Email 1/5/09 - "EEERRRRRR, It deleted my whole email when I tried to send! I don't have time to write it again, I will have to send some snail mail home today! and mom will have to update!!! SUPER BUMMER!"
Snail mail - "So here I am writing some snail mail, I was silently pretty upset at my computer! So I will try and remember everything I had written in the email. :(
Things are going really good here! I already love my new companion, Elder Green. He is from Santaquin, Utah, about 20 minutes south of Provo. He is an awesome missionary with a very powerful testimony! We are already really good friends! I love teaching with him! The Lord has already blessed us with so many new investigators and teaching opportunities. On Saturday we had been tracting for about 1 1/2 hours and we knocked on this one door & they invited us in before we could even say anything! Turns out that they had been to church before in South Carolina and then moved down here. They had two copies of the Book of Mormon, one in English and one in Japanese! What is crazy is the day before we were in Orlando for our zone leader meetings and I was in the supply room looking for things and I came across a Japanese video (that is only in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean) so I thought 'hmmm, this might come in handy', so I picked it up and the very next day we tracted into the very first Japanese person I have met on my mission! It was awesome! We taught the whole first discussion right there and tonight we have a dinner appointment to have sushi and afterwards watch that video I picked up! The Lord works is mysterious ways!
I had a really great Sunday, I loved it, we had so many investigators show up, even ones we found the day before tracting! The Lord is definitely blessing us right now!
...we found out the whole mission is getting cell phones! in two weeks! I am so stoked, I have been on both sides, with and without, and they are definitely an asset to the work! We are even getting rid of all the fax machines, even media referrals from SLC will be by text. There are going to be tight restrictions on the regular cell phones, so there won't be any probs with disobedience! I am really excited!"
Email 1/12/09 - "Things are going great here! We had an awesome week! And had some more amazing experiences with people that the Lord has put in our paths as we have been tracting! At our zone leader meeting President Darrington also introduced a "new" way of contacting people at the door, and just like all things you get out of it what you put into it! Some missionaries that are awesome missionaries in our zone loved it, while others weren't very excited about it! We have been doing it ourselves and it definitely helps find those that have been prepared, so this week we are going to go on ALOT of exchanges with the missionaries in our zone to get them excited about it and show them by example how they can use it, I think that is one of my favorite things about being a zone leader, being able to go and spend a day and a half with another missionary in their area, to learn and grow together, and to get to know them and help them find more joy in the work! I love the missionaries in our zone right now!
We had stake conference this last weekend in Rockledge and I didn't know it until right before that there was going to be two of the 70's there! It was an amazing spiritual stake conference! The spirit was so strong in that room! It was Elder Andersen (area 70) and Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the presidency of the 70! He was an amazing speaker, I loved his talk!
This morning for p-day, we drove out to the church ranch and took their tour! It is amazing that over 300,000 acres of a ranch could have the spirit just as soon as you entered at the gate! It is amazing how the lord has instructed his servants to take care of that land! We got to see thousands of cattle and gators and all the old houses! It was really neat!
In my thoughts and journal I have been thinking a lot about changes I have seen in my own life since coming on my mission! GEEZ, I couldn't imagine not being here, doing this, learning what life is really about, but most of all learning who my Savior is and sharing that with others! I love this work and my Savior with all my heart!"
Email 1/20/09 - "Things are going really good here, we had a great week last Week, we had zone conference last week on Tuesday down in Palm Bay, and Elder green and I were asked to do a training on finding by the spirit! It went really well, lately we have been really focusing on the spirit lately and finding the lords elect, and I love it, we have such an awesome time tracting, sounds crazy I know, but we love it, the spirit has been so strong, it is almost as if we can feel if the person is going to be receptive before they even open the door!
This last Sunday we had our Wards Preach My Gospel Kickoff, where we presented to every single member of the ward during the third hour the study guide that we have been working on for quit a while! It is going to be awesome! I want to send the study guide home to you so that all of you can do it as well! It is to be done as families in family home evening with specific reading sections and commitments, for a span of 10 weeks, and at the end of the 10 weeks we are going to have an awesome Easter Fireside, for them to bring all the people that they have been working with! It is going to be really cool! We got everyone really excited about it! I think it would be so cool for you to do it as well!
This week has been so great! The spirit is so strong, I have never felt so guided and led before in my entire life as I have been here! I am so excited for this week, We have so many appts set up, about 4 or 5 on most days, and the rest of the time we can't wait to go tracting!
On Monday, being a holiday all of the youth had school off, so we set up an ultimate frisbee tournament, for them to bring their non member friends along, it was so fun, so many of even the old guys showed up to play, and we had some great non members there! We played for about 3 hours straight! I loved It!"
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