i hate smoking

Hello everyone,

Elder Belnap and I are staying here in Monett

nothing to much going on so far   we are still seeing the same people and doing the same things  

A few cool experiences though:

Last Monday we opened our fridge and said "we have no food"  so we decided to go to the store and get a bunch of food.  Well a member ended up paying for our groceries - that was nice.  And then every day since we have been given food by someone: total of about 5 loaves of homemade bread, dinner leftovers, several pounds of hamburger and a few steaks, 2 gallons of chocolate milk, 4 dozen eggs, and a bunch of other stuff #InStatesMission

Another: We went out with Brother Hoyt (loaded airline pilot), went to go see a family that we are helping to quit smoking.  They had made it for 2 days so we were pumped (gave in day 3 though). After the visit the member asked us: How do you dudes stand it in there?

Us: what do you mean?

Member : That house was so inundated with smoke I could hardly breath; I felt like I was going to pass out!

Us: well I guess we are just used to it - haha

Second hand smoke for days!  It will be strange to not spend tons of time in houses that smell like smoke, pet urine, and sweaty nasty person.

Also something cool I learned or figured out at district meeting: in Helaman 10:4 God tells Nephi that anything that he asks for will be done because Nephi wouldn't ask anything that wasn't righteous and what God wanted.  So I have been pondering what I need to do to be there. In district meeting we talked about promising people blessings. We have the authority and calling to make promises as representatives of the Lord. If we follow the spirit when we make a promise the angels of heaven are waiting to go to work to make it happen.  Talked about some pretty cool experiences with that as well.

Love yall and hope you have a great week  

Happy Day After Easter

Today is the day to go buy easter candy! 

Hope you all had a great Easter. We had a pretty great time and just a great week overall. We went to Bentonville for exchanges with the APs which is always fun. I got to see Jurnie which was pretty cool #shout out. Then we sped back to Monett for District meeting.  Had a good meeting about inspired questions and we did a lot of practicing so it went well.  We stayed really busy the rest of the week. When we weren't in lessons we were out tracting the Prince of Peace video.   We had a great day at church  with some great talks in Sacrament about the Savior.   On Saturday we had 4 meals with members -ugh  it was a lot of food.  Also this week we spent a lot of time with an investigator cleaning out a house that had been abandoned  for a long time so that he can sell it. There was some nasty stuff in there - and also a way nice baby grand piano.  It was a neat find.   

Sorry if this letter has been a bit rambly, I'm kinda lazy today.

This week I just finished studying the Savior in the Topical Guide like President Nelson spoke about. It was a pretty amazing study. I am so grateful for this Easter Season when we have to opportunity to reflect on the Savior's sacrifice for us and his resurrection. I love having the opportunity to be his representative and be a part of His work. I know that He lives and I am blessed by His Atonement every day.

Luke 24:5-6

Love y'all - have a great week!

Spiritual Whirlwinds

Happy Easter Week Everyone!

This has been a pretty good week here.

Started off with general conference: thats' always great.  

On Tuesday we went on splits with the Spanish Elders. They had found a new investigator that they were passing off to us so Elder Belnap went there and I went to go see the Ran clan.

While we were out in the boondocks there happene to be a really bad thunderstorm -  which turned into several tornadoes. It was pretty crazy to watch to storm cloud pass over us. The main path was right where we were at, in a dinky old trailer.   (and sorry no pictures)   So we saw the big shelf cloud (i guess that's what its called) coming toward us and Grandpa Ran was just sitting on the couch saying "its too late" "it'll touch down any second, no point in running now"  So that didn't help!  And as the cloud got close it got really green on one side and the other turned a bright copper color - CRAZY lookin! As soon as the shelf passed us the wind went crazy.  Rain was horizontal, limbs ripping off trees, siding blowing off the trailer, and the youngest Ran had to hold the door closed!  The whole time with huge lightning strikes.   And the power went out.   When we thought we had less of a chance of dying we left.  The road is basically just dirt with some big ruts in it, so way muddy on the way out. I thought we were going to get stuck in our little Altima.  But we made it and didn't die. Fun day!

And our new investigators have a baptismal date, yay!

Wednesday we went on exchanges in Carthage after district meeting. We had some awesome experiences. (See email to President #lazy)

Saturday and Sunday we had Stake conference which was great.   The biggest topic was Missionary work and Family history work. There was a lot of great stuff also because the Temple president came and President Loveland came. Some great meetings.  And while the stake president was talking he gave a shout out to me and Elder Belnap. That was cool!  haha.

That's about it for me.   Have a great week and remember the reason for the season

#PrinceOfPeace

https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/spiritual-whirlwinds

1 To remember General Conference I am planning on Studying the conference Ensign when it comes out. I haven't really done this before and Elder Belnap has had good experiences with it so i want to apply that. Something we have also done that we talked to President Leavitt about is listening to all of the old general conferences. We did that this week with April '71. It is pretty neat to hear what the brethren talked about back then. I think that is another way that i can keep the spirit of conference with me year round.

2 Something that i am doing to put the Savior first is putting him first in my studies. I spend my first 30 min doing the Challenge from President Nelson and then i go into the rest of my study and preparing for investigators. It helps me to start off focusing on the savior and then it is easier to maintain for the rest of the day. I have loved seeing how focusing on the Savior brings more power to our teaching and direction in our lessons. That we are binding people to the Savior and his gospel rather than the church. It has been a good change for me.

We went on Exchanges with Carthage this week. It went really well, I always love going with Elder Nau because amazing things always happen. We helped a new investigator find answers to his questions through the Book of Mormon index, that was really cool. Then we saw 2 people that they had dropped, with one of them we met his house keeper who used to be baptist and had a lot of questions, all of the ones that the gospel answers, and she asked if she could come to church. She lives in Grandby so sisters are teaching her. The other guy was good too. We knocked on the door and his roommate answered and said he wasn't home. As soon as we knocked i felt impressed to invite him to be baptised. He showed up a minute later and we started talking to him. Went over quite a few things and he admitted that he knows the church and BoM are true. Then Elder Nau shared Alma 32:16. I had been trying to resist the prompting (bad thing) the whole time but when he read that i knew i needed to. So i invited, at first he avoided the question and got us water haha but then we asked again and he agreed It was an intense experience with the spirit. i am grateful for the way that the spirit works in us and the Lord has his hand in the work.

Conference Week

Morning Youins!

This has been a pretty stacked week. Lots of meetings and instruction. We started off with MLC on Tuesday in Bentonville - was a solid day. Both President and Sister Loveland pulled me aside one on one to talk to me.  Apparently our Stake President that I had gone on exchanges with had been talking me up: that's never a good thing.  President also gave us a $200 budget for our zone to pilot all of the ideas that we have had. Pretty cool deal! So most of Wednesday was doing that kind of business.   Thursday we had our Zone training and Interviews with the Lovelands.  Was a good time. We ended up not getting a lunch so we all went to Braums.  We also ended up having Steven (an Investigator) come with us. It was fun.  Friday we tried to get people ready for conference but didn't have much luck. We did have a launch party for the Easter Video and then went to our WML's daughters wedding reception (which we left to go play street ball). The court was basically plastic and wet so it was awful but I still managed to pull out the win from being down 10. It felt good haha!   Then the last 2 days we have just been conference party hopping   Met with a lot of great members,  But we could not get any investigators to watch.  WHY can we get 20 people to come to church for 3 hours but when they can sit on the couch for 2 and eat food, they can't seem to manage that?  idk - frustrating  . . .

hope yall enjoied conference as much as I did.

"sleeping in church is the healthiest kind of sleep there is"

Lots of great council and messages especially for nonmembers which I thought was cool

Have a great week