New Years

Hello everyone!

Recently, we've been hovering around a toasty -20 degrees. 

Also, i forgot to turn the light off in the car one night when we were recording miles, so we woke up the next morning to arctic cold and a dead car. I finally found this one guy with jumper cables, who also gave me some gloves to use. He was a really nice guy.

We had a really awesome zone conference yesterday. Our AP's were giving a training, and one of the AP's started to cry a little when he was telling us a story and I'm not sure why but it felt like i got struck by lighting and I felt my connection to god strengthen. Thats something I've really been searching for. That was really cool.

I love you all a lot.

Translation, Hu-Hot, and Catholics

This past sunday in the branch, elder rocha and I were assigned to translate for the family of the past branch president.They gave us little helicopter pilot headphone things and we handed out the headsets to the people in the congregation, it was the real deal. To make matters worse, this was testimony meeting so I was staring down the barrel of long personal stories with accents from like 6 different countries. I was not feeling confident. This was the second time i have ever translated so i was stressing a little bit, but elder Rocha went first and told me that if i didn't know what they were saying i could just make stuff up. As the first person got up to bear their testimony i heard elder rocha say things like "the gospel is the cheat codes to life" and "we all should be feeding the missionaries a lot more" or "people say my beard makes me look like an old testament prophet" and i felt a lot better about the situation. There was a little boy from the ward sitting there listening to us and he just said "you guys aren't good at this".  We topped off the meeting by translating the closing hymn in to english and we saw that the people with the headsets on were laughing pretty good. 

Also this week, I had the opportunity to go on exchanges With Elder McConnell. He's a really interesting cat and we decided we were going to treat ourselves for lunch so we went to hu hot. While we prayed over our food he said "please let someone prepared find us here in Hu-Hot" which i thought was kind of funny, but later on while we were standing in line waiting for our food to be cooked this teenage kid turned to us and asked us if we were on lunch or something (theres a grocery store here called Hy-Vee and the employees wear white shirts and black tags). We explained to him that we weren't grocery store workers, and what our purpose was as missionaries and he was really interested. Probably my favorite moment in the conversation was when the kid turned to Elder McConnell and asked if he liked anime. Elder McConnell loves anime. They really connected, and there's not a doubt in my mind that God placed that kid in our path. Prayer is pretty cool.

Later in the exchange, we went to teach some of our investigators, Luisa and Maribel. It was an awesome lesson and they told us that they were talking to each other about deaths in their families, and they were really sad. After the conversation, luisa flipped open her Libro de Mormon right to a chapter all about the plan of salvation. It was a miracle. They told us they knew the Book of Mormon was true, and we invited them to a date to be baptized. To our surprise, they explained to us that they were catholic and that is was going to stay that way. We tried our hardest  but they wouldn't budge. it really got me down, it happens a lot with hispanic people around here. these people had just rejected eternal joy and that really hurt me. Later in the week, elder rocha and i went to got teach a referral we had recieved from the english elders. She told us she was catholic right at the beginning, and i was really discouraged. But we taught her the restoration which she accepted, and invited her to be baptized. She said yes, and that really made me realize that people can change. It gave me hope to keep teaching these people and to believe that we are helping. 

The longer I serve in my mission the more I come to appreciate the help that God gives us. I always think of this one Marshallese guy who we taught in Ottumwa named Paulson who got married, gave up chewing tobacco, stopped using Beetlenut and got baptized. I saw God change Paulson and im excited to see that more in myself and in the people we teach. I know he can change all of us for the better if we let him.

I love you all a lot and hope you had a happy new year!

--Elder Thomas

Pictures: 

Me holding another nameless hamster

Iowa State Capitol

Elder McConnel Leading the Ninos

Return to Ottumwa

This week I had the opportunity to go back to Ottumwa to see one of the people i taugh there get baptized. Last transfer in Ottumwa was a pretty rough time and we didn't get to see many people progress, but Elder Matthews and I were able to find and teach a little Marshallese boy named Jessie, and he finally got baptized two days ago. It was really awesome to go back to Ottumwa, I felt like i was driving home. When we got there i got to talk to a lot of my old friends who lived there, and I got to call a lady named Stacie as well who was one of my best friends back when I served there. I look up to her a lot.

Also this week, we were able to go and teach a referral we got from the English elders called the Gonzalez family. We had heard good things about them and we finally got to sit down with all of them and teach a lesson. During the lesson we were surprised by how prepared they were to recieve the gospel. Its always good to find someone like that. It was really a testimony builder to me that God is working a few steps ahead of us as missionaries to prepare the people to listen. 

Tomorrow we get our transfer calls and we are getting nervous. My hint is "Otro Hispanico" and elder rocha's is "Manin". I have no idea whats going to happen.

I love you all and hope you have a great week

Walmart Miracle!

Hello everyone!

This week was a crazy one. We got the call that elder rocha and i are staying together for another transfer her in DM. pretty cool

Later that night I got super sick and threw up which was not super fun, so i missed going to IHOP and bowling with my zone and i was furious. the one P-day we weren't playing basketball i spent within 10 feet of a toilet. Also we eat hispanic food literally every night and thats what made me sick, ut i got to hangout with Elder sitterud that whole day, he was leaving the mission soon and he and i had some good conversations while i laid on a the couch haha. He was a good dude to me in a time of nastiness. What a guy. he's doing well back home watching star wars and skating for days haha

Also earlier today, i was leavving walmart and i was just about to throw away my receipt but i had a feeling that the door things were going to freak out at me so i kept it, and somehow as i was leaving the store the alarm went off on me so i had my reciept. that was a miracle.

I saw the lord help me a lot this week. It's been a relatively rough one but God gave me Elder Sitterud to chill with me when I was sick, lots of members give us fast food instead of hispanic food, and I didn't spent today in walmart prison so I'd call that a win. God always helps us

I have some hilarious videos of a little hispanic boy named Joseph laughing at elder sitterud and his brother named Juan after they got their faced slammed into some hispanic cake, so give those videos a watch haha

 

I love you all a lot. ​

Bowling and the Book of Mormon

If you read my email last week, you know that i missed bowling last week and you will also know that i was enraged. But this last P-day I was talking to some other missionaries who also hated basketball, and one of them decided we were going bowling so i finally got to go. 

The bowling alley smelled a little bit  like crushed up cigarettes and axe body spray, but it was a great time. While we were there a high school bowling league showed up and i got an inside look at the world of competitive bowling. What a time to be alive.

The other day we were walking down the road and I saw this older guy out on his porch smoking, and I felt like we should go talk to him. As we walked up to him and started talking to him we quickly realized that he was another crazy old guy from Iowa who wasn't interested. But for whatever reason he insisted we go next door to talk to this other lady, so we did. She was interested, and I felt really good about talking to that crazy guy.

Yesterday I woke up and I was in this weird funk and I just wanted to go skate really bad and I couldn't really focus on anything. When I started personal study I started to read Alma 3 and the heading says: "Shiblon was persecuted for righteousness’ sake—Salvation is in Christ, who is the life and the light of the world—Bridle all your passions."

After I read that I felt like a real dweeb. I had been caught up in myself and my passion and I hadn't been focused on the work. So I kept reading after being rebuked and in verse 2 it says: 

"And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is he that endureth to the end."

And then I felt a lot of hope. There was a time When I was talking with my mission president about how I didn't feel successful and he just told me that i wasn't called to be successful, I was called to be faithful. And all I can really do is be faithful in the work and trust God. 

 

I know that God is playing an active role in my life and that the Book of Mormon is in our lives to help us find motivation and guidance. I know God loves you all as well and so do I.

I hope you all have a great week!

Pictures:

Elder Rocha's Mixtape cover

An investigator's daughter with incredible balance

A creepy hispanic candle

Bobby Washington and Spiritual Promptings

Hello Everyone!

In our mission right now our Mission President has asked us to spend a little time during the week to "be found", which basically consists of saying a prayer to have people be led to us and then walk around in walmart or somewhere and eventually someone will talk to us. So this week, we were with the other spanish elders and we had some time and decided to go to walmart. We said a prayer, walked in, and Elder Christensen and I ran into some guys watching tv on the Curved 4 K Whatever TV's that were on display. Then they started talking to us, which was way cool. They introduced themselves as Bobby Washington and Johnny James. When Johnny James, from his electric shopping cart/wheelchair, said his name Bobby commented: "Jesse James' Black nephew" These guys were hilarious. 

They asked us all about missionary work and about the church. Eventually we asked if missionaries could come see them and asked for their address. We asked how they met and Johnny James responded: "Selling dope, stealing stuff". Which we thought was a pretty solid answer. We chatted a little bit more and then Elder Christensen asked "So when would be a good time to come by?" To which Bobby said "Man you're persistent! You Baby Joseph Smith!" And Johnny added "Yeah! You BJS!"

Then Johnny James said he was going to be putting "BJS" on a T shirt.

After a lot of other quotes, we had to leave so we said our good byes and they said "If you all ever get into trouble in the hood just give us a call, along with a height, weight, general description, and then turn around when you see us coming." 

I will undoubtedly be having lunch with these guys in the next life.

But on a more spiritual note, recently I've been really trying to act on my first promptings. One day we were out knocking in the hood, and we finished up with all the hispanic houses on this street. The whole time we were knocking I saw this one old guy sitting on his porch smoking. I felt like I had to go talk to him, but he wasn't hispanic, and My companion doesn't really like talking to people who aren't going to be our investigators. But I kept feeling like he needed me, so I told my comp we were going to go talk to him. So we walked up to him and did the whole "have you ever talked to missionaries?" Shpeel and he kind of shrugged that off and asked us what we thought of Donald Trump. I felt so cheated, like I had followed a prompting only to hear some guy talk about donald trump. After he was done we talked to him about the restoration and he told us that he wasn't interested, basically. But he insisted we go next door and talk to his neighbor. So we did, and she was super interested. That was a cool moment. At first I doubted but that lady needed what we had to share. I think I talked about this last week in my email but i thought I should give some more details.

Also, another spiritual experience similar to that happened during church. I was sitting with some members and The meeting started. I was looking around and I saw this one member, a little kid named kevin, crying and sitting alone on his pew. I felt like I should go sit by him, but that would mean I would have to stand up and squeeze by some members to get to him. So i shrugged it off but the feeling kept coming. So I swallowed my pride, stood up while they were talking about some branch business, and worked my way over to kevin. I sat next to him and he stopped crying. It was something little but I felt the spirit really quite strongly when Little 9 year old Kevin Sang the hymns with me. That was cool. After the meeting, His parents invited us over to have some of the popeyes the bought the day before. At dinner his mom thanked me for sitting by him, and I felt super good about it.

I love you all a ton! I hope you have a good week

Hibachi Grill, The Most Interesting Man in the World and Elders Quorum

Hello everyone! I didn't have the most exciting week but I have a few stories worth sharing.

   We have an investigator named Fernando, and he is a super interesting guy. After our last lesson with him, he told us he wanted to take us out to lunch or make us food. Fernando is a great guy, but he kind of gives me the heebie jeebies. So in order to avoid getting poisoned or end up in a hospital somehow, we suggested that we go to subway, which he immediately shut down and demanded that we go to a "boofet de china" called hibachi. I felt a little bit like I was walking into an ambush but we agreed. We ended up having  a  nice lunch, and a great lesson about the word of wisdom after he ordered a tea and asked us about if we can drink it.

In other news, this week I went on exchanges with our zone leaders and had a swell time. We met this one guy on our last door of the night who looked a little too hip to be living in the crummiest part of Des Moines. He invited us in, and told us about a 51 country tour he had just returned from. He had worked in a vineyard and lived on a beach in New Zealand, he had taught english In Saigon and traveled the world on a motorcycle. He had visited That building carved into the wall from Indiana Jones III and sailed through the Caribbean. This guy should be the Dos Equis most interesting man in the world. We asked him about if he was religious and he told us about how he had gone all over the US on a motorcycle talking to spiritual leaders to try and find  the answers. He was a self proclaimed agnostic, and talked about how he had spent some time in Salt lake City talking to missionaries. He had read the Book of Mormon, but he just never got the personal witness he wanted so he moved on. We know that if he had been really intent on getting an answer, he would have. It was sad to see that this guy had spent so much time running around looking for something, but he had rejected it as soon as he found it. He told us he wasn't really interested and gave us the directions to some incredible taco trucks.

Elders Quorum here is crazy. We have some pretty funny old guys here who basically just yell at eachother in spanish the whole time. Yesterday Hermano Crespo, a veteran from the El Salvadorean Civil War was shouting doing another guy telling him how much he loved him, it is a good time.

I love you all a lot, have a good week!

Christ Consciousness and Elders Quorum Part 2

We met some stellar people this week  that are definitely worth mentioning.

We were knocking in an apartment complex earlier this week when we came across a door that had some interestingly sweet smells coming from the inside. We knocked the door and within moments a 

pale, dreadlocked man emerged with a cat in his arms and dinner plate sized pupils. He was wearing wooden necklaces with weird stones in them that he later described as meditation necklaces. He introduced himself as "Noah's Arts" and I knew we were in for a truly edifying conversation. 

We asked how he was and he replied "Blessed"

We asked if he had ever talked to missionaries and he said: "Yeah I blessed them".

He was a happy guy who talked to us about what he believed. He talked about how Light is all we need and said: 'Eventually when you get living righteous enough, you can transmute your diet so you don't have to slaughter beings or eat plants, you can just live off of sunlight.

He told us that we were God's, and he told us that he was a God, because we were all living in the "Christ Consciousness." Surprisingly he had a lot of similar believes as us, and when he started telling us that he believed our bodies were blessings from god and that we should take care of them we talked a little about the word of wisdom. He talked about how fasting is a righteous act and we told him about Fasting and Praying. Some other stuff lined up, and after we finished explaining our beliefs his eyes somehow got wider and he said 'Wow, yall dope" and invited us to his recording studio so we could hear him composing some Conscious Hip Hop and also told us where we could get meditation necklaces. I think the only place you could have a similar conversation would be at a poetry slam in a sweat lodge or something

Also this week we had an awesome lesson with two cousins who live with a member named Daniel and Charlie. It went really well and they came to church for all 3 hours. I was very nervous to take them to elders quorum,  due to the frequency of shouting matches and off the wall political comments. When we got in there we sat down together and they played the talk by Tad R Callister about the Book of Mormon and opened up the discussion do the group. Almost instantly, one of the grumpiest elders started referencing old testament prophecies and steadily increased in volume until he found himself yelling about Isaiah. I was not super encouraged. The discussion progressed and digressed until Daniel, our investigator, raised his hand and asked about what he needed to do to be baptized. The pack of angry old men near instantly quieted down and worked together to answer his question. The spirit came in like a tidal wave and testified of everything the members were saying about baptism. Us missionaries sat back and watched the members swoop in and teach our investigators. Later that day they accepted a baptismal date and now they're on track to be baptized and we're going to see them tonight.

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Exchanges

Hello everyone! This week definitely has not been the most exciting week of the mission but I guess 1 or 2 things happened

Last Sunday we arranged to eat with the office missionaries, who just so happen to be the most interesting grouping of people in central Iowa. Elder Martin, our financial coordinator, is A vietnam war vet, builds hot rods, and could probably choke out an adult horse. Our vehicle coordinator, Elder Drummond, hates computers, loves donuts, and could shoot me in the head from 200 yards, running or walking (his own words). Dinner with martins went well and was pretty normal, but our lunch with elder Drummond was an email-worthy experience.

We started off by meeting him in the office where he works with his "stupid dang computers", and afterwards we found ourselves helping him move a grill into his apartment. While we drove around the greater des moines area, he told us about how he met Sister Drummond. Apparently he met her at a BYU singles ward. But the story got interesting when he told us about how he had gone to the office and gotten her transcripts and a copy of her schedule because he "didn't want to marry a dummy." He's a funny guy. After we got the grill into his apartment, he took us to "The Colonel's" to get a bucket of chicken for lunch. Essentially, the most exciting part of my week was eating a bucket of chicken with our vehicle coordinator. 

I also had the opportunity to go on 2 exchanges this week which was great. I went first with elder Christensen where we spent a good chunk of the day knocking. Knocking can be frustrating as a Spanish missionary in the states because usually we have to hand over all the English speaking investigators we find to English elders. SO we find incredible people and never get to teach them again. So we said a prayer and then I just followed Elder Christensen to wherever he thought we should go. The first door we knocked on was a Spanish speaker who had LDS friends. That was a miracle. Towards the end of the lesson, we found out that his friends who are LDS are members in the branch who we eat with all the time. We were led by the spirit to what we think was the sole Spanish speaker in the building, and we caught him right before he went to eat dinner with his family. God knows where the people we need to teach live, he knows which doors we need to knock, and if we have the faith he will lead us directly to them.

On my other exchange I got to go with My zone leader to his ward because my other zone leader just got called to be AP. Everyone there thought I was the new missionary there haha, they called me to give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and introduced me as the new member of the ward. I also got called on to say the prayer in gospel principles, and to speak in Elders quorum. But there were a few student from a local college there researching the church for a religion class. When they got to the building you could tell that they thought we were all a weird cult, they were terrified. But as we went through the meeting I saw them write stuff on their notes like "everyone here is really nice" and they volunteered to read scriptures in gospel principles. It was cool to see their hearts soften as they felt the spirit. 

I don't have any pictures this week, sorry about that, but here are some throwback classics

Transfers

Hello everyone!

I don't have a ton of news but I have some stuff to share

Yesterday at church one of the members brought a family of friends along with them, which was a miracle. She attended all three hours which was even more of a miracle. During sacrament meeting, some member kids sat next to the nonmember kids and drew stuff and ate fruit snacks. When it came time for the sacrament they kind of settled down. Up to this point in our Sunday, I had not been having the greatest day of my mission. I didn't sleep very well the night before, forgot to shave, none of our investigators showed up, it was just that kind of day. The stress of a new transfer was weighing on me pretty badly. But anyway the sacrament came around and I saw the little member kids in front of me explaining the sacrament to their little nonmember friends. When it got to their mom, the little nonmembers taught their mom. It was a  little thing but it was cool to see and it made me feel better. 

Also yesterday we had some time in our day at the end to go knocking. My new comp isn't the biggest fan of knocking so I had to motivate him a little bit. I just felt like someone was waiting for us and Satan was working hard on my companion to keep us from getting there. I had an apartment complex in mind I drove there and the first door we knocked was a Spanish speaker who wanted to learn more. The next door we knocked was a really really sick English speaking lady who at first didn't want to learn more. But we took the time to get to know her and her beliefs and eventually she gave us some water bottles. We had to leave but we gave her the information to find the missionaries that would teach her and an invitation to check out mormon.org. It was just a little thing but a validation that the spirit really was guiding us and that we were needed in that apartment building.

I love you all and hope you have a good week

A Miracle and a Hubcap

Hello everyone! I hope everyone has had a good week

This week was a good one for us. I felt really good about all the work we had done. There was a baptism in the branch and we had 2 of our investigators come which was awesome.  We saw a lot of cool things happen during the week and I had high hopes for Sunday. For me, Sundays are some of the most stressful times in my life. I always show up at church and worry about who's going to come, who isn't there, what the crazy members are going to say during elders quorum, it is just a difficult time to calm down. This week, the first two hours came and went, and no one showed up. I was more frustrated than I had been in a long time. I gave everything I could have given to help people come, and no one showed up. The last hour in the branch is sacrament meeting, so I was just  sitting there contemplating and making myself even more frustrated. I was looking at all the little kids in the branch and I thought about how almost all of their parents were converts which made me feel even worse. I wanted to help someone bring their family into the gospel but I felt like nothing I could do was enough. But the first speaker who got up was one of our investigators who has been coming to church for months but just has to wait because her mom doesn't want her to get baptized. She talked about how she had a goal of having an eternal family and raising her kids in the gospel which was super cool because that was exactly what i was thinking about. It was a little thing, but it was a miracle to me to see that God was looking out for me

In other news, this week we woke up one morning to a missing hubcap and then had to spend time driving around looking for a stupid hubcap. Our vehicle coordinator didn't want to buy a new one so we looked for a while. Eventually we were driving down the road and my companion spotted a hubcap! So we went and parked and ran through a muddy field toward what appeared to be our hubcap. We finally reached it and found out that it wasn't ours. It was some other dumb toyota hubcap. So now the hubcap we found is hanging in our room and we had to order a new one.

I love you all 

Mission Tour

Hello everyone! This week was pretty cool. We had the opportunity to have joaquin e costa of the seventy come to the mission and train us all a bit.

Usually we have a zone conference every transfer but the mission tour took its place this time around. He talked a lot about the savior, and committed us all to study him more. A while ago President Nelson suggested we read every scripture about the savior by using the topical guide to the scriptures. It's cool to have a different way to think about Christ every day. It kind of seemed like he was just going with the flow, it didn't seem like he had too much stuff prepared which was awesome. We learned a lot about the work of the lord. 

Afterwards we all went to dinner as a zone and we made a fool out of one of our zone leaders (see pictures below)

A few nights ago I was looking for some paper to write on when I stumbled upon an old binder in my apartment that had belonged to a zone leader in Fairfield. I was trained in Ottumwa which was in the Fairfield zone, so I was pretty excited to find it. I looked inside and saw some notes of the investigators at the time in Ottumwa out of curiosity, and I recognized the names of a Marshallese couple we had worked with, Paulson and Jacklyn. Eventually those 2 people ended up getting married & baptized, so I got to see the impact the gospel had on their lives. I love them a lot, and it was a tender mercy to be reminded of them.

 Luh you

Mystery Hymns and Miracle Mail

Hey everyone! This week I went on a nostalgic exchange with one of my zone leaders from Ottumwa who got transferred here. We got to teach some people from Liberia which was awesome.

The first day of the exchange we went to see a lady named Dekontee. We had to go let her choose the hymns for her baptismal program. When we first got to her house, she wasn't there but her son and her grandkids were. We read the Book of Mormon with her son, Nyaanbi and her grandkids, Alicia and T-Boy. After reading a little bit, Elder Roskelley, my zone leader, paused for a bit and then asked "Are you all down to watch a one hour movie?"

I thought he was joking but Nyaanbi and the others were willing so we pulled up the Restoration Movie, said a prayer with them, and told them we would be back in an hour to see how they liked the movie and to talk with Dekontee. 

When we came back, we Nyaanbi was gone to work but we were told he watched the whole movie, and her Granddaughter told us about how sad she was about Joseph Smith's brother dying. It was cool to see that Elder Roskelly acted on a prompting and it was able to give these people a little more understanding and personal connection to the message. Also, when we asked Dekontee what hymns she wanted she  said "I cant remember what the name was but it sounded like this.." and then started singing/chanting "spirit......spirit.....spirit...." we had no idea what she was singing about so now Dekontee's baptism program has Elder Roskelly's 2 favorite hymns on it. 

The next day, we went to see another Liberian Investigator. We had a great lesson with her and she told us that if she had her kids in the US with her that she would be baptized the next day. She just has to wait for some legal documents and then her kids can come over to be with her and learn with her. Before we left, we said a prayer and asked for her documents to come. Then we went and had lunch, and as we finished lunch we got a call from her and she asked us to help her read some stuff she had gotten in the mail. It turns out that the stuff she got in the mail was a notice that her documents were almost done, and she told us that it was because we prayed that those notices had come. It was cool to see an investigator have so much faith. 

That's basically all that happened this week.

Luh you all

General Conference

Amados hermanos mios,

This week was awesome. We found some solid people and got to hear from a Living prophet of God. Also, we got to eat french toast and wreck a whole bunch of Ninos from the branch in wheelchair soccer.

Our zone leader decided earlier in the week that it would be a good idea to play what he called "Fantasy General Conference" which is basically where everyone fills out a sheet where they guess who's going to speak, what color the first presidency's ties are going to be, just stuff like that. And the prize was a 20 dollar gift card to Burger King so things got pretty real. The whole zone got into an argument about whether the Choir's dresses were red or pink, I cheated a little bit, our zone leader probably cheated, it was just insane. It did make general conference an edge-of-your-seat experience though. Who knew that watching 10 hours of talks could get so intense

This round of General Conference was my favorite I have ever seen. Before it started, I had 3  questions that I wanted answered and by the end they all had been responded to. I have no doubts that Russell M.Nelson is a prophet. And just like Bishop Causse said, this really is the same church that the Savior established. It was an awesome conference and I'm so happy I got to watch it.

We were able to watch the Sunday Morning Session with an investigator at a members house which was awesome. We got to watch it in Spanish as well, and that made it even better. It was super cool to see our 17 year old investigator so focused on conference. What a champ.

Also yesterday we got some news that I've been anticipating since like the 2nd day i was in the field...

My trainer is now our new AP! He's a stud so we saw that one coming. It'll be super sick to see him more now. The last I saw him, we was riding into the southeast iowa sunrise in a green truck from the 70's.  I'm hyped to see him again

Luh you all

Transfers

Hello everyone! This week wasn't incredibly exciting, but we did have some cool stuff go down

So firstly this week we got some hints for our next transfer and mine are "Ottumwa relations", "Lucky Charms", and "are we there yet" so if anyone has any ideas let me know because all that i got from those hints is that I'm not very good with transfer Hints.

Also this week we were trying to find some place to go knock, but ive been here

long enough that we've either knocked or been kicked out of every nearly every apartment complex in our area so it was proving to be pretty difficult. BUt we decided to drive down some random road and drove for a while and found a random apartment building and knocked a random door and ran into an old former. He's from El Salvador and skates so that was a miracle. I've always wanted to meet a hispanic that skates. He's super cool and that was a miracle

Also I had my last sunday in the branch and I got to translate with elder Christensen so that was sick. We challenged eachother to see who could work in the most kung fu panda references into peoples talks and we watched the people with the headsets laugh pretty good so that was fun

We also celebrated E. Christensens birthday this week and had a great party, hats and glasses included

I love you all, have a good week!

Lost! (A Wedding and a Snowstorm)

Hey everyone! This week was pretty wild, I've been transferred to Marshalltown, Iowa. My Companion described it as looking like the city from "IT" so take that for what you will. It's a really awesome place and it smells a lot like Ottumwa

This transfer, My new comp and I are "whitewashing", which just means that we are both coming into the area so we had no idea what was going on with investigators, where we lived, nothing. So we got a little bit lost when we got here, but after like 5 minutes of driving down random roads hoping someone was standing outside waiting for us we just decided to start working. We got to knock Elder Ostergaard's first door! (see picture below) Also we talked to this older guy and were able to set up a return appointment and everything. Super Cool.

Eventually we started calling random contacts that we had and found someone who knew where we lived so we were able to find where we lived. We live in an apartment that a member built on to their basement, and its incredible. We are very blessed.

Our second day here we got a call saying that there was a Spanish wedding going on at the church, and that we were invited. So we got to practice our Spanish, meet all the Spanish members, and eat a whole bunch of Mexican food. 

That night we got a weather warning for snowstorms and woke up the next morning with like 4 inches of snow. Elder Ostergaard was not pleased

But its been really awesome here. Elder Ostergaard and I are like the same person and I'm really glad to have been put with him her. 

I love you all! Have a good week

Old People Police

This week was one to remember.

  Early in the week, we decided to go visit an older member of the ward who lives in the veteran's home here. As we were driving there, we saw one of our investigators wandering around so we pulled up next to him and asked when we could come over. We set up a time, and continued on. Around 5 minutes later we got a text from him along for a ride to the other side of Marshalltown. We can't give rides, but we called up the senior missionaries who said they could do it. They told us that they were just about done with a visit but they would go afterwards. With that figured out, elder ostergaard and I entered the veteran's home.

  The veteran's home is massive. There's multiple buildings of residency, war memorials and I think a functioning hospital as well. The residencies are laid out like that part in "Lost" with a whole bunch of little houses so it took a while to find where to go. When we finally found his building and his room, we heard a conversation going on inside between the member and the senior missionaries who we had called earlier. The situation had just become an awkward one. It was almost time for us to go to another appointment so we decided to just try by later.

When we got back to the exit, there was a huge red sign that said "STOP! USE THE KEYPAD." We couldn't figure out how the thing worked so we just decided to ignore it and open the door. As it opened, a deafening alarm went off and the door closed. I kind of expected people to drop from the ceiling like in Monsters Inc. But instead a burly bald man came walking down the hall towards us. Rather than sentencing us to a night in rest home prison, hey put something into a keypad and let us out. What a guy.

Later that day, we were in a lesson with some recent converts, and their little brother was freaking out and hissing/growling at us and then bit my knee.

For all the weird experiences we had this week, we had some really cool ones as well. One of our investigators that we found on Elder Ostergaards first say was sick, so we couldn't meet with him for a while.  But yesterday we saw him and while he was sick he read all of 1st and 2nd Nephi and did a whole bunch of research on lds.org. He started telling us about all this stuff he had found out and it was really awesome. He was able to accept a baptismal date as well so that was cool to see. 

  Yesterday we went to go try by one of our investigators who has been kind of flaky, and outside his house there were two other people that just started talking to us. They were both from Cairo, and had a ton of interest. Right when we walked up the man, Mibeor, told us he wanted to pray with us. So he prayed, and when he finished he looked at the book of Mormon in my hand, took it, and said he would read it but he wanted one in Arabic as well. Through the whole lesson his friend kept telling him that we were sent from God, and they told us that they had been talking about making changes a few days before. They were really cool. 

I know that God did send us to those two to help them. He sent us there at exactly the right time, and the exact circumstance when they were ready for the message of the restoration. 

The mission is super cool. I love it a lot

I hope you all have a good week!

A Picture of Marshalltown

Kittens

This week we were super busy with exchanges and service for members, so not a ton happened but we had some fun times with some stray cats.

Early in the week, Brother Jay called us over to do some yard work. When we got there he was making some meat pies and told us he had been hearing a crying kitten for days outside but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. 

As we soon found out, Brother Jay hates kittens. There's a whole flock of stray cats in his neighborhood  that just keeps growing and growing. He told us the cops used to drive around and shoot them to keep the population down. Brother Jay told us that he catches them and takes them for "a ride in the country". I didn't know what that consisted of, but I assumed he just killed cats for fun. He told us we should try and catch some cats if we see them so we could take them for a ride in the country.

Eventually, we got out in the yard and started working on putting a post in the ground. While I was digging the hole I saw a cat out of the corner of my eye about 20 feet down the yard. I pointed it out to brother Jay and he told me just to throw a dirt clod towards it to scare it off. It was standing about three feet away from a chain link fence, and when my dirt clod hit the ground behind it, it jumped up into the middle of the chain link fence and bounced back past the point where it had jumped. Brother Jay says it's going to haunt him for months that he didn't record it. 

Later in the day, we found the crying cat, and it was about 14 feet up hiding in a gutter. Every few seconds it would wander out on to the roof, start sliding and fall off half way but catch itself and climb back up. Elder ostergaard and I stood underneath it, hoping to catch it when it fell. Brother Jay handed us his cultivating rack that he had been using as a cane, and told us that one of us could rake it off the roof and the other would catch it. I got stuck with the responsibility to catch it, which was probably the most intense moment I've ever experienced. Eventually elder ostergaard caught him and started taking him off the roof, and got the cat so it was hanging by 1 paw like an action movie star, and then it fell to into my hands. We took some pictures, and before we knew it, Brother Jay had his pet carrier (5 gallon bucket) in his hand. He snatched the kitten from us, threw it in the bucket and told us to get in his car so we could take them for a ride in the country. 

We got in the car, screeched out of the driveway, and went out into the fields. We saw a little farmhouse coming up, and he told me we were going to stop, drop, and roll. So he pulled over, I emptied the kitten onto the side of the dirt road, and we left. So in the end, taking kitties for a ride in the country consisted of finding the kittens a better home with a better chance to survive. So that was a relief

Other than that, nothing much happened. It was a good week.

I love being on a mission, the Marshalltown ward is awesome and it's a great place to be a missionary.

I love you all!

May 7, 2018

This week was pretty busy with driving all around Iowa but we had some pretty cool things happen 

We were on exchanges early in the week and ran into this lady while we were knocking an apartment building. We were knocking on a door, but we saw her walking down the hall with her baby in a stroller, so we bailed on that door and talked to her. We went up and started talking to her, and had a super short restoration lesson. I think we found her on a Friday, and she ended up coming to church on sunday. This week was a pretty frustrating one for me, we kept having really weird problems popping up and it was good to have God give us that chance to meet that lady. We met her friday, she came to church on Sunday, and now she's preparing to be baptized. We could have very easily watched her pass and we probably would have forgotten about it pretty quick, but She needed us and God knew it. 

We also got to go back to Des Moines for a baptism yesterday. When I was there we had been working with a kid named Christopher and his less active family, and he finally got baptized. Going back to Des Moines was a really neat experience. I got to see 2 past companions, a whole bunch of members from the branch, and some members from Ottumwa who drove some other missionaries to them. Des Moines was a pretty rough area for me, but it was cool to talk to all the members who I miss so much and see Christopher take such a big step.

It was a pretty hard week but God let us see some success. I love serving a mission

Other than that, we narrowly avoided a tornado, planted some onions, and burnt a slice of bread in the microwave

I love you all a lot!

Mothers Day

We had a pretty busy week again. On Tuesday we drove to Des Moines, and the next day we drove to Iowa City for another meeting. In Iowa City I got to see Elder Rocha for one last time before he goes home. He was my companion back in Des Moines for 2 transfers, he's an awesome missionary. 

Another thing we were busy with this week was a baptism for a french speaking lady. There were some senior missionaries here who taught her everything and interviewed her for baptism, but they left before her actual baptism. So Elder Ostergaard and I got to visit with this lady and her husband to see how they wanted it done. Her husband, Hardy, is also a recent convert and he got to baptize her. He speaks the most English out of all the African membership in the ward, so he has stepped up to be the bridge between English speakers and French speakers, kind of like The Avatar. The baptism went really well, and on sunday they called Hardy to be the new French gospel principles teacher. There's been a few times in my life where I feel the spirit in Sacrament meeting when they give someone a calling and this was the time I've felt it strongest. He'll do a lot for the ward.

We also got to skype our families yesterday! I'm so grateful for my family. There's no doubt in my mind that I was purposefully placed in my family. I love them a lot. 

I love being a missionary. I love seeing people come closer to Jesus Christ, and I know that God is actively involved in our lives.

I love you all a lot! Have a good week!