Kids from the Montgomery Village ward

Service, Excellent Investigators, and Happy Memorial Day - 05/25/2015

Hello Friends and Family,

This week had been very enjoyable. What a way to finish out another transfer! As always we were able to offer lots of service to people needing our help. We did lots of yard work. It reminds me of home and working out in the hot sun for hours. We have been doing service for a lady from France pretty much every day this week. Her and her husband are getting old so they have us come over to cut their grass, edge, pull weeds, and plant flowers. It's all worth it because she feeds us lunch...and I guess it feels good to help some one who is in need too. 

We also have been working with a family form the Phillipeans. We have been helping them out in more of the spiritual aspect of life. In this family there is the mom and dad and two kids, (one boy and one girl), these are the members who were baptized around 3 years ago and they are a really solid family in the ward now. The mom's sister and parents also live there. The sister has been living up in New York but due to some circumstances and a really cool story she has ended up living with her sister, so we have started to teach her. She is really excited about the gospel and she has a baptismal date for the 14th of June. We are also teaching the grandma because she became interested when the 4 members got sealed in the temple about a year ago. Only problem with her is that there is a language barrier between us so my companion has been skyping in his cousin who just finished up his mission in the Phillipiens and speaks Tagalog, so it works out really well. Anyway she is coming a long I'm pretty sure she will be baptized too. As for the grandpa, he doesn't seem to be interested, but we are thinking he will become more interested if the grandma is baptized.

Someone else we have been dealing with this past week is a former investigator named Moses. He is from India and he has a very very thick accident. He has only lived in the United States for about a year so he is trying to get a job. So to make a long story short Elder Brimhall and I had to take him from Gaithersburg MD down into DC so he can take some classes that help people get employed. We had to do this twice and it pretty took up the day both times. We did set up a teaching appointment with him for next Saturday so hopefully something good comes out of it. 

      

Things are going very well here and they are picking up in this Ward. So it should be another great transfer. I am not leaving, but my companion is so ill have to take over the area. So that is what happend this week  and we are getting a handle on it. Thanks for all of your support. Have a great week! And Happy Memorial Day! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Planting Flowerbeds at the DC Temple, Drama Among the Ranks, and Member Involvement is on the Rise - 05/18/2015

Friends and Family,

How is everyone doing? This week has been pretty fun. We have had lots of opportunities to do some service. And some of the service we did was really cool! We were able to go and plant flowers at the temple. It was so fun and it looks so good! I'll have to take pictures of it next time we go there. We planted three big flower beds and we filled them with flowers. After that we planted another bed with a bunch of plants. Then we planted some more along some curbs. After we were done planting, the guy who is in charge of the temple grounds took the 6 missionary's who helped out to lunch. After lunch we went back to work and we worked on tearing old flowers out of the ground and putting those flowers in the temple's compost pile. It took most of the day to do this. It was a ton of fun and it's pretty cool that I can say I have worked on the grounds of the Washington, D.C. Temple!

In other news, drama in the mission is on the rise once again. Before I get into what happened I have to explain a rule. So President Cooke changed a rule. Before, on pday, we had to get up at 6:30 and do our normal routine. After studies, we were free to do whatever we wanted. President Cooke changed the rule and said that we no longer had to wake up at 6:30 and we also do not have to do our studies that day either. So with that said, we can pretty much wake up whenever we want on pday. So last Sunday, we had some Zone Leaders meet up because they had to get ready for an activity that they were putting on for the Zone and they had to wake up really early to get ready for this activity.  These guys are also really into going to the gym.  So they got up even earlier so they would have time do do both. So they ended getting up around 2 am so they could get in a good work out in and still have time to set up the zone activity.  Well at the gym they saw a member and they went up and talked to him because they did not think anything was wrong. Well it ends up that this member called President Cooke, and he got really mad. He called all of the Zone Leader's into his office throughout the week.  To make a long story short this got 3 Zone Leaders released. That's half the Zone Leaders in the mission. You guys may not know some of the lingo, but you should know that this is a pretty big deal. The Zone Leaders are not very happy with how this all worked out and they say it was handled very poorly.

      

Overall, this week has been great! The weather has been amazing and we have been able to spend a lot of time outside which is very enjoyable. The area I am in is also picking up. People are starting to give us referrals and that's when we are the most affective is when the ward's work with missionary's and they help us find people to teach. Some bad news about Eric.  We decided to drop him for now because we have not been able to contact him.  So we are going to let him be for now. But some good news is that someone is on date now and we are going to start teaching her this week soo wooo hooo. Well that my email byeee. 

Mothers Day and Fishing on the Farm - 05/11/2015

Hey everyone! It's been a great week here out on the mission! Nothing really too exciting has happened except for Mother's Day and today. As far as missionary work goes it has been going pretty slow so we have been doing lots of service which has been great! I have grown to love service. Mother's Day was awesome because after our 5 hours of church we went to a members house and hung out till it was time to call our family's. It was great to talk to them! 

Today was  have a really fun!  My companion and I, and a few other missionary's went up to the farm and we fished. We were catching fish left and right and we put them in a bucket. We probably had around 25 fish in the bucket before we dumped it out. It was awesome! 

This week should good. Hopefully some more exciting things well happen. Have a great week everyone! Bye bye

Investigator from Kazakhstan, Ranica's Baptism in Antacostia, and Do-It-Yourself Haircuts - 05/04/2015

Hey everyone! How is life? This week has been pretty great for me because of a few things. First of all our investigator Eric is doing well. He is a little strange but he is doing well. He is probably in his mid 20's and he is a really smart guy. He is really into history.  He is originally from Kazakhstan, or how ever you spell that, and he has lived in the United States most of his life. Anyway he has a Baptismal date for the 24th of May, but we are not sure if it is going to hold or not. He has had a couple dates before but he keeps pushing it back. A couple of weeks ago we did have a very good conversation and we think we found that the main problem with him pushing his date off was because he hasn't really read the Book of Mormon. He has only read 2 or 3 chapters but we have been meeting with and reading it with him so that has been good. So that's how things with him are going.

         

Probably the best thing that has happened this bast week was to be able to go to Ranica's baptism! It was so good to be able to see her and everyone back in the Anacostia Ward. It was a really great Sunday. She was very happy and excited. Lots of missionary's came up for it so it was like a big Anacostia reunion. Anyway those were the highlights of my week. The lowlights would have to go to allergy's yay!! First time I have experienced it in my life and let me tell yeah it's not pretty haha I can't breath through my nose. Oh I guess another highlight is that I cut my hair for the second time and so I saved 20 bucks. I don't think it looks that good, but whatever. I don't really care as long as I don't hear how I need a hair cut from President. Well that was my week! I'll try to send more personal emails later byeeee.