December 19, 2016

Another great week! We had a Zone Conference/Christmas party on wednesday with all the west side zones (Sparks, Reno, Reno North, Quincy, Fallon, and Carson City) So about 70% of the mission was there, so I got to see a lot of old friends that I had served around before. We hung out at the institute building for the University of Nevada. I didn't lose a single game of Foosball (aren't you proud mom?)

It also snowed! Driving hasn't been too big of an issue, but the roads do get a little icy at night, but it hasn't been anything too bad.

Clara's Baptism has been moved to January 7th, and since she'll be out of town for the next two weeks the last time we have to do her interview is tonight! Elder Hadley is my District leader, he's also in a biking area, so that means we'll have to pick him up and bring him back home, so long miles!

This week ended with a dual sparks stake fireside, "a living Christmas card" as the called it. It was awesome, they had some awesome music and showed video presentations of the Savior's life.

About that, It's Christmastime! I truly love this season. I love how it inspires us to be more kind and loving towards each other. But one thing I've noticed is that rarely that feeling persists very far into the next year. So my invitation to you this week is to try to have that spirit of love and giving in your heart until next Christmas. Think of the gift that God gave us, a chance to become better, become more holy, more Christlike. I can promise you that If you look for little ways to keep the Christmas spirit with you throughout 2017, you will become a Christlike person, a true disciple of Christ. I love you all!

Merry Christmas!!!

December 12, 2016

Hello everyone! We had a lot of success this week. Elder Denton and I are starting to really work well together. We went tracting in the rain on Saturday, it wasn't the most enjoyable experience, but we were able to find a couple new potential investigators and even a part member family that wasn't on our records! I have to admit, I wasn't so excited about tracting at first, but once I bit the bullet I determined that I wasn't going to complain, and that brought miracles! Clara is still going strong, she wasn't able to come to church this week because she was busy, but she's already come like 4 or 5 times, so I'm not worried about her. She is still struggling with understanding what she reads, she reads every day, but we want to help her understand more of what she reads, so every other lesson we'll read with her to help her understand better.

This transfer is going to be awesome, because my district leader is elder Hadley, a.k.a. my MTC companion! This is the 4th transfer we've been in the same zone together, so our exchange is going to be a party! But this week I went on exchanges with his companion Elder Sorochan. He's from Canada, so I definitely had fun with that, Eh? We went on splits with some of the priests in the Red Hawk ward. Talking with them about it yesterday it seemed they really enjoyed it! I hope Elder Sorochan and I were able to get them a little more excited about going on missions through it.

I honestly can't say how much my mission is changing me, and how much I love being a missionary. I get to see so many miracles, and countless tender mercies every day! I love it!

The new Sparks Zone

December 5, 2016

Hello everyone! This week was pretty crazy, with elder Carpenter packing on Monday and then Elder Denton coming from Elko on the transfer van, I was in a temporary companionship with Elder Tolbert who was also waiting for his companion who was coming from Winnemucca. While we were together we taught Clara the plan of salvation. She's super solid, and even got up to bear her testimony yesterday! She’s going to be baptized on January 14th (she has a rodeo workshop thing for two weeks otherwise she'd be baptized this month.) Elder Denton and I had another lesson with her on Friday. While I was with elder Tolbert, we got a care package full of cereal from a member in the ward. When I say care package, think Huge Costco bag full of cereal! We're pretty happy...

A little bit about Elder Denton. He's from Texas, but not Denton, Texas, from a town in east Texas, I don't know how to spell it, but it sounds like Nackidoshus. He's got 11 weeks left! So that means I'm probably going to be his last companion! He’s also a Spanish missionary, so that means I don't have to walk away awkwardly from Hispanic people because I can't speak to them, Elder Denton can handle that!

I hope you guys have a great week! Keep me updated with what's happening out in the real world! I'd love to hear from you!

Stay Righteous Y'all!

P.S. Being righteous includes writing the missionaries... ;)

November 28, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope all you guys had as good a thanksgiving as I did! On Thursday we were able to have a zone activity so we had a nerf war/capture the flag war. We took a lot of the removable furniture from the church and made fortifications and places of retreat and then split up senior companions vs. junior companions and had a blast! We then had cake for elder Carpenter's birthday which we made that morning. It was a red velvet vanilla marble cake. I think we did a pretty good job. I'll probably eat some of it for lunch today. 

Elder carpenter and I also got matching ties from our moms! I don't think they meant to do that though, but hey! It came in clutch!

Unfortunately Transfer calls came yesterday, and elder carpenter will be transferred to Spring Creek... )': My new companion is going to be elder Denton, I don't know much about him, But I'm super excited!

BIG NEWS!!! We had a Lesson with Clara yesterday during 2nd hour at church. She is SUPER prepared, She has been pushing her mom to go to church for awhile, and then she became friends with a girl in Spanish Springs and asked her if she could come to church with her. AND then she went to a baptism and decided she wanted to get baptized too! isn't that awesome! as members of the church we really do have a light about us, people feel the spirit when they're with us. Be sure to always be that example to others! Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words. The members truly are the best finding technique possible. As we show forth good examples to them, people will be prompted to ask questions, and then we will help them find the greatest joy possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Until next week, Stay righteous Y'all!

P.S. the church is doing a Light the World thing, y'all should check it out! 

https://www.mormon.org/?cid=HP_FR_25-11-2016_dMIS_fmorg_xLIDyL1-A_

November 21, 2016

Hello Everyone! So Elder Carpenter's birthday is actually on thanksgiving, so y'all should send him something! Other than that, We had 3 lessons set up for friday, and all of them fell through... one of them, their kids were throwing up, another, he was throwing up, and the third one had a baby! So they all had pretty legit reasons for cancelling. We met this one guy on exchanges, Lenn, he grew up going to religious private schools, and through some bad experiences has grown to distrust organized religion, but he's moving to Utah in May. Almost all of his friends are LDS, and he doesn't know too much about the church, and so in order to understand his neighbors better, he invited us over to teach him a little. We had a really awesome lesson in which we dispelled many of his concerns, we invited him to hear the rest of the lessons and he accepted! So we may just be preparing him and his family for future missionaries, especially since he is going to get his son involved in scouting when he get's to Utah. We also got in contact with Larry, a guy who owns a karate dojo and so he is super busy, but he is super prepared and knows everything we teach him is true. Clara does barrel racing which has made her very busy, but her last rodeo was yesterday, so that means she'll have more time to meet with us now.

That's an update of my life this week! I'm sorry I forgot my camera today, so no pictures ):

November 14, 2016

We had Zone conference on Friday! I always love when  zone conference rolls around. We were combined with the sparks west and Quincy zones (I'm in the Sparks East zone) and so I got to see a bunch of missionaries that I haven't seen for awhile. 

We had a really cool experience this week! We felt prompted to visit this one family right after Zone conference, the dad, Joey, is a member, his wife and two daughters are not. because zone conference always goes long, we didn't get there when we planned, but when we got there, the dad had just gotten off one of his jobs and had literally walked into the door 5 minutes before. We had a nice little visit and brought the spirit into their home.  We feel that the wife has a lot of potential, but they are really hard to get in contact with, so it was a huge miracle that we met them at the perfect time. Missionary work is awesome!

We also did service for a food drive, and I made a throne out of the boxes. 

Til next week!

My box throne

November 7, 2016

Hello once again from the glorious land of Sparks! We didn't have much happen this week lesson-wise, but we did a lot of cleaning up of the Red Hawk area book. It's kinda disappointing when people leave the church because someone offended them... but hey, it happens, just don't let it happen to you, ok? Matt 13:21

On a much more positive note, Ed E. blessed the sacrament yesterday! I don't think I told you much about Ed and Dee E. They were the baptism that I stumbled into my first week, so I didn't really help prepare them for baptism, but I'm helping them get used to church life, so far so good! they love it. Ed was ordained a priest last week, and yesterday was his first time blessing the sacrament. they are doing awesome!

It's always intrigued me how Alma uses the same wording in Alma 32, talking about the fruits of a testimony as Christ does, talking about the waters of life in John 4.

• 
  

• John 4:14

  14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water "springing up" into "everlasting" life.

• Alma 32:41

• 41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree "springing up" unto "everlasting" life.

Well, I said it was a pretty slow week. See you next week!

A few weeks ago, we sent Elder Stotts a package, but it got there right after his transfer.  He just got it and he put it to good use.  We included a store bought pizza crust and all the fixings for pizza plus some Halloween candy.

I got the package! it was on a day that I was going on exchanges and they didn't have a dinner appointment, so we had Pizza! I also made one for lunch and had it with Elder Carpenter.