I burned my suit

Wednesday: We had a world-wide missionary broadcast! It was pretty cool, it was basically a general conference, but for full-time missionaries. The topic was, "Teach Repentance, and Baptize Converts" We heard from Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Elder David A Bednar, and some other ones. It was a really good broadcast!

Thursday: When Tracting, we ran into Shawn, he let us in, and talked with us quite a bit. Early on he told us that he was a Master Mason, so we asked about that, it was very interesting! He basically told us that it was Satanic. After that we taught him the Restoration, he didn't seem to know very much about the church at all, at the end of the lesson, we invited him to be baptized. He responded saying, "yes, if I know that this is right I will." After having that lesson, we contacted some members so we could get one to come with us to the next visit, doing that let us know that Shawn removed his records and he actually served a mission in Texas, was married in the temple, and Elder's Quorum President before removing his record. The next time we went over he completely just bible bashed us. I asked him a few questions that made him think, then didn't have the answers to, but just went off on another topic how the Mormons are wrong. Sad to see.

Friday: Definitely my favorite day out of this week. Why? Because we got a new investigator!! Her name is Tayla, she is about 16 years old. She was introduced to us by a member family who invited her to meet with the missionaries! Yay for member missionary work! Right off the bat, Tayla told us that she doesn't really feel comfortable joining the church. However, by the end of the lesson she was crying (Good Crying) and accepted to work towards being baptized on the 20th of February!  She just wants to make sure that this is the right path, and she wants to make sure with her parents that this is okay. We assured her by that date that those things will be taken care of as long as she does her part. (EX. Pray, Read, Go to Church) Best lesson in a long time.

Saturday: We woke up at 4:40 in the morning to go snow shoeing again with Bro. Longhurst, our High Councilor over missionary work. He brought his dog along, named Atticus. That was a ton of fun. Once at the top of the mountain, I burned my suit (Don't worry mom, it was worn out) to celebrate two years out on the mission. We made memories for sure. We got down and to our house by 7:30 so we could start studies on time!

Sunday: A pretty depressing Sunday. We thought for sure Tayla was going to come to church. We were even speaking in her Ward so we invited her to hear us speak. Nevertheless, she was not there. :( They wanted me to speak on my experiences as a missionary, that was a really fun talk to give. I only had 5 minutes left after Elder Clukey got talking, but I couldn't keep it to 5.... I had to go over 5 minutes haha. Bishop thanked me for talking overtime, he said he wanted to hear more from me, so that didn't make me feel bad. Right after, in the same Ward. Apparently we were signed up to teach Gospel Principles. We didn't have any preparation for that, but the class was very good at discussion, so that made it easy.

Monday: We had the opportunity to where a older couple needed some help chopping wood. That was a lot of fun, tiring, but fun. I'm not sure if I have split wood since I was like 12 years old. I got back into the SWING of it! (Haha.... Punny) We spent 3 hours of chopping wood, I was dead tired by the end of it, no doubt about that, but they have a ton of wood now!

Later on in the day, a Less-Active invited us in to his home when we were Tracting. He right off the bat told us his life story. He got married, drank a lot, even got into cocaine. His wife told him to shape up, so he did. After years of struggle he made it to the temple to be sealed with his wife. A couple years later she left him by text saying she doesn't love him anymore. That was the end of that. He still believes in the church, but can't make it to church because he works on Sunday. :/ He sure has been through a lot.

AND that was the week. I'm surprised I even wrote ya, because I will be home in two weeks.... Haha

Yeah, I am pretty trunky, it's hard knowing everyone I start to teach now I won't see get baptized :/

Thanks for the email! Love you tons!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

"Feast upon the words of Christ" instead of Human flesh.

Wednesday: The stake young men are making movies in their each individual Ward. And two wards wanted us to be in their's. The first one we were just acting like we were teaching a family, but they came in with no warning that they we recording. So all they got from us were just a whole bunch of confused faces. The other movie is going on the theme of Zombies. Our role is we taught the survivors that they can cure the Zombies by having them, "Feast upon the words of Christ" instead of Human flesh. Haha, so we give them copies of the Book of Mormon.

Thursday: Yay Tracting. We ran into a lady who is a less-active, she was offended by the policy change as far as the homosexual relationships go. We knocked on this  huge mansion. They gave us a tour of their house. The wife was active member but he is not a member. He is super stubborn though. They had a super cool house though, it was huge!

Friday: This week we have done a lot of Tracting. This day was probably the most. We had two lessons with Less-Actives. One of the people we met with, he is 21, but his only concern is that he doesn't like the social aspect of church. He doesn't like people basically. We basically told him to sit in the foyer then. Haha

Saturday: Brandon's Baptism! We had quite a few people come! A lot of Less-Active and Non-Members came as well. The Parents of Brandon are working towards the temple. And a year ago the Mom wasn't even a member and the Dad was Less-Active so they have a lot of friends that aren't church going friends. So they had them come to the baptism. Hopefully it was a good experience for them! 

Later we had a lesson with a family of 8 non-members. They have met with the missionaries for over a year, and have never come to church. So we are probably going to drop them here shortly.

Sunday: We did the whole missionary thing in the morning by trying to walk an investigator to church. Gives them more obligation to come when you know you have someone to come "pick you up". However it didn't work. The whole house was dark. She surely was sleeping :/ The only investigator we got to come was Brandon, who was confirmed. I suppose he was the most important one to come! So that was good! :) We didn't have any appointments scheduled. I honestly hate days with no appointments. I don't understand how people do it in other missions where they have one appointment a week.

Monday: MLKJ Day! These kind of Holidays are good for missionary work. Because a lot of people are home, and they normally don't do to many exciting things. So they stay home. Perfect targets for the missionaries! Haha. It was raining/snowing the entire day. We had some massive slush, I like snow. However. I don't like the slush. By the end of the day we had talked with 5/8 Bishops that we cover, we didn't even mean to either. I love our Bishops though they are so good. We had a lesson with Alissa scheduled, and earlier in the week we were told that her sister had moved out, but when we got there today. We learned that she had moved back! :)

Thanks for writing me!!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

Haha, life as a missionary

Wednesday: This week we worked on mastering the art of drop-in lessons. Just knock on the door, get in and share something. I don't like them as much, so much harder to get them to do things. As well with that, we have been running into a lot of old people. I can understand why Thomas S. Monson always stresses to take care of the widows and widowers. It's so sad that they are so lonely! They are always so happy to see us and invite us in. Over the course of my mission I have learned to love visiting those kind of individuals. The non-members are hard when they are that age, we had one literally tell us, "I'm not going to change, I'm going to die soon, so I don't care." Only if he understood he should care! Especially at that time! 

Thursday: We have knocked a couple of doors with our age girls. Elder Clukey is pretty dang handsome, he looks like Peeta off of the Hunger Games, so girls kinda get giggly around him. Haha, it is so funny to see. We had this 89 year old woman hit on him as well! He didn't like that so much. Nevertheless, even with that "flirt to convert" tactic, the girls are somehow able to still say no to the message :(

Friday: This was the day of dropping people. We went to one of our investigators who normally just talks her head off about random things to us. This time I was bold. Whenever she started getting off topic, I would just cut her off and bring it back to the subject. Doing that, we learned really quickly that she actually isn't interested in learning more about the church. She just wants someone to talk to. SO we said adios! That is not our purpose. The we finally caught another investigator home. She is 26ish, he mom in law let us in to talk with her. When we went into the room she was in she quickly said, "I don't want to talk about the church, I just want to go to church!" (She hasn't ever come to church...) We replied, "Cool, we were just coming over to ask if that was the case, if you really wanted to meet with us..." As we were talking, she got up of the couch and went outside (Yeah, like 15 degrees cold outside she was just wearing a t-shirt and pants) and slammed the door, left us there with her chill less active boyfriend. SO that was an interesting visit.

Saturday: One of our lessons we were super excited for was Jason, we were going to go to his house then have him drive us over to a members house and have the lesson there. But once we got there he was in his truck and we were thinking, "Wow! He is all prepared!" But once he saw us he suddenly looked down, then rolled down his window and told us he forgot. One of his best friends died, and his son was sick so he was going to take him to the hospital. He offered to give us a ride though, we had him give us a ride to the member, when we got there we said, "Well this is his house, do you just want to meet him real quick?" He agreed. One hour later, we said "See ya!" And left while they just kept talking. I guess his son wasn't to sick.

Sunday: We only had one investigator come to church again. Man we really want our other investigators to come to church! We met with one later in the day. WE walked up to the house and I saw her through the blinds and we made eye contact, but when we knocked the door. We didn't answer, we knocked three times! Then we went to the other door and knocked there as well, then her brother came an answered the door saying she was at work. I responded, "No... I saw her..." He was like, "Oh, one sec." Then went back into the house, we waited for like another 5 min, then her cousin got to the house and asked us why we were there, we told him, then he said, "One sec." Then went into the house. Finally after 2 minutes or so, she finally came out to greet us, just to say she is to busy. YAY... Haha, life as a missionary

Monday: Started the day off with interviews w/ President Allred. He is such a wonderful man! I love him so much. He told me that they are not doing departing testimony firesides anymore for the mission (Where anyone is invited to come to), Rather they are going to let family members only come to their home and have a departing testimony meeting there. That was sad to hear, thinking of all the people I have met on my mission.

Later in the day, we finally got a hold of Alissa, who we have been trying to get a hold of for 2 weeks. Turns out they went to Wyoming and didn't bring their phones. They just wanted to escape from the world. But now we can finish up Recent convert lessons and teach their other sister so she can be baptized.

This is the last week where I can invite people to be baptized for a date while I will still be in the mission :'(

Love,

 Elder Wrathall

The second picture is of someone that was running away from the cops,
then crashed.
Man, what kind of idiot would run away from the cops!

Got to go to the temple!

Wednesday: Transfer day! It was nice not having to do any moving or exchanging companions and what not. Former Elder Rangel was coming through on his way to BYUI, so I had lunch with him at Cafe Rio. That was really fun talking to him and catching up. I also started the mission program called, "My Plan". It is the church's way of getting you trunky. Just talks about how your mission is basically over and you need to prepare to go home. Thanks President Monson..... Haha. We actually had an appointment that didn't fall through! That was good to actually teach someone who is willing to meet.

Thursday: We had district meeting. I learned that Hack got transferred down here, and he is in my district. It was our dream to be companions with each other before I went home. We got really close, we are bordering areas! Being New Years Eve, we were going to have to be shut in from 6-9pm, but during 1-5 the Zone Leaders asked to get the keys from us so that they could set some things up. When we got there at 6, they lost our keys. So everyone was standing out in the cold waiting to get in the building. Took us 20 min to get keys from the bishop to get us in. Wow, good job Zone Leaders! Haha

Friday: So now that we are getting used to having our appointments cancel on us, we a learning, and developing new traits. We are basically not setting up appointments anymore. Rather, we just go over and try to teach a lesson. Therefore not giving them option to bail. We did that today and we got some good lessons. We met with Anna, who is lady in her 30s, she is so prepared, she readily accepted everything that we taught. She has never met with the missionaries before, but she felt the truthfulness of the 1st vision and all. Her only concern really is that she works on Sunday, so she can't get out to church. We are going to talk about that the next time that we go over there though. I think we can convince her to ask for those days off.

Saturday: We went to the temple with Nancy! That was really awesome! Despite it being Saturday Morning, it wasn't busy at all! Someone at the temple had us do their family names for them.

After the Temple we went to golden carrel to celebrate. Then back to work!

Sunday: We had Brandon's Dad get ordained to the office of an elder, so he can now Baptize and confirm Brandon! So that is good news, that baptism should happen in a couple of weeks. No other investigators came to church though :/ Dang agency!

Monday: Anytime before 4:00 is a difficult time to talk to people. Why do people have to work?? Why don't they all just read the scriptures all day and pray for guidance so we can knock at their door and give them that guidance! ;) So we walked a lot, knocked a lot of empty doors. Once it got to 4, we had a lesson with Dylan, our recent convert, did the knife and cups trick, teaching Church, Prayer, and Reading. We ate at the Ogden Pizzeria with a family. Then tried to get a hold of some of our investigators during the night. Zone Leaders finally found our keys, they wouldn't tell us where they found them, but they looked like they got ran over a few times.

Love,
Elder Wrathall

I thought this was pretty interesting what he sent his former companion. Sounds like he has really learned to teach children.

Elder Florschutz whitewashed trained into family stake, so this is what I sent him.

Teaching Kiddies 101

1. Always focus most on baptismal interview questions. ( You can't expect kids to remember everything that you taught them, but you are helping them receive the next ordinance, and the BIQ's are what they need to know for being baptized.)

1. Simple, straight forward explanations. (Then you can expound, after expounding though ask them, "What is _______?" Kids don't get offended if they don't know the answer, and the parents usually help them which is good! Gets the parents involved! But be sure to use the next step. However, if they don't know, just go back to the simple straight forward answer, then ask them again."

 Ex: "Tithing is you give 10% to God. [Then Expound....] What is Tithing?" *Silence* "Okay, so tithing is you give 10% to God. What is tithing?" "You give 10% to God!"

1. Redundancy is key. (Kids don't care if you ask the same question 4 times in a row, just repeat until they understand. At the beginning of each lesson review with them the Baptismal Interview Questions that you went over last time in the material or even better is reviewing every BIQ you have been over thus far."

Ex: "Who is Thomas S. Monson?" "The Prophet alive today!" "Good job! Again, who is Thomas S. Monson?" "The Prophet alive today!"

1. Teach with parables or simple object lessons, and make it as interactive as possible. Here are three examples that I like to use.

• Prophet: First, tell the kid to hold his hand in a fist, tell him that his fist is himself. Then hold your fist directly over his fist, explain to him that your fist is God.  Tell him to follow God. Then move your fist sideways, up down, wherever, ect. Tell him good job! Ask him "Wait? Can you see God?" "No" "Of course not, so close your eyes, now follow God." He fails, they actually usually try to cheat and peak through their eyes. Haha. Tell him that a prophet helps us. Take out a pen and put the pen in your fist and his, tell him to close his eyes and now follow God, the prophet makes it possible!
• Priesthood: "What's your favorite car?" "A Lambodini!!!!!!" "Okay, you're in your 'Lambodini' and you are going fast... A little to fast, and an ice cream man pulls you over, you are like, 'What is this guy doing?' And he gives you a ticket! Are you going to pay that ticket???!!!" "No!" "Yeah, I wouldn't either, what if a police officer gave you a ticket?" 
• When teaching the plan of salvation, have them draw the diagram with you.