Release Date

We got Sams flight details and he will be coming home on April 25th!

Week 87

So we went up to sequoia national park this morning and we had a good time up there, I'm just super tired now that were back down the mountain. We had a good past week with finding new people to teach and we were finally able to get some investigators to church! The drought is over! We had 5 investigators at church which was a relief of going two weeks without anyone at church. At church on Sunday, a girl came up to me and asked if she could be baptized so that was amazing, no one has ever asked if they could be baptized, we normally have to invite them so we will be having a baptism next week or so. So I'm glad you got my invite, did you love it? My farewell is in two weeks and I still haven't heard about my flight so I might call tomorrow if I don't hear. I had an exchange with another elder this past week and was a lot of fun, we were able to find some new people to teach so was a good exchange. I can't think of too much more, sorry my letters are getting shorter, the weeks just blend in together now and I will see you in less than a month! It's scary now that it's less than a month til I'm home. I didn't know that Luke was in Vegas, that's cool that Laura met up with him and had a good time with him. I got an email saying that I have to send in the return missionary thing so I will do that and then fax it in this week. Well it's really hard to concentrate with all the elders and sisters here, just can't focus right now. Well I had some questions but I will write them down and ask you next week. I love you guys and miss you. Thanks for all of your love and support, you guys are the best! 

Week 86

So this week has been great, we had a great zone conference and learned a lot of stuff. We have been doing the harvesting blessing and it invites the spirit so strongly and is a great feeling to bless their lives even if they are not interested in hearing the gospel. The one problem that we have been facing is that we are not getting many progressing investigators with it, we are doing a lot of the blessings but then we go back and they aren't interested or won't open the door so that has been discouraging but hopefully that will turn around this week. So at zone conference, we got the news that the church has changed the email policy and now missionaries can email anyone instead of just family and that we have 1 and a half hours to email so that was a big change, I'm glad that this rule just got changed because that would of been too distracting for me so that was a big change. Things are going well, time is just flying by and the weeks are like days. I got a bunch of stuff for departing missionaries in the mail last week so I've got to start doing all that stuff. We've been getting a lot of anti stuff recently which is weird, and the Jehovah's Witnesses have been flooding the city with their invitations to their celebration so I think that is making it more difficult on us. We have found a bunch of new people this week and a few less actives that were working on reactivating so we are defiantly busy. So this week we have district meeting and then going on an exchange so should be a pretty fun week.

Week 85

This past week has been great. We have found some really prepared people, on Monday night we knocked on some doors and we were welcomed in to leave a blessing on their home and the spirit was very strong. We then asked the 16 year old boy "if Jesus Christ were in this room right now, what one question would you ask him?" He then said he would ask where we came from, and we were a little stunned because it's as if he read Preach my Gospel or something. We then taught the Plan of Salvation and committed him to baptism for the 30th of this month. He had such great questions during the whole lesson and he said that it has cleared up a lot of things he was wondering about his whole life. We had so many great experiences this week, we gave over ten harvesting blessings and it is such a powerful tool, it is probably the most spiritual thing that has ever happened in their homes. We have been finding a lot of people through this, actually all of our investigators are from doing this as much as we can every day. Soon enough we will be so busy that we will be booked for every hour of the day. We are really seeing a lot of miracles in our area right now. A couple funny things happened this week, we were biking down a busy street and we went by an auto shop and I saw a Maserati so I told him to look and while he was looking back he nailed a telephone pole bad, it was so funny, was laughing for like 30 minutes. We also went to dinner that same day and while we were eating, Elder Keys stands up and runs to the bathroom and then we hear him puking for the next 10 minutes so that was interesting trying to eat while we could hear him puking. Also went on exchange with Elder Frost ( he is from the heaps ward) and that was so much fun. This upcoming week we have zone conference on Friday and then doing more exchanges this week. 

 

Thanks for all the emails! It was great to hear from everyone. I didn't realize that I was coming home during the ward conference, I feel bad that Pres. Halsey won't be able to speak, I could do 10-15 minutes so that he could have time to speak also. I like the idea of being able to do the report and do it with the ward council so I can still do that. That's fantastic about the youth temple trip, there are so many youth now, wasn't like that a couple years ago, sounds like we have a really good ward. Thanks for everything! I love you and miss you.

Week 84

So this has been a great past week. We have been able to go out and work every day and we have found a lot of new people to teach as we do three hours of knocking doors and talking to people in the streets. We have made ourselves quite busy the past couple days and we have found a lot of people that really need the gospel and are going through a really hard time. Elder Keys is my new companion and he is from Washington state and he is a really good missionary. He has been out about a year now and we've gotten along really well so I'm glad this is going to be a really good transfer. We are serving in a really ghetto area so most people are humble and willing to talk with us, we have been offering to have prayers with people and leave a blessing on their homes and it has been a really effective finding tool and a good way to bless people's lives. It softens people's hearts, there are many people who don't want to talk to us at first because they don't want to switch religions or not interested in our message but then we offer to have a prayer with them and they are receptive to that. We had a couple of investigators at church this past Sunday, I keep comparing everything to when I was in Exeter and we were getting 10 or so investigators to church and here we get less than half of that so I need to stop doing that because I feel disappointed every week. I can't think of anything else too exciting from this past week, we've just been doing a lot of finding. We are doing sports today, haven't played anything for a while so I feel out of shape.