Buddy the bird, Baptism

August 3, 2015

So here is my week so far

Monday we hang out with the elders from Waynesboro and also had a

blast rescuing that baby bird because the member who had it said that

we needed to take it to a shelter and see what was going on. We found

out that Buddy the bird had a broken leg and needed to be put in anesthesia

immediately. After we were worried about buddy but we said "You know

what, it's in the Lord's hands now." So we went on with our day hoping

Buddy was okay. We had dinner with some new move in members from the

Bay Area and we talked about the importance of the temple. Later a

member invited us over for family home evening so we went there and

shared a message about planning and how it helps for what we may have

happen in our lives.

Buddy the bird 

Tuesday we went on an exchange so I went to Elder Rhineheart's area

and Elder Hansen went to ours. All I know is that we were visiting

many people and the person that went with us was never a member yet,

although he was planning on it when he turns 18, his name is Sam. Sam

is awesome and we had a good lesson with Sam. I learned a lot from the

new missionary and how important teaching simple truths is, we went

over to a youth pastor's house and we (as peacefully as possible)

explained and discussed the importance of personal revelation gained

from reading the words of the prophets, whether they be from the Holy

Bible or the Book of Mormon.

Wednesday we exchanged back and we were involved in two things. Both

were done with a member named Ian Jarvis . The first was clean the

branch building for the baptism on Friday. The second was visiting

people after we cleaned (and did some paperwork). We visited the Smith

family and Tony Burke, both were doing well. The Smith family's home

was where the bird was found and we found out later that day that

Buddy passed away during surgery from internal bleeding from his

suicidal tendencies from jumping off a 2 story building more then

twice... May Buddy the bird rest peacefully eating all the worms and

stuff he (or she, we didn't really check if Buddy was a dude or a

girl) so desires to the little stomach can't hold it anymore. During

our dinner break we played a game with Ian called Bang, Halo edition.

It was quite adventurous and we had some good times with that game.

Thursday we had a few major things go on. We helped brother Weber move

11 railroad ties that were 100lbs each, usually... That was the light

ones. Then we helped someone move. One was Kaylie Hanna's baptismal

interview and that went well. Right before that though we had a lesson

with Bonnie Sharp and discussed and reviewed exodus and the 10

commandments. Since Monday we only have 40 miles total we are allowed

to use in our car before we exceed the allotted monthly mileage so we

have been involving people with our work and driving a lot more then

usual and we now only can use 10 miles per the 30th and 31st but once

it hit August then we were fine. We then had dinner and after then

were asked by a couple in our apartment complex to stop by and pick up

some food they had made us. We discussed with them missionary work and

shared with them more of our beliefs.

Landon's baptism 

Friday was basically 2 things. One was a meeting in Harrisonburg and

another was the baptism for Landon and Kayliee. Thankfully both went

well and I learned for myself on why I am doing what I am doing on the

mission. We had an investigator come to the baptism! It was an awesome

experience.

Saturday we had service and another baptism and Sunday we visited and

taught many people(investigators and those that are new members) we

also had an interesting experience wit people sharing what they

believed in sacrament meeting. It was interesting, and we kinda were

smiling during that too. Here is one of the two kids we helped be

baptized. His name is Landon.

I hope I stay

July 27, 2015

Hey so kind of a lot happened this week and it started with last Monday

For our preparation day,  we went emailing our families then the missionaries from the other area came over and we hung out. I cut Elder Rhineheart's hair and it turned out pretty good! We then went antique mall hopping (all 4 of us) and Elder Taylor got a comic book of Marvel, I got a comic book from an older TV

show I watched growing up called Samurai Jack. The original comic

still in the plastic bag thingy. So great!

Tuesday: we had a whole lot of trouble Tuesday morning because we

didn't get all the info we needed for the baptism we are having on the

31st of July. Oh yeah, baptism is happening on the 31st of July so

that has been super hectic, especially because it is a 9yr old that we

are teaching and we didn't have any info about near any of what was

going on and we're just able to set up times to come and teach, gahh

it's just hectic. But other then that, we went with Ian to visit some

people and we got to visit many a people- The Smiths, The  Welches.

Wednesday We had what we called “area book day” where we digitally

imputed records into the devices we now have for area book use. We

then had dinner at the Wrights and talked about movies and keeping a

gratitude journal. One of the Wright boys found out that their mom was

going out of town for something and first thing he said was "what?

Who's going to clean the house!" And we all started laughing so hard,

even the parents.

We then had “youth night out” that was cancelled so I made some awesome basketball shots for 5 minutes when the two youth that didn't know it was cancelled agreed to have us teach more about missionary work so we went to Chick-Fill -A and discussed all the questions they had about missionary work ranging from workout equipment you can bring to how to share gospel things online.

Thursday we had a Meeting in Harrisonburg that was from 11am-5pm, the

main thing that I took away was thinking about what type of man do I want to

be for my friends when I come back home, family members, and future

family. Afterwards we have been limited on where we can drive so we

cleaned our apartment that night.

We had another day of area book work because there is so much of it

and then we called a potential investigator and he said to come right

over to be taught so we taught A new investigator, afterwards we had

Ian Jarvis come with us to give a branch building tour for the grandma

of the girl that is getting baptized this Friday, had dinner with members (Jarvis) had a person we had recently began teaching invite us to baseball event for the town so we went and talked about Jesus Christ with them and even related it to baseball (more then I thought was a possible actually).

Saturday we were updating records in the morning then when we came out

of the library some members saw us and they said "hey we are taking

you to lunch" so of course we weren't going to say no to that, we went to a sandwich place called firehouse subs. I got the engineer sub and it was super good! I have been feeling like not in a pasta mood so I haven't had pasta for 4 days and I think my companion is getting worried about me... Anyway, after lunch we went and taught 2 people, one a recent convert and we talked about the power of prayer and the second was Smokey, one who is investigating the church. Smokey opened up to us a lot and we felt an over abundance of peace and calm when discussing the power of going to church with him. We honestly had no idea what we were going to talk about but the heavens knew what all

3 of us needed to hear.

That is where I found more clearly the question that popped into my mind on the meeting Thursday. I have seen throughout my life those whom I want to emulate and I have many good examples from back home on what kind of individual I want to be and after talking with Smokey, it was confirmed to me how much those good attributes meant. Smokey is a good man. The main person we are working with is Smokey who is a 91yr old ww2 vet who seeks to find answers that he has had questions to for all his life.

Sunday we visited many a people and saw how important it was to

remember and contact those whom we have come in contact with. We also

found a bird that had fallen from its nest so we made a box for it

(because it's nest was so way up high and then brought it to the next

person we were intending on visiting, who loved animals anyway, and he

took him for us. We had a good gospel lesson of helping the injured

from that experience.

The next transfer day is in 2 weeks and I hope I stay but I am slightly prepping to leave just in case so I don't cry a ton because of all the wonderful experiences I have had here so far.

I got the letters from the family reunion so thank you momma, have fun with all the stuff going on these days

Caesars, Smokey and Bill

July 20, 2015

This email has been written and approved by someone who now lives in Virginia.

I kind of already wrote about Monday so I shall start with Tuesday.

Tuesday I had a missionary exchange with my district leader/former

companion Elder Hansen. A missionary exchange is basically

missionaries switch areas of work for a period of 24 hours to be able

to see how other missionaries work and see what things they can do

differently or learn to help their area that they originally work in.

Puppy Power 

Since the service that we had cancelled which would have kicked off

our exchange, we went to Taco Bell and I had 7 of those beefy dollar

tacos, they were so good! After that Elder Hansen and I split from

Elder Rhineheart and Elder Taylor. There was another family that

called us (Hansen and Day) in to help them move a table, then we

contacted people that Elder Hansen knew might be interested in the

message that we have. No one was home so we decided to visit one last

family, the Fosters. Boy did we talk with the Foster family. We

decided to order little Cesar's pizza and bring it over there and talk

with them during our dinner break and when we were done talking with

Brother Foster we talked with Dyan ( the 16yr old son) when we had

lessons with both that's when we took a dinner break and since we were

over there they invited us to play pool with them. It was trick shot

pool so we all missed a bunch and had one round with each, Elder

Hansen and I both lost both times we played. Afterward we got a call

from Sister Foster and talked with her about whatever the deal was

going on and how it could be improved.

Wednesday:

A brother from the Waynesboro ward called up in the morning and said

he needed a blessing so we were able to give him one and that is

always an honor to be able to help someone in that way.

We taught lessons to Bonnie Sharp about the purpose of revelation, particularly about modern day revelation from prophets called of God in these last days.

Then we taught Carolyn about the importance of the scriptures later on. I

sited the Smith family and we talked about the importance of having a

night set aside to do family oriented things at least once a week.

They also talked with us about when they moved from Alabama and the

crazy things that happened down in Alabama when they lived there. It

was really funny to hear Brother Smith talk about how " it was a

really bad idea down there to get the rednecks and the science

geniuses together because that's when they tried doing or theorizing

on how to create the Jurassic world. After we talked with the Smith

family we headed to youth group night and taught the priests how to

work on the new devices that missionaries have and how to use what is

called an Area Book, which basically tells missionaries that enter the

area what has been done with the missionaries that have previously

been there. Afterward the young men's leader invited us to have gelato

over at a gelato place in thanks for teaching and helping be a good

example to the youth.

Thursday:

A motivational Poster of my roommate

We had district meeting with our Zone Leaders there as well and I was

assigned a topic to do a training on. I was asked to discuss and train

on the Holy Ghost ( also known as the Holy Spirit). Out of the 6 of us

there, four had been out longer then me and three of them were in an

area of leadership so it was interesting to see how it affected them.

The other one was brand new. I will give you the main thing I talked

about in this training and I encourage you to act on it too.

What you must do is create questions from the words I am about to say,

think about the question you yourself created, then answer your own

question.

Who_______

What______

When_____

Where____

Why______

How______

The one I talked about was What part does the Holy Ghost play in our lives?

My response to my own question was it testifies of divine truth from a

divine being and we must be the mouthpiece and not have our carnal

thoughts interfere with Heavenly guidance.

Afterward we went to an awesome Chinese buffet that was $7!! I was so

happy oh my goodness, the food there was so good! We are headed back

in August hopefully for a district lunch. We were called in to move a

piano right after and heck, that really sucked because it was crazy

heavy and we had no time to change out of our suits. We were a sweaty

mess after that but went immediately to a lesson we had with another

Individual and taught about the power of prayer.

Friday:

We helped Brad (a member of the priests quorum) who had a project he had

going on. Then we went and took an 80+yr old member of the

congregation to see Smokey and even though we could only stay for a

few minutes, Smokey and Bill Wright bonded well and shared a lot of

old jokes like "how old are ha Bill?" "In my 80's" "common! I'm 91, ya

gotta catch up to me!" And other jokes that each of the two wise guys

were joking around. Afterward we went to the Welch family for dinner.

We picked up some Spanish elders who couldn't use their miles to get

down here and they stayed for a while and nightly planned and played

some games with us. Every single one of us except Elder Taylor and we

were all chuckling about that.

Saturday:

We did service and taught some lessons and our final lesson that day

was a very spiritually uplifting one with Smokey where he has gained

the desire to come to church! We were excited to have the Holy Spirit

testify to him.

Sunday:  all 12 people we were going to visit fell through except for one

person. Cody, a new investigator we are teaching.

Oompa Loompa

July 13, 2015

Hey mom, I have not been able to type this until later this day but

hey, I'm still writing this. This week has been crazy. Elder Hansen 

my previous companion is now my district leader

and he is in the other ward that meets in our building and he is

training a missionary from Utah that got out of the missionary

training center this past week.

We had his companion with us for a day and we answered any questions

he has about missionary work that he had questions on then we saw

Bonnie and had a time where we were with Ian Jarvis. My companion

pulled a muscle so we had to take it easy the rest of the day.

Next day we went and helped with service with a member moving railroad

ties (we hauled 20 of them). That was fun!

We had what we called an "e-lesson" where a random person off the

street wanted to have a discussion with us in the library right before

emailing and since today is the day we are headed to Harrisonburg to

meet with our leaders on our preparation day for a game of football

and ultimate Frisbee combined, we call it Oompa Loompa.