Week 63 - Gratitude for My Many Blessings

With the Gils - One of my favorite couples!
We've had a lot of funny experiences with them.

November 30, 2015

Hello everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving!! I would first off like to let everyone know how grateful I am for everything that I am blessed with. As I sit back and think about it, I truly am so blessed. 

With Elder Krey

First off, I am blessed with a loving Heavenly Father who loves me and blesses me daily with everything I have. I am thankful for a Savior, the Son of God, who loves each of us so much that he sacrificed his life and suffered for all of us, so that we can be happy and return to live with our Father. I am grateful for an earthly father, who has been my coach, teacher, friend, mentor, and example, and who has shown me how to be a worthy priesthood holder and how to raise a family in the gospel. He also works hard to support our family and help out those around him. I am grateful for a wonderful mother who supports and encourages me in all that I do, and has been someone I can talk to whenever I need a friend! I would not be on a mission if it were not for her...(especially considering she did like 95% of my mission shopping!!). I am grateful for 5 AWESOME siblings who send me letters and pray for me regularly, and who make me laugh all the time. I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that I can live with my family forever, because my parents were sealed in a Holy Temple of God by someone who had the priesthood. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve as a full-time representative of my Savior Jesus Christ for these two short years, and to invite everyone I see to come closer to Christ. I love being a missionary. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and I know that it blesses lives, and I am so grateful for that. I am grateful for the principle of obedience. When we are obedient, it provides us a great foundation for our faith, and it allows us to have confidence in all that we do. I am grateful for that. I could go on all day about things that I am grateful for, but those are some of the biggest blessings in my life.

The Beutler's dinner at the church

I had an AWESOME day on Thursday. We woke up and did our usual morning routine, with our studies and everything, and then after our studies the whole Sparks zone got together and played football...and it was a total blast. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE playing football, and so it was way fun. It was freezing outside, and it was actually snowing the whole time, but it made it even more fun. Then we got cleaned up and went to help the Beutlers put on their Thanksgiving dinner for many of the local members and investigators who didn't have a place to go. 

With the Jorgensen Family on Thanksgiving

Then we zipped up to the Jorgensens, an awesome family in our ward and had a delicious dinner with them. It was nice because President Chesnut instructed us that it was not a real proselyting day, and he wanted us to spend time and build relationships with members, so we were able to spend a little more time than usual with them, which was way fun. 

After we had dinner with them, we went up to the Chesnut's home (the mission home – it’s beautiful), which is over on the other side of Reno and hung out with President and Sister Chesnut.  They had their oldest son in town and his children, so we spent time with them. It was an experience that most missionaries would kill for, to just spend an evening with the President at his home. We found out that we are NOT getting iPads when President Robbins comes in January, but that President Robbins has asked to have a special meeting with Elder Ash and I and the President to discuss the needs and concerns of the mission....so basically I will get to sit in an office with a general authority for an hour or so!! We are super excited for that.

It was raining mud!

The first part of the week was extremely fun, too! We had a great conference in Elko on Monday, and then spent the evening with the Zone Leaders out there on a mini exchange, Elders Kidman and Johnson.  After the exchange, we attended a district meeting out there Tuesday morning, and then drove home afterwards. It was crazy…as we were driving through Winnemucca, it started raining mud! So the windshield wipers didn't help anything, thankfully we had just refilled our wiper fluid. But we had lots of fun out there for a few days, and I really love long road trips, they are tons of fun!!

Exchanges with Elder Palmer in SUN VALLEY!!

We went on FOUR exchanges this past week, so Elder Ash and I have barely had the chance to work together, but it has been lots of fun. We went on a mini-exchange with the Elko ZL’s Monday night, and I spent a few hours with Elder Johnson, who is one of my closest friends. Then, Elder Freeman came back to the Prater ward for the day on Wednesday, which was fun…it felt like the last three transfers!  I spent Friday with Elder Palmer in SUN VALLEY!! I got to go back for a day and serve in English. It brought back lots of memories, because it was exactly a year ago that we were there. 

Exchanges with my man, Elder Krey

After our exchange on Friday, Elder Ash and I got back together and drove to Fernley, where we started another exchange, with the Fallon ZL’s – Krey and Wheeler!  I got to spend another day with the one and only...Elder Krey! I love Elder Krey so much; we have a ton of fun together. He is hands down the funniest missionary in this mission, he has me laughing all day long...and the best part about it, is that he is also a great missionary! I have never met another missionary who has so much desire to share the Gospel with others. I really want to serve with him again as companions before our missions are over. 

With Elder Freeman....who got me started on the
Rubik's Cube

It’s funny that the family is now into Rubik’s cubes...because I got into them on my mission! Elder Freeman taught me how to solve one and so I too am a Rubik’s cube fanatic! Although I am sure that everyone back at home is way faster than I am at solving them. 

In about 3 hours, Elder Snow arrives.  President and Sister Chesnut are going to pick him up, and we are all going to head down to Carson City for a tri-zone meeting. Tomorrow we have another meeting here in Sparks with three more zones. Then on Wednesday, we will not be attending, but there will be an East-side meeting with the three East-side zones attending. I am super excited to spend time with a general authority and learn from him...he is also the Church Historian so I am sure he knows and has lots of cool stories to tell.

Road-trippin' with Elder Ash

Well that’s about all the time that I have today, but next week we will be back on a regular schedule and I will have a real P-day next Monday! So no more crazy emailing schedules.  But the Book of Mormon tells us that we should, "live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you." I know that as we do so, we can recognize all that we truly have been blessed with and we forget about the things that we don't have. This allows us to be happier and more grateful for all that we have. I am so grateful for all of you and all of your love, support, and prayers, I couldn't do it without all of you. I love being a missionary and I cherish every moment that I have.

I hope you all have a great week.  I love you!

Love,

Elder Todd

Me and Elder Ash

More pics from Thanksgiving

Filling up the truck with Elder Krey

Week 62 - Traveling to Elko and Yelling in My Sleep

November 22, 2015

The Holy Deserts of Nevada - haha!

Good evening everyone!! I am sure that you are wondering why I am on my email right now….since it’s Sunday night instead of Monday.  We actually just drove across the Holy Deserts of Nevada and got here in Elko tonight, and we got permission to email tonight because we won't have a P-day this week. So here I am.

But it has been a great week!!  We had 3 of our 4 zone conferences, with our last one tomorrow here in Elko. Each one has been such a total blast, and I have learned so much from each one.  It is great! 

The Sparks and Quincy Zone Conference

I mentioned last week that our conferences were on Chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel and the 4th missionary talk, and it has been awesome. Elder Ash and I have given our portion of the meetings about what it means to be a successful missionary and how to teach with power and authority and what it means to teach with power and authority. Preach My Gospel tells us that our success is measured by our commitment to teach and invite others to come unto Christ, so we also talked about what it means to be committed. Elder Ash is a great missionary and is really good at giving trainings, so it has been lots of fun to get up there with him and work with the different zones. This round of zone conferences has been a lot different than the first round, because this round we are doing combined zone conferences – with at least two zones each conference.  And tomorrow we have the 3 zones on the east side coming together here in Elko. So each conference has been a bigger group, which has its pros and cons. It is always fun to get together and see other missionaries and play games and converse with them, but it is also fun to work with them on a more individual basis. With these bigger groups they can tend to be a little bit rowdier, too. But nonetheless, we love attending these meetings and seeing all the missionaries in the mission!

The infamous space heater in our room

This past week we finally were able to get our hands on a little space heater to put upstairs by our beds, because our heater downstairs works great, but there is like no way for the air to get upstairs, so the upstairs is usually about 10 degrees cooler than the downstairs. But we finally got our hands on one and set it up between our beds. I guess it works just a little too well, because the other night apparently I woke up and yelled, "It's so DAGGUM HOT up here, TURN IT OFF!!" while I was slapping the ground around the heater trying to find the heater to turn it off. I had no recollection of this happening, but in the morning Elder Ash asked me, "How did you sleep?" and "We're you warm enough?" and I answered "I slept great, and yeah I was plenty warm, how ‘bout yourself?" And then he explained to me. Elder Ash is a good sport. I never knew that I was such a loud, reckless sleeper...all of my companions have told me funny stories along those lines...many of which I yelled in Spanish, so most of my companions can't even understand what’s going on – haha!

Another funny experience happened today at church: In the middle of Sacrament meeting these two kids of a recent convert got up and starting running around and yelling in the chapel during the middle of a talk! It drew the attention of just about the whole room, and the chapel is funny shaped, so they were standing right in the middle. And then the little girl yelled at her brother, "NO! I need to go to the bathroom, too!" and then shoved her brother into one of the pews and took off running. It was quite comical, but then again they weren't my kids running around. But certainly one to remember.

Our crazy schedule

This transfer is actually totally CRAZY for us, and beginning today for the next three weeks, we don't have a single day without something going on, except for Sundays!  I won't have a p-day this week, but instead we are doing 4 exchanges and have a zone conference tomorrow, and then Thanksgiving right in the middle of the week! (Which we are way excited for…to have a turkey bowl with the Sparks zone, and then dinner with an awesome family in the ward!) So it will be a whirlwind the next few weeks, but we are excited for all of it.

President Chesnut was bouncing the idea around with me last transfer of putting another set of missionaries in our ward and splitting our area, and then having us travel more around the mission and work more with the missionaries and proselyte less. This probably won't happen this transfer, but the transfer in February we have to open up at least 2 new areas, and so we have talked about doing it then. So we will see, I think it would be exciting to do some more traveling and get to know the other missionaries better, but that would also mean that I would get to do less of what I love to do the most, which is teach the Gospel!  So we will see what we end up choosing and what the Lord wants.

Next week we will have Elder Snow come and visit our mission and have a mission tour and we are super excited for that! And then we also got word from President Chesnut two days ago that President Robbins of the presidency of the seventy has asked to come on another mission tour at the beginning of January, so we have a hunch that he is coming to introduce iPads to the mission...but we aren't sure yet. We are going to ask President Chesnut tomorrow and see if he knows anything about iPads yet, but that would be exciting if we did.

Exchanges with Elder Cruz

Our proselyting area really seems to take a hit when we are busy with zone conferences and everything else. It seems as though all of our solid investigators who are progressing slowly just come to a halt when we get super busy...and it stinks!! I wish so badly that we could keep up our area while we are attending all of these meetings. But oh well, it teaches us that we really need to rely on the Lord to bless our area while we are away from it, work as hard as we can when we are working in our area, and pray and expect miracles! 

Not only does our proselyting area take a hit when we aren't working, I feel as though I personally take a hit, too, because I don't get the chance to study! It’s become like my favorite part of the day, and it really is a huge blessing that I kinda take for granted until I don't have it! But one thing that I did learn this week in studies, however comes from the Bible Dictionary under the topic of faith. It tells us: "strong faith is developed by obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ; in other words, faith comes by righteousness."

So we can gain faith by simply just being obedient, and as we practice those good works, our faith grows. But then it also tells us that, "faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action" –  so once we have faith, that faith inspires us to have better works. So it’s this weird thing that faith grows by our works, but our works grow our faith. It produces this cycle that grows our faith stronger and stronger. The opposite is also true, if we stop doing small things to grow our faith, then our faith slowly decreases. Satan knows this and tries to tell us it’s OK to miss just one week of church, or that it’s OK if we don't say our prayers. So the only way to get faith or to grow it is to just start somewhere, jump in, and give it a try. This can be something simple such as saying a prayer, attending church, opening the scriptures...nothing too crazy, it doesn't take rocket science to grow one's faith. 

Well – I have to wrap it up, we are going to plan our day for tomorrow and then catch some sleep! We have zone conference tomorrow and then we are going on splits with the Zone Leaders here in Elko. It should be a great day!

I love being a missionary. I love being a representative of my Savior Jesus Christ. I know without a doubt that this is HIS church and HIS work. I know that His gospel blesses families, and I know that I want my future family to be blessed by that Gospel.

I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Todd

Week 61 - "Are You True?" (and a few confessions from my senior year!)

Making transfer calls with the Zone Leaders

November 16, 2015

Howdy!! 

It snowed the night before transfers - and caused the
power to go out at the mission office and church

It is definitely winter here in Nevada! The colder weather has settled in, and we’ve had 2 snowstorms already!! It's great…I love the snow!  And so does Elder Ash. He is from Canada,  so he loves it more than I do.  It’s fun when it is snowing, and everyone gets excited around here. What's the weather like back at home, any sign of winter yet there?

I want to give a special birthday shout-out to my wonderful mother, who is still very young and hip and awesome. But I am SO grateful for her and all that she has done for me. I wouldn't be here on my mission now without her. I am so grateful for the example that she gives me and to everyone around her of how to live a life centered around the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I can't imagine my life with out my Mother. I love you Mom!!

At the airport picking up the Greenies

Our first snow of the season happened to come on transfer night, so we woke up Tuesday morning (transfer day) with 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground, and we had no power at the mission office or any of the surrounding church buildings. So of course everyone went into freak-out mode and we were about ready to move the whole transfer day to the other end of Reno. There were many prayers said that it would work out, and of course it did...while we were at the airport picking up the Greenies, we got word that the power was back on, and everything was good to go. So we witnessed a huge miracle with that one. 

Our vehicle temporarily

But other than that, transfers went very smooth!  It was a whirlwind – as it always is, and it seems like we are always out way late the day of transfers. This time, after the transfer meeting, we had to go and load up the trailer with a bunch of furniture to send to Elko on the usual van run.  So that took a while, but it was fun. We got to drive the van and trailer in the snow, and that that was lots of fun too!

All this snow reminds me...
I have a confession to make about a snowy night
when I was a senior in high school (hehehe!)

I have to pause and confess a small sin that I committed during winter of my senior year: One snow night we went over to Salar's house and I finally convinced Dad to let me take my little car to his house for the night as long as we didn't go anywhere but to his house and back. This was the case until later that night when we were invited to go sledding with some girls. It was the 5 of us guys and three girls that lived on the other side of Lansdowne. We decided to take my car and all 8 of us crammed into the tiny car to go sledding. It was a ton of fun, and we were sliding all over the place on the roads (no one else was on them) but I felt guilty after having agreed to NOT take the car anywhere. So anyways a night for me to remember, and hopefully this doesn't ruin the chances for MJ to take the car out into the snow...

Updating phones and computers

But back to missionary work: this week has been quite crazy like usual, with the finalizing of transfers and everything. We spent Wednesday and Thursday mostly in the office updating the computers and phones after the transfer. We also had an MLC meeting on Friday, and we invited all of the District Leaders to attend as well. It was a huge meeting, with about 50 of our leaders in the mission present. We had the whole mission presidency present as well, and it was a GREAT meeting.

Doing office work the day after transfers

For a portion of the time we split the group up into Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders, and then the District Leaders. Elder Ash and I trained each group on what their responsibilities are. We have lots of new, young leaders and nobody ever received any training on what their
new role is. So we explained to them what is expected of them, and with each group we discussed the talk "Jesus: The Perfect Leader" with them (fantastic talk by the way..) but it was lots of fun. Then each member of the mission presidency took some time and trained us. President Chesnut trained us on a new theme he has kinda adopted of, "Are you true?" He heard the line from some talk a general authority gave, and he wants us all to be true to ourselves, our families, and most importantly the Gospel of Jesus Christ, including the covenants we make with God. It was a great training, and he had each of us dig into the scriptures to find an example of someone who is true...and of course, there are TONS of examples. It was a great discussion.

Elder Freeman and I teaching at MLC

President Perry, the 1st counselor in the Mission Presidency trained on faith. Sounds pretty basic, but he is a total scripture guru, and can take any scripture story or topic to the next level. He gave a powerful training on faith, and what it means to truly have faith, and how we can develop faith. He also talked about how and why it is that sometimes we think we have all the faith in the world, but things don't happen as we hope and then we get frustrated. This topic hit home for me because many times I have fasted for something, and then we go out and work our tail ends off, but nothing happens, and it can get frustrating at times. But President Perry told us his personal experience of losing his wife. About 11 years ago his wife developed a cold that wouldn't go away, and turned into bronchitis. Her health deteriorated and she went to the hospital. She was there for a few days, and it didn't improve. He began fasting for her health, and then eventually got their children and extended family fasting on behalf of his wife. Many priesthood blessings were given to her, and her name was on many temple prayer rolls. Yet 11 years ago Friday, (the day of MLC) she still passed away. It was very powerful, and many people were very emotional as he explained that he had all the faith in the world, combined with his family members and not to mention the temple prayer rolls...yet she still passed away. It was a great example to me of how we need to still press on, even when things don't happen the way we want them to, even when our desires are righteous and we want it with all of our heart – God still has his will. This life-changing event did not stop President Perry, however. He is a total stud and I am jealous of his gospel and scriptural knowledge. For many, an experience like this would weaken one's faith, and cause them to doubt and question everything they know, including their own testimony. But this was not the case with President Perry, this experience only made him stronger. It was a phenomenal training. 

Elder Freeman and I with the Bells - an office couple
who go home next month

Though I have learned a ton on my mission, I am still struggling with some of my weaknesses that I had before my mission...I still have a bad habit of leaving the milk out after I use it – haha! All of my companions have noticed it and it probably drives them crazy, but for some darn reason I can't figure out how to put it back when I am done. I am also still a champion for putting the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard. So I still have lots to learn, but thankfully I still have lots of time to improve!! 

Saying goodbye to Elder Freeman

This transfer we are jam-packed with transfers, transfer planning, zone conferences, MLCs, the Elder Snow mission tour, and exchanges with the Zone Leaders. We are so busy, in fact that we have to forego some p-days! So next Monday I will not be on my email, but our P-day was rescheduled to Wednesday. And the following week I won't really have a P-day, but I am hoping to send a quick email to everyone with a brief overview. Then the last week of the transfer I should be back on a normal schedule. Just FYI so no one freaks out when they don't get an email from me.

Tomorrow we start our zone conferences and I am so excited. We are doing them differently this transfer.  We are doubling up, so we will have 2 zones attending each conference. Tomorrow we have Carson City and Fallon, Wednesday we have Reno and Reno North, then Thursday we have Sparks and Quincy, and then next Monday we have Elko, Winnemucca and Ely all combined. So it should be lots of fun. We have lots of new greenies in our mission,  so we have decided to focus on Chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel, "My Purpose" – just getting down to the "why" of all that we do. It should be a good round of conferences. We are training on what it means to be a successful missionary, and how to teach and use our Power and Authority that we were given when we were set apart. 

Elder Ash says Hello.

Anyways, I am out of time, but I hope all is well back at home. I love being a missionary, and I love my companion Elder Ash. We are having a total blast together; I can't wait to train with him at these upcoming zone conferences and to work with him for the next little while. 

The Church is truer than ever!

Love,

Elder Todd