November 11, 2013

 Y'all already heard about our branch becoming a ward? That was one of the most exciting things that has happened this week! We didn't know it would happen so soon, I was caught off guard. There were a lot of people there, and they didn't know about it either. A less-active family came, and one of our investigators, and also a lady who isn't a member, also affiliated with the less active family. We were way excited to see all that, and now it's going to be hard to call President Riley, Bishop Riley!

 We had a terrific week actually. We have a cool story of how we found a new investigator. So we were trying to have a lesson with this black guy who we met at Publix. We got an appointment, but it got cancelled the morning of. We happened to run into him again the 2nd time ever being in publix here, and set another time. This time we didn't call him in the morning and just went over with a member. We knocked on his door, and a lady and man we didn't recognize were there, and so we thought we had the wrong house, they were very surprised. They invited us in which surprised us. Turns out this guy lives with them, and he was asleep. But as we continued to talk with them it turned out we stayed for an hour! We found that this guy was a excommunicated member, and his wife isn't one. He went on a mission, and went to BYU, but wasn't living the right way. He actually came to church in January but hadn't been back. Elder Miller mainly talked with him, and the member and I talked with the wife. We talked about all sorts of religious topics, and thank goodness Bro Proulx knew his facts! It went super well, and I felt the Spirit prompt me with certain topics to bring up. The main message was Moroni's promise, and to take it straight to God. She has a very firm belief in the Holy Ghost, and not a crazy-bark-like-a-dog believer in the Holy Ghost. She was excited to hear the restoration, which she believes needed to happen, and gave us both their phone numbers without asking. We are going to see them tonight, and have dinner with them. The husband talked to Elder Miller about how he missed being a part of the Gospel, and how he wants to return. So everything was set up for us, and these people are prepared. It's funny how we found them through this other guy!

 We also had a powerful lesson with the less-active family who came to church, but just with their 3 daughters. The Spirit was strong, and you can tell their conviction and desire by how they look at you during it. There were many distractions, telephones going off, kids making noise, but there were a couple times where there was silence, and we bore our testimonies, including the member with us, and they took it in! It was a big step.

 Many things are happening, and all we can do is keep working and pray that God will grant us more of his mercy and grace to continue to keep these things going! 

 And I saw the picture you posted on Facebook, Sis Smartt showed me! :) haha

 Thanks Dad for representing me well! I wish I could've heard the talk.

 And last big thing, We pulled a 21 miler to drop off a book of mormoon stories and see a former investigator couple. It was worth the hour and 30 minutes of straight biking, we stopped at a members house to pick up the book and the look on her face that we biked there was priceless! total of 300 miles biked since the middle of last transfer, hoorah! :) Love y'all and talk to you next week! 4 weeks...

November 4, 2013

Halloween was pretty fun, the chili was really good! All I had to eat was the test cups, and that's it. We were more focused on who we should talk to and just having a good time also. There were more than 8 non-members there, the ones we invited didn't show though... But none-the-less they all had fun we heard! When we got in for the night, around 7:40, I just watched church Christmas movies, and Elder Miller practiced on his guitar. So pretty uneventful afterwards.

 Good news though! At church, a family that we've been trying to work with decided to show up! A mom and her 3 girls, it was awesome to see them. The youngest, who is 18, said she decided to go to go to church the day before and called her mom, and they were there! I tried to commit them to come for the next 4 Sundays afterwards, so we'll see what happens! :) Now we need to get the other 3 members of their family, plus our investigator who is also linked to them...

 We had a good week. Got a new investigator, but we haven't heard of major improvements just yet. And the Hispanic side of our branch decided to throw a fiesta tonight, and invited lots of members, plus another of our investigators. It was funny because it started as a dinner appointment with 2 families, but then more and more people were invited and it turned into this!

 We also have a new sister missionary, and guess what her name is?... Sister Grady! I did tell her about our Schnauzer, she just said, oh gosh... Coincidence? I think not! :) She's from Spokane, Washington.

 One more thing, we had a Family History booth in a Indian Pow-wow festival thing, and it went super well! I found many names for people who were looking, but also failed at some names. It's impossible to look up Indian heritage, because they didn't keep records! But luckily most of the people were white. I did take pictures, they are good!

 Keep strong! I'll do the same. 5 weeks

Clock Is Ticking!

 I'm staying here for my last transfer, yay! I love it here, now we need to pick up the work and get some solid investigators! we have many potentials and almost progressing investigators, but little things are keeping them back. A big one is work, many people are busy here!

 We had a cool experience on trade offs last tuesday. Elder Hawker from West Jordan Utah switched with Elder Miller for the day. It went real well, saw some people, beat 2 tall white guys in street ball, and got 2 new investigators! It was dark and so we didn't want to travel far, so we went to see some of the people in our complex. We knocked on the door that I thought was the right one and said to Hawker, what if this isn't her apartment? He said that we'll just say we were sent here to help you! The door opened and we didn't recognize the lady, nor her big doberman... it was a nice dog though! She thought we were her friend paul, and we weren't... She asked us if we would bring a load of stuff from her car up before we left, we agreed. Her car was filled with tubs and other stuff she needed moved in, so we moved it all. If only we said we were sent to help you...! We found out she was from West Jordan Utah also, another coincidence! We talked to her about what we do, and she said we could give the sisters her number! So it worked great!

 We are looking forward to halloween, we get to be judges of the chili cookoff, I'm excited! This week could very well turn out badly, with not many visits because of the holiday, but we'll pray and move along!

 I asked about tati and ashton because in your email last week you said you are going there to help them move home... but anything sounds good! I love hearing about the other missionaries! Nate is awesome, I wouldn't want to be in that predicament, it would feel gross and smell bad! But he will do very well! If it turns out anything like Carson, I wonder what he will look like when he gets back! :)

 Make sure y'all let me know what goes on with halloween! :)

 Love y'all and take care, till next week!

October 21, 2013

That sounds real fun! The biggest trip we took was 8 miles on our bike going east! It would've been much longer had we gotten to our destination, and had to have gone back, but a screw in my tire stopped that... :)

 This week wasn't the best of weeks, but we foresee this week going great! We have a return appointment tonight for dinner with a nonmember family interested in learning about the gospel. We had a great visit with them last week. It started with a nonchalant visit and when the time was right, asked them questions about their background and talked about what we offer, and now we are going back! I heard they own many boats, one is an optometrist and the other is a dentist. So they have plenty of money. haha. 

 The weather is continuing to cool down, and we don't have any hot days anymore. Things are looking up!

 Nothing much else exciting has happened. I learned that there is supposed to be a color run here in Destin sometime in November. I wonder if we could volunteer at it... :). And I did get the package, thank you! More than half the food is already gone, and the wrist band and head band are sweet! I also got a package of letters from the young women. There are many names that I didn't recognize, how many new move-ins have there been?

 It's weird to think that I only have 7 more emails! I don't know how much is going to be said in the last couple. 

 But I decided to wait to apply to college, and then have time to work on some scholarships and ldsbc takes applicants 10 days prior so that's good. I haven't found out much more info on how to send my bike home, but i will soon enough. And also, is Ashton and Tati going to be living with us next year?

 Love y'all and I laughed when you sent messages through sister Smartt, it made my day!

October 14, 2013

 I am sending the memory card today! So expect it later this week. You don't need to send it back...

 Cousin Jenna is getting married!? Finally! :) Jk haha. I think I said that about Ashton also, but I'm glad I'm going to be there for it! Maybe I'll actually get to meet him before their hitched! That is very exciting, and I'm way happy for her, and for us, it's good to have rich in-laws :)Jk! I'm also glad that Dad is alright. I bet he is making very good use of the time away from insanity. And how do you de-ice a plane? With an ice pick?

 Our week has gone good! Could have gone much better, but can't force anybody to be home or answer the phone! :) Good 'ol missionary work. I'm very glad we have members that are willing to take us around and see people. Bro Pehrson Hawkley took us around for 3 hours yesterday, and an hour and a half the day before. He is awesome.

 Our talks went real good yesterday. I prepared for a 14 minute talk, but only got 5 minutes to give it! It felt real good giving it, and the Spirit was guiding my words... Thank goodness for prayer! I had the feeling before the second speaker that I wasn't supposed to use my notes, have you ever got that feeling? You kinda think, Oh man... but thankfully it was only five minutes. We now have 2 potential investigators, and recieved 1 before the talks and also a nonmember decided to come back to this church after 20 years since he stopped taking the lessons. So yesterday went great, now we have to be sure to follow up and teach some lessons!

 Got a pretty good haircut last week, from myself...:) it doesn't look bad at all... plus Miller helped me a little. We used a set of clippers that almost didn't work!

 The weather is great here, how's it there? Any snow yet?

 Love y'all, and hope your week goes well!

October 7, 2013

We had a notice that we might have been evacuated, but the storm dissipated and there was no threat, just a day full of scattered rain fall. Conference was great, and I did get to see all 5 sessions. We had a member feed us breakfast and let us watch it there. We had to help them with their garage sale in return. This week we had a great lesson with an investigator, and now we have a baptism date scheduled! Elder Miller's first one, he is pretty excited. Here, it is hard to not get a member to come out with you for lessons. I love it! Everything is going fine out here, and things are still a little slow, but it is much busier than when we started!

Thanks for the information on the job and schooling, I talked to a member who is in that sort of stuff. He's not an agent, but works mainly with the information part of it, the name escaped me right now. I'm thinking of maybe taking online classes until I am able to get into school, and working. Do I have to apply to a school in order to do that? I know what classes I want to get into now, I'll email president and find out what I can do though. I don't feel like I need to immerse myself into schooling, but I do need to use the time I have and get some things done.

10 more weeks, it's going fast! For our mission to reach it's baptismal goal, our zone needs 30 baptisms, which divides it to 6 baptisms for our district, and we have one coming up in november now. We have plans to work with certain people, and know what people God wants us to prepare, now we need to get working! Our branch mission leader and us 4 missionaries depict at least 4 baptisms here in november, it is a good goal with names behind it! Definitely not a time to slip up!

Thanks for all the support and encouragement. Love y'all!

September 30, 2013

I will talk to sis smartt again about the video, not that it's great or anything...:) This week went good! For some reason no less-active members are letting us in, but we were able to teach 2 new investigators, we are excited about them. Funny story, we ate with two members at longhorn steak house, and they let us order what we wanted. I ordered a 10 oz. NY strip, my comp ordered a 20 oz. steak, it was pretty big. As we were all talking having a good time, my companion spits out his lemonade on the table. I look, thinking he just laughed it up out of his nose, and he stands up motioning to jay shaver, the member, that he had something in his throat. Miller turned and jay stood behind him and did the Heimlich. A huge piece of steak came out on the floor, and miller picked it up, and we continued to eat. It happened so fast, it was funny! We were laughing so hard about the experience, and it was jay's first time doing it, so he was making tons of jokes. It was the hardest I've laughed on my mission! There were many people staring, but we didn't care. I wish my camera wasn't dead when it happened... then after we biked home, and I was still laughing about it! What added to the humor is the seriousness of the situation, yet it happened nonchalantly!

Well, two weeks in and we've already made a name for ourselves! haha. Next week is General Conference, so stoked! We are giving a talk the week after, a little less stoked! And before we know it all the holidays will come up and it will be time to go! We have a goal set for two baptisms before I leave, we are going to accomplish it. I have one in mind, but we'll have to find the other, but I have a good feeling that there are two prepared for us. We'll see what the Lord has in store!

Love y'all lots!