September 26, 2011

Laramie is still fun to be in. Melissa is still progressing wonderfully and has make it to the commandments lesson. We are going to go more slowly through them and focus on her looking for her answer as they are going to be out of here by the end of the week. I am sad that they are going to be leaving us but I am glad just to have been a part of this. I am sure she will make it and that the are well on their way to becoming an eternal family. That is the most rewarding feeling of all.

I have been working on finding people to reach using pure inspiration to be directed to the places that we have needed to be and so far it has been nice to have turn by turn directions to those whom the Lord is preparing. In short, we have been finding a lot. Well, maybe not hundreds of people are interested, but we have only had to knock a few doors each time to find individuals that are ready to receive the gospel. It has been wonderful and I have felt on at least half of of the occasions that I have felt impressed to do it that it was Elder Herschi's turn to receive the direction that we needed at that time. At first he was uncomfortable with the idea, and to be honest, I don't blame him, but he has become more and more on board as time goes on which is cool to see. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but perhaps my faith was not strong enough to implement it in the past. All I need to know is that it has been working and finally finding doesn't  seem like a useless endeavor.

Life is good here in Laramie and I have faith that it will continue to be such.

Thanks for the prayers and the love. I will keep sending them your way as well.

September 19, 2011

All is well in Laramie. Well, mostly that is. Herschi has been sick the past few days which has been kind of a hang up and my wrist has decided that it wants me to remember it was broken twice. Needless to say it has been a bit annoying with me having to ride the bike on handed and Hirschi being too tired to do it at all. :p But, it is not all bad news.

We have a really awesome investigator by the name of Melissa Burke. She has been married a short time to a returned missionary and came to church a few times before anyone was aware that she was not a member. So our bishop invited her to take the lessons and she agreed. WE met with them twice this week and so far she has been keeping all the commitments we have left her. She says that she will be baptized when she finds out that the gospel is true and has already mentioned that she feels good being at church. We are really excited about working with her knowing that her husband is strong is a blessing. She will be having their first baby Sept. 28. The bad news is that her husband is going to be deployed to Kosovo for a year the 1st of October, she plans on going to stay with her family in Arizona for the month of October and then coming back to Cheyenne to be with his member family. 

Bonnie Sebastian is doing as well as her circumstances allow. She is the lady we found last week and it was pretty interesting how we did it. I felt like we really needed to find someone who needed our help and so I prayed for guidance. It was then that the Lord inspired my thoughts and essentially gave me turn by turn directions to her housing complex. After we arrived, we knock on a few doors with no luck, but as we were walking by her door she came out and I felt strongly impressed to go and speak to her. After a little while she told us about all the things that were going wrong in her life and we were able to turn the discussion to things of a spiritual nature. She invited us back and so far we have  been seeing her twice a seek with a wonderful fellowshipper. She physically cannot come to church at this point because of her massive hip degeneration,but she has said many times that she would love to come after her surgery. Because of her challenges all of our lessons have been about the atonement. She has been reading alot from the Book of Mormon and I can see that she is feeling the Spirit more and more. It is exciting to say the least and we are so happy for the chance we have to help her. 

September 12, 2011

I asked Reid some questions:

Do you have a car? No, but I have sued for one. Not sure that I will get it though.

Do you have an apartment? As soon as the sisters move out of it!

How is it being in charge? Stressful at first, but now that I have taken the time to think about what I actually have to do, it is no big deal. I just have to plan a 1.5 hour long meeting once a week.

What is the ward like? The good thing is that the ward has not had missionaries for 6 months and they are excited to have us/desperate to keep us. In short, they are motivated to help us!

Have you finished The Articles of Faith? Haven't started. I have been slowly working through The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and it has been fascinating.

Success! Has been a bit odd to have so many things to do, but I like being busy. The Washington Park ward was just dissolved and the stake's boundaries were redrawn, which means we have lots of people to see. We found a lady that has decided to investigate the church and while there aren't many details,  Bonnie could use our prayers as she has painful hop degeneration and is in a legal fight for custody for her daughter. She really needs the gospel and I feel she is one of the reasons I was sent here. Plus, the ward has been giving us support and a really solid referral, so in short, life is good in Laramie.

September 5, 2011

Laramie, Wyoming

Big update to write about this week. Lots of craziness has been happening here and I guess I should start off with the good  news. Sister McHugh is still very strong and on track to be baptized. Unfortunately Jose's son is back in jail but he things that is the best place for him. He still wants us to meet with him and his wife which is very encouraging and we are very hopeful that he will continue progressing. We had some good visits with less active members and we are happy that they are back on the path to church. The funny thing is that we aren't going to see any of this play out because Sunrise has been closed... crap. I am not sure what exactly happened, but despite my efforts to tell the president about all of the good things that have been happening in the ward, he has decided to pull the full time missionaries out of the area. Not to say all our work will be for nothing, it's just that now the ward mission leader is going to have to set up all the appointments and missionaries from other wards are a backup resource for him. 

This is a bitter sweet moment for me. On one hand, I love all of these people that I feel the Lord had guided us to and I will miss them. I fear for their progress because I will not be there to help direct them anymore. On the other hand, I have been praying that the Lord would whip the Sunrise ward into shape and get them to actually start doing things. I am not really sure what to think at this moment, but I have confidence that the Lord will not abandon his children. 

Well here is the news that is giving me stress at the moment. I have been called to serve as the district leader in Laramie and I will still be with Elder Herschi. Despite how weird it is to be moved to the same place with my current companion I am glad for it because I love working with Herschi and he has served in Laramie for most of his mission and he knows everyone there. We have been asked to re-open the Spring Creek and Washington Park wards and we are excited to get things moving. 

I know I did the will of the Lord in the Sunrise ward and I cannot but feel that it has been a miracle to see what has transpired happen. I am nervous, but I have felt the Lord help me already and when I have the Spirit, I cannot fail.

August 29, 2011

I asked Reid if he was doing well and he said,"Not just well, I am living the dream."

It was another good week for us here in the Sunrise ward. We got to teach Jose again and it was awesome! He understood the plan of salvation and when we we asked him if he believed it, he said that it was so simple and straight forward that he just knew it was God's plan. He has a social anxiety because of a stroke that he says would make him uncomfortable at church but that he would work on it. 

No lesson with Sis. McHugh this week but she came to church yet again and was happy as always to see us. We are going to meet again this week and she is on a steady path of progress, which is great. 

The last, most exciting thing to report for the week is that we have determined many people of the Bolejack Clan are interested in hearing the gospel. We are going to take a non-pushy approach to their situation as directed by the spirit. I feel strongly impressed that we have much good work to do with this family and that is very exciting. 

I love you guys so much. It makes me happy that you are all together again and that things are getting back to normal. I will keep praying for you. I praise God at the thought that you are my family.

August 22, 2011

Awesome week for me here in the Wild West. Gretchen McHugh finally set a date for her baptism and that is going to be held on Oct. 1 because her husband is going to be out of town until then. Danny McHugh promised to read all of Mosiah and Alma by the time he gets back and pray about it as he goes. Both are very exciting breakthroughs for them. It is a huge blessing to see them progress. The strange thing is we did not invite her to set a date, she did. We asked her about what she had been learning from her study of the BoM and she said, "Well, I think the theme has been don't wait to repent, I think I need to be baptized." We about fell out of our chairs it was so wonderful. It's moments like these that show me that the Lord is really behind this work and is helping his children draw closer to him. 

We also found a huge part member family living all in one house. The 4 to 5 generations that are living in that house have many different  people that have been prepared to receive the gospel. We are going to end up working with the Bolejack Clan (as we have dubbed them) a lot. We are going to have to sort out how everyone is related exactly, but they are a lot of fun to be with.