May 13, 2013

It was great to see y'all again! It seems y'all haven't changed a bit, except for Casey. I'm glad I had that opportunity! Here is all the big information on what's happening in the mission!

Well, President has made huge changes here! We have many new missionaries and there are many moves to Georgia. I am staying here and my new companion is Elder Glik, never met him, it's going to be interesting! I am our district's new District Leader.... I didn't see that coming. And every companionship, except the senior companions, have been changed! Well it's a good thing that God is willing to support us, because I'm going to need lots of it this transfer!

Even though there is lots more pressure, I still am looking forward to it. I know it's going to really help me improve, and I hope good things will continue to happen here.

Over the whole mission, we had 18 baptisms last week, and that doubled last weeks number. It hasn't happened in a long time. This is President Jensen's last transfer! He is going in July, and we are all going to miss him, and Sis Jensen! They made sure that they had all of our addresses correct, so they could keep in contact. That's a lot of people! In interviews I told him we lived close, but Delta is like 4 hours south, and I thought he was an hour north. But he's a lot closer to us than lots of other missionaries!

All is still good, our investigator pool just diminished to one because of the baptism saturday. We'll have to find the solid ones now from the mess of people in our area. I hoped we would get sisters, but next transfer. I can now prepare even better for them.

Love y'all still, and I'll talk to you next week!

May 6, 2013

Yep, only five transfers! I might only have one area left, who knows? Things are going really great here, and this saturday the family we are working with is going to be baptized! What's even cooler, the brother to the dad told us he wants to be baptized as well! So in total is 5 baptisms. We are way excited for it, the spirit is going to be super strong, and the best thing is, they are truly converted and won't leave.

I thank all y'all for the emails, I do love hearing about all your crazy stories, and the slanderous Dr Huffaker! :) just joking, the repentance process is for him too, but I do I still have the scar in my mouth because of him... haha.

It's good to know my prayers are being answered for y'all. everything is going real well! And those are some pretty sweet pictures that Jameson had! I liked all the other ones too!

I'm not sure what time we are contacting y'all sunday. My comp likes just talking on the phone, I'm going to try real hard to convince him to go to someone's house to skype! We will see though...

Love y'all and and take care, we will figure it out and I will let you know!

April 29, 2013

Not for sure if I'm leaving or not, my companion thinks he is going, so I might just stay and take over this area, who knows? I am looking forward to doing yard work for dad, believe it or not, we don't do much physical work, so i kind of miss it!

This week has been good! Our work continues to get progressively better, and the people we are working with are continually improving! We also got to do something real fun today. We went and toured Tyndall Air Force Base. We have a member who took us. He drove us around the base on a Polaris, and saw the training areas, and explained what each was for. We watched them blow up a runway in preparation for emergency runway repairing maneuvers. He showed us also the different bombs that they found in the east that the people made, and some of them you wouldn't even guess were bombs, those guys are real tricky! He also drove us around in his bulletproof Humvee, so it was all around an awesome experience!

Two weeks and it's transfers again, and those who are going to Georgia Macon are going to be transferred then, so we'll find out! We also learned that we are going to be having two sets of missionaries here, us and sisters! It's going to be real weird!.... They will come either this transfer or the next. There are many people who are excited for them.

All is well, can't wait for this next transfer! Can't wait for next week either, we are having our investigator family's baptism! It's going to be great.

Love you too!

The missionary! :)

ps. I bought a little uke! :)

April 22, 2013

I heard about the Boston explosions, which is crazy. I just thought about Jameson being at the marathons, but he knows to be careful. I didn't know about the fertilizer plant exploding, or that the guys were caught, that's knew information for me. Elder Harrer and I were just talking about how Satan is turning up the heat on the world, and how members need to step it up, or they will fall back into a bad routine. We are dealing with a lazy ward, and are trying to get them more active, and more engaged. Yesterday we had Elder Munns of the seventy speak at our ward about this exact thing, it helped a lot. We are also seeing some improvements. Things are picking up again, and I hope it continues to progress!

Not much happened with our investigators this week. Tracted a lot, and I wore sunscreen this time! I'm sorry but I didn't get a picture of the helmet strap on my face, but I still have the summer to get one!

We had an awesome experience last night. We got to go to a fireside with Marvin Goldstein, a famous piano player, and another famous singer who's name escapes me, Vanessa? But it was two hours long, and very uplifting. He is a funny guy! He was cracking jokes left and right, and it was real fun to be there. He talked about his conversion story from being a Jew to LDS. It took 4 years! He also told us he pushed a missionary into the pool, and he had his suit on! You can kind of see what kind of man this is, haha. He started playing the piano when he was 9, and 3 hours a day he practiced. He is now 60, so he is real good! There were several families from chipley there, and I got to catch up with them. It was really weird to see them. It was like seeing family.

We are still doing good though! President Jensen asked my thoughts on moving to Georgia Macon mission, and I told him wherever the Lord wants to send me I'll go! So who knows? I might be changing missions! I also learned that Javi is going to be absorbed in that mission, so that will be an interesting experience!

About Daniel, I think it's awesome that he is going with the Johnsons. They are a good family. It's going to help a lot having Daniel be around them, especially right after Gibson gets back.

I need to start running more if Jameson is going to recruit me for that...how many miles do they run again? Whew! :)

LOVE y'all and talk to you next week, I'm fixen to head out! :)

April 15, 2013

 Transfers were last week, and I'm still here! Next transfer is going to be the crazy one, we are getting over 23 new missionaries. There is probably going to be many changes.

 Yeah I agree last month went fast... and I only have 4 transfers left after this one, I could only have one area left! I think it's funny how I have never met Tati, yet she is such a big part of y'all's life now! Or OUR life now....:) I can't wait to meet her, another month and I will be able to see y'all. Can't wait!

 Work is good, many things are happening now. We have 98 BCDs, and we had 8 baptisms last week, including Muriah, who was baptized Thursday. That was an amazing experience! We had to scramble to get her program done. And luckily the Lord blessed us. We made a rough draft and was trying to find someone to make it look good on the computer, as so we tried to see a family who knows how to do that stuff. They weren't home, and after thinking, went to the library to do it ourselves. We got there and the mom was just leaving the library, and drove past us and said hi! We stopped her and talked and she volunteered to help! She did a great job too. The program ended up getting jammed in the copier... wasn't my fault. :) But we flattened it out and everything went fine, we also had her last lesson 15 minutes before we started. But the Spirit was there, and everyone was touched in the room. She bore her testimony after the baptism, and it was strong. It makes me happy to see somebody's life change and to know that they will stay strong.

 The weather is getting hotter now! We biked around 5 hours last saturday and I got burned, and Elder Harrer, being a darker shade, didn't... someone told me that rubbing on egg whites helps it heal faster right after the burn, and so I tried it. It felt like I had scales and it was like a thin cast on my arms, it was really weird. But I woke up the next day and my arms didn't hurt! Turns out they were right! I still had the helmet straps sun burnt into my face for all to see at church, but I took it as a sign of hard work! :)

 Nate is going to have a fun time in Africa! What language is he going to learn? Is Carson going to give him all his tips now?

 What is Ashton's date to move? And when will they visit after they leave? It is always good to prepare! Of course they will be back for my homecoming, right? I'm thinking too far ahead, I still have a third of my mission left! And you don't have to send me them, I find that I compare myself too much with them, so I think this would be best!

 

Still holding on the the truth!! :)

Love you lots also!!!!

 

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April 8, 2013

Did you forget to attach the picture? I didn't get one, but it's alright. :) I greatly enjoyed General Conference too. Lots of great talks and I took many notes. We have many more sisters now, lat transfer we only had like 5 new sisters, but this next transfer I think there are 24 coming in. That number, we've been told is going to stay constant for a while. Before they haven't had sisters in leadership positions, but they are now organizing a Zone Leader Conference where they are going to talk about implementing it. That is a big change.

I also love this gospel! I do not plan on wavering like many of the return missionaries. I put too much effort in becoming who I am to waste it all and destroy what I built up. I feel bad every time I think about that. I served with a missionary that was like that, was not fun.... I learned from it though. It seemed there was absolutely no progression on his part. But thank goodness God made a way for us to get work done.

This week went great! We didn't get that many lessons in, but we did get 3 solid new investigators. We have lots of people to teach now. We have a for sure baptism this Thursday. And we are weeks away from having another baptism ready for a family we've been working with.

We had a funny experience. We were trying to find this hidden baseball field to tract around it, but couldn't find it for a while. We asked a few people, and there was a particular person we talked to on the corner of an intersection. His name was Brother Andrews, he was a lead minister of another church. Sounds bad right? We didn't argue, only discussed. We would've walked away after the first 30 minutes after we found he wasn't interested, but we felt the Spirit, so we stayed. He talked to us about many things, and he was a good teacher. He helped be to listed better, and to think in tense situations. He was kind enough to stop and listen to our points and was very reasonable. After about 50 minutes of talking, a younger lady pulled up and got out. I only saw the head motion of my comp as he looked at her. The conversation stopped as my comp asked her what she needed. I looked and noticed her standing next to me. She said, "Y'all are the missionaries right? I've been less-active and my husband isn't a member and we would like y'all to visit us. I saw you and had to stop and ask." You could imagine the look of the minister's face. I got the information from her and got to know her a little more, and she is way cool. My companion continued to speak with bro Andrews. I really think, besides learning from Bro Andrews, that we were prompted to stay there just so she could see us and stop to invite us. We ended up staying and talking to him a bit more. It all went well, he really taught us to study diligently and connect bridges. We are now doing so, and it's helping he was right, probably not to the effect he wanted though... :)

Many good things are happening, and we are being blessed. Our mission has 85 baptisms scheduled now, and hopefully they all will be followed through with. The stone continues to roll.

I love y'all, good to hear from you as always. I didn't tell you this previously, but I "out grew" the new suit you bought me.... But happy news! I fit in it again!! :D Miracles just continue to happen! haha

I'll talk to you next week!

March 25, 2013

Oh, I thought I did. Well it's

4141 15th street apt #323

Panama City FL, 32401

Good thing things are good! That's weird that Dallon got his call. Every time I hear his name I think of little dallon passing the sacrament! I heard from Dad that gretchen was a little bummed about staying in the states, but to be called to independance is awesome! That is a cool mission, she could be the one to influence the building of the temple, who knows?!

Things are still going well, still working on our investigators, moved back their dates again, but they are progressing still! I absolutely love the work, and now I understand the workings of the spirit like never before! So all those things I heard from everybody is true, but it makes a huge difference experiencing it. A big change, I don't know if I told y'all, but we can now email friends, priesthood leaders, and recent converts. But don't throw out that information to just anybody, I still don't have enough time to email all! :) But the church is true, and God still loves all his children. I found a new appreciation for our savior's sacrifice, and now that easter is coming up, it's going to be strengthened even more!

Love all y'all lots, and I'm continually praying for you. Stay safe!