Officer, It Wasn't Me

So, there was I, Christmas Eve, exchanging two dollars for three hot dogs at a gas station at 9:25 PM. It was shortly after that the red and blue lights flashed. Elder Smithson nervously laughed as he drove us to a curb to await his fate. The officer wastes no time as he slips his way on down to Smithson's window, asking for his license.

Transfer emails have arrived. I will be staying, 2nd training a man named Elder Larsen. Elder Herem is off to work in a ward right next to Cheney. I'll miss him, but he's off to bigger and better things. Meanwhile, I still get my sweet apartment and car and ward. Whoo! 

This week was a bit of a slower one in terms of work. I guess that a lot of people have come down with a disease which has you periodically swap places with your bed and your toilet. Not sure why 5 different people at church informed me of this, but most of the people we work with have it. Anyways, Elder Muir came down with this sickness on Sunday, so I was told at 6:45 AM that I had about 10 minutes to get ready for the day and go to 8 1/2 hours of church. It wasn't so bad! Though towards the end of the day, I was almost delirious from fatigue, it was a blast! Many people excitedly shook my hand and welcomed me to the ward I was visiting. They even had me offer the closing prayer in sacrament. Wow. The highlight of the day was definitely when my favorite investigator, the 10 year old girl finally came to church! She came on the perfect day. We got to conduct singing time in primary. We had a blast, singing about Jesus wanting us to be sunbeams and being what we believe. The kids loved us! So that's about all the shareable stuff in regards to that stuff!

Boy oh boy. The other Elders set up an entire baptism and had me interview the guy the day before. I show up and find out that this man isn't actually eligible to be baptized, since he lived in the same house as his fiance! Dang. I break the news, and he just shrugs. We follow him out the door to his neighbors house, who grants him permission to sleep at his house for the next couple months. Like what? So anyways, this guy I've taught a couple times just got baptized! I was then asked to help confirm him at church the next day. He might as well be one of my converts.

Things are just really good these days. We have lots of work to do and some wonderful people to help. It's cold, but it's not that bad! We've been performing miracles left and right. I got to dedicate the sister missionaries brand new house, and I've never been able to do that before. It was cool to actually feel noticeably better directly afterwards. I've got my great family and a couple friends to talk to, each day the sun is setting later, and God's love is shining through. That's about all I've got to talk about this week. 
Wait..

So anyways, this cop just slips his way over, explaining he followed for about a mile and we never had our back lights on. He let Elder Smithson off with a warning, then let him take a selfie with him! Like what?? Then he proceeds to accept a Book of Mormon. What???

One of the very few times we can play card games!

Awesome member mom made my request of 12 layer jello!

All things Rudolph

This Little Piggy Went to the Market

Hello hello, its Christmas tomorrow and snow is all around. I'm half asleep and it smells amazing in my apartment. Anyways. I'm not accusing myself of being good at introductions.

So it rained a ton this week, so things at our lovely pig farm were quite hectic. Most places had flooded, and the pigs had quickly learned to stay away from the ice so they don't fall in. We had a rather good time, feeding animals and fixing things cleaning up garbage, despite it being really cold. I'm mildly sore from throwing pallets all over the place. We created multiple pallet paths for the pigs to walk on and also for bales of hay. It took a long time, but we set up some perfect things and were finally able to leave. That night, we heard that some pigs had babies! If we hadn't done all the prep work we did, the babies would have drowned as soon as they were born. It made me feel really good inside because we didn't even know babies were coming. I've included a picture of the litter as well as me holding one, camouflaged into my black hoodie.

Last week, we were able to obtain a new investigator, the one Elder Herem was very awkward with. It's been great getting to teach her and meet her better. We were able to have yet another powerful lesson with her on the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm pleased to announce that she is now on date to be baptized in February! Whoo! Haha, no one has seen Elder Herem happier than I have!

One evening, we had set up to teach a new convert who had moved into our ward (kind of). He's this 10 year old boy who really loves fortnite (some video game that came out after I left). This is about his only care in the world, and nothing else interests him. We sit down to have our lesson and we find out that his dad is also extremely anti social, and so was the member fellowshipper we brought. We very painfully staggered through the lesson. It was incredibly awkward and nothing we did could get the kid to sit up or take his face out of his hands, and we couldn't get the adults to say more than a few words. I suppose that being away from my own family in the Christmas season combined with lack of sleep and a few other things contributed to my emotional death shortly after. I became a broken man. We had to go back to the apartment and listen to a motivational talk while I sipped a glass of milk on the floor for like 7 minutes before I felt even a bit of my life return to me. It was rough, but I strapped on my big boy pants and we went back to the grind.

We got to teach one of our investigator families this week. They are among my favorites ever. They hail from the Caruk tribe. They taught us a ton of native American history and I felt so blown away as well as sad and mad at the past. They told us that they really do enjoy our message and can feel the spirit, but they have been taught to avoid organized religion because white pastors are the ones who murdered and stole their land back hundreds of years prior. I did my best to express my admiration and appreciation for them as members of the Caruk tribe. We then watched the Mormon Message "music of the gospel" to show them that we are different, and we are the Church of Jesus Christ, and that they don't have to give up any of their heritage to join the church. Now, with the immense studies I've done the last few days, I'm ready to go back and share more incredible things, especially how the Book of Mormon was written specifically for them and how God loves them. I can't wait. 

Last evening, I was whisked away from my area to go give a baptism interview. I guess I wasn't expecting to be antied? But the candidate for baptism whips out his health book which shows how green tea is important. The other elder face-palmed his head off in a "here we go again" type deal. I guess miracles happen when you have the spirit at your side! I took this man all through the Bible, explaining Law of Moses type stuff and how pork is healthy, but they were asked to abstain from it. Then I took him to modern times, talking about how the world and health books tell you it's perfectly healthy and recommended to have sexual relations frequently even as a teenager. He was appalled. I then taught him about sacrifice and how God loves us, and when we are willing to sacrifice things like our time so we can go to church, or our money for tithing, or our tea or so on, God will bless us forever. He was just confounded and gave in. Haha. My man is being baptized this Saturday. I was pleased to find out that in my absence, Elder Herem was on the grind and tracted into two new investigators! Wow! That's my son, everyone! 

That's about it for notable stuff this week. My last thing that I'd like to say is, let's try and remember the birth of Jesus Christ the entire year, not just in December. He's a big deal, you know! So don't get mad at me for wearing my nativity tie in June. Have a great Christmas, and don't take His name out of it! 

Eat on the run

Little Piggy in my jacket

My Nativity Tie

Two Double Yolks in One Week

What a spiritual week, just loaded to the brim with enough contents to splash over with the slightest move! Hit the deck, gird up your loins and prepare every needful thing, for here we go!

So. I mean, I guess this isn't quite the paragraph you'd expect after an introduction like that, but what can I say? So there was I, about two days into my cold when I get roped into saving the other Elders backs by going on splits when I was seated in the home of a very nice old man. This guy is the stuff of legends. Many a tale of him had reached my ears since I live with the other Elders. I was not disappointed. The dinner was the stuff of legends, complete with one of those 7-up cakes, home made, I might add. So anyways, I thought for sure that we were in the clear until the man saw me blow my nose. At that point, my fate was sealed. He gleefully ran to his room and came back with a mysterious liquid. He tells me to lay down, so I get on the ground. "This here is liquid silver. You see, when you zap silver with 30 volts of electricity, it is reduced to a silver form. I'm going to drop an entire syringe of silver down each of your nostrils." Boy, let me tell you, I was not prepared for that. But it was too late. Precious metal was already sliding straight down the hatch. I sneezed so much the rest of that day. He insisted that if he didn't do that, I would be much sicker. So... there's that. 

We got to have an apostle from the 70 come to our mission! I was pretty excited since I hadn't been able to meet anyone from the church, except for Elder Cook who I briefly saw in the MTC. It was very fascinating to hear Elder Whiting speak to us with extreme power and authority. He is one of the most bold men I've ever met. We learned so much more about the prophet and mission of the church and stuff from him. He taught me some very important things that I believe I will treasure for a long time, perhaps the rest of my life. 

One of them is the doctrine of forgiveness. He said that in order to learn forgiveness, you have to be seriously offended or hurt by something. This has helped me understand Jesus Christ even more. It certainly isn't an easy thing, but because of His help, I know we can forgive anyone for anything. I really appreciated him speaking of that. Most of us likely have a grudge or two, but continuing to labor in anger is like stabbing a knife into yourself and then saying "I hope this hurts you!" True forgiveness offers true healing. 

Another thing that he taught me that I really liked comes in the form of a question. "If God truly loves me, why does He let me suffer?" He shared with us some amazing experiences which are too much to me to share. To give a short answer, it is to give us experiences which enable us to become more like Him. He let's us suffer because He loves us. A God who doesn't care would flip a switch which granted our every desire and then leave us. Our God loves us and is doing everything to create more of us than we could ever create of ourselves. 

We received our first referral in quite a while this week. We just moseyed our way down town and knock on the door, and out comes a confused older woman, not really sure of who we were. Elder Herem had the daunting task of talking to her to get us in. It was comical to watch him stumble around left and right and watch her growing confused face. He looked at me in panic, but he is too far along in his training to be rescued! Haha. So after like two minutes of just weird dialogue and nervous laughter from Elder Herem, she says, "Alright, you can come in." We had to go grab a neighbor, but then we came in and taught her a pretty powerful lesson on the plan of salvation. She loved it so much that we were invited back later! Sweet! That is something I like about the truly prepared people. It doesn't matter what manner of things you say at their door, if God prepares them, they will receive you! Elder Herem was in awe. That man is getting so good, I love it.

We had many people promise us this week that they would come to church. We were thoroughly disappointed when not a single one of them kept their promise to us. One of the members noticed and told us that she still thought we are really good missionaries, and just because we can't see the fruit of our labors doesn't mean that we aren't doing amazing. It is a bit discouraging at times, but I really appreciated her wise words. After all. Abinidi never saw for sure if Alma was converted, and Ammon didn't even get to be there where King Lamoni's father took the missionary lessons. 

This email is getting a bit long, I'll have to end it off here. That's too bad, there's even more stuff! I'll just sum it up. I got two double yolkers in a week! That's three total this transfer. I am having a really great time this winter. I actually had a little bit of fun when there was snow on the ground, and I'm finding myself still smiling all the time. Winter has been a very depressing time of year for me since like junior high. This is the first time since then that I've truly enjoyed it. Miracles are abound. Though I still sleep like garbage every night, we are surrounded in good. It's the best. 

Double Yolker!

Ready for Christmas with a fresh haircut

Waiting ...

Double Yolker

Did somebody say cold? Because the sky dandruff has struck the ground, freezing it to the point that it can't be penetrated easily for building a fence. And then, I was smitten with an actual cold, so here am I, coughing and sneezing in the name of the Lord. But what else is new? Let's get to the good stuff.

We have a returning less active family that we teach every Monday evening. There is usually a cute lil 5 year old girl who just loves having us over. Last Monday, her mother was finally home and decided she might as well sit in on our lesson of the Plan of Salvation. She quickly became interested and began asking many questions. Keep in mind, if you're not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, you don't have a belief of a pre earth life, you pretty much have no idea why we are here and you have little to no idea of what happens when we die. She was very excited to have us back a few days later. We then took her on one of my personal best church tours which was very powerful. She then ended our sweet tour by telling us she can't make it to church tomorrow because the less active member needed her help for something. Dang! Next week. 

This area does a living nativity every other year, and it's pretty neat. The people get to walk around and see live sheep and cows and then a freezing Joseph and Mary, lovingly watching over their fake baby Jesus. The Nativity ends in a tent where they are taken through the life of Jesus Christ, ending with his ministry in the Americas. A lot of people seemed to not like that part, but a lot of people were also very interested. We stood at the end of the walk through at a table, full of the goods. I've never handed out a Bible before, but I got to hand out 4 Bibles and 19 Book of Mormons! These weren't just lame hand outs either, they were all to people who genuinely wanted to learn. I enjoyed answering people's questions and helping them learn more. It was very funny to see a German and Ukrainian teenager come up and ask, "So you say, Jesus came to America, too?? Wow!" Haha. Those two guys were super great. It was overall a really great experience, despite my legs wanting to slay me after standing in place for several hours.

The other Elders in our apartment halted our missionary work for a while. On three occasions, they scheduled themselves more than they could handle on accident, and so they begged and pleaded for our help. We left our area to help them each time. My favorite was on a day I was much too tired to make and eat dinner. We went over to a home and they had one extra steak which they excitedly pawned off to me. We then started to answer the questions of a man who attends one of the corrupted churches around here. I guess that they preach a bunch of anti stuff about our church, so we cleared up all of it. The comical thing to me was, I was actually able to use most of the anti points their church teaches against themselves while using the Bible to validify our church's teaching. I had to tell myself to stop ripping into his church. He said that he will gladly come to ours now, so that's awesome. The other Elder I went on splits for it was in awe at the end, saying that what I had accomplished was more than he and his companion in over a month. Ha, thanks, Holy Ghost. 

So we've got a general authority named Elder Whiting coming to town even quicker than Santa Claus. The mission president's wife called us up on Friday and asked if we would be willing to play some serious tunes for this man on Tuesday. This was pretty stressing to me, because the piano is always harder than the violin. It took a day, but we got some people to give us some music. We spent quite a while working to get the song really good. Sunday rolls around and we get a call, telling us that they don't need us to play anymore. How sad. Elder Herem was actually very disappointed. Then, a couple hours later, they call again telling us that they might as well just let us play anyways. So, I mean, here we are on Monday afternoon, less than a day left and the song isn't ready. May the grace of God be bestowed upon my poor little fingers. I don't know how this keeps happening to me, but I recall I had similar situations multiple times last year. #PrayForRuth

The Members are supposed to be having us over every evening at 8 PM. On one such evening, we found ourselves in the home of a couple where both were recently returned missionaries. We sat down in front of them when a sly idea crossed my mind. I asked them if they would instead teach us the lesson. They sheepishly looked at each other and agreed. Though it wasn't a perfect lesson, they both seemed to really enjoy it. Then, the guy gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and he talked about how amazing it was for him to once again teach, and this time with his eternal companion. It made me feel good inside to hear the outcome of my sly idea. 

So that's about all of the goods worth sharing for this week. Also, I have included a picture which is very remarkable. I have spent my entire mission in the pursuit of a double yoked egg. It is a super rare thing, but my trainer once got two in the same batch of scrambled eggs. I always freak out when I hear someone else get it, and then one day, God smiled upon me and bestowed it right in my frying pan. Behold, the picture attached at the bottom!! 

• 

Lights in our apt

At the Nativity

3 Dollars and 24 Cents

Elder Herem has been complaining about feeling sick lately. I'm not saying that I'm right, but I did tell him he'd get some disease for kissing a llama on the lips. The proof is the background picture on his phone.

So anyways, this was another good one. Just foggy as all get out. It really is mystical. The sound is muffled and it can attain pitch black if there isn't a street light near. It's perfect weather for stumbling upon a dead body! We found a beheaded chicken in the depths of Deer Park, and the attacker was nowhere to be seen.

Elder Herem is becoming more like me every week and I am becoming incredibly amused. He's a bit timid in door approaches, but on one of these foggy nights, some man opens up and he is not happy to see Elder Herem. He starts to spew all this anti Mormon stuff and I thought Elder Herem would panic. Instead, he kinda puffs out his chest and begins dragging this man to the depths of tartarus with his shield of faith and sword of the spirit. I decided I might as well join in with my broadsword, and together, we finished him. This man was caught in a stupor and couldn't think of anything else he tried to search up one day, so he threw up his flag of truce and retreated inside his apartment. Not that fighting anti is the goal, but I was so proud of Herem for standing up for himself. 

We have a few old ladies we have been hoping to teach. We just haven't been able to go in. One of our ward missionaries came in clutch and we got into two of their homes. We then taught some powerful lessons and set them as new investigators. It was pretty sweet getting two new people in one evening. We're headed back to one of them this evening. Stay tuned, boys. 

We had a day of service on Saturday. Most of the people around here are too prideful to accept help, so we fell into the trusty hands of the pig farm person! Whoo! Spent 5 and a half hours there doing various farm work. It was pretty tough, moving bales of hay around and lifting metal and grains and all manner of stuff. One of the toughest things was when we trapped some pigs in an alley. One ran straight at me and I grabbed it by the back foot. The other charges to save its friend. I dodged it's gaping jaws and snatched it hardcore. I then had a pig in either hand, threatening to dislocate both of my arms at the same time by trying to run behind me. It was extremely tough, but I held them in place for what seemed like years before relief aid came and grabbed one from me. They had to tell me what hand to let go because it was so intense. Haha. First time getting a two for one. I wasn't lying either, Herem legitimately kissed a llama on the lips. I got to play with bunnies, caught many pigs, built a fence and fed a cow yogurt. It was a lot of fun, but that evening, I fell asleep shortly after coming home. Now If only I could stay asleep the entire night.

We started teaching one of our new people from last week and her 29 year old daughter joined in the lesson. It was one of our more powerful ones, just loaded with the spirit. Both of them really enjoyed the lesson and now seem to be rather promising. What made it even better was after the lesson when they said that they were about to go out Pokemon-ing. I got into Pokemon go just before I left to serve, so I had a blast talking to them about all their adventures and cool ones they've caught. I guess it's still really popular out here in Deer Park. I never see people outside, but I dunno! Maybe we can have our new person fill us in on where a raid battle will be so we can happen to be there right after a fight ;) we will see.


I guess I don't have too much else to say. Christmas is coming. Thanks to the 3 dollars and 24 cents we collectively had, we bartered for a large number of Christmas lights and our apartment is beautiful. Mom bought me a sweet little Christmas tree and it has lil decorations. Nemo is happily enjoying my happy light most days. One family gave us a bunch of Christmas things that were going to be donated. Due to all of this, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas 🎵

We love dinner!

Christmas is coming