The Best Two Years

March News

2009-04-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

Elder Clifton Dudley~Serving in Mexico Monterey East
Elder Clifton Dudley was a little sad to not be at the sealing of his sister, Shalise, and new brother-in-law, Ted. However, he sent a special picture college and gave us the following explanation. Be sure to notice the scripture. "I took the picture on a night that I was feeling rather sad and lonely. I originally took it without the scripture, but then I found the scripture, took the picture again, and felt a whole lot better."

Elder Justin Doyle~Serving in Mexico Monterey West

The weather here has been scorching hot! We are entering what is called the Canicula here in Mexico. It is the hottest time of the year when it is more than 100 all of the time! Yay. Mission changes are tomorrow and I think that I am finally leaving. The thing is is that Saltillo has the best weather in all of the mission and I think I will be leaving right before the canicula to a hotter place like Monclova (the hottest place in the mission).

Most people (the thugs) here have shirts that have the marijuana leaf on it. It is funny because I mean everyone has that on their clothes somewhere. I saw a member lady walk into conference wearing a shirt with a huge marijuana leaf on the front. I was shocked!

My Easter wasn't an Easter because I totally forgot. Mostly because nobody celebrates it here the same if the celebrate it here. Yes I burned a tie. (Justin hit his 6 month mark) I did get to watch conference in English on Sunday but on Saturday for the priesthood session I watched it in Spanish.

A couple of interesting things that happened this week: We taught some Cuban women (three of them) and that was interesting. They have never heard of the Mormons and more so, their accent was weird. They did not pronounce their ''s'' very well. Also, for one lesson appointment we had when we showed up there was a Muslim man there. We later found out that he is married to a Mormon lady and they go to church but he is still Muslim. He had very interesting views. Another thing happened when we were walking; we got called over by a man and his wife. They started asking us questions about our religion, but then started to focus on things about the jehovah`s witnesses. We are pretty sure that he was a jehova`s witness and was trying to get us to say something bad about them or mix up our message. He said he was going to come to church but didn't so that pretty much sealed our thoughts.

Elder Joseph Hilton~Serving in Uruguay Montevido West Mission
Joey reported to the Argentina CCM on February 25th. He was in a cluster of 6 'gringos' learning the language there. Their numbers have sadly been reduced to 5 putting him in a trio with Elders Brough and Lockheart. The Spanish is coming along really well. He is able to proselyte on Saturdays to homes around the CCM. This past week he passed the one month (half of the CCM) mark and was made DL. He says he isn't sure what that means, but he'll do the research to figure out what that means in a group of 5 in the CCM and do his very best:)

Elder Taylor Hucks~ Serving in Washington D.C. North Mission

I am doing very well. This last week has been really good. I have had somereally cool experiences. The biggest one to note is a meeting that I hadthis last Saturday. I arrived at the visitors center at about 8:00 in themorning for a meeting about the mission. I arrived and sat down and waitedfor a good 15-20 min wondering why President wasn’t starting the meeting, wewere just waiting...Then the back doors behind us opened up and in walked Elder Holland. Illtell you, what spirit fills the room when an apostle of the Lord walk in,its something else. He walked down and took a seat and i was right there infront of him. Before the meeting started Elder Holland said that he wouldlike the come by and shake each hand of ours personally so we walked over tomeet him. (I had just got a haircut the night before, wheew good thing I wasnot looking like a hippie). I walked up to Elder Jeffery R. Holland of thequorum of the twelve apostles and took his hand. He gave me a smile andlooked me right into the eyes. I held my eye contact with him and lookedinto his really blue apostolic eyes as I shook his hand. I was the first tospeak saying " Hello Elder Holland how are you?"He replied to me very well Elder Hucks how are you?"Good I said""And were are you from elder" he asked"Sacramento California" I replied"and how do you feel about your mission..." "Excellent" I respondedI then went back to my seat right there on the second row and heard one ofthe greatest talks on missionary work and teaching by the spirit that i haveever heard.It was an amazing day, very uplifting. One of those really good days whereeverything just goes well. Hey Harrison a few days ago we saw Obama's car driving by and SNIPERS onthe rooftops!! Yea it was cool man there were CIA guys all over. Well I love you guys, we just had transfers again today and I’m staying herewith the same companion, no change. I’m stoked for this upcoming 6 weeks and what’s going to happen, my roomiesare way cool

Elder Mark Jay~Serving in Peru Lima South Mission
My investigators are doing alright. We're getting many new investigators each week. But it's frustrating as still our investigators, or a good number, are not going to the chapel. And we can only pass for so many. They need to go to the chapel or they can't get baptized. Now we're trying to separate the investigators into two groups - those that can really progress and get baptized soon and those that aren't ready to progress. We will then focus mainly on those that are ready to progress and move forward and make the necessary changes in their lives.
Hurray, general conference is coming. And we're allowed to go to all of the session unless we have appointments. We will probably have appointments in the morning but the rest I will hopefully be able to attend.
We recently received news of who will be our new mission president. President and sister Fiero will finish their mission in June. (They are from Ecuador). Our new mission president will be President Roger Manning and his wife Lyn. How exciting - a mission president from North America. I'm excited that I will get to have a Latino mission president and a North American one too.
Thank you for your support and testimony. It gives me strength. I too depend on the Lord and don't fully comprehend the love He and our Father-in-Heaven have for us. I hope you are all well.
Love, Elder Jay

Elder Cameron Pettey~Serving in Sao Paulo Brasil
This week was a miracle. Vera took the decision to be baptized! It was amazing! She changed so much. She had so many doubts and questions, etc. but was sincerely searching for an answer. Everytime we went there, she had a new doubt. Every time we talked to her and helped her to resolve this doubt. She believed in reincarnation, different view on baptism, Joseph Smith, and many more. It really was a complete change. It was great because we got to see it from the beginning to the end. We have been trying to help her for a while now get baptized. Transfer is almost over and we were thinking that it might not work out before. We had faith and worked really hard, doing everything we could. This week she still wasn’t sure about baptism, not believing she was ready. We talked to her and marked an interview with her, just to see how it went. Elder Cooper worked magic baby. After a long interview, they came out, not saying that she passed or anything. I thought she decided not to get baptized. Elder Cooper gave me the folded baptismal form, and I opened it just enough to see if it was filled out, and it was! I was so happy. Amazing. Miracle. We had the baptism in the same river where we had it last time, I am so happy to be able to be a part of this. Vera is amazing. She is like our mom here. She is way happy now, very animated.Today we just got down from climbing Baiepi. It was awesome! Extremely high, hardcore trek. I was sweating soooo much, and am out of shape. Really fun though. We went with a lot of cool guys from Church. We all had a fun time. It was beautiful. When we got up to the top, we were thinking about how the Prophets in olden days went up to the highest mountains they could find to pray to God. It was cool, before we came back down, we decided to sing Called to Serve and say a prayer. Cool spiritual experience climbing a mountain. Not to mention the fun we had on the way. Tiny little trail in some spots, we had to climb on all fours, when we were coming down, we slipped like crazy, and Henrique completely ate it. Hahahah. He was running and he stopped his feet, but his body kept going and straight rolled out.
Hope everyone has a wonderful week. Do what is right baby!A Hug and Love,Elder Cam Pettey

Elder Jordan Shillingburg~Serving in Antofagasta Chile
This week was great, it started off really crappy with Zero lessons to start off the week, and then the next day, the grandma that had a baptism date dropped on us, cuz she is easily influenced by anyone that talks to her, and so of course things have to happen, cuz Satan is a real D-bag, and so she heard so things that obviously weren’t true, and yea.But the day after that made up for everything 1000 fold, as we were about to leave one of our investigators house, Fabiola and she has a daughter and two sons, she told us she wanted to be baptized, and we always had a date lingering but she never accepted it, but she said, later after more time, and so we put a date for the 11th of April, and then we told her that one of us might not be here because of transfers, and so she wanted us to do it, and so we cranked it out this Saturday. We baptized her and her daughter, but not one son because he is only 5, and the other sons doesn’t really want much to do with us, but we will get him eventually. And transfers are today, and we are still here, so ha, we managed to get Fabiola and Ninoshca, her daughter, in that baptism font right away.And yea, that was our week, it was good.oh, and we ran out of toilet paper and had to start using newspaper that we have in the apartment.Chao

Elder Kyle Mark Smith~ Serving in Hungary Budapest
Hello lovely family. One time in Zone Conference, all of the missionaries had to stand up in front of everyone and say a compliment about their companion. One of the elders said that his companion was "just a lovely guy". One of the greatest moments of my life. I think that the first and last time I've heard a man use the word lovely to describe another man. But it's ok to use with family. This week was really good. I love sitting down to write these emails because all of the great memories come back to my head of the past week. Last week at f.h.e with the Ildiék and Gyöngyiék, Enikő was in charge of the activity and she had us all do a trust building activity where we had to fall backwards and let our partner catch us. Most of us could catch our partner. But when it was Gyöngyi's turn, Ildi tried to catch her when she started to fall, but they both went straight to the ground. It was hilarious. Some trust building. The members are doing great here in Szolnok. They are like my family. Last night with the Gáspárék we sat crosslegged on the ground and talked while eating süti after our lesson. They are so great. Our investigators are doing good too. On wednesday, one of our investigators who is református committed to baptism and she came to church with her 8 year old son on sunday. They had a great time and we are meeting with them again today. The biggest thing this week was our non-smoking program with Laci. He smoked his last cigarette Saturday morning before our program and he didn't even know it was his last one until we got there. This program is genius. A missionary companionship came up with it like 20 years ago in Ireland. For a part of the program, the smoker has to hold all of his cigarettes in his hand and completely crush them. It was so sweet to see Laci crush his cigarettes and them throw them in the fire. He has to drink unsweetened grapefruit juice and take a lot of vitamin C to make the desire to smoke go away. And then a lot of mouthwash and brushing teeth. We bought all of the stuff for him and he committed to do everything so we are praying for him that he will be able to do the program to the end which is until Saturday. Will you pray for him too? Laci (lot-see). I know he will be able to quit smoking if he follows all of the steps and if we pray for him. A big part of the program is prayer and scripture study. It's not only physical but spiritual as well. Thanks so much for your prayers. I know he will get baptized. Szolnok is doing good.

January News

2009-02-04T18:58:00.000-08:00

Elder Robert Cook ~Serving in Texas Houston South Mission
Dear super, stupendous, amazing, outstanding, sometimes crazy Family, :) Well, it is official, I will have been out a year in about two or three days, and suddenly I'm kind of freaking out because i realize that I'm half-way done with my mission!!!! HOLY COW time has flown by, and the scarier part is that the second year goes even faster...at least that's what I hear, and that is scary because this year has flown by. Well, lets not talk about it and I'll just pretend that I still have over a year and work like I have a month left. So, yes I did get your e-mail today instead of yesterday, and now I'm sitting in the library here with Obama's induction speech playing in the background and all the news people that just love him to death. Well, sorry I sounded so "down" in last weeks letter, I was just tired after a long day of activities and I still had about 5 more hours at that point, but don't worry, Super Elder never slows down and never stops while he's on the Lords time. So the news about the district of Alvin now. Well, Elder Franco has called us about three times this past week saying hi and telling us what it is like to be home, and we just laugh and keep trudging along. We did get a new Elder this past week and his name is Elder Baird. He has been out about 17 months and is a really good guy. He is very mellow and calm, but he is a lot of fun when he opens up and is a really cheerful guy. He and elder Jenks already get along great, so things really haven't changes a whole lot. Well one thing, we also got a new District leader, and guess what, your talking to him. President Allred called me on Tuesday when we were in the middle of personal study and told me I was going to be the new District Leader, I really didn't think I was going to be getting that call. I still consider myself young in the mission, but I guess President and the Lord trusts me and so I'll give it everything I have. Friday I had exchanges with the Zone Leaders so that Elder Whipple could train me on how to do my new assignment, and we had a great exchange. we had an awesome District Meeting with the Pearland District, and the spirit was so strong. Elder Whipple gave the talk for the meeting on Faith and Confidence, and then Elder Jenks gave a powerful training on the vision we should have as missionaries. he shared a really cool quote from President Spencer W. Kimball that really struck me hard. He said "if I had half the years that I have right now I would run to every door sharing the gospel, and then when I couldn't run I would walk, and then when I couldn't walk, I would crawl, and the when I couldn't crawl, I would lay on my belly and pull myself by my elbows, and when I couldn't do that, I would lay on my back and scream the message of the gospel to anyone that could hear me." When Elder Jenks said that it hit me really hard and I have pondered that statement from the prophet many times this past weekend, and I feel a desire and need to do even more to share the gospel now and after my mission, so i hope that you all would ponder that statement too. It was just a powerful meeting that really humbled us all and was the kind of meeting that would light a fire under our butts for this transfer, and I a so grateful for the spirit we felt there. Another thing that I realized this week was the power of a testimony. ONe night as I was writing in my journal, I began to think about the lessons we had had that night and the testimony that i had given to this person. As I thought about the testimony I was given, I felt so thankful for the knowledge I have and the strength it gives me, and the power that comes from it. Sometimes when we are teaching, it doesn't matter if it is on the doorstep, or in the house, when I bear testimony of the Savior and of the Book of Mormon, I can just feel the power of the testimony bearing testimony to them and confirming what I am saying. Every time I feel it, it strengthens my testimony and confirms to me that what I am doing is exactly what the lord wants me to do. it is an amazing feeling, and a comforting one too. Well, I only have one minuete left, so I'll finish up soon. I love you all big and miss you tons!! Love your missionary, Elder Cook

Elder Justin Doyle~Serving in Mexico Monterey West
I am feeling awesome! I love it here. Changes are coming up this next week and I don’t know what is going to happen. If I am going to stay or leave or what. The baptismal experience was great! We have two hopefuls coming up and hopefully they will make the decision to be baptized before either mi compa o yo leave the area. That is funny because it is NOT green. I saw a very unkempt patch of semi green grass the other day and was shocked to see grass. I forgot about it completely. There are several fabricas (factories, sorry) and so it is kind of industrial. Right now I live in el valle de las flores if you want to check that out. My area right now is El valle all the way to the right to arteaga and a little past. Things with mi compa are great. I am learning a lot. He is treating me fine. We are friends but there a re a lot of major differences between us because he is from Tabasco ( the bottom most tip of Mexico) and I am from California so our likes are different but some are the same. His name is Elder Gonzalez. I am close to fluent. haha. I have no idea! I can communicate and chat and do all that stuff and understand a ton but at the same time there are muchisimas palabras que yo no entiendo pero I have a meta to learn 10 new words each day and have been doing that since I first got here. WOW! Felicidades to Tanner and I hope he does well because that is great for him. That is way cool for Tyler and can I have the name of Auroras band to write down to remember. He’ll find a job soon I am sure. Figures for Samantha at that birthday party because it is Summer Stone. haha I miss you guys too but in due time and dad and I will be watching the unit and such. I do think it is funny that you wrote tanner and not Tyler, so dad misses a kid who is at home more than one who is gone. haha. I bet he is. I didn’t even think how small it would be once i left.I made a cd of pictures from here and I am going to try and send it to you today if possible. Don’t worry I am keeping the cd card for myself. I do need some money to buy a small backpack and scripture cases here because we are supposed to have those things here and I do not. I am going to check the bank account with the card today and if there is money I am going to pull out some because I need it sooner than later and I cant wait for a response in a week. Apparently we need those things always. its a rule. We teach about 5 lessons a day to people and do a lot of tocando en lal puertas. I love you all and am going to try and puit some pics on flickr right now for you to see if i can. I love you

Elder Clifton Dudley~Serving in Mexico Monterey East
"Thanks to the ties I received for Christmas, I have finally been able to realize a long awaited goal: wear a different tie every day of the month. When I took my inventory on December 30th, I noted that I had 30 ties. I also realized there are 31 days in January. As I explained to my companion, this is called ¨Working with Faith¨, because I had a worthy goal that could not be accomplished at the time that I set it, but that I had faith that God would help me do it. Of course I was joking. God has a sense of humor, too.At the end of the sports day in the mission office, I ran into Elder Gonzalez, who was my companion for my first 3 days in Mexico. While we were companions, he had liked/envied one of the ties that I had, but I was unable to give it to him since at the time I only had 6 ties. And so I promised him that I would give him the tie before the end of his mission (right now, he has 3 months left). It just so happened that I was wearing that very tie when we saw each other in the mission office. ¨Hey, when are you gonna give me that tie?¨ ¨What, this one? I´d give it to you right now, but I don´t want the President seeing me leave tie-less¨¨Change it out for this one¨ he said, handing over a tie that the mission had given him for Christmas. It wasn´t until I got home that the thought, ¨31st tie¨ crossed my mind.Hope you like that rather unusual spiritual thought. Also, I hope that Mom enjoys her birthday. Love you all a lot."

Elder Cassidy Hilton~Serving in Argentina Bahia BLanca
"You know you're in Argentina When...
People cannot parallel park and usually hit other cars when they try.
There's a bidet in every house.
People stand outside their houses for hours, watering their sidewalks and dirt lawns. That is not even a joke.
People 'mow' grass with a weed whacker until it's all gone and its dirt again.
You see someone with really expensive designer clothes, multiple cell phones, a large flat screen TV, and they live in the dirtiest, poorest shack you can imagine, with no plumbing sometimes.
There is never carpet ever.
You see families of five crammed onto a mo-ped, driving around town.
You buy something and people don't have enough change, so they make you buy candy so you use money.
Women openly breast feed in public.Wine is priced way less than water."

Elder Cameron Pettey~Serving in Sao Paulo Brasil
"Hello family and friends. So I was transferred. And am now in a new area. Its already been almost a whole week since I have been here... So Elder Court and I wanted to stay in Ermelino together because this AMAZING family showed up at Church last Sunday. They are unexpainable. But made it so both of us wanted to stay super bad. But I was transferred and already have to move on. Elder Court is training a really white american. Haha. So thats cool. And I am now on the ISLAND of the mission. Ilha Bela (beautiful island) its called. It really is beautiful. It is really far away, and we had to take a ferry to get here. It is way tropical and green. The island is big. It has lots of cool stuff, mountains, beaches, waterfalls, rivers, etc. Lots of cool stuff. It is so good to see nature again, and to here the trees blowing in the wind and the birds chirping. It is a really pretty place. It is a bit of a touristy place for lots of Brazilians and others, too. They have some wicked fruit flies here that eat your blood and that itch way worse than mosquitos... The branch here is really good from what I have seen so far. Seems to be about the same size as Ermelinos ward, with like 70 people who go. They meet in a rented house, and sac mtg is in an open covered room. Kind of cool... And now for the best part, my companion. Elder Eloi. Brazilian. 19. 1st area... From Maceio... He is helping me prepare for my future."

"We had transfers(my 8th) on Tuesday and...Elder Eloi ... got transferred.... So we got up at like 3am on Tuesday to make it to Sao Paulo. Our entire Zone was transferred, so we went together. Ends up that I am training Elder Lee! An American from Arizona. So far its been really good. He seems like a good guy. But, that poor kid, we got off to a little bit of a rough start. After transfers, we went to buy our bus ticket (on Tuesday) to go back to the coast. Everybody wanted to go to the beach for the new year, and (the bus system) didn't have any room until Wed at 6pm. So we went back and ended up just sleeping at the assistants house. The next day we had interviews with President. It was really good... It was really spiritual, and helped me. He also talked about Elder Lee, and I´ll quote him on what he said..."He´s solid, not flashy, just solid."... We took the bus and got to Caraguatatuba late (Wednesday). It takes like 2 more hours to get to our house from there, so we ended up just staying there with the Elders. It was cool. We stayed together for the New Year. We had a little toast at like 9pm. ha! Then slept. The next morning we finally got to the island. So it was quite the experience. 3 days of traveling, with one set of clothes, garments, without toothbrush. It was gross. Good."

"Life is not always easy. We are always going to have challenges in our way. Challenges, however, are what we need to grow, and to reach our potential. Everybody is different and needs different challenges to help each individual grow to its potential. It is required that we overcome our challenges and that we become greater than them. Then we will get another challenge. Then we have to overcome. Then challenge. Then overcome. It brings comfort to know that this is for our own good, and that as the Lord states in the New Testament, that he won´t let us be tempted above that which we can handle. Through much prayer and scripture study, we can overcome all things. I know that the Lord is our guide and that he will help us in all of our struggles. Trust in the Lord. He knows what is best for each and every one of us. Love,Elder Pettey"

Elder Jordan Shillingburg~Serving in Antofagasta Chile
I’m still in the same sector with Elder Jesus, YEA! But all of the other companionships have changed the señor companion. And our latest baptism went through, that one was on the 27th of Dec. Here is something funny that happened this week, we were door knocking and at this one house it was only a kid there, so we offered him a pass along card and so he left the door and walked to us to take the card, and the wind blew and shut the door, so we kind of ended up locking a kid out of his house. But we did just leave him stuck like that, so elder Jesus tried to swipe the lock on the window with pass along cards, but if Cody was there he could have opened this window like nothing, but he ended up figuring out that he had to push on the window and then swipe it, it took about 6 minutes for him to figure it out, I would have done it, but that might look wrong, a gringo breaking into a house, I’d rather have them take the blame if something goes wrong, cuz at least he can explain it better. And on a missionary note, we had to push two of our baptism dates back to the 24th, My B-DAY, cuz one of the investigators did come to church yesterday, and the other doesn’t feel prepared so we go to give him some reassurance and hope for this guy. And we found a new investigator Saturday, and she was at church yesterday, we got this one in the bag, Susana Morales.
It turns out that many of these people go camping, but where I don’t know, somewhere near the beach or something, but he is going on one of these camping trip things for the next 3 weeks, so that kind of sucks.but it is all right cuz we got a bunch more good investigators that we are going to knock out, we are going to try to plow out all of them on the 7th of Feb, and another on the 14th. And this week we managed to get 9 investigators to church yesterday, so woot!The kid that we plan on baptizing on the 14th is an investigator from my second week here, but back in November his aunt talked them into having their cousins baptize him in Peru after we taught him most of the stuff, but something happened and so he isn’t going to Peru, so it is a good thing that we didn’t drop him, so now we have the opportunity to baptize him.

Elder Cameron Smith~ Serving in Rome Italy
Buongiorno Cari amici,
Everything is going great I have just had some crazy weeks these past two weeks. But the good news is that I'm alive and still here in La Spezia. By the way I still love it just as much! The work is still going and we are trying hard to bring a couple of our investigators to baptism. We have given two "soft" invites so far, that is to say, we asked them, if they were to receive an answer would they be baptized. So we have a couple prospects that are looking very promising.
We started a FHE type thing for members and investigators here in La Spezia. We usually have about 10 people that come and we do a nice spiritual thought, play a game and have a treat or something afterwards. It has been going well.
We have been having a lot of people that are really interested in the church from our English class and we taught a first lesson and watched the restoration film last week. There were quite a few people that stayed and participated. It was really cool!
One thing that I have been working on is improving the effectiveness of my prayers. I realized after Elder Bednar gave his talk that there were many things that I could improve about my prayers. For example, not falling asleep every time that I pray on my knees. I know you laugh, but you do it too. It's hard after a long day and then the lights are out and it is really quiet and my sheets smell good and are really soft, because I just went to a laundry mat and dried them. Anyways you get the idea. So I have been trying to make my prayers more meaningful and it has really made a difference. I would encourage everyone to try it.
I can say with assurance that this is the Lord's work and that He is guiding it at the head. He has shown me many times His love for me and our investigators and members. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, He who paid that ultimate price for my soul. He who died so that I might live. He who was led captive that I might be set free. I love this work and am learning to trust in the Lord and allow Him to show me miracles! I hope that every one of you can see these blessings also through this amazing missionary work!

Elder Kyle Clark Smith~ Serving in Phoenix AZ Spanish Speaking
“What a week! It was hard to say goodbye to the people in my last area. I was so blessed with so many amazing experiences and opportunities.
First, my companion. Is name is Elder Crandall and he is from some small town in Wyoming and the other two Elders that live in “The Shack” with me are both hillbillies. One is from Montana and the other is from Oklahoma. Needless to say I feel like the oddball in the apartment. They all share hunting stories and working on the farm and have thick accents, and I am starting to talk like them. I now say things like, “I reckon that…” Or “I’ll tell you what.” It is a lot of fun. “The Shack” is nice, no luxury apartment like Surprise but it works. I feel like we are camping every day. The shower is outside in a littler shack and we have to wash our dishes in a bucket because the pipes are busted. We all sleep in the same little room with bunk beds and I feel like I’m at scout camp or something.
Quick story- we had a few appointments fall through on us on Sunday so we were trying to figure out what to do so we sent and checked some referrals. Halfway to one of them we got lost and ended up in front of a former investigator and decided to see if they were home. They were busy and we set up an appointment and left but walk by a member’s house. Elder Crandall asked if I wanted to meet then and I figured why not, so we went to their home. Ok, now the cool part. He opens the door and throws his hands up in amazement. “Elders, it a miracle! I was just looking for your number and couldn’t find it. Come in. My friend is here and was asking questions and wants to learn about the church. Here sit down, this is Juan Carlos, teach him!” So we did and it went great and we are going back on Thursday. Talk about being guided to be at the right place at the right time. That was NEVER in the plans but we were subtlety lead there. That was a good lesson to learn. The Spirit works by subtlety leading and that is exactly how should work too. We need to stop and remember and thank the lord and realize that his hand is in all things.”
Elder Nicholas Takis~Serving in Missouri St Louis
"I'm going to Sullivan. I'll be serving in Sullivan which is about 30 minutes away and in the suburbs again. I get to drive and I'll be district leader and be follow-up training Elder Baker. He's a good guy and a good missionary and my district is great. Some of my favorite guys.. they will support me well, I need all the help I can get.. Things are great. not gonna lie, this is soo hard.. I kinda hate but love transfers ya know? I have to leave all the people I met and baptized. Sooo rough. But the Lord will give me strength though.. I know he will. Hope Sullivan is awesome. If not I'll just have to make it so....haha.. My Ward mission leader here, you know Laffi.. his fiance' is in that ward.. woop woop!!.. she'll take care of us, Tingey called and told her on the phone that I was coming and she screamed..lol.. funny lady, so no worries momma, we'll be taken care of, and Laffi will be seeing me sometimes so he'll watch out for me...."
Elder Carter Zufelt~Serving in Denver S. ColoradoCarter just got transferred from Lakewood to Littleton. His new address is:7737 West Chestnut, Littleton, CO 80128. His new zone is huge. They cover two stakes and most of the Rocky Mountains (Vail, Aspen, Frisco, Granby, etc.) His companion is Elder White who is from Wanatche, WA. They get along great. He is serving in the Columbine Ward and the Chatfield Ward. "The Chatfield Ward has alot going on and the members are wayyyy solid. alright, it was hard to leave Lakewood. There are so many people that are sooooooooooo close. This past week we had such a good turnout to church. We had 10 investigators there. That is the highest I have ever gotten and I was pumped to see that!!!! It was a bummer to leave. That is one of the hardest things for me-leaving and area after developing friendships and bonds with people whom you have grown to love. One family we are teaching here is from Hawaii, they are sweet!!! Her name is Nunni and her sons' name is Kalei and they have relative that are living with them. Their cousin’s name is Isaiah, he is 9 and super sincere. Most of our time is spent tracting. We do a lot of it, and even though it's not the most effective thing to do, it does work and it feel good to hit the pavement. There hasn't been much snow here lately, but it has been sooo cold. There was one day where the low was -8 degrees and with the wind shill it got down to -20!!!! It was bitter cold and it hurt to go out, but we still did. Zach, I'm pumped for you to see where you get called. Maybe you'll get called here, and maybe I will train you!!!! That would be saaaweeettttt!!!! Check out this cool quote from Abraham Lincoln, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." It is amazing to think that our Founding Fathers were so inspired and that they have accepted the gospel in the spirit world. I love seeing how each thing made it possible for the gospel to be restored to the prophet Joseph Smith. Truly this gospel is true and is led by Jesus Christ. I love sharing that message."

Spotlight on Our Missionaries

2008-11-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

Elder Tyson Wheeler & Elder K

Elder Cameron Smith & Elder Steiner working at Grillo

Elder Jordan Shillingburg with Elder Jesus

Elder Jared Schmidt at his 1 year mark!

2008-11-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

Elder Nathaniel Billings~Serving in Columbia South Carolina
Elder Billings just sent us his first letter from the MTC. He is content and surprised that most of the missionaries who started with him are from Utah. His companion is Elder Kidd. He was made senior companion.
November 10 is the tentative departure date for the South Carolina Mission.
Leaving him at the MTC wasn't as hard as we thought. We are very happy he is there among many wonderful kids.

Elder Justin Doyle~Serving in Mexico Monterey West

Spanish is coming along great. We have two different teachers that teach at separate times and they told me that they are grateful I am in their class to help them teach the guys in our district. I sing in every devotional and so far, on every one, the camera has come on me, my comp (Elder Turpin) and the guy going to Juliard because we always sit next to each other in the front section. So if they ever air you will definately see us.

I love you all and am having an amazing time. The spirit is very strong with me and I am studying a ton as well. We study about 10 or so hours a day. Thank you for the addresses and now I just need Steven Atcheson's address. I had an impression by the spirit during our devotional this week (by L. Tom Perry) to write Steve so I need his address. Thanks again.

Elder Clifton Dudley~Serving in Mexico Monterey East

I also performed my first baptism. Unfortunately, it doesn't count on our numbers because it was the 8 year old daughter of a member that we reactivated, but that's not important. A baptism is still a baptism. The only really weird thing about it was that the water was green. And I had to do it twice because the first time I said "te bautizo" instead of "yo te bautizo." Of course, in regular conversation the yo is usually dropped, but its part of the prayer, so I had to do it again. I got pictures beforehand, I'll make sure to send them to you when I can how I can."

Sister Teresa Hall~Serving in Nevada Las Vegas
Thank you for your letter, I love how you inform me on everything. I really like it. So on my part of the world and news, I just baptiszed someone on Saturday it went well, I feel Like I may have another baptism at the end of this transfer!

Elder Cameron Pettey~Serving in Sao Paulo Brasil
has been serving in an area known as Ermelino Matarazzo since transfers on August 26^th. His companion is Elder Court from Missouri who has been serving 3 weeks longer than Cameron. The area is south of the Guarulhos International Airport. Cameron says in his 9/22 email, “Our area here in Ermelino Matarazzo is HUGE!(twss) and so we have to walk a lot. It is kind of a waste of time. A big waste of time. It would be so much easier, and better, I think, if we could have bikes. Or skateboards. Or HEELYS! haha”

Elders Pettey and Court opened the Ermelino Matarazzo area; missionaries had not been serving there for some time. They were both flattered that the Mission President, Pres. Wilkins, would entrust two relatively new American missionaries with that responsibility. They have worked hard to build a fruitful investigator pool, teaching and testifying, and baptizing. They are having a lot of fun and success in sharing the message of Jesus Christ’s atonement and His restored Church.

This is a quote from E. Pettey’s last email received on Oct. 27^th, “…this week was awesome. It was a busy, busy week. Without a doubt, a blessing from the Lord. I was honored to have the wonderful opportunity to hear an Apostle of the Lord, Elder Richard G. Scott, speak. He spoke to our entire mission. It was in Ipiranga, my old stake center. It was a special day for Jesus Christ, with three 70´s, two General Authorities, and a mission President. Elder Ellis from the Area Presidency in Brazil was there, and was cool. But Elder Scott is awesome. He is powerful. He has a strong spirit about him. He talked about so many good things…I want you guys to know that I know Jesus lives, and that He speaks face to face with his Prophets and Apostles. He is our Savior and Redeemer and only through Him, we can truly have eternal happiness.”

Needless to say, Cameron is having an awesome mission experience! Life is great! Thanks to all of you young men serving missions, and you families who are supporting them! The Lord’s work is rolling forth!

Elder Jared Schmidt~Serving in SLC Utah

So first of all how did you all like general conference???? I LOVED IT!!! I swear for us missionaries general conference is like super bowl weekend. We seriously go crazy. I learned so much I have 6 pages of notes. I can't believe that I never watched all sessions before. Crazy. Only twice a year do you get to hear the words of the prophets and never did I watch saturday sessions at home. What was I thinking!!!
So speaking of confenece and the prophet I have so amazing news!! You all better sit down for this one!
So satUrday night I get a call from my zone leaders. It was Elder Miller who called and we chatted for a minute and he asked how I was. I said good and he said well you are going to be even better. Of course my curiosity is peaked so I ask why, Well they had one extra ticket to go to General conference sunday afternoon, and they decided to give it to me.
I was shocked. Normally you only get to go if it is the last confernce that you can go to. But since they had an extra ticket and since the zone leaders love me, I got to go. Holy Cow family, talk about an experience. So first of all we met at the tracks and road the train to down town. me and a bunch of other missionaries. You would think we were going to Disney land or something, how excited we all were. Well we got down town and met the assisitants who gave us our tickets. They have a special section for the missionaries. It is right in the bottom right corner by the door were all the general athourities come in. You probably have an idea of what is coming next. Well we were seated about 45 minutes before confenece started. I was in the second row. Sitting in fornt of me was Elder Maxwell's widow. She talked to us for a while and is a really neat lady. Well then all the general athourities started to come in. When the saw us they came over to say hi. I shook hands with so many 70 I can't even tell you. One of the men I shook hands with was the 70 that talked in preisthood Dad and Jake about honoring the preisthood, especially Aaronic preisthood.. he told me he was going to Auburn next week and would kiss the ground for me! Well then the 12 started coming in. Elder Holland came over gave us a thumbs up and talked to us for a bit. He is sooooo funny. Then the first presidency came in and waved at us and confenece started. Oh it was amazing we were so close and the spirit was sooo strong sitting there. Well after it was over the First presidency started to leave when The Prophet spotted sister Maxwell he came down off the stand to say hi and give her a hug. Well He was literally 2 feet in front of me. I thought my heart would come out of my throat. I have never been so close to the prophet. You could just feel the spirit and love permiating out of him. After saying hi to Sister Maxwell he looked at us missionaries. He looked right at me and said hi and asked how I was. I thought I would die. He then started to shake our hands. Um so it was proabably the most amaazing experience EVER!!!! He talked to us for a minute then went back up to leave. As all the twelve left, they all waved at us and I pulled out my camera and videoed it so I have a sweet video to show you when I get home. Man it was amazing!!!!!!!!!

Elder Jordan Shillingburg~Serving in Antofagasta Chile

The days here go by a lot faster than in the MTC, but some days
aren’t all that great, yesterday was Sunday, and typically we spend
the time after 3:30 doing work, and the in the entire day we only
taught one lesson, but it is okay, cuz the day before we
went all over the place and taught 7, on a typical day we will do
at least 3 or 4.
We have a baptism date on the 8th for a part member family,
the father is inactive, and one of the boys was baptized years ago,
but we are baptizing the Wife, Eliana, and the other two kids,
Leonardo and Diego, I think they are like 8 and 10 years old. I love those
two, they are so excited to do church stuff. I think that the kids here are
way more cute than the ones back home, but we aren’t allowed to
hold them or pick them up or anything so that kind a stinks, but it
does avoid having to play with the energetic ADHD kids.
Halloween was weird, people kept yelling for my attention, so I‘ve
already taught myself to ignore English when I'm out on the streets,
cuz people will either yell in English, or say gringo, which doesn’t
bother me, cuz i am one.I keep forgetting to check which way
the toilet goes, but I’m pretty sure that it is clockwise.
Still haven’t eaten anything weird and we only really eat with the
members on lunch on Sunday and Saturday, and as for extreme poverty,
I don’t think so, most of this place is in poverty tho, but people get by,
and some have nicer cars than others but still have the
same little sized houses. I’m slowly understanding more
Spanish each day, and my companion is good, he knows how to
work hard and he knows a lot about the scriptures.
Peace, love ya
Elder Shillingburg

Elder Cameron Smith~ Serving in Rome Italy

I can't begin to describe the amazingness of this work and the things that I have seen and experienced. I know that the hand of the Lord truly is in everything that we do as missionaries. I could never deny that and I know that He is watching over us and helping us to accomplish His Great and Marvelous work! Just the other day we were walking towards the church I believe and
a man stopped us. He is an African and as you might be aware we are working with many right
now and I believe that every African in La Spezia at least knows who we are right now. It is really interesting how this has all unfolded. So allow me to give a little background before I tell you what happened. Two transfers ago, so over three months for those who are not inclined to missionary lingo, I went on an exchange with another elder other then my normal companion. We took a long bus ride up to an area that I have never been to. We had planned to go and knock on some doors but due to a lack of time we had to wait at the bus stop instead. We talked to many people that
day and came home. So back to the story. We were walking to the church and a man stopped us and in English asked me, "Hello, do you remember me?" Of course I didn't remember him, but I said yes thinking that I could guess and get close enough. I responded yeah, we met on the bus, right? He looked at me and said, "No, you don't remember. That's ok I know you meet a lot of people." haha! Of course, I felt stupid, but he explained that we had met that day in Aulla. I
instantly remembered him because he is the only Christian African that I have met here in La Spezia! We have since taught him a first and have another appointment tonight with him. For
lack of time it will suffice to say that the week has been really amazing and that we are finding new investigators and helping the others to progress and hope to have a few baptisms soon!
Well, on Monday and Tuesday we had a very unique experience. In Italy, one must apply for and
do the work for the permission to reside in the country in the first city in which they enter. Anziano Steiner entered Italy in Napoli and so had to apply and do the work there. He however was
advised to return at a later date to do the work and it happened to fall on yesterday! So we got to make an amazing trip down to La Bella Napoli. We woke up on Monday morning and did our regular stuff like eat, get ready and study and then we did something that is not normal. We left
our zone on a train to Napoli which is at the other end of the mission. It took about 8-9 hours in
train to get there, making one stop over in Rome! It was very nice to be back in Rome, however,
we only spent about 20 minutes there. Then we got on a regional or the lowest rate train and we were almost the last people on before it left during rush hour. So we got to stand packed like sardines for an hour and then it finally cleared out long enough to sit down! When we got there we had an hour and a halfish before the other elders got the apartment so we went and got one of the best pizzas that I have ever eaten! Yes I would recommend it! The owners son is a rock star and
we got to talk with him and make friends and he gave us some free food and then while we were eating our pizza a man walked up to us who had met the other elders a few days ago. He was a "Brad Pitt look alike." Or so he said...(He didn't look a lot like him) He was more of a crazy
stocker of Brad Pitt. He was really funny though and we talked for a while before going to the apartment. The next day we got up at 6 left at 7 got to the Questura where we had to fight our
way to this door to get a numbered ticket from the policeman in order to wait two hours to do Anziano Steiner's finger printing and that was actually very efficient for here! It was quite the experience! I couldn't have paid money to do that! It was fun! Then we were told that if at all possible we needed to be back in La Spezia that night, so we went and ate lunch said goodbye
to the other elders (of which was Anziano Jackson my companion from the MTC) then we hopped an expensive train to get back to Rome in order to eat McDonalds to hop an even more expensive train to get back to La Spezia by 10! We talked with an amazing man though on the last train,
about families and the difficulties that he faces and how he overcomes them and he gave us some advice and we taught him about the church and got his phone number. He is an officer at the American base in Livorno. (He is Italian though). Well now we are back in La Spezia and on to
work again! I love this stuff! I hope that everyone has a wonderful week full of excitement and joy. Just remember that a positive attitude is contagious, but don't wait to catch it be a carrier! I love
the Lord and I love His work!
Alla Prossima,
Anziano Cam Smith

Elder Nicholas Takis~Serving in Missouri St Louis
Well, The work is moving forth...this transfer Elder Spendlove and I have really
Been striving for perfect obedience and that means in every aspect.... yes it is hard but
but we've seen it bless in the area... We have about 12 families were consistently teaching
and they'er referrals from Gladys Knight.. we've spent hours and hours on end in the ghetto
contacting people (inside by dark of course).. and it has truly paid off.. We've even gone so far
as to skip lunch and sometimes dinner because we have appointments.
We average about 4 teaching appointments a day...today we had one about now but he bailed...
happens often unfortunately.. anyhoo, last week was amazing, we decided to be bold with our
investigators and inbite them to enter the waters of baptism.. um our end result is about 10
baptisms coming up on November 22nd... Isn't that a miracle?.. we also set four more
baptismal dates with a family last night... so that puts us at about 14 right now...
Oh Momma,
I can't even explain my excitement.."

Elder Tyson Wheeler~Serving in North Carolina Charlotte
Its sweet to finally be in the CITY! I realized that, from what I remember, Charlotte is as big as Sacramento.
I havent been here for more than a year! But it felt like nothing! Elder K has me working like a dog! Riding bikes like a mad man! Jumping on and off buses and trains like an ADD hobo! And not having any idea where we are or where we're going I just follow him. (Ive already had 2 close calls on the bike.)
Being so sick of fast food I accept food wherever we can get it. For instance. Sunday, we were on our
way to an appt when we passed some hispanics pushing a van in the entrance of a complex of apts. We stopped and helped. They thanked us I we invited them to learn. They accepted and we set the appt to be in a half hour. We get there and he offers us "agua" (home-made pineapple/orange juice). We go on the teach him and his wife (listening from the kitchen while making homemade tortillas) about the Bom and how it can help them raise their kids in this spiritually dangerous world. We kept the appt short and as getting up to leave I compamented the señora on her rich-smelling tortillas. She offered us some, we accepted and were happily surprised by a dinner of mole, rice, and fresh tortillas a la mexicana. I love the hispanic people! We dont even have to worry about where we are going to eat that day.

Elder Carter Zufelt~Serving in Denver S. Colorado
is doing great in the Denver, South mission.  "Time goes by so much more quickly when
having fun and doing what is right and staying busy in the best cause ever.  We just
had Zone Conference and it was amazing.  We are upping the standards of excellence.  
The work here is going great and it is picking up in the zone.  We just had Nolan
Price's baptism.  He is a great kid and the service was great.  We have a lot of potential
in our area.  Our goal is to have two baptisms per companionship per month.  Back to
Zone Conference.  I sang with three other elders, "How Great Thou Art".Luke Jones,
whose CD is coming soon to Deseret Book, helped us.  On his CD he is amazing,but
in real life he is something else.  It is amazing how strong music can bring the spirit.
I love it!!  
Well, all is well in the field.  The work is progressing and it is great to be a part of it.
I love it so much.  Thanks for everything."

Spotlight on Our Missionaries

2008-09-01T22:52:00.001-07:00

Sister Teresa Hall

Elder Nicholas Takis with some buddies.

Baptism of Jose Basillo & Neaza ~ Elder Cameron Pettey

Elder Andrew Ensign Pulsipher's Real Mexico

Back to School Post

2008-09-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

Elder Robbie Cook ~ Serving in Texas

Robbie was transferred this last month to a small town about 40 minutes south of Houston called Alvin Texas. He loves it there and enjoys the chance to teach in English finally. He still gets to speak Spanish but the Ward he is in now is English speaking. The members are great and they should have a baptism this next week. Their are four Elders in their apartment and they all get along great. The District Leader is a native Mexican from Taiwan and has been a wonderful resource for Rob as he continues to learn the language. It continues to rain almost every other day and Hurricane Gustav may add some additional wind and thunderstorms over the next few days. Alvin is only about 30 minutes inland from the Gulf of Mexico and the port of Galveston Texas.
Rob says he's loves his mission and the people he's serving in Texas. He has truly been blessed in his efforts and knows that he is where the Lord needs him.

Elder and Sister Dayes ~ Serving in the Philippines MTC Medical Mission

We have been caution about these relationships. Because the Philippineso think we are Americans and have all the money in the world. So we have been told to be very careful because they will ask and expect money from us. Well I have been very lucky up until recently. One middle aged man caught me in my office late the other night; He told me his wife called crying that that she had no food to feed their children, nothing for breakfast, lunch or dinner. He told me he has to walk two hours to work because he has no money he want to buy a bike but no money. He was crying. He said he didn’t have enough nerve to ask the President. He told me that he does all his church callings. He moved his family here close. In the past

Church employees are very lucky. Most employers give 5 month contacts with no benefits. Then they are laid off only to try to find another job. But, the church gives benefits, retirement, and raises, medical. And clothing allowances not for just the job clothing but also for cloths to wear to work. Also, lunch money. Holiday pay, sick pay. They are so fortunate to work for the church. And most employees are aware of these blessings. Well on this mans employment record is a problem with gambling. I had heard this before. But what do you do. It is hard to evaluate his situation because. He has a weight problem so does his wife and kids. So I wonder about the truthfulness of his situation. Yet, I can’t help but feel sorry for him thinking of his children. I went to the President and he and I gathered some food and sent it home with him. I did not want the word out that I helped because I don’t want to be the soft touch around here. But sure enough the next night the man that cleans the place. A different guy, Stopped me on the stair well and asked for 1, 030 Pecos. So I told him I am sorry it is against the rules. I felt bad. I heard the president going into his apartment so I stopped him and told him what happen so this guy had gone to him with the same story so the president gave him a loaf of bread and I got a jar of peanut butter. I hope that is the end of that.

Do you know how lucky we are to be an American? I don’t have words to describe our blessings. No one in the USA is really poor. We all benefit from everyone working and paying taxes. What a wonderful country we have! Hospital at home can not turn people away if they have no money. But here you just die. No money no care!
There are big holes in the street and Wires sticking out of poles, holes in sidewalks. You have to watch every where you move or you could seriously get hurt.

Elder Tyler Doyle ~ Serving in Guatemala

Well...........This is my last time using crappy internet here in Guatemala and the last time talking to you guys. Next week in real person.........crazy.....I am way nervous to go home so u might have to baby me for the first few days.

Well,…… on the way back from Coban last week, it started to rain so hard that landslides occurred. So we couldn't continue our trip. We turned around and a river was going through the street and we got stuck.....So all 10 of us missionaries got out in the pouring rain and we pushed the car through the river.....good times....we all slept together on a mattress to get through the night. It was a hassle. There are a certain aspects of this country that I am sick of, but only one more week. I am so grateful that I was able to do what I did for 2 years and to learn what I learned.......moments I will never forget. I love u all, and I will see you soon. Elder Doyle

Elder Clifton Dudley ~ Serving in Mexico

Elder Clifton Dudley hopes to be heading to the Mexico, Monterrey East Mission soon. Currently, however, he is blessed to be serving in Salt Lake City, South while he awaits his visa. Although he enjoyed his MTC experience, he is excited to be out in the mission field. (For awhile, he was concerned he would be working full-time in the MTC call center awaiting his visa.) All his Spanish practicing must have paid off because he is fortunate enough to be serving in a Spanish-speaking assignment in the Salt Lake City area along with two other elders. All in all, there are 49 elders in his group awaiting visas for Mexico. If you would like to write Elder Dudley for free or see some of his pictures, please visit his website, www.dearelder.com/cliftondudley. The password is "clifton."

Elder Derek Evans ~ Serving in England

Derek was called to the England Leeds Mission (the very same Mission I was called to 35 years ago) and reported directly to the Preston, England MTC on Aug. 29th. The MTC is in a small town called Chorley, about 8 miles from Preston, where the very first baptisms (9 individuals) were performed in England in 1837 in the River Ribble which runs through Preston. The Preston Temple is also on the same lot as the MTC. I am so thrilled; I can hardly describe my feelings because I served in Chorley for a short time. The Preston, England MTC actually allows the Missionary trainees to go out into nearby neighborhoods and do door-to-door contacting and teaching as part of their training. It may well be, that my son will work in the streets that I had the privilege to work in so long ago. I told him when he received his call that the reason he was called there was to "clean up the mess I made".

Sister Teresa Hall ~ Serving in Nevada

Well Transfers came and went. I left Kingman Arizona and am
now Back in Las Vegas in East again! I came home! I am so excited.
I started my mission here. I am in a different area but back to the same Zone.
I am not sure if you understand that all because it is mission jargin. I am with
Hna White who is from South Carolina. She is a Spanish speaker and really
neat! We are STRAIGHT Spanish! I am soooo happy. I am have NO ENGLISH
ward. Or area to cover. So I am hoping my Spanish will really improve this
Transfer. I am somewhat scared because of the heavy Spanish work load
and me not knowing too much Spanish but.. Everything will work out. I met
a man yesterday named Steven, who doesn’t believe  in God because of
all the suffering in the world and also he has read the bible but see's God
as only someone who hurts and throws down people and is a jealous God.
It was so sad to see, because He truly is a good man, who is so lost and
confused. I can see that he truly wants to believe but is lead blindly by Satan
to believe God is not there nor does he care. It was sad, I would say he is one
of the nicest people I have talked to on my mission who is looking for the gospel
but doesn’t even realize it. We wont be teaching him again, which is sad but
he is not ready. I have come to realize that we come closer to God step by step
and that after some time we look back and we see the progression that we have
made and its amazing! I love the scriptures. I have read the BOM twice and am
now about half way through the New Testament. I love it. The small stories that
are not told in church are amazing and I love the way the Savior Teaches with
love and in parables so that it makes me have to ponder what he has written
and to truly comptemplate on what he has taught. I love being on my mission
and for the hard struggles because they have made me so much the better
person I want to be. I also met a young father down in Kingman, who is absolutely
amazing. He had a bad past. But mom, he has the spirit of God within him. Its
burns in eyes the desire to learn more and come closer to God. His name is
Greg. I am really sad that I could not stay and watch him progress but... I will
keep writing him. ummm not much else to write, I have a lot of cleaning and
unpacking to do today. Have a great week.

Elder Cameron Pettey ~ Serving in Brazil

Elder Cameron Pettey is still serving in his initial area, and is with his second companion who he has been with the entire time except for the first three weeks. Cam's trainer for the first 3 weeks, Elder Jeff Shurtliff, just returned home to Orem 2 weeks ago. Elder Alves, from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Cameron have been together since E. Shurtliff got transferred to become a Zone Ldr. Cameron has been trained very well, and is extremely diligent in learning his duty, learning the Portuguese language, loving the people, and having fun. To this point in his mission, we see success, fun, and happiness. Cam is really enjoying his mission, and is serving with all his might, mind, and strength. We are so proud of him. He and his companions have enjoyed seeing the fruits of their labor (with the fellowship and work of the ward members) as eight converts have been baptized since Cameron arrived in Mooca, Sao Paulo on April 8th. In the past month, the Elders baptized a family, the family's friend, and a former Methodist pastor. Here are some excerts from Cameron's emails. I attached a couple of baptism pix.

6/30/08 "Saturday was the best day ever! on the mission for sure. It was awesome. It was a very busy day. I didnt even want the day to end it was so good. So to start, we went and watched Sueli and Cleiton get married. She got emotional which was cool, but it was nothing compared what it will be like in the temple for them. A few hours later in the afternoon we went to their house and ate lunch with them. She made awesome fish. Straight fish. Looked straight out of the sea, just cut in half. Still had the tails and eyes and skin and all. It is way good though. I really feel so comfortable at their house and with them. I feel like I am at home with them. They are really so amazing. I love them. So then at 5pm we had their baptism: Sueli, Cletion, João, and Denis. President came, and it was really good. It was a really neat experience, especially actually being able to baptize them. E Alves baptized Sueli, I baptized Cleiton, and members baptized the others. After the baptism, we had a ward party, festa junina. It was legit."

7/28/08 "This week we baptized a Pastor! It was awesome. Saturday we baptized José Basílio and Neuza. It was a really great day. A little sad because only like 6 members came, but the important thing is that they were baptized. I baptized Neuza first, in the freezing ice water. She was really happy. The gospel is great for her and her kids. It is really making them happy. After that, Elder Alves baptized Senhor Basílio. He is 82 years old, and a bit larger. E. Alves is a little girl, so when José struggled to enter the water, E Alves struggled to help him above of the water. It was sketchy. So after about 2 minutes of trying to help him above the water, I got in to help him up. Ok, jk, just a few seconds under water. but still, HA! It was kind of sad, but really funny. Especially when they said his toe came up. So they did it again, and this time I stayed in the water with him to help dunk him, and help him up. It went smoothly, and the best part was when he came up and heard it was valid...Basílio said loudly: "Amém!" Hahah. It was great. After that, he gave a little talk, which ended up being 25 minutes. ha. But it was really good. He got emotional a couple times, but really has a strong testimony."

Elder Andrew Ensign Pulsipher ~ Serving in Mexico

The Photo sent in is the “real Mexico”. Hugo in blue Victor in the red hat. They live in a cinder block house with metal sheets for a roof and dirt for a floor. They have no bathroom, kitchen or beds. Actually, I'm not sure if the house serves any purpose. They have a garden hose that they use to shower and they drink from the hose too. It's really nasty water. They have electricity now too but that's it.
How does this compare to your house....
They are happy because they know that they are children of our Heavenly Father and that some day, if they live worthily, they can live with Him.

Elder Jared Roberts ~ Serving in Brazil

About 3 weeks ago a family we are teaching told us they were looking for a
place to live cuz their house is expensive, they actually go hungry for a few
days at a time just to make the payment. so we fasted and prayed that they
would be able to find a new house, in our area, so we could continue teaching
them, and that they would never go another day without eating.  We visited them
last night but we had forgotten about our(previous) fast until we got there. we sit
down and the dad said about two and a half weeks ago they were walking along
a one-way dirt road on their way to his brothers house, when all of the sudden a
man in a car pulls up next to them, rolls down the window and gets their attention,
they walk over and he says, "hey, i am going to give you something, but you can´t
ask why, just know that i promised i would do it, and i always keep my promises"
he handed them enough food to last a family of three for about four days, he even
had cookies for their daughter. then he said "oh, and good luck" the family said that
when he said that they felt like he was saying good luck on finding a house, like he
knew. they thought it was a pretty crazy experience but were grateful for the food,
about 2 minutes later they get to his brothers house-his brother and friend had been
out front for about 15 minutes. When asked if they knew the man that passed by a few
minutes earlier in the blue Chevy, they looked at each other and then looked back and
asked "what blue Chevy?" they all looked at the dirt road and noticed that the dirt hadn’t
been kicked up by his car, which is usually what happens on a dirt road, and what had
happened with another car that passed them. that was when i remembered our fast. it
was incredible, just a reminder that the Lord always keeps his promises.

Elder Jared Schmidt ~ Serving in Utah

I have a ton of news for you! You are not going to believe this. So I am training two missionaries right now. I told you that I am training elder Talasinga. Well two weeks ago we got a few visa waiters in the mission waiting to go to Mexico. President chose me to train. He told me he knew I was already basically training Elder Talasinga and it would be hard to have two greenies but he said I could handle it. So my other kid is Elder Porter from Preston Idaho. He is a really cool kid and I like him alot. He is a really hard worker and it is nice to have another palangi (white person) around when we do tongan stuff since Elder Talasinga and the Tongans just talk to each other in there language. Speaking of tongan I actually am learning alot. My goal is to be with Elder Talasinga for 2 transfers and I will be semi fluent then. I told president that I wanted to stay in the Tongan program the rest of my mission and he didn't say no so who knows, I could come home speaking a foriegn language after all!
So my area is doing fabulous. This month is looking so good. In the next 2 weeks we should baptize 8 people! We have a ton of investigators and we keep getting really good referrals. We got a call Sunday night from a ward mission leader saying that a part member family just moved into the ward and the dad who is the NM said he was really interested in being baptized! So we should start teaching them in a few days.

Elder Jordan Shillingburg ~ Serving in Chili (MTC)

The Elders who were in this room before us, played a prank on us. Every now and again a woman’s voice would announce the time. It was always off by like 6 hours. I was very suspicions and have watched a few too many movies. I started check all of the air vents. There was an alarm clock so yeah…. Once we leave here we are gonna program it to go off from like 1 A.M to 5 A.M. and announce the time then put it back in the air vents.The Spanish is coming along fine, I’m not too worried about it. I learned more in 3 days than I did in 2 years back home.We had to give the first lesson three times so far and it seems like Elder Jolley and I do pretty well together. We had a devotional on Tuesday and Dalin H. Oaks was the speaker, it was Cool.
Yo se que el Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios, Jose Smith es un profeta, y Jese Cristo ees nuesto Salvador

Elder Nicholas Takis ~ Serving in Missouri

"AHHH!!! my mama cita... I miss you soo mucho deary.
Ok so I have to apologize for last week.. we really didn't have too
much of a p –day and I didn’t really have time all week to email you
guys.. I am soooo sorry.  We've just been sooooo crammed with this Gladys
Knight fireside thing coming up soon.. we have a ton of referrals and tons
of people to see. Good News though, something pretty amazing happened
about a week and a half ago but I cant take credit, it was the Lords idea..
so I had a dream a couple weeks back that like 30 missionaries
came to our area downtown and we all went out and found all our less
and inactive members and brought them back to church.. It was one
of the most distinct dreams I have ever had.. so that week at our meeting
with the branch council, I said what if we had a missionary blitz in our
area for a few hours and found alot of our lost sheep..branch president
Sleet said that would be awesome.. SO guess what??/ we have a Huge
mission blitz coming up..I talked to president Turley and he said "well how
many missionaries will you need"..haha.. so on august 23 we have a missionary
blitz team up with members.. There will be 20 missionaries and like 20 members
and we're splitting and visiting 200members... Crazy huh!!! I'm soo excited..time
to brings those peeps home.. ya know.. We call it "Operation LOST SHEEP"..
very hush hush -lol  ok..anyways, wow, things are really happening right now..
we just found two new families to teach and one lady who wants to be baptized..
her names Shirley.. and today I tracted into a long time member, Connie Holtz..
she stopped coming when her husband passed cause shes disabled. Shes a
sweet heart.. I got her some tickets to the Gladys Knights thing so it’s a date..lol."

 

Elder Carter Zufelt ~ Serving in Colorado

Carter was transferred to Lakewood, CO last month and was made a ZL. He has a great companion, Elder Emmett, from Irvine, who loves to work. There are so many to teach in his new area. He is loving it. Did you know the Olympics Opening Ceremonies were actually celebrating Carter's year mark?!!! Yes, they were. The world was celebrating with us.!!!!!!!!

Here are some quotes from him. "One of our investigators is Erich, a Baptist who is searching for more. He was taught the Plan of Salvation and he couldn't sleep that night because he was thinking of it all. He marked up

'Our Search for Happiness' and he is going to go to a Mt. to pray. He is the man and he will join. Zone Conference was great, but it was weird to sit on the stand. President is an amazing man of the Lord and it is beautiful being able to work with/near him. This church is amazing and it blesses people’s lives everyday.

p.s. We have a horrible bed bug problem and we are getting sprayed today. I have bites all over my body. They are so annoying. Dumbest little insects ever. I hate them."

"Yesterday I told God that I was going to put my pen down on the map and wherever it landed we were going to tract there. I did and we drove there to do it. It was amazing the results we received. Almost every single person was warm and listened to us and we were able to teach at almost every door!!!!...We got three solid new investigators from that day. God totally hears us and he listens to what we say and do. He guides us and directs us when we let him."

Shotlight on our Missionaries!

2008-05-15T09:59:00.001-07:00

Elder Tyler Doyle (On the right) on a waterfall in Guatemala
Elder Alex Morgan has a Mini Missionary!
Elder Wilson in the Middle with the dark hair, Hanging with some buds.

May Newsletter

2008-05-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Elder Shelby Burton

hello hello there. well we have transfers tomorrow but my companion and I are actually staying, which will be good because we have some amazing people we are working with and the lord has really been helping us find people to teach, so I am really excited for that, the ward is really supporting us which has been a great blessing. Well I love you both tons, and will talk to you soon. loves Love, Elder Burton

Elder Tyler Doyle

We talked to Ty for almost 2 hours on Sunday. We brought Brandon in on a conference call from Hawaii for the first half hour. Tyler says he's nervous to come home cuz he doesn't even know how to talk to a girl. He's totally blown away with Brandon getting married. We assured him that we would help "Re-Americanize" him. He's been happy being out in the middle of the jungle for too long.
He's requested an immediate massage and a trip to the dentist when he gets home. I told him I could arrange that. He thinks he's so fat and needs to start working out the second his plane lands.........Yeah.........I'm feeling really bad for him with his extra 15 pounds!!!! I don't see it in the pictures.

So, 16 weeks to go and I think it will go by fast. Justin's papers are going in this week I think.

Elder Clifton Dudley

Clifton returned from Brigham Young University the end of April. So, now we have about five weeks to finish final preparations before he enters the MTC on June 4th, headed for Mexico, Monterrey East. His "non-farewell" is scheduled for May 25th. We meet at 10:30 in the Rocklin Stake Center. We welcome any of you that would like to attend.

Sister Teresa Hall

" I Love my mission, it is hard. I have had some really breaking moments, where only my Heavenly Father could console me or my Savior, but...it has taught me to lean on them for support. I love the quote in from the Joseph Smith movie when the mom says in a round about way, 'You must gain love and comfort from God, that which man cannot give or take away.' That has also given me deep comfort.

I love the people here, they are Crazy! I see alot of hardship and really bad choices and the effects that it has on people. But by being here, I see that all the good and all the bad that I have gone through in my life has prepared me for THIS mission. To help these people. I give them my heart and I think they feel what my heart is telling them.

Elder Keenan Harris

"I loved my mission!! The Taiwanese people are the best in the whole world!"

-Keenan Harris

Sister Nikki Hydrick

The work is good here. I am doing well and I did send you another letter with pictures from both baptisms and Kathleen and Marcus' wedding. We are working with two new investigator families now. One of them is recently in from duty in

Iraq

as well. Edward got back and got all sorts of accolades for service but works at the shipyards in Portland and keeps telling us he is not proud of what he did nor what we are doing over there. There's a lot of pain to work through...but he listens and he already knows. He has said he believes Joseph Smith; that he knows God would speak to him and he knows the church is true.
So... they have kids and are so humble and trying to make a better life for them. I expect some amazing changes with them too.
We also got a call last night from a guy we talked to on the street for about 5 minutes two months ago. Since then he's been secretly investigating and he called us last night to inform us that he and his wife want the discussions so they can get baptized. I didn't even remember him at first. You just never can tell what will happen.

Elder Doug Kelley Our son was able to call home from a member’s home when he was out in the field. By the way, our son returned home this week! We are very excited for his return. The spirit he has brought home has strengthened our entire family.

Elder Kevin McGuire
zone conf last week was really really good. elder oaks talked the entire time about the spirit and it was really powerful. he is just a inspirational guy. i got about half of what he said because the other half i had to translate. u win some u loose some. the other cool experience was meeting with this athiest girl (rita) who comes to angol ora and we talked a lot about god and faith. i was really led by the spirit and i could feel the power behind what i was saying. she read and prayed and is really excited. she said on the phone, ?in the alma chapter he likens a seed to our faith. it is such a sweet example, it grows there are roots. i was smiling the whole time i read it.? she came to church and loved it! she said she was really surprised. we had another new guy come to church on sunday, so we will see what happens with him. we also met with a pro soccer player fom ghana that we streeted. he only speaks eng. but lives here and plays soccer, so whitti and i taught him. it was another good program. it was entirely different to hear all this in my own language. it was so incredible to bear simple testimony about Christ and the bom in english. we are meeting with him again. then, i gave a talk in church based around the talk of ?its true isnt it then what else matters?? i had prayed a lot to really be given an idea of how to address this and my prayers were really answered.

Elder Alex Morgan

"I wanted to share an experience with you that happened last week. When the new missionaries arrived last week, one of the trainers, Sister Reeves, was walking around the corner when President Yardley saw her crying. President of course was fearful of what happened. (You could only imagine anything could've gone wrong) and in almost a voice

of sobbing she told President that her mom had decided to be baptized! She was crying because she was so happy. Later when all of us missionaries were out talking with her she said: "...and my dad is taking the missionary lessons and is reading & praying about the Book of Mormon." She is witnessing firsthand how her missionary

efforts here in Boise are blessing her mom and dad at home."

Elder Cameron Pettey

On the last day that E Shurtliff and I were together some member hooked us up with some money and told us to go to a bomb churrascaria. It was way nice and had tons of food. Sooo good. And I tried an octopus tentacle! It didn’t taste like much but a little chewy and weird feeling tentacles in your mouth. Oh and then later I still had a few things on my plate but not much thank goodness because I was cutting some meat a bit too close to the edge I guess and my whole plate just flipped over onto my lap. hahahahah. It was embarrassing, a waiter laughed at me, but hilarious.

This week was cool. We visited Aurelio and Shirley this week and he was looking for a job. But he lost his documents, diplomas, etc in a fire when someone decided to light their house on fire. And Brazil doesn’t do anything because they are corrupt. And he couldn’t find the copies he made either. So he was really down about it and we tried to help him out. E Shurtliff told a little experience he had about praying to find something. The next time we visited them he was happy and had a job. When we left the family prayed to help find it and right after the prayer he looked in his wallet (which he already had done like 15 times) and he found the paper! How awesome is that. I was so happy to hear that. Cool that they actually did what we taught them and that they had such immediate results. He has already finished 1st Nephi and has made a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by like Oct or something! ha. So awesome. He’s like oh yeah I read the Bible in a year and I figure the BoM is smaller so I can finish faster. hahah

Elder Jared Roberts
My greenie, meu filho as we call them, went out and marked this elect family for baptism, I´m proud of him. Guess what day, that´s right, april 26th haha. We are marking everyone for that day telling them it is a special day and could be even more special if they got baptized. Then they ask why it is already special and we tell them its my birthday and they like the fact that we want to spend my birthday at their baptism, you gotta work the angles sometimes, you know what I´m talkin about?
We have some investagators that are straight up gold, we went to their house after inviting them to read and pray about the church and we were like "so you guys read right?" and they were like "yeah we did", and I said, "ok, so we know that we have to do something after we read right? What is it?" and thy both said "pray", which most people don´t say, cuz they forget. And I said "yes, did you pray?".. they sort of look at each other and then she just blurts out," alright- well from what i felt after praying, I´m getting baptized" By the way, she had never even been to church before. Then he said that he felt the desire to go to church too. Their names are haróldo and durce, they are getting baptized on april 26th, it´s gonna be a big day.

Elder Jared Schmidt

Well I do want to tell you about the family we got the referral for last week THEY ARE AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! oh man they are incredible and really have given me that spiritual boost I have been needing lately. They are so ready and prepared. On the first lesson the spirit was so strong and we gave them the 24th of this month for baptism! They want us to come by every day and teach them. When we come over they act like kids at Christmas. the husband was raised by a Jewish mother and a Baptist father. He has studied religion so much both ancient Hebrew and Christianity. When he reads the book of Mormon he gets so excited because he says, this is the link! this is the link between ancient Judaism and Christianity. He loves the Book of Mormon and already is through 1st Nephi and wants to read the whole thing before his baptism. His wife is equally amazing! In fact we had to give them their own copies of the BOM because they fought over who got the Book of Mormon for the day. On Saturday night we took them to the church to give them a tour. The spirit was so strong. When we walked into the chapel Brother Gray ( that is their name) said you can really feel the spirit of the Lord in this room. They were really quiet and just stood in the chapel for a couple of minutes soaking it all up. We ended by showing them the baptismal font and they almost started crying! On Sunday we took them to church and they loved every minute of it. In fact it was fast and testimony meeting as you know and they both got up and bore their testimonies!!!!! and they were so powerful. I could not believe it! I was floored. This was their first time ever going to an LDS meeting and they bore their testimonies about Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon! It was a very powerful meeting.

Elder Jared Shillingburg

Jared returned home on April 16^th at 10 P.M. It was So exciting going to the airport to pick him up. I was So nervous all day I could barely stand still.
The next day at 2 p.m. the mail came with Jordan’s Mission call. Jordan will enter the MTC on August 13^th 2008 to serve in the Antofagasta, Chili Mission

It was quite a wonderful two days at our home!

Elder Cameron Smith

Yet another great and marvelous week. I can't explain all of the feelings that I have been through this week. I have been sad and happy, angry and annoyed, frustrated and have felt the spirit so strongly. This week the most eventful day was probably our appointment with Pasqaule. We met him at 5:30 and he said that he had a lot of questions about the Joseph Smith and the organization of our church meetings because he came on Sunday and was really interested. We had decided however that we were going to teach him a first lesson about the Restoration and watch the movie The Restoration to explain about Joseph Smith. It went so well and the spirit was so strong. We started by reading Hel 5:30 and told him to pay attention to the spirit. We talked about our Heavenly Father and the importance of families, Prophets and dispensations and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and then we watched the movie. I love the scene when Joseph is walking into the grove and the MOTAB is singing in the background. The spirit is just booming at this point. After the movie Anziano Mckee bares amazing testimony and I follow with mine and we are just expecting him to say that he wants to be baptized. It was just so amazing the expression on his face. He was really touched by the story of Joseph and I could tell that he really felt the spirit.

I love you so much and I pray for you!

Elder Kyle Smith

We had 12 investigators and church yesterday!!! It was amazing, they just kept walking in. Members just kept bringing in friends, a lot of our investigators showed up and some people I have never seen before. It was incredible. Our gospel principles class was packed and we were so busy making sure everyone got properly introduced and enjoyed their first church experience. The work is really progressing and it is just increable to see things pick up from what they have been in the past. We don’t have anyone with a baptismal date because we keep running into a bunch of problems with immigration issues and stuff like that, but we are getting closer.

We are still working hard and finding more people. We have so much work and so many people to take care of it is ridiculous. I am really enjoying all of it. I really hope that I get to stay here for a long time.

Elder Nicholas Takis
"But let me see, this week... ok, Monday was Norma's funeral and it was nice kinda hard but I'm sooo happy for her.. shes home.. um Tuesday we had like 3 appointments and we tracted into this hispanic family that wants us to come over and teach them.. they pretty much all speak no english except for Rojello who is like a senior in high school or something..but they are way open, I'm so excited to teach them, its a
huge family..you know how that is.. anyways, Wednesday we taught Norma Jeans sister Mary Anne and her family and it was crazy.. her brothers were drunk and being disrespectful and stuff and I asked them to leave or something and they wanted to fight..haha, i just laughed and tried to keep teachin.. Mary's having a hard time reading the BoM cause shes not used to the
old english so we've made it a goal to read everything with her and explain it all, shes way receptive.. what a nice lady, I think she's about 40 and just a sweetheart.. We were tracting out Brown st. and its this gorgeous little neighborhood at about 5 o clock and ran into this lady, long story short, she has an
autistic kid that likes running from her so we pretty much taught a lesson on the run.. unfortunatly our efforts seemed to be in vain.. she doesnt have time right now for another lesson.. oh well.. !! Seed Planted!!l

Elder Tyson Wheeler

Your prayers for me and our branch are sending us soaring. At my suggestion Leo Lira is a ward missionary and I might as well give him a tag. He is from the beautiful country of Venezuela and has returned to activity with a bang. He said he was preparing himself, because when he does something he goes all or nothing. I really look up to him. The branch is fired up about the work! From March 2008 Liahonas to Predicad Mi Evangelio’s and we are just getting started. Yesterday we had 14 investigators at church! All our investigators are all so good? Gold, pure gold.

Two of the investigators at church were Lucio and Felipe. We are teaching them with a group of about 4-5 coworkers. They are illiterate. We promised them that by the time we help them finish the Book of Mormon they won’t even remember what it was like not to read. And I shared with them Matt 20:30-34. We all felt the Spirit.

Elder Carter Zufelt

so i guess the foutzs went out there and called you. they said that they called the house and someone screamed into the phone, i told her that it was definitely my awesome family!!!! we are still teaching mike and i have some awesome news about him for
you!! we went by 6 days ago to check on him and he was passed out in a chair holding his cell phone. we knocked and he didnt do anything. i spoke loudly into the screen which was open and he came to and started mumbling some wierd stuff. he came to the door and was wobbling like crazy. he was so drunk and he had emptied 2 12 packs of beer!! i was so stunned at how drunk he was. it was bad. that same night we got him to try and quit for 1 month. i went up to the counter and started pouring the beer down the sink (it feels so good to do that). when all that was gone he showed us his "secret stash" of liquor and we poured that as well. he had alot!!! today is his 6th day of being sober!!!!! it is so exciting!!! this is the window that we need to use wisely. we need to get him to church while he can feel the spirit!! hopefully we can get him there. it is so cool to see how much of a different person he really is. alcohol is HORRIBLE stuff. dave austin picked a time to read the BOM daily and he started that as well. he is also attempting to give the chew up again. tobacco is horrible stuff as well. hopefully he makes it, he can with the Lord. we are still teaching the 9 year old, Candice, the district is doing good. 4 and 8th wards are tearing it up. we are trying to change different things to bring different results. we have lately been emphasizing service with the ward and investigators, so i'll let you know how it goes. it sure does feel good to work hard and help people out. dad and mom thanks for teaching me how to work hard. it helps alot and i'm thankful for it (i never thought i'd say that, but it is true) thanks. well, being a missionary is still amazing!! i love it and love serving the Lord. this is where i am supposed to be and it is hard but sooooo worth it. stay strong and true and know that i love you. bye-elder zufelt"

March/April News

2008-03-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

Elder Tyler Doyle

How are u all? I totally forgot about Easter. Yeah, here, all the Catholics here worship their idols and carry big statues of Mary and Jesus on their shoulders. That's about it. It's way awkward to see. The kids usually laugh and ask us to help them carry it.

This week went great. The work is way slow. My comp didn't even get to know the members when he was here with his last comp, so we did that a lot this week. I know most of them already. There are a lot of ex-missionaries in the branch. Some are apostate. The ones here in the branch do the translating in Kekchi, since they know Spanish as well. That's way cool. The members are way cool.

We have a cook so we eat well. The house is way small. The shower sucks. I use rain water (the water is in a tank and at night I bet you there are fat snakes inside, but I shower any ways). I use a little bucket and I dump the water on my head. It's way cold so I hate to shower but I have to do it.

The mission is great. I am starting from scratch here in this area, but i will pick it up. Ya, so thanks for everything. All the support and the emails. u r great. Conference is coming up. I can't wait. I am fine here. Don't worry about me. See ya later. Elder Doyle

Sister Teresa Hall

...so you're always asking and I never have time- so here is some info
I am teaching.. Zack he is 10 and just got set for baptism, on my
birthday might I add. That will be a sweet gift and a great memory that on
my 22nd B-day I had my first baptism! He is sweet such a good kid. I
love him dearly and cant wait to see him grow up and go on a mission!
His family is not LDS, but we're teaching his mom with him and we feel
with some time that she will join too.

I love to teach, I see some strange stuff
but most of the time I just laugh about it when we get in the car and
my companion laughs with me. But I love it, I like it and I know that
I am doing the Lords work. It is not always easy; things have at times
been rough. But I am on the Lords side and he see's my struggles and
knows my heart. Even when I am not doing all the right perfect little
things he still stands by me and helps me.

Elder Keenan Harris

Well just the normal here. We have no investigators, but we have a lot of inactive, we got an inactive family to come back last Sunday and it was awesome, they hadn't come for over a year! Then we got this one awesome lady who is like 60 years old to come back also, she got baptized way back in 1961 and she is a police officer, she came back also. We had the wonderful ability of giving her a blessing, because she is about to go have surgery, and she said she had been really stressed out, then we came and that really helped her out a whole lot. She hasn't been to church for a long time until Sunday. She was really worried that no one would remember her, because she hadn't been in such a long time. So that was really exciting. Out here in Taiwan almost any holiday isn't really celebrated except Christmas, so nothing special for Easter. They didn't even mention it in Sacrament meeting. My birthday was too special; we didn't get our monthly money until the next day so then I got some blueberry Cheese cake that was just amazing. I have not gotten my Flight plans yet, but I'm happy that mom told me. Oh I will just keep e-mailing your old e-mail address, because it is just for another little while. I'm also talking to Adrain about getting a place to live, up at the Y, cause He's said people are already starting to sign up for places to live. But I really don't know what needs to be done.

Elder Scott Haycock

Things are going great here in Iowa just as usual! Today is raining really hard but the next
couple of days should start heating up so thats good. The weather here is wacky...and i
miss back at home when weather would usually be about the same all the time...here you
never know what to expect. But anyways the days and weeks continue on going faster and faster. Just a reminder next week is transfers..can you belive it?...and so i wont email till wednesday... I really dont know what to expect this transfer i hope i stay here but the more and more we look at it its looks like ill be leaving...but thats ok too i'm excited to meet more people too. Well anyway...this week was pretty interesting. Yesterday at church i was translating for these English people and it was fast sunday because of next week, but yea sacrament went really long. Here in the branch they dont really look at the time. They will continue going until they are done so sacrament went until 12 and church started at 10. So yea that was pretty interesting...almost every single member went up there and said something so it was pretty interesting. Hahaha but yea translating for 2 hours while fasting is not such a fun thing but it is an experience i guess. Hhahah well another interesting thing that happened this week was we were invited to go to a members house for dinner i think it was on wednesday. Well anyways we get there and we sit down at the table and the wife(hermana Azucena) puts this huge metal(i guess you would call it a pot but it looked more like a bucket) anyways...so after she does that Hermano Tono says in english 'Sea food...YUM!'....so yea so pretty much that consistansy of it was a some kind of soup with fish in them....it was odd and
while i was trying to grab one of these fish one of the heads of another fish pops through the soup....hahah it caught me a little off guard so yea...pretty interesting...but it tasted good once
i got all the bones out of my mouth..:)

Sister Nikki Hydrick

I am here in the Tri-cities area (in Kennewick…the Kennewick east stake). We have people on date for baptism already and are teaching loads of people. Our companionship has responsibility for three wards which is an immense amount of people. We had 9 hours of church yesterday and about 4 more of meetings. Wow.

The people here are very humble and there is a lot of poverty. Most of the people we teach live in trailer parks and several women we teach are waiting for their husbands to return home after serving time. Drugs are pretty rampant as well. It’s made me feel exceptionally blessed. There are also some refugees we are teaching. We had to procure an Arabic Book of Mormon this week because one of our progressing investigators is Sudanese and her tribal language is extremely obscure. No one we know of speaks Arabic, but she speaks a little English and expresses how she loves what happens to her when we come into her home. We also tracked into a man the other day who’s from Iraq and whose wife and children are in Syria now after violence broke out in their neighborhood. Also, we see a lot of the developmentally disabled and the elderly and help them in some of the day to day things they can’t do on their own. It fills a 16 hour day pretty good.

Elder Doug Kelley

Today is a good day. I had really good studies. I studied about the God-Head the whole time. I learned that no matter where you read in the Bible, if you keep going, and look more into the context of the scriptures, then you will see more and more plainly that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are separate with the same purpose and mission. Its so obvious now. In John chapter 14,
we see over 10 references to God and the God-Head being separate. And its just amazing! We had an investigator Matt B. Run into anti material. Its so sad, he was really progressing, really
loving everything he was learning and his mom and ex-girlfriend gave him anti stuff and now he is full of doubts instead of faith. I feel bad for Robyn, she is one of the fellowshippers, who is the reason he is being taught. Matt has admired her over the years and seen a light in her. That is
what he wants to know about. Its soo cool! But now he is in a different attitude. We fasted for him Sunday and expect miracles to happen, I know the Lord will help him. Robyn was really upset
when she called us a few days ago because of this info, she told us about it all. By the end of the conversation she felt calm and the spirit was there, I had prayed in my mind for that to happen. I am really glad. She said she appreciated how we always opened with a song and a prayer, and how it set the mood and invited the spirit. We have already gone over all the information he has questions about, in previous lessons. This is the reason I studied the God-Head this morning, because I want to make sure I know where the scriptures are and not just say its in the Bible. In Ch 5 of Preach My Gospel, it says that we are not obligated to answer every concern or question, it comes down to
"is The Book of Mormon true, and is Joseph Smith a prophet?" That is what must be answered, if those things are true, then the Church and all its doctrines stand firm, Gods hand backing them up. Anyway, I am glad I am a missionary and feel the Lord when I have to answer questions of people, sometimes I don't expect to say what I said, it just comes out and they ask how you are so smart, when in reality its not me. It's a pretty cool thing, but if you don't pray and thank God every time it happens it tends to go away. :-)

Elder Kevin McGuire
I had a cool experience with finding this week. We streeted a guy on Tuesday and called and
set up an appointment for Sunday. He ends up being renatas (the one we just baptized) next
door neighbor! Really nice family with 2 kids. Funny thing is that renata says that the kids are
little devils and always pound on her door early in the morning and that the mom is always
flustered and yells at the kids but they don’t listen. renata said that after her baptism that was
one of the first times she felt the influence of the holy ghost because one morning as they were being unruly, she started to get mad and was about to go out and yell at the kids, but she then
had that thought of the mother and how stressed she must be and she said that the anger left
and she was going to offer to watch the kids for a little while every now and then so the mom
could rest a little. renata is sooooo solid, it is exciting to see her progress.

Elder Alex Morgan
This last transfer, Alex got called to serve in the mission
home as one of the assistants. He's enjoying working
closely with Pres. Yardley, and he and his companion,
(E. Peters) have so much fun together that they're planning
on being roommates when they go to BYU in the fall. Alex
will be working with 3 Boise State wards and thinks that
his cousin Bryce, who recently returned from his mission
to Russia, is in one of his wards so they will be able to go
on splits together. It's a small world isn't it? . . .

Elder Cameron Pettey
ok so this week went by a little bit faster, which is good. Saturday through Wed go by somewhat fast, and then its pretty slow the other days. It helps a lot to have gym during the week to break up the eating and sitting. We have gym Sat, Mon, and Tues. Then Sundays are amazing. I never thought I´d love Sundays so much in my life. I wish it was Sundays everyday. And Wed is obviously P Day. This last Friday we went out of the gates and into the real world. First time proselyting. It was a great experience. First of all to actually be outside the CTM and see the sun(I see the sun about once a week prolly), but also to be able to talk to real Brazilians trying to use my Portuguese. I gave away my 1st BOM and gave away pass along cards. All the people were very friendly and nice, well most people. At least willing to listen. I could not understand anything they said if they said something back to me so I made sure I learned I dont understand Portuguese very well and Im learning Portuguese. One person gave me a funny look and kind of laughed because I like rip out this thing about the church in Portuguese and then cant understand anything. Hahahah. He prolly couldnt understand me anyways. But it was a good experience and afterwards, our instructer, Irmão Suarez bought us all an ice cream cone from McDondalds. yes McDonalds. It was way good. He said prolly the best ice cream in Brazil. hahah.

Elder Andrew Pulsipher
The spirit of this place is amazing. I have learned so much about the blessings of obedience
along with the importance of missionary work. I've learned that I can't learn without the spirit
and I've found that I spend a lot more time on my knees than ever before...
The Preach My Gospel is fantastic. I wish I had used it more before I got here. I'm finally
beginning to really understand about the atonement. Use it at home. Make the kids teach
FHE with it. Mom, you always taught me that I need to witnesses for the truth, my heart and my mind. The gospel is true. Preach My Gospel and the scriptures really teach you, in your mind
and the spirit really does testify to your hear. Now I understand when you would say you know
the gospel is true in your heart and in your mind....

Elder Jared Roberts
We had some miracles last week. Our mission pres has really been working hard with us on meeting all of our goals, so we have to set them realistically. Well we had a goal to have 4
people at church this Sunday but our chances weren’t looking good. So when we had our
chance to change it we did, in our weekly planning session. Well towards the end of the
planning session I started thinking four again, and I told my comp "alright, let’s do an act
of faith, let’s put four, and do everything we can to get four people there, and then leave
the rest to the lord", so we did. So Saturday as the night was winding down we had no one
that would be going to church but we kept our spirits up and kept working until we had to go home, but nothing. We got up on Sunday morning and did the same thing before church at 9, anyway, we got to church and no one.

We have priesthood first, then gospel principals, and then Sacrament.  So priesthood ends and
gospel principles starts and a lady we are working with who hadn’t been home Saturday or
Sunday morning walks in with a big smile on her face, and then right after her, a lady from the
English class walks in... Then another lady who no one knows walks in. We ask her where she
lives, and she lives in our area, then we get to sacrament meeting and it turns out she had her
daughter there with her too, who is 11... Yeah, that’s four.  She said her English teacher is a
member and told her she should go to church some Sunday, she liked it, and she will come
back this Sunday with her son too. Pretty crazy...

Elder Jared Schmidt
This letter is going to be long so mom I hope you enjoy it. Well as you probably read in the subject this was prpbably one of the best weeks of my life. I had so many experiences this week it was unbelievable. Well as you probably know we have been struggling with teaching lately. Just having a hard time finding investigators. It has been really depressing for me because you work so hard and nothing comes of it. Well I have been praying for a miracle, somone to teach, not just for my own benefit but mostly for my companion so he can be happier. Well on Wednsday I got a miracle! On tuesday last week during P-Day we got a call from a woman who said her neighbor expressed intrest in meeting with the missionaries. So we set up a time to come and teach her neighbor at her house Wensday night. That was all the info we had. We arrived a little early so that we could talk to the members & get a little more infromation on this woman. They said her name was Asia Penton, that she just went through a divorce and had been coming to church because it brought her comfort. Well now we are thinking this is sounding pretty good. A few minutes later Asia came over. We had dinner and got to know her a little bit. She is a really neat lady. As we started teaching the first lesson the spirit was just so strong. As we got to the first vision, you could see that she was getting a little emotional. We asked her how she felt as we shared Joseph's experience with her. She said she knew he was a prophet of God. She had been born and raised in Utah and never knew he was a prophet. She said that she knew it was true. The spirit was so strong I felt prompted to ask her if she would be baptized this saturday. My heart has never beat so fast. Saturday was only three days away! She looked at me and said, " all these things have been happening in my life that I thought were so negative, but I realize now they had to happen to lead me to this point. Yes I will be baptized on saturday." Ok so about right then I think my comp and I were about to either hit the floor or scream halelujah. When we left that lesson I was so spiritually drained. We came right home and I prayed to the lord thanking him. I was so happy. I felt like Ammon where my joy was to the point of exhausting my strength. In the next two days we taught Asia three more times. She was so prepared and anxious for the gospel. To put the icing on the cake she asked me to baptize her! So I got to baptize Asia. It was incredible. We found and baptized her in a matter of 3 day's. It really was a miracle!

Elder Jared Shillingburg

We had 3 baptisms on Saturday. The Huel family got baptized. They are really cool. My roommates are really cool. Elder Hamblin and Elder Jewski. Elder Jewski didn’t really like me for the first little while. I don’t know why. They are all pretty cool. I saw 3/5 of my converts in this area at church on Sunday :D. It was awesome. Ashley growing and The Lehns are still going strong. My comp is Elder Jozef Mitchell. He is from Salt Lake City. He is really cool. But last transfer he killed off a missionary (His Companion went home) and now he is killing me. He didn’t have a very good transfer last transfer because his comp was dieing (going home) and he didn’t do crap. But we have been working hard. So I went over to a members house last week, he fed us pizza. I got info from one of my favorite companions and he offered me a job. The job is in Tennessee for 4 months starting in the 3rd week of May and we would be installing security systems. He is going to get me the info and we can talk about it more later. I would have to drive my car over to Tennessee. I just wanted to run it by you in case it does end up happening. Brandon offered me a job selling but I don’t want to sell. installing would be way better. I hope your shoulder gets better. my back doesn’t feel like it is getting any better. It doesn’t bother me at all while I am riding. Well that is about it.. Hope everything is well.

Elder Cameron Smith
We have a date! A baptismal date that is! This last week we had Luis, the brother of Guillermo,
call us, completey drunk and very distraught. Anziano Mckee was talking to him because I have a harder time understanding people on the phone. When he hung up he looked very upset. He told me that Luis was drunk and that he said that he was past saving and to not worry about him anymore. He still wanted to meet with us but didn't think that there was anything more that we could do for him. We scheduled an appointment for Monday, two days ago and he asked that his brother not come. We weren't quite sure what to do with that and so we just decided to plan a lesson of sorts on the atonement and to be ready to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. We figured that he had done something that he felt was wrong and was past saving or something. We arrived early in order to be mentally and spiritually ready to teach him. I played the piano and Anziano Mckee probably prayed a lot and read his scriptures. We had just had our Zone Conference that morning and had amazing talks from the AP's and President about baptism and helping investigators get to that point and how everything that we do including the bus ride to our appointments should revolve around the investigators needs. We just prayed a lot. It was really nerve wracking because he was about 20 min late. But when he did get there he was really excited to see us. We asked if we could start with a prayer and he said that he wasn't feeling that he could pray. So we opened and continued to ask him why he was feeling the way that he was. He explained to us that he had just lost his girlfriend because her parents didn't agree with their dating and he had also lost all of his friends due to that same situation and things that occured. He was really sad and didn't think that there was anything that we could do for him anymore, but that he would continue to come to church. We weren't going to settle for that though. We were too pumped with the spirit. We said, No, Luis this is why we have the atonement and Jesus Christ suffered all so that you might receive forgiveness for those things. We told him that the first step to receiving forgiveness was through baptism. He continued that he was too afraid of God. That he might make a mistake again after baptism and couldn't face God after that. We told him that baptism is just the beginning and that he would make more mistakes. It is a constant journey to salvation, not an event that begins and ends with baptism. Which is sadly what too many people even in the church, believe. We told him, "Luis, you need to be baptized and you need to do it on April 5th." And then we said, "and you are going to pray about that date right now." We kicked out our chairs from under us and got down on our knees and said, "Let's pray!" He looked at us and said, "Oh, lo facciamo alla grande!" which basically translates, "Oh, we're doin' it hard core!" We just looked at him and said you know what to do. He said an amazing prayer and afterwards we asked him how he felt.
He said," I know that it is the right thing for me." SO WE HAVE A BAPTISMAL DATE! We are really excited for the work ahead. All of your prayers are welcomed and I thank you and love you all for all that you are doing for me and my family!

Elder Kyle Smith

We have a lot of really good work right now, some really strong referrals, so there will be defiantly enough to keep me and my greeny busy. The mission is getting ready for the change in leadership that will be coming soon. Our new mission president is coming in June and with that 14 missionaries will be going home at that same time. So that means there is going to be a big change in our mission this coming summer. So I don’t know why but now the branch thinks I can sing. So now they ask me to play the piano and sing, sometimes at the same time, which is really difficult. Yesterday us four missionaries sang “If you could hid to Kolob” in Spanish in sacrament meeting. It was the first time I have ever really had to sing in such a small group, and you all know how horrible my voice is, but luckily the other missionaries drowned my voice out. We are teaching a couple now that came to the Easter Pageant in Mesa with a member family. We gave them a Book of Mormon before our first lesson and when we went back they had read a lot of it, had a bunch of really great questions and had scriptures marked. I get so excited when that happens because that actually means that they really care and want to know for themselves. They understood everything we taught them and you could really see the light go on inside of them. Everything is going so great. I guess I will have a whole lot more responsibility from now on.
Have a great day.

Elder Nicholas Takis
"I dont want this to sound weird, but I’m really not home sick. I’m family sick a bit but not home sick.
I’m not worried about this short two years because we get to spend eternity together, you know
what I mean dude??.. It's sweet out here though, I’m loving it. I just had my meeting with president
last week and he said he was impressed with me as a greeny.. he said I’ve been doing very good
work and being a good companion.. man that was good to hear! I’ts been crazy here, we just set
about 5 baptismal dates last week and the zone leaders came down for team-ups Wed, and then
the Aps came down Friday for team-ups, its been freakin nuts! Oh and two people from my last
area got dunked. I was way excited. They called and told me how they felt and stuff, I cried.. man
this is the best work ever, its crazy.. But man I’m lovin it. Some of the families here are amazing,
there’s this family named the Selanders, and they treat me like there kid.. haha But I think I’ve
talked about myself enough.. how areyou ??, do tell..

Elder Tyson Wheeler
Tyson entered MTC on April 11, 2007. He is currently serving in  
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has been there for four months. The  
city has a Spanish branch who's members are about half from the  
Dominican Republic. In his mission he has met people from all but a  
couple of the Spanish speaking countries in the world. His first five  
months were spent serving in the Asheville area nestled in the Smokey  
Mountains. This area was rural and all together was about the size of  
the state of Connecticut. He didn't get much time on his bike except  
for when they ran out of miles which sometimes meant riding in  
thunderstorms which he described as taking a cold shower outdoors. His  
last two companions have been from Mexico who's families have  
relocated to the United States. He has loved his time with them. He  
loves the food and most of his emails contain information about the  
latest great meal. This week was empanadas with a young Columbian  
family made with beef, eggs and potato bits and deep fried. He is  
expecting two baptisms next week!

Elder Carter Zufelt

He has been serving seven months and counting. He served in Capital Hill East Area right in the heart of Denver for the first six months. He loved all the "kind, black people who were willing to listen". He loved the diversity of the city. He said it was pretty exciting as he heard many sirens each day and saw massive amounts of graffiti. His first serious investigator passed away before he was able to be baptized. He had taught Chuck about 4 months. He was ready to be baptized when he went into the hospital and wasn't able to attend church the one more time he was required before baptism. Carter is looking forward to going through the temple in one year with Chuck. Carter enjoys hitting his brakes when he hits ice and skidding across it for a quick thrill. Carter had his first baptism two days before he was transferred to Grand Junction. He became a trainer and was given the opportunity to "whitewash" a new area. He is enjoying Grand Junction as the ward members go on exchanges with them often and they also get dinner appointments, but he misses the "black people who will listen". Carter enjoys occasionally seeing his friends Shelby Burton and Allan Boberg who are also serving in the Denver South Mission. Carter was just made district leader. He is nervous.

Missionary Mom Lunch

2008-03-10T21:37:00.001-07:00

March 10th 2008,

We had our first meeting of the Rocklin Stake Missionary Mom Group. It was so very nice to meet with other Missionary Moms. We enjoyed hear about everyone's Missionary. Special thanks to Mary Pettey and Stephanie Morgan for starting this wonderful support group!