:P



The Texan missionaries serving in the Ogden, Utah Mission.

 It's been another week of greatness. This E-mail might be short. I'm in the Ogden Public Library, and the computers are slow and time is limited.

We are setting up a baptism for Christmas Eve. It's for Aikyrea. Her family got baptized a few years ago and now she's following their example. She'll also have her brother there, who she's seen once in the last year. So it's gonna be a great experience. Now we just have to convince people to remember Christ during Christmas and support her in this baptism, Which might be easier said than done, but we are working on it.

The family we live with are way cool. I enjoy working with their kids.

I got a call the other day from a former missionary in Lakewood ward, Elder McCann. He and Elder Phelps (also from Lakewood) are gonna take Houghton and I out to dinner tonight. I'm excited for that. That's all I got for today. The computer is kicking me off. Love yall

Deja Vu

My 2nd email outside the MTC I wrote about an experience I was going through. After I had been out and in the area for a week my trainer, Elder Shonk, got into a bike accident and went home. Leaving me as the missionary who knew the area the best with a companion that came down from up in the Idaho area.

Well, same song, 2nd verse. On Wednesday, we got a call from the big cheese in the mission. Some missionaries were not getting along up in Richmond, and an Emergency Transfer was going to take place.
Elder Williams went up there, and my new companion is Elder Houghton.

This is my 11th transfer and he is my 11th companion. It's not nearly as bad as it was my first week in the mission field, but it's still been a fun few days trying to continue to learn the 3 stakes with a companion who knows less about the area than I do. It's no problem, we're just going through a LOT more miles getting lost than we should be. Luckily I just got a GPS on Black Friday. It's helping out.

We are managing to continue to find more people to teach. Right now we have 2 investigators we just picked up with dates to get baptized on Dec 18th. That's been the exciting news for the week. That, and a plane crashed in our area! Yall might of heard of it. A plane crashed in one of our wards in our Roy stake. The scary part is a week ago I was in the house next door to the house that was destroyed, and we were eating dinner in a house one block away at 5... shortly before the crash. It's been crazy. We drove by when Fox and ABC were doing their coverage, so we might have been on TV for a sec?

Anywho, keep getting closer to Christ. I'm gonna keep trying not to screw up this area. Love yall

COLD



Elder Pearson and "his firstborn in the wilderness" - the first Elder he trained Elder Miller.

 This week has been sweet. I cover 3 stakes in my new area. One in Kanesville, one in West Haven, and one back in Roy. One of the wards in Roy is 100% made up of a trailer park. That's the whole ward.

My companion, Elder Williams had his license taken before his mission, so he's not allowed to drive. So I drove for the first time in over 14 months. It's been fun. The first night I drove was Tuesday night, the night of the most over hyped blizzard ever. It was just a couple hours of good snow and that was it. All our lessons canceled that night, but we visited a family. So my first day driving in a while was also my first day ever driving in snow/ice/ storm. It was fun.

We live with a family, but we live in their barn. It's pretty cool. complete with horses and all. It's been a bit of a change from living in a mansion to moving into a barn.



Elder Pearson's home for the next little while.

 Sunday morning I had my first fun experience in a car. There was a lot of snow on the roads, and I took a corner too fast. The car ended up in someone's front yard. The car stopped less than a foot of a tree, so I missed that. The car somehow maneuvered in between the telephone pole, street sign, and yard ornament. No damage to the car, thankfully. But I was able to hit the telephone box for the whole neighborhood. So, a few of our wards lost phones, lol. Everything is all good. And I get to keep driving.

On Saturday, I was able to go back to Layton to a baptism. Christian and Isaac were baptized.




Elder Miller, Bro. Brown, Christian, Isaac and Elder Pearson.

I literally spent the whole 4 1/2 months while in Layton trying to get these two kids baptized. So it was awesome to be able to see them take the steps to follow Christ.



Elder Pearson and Christian.

 While Elder Miller and his new comp were trying to get their program together, they had a sweet experience. They needed to pick an opening and a closing song. They couldn't think of any, so the missionaries chose the opening. Then Christian remembered his mom singing a song to them long ago. Their mother hasn't gone to church in years, but has been very supportive of them doing this. He had no idea what it was called. He just remembered the words: "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me" from years ago.

So "I am a child of God" was chosen as their closing song. It's amazing how the spirit works. How he can remember that from so long ago. The power that Hymns have is, I think, very underrated. They lift and inspire, and bring back good family memories.


Elder Pearson and Elder Williams quilting.  "Our landlord's wife told us we would get a hot wife if we knew how to quilt."



Transfers

Zone November 2011

Tomorrow is transfers. We got transfer calls this morning, and I am getting kicked out of Layton. I'm going back to the Roy Zone, in the Kanesville area. I don't know too much about Kanesville, but hopefully it'll be sweet.

I'm gonna have a car! It'll be my first car area in 14 months. Right in time too. It's getting cold. But I'm scared to drive for the first time in over a year in the snow. I'll be serving with Elder William. I've served around him before. He's a good kid... he's into world of warcraft and all that. So it'll be a fun transfer. I didn't want to get transfered yet, but it's not up to me.

We've got 2 sweet baptisms set up this upcoming Saturday that I'm going to try to come back to Layton for. Until learning I was leaving this area 2 days before Thanksgiving, this week has been pretty good.

There is a family in our area that will be on tv. TLC is making a new show about spoiled kid's birthday parties. It'll be like Super Sweet 16 except with a 6 year old. The Lunt family in our area was chosen for the first pilot episode. The show gave this family 20 Grand to spend on this party. It's crazy. So, if anyone wants to see the people I've been dealing with the last 4 1/2 months, check it out. They are a cool family though.

This week, our Zone Leaders gave out awards to every missionary for random things. Miller got rookie of the year. But I got the coolest award ever: Most Likely to Secede the Union and become the first President of the Country of Texas. So yall know that I'm still showing love for the true Zion.

We had a really cool experience this week that showed how much service can change a person. We were tracting some apartments. Right as we knocked on one specific door, the guy opened it up and said: "I gotta move a couch, come back another time...... actually don't!" We offered to help move the couch. He accepted. Then we spent the next hour helping him put it together in his apartment. We found out he grew up in the church, but doesn't go anymore. And his wife wasn't a member. They are expecting a baby and said they were actually thinking of looking for a religion to raise the baby in. They told us to stop by any time and talk to them.

It was so cool to see the 180 he turned. From not willing to talk to us, to opening up, getting to know us, and potentially learning about the church with his wife. Service does wonders.

This Thanksgiving season, especially, I'm trying to look for anything I can do for other people. That will be my showing my appreciation for all I've been given. And when you reach out to help others only good will come back to you.

:P



Elder Pearson with his warm hat.

 Hey y'all, how's everyone doing? This week has been bueno.

We got a chance to hear from, and talk to Sister Cook. She is the First Counselor in the General YW Presidency. She gave a very inspiring fireside, and was pretty cool to talk to a bit afterward.

We've had a few investigators have different concerns slowing down their process towards baptism. A lot have been family concerns. It has got to be hard to do anything without family support, which is why I'm so glad to have such a good, supportive family.

Another thing I'm glad for is the spirit. It makes missionary work so much more effective. A few nights ago, Elder Miller and I were walking to a lesson with Christian, who's (fingers crossed) getting baptized on Dec 27th. While we were walking, we got the impression to visit some investigators, Robert and Tammy on the way. It would make us late, but we felt it was something important. We also felt like singing a hymn to them. And y'all know it would need to be some pretty strong inspiration to get me to sing!

We popped in and sang "Did you think to pray?" It was a pretty amazing feeling. At the end of the song, Tammy had tears streaming down her face and Elder Miller and I both knew that was where we were supposed to be at that time. The lesson we were late for fell through, so we lost nothing by going there, we only gained strength to our testimonies on how the spirit guides. God answers everyone's prayers through all of us. We just have to act on those feelings.

Hey



Elder Pearson and Elder Miller day 1 - at the mission home.

 Not too much to report this week. It's getting cold, and snow is everywhere.... yippee? But luckily I have a very warm hat I got from home that is helping me out.

Elder Miller and I are continuing to find, teach, and baptize. So all is well.




William's Baptism - November 2010

Faith's baptism - with her family.  November 2010.

 The Book of Mormon is continuing to teach me new things. I've started it for the 4th or 5th time, and no matter how many times I've read it, I keep getting more out of it. Right now, I'm in Nephi. He was asked to do many difficult, time consuming, and challenging things in the first few chapters of 1st Nephi. Most of the time, as he started the task, he didn't fully understand why he was doing these things, or why they needed to be done.  Yet he had complete faith in the Lord that not only were these things he didn't understand important, but the way was going to be prepared for him and the task was always possible.

A verse that sticks out is Chapter 9: verses 5 and 6. Nephi was commanded to make 2 separate accounts of the same history of his people. Which is hard by itself, but he had to do that by engraving gold plates, which probably took some time.  He said: "Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not. But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning."

There's a lot of times I don't understand why there is a certain commandment or rule. And I follow it only half heartedly. This is something I'm gonna work on. The scriptures are a great example for me to continue to do what I know is right and important. 

Howdy

I know I haven't sent any pictures lately. I have a good amount, something just stops me from doing it every week. It's been everything from forgetting the cord to link my camera to the computer, to having a slow computer, to running out of time, or having a computer that won't recognize my camera. I'll get it done next week.

This week has gone well. We had 2 people get baptized. One was Faith, a 9 year old girl who's family is coming back into the church and plan on getting sealed in the temple. The other was William, an 18 year old who's been a blast to teach. Just as we had 2 people less to teach, we picked up 2 more this week who want to be baptized. The work won't seem to slow down... which is a good problem to have. Just crazy times.

They're kicking me off the computer now. So I have got to go. Love yall