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.

Transfers, Lost Eating Contests, Rubiks cubes

May 26th 2015 

This past week I can't even really remember so much happened. It started with

Elder Hansen transferring out - headed to Buckingham (South west of The Richmond area) he is living in a trailer now so I hope he likes that...

The major events that happened were 4 things, 

1) we had an investigator come to church 

2) we were able to help a family 

3) we had a transfer planning and 

4) adjusting to two...

I’ll start with...

3) Just kidding lets go to

1) We had Bonnie come to church!!!  She really really likes it too!

The lesson that we had was about baptism (not our intent, but that’s just

the lesson that we are on this past week.) She commented about how much we

talk about the temple and that it was really cool to see the influence have

on each other and how it is really a family knit society.

 2) There is a family that we are helping with move stuff because they are

moving soon,  I really like them, they are super funny. It’s a mom and dad

and 6 kids (but one is in North Carolina for college so we haven't met him

yet to my knowledge...) and the ages range from 17-2 so its always a party

whenever we are over and they are up to something as always. They had us

over for dinner Memorial Day night and guess what we had, Pasta and Meat!!!

I was so stoked! I had an eating contest of pasta with the 7yr old and I

let him win (because he asked me to the contest starting after I had

thirds... so he beat me, he had 2 plates and I had 1 and a half when in the

competition (really five though) then after the contest was over I finished

the rest of my 5ths).

 3) Now we get to three... transfer planning, we literally planned for a

long time in depth for what we wanted to have happen this transfer perion and

the people we wanted to progress to what point and that was crazy... the cool

thing is, because it was planned and we showed how determined to bring

forth the spiritual planning to pass we have seen great success with Bonnie

wanting to be baptized and another new investigator who also wants to be

baptized!!! 

Rubies cubes different shapes 

The new investigator's name is Dylan and he is 16 years

old. He is super pro at solving rubix cubes and has memorized the

algorithms for 2by2 rubix cube all the way up to a 7by7 and triangle cubes

and spheres and even one with different size of blocks that gets super

weird when you mix it up. his best time on a 3by3 for solving is 23 seconds

or I think... might be 21 seconds... not sure, and he is a diehard fan of Naruto!!

Woohoo!!! love that series!! so we geeked out for about 5 or 6 minutes.

Dylan's dad is also helping us teach him and its fun to be at their house

4) The final thing was adjusting to two person companionship instead of three and let me tell you it is a lot more quiet then when there was three (mostly because

Its not as hectic with 3 people making food for a meal then it is with

two...)

With this ..... not much crazy stuff goes on all that much.

Hope all is well

Your son

Elder Day

Is there anything you'd like to know about the mission or anything you can

think of that you'd like to ask that I haven’t answered yet?

Antiquing, Finding, Teaching, Goodbye Elder

May 18, 2015

Let’s see, what didn't happen this week.... well we had transfer calls this past Saturday – every 6 weeks an opportunity to change locations- so I am staying in Staunton for this next 6 weeks, that should be exciting, but our trio of missionaries is breaking up and it is going to become a duo soon.

Elder Hansen is leaving this Tuesday for who knows where... and this is Elder Todd's last 6 weeks on the mission so I will be his companion for what’s called "killing off a missionary" which means that you are their last companion in the last 6 weeks of their mission.

Monday: our P Day (Preparation or personal day) Last week we went to the largest antique mall in the East coast in Verona, Virginia and we walked all through it. it was so big and there was so much stuff that there were street signs!!   and to get an item you wrote down the intersection that you walked by and the number of the booth that the stuff was at, then you asked the people at the front desk if they could come with you to the section you wrote down (i got some 1980 star wars collectable cards for 2 bucks on Back and 18th street booth 132 section C-3). Freaking a ton of stuff!

Verona Antique Mall 

Tuesday– Back to Missionary work- we went around “finding” in the morning and then had the opportunity to talk with a ton of cool people in the afternoon, one lady named Gina we met at the park and she told us her life story (which was super boss and crazy!) and then we discussed more the importance of having Christ centered life and she said she had seen many blessings come from being focused on the teachings of Christ. We said goodbye to 2 people who were leaving Mary Baldwin College this week with the semester ending- Nicole and Carolyn. Nicole is headed to Texas for a continuation of her education and Carolyn is returning to Mary Baldwin in the Fall.

Wednesday: I don't even remember what happened this day because we just had a ton of stuff moved around, although I did cut my own hair (which according to another missionary buddy of mine I need to work on a bit more before I go out in public.  I thought that was a hilarious comment and I guess partially true.

Thursday: Thursday we had a district meeting where I realized more fully that i have no clue how to delve into a subject and study it more fully. We also had dinner with one of the greatest families i have met in this area. The Carroll-,they are a younger couple with two big dogs. We had a good time over there talking about a broad range of topics and later in the week I found out that Sister Carroll was an efy counselor that I started the Especially for Youth week excursion in Redlands the same place and the same week I went. Freaky stuff.... so we kind of geeked out about that and some other stuff.  (See the letter from Sister Carroll dated May 15th) 

We then stopped by the Mancini household and talked with Brother Mancini and helping him out with stuff that he had going on (and for one of the first times in my life I was able to love mashed potatoes and his were freaking delicious, before that I could maybe eat them but I would swallow them and have a gucky feeling in my stomach)

Friday: We met Bonnie, that lady is awesome. She is in her later years of age in a trailer park and she is the most prepared lady I have ever met to hear about the Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.... like ever.... its crazy. She has had a lot of experience with religion and she had some medical stuff with her son come up and her son's friends asked if they could send over some missionaries to give him a blessing and he said that he would like that. So missionaries came down and gave him a blessing and the illness he was going through just straight up went away after the blessing.  it was awesome to hear that story! We went over to Bishop's house for service and spaghetti and that was awesome too. We then had dinner with the Welch family and had enchiladas

Saturday: we basically had a bunch of service this day as well and filed paperwork for stuff that needed filing...... it was sooo much!!! And we got calls for transfers, found out elder Hansen is leaving :'(

Sunday: less active member visit day and goodbye for Elder Hansen day for the ward. We got to see a lot of cool people around the Staunton area and said goodbye to some members. Plus I found out a member of the ward just got her mission call to the San Fernando Spanish Speaking Mission. (Mekayla Beidler) and that is the mission that Santa Clarita (or where I live in California) is located!

My camera broke and the closest place I can fix it is in Newport News (which isn't even in our mission so I am thinking about mailing it home and having it be fixed there...)

Elder Day