The Best Two Years: The Windows from Heaven, Pioneer Day, and The Beast from the Underworld

July 27, 2015

Hello everybody! I hope you've had a great week. My week was pretty great! For one, we got two new investigators! One is an older lady who is married to an active member, and she actually goes to church regularly. Nobody really knows why she isn't baptized yet. They signed up to feed us dinner a couple days ago, and we were able to get to know them and have a short lesson, and we got a return appointment for this week! Our other new investigator is a 9 year old named Sean. They were referred to us by our senior couple, the Davilas. His family is becoming active again and we taught a lesson to him and his whole family, and we're going to be doing that every week. So those are our two new investigators. We also had some mixed success with our other investigators. We've been meeting with Crystal twice a week now, and she has been going to church! Her lessons have been going great, and she has a baptismal date now! August 29th, two days before transfers! That's so exciting! We tried to have a lesson with the Lawsons, but Linda, the mom, was not there. However, while we were out front with Grace and Ryan (the kids) some of their friends flocked around us, and

we were able to teach the, a brief out-door lesson about Jesus. One of the kids is from a less active family, and he went away bound and determined to get his parents to take him to church. I think it was really good for Ryan and Grace as well. Hopefully we can set up a time soon where we can actually sit down with all of the family.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses though. One of our investigators dropped us. Ryder (or I guess his mom) decided to "take the summer off" from the missionaries. We'll see if we can get back in when the fall starts up, but for now, we've been ditched. The other less fortunate thing this week was that we weren't able to meet with Christopher. There was a very valid reason though. His good friend died of cancer. Thankfully, just last week, we taught the Plan of Salvation, and his friend did leave her testimony. That's really sad. Of course, it isn't my friend who died, but I still feel for him. I think the Lord (via the Holy Ghost) really helps with that. One of the things Christ did was mourn with those who mourn. When Lazarus died, Christ, having a perfect understanding of and perspective on the Plan of Salvation, knew he wasn't lost, in fact, He was going to bring him back to life in a few minutes. He didn't need to be sad. But nevertheless, the scriptures say "Jesus wept." As missionaries, we are Christ's representatives, and I feel like the Holy Ghost really helps us to love the people and really empathize with them more than we normally would on our own. It's pretty cool. Anyway, so we were not able to meet with Christopher this past week, but he still wants to meet with us this week. That's good. Hopefully he can get through this tough time alright. The Savior is there for anyone. It's just a matter of allowing Him the opportunity to help us.

Overall, this has been a great week. There were some disappointments, and some sad stuff, but there was also some awesome stuff, and a lot of good lessons taught, only a few of which I've mentioned. It wasn't an easy week. In fact, it was exhausting, tedious, and just tough as nails. It may have been one of the longest seeming weeks of my mission so far. But we got though it, and we had some miracles. Investigators and potential investigators seem to be crawling out of the rafters. We have one on date for baptism. The Windows of Heaven seem to be opening on us. And we've got our work cut out for us this week. It's going to be fun! I'm so happy to see Enoch start to blossom. I hope and pray it will continue!

Now for some fun stuff. For one, I have new zone leaders, and one of them is Elder Prior! Elder Prior was with me in the MTC, and is a good friend of mine. We are both hoping to serve together sometime. I can't believe he's already a zone leader though. He's only been out 6 months! He's awesome though, and I wouldn't be surprised if he became an AP (Assistant to the President). Also, Elder Martell and Elder Wells are in my zone now. They too were in my MTC district, and I was actually in a trio with Elder Martell for a few days after my first MTC companion left a few days early for Dallas. Myself included, that is four of the 5 Elders who went to St. George from my MTC district. The only one not in my zone is Elder Miller. Sadly, he was serving in Nephi when the boundary change happened, and he is now part of the Provo Mission. So now our group is down to four, but all of us are now in the same zone. That's pretty awesome.

Friday was Pioneer Day, a holiday only really observed in Utah. That was fun. It was kind of like a second 4th of July, celebrating the Pioneers arriving in Utah. There was a huge parade in Cedar City, and all the missionaries in the Cedar City area were put on a float in the parade, that is all except the Canyonview Elders who were asked to be on a different float (so the parade still had every missionary in Cedar City just on two separate floats). That was fun. Utah is a unique place. They have a day celebrating Mormons, with a huge parade full of Mormons, with the missionaries as pretty much the biggest celebrities. It is both hilarious and awesome. As the float went down the parade, we all sang "Called To Serve" (a few times), and a few missionaries did the Hollywood wave. It was fun, and another reminder that almost all missionaries are goobers.

Now, for the last thing mentioned in the title of this email, "The Beast from the Underworld". Well, it all started on exchanges. I went to Canyonview with Elder Bennett, and Elder Howard went to my area with Elder Spencer. When exchanges ended, Elders Spencer and Howard met us at the Canyonview Elders' apartment, Elder Spencer was carrying a cheap tupperware container. Contained in it was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen. It was this little monster: