Email Letter - January 28, 2013

Hey everyone, it was another good week.

Things are starting to really pick up in the area and work out. We've been able to meet with a lot of people, and some members are helping out set some appointments and helping us find people to teach. So it's going well. No big complaints here.

We picked up a new investigator this week which is exciting, the first since I've been here in Orland. The man moved up from So-cal recently and was riding his bike around. He sells solar panels and saw the huge south facing roof of the church and thought he would  go check it out, he saw it was a church house and saw the visitors welcome sign and decided to check it out. He went on Mormon.org and looked up the meeting times and all sorts of stuff. It is really cool to see how prepared people like that are and how ready they are to accept the Gospel.

He travels a lot so we won't be meeting with him again for a while but we will in a couple of week and plan on extending a baptismal date that day as well. We're excited to see how that goes. As I said things are going well and looking up, it's nice to have a companion that likes to and wants to work. I love you all and have a great week!

Email Letter - January 21, 2013

Hello from Chico!

So it's been an interesting week, my giant companion and I have really hit it off and gotten some good work done. We're seeing some good fruits from it too. That's when you know what you're doing is good, when good fruits sprout from your efforts. It's pretty cool. People that Knight and I couldn't get a hold of are coming out of the wood works and we're finding new people to teach as well. We also have a few members working hard to help us too which is something I haven't had my whole mission so it's pretty enjoyable. I'm really having a good time.

 

Here's a funny moment from the week: big boy Ballard and I were in the car, and I said something sarcastic, just being me and all. Well he doesn't like sarcasm too much, and said so. So what do I do? I say "Sorry elder, I grew up speaking sarcasm, English is my second language." Whoops. Oh well, I thought it was funny at least. This could be a really fun transfer, we'll see how it goes. I love you all and have a great week!

Email Letter - January 14, 2013

Hey everyone! Transfers this week, and I'm getting a new comp. It'll be interesting, He's kind of a giant. 6'6" and big. really big. I had  dream last week that I was getting a giant, and I was right!

Anyway, not much happened this week mostly we tagged some rams, and we'll be shearing them each Saturday for the next few weeks. That'll be a ball, I'm excited for that.

Again not much to say, I think this transfer will go much better than this most previous one. It was rough, but that's alright we just move forward.

I love you guys and will talk to you again soon.

Email Letter - January 7, 2013

Hey everyone. So it was a good, but fairly uneventful week. Dennis, the super prepared man from last week's email cancelled his lesson but we'll be getting back with him this week to begin teaching him. We're excited for that. Aside from that the main thing to bring up is something I'm not too happy about but may cause some excitement on your end. Due to the age change, the MTC time will be shortened. And to accommodate that, all missions world wide will be having a 5 week transfer next transfer. What this means is that all missionaries that are in the field for that transfer will be coming home one week early. That makes my return date June 25th as opposed to July 2nd. It's been officially announced and the reaction I've seen for the most part is the same  as mine.

It will all work out, I guess it's what the Lord wants right now so I'll go with it. All the more reason to make the best of what time I have. Myself and the rest of the missionaries around here will just have to move on and accept it. But maybe I'll be able to get some sort of permission to stay or something. It'll all work out to how the Lord wants.

Recently I've been really focusing on my relationship with Christ, I heard a talk a little bit ago that mentioned that it isn't enough to know about him but that we really have to know him, and that's what I'm looking for now. I've realized that recently I've come to know him much better than I did before, but I'm not where I want to be yet. It's kind of interesting because as I've been on this train of thought there have been a few scriptures that have all linked themselves together. Christ calls Himself the Truth (John 14:6), in Doctrine and Covenants 93:24 Truth is defined as a knowledge of things past present and future, or in other words the Plan of Salvation. There were two big things that come from knowing the Truth that I picked up on as well. First, the Truth will set you free( John 8:32) and that when we really come to know the truth we would rather die than sin (Alma 24:19). What's really cool as that all of those scriptures somehow came up in my study this last week as I was reading in the General conference Ensign and Jesus the Christ and where I am at in my Book of Mormon reading. 

 

It's been really cool and I've enjoyed it a lot.

 

I love you guys, have a great week!