Tuesday, February 23, 2010

February 23, 2010

Hey family!

First of all, is Kellie having a baby or something? I'm glad to hear that Elisha liked all of the cake he ate. Send me a picture of the spider man cake, lol. Oh man, I can't wait to see 'lisha and Ally all growed up when I get back.

Well, my week has gone pretty well. We taught a bunch of lessons this past week, and we set a few baptismal dates with some of our investigators.

I don't know if I told you about Robin and Serena of not. I think I did, but I'm not sure. They were a referral from some other missionaries that Elder Dursteler had before I came into the area. They were just super hard to get a hold of as she was having a baby and some other things were going on. We finally got a hold of them and had a lesson with them in early January. We sat down and just talked about what they wanted to get out of meeting with us. It was really neat to hear the, tell us about how they had a really strong desire to serve other people and to bring there family together. They really want good friends for their kids and a good environment for their family. When we went by the next week, we taught them about the restoration of the gospel. When we finished, we got a different reaction then I'm used to. They pretty much said "that's nice, but how can we serve in your church?" Wow. We started talking to them about callings, relief society, elders quorum, etc. They committed to come to church, but sick kids kept them from coming. For our next lesson we went to the RS presidents house to talk more about serving in the church and what church is like. They both really wanted to come and see what church was like. Robin had to work, but Serena came and really liked it. This last week we taught the plan of salvation, and invited them to be baptized on the 13th of March, and they accepted.

We now have six baptismal dates, and a lot of wonderful people that we are teaching. The work is really moving forward, and so I'm really excited.

If you haven't read the church news, you might have missed this interesting headline. Well, it wasn't a headline, but it's crazy. I guess their creating a new mission here! The Farmington, New Mexico mission. It will include part of the Mesa mission. Yes, our mission is being split. I don't know any details yet, but this is obviously really big news. The work out here is really accelerating. I'm really happy to be a part of it.

Our zone conferrence is Thursday, so I'm looking forward to that. Those are always good. :-)

It rained a lot on us yesterday. That was interesting. There were huge puddles along the road, and we were on bikes with cars driving by. Do you see the problem? Big puddles. Cars driving by. Missionaries on bikes on the side walk. Yeah, we got splashed a few times. Gross! Not that it really matters. We were already soaking wet, lol.

Oh, and we got asked to teach the sharing time lesson in primary in one of our wards. lol. It will be on the plan of salvation. That should be really fun. :-D I don't know who will be teaching it, it will either have to be me or my companion, not both because we cover two wards that meet at the same time. . . . We'll see how it goes. lol.

I think that's about it for now. I love you all and hope you have a good week.

Love,
Jason

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

February 16, 2010

Hey family!

Sounds like another fun week. And I did get the package in time for S.A.D.(Single Awareness Day, AKA Valentine's Day), as Kaydee calls it now (I think it's clever, by the way). Thank you so much! And tell the twins thank you for me. And Elisha's my friend too. Make sure you tell him that for me. :-)

Glad to hear that dad is getting the Perry plan going. That can and will have amazing results if only more people would use it! I need to get the wards we cover to use it.

So I hear that the baby (... AKA Jason XIII (you know I'm going to call him that)) doesn't like spicy food. That's too bad. He must take after Alex. :-p He'll come around eventually, I'm sure. Don't worry-- I'll fix it. ;-) Spicy apple sauce or something. Just joking!!!


So. . . .

We had a baptism! As you can imagine I'm just a little bit excited about that. Russell was finally baptized. But man was it stressful. Let me back up, though, because I didn't have time to tell you the story.

We were planning on having the baptism the Saturday before last, as you remember. Well, Tuesday afternoon we got a phone call while we were at our zone's Zone Activity. I ran off to the side to answer it and it was Russell's daughter in law. She told me that the baptism was off because Russell's daughter had a heart attack and was in the hospital on life support and was not expected to make it. It really broke our hearts to hear that. He still wanted us to come by that night and have our lesson (we meet with him every Tue. and Thur.). So we went by and watched a DVD about how families can be together forever. It was really good. His daughter was taken off of life support a few days later and the funeral was on that Saturday.

Sunday we were in PEC meeting and the bishop asked what time the baptism was going to be on Saturday. We were really confused. We told him we hadn't yet set a new day for the baptism, let alone a time. He told us that Russell had told him that he was planning on being baptized that Saturday. So we got busy making plans for the baptism. We met with Russell and reserved the font and had everything set for three o' clock. But when we got there another baptism was going and was going long. Oh no! So we moved the service into the chapel and improvised as best we could and in the end it all worked out. :-) The service was actually really good. Elder Dursteler and I spoke. Russell's son baptized him. So now he is the newest member of the church, and a wonderful man. I'm really excited for him.

And now another miracle:
Elder Perry, when he spoke to us last year, told us all that we needed to teach at least twenty lessons a week. He also told us we needed to talk to 140 (10 per missionary per day/ 20 per companionship) people a week. He promised us that if we did, we would always have people to teach and we would baptize more. So this last week we were looking at our numbers Saturday night, and we saw that we had talked to plenty of people, but I only counted 15 lessons. !!!! I counted again and still got 15. I was really frustrated. There was no possible way we could teach 5 lessons on Sunday-- we had church all day. The most we could teach was 3. I prayed, counted again, and I realized I had missed two lessons. That put it at 17. So we needed to teach 3 lessons the next day. Not likely, but possible. I prayed really hard, and the next night we went out and worked as hard as we could to teach the last three people. We taught members at dinner, so there was one. Then we had some trouble but finally taught Bervena-- one of our investigaters. Two. By this time it was 8:30 and I was praying hard. And we managed to find one more person to teach. Walter, a new investigater now. He happened to be home and invited us in. wow!

We've also managed to find some more people to teach and set two baptismal dates for the 13th of March. I'll tell you more about them when I get more time.

In short, things are going good and I'm loving everything here.

Can't think of anything else too exciting off the top of my head. Hope everything goes good for you this next week.

Love you all,
Jason

PS..... Who doesn't like making me cards? lol. J/k. BTW: Tell Alexandra and Elisha that I can be BOTH of their friends. It's okay, I can handle it. :-)

I have 30 seconds left.
Love you all!
Bye!!!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

February 9, 2010

This was a short letter as he had to do his school applications for BYU.
ENJOY!

Hey family,


Sorry I don't have a whole lot of time, I'm trying to get the darn essay questions done. . . . But here is the latest on news in the mission.

First, what's a Ward Mission Leader secretary? lol. I've never heard of it before. I've heard of an assitant WML before, but not a secretary. lol. Do you have the Perry plan going? Almost NO wards out here do, which is REALLY sad. We need to get on the Perry plan!!!

TRANSFER NEWS:::::

Elder Dursteler and I are still companions, nothing too exciting is happening there. We'll have to see what happens next time. :-p My MTC companion Elder Overocker is now my district leader. :-)

This is really wierd: All of the the sister missionaries that I came out with. . . . they went home this morning. :-O They've all finished their missions already! What happened?! We came out last month. Oh, wait. What month is it? . . . I don't know. Sister Farnsworth came up to me last week to shake my hand and I didn't get why. I was thinking "that's kind of random." And then someone told me they were going home! Woah!

Any way, a lot happened this last week, and I don't have much time. Brother Stokum's daughter died this last week, so he was not baptized. The baptism will be this Saturday. (I felt really bad when I heard his daughter had died :-[ He's doing good, though.) He's such a good man. The baptism is 3:00 Saturday if he still feels up to it. He has a lot of faith, and it's helping him get through this.

I also had to speak at another funeral (not for the Stokum's) on the plan of salvation. That was a lot different of a setting then what I am used to. I followed the family in speaking, so the son spoke, the daughter spoke, then me. So when I got up everyone was crying. I did my best to share some uplifting remarks on life after death and how their mother is now in spirit paradise.

We found several new people to teach this last week, which is great.

Oh, and I want my major to be
Computer Science,
I think. . . . It sounds closest to what I am looking for.
I'll talk to Pres. Bassett about the other things. . . .

Love,
Jason

*** I also thought I would include part of Jason's essay question for BYU as it pertains to his mission. I hope he doesn't mind...
....As a missionary in Arizona, most of my companions were wonderful people that worked hard, and so I had a desire to do the same. I was eventually assigned to one companion in particular that didn't work quite as hard as the rest. This was very difficult for me to handle. I had a strong desire to work as hard as I could, but struggled at what to do to correct the problem. I prayed for help, and then I did my best to talk to him about working harder. I'm not very good at talking to people about problems, but I prayed hard and did the best that I could. The problem was not immediately resolved, but after a while he finally came around and the both of us accomplished some great things. I've learned that you can't make anyone change, but you can be a good example and pray for help; and when you do, miracles happen.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

February 2, 2010

Hello family!

Yes, the new email is still a ........ address, even though it's through google. I don't know why, but it is.

How was the mustang? (Heh, you thought I wouldn't comment on that!) And how was painting? Thanks for the updates. It sounds like things there are a little bit busy. But it's more fun that way, right? :-)

Nathan is back to Sr. Comp. as well, huh? He was ZL for a long time, wasn't he? Like 5 transfers (7 and 1/2 months) or something? I'm sure he'll probably be training soon. :-) When it happens, just remember that I called it. :-p And I'm glad I not eating crazy foods like Taylor, lol. I've had pasta the last three nights in a row, lol.

So this was any exciting week. I woke up Thursday morning with a kinda sore throat. Nothing big, just a little annoying. I had my personal study, and then when that was over I went over to the table where we have companion study and I said hi to elder Dursteler-- but my voice wasn't working. So I cleared my throat for a couple seconds and it was fine. Then I went about my day, and everything was fine until the last lesson of the night, when my voice finally gave out on me and I couldn't talk. . . . Kind of a problem in missionary work. Unless your a sign language missionary :-p But anyway, so we went home and without planning or anything I went to bed and hoped that I would feel better the next day.

Nope! I woke up sick. My throat, head, stomach, etc. I had to call for permission to stay in that day. (To tell you how merciful Heavenly Father is, we had no appointments that day, so it wasn't a big deal at all). I slept most of the day and took as much benadryl as the bottle said I could take. :-p The next day I woke up feeling better and I was able to go out and work, but my voice even today is still an octave lower than it's suppose to be. Maybe my voice is just changing :-p lol.

The ironic thing is Elder Dursteler was sick, and I was reflecting on how long it's been since I was last sick. Once last January, once in June or July. . . I was thinking "uh oh, it seems to be about time for me to get sick again, huh?" and then-- BAM! lol.

Anyway, Russell is all set for his baptism this coming Saturday! He had his interview, and it went really well. He has a great testimony. Most people that talk to him think he's been a member his whole life. He's amazing. The baptism is this Saturday at 7:00 pm.

This last week was actually really slow aside from all of that. Most of our appointments fell through this week, so we didn't teach much. . . . I guess since the rest of the transfer went to well, we had to have at least once slow week.

SPEAKING OF TRANSFERS::::: Transfer news is coming up next week!

My companion is so paranoid about transfers and so sure he's leaving that he actually started packing at the start of this last week-- which is two weeks before we even get transfer news. Oh brother! I tried telling him it was pointless, but he continues to pack up his stuff. . . . Oh well. I guess if he does go he'll be prepared.

So anyway, that's about it. Not too much new going on.

Love you all,
Elder Jason Mace