Week #68 - Turktacular

Hey Everyone!

Before I forget- this has been bugging me ALL week. Has Mom been using her Snorflat or did Jonny swipe
it and give it to Erin? I guess it doesn't matter that much (for me at least) but either way I'm excited for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, this week was awesome!! I have gained a much deeper testimony of

A) The Book of Mormon (I finished it...still true)
B) The Ability of God to soften hearts
C) The Lord being on our side
D) The Hand of God in the work

So, beginning with letter A, I finished the Book of Mormon. This was the fastest I've ever read it and probably the best experience I've had doing so. I constantly prayed over it and just looked at it from a logical point of view- and I also came across some pretty intense information about how the entire book is written exactly like a literal Hebrew translation would be if translated directly from Hebrew (wasn't quite sure how to put that explanation into words, so hopefully that made sense). I started seeing all of these examples of things that you wouldn't typically say in English, or ways things were worded that almost didn't make sense in English, but apparently, they make perfect sense in Hebrew. But anyway, on top of all that, I'm closer to Christ by reading that book, and that's one thing Satan can't do for anyone.

Letter B: We have an investigator Christina (I think I brought her up last week) that once swore to herself (and us) she would never set foot in a Mormon church. Yesterday was her second week in a row going, and it was PERFECT for her. She ever stayed for gospel principles. I was teaching and we had a really good lesson/discussion about the Atonement.

C: The first talk given in sacrament meeting was good, until he decided to bring up a few things that did not need to be said and just assuming everyone understood fully what he was talking about (excommunication, the process of voting people back into the church, rebaptism...) so needless to say, Elder Berry and I were getting a little uneasy wondering what was going through Christina's head. We started saying some prayers in our head that he would stop, and moments later, the speaker passed out. So not only did he stop talking about crazy stuff, he fell right to the floor (unharmed- he came to shortly after) and totally took attention away from what he brought up previously. He finished the talk well- the rest of it was really good- and all Christina remembered about that one was when he fainted.

D: After that talk, the High Councilor gave an AMAZING talk about a bunch of stuff- but the big one was tithing. Christina had briefly brought it up at our lesson on Wednesday because she mentioned how "if I need to feed the kids, I'm going to feed the kids" and not pay tithing. We didn't feel it was the right time to explain any of it, so we just left it at that. But, this man's talk had the most incredible tithing story I'd ever heard. He basically talked about that same thing- how he could barely support the family, he started selling things from the house, but he had committed that he would never not pay his tithing. Long story short, he needed five thousand dollars (he had told no one a dollar amount- let alone that he was struggling financially) and got it as a gift from anonymous people of a congregation in one envelope. Christina loved it and even cried. Hoorah for Israel!

Anyway, it was a great week. Also our investigator Devin- the 20 year old guy we're working with- called us on Wednesday to see if he could come out with us and "see what we do." We took him tracting, visiting people- he loved it. Within two years I bet he'll be serving a mission.

Well- I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and remembers the importance of sending letters to missionaries during the holidays. :-) Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder B

Week #67 - A Brief History of Time

Hey Everyone!

This has been the best week ever of my stay in Ukiah. Elder W. Craig Zwick from the Seventy came and did a conference with the mission in Santa Rosa and it was amazing. When I sat down for lunch, he came and sat in the seat RIGHT next to me with his wife, so that makes me way cool by association. We chatted it up and I gave him some tips on how he could better fulfill his calling (not) and he helped me out a bit too. It was pretty cool though- we had a good conversation.

I got to sing (for about the 10,000th time) Come Thou Fount at the conference- but it was definitely the best one yet. I had some help on that one. Every time I sing that I gain a deeper appreciation and love for the words. Elder Chaichana played piano for me and it just went really really well. After the conference, he had a short meeting with the zone leaders and that was really good too. He just told us how to include the ward more in our work and how to get them going.

Other than that, we had some intense miracles this week. We picked up an investigator who's the wife of a very less active member (only less active because his wife is against the church and makes him go to hers instead). She's a really cool person but just has her issues with the church that we starting resolving on Saturday. We started answering tons of questions she had and she was liking what she was hearing. Anyway, it was a pretty casual discussion, but we were VERY shocked to see her and her husband attend church the following day. It was the primary program, no less, which is probably the best sacrament meeting she could have attended for her first time. She loved it. We're teaching her again Wednesday, so hopefully things go well there!

There's a lot of potential stuff popping up and the members are really starting to cooperate more with the work which is excellent.

That's about all I've got for this week, but send me mail! Please and Thank you.

Life is good and the gospel's true!

Elder B

Week #66 - Go Yanks!

Happy 500 Days to myself! Yay me! I had no idea!

It was a great week this week- Ukiah is continuing to treat us well. We had some good lessons with a few of our investigators. An investigator came to church and and really enjoyed it. He's a really cool guy - he's 20 years old and he's got a nice lil' head on his shoulders.

We were asked to teach gospel doctrine on Sunday because it was all about "every member a missionary" which was awesome. The lesson went really really well and there was a lot of class participation. We called them all to repentance and committed them to be awesome instead of not awesome, and it was received pretty well. Also, a shoutout to the birthday boy, I used an experience Jonny told me about a few weeks ago when he was praying to recognize missionary opportunites in medschool and then ended up having two shortly after. The Lord will give them to us if we're sincere in the prayer. Booyah. Anyway, the attitude toward missionary work in the ward is starting to look up a lot.

I did not get one letter this entire week.

I've been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and I just started 3 Nephi. Samuel the Lamanite was right again with his prophesies of Christ's birth. The signs were all given just as he said. Take that, unbelievers. Also Captian Moroni still ended being amazing and the sons of Helaman were the bomb.

I got to accompany Sister Crawford (a Spanish sister missionary in the ward) on the piano for a song. As usual, I ended up messing up at the climax of the song (something about playing piano in church...) but I was just glad I wasn't the person most of the focus was on. Other than that, though, it went well.

This Thursday we're going to have Elder Zwick from the Seventy do a half-mission conference with us so we're all pretty excited about that. Also on Saturday Elder Berry and I did service for about five hours for a woman with a room packed to the ceiling with a wide variety of nastiness. We cleaned it all out, helped her throw things away, scrubbed the walls, and made it nice. She was very appreciative and she said we could start teaching her, so it totally worth it.

Welp, that's about it for the week. The gospel's true!

Elder B

Week #65 - Happy Prelated (opposite of belated) Birthday

Hey Everyone!

A very happy birthday wish to my favorite brother:

Jonathan, you have really impacted my life for each and every one of your years on this planet. If it wasn't for you, the hope of me being named Hordak would never would have been there. If it wasn't for you, I would have never learned how to get a worker in a furniture shop off my back when I'm playing on all of the couches and comfy chairs. If it wasn't for you, I never would have been properly taught how to apply make-up to a black eye. I will never forget you. Please, for me, have a happy birthday this year. You are the man.

I can't wait until Friday. I've told just about everyone in the mission that someone's going to be WAY cool in the family.

This week was crazy excellent. I'm healthy (with the exception of a very minor cough), I'm slowly regaining my favorite fourteen lost pounds, we picked up three new WAY solid investigators and had some awesome lessons with current ones, we have a much stronger zone this transfer with people who are actually willing to be obedient. Also I haven't asked, but judging how our first meeting went, I think they might even believe in prayer.

We've had a ton of baptismal dates come out of nowhere across the zone this last week which has been AWESOME. Miracles in the ol' Ukiah zone. Miracles. We had an incredible leadership council with President Bunker on Thursday that blew our minds as usual. It's always nice to see old mission friends- and the spirit at those meetings is amazing. They never cease to get us fired up for the transfer.

I'm working on finshing up my camera card. I still have to record a Halloween video. It's going to be awesome with a VERY spooky costume.

The conference cds have been GREAT. Thanks a ton. I listened to Elder Christofferson's talk again about covenants and I also reread his talk from this last conference about moral discipline. I'm thoroughly convinced that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. His talks are some of my favorites. He's the bomb.

Life's great in Ukiah. I'm way glad I stayed up here. The gospel's true!

Elder B

Week #65 - Total Weight Loss for the Week - 14 pounds

Hey Everyone,

I didn't think last week could be topped, but the flu did it. So, work didn't really start up until about Friday. The rest of the week wasspent in my nice warm bed. So, not too much to update on this week other than it was way boring and a waste of time. I got a nice amount of mail though so that made life better.

As for transfers, I'll be sticking around good ol' Ukiah for anothersix weeks. I'm pretty glad I'm not leaving. My companion will be staying too, so this will be the first companion I've had in 2009 for more than one transfer.

There are a lot of crazy things happening in the zone this transfer. There are three whitewashes AND Elder Bush, the first person I trained, will be training his first greenie this transfer in our zone, which means I will officially be a grandfather this week. I'm way excited to meet him. He'll be my favorite grandson I've ever had.

For Halloween I'll be carving a pumpkin today with my companion, and it's probably going to be just as cool as last year's (if not cooler).

Other than that, I'm still a missionary and the gospel's still true. Thanks for all of the support and have a good week!

Elder B

Week #64 - Professional Thug for Life

Hi Everyone!
Quite the week. You have no idea how long I've been planning this scheme to talk to Mom on her birthday. As expected, everything ran smoothly. I took one for the team when they drew blood from me twice (I was kinda hoping I'd dodge that when I went to the hospital) but it was every bit worth it to wish the mother a happy birthday. Looks like my position has again been reaffirmed as best child in the family. This might be another crazy week- so we'll see what happens. Thanks for all the prayers and what not- they're much appreciated. President Bunker called and asked how I felt about a transfer to Santa Rosa next transfer in case anything happened. I told him to talk to the Chief to see if it was necessary- but I've got a feeling it may end up happening either way. So, any mail that will get here after next Monday can be sent to the mission home just in case. Whatever transfer news we get this Sunday should be pretty exciting.

I wish I had some cool stories from this last week other than a couple of very flirtatious young nurses Wednesday night in the hospital. I'm getting more and more grateful I didn't have surgery there after seeing people's reactions when they heard I had to go in. "The mission doesn't make you go to Santa Rosa?" "Wow...did they even know what to do? Medical care up here is a joke" "I'd suggest never going back there in your life."

I guess for a spiritual note, I've been reading a ton from the Book of Mormon and it's been crazy awesome. The more I read it the more I'm blown away and shocked that anyone could deny its truthfulness. Also on Sunday in Elders Quorum they talked all about the power and importance of priesthood blessings, and how no one should ever hesitate to ask/give them. At the end we all gave blessings to everyone in the group who wanted one (most did). It was way uplifting and pretty powerful.

That's about all I've got for the week. I hope all is well back home and have a fantastic week! The gospel's true.
Elder B

Week #63 - Happy Birthday to Mrs. The Mom

Happy Birthday Mom! I'm so excited it's finally the Mom's birthday again! I've been waiting an entire year.

This week was crazy busy. Unfortunately not much was due to actual work in our area, but it was still good. We had president's interviews which were awesome. President Bunker's pretty amazing. He's very helpful and very encouraging. We also had stake correlation yesterday with him and the Ukiah Stake Presidency. It sounds like things are going to improve a lot in the stake with the missionary work and combining the ward and missionary efforts more which will be great. It seems like every ward I've been in has had the same problem: they do great with the people who come to church every week and whatever else but don't really look at the people who aren't coming anymore or who might want to come (i.e. the wards will hold activities where there's not even an effort to invite less active members or non members, they just have active members sign up for the missionaries at dinner in relief society rather than at least trying to call a few less actives who would be willing to have us, etc). Someday.

Life's great in Ukiah. We baptized a ten year old boy Saturday and that went really well. There's always a great spirit at baptisms. I asked him how he felt afterwards and he said he felt "just really really happy." Thattakid. He's the bomb. We taught Sharon the Plan of Salvation and it was awesome- she's very ready...BUT...she just got really really sick so we haven't been able to see much of her which is too bad. Hopefully she recovers soon. She's in our prayers.

Other than that we've been trying to work with the members a little more and we've had some really good experiences.

Anyway, things are good. It's insane how fast this transfer's been. We're already in our second to last week. Time doesn't ever slow down in these parts. Crazy California.

The gospel's true!
Elder B