Yeah ok so heres the deal. Apparently the server went down or something cause everyone else had the same thing happen. so idk?

haha I heard that the Packers won eh? cool stuff. At this point I really don't care all that much but you know how that goes. haha.


Holy cow a Lady had a seizure? That sounds mega-intense. If I was giving a talk during that day I definitely wouldn't be angry haha...I'd be happy cause I knew no one would even notice if I messed up. haha we had a sunday kinda like that yesterday...it was fast and testimony meeting and we have this member who is kinda less active and in the middle of meeting (everyone is quiet waiting for someone to go up to the stand) he stands up and kinda quietly says "Lord, Lord, Lord..." and then he starts getting louder and louder and singing things like "I JUST WANNA PRAISE YOU" "LORD, LORD, LORD" and I was like, oh my goodness...what is going on here. Then he got up there and finished his song and told us about how he is so sick and he may not live and all this stuff. It's what you get when the african american religious culture out here is predominately baptist. haha. Sacrament meetings in our branch are a trip. Anything under the sun can happen...

By the way, I attached pictures from our baptism we had this last saturday (the 5th) It was great but oh gosh you have no idea how much stress we were under...you remember the hassle we were getting from the branch about that investigator getting baptized? Well this is him. and the DAY OF his interview with the Zone Leaders those same members called us and while Elder Parker was in the shower rebuked me to no end because we were actually going to go through with his baptism. They told me up and down that he wasn't ready and he shouldn't be baptized and all this other jazz. They just don't understand what baptism is. It's not a thing we need to be perfect for. It's not a last step, it's a FIRST step. Yeah we may still have some problems. But when you find the recent convert who is perfect before they're baptized let me know.

Yeah I'm just gonna say I've been real frustrated with some of the members of this branch lately. They were making our lives miserable. But the baptism basically was ridiculous as well. First off the hot water heater in the building wasn't on and we couldn't turn it on, so the font just filled with ice water. On top of that, when we turned off the font the plug started leaking so by the time they got in the water it was probably knee height. so with that, our investigator has high blood pressure so the water basically made him freak out and after the ordinance was said, it took probably like 2-3 minutes before he could syke himself up enough to go in the cold water.

Yeah but thankfully we are gonna have another baptism this friday :) So we will let you know how that goes as well.


I don't know haha...I'll try and send a few pictures.

Kind of another update on the suicide-investigator. We really haven't had any contact with him since that day, although we have tried. His phone is off and he's never at his house. BUT. We did see his ex-fiance driving around up in surry, and we were ALMOST positive it was him in the passenger seat. So we really have no idea.


I know, I'm doing better on money. me and elder parker have figured out how we are going to grocery shop from now on. We go to this place called "Dollar general (not a dollar store, just sounds like it haha) and we buy most of the non-perishable stuff, like cereal, canned foods, all that stuff. And then we buy the stuff we can't buy there at the regular grocery store. we save a ton of money that way. last p-day we only spent 25 dollars each for groceries. Pretty good considering we had enough for two people for a week!

Thank you for the advice on the money saviing. I'm working on it and will hopefully do better. Basically all the cash I get goes into my lock-box. I save that.

Oh gosh seriously? No way...that blows my mind...Tell David I say welcome home and back to this life. I feel for him. haha. Oh gosh I don't even wanna think about that day...


Thank you for all you do mom and dad....I love you all a ton. I hope your week is good and I'll talk to you next week!

January 31 2011

Yeah so update on the investigator who seperated from his fiance...so Elder Parker and another Elder were in Wakefield this week while I was up in Richmond for a leadership conference. They went to go see this investigator and when they walked into his trailer it smelled REALLY bad of gas. So they asked him about it and he said that he had been trying to kill himself. He told them "each night I hope that I don't wake up." It was crazy. So they (Elder Parker and the other Elder) and called our branch mission leader, Bro. Gruber. He is retired air force, and his training with things like this is you don't leave these people alone. So he called the Elders and said to go back and he was gonna call the police. So right as the Elders show up the cops show up as well. So already it looks kinda bad. But the cop goes up and talks to the investigator and after opening a few windows and talking with him, he tells our investigator "you can either come with me to the Hospital willingly or or I can take you in handcuffs. So he chose to go willingly. And we haven't had any contact with him since, because his phone is off. So yeah...craziness in Wakefield

So a little update on those investigators....one is getting baptized this saturday and the other is getting baptized next saturday :D So we are really excited! I love the Holy Ghost...I only worry I about the time when I don't get to recieve this kinda revelation for people, you know? I hope I can remember all this.

I really liked your story about the temple...you have no idea how much I long to go to the temple...I miss it so much. And just before I go to far into it just fyi, that picture over Joseph Smith is actually of Peter, James and John (basically the first presidency of Christs mortal ministry) restoring the Melchizidek priesthood.

But I love the temple...I want to go home and spend as much time as I possibly can at the temple...I think that's the only way (along with scripture study prayer and coming to church) that I'll be able to maintain the spirit I feel out here.

Alright well It was really good to hear from you all. I love you all a ton and if you have any questions let me know!

January 24 2011

so. first off, last monday after p-day we went out to our little town called waverly, and tried to follow up with an investigator who, last time we came by, was having some marital problems (didn't know if his newborn son was actually his son, because fiance said it might be another guy :S) so we could see if he was ok. This story tells you how ridiculous society is. Basically investigators fiance came home and said, I don't know if the baby is yours, I've been messing around with another guy, I'm going with him to take a DNA test. So investigators upset, but says go and find out. Fiance and other guy leave and are gone for a long time. Then they come home at like 2 am that night and investigator is sleeping on the bed. Fiance comes in and says "you gotta go. he's the daddy." and she kicks him out before he can get any of his stuff. new guy moves in with her, and apparently starts being real abusive and a trouble maker. that's where we come in. Later that night we go over to our investigators house (or so we thought) and when we knock on the door a lady answers the door and I ask if our investigator is there. she looks confused and asks a lady behind her. then they ask the fiance and she says he isn't here. So we leave. it isn't until we get to the car that we realize that the two women in there were former investigators. and the fiance is a former investigator. we walked in on a former party. what's funny is they had a book of Mormon on the table and you know that they were having a ridiculous discussion about us coming by.

anyways, back to the life of our investigator. thankfully he had an aunt who had an empty trailer that he can go into, but basically he's homeless cause theres no power and no running water. it's real bad. if he comes to church he probably could get some help because he is not a guy trying to take advantage of the system.

so after that we went to some members house who live out in the country countryside. haha. had brussel sprouts for the first time...really not that bad. tasted alot like broccoli. so I wasn't that dissapointed. ha.

then later on in the week we went to go see a less active member out in this tiny town called Ivor. We pull up to his house and one look tells us he is a horder to end all horders. His yard is a JUNGLE of every sort of thing you can imagine. I mean seriously, there is no end of the types of things you'd find in his yard. mirrors, deer skulls, car hoods, blankets, you name it. It is a nightmare. So we make our way through the maze of craziness and knock on the door. And all of a sudden the member comes trudging through the grass and leaves from one side of the house. he starts talking with us and turns out he's a real nice guy, but just very poor and very much a hoarder. He told us in his house his water heater blew up and ruined his floor so he walks around on boards to prevent him from falling through the floor. We offered to help him but he wouldn't let us in the house. It's situations like that that make me always want to keep my house immaculate. haha.

hmm also, up at the top of our area, there is this big plot of land (like huge) that one of our ysa members works at. It's basically a private estate, but here's the thing; the family who owns it is only there 6 weeks out of the year, but they keep it running the rest of the year. it's full of animals and everything. These people are disgustingly rich. they've got a big black chain link fence all the way around (it's like 400 acres) and electronically monitored gates. We thought about going up to it but really figured it wouldn't do much good. haha.

Also, got to go on an exchange with one of my Zone Leaders the other day which was fun. Found some new investigators and ran into some ridiculous stuff. That's the day we found our investigator with marital problems sitting on another trailers front step. and we also talked to just some ridiculously crazy people. Waverly is just a mini-petersburg, which is just a bigger oak grove, which is basically the most ghetto you get in this mission. But that's pretty stinkin ghetto. You know youre in the ghetto when all you see is dumpy little houses and you walk into one and find a giant 64" flat screen tv hooked up to Dish network but not enough food in the fridge. or no furniture. that's really how ridiculous it is. and it's like that all over here. people who have 300 dollar cell phones but go to the store to buy food with food stamps. people who spend more money on alchohol or cigarrettes than they do for food. it's real bad. It's real sad too...you want to help, but again it's about how they can help themselves first.

But anyways...friday was good too. We went to petersburg to have a district meeting (a meeting with all the other elders in our district, along with the zone leaders) and it went pretty well. Since I'm the district leader I have to prepare all the trainings and whatnot. I was thinking a while ago what I wanted to train on and I felt impressed to train on obedience. I really didn't know why, but just felt like I should do it. So I got that all together and trained on that. Later on we went on exchanges with the petersburg elders and found out why. There was a few things (not like ridiculous things) that I noticed we needed to improve on. I'm gonna talk to them later on hopefully...that's the thing I love about the Holy Ghost...sometimes I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing, but I can see it after the fact and I'm glad I did it.

We also had interviews with President Perry and mine was really good. It had to be short but I had a really good talk with him. Mostly it was about how I'm always feeling like I haven't done enough. Like I'm not fulfilling my utmost effort. that's my biggest pain. He talked alot about it though and helped me alot. He is definitely an inspired man. He has helped me so much you have no idea.

and then the next day we went to a baptism and it was the best. it's hard to explain unless you were there, but when it came time for the baptism the man getting baptized went down into the water and when we came back up he shouted, "thank you, Jesus!" oh my gosh it was so funny and yet awesome. you get used to that kinda stuff out here. There's so many baptists it's common place. It makes for a fun mission. I wish I could tell you it all but that would take days. haha. you'll hear it all when I come home I'm sure.

Then the other day we finally had another lesson with an investigator that we had lost track of and almost dropped cause nothing was really going on with him. But we went over there expecting to teach about the Gospel. But as we started asking him questions we felt impressed to start talking about the sacrament. It was so good...again, why I love the Holy Ghost! He brought out some concerns and we cleared them up and he is solid. He is set for baptism on the 12th of Febuary. He is the man. he used to play baseball for the minor league oriels.

That's a basic summary for the week...I'm going to another leadership training that will start tomorrow morning and go until friday afternoon. fun stuff!