Hey everyone!
I miss you all and hope everything is going well there. Email me and keep me updated. Getting emails throughout the week is awesome :) Anyways everything here is going great. We're keeping busy. Missionaries don't have much to any free time and even the little we have is pretty dictated as far as what we can do. But it's probably good. Keeps us focused on the task at hand. I wrote a letter Sunday morning then found out I was only supposed to write them on p days. That's rough I was pretty sure we were able to write them throughout the week. Lame. Anyways I'll talk about what has happened since I emailed last.
Last Monday. So we found out that we weren't aloud to use the cars for our exchange I don't remember if I talked about that in the last email or not but it was pretty lame. Elder Johnson left that night and Elder Williams showed up who was another brand new missionary. We just tried to street contact that night in Plymouth. It was late and no one was out so it was rough.
Tuesday was obnoxious, we street contacted for a good while and got a lot of ITLs (invitations to learn) then we had to take some online course for using the iPads. We tried biking to see an investigator but turns out we went the wrong way so we went like 10 miles total of nonstop big hills. It was obnoxious. Plus it was raining decently heavy. We had to cancel our dinner appt because we had no way to get there and had to find a ride to the church to teach the Book of Mormon class. Finally we found one but we were pretty late. Brother Case took us there and we got McFlurrys after which was a tender mercy. We got back at like 2050 and the other Elders were waiting outside at the apartment and then I realized I had the keys and they couldn't get in haha whoops! It was funny though. So we switched back companions. Oh and Sister Larcher who we were supposed to have dinner with brought us pizza so that was way cool.
Wednesday we had district meeting, we found out we are getting rid of ITLs and are using a RAs (return appointments) instead and we will keep being able to read our emails during the week. So keep emailing me :P We helped the Trembleys move their chicken coop. Then we met with the Branch Mission Leader Bro Lopez who I found out likes Star Wars and Smallville, what a boss! We met with an investigator named Lisa and shared the He Lives video with her but she couldn't really see it because she is waiting on new glasses so we'll have to share it again. Skyler entered the MTC today I miss that Elder. I hope he is doing great!
Thursday was cool. We had service at the community center which was fun. It was cool seeing people I had met and served there the previous week and they were cool. We got international stamps during lunch so I could send a letter to Maddyson/Sister Martin. We met with the Maines, Brother Maine has MS and is disabled they both seem really nice. Then we met with another investigator, I feel like like we aren't really helping him progress because I don't think he really cares about our message, I think he just likes the company. We went to dinner at the Clarkes and they seemed cool. Brother Clark was career military he was in the Navy then the Army. Finally we met with Jonathon and shared a message called "the Lord wants to forgive." It was pretty cool.
Friday we had weekly planning which was solid. Then we had service at the thrift shop. It was productive. Next we met with Brother Boyd he is a pretty old less active member. He smokes and has a lot of health problems. Elder Johnson says we usually read 1 chapter and then go. But he kept asking to read the next chapter so we read like 4 chapters. He seemed super nice though haha. His smoky apartment clung to us for like an hour. Then we tracked for a long time and met lots of nice people and like 3-4 potentials. One lady said she was having a really hard time and some medical problems then we showed her the He Lives video and she said it made her day. So that was really cool. Also we had Burger King for dinner, pretty solid.
Saturday was aight. We had the baptismal interview for Sister Tremblay in the morning, she passed haha. Elder Jensen did it, the ZL (Zone Leader) from Roseville. We called one of our potentials from the previous day and he agreed to meet with us on Wednesday. We met with Brother McPherson and shared a Mormon message with him called "You Will Be Freed" which was about Satan taking away our agency with addictions and how we can overcome this through Jesus Christ.
We went shopping and split the cost to have taco night which was sweet. I picked up some cinnamon toast crunch for my cereal of the week. Oh yeah! I gave my first blessing of comfort today, I'll be real, I've been freaking out about doing that. And it was great. The blessing really calmed some struggles he was having now and he told me about how it super calmed some stuff he was worrying about from his patriarchal blessing and he told me some more but I can't get too specific but suffice it to say it was really cool and makes me not so worried about blessing. It was really powerful being the mouthpiece of our Heavenly Father. He said it was exactly what he needed to hear and it was cool. We met with an excommunicated member who was excommunicated twice and we don't know why. He seemed to know a lot about doctrine and was nice and had a temple picture on the wall so I'm curious.
Sunday was cool. We had branch council and they asked us to come to presidency meeting each Sunday which is awesome because they only have branch council once a week and we were talking about how we could get them to meet more with us. Sacrament was cool. It was fast and testimony meeting, I went up and bore my testimony and I had also been asked to give the closing prayer. Elder Johnson got asked to give a talk next week, I was totally expecting to be asked haha. Narrowly avoided. We were taught how to fill the font for Saturday. Then we went to Gospel Principles which we were expecting to teach but we got there a couple minutes late because we were being shown how to fill the font. Isaac, the branch missionary who recently came back from his mission in the California, San Jose mission, was teaching so that was kinda cool. Then we taught primary which was kind of crazy. Then we had at our dinner appointment at the Merrifields which was at lunch time with breakfast food. Haha it was French toast and biscuits and gravy. Pretty good stuff. Then we met with the Tremblays and talked about baptismal clothes, the second coming, resurrection, the millennium, and other stuff. And that was pretty much our Sunday.
I miss everyone and hope everyone is doing well. Shoot me an email.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Email 6-8-2015
So it has been a while since I've been able to email. I miss you all. Everything is going really well here. I was sent to the Plymouth Branch in New Hampshire. I will try and go into everything that has happened over the last almost two weeks a littler farther into the email. Also I get two hours to email instead of one! Awesome. ALSO! I can read emails throughout the week, I just can't reply until Monday. Which is awesome! So it's awesome when I get emails throughout the week from people and I appreciate that! It may be changing this week as the mission President gives out more rules about our Ipads but for now we can check our emails whenever we are in the apartment.
So I'll start where I left off on the last email which I believe was Wednesday in the MTC.
Wednesday was cool. P-day in the MTC. Obviously I emailed. And I couldn't get my SD card to work which was annoying. The computers were blocked up so much that I couldn't trouble shoot it and get it working. We did laundry and just kind of hung out for a while before we went to the temple. The Provo Temple was cool. It felt huge inside and designed kind of like a maze. I got lost a couple times. It was really cool going with my district and doing endowments and the spirit was really strong. The new district came in and they all seemed pretty cool. We really tried to set a good example for them and keep up the tempo and excitement so it was an easier adjustment for them.
Thursday was kind of lame. One of the sister's had a grandfather die Wednesday night. She was really close with him so that was hard for her. She didn't come to class that day but we saw her at lunch and dinner, she is so strong. Our Progressive investigator Kate committed to be baptized and our TRC investigator told us he was gone the other day because he got engaged that day. Which made him interested a lot more in learning about the church since his fiancé wants to be married in the temple. We started having trouble staying as focused in class because we were all kind of thinking about heading into the field as it got closer and closer.
Friday was pretty lame, we had in-field orientation all day long. It just dragged on and on. I didn't need to get a tetanus shot which is sweet, and saved me $50. I had some deep talks with Sisters Hoffman and Bagshaw about the atonement, Satan, and the souls lost with him which was cool.
Saturday felt weird because it was the last normal MTC day. We kind of had to fight the feeling that Saturday didn't matter because we were leaving the next night. Our progressive investigator is good to go and was going to be baptized on June 15th. We told her we were being transferred and other missionaries would finish her lessons. Our TRC investigator was more difficult. We fought and fought with him to get him to pray about anything we said and about the church, and he kept fighting us on it. One day he committed to do it on his own but he didn't. He kept asking us how he would know the answers and we kept telling him and he wouldn't pray. Today finally we were able to get him to pray and ask with us there and that was our last lesson at the end. Even though we didn't like finish the lessons with him, it felt like a huge step with him because he finally overcame that resistance to praying. Sister Fisher and I got into a minorly heated discussion about blind faith. She said we shouldn't question anything in our church because it can lead us astray. I feel like that is dangerous for a few reasons. We are commanded to ask of God to find out of all things for ourselves, we tell our investigators to question their religions so that they can see that ours is true and we can't be hypocritical, if I never questioned the truth of the church I wouldn't have joined it, and finally if Satan ever somehow infiltrated the Church we would all follow him astray because we just listened without asking for ourselves. I say pray to God and ask about everything. There's a difference between that and looking to find stuff saying that the church is wrong.
Sunday was a long day. We had morning meetings for branch leadership. Then we had Priesthood where I lead the ordinance training. I taught about blessings. Then we took our temple walk around the Provo Temple which our branch. We never got too close with the new district which was sad but we tried and they didn't seem super interested. Elder Lee and Elder Randall are going to the Canada, Winnipeg mission. Maybe they'll run into Maddyson. Sacrament was good. Then we had a devotional by Janice Kapp Perry who apparently is some big children's hymn writer. She just kinda talked about her life and sang songs. Then we watched some cheesy LDS movie. We sang our last closing hymn and prayer with our district and headed back to our rooms. It was sad, I'm going to miss the Sisters. Then we had to pack to leave early the next morning. I didn't get to bed until like 00:30.
Monday morning at 02:45 we had to get up and head down to the buses. I was the travel leader for all 18 going to our mission so I had to keep track of them and try to keep them together. That didn't really work, everyone kind of went off on their own. We had missionaries not staying with their companions, not checking in, etc. It was annoying. I slept through 80% of the flight to Detroit. We didn't sit next to our companions on the plane, it wasn't booked that way and when I got off he had disappeared. We looked all over for him and it turned out he waited like two minutes and when we weren't out yet he decided to go down to the gate by himself and call his family, it was frustrating. Then we flew to New Hampshire which was a couple hours. When we got there Pres. and Sis. Stoker met us in baggage claim. We went from there to the mission home where we stayed the night. They seem really nice. They are from Mesa AZ. We had dinner there and Sister Stoker made something called Café Rio which was really good. Then we had interviews so he could get a feel for us and see where and who with we should be assigned. It was raining from the time we got there which surprised me. Pres. Stoker converted at 18 and went on a mission a year later. It was hard waiting to find out where I was going, it was like waiting for my call all over again. It's super green here and the trees are so thick EVERYWHERE. It's crazy. It's like the whole state is one big forest.
Tuesday we had breakfast at the mission home then went to the Church in Manchester for transfer meeting. We got our Ipads. Then we had transfer meeting. It was super sad saying goodbye to the Elder's from my district. I was assigned to serve in the Plymouth Branch area with Elder Mckay Johnson as my companion. He's 19. He's from Mesa AZ (Not a Utah Mormon). And he's pretty legit. He's obedient and has had some pretty lame disobedient companions for his last few. His last companion went home after six months at this transfer. We taught a family named the Tremblay's (Trem-Blay)who Bro Tremblay is a less active who has returned and his wife is getting baptized on the 20th. They have two kids. They are pretty awesome and are so excited about everything and keep all their commitments. Bro Trembley is baptizing Sis Trembley which is awesome. His dad is confirming her. We met an investigator named Stephen who reminds me alot of my Uncle Frank. We taught at a BoM class that day and street contacted some. A member made us food but we had to pick it up to go because she is a single sister.
Wednesday we had our district meeting in Laconia. I met the other Elder's in our district. There's only three areas in our district so six Elders. Everyone seems nice. There's an Elder from Roseville his name is Elder Jensen. We went street contacting and tracting which we probably do almost every day so I went mention it anymore. Just assume we did. :P We met a cool potential investigator while tracting named David. He's probably 18 or so and his dad is a Methodist Pastor but lives in another state. His parents are divorced and he felt like he's kind of lost his faith. He seemed interested and I hope we can meet with him and help him out. We met with Bro Lopez who is the Branch Mission Leader. Then we went to the Rino's (Ree-no) for dinner who both seemed super nice. Brother Rino is fron Concord, CA. It was cool finding a potential while tracting, it helped me be more interested in it because I didn't really have high expectations for tracting. I love teaching real people after the MTC Role-plays. Elder Johnson and I seem to click well during teaching.
Thursday we did a lot of service. We went and served meals at the community center to Seniors which we do every Thursday. And we helped plant a Garden at the Lopez's. We then had dinner with the Billin's who seem nice. The son, Isaac who recently got back from serving his mission in the California, San Jose mission and is a Branch missionary who I guess comes with us sometimes. We met with Johnathon who is a little special needs but seems super nice.
Friday we did weekly planning in the morning which was super long but kind of awesome. We planned lessons for all of our investigators ands less actives. We got to think about what they need and really focus on each one which was really cool. Then we went and served at a Thrift shop in Plymouth. It was fun. All the proceeds of the thrift shop go to a homeless shelter here in town. The lady who manages it really likes and appreciates the missionaries I think. We serve there every Friday. Then we went and taught Brother Mcpherson who is a convert who has depression and we shared a Mormon Message with him called Good Things to Come which has Elder Holland in it and is awesome. My challenge to everyone who reads this is to look up the Good Things to Come Video and watch it. Here's the link. Good Things to Come
Saturday we didn't get a lot of missionary work done but it was a pretty good day. We did service for the Cate's which went way longer then planned. The Cate's are both converts and super nice people. We went out and helped them carry around 50 bags of fertilizer and some other stuff. Then we had part one of Stake Conference in Concord. they drove us there. A 70 named Elder Kunez (I think?) came and talked. It focused a ton on the Sabbath and the bishopric and ward council are now being asked to plan sacrament meetings a month in advance which I think is pretty awesome. The Cate's wanted to stop for dinner and we did but it put us way past the time we were supposed to be home which was stressing Elder Johnson out but it was kind of out of our control we couldn't tell the members who had helped us out by driving us that they needed to drive straight home. We didn't get home til like 22:30 ish.
Sunday was so long. We were so tired when we woke up and went to Laconia for Stake Conference part two. The same 70 was there again. The Smith's took us there. They are super nice, both converts. Sister Smith had stage 4 colon cancer and five years ago was given 12-18 months to live. She got baptized two years ago and I could totally see how Heavenly Father had pushed her to that. She has no cancer left in her body at this point. So awesome! It's amazing how we get to a certain point in our lives after all the trials, tribulations, and struggles. And we can finally see how all the pieces fit together and how it all shaped and pushed us in the direction our Heavenly Father wants us to go. It's a perfect puzzle and I have a huge testimony of that. We then had breakfast lunch at the Merrifields which was cool and Bro Merrifield is a convert. There are tons of converts out here. They referred their less active daughter to us to go see which is cool. Everybody seems super nice here, I expected people to be more stand-offish than they are. We watched Pres. Monson's biography which was cool and interesting. We had to plan for today and tomorrow because Elder Johnson has to go to Missionary Leadership Training because he is the DL now. Which means I'm going to be here alone for a while with another brand new missionary. I don't know where anything is or anything and barely know anyone. It'll be interesting we'll probably spend half the day lost. But I'll survive. At least I get to drive for a little while! :)
Today is P-day! We went and did laundry at the Merrifields during study time, then we had lunch. Now we are at the library emailing. We could do it from home on our ipads but typing is so much faster on a computer!
Let's see what else can I tell. The weather is amazing here right now. When it's sunny it's pretty cool, like high of 70. Then it rains quite a bit, which could be a problem because I have no rain jacket or anything. I didn't expect it at all but apparently it rains a lot during the summer too. It's really pretty and super green here. So many trees and so much grass. Everything is super spread out.
Elder Johnson had to stop drinking caffeine because he was getting high blood pressure and elevated heart rate. He drinks a lot of mountain dew. We got some Baja Blast because it was in walmart the first time we went shopping. It's gone now :(
Ticks are a big problem here. They are everywhere. I've found like 4 on me so far, one had bitten me, so they had to put me on some antibiotic because they carry lyme disease which is bad here.
Anyways I'll be on for a little longer so hit me up! Also email me throughout the week! It's kind of like getting mail. Speaking of getting mail, my address is 3 Fox Park drive #14, Plymouth NH 03264. That's just while I'm in this area, but I should be here for a while. We live in an apartment. This is a college town but school is out so it's pretty quiet. We picked up a mini-fridge that was left outside when the college kids moved out. It works awesome and we made it our soda fridge haha.
So I'll start where I left off on the last email which I believe was Wednesday in the MTC.
Wednesday was cool. P-day in the MTC. Obviously I emailed. And I couldn't get my SD card to work which was annoying. The computers were blocked up so much that I couldn't trouble shoot it and get it working. We did laundry and just kind of hung out for a while before we went to the temple. The Provo Temple was cool. It felt huge inside and designed kind of like a maze. I got lost a couple times. It was really cool going with my district and doing endowments and the spirit was really strong. The new district came in and they all seemed pretty cool. We really tried to set a good example for them and keep up the tempo and excitement so it was an easier adjustment for them.
Thursday was kind of lame. One of the sister's had a grandfather die Wednesday night. She was really close with him so that was hard for her. She didn't come to class that day but we saw her at lunch and dinner, she is so strong. Our Progressive investigator Kate committed to be baptized and our TRC investigator told us he was gone the other day because he got engaged that day. Which made him interested a lot more in learning about the church since his fiancé wants to be married in the temple. We started having trouble staying as focused in class because we were all kind of thinking about heading into the field as it got closer and closer.
Friday was pretty lame, we had in-field orientation all day long. It just dragged on and on. I didn't need to get a tetanus shot which is sweet, and saved me $50. I had some deep talks with Sisters Hoffman and Bagshaw about the atonement, Satan, and the souls lost with him which was cool.
Saturday felt weird because it was the last normal MTC day. We kind of had to fight the feeling that Saturday didn't matter because we were leaving the next night. Our progressive investigator is good to go and was going to be baptized on June 15th. We told her we were being transferred and other missionaries would finish her lessons. Our TRC investigator was more difficult. We fought and fought with him to get him to pray about anything we said and about the church, and he kept fighting us on it. One day he committed to do it on his own but he didn't. He kept asking us how he would know the answers and we kept telling him and he wouldn't pray. Today finally we were able to get him to pray and ask with us there and that was our last lesson at the end. Even though we didn't like finish the lessons with him, it felt like a huge step with him because he finally overcame that resistance to praying. Sister Fisher and I got into a minorly heated discussion about blind faith. She said we shouldn't question anything in our church because it can lead us astray. I feel like that is dangerous for a few reasons. We are commanded to ask of God to find out of all things for ourselves, we tell our investigators to question their religions so that they can see that ours is true and we can't be hypocritical, if I never questioned the truth of the church I wouldn't have joined it, and finally if Satan ever somehow infiltrated the Church we would all follow him astray because we just listened without asking for ourselves. I say pray to God and ask about everything. There's a difference between that and looking to find stuff saying that the church is wrong.
Sunday was a long day. We had morning meetings for branch leadership. Then we had Priesthood where I lead the ordinance training. I taught about blessings. Then we took our temple walk around the Provo Temple which our branch. We never got too close with the new district which was sad but we tried and they didn't seem super interested. Elder Lee and Elder Randall are going to the Canada, Winnipeg mission. Maybe they'll run into Maddyson. Sacrament was good. Then we had a devotional by Janice Kapp Perry who apparently is some big children's hymn writer. She just kinda talked about her life and sang songs. Then we watched some cheesy LDS movie. We sang our last closing hymn and prayer with our district and headed back to our rooms. It was sad, I'm going to miss the Sisters. Then we had to pack to leave early the next morning. I didn't get to bed until like 00:30.
Monday morning at 02:45 we had to get up and head down to the buses. I was the travel leader for all 18 going to our mission so I had to keep track of them and try to keep them together. That didn't really work, everyone kind of went off on their own. We had missionaries not staying with their companions, not checking in, etc. It was annoying. I slept through 80% of the flight to Detroit. We didn't sit next to our companions on the plane, it wasn't booked that way and when I got off he had disappeared. We looked all over for him and it turned out he waited like two minutes and when we weren't out yet he decided to go down to the gate by himself and call his family, it was frustrating. Then we flew to New Hampshire which was a couple hours. When we got there Pres. and Sis. Stoker met us in baggage claim. We went from there to the mission home where we stayed the night. They seem really nice. They are from Mesa AZ. We had dinner there and Sister Stoker made something called Café Rio which was really good. Then we had interviews so he could get a feel for us and see where and who with we should be assigned. It was raining from the time we got there which surprised me. Pres. Stoker converted at 18 and went on a mission a year later. It was hard waiting to find out where I was going, it was like waiting for my call all over again. It's super green here and the trees are so thick EVERYWHERE. It's crazy. It's like the whole state is one big forest.
Tuesday we had breakfast at the mission home then went to the Church in Manchester for transfer meeting. We got our Ipads. Then we had transfer meeting. It was super sad saying goodbye to the Elder's from my district. I was assigned to serve in the Plymouth Branch area with Elder Mckay Johnson as my companion. He's 19. He's from Mesa AZ (Not a Utah Mormon). And he's pretty legit. He's obedient and has had some pretty lame disobedient companions for his last few. His last companion went home after six months at this transfer. We taught a family named the Tremblay's (Trem-Blay)who Bro Tremblay is a less active who has returned and his wife is getting baptized on the 20th. They have two kids. They are pretty awesome and are so excited about everything and keep all their commitments. Bro Trembley is baptizing Sis Trembley which is awesome. His dad is confirming her. We met an investigator named Stephen who reminds me alot of my Uncle Frank. We taught at a BoM class that day and street contacted some. A member made us food but we had to pick it up to go because she is a single sister.
Wednesday we had our district meeting in Laconia. I met the other Elder's in our district. There's only three areas in our district so six Elders. Everyone seems nice. There's an Elder from Roseville his name is Elder Jensen. We went street contacting and tracting which we probably do almost every day so I went mention it anymore. Just assume we did. :P We met a cool potential investigator while tracting named David. He's probably 18 or so and his dad is a Methodist Pastor but lives in another state. His parents are divorced and he felt like he's kind of lost his faith. He seemed interested and I hope we can meet with him and help him out. We met with Bro Lopez who is the Branch Mission Leader. Then we went to the Rino's (Ree-no) for dinner who both seemed super nice. Brother Rino is fron Concord, CA. It was cool finding a potential while tracting, it helped me be more interested in it because I didn't really have high expectations for tracting. I love teaching real people after the MTC Role-plays. Elder Johnson and I seem to click well during teaching.
Thursday we did a lot of service. We went and served meals at the community center to Seniors which we do every Thursday. And we helped plant a Garden at the Lopez's. We then had dinner with the Billin's who seem nice. The son, Isaac who recently got back from serving his mission in the California, San Jose mission and is a Branch missionary who I guess comes with us sometimes. We met with Johnathon who is a little special needs but seems super nice.
Friday we did weekly planning in the morning which was super long but kind of awesome. We planned lessons for all of our investigators ands less actives. We got to think about what they need and really focus on each one which was really cool. Then we went and served at a Thrift shop in Plymouth. It was fun. All the proceeds of the thrift shop go to a homeless shelter here in town. The lady who manages it really likes and appreciates the missionaries I think. We serve there every Friday. Then we went and taught Brother Mcpherson who is a convert who has depression and we shared a Mormon Message with him called Good Things to Come which has Elder Holland in it and is awesome. My challenge to everyone who reads this is to look up the Good Things to Come Video and watch it. Here's the link. Good Things to Come
Saturday we didn't get a lot of missionary work done but it was a pretty good day. We did service for the Cate's which went way longer then planned. The Cate's are both converts and super nice people. We went out and helped them carry around 50 bags of fertilizer and some other stuff. Then we had part one of Stake Conference in Concord. they drove us there. A 70 named Elder Kunez (I think?) came and talked. It focused a ton on the Sabbath and the bishopric and ward council are now being asked to plan sacrament meetings a month in advance which I think is pretty awesome. The Cate's wanted to stop for dinner and we did but it put us way past the time we were supposed to be home which was stressing Elder Johnson out but it was kind of out of our control we couldn't tell the members who had helped us out by driving us that they needed to drive straight home. We didn't get home til like 22:30 ish.
Sunday was so long. We were so tired when we woke up and went to Laconia for Stake Conference part two. The same 70 was there again. The Smith's took us there. They are super nice, both converts. Sister Smith had stage 4 colon cancer and five years ago was given 12-18 months to live. She got baptized two years ago and I could totally see how Heavenly Father had pushed her to that. She has no cancer left in her body at this point. So awesome! It's amazing how we get to a certain point in our lives after all the trials, tribulations, and struggles. And we can finally see how all the pieces fit together and how it all shaped and pushed us in the direction our Heavenly Father wants us to go. It's a perfect puzzle and I have a huge testimony of that. We then had breakfast lunch at the Merrifields which was cool and Bro Merrifield is a convert. There are tons of converts out here. They referred their less active daughter to us to go see which is cool. Everybody seems super nice here, I expected people to be more stand-offish than they are. We watched Pres. Monson's biography which was cool and interesting. We had to plan for today and tomorrow because Elder Johnson has to go to Missionary Leadership Training because he is the DL now. Which means I'm going to be here alone for a while with another brand new missionary. I don't know where anything is or anything and barely know anyone. It'll be interesting we'll probably spend half the day lost. But I'll survive. At least I get to drive for a little while! :)
Today is P-day! We went and did laundry at the Merrifields during study time, then we had lunch. Now we are at the library emailing. We could do it from home on our ipads but typing is so much faster on a computer!
Let's see what else can I tell. The weather is amazing here right now. When it's sunny it's pretty cool, like high of 70. Then it rains quite a bit, which could be a problem because I have no rain jacket or anything. I didn't expect it at all but apparently it rains a lot during the summer too. It's really pretty and super green here. So many trees and so much grass. Everything is super spread out.
Elder Johnson had to stop drinking caffeine because he was getting high blood pressure and elevated heart rate. He drinks a lot of mountain dew. We got some Baja Blast because it was in walmart the first time we went shopping. It's gone now :(
Ticks are a big problem here. They are everywhere. I've found like 4 on me so far, one had bitten me, so they had to put me on some antibiotic because they carry lyme disease which is bad here.
Anyways I'll be on for a little longer so hit me up! Also email me throughout the week! It's kind of like getting mail. Speaking of getting mail, my address is 3 Fox Park drive #14, Plymouth NH 03264. That's just while I'm in this area, but I should be here for a while. We live in an apartment. This is a college town but school is out so it's pretty quiet. We picked up a mini-fridge that was left outside when the college kids moved out. It works awesome and we made it our soda fridge haha.
Pics 6-9-2015
Elder Johnson my trainer, we haven't really taken any pics yet, we'll get a better one by next week
Pics 6-9-2015
Awesome Elder Shiotani and I at the Salt Lake Temple
Elder Cobb the MTC Comp
Back left to bottom right, Elder Skoubye, Elder Davies, Myself, Elder Cobb, Sister Bagshaw, Sister Hoffman, Sister Fisher, Sister Mackelprang
Our District
Our first zone right to left Elder King, Elder Mitchell, Elder Crapo, Elder Van Slyke
Monday, June 1, 2015
Email 6-1-2015
Made It!
I'm here at the Mission home in New Hampshire. I'll be interviewed by my Mission President tonight and find out where I'm going tomorrow. Everything is going well, I miss you all. I don't think I'll probably be able to email this week because P Day was today. But I miss you all and everything is going well. I'll update you as soon as I can. It is rainy and cool and wonderful here tonight.
Love you all,
Elder Alarid
I'm here at the Mission home in New Hampshire. I'll be interviewed by my Mission President tonight and find out where I'm going tomorrow. Everything is going well, I miss you all. I don't think I'll probably be able to email this week because P Day was today. But I miss you all and everything is going well. I'll update you as soon as I can. It is rainy and cool and wonderful here tonight.
Love you all,
Elder Alarid
Email 5-27-2015
Finally P-Day!
Hello! This last week has been pretty crazy. The MTC is kind of intense as far as time vs. work allotment. But we've adjusted for the most part. It was really hard and intense like the first two days, but I feel like they might've given us less time to get things done on those days to keep everyone focused on the work and not on missing home. They really keep you structured and focus. So I made my flight barely, my luggage made it, everything worked out. I made it to Utah, and Brother Shiotani, picked me up from the airport and we went down to temple square to check things out for a while. We took pictures in front of the temple. We went to the church office building and got a tour and were able to go to the top and look out at the city. Then we went to the beehive house and got a tour. We stopped at a burger place called JCW's I think. We got burgers and small shakes and the small shakes were enormous and pretty good. And their fries were like deceivingly a large amount. Then he dropped me off at the MTC and all it was commotion from there, you keep going non-stop, get your id, get your books, drop your stuff off, I met my companion Elder Cobb, then we went to our classroom, we met the rest of our district and then went to the orientation. The other two Elders in our room were Elder Davis and Elder Skoubye (Sko - Bee) The sisters are Sister's Fisher, Bagshaw, Hoffman, and Mackelprang. We taught an investigator that night with like 40 of the new missionaries and they just gave you the mic if you wanted to say something, it was annoying because it jumped all over the place and had no direction. The food is ok. I just try and eat the kind of food that you can't really mess up and that seems to go ok, anything else is usually pretty bad. We met the rest of our zone, Elder Mitchell, Elder King, Elder Van Slyke, Elder Crapo (Cray poh), Sister Hammond, Sister Hill, Sister Beebe (She's from our stake, Sheldon Ward), and Sister Wolf. I noticed even the first day how strong the spirit was at the MTC, there are so many missionaries, all worthy and righteous, all with the same goal, all in one area. It's powerful. There's a constant buzz of the spirit in the air.
The second day that alarm went off at 06:30 and it was rough, the other Elder's in our zone were full of energy, loudness, and excitement so that really helped us alot. We were going like non-stop from 06:30 to 22:30. We had a lot of class and were preparing to teach the restoration to our progressive investigator. Which is a teacher that has a character than you teach like a real lesson. We had our meetings with the branch presidency and I was asked to serve as the District leader, which means I am responsible for the 8 Elders and Sisters in our district and keep everyone focused, and run meetings, and give assignments and such. I felt super overwhelmed already and as a "DL" it threw alot more responsibility my way. I felt like there wasn't enough time to get everything done. But I loved the atmosphere and I love everyone in my district. I feel like everyone is really good and brings something to the table. It's kind of weird here because we are like in a bubble, we are cut off from the outside world, our branch President talked to me about an oil spill of the coast of CA and I had no idea, so weird. I don't know anything that's happening outside of here, we could be at war with China for all I know.
The third day was good, the spirit was strong during our lessons. I have to go get mail twice a day once during lunch and dinner for the district because I'm a DL. Some of the Sister's in our district were really homesick and we decided to write letters for them telling them what we love about them. Like we'd each write a paragraph on a single piece of paper for each sister, not like individual letters. We taught our first progressive investigator "PI" but they accidently gave us the wrong one with the same name so we went in and had the wrong backstory and didn't know him and were completely unprepared but it didn't go too bad considering. Plus we weren't even supposed to teach our PI til the next day so weren't as prepared as we could've been. We found out who our TRC investigator is going to be so we'll be teaching him all next week, a TRC investigator is a maybe non-member, maybe member, that comes and is payed to be taught the lessons by the MTC missionaries. I felt like we were really bonding as a district and I was really making a difference as the "DL". I've never loved people so purely so quickly before.
The fourth day was really difficult not because I wanted to go home or the spirit wasn't there but I was feeling really sick. Like a bad cold or something and it had been building the few previous days and I felt like death on this day. It was a struggle to keep composed and I could barely focus, but I felt like I had a duty to the district to keep everything running smoothly. I do a lot more than I was expecting.
Sister Craft sent me an enormous brownie box from Dear Elder! She's so awesome and nice! Please get me her email so I can write her! :) I found out we go into the field on monday. Crazy! We're here for less than two weeks. I love the spirit here and my district but I can't wait to get into the field and do what I came to do. I wish the Sisters in our district were going to our mission, I'm going to miss them. We taught a new PI, her name is Kate and her dad died three months ago we really connected with her and decided to teach about temples early and how the church blesses families and the celestial kingdom. The spirit was strong.
Sunday, was really good, we met with the branch presidency in the morning and established goals for the next week and learned some new stuff. We had our district meeting which was cool and we went for a temple walk around the Provo temple. While we were at the Provo temple a older man named Lindsey asked us for a blessing and I assisted in it. It was awesome because even though I wasn't the one giving the blessing, the same words came to me that he was saying. We had our Sacrament meeting and I got to bless the Sacrament. Then we had dinner and gave the Sister's our letters and they really appreciated it. We had a devotional tonight taught by Brother Allen who is the managing director of the missionary department and it was awesome. It was really reassuring and my district really needed to hear what he said. He felt inspired to play Come, Come, Ye Saints and the Spirit was so strong. We all needed to hear it. Then we watched the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar and as per usual he was all fire basically saying Christ looks outward to help others rather than selfishly looking inward and we all need to stop looking inward at what we want and we're not here for us, it's not about us. I love Elder Bednar's talks. I hope he becomes Prophet some day :P And I basically forgot all Sunday that it was my birthday.
Monday was great, we woke up and were singing Hakuna Matata, and A Girl Worth Serving For, while we were getting ready at the top of our lungs. We had a 06:15 service project. Who cleans toilets at 06:15! Our TRC investigator did not show up so we get one less day with them. Two of the Elder's in my zone left that night, Elder Crapo, and Elder Van Slyke to the New York Utica mission. It's kinda weird because everyone was released Sunday so their district has no DL or ZL (Zone Leaders) in it. We had lots of study time and did two 5 minute spotlights were we just find out about a person and ask questions, about Elder Skoubye and Sister Hoffman. The district needed it and it was nice.
Tuesday was great we taught our progressive investigator and it went really well, she said she wants to follow Christ because of his love for her and atonement. We didn't get to what we wanted to but it went well and we answered lots of good questions and the spirit was strong. We met our TRC investigator for the first time and just talked to him about his life and ours for most of the time which was good because by the time we began teaching we felt like he was pretty comfortable with us. We had a devotional by Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve. It was awesome. I'll share some quotes I liked. "It doesn't matter how many baptisms you have I only expect one convert from you on your mission and that is you." "This IS real life Elders and Sisters." "You can never go back to anything you were before." "You're God's investigators. Don't turn your back on him." "Obedience is the first law of everything." "We don't do it your way, this isn't Burger King, this is the Lord's work, we do it His way." "The white handbook is the product of 180 years of missionary experience and after two weeks you think you can question it." It was amazing, afterwards we met as a zone with Brother Bliss from our branch presidency and talked about all the things that stood out. The last of the other district left that night. All to Ohio, Columbus mission and it was sad and we miss them.
And today is P-Day! We had a little study time in the morning, then cleaned the residence, I finally got all my stuff organized and have to start packing soon. We are emailing now, then we have to do laundry, we get to go to the temple later as a district. It'll be sweet. Later we get our new district in and a couple of the Elders are going to the Canada, Winnipeg mission. Maybe Maddy will see them!
Anyways everything is going great. And I'm happy here, but also ready to head to New Hampshire and start the real work. I appreciate everyone's emails, sorry if I don't get back to everyone individually because I have like no time.
I love and miss you all,
Elder Alarid
Hello! This last week has been pretty crazy. The MTC is kind of intense as far as time vs. work allotment. But we've adjusted for the most part. It was really hard and intense like the first two days, but I feel like they might've given us less time to get things done on those days to keep everyone focused on the work and not on missing home. They really keep you structured and focus. So I made my flight barely, my luggage made it, everything worked out. I made it to Utah, and Brother Shiotani, picked me up from the airport and we went down to temple square to check things out for a while. We took pictures in front of the temple. We went to the church office building and got a tour and were able to go to the top and look out at the city. Then we went to the beehive house and got a tour. We stopped at a burger place called JCW's I think. We got burgers and small shakes and the small shakes were enormous and pretty good. And their fries were like deceivingly a large amount. Then he dropped me off at the MTC and all it was commotion from there, you keep going non-stop, get your id, get your books, drop your stuff off, I met my companion Elder Cobb, then we went to our classroom, we met the rest of our district and then went to the orientation. The other two Elders in our room were Elder Davis and Elder Skoubye (Sko - Bee) The sisters are Sister's Fisher, Bagshaw, Hoffman, and Mackelprang. We taught an investigator that night with like 40 of the new missionaries and they just gave you the mic if you wanted to say something, it was annoying because it jumped all over the place and had no direction. The food is ok. I just try and eat the kind of food that you can't really mess up and that seems to go ok, anything else is usually pretty bad. We met the rest of our zone, Elder Mitchell, Elder King, Elder Van Slyke, Elder Crapo (Cray poh), Sister Hammond, Sister Hill, Sister Beebe (She's from our stake, Sheldon Ward), and Sister Wolf. I noticed even the first day how strong the spirit was at the MTC, there are so many missionaries, all worthy and righteous, all with the same goal, all in one area. It's powerful. There's a constant buzz of the spirit in the air.
The second day that alarm went off at 06:30 and it was rough, the other Elder's in our zone were full of energy, loudness, and excitement so that really helped us alot. We were going like non-stop from 06:30 to 22:30. We had a lot of class and were preparing to teach the restoration to our progressive investigator. Which is a teacher that has a character than you teach like a real lesson. We had our meetings with the branch presidency and I was asked to serve as the District leader, which means I am responsible for the 8 Elders and Sisters in our district and keep everyone focused, and run meetings, and give assignments and such. I felt super overwhelmed already and as a "DL" it threw alot more responsibility my way. I felt like there wasn't enough time to get everything done. But I loved the atmosphere and I love everyone in my district. I feel like everyone is really good and brings something to the table. It's kind of weird here because we are like in a bubble, we are cut off from the outside world, our branch President talked to me about an oil spill of the coast of CA and I had no idea, so weird. I don't know anything that's happening outside of here, we could be at war with China for all I know.
The third day was good, the spirit was strong during our lessons. I have to go get mail twice a day once during lunch and dinner for the district because I'm a DL. Some of the Sister's in our district were really homesick and we decided to write letters for them telling them what we love about them. Like we'd each write a paragraph on a single piece of paper for each sister, not like individual letters. We taught our first progressive investigator "PI" but they accidently gave us the wrong one with the same name so we went in and had the wrong backstory and didn't know him and were completely unprepared but it didn't go too bad considering. Plus we weren't even supposed to teach our PI til the next day so weren't as prepared as we could've been. We found out who our TRC investigator is going to be so we'll be teaching him all next week, a TRC investigator is a maybe non-member, maybe member, that comes and is payed to be taught the lessons by the MTC missionaries. I felt like we were really bonding as a district and I was really making a difference as the "DL". I've never loved people so purely so quickly before.
The fourth day was really difficult not because I wanted to go home or the spirit wasn't there but I was feeling really sick. Like a bad cold or something and it had been building the few previous days and I felt like death on this day. It was a struggle to keep composed and I could barely focus, but I felt like I had a duty to the district to keep everything running smoothly. I do a lot more than I was expecting.
Sister Craft sent me an enormous brownie box from Dear Elder! She's so awesome and nice! Please get me her email so I can write her! :) I found out we go into the field on monday. Crazy! We're here for less than two weeks. I love the spirit here and my district but I can't wait to get into the field and do what I came to do. I wish the Sisters in our district were going to our mission, I'm going to miss them. We taught a new PI, her name is Kate and her dad died three months ago we really connected with her and decided to teach about temples early and how the church blesses families and the celestial kingdom. The spirit was strong.
Sunday, was really good, we met with the branch presidency in the morning and established goals for the next week and learned some new stuff. We had our district meeting which was cool and we went for a temple walk around the Provo temple. While we were at the Provo temple a older man named Lindsey asked us for a blessing and I assisted in it. It was awesome because even though I wasn't the one giving the blessing, the same words came to me that he was saying. We had our Sacrament meeting and I got to bless the Sacrament. Then we had dinner and gave the Sister's our letters and they really appreciated it. We had a devotional tonight taught by Brother Allen who is the managing director of the missionary department and it was awesome. It was really reassuring and my district really needed to hear what he said. He felt inspired to play Come, Come, Ye Saints and the Spirit was so strong. We all needed to hear it. Then we watched the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar and as per usual he was all fire basically saying Christ looks outward to help others rather than selfishly looking inward and we all need to stop looking inward at what we want and we're not here for us, it's not about us. I love Elder Bednar's talks. I hope he becomes Prophet some day :P And I basically forgot all Sunday that it was my birthday.
Monday was great, we woke up and were singing Hakuna Matata, and A Girl Worth Serving For, while we were getting ready at the top of our lungs. We had a 06:15 service project. Who cleans toilets at 06:15! Our TRC investigator did not show up so we get one less day with them. Two of the Elder's in my zone left that night, Elder Crapo, and Elder Van Slyke to the New York Utica mission. It's kinda weird because everyone was released Sunday so their district has no DL or ZL (Zone Leaders) in it. We had lots of study time and did two 5 minute spotlights were we just find out about a person and ask questions, about Elder Skoubye and Sister Hoffman. The district needed it and it was nice.
Tuesday was great we taught our progressive investigator and it went really well, she said she wants to follow Christ because of his love for her and atonement. We didn't get to what we wanted to but it went well and we answered lots of good questions and the spirit was strong. We met our TRC investigator for the first time and just talked to him about his life and ours for most of the time which was good because by the time we began teaching we felt like he was pretty comfortable with us. We had a devotional by Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve. It was awesome. I'll share some quotes I liked. "It doesn't matter how many baptisms you have I only expect one convert from you on your mission and that is you." "This IS real life Elders and Sisters." "You can never go back to anything you were before." "You're God's investigators. Don't turn your back on him." "Obedience is the first law of everything." "We don't do it your way, this isn't Burger King, this is the Lord's work, we do it His way." "The white handbook is the product of 180 years of missionary experience and after two weeks you think you can question it." It was amazing, afterwards we met as a zone with Brother Bliss from our branch presidency and talked about all the things that stood out. The last of the other district left that night. All to Ohio, Columbus mission and it was sad and we miss them.
And today is P-Day! We had a little study time in the morning, then cleaned the residence, I finally got all my stuff organized and have to start packing soon. We are emailing now, then we have to do laundry, we get to go to the temple later as a district. It'll be sweet. Later we get our new district in and a couple of the Elders are going to the Canada, Winnipeg mission. Maybe Maddy will see them!
Anyways everything is going great. And I'm happy here, but also ready to head to New Hampshire and start the real work. I appreciate everyone's emails, sorry if I don't get back to everyone individually because I have like no time.
I love and miss you all,
Elder Alarid
Pics 5-19-2015
Night before leaving for the MTC, after getting set apart as a missionary.
Elder Taylor Alarid with most of his family the night before he left for the MTC
Elder Alarid with the Martin Family (except for Maddy who is on her mission in Canada!)
Elder Alarid with his Aunt and Uncle and their kids
Elder Alarid with Skyler Lethco, who will be going to the New Mexico, Farmington Mission in June
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