SLC



View of Temple and Tabernacle from the Church Office Building

This email is a day late because I was in Salt Lake yesterday. Soon to be departing missionaries get to go to the Salt Lake Temple with Prez Olsen. It was pretty sweet. The temple is huge, and really nice inside. After the temple and lunch, we went to the Church History Museum and a few other sites on Temple Square. It was a fun day. Just long, So we got to to do all the usual stuff today.

The week has gone well, We have 2 baptisms this upcoming Saturday. Dylan and Gracie. Dylan is hilarious. He's a lot like Cartman from South Park. He's a 10 yr old fat kid. He's always telling us to bring pizza to lessons and asking to see our wallets. His grandmother has been going to church with him, just becoming active herself.  Dylan will have to keep being an example for his parents, but he's really pumped to go to church every week.

Next is Gracie. She's 9. Her best friends down the street take her to church every week, and have been for months now. She loves church and is way pumped to get baptized. No TV show character to describe her, sorry. This will put us at 2 baptisms for the month, which is an area high.  It is kind of sad I,  but we're working on it.  We have 2 lined up for August, with hopefully more to come.

I'm trying to stay busy and not get trunky.  At least not too much.

Another Week

This week was not a lot out of the ordinary. We went to see the Brigham City Temple get the Angel Moroni put on it last Tuesday. But the wind was blowing too hard and we ended up leaving before they were able to do it.




Angel Moroni for Bountiful Temple

We played sand volleyball at someone's home. A few days later I went to Farr West, and met the coolest guy ever. His name is Deon. He was baptized a few weeks ago. He's from Houston. Gunspoint Houston. He was Lil Flip's bodyguard for a while. Now he's living in Utah and just got baptized.

Sunday night we had dinner with the Crapse family. It's pronounced exactly like it's spelled, without the e. Waggoner and I found out the day before about their last name, and made a few jokes before dinner. During dinner the name was never brought up. Just a cool dinner with a cool family. It wasn't until the prayer on our way out that we ran into some trouble. I had to give the closing prayer, so I verified the pronunciation of the last name. Just as I thought. Before the prayer started Waggoner and I had big smiles on our faces and I knew it wasn't going to end well. As soon as I said "please bless the Crapes family" Waggoner erupted with laughter, which I followed, and one of their kids did too. The rest of the kids were not amused, and I'm pretty sure mom doesn't like us. We felt bad, but it was too funny. We did end up getting the kid that laughed to commit to do missionary work. So we'll get to see them again! And apologize again, LOL.  The next day we met the Piles family...we never get a break.

This morning we got foot zoning appointments. A foot zone is basically a $40 massage on your feet where certain parts of the feet feel like crap. Depending on which part hurts, the foot zoner knows whats wrong with you, either physically or emotionally. Luckily, the sister that did it is still new. So she didn't figure out what's wrong with me emotionally. She did, however, tell me no more Dr Pepper and I need more greens. Pretty much my kidneys and sinuses suck. My eyes are in bad shape too. Anywho, for the most part it felt awesome. And it was free!! I did just down a Dr Pepper though at lunch. Some things just can't change.

That's all I got. We have 2 solid dates for baptism for July 30. and 1 more for Aug 6. Hopefully we'll get some more good dates, and help people Come Unto Christ.

Nother Week

Nothing too specific to report this week. We're working hard and seeing success.

We've still just got the 4 with dates for baptism, but we're doing a lot of work to find people. We're asking every member we meet to fast and pray for an opportunity to share the gospel, then we're following up on the gospel sharing a week later. Hopefully with a whole lot of members who commit to do it, some people will invite their friends and we will be in business.

We're teaching a lot and going on a lot of exchanges. Today we get to go down to the Brigham City Temple and see the Angel of Moroni put on it. It's gonna be sweet.

That's about all I got. Not much, sorry

Email Time

This past week has been a crazy one. We were just told that on Aug 20th, just 9 days before I go home, Elders Callister and Charrington of the Quorum of the 70, Bishop Burton, the Presiding Bishop of the church, and Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the 12, and their wives, are coming to speak to the mission. Also, 3 days later, another member of the quorum of the 70 is coming to tour the mission. We were way pumped to hear about all this.

Then Sunday night Elder L. Tom Perry, of the Quorum of the 12, came to Perry to give a patriotic devotional. It was not an LDS talk in any way, yet the spirit was there strong. He talked about the Pilgrims coming to America, then talked about the early settlers of Perry. It was first called Porter Springs, because Porter Rockwell started it. Then Elder Perry's ancestors came and it was changed to Perry. It was awesome.

They had a retired preacher from another faith give the opening prayer. So unaccountable. It was about 10 min long, and made no sense. He just tried preaching to us through prayer. The coolest part of the night was before and after though. We snatched some seats on the front row of folding chairs. Right by the door that Elder and Sister Perry walked though. As they walked by, Sister Perry stopped and pointed us out. We stood up and they walked to us. At this time the whole chapel and gym was silent. He shook our hands and asked us how many lessons we had set up for the week. He's big on every companionship teaching 20 a week. We told him we had 10 set up so far (a lot better than the area was a few weeks ago) and he said "Well that's half good enough"

Then he told us to get our ward mission leader to fill up the rest of the appointments. It just so happened that one of our ward mission leaders were sitting right next to us. So it was easy to pass the message on to him as Elder Perry walked away. After the devotional, Elder Waggoner and I stood at the door to shake people's hands and hold the door open for them, so we could get our faces out there. After the large masses had left, Elder and Sister Perry walked up again. He put his arm around my shoulder as we walked out of the church and to his car, and we had a good little chat. I explained we had 18 lessons the week before, and 16 ward mission leaders, so we'll be able to get 20 lessons taught hopefully. He's way down to earth and chill.

The next day was 4th of July!! Perry city was having a fun run. They had a 5K and Mile run. Waggoner did the 5K and I took the easy run. I'm way out of shape. I ended up in 12th place with a time of 7:38. Maybe I should have eaten breakfast?

We stayed up late Sunday night making t-shirts for the fun. We wore black shorts with white t-shirts. We drew a tie on it, and a tag so we could still be missionaries. The back said "I'm a Mormon" and then under it "Mormon.org" It's a big advertisement the church is doing. Gotta always be doing missionary work.

After the run, we got free breakfast, and headed home to prepare for the parade. We got most of the zone to the parade. We all decorated our bikes and planned on biking in the parade together. What we didn't plan on was biking right behind Elder Perry. It was sweet. Waggoner and I rode a tandem bike. It was definate crowd favorite. At the end of the parade, Elder Perry talked to the zone, and took a pic with us. Sweet day!

After that we worked hard and found people home during the day! Not so much luck during the evening though. So we just crashed a party and shot this guy's pellet gun with them. Then we went home and watched fireworks. White trash style of coarse. We took our chairs from inside, and cd player and took em outside to sit and watch fireworks with music. While drinking a DP. Awesome night.

The area is really turning around. We now have 4 investigators with a date for baptism. which is higher than the 0 we had at the beginning. And hopefully that'll just keep going up. We're teaching this hilarious 10 yr old kid, Dylan, who's trying to get us to bribe him to go to church, read, and pray. He wants to get baptized, but told us he'd do all the other stuff if we gave him $100. We told him he'd get blessing for doing it. And he said he wants "the blessings in Benjamins". Awesome kid.

We also started teaching this awesome lady Char. She's an older lady who grew up Catholic in Illinois. She's now interested in the church. Our 2nd time teaching her, we taught the Restoration. And it never fails, when we teach this lesson, and get to the first vision, something interrupts it. Whether a dog, doorbell, or phone. It's going to happen. Well we came up to the First Vision, we told her Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees to pray, and she interrupts "real quick, I have a story to tell you." Works every time. But this time was different. She told us about how she was at Costco and saw a painting. She said it touched her more strongly than any painting ever has. Even though she had no clue was the painting was or was about, she bought the $250 painting titled "The Grove". She showed us the painting of a grove of trees, and from studying it, she could pick out 3 separate sources of light in the air, to which she told us was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We told the first vision, the explanation of the painting. And with tears in her eyes, she agreed to work toward being baptized on July 30th. It was awesome! It feels soo great to be seeing success again. The area still has a ways to go, but it's getting there!