September 28, 2015

Nate Williams and I at the MTC PROVO!

Hey everyone,

I hope things are good at home. We have had a pretty good week here in Garden City and we are planning on an even better one next week. Whitney, one of our investigators, is progressing quickly towards baptism. She told us that she felt a sense of urgency to baptized and she definitely felt that it was what God wanted her to do. The week was full of miracles but it was also pretty slow. I know the Lord wants me to learn something from this experience, I just haven't quite figured it out yet. Friday was an amazing day though. We had Zone Conference, which is a big meeting with all of the Zone where President Bell and the Assistants do trainings and different workshops and things. I learned a ton and received a lot of revelation about how I could make myself a better missionary and be a more effective servant of the Lord.

Sadie, I need a favor, one of the members here is taking a college math class, it's basically 1050 and he's asked me to help him, could you please talk to Fawcett and see if he has any materiel that you could send me that might help me make sure I'm teaching the stuff right?  If there is please send it ASAP. 

 Tell Big Cam hello for me, it's word to think that he is home now. Sundays are pretty normal. One of us and one of the zone leaders goes to ward council and the other two go out and wake people up for church. Then it's just church as regular. I got up bore my testimony last fast Sunday because Jason, the one who got baptized, wanted to see me do it, but they haven't asked us to talk in church or anything.  As far as staying in shape I'm down anywhere from five to ten pounds from what I came out at. It all depends on how much we bike everyday. That's cool you got to hear from Corb,  how's he been doing out there?  I guess I'm probably closer to him geographically than you guys probably are, I don't know.  I haven't had to play the piano yet because there is one of the young men in the ward who plays, he is a lot like me when I first started out, pretty reluctant and pretty nervous but it comes with time.

September 7, 2015

Pres. Bell taking a selfie at a Sister's baptism

It's been a good week here in Kansas.  The work is moving along quickly and there is never a dull moment. The investigator I talked about last week is going to be baptized on the 19th. He is really ready. Yesterday he told us that his family wasn't very happy with his decision but he knew that the church is the only true church and he wasn't going to let their opinion change his decision. He's been making great strides towards baptism and his testimony grows everyday. Last night we had a super powerful lesson in a member's home. It was an incredibly spiritual experience. Speaking of dinner in a member's home, the member that we had dinner with grew up in Rawlins, WY and knows who Jeremy is. He said that Jeremy was a few years older than him but he knew they called him Uno. Also the wife's grandpa is Glen Shaw's brother, I guess it really is a small world. This week has been full of miracles and priesthood blessings.  We have given four or five blessings to people this week. There is one member who is from Dodge City who is in the hospital here in Garden and we visit her and have given her a couple of blessings. She is recovering from a stroke and is doing well. It just goes to show the power of the priesthood and how incredible it really is.
I did get kind of homesick for football Saturday when a couple of the houses we visited had it playing; I had almost forgotten it was opening weekend. I also got kind of homesick for my jug, the member we ate dinner with last night had a big mug he was drinking out of and it made me miss mine a little.  This week we have like three dinners out in Holcomb, which is where the events in "In Cold Blood" took place. It's kind of weird but I'm pretty excited to go out there.

August 31, 2015

Hey everybody,

This week felt insanely fast. We had interviews with President Bell on Friday. That was a great experience. He is such an amazing guy. He's not really what I was expecting. I thought when I read that he was am former Air Force Colonel that he would be way different I thought it would be like  military and serious stuff but he's totally not. As soon as I got off the plane he dropped me in big bear hug, he's just such a loving man he's one of the greatest people I've ever met. I learned a ton from him in interviews and then last night was the mission president's devotional. It was one of the coolest meetings I've ever been to. A bunch of recent converts and investigators got up and bore their testimonies; it was just so special. There were a bunch of recent converts and less actives there and the spirit was just so strong you can feel that everybody was learning something. We had a really cool experience earlier Sunday, so we had an investigator who is actually a neighbor to one of the guys we got a date for baptism. But, they were trying to talk to their sweet talk to this investigator and he told us that he would come to church next week if we could get him a ride but he wasn't going to come yesterday.  We said sounds good we'll get you a ride and we didn't think too much of it until we saw him walk through the door Sunday. Elder Murphy had to translate for the meeting so I saw was in your in sacrament try to answer all of his questions and at the very end he just looked at me and he said, "you know I think you got me this is really really special I feel really good I just feels something about it feels right." And then we showed him a picture of the temple and told him how he could be sealed forever instead of just made for till death do us part and he's like you know that if I ever get married again that's where I want to be married. And then after that he went home because he had to take his daughter back to her moms, his ex-wife, but he came back to see the end of church for the linger longer lunch the ward was having and he was sitting at the end of the table with his daughter and a member just randomly walked up and started talking to him and ended up talking to him until the end of the lunch.  At the very end of the lunch the member invited him over for a barbecue with the missionaries probably the coolest thing that happened this week we're going to keep in contact with him this weekend keep teaching him and he feels like it's right. He called us today when we were in Walmart shopping for groceries with questions about The Book of Mormon and he was just totally open to learning about it and he's excited about it is a very strong interest hopefully soon we can invite them to baptism so we can take that next step in coming closer to the Savior and accessing the Atonement. 

Everything's going good.  Tyson has a meat processing plant about 20 minutes away in Holcomb, in fact most of Garden City works there, if you walk up to house and see rubber boots and knife sharpeners you know they work at Tyson.  There's feedlots out here too and they are absolutely huge, there are four or five big ones all within 30 minutes of Garden City. They are all like the size of that one Grandpa and Grandma showed me in Yuma.