The Birthday Week

Of course I watched X-men... haha just kidding! We had a ton of food though lol. I don't really like hot dogs, but I do love polish dogs, and brots, and similar things! Kayla did get me candy. I need to take a picture of my cupboard, I have lots of candy. Though I do grill up chicken quite often, so that makes it all better. You would get really mad at me if you looked in the fridge though. We have two 12-packs of Mountain Dew! Haha, I don't like it all too much, but we got it for free, so might as well. That is cool that you got to walk so much! I got to bike a lot this week! :P hjaha. I do miss the beauty of Georgia! I miss it soo much! However, there is beauty here, a different kind of beauty. I'd still much rather live in GA though.

  That was funny about the dinner disaster, but it was good that it turned out alright! Nice job on the German! You and Allison will be talking in secret combination when she gets home! lol I wish I could learn Spanish after being out here, it would be so nice to be able to talk to these people that say they can't speak english.
 Well, onto the week!

Tuesday: My Birthday! It was a super good Birthday! We did zone sports, and we played my favorite, Beach Volleyball! Then we also played another game that I like a ton, Ultimate Frisbee! I absolutely love playing sports with the zone. We went to the Bell's house, (a member) and we played board games with them, we played Dominion, Small World, Smash Up, and Carcassone. Super fun, she made chicken cordon blue for my birthday dinner, and also gluten free German chocolate cake. It wasn't as good as yours mom, but it was good. Then after the P-day ended, we made door contacts, not really anything interesting...
     Wednesday: We had my second B-day dinner! Lol the Knights threw a party for me, she made meatball subs which tasted oh so good! Then gave me a present, the present was a bag and removed the tissue paper and there it was. A toilet paper roll and a "nut roll" (kinda like a pay-day) in it. We all laughed, and then she gave me the real gift, and that was, creamies, which are the best Popsicles in the world!! And To Go. Nutella and dip in bread sticks. Lol.
We had a lesson with Tom Greenwood, and President Hiers was able to come to that lesson. I love our mission president, he is so cool, and has a good sense of humor. The sad thing, was that Simpson and I were only able to stay there for about 15 min, because we had another appointment that we had to go to, but President did stay there longer to just read the scriptures with them.
    Thursday: Oh man... The morning was the best. We had some service to tear down a gazebo, (have no idea if that it spelt correctly) and they didn't have sledgehammers, unfortunately. We used just normal hammers, and went to work on it. It was fun to tear down, I really should have gotten a picture of us, but when I thought of that, it was too late. At one point, the hammers weren't doing us much good. The owners told us, "Whatever you can find in this garage, you can use" so I went searching through, they didn't have much good stuff, however, I did find a lead pipe.... Haha, so I took that lead pipe and went to town with it!
Then we had some more service helping a less active family with their front yard. Yes... We do a lot of service. Haha, but we love to!
Robi (A member from Roy) took us out for my Birthday, if you have lost count, that's my 3rd birthday dinner :P. Took us out to crown burger, super good gyro. And her daughter in law made me a super cool cake! Coconut!
We had a lesson with investigators whom we haven't seen forever! They didn't continue reading the Book of Mormon :( but we read a chapter with them. 1 Nephi chp. 4. Love that chapter, not only because Nephi chops off Laban's head... Lol You can relate the experience to many different things.
    Friday: Weekly planning! Yay... We didn't have much planned for the day, but since we were slacking so much the other days with TTI's we set out to get as many as we could. We did have a lesson with Tom, but because of our desire for soo many TTI's we went on splits, I went to the lesson. The lesson was awesome, just talked about the baptism and how sick it is going to be and whatnot. When I rejoined Simpson, he got 6 TTI's within the course of an hour, super good! At the end of the day, we had 14 TTI's our new daily record! Haha. We have fun with it.
  Saturday: We had a lesson with the Knights, Love them!! We ended up helping them do yard work for about 2 hours, which was fun. Chopping down tree limbs, weed whacking, whatnot. Then after that, helped someone move. Then had dinner with an old couple who had a ton of small dogs. They all barked at us whenever we moved. It was crazy! The lady had a can with something in it that rattled, and she would throw it near the dogs to make them shut up, haha. It was a very interesting dinner. Then of course, our lessons for the night fell through, so we contacted people and got more TTI's.
   Sunday: Went to a couple of Ward councils. They were soo good! We got a ton of referrals from them, and got a lot of info on people. Being a missionary really just gives me experience on how to stalk someone. No, but like seriously, if you want information on someone, be a missionary! I feel like a detective a lot of the times, it is quite fun actually. Finding out whether people went to church or not, or if they are keeping commitments lol. We are God's law enforcement team. Haha.
We gave two talks... I just gave the same talk in both wards, Simpson did two different ones. In one of the meetings, we were the only ones that were speaking. So we both had to talk 20-25 min each. We actually had no problem. Haha, I spoke about the restoration, I can talk about that forever, that and The Plan of Salvation. Haha. I met one of our investigators for the first time. This was our second lesson and we were on splits on the last one. Norman is his name, and he is from Nigeria, he has been going to church for 6 months, we started the Restoration, and he knew every single thing in it. So I just asked him, "Do you already have a testimony that all these things are true? The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, the Gospel, Christ?" He responded, "Yes, I do, I know with the surety of my heart all these things are true." He already had a Baptismal date for the 21st of June, but I think we will get him baptized before then. Soo cool of a guy! :)
  Monday: Memorial Day! It was dang hot out, it was 85 degrees I believe. That killed us. We did go to a Ward party breakfast, which was delicious, then had BBQ with the Greenwoods, then BBQ for dinner. Haha, we did only contacting, nothing very successful, both of our lessons fell through. So lame! We did go to the Bells, because we hadn't seen them in a while, Bro. Bell recently won Google Glass for free, so he let us try it out! It was pretty dang cool. Worked pretty well. For me it was pretty blurry, but everyone else said it was crystal clear for them. Must just have been something with me... I'm unique lol

 

Also, my allergies are acting up... Lame! Not too bad though.

Love yuou!
Love,
Elder Wrathall

 

Dallin's 19th birthday Post

I got your package! And the shirts, however, that package showed up on the other corner of the block, thank goodness everyone here is Mormon... lol. I loved the package! However, with the keyboard for my iPad mini, the space bar doesn't work :( Where did you buy it at? I wonder if I could exchange it. Are you trying to tell me that I don't eat very healthy? With sending me fruit? lol I do like the fruit strips a lot! lol. I like the shirts a lot, I was kind of scared that they weren't going to be good, coming from missionary mall, but $22 each, they better be good! and they are, even though they are super long. But it isn't annoying.

That Turtle Roll cake is soo good. That is something I miss out here, nobody's recipe's seem to taste as good as your's. Especially when it comes to desserts, the desserts out here are decent, we will see how this German chocolate cake turns out tonight. haha. I will be hanging out with the Bells from 1 to 6pm lol, we are going to play lots of board games! haha

How could you not get a slice of cheesecake at the cheesecake factory! Being out here though, I do love cheesecake now. Sometime this week we are supposed to get a drop off of Snickers Carmel Cheesecake from a member lol.

That is so cool about the German, sounds like you are getting to know your stuff! Good job in reading the BOM too!

On to the week!

     Tuesday: 'Twas a busy P-day, we hanged out with Elder Weidner. We also had Zone Sports, Speedball :) Then of course! Played some board games back at our place! We had our Zone Leader come into our area for the night to see how we are doing, It was pretty nice to have a car in our area, lol, we got so much more work done haha.
    Wednesday: We were on splits, I went to the Knight's family for a lesson, and Simpson went to Tom's for a lesson. After my lesson, I knew that Simpson would still be at Tom's so I walked in and everyone was crying and all emotional and stuff, I was just like, "What is happening..." Lol, but later I talked to Simpson about it, and he said that was the best lesson that he has ever been to. Lame that I wasn't able to go, Tom apparently bore his testimony and everything! super Sick! That man is truly converted.
     Friday: Super good day, first, we had the Zone Leaders call us in the morning, and told us that some people moved in our area, that have been working with the missionaries and want to be baptized on the 7th of June! :) So we will be working with them. We had a lesson with Tom Greenwood, and after nearly two years of missionaries working with him, he said that he wants to be baptized on the 14th of June! That is big news!! 15 has always been his favorite number, so at first he said the next month where there is a Saturday or Sunday on the 15th I will be baptized, and we found January 15th, we weren't that excited, because that was so far away. Then we realized, oh man, next month there is a Sunday on the 15th! Definitely not a coincidence. Tom realized that too. The unfortunate thing about that date, is that is after transfers, and one of us will most likely be transferred by then :(
We also had interview for Will to be baptized, he passed! We ended the day by getting milkshakes with the Greenwoods.
    Saturday: We played kickball as a zone in the morning, followed by breakfast, then we did a lot of service together in a park. We spread rubber shreds mixed with sand around in a playground. Then a group of us went and painted the restrooms. There wasn't much air circulating in the bathroom, so we all got light headed and high, we just found everything funny. We are bad missionaries getting high off of paint! Lol :P After service, we had lunch... Hot dogs, still haven't adjusted to liking those... But then we played beach volleyball! Oh man how I love beach volleyball. Probably my favorite sport we have played so far.
 After having soo much fun, we had more fun by prepping the baptism. The font takes an hour a half to fill up. The baptism was so good, despite the lack of communication about when Elder Simpson and I share the first vision. It was pretty dang strong with the spirit! Super cool!
We had a lesson with a potential Investigator, to me he seems pretty golden, he really likes the people in our church, and wants to know why they are all so nice to him. He is really into studying the scriptures too, so he is going to read the Book of. Mormon, that right there will convert him alone haha.
     Sunday: Well we learned that there is another person in the house that the Zone leaders gave us that want to be baptized, so we got another investigator with a date. That makes us up to 8 investigators with a date to be baptized. We had a lot of meetings, we did a conformation of Will, and there was like 20 people in that conformation circle. Not really supposed to have big groups like that, but it was super cool. We missed the stake correlation... Again, we are so bad at that, we need to be reminded of stuff too!! Lol nobody ever talks about it!
  Monday: Probably the worst day of my Mission thus far. All three lessons went through, one of our investigators with a date dropped us, saying he wasn't interested anymore... What!? You're not interested in eternal happiness!? Okay. We had no TTIs, we tried, but for some reason we couldn't get one. Our Dinner fell through. Bike tube popped, service project fell through. We had the best week ever, then the worst day ever haha. But that's alright, tribulation just means that there are blessings around the corner, well... Only when you’re righteous, but I would say we are doing alright, I mean there is always room for improvement, but we are working on it! That's all The Lord asks.

 

Well, hope you have a good week! Love ya!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

I had a strong prompting to invite her to be baptized. I was like what??

I am super excited for my birthday package! I haven't opened Allison's, but it does feel like some yummy German food, so I am pretty excited. As of recently I have been eating sooo much though!!! Last night my stomach hurt from eating so much, and when I woke up I was still full. People have just been giving us such good food!

Still haven't got the shirts...

On to the week!

  Tuesday: We did a lot of Guillotine playing! Then our lessons cancelled.. Sad :( 

  Wednesday: At District Meeting, we (our district) won a competition for most invitations for baptism. Even though Simpson and I invited nobody this week, I felt pretty guilty. The prizes were "Apartment Treasures", So I got a never worn Batman Shirt. Not too shabby lol. In our district, the District Leader started a new competition on TTI's (Teach Testify & Invite) whoever gets the most as a companionship, he will take out for lunch. So that got Simpson and I pumped because we like food, especially free food. That Afternoon we got 12 TTI's when the Standard of Excellency is 3. Haha getting work done!!

Thursday: Today was a sick day, we did service laying down sod all morning, 9-12, it was some heavy work, but it was fun. It was a little more than a quarter acre of land in a park. We then did exchanges. I went with Elder Child in his area, he has been out 1 less transfer than me. The goal was to get 11 TTI's in his area, because we had no lessons planned. We only got 7 TTI's in the area, however, we did meet someone on the street, set up a lesson the same day, went there, taught the restoration. I had a strong prompting to invite her to be baptized. I was like what?? We have only been talking like 30 min! But I did as the spirit told me to, and she said, that is something she really needs right now. Sweet!! So we set up the date for her to be baptized, on the first visit! Super sick! Unfortunately, it's not in my area, so I don't get to baptize her :( I do feel good getting a date for Elder Child though :)

Friday: We were teaching the Plan of Salvation to Will Knight, and we were on Adam and Eve, Simpson said, "They ate the flippin fruit!" We all had a good laugh about that, the fruit was flipping all over the place. Simpson's bike got destroyed, the gear shifter got caught in the spokes when we were going pretty fast and it broke the shifter and several spokes. More bike problems... Yay

Saturday: We had a lot of people not answer their doors, as always on Saturdays. However, when riding our bikes, a member waved us down, because her mom just fell and broke her leg! And the men in the house didn't have consecrated oil on them, so by us being there, they were able to give her a blessing :) That brightened my day a lot. Some days we get some pretty bad numbers, however, we still help people and that's what we are out here to do. Makes me love my job!

Sunday: Mothers Day!!! Loved talking to you mom! Every member that we came into contact with was like, "Have you called your mom yet????!!" We had a lot of investigators come to church! 5 Investigators went to church! That's everyone except one! Like, sick!! And we ended up with 30 TTI's for the week. Don't know if have won yet. Probably, because we are good like that!

Monday: We had interviews with President, and I spoke to him about getting driving privileges, and he said it was a no go, but that's alright though. Makes total sense. We had to go on splits during the evening, but man! I was in surprise when we met up at the end of the night and Simpson told me that he picked up a new baptismal date!! Sick! So now we have 4 with baptismal date.

I am absolutely loving Elder Simpson, he was sad that he didn't say "Hi" over skype, I got to say Hi to his family. His family is crazy, not sure if I have told you this, but he comes from a family of 11 kids. He is second to youngest. So he had lots of nieces and Nephews running around lol

Love,

Elder Wrathall

 

 

An update and even a recipe!

      Tuesday: It was our last day with our District Leader Elder Weidner, so we played some basketball with them, and also went out to eat at Paces, (kind of like DQ, but better quality) Our dinner was with the Gunderaons, and he knows how to BBQ, he gave us delicious steak! Their children were watching frozen, so now I know a little about Frozen haha, from what I saw of it, I like tangled better. In the evening, we didn't have any lessons, so we just biked around contacting.

 

      Wednesday: Nothing really new or exciting happened, we had lessons with some les actives. Their excuses are almost always the same. Either they are too lazy to go to church, or they work on Sunday, those 2 excuses encompass 90% of our less active work. The other 10% is when they were offended by someone at church. It is super lame!

 

      Thursday: Again, nothing really new. We are working really hard to find new investigators. It is so hard when our area is only a square mile, it seems like we have talked to like every non-member out there already. Also, the stake has been told to work on prospective elders, and they aren't considered as investigators, because they are members! So all the referrals we get deal with less active work. We had dinner at the coolest family in the stake, the Bells. We had pancakes with buttermilk syrup! They also learned of my birthday coming up, and invited me to spend my birthday there. I probably will. My birthday is on a P-Day so the plan is to just go over there and play board games all day. Haha well except for after P-Day ends of course. But she is going to make me German Chocolate Cake! Just like you would mom! I'm sure it won't be as good of course.

 

       Friday: We had a lesson with an active family, because their kid is about to be baptized, and they wanted us to come over and just give a quick review. This happens really often. Though it was a super cool family, and they gave us a lot of referrals so it wasn't a big waste of time! Yay! We went door contacting on some less actives, and we ran into someone, who invited us into his home, and he was a super avid hunter. The walls were covered with heads, and had two bears. That's the pictures. For dinner, we had pizza dropped off at our place, this also happens quite often. I like it though, it is nice sometimes just to relax at home and eat! We had a lesson with Tom, and it didn't go very well, we could tell that there was a lot of contention in the house between Tom and Teresa, and Tom was stuck back on what it has been from the beginning, he feels like his baptism in the Baptist church is valid. He doesn't think its right that God wouldn't allow everyone to be baptized even by no priesthood. He seemed really prideful. We learned that he hasn't been keeping his commitments, he has stopped reading the BOM. Not good! He was doing soo good!

 

 

       Saturday: We met with some non-members who are being taught by the Ward because they don't want lesson from the missionaries, however, when we visited with them this time, they seemed more open to it :) So we will be starting to teach them. Dad is recently coming back active and is working on getting the priesthood, so once he is able to get that, he will be able to baptize them.

 

        Sunday: Lots and lots of church, we read in the white handbook that we should be going to all blocks of church. We usually have been just going to sacrament, and gospel principles sometimes, because we usually have something scheduled to where we can't go to priesthood. Well apparently we are not supposed to do that haha. It makes sense though. We had 5 lessons scheduled for the day and only 1 went through....

 

        Monday: We started off the day by cleaning for 2 hours... It was quite needed. I usually keep the kitchen clean, and do dishes all ye time, but the bathroom is a different story. We got a referral from church headquarters via text. So we went to that not expecting much, because they usually aren't very fruitful. However, we did meet a family of 4 Mom lives with her grandparents taking care of them, the grandparents are active members. However, mom and he three children are not members, but she wants her newborn to be blessed... So weird, never heard of a non-member wanting a baby blessing lol. They weren't to interested in meeting with us for the discussions, however we did convince them for a time that we could meet :) hopefully it goes well! So

Fun Facts:

- I know how to shuffle cards now!

- All those animals in his house are worth over $250,000.

 - A member gave us about 2 gallons of left over soup from dinner.

- So far on my mission, I have been offered to drive really nice motorcycles 4 times.

 

Oh and since my birthday is coming up, here is my list:

- Prince of Egypt

- IPad mini to HDMI cord (if that exists...) something to hook it up to a tv.

- A cool board game - My Sunglasses from home? If they are there?

- Candy is always good.... Lol Tropical Starburst is probably my favorite on my mission, because starburst are easy to carry around lol.

- Mints or even better, those listerine strips thingamajigs.

- IPad mini case with keyboard, that would be sick!

 

This is probably my cheapest birthday list ever! Lol

 

Oh! You should try this soup recipe, it is super good! I think anyways, I remember Jared would send some good recipes.... Lol And yes! The main ingredient is beans, strange from me huh?

 

White chicken bean chili

 

-3 cans of white beans

-1/2 pound of cooked chicken.

-2 packs of McCormick Chili White Chicken seasoning

-4 cups of water

-1 can of evaporated milk

-A little green chiles (optional)

 

Toppings

-Cilantro

-Cheese

-Sour Cream

-Tortilla chips

 

Throw everything in. Bring to a boil. Once it is boiling it is done.