contemplating a move. The we saw a couple that is wanting to be baptized, they have a bit that they need to do before getting baptized, one of the big ones is getting married, but they really want the gospel and want to make these changes so it’s awesome to see that desire they have.

Thursday and Friday- Kind of a slow couple of days but also way to warm, everything started melting it rained and now there’s flooding all across the valley and really all across Idaho. It’s really bad in the bear lake area, like there are so many people sandbagging and just trying to keep things dry, some people are worried about the reservoir filling up to much but I guess just pray for the best.

Saturday- we got the word that I’m going to Blackfoot so today was mostly good byes same with Sunday but on Sunday we also spoke out in Dingle. I spoke about being spiritually awake. one of my favorite words in scriptural use is awake. There’s a difference between not sleeping and actually being awake. But to be spiritually awake means we are actively seeking the council of the Holy Ghost, we aren't just reading the scriptures but likening them unto ourselves, we seek opportunities to be like the savior and to serve and love others. It’s definitely hard at times to stay awake, especially when you’re first waking up but as we make these things a common practice and attitude, it becomes easier to be awake and attentive to the spirit, and to continually have the love of the Lord in our hearts.

It was a pretty good week, and I hope you are all having a good week also!

Love you guys

6 Feb 2017

This has been like the best week of my mission so far for one reason. Wednesday morning we were sitting in Cokeville and we got a call from the Idaho Falls mission office. They informed me that the Kisley family (who the father of was the first person i helped get baptized) Just got sealed this week! Its been really slow in montpelier lately and just hasnt felt like much has happened. But hearing this new has gotten me really excited again. I still remember at his baptism his kids sang "families can be together forever" and the spirit was so strong and now that song is even more promising for this family.

Monday- We did a sledding activity for p-day that was pretty fun. Then we had a really good lesson with a less active family. The Vorous family is really awesome they have two of the craziest kids I’ve seen. The first day we met them got a little intense. The kids were playing and the little brother grabbed his sister’s collar and started running circles around her. Then his finger got stuck and the collar tightened up and she started choking. It was a mess but this visit was a lot tamer.

Tuesday- Was our first day down in Cokeville and it was a hectic day. We were supposed to have interviews with president and a lesson in Montpelier so after we went down for a bit we came back. But the lesson fell through and President got sick. So the trip was a waste. But on the way back down we visited one of the people that remembered out in Geneva and then we met with a couple investigators the other elders were teaching. Then we ended up going back to Montpelier to help some people move some things. Then we went back down to Cokeville.

Wednesday- A good day out in Cokeville we went around and got to know some of the ward that was most of Wednesday

Thursday- twas a good day, much good was brought about, but not much beyond the usual

Friday- We had zone training, and it was really awesome. There was a big focus around the parable of the talents. Where the three servants get talents and the one with one goes and hides it. The focus was around accountability. Although the servant never received a commandment to go and multiply the money, he was a hired servant he expressed himself that he knew the desires of his lord and still he hid the talent. The Lord will not command us in all things, but expects us to go about and do good. Then the afternoon went by pretty quick and in the evening we did some volley ball with a few less actives.

Saturday- We had interviews today it was super good to talk with president, then we really had a hard time finding anybody today. But at the end of the night we caught the Ruud and shared a message and they insisted that elder Stingham got his nose waxed so we all got our noses waxed.

Sunday- we went out to Pegram for fast and testimony meeting and I really enjoyed the branch. We don’t get out there much its 20 mins from Cokeville or Montpelier and its population is about 30 with 24 active members. But they had a great spirit in the branch and I enjoyed it more than some of the other wards. At time the gospel doctrine classes in other wards get distracted with things that aren’t really doctrine or just things that don’t matter. But Pegram kept it on point. Nothing else really happened today, ya know super bowl and all so we wandered around most of the day.

Oh we also skinned a calf this week. So there’s this thing where if you have a calf die and a different cow has two calves. You skin the dead one and put the hide on one of the twins so the cow with no calf will accept the new calf. One cow can’t support two calves so in the long run a saves the other calf.

30 Jan 2017

This has been a pretty great week! We have been teaching a couple who has been working towards the temple and we helped them set a date, well we are still working on the date but they know they want to be ready by august and we are hoping to have a more specific day in the next couple of weeks. We also had an awesome lesson, with one of our backups. We don’t really plan lessons for our back up plans. Before we went in we said a prayer and took a couple minutes and we felt impressed to share the Mormon message "Gods Will" and the spirit just flew into the room. We have been meeting with this family and helping them get back to activity. But they never really notified us of any issues or concerns they have had, but it was obvious that this lesson was an answer they needed. The spirit is awesome and it’s great to know that it will work through weak and simple things. And im sure my family knows that im a pretty simple person, but even though I still have a good chunk of time left on my mission, every one we meet makes sure I know that im on the downhill slope..... Every person asks how long then when you say oh a little over a year or 15 months, they make sure to announce that you are close to the end. Anyways I've realized my time out hear is getting shorter and shorter and it’s made me ponder a bit about what it’s going to be like when I face the world again. I've realized the spirit and its guidance is something im going to need in my life, and I plan to hold it close. The best council I can give is to work on the seminary answers, do scripture study at least once a day, pray oft, and strive to attend your church meetings.

Oh yea and with that picture, Elder Stingham did the pancake challenge and got super sick... We ended up missing a day cause yea it was just bad.

Love you guys.

23 Jan 2017

Hey everyone hope things are going well with you guys! Things haven't been too crazy around here. Still the same old same old in missionary work. Don't get me wrong, I love it but its very similar week to week.

This has been a really fast week. We've started doing family home evenings with ward members to help build trust and relations and all that good stuff and its been pretty fun. We got to help out with the food bank and the semi that dropped off all the food got stuck in the only road going to the food bank. It was a bit of an ordeal getting that thing out. We had exchanges this week. I was with the new elder, Elder Sinaca, and we had a really awkward lesson.  We were focusing on teaching the kids in this family and they were in a bit of a rush to head out but they gave us some time. The member we brought was the gospel doctrine teacher.  He started teaching the lesson like it was a gospel doctrine class; the kids were a little lost. But things came around and the lesson got back on track a bit. But for the most part exchanges went really well.

Anyways a little low on time, but I hope you all have an awesome week!!!

16 Jan 2017

Hey everybody!!! Things this week have been pretty good Elder Stringham and I are doing great, and though the week was slow lesson wise we were able to schedule things every day for the next week!

Monday- fun day, we had an appointment scheduled that night and as we got leaving for it this huge blizzard hit and the member driving got a little freaked out. So we had to reschedule.

Tuesday- mostly shoveling from the snow.

Wednesday- it snowed again so we shoveled more. We also had the rescheduled lesson. It went pretty well. She an Rlds member so she feels like she’s basically in the same church and it’s hard to find differences to teach about, so it’s an interesting situation. At least different than usual.

Thursday- it’s stopped snowing!!! But most of this week consisted of introducing Elder Stringham to the ward council members. Very exciting stuff.

Friday-We went out to Dingle and met with a lady we visited a couple weeks ago. Apparently she has been studying since then but not the right stuff. She’s a born again and wanted to teach us why we were wrong so we were not really able to teach her anything. It may have got a little bashy towards the end, but some people just aren't prepared.

But I’m out of time so I’ll talk to you guys later.

Peace!

9 Jan 2017

Welp it’s been another crazy week things have been going really well though!

My little boy Elder Graham is all grown up and done with training, and he's moved on to the highland area in Poce. Surprisingly I was the one that stayed and Im the new district leader for the Cokeville district. So far that hasn't really made much of a change in the mission life. But my new comp Elder Stringham and I are doing really well together, so far our teaching and personalities have meshed really well.

We actually had transfers a day late, we got like 18 inches of snow on Wednesday so transfers were a no go, and President asked us to remain in doors for most of the day. Once it stopped snowing we just figured we would spend the rest of the day shoveling walks and then it snowed like 5 more inches... So we shoveled more.

The last couple of days we have been introducing Elder Stringham to the ward leaders and just figuring out how we can work more closely with them. It’s all been going pretty well it’s been nice the last few days to just get back in my area and stop jumping around between here and Cokeville. Nothing to crazy happened this week but it feels like a lot of work is about to come

I hope everything back home is going well!!!

3 Jan 2017

So this is on the wrong day but don't worry I'm not being disobedient. We went to the temple today so we had to proselyte on Monday and switch our p-day.

I don't have a lot of time. The big news this week is that transfers are upon us and my "son" Elder Graham, is going to Poce over in the Highland area, It is a really nice area. Very very high LDS populated part of Poce and it is the richer part of Poce. I'll be with Elder Stringham and I know very little about him. He came out around the same time as me but he started in Boise and when the missions were being reorganized we got a few of the Boise missionaries. I'll also be a district leader this transfer so I guess that should be fun, I get to plan district meetings and report more stuff.... should be fun. But I am kind of excited. I'm sure there will be some learning curves and that means I get to grow more!

New Year's Eve was cool. We just hung out as a district and stuff. New Year's day was odd. It was an all day p-day on Sunday. So we mostly just stayed home and didn't do much.

But it's been a good week and I hope all you guys have a good week

Love ya

26 Dec 2016

Pretty good week, a little slow because of Christmas But it was a lot of fun. I don’t really know what to say cause I told everything to my family last night.

Monday pretty typical p-day stuff, after p-day we went to see a referral and they were moving in furniture so we gave them a hand, turns out they are not active members but would love to have us over for dinner and such. Hopefully we can figure out how to help him. The husband was baptized 5 years ago so something must have drawn him to the church and hopefully we can rekindle that and build off of it.

 Tuesday- we had district meeting about using dinners as a time to build member relations and find people to teach. So we did this practice and sister fielding (who was doing the training) asked us to do a bad practice. So I was sharing a bad dinner message. President gives us a scripture to recite and learn every few months. So I decided to use that (it’s a good scripture) the scripture is D&C 131:6 "a man cannot be saved in ignorance". They continued to ask if they knew any one that was ignorant that we could teach. They said no one was ignorant and that everyone they knew was Mormon. So I asked why it wasn’t just taken up like the city of Enoch. But that was the bad example. Later we had a much more spiritual good example. Later that day we met a lady that recently moved in and she said she was Greek orthodox. Im not sure she even knows what that means. She was talking about Christ as their belief at some points at other points she was talking about Zeus. We ended the night at the Schwarting's house. They are a part member family everyone is active daughter is on a mission, but he just has something holding him back from really investigating the church. But he's a really friendly guy and we shared the Christmas message with him.

I'm getting a little bored of typing so im going to summarize the rest. WE went down to Cokeville and I was a bit surprised at how many people remembered me considering I was only there for a few days of six weeks. There was a white tail running around town that was weird I’ve really only seen mule deer out here. Christmas Eve and Christmas were fun we had a White elephant exchange with the district, got fed very well, and it’s a nice little break for a day. But all and all this week was really good.

Love you all and hope you had a great Christmas!