20 Jun 2016

Kind of a weird week but I guess that’s how it always is. For starts the big news came in and I'm staying in Poce!

Monday- Pretty mellow day, we got taken around by the Zone leaders; ate at IHOP and did usual p-day things. For the activity we did dodge ball and no one got seriously injured! We have this new Samoan missionary and he was crazy. Then we had an awesome lesson with Jason. His fiancé is a convert who went less active but is trying to get temple worthy again. He is one of the few people who actually follows up with things we ask him to do, like reading or whatever it may be.

Tuesday- WE GOT OUR BIKES FIXED!!!! It feels so nice to have a good mode of transportation! Then we did some service at a thrift store, had some lunch and got on our way. Later that day we had a church tour with a group of kids, all really promising and have a desire to learn and be baptized but none of them live in our area.  We started teaching because they are at their cousin's house more than their own. The other two are moving out of our area tomorrow. But they are super stellar kids and I'm glad I had the opportunity to help them learn a bit more.

Wednesday-  Today we had District meeting. The first of which Elder Vogt has organized and it went really well! Then the day got really long. We met this guy from Napal. His name is Keshab. He is a kind-hearted guy but it’s difficult to hold a conversation. His English is good but broken and he gets very caught up on small points,  We said we hadn't read the Bible start to finish and he thought we didn’t read the Bible and he was trying to say Christ was the only person who could hold the priesthood and we didn’t know this because we didn’t read the Bible. We kept trying to explain that we do read the Bible. Then he got caught up about the Book of Mormon being true and I asked if he had ever read it and he said no. But he had googled it and watched YouTube videos on it..... Anyway, it was a fun conversation. Then later that day we met an atheist and he had all these different issues with the church. This guy reminded me of Korihor in a lot of ways. He said that there’s no proof of God and he said you couldn’t rely on feelings, so his heart was hardened beyond anything we could help with. Then he said along the line of maybe there is a God but I refuse to believe until I have tangible evidence. If we could find a way to soften his heart and even get him to consider taking an act of faith maybe we could get somewhere but has not very willing to soften his heart. The rest of his family has a very strong belief his kids served missions. His wife didn’t convert but supports the Church and has a huge faith in Christ.

Thursday- not much happened but we got a lot of appointments set up.

Friday- Crazy busy we had a lesson at 10 at 2 and at 6 and then  taught a larc at 8. All these lessons went really well, the first was a girl that came up to us last week and asked for some service and she accepted to take at least one lesson. The next was Mark a kinda crazy guy but really cool. Every lesson he asks questions relating to things we are about to talk about. I felt like Alma when Zeezrom asks about Eden, And Alma's like I'm glad you asked I was just about to talk about that. So those lessons went really well. Then we had the Tramells and they are a cool couple but the lesson got interrupted a lot by their kids yelling and kicking each other. At the end of the lesson while we were praying, their son threw the cat over the stairs... the cat’s fine but it disrupted the spirit. Then we saw our man Charles. I love that guy. We actually talked about humility and love. Apparently he sizes up every person he meets and thinks about how he could beat them if they decided to attack. He had a rough past though so I can’t blame him too much.

Saturday- Today was pretty slow except for one lesson we had. We met with Sonia and had a super good lesson. The house had like a weird vibe before we came in and Elder Magallon and I both had the thought to ask if she wanted it dedicated. Before we asked, she asked if we could do like a blessing on the house. It was super cool the spirit was so strong.

Anyways the week has been good Elder Magallon is a pretty cool guy and im really enjoying this transfer so far.

Love all you guys

6 Jun 2016

So sorry about last week I didn’t send anything except for a couple personal e-mails to some people. I was thinking about skipping the group e-mail again but transfer calls came and the mission is getting crazy so I figured I should at least let everyone in on that.

So Transfer! Im staying in Poce Central and Elder Dawson is leaving to Soda Springs.  Elder Magaione (no idea if that’s spelled right, just try to sound it out) is coming up with me. Our area is part of a new zone, the Poce north zone, and the mission split will be July 1^st.  At that time we will be solidified into our new permanent mission. So these transfers give us a vague idea of who will be in which mission. Wherever you are on July 1st is which mission you will be in.  There's one thing, on June 21st there will be another transfer that has been stated by president that  will be crazier than this transfer that just happened.  So we can expect maybe a handful of the companionship to stay the same. These transfers are such a big deal that they are going through the First Presidency so our transfer calls are apostolic and basically new mission calls. It’s a lot of fun!

23 May 2016

Crazy week as usual. So it started off really bad...

Monday- I was sick, I woke up at 2am and was violently ill until 5am, and the rest of the day I just wanted to sleep. By the end of p-day I was able to go around without feeling terrible.

Tuesday- Elder Dawson got sick..... We lost most of the afternoon but I was able to split in the evening and make a few visits

Wednesday- so this made up for the last two days of sickness. We didn’t see each other for about half the day because we had so many splits set up. We did weekly planning in the morning because we had zone conference the next day so we had to plan early; we also ended up picking up a 3rd elder for the day. Because of the upcoming mission split Elder Dart (one of our ZL's got moved) so when he left we watched Elder Horne.

Thursday- Zone Conference with Wilfred W Anderson of the seventy. It was Awesome a lot of cool and helpful things were said more than I'm going to bother typing, but it was even better than I expected.

Friday- we went on exchanges and I went over to central 1 with elder Boatright. He's a super awesome guy probably one of the best at and one of the few that’s actually good at door approaches. Sadly we didn’t really get a chance to teach together but we had a lot of contacts and got things set up.

Saturday- the day came!We had FIVE baptisms today! The service was a little crazy/ One of them almost didn’t make it, but everything ended up going well. Sadly I don’t have any pictures. The kids were very opposed to having any pictures taken.

Sunday- We had all five confirmations in one ward and then Elder Dawson also gave a baby blessing. It was about a half hour of blessings I think the speakers didn’t mind though.

Have a good week, sorry I didn’t type more this week. Love you all!!!!

16 May 2016

What’s up everyone? This week just seemed super long. So something I left out last week was that we gave talks on Sunday (Mother’s Day) and we were asked to speak on....*drumroll*.... missionary work... We both tried to find ways to incorporate Motherhood and missionary work together, while still giving advice on how to be an effective member missionary. Apparently the ward really liked it but it was one of the more unusual talks I've given.

Monday- I don’t remember really anything about this last Monday. Luckily I have a planner.  We saw a couple of potential investigators and things went surprisingly well. We figured they would just shut us down because they didn’t show much interest.  They still didn’t show much interest but showed more than we expected!

Tuesday- We spent the morning at Idaho Youth Ranch volunteering and at the end Elder Dawson found some LaBron basketball shoes. They were basically new and worth like $150 but he got them for 10 bucks. Then we went to the mission office to have interviews with President. I already had mine before transfers but Elder Dawson didn’t so I ended up having a second interview that lasted about 5 minutes. After we played some b-ball and taught shortly with this kid named Brain. We found him walking down the street one day and just talked and now he's taking the lessons. Most of our investigators here come from referrals so a street contact working out is super weird for me.

Wednesday- We weekly planned today because we have zone training tomorrow. Then later we had this church tour/activity and it didn’t turn out like we wanted. A few kids cancelled, but Ashley Moncur, the best 12 year old missionary I've ever met, brought a friend and we got a new investigator. We also went to Bamboo Garden as a district and had a shrimp eating contest... not the best idea, Walking around all day didn’t feel the best after that.

Thursday- Zone training was sweet! Elder Dart and Elder Horne are some awesome zone leaders; the focus was how to get members involved in the Lords work. We ended up going on a split which both lessons turned out really well.

Friday- Long morning we did tons of record keeping/catch up. Then we had a couple baptismal interviews later that evening.

Now I'm running out of time... sooo I hope you all had an awesome week and I hope this next one is just as good!

Love you guys!

9 May 2016

Crazy week and am not sure I’ll remember most of the details.

Monday- P-day was awesome we played ultimate Frisbee. After p-day we had dinner with a part member family and it went pretty well. Then we went and saw Kaden, I'm not sure if I mentioned him last week but we met him at the White’s house. He was just there chilling and we asked him if he wanted to get baptized and has like Yea!!! So we went and saw him today and his mom’s boyfriend is a less active member trying to re-activate and his sister was baptized but went less active and they all invited us back and are looking forward to seeing us!

Tuesday- Spent the morning ripping out a fence for a service project. It was pretty fun. We made more visits than I'm going to list but we found a new investigator. She has a little daughter and has a bit of a past and she wants to be affiliated with a better crowd so she's looking towards the church. Then we had a lesson with Kaden and his family and we got along great. It took a while to get focused, but we did get to the lesson eventually. He is an awesome kid though. One of the most golden investigators we have.

Wednesday- we had district meeting and Elder Dawson asked us each to train on PMG effective study. Then instead of training we just did a big think tank sort of deal. A lot of good things were brought up. A big one being, "do our investigators know how to effectively study?" We invite a lot of people to read the B.O.M but not many of them know how to study scriptures. Then nothing really picked up until the evening and we saw Kaden again to finish the restoration and I got my eye brows waxed. Their daughter was in the middle of doing it when we came over so Elder Dawson volunteered me and did a bad job. He barely even got anything off and I think they’re uneven now.

Thursday- weird day with weekly planning. It took up our entire morning. Then we went and did some contacting and then went on splits for the rest of the night. That’s about all I remember.

Friday- we had exchanges and I went to central 1 with Elder Vogt. We spent the morning volunteering at the Idaho youth ranch thrift shop. There was probably a dozen Elders there. It was pretty fun. We set a date with a guy named Diego. He's a super cool guy. He's into church and heavy metal. Kind of a weird mix but has really genuine. We had an awesome lesson with him. That’s about all I recall from the exchange. That and walking like 15 miles that day.

The weekend was awesome but am a little tired of typing, sooo am gonna end here.

Hope you all have an awesome week!!!!

2 May 2016

It’s been a crazy week and as much as I miss the people of I.F. being in Pocatello has been better than I dreamed!

Monday- P-day and kind of an odd one with transfers coming I didn’t bother shopping for food and then I didn’t get to really do anything for the activity because I was swamped by journals that people wanted signed. I don’t know if that’s big in every mission but here we all have transfer journal and people go all out (well the sisters) like they border the paper with frames and cut out all these pictures, then there’s me drawing stick people and yea. After P-day was mostly just some good byes and final visits, most of the night was over at Dave’s and it’s a bummer to leave him has an awesome guy and I really wanted to work with him more. Then at like 8:30 a couple of members we are close with took us to Reeds dairy for some good bye ice cream. Well I shouldn’t say a couple, it was supposed to be both the Stafford's but Kelsey was super sick due to being big with child, so she couldn’t tag along.

Tuesday- A very short and strange district meeting, followed a final lunch trip to Moranita's (super good Mexican restaurant) Then from like 2 o’clock to 9 we just had visits with like everyone we know, it surprised me that some of the people were as upset as they were, like I didn’t realize they felt that close to me, but it helped me know that at least we were doing something right.

Wednesday- Transfers!!!!! The morning took forever, it was mostly just sitting around the transfer sight writing more journals, then the transfer "train" came and dumped off a bunch of people I haven’t see in forever! And it was a crazy union for about 10 mins. Then we were off, getting to Pocatello was crazy! My new comp is a boss, I see my MTC comp once a week and the whole zone is just awesome. We live with members basically on the side of a mountain, and Elder Dawson loves to exercise so we have these sweet morning runs! But when we got back to the apartment we did a quick planning session got me caught up on some stuff and went to work, I don’t remember names that well but it was a sweet day

I’m running out of time so I’m just going to sum up some stuff, we had a game show style lesson with a family and the loser had to eat this nasty dessert they made. Elder Dawson was giving questions so it was me against them and we tied so everyone got nasty cupcakes. I technically lost but Elder Dawson just kept making up things to break the tie.

We had this sweet fasting miracle on Sunday, we have a couple girls on date and we dropped in to see them and they had a couple friends over, and we talked to all of them a bit, and on Sunday it was looking iffy if the White girls would even get to church, then they showed up with the friends they had over the other day! So we have a couple new investigators and they had an awesome time at church.

The new transfer is awesome and I love Pocatello. Life is good!!!

Hope you all have an awesome week!

 That's our puppy. I took a bunch of pictures but its tongue was out in every single one...

 Saying good bye to my favorite ZL (Elder Green)

 Saying good bye to Dominic. He's usually a lot happier and I was lucky to get the picture.

Got a present from Eliza.  It was a teddy bear.

25 Apr 2016

Kind of a weird week But I’ll start off with the big news so you don’t have to bother reading the whole thing. I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED!!!!!! It’s a bummer in some ways but I’m super excited!!! So I will be moving down to Pocatello central 2, and be the district leader companion to Elder Dawson! I've been told by like three people that he's a "work horse" so I’m excited for what’s to come!!!!

Monday- Pretty slow Monday. I was super tired so I didn’t really even participate in the p-day activity I just chilled and talked to people. After P-day we saw Melba! I've mentioned her before but she's this super crazy lady in her late 80's and she was telling me I had to call president and let him know I couldn't move because there was this little old lady that had broken her hip and was almost converted to the gospel. We spent most of our evening just doing a puzzle with her. Then we got a call from Bishop Petersen and he said he needed us for a blessing for his little daughter. So we went over there and his little daughter Emma had a double ear infection. It is not easy to give a blessing to a baby in pain, they don’t sit still. But we gave him a hand then he walks around the corner and goes yea we were at Reed's dairy so we picked you up a tub of ice cream. We are pretty sure that was like 60% of the reason he called us over, because he's able to give his daughter a blessing himself, but I love the guy and I’m going to miss correlating at his house.

Tuesday- District meeting, we've been keeping the focus lately on teaching the lessons so we split into two groups and took turns teaching each other. It's weird because when your teaching missionaries we want to bring spiritual enlightenment so we get a lot more in depth, but when you’re teaching investigators explaining all this stuff has to be a lot simpler. Today the ZLs had a couple of double scheduled lessons and we didn’t have anything scheduled for the night so we went on exchanges, and doubled up on their area. I went with Elder Bushman, and we from there went on splits with members, so I met Cheryl really nice lady that basically works to hard, and she talked for most of the time then I basically shared a scripture and headed to the next appointment. With Jarrett he recently got out of prison and he is awesome, like obviously mistakes were made but he's been taking the lessons and is already being a member missionary, he's sending B.o.M to his family and friends. He won’t be able to be baptized until he’s off parole but he’s so solid.

Wednesday- A slower day but it was good, we took Martha (a less active) to the V.C and watched the restoration video, and we also had Jason's interview! That’s about all I remember from today.

Thursday- Planning day, so the morning was basically planning, but the afternoon got better. We had a lesson with the Hebdons and we finally finished L1 and we've had several lessons with them, they talk a lot and we get along so the lessons take a while, but I really feel like they are progressing well! Then we went and saw the Staleys and reviewed L3 with them. So last week Meadow finally warmed up to us and she talked none stop, then this week we brought over a new face just a guy preparing to go on a mission and she was super shy again. Then we were going to meet with Dave but he sent us a message and said, I think I’ll hold off on seeing you guys until next week I want to read the book of Mormon so we have something to talk about. I have no clue if he meant the whole thing or just like some chapters but at least he's showing interest.

Friday- Back to work at the soup kitchen we always meet a few crazy people there this time his name was Wayne and he was super nice but he kept giving us hugs and stuff saying how awesome we were for serving missions, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t LDS but hey potential. Then we helped Green and Christensen (they were on exchanges) gives a blessing to this crazy lady. She had a heart of gold but she was a little out there. We went and saw Dominic and he was being a bum to us because he was grounded but, his mom ended up texting his dad while we were there and he now has permission to be baptized! Then on our way to dinner we met a schizophrenic guy and he was super nice but just a little weird, there were a lot of crazy people today.

Saturday- Jason's baptism! nuff said! but it was a really good service his soon to be family in law did a really good job with the program. During a video/testimony intermission we gave while they changed the AP's called us about transfers... worst timing in the world. then we had a lunch in over at their house, but left a bit early to start moving. Not for transfers just the third time I’ve moved apartments in the same area, so I haven't even bothered unpacking because I’m going to be gone to Pocatello soon.

Sunday- Busy day we tried to make it to all our wards so I could say good byes to people but the 26th ward cancelled church because they had a power outage. So we didn’t make it to the 26 and 28th ward. But Bishop Petersen did call me up on the stand to give a farewell testimony; I guess is what I would call it. But it was a crazy busy day in the 11th ward, Jason got confirmed and they had a missionary home coming. We finished up the day by visiting Melba so I had to break the news that I was for sure leaving. Just been a crazy week

Anyways I hope you all are doing well!!!