Elder Dalby tags along with a chihuahua

June 22, 2015

Ahh, it has come to my attention that it seems to have been long (what 2 weeks? maybe three) since I sent an official photo from my mission and I have thus been notified to send some. I have a camera and for those who have been wondering, I am using it. The photos I have been taking though of late have (mostly) been too menial to send so I have not felt as prompted to send them as much as I think that I may have.

We actually have had a 3rd companion with us and he has been in the apartment the entire time we have been working, you may ask yourself "wait, missionaries need a companion when going places, if one has been in the apartment all this time, where have the other two been?" well I would like to have known that Elder Dalby had his arm broken off of his body so we have tried to use our engineering skills as 19 and 20 year old to reapply his arm to his body. Elder Dalby has been a missionary ever since he was released from his previous "life" in 2010 when he finished his role as an actor. Here is a Picture of Elder Dalby. He was Honorably released due to medical reasons as a missionary when changing locations from our apartment to another home where he can love the rest of his life in recovery.

Elder Dalby our third companion 

This week was kind of ridiculous and here is somewhat how it went-

first the week started out with changing my camera to the German language (or Deutsch) just for kicks. Then we went to Verona for antique mall hunting old Hymnal books from 1860's to the year (roughly) 1950's most all for under 10 dollars so I am debating if I should invest in one?.... I'm still wondering (What do you think?) take a poll and let me know next Monday and I’ll go from there. They are all in pretty good condition as well so no worries much on that. My week went as such,

Tuesday: One of the youth that comes out teaching with us, Brad,)  went with us to visit some people and help move a table from an attic to a basement where the basement didn't really connect to the place through a stairway -so we had to take it outside and go around down a steep hill carrying this crazy heavy wooden table. After we went to the progressing investigator's house that we are teaching with Brad and reviewed the lesson we all talked about Sunday, (Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy) we then dropped Brad off and went to help out and teach a lesson on Temples. After which we went to dinner with a member and their family and shared a message about fathers for Fathers Day coming up. We then went to Brooks' Store (the store of a member in the Staunton area) to be able to help out with some things that she needed and we were able to teach about the importance of having prophets on the earth today to receive guidance and revelation for the Church of Jesus Christ, exactly how Jesus Himself set it up.

Wednesday: I don't even remember what happened that much Wednesday besides it was a blur and we had opportunities to teach and we also had a meeting with the Bishop where he went over some stuff with us pertaining to missionary work.

Thursday we had dinner with the Bishop and his wife (they are so cool!) and during the day we had a lesson with our progressing investigator and also got in contact with a former investigator who every time we stopped by he either wasn't home or couldn't hear us (he's 91, we'll give him some slack, besides) he showed us some stuff that he learned when he served  WW2 in the Pacific Theater in the 1940's and we were able to talk with him about the importance of why we are here and with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, how we progress and where we will go in our lives.

Friday we had an all day meeting in Charlottesville that I gained some personal revelation on many of the struggles I had been facing with on the mission and even some before so that was fantastic! We got to meet Elder Perkins of the 1st Quorum of the 70. Apparently he visited Mongolia and knows President Clark (probably the second one, there were two president Clarks, My grandfather was one and there was another later). A few of the people I met when I visited Mongolia with my grandpa, and consider as my good friends, apparently Elder Perkins knows really well (like Batbold and Boldbier)!

Saturday we got to visit a past area because Elder Todd had an investigator that he taught be baptized! and apparently her stepfather is in one of the congregations of Tigard Oregon where my grandparents live so we got to talking about how Oregon was and if he knew any of my family there.

Sunday was Stake conference and we visited a lot of people around our area to bring a SPIRITUAL BOOST!!!! it was really awesome because some were at church earlier that day and we gave them more encouragement for being able to come and see what we all do. Oh, you might be wondering "what is Elder Day doing with a 6 week old chihuahua  puppy in his hands?" Well when we were visiting people we were able to see some people we hadn't seen in a very long time and they just got a new puppy! Fantastic isn't it. We got to hold it and that was awesome.

Elder Day

"Come Come Ye", "Up "

June 15^th  2015

It seems like the more and more I am out on my mission the more and more two phrases come to my mind, one is the song "Come Come Ye Saints" from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint's Hymn book, and the other is "Adventure is out there!" from the movie “Up”.

This week was ridiculous for a few reasons, our preparation day (the one day we had to rest during the week) we did as follows, from 8-10 am we had our usual studies then Elder Todd and I went to the library. I then found out that I have great fun doing family history research and stuff like that. Though Elder Todd (who is getting ready to go home) had planned that he mail his bike home so, he got the information then we went to the packing place around 1pm to find out it was closed for a bit but then we decided "oh okay we can wait for elder Todd’s bike stuff and pack it up" that finished around 4pm... 

So we had from 4-5 to take a break for that day and in that time we decided to watch the church film Joseph: Prophet of the restoration (big mistake) on our iPad that we had just received. I now have learned that the iPad  is not to be used for passing time or anything besides the purpose of teaching of Jesus Christ and helping with that because  after we did that- we felt drained. Uber Drained... then we went to a member's to eat and then we ate food and went back to work until 9pm.

Tuesday: we had a district meeting from 10-12:30 then a lesson with Bonnie at 2 then went to see the Smiths.  After we went to Ford Motor dealership to fix the busted underside of the car and because we saved some of the screws underneath we were able to cut the cost of repairs by much, which helped us in the long run later on. After that we had dinner with the Sedwicks and went finding for people to teach the rest of the night until the Chandler family asked us to stop by so we did, didn't really fully know why until they said we needed to be judges for the dessert eating contest they were having with their relatives and so we said something along the lines of "sure I guess we can be unbiased judges for ya eating sweets". That was interesting (turns out there were some other people there who were less active in the congregation and it helped us get to know them better and invite them to come to church!)

Wednesday we “found” a lot and got Bonnie a big print copy of the Book of Mormon! We dropped it off at her house and helped her with some struggles she was going through. We then went to the Carrolls place for dinner. They are an awesome young couple that run their own buisnesses and are "eachother's bosses" because Bro Carroll is in charge of Sister Carrol's publishing company record keeping and Sister Carroll runs Brother Carroll's schedule and management for his lawn business and after, went to teach the 16-18yr olds how to teach lessons As missionaries (we pretended to be people that we had previously taught and they taught us about God's Plan for our Eternal Happiness).

Thusday we had another lesson with Bonnie and had a ward member Trevor come with us, his testimony on our topic was uber crucial for helping Bonnie and we saw some great miracles happen.

Friday got some service done. We went to help Bishop load and unload bails of Hay for his 2 horses, cows and a mule. Since Elder Todd has a back injury it was me and Brother Beidler hauling about 60 bails of hay 35-45lbs each and that was super fun! I have a feeling there was a reason I was born in the suburbs and not the farmland though but Hay (heh heh, get it, hay) it was freaking awesome and I wouldn't mind doing it again. we had dinner with the Welch family and they are super awesome as well.

Saturday is Casey's 25th birthday and he was going to Kentucky to visit family for the weekend for that. I love this ward and everyone in it! They are so cool!!!  Also on Saturday we found out that someone that we usually see (named Doris) had moved from her Respite Care place to another one and during the evening we hunted it down to tell Doris we had stuff for her (like her copy of the scriptures, and to know where she is for future visits anyway). We have done a ton of “finding” and any free time we had we were finding people to teach (which was more then expected from what this email may say). We found Doris and then actually talked with a Mary Baldwin College student that is interested in bringing Jesus back into her life so that was super cool, would have never found her had we not lost Doris. sounds weird but hey, ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE!!

The hymn, “Come Come Ye Saints” is in reference to any tough time or challenge that we might face in our lives (and especially going through little day to day stuff) but it is always important to know that God will ALWAYS watch out for us and help us in any way we can, we just gotta trust him, and that I have seen is the hardest part.

Sunday we went to church, had some crazy events and met some new people to teach! Good times.

Catch ya next week

Elder Day

Sudden Moves, Ipads, Exact Speed?

June 8, 2015

This Week has been a bit rough around the edges...... the reason for it is that one of the people that we were teaching literally within a span of 24 hours moved their entire house stuff (which was a lot) to a different mission area and didn't let Anyone know about it. Like.... anyone!!... We came by and there was a new fancy car in the driveway and we thought "Hmmm..... the two minivans are gone.... there is a new shiny fancy car in the driveway.... all the stuff in their front yard is gone and all the stuff on their porch..... Something’s.... different..." turns out... Moved! Never to return. ahh well, The Lord knows what He wants done with that family so I hope all is well for them.

Bonnie is more and more excited to be baptized in the coming weeks and her son, and her son's friends who are of our faith, are coming down from Winchester (like 4hrs away) for Bonnie's Baptism!

 We were praying very hard and fasting for certain things to progress this past week and we have found little miracles within the ward that have heavily answered our prayers! More and more members of the ward are being more involved in missionary work and more and more people are doing a lot of stuff! Of course we have been working our tails off to find people to teach and many things seem to just.... Happen so we are deterred from our original plans, of course they are all good things and we are seeing that as we are working harder and harder and getting to know the members of the ward more, more things just seem to happen!

 We received ipads this week for purposes of proselyting and I have felt a huge gift of strength and support for setting ways to not be distracted on the ipad such as every time I open it I say verbally what I am opening it for (like what I am going to do or use it for) and that the screen is in eyesight of my companion. the first one helps greatly and the latter is to back it up. My trainer's trainer (named Elder Wray, I call him my missionary Grandpa because my missionary father, Elder Hopkins, was trained by him and so my father on the mission's father is my grandpa. hope that makes sense,) was at the meeting where we got our ipads. He is now an assistant to the mission president.

We have been teaching and talking with many people and are getting fed more and more pasta at dinners (which, don't take that any other way besides that we are getting fed probably one of my favorite foods ever). The one time we were running out of food (because we try to buy things like food only on our preparation day, if we completely space and run out then we'll go get food on another day but we try and avoid it if at all possible) someone gave us 3 pounds of cooked pasta that asked us to help out, then we visited a less active family and guess what, we got 24 eggs from their farm! (They also have peacocks so I think we got a peacock egg from them too but I forgot to take a picture of it before I had it for breakfast). and it was weird so we did not need another store run.

Can you go the exact speed? 

My Companion (elder Todd from the Fresno California area) follows the speed limit EXACTLY and its actually quite impressive, go Elder Todd!, but there is a speed limit sign that says speed limit 110 so I have been seeing if he will actually go 110, here is the sign and see what you think you would do in this residential area going uphill).

I have been trying to delve into family history more and learn about my past, turns out that I have no idea how to do this stuff but Elder Todd is a master (turns out one of his ancestors had 44 kids, 22 girls and 22 boys. ridiculous!)

Love ya

Elder Day

SunDayay in the life of Elder Day

June 1 2015

Hey mom, a lot happened this week but most all of it happened in the last 3 days (Friday to Sunday) and a missionary seems to measure their days in weeks going to Monday-Sunday so if that may be different then you are used to when I say what’s happened in the measure of a missionary week... then that might be why.

Friday we had a mission conference where Elder Zwick of the leadership of the church (also called the 1st quorum of the 70) and Elder Hemmingway, the director of online missionary work, came to our mission and spoke to us for a few hours (9am-2pm with a 15 minute break for a mission photo).

Funny thing is... I shook Elder Zwick's hand 3 times in 10 minutes (completely by accident) and I felt really bad for being able to shake his hand so many times and not having others have that opportunity, so first we went out in the hallway to get a drink and Elder Zwick came down the hallway and shook our hands, then we went inside and took a seat where there was room (on the back row corner near a door) and guess who walked in the door to shake hands to the back row, Elder Zwick... He remembered my name because he said "ah elder Day I see you are here again! Glad you are here" then President Wilson (our mission president) asked that all the missionaries shake Elder Zwick and Elder Hemmingway's hand so... "3rd time's the charm I see" said Elder Zwick... going up is when I felt bad (for having so many opportunities) but ah well, what has happened has happened.

Elder Zwick and Elder Hemmingway shared much on the Spiritual Preparedness of this generation of missionaries and how we were to be the teachers of all the generations to come of missionaries on how to use electronic devices to help the work of God along until the Millennium came.... or something like that... so I feel like there is a lot of pressure on us but I also feel like I need it because back at home I just kinda let the electronics be my life where here this tecnology is to help the work, not to control it. so this will help me develop good tecnology skills to help me in life and not be completely focused on them and be able to gauge my time and moniter my ways I use the technology... which will be greatly helpful.

 Saturday we had a discussion with our investigator Bonnie and guess what, she is going to be baptized on June 27th! We are all so excited for her!!! She was like "yup, it might be scary to do this, but the Lord wants it to happen so I am going to have it happen." I know for a fact it wasn't us that worked with her the most, it was God, and she was willing to learn and discover for herself so that was amazing too

Sunday went as follows, we woke up and got ready for church, left our apartment to wake up a member person that asked us to wake them up for church but when we got to their door (2 hours before when they asked us to) the person was ready to go! All dressed in their Sunday best! So we were able to get a ride for them to church immediately.

After we went to a meeting and talked about stuff going on in the area and that went form 9:30-10:20, from then there was a few things we had to do, like ask our leaders about a situation where another person wanted to be baptized but they wanted to be baptized with their family in Utah and so we asked them and the Bishop and they both said to give them the paperwork to have them fill it out when they get to Utah.

After there was a member that was getting the priesthood the person ordaining him was like "nope I’ve never done it before -I ain't up for it yet. you do it Elder Day" and that took me off guard so I asked  that we should talk to the Bishop of the Congregation and they agreed and the said it would happen in the future when both felt more ready. That was all before church started....

During church we had someone call us to deliver something for bishop then we went to the 2nd hour of church... 3rd hour went as follows, we were able to hangout with the youth! We had an hour of “questions for the missionaries” and we gave the best answers we could, we also helped out setting up 20 tables for after church for a potluck that we had no idea about until that afternoon (so that took care of our lunch plans, I had 3 megaplates of food too).

That brought us to finding the member we were getting the baptismal forms to so that they could fill them out when they got to Utah. Plus a few other things happened when at church... then it was 4pm... When we got home from church (left at 8:15am)... then we went to work and visited people until about 8:45pm (got to see and get to know a few members of the church that hadn't come in a while so that was awesome!) then we went finding, had phone calls to answer and.... end of the day at 9:30... then we planned for tomorrow.

SunDayay in the life of ElderDay

 I was doing laundry earlier today (Monday) washing pants and found out after I washed and dried all my church pants (that were able to go in the washer and dryer) a pen exploded in the dryer and none of my pants or socks or anything had a marking on them! Apparently the pen exploded all inside the tube and none of it leaked. I thank the Lord every day and more and more.

A photo of meeting L Tom Perry last summer in Utah before my mission 

We heard about one of the Apostles L. Tom Perry passing away and we are keeping his family (as well as many other families) in our prayers.

A lot happens and I am reading every email I get and sounds like many cool and crazy things are happening.