3/12/12

3/12/12

Hey Ma!

Thanks a ton for the package. i know i have an awesome mom when you send me great packages.  the CD's are all allowed. they are pretty good with music. we can listen to instrumental and some other stuff. for example my previous companion got some enya approved. (by the way dont send me enya, she makes me want to take a drill to my ears) and some missionaries have cds that are instrumental soundtracks to movies. one elder has the other side of heaven soundtrack and starwars. and some other ones like brave heart. its pretty cool. its nice to mix things up because you can only take that same church music for so long. oh and thanks for the book of mormon manual. its really nice to have. in answer to your questions. we have been having pretty good lessons. Elder Gamez and I teach really good together the only downside is we dont teach that much. we are trying to find more investigators because they either drop us or they are benched for a while. so we are working on that. we did get a old german lady as an investigator and we had a lesson with her this week. we brought brother rocke who is also german and use to be lutheren like her. we had a really good lesson and she talked about being in germany during the world war and hearing the bombs drop around her. they also had to flee her home town because they here against hitler so it was risky for them to stay there. her brother was also put into a consintration camp. i have been focusing alot on 1 nephi 13 and i think 2 nephi 29. i have spent a lot of time in those two chapters and the cross references there are in them. the thing i was focusing on is how the book of mormon and the bible support eachother and about why we have more scripture and how more is going to come forth in the future. its been pretty good i have been really pulling it apart. and getting really deep into it. its nice to read with ezekiel 37 to learn about the scriptures and the importance of them. i would suggest reading those 3 scripture chapters together and cross referencing all of them to see how they all talk about similar things.

nothing super cool happened this week. oh but i did eat a burger made out of water  buffalo. it was really good. its up there as one of the best burgers i have had. oh by the way when you see jim and jane tell them thank you soo much for the package they sent me back in december. i was going to write them to tell thank you but the way everything worked out at that time i lost there address so yeah.

anyways i have to get heading soon. we are going to hike upper table rock today. a few weeks ago we hiked lower table rock and i will send you pictures of the last time we went.

3/5/12

Hey ma.

thanks for the box to come. i cant wait to get it. i think that means that i will get it saturday or monday if you send it directly here. i really hope it comes on saturday. so i think i met my breaking point when it comes to listening to the same cd's over and over again. you can only take motab for so long. i wrote erik about maybe burning me some cds but i dunno. so nothing really exciting happened this week. we met some good potential investigators. but we will see how that goes. 2 of the 4 of them are in their 80's and are very set in their ways. one use to be a nun. oh something cool did happen this week we have a new companion in our group so we are in a try companionship. his name is Elder Roger. he is a really cool guy but is incredibly quiet. but he has been a great contribution to the work. attached are a picture of him and a picture of us just kicking it together. anyways thats all for this week

Crater Lake 2/27/12

2/27/12

HI mom thanks for the letter. the mission is going good still. my new companion is super awesome! he might be my best companion so far. he is a little quieter which is actually really nice but he is really good at teaching. he has been in some really hard areas where the people are super unfriendly. so he really likes ashland. ashland is still awesome. the people are really nice. and as the weather gets better the people get nicer. this week we were invited in to teach a lesson while we were tracting. this was i think the second time that has ever happened on my mission. both of the times that has happened have been in ashland. oh and a lady invited us in and gave us cookies. that was cool too. i figure if you have a super positive attitude people seem to see that and respond better to you. we got one new investigator (the lady that let us in while tracting) and she said she wanted to learn more. she is pretty old and is lutheren. she said she didnt want to change religions but wanted to take the lessons. so my first experience tracting with elder gamez was pretty funny. we were going to tract a street and right when we pulled up some jehovah witnesses pulled up at the exact same time directly across the street to do the same thing. we had a good laugh. so we got a guy that was really interested in learning more. we had met with him 2 times before and he wasnt interested but then he called us up and said he really wanted to meet with us. we taught him for 3 hours and he told us some crazy stuff about his life. i wish we could have continued to meet with him but unfortunately we wont be seeing him for a few months. thats basically all that is going on from the mission but i did bring my camera so i will try and send some pictures out in another email.

2/20/16

Hi Ma,

I'm sorry I didn't email that much last week we were in such a big rush that i just didnt have the time. last week (the week i didnt really have time to write) was pretty lax. we did however find a super awesome new investigator. it was without a doubt the best lesson i have ever been in. we tracted in to him and came by the next day for a lesson. we had a super powerful lesson about God is our loving Heavenly Father and the trials and challenges we face in life. but for the most part it was about Heavenly Father, the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ. with some Q and A about where we came from why we are here and where we are going. at the end we taught him about prayer and asked him if he would be willing to try it. so he did and started getting really emotional and i asked him how he felt. he looked at me and said; "I now feel Gods love for me." it was the best lesson i have been in. we havent seen him for a while because he isnt home but tomorrow i hope to visit him again.

so last week pday we went to crater lake. it was pretty cool but there was like 7 feet of snow or something and some overcast so it wasnt as cool as it was suppose to be. but still it was fun. i was going to send pictures but i forgot my cord and we are in a semi rush right now because Elder Ratto is being transferred to Klameth Falls and and I am getting a new companion here. So I will be staying in Ashland. which i am super excited about. I am finally staying in an area for more then 1 transfer. and what better place then Ashland. I love it here. there are some really weird people here that make it super interesting. for instance one guy told us that the Lord was actually the clouds and that "building up the Lord" is actually putting rocks on the bottom of the rivers to make clouds. but believe it or not his argument made the most sense out of any other one that i have heard here. so that kind of shows what Ashland is like. But I love it here. I hope to stay here for a while. I am actually pretty excited to get a new companion. his name is Elder Gamez. not Gomez, Gamez. I am excited but a little nervious because I have to take over the area and the mission president said that I am going to save Elder Gamez's mission. so its going to be a little interesting working with someone that going to be a little difficult but at least he gave me some warning in advance. supposedly he is a little quiet but I actually work better with quiet missionaries. so I will see how it goes. well that is basically it that is going on this week. i cant think of anything new going on. oh but thanks for the valentines package it was super awesome. i will try and write everyone back later today but if you dont get a letter im sorry. transfers on monday are the absolute worst. but hey, at least im not the one moving. anyways everyone should write me back that would be super awesome! next week i will send pictures and maybe a video of a recent convert in our ward rapping some gospel rap and a rap about Elder Ratto and a rap about me. but who knows.

2/6/12

HI mom!

yeah things are going pretty good here. this last week on pday after we went emailing we went to a place called table rock. its was actually really cool and i had a blast. as for snow goes we arent getting any at all.i guess we usually get quite a bit and rain. i guess its suppose to rain a lot here during the winter. but its only rained about 6 days that i have been here. as for pictures i am going to try and send some in this email. this week has been suuuper busy. this week we found 4 new investigators that just came out of the blue. it was pretty cool. as teaching our investigator flip goes... well... its going a little down hill. he picks what stuff he wants to follow and doesnt even realize the rest. for instance this week we went over to his house to follow up with him about the word of wisdom. we asked him how it was going, and he responded it was going good while he was drinking a beer reading the book of mormon. he is a pretty interesting guy. he says he wants to be baptized but doesnt want to be a mormon and refuses to give up tea and coffee because his thi che masters told him its okay. so we are in a difficult situation with him. so because sunday was the superbowl we werent allowed to tract. so instead we went to the park and tried to contact people there. at the park was this homeless guy who says that he has 23 names but the one he goes by right now is magic. magic we have seen around just a few times when we go to the methodist soup kitchen to volunteer. he usually tells us really weird stuff and on sunday when we were in the park he came up to us and said that 3 anti chirsts were coming. he said that mitt romney was going to be called as president and that he was going to be the summoner of the first one. yeah... he's an interesting guy. but hey thats ashland for you. anyways thats basically all that happened this week.

so these are just a few pictures. i will send more in a different email but anyways. the first 4 pictures are the before and after me cleaning the shower. it took forever and the last picture is the new duct tape towl rack our landlord made for us.