Tuesday, April 29, 2014

He is for sure getting baptized


You did write a lot! But it was quality stuff, so it is all good! I still have not gotten my shirts... Lame!! That is so unbelievable that I have hit my 100 day mark! Weird! How many more does Allison have? I want to go to a seafood restaurant! When I got to this area, there was a ton of Tilapia in the freezer, so I have been eating that a lot. It is yummy! I also made some for Simpson even though he doesn't like fish, but I made him try it because it is only Tilapia after all, and he liked it. Also made banana pancakes yesterday morning for us too!

On to the week!

-Tuesday: We played some more walking dead risk... I want a new board game. I love it, but it is good to switch off some times lol. Got a haircut, the benefit of serving a mission in Utah, went to a really nice place for haircuts, but we get it for free there. We are spoiled lol. Went shopping as well. After P-day we had a lesson with the Knights. Will is doing super awesome! All those reviews finally paid off, He is for sure getting baptized.

 -Wednesday: We had our final District Meeting for the transfer. We got Zone T-shirts. I think that they are pretty cool, it has the number of baptisms we had last month on the back, made of baptismal symbols. We also had lunch with the ZL's Bishop who owns like a cultural center of their own. It had ping pong, fussball, chess, home theater, Buffett set up, ect. We had Hawaiian haystacks. I love Mt. Fujis (That’s what we call them) lol. We did contacting some more in the afternoon, nobody was home like always. We had three out of our 4 lessons go through in the night though


-Thursday: Had Zone Study in the morning. It is the last one with this group so we had a lot of fun. We set up a new goal for next month concerning baptisms, which is 22. But then we played a game where there are two teams with crackers tied on a string on our belt loops and each team would run across the gym and try to get to the other side still having the cracker on the string with everyone with rolled up newspaper trying to hit each other's. Didn't matter if some fell off, but as long as there was some cracker, you were still alive. If your cracker fell off, you would sit down and be stationary there and try to hit off the remaining crackers people had. It was super fun. The afternoon was really difficult, absolutely nobody answered the door from 4 hours of contacting. However, after dinner, a lot of people answered the door. Yay!

-Friday: Nothing really different happened... We did have 3 lessons, that all went through! We were on splits, and I went to Tom's lesson. I went through the baptismal interview questions with him. His only concern is that he doesn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith. That's what he says anyways. He does believe that the Book of Mormon is from God though. Which doesn't that mean you would believe in Joseph Smith if you believed in the Book of Mormon? Well, we will get him there though. He is golden. He is losing his Job though, so the family is going to be going through some financial struggle.

-Saturday: We both spoke at Stake Conference, which was a wonderful experience. It was the best stake conference I've been to! I'm not just saying that because I spoke at it... Haha. But the whole subject was over hastening the work. Elder Simpson spoke first, and literally said everything I was going to say. So once I stood up there I said, "Well Simpson said everything in my talk... So Amen!" Then started to walk away. That got a good laugh. I did have to come up with new stuff though. The spirit helped me a lot in my endeavor. President Spackman had all the youth stand up and he called them all to be family history workers. Man, they are definitely hastening the work here. Also we had Navaho Tacos, but the meat was really gross. Sadly. I was so excited when I saw it, and was deeply disappointed haha

-Sunday: had more Stake Conference. Neil L. Anderson was the speaker, was held at the conference center. Later that day, we learned that we were allowed to go down to the conference center to attend. Lame! That would have been cool! After Stake Conference we went and saw auxiliary leaders, since the whole conference was about hastening the work, we thought it would be good to talk to them about missionary work. That is what the day consisted of. -Monday: Strange weather day, it looked warm outside so we just rolled up our sleeves and went out, but shortly after it started snowing.... Like what? Lol it was crazy! I can't believe it is Tuesday again! It seems like it just was P-day! The mission has a strengths test that we have to take, it is just a series of questions, then tells you what your strengths are. Mine are... Achiever Strategic Responsibility Analytical Competition Transfer breakfast was this morning! We both survived! We got new ZL and a new DL though. Sad.

Love,

Elder Wrathall

 

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

"cuz it makes toilets dumb!!"


I have not gotten the shirts yet.. Lame! We did have one dinner, though we were offered three. I don't like three dinners. One is enough. The picture you got was from Teresa Greenwood, Tom's wife (Who we are teaching getting ready to baptize). She is awesome, last night she dropped off some bread and milk for us! We have a ton of candy as well, though most of it I don't really like. Anyways, on to the week!

Tuesday: Went bowling and ate at Zaxbys. Nothing better than that! Well... Except for Skydiving and Zaxbys lol. Then of course did the shopping and all. Then we had a lesson with the Knights, who are the coolest family ever! Their son, William is 9 years old and hasn't been baptized. It has been hard getting him to retain information. After the lesson we dyed eggs with them and had ice cream. Nobody in their family likes hard boiled eggs except Dad, so they gave us most of them... 2 dozen eggs... Lol. Egg salad sandwiches!! Especially when my companion doesn't like them either.



Wednesday: We just did a lot of contacting. We had three lessons in the Evening set up, but all of them fell through We did get a few return appointments though. It was a super nice day out, so I really enjoyed riding the bikes, especially since we got that brand new one, that Simpson doesn't like so I always get to ride it

Thursday: The DLs came over into our areas and did splits with us, we did a ton of contacting. We got 10 Teach Testify and Invites. We also in the evening (Both of our lessons fell through again) had Elder Costello come and help us in our area. He is an AP, so he was experienced enough so he could give us some valuable feedback. He is a super cool guy.

Friday: Every Friday we do weekly planning for 2 hours in the morning. At the end we do companionship inventory. We were both not awake enough, we were tired, and just didn't have any enthusiasm in us. However, once we did companionship inventory, we were both really enthusiastic. It was awesome! We then did exchanges, I went with Elder Wiedner, into their area again. I love Elder Wiedner to death, however, he is not very good when it comes to time management. We only made two visits that day. I heard news from Kalamau and Simpson that they were able to set a date for Art Rice to be baptized, whom we have been working on for a while. That made me super excited!

Saturday: Day 2 with Elder Wiedner, we went to a baptism in the morning. One of the missionaries was baptizing the person, so the missionary that was left didn't want to give the message of the restoration by himself. So that's why I was there, to help him out. I thought he was gonna start it off, but we just stood up front for like 2 minutes in complete silence, so I just started us and got it going. Afterwards, Wiedner told me I should have let him take the lead. Apparently he was testing him to see how he would do. Well I didn't know that lol. We didn't make many visits today either. Got back into my area at night.

Sunday: Easter!! We actually didn't have many meetings held, which is great! We still went to two sacraments and some classes. Tom went to church!! Yes!!!! It was awesome! He loved it. He is so getting baptized. He wants to wait for his daughters to get back from their mission, but that won't happen, once he skypes with them, and they tell him to get baptized now, it will be set. So awesome! We made a lot of visits to Ward mission leaders, since it was Easter, we didn't want to go trackting. In case we offended people. We had a ton of members give us candy and some member ran out from his house and gave us a whole ham... Lol

Monday: We did more contacting and had a lesson with the Knights again! Will really retained a lot of information, we were all really impressed! We just had a really good time in the lesson, we were talking about the Word of Wisdom and we asked, "Why do you think God doesn't want us to take drugs?" And Alex, a 4 year old, said, "cuz it makes toilets dumb!!" We just busted out laughing! Like what??

 That was the week!

 Love ya! Elder Wrathall

 
Not quite sure what this is but he sent the picture of his creation I'm guessing


 

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

"what the heck are you doing!!"


     So last P-day we weren't so busy. And I am glad for that. We had a member priest, come over to our place and we played The Walking Dead Risk. And of course we did the usual shopping. I really just bought milk and cereal haha.

      Wednesday we had some lessons, one with Tom who is practically in the water already, his only concern is that he wants to wait for his daughters to get back from their mission before he gets baptized. However when mother's day gets here and he talks to his daughters and they tell him to get baptized now, it will be a done deal. We also had a ward activity we went to, which was a spaghetti dinner. Someone paid for our tickets, then for dessert you have to buy your dessert and Simpson was going to buy something, but another member bought that for him too lol. Then someone told us if we sang for everyone there on the microphone, he would give the fundraiser for the young women $10. So of course we had to do it. We sang praise to the man, and sounded terrible.

      Thursday we had some more lessons and did a lot of contacting. When riding the bikes, the driveways of houses make good jumps off the curb. So we were messing around and jumping off of those ramps. But Simpson went off one and there was a parked car shortly after the jump. He wasn't able to turn day enough and ran into it... I busted out laughing. It didn't look like it hurt so I didn't feel really bad. However the people in the house heard the collision and some Polynesian lady came out yelling, "what the heck are you doing!!" She was pretty mad. However when she found out there was no damage to the car, she lightened up a bit, and started cracking jokes at Elder Simpson. Haha!

     Friday we went on exchanges. So I was with Elder Kalamau in our area. Elder Kalamau is a super cool Elder. He is from Hawaii if that doesn't just say it all lol. He let me try some of his squid and it taste amazing! But anyways, he is super good at relating things to the gospel. We met someone in a park who was doing the metal detector things. Kalamau related the gospel to the metal detector and got a return appointment with the man. Haha it was pretty impressive. We had a lesson with the Knight family. They one Sunday came up to us and told us that they were recently getting back active, and that they have a 9 year old that wants to be baptized. So undoubtedly should be a pretty easy baptism. But their family so cool! Very fun to have lessons with! Today we have a lesson with them, and after we are going to dye Easter eggs with them Saturday we helped Tom with his backyard, shoveling gravel. Super tiring. I was dead after wards.

      We did a lot of contacting, because we had no lessons. On a terrible road, with tons of gravel and pot holes, Simpson fell into a pot holes and crashed his bike. Now this crash was not a funny one. That one looked like it hurt. He got scratched up pretty good, but nothing serious. Sunday, went to a ton of Meetings as always. We spoke about the atonement in Sacrament meeting. I love it because it builds the trust of members so much! I actually might actually go to other bishops and ask if we can talk in their Sacrament meeting. Never thought I would ask to talk... Haha. We had a lesson with some super cool members who have daughters who are less active. They fed us steak! Yummy! After the awesome lesson that was super spiritual they gave us new bikes, and leftover steaks. Haha. Our bikes before were absolutely terrible.

      Monday, we had zone conference, which is where the Mission President comes and trains our zone. It was super good! I learned a ton! We also had Hawaiian haystacks for lunch there, and that is always good Elder Simpson tried out the new bikes we got. And of course... crashed on one. Surprisingly...lol. It wasn't too bad, but opened up some of the scratches from last fall. Poor guy. And that was my week!




General Conference was amazing!




Yeah, flying is the best! I wish that I flew from Provo to Ogden... haha.

General Conference was amazing! I didn't get on camera, however Elder Simpson my companion did. He got a whole bunch of texts saying that they saw him on the news lol. If the camera started filming like 2 seconds before, I would have been on the news as well! Lame! I didn't have any April fools jokes played on me, but we went paintballing in the snow. When we got there, there was no snow, but when we left there was about 2 inches on the ground! It was super fun! I should have got pictures of that, but I guess I was just too in the game. Speaking of which, I’m sorry I did terrible with pics this week. I'm lame I know. I was going to get a picture in Salt Lake, but we are supposed to refrain from looking like tourist with taking pictures and things like that. So I didn't. That is hilarious that Kayla got fooled by Chick-fil-a! haha.

Anyways on to the week. We did a lot of contacting. We were doing tracking with non-member maps, however Elder Simpson came up with the idea that we should go to their neighbors and talk with them about inviting their non-member neighbors to go to church or to meet with us, rather than us doing it. We have yet to see any fruits come from it, but I do think it is a good idea, because we were not receiving many return appointments just tracking.
We have some pretty solid investigators, however, they will not commit to a baptism date. They read, pray, and go to church. However, they feel like they are just not ready. No matter what we say, they won't commit. They will be baptized eventually however. We have some other investigators, whom are not progressing at all. They are not keeping commitments regarding reading and, or praying. So we are planning to drop a couple of investigators this week.
General Conference was an awesome weekend! It was so nice to just listen to the Prophet and Apostles. We had some investigators listen in and we also brought an investigator named Art Rice to the actual conference center for the Sunday morning session. He absolutely loved it! It addressed a lot of his concerns.
We still don't have anybody with a date, however I think that will change this next week. We have been working really hard, and been really obedient, however The Lord is just putting us through some trial I guess, and that way we stay humble. Though we haven't had any baptism, we know that we have definitely planted some seeds. We have gained a lot more member trust. When we got here, there wasn't much trust headed are way. Now that we have some, the work will increase.

Tuesday we had a member take us out to Texas Roadhouse. That was super yummy! I love some steak!

Wednesday we were teaching a family the 10 Commandments. When we got to "Thou shall not kill" we asked a little kid why did he think that God would command us not kill people, his response was, "Cuz it's rude". That isn't a wrong answer, but we all laughed.

Friday We had dinner with President Hiers because our zone broke the mission record for most baptisms in a month with 45 baptisms. I felt kinda bad, because I didn't really help with any. However, president's steak was super good! So it made me forget about all of my shame and guilt lol.

Saturday we went to member's homes for conference. The first one we went to, I love their tradition! They have a "concessions stand" where you can buy treats with good deeds such as being reverent during conference. We also helped them with their yard before conference so they gave us a ton of "hearts" (Which was the currency).

Afternoon session we went to the Bell's house (Member who sent you a pic last week) they didn't have any traditions really. Lame! But we had dinner with them after, then played some cool board games with them as well.

We had scheduled appointments during the priesthood session. So we did miss a bit of the session because we were going in and out, but both lessons fell through.

Sunday, we got up at 5:45 to go with our investigator to conference in Salt Lake City. It was crazy down there. There were a ton of people begging for tickets. People holding up signs saying, "Joseph Lied". I wanted to go and talk with them so badly, however, we didn't have time. We got to sit in the very front row of the balcony. We got really god seats. Art loved it!

Sunday afternoon session we went over to a different member's home and she cooked cafe rio. It was super good! Better than cafe rio itself!

But yeah! We had a great week. Glad you did too! But I bet this upcoming week will be a lot better :P Love ya!

Love,

Elder Wrathall
I got a picture from a member of his old area that took him out to dinner.  :)
 
 

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

I am super excited for General Conference! We are going to the Sunday Morning session


     Good job doing indexing, that is pretty interesting about the burning apartment, that is funny that your great grandma's occupation was nothing lol. Should have saw that coming.
 
     I am super excited for General Conference! We are going to the Sunday Morning session, we only have seats up in the balcony however. The last General Conference before you go home, you get to be in the plaza up in the front. So that's something to look forward to! I get no bubble bread though :(
I saw trailer for Divergent before my mission, and it did look super good!
 
     Who was my ancestor that was born in Frankfurt and Died in Ogden?
 
On to the week.... Oh man, this is going to be difficult to remember stuff.
 
      Wednesday - I learned that my Landlord, Brother Seigwick is the printer for LDS and prints ensign and stuff like that, he has his signature on all of the magazines. He meets with Thomas S. Monson pretty regularly, so he told us he would tell him Hi from us. We biked around and contacted a lot of people. We had a lesson with Tom Greenwood, all the rest of his family is members and he actually has two daughters serving in Macon Ga, and South Carolina. He has a lot of questions, he previously has gone to anti-mormon meetings, but now is pretty open for learning. I think we will be able to get him baptized, however, it is going to take a while. He is a super cool guy!
 
    Thursday - We had no lessons, which is really hard for me. I'm not a big fan of contacting and knocking on doors. However, one door we knocked on, was a recent convert, and she has been struggling in her faith a lot recently and we were able to set up an appointment with her, and was very happy that we stopped by. That was a pretty cool miracle.
 
    Friday - We had a lesson with Art Rice, whom is another super cool investigator, he loves to learn more, he has been reading and praying every night. Also going to church every week. He has two kids, we are working for his daughter being baptized, and we asked him on Friday, is he wanted to be baptized. This was the most perfect invite we have ever done, the spirit was super strong, we were all had wet eyes because it was so strong. We weren't talking about anything sad, so it was completely the spirit. However, he told us no he couldn't because he didn't want to be a hypocrite. He still doesn't have a perfect knowledge in all the things we've taught him. We told him that he doesn't need a perfect knowledge, hardly any does. Still said no however. I thought it was odd, he would let his daughter be baptized, but he himself doesn't want to.
 
    Saturday- Played Dodgeball with the Zone, it was super fun! Did some service for Tom Greenwood, shoveled gravel for 2 hours. It was pretty tiring. We went over to the Higgin's house to teach a lesson, because we were told they were Non-members, turns out they are members, and are really active as well. Hmm? lol The rest of the day we biked place to place, and Nobody was home because of spring break.
 
    Sunday - Went to a meeting at 7:00 in the morning, turns out it was cancelled. Enjoyed 3 Sacrament meetings. Biked around in the snow and contacted people. Taught some lessons, though most of them fell through.
 
    Monday - Played dodge ball again as a Zone. I forgot to put my contacts in before leaving, so I say blobs coming at me and blobs shuffling around on the other side of the court haha. I didn't do very well. Went on exchanges, got to be in a car for the day! It was soo nice. We drove through Morgan (See picture) Oh man is it beautiful there!! I think even more beautiful than GA! :O
I have gotten to have a better relationship with my companion, turns out we are super similar! We did a ton of the same stuff back at home.
 
Sorry for blinking in the picture... Typical Dallin.
We're going Paintballing today for P-day! :)
Good to hear from ya!
Love, 
Elder Wrathall


A member had an Old cop car, he wanted us to pretend like we were getting arrested.