Dear family and friends,
Thank you so much for all of your emails this week! We have had a pretty busy week! Not so much work wise, but we have been planning for our Zone Conference. We had the Assistants in town on Wednesday! That went well! I went on exchanges with Elder Lott. Elder Tidwell is the other assistant (he is in Ron and Anne Thompsons ward in Centerville) It was really great! They brought the movie Meet the Mormons into town, and we had anyone and everyone come watch it. We had a pretty good turn out. Not as big as we were hoping. But it was still pretty good! It was kind of scary Elder Smith and Elder Tidwell took our dinner appointment, so had the sisters schedule us another one. We had thirty minutes until our dinner appointment so we decided to start to set up the projector and microphone. We were having some extreme technical difficulties. The projector worked and hooked up to the DVD, but we could not get ANY sounds to come out. So we had to fiddle with it and get creative, but eventually it produced sound and all was well. We were about twenty minutes late to our appointment. We could NOT find the house at all, but we found it! Like I was saying we have been planning for our Zone Conference training which is getting the investigator to teach 50% of the lesson. The Assistants helped us out by showing us a resource on teaching youth videos on LDS.org. So we are using the video "using pictures" in our training. It is a great video and in the video the youth clearly taught 50% of the lesson. So we will be using this. In our training we will also ask for other ideas that people have seen successful, and have them write it down on a puzzle piece. They will then bring that idea up, and we will have other tables bring there idea up. We will do some role plays of the ideas. At the end of our training we will flip the puzzle pieces over and it will be a sketched drawing of the Savior Jesus Christ that Sister Pohl in our zone sketched! It looks really good! And it should be spiritual. We will be giving this training next Thursday. Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Keeping Strong 1-26-15
Great Week and Warming Up 1-20-15
Dear family and friends,
How are things going!? It sounds like you all had such a great week! It feels like yesterday I was writing you. So not too much has happened since I last wrote you. Last week we were crazy busy the whole week! Missionary Leadership Council was good! We spent most of last week either on the road, in meetings, or planning. So it was very busy! Zone Training meeting went really well! We trained on a new method of role playing. Which is Explain, Practice, Evaluate, Re-Practice. The only thing that makes it different from the old role playing method is the evaluation. It is a lot more comfortable and easy. And you learn a lot from it. It almost makes role playing a council setting with your companion or district. So we think this will help the mission with teaching skills! It will be awesome to see all the missionaries progression. We had a two and a half hour meeting, which usually those drag on and on. But for everyone there they all said it went by fast, and they learned a lot! Which is awesome to hear! I finally have some good news! On Saturday we were able to set Johnathan (our nine year old part member investigator) on date for February 21st!! His grandparents in Florida were finally able to establish a set date they could be here for! So that is the goal at the time! Hopefully we don't need to push it back. But we know he will make it! We were informed a couple of days ago by the assistants that we will be giving the training in Zone Conference next week! So it will be back to planning a training this week. This time we have a harder subject we have to train on getting the investigator to teach 50% of the lesson. And we don't really know where to start wit that one! We're just going to have to count on the Lord to help us! Well I hope you all have a great week! I love you!Friday, January 16, 2015
Big Changes 1-15-15
Dear family and friends,
It was such a great week! I am sorry that I am writing late. As you all know we were at Missionary Leadership Council in Rapid City. I love being a Zone Leader up here. When I was serving in Devils Lake I constantly desired to see the mountains. I got to the point where I named the disease as being "mountain sick." It gets tiring looking at flatness. And it is awesome this time around because I get to drive to Rapid City usually once a month, and see something obstruct my view. That always makes things easier. We had a great time at the recent M.L.C! It was a lot of fun to see everyone again. We usually arrive in Rapid City around 12:30 or 1 MST. And we had the opportunity to do service at the Journey Museum. It is a museum of the creation of the black hills, and the history of the hills. It was really interesting. Even though we spent most of our time cleaning it we got to walk through and see it after we were done. While we were doing our first session of M.L.C on Monday night we heard the announcement of the new mission change. Of how the new mission headquarters will be located in Bismarck, ND. That will be really cool. We will also be downsizing our mission. Casper, WY. Will now be a part of the Ft. Collins, Colorado mission. And Gillette, WY will be a part of the Billings, MT mission. And Sioux Falls will be a part of the Nebraska Omaha mission. This will go into affect on July 1st or just a little bit before. But I will be home, so it will not matter to me. I am thankful to be the last of the South Dakota Rapid City mission. It will be good changes for this mission, and will make it a whole lot easier on the new mission President. But as for us now we are currently planning diligently for our Zone Training Meeting that will be held tomorrow. So we will be busy for the rest of the week! We plan to get John on date this Saturday! His parents now know of a time range of the baptism. We just need to set an exact date. It will probably be around the end of February or the beginning of March! Which will be awesome! Well I hope all is well this past week. Elder Smith is doing awesome. It is fun to be companions with someone who was in the M.T.C with you. He is a hard working missionary, and pretty fun to be around! Well I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!The final four. 1-5-15
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been a great week! And an awesome end to a transfer! On Sunday I started my final four transfers. I have really enjoyed serving here in Grand Forks for these past 12 weeks! I have to admit it doesn't feel like 12 weeks have passed by at all. But they have and they have been awesome! Well I am sad to say that on Saturday we got a transfer call. Elder Cannon was called to go to Dickinson, ND to finish a training for a new missionary. The reason he is finishing a training is because the New Missionaries trainer got called to be the new Assistant to the President (he was previously a Zone Leader.) It was really sad to get that call. I was hoping Elder Cannon could finish his mission up here (he only had 6 weeks left.) President Anderson told me that Elder Smith will be my new companion. Elder Smith was in the MTC with me when I came out! He is a pretty great missionary and he seems to work hard and be obedient, which is always good! But here is the deal. Usually they have the Senior Zone Leader train the new Zone Leader for two transfers. Which in our case can easily be done. But since we both have 4 transfers left I get to train him for two, and I will pretty much be for sure transferred. And then he will train a new Zone Leader for two transfers and finish his mission. So that means I will probably spend my last 12 weeks in a different area. But that's okay I am going to enjoy the next two transfers! I love Grand Forks! It is a great place, and an awesome Zone! I am very excited for the next two transfers! We did really well this past week with getting members at lessons! We came away this week with 5 member present lessons! Which is usually what we got in the Casper 5th ward. So that is some improvement. Honestly it has been a struggle to get people to progress here. We still haven't set a date with John Larsen because his Grandparents from Fargo who are non-members had him stay down there for the week! So that has been rough trying to meet with him. We had a great new year! It was sad to wave goodbye to 2014, but it was awesome to welcome 2015 and all it will bring! I hope you all are doing well this week! Next week I will not be writing on Monday, but probably Thursday again. Due to MLC next week! Well I love you all!Monday, December 29, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
the First Noel 12-22-14
Dear family and friends,
Thank you for all of your great emails! We have had a great week! We have seen a lot of successes of sharing he is the gift! Elder Pope and I used that on exchanges and we found two new investigators by showing he is the gift! Something I have noticed about that great video is it brings the spirit. You can always ask someone "how did you feel as you watched that video?" and they will always reply something along the lines of peace, happiness, joy. Which are evident feelings that only the spirit of God can give to us. When I was on exchanges in Bagley, MN this past week we were able to use the he is the gift initiative and find a new investigator with it! My testimony of the birth of our savior Jesus Christ has grown so much this Christmas season. We had a great special musical number in Sacrament Meeting this week. Elder Havens, Elder Lee, Elder Cannon, Elder Pope, and I sung "We three kings of orient." I was glad it went so well! Also Matt came to church! Apparently his pastor didn't go too hard on him. And we will be meeting with him on Tuesday. So that is all good signs! We met with Johnathan. He is the unbaptized child of record. We still haven't set a date with him yet. They don't know when the grandparents will be flying in to see the baptism. And they want the grandparents to be in attendance at the baptism. But they assume they will be here in February. Which is a long time a way for a baptismal date. But that's okay! As long as he gets baptized that's all that matters! Warming Up 12-15-14
Dear family and friends,
How are you all doing this week?! I can tell you that it has been another great week! And it has been so warm! Today not so much! But we were in the 40s for two days!! I will not shed one tear if it stays like this all of winter! I do wish we had a white Christmas coming our way. But the snow here just tends to melt or get blown away by the wind. But that's okay! Who needs snow? Or cold weather? I was able to go on exchanges on Wednesday with Elder Eastin out to Devils Lake. This time I had more time than just an hour! It was good to work the area again! And since Elder Eastin and Elder Autrey are both new missionaries to the area it was cool to show them around and introduce them to people I was working with when I was in the area! We had a lot of fun visiting members and old investigators. I didn't see Donnada or Bruce. But it was still fun to be back in the old apartment, sleeping on my old bed. Well this week we have been getting more referrals than we usually do. We taught this African family from Cameroon. Lets just say it was rather a hectic lesson. And we brought a recent convert to it. I felt terrible. I wish I could tell you they were trying to argue with us, but none of the scriptures they were throwing at us made any sense. For example: We were teaching the Gospel blesses families, and one of them would pipe up and say "but the bible says this and Jesus says blessed are they that are humble for they will inherit the kingdom of god!" And next thing you know their arguing same sex marriage out of the bible. And we couldn't figure out how it got there. If I could show you a near perfect example of a scale 10 crazy lesson it would have been that one. To say the least our referral dropped us because "we had different beliefs" even though nothing they brought up in the Bible contradicted a thing we said. Their biggest upset was the Book of Mormon. No matter how simply we said it they could not piece it together in their minds. This may have also been due to the language barrier. We were able to teach our investigator Matt. We have been teaching him a while. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and we brought over Brother Kay with us. He bore a powerful testimony and it was awesome! But Matt said he wanted to talk with his pastor before coming to our church. That usually doesn't go too well. But we will see what happens. We have two exchanges we are going on this week! Tonight I will be with Elder Pope in Grand Forks. And on Wednesday I will be in Bagley, Minnesota with Elder Docking. So we got a nice busy week and I'm sure it is going to fly by! It amazes me how fast the time is going by! I am loving the mission! Well I hope you all are doing well, and I hope you have a great week! I love you all!
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