8-19-13

Annie’s Letter

Hello wonderful family of mine! I hope you are all having a FABULOUS week! So there is a rather random picture attached... I know, but see if you can find someone you know in it! I'll give you a hint, it's in New Zealand! ...need another hint? Look at the Elder above the sister with the blue and white top. I think Brother and Sister Neiderer might like this picture.

I also know the redhead on the bottom left.
So! I love Sunday. Wanna know why? I'll tell you. First, back story... this week has been kind of hard. We had 9 member present lessons set up, and only 2 went through! bummer! And it was just a hard week, still a good week but hard. Saturday night was really hard for me. I prayed a lot and of course, that helped but it was still rough. So Sunday morning, I woke up and we went to... AMISH CHURCH! The Amish group, specifically. Bro. Hochstetler asked me to speak and Sister Arnell and Sister Meredith were singing, accompanied by yours truly. It was fabulous. It was so cool because even though we were in a furniture shop, the back garage door was open to let air in...best backdrop for church ever! Beautiful trees. Even though all the Amish were wearing their cute Amish clothes.... it was the same. It reminded me of that time that we went to church in the mall in Keokuk. It really doesn't matter where it is. The spirit of the Lord is there and we can learn so much! It was just great! Then we dashed back to Mt. Vernon to make it to church there as well. We went to gospel principles and had an incredible lesson about the sacrament. It really got me thinking and focused on the sacrament, on the Atonement. We have sacrament meeting last here, so I got to go to sacrament meeting twice yesterday! It was amazing. As I pondered the sacrament prayers and the Savior's life I just felt so much peace. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know that it is through the atonement that we can be forgiven of our sins and weaknesses, believe me I have many! I know that it is Him who gives me strength when I think I can't do it anymore. (Whatever "it" is at that particular moment) I am just so thankful for Him... I can't adequately express my thoughts and feelings yesterday, but it was just an amazing sacrament meeting.

On Monday mornings, my morning is full of conference calls. 8:00 am conference call for the Columbus East 1 zone (my zone). 9:00 conference call for the Columbus East 2 zone (the zone I am STL for). 9:30 conference call for the mission. It's awesome. But on one of the calls, I can't remember which one, one of the Elders, I don't remember who, shared a quote that says "the Lord gives the toughest trials to His strongest soldiers." Not that I'm tooting my own horn, or saying I'm one of the strongest soldiers, but it really hit me and gave me a lot of comfort. The Lord doesn't give us trials because he is mean or wants to punish us, he gives us trials because He knows that we are strong enough to push through them. Even when we don't necessarily agree with him! But I know that whatever I go through in life (mission or not) is something for my benefit. Something that I can learn from. Something that I can get through, as long as I rely on the Lord. :-)

So, the Perrines have 4 people in their family. Michelle, Levi and 2 little boys, Andrew and... I can't remember. I think it starts with a "c" though. They are great, they are related to Kathryn and Kyle Siddoway. They were living in Alaska for a while and just moved to Lyman within the last year. I don't know them...but maybe you do!
Next, the Youngs. They are the ones that got stranded in Nauvoo. They texted me last night and told me they would be there Wednesday night? Awesome! I love the Youngs, they are one of my favorite families. There is Sean and Brandi and then Kristian (who is moving to BYU) Kendell, Kamden, Kamree, and Eli. They also have a daughter, Keeley, who is on a mission in Riverside California. In case you were wondering... Eli's first name is Kullen. All of their middle names start iwth "e" so all of the kids initials are KEY! I just love them. Bethany, the girl who got baptized next weekend, is Kendell's best friend. :-)

The week I get home will be fine for me to speak. I'll try to let people know...but if you could post it on my facebook that would be awesome! I have thought a little about when I get home... I'm not sure exactly what is going to happen, but I will be going to Utah pretty soon to try to find a job there. :-) We'll just have to see what happens.

I did ask Elder Niu about Jeff Newton. He got very excited. He remembers him. he said that he was one of his best students and a good boy. It was fun :-) Small world! I can't believe all the Ohio connections! I love this! Well, I think that's all for this week. Have fun with the Perrines and the Youngs! Take pictures! Oh, the pics from Nat's reception are at walmart right now. So I'll go pick them up in just a few minutes :-) Have a great week! Love all of you!

Annie

Landon’s Letter

Well it feels like the season of spiders. We have seen dozens of spiders in the past week that are bigger then a fifty cent piece and others that are just as close. They are huge. We find them everywhere except inside.

This week was a good week for us. We were able to do quite a bit of finding. There are more then a couple of ways to find and so I have tried a little bit of everything on my mission. The things that we have found to be the best lately is having a whole list of people (former investigators, less-active members, active members to ask referrals from, and potential investigators) to stop by and then we talk to as many people as we can on the way, in between stops, people completely out of our way, and we just do the best we can to talk with people. Last transfer we were not doing this and we averaged about 1 or 2 more solid potential investigators if we were lucky but now we average about 3 to 4 and sometimes 5 if we are lucky. So we are finding more people to hopefully meet with. It is just now our responsibility to contact them again.

This week we were able to have 2 investigators at church. Linda and Grazyna. It was a good experience for both of them. Linda has been taught by the missionaries for quite some time and is living with a less-active member so we are trying to help them out and help her to be baptized. Also we are found Grazyna a couple of weeks ago and she came out. She had a great experience and I think she will be back. It was a nightmare sacrament meeting for missionaries because it was the most bizarre sacrament service ever. But it was still good.

We have 2 missionaries living with us right now. So we have 1 bathroom so it's pretty fast showers anyway with 4 elders. They aren't shortened at all so it's funny. I am taking the same about of time as before so it's still good. The Elders here with us are Elder Ward and Elder Ganowsky. So it's good.

Rachel- I hope that you don't get too much homework with your busy school schedule. That is crazy good luck you will do awesome.

Natalie- What courses are you and Jon taking this year. How is work going at the town. Do you still mow everyday all day? who mows with you if so?

Annie- You are doing awesome. Sorry you had a tougher week things will get better and pretty soon they will be up again. I know you will ;)

Megan & Justin- ok i'm not sure how to pronounce the name of your baby all I think is it's like bow-de but I think it's wrong. Have a good week.

Mom- Thanks for sending the box I hope that I get it soon. I am excited to see the picture and the box. How is summer school and getting ready for school going?

Dad- I have been thinking a lot about rockets lately. I don't know why. We have some space pictures from previous elders and a man here loves to look at the stars.

I love you all. Love your favorite Elder, Brother, and Son

Elder Landon Webb