Transfer news and he is actually staying put!

Transfer NEWS!!! Elder Nielsen is going up north, serving as a District Leader, 

and I am  getting my Son Elder Ichin who is from an

Island off of Guam. Exciting times!

Wednesday: Sister Haines (The mission office secretary) called us,
letting us know that she had our stuff! (The stuff that was stolen last
week) Turns out the robber after thieving from us went out for
lunch, then left the bag that he stole from us (Which said "The Utah

Ogden Mission" on the bag) on a table at a restaurant. The manager got

it, and gave it back to the mission office. Pretty sweet! God looks
out for us, we didn't think we were every going to see those things
again.

Thursday: Eric always told us his reason for not being able to quit
smoking was because of his surroundings. So we had good news, Eric was
getting out of that house and moving into his Mom's house. We helped
him move, and had a lesson afterwards, he was so gun hoe (I think
that is how you spell it?? haha) about quitting after that.

Friday: Aaron, who was an investigator in my last area. Got permission
from the first presidency to be baptized!!! He is so excited, he met
with the missionaries for over 2 years, and he has been waiting for
permission for like two months. Good to see him to be baptized.

Saturday: We had a lesson with Eric, he is still struggling with the
Word of Wisdom. And this time, he seemed to take a turn for the worse.
Usually he is pumped and telling us that he is never going to smoke
one again, but this time he didn't seem to have the desire, he just
made a lot of excuses for not quitting to smoke.

Sunday: We went to one of the new wards that opened up because of the
people moving in. This ward was a Man's best friend... Haha. This ward
had around 75 girls in it, and 5 guys. It was so weird to see! We
helped pass and bless the sacrament, never thought I would
have to help in one of these wards up here with that. Eric our
investigator came to church!

Monday: We had MLT today, it was held at the Mission President's home.
I like the home feel that the meeting had, but it was certainly
squished at times with all those people in there. During MLT we
had Eric (Our only investigator) text us saying that he doesn't want to
meet with us for a time. He wants to come to church still but to take
a break from the missionary discussions. :( Sad. So now we have no
investigators... This is rough. I feel really bad for my Greenie who
comes into here when it is like this. Though school is starting up,
people are moving in, so we should be good.

Love,

Elder Wrathall

The safest city in the USA?

Wednesday: We started to tract, we were knocking doors, none of them
were opening, finally, after like 30 min, one opens. So excited I say, "What's 

your name!?" He replies, "I'm the landlord, nobody lives in these apartments 

right now." It was so sad. Seems to be the case for a ton of the apartments in 

our area right now. We had a lesson with Eric at the Temple! That was really 

cool! We didn't got home because we went up to Clarkston (45min drive) and 

served at the Martin Harris Pageant. Stayed over the night with Alsterberg up in
Preston.

Thursday: We had to get a ride down from Preston to Logan,  we were going to take the bus, but learned that the bus only goes there early morning and late

afternoon. We already missed them all, as soon as I learned of that though, 

someone drove up to us, and offered us a ride. That was super nice :) When we got back to the apartment, our door was open, we both thought that was 

strange, but kinda shrugged it off. Had lunch, then I noticed my watch box was gone, then Nielsen noticed his ipod was gone. We first thought it was just other missionaries playing a joke on us. Called around, nope. Called 911 and they 

took fingerprints and whatnot. Yep... Got robbed in the safest city in the USA. 

Dealing with that took a long  time.

Friday:  Because of the lack of students around right now, we decided to start 

prepping up for big wave of work, we made maps of our area that we can place notes on, and got more organized with splits and correlations.

Saturday: Met with Eric again, he is struggling really bad with the smoking, and this time I went to his house, and it all made sense. Everybody in his house 

smokes, and it stenches with it, He did tell us that he bought 2 puppies to help him get over smoking, keeps him more busy, and makes him more happy. The miracles of puppies! Haha

Sunday: 7am-4pm. Church!! Haha, afterwards we met with Eric again, he
decided that he needs to get a new place if wants to be able to smoke, sad, 

because that usually takes a long time to move, so he won't be able to be 

baptized very soon, but very good for him to get out of that terrible place. He is such a good guy, he doesn't deserve to live there.

Monday: Had a lesson with Riley, a Less-Active, he is wanting to get back 

active, maybe the reasoning is that his girlfriend is a active member... but any 

reason is a good reason. He is working with the bishop to become worthy to 

partake of the sacrament, and the bishop suggested that he meet with us, the missionaries! He is a really cool guy, I like him a lot. I feel like if I didn't serve amission that is where I would be at, so I can sympathize. Lately have been 

running into a lot of guys who love motorcycles, this is why God wanted me to

ride motorcycles before my mission, so easy to get a conversation with them.

Well these next two weeks is moving times, people moved out pretty much 

already, Freshmen will be moving in on Saturday, everyone else, next Saturday.It's about to get busy!!! :)

Thanks for the email, 

Love you Mom!

Elder Wrathall

For the Sake of Other Areas Day

Wednesday: I think it would be appropriate to call this day,
"For the sake of Other Areas day!" We had two lessons with people that

were going to be moving into other areas. We invited both to be baptized. So
those missionaries are walking into something pretty good! Also, we talked to a
random guy, without us saying anything about the church yet, he says,
"I've actually been really interested in the church, and I want to meet
with missionaries soon." I thought it was a member just joking with us...
Nope. completely real desire. He doesn't live in our area, but gave him the
number for the missionaries where he does, he was going to give them a call.

Thursday: We met with Zac, and sadly he still didn't pray. He read

the scriptures, and came to church, but didn't pray at all. We felt like we
weren't making any progress so we decided to drop him as an investigator. We
told him that we wouldn't meet anymore. Turns out, right after that lesson he
went to our Ward Mission Leader, Zach Jensen, and told him that all the concerns
that he brought up, aren't his real concerns, he wants to be baptized, but that
he just feels like he isn't ready yet. So he doesn't want to set a date. But
that was really cool to see his development in the gospel that came from dropping
him.

Friday: We were able to help 2 people move into their houses. One

of which was a college girl, after we helped her move in, we asked if she would
like to learn more about the church. She said, "Maybe...." She was
just one of those girls who can't say no, we finally milked a no out of her.
Then continued on trying to find the elect, for people like that though, we
tell the ward to invite them to activities and what-not.





Saturday: Turns out there is a fair in town, and we decided that

we would go to it, because it is in our area, and also, we had no lessons for
the day... The Christensen's joined us, there was a booth called, "Are you
a good person? Pass the test, Get $1". It was a bashing booth of non-denominational churches, they guy I had that gave me the test was super nice. I got a dollar.
Now, Sister Christensen's guy was not nice at all. So she got a bit of the life
of how it is to be persecuted for her faith. I felt bad taking them to the fair
after that :/ Throughout the fair, we had people stop us, and sometimes give us
referrals, it was pretty sweet!

Sunday: We had a lot of people come to church! He had 3 less-actives

that we were working with come to church, we only have 1 real investigator, and
he came, but we had like 4 non-members come to church besides that. Met with
some more Bishops that are excited for the missionary work that will be rolling
in come school time. Man, I really wish School would come already! Haha




Monday: Started the day off with service! Helping a senior couple clean

up their yard and garage. Then... we actually had a lot of lessons for the
day!!! We had 7 scheduled, and 5 went through. Not too bad of a ratio! We met
with Ian, who Elder Norris found in his area, but is YSA so he turned it over
to us. However, the lesson went a bit sour. Norris said Ian was super
interested, but Ian's brother, Jordan, completely hijacked the lesson and took
it on a downward spiral. Jordan is not interested at all, so now comes the chall-enge of trying to meet with Ian alone.

Tuesday: Got to go to the temple today :)))))




Thanks for the email!! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Wrathall 

Happy Week!

Waiting for the bus!

Happy Week!!
Tuesday: I normally don't write anything about this day,
because generally nothing happens besides P-day stuff, however, this time something fun happened. After P-day, we wereboth contemplating on how we could get our hands on cigarettes, because we needed to get some to soak in milk and let dry for our investigator to smoke, that way he never wants to smoke again. When no later than 2 minutes, we walk into
a guy who is smoking!! I tell him what's up, "Hey!! We werejust talking about how we could get some cigarettes, and wecame across you! Can you give us a pack?" He looked kinda
shocked and said, "Wait, aren't you Mormons?" Haha, so we 

explained ourselves, had a good contact, then at the end, Ibartered with him for some cigs. He started off saying he 

wanted $5 for 4. Ended up buying 5 for $3.25.
Cigarettes are expensive!!!

Wednesday: We had DM (District Meeting) and we went 

tracting a lot. However, the grand finale of the day was 

Eric smoking those Milk/Mustard soaked cigs (He told us he wanted more than just milk.) He started to smoke one, whichhe felt super sick with that one, but being so dedicated hesmoked 3 at the same time. He threw up a couple of times. 

It was painful just to watch him.

Thursday: Eric didn't smoke all today!! It worked! He used to smoke 20 a day. We had a lesson with our other 

investigator Zac, who is trying to fight homosexuality. He has been lately talking how " Even if God came down and told him that homosexuality is wrong, he still wouldn't
believe it." We got him at the end of the lesson to say 

that he would be willing to change if he got an answer. It was a super spiritual lesson. However, he hasn't been 

keeping commitments. When an investigator doesn't keep 

commitments, it doesn't matter how great the lessons are, 

because they forget that moment, and go back to their old
ways. So we were worried he might not keep them again. So 

we text him everyday for a reminder.

Friday: Went on exchanges with our District Leader, Elder 

Norris, I've known Elder Norris since I was 'born' in the 

mission! SO it was super exciting and fun to be with him. 

He is a surfer dude from San Diego, California. Sadly, we 

didn't have a single lesson on this day, All we did was 

knock a ton of doors.

Saturday: We had 4 lessons scheduled, but only 1 happened, we were trying hard to fight the discouragement that was
coming along with that. And we are getting pretty sick of 

tracting. Just have to keep enduring till school starts up!

Sunday: I didn't do so well at planning the meetings that 

we had scheduled... So we were building hopping all
throughout church. And we were excited to this week becauseit is fast & testimony meetings, so it is a super good way to get our faces out there, and people know us. The first 

meeting we went to, a bishopric was getting released,
so no testimony meeting, then the 2nd was good, but then 

the 3rd was jam full of people baring their testimonies. Ohwell, that's a good problem.

Monday:
Elder Nielsen was told to go to MLC from 1-4pm, He didn't 

know why, and when he returned he didn't know either. Haha,however, I feel like that is a tale-tell sign that he is 

going to be in Leadership this next transfer. While he was
about doing that I was with a Member of the ward for a 

lesson in which I invited the investigator to be baptized 

the 5th of September, he said he would work towards it, but
he is moving to Roosevelt, UT. on Saturday... :( Happy for
him, sad for us! Later we met a girl from Brooklyn that 

doesn't know much about the church. She was a little stand-offish because she is black, and she thought because of 

that she is cursed. Once we hopped that barrier it went
well, and we set up a return appointment.

Love Elder Wrathall

This week was a wonderful week!!

This week was a wonderful week!!

Wednesday: Since getting into this area, we have been trying to meet all the Ward Mission Leaders and Bishops. Which is not too hard to do when you cover a stake. Now take into the account that we cover 3 stakes.... 24 Wards. That gets pretty difficult to do. When waiting to meet with a Bishop, a man comes up, and I thought it might be the Bishop we are meeting with, so I say, "Are you Bishop Day?" he responded, "I'm Bishop Mortensen, you just met me Sunday..." The struggle.... There is no way I can remember all these names.

Thursday: We had a lesson with our investigator Zac, he is working towards the 8th of Aug to be baptized. However, he is struggling a little, he has concerns dealing with same-gender attraction. He
has been meeting with the missionaries for about 3 months now, and he is super smart. He is super shy though, however, he has been opening up. We talked about the Family Proclamation to the World, and also, "God Loveth his Children" Which came out the same year, and talks about how
to overcome same-gender attraction. The lesson went really well!

Friday: Pioneer day here in Utah, therefore of course, a parade in Utah wouldn't be complete without missionaries!! Haha, so we joined on in for the parade, we handed out pass-a-long cards and gave a lot of high-fives to the children. It was fun to cheer up those children. I know I don't like parades, however those kids do! During the Parade, Noelle, his cousin, when she saw the missionaries, she came running yelling for where I was. Honestly I was thinking, what a mad lady... Haha. It was
super funny. Afterwards we went to pizza-pie-café. A mom came up to us and asked us if we were in the parade, we ensured her that we were. She told us, "After the parade I asked my kids what was their favorite thing, they all said, 'The Missionaries!!'" I was thinking, "Dang, what a lame parade..." Haha

Saturday: Susie was baptized!! This was the girl that I was working with in my last area, it was good to be able to go :) We had a lesson with our investigator Luke, who is a born-again. This was the 3rd
lesson. He is super caught up in "Grace" He believes we don't need to do anything to use the atonement. He won't pray because he doesn't believe in praying to get answers. He was so aggressive, so we dropped him. Sadly, because there goes half our teaching pool.

Sunday: Sunday Miracle Day, at a correlation that we had with the Ward Mission Leaders in the 5th stake, one of the Ward Mission Leaders expressed how crazy it is how many missionaries have
switched out, then straightly asked us if we are going to be here a while, after telling him yes, he responded, "I have someone coming to church today, he is ready to be baptized, but just needs to stop smoking." Right he was. He wants to be baptized, his name is Erick! :) And of course we ate dinner with Noelle and Cory :)

His cousin Noelle and her family. They live in Logan.

Monday: We had a meeting with Erick, he is so cool, he has quite the past, but he desperately wants to fix it. We brought up the idea of soaking his cigs in milk, and he did get kind of sick just thinking
about it, but then agreed and on top of it to soak it in more than just milk. So might just soak it in hot sauce too.

 I decided that I want to extend, can you check to see if I need to re-apply if I defer more?

Not much is on Campus right now because it's summer, however, we do a ton of tracting still.

AS far as studies go, I've been mostly studying for lessons, because we have been having a lot of strange lessons, so I need to study that a ton. Like homosexualty, or The Church of Elias, how to study for someone who believes in all of our standard lessons. And quitting addiction.

Thanks for the email!! 

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Exciting News!

My Companion: Elder Nielsen is from St. Johns, Arizona. He has been out 13 months. He actually reminds me a lot of John, Kayla's Husband! :) He has the same kind of laugh, and humor. He is such a nice guy. He worked doing excavation before the mission. He is 19 years old.

Wednesday: First day in the new area. Elder Hawkins and Weston were kind enough to give us a tour, tell us where things are, and we are working with. The boundaries that we cover are super confusing to, so they helped us with that. We cover 3 YSA Stakes, 24 wards. A lot of the Student Apartments are actually where seniors live because it is summer, and they do a program where it is really cheap housing for seniors from Arizona. So the work is hard right now, because it is summer.

Thursday: We had Zone Conference, and had some really big announcements there. For one, we can go to the temple every 3 months now! Another big one, is because of the way transfers are, we either
have to go home 3 weeks early, or extend 3 weeks more. So, if we don't say anything about extending, we will just be sent 3 weeks early. For me that would be December 28th, or if I extend, that would mean February 8th. So I have some praying to do. After Zone Conference, we just tracted a lot of the apartments that we cover. Got one return appointment :) Yay... haha

Friday:Tracting all day. Ran into a lot of RMs... Haha

Saturday: So much tracting..... I think I have done more tracting this week than my whole mission. We did have an interesting lesson. They are from the Church of Elias. We got a return appt by asking them if we can learn more. Turns out they are a branch off of the LDS church. They believe everything we do but have a few weird things mixed in. (Like when they pray they raise their hands above their heads and say, "Oh Abba" ) And their Dad is their Prophet. We have a tough case on
our hands.

Sunday: We met with 6 bishops, 2 Stake Presidents, and 2 High Council members over missionary work. On top of 2 Sacrament Meetings. What is wonderful about YSA is linger longers!! However, we went to the wrong one I guess, all it was, was cold cereal. Still better than no food. President Job invited us for dinner, it was nice to have a dinner made for us again! :)

Monday: I remembered how it is working with Young Adults, we had three lessons cancel this day. On the bright side, we still had two lessons!! That's as much as we had last week all combined! And it is only Monday! I really want to get this area to be having 20 lessons week. 3rd Stake really wants us to get there too. I love 3rd Stake. We did a lot of tracting today, when tracting we run into a lot of RM's. It is fun to tell if people are RMs or not, and it is so easy. Let me tell you, a mission changes people completely!

I asked him if when the new missionary comes out in a month if they will be in a trio. Yeah, we will be in a trio, it sounds like for 2 weeks anyways.  The address of the Logan mission is 179 E, 800 N. Logan, UT. 84321.

 

Well I realized, if I choose not to extend, I only have 5 months left... Crazy!!!

   

Love you!

Elder Wrathall

 

Tour of the new apartment.

 

Transfer News!!!!

What we left on a packet of cigarettes we found on a door contact who didn't answer.

Transfer News!!!! Yep, it's transfer time, even though it has been just 3 weeks. Now the transfers will be from this 6 week period. So I have been called to train, and I will be training at USU!!! I will
cover 2 of the 8 stakes that are on campus. However, my son doesn't come until another month, and I think he doesn't speak English...

Tuesday: We had interviews with President Allred, and I learned that he is such a nice  man!! That was the best interview that I have had, it totally seems like he cares, and he wanted to get to know
us individually. It was weird not to be having P-day on this day though.

Wednesday: So I went on splits with this High Priest who has brain damage, that was pretty interesting. He is such a nice guy, but you can tell he isn't all there. At a door contact he was speaking with this guy telling him that if he came to church and was baptized he would receive money from the church. Thankfully it turned out to be a return missionary, so he understood what was happening. Later, I taught a man from South Korea, he was a super nice guy. He told us that he is "Thinking about transferring his Christian beliefs to the LDS church." Haha, He doesn't speak English to well,
but enough to understand. He just doesn't understand the necessity to be baptized again, and doesn't understand priesthood, but that will be the topic for the next visit!

Thursday: A day full of finding!! We didn't have any teaching appointments, however we got in the homes of a few contacts and shared brief messages and got return appointments, overall, t'was a good
day.

Friday: We had weekly planning, which for once I was super excited to plan because we have so much happening in the area. I also love my companions a ton, Elder Rangel and Chaing. This has probably been my favorite companionship, I love being in a trio. We have 3 Investigators on a baptismal date, we had 13 lessons with Investigators in a week, haven't had that many lessons in a while.

Saturday: We met with a potential named Sean. Throughout the whole lesson, he seemed so golden! Throughout he was saying, "Oh, that makes sense... Like I could easily believe that." And comments like that. So we invite him to be baptized, he agreed, and said yes. However, when we set the date he said, "Hmm.. I've never set a date for something like that... Ok, yeah." But continued, "But it sounds like you want to meet again, I can't really meet again, but this was really good, it recharged me, and made me learn of Christ. But we can't meet again." After 10 minutes of trying to convince him to meet with us, I finally just said, "Well, we will just come by early next week and talk with you again." He replied, "Okay, sure." Not sure if he is really all there... We went by on Monday, met with his parents, his parents are golden too!

Sunday: We were in the middle of an correlation with one of our Ward Mission Leaders, then Elder Rangel got a call, he went out of the room, shortly after, he came back and said, "Hey, President wants to talk to you." I said, "President who?" "Allred". He let me know that he took it up with The Lord and asked me to be a trainer, I readily accepted. At this point, I didn't know transfers were going to be this next week.

Monday: We had a tiny secret Mission Leadership Training, those are the pictures. We just had it at President Allred's home. It was really cool to just have that small of group, compared to the normal chapel completely filled with missionaries. There is a total of 6 trainers. Elder Aranda is going to be my new Zone Leader, who is a super good friend of mine! Excited about that! So the area that I'll cover is just about the same as I cover already, I just now cover the YSA, rather than the Family. So happy to stay in Logan.

Thanks! Love you! 
Elder Wrathall