Week #44 - Ping Pong Dairy Queen

Hey Everyone!

It's been quite the week. I gotta say I was a bit stressed and nervous the first couple days I got here. I felt like I was being trained again. Elder Hinckley (new comp) is amazing- it's his last transfer and you would NEVER guess. He's ready to go out working his lil' butt off which is awesome. I've learned a ton from him and realized I wasn't the pro missionary I thought I was. We're both brand new in this area- He had already been in the Santa Rosa Zone but he was in a different ward. So, it's been pretty intense. My zone here is very "old"...I'm one of the youngest here and the three district leaders have all been out for at least 16 months. They've all been in Santa Rosa for a while. Most people in the zone already knew each other and sadly I didn't know many of them at all. So needless to say, it was a little intimidating and I didn't quite feel like I was the zone leader or even part of the zone at first. Everyone looked to Elder Hinckley as the leader and I was just his companion. Things are way better now though- I'm quickly feeling more and more "in" and I'm way excited for the transfer. Elder Hinckley and I made a zone goal of collectively handing out 1000 copies of the Book of Mormon by the end of the transfer. The zone is WAY excited about it and we're all working like crazy. It's made things a lot more fun and gives a lot more purpose to tracting. The catch is in order to count it we have to have a return appointment, so we're not just passing them out like candy. It's been really effective and this past week our zone handed out 117- so not bad at all. Plus, we first introduced the idea on Wednesday so they didn't even have a full week to get that.

Oh- I believe everyone was given the wrong address. The one you have is another missionary apartment in the same complex so it's not a big deal, but mine is 3717 Sonoma Ave Apt #2 (not 1)Santa Rosa, CA 95405 As for other awesomeness, I am currently the driver of the only truck, a Chevy Colorado, in the entire mission. I'm pretty proud of that. Also I'm in President Stoddard's ward which is kinda cool.

Have a good week!
Elder B

Easter Thoughts on Christ

Alex asked that we add this video of one of our church leaders, Elder Jeffery R Holland, sharing his thoughts on Christ at Easter time. It's a great message- he hopes everyone takes the time to watch!

Week #44 - So Much To Say...So Little Time

Hi everyone!

It was an utter delight speaking with everyone yesterday. It made my year so far. I really don't have a whole lot to say at all. I'm pretty well cleaned out of fun topics and stories. I could make something up for everyone though.

A Really Good Made Up Story
The other night I had a dream where a woman came up to me and said "You will see me tomorrow. I need the gospel." I woke up shortly after. The next day, I didn't think much about the dream. But then, I saw the woman driving her car. I was on foot, but I knew she needed the gospel. I started SPRINTING as FAST as I could. It turns out I'm in really good shape so 35 mph isn't a big deal for me. I picked up the speed a bit and lunged onto her car. I noticed one of her windows was down so I tossed a couple of pass along cards and pamphlets inside. To my surprise, she immediately stopped the car. I was a little frightened at how she'd react to the whole situation, but she got out with a shocked look on her face. "You're the one from my dream!" she said. "You told me that the message you had was of utmost importance, and I needed to listen to it even if you had to jump on my car to get my attention!" So anyway, we taught her a solid first lesson and she was baptized a couple hours later. Too bad I still haven't received my camera card. I would have liked to take pictures before she moved to Nova Scotia.

That about wraps it up for the week. I'm excited to work in Santa Rosa. [Alex will be transferred to Santa Rosa on Tuesday and will have a new address.] It should be the bomb diggety. I hope everyone's still doing well. Have a good week!

Elder B

Week #43 - Skip to my brown shoe polish

Hey everyone!
Another week as passed, and I'd like everyone to know that my camera card has been MAILED and will be there sometime early this week. The pictures and videos will most likely blow your minds. Also, the week was full of awesome and a big thanks to the ol' mom for the cds. They're really good. I got them on the second delivery attempt- I really lucked out because we had a bunch of lessons that day and we stopped home for about two seconds and the UPS man came while we were there.

At the district council I gave last week I committed the zone to talking to at least ten people every day (aside from tracting or people with members- just random people) because as I was preparing I found a talk that Elder Ballard gave a long time ago saying that missionaries need to learn to do that- and if they do, finding will increase a ton. It's kind of new to me...I'm not real big on pulling people aside when it seems pretty blatant that they don't have the time/desire to listen to me, but we've actually had a lot of really good experiences and discussions. I also had the zone do "finding appointments" where you designate a time and an area for the next week that you'll go and pray for the Lord to place someone who's ready in that spot. In doing that, you also promise Him that you'll do all you can to be spiritually prepared and worthy to find that person, so it also encourages you to work a whole lot harder. I'm pretty excited about it- we set ours for tomorrow, so we'll see what happens! I'm pumped.

We're getting a new area in our mission along with the new president in July- San Rafael.

I really don't have too much else to update everyone on. Now I do! I just had a cool experience about one second ago. Someone just came up to me and said "Hey are you LDS? I haven't been to church in a really long time and right when you walked in I knew I needed to go." She JUST moved here and it turns out she's in our ward. Awesome! Anyway, NOW I don't really have anything more to update on- the gospel's true, it changes lives, and I ate an entire roll of bubbletape at once again on Saturday. It was awesome. I took video of myself chewing it that I'll send home soon. It was fruit flavored.

Well, transfers are coming up. I don't really know where I'm headed of if I'm sticking around here for the full six months. I guess I'll find out in a couple weeks. Next week I'll try and get times set up to call everyone for Mother's day. I hope everyone has a good week- thanks for the emails!

Elder B

Week #42 - Paperback Candies

This is pretty intense. This is the first time I've ever written an email home as a twenty year old. I can't believe I'm so old now. I'm practically older than the Chief. Pretty crazy to think about.Thanks to everyone for birthday awesomeness! The "seek and find" has kept me very busy, the cds kept me happy, the candy made me fat and unhealthily awesome, and the plastic ping pong shooting gun kept me in charge. Also for the blog I've been requested to give a shoutout to Kara Roney. She sent me a package and it even had poprocks and bubbletape, so it was definitely worth some recognition. In the past week I've been given five cakes from member families (candles and a "Happy Birthday" song every time), three of which were ice cream cakes and my zone threw me a surprise birthday party where they gave me a set of AWESOME superman sheets and some other nifty things. My bed is the coolest one in the mission (just so the mom knows, the pillowcase she made for me is still the one that I use along with the quilt she made me). The sisters made me a delicious cookie/ice cream cake with all twenty candles that I was able to blow out first try. I wished for world peace, so I'd like to tell everyone you're welcome in advance. Anyway, it was an excellent birthday week so thanks to all who contributed or are still going to contribute. It's never too late to celebrate my birthday.

Along with me turning nice and old, we had a pretty amazing week for missionary work as well. We picked up a really promising new investigator who's about 17 years old that's been to church a lot and has really enjoyed it. He loves the youth and he watched general conference and thought it was amazing. We started teaching him with the family he comes to church with and he's been really receptive and now his mom wants to come because she "loves the changes she's seen in her son." Yay for the gospel! I had a really cool experience with a less active person last Thursday. I was on splits with a kid in our ward and I just decided to go to a woman's house that hasn't been to church in two years. She always lets us teach her and her daughter when we go but that's about as effective as it had ever gotten at her house. Well, this time I started talking to her and felt like I should just flat out ask why she hasn't been to church. I was a little nervous about that, and then all the sudden the opportunity just presented itself out of nowhere. I asked in a polite way, and then she just opened up about all of these things about how she misses it and wants to get be worthy to go to the temple again. She stopped coming to church because someone really offended her and her daughter (her daughter's eleven) and she went on about how she knows that's no excuse and a bunch of other stuff. I started talking to her about the sacrament and she said how she used to be at a point where she hated going a week without it and she really wants to get back to that mindset. Weird and hard to describe the experience, but from then on I started speaking to her as...not really myself. I knew the things I started telling her were what the Spirit wanted her to know and it was just like a constant flow of information and love from Heavenly Father. It was a pretty incredible feeling...and she was very appreciative of everything when we left. We're going back again this week- and hopefully we'll get her to church.

That's about it for the week- thanks again for everything!

Elder B

Week #41 - Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

It was a great week. We had zone conference and I was asked to do a musical number and it went really well...and two days later, we had a conference thing for all the new missionaries and their trainers (there were only seven new missionaries this transfer) but I was asked to do another musical number there as well. It was pretty awesome- Elder Shaw (the first companion I had in Benicia) is training this transfer is well, so we both did the musical number together (a guitar arrangement we made of Nearer My God To Thee and Redeemer of Israel).

Probably the biggest news of the week is this: At zone conference, my car was decided to be the cleanest out of everyone's (it typically is), so as a reward, my car now has one golden hubcap and just about everyone in the mission is really jealous. Pictures will be sent home soon.

We had some really good experiences with lessons this week. One 17 year old boy that we're teaching named Elijah was really receptive and we talked all about baptism and read through 2 Nephi 31. It was way cool. Also Jim P. is still coming along and pretty ready to be baptized. We'll see!

Other than that, I'd like all of my friends on the blog to know that I appreciate the two letters I have received from them in the past month and a half. TWO LETTERS in SIX WEEKS. Only two letters in ONE week is what I would usually call outrageous. So, I just want to remind everyone that it's my birthweek AND Easter.

May all of your wildest dreams come true,

Elder B

Week #40 - Weekly E-mail

Hi!
Conference was crazy amazing. I had a lot of questions answered and a lot of direction added to the ol' mission. I'm pretty excited for President Uchtdorf's talk from priesthood session and Elder Holland's talk to come out in print. If anyone wants to somehow get those on a cd for the ol' birthday, that would be awesome. I never thought about the whole idea of Christ having to also know what it felt like to die spiritually and suffer without even the comfort of the spirit that Elder Holland mentioned. That was awesome. I love how every general authority pretty well has their forte in the gospel and they all spoke on them.

I'd also like to inform everyone that I totally called it with Elder Andersen being called to the Quorum of the Twelve. I knew he'd be the next one after last conference and I told everyone that he would be.

Also, I don't know if anyone else noticed, but I'm pretty sure the Mom joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. There was one woman in the choir that looked just like her. Did anyone else see that?

Our investigator Jim P. went to every session of conference including priesthood session and LOVED it. I'm pretty pumped to talk to him this week.

That's about it- have a good week!

Love,
Elder Al