July 29th 2013

Hey mom!

Thanks for the email. Things have been pretty good. We have been teaching this girl named Lauren that is super awesome! she will be baptized on the11th of August. We spent 3 different days learning about family history this week. We went on exchanges this week with Cottage grove 1st missionaries that was pretty good. We worked them pretty hard which was great.

We had a Hootenanny on Saturday that was really small but it was good.

July 22nd 2013

Hey mom,

Thanks for the email

Things are doing pretty good here. President Young had an idea for us to do a "trek" where we are going from Eugene to Salt Lake through tracting hours. So the mission together will be tracting 800 hours for the 800 miles it takes to get from here to salt lake. So that will be pretty fun.

So we are trying to figure out how we can use family search as more of a finding tool so last tuesday and this tuesday we are going to the family history center and learning how to do more of it. I logged on to my account and there is your parents dad and that's it. So I have no idea what I am doing.

We also have been doing service for this crazy lady that calls us all the time. We managed to pack a trailer load of stuff in to a 5x5 storage unit. This is her 4th unit that is now full of random junk.

We went on exchanges and I was with Elder Michelsen down in Creswell for a day. We helped this other lady by clearing her yard of blackberry bushes. It was pretty intense. My legs got scraped up a bit because the info didnt get down the line that we were going to be doing that so I had to manage with shorts.

Well thats about all the exciting things that have been happening this week!

July 15th 2013

Hey Mom,

Thanks for the email. Things are going pretty slow here in the YSA but we did pick up some awesome investigators. That is something that I do love about serving here. You may have a difficult time finding people but the people you meet are usually crazy prepared. We are teaching a girl named Lauren who is awesome! We talked to her on the street and set up a time to meet with her. This week we had our lesson and she wants to be baptized on the 11th of August.

As for other highlights for the week. We did a service project with the YSA at a saint Vincent de Paul car lot washing cars and there was an awesome van that I totally want. It's one of those vans that people usually live out of under a bridge. This week we had our mission leadership council meeting at the mission home to go over what we were suppose to talk about during zone training meeting. We were suppose to focus mostly on how to improve our finding so Elder Henrie and I made a park the the church gym so we could work on talking to people in the park. We wanted to present a theme that we could focus on so we decided on "Find em' Hook em' ". So what we did is an object lesson where i hooked an old tie and was behind a little wall we made that was suppose to be the lake. Then Elder Henrie was the Fisherman who was suppose to reel the fish in. So I acted like a fish while he chased me around the gym and then brought me in. And we talked about how it applies to missionary work. It was pretty fun and made our zone think that we were completely crazy but it was good. The look on their faces was priceless.

Other Highlight was we are teaching another kid named Nate who called us because some missionaries gave him a card with our phone number on it and he said he felt like he was being pulled toward the LDS church. He was telling us about some of his experiences and it is pretty awesome.

We also had to help move some crazy old ladies stuff around her storage unit that was completely packed with stuff. Turns out it was only 1 of 3 storage units that she has been renting for about 20 years and was full of tons of crap that was for the most part broken.

Elder Henrie went on 3 way exchanges with Veneta and Eugene Spanish missionaries. I  went with Spanish and had a pretty slow exchange. They had a Branch party to celebrate pioneer day and it was pretty fun. I don't speak any spanish so I just chilled and ate mexican food while I watched little spanish kids go to town on a pinata. Then the branch president said he had some advice to give me and then said "All you can do is all you can do. But all you can do is enough." 

Well thats about it for this week. There are tons of crazy hippies in town because of the Oregon County fair.   

July 8th 2013

Hey Mom!

Sounds like the 4th of July was a blast back home. For us it sounded like a war zone mixed with drunk party kids running around screaming. Kids here do use any opportunity to have a party. I think a lot of the party was actually happening the 3rd right after class got out.

So last Monday was transfers so we actually had to keep 2 other missionaries with us until tuesday night. It was a ton of fun because Elder Gowen has served in this ward before so he was able to tell us about people they were working with. For FHE we went on a hike to Spencer's Butte which was pretty cool. Then when we were getting ready to go to bed it was sooo insanely hot and humid that we couldnt sleep. Then someone decided to shoot off some mortars every 20 minutes outside of our apartment.

The 4th was mellow for us  because we did "soft proselyting" throughout the mission. so we had an appointment and walked around talking to people then did some service. we had to be in our apartment by 7 so it was really boring. we ended up turning our apartment in to a racket ball room. it was pretty fun. 

Thats basically all that has been happening this week!

Baptizing the World!

July 1st 2013

Hey Mom, 

Thanks for the email. Sounds like lots of fun things are going on back home.

Today was transfers and both Elder Henrie and I are staying here. It's pretty cool actually to be in Eugene during transfers because we can go t o the transfer spot and see everyone move around. This week has been really slow but we are trying to get things picked up. We did have a baptism though! Madison got baptized and it went pretty good. He is really excited about the Gospel. So Yesterday at Church we were in a correlation with our ward mission leader after ward council and President and Sister Young dropped by. President pulled Elder Henrie and I in to a room and told Elder Henrie that his grandpa just passed away. He was 93 and Elder Henrie was really close to him but he took it pretty well. That is about everything that has happened this week. 

Future Bishopric