18 Jul 2016

 This week has been pretty cool. A lot of working with ward leaders and it feels like there is a new excitement about missionary work in the area, hopefully that fire keeps burning. Also I was slightly misled by president. So within the next two transfers everyone but 2 elders will be training. So I'm staying were I am for the next six weeks. But I'm happy about that. We just started getting the wards excited I don’t want to miss out on what might come.

Monday was super busy. We had a service project in the morning so we missed like half our p-day so we were short on time. Then we had a lesson with a recent convert and she has a kid with Aspergers, It was just a little chaotic. But all and all the Spirit was still there especially when we got him to calm down.

Tuesday- We finally got Elder Boatwright and Vogt out of our apartment!!! No I'm going to miss those guys but it was a little crowded, and Elder Boatwright was running low on food so we had to share. The rest of the day was pretty good. One thing we learned is that in old town they have a lot of houses and apartments in the alleyways not on the streets so it fixed a lot of issues with finding people. Also we figured with all the space in the apartment now we are going to dedicate one room to making a giant map of old town. It’s going to be legit.

 Wednesday- So we almost flipped out this morning we were told that the other Elders might be moving back into the apartment.... But luckily all the problems got solved! Today was interesting though, I learned all about Pokémon Go. We stopped at a house and someone talked to us for about 40 minutes on Pokémon Go.... then after that we were walking down the road and this truck drove past at about 5 miles an hour with four people on their phones in the bed playing Pokémon Go.... The game sounds interesting but it’s weird to watch people play it. Also apparently every ward building is a gym. So we think that might be a new way to get people to church but we probably won’t be pushing that.

Thursday- Today was awesome. We had three good lessons one was with the Stoddard’s and we are still trying to figure out how to get permission for the daughter. Then we had a church tour with Mark and that was awesome. We got super sidetracked when talking about the sacrament but brought it back around plus it was all about things relating to the church. But the end was awesome Mark committed to prayerfully read the Book of Mormon and he said he would have an answer by Sunday. I'm not sure if he has gotten the answer yet or not but he is searching for sure. He was the designated driver for some friends Saturday night so he didn’t make it to church in the morning. But he is progressing really well!

Friday was a pretty short day not a whole lot happened

Saturday we did exchanges and it was a little crazy. Like I don’t know what was with everyone but I had never been cursed at as much as I was today. At least 5 different people flipped us off, several people yelled at us through their car windows, but it was a good day and it all paid off when we met Mickey. She may or may not be baptized but she has an awesome spirit and we had a basically a 40 min testimony meeting. But it was awesome. Totally worth being cursed at consistently.

All and all it’s been a really good week. Hope everyone back home is doing well!

11 Jul 2016

Sorry everyone for all the delays in emailing. So two weeks ago we went to Yellowstone on p-day. We get the chance once, well we used to now we are in a different mission. Then the fourth of July everything was closed so we had very limited computer access. But it was fun. We went on a big hike and just enjoyed a nice easy day.

So a week and a half ago the mission split. Nothing too crazy has happened yet as a result. But the craziness is about to start.  The influx due to the new mission will be so great that everyone except for the zone leaders will be training. So it will be an exciting transfer. I'm pretty excited about training!

This week has been really slow. Everyone has been out of town or just too busy for us. So we have spent a lot of time meeting with ward leaders and we have been seeing a lot of good results out of it! The only other thing is that we no longer live with members. We got moved into an apartment with two other Elders and they have had like four dates that they were supposed to move on but it keeps getting postponed. They should be out by Tuesday.  Hope it doesn't sound like I'm rushing them out, They are super cool guys but living with four Elders is always a little cramped.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to sit down and give a better report but things have been really  busy the last few weeks, and with the mission changing so much it might not stop.

4 Jul 2016

Sorry everyone for last week, we went up to Yellowstone. We get the chance to go up one p-day on our mission, and the mission is split so last week was my last chance. Anyway I don't have much time. This week has been a little slow; not many people home and we have been walking like crazy up and down mountains. We moved to a new apartment with a couple of other Elders. If you have anything to mail for now send it to.... 124 Highland Boulevard Pocatello, Idaho, 83201... I'll send some pics of Yellowstone next week.

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!