Spiritual Growth!‏

I am learning so much.. These past few weeks have been really interesting. I don't really know what to write about. Yesterday I read from my journal, it made me appreciate my mission even more.. Elder Adams, the missionary I trained, is training a new missionary this transfer! So that is pretty cool! Elder Douglas and I have experience a lot of things. You feel a lot of feelings as a missionary that's for sure.. You simply come to love everyone you teach and it is sad, and disappointing when they don't progress, and choose not to be baptized but you press forward and look for those who will hear the truth! I love my mission, it is passing by so quick! We have prayed and for the moment we feel that the Lord expects us to find and teach at least 2 individuals that will be baptized within the next 6 weeks. We have a name for each of those and are doing everything we can to be led by the spirit to help lead them to the waters of baptism! Welp! Love ya!

Wellily, wellily, wellily!‏

Hey! It was good talking with you guys yesterday! I was honestly doing my best at the end of the phone call to not ask you for referrals and to commit you guys to send the missionaries to someones house.. Shortly after that I realized I totally could have! I am so excited for this transfer! I don't know that I have ever looked at a transfer this way before but I am so grateful! I feel like I have been re-called to Mt. Pleasant and that the Lord expects an even greater zeal for the work than before. I prayed many times that I would be ready for whatever transfers brought and I feel that prayer has been answered! I love being a missionary, there literally is no greater thing for me to be doing in my life at this point in life, and it's funny, as I sit in the library right now, I have the very best book right in front of me, The Book of Mormon.. this library has infinitely less to offer me in knowledge and truth than what these 531 pages have for me right here next to the computer.. Anyway, that was just a cool thought. Elder Douglas and I are both sticking around. The weather is awesome! We have weeded out some tares perhaps these past two transfers and should be able to truly harvest and baptize this transfer! We are both pretty excited about it! I am quite confident the only two things worthwhile in eternity are missionary work, and eternal progression within our families. It's amazing to me that, missionary work truly being my favorite thing, will be apart of my life forever! That's what the gospel is all about. Missionary work. In no way do we do anything other than just that. We all know the quote, "the greatest work we will do will be within the walls of our own homes." Raising children is all about missionary work! You teach them, you encourage them, you help them do what they must in order to be baptized and they enter the temple years down the road and do the same with their children, and it just continues. Missionary work is one eternal round. President Brailsford, the previous mission president said this, "If you don't like doing missionary work, you won't like living in the Celestial Kingdom." How grateful am I for missionary work right now in my life! I know we don't all get it or do the best job at it.. honestly I am a little stressed when I think that I am responsible for helping people enter the waters of baptism and becoming members of Christ's church, when I feel so inadequate of teaching and doing just that. But the Lord always provides!

We are studying chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel, as a mission right now and my testimony of the Book of Mormon keeps getting stronger and stronger! I remember when I felt for the first time and recognized my testimony of the Church being true when I was a Deacon, I taught the lesson that Sunday in class, Bryce and Kevin were there, and most importantly Brother Pindar, whom I will never forget, it was because of him that I have always understood what happened that day. But when I received that witness at 12 years old, many truths of the restored gospel were included with it, including the Book of Mormon and everything that went along with "Church". I found for myself however, the testimony of the Lord bear witness to me that the Book of Mormon was indeed true years later, when I was 16 (I didn't doubt it was true, but I had never prayed to find out if it was) when I, like Joseph, knelled and prayed in faith, nothing wavering. Since that day, the pillar of my testimony was permanently sealed, never to be broken. It has however been continually fortified.. an almost infinite amount of pillars are there supporting the Book of Mormon, and I seek more as oft as I can. No matter what happens, or what offense I may receive, if all pillars were to fall (which they will not), there would be a firm, steadfast and immovable pillar at the very center, that will not, and cannot fall and upon that pillar are the words of the Lord that he spake to me by the power of the Holy Ghost that day when I was 16 years old!

Ah! I love the gospel! Anyway ya'll are the greatest! I think of you often! Thank you for all of your prayers.. I truly have felt them each! Love ya!

"...come off conqueror..."‏

I pray that I might!

This transfer has been tough stuff! The baptism fell through with James. It is rescheduled for this weekend, he just doesn't understand the Gospel quite yet. Our goal is to teach him everything he needs to know this week. He is a very different person. I've never met someone quite like him on my mission. We pray that we will know what to say, how to say it, and when to say it! Deirdra, one of our other investigators.. We dropped her the other day. We love her and want to see this great change in her life, but after all that she knows to be true, she is struggling to act. She has great problems with her family and marriage right now and those things are greatly effecting her. She also just loves the missionaries and knows that I might get transferred soon so has decided she doesn't really want to talk right now. We told her shortly after teaching the Plan of Salvation, that when she was ready too, she could just call us. It was a sad and confusing evening. She will be baptized, but not as soon as we were expecting. Braxton and his mother haven't been to church in forever. His grandma died and his mom has a lot of emotional things going on, though they told us they were going to be at church they just didn't make it. I love everyone. I am so blessed to serve all of these great people but it sure is tough when loved ones struggle and in the Gospel. The Peterson family is still coming to church all the time. We love em'! The "only" hold back is that the mother, is waiting on her husband, Brother Peterson, before she gets baptized. Yes Baptism ought to be a family affair, however, when you know, you know, sometimes you lead the rest. Brother Peterson has been reading from the Book of Mormon a lot. He is so cool! He says he hasn't had an answer yet as he has prayed about it. He really enjoys church! Man it would be really cool if President McConkie came and visited our ward! That would be sweet!

We had interviews with President last Tuesday! It was a humbling and ennobling(?) time to spend a few minutes talking with President for only a few minutes. He gave me a charge to work even harder and said, "All remarks that are said about you are always good.".. "Time and time again I have had you recommend to me for leadership."..."[The Lord] needs your talents for training or what have you.".. To say the least I felt good, nervous and unsure about what may come about from this conversation.. and I hope that I might be able to serve the Lord even a fraction better than I strive to at this point.... But that was a good experience. I sure do love President McConkie. What a blessing it was to serve in the office and to speak with him often. One of the first things I will never forget that he said to me while I was working in the office was something to this effect.. "You sure are sober minded for someone so small.." Or at least something similar.. he enjoys talking about how short I am. I love him! Anyway! The work will always go on.. and I strive to be apart of it at times before my mission, I am humbly a part of it now on my mission, and I will always yet be apart of it after my mission! Once a missionary, always a missionary! love ya!

A Special Witness Handshake!‏

Hello! I hope everyone is doing well.. I am sorry this letter will be pretty short!

On Friday night while talking with one of my zone leaders he told me that he had just spoken with the assistants and that we were going to be having a "mission conference" (well that's what I called it) the next day! And that we would be having it with Elder Neil L. Andersen! Needless to say there was lots of excitement and we made plans to drive all the way down to Columbia in the morning to be there by 9:15 in the morning.. That meant waking up an hour earlier.. so 5:30am.. but that's nothing.. It was an awesome experience.. Elder Andersen is an awesome man! He joked and laughed and smiled constantly.. He had fun just talking with us! It was great.. Oh and we all shook his hand! That was an awesome experience.. I felt nervous just waiting for him to walk into the chapel.. But I learned a lot out of the Book of Mormon as I read from it while we waited.. So that was a great blessing and I will always remember that day! The work moves on! We are having a baptism this weekend! WOOHOO! He is a funny/interesting guy and I love him.. I find that I love all of my investigators.. I just want them all to be baptized! So that's my plan! I learn a lot.. all the time.. and I suspect I'll keep learning things.. Anyway I love you guys and have really felt your prayers.. LOVE YA!

Blue Angles and Lost Keys..‏

Time moves by way to fast! Elder Douglas and I are teaching A LOT of people and it is awesome! We have 6 right now that are very capable of being baptized.. They are all so awesome.. A great family of 3 that we are working with.. the ward loves them everyone fellowships them and they know the church is true! It is awesome! Another that we are teaching is the son of a member, and the mother was inactive at the time he grew up so he was never baptized and has a lot of difficulty in his life. He is in his 40s and just wants change and peace in his life.. He is awesome so we are working closely with him. Another lady that we are teaching is really struggling.. She knows the church is true, she knows the Book of Mormon is true, and every time we see her she makes great progress and has good fellowshippers, but she doesn't come to church or quite understand the importance of coming to church. Every time she makes great progress she faces great opposition. It's tough because she has already had a witness of the Holy Ghost that these things are true, but she still is reaching out looking for more.. so that's her struggle but we love her and her family.. and the last of the six is James Johnson. He is great! He listens when we teach and comes to church all the time, he is getting baptized on May 1st! The Gospel is perfect! I am so grateful for it.. So this past week was interesting as they really all seem to be in missionary life.. but we came off conquer and had a blast! It started on Monday..

We were in the process of moving to a new apartment yet again because our previous one was really smokey because the person beneath us smoked and so we began to smell like smoke and people began to notice it at church and well we just smelt way bad.. So over the past 3 weeks or so we have been getting prepared to move into a new apartment in the same complex. Finally on last Monday we got to move almost all of our stuff but didn't quite finish. We had at this time the key to both apartments. On Tuesday we had a district development meeting at the church (it was great!). And Elder Douglas and I were going to just be working in the area so we didn't even go back to the apartment. Well at around dinner time we came speeding in on our bikes to the apartment and our ride for our dinner appointment was there so we just locked our bikes up and rode with him to dinner.. Well after dinner we made it back to the apartment and Elder Douglas asked me if I had the keys.. I looked at him and laughed a little thinking he was joking while realizing I didn't have the keys.. So I had lost them.. we did however have a key to our old apartment which did not have our beds or clothes or really anything in it, though it did have a couch and our area map and stuff.. so after praying we made some calls and went out almost the rest of the evening just trying to find out where the keys could be. We stopped at the church and couldn't find them, that was a big bummer we thought for sure they would be there, but we couldn't find them.. Anyway we got back to the apartment without the keys and didn't have much choice but to call another member and search some more. So we went out with Brother Moody around 8:30 trying to find the keys.. It was really important to find them because it had a key to the church on them.. so that was bad news.. anyway we still could not find the keys.. We got to the old apartment.. which was pretty much empty and planned for the next day and I slept on the floor and Elder Douglas on the couch, after all it was my fault the keys were missing so it seemed only fair.. We had no blankets but I did have a South Carolina flag so I used that.. Elder Douglas used his suit coat.. it was probably a pretty funny site.. Anyway. For our early morning exercise, we just put our ties back on and suit coats and rode our bikes for about an hour and a half just trying to find where the keys could have fallen.. never found them.. We went to the management office at our apartment complex which was now open and finally got a key to our apartment and that worked out good, we got to eat and get ready for the day... That night we had missionary correlation meeting and as soon as we got there I saw the bishop outside and went to him and said.. "Bishop, we have some bad news, we have lost our keys which also had a key to the church building on them." He kind of smiled and told me to describe the keys and said that they were in his office on his desk and that someone had put them there and he didn't know whose they were..

It was a good experience as I realized that we need to have that kind of faith and motivation to find new investigators.. to pray constantly to be disappointed when it's not where we would hope it to be and then to move forward with ideas and prayer of where it could be. We needed more faith in finding investigators similar to the faith we had in finding the keys.. However even after all we did to pray, and act and work to find the keys we never did find them and instead they were simply handed to us.. Likewise, and I have a testimony of this, in missionary work you can do everything possible, pray, act, work everything.. and yet the true investigators who will be baptized are always handed to you by the Lord.. Not one person in this great work was ever baptized because the missionaries found them.. They were baptized because they were ready and the Lord prepared a way for them to meet the missionaries or other members of the church!

Other things that were interesting was that the Blue Angles were here on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday making all kind of noise in the sky. It was pretty much awesome! They flew over everywhere doing cool stunts and tricks.. we worked in down town Charleston on Friday and it was almost interrupting the missionary work cause they were SO loud; flying only hundreds of feet above parts of the city.. maybe 2-3 miles off the ground! It was awesome! And another interesting thing.. We were invited about 5 times into this home where a lady and her son were.. we told her we cant because she is a single woman.. she was a little bit drunk.. So we refused to go in.. she insisted on feeding us and we really felt bad for her 8 year old son who was probably much more mature than his age.. we went to their patio where we could stay outside and in public and tried to teach them both as we were given an entire case of chicken.. we ate some and politely listened and taught some gospel principles. The family needed help but she would not let us enlist members of the ward to help her move as she was being evicted the very next day and had no where to go.. That was sad and strange.. But anyway!

I love and miss you guys and hope you are all doing well....!



You Inspire Me!


Mom, thank you for your awesome letter and pictures! You guys look great! I love and miss ya! I am so excited that Rich comes to church! Ahh! That is just so cool!! Yeah back in January I guess it was. I was a little stressed and had some anxiety going on so that's what the bill is about I met with a doctor there and talked with him about how I was feeling! Dads glasses look cool! It's funny being a missionary now I really think a lot about priesthood holders appearance and I love how dad ALWAYS wore suites in my memory growing up, and I remember his olive green suit he always wore.. that was a good looking suit! I think you can tell a priesthood holders commitment by what they wear to church. I remember the red shirt you got me when I was 18.. and how dad didn't want me to wear it on Sundays.. Man! Was that wisdom in him or what.. He's gunna be a bishop one day! I am grateful for a father who understands the priesthood! And of course a mother who understands it just as well! I have the best parents ever! LOVEYA!

What a week!

Howdy! I hope everyone is well! I am loving life as a missionary so I am expecting that the Celestial Kingdom is going to be a blast because it is ALL about missionary work for our families! Elder Douglas is my new companion as of 2 weeks ago maybe.. I think I forgot to mention that. We are moving into a new apartment again today, because are current one is super smokey and people notice it at church, it's kinda funny! Elder Douglas and I are expecting a baptism this weekend and just as the ram in the thicket we know the Lord will provide, however, we have to search the thicket with all of our heart might mind and strength for that to be so! The weather here is great! I am learning a lot from Elder Douglas though this is only his 3rd transfer he is an amazing missionary! I love the scriptures and learn a lot from them each day I study with real intent, desiring to know more! That's the key.. I learned from Elder Burrows, if you want to have a good personal study in the morning you have to have a desire for whatever it is that you are studying! I love my leaders! I love the district. This is a district that knows our purpose "Our purpose is to bring souls unto Christ, by helping them receive faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end! My purpose is to baptize!". This might be the most difficult work one can be apart of but it is probably the most rewarding as well! One thing that I have learned today is that we are blessed by the Atonement because of the great understanding it gives us and the desire we receive from it to be obedient, to be safe, to be loved by Christ and to love Christ. The Atonement is not simply power over sin, but power to become perfect through Christ. How exciting is that? As a missionary you often think: "If people would only read the Book of Mormon, even one page and pray about it in faith they would know by the power of the Holy Ghost that it is true!".. I imagine those beyond the veil might think or say something similar of us all: "If they only knew what the Atonement would do for them!".. Anyway I love and miss you all! Expect good things!


Thanks for the update mom! That's pretty sad news! I will keep Dustin in my prayers..I got an email from Bryce, it was depressing.. I don't understand the whole marriage thing.. It frustrates and confuses me. But I'll get over it! I was just bummed to hear that.. weird huh? Welp we are working really hard here in Mt. Pleasant and are expecting a baptism this weekend. We don't know who it will be, but we are expecting it to be! Sometimes the strongest faith is found in expectation. Joseph Smith didn't know what the answer would be when he prayed in the sacred grove, but he expected an answer! I am loving the work as always.. I get depressed when I think of a time that this specific full-time service ends, but hey! It doesn't have to end. I am going to keep a list of all whom I am blessed to help come unto the waters of baptism even after my mission! I expect to continue to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to be the very best member missionary period! So I asked President about the extension in my missionary report to him, and haven't heard from him yet but will find out at interviews! Thanks for the picture of G & P! I was thinking about them the other day and man, I love them, I can't think of life without them! Man, what if they had never become active in the church? The people blessed by Ben in Mexico would have had to wait longer to hear and accept the gospel, as with Arizona and Idaho and now South Carolina.. not the missions alone but all the Temple and family history work they have done and do, as well as their service as missionaries! We have a great heritage! I hope Pop keeps a journal cause I'm gunna wanna read it one day! I have a great plan for journals after my mission! I am going to compile my journals from before my mission into a small book by typing them all up. Then I will have another book compiled of all of my mission journal typed up as well as my study journal.. and then I will have another book made of my after mission life to the point of getting married.. (or whatever that's about).. and then my first 5-10 years as a parent and then another book about the next 5-10 years as a parent.. and they will be neat and nice and when I die, I will have a stack of like 10 books easily readable for all my future generations! Cool huh! Journals are important, I am learning that. I want my family in the far off future to be able to see my life and who I was and stuff! There are websites I think you can use to type up and have bind into books whatever you want.. And I'll send a copy of my mission journal to President McConkie, and my bishops and stuff.. I'm just way excited about that.. That is a goal I expect to be fulfilled after my mission! Anyway I'm gunna write the fam! love ya mom!

Happy Day after Easter

Yes! I got the package! Thank you so much it was such an awesome surprise and more than I feeling of hunger to eat all the candy I felt genuinely loved! Not that I hadn't felt that before, but I know you didn't send me candy because you knew I liked candy, but because you were thinking about me and love me! Thanks my wonderful mother! Conference was awesome and awe inspiring as always! Unfortunately I realized that it just might be my last in South Carolina.. Mom, can you send me a picture of G-mom and Pop? I want to show it to some members of the ward here and ask if they remember them! Anyway.. I love you and dad and have been thinking about you both so much..! I love you!