Holy Member Missionary Work!

These week members have been helping us so much and I love it so much! We have been giving them the challenge to write their tesitmony in the Book of Mormon we give them and then give it to someone that they know whether they be active or not active or they can give it back to us so that when we give out Book of Mormons, they have a testimony of how the Book of mormon has changed their lives. The members have been taking it well and they been doing it. This Sunday we had 3 people come up to us and ask for Book of Mormons to do just that because people announced in church that they did that and it got people excited.

We met with Frank and Annie this week for a lesson. We taught about enduring to the end. But we also learned something during our visit. It is Annie's divorce that we are waiting for. After it is done, Frank can marry Annie and then Frank can get baptized. We also asked Frank if he had any concerns about what has been taught to him, but he has none and he is totally gong hough on getting baptized as soon as he gets married. So we are still waiting for that. Big waiting game!

We also asked Cade about his permission with his father. He just got permission to recieve the lessons! Yay, we can start teaching him! Problem is that the person that wants to teach him at his house is on vacation in India and won't be back in 3 weeks. So, we are probably going to teach him somewhere else like at young mens or at another persons house. Cade is really mature about it so we believe he is understanding all of this gospel talk. He is still good for the baptismal date for March 14 and hopefully we will be to if we teach him everything. But if everything falls into place, we should have no problem with it.

This ward I believe is what I thought every ward was going to be like when I got in the mission. The ideal golden ward. However, the same thing can not be said for the other wards in the stake we are in. We had a meeting as a zone with a person from the high council I believe. He kinda oversees the missionary work here in the stake. But here is the thing. It was just mainly him complaining for members that missionary work is too hard and that the missionaries don't know who their missionaries are. He was saying that ALL members go to bed at 12 and wake up at 5 so they have it hard. I kinda have a hard time believing that all members go by that schedule. And if they don't want to meet with us, that is fine. There is nothing else we can do than just to invite them to here us. But when they complain to this high council guy, that is kinda taking it too far. When member missionary work works, it is amazing! When it doesn't, then the work is brutal for the missionaries. If members don't help the missionaries in the ward, then the transfer is going to be a long while. And it is almost like it is torture for the missionaries.

The members have been giving us a lot of names to see and I am so grateful for them doing that. That way we don't waste our time just tracting 24/7 which I don't believe in at all. It is all about meeting with members and helping them understand what is being asked of them. As a missionary, it is not all about obedience. It is all about love. If you love the Lord and the people you are serving with, then the rest of the attributes that a missionary should have will fall into place. 

Jeez it has only been the first week of this transfer. That was a long week! I hope it doesn't be like this the rest of the week this transfer. Well, that is all I have to report on. But guess what?! 24 more weeks left! ;) Love you all!

Transfers come with surprises and the Sunday even came with more surprises

 This was an exausting week! Getting ready for transfers was a tiredsome event. Olsen wanted to say goodbye to a couple of people. Plus he had to pack and he was nervous of who he was going to get as well. Like I said last time, transfers is a nerve racking kind of time. We didn't know what was going to happen. The ward was pretty sad that Elder Olsen had to go. They were grateful for his service to this ward and helping them in the missionary work. He will be missed I guess.

So now the moment you have been waiting for. Transfers and the results for them. Now Elder Olsen got to go to the North Calgary Stake with a no so popular missionary. Actually, he is quite hated for some reasons. I hope he will do well with him. We heard that the area was good so that is alright. Elder Carlton got Elder Behm who I like very much even though he hasn't been out for quite sometime. He is cool. Then there is me. I didn't get a companion who was still north. I got one who was coming from the South which was good because I wasn't a fan of the missionaries I saw from the north. So I went to transfers a bit later with the Zone Leaders to get my companion. And my companion is Elder Wiser who is a cool kid.  He has been our for 13 months now and he is from Logan, Utah. Surprise was through was when he was called to be my companion, they also said he was a district leader. Now we had no idea this was coming. We just knew the Spanish Elders who were district leaders left our zone and so we thought they were going to divide out the sisters into the remaining districts. But nope, Elder Wiser is so the district leader over the 17th wards sisters and the Arbor Lake Sisters. You know what that makes me? The DLB again!!! YAY!!!!! But we can't really go on exchanges with the sisters, but we can go with the zone leaders.

Elder Wiser is sweet! He likes soccer and likes music just like I do. He doesn't play music, but he loves to listen to it. He looks super young and many people think he has only been out for a couple of months. Haha! I will probably send you a picture sometime.

This week has been mostly finishing up the Lost Sheep work. We either get no one is home oe people just send us away. We weren't really expecting anything else. The ward was hoping that we get imformation about them.

However, our members are so much in the missionary mind. They have been giving us refferalls and also bringing their friends to church. It is pretty dang awesome. The Jones family brought that chinese woman again named Grace. She really wants to study our beliefs to think of a decision. We have been trying to set up an appointment with her. Hopefully that follows through.

Plus I have news on Cade our "investigator". The reason I put it as quotes because we haven't taught him quite yet, but he wants to learn more. He just needs to get his dads permission still. But good progress is being made because his dad bought him a full quad set of scriptures. Plus Cade has chosen his baptismal date already. March 14! We were freaking out when we heard this news! It is awesome! We just have to start teaching him however!

Question time:

1. How is the eczema?

Still getting better. Still have quite a bit on the legs, but everywhere else is fine.

 2. how old were the boys?

Around 15ish. The boy was nativeish that stole the stuff. The others wre just watching. They didn't steal anything else.

Question #3, could you tell as missionaries that the person was getting confused or just overwhelmed?

Usually I can tell when that happens. I think most missionaries can tell, but we don't want to get in the way too much when the members wanna teach.

Well, got to resume our P-day. Love you guys! Take care!

Eczema is getting better, and a very interesting week!

Well, things are getting better here this week. My eczema is getting a lot better since I got the medication. Most of it on my arms has gone away and on my face and back. There is still quite a bit on it on the back of my leg. But I think if I just apply it as I have been instructed then it will not get as bad. So that is great that that is getting better. :)

The work here is progressing better and better now. Our ward is getting more missionary minded. One family brought a family to church which is great. Only one thing I wasn't really happy about when that happened, the family in gospel principles attacked the person with our beliefs. The just stuffed doctrine down the families throat so we missionaries had to take over and start from the beginning with an organized lesson and taught them the first discussion in gospel principles. They seemed to understand it. But we learned later from the Mandarin Elders that she couldn't think that the first vision was possible and no one could know that. Maybe she missed a point in our lesson or she just couldn't accept it to be true. I thought it was a pretty good lesson, but there is just so much you can do I guess.

Funny story though: So we were at the Zone Leaders Pad which is Brother Pitchers home discussing what we are going to do for our P-day. While we were talking about it, Elder Carlton saw some boys going through the Zone Leaders car. We took after them telling them to get lost. Elder Carlton tackled one of them and got back what they stolen from the car which was coins and sunglasses. It was a pretty hyped up day for us! We learned then to lock our cars wherever we go. :/

As you know, Transfers are this week and yes we got a notice that Elder Olsen is going to get transferred. He is staying north however so he won't be going far. I don't know if my companion is coming from the south or from the north. Either or I am nervous who my new companion is going to be. :/ I do believe you guys know my feelings on transfers. It is so nerve racking! You just don't know if you are going to get a companion who will ruin your life for the next transfer or they will make your next transfer the best.

There are 2 other elder companionships that are getting affected this transfer. Elder Shumway and Elder Heuer are getting transferred. That means the American Fork group is now going to only two people in our district. It won't be the 1-801 district anymore. Haha! Oh well man.

Now time for questions:

 #1 - Did you have anything besides hot chocolate to draw peoples' attention to a group of missionaries?

We do a couple of surveys here and there. But usually hot chocolate is the thing to go. They give us a lot of ideas that we can do, but we haven't quite tried them yet.

#2 - How did you keep the hot chocolate warm and "advertise" to people that you had hot chocolate to share?

We had a cooler to hold the hot chocolate, but it wasn't that big so we ran out pretty fast. We just went to the people and offered hot chocolate and a Mormon.org.

#3 - Did you have to get permission from the city or somebody else to do what you did?

Not that we know of. We just do it and no one says anything. I think it is only when we are selling something that we have get permission or something.

 #4 - What are your district meetings and zone conferences like? How often do you do them?

We do district meetings every Tuesday at 10:30 unless transfer week where we do them on Monday. For Zone Conference that is every other transfer. So about 3 months. District meetings are usually the same pattern. Opening stuff, reporting, training, closing stuff. Zone conference is pretty much the same, but expanded out more where there are a lot trainings from different people.

Well that is all that happened this week. Here are a couple of pictures of our district. Love you all! I will tell you who my new companion is next week. Bye!

Eczema is getting worse....and worse

First thing is first. That picture I sent last week was not a recent one. That was when I was 10 months out so around June. It was just some glasses from a gas station that I decided I wanted to try on. I didn't have eczema then. Speaking of that, as you can see from the subject title of this email, my eczema is getting horrible. I have to itch a lot and it is spreading like crazy. The nurse for our mission told me to go to a doctor, but they are not open until today. So hopefully I can get an appointment and get something to help it. My face has gotten worst, my right arm is terrible and it is spreading to my side. It is not a good picture. I am doing all I can do to try to sustain it or get it better. It just sucks. New years has happened and you know what that means? New time for Church. Our church time has rescheduled to 9:00 in the morning, the earliest one I have been to so far on my mission and probably will stay that way. So far, none of our investigators have come to the new church time. Maybe they don't know or their fellow shippers didn't tell them or something. You guys remember Richard? Ya, he contacted us and said he was having a hard time believing in God. Our WML proposed we give him the movie, God's Not Dead. So we went and bought it at Wal-Mart and gave it to Richard to watch. He really likes movies and hopefully this solves his concern or something. We'll see. As you all know, this week was new years. We had to be in a members home or at our own apartment. We went to the Pitchers and played risk with other missionaries while the new years night was going on. The Pitchers showed us the ball drop at the New York plays which brought back good memories. We had fun. This week was pretty slow for missionary work as people were still busy or gone. We did as much member work, but that didn't do too much. So we focused on the last bunch on the lost sheep and so we are done with that list. Now we are mainly just waiting for good referrals from the ward. Also on Friday, our District went downtown to do a hot chocolate stand. It went...alright. It was cold as fetch. I think we took more Hot Chocolate than giving out to people. It was that cold. I wasn't in the best dress anyway so I kinda have to blame myself for that one. Alright Question Time! 1. What kind of goals do you set each week?  Or month?  Or day? Realistic goals for our area. As personal ones, mine so far is just having a good attitude and have an effective study. 2.Dallin sent in his mission papers and is now waiting for his call.  Wouldn't it be awesome if he got called to Canada?!!!   Fetch yes that would be awesome! This mission is pretty sweet and I think he would like that here! Sorry for only the brief explanation this week. Like I said, nothing too exciting happened this week. This week is board week and so maybe one of us will get a training call. I haven't trained before so I don't know what is going to happen. We still think Olsen is leaving. I don't like transfers because it is so nerve racking. One companion can turn your area and life terrible. That is what I am afraid of. Love you all!