Trainer

March 7, 2016 

So the highlights of my week have basically been.... I will be in Lawrenceville for another 3 months training a missionary.... i don't really have much else to say about this week because my companion was sick and stuff along those lines... I am reading more of the life of Jesus Christ in the New Testament and have seen the example He sets is the perfect way of emulation for a mind of peace, one constantly led by faith and the spirit of God

Windsday's Frontal Assault

Leap Year Day February 29, 2016

• Windsday's frontal assault (see if you get the puns)
• Baptism
• Word of God XL
• Let's talk about it... Deep fried? how bout spiritual...

So this past week was spectacular in many senses of the word, why? well I am so glad you asked... I witnessed a TORNADO about a block away from where I was standing on Wednesday (now all thats left on my list of natural disasters to witness is a tsunami) and now look back on the first bulletpoint and chuckle to yourself. That's right, still got some puns to play on natural disasters, and just for the record, if I never witness a tsunami I will be completly fine for the rest of my life and the life to come.

(left to right: Elder Day, Elder Tanner Brother Turner Mary Luttrell). 

We had a baptism of Mary Luttrell, someone who we met through a member of the congregation a month prior and she was as prepared as I have ever seen an individual. I would recommend that all members ask their friends if they want their questions of the soul answered and to show them in small ways here and there that they are answered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness. Seeing someone's testimony develop has been one of the greatest blessings I have ever seen and now understand why the first prophet of these last days said that the most important work is to spread the gospel (Teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976],113)

The word of God XL bullet point was for the large print copies of the Book of Mormon that Dot Wilson and Mami Wright wanted for their wise aged eyes not being able to fully see the smaller print of the copies we hand out to people. That is always awesome.

We have had some  phenomenal.... really really good deep fried food lately that consisted of deep fried cornbread and chili. 

 I had to prepare a talk for tomorrow and the topic was on Chapter 3 of preach my Gospel section 4 or 5 so I chose to study the topic of obedience, this was quite the ruckus because of the fact that right when I got up to speak, my mind went completely blank. So, I took a deep breath and said a quick prayer and then, I just started to speak. From what I know, everything turned out okay.

Ghetto at night...

• February 15, 2016 

• Baptismal interview
• Exchange 
• Ghetto finding some bros who knows
• Learning the will of God

Mary Luttrell is going to be baptized on the 28th of February because she passed her interview with flying colors! 

After which I went with the leader of multiple sets of districts (called a zone leader) to Lawrenceville where he and I taught a man who spoke broken English and mostly Spanish. I didn't understand most of the words that were said but hey, the gospel shall be preached to every tongue and every people. 

This is the Zone leaders we went an exchange with (left to right ) Elder Hansen, Elder Day, Elder Simpkins, Elder Tanner

From there we had dinner with the Kings and then went with brother King to see the family of 3 that is ready to be baptized on the 5th of March. I had a good experience on the exchange with Elder Hansen (no it is not my previous companion, this Elder Hansen is assigned as a Spanish speaking missionary).

Now, I'm glad you asked yourself "what the heck is Elder Day and his companion looking for people to teach in a ghetto apartment complex at 8pm where it's pitch black outside" and the truth is, that was not our original intention, we have 2 investigators in this apartment complex and the times they said to come back were late. So we came back but they weren't home so, when you are in a place with people, you talk to the people! We saw 2 kids (kids as in 2 bros who we found out graduated the same year I did) standing in an open hallway connecting 2 apartment doors and decided to talk with us (I actually yelled "yo, we talkin' bout Jesus and ya should hear this message. We coming up, sound good?") and they agreed. 

This is the car he investigator we have been teaching let us sit in and take pictures in

So we both gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and started talking and they had questions about the repentance process and how to not be a "once a week Christian" as how they put it. So we talked about reading the word of God and then two of their friends came up, said what up and knocked on a door that was blaring some loud rap music. Their knocking didn't to anything so I asked if I could try and they all looked at me with raised eyebrows and said sure. So I knocked as hard as I could 5 times and yelled at the door "open up" and the music immediately went off and all the 4 guys faces were priceless. A younger lady answered the door and said who knocked like that and everyone pointed to me and I smiled and waved and said hello, she asked who we were and we said we were missionaries and she asked " can I have one of your pamphlets or your book?" So we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and she thanked us and shut the door. Well I burst out laughing and everyone else gave me a look saying " you wanna get yourself killed?" Well the two kids we originally talked to we set up another appointment with them giving an assignment to read and I challenged them to a beat box battle after church the next day. They accepted but didn't come to church :'( we'll see them Tuesday.

The experiences of learning the will of God were 3

1. God either withholds us from speaking or blesses us with the confidence to look without fear to make commitments and talk to people (both examples of this week's stories).
2. I have learned more and more that the Book of Mormon contains the answers of life's greatest questions of the soul, those that concern us the most and help us know how to grow closer to God and as we read it in conjunction with the bible, all of the knowledge we need to know to live with our Heavenly Father can be known.
3. In these months I have been away, I have seen the challenges of life through a different perspective, as a bystander. Sometimes the way we feel that God may be in our life when we don't recognize his hand in all things, and learning the importance of having a personal way of communication has helped me know the amount of love God has for each one of us. Our choices may prohibit some blessings we could or can still have, but that will never stop God from still trying to bless us as we follow the commandments he has given us and follow the example of his son Jesus Christ.

Thats all we got!

February 15, 2015

This week is pretty awesome. 

We had a lot of lessons, around 17 in total. 

We also have five individuals who are planning to be on date
and baptized in the coming weeks and it's going to be A blessing. A
huge blessing. 

Its been snowing and we have also had interviews with
our mission president. He is a good man.

Rimz

February 8, 2016 

Meeting and mini inter-district exchange 

District meeting

Evans in a rut

Find,teach, baptize, ball?

Church

Tuesday I had a meeting that was 2 hours away so we had a member drop us off at the halfway point because another set of elders also had to go. The meeting was a long 3 hours with no breaks... Gahhhhh!!!!! But I saw Elder Hudson (my friend's cousin), Elder Johnson (my previous companion) and Elder Wolfersberger (a missionary that was in the district I have been in the last 3 months but moved locations 2 weeks ago). Both my previous companion and Elder Wolfersberger I am hoping I can be companions with once more in my mission... Like really bad. Who knows what God has in store. I went on a mini exchange with Elder Hollman (another district leader) because we were waiting on the ride to get back to the midway point. He taught me a lot about the mindset is everything. 

There used to be 6 missionaries in our district but now there are only 4... But we met all 6 of us for the final time (because I felt they were snagged from right under me and I was sad to hear the 2 weren't in our district anymore). But we had some final goodbyes and I feel a lot better.

I basically pushed a minivan out of a 5" ditch in the middle of a rainstorm. We had the Evans minivan attached to a truck but the truck somehow couldn't do what was needed to be done so... I got in some mud while the wheels were spinning in circles and pushed with all my strength and the minivan lifted about 3" because of that. I asked my companion to help but I think because of the last time we tried it he got mud all over his shirt, tie and pants... He just wanted me to do it. He only had 1 spare to change into so it was smart on his thinking.

We found two people last week named Xavier and Justin and have been teaching them  pretty steadily. Xavier is going to be baptized on the third of March and Justin still has one or two questions to have an answer to that all it takes is taking more than 2minutes of reading the Book of Mormon. We also saw their Jr. college basketball game because the gym they played it at was right down the street from our house. They didn't recognize us because we had just come from a service project and were not in white shirt and tie... It cool to go and support them. They lost 68/80) but it was still cool to watch the mini dunkfest after the game was over.

We had an investigator at church!!! It was awesome. They loved it and are preparing for baptism on the 28th

we are trying to teach the man with the 32" Rimz... Remember him?

Life is good

February 1, 2016

• Teach The Gospel,  Listen to the Spirit
• Food...
• The Trio's down to Two
• Poster companionship

We were able to find seven new people to start teaching this week. That was a miracle all in and of itself. The true reason we found 4 of them was checking on individuals whom were previous referrals that had asked for missionaries to come by but they were not home when we talked to them so we felt we should knock doors and the first door we knocked was a guy whom was watching a tv show that I loved to watch back home so we chatted about that for about a minute or two and he let us in. His brother came in and said "ahh, I'm just going to listen" but heck, he was more involved than his younger brother. The other individuals just barely got into Christianity and were interested in what we spoke of,  little did they know that this started their conversion process to I the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fully restored form.

One thing that I have a hard time grasping however is when people say "when Jesus Found me".... The concept of Jesus not knowing who you are and having to search for you after he remembered you so well he suffered for everything negative and fe;t every positive moment in your life kinda has me curious... Wasn't Jesus already there and you just didn't fully recognize it so when you do you think "he found me!" I do not know... Maybe someone can enlighten me on that topic.

We had been cooking with flour for the past two weeks and Elder Tanner decided to look at the expiration date because it tasted funky.... We have been cooking with flour for the past 2 weeks that has been expired for the past 3 years.... Hmmm... My stomach is hurting.... Maybe that's why?

As being the district leader I have (or I should say had) 4 other missionaries I looked after and helped (if I could) with their mission work and questions, and many of the times they helped me with mine. But, the trio (all 6 of us, or 3 sets of missionaries) is down to two, and all of us are sad but we know it was needed.

Our zone (group of 30 or so missionaries) won the weight loss challenge for the month of January (where we as a group averaged a loss of 5 lbs per person). I lost 5 for it and I am not dead yet! My companion and I both say we are the poster companionship for the weight loss challenge (he is 6'5" and 155 and I am 6' at 124) so we are skinny beasts! We got free Pizza and were happy to be able to eat our weight in food again.

No pictures for this week but Life still is great.

I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ Live and love us.  I know that we have been given agency (the ability and opportunity to choose) by God and he will never take that away from us, we can only take it away by our choices. I know that The Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ really did happen and I love learning more in the Words of the Prophets every day as I read and listen to them.

Elder Day

Snow Day

January 25, 2016 

Week

• Transferred?
• Snow Day!
• Mendez Family mission plan
• Mission wide conference

This week wasn't that adventurous besides neither my companion and I are not moving, so after one year on a mission, he is the first missionary besides my trainer I have been with back to back. 

Also the Mendez family is awesome. Brother Mendez is the branch mission leader. We created a mission plan for the branch and it was probably the first mission plan I have been a part of in a while. (Like a year). 

We got a foot of snow and our cars were grounded...... We had a blast contacting everyone by foot , because no one wants to be out when. It snows!

The bread section of the grocery store before the storm. 

Mission wide conference was where we were instructed by the leaders of the church how to be better missionaries by teaching as Jesus taught "teach repentance"

Pday fun- sporting storm trooper masks. 

this is the bread aisle right before the storm, and above that is elder Clarkson and I sporting some storm trooper masks as we drove around on pday