Hey everybody!
Ben, looks like you had an enjoyable honeymoon and are finally wed. I hope that you both stay married forever. I wouldn't mind some San Diego weather right now, too. The weather is freezing cold now.
Brycen, it looks like you are ballin' it up. Keep it up. Read the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel.
Kaitlyn, how's dance? Hopefully you are inviting your friends to mutual.
Jordan, I don't know what to say. What are you even up to? Oh wait, you are still going to BYU. Or are you taking the semester off? Aren't you living at home now? Do you have to commute everyday? Where's Alex working?
Jenessa, how's college. How's your boyfriend? Just kidding. Do you have a cool calling in your YSA ward at UVU?
Dad, I'm sorry the stock market is stinking so bad. Is it really the worst it's EVER been? Even worse than the depression? At least you got to go skiing. And yeah, President Nielsen is such a great man. Am I allowed to email him btw? I'd like to if I could. I really look up to him.
Mother, I'm glad you are having a fun time learning Hebrew. Thanks for all of the cool insights. I've learned from you the importance of having a great knowledge of the scriptures. All of my companions tell me that I know them pretty well. But I've learned from one of the best.
Grandma Elaine, thanks for telling me who my new mission president will be. No, we did not ever get flooded thankfully.
Grandpa Bob, that's way cool you got to be in the presence of an apostle! I got to too! To answer your question about what I'd say at your funeral, I'd say that you always made me laugh and made the funniest remarks even though I didn't always know what you were really talking about, you carry a comb in your pocket that you use frequently, the many times you supported me at my basketball games and when we went to that BYU basketball game last year and got matching t-shirts. and of course that I love you! But please don't die anytime soon!
Grandma Lynne, I love you too! Same with you Grandpa Allen! I love all of you. Hopefully I'm not missing anyone.
So I'm getting transferred tomorrow to Springfield, Illinois. My new companion is known as Elder 007 Petersen. I think I know what he looks like, but don't know much about him. A lot of you reminded me in your emails to be charitable, so I'll be charitable.
I'm pretty excited to go to the Land of Lincoln though. Don't know much about it, but I'm excited to find out what's ahead of me.
It's a little saddening to leave Carlyle. I met so many wonderful members and nonmembers. I'm going to especially miss Brother Barfield, Lehland, Jose, and Fransisco. I got a couple of pictures with them which I will send home. Though there weren't any baptisms, it doesn't matter. Elder Rasband in our mission conference told us that some will turn soil, others will plant seeds, others will reap baptisms and see them attend the temple. He said that sometimes we are moved right before a baptism. But it's all one work. IT's not your baptism, it's the Lords.
(Read John 4 as a family)
The mission conference was focused mostly on the doctrine of Christ. Elder James B. Martino (of the 70) gave an excellent talk about the missionary purpose. They want us to focus on nothing but declaring repentance to nonmembers (see D&C 15). We are still to work with less actives of course, but as we do this we need to be realizing that "our purpose is still repentance for converts. We strengthen less actives by letting them participate in missionary work." Every single day we need to plead with the Lord what we can do to better declare repentance. He gave an example of how Alma helped convert a less active (Amulek) who then taught his family and friends. Elder Martino went on to say that the Church is concerned that missionaries are overwhelmed wondering what it is they are supposed to do. Members and missionaries need to be working TOGETHER. They want us to go home and know what we have done to declare repentance and help people enter into covenants. (Read 2 Nephi 31 as a family).
Next, Elder Hansey of the 70 bore witness that the Lord "is pleased with your efforts as you obey his commandments and let your light shine."
Elder Rasband talked focused a lot on our "Divine Call as A Missionary"-see his talk he gave in General conference 2010 I think it was.
He said that it is the love of Heavenly Father that sends us where we need to go. missionary work is the lifeblood of the church. Now that we are through the shockwave of the mission age change, now let us retain our focus on the doctrine of Christ.
Elder Rasband also gave President Monson's personal message to us that he loves us and that he was thankful for us responding to his call to serve. I had tears when he said that. That came straight from the prophet!
Elder Rasband went through the process of how they pick missionaries. Something that was interesting is now instead of looking at a map of where to send a missionary, they look at the mission president and wife to be with. He said that they will be your mission president and wife forever. That was pretty cool. President and Sister MOrgan are fantastic. Recently they challenged the whole mission to read the entire book of Mormon by april general conference! They promised us great blessings from doing so.
The rest of the meeting talked a lot about priesthood keys. Elder Rasband drew a funnel and at the top put President Monson. Towards the middle of the funnel was The apostles who by the spirit made the call. At this point he talked about one particular missionary who they assigned but didn't feel good about it. The reason they don't feel good about it is because when they assign people (after praying of course), on the computer monitor is a list of missions that need missionaries to "meet their complement." This one particular missionary spoke Arabic, and Elder Rasband felt prompted to send him to a particular mission that needed Arabic missionaries, but there were no missions that needed any Arabic speaking missionaries to meet the complement (or quota). So that missionary was assigned to a certain mission but he didn't feel to good about it. Days later, a mission president from somewhere in the world called asking for someone who spoke Arabic. They knew immediately that that missionaries call needed to be switched to that mission.
I'm relating this story because something similar happened to me. I know that this is the place where I need to be. I think that part of the reason is that I am tribe of Judah. I felt impressed that is true, but I could be mistaken. So far I've met one jewish guy on my whole mission, but you never know. If you are reading and don't know what I am talking about, ask my Mom.
Another thing that Elder Rasband said that stands out is to ALWAYS, ALWAYS follow your first prompting. Since then I've been paying a lot closer attention to the promptings I get.
I will relate a few promptings that I had this week:
From my journal:
"Last week we tracted into John, who is the nephew of sister Bierman from our ward.On Wednesday when we were in Carlyle we decided that we would switch the time we were going to see John from 6:30 to 5:30. It was perfect timing because we got to meet his daughter, Madison. She is about 13 years old. She gets to say with her Dad occasionally since John is divorced. We taught a great lesson and Madison accepted the invitation to be baptized and to read and pray. She even was willing to pray in front of us though she never had prayed before out loud in her life. John, though drunk the last time we met him, actually read 10 pages from the book of Mormon. He is really receptive, too. Now that I think about it, we forgot to tell Sister Bierman about all of this! She'd be ecstatic to hear about how well it went especially since they rarely see eachother. Plus, she told us that he would never commit to anything, but John is showing some commitment.
Another instance:
Saturday I felt an impression to ask Brother Barfield where his son lived in Nashville. We went there and they invited us in, and we are going back on Saturday. His son is catholic and he is aware of all of the dramatic changes his father has made over the past few months.
Another:
"Yesterday I had another prompting that I should call Amy McKinney (the YSA coordinator of the ward) to come out with us to a lesson. The lesson we originally planned fell through but we went to a less active named Carol. She didn't invite us in because of her dogs so we talked to her through her door while standing with Amy on her porch freezing to death. (it was 20 degrees). But if we didn't bring Amy then nothing good would have happened. She said a lot of reallygood things especially since Carol was really depressed and giving up hope. She has a son named Robert who is suicidal and such. Amy did a great job speaking to her since she is a woman. She also offered to come by and bring Robert to YSA activites. Robert is not a member and has had a rough life, being forced to drink at a young age and sorts. The sister missionaries had been trying to get in with Carol multiple times. They jokingly asked us what secret knock we used to get her to the door. Really, it was because the Lord gave us revelation.
Prompting are cool. I learned that we don't see the big picture when we receive revelation. For instance, I called Amy up to come to an appointment with Emily and Jed, but they cancelled because they were sick. The real reason she needed to come was to talk to Carol and let her know she is loved.
I reiterate, Always, always follow your first prompting
Love you all!
My ponderizing scrip is D and C 100:5-8
Fransisco and Jose. They are a lot happier than this picture makes them look. Hopefully jose gets baptized soon.
Gonna miss Francisco
This is Brother Barton. We visited him quite a bit. Great man. He is kind of a lonely guy. Whenever we visited him he was shirtless haha. Good times.
Can't forget brother barfield. He's still going strong.
Bishop Kretschmer and his son Cameron
