Week 65 in Lufkin, Texas (2-9-15)

Well, one week done in Lufkin here with Elder B***. He has been out a month more than I have. He is super funny and he loves to laugh. He is from a little town north of Seattle in Washington, and doesn't like it when people mention the last Sea Hawk game. i wouldn't blame him. Lufkin is a bit interesting. it took us 5 hours to get here from Dallas. it is really far out here. I am the farthest south you can get on the mission. There is only one farther area and that is Hemp Hill. A senior couple is there. They are pretty cool. They are from Australia. We will see them at least once a week. They are the only other missionaries in our district. We are so far out from everyone else and like Sherman there is not much to do. Luckly there are elders from Nacadouches that are coming down today to play basketball. That will make it more fun.

We have been doing a lot of service lately. Elder B*** and the last elder have been offering a lot of service to everyone and we have had a lot of time serving friends of the members. We have mostly been raking leaves. I am so glad that i don't have to rake leaves like this back in Utah. There are so many trees here. I cant believe this. Compared to Dallas this is a whole other state. 

I have been trying to get to know the ward. We had an activity with the youth last Wednesday were they pretended to be missionaries. Everyone liked it and had fun. They learned how to sew and iron. They had fake doors to knock and share their testimony and then we had a mini district meeting where we taught them how to use the scripture mysteries to help them teach and how to apply it to themselves. 

It was a good week here and thing are building up. Elder B*** and i are going to have fun.

 

Now I know what these elders do to blow off steam!  I'm glad I spent so much time over the years nagging Jesse to keep his room clean. I can tell from the video that it has all paid off :/

 

Awesome Sherman Elders

Transfer Day Pictures.  Saying goodbye to some great Elders!

Lunch Time!!!!

 

New Companion...Elder B***

Week 64 in Sherman, Texas (2-2-15)

Well this week was extremely busy. on Tuesday we had an interview with the mission president. it was down in Plano which is about an our away from here. We got to see a lot of missionaries there. There were a couple of missionaries who were giving trainings that were going home and they just made of joke of their training which was too bad, but there were a couple of good ones. Sister Taylor did one on staying physically fit and how that affects your spirituality.  She is going to do a 5k in May and she wants all of us to run in it. Hope i can do well. I need to start practicing.

Then on Friday we had a meeting with Elder Russell M Nelson and Lynn G Robbins of the 70's come to speak with us. Lynn went first and he talked to us about not giving up and to know that our Heavenly Father knows best and that he puts us in positions for a reason. He started out by asking if we could tell the future. We said no and he pointed to a random sister in the front row to pull out her I pad and ............ he stopped there and turned and asked the mission president if we had Ipads here. and of course we didn't. he turned red and continued with, well "PEOPLE" can look on their I pads and see tomorrows weather forecast. then he tied it in somehow. 

After Elder Nelson came up and announced that he had a granddaughter in the mission and she got to go up on the stage and hug her grandpa and ask a couple of questions to him. Then he talked about the Abrahamic covenant and how that applies to us. It was really neat and it went into deep detail about the significance of the tribe and the names of the sons of Jacob. i liked it.

Then on Saturday we had a baptism. Isaac V***. he is nine years old. he asked me to do a talk on baptism at his baptism. So I had a great object lesson I do with cups. There are three cups with labels. Satan, Us, and Jesus. Water is poured into Satan, and in this water is bad, and then Satan tempts us and it gets poured into us and then we get baptized or repent and we pour it into Jesus. then I take the Jesus cup and hold it upside down and the water disappears. It doesn't fall out. It is just gone. I was going to send a video of this, but i forgot. anyway i wanted to make the lesson special so i poured Mio into the water to make it red. Then when I started to pour it into the US cup it spilled down the side and dripped red onto the white table cloth they have in the relief society room. So it is now stained red in a spot. When that happened i said ," oh crap!" and everyone laughed. Then when i poured it into the Jesus cup. what was supposed to happen, didn't and I had to explain what should have happened. Which was really embarrassing. I will try to send a video of it working next week. Then i was a witness for the baptism. It was a double baptism and the first person to go her dad banged her head against the wall and I flinched and snickered. I felt so bad. 

Well Breaking news. I just got a call while i was typing and i am being transferred. don't know where and don't know who, but i am leaving Sherman. 

good bye.

Mission meeting with Elder Nelson

Sherman Elder's goodbye meal together

Jesse gave Elder G*** a Real Jersey and shirt for his goodbye present.  Elder G*** loves soccer :)

V*** baptism

Week 63 in Sherman, TX (1-26-15)

hey whats up everyone? so some big news....... this week Russel M Nelson is coming to the mission on Friday. i am so exited to hear from him and the things that he will tell us. we have been trying to prepare by reading the entire Book of Mormon. i am a little behind on it. we are supposed to be in 3 Nephi somewhere but so far i am in Helaman. i want to catch up by then. there is also talk of us finally getting i pads. that would be a nice surprise for us.

we had an interesting experience this last week. a member took us out to Cici's for dinner. we got in there and we started to eat. It was an older couple that took us. the husband is not all there most of the time and we usually just talk to the wife. so as we are eating there is a guy sitting a couple tables down from us and there is no food on his table and he is just staring at us. he is completely sideways on his chair and just staring. we ignore him and we are having a nice conversation with our members. then this guy comes over and sits next to us and starts a conversation about what he has learned from the bible and other books that were taken out of the bible. he said something about Jesus being Jehovah. i tried to introduce the Book of Mormon and start something up with him and the husband decides to bear his testimony on the church being the true church and he only church. Then a battle starts between this guy and and the member. both of them are just saying random stuff. sometimes i got to wonder how some people add 2+2 and =7. so that went on for 30 min and we had to go so we just left. and to make the whole Cici's moment even more awkward is we were tracting just right before we got there. one of the homes we knocked into was a preacher. and guess where we see him. yep at Cici's. he also kept staring at us. that was a whole hour of awkwardness for us right then.

well have a great week.

 

squid lunch

District

Taco Lunch

 

Week 62 in Sherman, TX (1-19-15)

I had a sweet week last week. there were lots of fun adventures. 

as you can see i think i out did last years birthday cake. the big 20. earlier we celebrated the day by going tracting. we met some pretty interesting people. we helped one old guy put his licence plate back on his truck. he talked to us for about an hour. he has a ton of religious books. he likes to collect them. reading them is another story i think. none of them looked used. there was really no mean people on the street, which was really surprising. usually there is that one guy that is soooooooo offended that two dirty little mormon boys happened to darken his porch that it is funny to watch his reaction. 

so we helped out this person in the second ward last week. she wanted the other elders to help put in cabnet shelf liners. they wanted to hurry and get it over with because they are kind of weird. so we go to the appartment and the member is pulling out food from her cabnet and butting it in bags. she was kind of struggling with it and so Elder G and i took over and started doing it for her. now keep in mind that there is bug crap all over the walls of the cabnet and what should have been a white shelf was yellow. that should have been a warning flag for us. but we continued and we got to the top shelf and Elder G pulled a mustard out and on it was 5 roaches. and there was like 6 more that scattered out from behind it. now the appartment was clean. it looked vaccumed and neat but this was discusting. we finnished cleanning out the food. and we asked her if there was bug spray and she gave us an old rusty empty can. we couldnt do much with it so Elder R and I went to the dollar general and bought lysol wipes and roach spray. we started spraying in there and from behind every little crack the roaches came out and started running everywhere.  i used that entire spray. it was discusting. she ,the member, got mad at us that we went out and bought new spray when she "had some". no, no she didnt. then we offered to clean up all the dead roaches and she just said no. just put the mats on top and call it good. i tried to tell her no give me your vaccume so we can suck it up and clean it up for you. and all she said was" just but the mats over it and it will be good" after a little convincing she gave us a broom. but i was soo mad at her. then we went home and i took a shower.

there was no other crazy stories for this week. our investigator that we have is progressing really well. he comes to church every week and loves it. he told us yeaterday that he was exited it was sunday. it is his highlight because of how he feels afterward.so greatfull for the spirit.

i love the cubs shirt. it is so awesome. i think my favorite is the shoes. i had a hunch that they were waiting for me. i love them so much. the other elders are jealous. elder G*** surprised me. he took me to a soccer shop and bought me a jersey and put my name on it. it is the one in the pictures. i will have to do something special for him this next two weeks. i was already trying to think of something that i could do for him, but now i need to step up my game. any ideas?

i got your letter finally on Saturday and i also got grandma Jorgensen's and Christy's. 

it has been really warm down here too. we are like 65 right now.

sweet i get a nice new bed. i hate the one here.  i already flipped it over and turned it around, but it still sucks. i have even sometimes just slept on our couch. our couch is really comfy. 

ok love y'all and have a great week.

                                                                     Pictures from birthday!

Driving Duties

Elder L***

Roaches!!!

Week 61 in Sherman, Texas (1-12-15)

On wensday we had a moving project. The M*****in our ward moved out. they were super cool. they announced that they were moving on Sunday and all those that could help please come. They said that they wanted to start moving at 1. then the elders quarm president stood up and asked for volenteeres and no one said anything. then he said that everyone will probably be at work durring that time and he changed the time to 6:30 at night. I told the family that was moving that we could help them at 1. So on Wednesday we got the other elders in the area and started helping them. and at 1 we started and at 4 we had everything in the house packed into the truck. it was good  thing too because wednesday was the coldest day of the week and the high was 25. and only about 3 people showed up at 6 to help them. but it was already done. it would have sucked to have done it at night where it was colder and darker. As we were moving there was a pile of random junk and I asked if they wanted me to pack it and they said that this is the donating pile and if we see something we like we can keep it. I found the sword. it wont fit in my suitcase so elder R***** is going to ship it home with his bike and he will bring it down to the house. he wants to meet you anyway, this will be his excuse to. iIpayed him $20 to do it and he threw in a pair of boots that a member gave him. they are small on him and he had already bought boots like 4 days before he got them. the member that gave it to him bought them online and  they were too small for him and for some reason he couldn't return them. so he put them in a box for 2 years and now i have them. like brand new.

we were suposed to have a huge ice storm again this last sunday, but luckily it warmed up and it didnt freeze. 

we have been working alot with the less actives in the ward real recently  and have met alot of cool families. We have a baptism comming up on January 25. His name is I***** and he is 9. We have been teaching him and he is ready to be baptized. His family is all members. 

 

sweet i cant wait to be 20. will you be sending me some ding-dongs and 20 candles so i can outdo last year? 

i am glad that the Super Mario works. the resale shop had a big donation on nes games, but i already have the super marios and there was nothing else that was good. was a little disappointed, but still have my hopes up for a couple of good games to be donated.

well i hope that your week has been great.

 

 

 

Week 60 in Sherman, Texas (1-5-15)

Hope that you all had a great new years. mine was great. we got to celebrate the new year for Great Britain before we had to go to bed. I don't think that there was much celebrating around us because we were not woken up by the fireworks or we just slept through them.

it has been super cold here. On Wednesday we were supposed to have freezing rain and luckily it didn't happen. It did rain for three days straight. then after the rain it just got colder and colder. we woke up and went to church on Sunday and the car said that it was 20 degrees.  It still hasn't warmed up and there is talk of snow sometime this week.

with the holidays coming to a close we hope to be able to have some more work. everyone just seems too busy during the holidays. members, non-members and investigators are all really busy during this time. 

Our Mission president has given us the challenge to flood the world, or at least the mission with the Book of Mormon. Our focus is to only contact using the book of Mormon.

Happy New Years!

Week 59 in Sherman, Texas (12-29-15)

Hope that you all had a great Christmas. it was pretty fun down here.

 

I was able to go to a couple families in my ward to see them celebrate the holidays and of course everyone we talked to gave us some of their Christmas happiness (candy) all in all i think i have about 10 pounds or more in sweets. it is like every kids dream.  

My christmas ended really well. there is a member in the 2nd ward that invited us over to his house and gave us some gifts. if you got the picture with us in the masks. he is the one not in missionary attire. 

 

So funny thing about those masks, there is a Call of Duty game called ghost. In the game you wear a mask like that. the member got one for his birthday and then wanted to give us one. elder R. says he is pretty good at call of duty. he says at one point he was ranked 1000th in the world.

my new investigator is progressing really well. we brought our bishop over to help teach. and he brought a great spirit with him and he helped explain blessings that he has seen in a way we never could. it was a great lesson. 

 

it is cool how you got to go to see elder haskell. how did dad do on his talk? 

the games (I sent) have alot of dust on them. When i tested out the system at the resale store they had a can of air that i sprayed in to get the dust out. 

 

i love you all so much and i hope that you all have a happy new year.

 

Christmas 2014

Elder Haskell's Homecoming

2014 Christmas Card pictures