Email Letter - September 24, 2012

Hey all! Hope all is going good and that you had a wonderfantastical week of good great adventures of fun! I sure did. We knocked a whole lot of doors and met a whole lot of people. Weird people at that. It was different. I think the craziest was this guy that was baptized years and years ago in Layton, and started traveling, and hasn't been back. He wants to share his story with us this week. Kindof a lune but we'll have fun with it.

We did have a good time helping out some of the members I got to be pretty good friends with the first time I was here. A few months ago we helped them move into their new house and basically just threw all their junk into the garage, well last week we organized it. Then after they fed us we played a game of Magic, the gathering. Weirdest card game ever. It was sort of fun. But I don't think we'll play again any time soon.

That's about how my week was, we're headed back out to hayfork for a day this friday and that'll be a blast. It's a good place to  be, especially with the fire out now. We're looking forward to it!
Love you guys and have a great week!

Email Letter - September 17, 2012

This week was a long week. We got down to Redding on Tuesday, and for the next 2 days cleaned the apartment. If you remember, we live in a garage at a member's house, missionaries have been there for a few years now, and it had never been deep cleaned. Pretty gross. The floor is covered with rugs and we took those out and washed them, and while they were drying we went in and cleaned up the floor under the rugs. Needless to say it doesn't smell as much like dirty socks in there anymore. Plus it's more conducive to the Spirit which is really nice. We're hoping that will help us pick up this dead area.

By dead I really mean it. Elder Bennion and I picked up a less-active couple just before we were sent away, and they're the only ones that Jackson and I are working with now. While we were gone the other missionaries covering this ward didn't do much, they didn't really care they were just focused on the other area they were in.

So we're back to tracting into the Bethels and the Simpsonites, the members don't help much here either. They have no fire. It's a bummer. But we work hard and life is good. We know the Lord will reward us for it, if not in this area then another. That's just how it goes sometimes.

We still cover Hayfork and Weaverville too, which is fun. We'll go up every so often and work up there, and continue to help those we were already working with progress. That'll be good!

Stats: for the first 5 days, we had 3 flat tires, 1 crash, 2 broken bike pieces, 4 total lessons, 4 people ask to pray for us, 1 piece of anti material brought up, and many many many miles on the bikes. Plus all of the blessings from God which I really can't number. It's a happy life, I love being a missionary! I'll talk to you all again soon, I love you!

Email Letter - September 10, 2012

What's crackin' homies? Have you heard? Hayfork es en fuego. That's probably awful grammar but for those that don't speak spanish, Hayfork is on fire. It's really bad. We couldn't even see when we were leaving the smoke was so bad. Some guy apparently removed the spark guard on his chainsaw and caught the forest ablaze. It's burned a few thousand acres so far and wasn't contained at all when we took off on sunday. I don't have my bag or I would send pictures but I'm sure there are plenty online (found and added by Dad - see below) that you can see if you check it out.

Out of the fire and into the frying pan. We found out on Wednesday that we would be headed back down to Redding, effective tomorrow, and closing down Weaverville/Hayfork. We'll be going up every so often, but not as frequent. Oh well, I have faith that President is inspired and that Redding 2nd ward is where we need to be. As much as I didn't want to go. It'll be nice and hot here for us, back on bikes.

As far as the work goes, it'll be good to be in Redding, things were back to dead in Weaverville, and that was where we spent most of our time it being bigger and tractable. Redding will present some different problems but we will be alright. We'll be sure that the Bethels don't touch us and that we will win every bash with the Simpsonites, even when they quote the NIV.

Jackson and I are getting along, fairly well I think. No complaints here anyway. Though he probably thinks that I'm too weird to be a missionary. I'm trying to teach him to have fun while he works hard. He doesn't think the two go together. He's wrong! And now that we're on bikes I'll show him many a fun thing to do while not interfering with the work.

Anwyay, I love you all, be good and have a wonderful week!

September 7th, 2012 - Hayfork, CA

September 10th, 2012 - Hayfork, CA

Email Letter - September 3, 2012

Hello one and hello all! Another good week, fairly slow but that's okay. We had some really good success in Hayfork this week, one of our few investigators there decided to buckle down and read 318 pages of the Book of Mormon in just 6 days! How incredible is that? Pretty incredible I think. Things like that are happening in both areas, we've had some really good lessons with each of the people we're teaching. We see them changing their lives and becoming better people all around. It's hard to explain but the Spirit is working with them in ways that neither they nor we could imagine. It's truly amazing what the Lord can do.
Aside from a few small miracles like that there isn't much to report. Don't be grumpy with how short this email is. I love you all and hope all is great.