Received Wednesday, April 24, 2013

We are attending Chase's Graduation (Zak's brother) this week, so in celebration, here are some graduation pictures!!

Christopher's graduation was held in the Provo Tabernacle, which is now being revamped to be the new Provo Temple! This is what it looked like during the Graduation:

Here we were waiting for the ceremony to start.

That is Zak right in front!! 3 years ago.

The graduates were Steven, Heather (Steven's lovely wife!) and Christopher

This is the Marriott center where Steven and Heather graduated.

This is where Chase will graduate on Friday!

Pictures during the ceremony. Nice to see Zak. Quinn, who is sitting between Zak and me will graduate high school this June. We are full of graduates!!! Plenty of room for more.

Kerry wrote to Zak:

NFL draft starts on Thursday. We’ll be driving. Rams have two first round picks, #16, #22 (Bears #20, Chiefs #1, Eagles #4)

Zak's response: remember we were driving when the Rams had the #1 pick? It was with some of our last moments of non-static radio we heard them Draft Sam Bradford. I still had mixed feelings

QUESTIONS:

Were you in lock down?? Your Sis. Mission Pres. said all the missionaries that were close were in lock down. Talk about your Monday....was it just regular? How about Tues?

so we walked into to do our laundry monday, they always have a few tv's up with the news, and we hear about the explosions! It was sad and weird to hear the story unfold as more info came out. Also just before that we were emailing and in President's email he said they were going to the marathon! we were glad to hear they, and all the missionaries, were safe. I don't know that Sister Missionary who's blog you found. Other than that the day was normal, but on friday we were shut down. I guess that's when they kind of found him but he was driving away and they weren't sure where he was going and stuff. It may have been a bit overcautious, but much better safe than sorry! it was boring to be stuck in the apartment basically the whole day though.

Did you hear talk on the street about it all?

a little, not much.

Many people inquired how you were. I was happy to say that you were 2 hours away.

yup!

Transfers! Any news??

Elder Holt is leaving! someone named Elder Stevens is coming here, currently serving in MA. According to another elder I talked to he is very new, only out 6 weeks; I don't know for sure though. I do'nt know him now, but I will soon.

Are you living in an apartment complex?

yes. They have biggish bright white rocks outside the entrance. I always thought they looked cool. I wondered where they found such white rocks. This week we saw people out spray painting them. they were fake :( I felt kind of like my Santa Clause bubble was popped or something.

How many people living with you...just 2 or 4?

just 2

Are you doing consecration?

yup, it's the best way to be if everyone agrees with it

Learning any new items to eat with these new companions?

not really. I learned I'm glad that I'm easily satisfied so I don't have to spend forever cooking and cleaning dishes. Much easier just to slap some PB on bread and be happy with that.

When you move, do you take your pillow and blankets?

yup

I sent you a couple of mails last week...get them?

I did. Very good like usual. fun to see Elder Travis Komm with some BYU alum, I played basketball with him a few times. 

You asked about quality of suits. Not sure, but I like my black one better (I think that was JCpenny). I like 2 buttons way better than 3. The pants that go with the blue are kind of baggy and goofy, and I already had 1 button pop off the blue suit (remember Sister Simpson sewed a new one on and she helped strengthen the others) but the other buttons already feel like they're getting sort of loos'ish. I could ask someone to help with that, but I never have. Not sure if that answers the question or not. 

It was fun to see Josh's email and pictures too. Glad he's learning the language pretty good!

Chase’s graduation on Friday!!

Do you realize that Christopher’s graduation was held in the NOW new Provo temple??

I did not! I remember it though

That is something! I think we are going to the Marriott center for Chase’s graduation.

Did I tell you that Quinn was nominated for the Prom Court? He still has to jump through some hoops to get it. He has had to learn the dance the Charleston, he’ll have to model a tuxedo, he and a partner will have to perform their own dance. They are doing Napoleon Dynamite’s dance. It will all be worth it if he wins. The prize for being on the court are 2 free prom tickets!!

wow, good luck to Quinn! is that girl who's pushing for him to win desperate to be his partner? some football players have done some good celebration dances he could copy too; probably he should just do Warren Sapp's dance instead.

I'll be looking forward to seeing Christopher's mud obstacle pictures.

We have a lot to do, so I may be a little shorter this time. We got Transfer Texts saturday night and since then we've been spending some time going to everyone for one last time for Elder Holt to get pictures. Everyone sad to see him go. We gave our talks on sunday. It was good. I really liked how mine turned out. I'll attach it at the end of this. I changed it a bit amount though since I typed it and didn't type everything I was going to say.

on Wednesday a YM leader asked us to come to mutual because he was afraid they wouldn't have enough people (it was playing volleyball) and we knew a less active member who was coming for the first time. It was fun. We left our spiritual thought at the end too.

Tonight we're having dinner with a great family and an investigator family is coming too which is really great. Things have been good. Also, President Packard has been going around and doing a presentation thing with all the stake presidents and bishops about what we're doing as missionaries, especially about how we can help them with their idea's and visions and did it with our people this week which is good. Our bishop liked it, President said he said some nice things about us.

Also I bought a tie for the first time today on my mission. Elder Holt and I bought matching ties.

I think that's just about mostly everything for now. It's a short week till monday and I'll be emailing again. 

(I told Zak about 3 creepy spider encounters that happened to me this week.)

No creepy spider stories from this end (although I think it's weird how many Elders are terrified of spiders, like almost refuse to kill them. It's not my favorite thing, but it shouldn't be considered traumatic either)

I love you!

Received Monday, April 15, 2013

QUESTIONS:

Have you heard the First Presidency letter about testimony meeting?

yup, our bishop read it a few weeks ago. I will comment further below

I sent you mail this week with some pictures; got it yet?

yes I did! I will comment further below

Don’t your Pres. Packard interviews go along with transfer weeks? Does that mean transfers are coming again soon??

we have interviews about every 3 transfers. Our next transfer is a week from this Thursday

How did your Mormon.org appt go this week?? How old is he?

we went and...... he was not there. Unfortunately that is not an uncommon happening with this sort of thing. We haven't gone back yet, but we certainly will soon. We do have a home phone number too. We don't know who it was that requested the missionaries sent to that house. It was not stephon, probably a friend from out of town or something that thought he would listen too/they knew he was an open thinker.

note on mormon.org referrals: we get them every once and a while and this is close to the best one i've gotten. often times it is exactly like tracking; you knock and they just say all set (or some derivative. people in CT don't use it as much). If you want to share the gospel with a friend it's usually not the best to do it in secret and silently send missionaries while hoping your friend never realizes it was you who sent them. You ought to ask they yourself if they're interested; they are way more likely to respond well to you, a friend, than two goons in suits who knock on their door while they're in the middle of something. If you care about/believe in the gospel and you care about your friends it only makes sense you want to connect the two. done with the right way with the right intentions, friends will feel more cared about and loved as a result, whether they say yes or no. (not that there is specifically a "right way" or silver bullet answer, but I think you know what I mean). 

One interesting analogy I found when I first came to the area: We asked a couple (they have 2 kids, both priest age, everyone very strong in the gospel and good at missionary work) to come with us to a lesson. it went well and afterwards they took us out to lunch (at Arbys!). while there they told us a funny story about how the neighbors/friends in the area, about the same age, also with kids etc, would invite them to keggers/wild drinking party's. they thought it was kind of gross parents were having such parties and kind of funny that they kept getting invited even though everyone knew they were Mormon. they would say stuff like "hey I know you're not coming but, there's a party this Saturday if you want!". I asked how they (the couple) felt when they were invited to such things. they said honestly, it was neighborly and friendly! the invite is oozing with irresponsibility and not-smart-ness, but because it was done out of true care it still made them closer friends. how come the beer-party people have figured this aspect of missionary work out, but we struggle when we are sharing something to helpful, meaningful (which people already learned once before they were born! all we have to do is remind them about it) also clearly a lot of people would be offended by that invite no matter how it was given, so we do need to think about what we invite people to as well as how we do it.

Did you have Hot and Cold weather this week? Did you wear short sleeves this week?

a little bit. I think coming from California and just enduring a NE winter I'm confused about what is hot and what is cold. Most every day this week I went out in long sleeve shirts, no sweater. we did have a colder rainy day too. And we did turn the AC on in the car a number of times which was exciting

What are your plans today?

just regular P-Day things. I mentioned we're speaking at church about general conference soon, it's this sunday (the 21st. I may have accidentally said a different date last time) so we'll spend some time printing out a few conference talks to use and quote from. Then dinner at the Phillips and then a lesson with an investigator

What good food have you eaten recently?

our fast sunday meal yesterday was Sooo good. it was grilled chicken (and he "grilled" a few pieces of wood, I think cedar, along with the chicken to give it flavor). and Risotto and salad and broccoli (they said they have broccoli almost every day!) and some of the best rolls ever. Also there were cookies and ice cream for dessert.

Hear any news on any of your old companions...how they are doing? Just wondering.

my trainer Elder Woodruff is home. I heard from another missionary that he was made ward mission leader there. I called Elder Beck once, he was doing fine. He has since been transferred somewhere else

Did you ask the Elwells if they knew the Coles from Duarte?

no, I forgot to ask about the connection there. another person in the ward, brother Purser said we may be somehow related because he has some sort of Cole relatives in Idaho, but I can't remember exactly. Also did I mention there is a Cole family here in the ward? I'm not good at keeping up with all the past and old genealogical connections; I would not have made a good Jaradite prophet.

About the letter you sent, It was fun to read. I can't believe you guys didn't immediately see the joking'ness about watching conference in our apartment! us missionary types have basically no access to technology; if we had a math problem to solve we'd probably have to ask around for an abacus because we've forgotten how to use anything more advanced

and good drawing you put in the end

this week was pretty good. we had a ward party on Friday which was very well done. It had a decades theme (50's through 90's). A lot of people dressed up pretty well, and we had an investigator come! she and her daughter who came both really liked it and a member or two did a great job reaching out to talk to her.

sunday we were really excited because that same investigator was going to come to church for the first time. we even went to the house in the morning to make sure and everyone was getting ready. then, they never showed up! (we found out later a friends had to go to the ER, and she dashed over to watch the kids. understandable). but initially we were disappointed while at sacrament meeting. Also none of the youth invites pulled through, most people were already out of town for spring break and stuff, so we'll continue thinking about them. but the cool thing was that still all the priests got up and bore their testimony. everyone really liked it. Most of them spoke about missionary work which was cool too. Another person also got up and talked about a great missionary experience. very good meeting, made us feel a lot better. Afterwards bishop got up and talked about how he thought it was a great meeting, and beforehand he was thinking about whether or not to re-read the first presidency message, but was glad he didn't because it went well. also he said something like "the reason this was a great meeting was because we did exactly what it said, which surprised me!). it was funny.

exciting news for quinn, he often gets to spice up the emails. I hope Christopher enjoys his long muddy run. I hope Kobe doesn't retire. Good luck to everyone on all their different things

-until next week,

Me

Received Monday, April 8, 2013

More Pictures of Zak.....

Apparently, this is one of Zak's first attempts to get INTO the dryer. He said this attempt was when he got in feet first, but by the time he had to pull his head in, there was no more room. Off to the second try. Oh my. You know he eventually got in...scroll down to earlier posts and see those pics.

Zak, during the recent snow storm

Just before a baptism

QUESTIONS:

Did you get your flashdrive back??

yes, I'll respond to that letter in a moment

Where did you watch conference; at the stake center, your apartment?

at our apartment. we weren't sure if it would be better to watch it on our apartment laptops, on our tv or the Ipad we own. Ultimately we put it up on all of those and watched while playing Doodle Jump on our droid phones.

just kidding

I'll give a quick weekend run-down. Saturday morning (before conference. which, in case you didn't realize is from 12-2 and 4-6 here. feels funny coming from the west coast time zone. Priesthood was from 8-10!) we went to the Elwells house to give them the format to our fancy-handy-dandy invite. We talked to one of the young women who lives there a few days before and she said she wanted to use it to invite someone to here her give a talk she's giving in a few weeks. Very nice people. Then we went to an investigators house to make sure they were coming to conference. they were not home :(. then we went to our ward building (not stake center) to watch with the handful of others that were there. After the "morning" session we went back to that investigators house and found her there feeling a bit woozy and very guilty. We talked to her on the porch for a bit then re-invited her to watch the next session of conference. She excitedly accepted and a great member who's been fellow shipping her came and picked all of us up and we watched it at his house with his family. She really liked it, but did have to leave early to do something for her daughter. She really enjoyed listening and being with the family though. After he took her back home we went back to the ward building to watch the rest of that session. We did miss all of Bednar's talk, which was a bummer, we'll probably watch it later. well worth it though.

we went to 5 guys for our dinner, which is the cool thing to do here in canton ward, then watched priesthood session in our ward building. Sunday we did lots of stuff too and watched both sessions at church.

someone in our ward, Sister Parkinsen makes bag/packets for her kids for conference to help them pay attention and she gave us one too. All through conference I used the notebook in it to take notes, I obediently checked off a box next to each General Authorites picture after they spoke a on a sheet she gave us . She was a little upset neither of us made any use of the scissors, glue or stickers she gave us though. It's funny to be a missionary.

Do you see Chick-Fil-a where you are? Do you eat there?

I don't think there's any here on the east coast. Never eaten there, always heard good things though.

Any big plans today?

dinner with the scharrer family. Talk to brother scharrer (YM presidency) about mutual this wednesday and see if we can steal about 5 minutes of it to follow up with all the young men who plan on bringing friends to this sunday.

no set appointment after that though, just a list of people we could drive by.

I did completely forget about ESPN last week. It was pretty fun, but not spectacular. I took pictures, including one one a worker who looks just like D-Wade editing highlights. Yes, I saw bald-headed Scott Van Pelt as he was doing his radio thing. When we were walking down a hallway with some fancy offices on either side an employee went into one so a scurried by so I could peek in while the door was open and saw Colin Cowherd in there. We walked past Teddy Bruschi lots of times, he said hi. And the last famous person was Kurt Schilling as he was getting ready to talk about opening day (Which I heard was great for the dodgers by the way. did we have some rookie pitcher hit a home run and pitch a shut out or something like that?). The whole thing reminded me of a college campus just full of sports stuff.

I wonder if Donnie Avery will do well with Andy. I still thought he had good potential when he was cut. He always seemed to be injured. Drafting him before DeSean and picking one of the biggest busts ever in the 1st round of that draft will probably be the biggest definers of the Spagunolo era of the Rams

I really liked conference, it does have an extra special feel as a missionary. Also we are speaking here on the 28th at sacrament meeting about general conference, so I was thinking about that a lot. unfortunately I did not think about "Go Tell Aunt Rodie" at all. I have continually thought about learning the piano when at home though.

Sounds like a very fun and packed spring break. too bad the ice skating didn't turn out good for mom at all. kind of a weird story to tell as a missionary, but I don't know if I ever mentioned the first date I went on with Ms. Amanda Vegas Shea was roller skating. I was very bad. I tripped and stumbled and bumbled around the circle the whole time. it must run in the family. No bruises or doctors needed for me though.

About conference, I don't have many specific talks or moments and that jump out to me right now, but I took notes and I felt like just about every person talked a lot about missionary work. I loved Monson's story about the fire. Aren't we all just like him with the matches and our Heavenly Father like his parents? How often does he look down and just think: please be obedient! don't light that on fire! I really liked Holland's like always. Nelsons spoke a lot directly about missionary work for the 2nd conference in a row. The anology about the tomoatoes was funny because president packard just emailed us about making sure we try to have a great influence on future missionaries because "after all, you can count how many seeds are in an apple, but not how many apples are in the seed". Ironically, the one that really might have touched me the most was the talk by the Young Women's president. Perry's and Ballard's were both very good too, I feel like I have more of a connection with both because Perry spoke to us at the MTC and Ballard did to us just a few weeks ago. Also Elder Halleck, a 70, gave one of the prayers and he spoke to our mission back when I was in my first area. I guess I remember more specifics than I thought.

Did anyone notice that things about the Boston mission were mentioned in TWO different talks at conference? Elder Eyring did during priesthood session and Elder Anderson talked about the online/digital stuff being done here.

Kylie always scores a goal now!

I wish I had done more hollywood type stuff while at home, just because it's there and a unique opportunity. Glad you could find Regis' star on the walk. Did you find Steven Jackson's star too? (that was a joke)

do you still watch the RegisReplacement and Kelly show?

The other big exciting thing this week was we got a mormon.org referral (it comes texted to our phone), he was really interested. We had a short talk with him on his porch and set up a return appointment for this week. I hopefully it goes well!

We also have intereviews with president Packard this week, which should be good/

I think that's about everything. Everyone have a fun week! nobody get injured this time!

Received Monday, April 1, 2013

Zak sent pictures!!! Here are a few:

Zak with his Companion - Elder Beck

"almost covered" cars! They did get plenty of snow!

QUESTIONS:

How was your Easter?

really, very good. The 3 hours of church were made maybe my favorite church service ever. Really good Easter talks/lessons. I'll talk more about the day after the questions

Did you have a dinner appointment?

yes. we do about 97% of the time, especially holidays. we were invited to another as well that had 4 or 5 families going and the one we went to had about 5 or 6 different families there too.

What did you eat?

food.

How was your church meeting?

it really stank. (just kidding)

What songs did you sing?

ummm I don't remember. To start the day Elder Holt said he hopes we sing Christ the Lord is Risen today, Alleluia (like you guys did) but we didn't. During the combined 3rd hour we listened to a recording of someone singing "I Know My Redeemer lives"

Did you ward do something different because of the 5^th Sunday?

yes, the 3rd hour was combined. Brother Lyons, the sunday school president, gave a lesson on the Christlike Attributes in PMG. Did an excellent job. used a few different pieces of media.

Would you be allowed to see a youtube video of Chase while in the hospital asking the same questions repeatedly? I could send you a link if yes.

probably not. I have used youtube to watch a specific mormon message during a lesson before though and it went really well. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI

Not a question, but look for your flashdrive in the mail this week!!

will do!

How is your retainer fitting?

fine. I'm slightly afraid it's been bent a little since it's original creation though. my teeth still look straight I remember to wear it most nights.

Also not a question, but your shoes, (from your pictures) are SO shiny. Very nice!

after being a missionary for 5 or 6 months I realized I had never used my shoe shining kit, so I did it once. The picture was probably taken after that. Sometimes P-day morning I think I should do it again that day, but it hasn't happened again since.

Did investigators make it to church today??

1 did. 1 was sick. 1's wife just had a baby, also he'll probably go to the Spanish branch when he finally goes. 1 family didn't go, but after the big tearful, finally spill all the beans on whats going on lesson we had yesterday, will surely being watching conference next week. 1 might have been working. 2 have excuses that I would put under the "far less than good" category.

A ton of less actives came though. Hopefully we'll be able to build some momentum from it.

thoughts on the funny/good mail I got this week:

the "do you feel stuck... Call the mormon missionaries!" meme was very funny. Both Elder Holt and I enjoyed it. It shouldn't be as controversial as the last one you sent me.

People of the LDS church rank either #3 or 4 (I don't remember) of knowledge of other world religions Interestingly. the group of "Atheists" ranks either #1 or #2. those are real stats, and will become relevant and make sense in a second. Also we know there are a lot of Atheists now in America and I think it's on the rise. Something President Clayton Christenson talked to us about is that the reason he believes there are so many is basically because they are smart, and therefore they reject falsehood The concept of God they so often hear about they know can't be true, so they reject the idea of religion all together. They just haven't had the chance to hear the truth. I think if all I heard about God was that he was everywhere, but no where and that he was 3 people, but actually just 1 and that when he was baptized his own voice called himself "my son", I'm not sure I would be a huge fan of religion either. Since hearing him talk about that I've been able to see it in a lot of people I've talked too.

I think everyone has the basic deep life questions (what happens after this life, what's the point, how can I really be happy, etc) in them. Some people think about them more than others, but everyone somewhere in life has a need to seek answers for them. Some people see a lot of what they know must be false, so they become "atheist", a lot of people look for a church that is "right for them". I'm not sure if most people who do that realize the churches they join that believe the bible don't follow a lot of what it says. Having a lay ministry keeping the law of chastity doing missionary work, etc ARE in the bible; maybe people don't realize that, maybe they just would rather ignore it. I grew up with the idea that there is a "true church"; that Christ's gospel is prefect and universal. That makes perfect sense to me and anything i feel is flawed. Most people do not have that idea, which is also how the idea of the "right for me" church comes to be. What I've noticed the "right for me" church usually consists of is the correct mix of preaching the pleasing word (so as to keep things happy and easy) with the right mix of teaching the commandments (so as to help everyone be "good people", and thus "make it into heaven"). Also being close to where you live helps something become the "right church".

2 last thoughts on the subject: I think most everyone would agree the best way to find the "right church" and the true and correct answers to life questions is to go to the source. To follow the advice in James 1:5 and ask God. He knows better than we do or anyone else, even the guy from church who's read the bible 14 times forward and twice backward.

For me, in my life I've had experiences, thoughts and feelings that I know have come from God. What he's communicated to me is that the right church for me is Christ's church. I believe that church is right for everyone. Maybe If I had more time I could organize all that a little better and make it a little more coherent and less wildly bold, but I do not.

Good job to christopher in selling of the puppies! did Chancho pay for herself/Gaston? make a profit yet? how long before there will be more puppies? also good job fighting with a kite.

It's interesting to hear about church in arcadia and how they're organizing things slightly different. One thing I like about this ward is they always have a someone from the primary walk up and read a scripture (only 1 time did it come through tears) and always have a youth speaker. Also I like standing up for the intermediate hymns. When we did not have one yesterday the chorister had us stand up for the closing hymn. She had to gesture 2 or 3 times to make it happen.

what our Easter was like. usual wake up stuff. also we got call president about a few things going on in our area. He mentioned he was already having a good easter being with his family and having a good breakfast. I told him WE considered Easter a religious holiday so WE were going to church! he laughed. It's always good to talk to him. 

Church was more full than usual and very good. We were given one jar of jellybeans and each given a Easter basket while at there. Afterwards we went and visited some families who all live close together and near the church. 

First we went tot he Permenter family. We showed them something president emailed to us a while ago we hadn't really used before. It was a format for a fancy invitation to tell a friend you were speaking at church. We re-formatted it a little bit and printed one sample one on card stock paper. It looked really good. Sister Permenter said if a friends from another church gave her one she would totally go and support/watch her give the talk. None of them were giving a talk (or getting baptized, receiving priesthood, etc) soon, but we talked about how every testimony meeting is a great opportunity to assign yourself a chance to be up in front. We discussed who they all thought they could invite to hear them bear testimony. There were 3 different people they brought up (all by the 2 young men in the home). They seemed pretty excited about it and only slightly worried about it being awkward or rejected (because they remember, every invite is a success!) They decided by this sunday they'll have more personalized invites printed out, so then they'll have a week to sue them to invite their people to hear them bear testimony. Also they were thinking of a few other people in the ward who they want to ask to bear testimony just to make sure it is a great meeting (and full of real testimonies, not wonky stories). 

Earlier in the weak another of the young men, Parker, said during a dinner appointment he could think of at least 1 person he would want to invite to hear him in this coming testimony meeting. We did not get the chance to show him the fancy invite card to see if he would want to use it. They said we could come back in a week to see how it was going.

After our meeting with the Permenters we went to the Colemans. We had already had a meeting similar to this about 2 weeks before at a dinner with them, but they were more thinking about who they could invite to hear a boy in the family, Carver, give his youth talk. We did not have the fancy invites back then. We found out Carver, his older brother Nathan and his mom all had good experiences inviting people, even though none of those people came. The daughter of the family had a different neat missionary experience though and the dad was sick and didn't go to weak most of the week before. We told them good job and then discussed what they thought their next step was for sharing the gospel and told them about how some other young men were going to use the coming testimony meeting and also about our new cool invite cards. Nathan, the older brother, really liked the testimony meeting idea (now being referred to as THE testimony meeting or sometimes The Greatest Testimony Meeting Ever) and said he knew at least 1 or 2 he could invite. Also they all thought the card stock invitations were cool, but wouldn't fit into their current plans. Carver talked about a friend he wanted to invite to mutual, the sister's plan was inviting the neighbor to girls camp and Sister Coleman really wants to have the neighbors over for dinner. Brother Coleman was the only person who got away without a concrete plan, but did say he would be on the look out for something he thought was a good idea to invite some people from work to. Possibly something they could help do service at (which idea came from PEM, which he bought and is reading. Also the idea of asking a few other members from the ward to bear their testimony to make it a good one is from the PEM). Great meeting, and they said we could have our next follow up in 2 weeks to see how it went and once again figure out "what's next."

Both of those meetings went pretty much ideal and the whole "what's next" idea is what president Packard has really been pushing his whole time here. Usually it would be what's next for their specific friends they've had good experiences with in the past. Ideally the meetings would last about 20 minutes, but with both those families there was a lot to talk about so they went longer, plus they are families that don't at all mind.

Right now the tally for THE testimony meeting is 4 young men (Parker, 2 Permenter boys and Nathan Coleman) each inviting at least 1 person. It should be great. We'll talk to more members, especially young men, about hopping on the bandwagon. I'm a little bit surprised none of the YM's parents already weren't inspired to jump on it. One cool thing about missionary work is that success sells success so it can have a great snowball effect and the spirit of it can spread around.

After the Coleman's we went to the Reids. There we just talked about helping brother Reid connect with a family he home teaches. succesfully under 20 minutes.

THen we went to the Whitings (Relief society president and he is in the Elders Quorum presidensy) to report on some people they asked us to help track down.

After that we had that big, good and important investigator lesson I mentioned earlier.

Then we went to our Easter dinner which was very good for food (ham, super good funeral potatoes, turkey, rolls, various desserts) and for coordinating a few other things with the members there.

Very Excellent way to spend Easter!

The rest of the week was also good. I hope you enjoyed the thorough Easter day report though.  I exhort everyone to facebook post about the upcoming general conference! you can use my facebook to link to it too! 

Also if you want I could email the format of the fancy smachey invitation we've been showing to people if you want to see it (or use it!) (great for speaking, testimony meetings, special music numbers, primary programs/singing time stuff, when you are teaching in relief society or YM or gospel doctrine! or anything!) (or just invite them to come without the card too!)