SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Well this week was another awesome week out here in texas!!!!!!!!!!! On tuesday there was a leadership meeting all day with President Durrant for all district leaders and zone leaders.  Since my companion is a district leader he had to go to that and i was supposed to spend the day with Elder Treasure and Elder Dunbar down in there area!!!!! But on monday night we got a text from the assistants that said that President Durrant wanted me at the leadership meeting, so i got to go to that on tuesday even though im not a district leader or zone leader!!!!!! it was a great experience and I learned so much and I took a TON of notes!!!!!!! after that we got to drive around in dallas for a little bit with the vehicle coordinator because elder pond had to get his car fixed and he was the one who was driving us back to our apartment!!!!!! On wednesday we had district meeting which is always good and then after that we had an appointment at this mans house named John Brown!!! He fed us lunch and he is interested in the church!!!!! His ex wife and daughters are members of the church and he wants to find out if the church is true and i am so stoked for him to get his answer that its true!!!!!!!!!! i love teaching people, it is seriously so great and i never want to stop being a missionary!!!!!!!!!! Then that night we were asked to help with an activity that the Activity Day Girls in the farmersville branch were doing!!!!!! There were over twenty, 8-12 year old girls running around screaming haha it was a lot of fun!!!!! They made us grilled cheese sandwiches and we talked about missionary work and then we taught them about Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the church which was a lot of fun!!!!!!! There were even some non members there!!!!!! Then on Friday we had to go down to Dallas for the day because we had specialized training with President Durrant!!!!! I learned so much at that meeting and it was so great!!!!!!! And i got to see all my friends from the MTC which is always good and i got to see how they were doing in their areas!!!!!!!! On saturday night the air conditioning in our apartment broke which was horrible!!!!!!!!!! It is so hot and we are going over to the office today to get it fixed!!!!! Now i see why air conditioning is a necessity in texas!!!!!!!!!!!! In the melissa ward a guy just got his mission call and guess where he is going?!?!?!!? CALIFORNIA!!!!!!!!!!! i was so stoked!!!!!! he is going to the oakland california mission!!!!!!!! Last night was definitely a very very interesting experience!!!!!! as soon as we were done eating dinner, it started getting really windy and all these clouds started coming in!!!!! then it started thundering and lightning!!!!!! then it started to rain really bad and hail!!!!!!! we were driving and we couldnt see anything cause the storm was so bad!!!!!!! we had to stop over at our ward mission leaders house so we could wait out the storm!!!!!! That was most definitely the worst storm i have ever been in!!!!!! im not used to thunder and lightning and apparently it does it here all the time in the fall!!!!! at least the weather is cooling down which is good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shoutout to everyone back at BYU!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you guys are having a great time!!!!!!!!! i miss all of you and make sure you update me with what is going on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok everyone, have a great week and always remember to keep Jesus Christ on your minds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

Well this week was a very eventful week!!!!!!! On preparation day after we emailed we got to go and play volleyball with the district and some youth members and it was a TON of fun!!!!!!!! It was sand volleyball and it reminded me of the beach a lot!!!!!!! Then after dinner we went tracting in some apartments over by the Allen mall which was great and we got to talk to a lot of nice people who are interested in the church!!! This week was a week of many exchanges!!!!!! I didnt get to be with elder sullenberger that much!!!!! On tuesday and wednesday i was with elder dunbar and then on friday i was with elder hong!!!!! tuesday was great except i just kept stressing out because a lot of our appointments kept falling through but elder dunbar was doing good at keeping me calm!!!! elder dunbar is a very quiet kid but i got him to talk because im able to get anyone to talk, even if they are mega shy!!!!!!!!! elder dunbar and i had a great two days in my area and we worked so hard!!!!!!!!! i have a funny story that happened on tuesday: While we were tracting we knocked on this one ladys door and she answered the door and said that she wasnt interested in the church but she gave us some water bottles. ten minutes later we walked past her house so we could get to the other side of the street. she must have been watching for us through the window because as soon as we walked past her house she came running outside and told us that we believe catholics arnt going to heaven and "it says that in our book" and we kindly told her that we believe everyone has a chance to go to heaven!!! she started looking through the book of mormon for the verse but she couldnt find it and her hands were shaking because she was so nervous!!!! We just bore our testimony and then left. Then like an hour later she came driving down a street we were tracting on and she was in her car and she called us over!!!! she drove around in her car to look for us!!!!!!!!!!!! she had her book of mormon and read a verse to us in Moroni 8 that talks about how we shouldnt baptize babies and she interpreted that as catholics cant go to heaven!!!!!! its so funny to listen to things that people think of us and their interpretations of certain scriptures!!!!! Elder dunbar and i got to go and see connie and gary which was great!!!!! i love them so much!!!!! so far we have a baptismal date with connie for october 8!!!!! she just needs to quit smoking!!!! i got to give her a blessing yesterday!!!!!! Yesterday was a farewell for a guy in the branch so we both went to the farmersville branch yesterday and it was great!!!!!!! Tyler is going to be an awesome missionary and Sydney Australia better be prepared for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then last night the zone leaders called and they were using my article from the new area for a spiritual thought with an active family and they called me because they wanted me to bear my testimony over the phone to the family while it was on speakerphone!!!!! i love bearing my testimony at every chance i get!!!!!! a testimony is such a powerful thing and it can be as simple as that you know that Jesus Christ is the savior.  If you say that to someone and the spirit is there, then you can increase someones faith SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this church and i absolutely LOVE being a missionary!!!!! i hope all of you have awesome weeks and remember to always smile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SEPTEMBER 5, 2011

Well this week was great!!!!! so many great miracles happened this week!!!!!!! on tuesday we were out knocking on doors which i love doing!!!!!! there was this street that i felt like we should tract on so we did and guess what happened?!?!!?!?!?!? we knocked on this door and this 19 year old guy answered and he was like oh hey guys!!!! so we thought that maybe he was a member and he was just here visiting!!!!!! but it turns out that he just moved here from idaho two weeks ago!!!!! and before he moved here to texas he was meeting with senior missionaries and they were talking to him about getting baptized!!!!!! he said that he has moved five times after he moved out of his parents house when he was 18 and all five of those times missionaries have shown up at his house within two weeks of him moving!!!!! so guess what, we showed up at his house two weeks after he got here!!!!! it is so cool how the spirit works, i love it!!!!!! we have been meeting with this couple, the guy is less active and the girl is not a member!!!! they were supposed to get married today but something came up so hopefully they are getting married next week!!!! then the girl is going to get baptized after they get married!!!!!! our investigator james who is 18 and has a baptismal date for the 24th is doing great!!!!!! we went on splits with the ward mission leader and another member because we had a bunch of appointments on wednesday night so the ward mission leader and i went to go teach james!!!! i taught him the word of wisdom and the law of chastity and it went great!!!! he does have a smoking problem but tobacco doesnt even have a chance against the spirit!!!!!! so we are helping him give up smoking and he is doing so great!!!!!!!! connie and gary went through SO MANY trials this week but they are pulling through!!!!! i dont want to lose these investigators because i love them so much!!!!!! they still havent met elder sullenberger yet because every time i have been over to their house im on an exchange with another missionary in my district!!!! but connie calls me just about every single day and she is so great!!!! she thinks that elder seager is my companion!!!!!!! i cant wait for them to get baptized!!!!!!! after this week something good needs to happen for them because they went through so much this week and i know its because satan is trying to get them to fall!!!!! so yesterday we didnt get to go to church because elder sullenberger got sick so we had to stay home all day!!!!!!!!! in the morning i watched the testaments and then i basically studied from the bible and book of mormon all day which was great because i got SO MUCH studying done!!!!! all the missionaries in my district couldnt believe that i didnt slack off and that i studied all day!!!!! this week was great and it was a lot of fun and i learned a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its starting to cool down which is great!!!! this morning it was 75 and it felt so great outside!!!!!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 29, 2011

Well Im one seventeenth done with my mission and im already so sad!!!!!! i dont want it to end and i'm already done with transfer!!!!!!!!!! everyone says that these next two years are gonna go by so fast and that makes me sad because i love being on a mission so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! well its official, im gonna be staying in the same area for another transfer!!!!! i know that the Lord still has work for me here and thats why He wants me to stay!!!!!! two elders from my district are leaving, elder francom and elder redmond. im gonna miss them, they are great!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well this week wasnt a very eventful week except for the baptism on saturday!!!!!! Kailyn got baptized and it was so great and she was confirmed yesterday and that was great also!!!!! on saturday morning i got to go to another baptism because a boy named trevor was getting baptized and he was taught by elder treasure and elder francom!!!!! he is 17 years old and his baptism was so great because it reminded me of my baptism and he is so excited to be a member of the church and i was so excited for him!!!!!!! On monday we set another baptismal date with this boy named James!!!!! he is 18 years old and it is great and he is so stoked to get baptized!!!!! his baptism is going to be on September 17!!!!!!!! this week was just a lot of tracting because a lot of people canceled their appointments with us!!!!! but it was so much fun because i love tracting!!!!! i got to see connie and gary yesterday and they are progressing so much with the book of mormon, i love it!!!!! i know that they are going to be baptized soon!!!!!!!! nothing really interesting happened this week so im sorry if this letter is kinda boring, i hope more eventful stuff happens this week!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 22, 2011

This week was a HUGE week for me!!!!!! I had so much responsibility this week!!! I went on two exchanges this week and for both of those exchanges i stayed in my area and my companion went over to the other missionaries area. Which means i was in charge of my area for both of those days!!!!! The first exchange was with elder treasure!!!! he is such a funny kid and i can see us being really good friends when we get home. he is from idaho and he is going to go to byu when he gets back. he has been out for just about nine months!!! I was so nervous on tuesday because that was my first day taking over the area and being senior companion and i kept thinking the area was going to burn down and i was going to mess everything up!!!!!! BUT I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!!! that day has actually been the best day on my mission so far!!!!!! The spirit helped so much and we were able to have such a successful day!!!!! Something that i love doing as a missionary is talking to EVERYONE!!!!!! we can just go up to any person we see and start talking about how their day is going and then talking about the church!!!! Well elder treasure and i went to go check on some potential investigators and it turns out that they moved out of their apartment, but their next door neighbors started talking to us and they invited us inside!!!!! They are our new investigators for the week and they are hilarious!!!! They are brother and sister and they are in their 60's!!! They used to go to a pentacostal church but they LOVE mormons and they talk so much!!!!!!!!! The girls name is connie and she kept telling me that i have such a strong spirit beaming off of me and she kept telling me that im going to be a prophet when i get older haha (yeah right). then she kept telling elder treasure how funny he is!!! we taught them the restoration and they told us to come and visit them everyday!!!! even though we cantn visit them everyday we are gonna try like twice a week!! then elder treausre and i went to some other teacher appointments that i scheduled and they all were home and we got to teach a bunch of lessons!!!!!!! then for my second exchange which happened on friday was with the zone leaders. so elder seager came over to my area and i got to be with him for the day again!!! elder seager is great and he is such an awesome missionary!!!!! him and i are already good friends and he is going to byu also!!!! that day was very successful also and we went to go see connie and gary again (the pentacostals) they were so happy that we came over and connie said that she has been reading from the book of mormon and she LOVES it!!!! they are going to come to church this sunday and i hope that they have a great experience!!!!!!!! and she told elder seager that she sees me becoming a prophet and she told elder seager that he is really smart i have learned so much from elder seager, he is such a great zone leader!!! He started talking about leadership positions with me and asked me what i would think if i became a distrcit leader and a trainer next transfer and i told him that i would NEVER be able to do that!!!!! i told him that im fine with being junior companion for the reast of my mission and he said that is definitely not going to happen!!!! and i got really scared because i feel like that if i get a leadership position im going to stress out and want to do a perfect job and id get mad at myself if i dont do a good job!!!! he taught me a lot about patience and he made me feel so much better and he said that the Lord has so much in store for me and he said he sees me being a zone leader very soon. he was a zone leader his third transfer. i dont see that happening to me and i dont really want that to happen!!!!! then the reast of the week was great!!!!!! we had Kailyns baptism interview and she is getting baptized on saturday which is going to be so awesome!!!!! she is the first person that i commited to baptism and set a date!!!!!!! chelsea kimball if you are reading this i had dinner at a members home on thursday night and the wife looked and acted exactly like you!!!! i could not believe it!!!!!! you guys are exact twins!!!! the couple is in their mid 20's and they are such great members and just moved to texas!!!!!!!! i hope yall have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 15, 2011

This week was very eventful and i loved it and i had so many spiritual experiences!!!!!!! and i have learned so much!!!!! we had a baptism on saturday which was one of the highlights of my week!!!!!!!!! i didnt get to start teaching LJ since he already started getting the lessons before i came to the mission but i got to end his lessons and witness his baptism which was so inspiring!!!!!! He is about 30 years old and has cancer. he ended his last chemotherapy treatment last week which was so great and he is doing so much better and is in remission!!!!!! he was so stoked to get baptized and he could not stop thanking us for this opportunity!!!! it was so great!!!!! earlier in the week i got to go on exchanges with elder mchardy!!!!!! he is so awesome, i talked a little bit about him in the last email!!!!!! i was kinda down earlier in the week because i feel like that im not as good of a missionary as everyone else because im so new but elder mchardy helped me realize that it does not matter how new you are and he told me that im one of the best missionaries he has ever seen because of my testimony and my personality!!!! so it was great that i got to spend the day with him because i learned so much!!!!!!!! We got some new investigators this week which was so great!!!! they are a young couple and we are going to work more with them!!!!! Then we got to teach carey and anthony figueroa. i dont think i have talked about them before!!!! they are a young family and they are so great!!!! they are in their early 30's and they already seem so mormon!!!!! they are friends with members of the church so we all went over to the gustavesons house and we taught carey and anthony the plan of salvation and it went really well. carey said that she wants to get baptized!!!!!!! Yesterday i had a really neat experience!!!!!!!! there is this girl in the farmersville branch and her name is kailyn and she has been going to church for a few years but she hasnt wanted to get baptized!!!!! my companion and i split up on sundays since the ward and the branch start at the same time so the ward and the branch mission leaders come and pick us up and they are our companions for the day!!!!!!!! i dont really like it that much because after church we go out teaching and i would rather have another missionary with me to teach than the mission leader but i have come to learn that Heavenly Father wants me to learn from this!!! so after church yesterday, the branch mission leader and i went over to kailyns house to just drop by. i havent met her yet because im still pretty new and have not met every single person in the ward and the branch!!!! and soon as we walked in she told me that she doesnt want another missionary pressuring her into being baptized, and i told her to NOT WORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i got to know her a little and the spirit kept prompting me to talk about baptism and i really didnt want to because kailyn has been through so many sets of missionaries and i didnt want her to not like me!!!!! but i just started asking her about why she doesnt want to be baptized and i cleared up her worries and then i went over the baptismal interview questions with her and she said that they werent bad at all, then i just felt like i should ask the question "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the Preisthood authority of God?" and GUESS WHAT SHE SAID?!?!?!?!?!? YES!!!!!!!!!!!! i was so stoked!!!!!!!!!!!! it has taken her so many years and she has gone through so many missionaries and she has finally said yes!!!!!!!!! i know im exactly where the Lord wants me to be and he has prepared people to be taught by me!!!!!!!! This week was great!!!!!!!! I hope you all are enjoying the last couple weeks of summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AUGUST 8, 2011

Well this week was SOOOO mega hot!!!!!!!! It was 114 degrees one day and they say that we are about to break the record of 42 consecutive days of the temperature being over 100!!!!!!! i love tracting at night because its a lot cooler outside and everyone is at home so it makes it a lot better and a lot less sweaty.  I probably drink about 20 water bottles a day!!!!!!!! they want us drinking at least a cup of water every hour!!!!!!! This week was definitely a change cause i went on two exchanges this week (exchange means i trade companions with a missionary in my district for the day) on wednesday i went over to elder francoms and elder treasures area for the day and elder treasure was my companion!!!! the big change is that their area is a bike area which means i had to be on a bike for the WHOLE day!!!!!!! it made me appreciate even more that i get to be in a car!!!!!! it was a lot of fun being with elder treausre and we definitely had a lot of funny experiences with me being on a bike for the first time on my mission!!!!! im not used to riding a bike with a backpack on so i kept falling over for like the first hour!!!!! It was really cool cause while we were tracting we ran into an RLDS family and I dont really know that much about their religion. they invited us inside and they showed us their Book of Mormon and it basically is the same as ours except their chapters are set up a little differently.  Their church organization is really different from ours because they dont have a prophet because they believe prophets come through bloodline and they believe that women can recieve the priesthood!!!! We couldnt really teach them and give them our message because they believe the same exact thing, they are just members of the wrong LDS church!!!!!!! Then the next day i was back in my area and it was nice to be back and this is when my spiritual highlight of the week happened!!!!! We went to go contact this referral we recieved from the spanish speaking missionaries and we went inside her house and we taught this lady about the restoration!!!! We had a member with us which made the lesson even better!!!!!!!! We taught her the restoration and she listened and she had really good questions and we could tell that she is so interested in the church!!!!! We said the closing prayer and we were about to go but then on her wall i saw a plaque that said "the Lord is my rock and salvation" and as soon as i read that, Helaman 5:12 popped into my head. And i felt so strongly that i needed to have her read that verse. So right before we stepped out the door i grabbed the book of mormon we gave her and turned to Helaman chapter 5 and had her read verse 12. as soon as she got halfway through the verse she started crying!!!!!! it wasnt as awkward this time as it was last week because now im starting to get used to investigators crying!!!!! as she finished the verse she said thank you and she said she is so excited to read the chapter we told her to leave!!!! I know that the spirit was prompting me to tell her to read that because that is exactly what she needed in her life at that moment in time and the spirit helped me with it!!!!!!!!! i love teaching with the spirit, it is so great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then the next day i went on another exchange with the zone leaders!!!! so i was with elder seager for the day!!!! elder seager is so great and i have learned so much from him. he graduated high school in 2010 but he left on his mission after high school inseatd of doing a year of college, so he has been out for ten months. his first name is cody also which we thought was cool!!!!!!!!! and he stays at the montage in laguna every summer and he loves newport!!! the zone leaders are over in allen so i got to spend the day in allen!!!!! we found a bunch of new investigators and we met a bunch of weird people, i meet weird people everyday but its hilarious!!!!!!! we met two deaf people and i got to use my sign language!!!!!!!!!!! miss smith would have been proud!!!!!! we had a meeting with the stake president and the bishops on saturday with our district which was so great. our zone is the allen stake and we have 10 missionaries in our zone!!! there is a missionary in my district named elder mchardy and he is such a funny kid, he is kinda like me but im more hyper!!!! he calls us every morning at 6:30 and yells good morning into the phone and then hangs up!!! this week has been great and we have a baptism on saturday and we got a bunch of new investigators!!!!!! i dont even really miss music that much because church music is so much better and i love it!!!!!!!!!!

"When the spirit touches your soul, it leaves a mark"