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

12/2/13

Hey Guys!

Thanksgiving was great! We had dinner with the Morgan’s and they have a son on a mission in Brazil, we were filling his spot so they weren't lonely in his absence. So we just ate with that one family, but I heard of other elders hitting up about 3 to 5 members homes and having that many thanksgiving dinners with them. That’s probably the only reason elders gain weight is just because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

This week was a little slow because of the holiday, we weren't able to meet with any of our investigators. One was out of town and the other was grounded. This last Saturday we set up a baptism for one of the member’s daughters who was turning 8. I found out that there is a little bit of work that goes into orchestrating and executing a successful baptism. You have to be there about an hour and a half early to fill the font and you got to have everything set up just right. It was good practice for when I ever have a baptism, which will hopefully be soon. We’ve been in a drought for far too long.

We learned some pretty interesting things about gratitude and thanksgiving in our studies and during the messages we left all of the families we went by this week. The purpose of life is to find happiness, the way we do that is by being grateful for what we already have, being content with the blessings that our Father in Heaven has bestowed upon us and as we receive that joy that comes from truly being grateful for all that we have it will carry on even after this life into the eternities. (D&C 78:19-2 Cor 4:15)

We went to Town Square Park for the Murrieta tree lighting ceremony. It is a tradition that the city has started this year. Every year on November 30th they are going to have live music from different choirs from different schools and churches in the area, including ours! There was a bunch of different tents set up selling different things, and then they light the huge Christmas tree at the end of the night. It was a good time, we saw a lot of the members there with their families, some to enjoy the ceremony and others who were actually singing in it. There was a ton of people there too, about 4000. It was contacting heaven! 

 

Well I love you guys, stay strong stay true and look out for each other while I'm gone, alright?

-Elder Daniel

11-25-13

Hello my amazing family!!

 

This week has been great! It’s actually starting to get cold! Not as cold as Bama though, I need to be careful what I wish for, I thought it would be great, but Nah. It’s not very enjoyable after 3 straight hours of riding your bike in 40 degree weather every day. It also rained for the first time last week, which was awesome! But it sucked riding in it because it was so cold.

 

 

 

 

 

Contacts have been great this week. We set our weekly goal for street contacts for 70 and we hit 71.

This week we taught our first solid lesson with Robert. He likes to talk a lot and do things that make it kind of hard to sit down and teach him something. When we showed up for our appointment he was outside doing yard work, so we picked up some racks and helped him out so we could still have some time to teach him. We found out he hadn't read what we left him and we were running out of time, so we decided to just read the chapter we left him the week before, Alma 32. It’s the one that talks about faith. It was amazing!! We had a wonderful discussion on the Book of Mormon and he told us that it makes perfect sense that there would be additional scripture and that Heavenly Father would continue to lead, guide, and communicate with His children today, just as in times of old. He was really excited about it too and said that he was going to show his wife what we had read with him. So that really boosts my spirits about the work in our area, there is progression. It’s the coolest thing seeing someone excited about the gospel and seeing their testimonies grow little by little. It makes me so happy.

Bishop Hymas told me a few things before I left that have stuck with me. I asked him while I was making my decision to go on a mission “Is a mission hard?" He sat back for a minute and then told me "Ya know, it’s only hard, if you make it hard." Such good counsel and it’s so true. If you work it easy, it’s hard. If you work it hard, it’s easy. Another thing that he told me was “You will never experience any other joy in your life quite like the joy you will get from bringing the gospel into the lives of those who have been searching and looking and waiting, and seeing the peace and happiness and direction that comes into their lives because of you. The only things that come close are the day you marry the love of your life and the day you hold your first born child in your arms." It’s un-describable the feeling of joy you get when you see someone come closer to their Heavenly Father. It’s funny how I thought I understood the counsel that people had given me before I came out on my mission, but I really didn't completely understand until I came out here to California and experienced things for myself.

Last week we found out that one of mine and Elder Anderson's past investigators from Fallbrook, Candy, was in the hospital because of heart problems and something that was wrong with her breathing. We were headed back from our Zone Conference and got permission from President Kendrick to go and visit her. She was staying at Palomar Hospital, which in like the nicest hospital in southern California, it looks like a 5 star resort! So we went to visit her and found out that she had been there for a week and was going to have to go through a surgical procedure to have a stint put in. She was worried because she had been in the hospital before but never for that long and never had to have a big procedure such as that. So Elder Anderson and I gave her a blessing. We found out that the surgery went great and that she will be back home this week. She's a hospice nurse, so she kind of flip flopped for a week.

 

 

I'll let yall know as soon as I can the plans for Christmas and how Skype and everything is going to work. I can’t believe I've already been out for almost half a year already. 1/4 of my mission gone, just like that.

Well I love you guys. Stay strong, stay true, and look out for each other while I'm gone, alright?

 
-Elder Daniel