100 Days Left!, Thank you cards, Service at the Farm, Cherry Blossom Parade, Ward Dance Limbo, and Why I Believe with Senator Pressler - 04/18/2016

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late email! It's weird how fast the weeks go by. I don't really know what to say anymore because I feel like I've said it all by now. In emails and in person. We did a lot of service this week, and because of that, I now have some color to my face and arms. 

Tuesday we did a few check ups on members and a few others. We figured it'd be a good time in the afternoon since school gets out around 2:30 and we'd catch a few at home. We did our best but only some of the Carver family was home so we had a good chat and talked with them about Sister Carver's conversion and about the work. We're doing this new thing where we made some cards with our pic on it, writing something like a thank you in it, and leaving it at all members so it's a reminder to do missionary work that day (assuming they put it on their fridge and see it before they're out the door). 

Wednesday we had service at the farm and it was great! Helped move some dirt around, sprayed for weeds/bugs, trimmed trees, and had a great time serving. The guy that runs the program there is Mark, (I don't know his last name). He's a real nice guy. We met with Marie, one of our investigators, that evening and brought Mary Ellen Blewett along with us to meet her. We talked a lot about how the church makes life better and Marie agrees with all we talked about. Now we just gotta get her to act! :) read a bit from Mosiah 2. Mary Ellen is a great missionary and actually taught most of the lesson haha. Good stuff. 

Thursday was meetings,  then we helped Kevin Clark do a few things and then they fed us dinner. Such a nice family. After dinner we head up to the farm for an over night exchange.

Friday we were at the farm most of the day and it was good. Did a lot of weed spraying and weed pulling. It was actually pretty fun. We then hustled over to the Chipman's for dinner then helped set up for a Ward dance for Saturday. 

Saturday day was pretty cool so listen up. Sis. Cooke was able to set up a sweet service opportunity with Events DC for the whole mission, so about 150 18-20 year old missionaries. We got to help out at the Cherry Blossom parade on Constitution Ave. downtown. Some missionaries were ushers and some balloon holders in the parade. We had to be there at 8 am and we got our green long sleeve volunteer shirts. We wore them over white shirts a tie and had our name tags on the front so people easily identified us as LDS missionaries. Sick right? We did that for the better part of the day til mid afternoon. We visited some investigators that have been giving us the slip lately and had some success in contacting some of them. We attended the Ward dance and only participated in the limbo pole song haha. Was good to talk with people there. 

Sunday we attended the meetings and they were fantastic. Teachings of the priesthood and prophet. Some great questions were asked then answered. Dinner at the Elliott;s was so much fun! :) We had Why I Believe and the speaker was Senator Larry Pressler from the Chevy Chase Ward. He was baptized last year on 19 April, 2015. He spoke about his story of becoming baptized and it was over a 30 year period. 

Over all it was a great week! I love being able to serve people and I feel like it is one of the most affective ways to do missionary work. Thanks for all that you do! Have a great week! Byeeeee

100 Days Left!!!

Improving Missionary Work in the Kentland's Ward, Pony Rustling on the Farm, Dinner With the Pattersons, a Good Meeting with a New Investigator, and Igor's Baptism - 04/11/2016

Hey everyone! 

Hope you all had a great week, it's been awesome to read your emails so, thank you so much for sending those. This past week has been kind of tough but, it was also pretty fun. 

On Monday Elder Crandall and I pretty much chilled for the entire day. We went to one of the nicer malls in the area and looked at all the things that we can't afford. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be haha. After we had finished at the mall we went home, ate some food, and then we went to the Miller family to have Family Home Evening. It was really fun! We shared a short message and then we played games with the family.  

On Tuesday we checked on a bunch of less active members but unfortunately nobody was home. We did drop by one of the members the missionaries had to been teaching and we had a nice discussion there. After we were done visiting with her we had dinner at our Bishops house. We met with his family and got to know them. After dinner we had a talk with our Bishop about some things we can try to implement in the ward to get people excited about missionary work. For a while now, the Kentlands ward has been really slow in the area of missionary work, so we are trying to come up with some other ideas that would be beneficial for the ward. It was a great meeting and I think it will help the ward out a lot. 

On Wednesday we had service at the farm. It was really exciting to be able to go back to the farm and to work. We spent most of the day trying to catch a pony so, we could hook it up to a cart. It was pretty frustrating, but it was pretty funny. We have a few videos of us trying to lasso this pony. While we were doing this I actually got a massive rope burn on my hand. One of the missionaries was able to get a lasso around it's neck but, the pony pulled loose. The pony started running in my direction and so, out of instinct I went and grab the rope. The rope slid right through my hand and now I have a massive rope burn. After we got done at the farm we had dinner with one of my good friends!

Levi Patterson and his dad were in DC for the week and they got in contact with us and said they wanted to take us out to eat. It was awesome being able to see them! After dinner we went and checked on some more people but unfortunately nobody was home.

On Thursday we had our district zone meeting. The meeting went pretty well, I did not have to plan too much because the zone leaders were planning on taking most of the time, so that was nice. After our meeting we met with a family in the ward for dinner. After dinner we had an appointment with one of our investigators, Marie. This was the first time I had met with her and this was the first time Elder Crandall had met with her since being back in the area, so we went into the appointment with the plan of introducing ourselves and building a relationship with her. It went really well. She is very nice and is very open to us and about her concerns. We are pretty excited for her and we feel like she will be able to start making those steps in the right direction. 

On Friday we had our weekly planning session and then we went out and knocked on doors and checked on some less-actives. 

On Saturday we did some of the same things with really no results. We were able to make some contact with a few less-actives in the area, so that has been nice. 

Sunday we had our regular church service and after that we headed down to my last area for a baptism. Igor finally got baptized!! It was so awesome! I am so happy for him! I was able to give the talk during the baptismal service. After his baptism we spent some time getting caught up with Igor and with the other missionary's in the White Oak Ward. Once we had finished we drove back up to our area for dinner with some members and then we went to the Miller family for a family home evening since they were going to be busy on Monday. And that was our week! 

Thanks for everything guys! 

Have a great week!

Igor's Baptism

Look who we "bumped" into...

Rope Burn...dang pony :)

Transferred to the Kentlands Ward with Elder Crandall, General Conference, and April Fools Pranks - 04/07/2016

April Fools Prank

Another April Fool's Prank

Nice Picture or the Temple with Elder Crandall

Another Nice Picture or the Temple with Elder Crandall

Video Update in Two Parts: Moral of the Story for the Week - Don't Sprain Your Ankle Playing Football!!! - 03/21/2016

Video Update - Part 1

Video Update - Part 2

Silver Springs Zone Picture

Fear Factor, Igor Has a Baptism Date, and a New iPad for FREEEEE - 03/14/2016

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great week! This week has been pretty exciting. 

Monday we had our zone activity. The Zone leaders thought it would be a good idea for us to have a fear factor. Most of the stuff was not too bad but there was a couple of things that were kinda gross. One of the the actives was so one from each team had to drink a McDonald's meal that was all blended up. Another thing was someone had to eat baby food. I had to eat this gross purple oat meal. Overall it actually turned out to be pretty fun. After this I Zone activity we chill the rest of the rest of our P-Day. 

This week we were able to meet with Igor. He is doing well with everything. He was able to come to church this week and he really enjoyed it. He is planning on being baptized on the 26th of this month. 

This week we were able to get a hold of a recent convert who has gone less active. We were able to meet with him and have an awesome lesson on family's. He told us that he wants to come to church, but his work has scheduled him to work on Sunday's. We are going to continue to work with him. 

This past week we were also suppose to go on exchange with President Cooke, but he got really busy so he was not able to make it. His mission is winding towards the end and he has never been more busy. 

Other exciting news my iPad started acting all funky. With battery would drain super fast and sometimes my iPad would randomly die when the battery was around 40%. So I took it into the Apple Store and they said that my battery had gone bad and it was still under warranty so I was able to get a brand new iPad for freeeee. The craziest part was I only had 9 days left on that contract #blessings.

Other then that nothing super exciting this week. We are still trying to get to know the ward and trying to fined more people to teach. Thanks for all the support! Hope everyone has a great week! 

Bye  

Interview with President Cooke, Family History Work with a New Convert, Free Burrito Coupons, Have You Seen Our Phone? Igor Makes it to Church!!! - 03/07/2016

Hey everyone! This week has been a pretty good week. It was very slow for the first half of the week. We have been checking up on potential investigators that are in our area books. The only problem it has been really hard getting a hold of them. 

Tuesday we had interview with President Cooke. It went really well. We had a good conversation about him moving out here after he gets released and a little bit about how I would love to end my mission in the Kentlands ward. 

On Wednesday we had a lesson at the temple visitor center with a recent convert from the ward. She was planning on doing baptisms for the dead and she said she wanted to learn more about how it all happens. We set up the lesson, so it would be focused on the plan of salvation, eternal families, and temple work. Everything went really smoothly tell she told us that she just wanted help with the logistical things, like getting a name off family search and printing it off to take to the temple. We tried helping her out with that at the visitor center, but she didn't have any of the information that she needed. We will probably helping her out with that this week.

On Thursday we had our district/zone meeting and after that we spent some time setting up the rest of the week, with appointments. 

Friday we spent almost the whole day checking on a list of potential investigators again. We were not able to get a hold of a single one. On the positive while we were checking one someone, we found 2 free burrito coupons for Chipotle! That made things a little better. 

On Saturday the low-light was that we lost our phone. When you are a missionary you have to have your phone on you. We searched high and low and we could not fined it anywhere. Finally after a while for looking for the phone we tried calling it. We walked into our roommate's room and we heard our phone ringing. We found it in the gym shorts of Elder Smith. He felt pretty bad that he had totally forgot about picking up our phone. The highlight was meet no with Igor. We.

Decided to go check up on him at the end of the night and it turned out that he was home! We talked to him about what has beefing going on in his life. Apparently he had been having a crazy schedule with his work, but now he got hired as a electrician, so he now has a more stable and predictable schedule. 

Sunday Igor made it to church! He really enjoyed the service! In Priesthood opening exercises he introduced him self and then told everyone that he is preparing to be baptized! We thought that was pretty awesome.  And in other news Bryce (formally known as Elder Paul) came to visit the ward! It was awesome being able to see him again. He hasn't changed at all. After church, one of our investigators invited us to come over the her house. When we got there we were surprised to see that our investigators daughter and her friends were having rehearsals for a dance. One of the reasons why she wanted us to come over was because they didn't have enough boys for girls to dance with. We had to explain to her that we have rules as missionaries. She was very understanding and she still wanted us to stay, so we socialized with with a bunch of 15 and 16 year old's. It was a good missionary opportunity. That was pretty much my week! Thanks for all you do! Have a great week!

Progress with Scott and Sonia, Scotch Bonnet Peppers, More Bad Weather, Exchanges with the Spanish Elders, and Josh's Farewell - 02/29/2016

What is up everyone! This week has been a pretty entertaining week. 

On Monday we got together with a bunch of missionaries and played some basketball after that it was the normal P-Day routine with shopping and what not. Once P-Day ended, we had an appointment with our investigator's Scott, Sonia, and Sonia's kids. It ended up to be us trying to teach a 9 and an 11 year old because both Sonia and Scott were busy working on different projects around the house. It didn't go so well.

     

On Tuesday we were invited over for lunch with the Legendary Sister Mayes. She is famous in this mission for feeding the missionaries and having them eat Scotch Bonnet peppers. It was a lot of fun and I even survived the pepper, kinda. My stomach pretty was bad for a good chunk of the day. After the lunch we spent time finding and trying to get a hold of referrals.

    

Wednesday I woke up not feeling well. So we spent the day inside trying to get a hold of people and trying to set up appointments. Later on in the day the DC area was hit with a massive wind/rain storm. We were told that everyone must get inside as soon as possible.

It wasn't till later we found out that there was a tornado warning for parts of Virginia, DC and Maryland.

      

Thursday we had our zone conference and it turned out really well. All the workshops were excellent. Sister Cooke gave an awesome lesson about how important it is to set up a scripture in a lesson and how you must give it context because it gives it so much more meaning. After the Zone conference I  went on exchange with one of the Spanish elders in our zone. That was probably the least meaningful exchange I have ever been on. All the lessons and the dinner appointment were in nothing, but Spanish. Every single person we met with did not speak English at all. It was kinda funny I tried so hard to look like I was interested in what they were saying, but it was so hard haha. Other than that is was a fun exchange.

     

Friday we spent the entire day helping an older lady move her stuff into a storage shed. We all had a fun time helping out this member in need. When we finally finished we had a meal appointment with some members in the ward. The family was really cool! The dad of the family had retired recently so has picked up the hobby of building harps. He took us all over his house and showed us all the harps that he had made and repaired. He played a little rendition of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" and it sounded sweet! This guy is also really into a type of bike. I can't remember what they are called for the life of me. They are the bikes with the huge front wheel and a small back wheel. They were really popular back in the day. Anyway this guy has a whole collection of them and he said we could give them a try as the weather warms up.

     

Saturday we helped some other people move some things into their house for awhile. After we had finished that we checked on some former investigators and other people that the past missionaries were teaching, but we had no luck.

    

Sunday we had our normal church service. We ended up with quite a few people. Sonia and Scott were able to make it. A recent convert came with her non-member kids that we are trying to work with and a few other non-members showed up because one of the young men in the ward had his farewell talk. He is being shipped off to the Salt Lake West Mission. Scott and Sonia are really enjoying church and we are hoping to put them on date next time we meet with them. We also spent some time talking with some of Josh's (he's the one going on the mission) non-member friends, getting to know them. After church we tried checking up on Igor because we haven't heard from him in a while. I guess he has picked up another job so it will be hard to get a hold of him. Hopefully we will be able to track him down this week and straighten a few things up with him. Later that day we headed over to Josh's for his farewell party. It was really fun getting to know Josh and his friends. Hopefully we will be able to stay in contact with them after Josh leaves.

Well That was my week! Hope all of you are having a good time! Take care!