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.