Received Monday, May 20, 2013

QUESTIONS:

I sent you your Ensign; by chance have you got it yet?

not yet. looking forward too it

Did you get your apartment clean last week?

cleanER anyway. I think it's pretty good. We have to get our car nice and shiny today because we're going to zone conference this Thursday and they are doing car inspections

Did you get rain this last week?

we did. It was a weird new England misty rain. It seems like half way it's raining/it's just extremely humid mist everywhere. no big raindrops.

Any new news on your investigators? Any come to church today?

no, unfortunately no big news. taught only a couple investigator lessons last week. One of them did show us a baby squirrel they tried to rescue. They found it struggling in their driveway, so they gave it some food, and put it in a box with a shirt (as google instructed). Supposedly if you do that there's a good chance mommy squirrel will come back to retrieve it. Not sure what they'll do otherwise. I pet it and took a picture. They live across the street from here so maybe we'll go see afterwards. We had Stake Conference yesterday, no investigators were there.

When we were teaching Aiden Lang (son of a recent convert. Mom is less active; just gave permission for baptism) they had a friend over to Leo convinced to sit in the room for the lesson, which was cool. He didn't ask to learn more or anything, but it's somebody who we'll continue to see around so we may have chances to build on it ourselves even. Also we have 2 lessons set up with people we tracted into and got return appointments for this week, so those could both be very good. they both seemed to have real potential

What songs did YOU sing in church, remember?

Don't remember. They were all from the hymn book. During the adult session of stake conference someone sang a solo of I Stand All Amazed

Doing any great activity today?

no. There's a few extra things we need to do because we're going to the temple next week, so there won't be much time. we tried to do 2 weeks of shopping, we'll found out next week if we forgot anything. We're going to go to a members house and use their hose to wash our car so we don't have to pay any dinero.

Happy birthday to kylie! I like the picture of all your candles in the apple pie. Not what I would have chosen for dinner or dessert, but I guess we can't all be right. Is the AHS soccer this with the same coaches as the actual team? I think that sounds very fun. What math is kylie in? did she have to learn the squares of numbers 1-25 (2x2=4, 3x3=9... etc)? I don't remember what I got in 8th grade math. probably a 97.

Was quinn sad he missed out on boxing? or did he pity da' fools who would do that? at least he would know what to do if someone's eye was swollen shut during their fight. Also if someone's nose gets broken just watch a couple youtube videos; they'll teach how how to put it back.

good job on inviting someone to church. I bet that was fun, especially since she basically said yes. Hopfully it'll work out another time (to here him bear his testimony? to hear all the youth bear their testimonys? I bet many of the youth could find someone to invite to that. especially people like BeeBee)

plus, you got to remember, you can't do that whole flirt to convert thing once you're a missionary, so use it now while you can! (just kidding).

Like I said we had stake conference this weekend. We went to the adult saturday night session and the regular sunday. We were not invited to the priesthood leadership session. On sunday we watched from our own chapel, not the stake center because it was a telecast! I have never heard of this before, but other people felt it was not very out of the ordinary. Basically all of New England was getting the same Stake Conference broadcast from Salt Lake. Elder Packer, and Perry spoke as well as the General RS president and someone from the quorum of the 70 presidency. I didn't realize stuff like that happened for stake conferences. Not-surprisingly, the speakers were good.

I think I mentioned in my last email there is a lady here who also attends a bible study for another church and wants to convert the pastor there/the entire congregation. She said he would let us do some service for him, and we thought it was a good idea too, so we set it up last week and will be washing windows with him this tuesday. He is very nice and not at all a bible basher type. Not sure if he's suddenly going to drop his career and join another church just because we're doing him service, but I'm looking forward too it.

We had some other very good visits with active members this week as well. People always feel like they can't really do any missionary work for whatever reason, but after talking for a little there's always tons of opportunities. For the family we met with yesterday we ended up with 2 people who their daughter can invite to activity days, 1 person who the mom can invite to enrichment night and 1 less active family they can invite over for dinner to help them feel more apart of the ward. Also they all accepted the challenge to use Mormon words in their every day conversations, ask "why do you ask?" after answering questions and see what discussions come up as a result. I think it helps for us missionaries to tell people from the start we're hoping to come back in either a week or 2 and have a continuing relationship to talk and counsel together about their efforts. Almost like setting a return appointment before you even start/before there's a definite reason, but works well. A big part of it is people see we care about them and their efforts/goals, we're not just begging for a * referral* so their friend can become an *investigator* and eventually we can report we accomplished another * baptism*.

We might go play basketball with the ward this Saturday (they do every Saturday morning) because Nathan Coleman is inviting a friend who he says asks him a lot about missionary stuff (when is he going/what is it etc) and he thinks he would really enjoy meeting the missionaries, and that would be the best way to make it happen.

That's everything for now. we got a cool letter this week from president, I'll include part of it. I've talked about my mission presidency a few times. President Packard might be 1 of the 3 Nephites and will probably give a talk on Zion over general conference one day, president Christensen is amazing and wrote that book and is a big name, the quote i'll copy is by president Christensen He's basically a "regular guy" who's just very consecrated to the lord and very good at missionary work.

On a personal note, I wanted to share I have extended 3-5 invitations per day each day of this week. Consistent with the covenant I've made to share the gospel every day; one Wednesday of this week - three invitations before zone conference began in Oxford, MA. I pulled over my car - spoke to a man walking- told him I loved him (strange, hugh? those where the words that came out of my mouth) and wanted to share the most important message of the world that has forever changed my life. He looked and me in amazement, intimated, "how did you know?" Apparently he was pondering life's most important questions the morning as the Spirit prompted me to pull my car over and speak to him. He accepted my invitation to order a copy of The Book of Mormon through the full-time missionaries. He lives close to my home. It was a choice experience. Separately, just this morning, a man in Providence, RI whom I have known through work called me up and asked me to act as a referral for his employment advancement. I, of course, said, "yes!" Before we got off the phone I asked him about his family, life, and goals. I shared my testimony of how the Church has changed my life for good - helping me focus on the happiness and joy of others. I invited him to meet with the full-time missionaries. He accepted. In fact he said, "actually, I'd really like that - I need more meaning in my life today." He sent me his address and I texted the referral to the sister missionaries in the ward where my records reside just minutes ago. It happens to be in the boundaries of the Scituate Ward in the Providence Stake. Scituate ward is like your ward in the Nashua Stake. The bishop has a great vision of how to implement President Hutchin's (stake president) direction on how best to share the gospel. My next step with __________ (from Scituate, RI)? Invite him to stake conference this weekend!

That was in an email he sent to bishop they saw recently. That's just the way he is They all are very good at preaching about missionary work and they absolutely live it too!

I'm looking forward to hearing from them at zone conference this week; even though I heard they're going to crack down on people going over on miles.

I love you all! I'll be back again (in email form) next week!