October 7, 2013

Dear folks,

Conference was really good, we got to watch it at a members house as well so it was pretty nice. There is a lot of stuff changing now, and a lot of things that will change here at the start of next year.  The Lord is definitely hastening his work. 

This week has gone by pretty well. We had a lot of meetings to go to that were pretty interesting. We had a Zone Conference with a couple other Zones and President H outlined something called the "Willing and Brief" invitation which we are super excited about. As of late, membership participation in the work hasn't been as good as we would like it to be but this new invitation really simplifies member missionary work and makes it pretty easy to do. You should ask the missionaries there if they have heard of it yet and if they haven't, I would be happy to send them a copy of it, it really is a fantastic program.

Basically, it just invites members to ask their friends and family if they "would be WILLING to listen to a BRIEF presentation about (Insert Gospel Topic)? The presentation will be given by two (Insert Positive Adjective) missionaries and can be given in your own home if you would like."

It's pretty simple and has been very effective in the area's it's been tried in and we are excited about it. Our Stake President has approved us taking the 3rd our in an up coming Sunday to do a presentation about it.

Elder Hh and I are still getting a long great. We made a decision to try to be as obedient as we can and as a result we ended up handing over a lot of our investigators to the other set of missionaries in our ward because technically they were not in our area. That really hit us hard, but we have put a lot more effort into talking to everyone we meet. President promised that we would be blessed for it, so we are doing our best. Also, this "Willing and Brief" invitation should bring a lot more success as well, especially with the youth in the ward, which are absolutely fantastic at doing member missionary work.

Other than that, General Conference was great, we enjoyed it. It definitely hammered in missionary work a lot. We also enjoyed the Priesthood session when President Monson hammered in the importance of home teaching. How good a ward is at doing home teaching is really the best indicator of how well a ward is going to do missionary work. If they can't even visit their own members, they probably will not reach out to non-members. Home teaching really is an inspired program, and it is something I plan on making a priority when I get home.

I hope you guys have a good week.

Here are some pictures that Elder Jacob is in, that were posted on the mission blog this last week... Can you find him? (I'll give you a hint... he's the handsome one ;) hee hee)

 

 

The rest of the family argued with me on this image, they didn't recognize him because his hair is so light, short and he's so tan. But I would know my child anywhere. Do you recognize him? 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30, 2013

Dear Folks,

I saw the pictures, those are ridiculously huge pumpkins. I'm glad the garden is doing well. I hope things go well with your doctor stuff. Did something happen to Joy or is it just as a precaution? I hope she is ok and that things get figured out I'm glad things are going pretty well up there. Sure, I can take the cook book, it would be pretty helpful to have. I will try, so far I haven't been able to figure out how to send pictures home because they are apparently too big, I will try to though, I don't have my camera with me today. Elder Hh is from Texas. He has been out for about 9 months. We get along pretty well and are staying busy.

Sorry I didn't write last week, not much has happened. We have been working hard on getting more investigators, but that is proving to be difficult. The ward isn't super helpful with it, so we spend a lot of time street contacting and tracting now. Most of the people we are working with on a regular basis are less-actives. All the investigators we have are struggling to overcome some sort of addiction or another and all the ones we have that could be baptized are struggling with their families being vehemently against it, which is pretty frustrating. Nothing much has really happened in the last couple weeks, it's pretty much been the same old same old. We have been talking to a lot of people on the streets, though, that seems to be the most effective thing at the moment. Most people either ignore you or tell you to go away but if someone lets you start to talk, the spirit always testifies to them in some way and they usually start to ask questions, but most of the time it usually only goes that far but you never know what seeds you planted because of it.

I love you and hope you guys have a good week.

September 24, 2013

The weather here is cooling off a bit, we are enjoying that a lot. It's weird here, one day it will be 85 the next it will be in the 50's with lite snow flurries. Reno is like that though, the weather is always changing really fast. My companion Elder Hh and I are getting a long really well.

 

This week has been slow. We have found a few new investigators, two of which were prepared to be baptized and accepted the commitment and date to be baptized within 3 weeks of us starting to teach them but because they are still 17 and 16 their parents have banned them from coming to church or reading the Book of Mormon and even praying. It's crazy how hard Satan works on people especially when they are super close to baptism. Cs, the guy that was supposed to be baptized last month but started going back to his own church called us a few days ago and asked why we kept coming back into his life and we said because Heavenly Father has blessing for you. He then said he was going to start coming back to church and take the lessons again so hopefully he will be ready to try again pretty quick here.

 

That's all for now, hope you have a good week.

September 17, 2013

This week has been pretty good. The whole moving situation was a giant mess. We ended up not finding out the day we were moving until the night before and we didn't know where until the day of and we spent most of the day walk our stuff to our new apartments which are in the same complex because the truck didn't show up until 2 in the afternoon and we didn't have a whole lot of time to wait. We ended up not being able to email or shop until today. Now the two companionships all live in our own separate apartments. The address is still the same accept it's apartment 36B.

 

Other than that it's still the same old same old. We did end up getting 4 new investigators this week, which was great. We decided to work on talking to more people as we walked because president had challenged us to and we were blessed for it. One was a father that asked us to come talk to his 15 year old son because he had skipped the whole last week of school and had been getting involved with a rough crowd and he didn't know what to do. We had a good talk with him and both of them asked if we would come back again. Two of them were teen couple that we had run into before but finally sat down and talked to and they wanted to learn more, and even came to church on Sunday and enjoyed it. 

I hope you guys have a great week this week. 

September 9, 2013

This week has been pretty good. Nothing much new has happened. Because of transfers this week we didn't end up having a lot of things to do and it didn't help that a lot of people were gone. My companion Elder Hh and I get along really well though. That's pretty much all that has happened this week. However, we did find out we will be moving out of our current apartments and moving into a different one closer to our area so we don't have to go as far anymore hopefully. That wont be until the 15th though so you should be good to send me mail until then and I will let you know our new address next Monday.

 

Hope you guys have a great week.

September 3, 2013

Dear Folks,

 The weather here has been pretty hot, the smoke has lightened up a bit so the sun gets through a lot more. They say the fire should be contained within the next couple weeks and then out a little after that.  I have not returned the shoes yet, I haven't had the time or a ride. The ward is getting kinda sick of being our chauffeurs, haha, so it's getting harder to get around.

Transfers are later today and I'm still staying here. Elder Bm is headed out to Carson City and my new companion is going to be Elder Hh.

This week went pretty well. Sorry my letter last week wasn't very long, the only time we could have gotten a ride back home cut our email time in half. We have been staying pretty busy but the work is kinda slowing down. We did finally get the Si's to come to Church after weeks of trying and they had a really good experience which was great. They also agreed to take the lessons again and to let us teach their kids, which are between the ages of 2 and 11 and the older two have not been baptized yet.

Cs is not happy with the Jewish religion still but he is still too afraid of his sister. Hopefully we can start working with him again, he still wants to get baptized but Sy just wont let go.

We haven't seen Dl at all this week, he has been at school and out most of the day. However, Me, another guy we are teaching, is awesome. We committed him to baptism and he accepted. He felt that God placed us in his path just has he moved to Reno to start a new life, he used to be involved in a lot of drugs and stuff in the past. Unfortunately, he lives in the Cold Springs Ward so we will have to turn him over to the Cold Springs Elders which kinda sucks, he's a really cool kid.

A couple weeks ago we ran into this girl named Mn on the street that we found out was a returned missionary that left the church. She didn't really elaborate on why but she invited us over to visit her and her boyfriend Chad, who also used to be a member but started reading anti-Mormon stuff at 16 and then became an atheist. We went over last Friday for dinner and ended up getting on the topic of why she had left after serving a mission. It's hard to describe the feeling we felt when she shared her story, it was like pure sadness, I've never felt anything like and I really don't want to feel it again, it was almost like a taste of what I'm sure Heavenly Father felt about it. Basically, she came to a point where she said she had started to have big problems with the church and that even though she prayed and prayed she didn't get an answer. What we feel happened based on previous information we had heard is that she started living a lifestyle that was not conducive to the spirit or receiving any sort of inspiration from it and that her boyfriend that she met shortly after returning from her mission has had a big effect on her opinions and perceptions, especially when it comes to the nature of God and receiving answers to prayer. The depression and the hurt and the confusion in her voice as she shared the story was unmistakable as well as her desire for us to help her, she is still very open to the gospel and the spirit that was there when we had the discussion was very strong. She said if we ever stopped by that we should have a lesson prepared because, according to her, she loves having lessons but I think she really wants us to talk her out of her decision. When we went home we reflected on how we had even come to meet her because we remembered it was unusual. What happened was we visited Ts but we wasn't home so we started walking back the other way and came to McDonald's. We both thought it was a good idea to go inside and get a drink of water, something we have never done and haven't felt like doing since. We sat by a window and saw her walk from her apartment to the street, then for some reason she walked back to her apartment and then at the same time we left McDonald's she walked past us back to the street just in time for us to run into her. I think it happened for a reason, we are pretty hopeful for her. he experience also made me realize how important the little things are like daily scripture study, church attendance, and prayer. Everyone seems to think as long as they aren't breaking big commandments they are fine but it's the little things that add up to it. No normal person goes from having a good job one day to robbing a bank, there are a little of little steps in between that lead to that point. It was a very eye opening experience for me, there are a lot of things I want to do from now on when I get home.

Sm is still awesome, she is probably our favorite investigator. She is a very outgoing person and is easy to get along with. She has some things to overcome but she is very perceptive to the spirit. Two weeks ago we had a lesson with her and this Baptist guy named De came up and started trying to argue with us, saying that according to 2 Corinthians 11, Joseph Smith saw the devil because the devil can impersonate an angel. The chapter is actually about priest craft and how Paul has never been paid or has been a burden on the people, but he missed that point despite the fact that his pastor is probably paid. He also talked about how Revelations says there can be no more scriptures, even though Deuteronomy chapter 4 says the same thing, either meaning that the whole Bible is false scripture or it is only referring to that particular book in the Bible. We, of course, wont argue back but Sam was ticked and told him to go. We started talking about prayer and how the Spirit talks to us and she said she feels like that when we talk to her but when De started talking the Spirit left immediately. We also had a lesson with her last week and the same thing happened but with a different guy. He said he's read the Book of Mormon and studied our religion because his dad is a Baptist Preacher in Sparks and told all of his kids to research other religions to learn how to bash them basically. He then proceeded to say the biggest issue he had was that Christ appeared to John Smith (he actually said John Smith and that John Smith found the Seven Seals of the Golden Plates, whatever that was, we aren't quite sure, it sounds like an Indiana Jones movie) and that Christ said on the cross that he wouldn't return until the second coming (false). Bm and I looked at each other and both thought, wasn't he resurrected and then appeared to a bunch of people 3 days later? And didn't he also appear to Paul on the road to Damascus? Sm recognizes that in order to receive any answer you have to go straight to the source and pray about it as well as read the Book of Mormon. We are pretty excited for her but we wont get to see her for the next few weeks because she will be busy with the Stead Air Races, which we might get to go see.

Yesterday for P-Day we went to the Rib Cook-off which was pretty fun. We both ate a full rack of ribs which were delicious and spent a couple of hours walking around and looking at all the stuff they had there. It's almost like the State Fair but it's not as big.

Well, that's all for now, I hope you all have a great week!

August 26, 2013

Dear folks,
The weather here has actually been really cool, mostly because of the fires. Forest fires in California have flooded this valley with smoke so bad you can't even hardly see the mountains sometimes which has caused the temperature to be about 10-20 degrees cooler.

This week has been pretty good. Our Mission President chastised the Stake pretty good because apparently a lot of the missionaries here have been very unsatisfied with the way the work is going. Our Stake President had a big leadership meeting where he put the Bishops and ward mission leaders in one room and went through Handbook 2 and told them what their job was in missionary work. Hopefully things will start picking up. We haven't been doing too bad ourselves because we've been working pretty hard at finding people without the ward, but the other set that lives with us have been struggling and the other ward have also been struggling pretty bad.

Sorry I have to make this letter short because we have to take off pretty quick here. Love you guys and hope you have a great week.

August 19, 2013

Dear folks,

I'm glad the weather there is nice. The heat picked up a little here this week. There has also been a pretty big forest fire nearby in California so our whole valley has been filled with smoke this last week and we have been coming back home smelling like a campfire almost every day. 

 We still haven't heard anything about the changes from our mission president so I don't know what's going to happen. I will let you know though.

It's always tough dealing with families involved with drugs. It really clouds their minds and causes them to make really poor decisions. It's especially tough dealing with kids because there is not much we can do if the parents aren't on board. We were teaching the 11, 9, and 7 year old of a less active woman but she is was also involved with drugs and abusive relationships and had super bad depression that often lands her in the hospital because she freaks out. She has since stopped having us come over because her life is so messed up and it's hard because the kids were doing really well. Just keep working with him and being an example. Even if he can't be baptized right now, there can be a seed planted that will sprout later. Meth is a huge problem out here as well, most of our investigators have been involved with it, it's really nasty stuff. You can always tell who is on it too or who's done it because most of their teeth are rotted or missing and they have pieces of skin missing from their arms because they pick it off. 

This week has been pretty good and pretty bad. We have Ts who is doing really well and is progressing very fast. He is also doing more missionary work the half the ward combined, he wants everyone he knows to talk to us and hear about the gospel. Cs on the other hand, who was supposed to be baptized back in April before I got here, has given in to his sister and decided to stop meeting with us and go back to Judaism for a time, even though he has told us before that he has received the answer that this was the true church. The only problem is he lives with his sister and talks to her every day but hasn't been meeting with us for various reasons.

Elder Js, another missionary in our ward who also lives with us, was made district leader after our former DL was emergency transferred to Eli to replace a sick missionary. Now every time he enters a room he says,"Your District Lord!" and sings Darth Vader's theme song from Star Wars. He is a pretty funny guy, very easy to get along with. 

We also started teaching this guy named Js who is an alcoholic we met on the street. He always passes by and yells out God bless you or something like that, sometimes it's hard to understand him because he really slurs his words. He's a pretty interesting guy and really wants to stop drinking. We will see where he goes, him and his wife are planning on moving pretty quick here. 

We had a pretty interesting experience on Saturday. We were supposed to help Cty paint her doors but she wasn't feeling well and asked us to stop by later. We then decided to go to a different less active members house but he wasn't home either but as we turn to leave we see Sm running across the street. We decided to go say hi because she's a hard person to catch. When we walked up she saw that we were in our service clothes and asked what we were doing. We said we were doing service and she said, "Oh, you remembered the block party I was setting up." And we were like, yeah, even though we had completely forgotten. We ended up helping her set it up because she was was running very behind and then we also got to meet the whole neighborhood and show them that LDS missionaries aren't that weird. 

We also ran into a woman named Csy at the party who is a "Pagan Christian" or she practices witchcraft and Wicca but believes in Jesus Christ so it's ok. We have ran into a lot of Wiccans before and they all say the same thing, "Everyone always says Wiccans are bad but I'm a good witch, I only use magic for good not for bad like some others do." It's really hard to talk to them especially because they are not use to the Spirit. It often makes them feel bad inside so they interpret that as "evil" instead of realizing if you surround yourself with a bad spirit, you're going to feel bad around the Holy Ghost because that's what happens. Casey had been to an LDS church before and thought it was "evil" because she felt sick inside, but Elder Bm and I looked at each other and were like no kidding. That was an interesting conversation, we spent like half an hour talking to her. 

Other than that, not much else has happened. We are still walking everywhere and there is no sign of a car in the near future. They might be cutting our ward down from 2 sets to 1 set again but we will see. I love you guys and hope you all have a great week.

August 12, 2013

Dear folks,

We are getting fed pretty well here.

This week has been pretty good but kinda slow. A lot of people haven't been around because school was starting up again today and there was also a big car show called Hot August Nights downtown. We are still working on getting Cs recommitted with another baptismal date but his sister is fighting tooth and nail against it. She had a rabbi come talk to him and asked him go to Jewish temple services this weekend trying to convince him not to do it.

Dl is doing well, but he started school again last week so it's been kinda hard to meet with him. Ts is also doing very well, we have high hopes that he could be ready for baptism within a few weeks if he can quit his cigarettes. Cy came to church with us this weekend and seemed to enjoy it although she is pretty shy and doesn't like all the attention the ward members give whenever we have an investigator come to church. Sm is also doing very well, we had a good 2 hour discussion with her and she is super interested in the church. She had also been getting a lot of grief and hearing a lot of false information about the church from her neighbors because she has been meeting with us so she prayed and asked if having us teach her was a good thing. She said she felt very good about it and so didn't care what other people said about us. We also told her about the First Vision and she said it makes sense that a lot of people would hate Christ's true church because of the influence of the devil. We are pretty hopeful for her but there is a lot of stuff she has to change in her life first so hopefully she can.

We have anther lesson scheduled with a guy named Jk . I can't remember if I told you guys about him. He's been investigating the church for over 14 years and still hasn't been baptized. We took a different approach with him and fasted and planned for a couple hours the lessons we were going to have with him. We decided to be very blunt about addressing all the excuses he had and all the blessings he was giving up. He has been out of town for the last month or so so we haven't gotten to meet with him for awhile but the last time we did he said he didn't know why he wasn't baptized yet and that he would talk about it with his family, who are all members, which is something he had never done and would pray about it. Hopefully he has done the things we told him to do and that this next meeting will go well.

We also ran into a Messianic Jew, or a Jewish person that believes in Jesus Christ but still keeps a lot of the Jewish traditions. We were walking up to her and I asked her how she was doing and she replied "Shalom. Do you know what that means?" And we were like, not really, then she said, in a very mystical voice,"It means 'peace', peace that passes all human understanding." She started talking about her beliefs and that we should try to read a Hebrew Bible because a lot of the words can't really be translated into English and that we didn't really understand a lot of the Bible because it was mistranslated and that Christ didn't end the law of Moses but when he said that he fulfilled it, it didn't mean that he ended it, it only meant that he lived it perfectly and that we should as well (even though further into the New Testament it makes it clear that the law of Moses ended). At first I though, ok, she just really believes in her religious ideology and, you know, we do believe in the Bible as far as it is translated correctly which is why we have the Book of Mormon to provide clarity and further doctrine and we were going to talk about that but then she started talking about how we shouldn't call Jesus Jesus and should use the Hebrew form of his name and then told us she knew all about Mormons and that our religion was wrong and that no one had ever studied the Bible as much and as in depth as she had. She also had shaved her head because God told her to, and that he had told her to shave her head at least 3 times before and that something bad in the world always happened when she did and she also believes that the government is spraying us with chemicals mixed with human blood to control our minds and that the only reason we could talk to her is because God was blessing us with that ability. It was at this point we realized she wasn't all there and that we really couldn't convince her otherwise.

I hope you all are doing well and have a good week this week.  

August 5, 2013

Dear Folks,

Just regular music, like classical or instrumental stuff. As long as it brings the spirit and doesn't have romantic overtones really. CD's, this isn't the 80's hahaha. We only have CD players.

This week has been pretty good. We went into down town Reno to email today, it's an interesting place. We had a homeless guy walk up to us and talk about how he was related to Jesus and Mary Magdalene and that they had 4 kids, that was an interesting discussion. This week was pretty slow but we had a lot of success. We found a new investigator, Daniel, while street contacting. He is a petty cool guy and has a big interest in religion which is unusual for a 17 year old. We also ran into a lady who is inactive and had served a mission 3 years ago. She invited us to come visit and we talked with her boyfriend who is a pretty cool guy who was also at one point a priest in the church. We will see where that goes, hopefully we can get them to come back.

We also had one of our most spiritual lessons ever with Dianna. She has been investigating for a couple months but has been very strong in her faith. At the end we asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon and she said she was afraid to because she would get an answer. She also said everything we taught and clicked with her and we asked why and she said because it all sounded familiar to her like she had heard it before. We are excited for her and hope she does read and pray.

That's all for this week, I hope you guys are doing well and have a good week.

Love,

Elder Jacob Klingensmith

July 29, 2013

Dear folks,

I had to get a new bike chain and service cloths which I can't buy with MSF. I also bought a game, haha, we get so bored on P-Day there isn't much we can do, especially since we don't have a car and aren't with walking or biking distance of anything.  

I'm glad this week went well for you guys at the fair and with the dog. That's funny that the very first egg was a double yoke, did someone eat it or did you just crack it to take a look?

Yeah, we get along really well and figure it's probably down hill from now on with companions. This week was pretty good, we were pretty busy. This was the first week in a long time that we actually met our goals which was very nice. 

 

We have started working with a family called the Ss. They are a less active family that saw us walking down the road and asked us to stop by. They are a super cool family that are a blast to visit. They were converts to the church about 6 years ago but stopped coming because of a fight they had with the bishop of their last ward. This last week has been a pretty rough one, their oldest daughter who is 11 was taken by CPS because of some things Brother Ss sister said. They ended up getting her back a couple days later, but not until after they had decided to start coming back to church because they said leaving had been the biggest mistake of their lives and making big changes in their lives. Unfortunately, for some reason they didn't come so we are kinda worried about how things are going to go for them, especially after as many blessings they had received this last week, but we haven't gotten to talk to them yet so we don't know the whole story. 

Other than that, most of our investigators are doing pretty good but we are worried about O. He want's to change and said he had given up alcohol but is not ready to stop smoking weed. He is also in a rough spot with being able to convert because he is in a tough position to be able to do much for himself since he lives at home and doesn't have much motivation. We are still working with him an set him with a date so hopefully he will have more motivation but we don't know if he will make it. We are still working and praying for him. 

We started visiting a woman named Sm who is awesome as well. She asks a lot of the right questions and is well on her way to becoming baptized if she keeps the commitments we leave. She also had a friend with her that said she was a Wiccan and also said she wasn't interested but sat in on the lesson and asked if we were going to come back so  we might get to work with her as well. 

Ts is also doing well. He is thinking about inviting a friend of his to sit in on the lessons because he was also interested in the things we were teaching Ts. We are pretty excited for him, he is doing really well. 

Other than that, not much has happened. I miss you guys and hope you have a good week.


Mom's Note: It was fun to check out the mission blog and find pictures of Jacob  in this post! http://nevadarenomission.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-07-21T21:25:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=2&by-date=false

July 22, 2013

Dear folks,

Transfers went well, Elder B is still my companion which was a surprise since he has been here for more than 6 months. We are both pretty happy about that, he was really afraid that he was going to get a bad companion but he does want to get out of Stead. The other Elders in our ward are also staying as well, which is pretty unusual too. 

This week has been pretty slow. We had a fireside last night that we had been planning. It was about the importance of families and it went pretty well we had a good turnout. One of our Zone Leaders, Elder G just finished his mission so he is about to go home, which is pretty sad, we all liked him a lot. A lot of people haven't been home and we have been walking a lot, I will probably need some new shoes pretty quick here actually. We saw a rather large woman run from the police the other day, that was pretty entertaining. She ran out of these apartment complexes screaming at the top of her lungs at another guy that was following her, then hopped into a car but they didn't get very far. Other than that, we haven't been doing much. 

Hope you guys have a good week.

P.S. You could send like cookies or Mt. Dew or music or other stuff, haha. Music especially, as long as its church appropriate. Could you also send easy to make healthy recipes too?

July 15, 2013

(Letter to Mom)

You guys are going to have so many eggs, hahaha. You will have to send me pictures of all the new chickens and the new dog. 

This week was pretty good. We had a lot more to do this week than last week. Last week we barely taught 6 lessons but this week we went back up to 13. We have a couple new investigators as well, when of them is S, a middle aged women that really wants to know more about the church and what happens after we die since her brother passed away a couple weeks ago. We also ran into a kid named K who ran into a couple missionaries a few weeks ago that gave him a Book of Mormon. He has read about half of it and his mom also started to read it so we gave him another one and asked if we could come over. We are pretty excited for the both of them. 

O is progressing along well. He is still struggling with the Word of Wisdom, which is pretty much his last obstacle to being baptized, but he has improved a lot since we first met him. We also committed C to live the Word of Wisdom, which is also her biggest obstacle since she loves tea and cigarettes though she has been trying to quit those. We haven't been able to see T yet this week because we haven't been able to catch him. 

Other than that, the weather here has been ok. It's supposed to get pretty hot this coming week. Transfers are also coming up so Elder B will probably be leaving the area, which kinda sucks since we get along really well. According to the ZLs, I might be training, I will know for sure by Wednesday but I don't think I will be since there aren't that many new Elders coming in this time and there are a lot of other more experienced missionaries. 

I love you and hope you have a good week.

(Letter to Dad)
This week has been going by pretty good. Geez, that's a lot of chickens. What are you going to do with all the eggs? We are supposed to be in the high 90's into the 100's this week. That'll be nice, I can hardly remember what good a/c feels like. Our apartment's is pretty good but most people here only have swamp coolers which don't really work when it's higher than 80 or no a/c at all.

Things are going pretty well. We talked to the ward council on Sunday because our ward doesn't have a Ward Mission Plan and the Bishop doesn't like to work with the missionaries at all which is really bad for us. We did get them talking about it so hopefully we will get the ball rolling for a complete plan in the next few weeks. We especially hope so because of the broadcast a few weeks ago which specifically said that Bishops and the Ward Council are supposed to head the missionary work of a ward and they need to have a Ward Mission Plan and that they should do almost all the finding of people for missionaries to teach. We did not get to baptize C this week because he came down with a bad case of Bronchitis so we had to postpone it. 

Hope you're doing well and have a good week next week.

July 8, 2013

Dear folks,

The heat this week wasn't too bad. We had a storm on the 4th that came out of no where and also caused hail which was pretty fun.

 One of the families in the ward took us to Virginia City for a firework show because we had permission from President to stay out past curfew and leave the zone. Virginia City is an old mining town pretty much situated in the top of a couple mountains, it was pretty cool. There were a lot of "interesting" people there but we were not allowed to wear proselyting clothes or name tags so we blended in for the most part. It was kinda weird because we would walk past people and want to talk to them but we couldn't because we would look like a couple weirdos, or at least more so than usual I guess, haha.

This week was a pretty slow one. Other than the 4th, we really didn't do much. On Tuesday and Wednesday we ended up having to go to California for most of the day, one for Zone training and another to go pick of one of out ZL's that stayed back to go on exchanges with the Elders in Susanville so that took up a whole lot of time. Then most of our investigators weren't able to meet with us for one reason or another so we spent a lot of time walking around and talking to people. Since both sets of missionaries are on the street a lot more since we lost our car a lot more people are noticing us which is nice because often times they come up to us and ask us questions.

One of the families we were working with might be going through a divorce which kinda throws things way off. We had primarily been working with the kids and the dad since the mother was already a member. The father used to take lessons from us and things had been going very well for their family, they had even renewed their wedding vows a couple months ago. but all of a sudden he decided to stop because of work and now won't meet with us anymore and then walked out of the family and things just fell apart completely. We are super heartbroken over it but there isn't much we can do except encourage them to start living the gospel. To complicate the matter, there is a legal issue between one of the family members and one of the members of the ward so in order to attend church they have to go to a different ward or move.

We also started to teach a guy named T who the Spanish missionaries tracted into. He is a pretty nice guy, does a lot of service for the homeless community because of his past. The first couple times we met with him, he didn't seem to interested but last night he started to ask a lot of questions so we pretty much went through the whole restoration with him. He said it made a lot of sense and pretty much accepted it right there and also asked where he could get a Book of Mormon because he wanted to read it. Luckily for him, we carry like 5 so it was no problem to get him to commit to read and pray about it. We are pretty excited for him.

 

We will be baptizing a guy this Saturday named C and we are excited about that. I won't actually be baptizing him but I will be confirming him on Sunday. I probably will not be transferred for at least another month and a half.

I love you guys and miss you.

July 1, 2013

Dear folks,

Yeah, you guys should probably keep the .22 upstairs and ready to go. It's (a coyote that's been hanging around our property) not going to hang around and wait for you to shoot at it and it's probably thinking of some tasty chickens. That's great that Mittens (our cat) came back, I was worried about her. Are you guys going to let her out more often or try to keep her in?

 

Yeah, don't ever feed the missionaries tacos or spaghetti or lasagna or anything pasta related for that matter. I can't tell you how often we eat those for dinner, it gets really old really fast and I bet it's the same for them. That's nice that they get the 4th off this month, we don't and none of us are looking forward to it. It's supposed to be like 105 degrees out and everyone will probably be drunk and won't want to talk to us. We are just going to go around in our service clothes and do random service all day.

It's been pretty rough this week especially with the heat. Both my companion and I lost about 10 lbs this week. We didn't have anybody signed up for dinners so we didn't get overfeed and we didn't want to go back up the hill to our apartment so we ended up not eating until about 9:30 most days this week. We also walked and biked probably over 130 miles this week as well because nearly all of our appointments fell through and we barely broke 10 lessons this week, which is, sadly enough, more than the average amount for the whole mission but terrible for us. The other elders in our area only taught 4. We also found out that we will not be getting a car next transfer as well so we will be on foot and bike for awhile.

On Sunday we were walking down the street when this family drove passed and called out to us. The ended up turning around and pulled up next to us. They said they were an inactive family that had moved here more than a year ago and had not been to church in over 2 years. They asked us to come to their house and teach them again and they want to get more active in the church. We are hopeful for them, they are a pretty solid family with four kids and they really want to come back.

We also have started teaching C, another referral we got from another set of missionaries. She had been to church a few times with her grandma when she was younger and she wants to know more. We taught the Restoration and the spirit was very strong, she said she had never felt like that before. We are excited for her.

S's mom has been taking her for extended periods of time without warning so we haven't been able to see her for a long time. According to her step mom that we see quite often, she has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot since we challenged her to and has been bringing it with her to her moms house. She's still got a ways to come, but we have high hopes that she can make it.

On a funnier note, we got the worlds sketchiest DVD player for the mission office the other day. There is absolutely no brand on it so we don't know who made it and the instruction manual looks like someone ran it through Google translate. One of the funniest things it said was,
" If the device to hoot, witch of the power so as to avoid the conflagration."

It also kept mentioning that if things went wrong we needed to call the technical service people "to obtain legislative declaration", what ever that is. The only problem with that is that there is absolutely no phone number to call in the booklet or on the box it came in. Our ZL's are going to take the manual to President and read it to him and ask where they got these DVD players. We spent a night reading the whole thing and by then end we were laughing so hard, it was so ridiculous.

That was pretty much my week. I love you guys and miss you.

June 24, 2013

I'm glad everyone is making it through the storms ok. It's "stormed" couple times here but nothing like it does back home. Mostly it's just dry and hot all day but this last week has been pretty nice but it's supposed to go back up to the 90's and 100's again this week.

 

This week has been super slow. Since we no longer have a car, we have two of the priests from our ward driving us around today. We have also been doing a lot of biking and walking because almost all of our appointments fell through and a lot of the people we normally visit have not been home. My companion and I will start to implement a plan we came up last week of setting up lessons with members and encouraging them to invite non-member friends then teaching about the restoration and then asking for referrals It's interesting that we came up with this because last night there was a broadcast from Salt Lake to the whole world that changed a lot about how missionary work should be done. Basically, they are putting a lot more on to the bishop and members to move the work forward and one of the things was that members should do most all the finding of investigators for the missionaries. We hope that because of this, we will be able to have a lot more people we can help bring in to the gospel.

 

I would also encourage you to invite non-member friends for dinner with the missionaries or to lessons with them. The missionaries would love you forever, I promise. I think I understand more about why the missionaries said they were not getting support from the branch, it was because there was not a whole lot of member involvement or referring others to the missionaries. It is so ineffective to tract door to door, we have found only one person to teach that way. Member involvement and referrals are absolutely necessary for our success, most all the people we teach are member referrals.

 

I love you and miss you too.

June 17, 2013

Dear folks,

We did get to go to a members house for dinner on Father's Day, we had roast, potatoes, and ice cream, it was pretty good.  Hope it works out for you guys, labs are super high strung. I also hope you have a good anniversary. That's a nice shiner Joy, and Josh is a dork, hahaha. Yeah, hopefully they can get out of the house soon. One good thing about out here is that I haven't encountered a tick or mosquito yet, it's awesome.

This week has been a pretty good one but it has been emotionally tough. There were a couple things that happened with families we are dealing with that are just nuts. We have also head the life stories of a few people that are just heartbreaking, it's hard to believe that things like it happen.

Our investigators are still coming along well. We have spent a lot of time walking so that we can street contact and it has been going well for us. We did lose a couple people, though. B and P moved and E has disappeared. We got a hold of one of her friends and she said that she hasn't heard from E in a while so we don't know where she went. All in all though, things are going well. If things continue as they are, we should have at least 2 and maybe as much as 4 baptism in July, we are very excited for our investigators.

I love you all and hope your week will be a good one.

 

Elder J

Dear Joyanna,

I doing well. It's ok, my companion and I only really got to use the car to go to church and shopping on P-day. That sounds like fun. I hope the cheesecake was good.

I love you and hope you have a good week.

Dear Jaeden,

I think the puppy will be more hyper than you guys, even though you're all crazy goofs. Nobody that I know of has had any problems with the heat yet. I hope your next camping adventure goes better.

Love you and have a good week!

June 10, 2013

This week has been a pretty interesting one. As it turns out, Salt Lake has been an end to the rescue missionary work, so now our ward will have to proselyting sets of missionaries. They called us on Tuesday and said that we had to split our area into two separate proselyting areas for the upcoming transfer. Well, we split it based on the fact that one set of missionaries using a car and the other not. We called them on Wednesday to tell them our plan, and they said, "Oh, by the way, your area will now be a bike mission and we are taking away the car." We were shocked considering our area extends to the Oregon border with at least 12 square miles of area that we frequently go to to cover, plus we have two sets of missionaries in our apartment that now have no way to get to the stores or to the library for emails without someone else to give us a ride. We spent all of Wednesday trying to figure out how we were going to split the area and how we were going to get to church on Sundays and shopping and emails on Mondays. We think we have everything figured out pretty well, but this will be an interesting transfer.

Even though this week was pretty slow, we still had a pretty good week. We finally got a hold of a referral that we've been trying to track down for the last 4 weeks. Her name is D and was referred to us by another set of missionaries that met her at her work. She was very interested and we set up a return appointment so we will see how that goes.

O decided to go on vacation to LA for two weeks so we haven't been able to see him for awhile.

We finally set up C's baptism and got everything set up for it so we are pretty excited for him. He is a super cool guy and has a very strong testimony but we are still trying to warm his family up to the idea.

S's folks are having two more kids move in with them, who, I believe, are her full siblings. According to S's step mom, at least one of them, her sister B, is interested in coming to church and taking lessons from us. S is still coming along well. She been reading the Gospel Principles book in her spare time, which is awesome, because she pretty much has a basic understanding of everything we teach and asks a lot of great questions. We hope to have her set with a baptismal date by the end of the week.

We have also have started to work with E's ex-boyfriend P. We don't know where he will go, but he is interested in hearing more about our message so we will see.

I love and miss you guys and look forawrd to hearing from you again next week.

June 3, 2013

This week has been going pretty well. There isn't too much to talk about this week, but there has been a lot of sadness that we have had to work with. My companion and I are working with several families that have had just some of the worst things going on. Sometimes, it's hard to deal with but I know Heavenly Father is in control. In case I've never said it, I just want you to know how much I love you and dad and how much I appreciate all the things you guys did for me growing up. I never realized until now that how you raised me made so much of a difference in my life. Thank you for being there for me and being my parents.

May 28, 2013

 

This week has been going pretty good. We didn't get to write until today because of Memorial Day and all the library being closed. I did get the cookies and they were still good, they got here last Tuesday so not quite as long as my package took to get to Minnesota.

The weather has been really nice here, but only me and my companion think so, haha. We are more used to the cold, I guess, but the temp has been in the 60's so it's weird seeing people in sweaters walking around like it's cold when we think it's great. I saw the picture of all my clothes burning so I guess you got that problem figured out, haha. I hope you saved some of my jeans and if you did, could you send some to me please? If not, that's fine.

This last week went by pretty good. On Thursday we had an Area 70, Elder Eduardo Gavarret visit on a mission tour. That was pretty cool, he gave a talk on how we should trust our mission president and teach people not lessons. which was pretty interesting.

O is doing well. We plan on having him set with a date today. So far, he has been doing good on keeping his commitments and we are still excited for him.

B is moving to Oklahoma with E's ex-boyfriend P, another guy we have talked to a little but hasn't really progressed much. B is still interested in talking to the missionaries, though, so we plan on keeping contact with him so we can refer him to the missionaries there. We finally got a hold of E, who has left the house and is living with B's ex-girlfriend R, the girl that his emotional break down was about, which is a pretty funny story. My companion and I are walking down the street to a recent convert family's house when we hear some people call out to us. It was her and a couple friends who were "dressed" to go to a club, I will let you imagine what such a dress would entail. They decide to walk with us to the members house and we got her information so that we could set an appointment for a lesson this week, but the members we are visiting were standing outside their house and see us walking down the street with our entourage. The Brother shook his head and the Sister started to laugh and walked into the house. As we walked away, E calls out "Call me!" and the Sister just loses it with laughter then proceeds to give us a hard time. She said, " So that's why you guys became missionaries!" while we just sat there red faced and laughing, trying to explain what the situation was.

We also got kicked out of a guys house this week. Missionaries have been visiting him since he joined the church because he still has a few hurdles to overcome.He is convinced that Brigham Young was an adulterous slave holding thug, does not believe Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon, and did not like what we had to say when we asked him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and Joseph Smith as well as to read more about Brigham Young. He got so mad and said he knew all he needed to about Brigham Young and wanted nothing to do with the Book of Mormon then told us to get out and never come back because we were trying to brainwash him. We aren't to worried about this, though, he has apparently thrown out several sets of missionaries over the years and he was at church on Sunday so we are still hopeful for him.

We had a ward talent show on Saturday which was pretty fun. On the way, my companion and the other set of missionaries that work with us decide to do a skit about the day in the life of a missionary. We put it together in about 10 minutes before it started. My companion and I pretended to tract into 4 different people. The first was a drunk guy who passed out when we tried to teach him. The second was a woman that flirted with us then slapped us and slammed the door when we told her about chastity. The third was a guy who pulled a gun out and started shooting as we ran away in slow motion. The last house was a guy who was super excited about the gospel. As we went through the skit, we progressively got more disheveled-looking and downhearted so by the end we I was crawling on the ground and my companion was limping. When we got to the last house and knocked, we apprehensively showed the last guy a book of Mormon and he jumped around the stage and hugged us then we bowed. We had the whole ward laughing and everyone came up to us and said it was super funny.

We have started to work with S, the daughter of one of our investigators who has, up until now, not been very open to us. She says she an atheist, but not strongly. She had recently started sitting in on the lessons we were having with her dad, and had mentioned that she felt a little uncomfortable around us because our suits made us look to formal and uptight. So we went over in our normal clothes one night just to talk to her and ended up playing the board game LIFE. She opened up to us a lot and agreed to start taking the lessons with her dad and also said that she feels differently when we are around and believes the gospel more and more every time we teach her dad. We are very excited for her.

We are also working with a guy named J, who has been talking lessons for 14 years. He is a really nice guy, but for some reason he just refuses to be baptized. We fasted and prayed and spent 2 hours on Sunday preparing for his lesson that night. We decided to take a different tactic with him, something other missionaries hadn't. We were very blunt but not in a condescending or hurtful way. It went very well, he said he would consider it more this week and we plan on doing the same thing again this Sunday. We are very hopeful for him and feel very strongly he is ready for it even though he claims otherwise.

I love you and miss you all.

May 21, 2013

Congratulations on graduating! That's awesome. I know, it's weird already having my associates. My companion did the same thing as me during high school and got his in Accounting before coming out. We are both glad we did it, though, it saved a ton of time and money.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks came to Reno South for stake conferences and the missionaries were invited if they could get investigators to come. We got there super early so we were pretty close to him when he spoke. He is a really smart guy and also really funny and after he finished he had about an hour of question and answer which was cool. After wards, he walked around and shook hands and talked to us and others, which was awesome. He mentioned that she (Sister Monson) had passed while he was speaking, and all the missionaries were surprised, we had never heard.

Things are going well here. We are staying busy. On average, we rode our bikes about 20-25 miles a day and we taught a lot of lessons. C. decided he wanted to visit his family in California for a few weeks before getting baptized so he pushed his date back to July. His family is very Jewish and he wants to talk to them in person first, which we understand. He lives in Reno with his sister S. who hates the church and wont let us teach lessons in her house but she is really nice and loves us and loves talking to us for some reason. One time, we went and visited him just to see how he was doing. She came home and thought we had been teaching and gave us the death stare, I don't think I had ever been so scared in my life. After we had reassured her we were not teaching a lesson, she was fine, but man oh man, I thought she was about to murder us the look she had. She really is a nice person though, she has invited us over for dinner several times and likes to talk but is not open to the gospel.

We haven't really been able to teach E. and B. again. The whole situation in that house among other things is making it very hard to get a hold of them, but when we do get to talk to them they still want us to come over, the timing is just not right and it is worsened by the fact that we are so busy and our availability is limited, but we make and effort to stop by every day and see if we can't get a hold of any of them.

All I have to say about O. is that he is unbelievable. We meet with him about every two days and he completely accepts the gospel. We got him to come to see Elder Oaks and he thought it was great. We were worried about him because he accepts everything without question, so we were trying to get him to pray and ask and to change if he got an answer and he got frustrated with us and said,"You guys keep telling me to ask God but I already know it's true. If I didn't believe you guys and know it was good, I wouldn't let you come back." His mother had also come up to us and said what ever you are telling him, keep telling him, it's been good for him. He also said he wanted to know more and that if he came with us to church he would be able to learn more, which astounded us, we hadn't even brought up church yet. Then he asked us if we didn't smoke or drink so we then brought up the Word of Wisdom and we thought for sure he would have a problem with it, we had met him biking down the street intoxicated. He asked if he could still drink to and smoke weed, and we explained he couldn't but that we are blessed for it and he said, "OK, I will stop drinking beer and tea, I don't drink coffee or smoke cigarettes, and I was going to quite smoking weed anyway." We were speechless. Everyone else we teach has had problems having faith in the Word of Wisdom but he is all for it. There are still somethings he doesn't understand quite yet, but he wants to be be baptized and wants to be married in the temple, we are very excited for him.

I love you all and hope you have a great week

May 13, 2013

I really enjoyed talking to you guys last night too. Hopefully be Christmas we can figure out Skype and I can see you guys. Nothing much has changed here. After we talked we went to dinner then went to a neighborhood and visited a few people with the little time we had left. Erica is still really excited to here more about our message and Brandon has been talking about how great he thinks we are and the things we have been teaching him so we have high hopes for them. We also visited the F___s, an older recent convert couple in the ward. They introduced me to their birds, all 30 of them, haha, it was so loud I could hardly hear myself. They are super nice, though. We also visited Oscar, an investigator we met while he drove his bike down the street while intoxicated. He still loves the Book of Mormon and the "Jesus boys" as he calls us, haha. We are going to try and meet with him again tomorrow night.

Nothing much new has happened this week. I went to California for the first time last Tuesday for Zone Conference in Susanville. That was alright but I can't wash California off myself, hahaha. We might be getting a car next transfer, but since the other Elders we live with already have one, we might not get it because technically we already do, even though we can't use it.

I love and miss you guys.

May 6, 2013

Jen: I was lucky today and got to do some email/texting with Jake, so I will just combine them all in here. Also I saw today that the Mission President's wife put up a bunch of pictures of Jacob on their blog http://nevadarenomission.blogspot.com/


Dear Mom,
I hope you are able to find a new home for the ducks or sort something out with them. That's awesome that they follow you around, though, it looks like having them upstairs is working out. Hopefully the wheezing one isn't going to die or get the other ones sick. I don't think I would clean 16 turds for only a dollar, but I guess it's good that they will, haha (This is referring to my letter to him about his brother and sister cleaning up the winter's dog mess in the yard). I'm not sure where dad's wrenches are, maybe downstairs or in the Lumina. I cleaned out all the cars before I sold them so I'm not sure. The tires are mine.

I gave them both cards, is there a way to get that information to them? I'm not sure how much I can do from here. Do you need the information off my health card? (This is referring to a medical bill we got.)

I've gotten a few different letters, no cookies though. I don't think there is anything I need this week.

Things are going well here. My companion, Elder B___, and I stay pretty busy. We taught over 18 lessons this week, with one investigator, Charles, that is committed to baptism either on the 18th or 25th depending on when one of his close friends can attend. So far, I haven't ran into anyone that has wanted to kill me yet, haha. I love being here and I love the people. There are so many people that we teach that have had really rough lives, it's crazy and heartbreaking sometimes. Yesterday, Sunday, was probably one of the coolest days ever. After church, we visited Dianna, a recent convert who hasn't been to church in a while. After we talked with her, she and her husband offered to drop us off at our next appointment but we both felt that we should walk. As we walked, there was an older guy walking towards us but when he got to about 100 yards he crossed the street, not uncommon for us because it's pretty easy to pick out the missionaries. However, when we got closer he crossed back over to talk to us. He had lost his dog and wondered if we had seen it. We hadn't but we offered to help him look. As we looked, we started talking to him about religion. He told us that while in prison some time ago, he had found god. We asked what religion he was affiliated with and he said none but that the people he had talked to in prison and been LDS missionaries. We never found his dog, but he asked if he could come to church with us, before we had even had a real teaching lesson with him! We said he could but we set up a time to meet him first. That was pretty cool.

After that we stopped by the house of Brandon, another person we had met earlier this week. He was at work but a couple of his roommates, Erica and Fancy, were there. Everyone that lives in that house is our age or a little younger and think that we are nuts for being missionaries, but they always have questions and like talking to us. Erica wanted to know where god came from so we said we could tell her, but we would have to start from the beginning. We ended up talking a little bit about Jesus Christ and the atonement, because she also wanted to know about forgiveness for sin, and she invited us to come back the next day because she wanted to know more. We are very excited for her. It's crazy how being a missionary opens doors for you. Even though they thinking we are out of our minds, they are impressed that we put other people before ourselves, something they aren't used to. People that don't even know us feel comfortable sharing really personal information with us. In the case of Erica and Fancy, it was very personal, let me tell you. It is really sad, though. They have very low standards and expectations for themselves and the people they associate with. Fancy told us about her boyfriend and said," He has a job, a license (no car though) and a high school diploma, what more could I want?" At first I thought she was joking, but she was absolutely serious. Elder B___ and I were shocked, we didn't know what to say to that. It's their lifestyle, though, they don't think they can do better. They are interested in the Gospel, though, so we are hopeful for them.

 

ETA: Email 2: Did they tell you my area? If not, my zone is Quincy, which is technically pretty far into the California part of our mission but my area is in the Stead ward, which is pretty much in Reno.

I love you and miss you.

ETA: Email 3: ...on mother's day I will probably call at about 4 your time.

ETA: Email 4: I love you too. I forgot to tell you about my new companion. His name is Elder B___, he is from Orem, Utah. He just turned 19 back in April and has only been out 3 months himself. We get along well. I think he is the second kid out of a few, I know he has an older brother serving a mission in Canada right now and a sister that is in high school. He is pretty mellow but he takes missionary work seriously. I think we will get along for the 12 weeks he is training me.

 

Dear Joy,

I hope your scratches get better. I'm also sorry you hurt your arm again, I hope that it's not causing you any problems. How do you like playing the piano? I bet you'll be really good by the time I get back. I'm glad you're having fun. I love you and miss you everyday.

 

Dear Jaeden,

I'm happy that you are starting the piano again. I wish I could have learned how to play it when I was little, I bet you'll be really good at it and happy that you learned how to play. Mom had said the ducks were being a bunch of goofs. I know you will do good on the MCA's. I love you monkey monkey underwear!

 

Sorry, blogger is not letting me delete the second saluting picture. :/

May 1, 2013

Today we received an email from Jacob's mission president letting us know that Elder K had arrived and they attached pictures of Jacob with the Mission President and his wife, and also a picture of Jacob with his new companion. They also sent a picture of his handwritten letter to us, that they had him write right away when he got there. Jacob's P-Day, which is a preparation day, is on Mondays and so that is when we will receive letters from him.



Add caption

April 29, 2003- Unexpected letter!

Things are going good here. What's up with Church? Mom said a couple families were moving out. I hope the missionaries are putting in hard work up there. We (the guys in my district who are also going to Reno) got a news letter from the mission president. They had a goal of 75 baptism for last month and only made it half way. I'm a little worried, but what ever happens will happen. I had a feeling that taking the oil pan off was going to be a little harder than expected once I really looked at it. At least you get the old one off and the new one on, hopefully putting it back together wont be a problem (knock on wood). Mom had said she thought getting the ducks was a mistake once they got really big and smelly. How much bigger are they and the chickens now since I left? Hopefully they wont get too big before you can build the coop. I don't know much of anything hahaha but I don't think I will learn as much at the MTC as I will finally getting out there.

I forgot to mention some things in my last letter. We fly out to Reno tomorrow, April 30th. We will only have been here 12 full days and we are all super excited to get out there. I also forgot to mention that my companion and I were asked to be zone leaders over our district and 2 other districts of new missionaries that showed up last Wednesday. Each district is made up of about four sets of missionaries, two sets of Elders and two sets of Sisters. We pretty much told them the rules, showed them around, and answered their questions and concerns. We also checked up on them every once in awhile to see how they were doing. It was a lot of fun.

I miss you guys a lot but I'm looking forward to finally starting to serve the Lord in Reno.

 

P.S. I will be making a phone call from the airport early tomorrow, probably before or around 8am, before I fly out. Hopefully I can make it earlier before the kids leave for school. Talk to you then.

April 24, 2013 Letter to Uncle Dan's family

Dear Dan, Heather, Holly and Eli. And Peter too, I guess :)

I really enjoyed seeing you all again, too. I know, I was thinking about it and I realized it had been two years since I was there last. I didn't think it had been that long.

Peter, being at the MTC is amazing. I have never felt so good for so long in a long time. The hours are long and I'm always exhausted at the end of the day but I'm always excited for tomorrow.

Eli, I had a lot of fun too. I hope the next time I play, I can stay away from the ledges.

My companion, Elder C, is only a doofus sometimes. He took offense to that but I reminded him that he scarred a sister service missionary for life by confusing her for her identical twin and insisting she was in his ward and had even asked her to speak at his farewell. The look of confusion mixed with terror on her face was priceless. Over all though, he is a really good companion and missionary. He's always excited and is always ready to meet and talk to new people. I guess I can keep him around for awhile.

Hope to hear from you soon,

 

P.S. The food is, indeed, delicious.

April 24, 2013

It was good, and so was this last week. My P-day is Wednesday and I only get a half hour to write to you and my mission president which kinda sucks. That's nuts how much snow came down, I hope it was warmer this week. It's been really nice here, in the 40's and 50's. My companion is Elder Koby Campbell, if you haven't gotten my hand written letter yet. He's a nice guy and I like him a lot. It was fun getting to spend some time with your family and hearing other mission stories.

That sucks, hopefully more people will move in or come back to church. I did get a new pair of shoes and they are really nice. I can't remember what they're called though. That's cool about Jaeden's project. I know she will do a good job.

Instead of tic tacs could you send mint life savers? They last longer, haha. (Mom's note... too late kid! I got several packages on the way! If anyone else wants to send him some feel free. I will send some in a couple of weeks.)

My companion and I had our first real investigator experience. Here, its called TRC and you meet with someone you have never met before that may or may not be a member of the Church. Our investigator, Thrijae (pronounced 3 jay), is this big Hawaiian guy who didn't want to even let us in at first. We told him it would only take a minute of his time and he agreed. After a few minutes, he asked us to stay and talk with him longer. At first, he was really cold and didn't want to talk to us at all. By the end, we were all choking back tears the spirit was so strong. It was amazing how just a couple of young punks like us who hadn't even been missionaries for a week testified of the truth to a complete stranger enough that he agreed to be baptized. I have never felt so amazing in my life and I cannot wait to get to Reno and do it for real.

I miss you guys too, kinda, not really.Haha, just kidding :)

 

April 17, 2013

Dear Everyone,
Today was a long first day at the MTC. I guess I'll start with my companion. His name is Koby C___. He's a pretty cool guy, very similar to me. He is 21, has a two year in engineering and theater, a weird combo he told me. He is also going to Reno, as well as our roommates. We are all writing letters home. All of these guys have never left their families before. When we got here, one elder took us to our rooms and carried our luggage. He was struggling pretty hard so I ended up helping him.  We then went to class and met the other missionaries in our "district", which is pretty much just the people we go to class with. Our roommates are in our district, so it's pretty nice. After class we went to a meeting with the mission presidency and other leaders. It was a neat experience. After that we ate dinner and after that we went to another activity. This activity involved us preaching the gospel to an "investigator". We all failed miserably, it was a very humbling experience. We all realized that this is real and that these are real people who have real feelings and concerns. I never realized how much I would have to rely on the Lord to do this. However, I am very excited about the future. I have learned so much on just the first day, it's crazy. I cannot wait to go to Reno and do this for real. I love and miss all of you.
Love,
Elder Jacob K

P.S. My roommates are Elder T___ from Utah and Elder W___ from Arizona. They are pretty cool guys too. Our zone leaders are Elder N___ and Elder S____ they are nice guys and have been pretty helpful. We walked around with them after the investigator activity. It's about 9:30 here and we start again bright and early tomorrow, it should be a good time. And please send tic-tacs    not gum. :)

The Mission Photo

The Calling

Elder Jacob K will be serving in the Reno Nevada mission. He enters the MTC on April 17, 2003. This blog will contain his letters home for all who want to keep up with how he is.