February 29 - Letter

OH THE WORK IS GOING GOOD! The field is white and the people are ready to be baptized in white. On Monday we had a fun day. Monday - After we e-mailed we went and had lunch, and then we went to some places and took pictures. I will send them to you when I get them. We walked around downtown Plymouth and went in all the stores. We went in a cafe and some candy shops. Me and Elder Eschler knocked on a old wooden shop called Keith's surplus trying to talk to him and do some missionary work on Preparation day, he didn't answer though. After a long day of touring and walking around Plymouth, our whole district ate cheesy potato soup and a roll and played Liars dice. After that we went to Wal-Mart, got some stuff I needed and then the Sisters wanted a blessing, Sister Ben is sick and had to sing in church on Sunday and Sister Ellis needed one too, so we gave them blessings and then Elder Quick called me and I talked to him for a bit! It was a good preparation day!

Tuesday - On Tuesday we woke up, got ready and headed to South Bend for Zone Conference. On the way we had to clean our car and we don't know our way around South Bend that well so we had to stop at a Gas station and I had to get directions for the nearest car wash and Elder Scoville vacuumed the car and we got our car clean! We then went to the South Bend Stake Center for Zone Conference. We had a very good Zone Conference. So One of the things we try and do are church tours, to get the investigators in the church building and try and get a member there to build friendship because I think a lot of people are just scared to come to a place where they don't know anyone. So this is one of the things we talked about at Zone Conference. Do you want to hear a stat? When we were doing well at church tours, the number of baptisms went from 200 to 400. So President is emphasizing member missionary work and church tours. These are the things we all committed to do. So 1 "BE ALL IN" Commitments: Matthew 4:18-20 Why is it important to forget ourselves in the work? What nets do we need to leave behind? What stops us from progressing as Full time missionaries? John 21:7-8 Peter dove into the water to meet Christ, others still dragging nets on their way to Christ. Why do we continue to find ourselves on the same shore with the same nets? Keeping Commitments: Golden Investigator and Missionaries write them down. Ask your companion for help. Accountable to each other. John 21:15-17 Christ to Peter "lovest thou me more than these" 3x. Love means being Loyal. "ALL IN" invitation - Keep all commitments. 2 Planners Moses 1:39 Heavenly Fathers purpose. He accomplishes his purpose through the Plan of Salvation. Our missionary purpose, Invite others to come unto Christ. Planners help to fulfill our purpose. President Cleveland talked about how he didn't have a planner as a missionary. And we get them now and we can use it to the best of our ability. Planners our evidence to our commitment of the work. Planning comes down to desire and knowing your purpose. Effective daily planning includes using all of your daily planner for investigators and members. Goals, plans, backup plans, study topics, lesson plans, to do list, key indicators and notes are all the details that make you more confident in finding and teaching. Focus on the "Gameplan" the Gameplan is a outline of what to do throughout the day to be effective and powerful. And what we were invited and committed to do was follow the planning guidelines in Preach my Gospel and use our planners more effectively. 3 SMALL AND SIMPLE THINGS. Alma 37:6 Skills and behaviors that tell others you are a representative of Jesus Christ. 2. Skills and behaviors that tells others that you understand proper etiquette and manners. We had a training on table manners and it reminded me of what Grandpa taught me. He taught me well. We also learned to plan like Heavenly Father would plan. 3. Skills and behaviors that tells others that you understand personal and physical cleanliness. And what we were committed to do was develop and improve these skills and behavior and help our companion in their development as well. 4. Zone Leaders training. Review notes and apply specific invitation. 5. Teaching Stations 1. Contact Restoration lesson, invitations and a church tour, and what we were committed to do was practice all 3 every day through March transfer. 6. Importance of Members 1. Meet with the Bishop March 13th or March 20th, 2 "Like unto Ammon" member lesson and invitation - March April June transfer. 3. Church tour and invitation March April June Transfer and we were committed to give 6 Church tours per transfer. This sounds very confusing but I thought you might want to know what a Zone Conference is like. I love it when President Cleveland goes in Coach Mode and paces in front of us and goes in 30 second spurts like he would in a time-out. During Zone Conference we had lunch that the members in South Bend made for us. We had sandwiches and Sister Cleveland sat at our table so we talked to her, and then President Cleveland sat at our table and we talked to him. There were extra sandwiches and this is a quote from President Cleveland and it sounds like something he'd say to one of his basketball teams, he stands up from our table and yells "There are more sandwiches take one for the road!" in an accent almost. I love President Cleveland. We took a picture at lunch so it should be on facebook. After Zone Conference they gave us cleaning supplies because we have a spring cleaning day on March 12th. After Zone Conference we were heading back and the Richharts, a member family in our ward cancelled dinner because there power was out but we went home, changed into our service clothes and went to Plymouth to help Bob. We helped Bob split wood because there was a huge snowstorm coming in on Wednesday. After we helped him split wood we had dinner with him and Bundo his wife. Bob is the man that has been "investigating" the church for 35 years. He comes as much as a member. He used to be a Pentecostal preacher and  he is what our Branch President calls a dry mormon because he knows it's true he just isn't baptized yet. He is trying to convert his wife and so it's hilarious, he'll ask us questions that he knows the answer to, but so that we'll answer them in front of his wife. Haha dinner was great with them and Tuesday was a great day.

Wednesday - On Wednesday it snowed a lot! I think altogether this week it snowed 6 or more inches. We went to the Museum and did a lot of service for them. We move stuff for them, sweep there basement, clean of frames. After that we had lunch, and we headed back to Bremen. Our car was grounded so we couldn't drive anywhere, they grounded it because of the weather but it was a miracle because miraculous things happened because of it. We walked and as we were walking from our apartment to the library, we saw to ladies shoveling. We went over and offered to shovel and we shoveled her driveway, we taught her Resto, talked to her two little girls and she tried to pay us each 10 dollars and we said No No no no and explained who we were and what we do. After that we went to Sister Padilla's and talked to her. She was making hot chocolate and I couldn't say no and she gave us Hot chocolate and a salted caramel cookie. After that we went to go talk to Craig, he wasn't home, so we went to this elderly ladies house that we've talked to once before, she used to be a minister and we shoveled her walks, as we were walking down the street this lady was getting out of her car and almost slipped, we asked if we could help and got started talking and taught her Restoration, and Book of Mormon, gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she'll come to church! Miracle. She was prepared to hear the gospel and the timing of us walking by and talking to her was meant to be. We then went to Jose, he is a catholic man who said we could bring a Book of Mormon by but when we got there said he wouldn't read it, and someone else could use it more. We knocked on Nikki's door, she didn't answer so we went to Sarai's. We met who I think was her Brother Roberto and talked to them which was good and then shoveled her walks. After that we were walking and we were walking towards a house that we've shoveled the walks for twice before so I said "Lets go shovel her walks" Looking back this was a very big prompting. We knocked on her door, she lives in a historical house that his 120 years old and has little candlelights in her windows to give you a picture. She said "Yeah you can and would you like to have dinner with us?" Elder Scoville said "No no we have food" and we started shoveling her walks. We've talked to this lady 2 times before and the one time we talked to her about the Book of Mormon she was not open about it. She goes to the First Church of the Brethren and she had 2 sons that are ministers. As we were shoveling her walks her husband came out and said "My wife told me you're back at it again, it'd be a delight to have you guys over for supper tonight" so I quickly said Yes. He said "Ok ring the doorbell when you're done" So we did and we went inside and took off all our coats and boots and sat down in their living room while we waited for dinner. There was a fire going and we talked to her husband. They are very nice people and we just had a great conversation about the bike ride he took through Utah, and where he grew up in California, and about what he does for a job, and Notre Dame and we just had a great conversation with them. I then said I was Interested in what they believed in and what time their church starts and they told us everything, we do that just for friendship and sometimes we set up deals and say if we come to your church, will you come to ours, knowing when we go to theirs we can get an experience and when they come to ours they can get converted. They believe in the creeds and asked us if we do and we said No. We read them the 13 Articles of Faith and taught them Restoration and Book of Mormon and the Dad's eyes were just locked on us. The spirit was there strong, it was such a spiritual lesson and they accepted a Book of Mormon! They invited us to an Agape Feast in 2 days on March 2nd, Agape means love so we're gonna go see what that's like and she is making Cream of Broccoli soup because she asked what kind of soup we like and I told her haha. Her husband is also trying to set up a time for us to go play basketball with the Amish in one of the Amish barns. So i'll keep you updated on that haha. After that we walked home, it was about 8 o clock and we were at there house for 2 hours I'd say. We walked home in the snowy dark it was fun.

 Thursday - On Thursday we did our morning routine and around 10 we headed to Plymouth. We were going to go to the Coloring class in Culver at the Culver Library but everything in all 3 towns (Bremen, Plymouth and Culver) was closed. So we went with the Sisters to go to the church to print off copies of this member missionary plan that President Cleveland gave us. After we made copies we shoveled the church walks and salted them. We then went to go see the less active girl Tori but her hair salon was closed. I walked in Gnc and got a pack of protein bars for $1.80! A couple weeks ago I got 350 dollars worth of stuff for $37! I'll send you the receipt it was crazy! You need to see it. They always have a 90% off sale. The Sisters wanted to go in Hallmark so we went in there, one thing that is a trick, is when you ever have a little bit of time and don't know what to do, just go walk around in a store because at least your being seen and you can talk to people. And that's what we did, we talked to a guy that's from Warsaw, a town kind of close to Plymouth and told him who we were and I told him about Elder Pittard, me and him are good friends, we both think we're gonna be companions so keep that prediction in mind, but anyways I told him to tell Elder Pittard I say hi if he sees him because Elder Pittard's there and we told him they'll shovel or do any service for him. So that was good. After that we had lunch, and then me and Elder Scoville went to work. We went and saw Melody, Melody is a lady that goes to the Plymouth Wesleyan Church and we have a couple people we've met that we're trying to teach that go there. We talked to Melody and asked her if we could help her shovel, and as we were about to leave I asked if we could say a prayer with her. She let us in and then I asked her if I could show her a little video, it was going to be a Mormon message: A message of the Restoration by L. Tom Perry. So we sat down and showed her that and the spirit was strong. We taught her Plan of Salvation and then she gave us a referral and she didn't even know she was giving me one but I slowly got all the information I could so I got one from her :) Haha she knows this guy that just moved from Indianapolis to San Francisco and he drove through and took pictures by the Salt Lake City Temple and Temple Square and fell in love with Utah and so I referred him to the San Francisco missionaries. We were at her house for an hour and half talking to her. After that we started driving back to Bremen. The sisters followed because they wanted to come with us to Marty Yeagers church. Marty Yeager is a guy we're teaching and he does home church. They are a very nice family and we made a deal with him if we come to his home church, then he will come to ours. So we went and had a great night, met all the people that go to Marty's church, and got to be friends with them. One of the guys, his name is Jesse, works at a pizza place in Plymouth called Bourbon Street pizza and he told us the next time we go in, our meal is on him. After Marty Yeager's church we went to the Reeds, members in our ward and had dinner with them and gave them a lesson. We then went back to our apartment and planned and weekly planned.

Friday - On Friday we got up, got ready, shoveled some of the Reeds walks, checked the computers at the library to see if we got any referrals, picked up some stuff we need and then we went to Plymouth. We did Family History and then went on exchanges. Me and Elder Morgan were together and we had lunch and then went out at 2 to go see a Pentecostal Minister. We taught him and it almost turned into a bash, it was escalating to that point, but it was kept at a good fun level, Elder Morgan shut him down on everything this minister pulled out haha it was fun. He ended up accepting the Book of Mormon. I said "That Book of Mormon is going to sit there and one day he'll pull it out and read it and be converted" Elder Morgan said "Now this is where we think differently, I think it will sit there and it will condemn him because he never reads it" It's fun working with Elder Morgan. We then started tracting and met a man that used to be a marine, he wasn't interested in talking, he goes to St. Michael's, a catholic church around here I think but we invited him to church. Elder Morgan says it's fun tracting with me because I invite them to church even when they don't want to talk to us and I think it's fun tracting with him because he is good at shutting down ministers haha so we work good together. After we talked to that guy, we were walking and MIRACLE. We were led to this lady. We walk up and there is a lady sitting in her garage smoking. We walk closer, she's not acting very interested but we taught her Resto, and the spirit was there strong. The moment it changed is Elder Morgan walked up and handed her the Restoration pamphlet and we said the First Vision we taught the lesson and she was locked in, seeming like every question she's had her entire life was answered and we said "We don't want you to take our word for it, we want you to pray and come to a knowledge for yourself if this is true" She said "It is" we just had the biggest smiles on our face and we kept teaching her and gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her about it and she said "I'll be there at church on Sunday at 10" After that we said a prayer with her and left. We said another prayer once we left and thanked Heavenly Father for leading us there. We kept tracting and knocking doors and had great success. We met James, a 15 year old with long brown hair that wanted to talk to us and we invited him and his family to church. We talked to a couple ladies that went to other churches and taught the Restoration to 1 of them, the other one we got halfway through and her husband said they had to leave. We talked to another guy that was sitting outside his house, in his garage smoking and drinking, and when we walked to go talk to him he said "No" but we did anyway and had a great discussion with him and invited him to church. After that we went to go see an elderly lady named Ann Listenburger who is on baptismal date and me and Elder Morgan talked to hear about saying her prayers. We then went to Bob's. We talked to Bob and Bundo for an 1 and half and they told us about these German bike riders that rode their bikes from New York to San Francisco and Bob saw them at a grocery store 7 months ago, started talking to them, and he let them stay in one of his houses and had them over for dinner, and these german bike riders made it all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and sent Bob a letter and pictures that day, this friday when we went over. Bundo gave us cheesecake, Bob gave me 2 shirts and Elder Morgan some shoes. After that we went to the Ogilvie's, they are members and we went there for dinner. After that we went to the Culver vs Bremen basketball game! It was fun. That night we were on exchanges so I slept at Culvers.

Saturday - We woke up, studied, got ready, listened to a little bit of a talk Elder Holland gave at a BYU devotional and then we went to Plymouth for splits with the members. Me and Elder Scoville went with Brother Bollman and we went way far out to a place called Walkerton, and Koontz Lake to go tract down some referrals we got. We went to the Bakers, they didn't answer so we left a card and then we went to the referrals. Dave Campbell is one of them, I talked to him on the phone, it said he wanted a Bible and I called and he said he didn't so I said what about a Book of Mormon and he said No so I said can we come talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with you and he said Yeah maybe sometime, so we went out. When I talked to him a couple weeks ago, he was at his daughters basketball game and when we went to his house he wasn't home because he was at his daughters game but we told his other daughter to tell him we stopped by. We then had to go to a gas station and these 4 people helped us find these 2 houses and we went and found them. One of them is Frank Radaszewski and we talked to his mom, her roof was leaking and he is in Southern Indiana for a few weeks so we couldn't talk to him. We then went to a house by Koontz Lake, it's a pretty lake, but the person there didn't answer. We then went to Sister Canamar, Sister Canamar had been a member for 22 years, she used to live in Las Vegas and worked at the Casino and the missionaries found her and now she's a member. We talked to her and showed her a mormon message by Henry B. Eyring called Choose this day. We then went to a guy named Dale Hartman. He is a member, he lives in the country and has a pretty sweet place in the country. He wasn't home though and the last people we went to go see was the Riale's. Charlotte Riale is a member, but her husband Andy isn't. We went and shared a lesson about Faith and committed them to coming to church. We then went back to the church and Brother Bollman dropped us off and we waited for the Culver Elders to get back with Brother Furnivall. They got back and we planned for the night. We went and did some work and saw Brad. We taught brad and showed him a Mormon message and had a great discussion/lesson with him and then at 5:45 we met up with the Sisters, had dinner and then went to Culver for the Hockey game! It was sweet Hockey is fun to watch and Culver is good. They have kids from Canada and they play teams from far away, they played a team from Milwaukee.

Sunday - We got ready, went to Branch Council at 8:30 and then had church. Elder Eschler gave a very good talk about Alma the Younger. Sister Ben sang Be still, my soul. During Priesthood we watched and listened to a talk by President Eyring. After church there was a baptism for the Ogilvies son William and then we had Correlation meeting. After correlation we went to go see Derek and Jodie and another miracle happened. We said a prayer right before we got out of the car and the prayer took just the perfect amount of time so we got out right as this mother and son were walking by on a walk. They said Hi to us first and we're really nice, we got started talking to them and it turns out we've talked to her mom in this same neighborhood and she thought we were very nice. Derek and Jodie didn't answer, we tried by a couple more people, no one answered except Kay Gonzalez. We set up a time to come with a member in our ward (Brother Richhart) to come see her because they're 2nd cousins and he even has questions for her about Family History. After that we headed back to Bremen. We had dinner, I was so tired I fell asleep for the rest of my dinner break and then we went to go see Sister Padilla. Sister Padilla wasn't able to make it to church today, her mom broke her leg so we went and talked to her and tried to uplift her. We then went and saw Brenda Montez, and delivered her a Book of Mormon and that was good :) Very good week and the work is hastening on! I love you guys so much!