I'm Lost for a Clever Title This Week So...

May 16, 2016

Hi everyone!

So, it's once again transfer time and the news is...we're both staying! I'm glad. We've got a lot of baptisms and stuff coming up that I definitely want to be here for. I've also just this last transfer really gotten a feel for the area and have really gotten myself feeling more at home here. So I'm happy to stay. This will only be a five week transfer though. Usually it's six weeks, but we're getting a new mission president, so it's being shortened a week, and then the transfer after that will be 7 weeks to make up for it.

Things are still going pretty well here. We didn't find any new investigators this week (we almost did, but although we tried we weren't able to get a Return appointment yet) but we taught a lot and kept pretty busy. We seemed to have appointments cancelling left and right, but we were still able to work through it and keep busy. It's exhausting though, and on top of it, teaching lessons leaves one feeling good, but drained. So I've been really tired. But it's better to be tired in a good cause than to be well rested in none.

We had another baptism this past week! We were going to have 2, but one of them needed to be pushed back to this Saturday. The person who got baptized was Lexie. Finally! I guess she's been meeting with missionaries off and on for a couple years now. A little before I got to the area, she decided she wanted to be baptized, so when I came to this area I got the privilege to help finish her preparing for baptism. So this has been a long time coming. And it went really well. I'll include a couple pictures at the bottom of this email. The first one is just us, her, and her husband (Preston). The second one is us, Lexie, Preston, their son, and some of their really good friends.

Well, there's not much more to report today so I guess I'll just add a short spiritual thought and let you get on with your lives. This is a scripture, John 6:67-68. At this time, Christ had taught some principles that seemed hard to many people, and a lot of Christ's followers left him. That's where verse 67 picks up:

67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast

the words of eternal life.

The times we live in are times when the teachings of Christ are mocked. Many say there is no Christ. Many say there is no God. Many look at the values we hold dear and revile us. It might be hard to

follow the Savior. But like Peter said, "to whom shall we go?" It is through Christ and obedience to His simple teachings that we can have eternal life. It isn't always easy, but if we don't turn our backs on Him, he won't leave us stranded or alone, and He will lead us along the path that leads to everlasting happiness.

Well that's about all for today. I miss you guys! Have a great week!

-Elder Oswald

Opposition in All things

May 9, 2016

Hi everyone!

I knew it! I totally called it. I knew that a bunch of negative things would happen this past week, because we've been doing really well, having a lot of success, and development we had a baptism on Saturday, and times like that are when Satan REALLY tries to mess things up. Tuesday was our really negative day. We had a few really great lessons and visits, but we also had to deal with a lot of disappointment and stupidity. Firstly, the Navajo family we were teaching dropped us. For some reason, the aunt hates us. I think she didn't like Elder Burt's previous companion, so she's just decided that all Elders are stupid and rude and what not. Makes sense, right? Well, she's gotten the grandma and some of the rest of the family on her side, so now we're not welcome back there ever again. So that was disappointing, and also really obnoxious of the aunt. We literally have done nothing to offend her. But apparently she hates us.

Anyway, about an hour and a half later, we got a phone call from a crazy lady, who pretty much put a damper on our whole day. And she called as we were trying to go into a lesson too. And she wouldn't

shut up! So, we had asked this lady's husband for help fellowshipping some new investigators we were picking up, because he knows the family better than most. But apparently asking a member for help is an unpardonable sin, and this lady calls us up, screaming so loud that her voice echoed back into the phone and we couldn't even understand what she was saying half the time. She was mostly attacking my companion, but she was super rude to me as well. And get this, she accused US of being disrespectful and rude among a list of other things she flipped out about. She's calling us rude Really? Well we're not the ones randomly calling people and screaming at them for 20 minutes (no exaggeration, it was literally 20 minutes). And here's the thing, we haven't done ANYTHING to her! We've literally only seen her twice. And actually I had only seen her once before. So we really had no idea what she was going on about. Everyone else seems to think we're ok. I'm not saying we're perfect, but we're not anything close to what she was yelling at us for. And we handled the phone call

really well. We could have easily lost our cool and started giving her a taste of her own medicine (show her what "disrespectful and rude" really is). But we didn't. We just kind of sat there waiting for her to be done. We attempted to politely and calmly defend ourselves and come to an understanding, but she would just cut us off and and say some rude comment. At the end of the conversation she decided she had had enough talking to Elder Burt and wanted to talk to me. Her last words of the conversation were "Thank you for your opinion. I didn't ask for it. Goodbye." Excuse me?!! Grrr!!! It really made us mad. Even if we had done something, you can't just talk to people like that. Who does this hag think she is?

A little bit later we went to visit our ward mission leader in that ward, and guess what! Crazy Lady was there trash talking us to the ward mission leader. Great. This person seemed dead set on destroying

all of the work we had in that ward. So we call the bishop and ask if she's talked to him at all. I guess he's aware of all this, and guess what! Crazy Lady and the aunt who hates us are in cahoots! Bishop's

sad about it all, but told us not to worry too much. I guess Crazy Lady has flipped out on plenty of other people, so he said to take it with a grain of salt.

So that was not the most terrific start to the week, unless you go by the old definition of terrific which is "causing terror". Throughout the week, we had appointments cancel, and Crazy Lady even showed up to one of our appointments, and we had to bite our tongues a bit. But despite all of those things, we kept working throughout the week, and we had much more success than we had negativity. We actually hit Standards of Excellence again, and some of our lessons went extremely well!

And we had a baptism! Mona finally took the plunge! Mona has been awesome to teach, and she's been super prepared. Now she's set a really good example for her family, who are on date for the 28th. The baptism went really well. But it did seem like a lot was going wrong leading up to it. For one, a water pipe at the church broke, so the water had to be shut off. And you can't fill a baptismal font without water! At first we heard that the water was supposed to be off pretty much all day Saturday, but then (Hallelujah!) that estimate was moved back to 10:00 AM. The baptism was scheduled for 1:00 so that ended up not being a problem. And then there was the fact that everything

seemed to be going wrong for Mona that day, and due to her not getting the day off work, and just a bunch of other craziness, she ended up being an hour late to her baptism! But we didn't really have anything else that afternoon, so we had the baptism anyway! :)  I'll include a picture at the bottom of this email.

And then to top the week off, I got to Skype home for Mothers Day, which was pretty much the best thing ever. :)

This past week has definitely been an adventure. It really is true that there is opposition in all things. But there are also miracles and as annoying as opposition is, it can always be overcome. This week

is shaping up to be another good one, complete with one, possibly two baptisms! In other words, there's probably going to be a lot of opposition this week too. But it's all a learning experience, and at

least personally, it makes me feel all the more epic for overcoming it. :)

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Oswald

Things Are Looking Sunny in St. George

May 2, 2016

Hi everybody!

This past week has been fantastic! We've gotten so much work done! We actually hit Standards of Excellence (22 lessons, 2 new investigators, 3 investigators at church, and 3 on date)! Actually we surpassed that. And we did 10 hours of service! And we will have one, maybe two baptisms this Saturday! Things are just going super well.

We did have some minor trials with several appointments cancelling, and I guess there's some sort of bug going around because a lot of people have been getting sick. But nothing too crazy this week. As
much as we can learn from trials, sometimes it really is nice though to get a nice break.

But I'm sure we'll have more trials this week. It's a baptism week, so something is bound to happen, at least to the point of being an annoyance, if not a full fledged obstacle. Baptism weeks are awesome,
but are always the most exhausting and it's when Satan pretty much throws everything at us or our investigators to try to stop the baptism from happening. Satan's an annoying jerk.

So this week, Mona is scheduled for baptism, and maybe her son Elijah, but he might need to go to church one more time before that can happen. But if not this week, then we'll get him the next week, along with (at least the plan is) 6 other people! That's freaking awesome! I'm so excited for all these people, and I know that the decisions they're making will bless their lives so much!

Ok, here's one really cool experience from this past week. So we were on splits, and I was with our ward mission leader in the Snow Canyon 2nd Ward (not that really means anything to anyone reading this, but anyway), and we had a family to contact. We didn't really know much about them, except it was a less active mom, and two kids, ages 12 and 9, who hadn't been baptized. We went and knocked on the door and they let us in, and agreed to take the missionary lessons! And here's the cool thing. About a week ago, the kids asked their mom if she would teach them about Jesus Christ. Then the day before we showed up, they reminded her that she still hasn't taught them about Jesus, and asked
when she was going to teach them. And then the next day was when we showed up asking if we could teach them about Jesus Christ and his church and gospel. I love how God times things, and I love being an instrument in His hands. And that's not the first time something like that has happened since being on a mission. I've had the opportunity to have a few experiences like that.

Well, that's really about it for this week. We pretty much just taught and served, which is awesome. Like last week, I'll finish with a spiritual thought of the week.

This week I have thought a lot about the prophet Joseph Smith. He exemplified a Christian life, and he is a prime example of how the Lord uses imperfect people in a very perfect capacity. Joseph was a
farm boy with a 3rd grade education, yet he was able to translate the Book of Mormon, restore an entire church, and then lead said church (under the direction of God) with all the wisdom and eloquence of someone who had years of religious and academic experience. He was by no means perfect. He made mistakes, just like we all do. But he's an example to all of us of how we can rise above our weaknesses and do great things if we trust and follow Christ. And finally Joseph experienced a lot of hardship. Mob violence, tar and feathers, an extermination order from the government of Missouri, complacency from the national government, more mob violence, false accusations and slander, and ultimately assassination, martyrdom. And all of this because he taught repentance and faith in Christ, Christlike love and service, and because he said that God spoke to him and continues to speak. He could have denied his experiences at any time, but he didn't. He was willing to die before denying what he had experienced. He gave his life as a testimony that the Book of Mormon and the Church are true. And he invited all people to find out for themselves if he was telling the truth. And that is the Church's invitation today. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God" (James 1:5); the very scripture that started Joseph on his journey, is just as applicable to us. We can pray and ask God to confirm in our minds and hearts the truth which is already apparent: that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that this is Christ's church once
again on the Earth. I have done this and I know that these things aretrue. And I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith's sacrifices and example, which always point back to an infinitely greater sacrifice and
example, even the Savior. I don't know where I'd be without it.

Have a great week! I miss you all!

-Elder Oswald

Now We're Getting Somewhere

April 25, 2016

Hi everyone!

Guess what! I passed my 15 month mark! That's just ridiculous. I still feel like a "greenie" sometimes. But at the same time I've learned A LOT about the gospel, about teaching, about people in general, and I'm a lot better than I was as a greenie. It's weird. And I am shocked at how fast the time has gone and is going.

I really enjoyed this past week! A lot was accomplished and we saw a lot of miracles. Our dry spell seems to be over! We were finally able to get back in with some investigators we haven't been able to teach in a long time. One of them is Mona. We had a couple really good lessons with her, and we got her on date for May 7th! And she's so ready. She understands the gospel really well, and is really excited to be baptized. She just gets it! For instance, we were teaching about faith and we asked what she understood faith to be, and she said "it's believing in God, and trusting him." Boom. That's literally what faith is. A belief and trust in something (in this case God) that motivates us to act. Anyway, she understands the gospel and she feels the gospel, and she's just excited for her baptism, and excited to help get her family to that point as well.

We also received a some really good referrals. One of them, Reagan, we have an appointment with her and her husband set for Tuesday morning. Her husband is a member, and she's interested in joining. And there's also a referral for a family that we haven't been able to contact yet, but sounds like a pretty good prospect. And there was another referral we got who we met on Sunday, but he is actually in the neighboring missionaries' area. So I guess we can't have all the fun. But still, it's been awesome. Between reconnecting with old investigators and also these referrals, it seems like people have just been crawling out of the woodwork. That's fantastic. That's why we're here, to teach people.

And we had a lot of people come to church too! We had 5 investigators come, and that was just in one ward! So that was awesome too.

It's just so nice to see an area start to blossom. We've been putting in a lot of hard work and not seeing too much from it. But now we're seeing it, and it's really good to keep enthusiasm up. To quote another missionary I know, " It gets me REAL hype."

But of course, what is a week of missionary life without some trials? I think the biggest one from this week was that Elder Burt got really sick for a couple days. We don't really know what it was, if it was a virus or just something he ate, but he was sick for a couple days, and we were instructed to stay inside that whole time. Not only was it time we could have been teaching and visiting people, but it was just really boring being inside all day. Now, back home it's easy to make that fun. Just put on a movie or something. Put as missionaries, we can't do that. So staying in gets boring really fast. And we also had to miss Zone Conference. I usually really enjoy those (though they could be a little shorter), and there was a Seventy there, so I missed hearing from him. But yeah, that was our little hiccup for the week. And we still managed to have a really good week anyway.

Alright, spiritual thought of the week. This is something I was thinking of last night. Last night we taught our investigator, Lexie, about prayer, and building our lives on the foundation of Christ, and

how that helps us against Satan and trials and temptations. I almost said that prayer and living the gospel will shield us from temptation and trials. And then I just thought, prayer and living the gospel does not usually SHIELD us FROM temptation and trials. A more appropriate statement is that it STRENGTHENS us IN our temptations and trials. If we were shielded, we would miss out on opportunities to learn and grow. Without the Lord's strength, those opportunities can be simply failures and discouragements. But if we build on the Lord's foundation and trust in Him, our trials can become stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks.

Well, that's all folks! Until next time!

-Elder Oswald

Smackdown

April 18, 2019

Hi everybody!

I can't believe it's already Monday again! This past week definitely seems to have gone fast. It was definitely crazy. Yeah, yet another crazy week. This time it's bad crazy, but we actually managed to pull off a fairly productive week despite it all.

So, the week started out a little slow, but not too bad. Tuesday was when stupid craziness started. We taught Kyler and Kayton, two Navajo boys who want to get baptized, and actually had a pretty good lesson with them. Then that evening, their grandma and their aunt called us and freaked out on us and told us that we weren't welcome to teach the kids anymore. The aunt seems to pretty much hate us for some reason, and we still don't know why. I guess she was in a lesson with Elder Burt and his previous companion, and I guess that Elder had sort of an off day and the lesson wasn't fantastic. So now she hates us, including me, and I wasn't even there. I guess there was also a misunderstanding that we didn't enjoy teaching the kids because we keep our lessons short with them. That's not the case at all. We enjoy teaching them. It's just that they're 9 and 10 years old, and teaching them for a full 45 minutes to an hour is just going to overwhelm them. Even with adults, we've been advised in this mission to keep lessons shorter rather than longer. Luckily, the kids' uncle called us a little later and basically said we should still come back and that the aunt was just being difficult, so we were able to come back, explain the misunderstanding, and continue teaching. So we dodged a bullet there. We almost lost a couple investigators.

Another dumb thing that happened this week was that a ward mission leader who doesn't like my companion very much decided to randomly complain to our Mission President about an argument that took place between him and Elder Burt 7 weeks ago and was settled about 7 weeks ago. So we had a meeting with him and President Center so we could all work out our differences. It was a good meeting, and President Center handled it really well (President really is just an awesome person), it was just annoying that it had to happen. And I still don't think Elder Burt and this ward mission leader like each other very much.

And there was a bunch more crazy stuff, some of it dealing with some people we're teaching, but I can't really announce what's going on. It's just hard, and that news was a little depressing.

So yeah, it was kind of a smackdown of a week. But somehow, despite all of that, we ended up teaching more than we did the last 2 previous weeks, and we got a new investigator! Hallelujah! We've been in a bit of a dry spell lately, even with doing scheduled splits with the wards, so that's really exciting. This week is kind of a testimony to me that the Lord does His own work, and that he can get us through hard times. Looking back on the week, it was really pretty crummy. Yet we still found success. We almost lost two investigators, but we didn't, and we found a new one. We were able to keep ourselves fairly busy. There was stress and annoyances, but we didn't cave. There was

even potentially devastating news from some people we're teaching, but the Bishop is working to help that, and after talking to them yesterday, they're doing ok, and the work goes on. In the scriptures, the Lord teaches that sometimes He gives us trials so we can recognize His hand in helping us out of them. I've definitely seen that this past week. It's been a learning experience for sure.

Well, for some more exciting news, we do have some baptisms coming up! Unfortunately, none for April, but probably 3 in May. There's a lady named Lexie, whose husband is a member, who's getting baptized on the 14th of May. Also, those two Navajo kids, Kyler and Kayton, will probably be getting baptized near the end of May. So definitely some things to be excited about and to work towards.

Well that's all for today. I miss you all! Have a great week!

Transfer Week Shenanigans

April 11, 2016

Hi everybody!

Well this week has been crazy! It's actually been pretty good, but holy cow! I'm kinda glad it's over.

So the week began on a crazy note. P-Day was pretty ordinary, but it was also transfer week. My apartment has a lot of extra beds, so when missionaries who are going home coalesce in St. George the day before their exit interviews, special temple trip, dinner with the Mission President, and what not, they stay in my apartment. Also, when Elders are going to train new missionaries, they usually end up staying in St. George for a couple days for all the trainer/greenie meetings, and so they also stay at this apartment. So back to Monday, a former companion of mine, Elder Spencer, went home this past week, so he stayed the night with us on Monday night. Then Tuesday evening we got two Elders who were going to be training, who were going to be staying with us until Thursday morning. One of them was Elder Bright, another former companion of mine, actually the one I trained. And then on Wednesday, both of their greenies also stayed with us. So there were 6 Elders in one apartment. Wow. I now know why President insists on one companionship per apartment. It was a blast, but for those days, our apartment basically turned into a "celestial frat house". Now don't get me wrong, we didn't break any rules. None of them actually (except going to sleep on time). Mostly we just played board games, cracked jokes, and stayed up late quoting basically the entire Napoleon

Dynamite movie. And the apartment was kinda trashed. We also brought all 6 of us to our stake missionary correlation meeting and tried to convince everyone that we were now a companionship of six (and one guy was buying it!). So yeah, we were obedient, but had a lot of fun with the situation. But obedient or not, an apartment full of goofy 18-20 year olds is still an apartment full of goofy 18-20 year olds. It was exhausting! Elder Burt is very extroverted, and even he was wiped out by the end of it. So yeah, we were the missionary hotel for a couple days.

Kind of going along the lines of the last paragraph, I'm super excited that Elder Bright is training! Missionaries (at least in this mission, but I'm pretty sure it is super widespread) have a silly bit of lingo we use when it comes to entering the mission, training, going home, etc. when you enter the mission, you are "born". Your trainer (first companion) is your "dad" (or "mom" if you are a sister missionary). When you train a new missionary, he is your "son". If you were going to train, but the new missionary goes home right before leaving the MTC, that's a miscarriage. When you go home after your mission is completed or for honorable reasons, you "die". If a missionary is "dying" and you are his last companion, it is said that you "killed" him. If you do something stupid to get yourself sent home dishonorably, we call that "suicide". Alright, now back to Elder Bright. I trained him, so Elder Bright is my "son". Now he's training, so now he has a "son", and I now have a "grandson". So that's pretty exciting, and it was pretty cool because they were staying with us for a couple days. So there were three "generations" of Elder Falconbury's (my trainer's) descendants under one roof. And guess what! Elder Bright's greenie is from Michigan! Like "grandfather" like "grandson" I guess. I thought that was awesome, and Elder Bright thought it was pretty funny that he was trained by a Michigander and now he's training a Michigander. He said "I'm surrounded by you guys!" Well anyway, that was fun. And there you have all of our weird lingo.

Congrats if you're still reading this! I feel like someone might be reading the last paragraph going "Wow. Missionaries are weirdos. This newsletter is going nowhere." So give yourself a pat on the back if you're still toughing through it. Well in terms of actual missionary work, we did moderately better than last week. The trouble is, we couldn't do that much when there were six of us, and we kept having to transport luggage and run emergency errands, and transport all six of us around. So after everything settled down was when we were really able to get to work. And we still pulled off more lessons than the week before, despite not being able to do much Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So the work is definitely going, it was just a ridiculous week. This week ought to be pretty decent, and we're looking at picking up at least one new investigator this week.

We did some pretty cool service on Saturday morning. It was for all the missionaries in St. George. We drove out to some hilly wilderness canyon-ish area mildly close to the St. George Airport and picked up garbage for a few hours. Ok, that sounds really boring, but I actually enjoyed it. For one, I love being out in nature, and it was a rather nice location I thought. It wasn't incredibly pretty per se, but it was cool in its own bleak desert-y sort of way. It was also raining all day Saturday. But it wasn't cold rain, so it actually felt nice, and I found the rain and clouds, plus the valley's secluded location

away from the city rather relaxing. I needed that after the craziness of just a couple days earlier.

I've been thinking a lot about General Conference, this was one of my favorite quotes, from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

"My brothers and sisters, the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength--that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life."

I really like that, and I want to strive to better live that. That God loves us is something I teach on a regular basis, but sometimes I feel like I just take those words for granted. How much better would things be if we could all really internalize that doctrine and live by it, if we all made that the "foundation stone of our daily [lives]"? I've been doing a lot of self assessment, and though I've come a very long way since coming on my mission, I've still got a way to go. I'm just really glad Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are patient and supporting.

Well, I think that about covers everything that's happened over the last week. Until next time! Have a good one!

-Elder Oswald

PS-There was a baptism in Enoch West on Saturday of an awesome family that I've had the privilege to teach for a few months. The dad (Justin) was baptized several weeks ago, and now he has the Priesthood and was able to baptize the kids: Mckayla, Tristin, Justin Jr., and Kendra. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the baptism since I'm in St. George, but just like at Justin's baptism, I had Elder Bright hold up a picture of me so I could kind of be in the baptism picture.

Back (from left to right): Elder Baker, Justin (dad), Brytani (mom), Elder Bright (holding a picture of me)

Front: Elder Char, Mckayla, Justin Jr., Kendra, Tristin

Three mission generations

Top picture: (From left to right) Elder Schroeder (Elder Bright's greenie), Elder Bright, Myself

And it's the same three people in all three photos so you guys shouldbe able to figure it out without me labeling all three pictures. :)

A Tough Week with a Great Finish

April 4, 2016

Hi everyone!

Yet another transfer has gone by! This transfer was 7 weeks instead of the normal 6 weeks. I can't believe it's already over. This transfer is going to be a normal one, just 6 weeks. As for transfer news, Elder Burt and I are both staying in Snow Canyon in St. George. I pretty much expected that at least I'd stay, since I've only been here a transfer.

Well this week wasn't the best. We only taught 8 lessons, and only 2 were nonmember lessons. The other 2 were recent convert lessons. Things just didn't really align. Every lesson we set up with our big investigator family fell through. We didn't get to meet with Bill because he wanted to skip a week. And one of our lessons with Kyler and Kayton (the Navajo kids we're teaching) fell through. And we
didn't have much luck with finding this week, so we didn't find any new investigators. And we'd usually split with the WMLs on their assigned nights (Enoch West style), but some of our evening schedules and their evening schedules were really weird, and it just didn't work out. It was just one of those weeks I guess. We tried and we worked, but just didn't pan out how we would have liked. We did a lot of service, but not as much teaching. It's okay though, because this week's going to be a lot better!

As most of you probably know, this past weekend was General Conference! We watched it at our recent converts' house. I just love being able to hear from living Prophets and Apostles! The messages were really good, and a much needed recharge for me. It was really good to hear from our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. His messages were really short, no doubt because of his old age and health problems (he almost passed out last Conference when he was talking), but they were really good and really powerful. He's pretty good at this "short and sweet" thing. I would have loved very much to hear more from him, but it was good. I think one of my favorite talks was President Uchtdorf's about how Christ can rebuild us out of the ashes of our mistakes and trials and stuff, and also how obedience factors into that. One of my favorite quotes from him was: "Obedience is the life blood of Faith". Short, and simple yet profound. I wish I could say things like that. Anyway, I really enjoyed Conference, and it was cool to watch it with our recent convert family. It was their first time ever watching, and throughout the conference, we were able to help explain about who was talking, and explaining some of the principles they were talking about. It was awesome. I love it.

Have a great week! I miss you all!

-Elder Oswald

PS-Someone emailed this to Elder Burt. I thought it was a pretty clever bit of General Conference humor.