Only Three Hours of Church

Wednesday: Went on exchanges with our District Leader, I went with Elder Skablund into their area, while the District Leader Elder Saagmeister went with Elder Clukey in our area. It is against the rules to write negatively home. So I'll leave it at that. :P

Thursday: Got back to our area, man was it good to be back! We had 2 lessons set up, which is pretty good considering it is Christmas Eve, however only one went through. We knocked on quite a few doors, we set up some return appointments, it went better that I thought it would, nobody got angry at us for Tracting on Christmas eve :) Our dinner we had egg rolls because that is the tradition of the family we had dinner with. I like that tradition! It was yummy.

Friday: Merry Christmas!! Opened presents in the morning, did our normal studies, then Skype home! :) After wards we went to a Bishop's home. During our time there, they skyped with their daughter who is on a mission. She has 6 months left, but their entire conversation was about, "When you get home...." I'm glad my skype call was not like that at all :) Good job family! We had dinner with the Bachmans, they smoked some prime rib, that was super good, then went to Bishop Petersens home. Their Son got a hover board for Christmas, so we tried that out! It doesn't really hover.

Saturday:Alissa & Shayla's baptism!! That was such a cool experience to have us both baptize them. Our Ward Mission Leader conducted the baptism, it was his first time, he did good, but sure did talk a lot.... Right after the baptism, Elder Clukey threw up :/

Sunday: Elder Clukey was sick all today, we made it out to 3 hours of church.... Man, 3 hours of church is not long at all!!! :) Shayla & Alissa were confirmed! We got to participate in that. For the rest of the day, we had our Zone Leaders come and help us out with split, one of them stayed in the apartment with Clukey, and the other went teaching with me.

Monday: It snowed all day! But it was a very lite snow shower all day, so by the end of the day, we had maybe a half an inch. We only had lessons with members today :/ WE have some of them getting to invite some of their friends over to meet with us though! The effects of the Holidays are still upon us, many people don't want to meet with us until the Holiday season is done.

The cold is cool! Haven't been in this cold for so long, it is just a different world!!

We are staying the same for this next transfer.

Thanks for the email!!!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Missionaries to the rescue!

Tuesday: I normally don't include Tuesday's... Because I am lazy. However, this time I have to include it because of what happened. In the morning we went to go shopping, and the grocery store is not to far so we just walk. On the way back, we were walking, and when passing by this house we hear someone yelling "Help!" Over and over again, we found out it was coming from the garage. Turns out, this lady had fallen in her garage and couldn't get up, We checked the doors and the doors were locked, so we asked her if she had any family we could call. We called up her granddaughter, she headed on over. When talking to the lady, she asked us who we were, we told her we were the missionaries. She began crying and telling us how 10 years ago she was praying for help in her life and missionaries came to her door and she was baptized, now once again she was praying for help, and we, missionaries come again to answer her prayers. That was quite the tear jerker.

Wednesday: The average day, half of our lessons fall through, and seems like it is the same people every time that fall through as well. I don't understand how so many people can just cancel their appointments, and I wonder if they feel bad doing it or not. But 50/50 is not too bad. 

Thursday: So we got a new investigator. This one didn't take us much effort, that is for sure. His name is Brandon, he was already working towards having his father baptize him, and confirm him, but because his Dad took to long, he is turning 9 this Saturday and will now be counted as a convert baptism. Still got a little while to go till Dad get's to where he can confirm, but should be able to the 16th of January. 

Friday: Ryan, the guy that we brought Root Beer to, we had another lesson with him. He is cool, the best way to describe him is that he is from Cali. Haha. Though he doesn't have to much real intent, like he is open to having us over and what-not, but when it actually comes down to business and doing things without us there is a whole other story. :/

We had another lesson with Alissa and Shayla, they are pretty solid for being baptized the 26th of Dec. They are so prepared, and they are excited too!

Saturday: This is the day when we try hardest to make daily contact with each of our investigators. It is make or break to get them to church, because that is the most important thing. Therefore, Satan is going to get them! We sent out texts, called, and stopped by some. Of course, though, even with them saying yes, all will not show. :/

Sunday: It was a rough day. We had 4 of our investigators that we were hoping would come to church, not come :(  Church is often the hardest thing to get people to actually do. We really wish the came to church to, each Ward did a Christmas Program that would have been perfect for them to each come!

Later in the day, we got a text from a number we didn't know, saying, "Elders are you busy right now? Could use a hand for just 5 min? I can come to you?" 

We responded, "Yes! Who is this? We just have to be somewhere at 1."

The text came back, "Where are you at?" 

Just completely ignored our, "Who are you?" Question. When we meet. We learn that it is Uncle Kerry!!! And Aunt Melissa!

Monday: It just rained all day.... What is wrong with this place. It is supposed to snow the week of Christmas. I'm done.

We knocked lots of doors, not many opened. We taught Rachel who is Alissa and Shayla's sister. The spirit was so strong, that at one point, Rachel just broke out in tears and left the room. She did not come back. Hopefully it was the spirit she felt anyways. It was right before we were going to invite her to be baptized. So we finished up the lesson without her :/

Haha, we are getting a ton of snow now. I want to go sledding today!

Thanks for the email! Love you tons!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Another visitor from home. I guess you get that a lot when you serve in Utah!

Winter has come!

The Snow has come!!

Wednesday: We had a zone meeting. This Zone meeting made a lot of changes to the mission, such as no sports Saturday morning like we have been doing, or some extra meetings that we have been having. However with these rules, we are now allowed to use wifi in our apartments! That is a really nice change!

After the meeting we had a lesson with a family who they have a crazy amount of people living with them (probably around 15) in a small house, plus 6 dogs, a cat, and a bird. Needless to say it is hard teaching them in there, but some of them seem pretty open to coming to know if these things are true! :)

Thursday: We had a lesson with Alissa and Alaine! They are such awesome gals, they have such a desire to live the gospel. They are going through a lot of tough things in life, and on top of it they just got the flu. Even with the flu though, they let us come over. Hardly anyone lets us still teach them when they are sick!  They also came to church when they were sick! These girls are great. It is hard setting up appointments with them because they are busy though.

We also did some Christmas Carolling trying to get into some homes. It works!

Friday: No lessons this day :'(. We did go to a Ward Christmas Party, it was catered by Maddox. It was good, but nothing like exceptionally good, Maddox was way to hyped up for me. We did set up a few appointments by knocking doors. The hard thing about Ogden though, is that it is easy to set up appointments, but to actually have those appointments go through is another challenge in itself. It's hard to tell if they are sincere, or just wanting us to go away so they set up an appointment. :?

Saturday: When confirming with a potential investigator that we had set up an appointment with, he responded saying, "Yeah we are good for tonight, hey, can you fellas bring a couple six packs, i'll pay you back next week, also, can you fellas dress down, i felt uncomfortable last time." We had no idea if he was joking or not, so we didn't reply. We didn't dress down, and we brought a 2 liter of Root Beer! Haha. Turns out he was messing with us, he had a good laugh that we brough root beer. We had a really good conversation with them and a good lesson, they said they would read the BOM and pray about it. Hopefully they are sincere! 

Sunday: We gave two talks. I gave a 10 min talk and a 20 minute talk. Okay, I will admit, it is starting to wear on me giving so many talks. I just feel bad for the listeners! I'm not that great of a speaker! Haha. Later in the day after church, we were roaming the streets of North Ogden and we see this guy pacing around in front of these 

apartments. We talk to him and he said he locked himself out. So of course, we helped him break into his own apartment. We were pretty sure that he was telling the truth that he locked himself out of his apartment.... Ya never know in Ogden. I won't be held accountable for that will I?

Monday: Woke up to a winter wonderland, at the beginning of the day we had about 4 inches, at the end of the day is was about a foot. Woohooo! And we had Zone Conference, so we were inside a lot of the day, but we helped a lot of people shovel snow, and I actually enjoy that. I love the cool weather :) The snow is beautiful too!

The sad part of the day is we had 2 lessons fall through, we did however get some caroling in with one of the Bishops. That was fun to give some smiles on some faces.

Love

Elder Wrathall

Back to Teaching Children

He got his Christmas Package. Don't you love the Advent Calendar?

Wednesday: In the morn, we drove up to Logan for a mission Christmas Party thing. They had a brunch for us, and the actual program was just a whole bunch Christmas songs. They put a lot more effort in to it this year rather than last year just watching the Grinch. Haha.

When we got back into our area we had a lesson with Trace who is 12, it's been rough transitioning back to teaching kids. I'm use to college students! Haha. But Trace is pretty dang cool, he likes church, and wants to be baptized. However, it's not his priority, or I should say, not his Mother's priority. It is hard to get them to come to church. Trace knows almost all the answers to the questions we ask him, he is a smart kid.

Thursday: We have been trying to get a hold of Alissa & Shayla, who are sisters that we are trying to teach, they said that they wanted to work towards being baptized on the 12th of Dec, but it has been hard getting a hold of them, to just have another lesson. We have called, knocked, but no answer. They are going through a lot in life, so they are busy.

We've been knocking lots of doors! This one contact we had, he let us inside, though his facial expressions and body language were kinda hostile. He asked questions like, "What do you missionaries teach if people are already strong in their faith in a different church?" Questions that were clearly letting us know he is not interested. He was overall nice though, when we left he said, "By the way, I have a grandson going on a Mormon mission next week." Then closed the door. Well fair enough I suppose.

Friday: Friday and Saturday night we participated in a Christmas Pageant that the stake put on. It was a super cool performance, you would go on a walk around the building and it was the story of Jesus Christ's Birth. They had a whole bunch of actors for it, a whole bunch of decorations, then near the end, you watch a video about Jesus Christ, then the group gets led to a room with us in it. Then we bore our testimony of it, and asked for referrals haha. We got them trapped!

Saturday: Dylan was baptized!! That was a super good baptism, his mom sang at the baptism. Elder Cruz came to baptize him. During the evening we did the Pageant again. We didn't have time for a dinner, but no need to fear, because at the pageant they had unlimited cookies!! That's a healthy dinner right?

Sunday: We had Dylan's Confirmation during church, and also fast & testimony meeting as well. Now that was pretty dang sweet! Dylan's Mom who was in-active, and still kinda less-active because she works on half of the Sundays, she got up and bore a beautiful testimony! It is always cool to see someone you worked with bear their testimony. 

That night we finally got in contact with Alissa and Alaine, turns out they have been still reading the Book of Mormon and Praying about it! We re-committed Alissa to work towards the day after Christmas to be baptized, she is excited for it, she exclaimed joyfully, "Okay! I will come to church for sure!" 

Lessons like those are always awesome!

Monday: We got a call in the afternoon from Alaine, telling us that Shayla, Alissa's Sister would also like to be baptized the same day as her. Then Alaine continued to tell us that they have another friend coming to live with them that is also interested in joining the church! Miracles! Alaine herself was pretty excited about it herself.

Yep! Got my package! Thanks! There is only one of the gifts that I felt and I know what it is, the other ones are mysteries! Haha.

Yeah, they were slacking this year with that.

We've been to two so far, we have another 2 that we are also going to, one is being catered by "Maddox" which apparently is a super good eatery, I've always wanted to try since the beginning of my mission, but it's in Brigham.

We didn't get the chance to see the Christmas Devotional, we had a lesson scheduled at the time, they didn't give a very big head's up notice about it :/

I'd be soo down to work for Jacob and Aaron! Did I also tell you I got offered a job at pizza-pie-cafe up in Rexburg when I am there in April? Thinking about it, not too sure yet.

Well thanks for the email!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Winter has hit Utah

Wed/Thurs/Fri: All these days can be summed up about the same. We knocked a lot of doors that weren't interested in hearing the gospel. We had barely any lessons because everyone is spending time with their families and they don't want to meet with us when their families are over. For Thanksgiving we had dinner with the Stehli family, they were a nice family, an older couple with two of their sons and their wives were at the dinner. When knocking doors we knock at bishop's house to ask where someone lives he invited us in, we played fuss-ball and ping-pong at their house with two of their sons. Have to have a bit of fun on Thanksgiving! A big reason why we went in too, is because it was freezing cold with about 40 mph winds the whole day. Brrr... This is a true winter this year. It's been snowing a lot which I like!

Elder Clukey makes fun of me because he is from Canada.  

Saturday: We had Nancy's baptism! At about the same time was Stef being baptized up at USU, so sadly I wasn't able to make it up to hers. Nancy's baptism was really good, President came to it, and also Elder Lawrence and Pregnolato. Elder Cruz, who was the missionary here before us came down to baptize Nancy. The rest of the day was more door knocking. 

Sunday: We were asked to give a talk on the welfare program of the church. Which I thought was ironic, because it talks a lot about self reliance, and we aren't self reliant at all. We ask for rides all the time, we live in a members home, the members feed us every day. Haha, oh well. It was really hard actually to give a talk on that compared to my normal talks on missionary work. We also gave a training to members of a different Ward how to do missionary work. We did a demonstration role-play of talking to their neighbors. I role played the member inviting his neighbor, so I, in the role-play, invited him over for steak and salmon at my house. Haha, so now the members know they need to step up their game with dinners ;P

Monday: Flaky people in Ogden, with heir appointments falling through. Forgot about that.

Elder Clukey is doing so much better at teaching I'm impressed! 

That was my week!

In response to my email:

Yeah! I was smart this time and didn't go to multiple thanksgivings. Though Friday we had a Thanksgiving too! That was awesome! Haha

Sounds like you had a super fun week this time.

Yeah I was super happy about the snow. We are not in a car area, I wish we were, our area is pretty dang big, and have a ginormous mountain in it. 

It is December! That is crazy!

Thanks for the email!

Love, 

Elder Wrathall

The Start of a New Adventure!

Elder Clukey, his son.

The Start of a New Adventure!

Wednesday: We had to be at the mission office at 8:00 in the morning to be able to go to meet our greenies. However, right before we met them, President had us write a letter to them for them to receive after their training. I thought that was a cool idea.

 My new son is Elder Clukey, he is from Alberta Canada. He is big into hunting and sports. We get along pretty dang well! I might be coming home a hunter ;)

 So we are called to serve in the North Ogden Stake, so we drive an hour to get there from Logan, find our apartment, we go in and it is a complete mess, the missionaries even left a whole bunch of dishes in the sink. Thanks Elders :/ Even more so they had a HUGE beanbag  that took up the entire house it seemed. (We live in a shack in the backyard of a house.) So a quick call to the office, and we had some missionaries come and haul a whole bunch of stuff to the DI.

Now the even bigger problem, when we got down we were expecting a note with everything that has been happening in the area. Nothing. Keys? Nope. Phone? Nope. Nothing. Turns out, the Keys and the Phone, the missionary who was here took them up to Preston with him. So the whole first day was quite the mess. They also only had 1 appointment set up in total. I don't think I have ever had a time on my mission where I have only had 1 appointment set up.

So all these things were a learning experience, and the cool thing is we can only build it up from there.

Thursday: So Elder Giles, Alsterberg, Greenwood, Elder Elder, Torres, are all in the Zone, I think this is the first time coming to a Zone and knowing that many people in it. It's pretty cool. Getting to know our area a bit better, come to find out the Members here absolutely love the missionaries, they trust us so much! It is so cool to see that trust there, I feel it has been a while to serve in a stake where they love us so much! We met Nancy, who was a investigator the previous missionaries were working with, and she is getting baptized the 28th of Nov. She is such a cool gal, she is 18 almost out of high school, but is so selfless and in tune with the spirit. She is excited for her baptism.

Friday: To do weekly planning was much needed. To start off, we thought it would be a good idea to just text every number in the AreaBook and to try and set up an appt. So we sent out a mass text to a whole bunch of numbers saying, "Hey! It's the missionaries, we were wondering if we could meet with you this weekend?" By just doing that, we set up 4 appointments, 2 for other missions, but 2 of them were for us. We set up with a girl named Rachel, and a girl named Alyssa. Later in the day we met Dylan, who is also an investigator the missionaries were working with and he is planning on being baptized the 5th of December. Dylan is only 10, his Mom seems to be wanting to come back, however, the father is not interested. Sad to see, but Dylan is pretty dang cool!

Saturday: So we got to meet with Alyssa, (The Random Number we texted to set up an appointment.) Turns out on Thursday, she just had a seizure, and she has also just had a baby born out of wedlock. She is living with her sister, who also has a baby out of wedlock, and also with their Mom. This family has been compelled to be humble for sure, but now they are so prepared to receive the gospel. We gave Alyssa a priesthood blessing, and also Shayla, her sister. We invited them at the end of the lesson to work towards being baptized the 12th of December. They seemed hesitant, but accepted to work towards it.

Sunday: Elder Clukey's First Sunday out in the field and we are to give a 15 minute talk. Clukey tells me that this will be his 2nd talk he has given in his life. It was about gratitude, so I actually had to look up some scriptures for it and what-not. Elder Clukey ended up speaking 10 min, but I was able to speak for 20 min. I feel bad for those who had to listen to me me speak for 20 minutes.... Haha. 3 out of our 4 investigators came to church! That was good :)

Monday: We don't have a good map of what our boundaries really are, so we spent a bit of time making some maps. I am determined to leave this area a lot better than I found it! Which as far as organization goes, won't be hard to beat what it currently is. Haha. We knocked some ghetto apartments, we had a old man just yell at us for 20 minutes about how the Prophets are just rich CEOs. I have definitely seen over the course of my mission how much more bold I have gotten. I just yelled over him bearing my testimony, he finally stopped, when I did that. I concluded by telling him that he is prideful, needs to repent and be humble to know that Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet. Afterwards we walked away, he proceeded to yell at us as we walked.  What a good experience for Elder Clukey. Haha

Later we met with Alyssa & Shayla again, we asked them how they feel about the 12th of December to be baptized, they said they got answers to their prayers to do so! Oh what a joyous moment! :)

Things are going well here in North Ogden, I am super glad to be back down here, I love it here. People are calling me "trunky" whenever I tell them I have been out for 22 months. I totally am not trunky! I tell them I extended, then they just say I am scared to go back. I can never win with these people.... Haha.

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Elder Lowell is the third one, he was living with us. He is a good friend to me :)

That is Mary Beth, I got permission to go back up for her baptism.

Transfer News!!

Transfer News!! I'm being transferred down to North Ogden Stake, Training a new missionary. Yep North Ogden is where Elder Giles is! Elder Florschutz is staying here, and he is being a District Leader! Only 3 months out!

So I am not feeling like typing out a long email this time around, so I am going to keep it short.

This week went really well! We had over 25 lessons, Stef and Dallen are getting married so that Stef can be baptized and that they can live together! So they are getting their Marriage Certificate on Thursday. Then going to be baptized the following week! Megan didn't come out to church this week, and when we told her that we would have to push back her baptismal date to December 5th because of it, she was absolutely devastated. So much so that she basically covenanted that she would go to church every Sunday for the rest of her life! We in response were like, "Good, Good. That's what you should do! :)" She is such a cool young woman! She is so excited to be baptized, and just wants to do it now! She would literally be baptized in an hour if we called her and said she can if she wanted. We've only met with her twice, and that is how excited she is. :)

Mary Beh is being baptized on Friday, she is having a lot her family come. I am going to see if I can hitch a ride with her brother who lives in Ogden. Brodie another investigator is wanting to be baptized December 5th rather than this weekend. Which is understandable, we have only been meeting with him a week. He is really cool. Came to know and love the church because of a pretty face ;) She is going on a mission in January. 

Tom, is opening up and becoming less stubborn. He is reading the scriptures everyday! Which is really cool, he is gaining a lot from it. He is still thinking about baptism in January, hasn't prayed about it yet.

We have two investigators, Sara and Riley, who both know the church is true and come every week, but want to be baptized in January.

Last night we had a pre-birthday party for Florschutz, and it was also where I got to say farewell to a lot of people, like Mack, Kathryn, Nate, River, Ect. Mack is thinking of going up to BYUI, she would start whe I would if she decides to go! I pressured her a little.

Overall, everything is fine and dandy here in the Cache Valley. Getting cold, but I don't mind. I just want it to snow!

Thanks all ya'll!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

I asked him if he was going to be in the same Zone as Elder Giles. He said "Yeah, I will be! I am hoping that we will be in the same district!"

"The Menu" for dating

I am a terrible picture taker.

This was a creepy door that we knocked. It
looked like the door was

taken out of an elementary school. It was in a long

dark hallway too.

Thursday: Thursdays are the days where we meet with our crazy loud high councilor! He is such an awesome guy, so gung-ho about missionary work all the time. He is the best HC that I have had on my mission. We meet with him bi weekly to go over things, and to try to improve our tactics. We have been losing a lot of our missionary work in his stake sadly, seems all of our work is now in the other stake. :/ 




Friday: One interesting thing about some of the wards around here is their directories, they have everyone's pictures and where the live in this small little booklet thing. We joke around saying that it is "The Menu" for dating. One ward in particular has a ton of detail, including, Major, minor, and interest, in addition to all the other information. Complete dating menu. Haha. However, it works really well being a missionary, because they even have some non-members on those directories!




Saturday: We had 3 lessons!!!! The most we have had on a Saturday. So it was really good Saturday. Sadly no baptisms though :/  We are looking to have 3 baptisms on the 21st though. Transfers are 3 days before that though. So it would be nice not to be transferred. Haha. We had a lesson with Erin for the first time, we met her just the day before. The day before she seemed pretty interested in the church and hearing what we had to say. Today however she seemed completely closed off, and wouldn't agree to pray, read the scriptures, or go to church. So we said good-bye to her. It was weird how black and white she was.




Sunday: We had a lesson with Brodie for the first time. He has been dating a girl in the church, he has been reading the Book of Mormon Daily. So I asked him all the baptismal interview questions and he passed. So now we are just setting a date, we invited him for the 21st. I feel like Utah missions are very different... Haha. Most people we "teach" seem to know a ton already. We are just there to get them in the water. Haha. I think it has been like twice when someone didn't know who Joseph Smith was and what happened to him.




Monday: Getting new investigators on Mondays are the best! WE taught Megan for the first time, she has already been coming to church, she told us that Church and reading the scriptures just makes her so happy! She also, when we invited her for the 5th of December to be baptized asked, "Is it possible that I can be baptized before then?" If you don't call that golden, I don't know what to call it. Haha.

It snowed!!! It was one of my weekly goals to have the snow stick. So therefore God listened to my goal!

 We went to an FHE and what we did there was called "Turkey Rockets." I know, I was a bit skeptical too, but you made a turkey out of construction paper and feathers, then attached a straw and a blown up balloon on it, and put a long string in the straw, and you race turkeys! So that is a fun idea you can do at church or something.










I am doing awesome! Anxious to see what happens next week with transfers. I will probably be transferred which would be super sad. When I get home I can be you gym buddy! I will go everyday! No matter what! I have kind of turned into a gym rat on the mission. Haha. Elder Giles is in Elder Clark's Zone where Clark is a Zone Leader. I am like on the opposite side of the mission :( That's what I get for telling President that I know him! Haha. 


I do wear shoes all day. my p-days have been consisting less activity and more of lounging around the apartment, and taking naps. so I get some kind of a break. Haha




 We got to go to the temple today.

We do play sports with the Zone a lot, so that is good. I try to be healthy as far as buying healthy things. But when people give us unhealthy things, I eat them :/ 

Elder Florschutz's Birthday is the 17th, so next week. He is having his family ship him fresh Halibut and Shrimp. Haha, Dang Alaskan Fishermen! I'm excited to try it out though! :)

Thanks for the email.



Love Elder Wrathall

No matter what

French Toast at Kneaders!! 

Wednesday: We got to do service again!!! We helped Elder Owen, the service missionary, cut day lilies around some church buildings. There are a lot of Day Lilies.... Too many. Haha we had hand trimmers so our hands were sore after that. We had the wonderful opportunity to teach Sara, who has been active in the church, more then most active people here, and she isn't even a member. Her worry is her family. She said that she was going to tell them that she is going to get baptized, and she has an ultimatum with them that no matter what happens, she is going to be baptized in January. I love when investigators say that, "No matter what." We hope that she will be baptized before January though, that is far! Haha

Thursday: One of our Newer Investigators, Natasha, we had a really good first lesson, come the second lesson we were talking about baptism again, and she says, "Yeah, I know I need to be baptized, it's really just a matter of when.". I was thinking, "Well we can help with that!" Right then, her roommate asks her,  "Baptized in the LDS church or Alpine Church (Church here in Logan run by ex-mormons)?" She said Alpine Church. My heart sank :( That's a struggle to overcome because the Alpine Church teaches against the LDS church pretty heavily. Natasha said, "I just have a feeling that Joseph Smith isn't true."

Friday: We had like no lessons :( We had a lesson at 8:00, we aren't use to that anymore. It's nice teaching rather than street contacting or door contacting. I have no idea how those other missions do tracting ALL DAY! No way would I be able to do that. My empathy goes out to them! When we tract all we run into is Return Missionaries, who invite us in, ask if we want any snacks or drinks... We have the hard life :P Then of course we tell them the only thing we want is new investigators, so we invite them to do missionary work. At 8 the lesson was with Zen and Mandie, they are both Less-active, they are dating pretty seriously and want to get back to church to be able to be sealed in the temple.

Saturday: Vivianne was baptized! She came from the Ivory Coast, knew no English at all when she got here, but was nevertheless baptized 2 months later. When only meeting with her once a week. That is when you know someone is receptive to the spirit. Now she knows quite a bit of English, she can carry a conversation pretty well now! One of her hold ups is she is afraid of water, and that was evident when she was baptized. One of the stranger ones that I have had, but The Spirit was so strong! Because it was Halloween they didn't want us out and about after 6, so we played Volleyball and then watched "The Cokeville Miracle" Which is a super cool movie, I would suggest it to anyone who wanted to strengthen their testimony :)

Sunday: We had 4 of our investigators come to Sacrament! It is always awesome to see people giving priority to living the gospel!  We attended 4 Sacrament Meetings as well, Fast & Testimony meetings are perfect for investigators! One of the wards starts at 2:30 and ends at 5:30, isn't that terrible? We had a lesson with Eric. We are having a hard time with him. We have taught him everything, and he keeps all our commitments. However, he hasn't received/recognized his answer that this is true. So it is always a struggle to know what to teach him.

Monday: 8 Lessons in one day! I love days when all you do is go appointment to appointment teaching, there is no better thing. Dallen & Stef was a coup,e that we taught. They are so golden, Dallen is a Less-active member and Stef is not a member. Stef is excited to get baptized, but not about moving out from each other... So that conflicts the other. Also had a lesson with 4 born-again Christians. There was one of them that I really liked, he was humble, and had a sincere heart. Everyone else there not so much. They just bible bashed most of the time. I'm glad I had our Ward Mission Leader there who is an awesome guy! And helped out a lot!

Tuesday: We had Elder Ringwood come to the mission, to pretty much tell us that we need to be more obedient. I guess the mission is struggling with getting up on time? Because they stressed that a lot. We have been getting a lot of General Authorities coming to this mission lately, we have another one right before thanksgiving too. We must be a trouble mission dang!

Thanks for the email!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Let's follow them, they know the right path!

Wednesday: Last 2 Transfers, it seemed we only taught girls. Girls are awesome. They are just so in tune with the spirit. They are so much easier to teach than guys. Now we are working with 2 guy investigators. It's rough. They progress sooooo slowly compared to girls. They are just so stubborn, and prideful. I'm glad I get to marry a girl rather than a guy. Haha, I feel bad for you gals. Haha. Tom is dating a Mormon girl, so that is what got him interested in learning more, he is not recognizing the spirit. That is his biggest concern is just "not getting answers". When we ask him how reading or praying went, he always replies, "Eh." But later on the lesson he tells us how he believes something is true, we are like, "How did you come to know that, that is true." He says, "Oh it just makes sense, it feels right." "That's the spirit Tom!!" He isn't to sure about it being the spirit though.

Thursday: We had to drop one of our investigators, Riley, because she is ready to be baptized, but doesn't want to until January. So there is really nothing that we can do for her. We handed her over to the Ward Missionaries. She is such an awesome girl, it was sad to drop her, but we have to spend our time elsewhere. We went on splits to tract out some more of the dorms. We knew that we weren't allowed to knock on dorms, but we thought it would be okay if we had a member with us. Nope. Elder Florschutz had someone complain about him. We got a call from our High Councilor to make sure we never do it again, and also our Assistants also gave us a call. Whoops. Well instead, we just stand outside the dorms and talk to people as they come out. Haha we have them surrounded!!

Friday: A ward mission leader set up an appointment for us in his Ward. I'm not going to lie, whenever someone else sets up appointments, I usually have low expectations. This one though, it was amazing! Dallen & Stef, they are a couple that is living together, they are engaged for July. Dallen has been LA since age 15, Stef is from PA, and she is not a member, when asking Stef her religious background she said that her Dad is a southern baptist that wants to be Mormon, and wants her to be sealed in the temple with Dallen. Haha. If that's not being prepared by The Lord, I don't know what is. Haha. She accepted a baptismal date of Nov. 21st. At the end of the lesson Dallen was so ecstatic, he said, "This was the first time I have felt the spirit since I was 15" It always makes me happy to see people so receptive :)

Saturday: Jorden's Baptism!!! We had the baptism at the Logan Tabernacle. The Baptism room only has normally room for a little less than 50. We had a little more than 90. It was really cozy in there. It was a really good Baptism though! USU is known for a party called the "Howl" tons of people fly in to attend it.  It is also basically made by Satan. The Howl is the day when most arrests happen all year. They apparently had like 40 cops around the howl this time. So with that going on, obviously they don't want missionaries in that environment, they were going to have all of us missionaries up at President's house and just watch a movie, but we had Stake Conference, so we just went to that. Afterwards though, they made us stay the night at the Assistant's House.

Sunday: Stake Conference! @ The Logan Tabernacle. They have this weird seating to where they have seats facing towards the congregation, but in front of the speaker. That is where we sat, with our Recent Convert, Mack. It was the most awkward seating arrangement ever. Didn't know where to look! Poor Mack had to give a talk in Stake Conference when only being a member of the church for a month. She was the highlight of the Conference though! She did amazing! We gave a 5 minute restoration during conference. President Allred and his wife spoke at our Conference too, that was really sweet! Hopefully that will increase the missionary work in the stake. 

Monday: We had a lesson with Mary, she is solid, just waiting for first presidency approval. Jorden, we are just going to have her teach us for the Recent Convert lessons :) The whole Stake was going to a corn maze for FHE activity, so we went as well. As we went through the corn maze, people would say, "Hey it's the missionaries! Let's follow them, they know the right path!" or things like that. At one point we had a huge crowd with us, sadly, we didn't know we were going. So we had people fall away from following us when they noticed when we didn't know where we were going. Eventually we found a guy that was studying his map intently, we just followed him. Haha

We will get locked in for Halloween if that is what you mean? Haha. We went to a corn maze yesterday!

Haven't got my new suit yet :/ I'm excited for it though..

Haven't gone to the temple since August, we'll endowment session anyways. But hopefully this next month we will go!

Oh! Just got my suit! It's awesome! That's actually my 37th Baptism though. Even more souls!

Thanks for the email!

Love,

Elder Wrathall