June 27, 2011

Subject: smelly fish flies

hey family,

it was another good week out here in michigan. there have been a lot of fireworks going off the past couple of nights, mostly from people's backyards. we even saw two guys shooting some bottle rockets off in the middle of the street during the day time. lately there have been a lot of these weird bugs everywhere, they're called fish flies. they smell like fish. they look a little like dragon flies but not quite as cool. apparently they only live 24 hours and they don't have any mouths, so they go their whole lives without ever eating. it doesn't sound like much of a life. but there are always big piles of them just lying down dead. fish flies are not the most exciting bit of michigan culture but i thought i'd still let you know about them.

things are going good in roseville. we're seeing awesome blessings happen all of the time. progress with some of our progressing investigators has haulted a little bit, but we are finding new people still and always searching and praying to find the elect, those who have been prepared. we have some appointments set up for this week with some of those people we found last week so we're excited to see what happens in the next couple of days. we're still sort of struggling to get zavonte baptized. he's super solid, a sharp 14 year old kid from detroit who just wants to live the gospel. we haven't been able to get his family involved but this last week his aunt told us that he's allowed to be baptized! that's a huge step for him, we still don't have much of a gameplan figured out for how he's going to come to church and the ride we had set up for him yesterday sort of fell apart. still not sure excactly what happened. but either way, progress is happening.

this week we had a lesson with a man that was referred to us. i don't remember if i mentioned him in the last letter or not, but we were tracting a couple of weeks ago and we knocked on the door of a lady who seemed very sincere but didn't want to learn more about our lesson right then, but she gave us the information for her brother and said that he'd be interested in hearing about the restoration and that we could tell him she had sent us. well we had our first lesson with him this week. it went pretty well, he's a little skeptical, but he seems sincere. he has studied with a few different religions (he's meeting with the Jehovah's Witness right now too) and has a hard time embracing some of our doctrine if it conflicts with how he's learned to interpret it. he hasn't quite embraced the ability of man to see God as Joseph Smith did. we explained how this wasn't conflicting with the Bible, depending on how the Bible was interpreted, but that in the end it all comes to praying and asking God if Joseph was a prophet. he said he'd read and pray and we're going to see him again this week.

we had a really great lesson with a guy. he was a former we found in the area book who met with the missionaries a few years ago. this was our second lesson with him. the first lesson we had with him a few weeks ago was on the restoration and he understood it and thought it was interesting and said he'd be interested in learning more. well we had this second lesson this week on the plan of salvation and he loved it. he said he didn't agree with a lot of the doctrine that's popular in a lot of the christian religions today and that he's always understood things a little differently from most other people, and he said the lesson we had on the plan of salvation and the atonement were right along with what he believed. we read from 2 nephi chapter two with him and he got really excited. he yelled to his mom in the other room and said "ma, this is a really good book!" we weren't able to teach her, but she had been listening in the other room and she wasn't quite as excited about it as he was. she mumbled back to him, "it sounds like it." either way though, he was loving it.

so we're finding new people and hoping that things pick up with our investigators. and we're still trying to help out the ward where they need us and do what we can to keep strengthening our relationship with the ward. we were invited to teach sharing time in primary yesterday and help out with the gospel doctrine class for a few minutes, the bishop asked us if we'd be able to give talks in sacrament meeting too. so things are moving on up slowly but surely.

today for preparation our district is going to the detroit zoo. i'll have to see if it competes with the san diego zoo and wildlife park.

have a great week guys, have a good 4th of july. love ya!

elder lamb

June 20, 2011

Hey family,

this was a pretty good week. we had zone conference on tuesday and had some really good instruction given. elder hoffman my old companion in mack is the new assistant this transfer so it was sweet to see him again, a really solid missionary so i couldn't think of a better guy for the job. the other assistant is elder bowler who was pretty good friends with elder ward back in arizona. we had burritos for lunch. i had 3 :) a large part of the conference was on improving our relationships with our bishops and the ward. which is exactly what elder ploeger and i have been trying to focus more on so that was a neat experience. i took it as a confirmation from the lord that we're on the right track in what we're trying to do with the area. our relationships with the ward members have really been strengthening and it feels like there's more of the spirit with everyone we're talking to on sundays and when we see them in their homes. there have been some great miracles happening with some of the members, both active and less-active, lately too. one lady has been less-active for a long while because she's always had to work on sundays. she is really sweet and loves the gospel and would have been very active all of this time if it wasn't for her job. well we found out on sunday that she just quit her job last week so that she could start coming back to church on sundays. that is a huge leap of faith. no one was pressuring her to do it. and to make it an even cooler story, one of the members of the bishopric had already asked us to stop by and give her the information to the stake career specialist so she could at least have the option of looking for another job if she ever wanted to - and by the time we finally got a hold of her yesterday we found out that she had already quit her job. so we passed on the information and she was happy to have it. we were all pretty excited for her. the lord will really bless her for a huge leap of faith like that. we also met with the bishop this week for the first time. he's a good guy, he really has his hands full though. it was a little weird that we never really had much of a relationship established with him so it was good to have a meeting like this. we basically told him we're here to help him and the ward and asked him what we could do to help. we told him about some of the people in the ward we've already been working with. we don't attend ward council or p.e.c. in this ward so this was a good step in the right direction. he even said he'd like to meet like this with us every couple of weeks or so. cool beans.

we had a lesson this week with a new investigator that went really well. if you remember betty who we baptized a few months ago, the 80 year old, and her daughter who was already a member in the ward. well that daughter had us start teaching her neice. we had a lesson with her on the restoration this week and sis butts (who's the member) sat in and helped out. i knew it was true in thoery but hadn't actually experienced it for myself yet, but there is no better way to do missionary work than to have a member find someone for the missionaries to teach (especially if it's a family member) and then help out with the lessons and bear testimony and really encourage the whole time. yakitia is the investigator's name and she was a little quiet for a lot of the lesson. she was listening and asked a few questions but she really opened up after sis butts bore a couple really solid testimonies. yakitia ended up telling us that she was planning on meeting with us that day and just telling us that we were crazy. but she ended up reading from the pamphlets we left her with to read before the lesson and her heart softened a little as she read. she became really interested in the pamphlet and realized there were things she could learn from us. she even said that she had a headache that went away once she started reading and she even felt like she couldn't toss the pamphlets and the book of mormon onto the table anymore but had to reverently set them down. she felt the power in them. and this was all before the lesson we had with her, she told us about this towards the end of the lesson. she couldn't make it to church this sunday because of some already set plans, but we're seeing her tomorrow and she said she'll hopefully be able to come next sunday. we're excited to see what happens with her.

the weather's gotten a little nicer. which is good because we're running low on miles so we might be biking it soon. last week was pretty hot, some little detroiter kids even cracked open a fire hydrant and were playing in the water in their swim suits. why didn't we ever try that?

happy father's day dad, you're the best. have a good week guys, love you.

elder lamb

June 13, 2011

Subject: drive-by

hey family,

still no contacts mamma, do you know if they're being sent to my actual apartment? if they might have been sent to the mission home then i might get them tomorrow because we have a zone conference. but still no sign. still going glasses.

thanks for the email, you guys all sound like you're doing great. that's crazy the iphones are so cheap, crazy the girls are so spoiled. ha just kidding, i'm just jealous. that's really cool though, i remember back in my day we had to watch sci fi movies if we wanted an experience as cool as calling somebody up on an iphone3. it sounds like a lot of great things are happening for davy and the schultz right now, i'll definitely be keeping them in my prayers.

well things out here in the mission field are going great as always. we seem to be blessed with new people being found all of the time in our area, the tricky part is keeping the momentum going with these people though. But lately i am starting to understand a little bit more that success isn't measured by whether somebody is baptized or even attends church or continues the lessons at the time. don't get me wrong, it's what everyone eventually needs, but we all are at different places in our spiritual progression. and when we have awesome lessons or experiences with investigators or potentials or other people we're working with, it's become less surprising to me that they can still manage to unexpectedly stop their progression or not want to go at the pace we'd necessarily hope. i mean there's a lot to be said about whether someone is thrown off the path paved by good intentions either by lack of understanding, the work of the adversary, or whether they're simply going at their own pace but still on the path all along, but that's really a whole seperate point than the one i wanted to make. so what i'm getting at is that we need to always be looking for opportunities to share the gospel with anyone and everyone, but we need to do it as directed by the spirit for their given circumstance. hopefully that means helping them work towards baptism and coming to church, but i think every opportunity we get we should at least be doing all we can to help someone feel the spirit and our testimony of the restored gospel of jesus christ. we could help someone feel that spirit by either sitting down and explaining the doctrine or by simply our deeds and our kindness. and i wasn't planning on going off on this tangeant but it is something i've been thinking about lately. out here we're always searching for those who have been prepared to enter the waters of baptism, but it's awesome just being able to help other people feel the spirit and begin their preparation for when they one day will be ready for baptism. the gospel is the best.

but on a different note, i've got a coupe experiences to share real quick. we were tracting one night and we came across a lady who was pretty sincere in her faith it seemed. she told us that she did some "church shopping" for a while before she found a church she felt comfortable with. she eventually found one and has been going their ever since. after we explained the core message of the restoration though, she started to think a little. you could tell the spirit was working with her. i was pretty excited, i thought she was going to invite us and hear more of our message, but instead she told us she has a brother who lives close by who would really be interested in our message. she went inside for a few min and came back out with his info and everything. she said we could tell him she sent us. she actually said she will most likely stop by the church on a sunday herself and seemed pretty sincere about it. well we stopped by her bro the next day and he was cool. he was busy then.....he had the jehovah's witnesses coming over in a few minutes, woohoo...but we're going to see him a different day. so stay tuned.

we also had a cool experience where we stopped by a former investigator from a few years back in our records and found two ladies sitting on their porch. turned out the person we were looking for didn't live their anymore, but the ladies were willing to hear a little about what we were up to. well eventually three other ladies came out and we ended up having a porch on the porch. it was a mom and her three daughters and a neighbor. they seeemed to really like the message and we set up a time to see them again later this week. they said they'd be up for coming to church, unfortunately they're down in detroit without any transportation, and they don't live by any members...so that'll be a tricky thing to work out. but we'll just have to trust in the lord and see what happens.

we were down in detroit one night, i was on an exchange with our district leader. we had to turn around and were backing up the car and right after we backed up a whole bunch of cars came around the corner so we were sitting there waiting for a chance to pull forward. well this one car stopped right in front of us and the lady driving just stared at us for a few seconds, then she pulled out a water gun and shot right at us through our windshiled. ha crazy people in detroit. my first drive-by shooting experience in the D. good times.

i gotta go, but things are going good. we're picking up things with the ward and that's proving to be a good thing for us to start focusing on. love you guys, have a great week.

elder lamb

June 6, 2011

Hey family! It was a pretty good week out here. It's been pretty warm still so i'm rocking the short sleeves, it's sort of crazy how different things are now compared to when I first came out in the winter in the city. It's almost like a completely different mission. And congrats to Drew on the mission call in the Utah Ogden Mission! Drew I'm pumped for you, I'd give you a big man-hug if I could. State-side is the way to go!

Alright so what happened this week? Let's see...Elder Ploeger and I are really re-focusing our work this transfer. We've been working our butts off trying to find new people to teach and we've been finding people like crazy. But things just don't seem to pick up. So we have a huge teaching pool, compared to when I first got here and that pool was pretty shallow, but no-one's biting right now. And Elder Ploeger and I have been trying to figure out what needs to be done differently. We really think we need to start focusing on helping out the ward now. The ward has some really solid members and families we're working with. We're working with a couple families who are really pumped about finding people to share the gospel with and they're doing a solid job of sharing testimonies with friends and co-workers. But something that the ward is starting to do a better job of is reaching out to the pretty huge number of less-actives. And that is something that we're trying to help out with now. When I first got here it almost felt like the missionaries were on a completely different page from the ward's focus, and lately things are really starting to fall into place. It's all still pretty early in the progress but we think there are some great miracles and progress to be made in the weeks coming up. And a nice bonus, the ward just started up a choir a few weeks ago. ch-ch-ch-changes.

We stopped by Zavonte down in Detroit earlier this week and he was outside shooting some hoops. We ended up sitting down on the grass for a lesson because it was a nice day out. And all these little nieghbor kids came up to us and wanted to sit in for the lesson. It was awesome. We ended up talking about the end of the world and the importance of making sure we're ready for it. Pretty deep topic for little kids? Ya i'd say so, but I forgot to tell you all that has been the topic of conversation because there were some billboards all over here saying Judgement Day was going to be on May 21st... people were pretty concerned. But it was an awesome lesson, Zavonte was an awesome example to these little kids and they really looked up to him and what he was saying. They all said they'd start saying their prayers every night. Well I'm out of time, things are going great out here and i"m loving it still. Love you guys, have a good week. the church is true.

elder lamb

summer time and the living's....sneezy

May 31, 2011

hey family, sorry i'm a little late on the letter. yesterday was memorial day and the library was closed. did you guys get to set off any fireworks? not that portola hills is the best place for that... hoepfully it was a good one and you guys enjoyed the break. we went to a members' house for a barbeque with a couple different member families. how are things in the lovely southern california? the summer hit yesterday and the cold, gloomy michigan i've known is nowhere to be seen. yesterday was 89 degrees and right now it's 94. the sun's out now, and it feels good. the humidity is sort of a buzz kill but it still is nice to have weather more like back home. this morning we were helping an older couple in the ward with some yard work and i got a bad case of the allergies. i'm hoping i'm just adjusting to the new weather and new season, but if the whole summer is going to be this way then i'll have to pick up some allergy medicine. i didn't know i could sneeze that much though, someone once told me that if you sneeze more than 10 times in a row then your heart stops. false. i proved that wrong a few times today.

so this is the first week of a new transfer. i'm still in roseville with elder ploeger. i'm excited about that, this is my first time sticking with a companion for more than one transfer too. first time in one area for more than two transfers. things are getting mixed around a little bit this transfer too, keeping it fresh. the elder who had been the district leader this whole time is still in the district but he's training a greenie now and another missionary was made district leader. and his companionship stayed the same but they took on a third missionary now. so there are some new and exciting things happening. as for roseville, nothing new or crazy like that, but we did get elder ploeger's bike today finally. just in time for the heat! yellow pits here i come. but i won't leave you with that being the exciting news, there's better news than that. nothing too crazy, but for roseville it's something to get excited about. we're meeting with our bishop this week and trying to get things started as far as working with the members and less-actives more. elder ploeger and i think that this area would have more success if we focused on the ward a little more. there are really solid people in the ward, but there's a pretty large in-active list that we're going to pay more attention to. and it's looking like we're going to be working with members a little more too. there were some good things that happened this sunday with the ward and we think things are going to continue to pick up for the area.

we found a new investigator this week. her name's shalawn. she's super solid. we only had a few minutes to tract one day and she was one of the two or three we tried. she just moved her and is looking for a good church to come to and to raise her kids up in. just goes to show that the Lord gives us the opportunities if we sincerely want them. but we came back for a lesson a little later in the week and it went really well. before we even started our lesson she was talking more about what she was looking for in a church and she seemed to be sold when we brought up mutual and the involvement for the kids. but that's not enough to gain a true conversion, so we went over the restoration, and she was even more excited about that. she was feeling really good the entire lesson and everything seemed to be making sense. we talked to her about the importance of not just taking our word for it but turning to God through prayer to get that spiritual witness of it all, and her response was "i already know it's true, but of course i'll be praying about it too." miracle lesson i'd say. it was a huge blessing for us and the area to find someone like that too. she was going out of town this weekend to see family for memorial day, but she's looking forward to church this upcoming sunday.

i'm already out of time, but things are going great. and no i haven't gotten my contacts yet but i'll be looking for them, any day now i'm sure. have a good week, love you guys!

elder lamb

May 23, 2011

Hey family,

Things have really picked up out here in the Roseville area. Our teaching pool has grown and miracles have been happening all over the place it seems. Last week we found 20 potentials and 9 new investigators, this week we found 13 new potentials and 3 new investigators. This is definitely the Lord's work, things happen that we can't do on our own. A struggle for this area has been getting investigators to church. That turned around yesterday when we had 5 of our investigators there. It was really sweet. Church is so huge for these people's progression, that's going to be a bigger focus for us I think. But it was an awesome feeling to be sitting down and finding more and more walk in. One investigator who came was a man who we haven't been meeting with for very long. He actually came with his girlfriend (who isn't an investigator (yet)). He's really solid, an awesome guy with a strong faith in the Lord. The crazy thing is he actually went in for heart surgery today, and he's expecting to be at the hospital for a few months recovering. He said that he'd love to have the missionaries come over and see him from time to time to read the Book of Mormon with him. He's been reading it and really likes it. And our ward mission leader works with a few different hospitals and said that he'd be willing to drop in on him too. So he is in a pretty unique situation right now as far as investigating, but we're excited to keep in contact with him still.

Another investigator who made it to church yesterday was a lady who's been meeting with the missionaries for close to 9 months now. She's sweet. She has a strong desire to be baptized and knows that the message of the Restored Gospel is true. The hang-up has been that she's been living with her boyfriend and hasn't felt like the time has been right for marriage or separating. The boyfriend hasn't shown very much interest in talking with us either, so she's been in a situation that's been pretty tough for her progression. But last week Elder Ploeger and I had a lesson with her that went really well. We read 2 Nephi 32 with her and broke down the doctrine of Christ with her. It was something she's heard before, but the gift of the Holy Ghost stood out to her this time. We went over what it means to have the gift of the Holy Ghost and this really re-sparked her desire to be baptized. We explained to her that the influence of the Holy Ghost is what's going to guide her in her quest towards baptism, and that even though she doesn't know how to handle her tough situation she can have faith that the Lord knows exactly what steps she needs to take to make it to the waters of baptism. So we gave her three categories: church, prayer, and reading the scriptures. We told her that these things are going to invite the spirit into her life more so she'll know what the Lord wants her to do. And after giving her these three categories we had her come up with daily commitments for her to do in each one - she came up with (1) coming to church every week, (2) reading the scriptures every day, and we said we'd remind her with a text every day, and (3) praying every day about marriage. That last one was my personal favorite. So we wrote down her commitments that she came up with on a sticky note and put it on her fridge. We were half-expecting to only see her at church yesterday, but the whole family came. The boyfriend said he'll be there for our next appointment at their house.

Exciting things happening around here. I'm out of time so I gotta go. One other quick adventure to share, it's been really warm lately. Starting to get a little humid too..... but we helped out a member with yard work. It felt good. Believe it or not dad but it made me miss yard work back home.

congrats to rochelle and bryce, that's exciting. love is in the air.

have a good week guys, love ya lots

elder lamb

line up the rickshaws, it's demolition time

May 18, 2011

Hey family,

so this is coming out a little bit later in the week than usual, sorry for the wait. this last week was pretty awesome. to start off, we had our district activity at Greenfield Village. It's another section of the Henry Ford Museum, it's a big recreation of famous homes and buildings. I got to see Henry Ford's house that he grew up in, the very first Ford Motor Company building, Thomas Edison's lab and library/office, The Wright Bros' Bicycle Shop, old barns and homes, and a bunch of other things. There were old Model T's driving around the village you could pay to ride around in, we passed on spending any more money on the trip, but still cool to look at. A lot of cool things to see and learn about. My respect for Thomas Edison and Henry Ford definitely went up after going to the village and the museum a few weeks ago. Cool fact, Thomas Edison set a goal to have one major invention every six months and one minor invention every 10 days. He came really close to achieving it too. So that was fun, Elder and Sister Hunsaker drove us again. It's been sweet having them in the district and in our ward.

I was on an exchange with one of our zone leaders in Hamtramck. His name's Elder Sisneros, and he's a champ. A really solid missionary, we had a really great exchange, we pretty much saw miracle after miracle the whole exchange. We were stopping by a lady's house for a scheduled appointment but she wasn't home, so we decided to talk to this guy who was outside instead. He was working on an old, run-down house across the street. (it still blows my mind how many abandoned houses and buildings are scattered all over Detroit). he's been working with some friends of his on demolitioning the place. But we told him we'd love to help him out with the house because we look for opportunities to help people and do service, he was pretty surprised. well we turned the conversation into a lesson right there in the street and explained/bore our testimonies about the restoration of the church and how families can be sealed together forever. he was really interested and asked if we could come over to teach his family later that week. it just shows how many people are prepared and ready for the gospel, but we won't ever find a lot of these people if we're not willing to take advantage of every opportunity we have. so that was just one of the cool experiences we had this week in finding new people to share the gospel with. but the bonus twist about this story was when elder sisneros and i went back the next day and helped his three buddies out with the demolition. it was sweet. they gave us goggles, gloves, and face masks and we went to work tearing down walls with crowbars and sledge hammers. don't worry we were really careful. but i felt like thor with that hammer, i think i'll be able to wait to see the movie now in a year and a half.

This week we really had the Lord's help in getting Escalon and Zavonte to stake conference. The two of them are awesome, very sincere about the gospel in their own ways, and they both want have developed strong testimonies and have great desires to come to church and be baptized. The tricky part, I've talked about before, is the ride situation. We really need to start teaching the families, that would be ideal, and we're going to keep looking for opportunities to do so this week. But in a big crazy scramble, things eventually worked out that Escalon's sister was able to drive them up to the ward building in Roseville and then the Hunsakers were able to drive us all up to the stake center. It showed me that the Lord is blessing both of them for their desires to come and providing a way to keep the commandments they want to follow. It was definitely a 1 Nephi 3:7 moment. They enjoyed conference and Escalon did a good job of reassuring that normal church days are "more fun" (Zavonte hasn't come to church yet, and it was a little tough for them to follow the broadcast for two hours especially when the sound was off for a lot of it, it was a broadcast of talks from president eyring and elder ballard and two other general authorities and the first whole half of the broadcast didn't have audio in the back where we were sitting, sort of frustrating). But even still they both had good attitudes about it and are still excited to come this week. Progress is definitely being made in their preparation for baptism and miracles are slowly but surely unfolding for them as the Lord is providing ways for them to accomplish it all.

We found some awesome people this week. Some of them really stand out as solid too. One person we met was a referral from a member in the Warren ward. The member from Warren didn't really know the person he was referring to us, but he talked to him for a second at work about the church and that's where their conversation ended. And the member told us a few weeks ago that he just felt like he should give us the guy's information. The guy didn't actually know we were planning on coming over to meet him. Well we finally contacted him this week and he seemed like a really nice guy. He's 20. He said he's comfortable where he's at in church but that we're welcome to share a quick message with him if we're interested. So we went back for a lesson later in the week and he still was in that mind-set of being comfortable where he's at religiously but we're welcome to just share our message. Well we shared the message of the Restoration and he completely changed. He was pumped about Christ's one, true church being on the earth today directed by a living prophet. And he was pumped about getting started on the Book of Mormon and asked if we could come back to help him read from it. We were more than willing to oblige. He's awesome, we've only had one lesson but we're looking forward to see the progress he makes this week.

this is a long one, hopefully you've made it this far. we watched The Testaments movie at our ward mission leader's house this week with his family. I hadn't seen it before, and it was really sweet. I'm pretty sure you guys have it, so if you haven't had a chance to watch it yet definitely consider watching it together next family home evening. really good.

well i gotta go, but i love you guys. i love being out here too, it hasn't always been easy, but i couldn't imagine missing out on this whole experience. i remember the talk from general conference about the family wanting their son to stay out longer because of all of the blessings they were all getting back home, i know i've seen blessings come in my life from being out here so i hope the lord has been just as kind to you guys (not that we do things for the blessings, but still). crazy it's already been 6 months. well i gotta go, have a great week!

love,

elder lamb

ps, i dig the new computer desk and backyard. i'd say a pretty huge step up from our apartment.

hey again

May 9, 2011

Dear Family,

Well it hasn't been very long since we last talked, not a whole lot has changed since last night actually. But it was awesome talking to you guys. I love you guys lots and couldn't have asked for a better family. Christmas is just around the corner right?

So I'll try and think of a few things to write about that I didn't already talk about on the phone with you guys.....umm. Well right now we're really focusing on finding more people to teach. Last week we found a lot of people who seem pretty solid. This week we're hoping to pick things up with them and start teaching them. We're working with a decent amount of investigators that haven't been making very much progress in a pretty long time ( a few exceptions), and since Elder Ploeger and I are both pretty new in this area, we need to figure out what concerns they may have and really stress the importance of doing all they can to progress. Not to say that it's all on them, we've got to improve ourselves too. But really finding more people, the golden people who are prepared and craving the gospel in their lives (whether they realize it yet or not) is what this area needs. Can do. We need to start asking the Lord more frequently for His help in leading us to find these people. The truth is, they're always out there. Regardless of the area, regardless of whether we're on missions or not. It's too bad I wasn't more aware of this back home when I had opportunities to share the gospel with others. So we're going to focus on finding more of these people and picking things up with the people we're starting to find now.

We found one man last week during some tracting. We knocked on his door and he came outside and said he didn't have time to talk because he was on the phone. But it turned into a solid conversation that lasted for a few minutes once he found out who we were. He thought we were salesmen at first (people think we're police or the FBI sometimes too, pretty cool). We explained who we were and what we were doing and he was shocked to hear it. He was drunk at the time and he told us that he was really struggling with things right now, and he said drinking was one of these big concerns of his. He was a really sincere and humble guy, and it was clear he was in a pretty desperate situation right now. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him and the things he must be going through, but I was really glad that he has an opportunity to embrace the gospel and let the Lord heal him and his life. He was open to our message and said that he believes we could have been led to his door at this point in his life. And that's what this is all about I think. Of course we need to all be baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5) so we're out here helping people prepare for baptism, but really it all goes a lot deeper than that. This man can only have his life healed by the Savior and His Atonement and Gospel, baptism is just part of the healing process and part of the process of turning his life over to Christ. And the same goes for everyone, maybe it's not so extreme or obvious in all of our unique cases, but in the end we all need to embrace the Lord to fix the wrongs that we make or that others make against us in our lives. And that's what the Lord's gospel is all about. His good news is that we can turn to Him and we can find peace and we can live again, just as He lives again today.

Love you guys, I hope you all have a good week. Glad I got to talk to you last night, made my day without a doubt. You're the best!

love,

elder lamb

I need to get more creative with my subjects

....O-/--<l:

in case you can't tell, that's a skateboarder in the subject. if i were really good i'd be able to make him doing a kick-flip or at least an ollie.

hey how are you guys? it was a good week over here in roseville. we had two days of specialized training where two of the zones in the mission got together all day. it was a good experience. the assistants shared a good message about the success of the mission and the importance of giving the credit to the lord and how we can't afford to get prideful and lose the momentum of seeing all of these sweet miracles. (and by the way, one of the assisstants is elder bowler, he's one of elder ward's good buds from his volleyball team. he's been to our house one time in Portola. he and i talk about elder ward whenever we run into each other. at the mission christmas party he came up to me and said i looked familiar, we started talking and figured out he had stayed a day or two at our house a few years ago with Trevor! small world) and president holmes gave some awesome instruction. he's the man. he talked, broke down the idea of preaching the gospel and focusing on faith and repentance. difficult to sum up all that he said in two days worth of instruction, but it really was a great instruction. made a big difference in our teaching. after the days of training we taught lessons where we focused on faith in jesus christ and repentance, and used whatever specific principles we needed for those people, but kept the focus on faith and repentance. it brought the spirit into the lessons stronger than before. we had some really powerful experiences with investigators and members. The spirit is stronger than ever in these lessons, and people are able to understand more fully what we're all about. In some of these specific lessons I'm thinking of, we had members really open up to us and share things with us that we had never known until now. They felt the spirit very strong in these lessons and received personal revelation right there, not because of anything we necessarily said but because it seemed to me like we were simply preaching the gospel with more power and simplicity.

we found a street named Alma Street. We only had time to tract a few houses, nothing has happened yet. but stay tuned.

ah out of time, more next week. have a good week! i'm pumped to get to call and talk to you guys next sunday. see ya then! love you guys lots

elder lamb

Easter

soo...hopefully nobody's disappointed in me for having this on my mind, but i saw a commercial when we were getting our tires checked. it was a commercial for The Office and Will Ferral is coming in as the new boss. man that got me good. i had to re-focus myself real quick. kind of like i do right now i guess. but anyways, i just wanted to say that i heard about the worldly excitement and got a little excited. enjoy!

back to the mission. so things here in roseville are going great. Elder Ploeger is my new companion this transfer. he and i are both new here so we're guessing we'll be here together for a while. that would be cool i think, i haven't had a companion for more than one transfer yet. including the mtc, elder ploeger is my fith companion now. and he's a cool guy, a good missionary. pretty funny. i'm excited to see what happens here in roseville.

thanks a lot for the package :) i've been taking years off of my life and pounds on gut with all of these Easter sweets. totally worth it. ha but i'm just kidding about the pounds, i'm still doing a pretty decent job of keeping the flab from creeping in. knock on wood. but i definitely could lay off the sweets. but at the same time, don't feel like you need to stop sending it all. really though, thanks for the package! the pictures you sent were perfect, thanks a lot for doing that. it was a breath of fresh air to finally have some pictures of you guys. the pummells, the hurds, and the rexes sent packages too, which was really nice. if any of them happen to be reading this, thanks a lot! you guys are awesome and i really appreciate your guys' thoughtfulness :)

so here in roseville, some exciting things have been happening. we are working with a kid named Escalon. He's 16 and he's pretty sweet. he had been meeting with the missionaries a few months back but things sort of lost momentum. but we've picked him back up. we needed to get him to church yesterday, sort of a challenge since his family hasn't showed any interest (yet) and he doesn't drive. but a lady in the ward just got a car and she said that she'd be willing to drive anyone whenever we need some help. so we took her up on that offer and Escalon got to church. they live pretty close to each other too which is nice. so Escalon had a good time at church and a lot of the members remembered him. he's on date for the 21st of May. we even started teaching his friend who lives a few houses down. he's awesome too. really solid so far, and we're going to bring up the same date for his baptism too. stay tuned for that.

more exciting things have been happening and i'm really excited for this transfer. how was your guys' Easter? we went to the baptism for two 8 year old kids in our ward and had dinner with some members. a lot of fun. it stood out to me how important the message of Easter is, but how the holiday itself isn't such a huge deal in our church since we're always focusing on the message anyways. that's really our message at it's core: that Christ lives, and because He lives, we too can live.

Love you all, have a good week!

Elder Lamb

Hi

April 25, 2011

ah music. mo-tab's good. i really like that Affa guy on the ipod bytheway. another missionary burnt me a copy of some more songs by him. check out one by him that goes something like "I Am Samuel the Lamanite, I fight for what is right!" ha it's great. well i'm out of time. have a good one, say hi to the rest of the family for me :)

love ya guys,

e lamb

April 20, 2011

Hey surprise bonus email right here. I ended up with a new companion yesterday for this transfer and he's using a few minutes to email his family his new address. so i thought i'd send a quick one too. excited about the new companion. he's black, reminds me of Carlton from Fresh Prince, ha but he's awesome. really pumped, and to be honestly a little relieved. so things are really good right now. thanks for the advice, it all really helped. i'll keep my eyes open for the package, the one i got was from Katie Hurd's family. they've sent me a few packages of candy and cookies so far, pretty awesome. she's not baptized yet but she's getting close. and i got a package that same day from the Pummells. Is that the package you meant when you asked me if i got the one from Beth?

You all have a happy Easter. You have my permission to eat as much candy as you want. Love you guys :)

Oops forgot this one...March 29th

hey pops!

good to hear from you! ya i heard about the new backyard projects. that's exciting stuff, i can't wait to see it when it's all done. feel free to send a picture of that sometime. it's sort of fun living in these different apartments but i still do look forward to the day i get to come back home and enjoy the nice lamb mansion. i'd call it a mansion compared to a lot of the homes we're teaching in.

sorry about your planter fasciitis, your body just can't keep up with your love for the game. hang in there. at least you've got that sweet kindle to keep you busy until then. read any good books lately?

the area's alright, it has a lot of potential and there are some sweet things happening. but it's not like the last area, that time was on fire. my companion here is a good guy, but he's a struggle. he doesn't get it. trying to do stuff his own way, doesn't think he needs to be completely obedient, not into the routine of planning.

ps, no Eminem yet, but i haven't given up. the hard part is i'm surrounded by white people now so he'll be more difficult to spot.

sorry...time's out, i ran out of time.

things are going good, i'm happy. i love you all!

love ya,

dylan

Baptism!

April 12, 2011

Hey family! It's been a good weekend. We had a baptism. Shoot I'm almost out of time again. But ya Betty was baptized. It was great. She's an 80 year old lady (we went to her bday party a few weeks ago and had some good soul food and a clown came). But her daughter is a member, the two of them actually came to the Book of Mormon class one night down at the Belle Isle Branch when I was teaching a lesson. Small world. But Betty is awesome. She's this awesome lady who was more than ready to be baptized. Elder Kitchen baptized her and I actually was able to help assist lowering her back. That was a cool experience. She's great, she threatens to beat us with her cane if we give her too hard of a time. So ya, she's awesome.

I wish I had more time, another short one. Yesterday we went to the Henry Ford Museum for our district activity. that's why this is coming a day late. I saw the bus Rosa Parks was arrested on and sat in her seat. I saw the chair Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in. I saw Kennedy's car, some somber things looking back on it now. But it was good, there were a lot of sweet things there. I took pictures so you'll get to see them soon.

Love you guys have  a good week!

conference is the bees' knees

April 4, 2011

hey family, sorry last week's letter was so short. i'm still down to just a few minutes after having to write the mission president and get some other things done on the computer. i still need to figure out how to write more efficiently with this new shorter time limit in this library.

BUT, things are good here in roseville. we have a baptism coming up this saturday. a lady named Betty, she's 80 and she is a champ. i'll fill you in more next week on her after the baptism and when i have more time hopefully.

but conference was awesome. i couldn't have agreed with you more mom :) we watched it at the the ward building and had a potluck inbetween the two saturday sessions. we actually lost the signal towards the end of President Monson's talk on temples, but I'll go back and check it out once we get the conference issue of the ensign next month. but i never appreciated conference more than i did this weekend, i was way more into it and got a lot more out of it than i had before. and it was an awesome experience. but i also realized that i didn't really have to wait to be a missionary to appreciate it this much, i was just more focused and expecting more from it, and that's something anyone can do whether on a mission or off. so i'm looking forward to making a bigger deal out of the general conferences down the road, even the ones i'll watch after the mission on a couch at home in sweats and with a big pile of snacks....that actually sounds like a better experience than the one i had this weekend. but elder holland summed it up when he said there is something in there for everyone, and that is an awesome thing. i know that's the truth, and it wouldn't be the truth if they weren't indeed prophets and apostles. we are blessed to have those guys and to have conference.

i'm out of time. but guess who's calling in a few weeks. me. sorry if you wanted to guess on your own. but mother's day is just around the corner, it seems like we just talked on christmas. i hope everyone's having a good week. choose the right and have a good time.

love, e. lamb

spring has sprung, sort of

March 21, 2011
People in Michigan like to say, "If you don't like the weather now, just wait ten minutes." For the most part, that's an exaggeration but it still gets the point across. The winter was pretty much all freezing, it would snow off and on and finally that's starting to slow down. But I heard last year it snowed here in May, so I guess you never know. But there were a few days in a row last week where there weren't any clouds out and you could actually see the sun. It's weird that it just didn't come out for a while. The temperature hit 59 I think one time, and it was great. It's back to raining and the sun's gone again, but those few days were sweet. It was enough to get pumped up. we were wearing short sleeve white shirts in the car, no sweaters. thas wassup. and we went over to detroit that day and the place was alive, a completely different detroit than the one i've seen so far. detroiters were out on their porches playing music and a whole bunch of people had come out of their winter hiding places and started roaming around. pretty cool. i guess that means the thugs will be out too though. stay tuned for some more detroit tales down the road.

As far as the work goes, there's always something exciting happening. My first day here in Roseville we went to do some grocery shopping, and when we were deciding on which cereals to buy a lady came up to us and said she wanted us to come over to her house sometime. Her family aren't members of the church, but apparently they lived in Salt Lake City for a little bit and her husband painted a picture of the Salt Lake Temple, and since they aren't members of the church anyways they're looking for someone to buy it off of them. she also said we could feel free to give a lesson of what we believe whenever we stop by to check out the painting. sort of a strange little encounter but the lord works in mysterious ways sometimes. well we gave her a call this last week and she said they were in the middle of some projects around the house so they couldn't meet with us yet, so elder kitchen and i offered to help and went over for a couple hours two days in a row to help them with that. turns out they're hindu and they shared a little bit of their beliefs with us, a lot of interesting ideas. they showed us their scripture, can't remember what it's called, and it had book reviews on the back cover from Thorou, Emerson, and Ghandi which is pretty impressive, but they were each basically saying that the book was "insightful" and "intellectually and morally stimulating", all good things, but none of them were claiming the book to be the word of God. and it had nothing to do with man's eternal salvation. It was a cool discussion, but it really made me appreciate being a member of this church even more. well, working on the project took longer than we planned so we never had a chance to check out the painting or share a lesson, but we got a good understanding of where they're coming from and what to go over with them next time.

we're working with a family who has a pretty cool story. this all happened before i got here, but the oldest daughter ended up ordering a bible from mormon.org and the missionaries went over to share a lesson about the restoration along with delivering the bible. well that daughter and her three sisters ended up getting baptized a few months ago. and ever since, the missionaries have been teaching the parents too. i've only gone over twice now, but things seem to be progressing. there are some issues that need to be addressed but work is happening. but yesterday at church one of the daughters gave a talk in sacrament meeting on the first article of faith and the godhead, which is something we were trying to help the dad gain a testimony of. and it was good because the whole family ended up coming to hear the talk. i think the spirit spoke to him during his daughter's talk and helped him embrace these things a little more. and the overall day at church seemed to be pretty great for that family. some exciting things happening with them, progress in the right direction.

i hope everyone's having a good week. the book of mormon is really the word of god and the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints really is god's kingdom established on the earth today. it is or it isn't, as simple as that. but it's the truth. and we can find out for oursevles by asking God himself through prayer. what a blessing.

love you guys

elder lamb

Howdy

Greetings from Roseville! Things are good here in the city of Harper Woods. I'm sorry if that last letter sounded a little down and dismal. It was a little weird to take off from my first area sooner than I had planned, but I didn't have anything to worry about. So things are good. My companion's name is Elder Kitchen, pretty cool elder. He's actually from San Diego.

So I'm in in the Roseville area. The apartment is in a city called Harper Woods. It's not quite Detroit. But we do have a little sliver of Detroit in our area which is nice. Another nice thing is we're in a car. And the weather is starting to warm up slowly but surely. Sort of lessens the excitement of having a car, but still good. And there is a senior couple in our ward, they are assigned to work with the less-actives. Which is sweet. Apparently there's a lot of less-active members. The couple are Elder and Sister Hunsaker, here for a year from Utah. They're awesome, great blessing to the ward and the area. Another cool thing about the ward, the bishop's name is Bishop Jensen (sp?) Turns out he's Kurt Stidham's cousin. Small world, he said he might do a background check on me just to see if I'm bad news. Feel free to warn Kurt and ask him to talk me up, maybe bribe him a little? Thanks :)

But things are going great. I'm a little low on time so I gotta go already. The time limits at the new library are a little shorter I think. But this week was sort of slow, a good week, but just getting into the swing of things so there wasn't a whole lot to talk about in this email.

Love ya guys. Glad mom and dad made it back home safe from Kuai!

Ps, shout out to Sean and Arin. Congrats!

Transferred!

March 8, 2011
Hey so transfers were today. I'm in the Roseville area now. It's actually the area right above my last area, they touch at 8 Mile i think. But it's a different zone and it for sure is a completely different place than Mack was down in the city. I'm in a ward, which is pretty nice. And we're in a car area now. We even have a senior couple in our ward. I'm planning on staying here for a while so I guess I'll start making this home. My companion seems like a cool guy, his name is Elder Kitchen. He's been out 9 months, he's from Carlsbad actually. Exciting times ahead. Don't quite know what to expect but I'm looking forward to it. I love you guys, everything's going great. Here's my new address:

20435 Vernier Rd. #1
Harper Woods, MI 48225

March 7, 2011
Wow lots of exciting things happening with you guys lately. I love hearing about it all, if I were anywhere else I'd drop everything and come party with you guys for all that. Well I probably wouldn't have been invited to kauai anyways, but the cruise sounded good. and some other things, but i don't know if i'm supposed to talk about them...but life sounds pretty exciting right now, i'm pumped for you guys :D

so things have been going pretty sweet here in the big d as well. honestly, there may not be a sweeter place to be to do missionary work. the belle isle branch is growing like never before and the people there are amazing. the work is on fire. the book of mormon class we started has been successful and is taking off. the young mens and young womens programs are really beginning to pick up. the home/visiting teaching programs are being redrawn to become way more effective. and the members are solid. they're sacrificing much to help out with each other and with the investigators. the lord's work is really moving forward right now here in the branch. it will be a ward sooner than later. a stake or two one day. and to top it off, we had 5 baptisms yesterday in the branch. Cinco. It was a sweet experience. 3 baptisms from the Van Dyke elders and 2 from us.

To give you some more understanding of what's happening overall in our Michigan Detroit Mission, here's an excerpt from our weekly mission update: "14 People entered into a covenant with their Heavenly Father this week that will bless them for the duration of their lives upon the earth, and for all eternity. As far as we know there have not been 14 people baptized in a single week in our mission for a really long time, if ever. That is so great! The only thing that limits us from bringing forth “much fruit” is ourselves; the things that are now happening in the mission are a testimony that we are more fully allowing our Heavenly Father to do his work by getting ourselves (our will) out of the way. " and "In February, 23 souls were baptized, a great month! For March there are already 59 on date to be baptized. You are performing miracles with the Lord! We have set a mission goal to for 25 baptisms/month."

and our area has some more baptismal dates set with some really solid investigators for the next couple of weeks in march.

....BUT i'm getting transferred. tomorrow. uggh. oh man i was bummed, elder hoffman and i were pretty caught off gaurd. but i'm feeling better now. the city was the sweetest experience ever. and the work was picking up, and elder hoffman and i had come up with some pretty promising plans for this next transfer coming up. there's a lot of un-tapped territory in our area where we believe the elect are hiding and we have been praying for them and preparing for getting the work started with them this week. so that was tough to hear i'm taking off tomorrow. but i've managed to work through the bitterness of the situation. i'm still bummed, but i'm thankful i was blessed enough to be here at all and to be able to start off my mission here. i'm excited to see where i'm sent. but keep an eye on detroit, there are some big things happening there in the future.

but everything's going great. a lot of exciting things in the mission. i had the opportunity to baptize one of our investigators yesterday, my first baptism experience on the mission, and it was sweet. tyron smith, he's 19 and he's a stud. he's already talking about teaching his mom and his friends and wants to come teaching with us. the other investigator of ours who was baptized yesterday was a 9 year old named Michael. His mom is an investigator too but she can't get baptized until her marriage, so we went ahead and baptized him anyways. he said "i really feel it in my heart, i just need to get baptized in the right church and get the holy ghost!" haha he's a character, and a really sweet kid with a solid testimony and desire to serve Heavenly Father.

I think I'll be able to send you an email tomorrow and tell you my new address and where i'm going to be. President Holmes told me that this next area will probably be a place i end up staying in for a while, so you prob won't have to worry about the address changing for a bit.

oh and i bought a little sd card/usb uploader, so i can send a picture here and there. here's the one from our baptism. michael is the kid next to me, and tyron who i baptized is the guy right next to michael. elder hoffman my companion is the one in the suit. it was a really sweet day.

have a good week,
love ya guys

Feb. 28, 2011
Sorry, this will probably be a little shorter.

It still weird me out with how fast the time flies out here. This is the last week of transfers. I've been out for three and a half months and i'm going into my 3rd transfer. and it feels like it's been a really long weekend. time flies when you're working hard and having fun. i'm trying to make sure i'm doing both. and it's awesome how much you learn and grow, without a doubt i've learned more things than in any other 4 month period. missions are without a doubt the sweetest things.

but the real reason a mission is important is because it's the lord's work. you'll grow as a person at unblievable speed. but that's not what really matters. it's about the people you're helping.

shoot i have ten seconds on my timer.

love you guys

Feb. 21, 2011
Subject: Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite...
Hey family. Happy President's Day! Turns out I got my Valentine's Day kiss after all. I was on an exchange in Hamtramck with one of our Zone Leaders Elder Smith (side note, his companion is the other zone leader and his name is also Elder Smith) and we stopped by one of their potential investigators for 5 min or so. Their potential was this lady who wasn't all quite there I'm pretty sure, she was older, didn't have any teeth. Well as we were leaving the lady asked me what my name was and after I told her she said "Well come here my little lamb!" i held out my hand to shake hers and then she sort of pulled me in for what i thought was just going to be a hug. She ended up plopping a big wet one on my neck...it was terrible. Elder Smith was cracking up. Ha the next half hour or so afterwards was the weirdest I've felt in a long time. So...not necessarily a high-light of a week, but definitely a moment that stood out. Spread the love, Happy Valentine's Day!

Detroit was a different place last week. It was up in the 50s I think, I heard the 60s from someone. It only lasted a few days, but they were for sure a good few days. The snow melted completely and there was grass everywhere that made Detroit look so much better. Elder Hoffman and I did some tracting and we only had to wear sweaters - no beenies or gloves or big coats or double/triple layers of socks. I'm pumped for the spring. Pumped. ...It was short-lived though, last night a snow storm came in and dumped a bunch of fresh snow and it's back to being cold. But it's all good in the hood, spring gets closer every day. Pumped.

So two other real quick adventures. Apparently Detroit is #3 on the list for the city with the most bed bugs in the nation. I had no idea what they really were until I came out here. They're nasty. They moved into our apartment not too long ago and they're not welcome. I slept on the floor for most of last week ha. But a senior couple from the mission office dropped us off bed bug mattress covers and some bed bug bombs. We're probably going to take care of that tomorrow. One more story - Elder Hoffman and I were driving our big van around one day with some spare miles. There was a club in the car that didn't have a key, but we'd lay it across the steering wheel just to make it look like it was locked. Well this one time it ended up locking somehow. Still don't know how that even happened. We ended up walking to our apartment to grab a hack-saw from Dooey the building's maintanence man. We walked back to the car and went to work. 4 hours. Ha it was rediculous, the biggest waste of time we've had on our mission. But we made the most of it, we'd switch off with the saw and the other person would call potentials and set up appointments for the week. Well we eventually made enough cross cuts in the club that we could pull apart the lock and slide the club off. A bummer was the more progress we made, the harder it would get because the blade became more and more dull. It was super rediculous, but in the end we were pumped. We call it the Parable of the Club - no project is too big or too difficult, we'll be as patient as we need to be, our goals will happen. People of Detroit beware, we will baptize you.

I'm still teaching primary bytheway. It's pretty fun. I'm at 6 weeks or something like that now. It's usually 2 kids, but yesterday other teachers weren't there and the class had 9 kids there. Anywhere from 6-11, some were visiting and may not even be members of the church. Not easy to keep their focus. Believe it or not, teaching primary has helped me practice for teaching some grown people out here. Marlin helped me teach the class yesterday.

Out of time, I wanted to tell you guys about Marlin. Sorry to leave you hanging like this, but I just don't want to forget so remind me to tell you about him. Awesome kid, awesome story.

Love you guys lots. All's good in the hood.

Elder Lamb

Feb. 14, 2011
Subject: Happy V-day, from D-town
Happy Valentine's Day! Since I'm a single elder, you guys can be my valentines. Hope that's alright?

How's everybody's week been? What have you all been up to? Dad, do you have a romantic dinner planned for you and mom? Turns out I don't have any dates planned for tonight so I'll probably just end up doing some missionary work instead, but I'll keep looking ;) ha jk.

A cool thing that happened this week was I got a haircut. Usually nothing cool to talk about i know, but getting a haircut in the streets of dtown is more exciting than fantastic sam's. We went to a place called "Da' Barber Shop". inside were these 5 black guys who were crackin' jokes, blastin rap on their radio, playing a bball game on xbox for their downtime, and snackin on some Little Ceasar's from next door. It was a good time. So I got a thug-cut. Don't worry, no old-english D's buzzed in the side of my head or anything. Oh and Elder Hoffman and I started driving a 12-seater Chevy Express van. It's temporary, i think, because other missionaries recked their car and need ours for now. Elder Hoffman is van-certified so we're riding dirty in that. Kinda tricky in the snow. I hear it's supposed to be in the 40s this week though. man that's good to hear.

So the mission is on fire. When I said that before I realize that I was saying that because we started to realize the potential that we were dealing with, but last week things have actually started happening. Miracles. And it's kind of crazy, nothing is for sure because we are working with people who have their agency to choose. But things have happened that I personally wouldn't be able to shy away from if I were preparing for baptism or considering coming back to church.

And it's not just with our investigators, the mission itself is seeing a lot of exciting things. Our zone has some pretty awesome goals and we're all kicking butt trying to make these things happen. The mission has 38 people on date to be baptized in the next couple weeks of February. There's only like 80 or 90 missionaries out here, so that's pretty huge. Elder Hoffman and I have 5 people on date right now and some more we can put on date real quick. And our set dates are for a few weeks coming up. So we're working harder than before, praying harder than before, and my understanding of faith has really changed. Our zone leader sent us a text just a min ago while I was writing this email that sort of explains the things I'm talking about - the text is a quote from President Monson: "Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your tasks." Nothing's impossible. And we have to honestly believe that the things we're praying for WILL happen. Before, my prayers were sort of like "i need this thing to happen, but if it doesn't than i know it's your will", now it's like "i need this to happen, i'm going to do what you need me to do to make it happen, so please take care of the rest to make it happen" and of course if it doesn't happen then it wasn't God's will. But if we need something to happen, we can't afford to doubt the power of prayer.

so that is my spiritual thought i guess. nothing i'm trying to lecture anybody on or anything but it's just something i've really gained a testimony of this week.

oh and check out this talk ( http://lds.org/ensign/2006/06/the-profile-of-a-prophet?lang=eng ) It's called "Profile of a Prophet" by President Hugh B. Brown. The church is true, there's no question about that. It just comes down to whether or not we choose to embrace it.

Love ya guys, have a good week,
Elder Lamb

Feb. 7, 2011
Subject: lamb-chop doggie treats
Hey familia - Thanks for everything. Everyday I'm reminded of how much you guys rock. You guys are really the best, somehow I got lucky. And I'm not just saying this because of the nice birthday package you sent me, although that was really appreciated too. Thanks for that, actually mom I was thinking about Reese's Puffs cereal right before i opened up that package. we go to this local grocery shop called Aldi and we get cereal from knock-off name brands and i was wondering if actual reese's puffs tasted better than the stuff we're buying now. and i opened your package the next day, mother's intution goes a long way. or maybe it was just another reminder from the lord that you guys are awesome. i believe in coincidences less and less these days. but the bday was good, i got packages and letters from everyone and i'll have to write them back and thank them when i get a chance. one guy we're trying to start teaching gave me two cough drops he had in his pocket when he found out it was my bday. ha only in detroit.

oh and reese's puffs cereal, it's a lot better than the knock-off brand.

so this week i got chased by a dog. i had been wondering when it would finally happen. it was a little more intense than i thought, i was on bike and the dog was fast. and to make it worse, i was on a back road in a neighborhood so the road was covered in un-plowed snow. one wrong move and i'd be down. riding at a normal speed is hard enough to stay up in the snow. ha i've never been more focused on riding a bike so perfectly. in the end i pumped out some old water polo power in my legs and got some distance on the dog. there was a second dog there too but it was smaller and wasn't as much of a problem. elder lamb - 1 / dogs of detroit - 0. to be continued.

missionary work has gone up a level. my comp who's the district leader spent 2 days in farmington at the mission leadership meeting. the guy who did most of the meeting was one of the guys who helped write preach my gospel and did The District 2 dvds, aka he knows what's up. so elder hoffman came back with a whole bunch of new, tougher, more effective ways of doing everything. for one thing, the whole mission is changing its approach on the planning and studying side of things. right when i got even more pumped about personal study, we start this new completely selfless way to do our personal study based off of the lessons we have planned for the day. so...just reading jesus the christ, the new testament, the old testament, cool stuff like that i've been pumped about - not going to happen quite like i expected.
but it's going to be sweet, things are going to pick up around here. we have to put more of our heart and strength into the work which will stretch us and be tough at times, but when you think about it, that's what we're out here for - to help others. it's like, why weren't we doing this in the first place? also, in district meeting on wednesday another missionary committed us to find something we could give up so we could better help the Lord's work. i couldn't think of anything for a few days, and boom, personal study change-up. it's all good though. things will only get better out here.

well it's time to go, some more pretty cool experiences out here this week but i don't really have time to write anymore, sorry :( but i'll try and remember them for next week, but if i forget i don't doubt some sweet things will keep happening.

love ya,
elder lamb

Some Pictures from Detroit

Feb 7, 2011 

Dad,

Man those pictures are sweet, all that travelling must be tough at times but you must be getting a lot of good experiences from it too. nothing is all bad. i think there's usually some sort of mixture of the two. glad to know florida is on your list of drop-byes and some of the lambs are getting to see some nice weather. i hope the meeting went well, you've always been a hard worker and you've set an unbeatable example for us.

sorry i didn't write back to your last email, 60 min in the library once a week goes by too fast. but i actually was planning on writing you back today anyway. sounds like a lot of exciting things are happening back home right now. that's sweet about the desk, finally got a hold of herk, definitely have somebody send a pic once it's all finished.

that's awesome makenzie's going to the dance, she's growing up. and don't worry, i've seen these past few months FLY and i'll be back in what'll seem like no time, we'll watch some basketball and make up for all the girly things they'll force on you. which reminds me, apparently the super bowl was last night? ha had no idea, who won?

how's the kindle these days? have you picked a good book to start reading with it?

thanks for the birthday package, you guys are the best. it was a good bday, crazy how fast 20 came up.

have a good week!

love ya

dylan

January 31, 2011
You're the best mamma. Real talk (that's how Detroiters say "seriously" or "really, i mean it". Thanks for the email. And for taking care of that check for me. Tell Gma and Gpa Lake that i appreciate the cards and check and that maybe sending checks in the future won't work out after all (not that i'm saying i'm expecting more), and that i'm thankful for them and i still plan on writing them back once i get a chance. but i haven't forgotten about them, real talk. And i couldn't tell you about wells fargo, i haven't seen one but i'll keep my eyes peeled. thanks for the address too, and glad to know about the books. tell sis myers thanks. it's tough not being able to read a lot of things i want out here. i mean it makes sense, i've never read the old or new testament or the other missionary library books like Jesus the Christ. so i need to learn the basics first anyways, but out here i'm so pumped about learning that i want to read everything. well i want to do a lot of things out here, like play polo and guitar. but it is what it is. i MIGHT be getting a keyboard soon from the mission office to start practiciing hymns though...but it's just a maybe. more on that later.

but things are going great here. my new companion is Elder Hoffman. He's from wyoming and he's the man. president holmes said even though elder berger was getting transferred he'd be getting replaced by "one of the very best missionaries", and it's the truth. it was a little tough starting out the new transfer because he didn't know the people or the area and i had to keep the momentum going sort of on my own, but he's been great in helping and there's a lot of big things in store for this transfer i think. he's a good guy, i'm pumped. and he's district leader like elder b was, which means we keep the car. the '10 chevy malibu. that's good news. because it's getting cold. today is supposed to be like anywhere from 9 - 20 degrees? that's what our next door neighbor said. he also said it's supposed to snow like 18 inches really soon, which would be crazy. don't know how reliable his info was, but either way it does look like there's some weather coming.

well i gotta go, things are going good and i hope they are for you guys too. i love ya lots and pray for you all the time. talk to you next week!

elder lamb

January 24, 2011
Bob Dylan once said, "The Times They Are A'Changing". He may or may not have been talking about tomorrow. Tomorrow is Transfers. Crazy how fast that went by. I'm staying here in the Mack area. But my bud Elder Berger is leaving. Deuses (sp?). We got the call that he's getting transferred to become a zone leader somewhere else. I was pretty surprised, things are really starting to heat up here and to me it just made sense that he should stay and help keep the momentum going. The field in Mack is white already to harvest. He was hoping to leave at first because of the cold and he's been here a while, but this place is on fire now and lately he had been really hoping to stay. We didn't see any baptisms this transfer, but things are looking pretty good for the next month or so here. I'm not counting the chickens before they hatch. Just sayin, stay tuned. But ya he's gone which means I'm going to have to pick up my game and sort of lead rather than follow in the new companionship, since the new Elder won't know the area or the people. I'm trying to become a better missionary, someone who knows what the heck is going on, so this will be a chance to push myself. I was a little nervous at first when I heard he was bailing, but Pres Holmes said that one of the "very best missionaries" will be replacing Elder B. That's reassuring. Pres also said that my new comp is going to be the district leader like Elder Berger was, which is real nice - still have the car to use for the really cold days.

Speaking of cold. Detroit's getting pretty chilly. Yesterday it was 4 degrees. That's not including wind chill, so it really felt like negatives. Oh man ha. February is supposed to be the worst part of the winters, ha and it's not even February yet.

I gave a talk yesterday in the branch. The topic was temples so I was pretty pumped. I did alright, I was a little nervous about it though because I was asked to give the talk on Friday night, went on exchanges all day Saturday, and didn't get a chance to start writing down some ideas until Sunday morning. I skated by. I also taught primary again yesterday. Two weeks in a row now, last week was all of primary (don't be too impressed, it was like 6 kids) and yesterday I just taught the Valiant's (ages 9-12 or something like that?). That's been fun. The teachers haven't been at church I guess. Yesterday we had a small conversation about Dragonball Z halfway through the lesson, i guess one of the characters from the show has died a few times now and the three of us were trying to get down to the bottom of it...? Ha but we got back on track. Really smart kids. Potential in this place is mind-boggling. One of the kids in the class is 9 and he's one of our investigators. Can't wait to get baptized in a few weeks, and now he wants to go to the temple. He's been handing out pass along cards at school to his friends.

So things are pretty good here. A lot of big things coming up for the branch and the mission. Oh and some big things have been happening in the church lately too. Have you got a chance to check out mormon.org yet? They've redone the site within the last year and it's a pretty cool set up. I can't remember the talk, I think it was Elder Oaks, he talked about how a survey shows that most people in the world don't know what the mormon religion is all about and that a lot of people think we're crazy and secretive and cult-ish. The reason people don't embrace what we know to be true and real is that they don't know or understand the message. Well mormon.org is trying to show the world that we're not a bunch of crazies. We're normal, but we've been taught something unique, real, and divine. That's really what separates us all when you break it down. Literally every single person needs this, but a lot of people don't know that they need it. So our job is to share the truth we have, not force it on anyone, but take advantage of the opportunities we know we are given. The Lord will help, he's here working with each and every one of us to make things happen. It's His work. So anyways, I'd really suggest you guys take a few minutes to check out some of the videos on mormon.org and see what it's all about. Pray for opportunities to share it with someone. Pray that the Lord will help you and make you strong enough to do it. I realize I could have done a lot more to be a member-missionary before the mission. I realize now that I always had opportunities - and that a few people I can think of really needed it and would have embraced it if I gave them the chance. And I guess what the difference is now, is that I know how fun it is to do missionary work (as lame as that may sound) - and I know that if we're willing to help, the Lord will work miracles through us. If this seems like more than you're ready for or you don't have anyone to talk to (that's how I felt back home), pray for that to change. It starts with a simple desire and us acting off of that desire. and then I promise that awesome things will happen.

I've gotta go. Almost out time here. Enjoy the warmth. Love you guys.
Elder Lamb

January 18, 2011
Hey family! So you probably noticed but I wasn't able to send out an email yesterday. Don't worry I'm still alive. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day and we weren't able to get to a computer. I was on an exchange and the school library they use for emailing in that area was closed, I think most of the missionaries had the same problem. I didn't know I'd get to email today so I wrote a letter to you guys instead and just sent that out. And since I don't have a ton of time today to write I'll just tell you the basics of what's been going down in Dtown.
Things are still going great. This morning we went with the two Van Dyke Elders to go clean the temple, which was pretty sweet. We only get to go through the temple just a couple of times during the mission and I haven't yet, so it was nice being able to go inside and do that. Cleaning the temple was actually cooler than you might think. Cooler than I thought anyway. We had to clean at the MTC once a week and I wasn't a fan. But this was alright, I didn't mind cleaning as much and I felt that same Spirit I felt whenever I went any other time. And I cleaned toilets the whole time this morning, so I think that says a lot. But it was cool learning about another side to the temple and how it works. Oh and we got to do that because our branch was in charge of cleaning it for this month along with another ward in our stake, and our branch couldn't provide any people today so we got to go. Brother Orlandi took us and we got Chipotle after. I was pumped to see that Michigan had a Chipotle.

What else. So this is all stuff that I talked about in the letter. But we went to the Auto Show in downtown. It was pretty sweet. Saw a lot of sick cars and saw some pretty cool new technology that just might become a common thing in our cars one day. And if that's the case, you should all be excited. Shaq's personal mustang was there, and so was Nelly's. Nelly's was murdered-out (that means it was completely black). There was a 285,000 dollar Bentley. That probably wasn't the most expensive car there but the highest price I saw. I got a lot of pictures so you'll see those sometime soon.

A lot of exchanges. We go on a couple a week. It's a pretty cool plus to having the District leader as your companion. I like it at least. The last three times were in our area and I had to take charge of the area which started out as tough but I'm not minding that as much. But the last three we'll be doing this transfer I'll get to go to the outside areas which will be a much-needed break. We're starting our Book of Mormon class at the branch building tonight. Should be a weak turn-out tonight actually, we didn't do a good job in advertising it. But hopefully it should pick up. Hopefully the four of us missionaries know what we're doing. It's all kind of in the Lord's hands at this point, don't have a very solid plan yet.... so ya...we'll see

What else, 3 people on date. Finally. And a couple of marriages coming up which is pretty cool. We have a few investigators who are pretty much ready for baptism but can't until they're legally wedded to their respected baby mammas or babby daddys. But this is the last week of transfers (already) so we'll see if I'm in this area or not. I would love to be here for all that. But at the same time, it's getting pretty cold and a car-area would be delightful. It was 16 degrees at one point a few days ago. Ughh.

Well I gotta go, but thanks for everything guys. The prayers and the emails you always send. I'm trying to get more into the mission and stop thinking as much about home and music and all that stuff, and I'm trying to focus on the mission more. But I don't plan on forgetting about everything pre-mission, so it's the best getting word from you guys about how you and everything's going back home. So keep 'em coming! Love ya guys

Elder Lamb

January 10, 2011
Whaddup doe. Someone told me "doe" is actually spelt "do" and it's an abbreviation for Detroit Original. Don't know for sure. But as you can see my street cred is on the rise, so I'll keep helping your guys' go up too. Which reminds me, i'm still late getting that christmas package out to you guys - i'm slowly working on that - but what are your shirt sizes?

Thanks for the package family. I got it today. It's so great getting stuff from you guys, not just because of the food inside the package either. Thanks for that, and for the emails. Ya i've got hand sanitizer, i'm straight (that's Detroit for "i'm good"). Thanks for the address for jacob, i'll make sure to write him when i get a chance. could you pass along my address to sis myers for him too? thanks.

So things are fun out here. But things aren't always easy. The other day I had to step it up a little and rise to the challenge of leading the area for a day. Like i said in the last email, my companion Elder Berger is the district leader so he and i go on a bunch of exchanges. We had our second exchange on saturday. For this one, he went to the other area and I stayed in our area and a different elder came into ours to stay with me. This guy was in the mtc with me so he's just as new as me - the problem is he's struggling a little. he's kind of different. he's excited to be here and everything, but he's kind of a downer and doesn't talk a whole lot. there's more to it than that. and i'm not complaining or trying to talk bad about him, but i just wanna give you a good visual of what i had to deal with that day. Saturday's are our longest days proselyting-wise and usually when we get the most lessons. well we ended up doing a ton of tracting and teaching only one lesson at the very end of the night. tough stuff. but it was a cool experience. definitely a challenge. i learned a lot about our area because i had to use a map and find my way around the city instead of just following elder berger. definitely strengthened my understanding of the importance of patience as well. we're all faced with tough times (whether they last for just a day or for many years), so we have to choose whether we'll be miserable and complain about it or if we'll find out how we can rise to the challenge and grow from the experience. easier said than done. but do-able.

i don't have a ton of time left to write, but know i'm having a good time. the mission is sweet. and this mission is the best - wouldn't even trade it for the nice weather of the california carlsbad mission.....but that's not to say i wouldn't mind having a few days out here with weather like that.

love ya guys. talk to you next week.

elder lamb