Madison Missionary Elder Fellows

So many great kids from our area that are out in the field. Great story here is the link.
http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013/12/mormon_missionary_christmas.html

12-16-13

Hello my super amazing family!!

This week we haven't been able to meet with Robert or Rhiannon, but we were able to meet with a former investigator. His name is Mike. He's kind of got an interesting story of how he started meeting with the missionaries. His wife passed away from cancer about six years ago. Two days after she passed away the elders just happened to tract into him. Coincidence? So long story short, he has had the lessons multiple times and had many different sets of missionaries and we are starting to meet with him again. Hopefully we can find the missing pieces to the puzzle and find out why he hasn’t been progressing. We have also had some success with street contacting. We picked up a very promising potential and her family. She told us that were doing a very hard thing and that she appreciates what we do. She also said that one of her friends from work is LDS. She told us that she wants us to come back and share a message with her and her family. Golden, huh? So well see where that goes.

We had our musical fireside last night. It was amazing! We had all the youth from one of our wards sing in it, all the missionaries in our zone sing in it, and President Kendrick and Bishop Ridley spoke as well. All the songs testified of Christ, and it was just a spiritual drop kick to the face. That’s a pretty accurate way to describe it.

Last week we stopped by our second councilor’s house and got to talking to him and his family. I told his daughter that she gave a great talk the week before. Bad idea, because right after I said that, he said, “So, speaking of talks..." He asked one of us to give a talk the Sunday before Christmas so Elder Jacobsen and I had a rock, paper, scissors, tournament, and I failed. SO… I will be giving a talk next Sunday. Also on Saturday we got a text saying that we would be teaching Elders Quorum on Sunday. I thought when I left on my mission I was done with all that stuff!! Guess not. Being an Elders Quorum instructor before I left really did prepare me for my mission and teaching in general.

It's been kind of tough this past week. We talked to a less-active lady who told us that we were liars and terrible people, and that really bothered me. Also on top of that, just the constant ridicule and mean things from people on the street and from their cars have been adding up and really starting to get to me. I’ve been praying very, VERY, hard for strength and understanding. And I realized, why am I letting the opinions and believes of others cause me to feel this way? They can’t tell me what to do or what to think. This is my life, I choose to believe what I know and what I believe. I remembered a poem that I memorized in Ms. Davis's public speaking class my junior year at Sparkman. (I'm glad I chose to memorize something that actually had some meaning behind it.) The last stanza says, " It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." One of the many things that a mission teaches you, is to be strong, and stand up for what you believe in. And I love that.

Thank you for all you guys do for me. Let me know if there’s anything at all that I can do for you guys. Stay true, stay strong, don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in, and look out for each other while I'm gone, alright?

-Elder Daniel

12-9-13

How's it going my amazing family!!

 

This last week has alright. Its actually starting to get cold over here in So-Cal, its been in the low 40's for the past week and when your riding your bike at night it makes it a million times colder. Any snow over in yall's neck of the woods? Someone told me that there was a big cold front headed eastward. I got the package mom, thank you so much!!

So this week we weren't able to meet with Rhiannon because she was grounded, hopefully we'll be able to meet with her tonight. We were only able to talk with Robert on his porch, but we always end up having super awesome conversations about different principles of the gospel. He told us his mother stopped by one day for something and was talking to him and she pretty much told him that we were evil people and that he shouldn't listen to anything that were saying. And he told her that every time we come over, everything that we have told him has been something that he's needed in his life at that time, and that its brought him happiness so how could it be evil? So that was amazing, he said he loves talking to us even when things in his life are hard. We left him with Mosiah 3 to read. He already understands so much and is willing to hear more, he's just so stink'n busy working all the time! He's progressing, very slowly, but he is progressing. 

 

We gave a less active lady in our ward a blessing last week. It was pretty cool, we were just talking with her and out of nowhere she asked if we could give her a blessing. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's a little while ago and has been going through a very rough time. She told us that in her patriarchal blessing it said that "help would come to her door when she needed it". It was so cool to be apart of that. We hadn't been over in quite some time and while we were doing our nightly planning we just decided to stop by the next day some time, not really thinking much of it. Turns out she really needed someone there for her. I love being a missionary and helping other people, it brings me so much joy, its awesome! 

All the missionaries in the zone taught early morning seminary on Tuesday. It was pretty sweet, we gave a super powerful lesson on inviting their friends and getting involved with missionary work. We had the sophmores and pumped them up to do work. It was funny, we usually go hiking with Brother Smedley in the mornings at that time and he comes and wakes us up. We got back home and he told us that he thought we got abducted by aliens. Brother Smedley is a little nutty, I wish you could meet him, haha. Also that morning we saw brother Mattson, he's gotta be one of the richest members in southern California, anyway he gave all the members and missionaries Christmas cd's that they put together with a ton of different seasonal music so that was awesome. Were allowed to listen to all Christmas music except for " I'll be home for Christmas" haha.

I love you all and I'll see you very soon. Stay true, stay strong, stay warm, and look out for each other while I'm gone, alright?

-Elder Daniel