we baptized lil' wayne

Wayne was baptized! He's Wayne Jr. so we can say we baptized Lil' Wayne. It was a good baptism too. A lot more support from the ward than we anticipated, and his family and some other non-members came. They all took something away from it. When he changed out of his baptism suit we watched a movie on the great apostasy and after Elder Adamson bore a solid testimony about the restored gospel and invited everyone to ask for a witness of the truth of the Book of Mormon, either again or for the first time. It was a really intense spiritual environment. We're starting to work with one of the non-members who was there. Wayne was confirmed yesterday in sacrament meeting and received the aaronic priesthood and was ordained a priest after church. he's the man. if you remember me talking about the christmas cookies we made for everybody, wayne's one of the guys who came to church the next day and picked up momentum. he's even been talking to some of his family about the church for a little bit now too.

some news that's less exciting is i gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting. i was asked to speak on President Monson's general conference address "Stand In Holy Places". really good talk, if you haven't watched it recently i'd recommend it. http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/stand-in-holy-places?lang=eng

we had a busy week and i ended up cranking out the talk sunday morning in personal study. it took me back to high school when i'd write papers the night before they were due, not a good feeling. i promise, i'm not a slacker. and i was a little nervous because president holmes came to our sacrament meeting to see wayne's confirmation. but i felt good about it in the end. but the moral of the story is don't procrastinate. but if you do, don't forget to pray at least.

we found some really cool people this week. we were on exchanges and i was in plymouth with the other missionary, he's actually from irvine and huntington. we knocked on a couple of doors and this one guy told us that he was "already saved by Jesus" and gave us a hug and said thanks anyways. we told him that's great and that's why this message would be so applicable to him, so he told us he's pretty busy doing his own bible study anyways. so we asked him if we could come in and study with him. and he let us in! the past two years he's been reading the bible online and following along with audio off of some website. and he only has a few chapters left in the book of revelation so his scripture project would be coming to a close. but we showed him lds.org and read and listened to a chapter out of the book of mormon. we also watched a general conference talk with him on lds.org and he loved it. he bookmarked all the pages and said we could come back and study with him some more.

elder adamson and i knocked on a different guy's door in the same apartment complex on a different night and he let us in right away. he opened the door and said "elders, come on in". turns out he met with missionaries 20 years ago, he wasn't really interested back then but is really receptive now. he's a guy who's been through some challenges and turned to the bible to overcome them. when we were explaining the restoration and the priesthood to him, he already knew about how it was divided into different groups like the melchizedek and aaronic. didn't know anything about the lds church but just understood things talked about in the bible. some more people we found this week are friends and family of members and it looks like we'll be picking things up with them.

saturday morning we helped out with a primary activity at the church. they did a missionary relay. the kids were in two lines, they had to pretend like they were asleep and then when the alarm went off they had to put on some big dress shoes, put a tie around their neck, run to a door and knock 10 times, open up to a scripture in the book of mormon and then run back and pretend to fall back asleep. it was the really young primary kids too, that was a blast. if only it were that easy.

today we're meeting up with the district to play some volleyball, maybe some basketball at the church. which will be good because this ward feeds us. i'm not complaining about that, but i should get some cardiovascular going on.

that's a long email, alright i gotta go. have a great week. love ya

elder lamb

motor city

hey family,

yesterday the library was closed for mlk day, but we actually wouldn't have been able to email anyways because we were down in detroit all day for the auto show. we went last year too, it's in downtown detroit at cobo hall, and it's a pretty big event. the major car companies put together presentations and displays to show off their cool new models and technology. don't worry i stopped to check out the infinities and they're as cool as ever. we're driving a ford fusion in this area and it's pretty nice, but the new 2013 model they had on display made ours look like a flinstone-mobile. and there was car technology they were showing off that was pretty insane. they were showing off cars that can monitor the driver's health, so if the driver has a heart attack the car will automatically drive itself to a hospital, and they can also shut off your house lights and lock the house's doors and windows as you drive away if you forget to lock up and shut down yourself. it's hard to beat the taco though.

as far as the week goes, it's had its ups and downs lately. i'm loving it all, but some people we're working with have been struggling. opposition is as real as anything else the gospel teaches us about. we are working with some sweet people too though. we're planning on a baptism this weekend for a guy named wayne. he's been a blessing for us, we walk out of every appointment smiling, he's the man. i'll tell you more about him next week. but we're working on building back up the teaching pool starting today. there are some elect people out there waiting for their door to be knocked on.

i had another exchange down in detroit this past week. it was in one of the spanish elders' areas. it was pretty neat, we were in a part of detroit called mexicantown. it's a spanish community. we had some lessons in all spanish so i sort of sat back and enjoyed the ride for those. there was a really neat experience though, there was a guy we had a lesson with who had become converted to the book of mormon. they met with him a few days earlier and went over the restoration and introduced the book of mormon, when he and i went back this time he was already in 2 nephi 19 and couldn't stop talking about how much he loved the book. the spirit was really strong too. i understood parts of what he was saying (it's been a while since spanish 4), but when i didn't understand what he was saying i could feel what the guy was feeling. it's hard to describe. it was the language of the spirit. elder davis invited him to be bapitzed in february and the guy said "i've been baptized catholic but if God is telling me to be baptized in this restored church then i will". our minds were blown. there's power in the book of mormon, it was written for people today, and those who are listening can recognize God's voice in it. we also got chased by a dog that day on our bikes. got away.

well i gotta go, people out there are waiting to be baptized. have a good week, love you

elder lamb

there's a snake in my boot

January 9, 2012

yo! how was everybody's week? still feels like fall here, hopefully the snow never comes :D this week was a good week. it was a difficult one though. lots of things were falling through and we were trying to patient. what was sweet was last night when we were collecting the zone totals, the zone hit all but one of our goals that we had set as a zone, they were pretty high too. so even though we had some tough days it was good to see overall cool things are happening. and we had some good things happen here in plymouth too.

hey i just got my x-ray cd to work! when i got that piece of metal taken out of my foot last year, i asked for an x-ray to keep. all they gave me was a disc with the pictures saved on it. i haven't gotten it to open up at any of the other libraries, but it worked here. let me see if i can send the pictures from it into the email. alright, i think that worked. that was in there for about a month, but the show goes on even if you get shanked in detroit.

we had a cool experience this week where we saw that new investigator i was talking about last week. another really good lesson. she still doesn't feel super comfortable coming to church yet, a large part is because she's been let down by so many other churches in her life that she's having a hard time exercising her faith now, but she let her son come yesterday which was really cool. he's 12. he seemed to really enjoy it. we also worked with the daughter of another investigator, we've been working with the mom for a while but the daughter is still really new in investigating. it was neat because the mom wasn't able to make it but the daughter was still wondering if we were able to meet her. so we met her at the library and brought another girl from the ward who's about the same age. it's cool being able to work with families, even if the lessons are scattered and the progress is at different levels. we find to teach, teach to baptize, baptize to seal. the gospel blesses individuals, but ultimately it's here to bless families.

i went on an exchange with a missionary this week down in detroit, back on bike. i haven't had a good bike day in a long time. my legs were sore the next day, but that's how you gauge a good bike day. and on that exchange, we started teaching a family and picked them all up as new investigators. a really prepared family, even the kids were really taking things away from it and giving good answers.

we had zone leader council meeting this week. that was cool, the four zone leader companionships and the assistants got together with pres and sis holmes at the mission home and talked about the mission all day. it's cool to see more of the work that goes on behind the scenes in the mission, and to be able to participate in that too. tomorrow is specialized training for two zones, those have always been fun because there's good food and you always get pumped up from the instructions. it's a little less exciting when you're the one doing some of the instructing though, so today for preparation day we'll be working on getting that ready. well, gotta go. have a good week! good luck with school!

love,

elder lamb

happy new year

January 3, 2012

hey, i don't have a ton of time. this week is really busy, i'm pretty sure that's going to be a pretty regular thing for a zone leader though. this morning we drove out to do some baptism interviews and some other things, and we're pretty much starting our proseltying once we leave the library. it's been a cool experience so far though, we had a meeting the other night just us and the high councilman over missionary work in the stake, tonight we're having a similar meeting but with the stake president and all of the ward mission leaders and pres holmes. and we'll be starting up the first of many exchanges tomorrow.

this week we stopped by a potential we felt like we should see and she let us in. she was willing to listen but she was pretty skeptical for most of the discussion. but it was a really intense discussion, it's like she wasn't even thinking about us and it was really just between her and God. she brought up a lot of concerns and questions, almost like this was too good to be true and she wanted to find out where our message was flawed. but she ended up setting something up for later this week and was looking forward to figuring out for herself what this is all really about. so we're excited to work with her and her family, she seems really elect and this could turn into a big thing for her personally if she really seeks it out. we actualy had a really good week this week in finding, we found 11 new investigators and 11 other potentials. a good way to start off the new year and the new transfer. things have kind of slowed down the past couple of days though, people have been canceling appointments. gotta love free agency.

i don't have a ton of time left, i think that's about it though. church starts at 1:00 this year for the plymouth ward. that's really nice, we had to wake up before 6:30 in burton to get to early morning church meetings so this is nice. alright i've gotta go, i hope everyone had a good new years. have a good week, talk to you next week!

love,
elder lamb

Long time no talk!

Dec. 27, 2011

Hey again, it was great talking to you guys the other night. It seems like the phone calls are always too short, but I guess duty calls. I hope you guys enjoyed the rest of your Christmas with the relatives and that you'll still have a good time on the rest of your break. It snowed this morning pretty good for the first time in a few weeks. The car is such a nice luxury.

Not a lot of new things to talk about since Sunday. But a couple of sweet things have happened. I told you that we switched our Preparation Day to Thursday so we can go to the temple, so yesterday we had a normal proselyting day. And it was a good day, a good first day to start off the transfer too. We tracted around with some extra time we had and found an awesome family. Before we even said anything the lady told us to come in. We talked for 5 min or so inside her door and then she ended up inviting us to sit down at their table with her and her daughter to share more of what we had to started to share. Two other guys in the family didn't sit down to join us but were listening in the other room the whole time and were just as friendly. We went over the Restoration and answered a lot of their questions. Both her and her daughter haven't been baptized in any church they said and really got excited that we could help them with that, and tying that in with the Restoration just intensified their desire. It was sweet. We're going back today to see them and are planning on bringing some members with us who live close by to them.

We had another lesson yesterday with a lady who has been meeting with the missionaries for a few months sort of off and on. She's a friend of a family in the ward and has come to church a couple times. We made contact with her for the first time in a while on Sunday night and on the phone she said "we might have to stop the lessons for a bit, I'm not sure about the whole prophet thing", but we set up for the lesson yesterday and went with the member family she's friends with. it went really well, we stressed the importance of being sensitive to the spirit to get her answers and putting in her effort with real intent. we discussed the word of wisdom with her and explained how giving up smoking will help her get her answers and come closer to christ. she was really receptive and wants to quit. the family invited her and us over later this week to watch the Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration movie. so that was a huge step for her.

i think i told you how we handed out cookies for christmas on saturday and sunday, and how we were able to contact one guy from it who ended up coming to church the next day. he's solid, he was really close to baptism a few months ago but a lot of things came up and he got knocked off the path a little. so it was a big deal to even see him again. but we met with him this morning and it went really well. he's overcome all the things that came up and is even more solid because of it. he said he wants to commit to baptism again and follow through this time. so he's on date and back on track.

this past week in plymouth has been a blast. lots of sweet people here. and elder adamson and i are working hard to baptize everybody. we're even doing P-90X in the mornings. ....so ya.

oh and transfers are today, guess who's training this transfer? elder clark in burton. he's a stud, it's not unheard of but it's pretty uncommon for a missionary to start training right after he's been trained.

well i think that's it. thanks again for the packages and cards, and thanks to anyone else reading this who sent me something for the holiday. have a good week and a happy new year!

love, elder lamb

new assignment

Dec. 19, 2011

so...i'm a zone leader now. surprise! the past couple of days have been pretty busy. elder clark and i were doing some planning on saturday night when we got a call from president holmes saying i was leaving monday morning. there's still one more week of this transfer to go, but some missionaries are going home early to get back in time for christmas. so president told me i'd be going to an area to serve as a zone leader and i'd be taking the place of an elder going home early. i had to give up some sleep the past couple of days so i'm a little tired, but it's not too bad. my high school sleeping schedule taught me i can stretch myself pretty hard when it comes to sleep. so elder clark is taking over burton next transfer with whoever his new companion is going to be, but he's going to be in a trio this week with the flint elders covering both areas. pretty crazy.

i'm in the westland zone, i haven't served in this zone before. and i'm in the Plymouth Area with Elder Adamson. He's cool, seems like a solid missionary. i won't be in the ghetto anymore either, it's weird being surrounded by nice neighborhoods and not having to worry about getting mugged. the ward is a couple hundred people i think which will be really different too. i don't really know what the zone leader part is going to be like but it should be fun. some missions only have one missionary in the zone who's the zone leader but in our mission there are two zone leaders who are companions. so it'll help having elder adamson who's been doing this for a few months already. here's my new address:

40305 Plymouth Rd, Apt #204

Plymouth, MI 48170

i just got to the area so i don't know what we're doing for christmas yet, i don't really know anything yet ha. but i'll be calling sometime and i'll pray that it will work out with your guys' schedule. i'm sure we'll make it work though. the weather has been good lately, it hasn't snowed very hard lately. well i've got to go, i'm almost out of time and my email to president didn't work, so i'll have to figure out what to do about that. but have a great week and a merry christmas and i'll talk to you soon :)

love,

elder lamb

egg nog + vernor's (a michigan soda) = merry christmas

December 12, 2011 

This week Sister McMann was baptized! It was the bees' knees. Just a little about her and how she got to the point of being baptized - she's married to a member in the ward, they've been married for a long time but she never was interested in the church. she was raised catholic and was actually pretty against the lds church. but she had a complete turn around when she read Alma 32, it's her favorite chapter now, and it's like a light went off where she started to see what this was all about. a few months ago she was feeling good about baptism but ended up having a surgery. so we lost some momentum for a little bit and slowly picked it up again. and that's basically where she's come from. she's awesome though, gung-ho about the book of mormon too and excited about relief society. the relief society has been a big support for her. and a lot of her non-member family came to the baptism, one of her friend's at the baptism said that her own baptism is next so the flint elders set up an appointment with her for this week. it'll be at the mcmann's house so we'll get to help out with that which will be sweet.

i got to go to the temple this week with my old mtc district which was a lot of fun. crazy how fast time flies out here. after the temple we all went to the mission home and had dinner and had a good discussion with everyone and pres and sis holmes. i felt charged for the next year.

pres came to our sacrament meeting yesterday to meet some of the people who've been baptized recently because he wasn't able to make it to their baptisms. he doesn't go to every baptism but tries to go to as many as he can. so that was a neat experience.

i think that's about it for updates this week. today for preparation day we're going to run some errands with the flint elders and maybe watch a church movie at our apartment. party. well gotta go, don't forget, the church is true. and the gospel makes everything so much more fulfilling. i finished the new testament a few days ago, the book of revelation was intense but it got me pumped for the good times ahead. every sacrifice the lord asks us to make is more than worth making. even the little ones, maybe even especially the little ones. love you guys.

elder lamb

here comes the snow, it's alright

December 6, 2011

hey guys, another good week. it snowed pretty good and stuck so winter has officially started here in flint. it let off for a few days now but the next wave should hit again soon.

we had a baptism again on saturday, don berden was baptized. it was great, good support from the ward for that and he was confirmed yesterday in church. i even made the cake for the baptism refreshments, turns out i can make more food than just bagel bites in the microwave. i think i've talked a little about don before, but just in case i haven't, we found him because at the time he was dating a less-active member who showed up at church with him and his friend joe. it turned out joe was baptized about 20 years ago and has been inactive since basically. so we started working with joe and don and once we verified that joe was a member we started working don towards baptism. they've been coming ever since with good support from our ward mission leader bro partridge. last week joe met with the bishop and yesterday he started passing the sacrament for the first time, and don's going to be working on receiving the priesthood real soon too.

last night we watched the first presidency christmas devotional broadcasted at the church. it was really good. i think i'm starting to feel more of the spirit of what christmas should really be about, the savior of course, and peace and goodwill to others. that's always made sense to me, but the christmas devotional last night helped me understand it a little bit more. if anyone hasn't had a chance to watch it yet it's on the church's website, really good way to get ready for the christmas season. plus they showed some of the clips from the new project the church has been working on with the New Testament videos, really good.

we've found a couple people this week who seem really prepared. we tracted into an older couple where the man's favorite channel to watch on tv is the byu channel. he mostly was curious but when eternal marriage came up it's like a light went off. he was really excited because he said that's what he and his wife have always hoped for. they want us to come back for lunch sometime soon. we have also started working with another couple who are really sweet. we've talked about baptism the first time we met them and said that's ultimately the goal, and this week when we saw them the second time they were basically asking us what they need to do to be baptized. they agree with everything we've shared with them and really want a good solid church foundation for them and their kids. so many people are prepared and just don't know where to find the truth, it's up to us to make sure we're prepared to give them that knowledge.

this week i'm going through the temple with my mtc district for our one year temple trip. i see some of them every once in a while so that will be fun to be able to spend the day with those guys. plus, sister holmes usually cooks for that, so it's going to be a good day. that's about it for the week though. a member gave us 20 dollars for kogle hot dogs and we're going to stock up today. long story, but they're pretty tasty. love you guys!

elder lamb

Baptism

November 28, 2011

Hey guys,

Baptism! On Saturday Dave was baptized. He's the man. He had met with the missionaries a few years back but didn't really pick up a lot of progress and they lost contact. He was picked up again and he's been coming to church and progressing since. Recently he told us that he was ready for this but just never really felt good about joining any other church. And he just soaked everything in as we taught him. We'd go over a commandment and ask if he had any concerns and his response would be "well it's a commandment, why would there be any questions about it?" The baptism was great. There was good member support and some of his family made it out who we had never met before. You could tell he was feeling the spirit at both the baptism and his confirmation yesterday in church. He's really solid. It was a neat experience being able to work with him and watch him develop a strong testimony of the restored gospel.

Turkey day was good. Ate lots of turkey. in the morning we played football with the two wards, i'm still sore. a lot of fun though. the websters (the senior missionary couple in the ward) put together a dinner at the church for some of the members who didn't have any thanksgiving plans and we went to that. fun visiting with everyone, and the food was really good. we didn't really have any plans set the rest of the day, but we stopped by some people who we thought might not have any thanksgiving plans and shared a short message with them on gratitude. so overall the day went really well. hopefully you guys enjoyed the day too, was the dinner at beth and charles' again?

last night we went to a fireside with bill. paul schultee (i think that was his name) was the speaker. he's a member of the church who grew up in michigan. he's a gold medalist and mvp for the american team wheelchair basketball. that guy was sweet. we saw some clips of his games and he has skill. he spoke about facing trials and obstacles with a die-hard attitude of faith. really powerful message. the firesides in the mission have been focused on the "i'm a mormon" campaign on the mormon.org so they showed one of the videos at the beginning. it was sister hess' video about their son who passed recently, i didn't know there was a video. but it really brought the spirit into the fireside at the beginning and i know that everyone appreciated the testimony of sister hess and her family. here's the link if anyone wants to see http://mormon.org/jenny/

i can't think of much else to say today. choose the right, if we're not happy we should start looking for more ways to be obedient. and if we are happy, we should start looking for more ways to be obedient. i know that that's the only way to really live.

love you guys, have a great week.

elder lamb

member involvement, no better way to do missionary work

Nov. 7, 2011

Hey family, we had a pretty good week. we went to the temple as a district and i absolutely love the temple. we can't go too much and we prob don't go enough. not to lecture or condemn or anything, that's just a personal insight. but it's just that great. after a member from the flint ward took us to an all you can eat buffet. i think it's against the word of wisdom to eat that much. elder clark and i went to new missionary orientation this week also. it's a meeting new missionaries and their trainers go to with president and sister holmes and the assistants. so a smaller meeting, but really cool. i took a lot of notes and learned a lot, basically how cool the gospel is. it blows my mind how perfect and complete it all is. if i could just go out and explain things the way president holmes would to all of our investigators then we'd really be moving.

at church we had three of our investigators make it. we also had someone who the lapeer missionaries have been working with come to church. he's been progressing over there and has been working towards a date, but he lives in our ward boundaries so it's been tough trying to make that switch over. but two of his friends from the lapeer ward came with him to church which helped. we hadn't met actually met him before so we're planning to start working with him this week. sunday night we had a cottage meeting at the bishop's house. we watched the movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. i love it. it was actually the newer version the church has come out with, it's on the churches website ( http://lds.org/media-library/video/feature-films?lang=eng&query=joseph+smith+prophet+restoration#2011-03-01-joseph-smith-the-prophet-of-the-restoration ...just in case anyone wants to check it out) it's mostly the same but it has a lot of new scenes and some taken out, it's designed for people who don't have much of a church history background, perfect for investigators. i hadn't seen this new one before, it's really solid at explaining things, but i think i prefer the original because you get to see joseph's personality more. it's more entertaining too. anyways we watched that last night at the bishop's, we had some investigators and some active and less-active members come. the spirit was definitely present.

we've been working with someone who's been progressing pretty well. he was baptized a long time ago and was thinking he might have been baptized into this church, so we've been treating him as an investigator because he was inactive if he was really a member, but we've been waiting for salt lake to get back to us about whether or not he's a member. yesterday we found out he's not, so we put him on date! so good things are happening. lots of fun. the only problem is that winter's coming. so far no snow, but there's usually some frost and ice in the mornings. but it's coming. well i gotta go, we're playing some bball with the flint elders in a little bit. and we've got a dinner appointment tonight, that's rare so good news. it's at the bergers, brother berger actually grew up in mission viejo and went to el toro high school. and sister berger's nephew is good friends with elder ward and spent a weekend in our dorm one time. small world. i haven't got the package yet but i'll prob get it this week at a specialized training meeting. alright well time's up gotta go. have a good week, love you guys.

elder lamb

happy halloween

Oct. 31, 2011

Happy Halloween! So Flint and Detroit have the false traditions of starting house fires on Halloween. and all sorts of stuff happens in the neighborhoods, so we'll be coming home early tonight. our apartment isn't in a rough part of town so we'll be good. it sounds like you guys are keeping busy. we went to the ward's halloween activity on saturday night, which was a lot different than the foothill ranch ward's. it was a lot smaller, no trunk or treating either. the part that i missed was mom's angelic singing. no ward band in the burton ward. it was still fun though. elder clark and i were the judges of the chili contest. there was some good chili, a lot of it too. we had some people we're working come to the activity too and they had a good time. we gave out some pass along cards to some members to pass out with their candy tonight. that's way cooler than the toothbrushes i'd get at some houses growing up.

i got to go on an exchange with elder hoffman this week, he was my follow-up trainer, so that was fun. he's the assistant now, i don't know if it's a good sign to have the assistants call you up and say they want to go on an exchange with you, but it didn't seem like we were in trouble so i think we're in the clear. it was a good exchange though, i was in their area. elder hoffman and i went to a house of a former member to help him get motivated to quit smoking. he wants to be re-baptized but his hang up is smoking. so we brought over a 7-day quit smoking program. his two daughters (one's a less-active and one's an investigator) and their non-member friend were there and they wanted to quit smoking too. so we talked to them all and got them to sign their own 'declaration of independence from smoking' to hang on their walls, throw away all of their cigarettes, and just get pumped up. it was pretty exciting. the program sounds really legit too, i was pumped for them.

elder clark and i had a lesson with one of our own investigators where we taught the word of wisdom. he was bummed about having to give up tea, had given up other things earlier in his life and thought he was doing good, but we went over obedience and the importance in following the prophet before we introduced the word of wisdom, he was receptive and when the commitment was extended to live the word of wisdom he was willing even though it took some faith. he's still excited about baptism.

we're working with a really awesome investigator who's married to a member. might have talked about her before. our progress slowed a little bit because she had a surgery not too long ago, but yesterday she and her husband both made it down to church. it was ward council and the bishop invited the husband to come up and bare his testimony on the spot, he was pretty nervous but it was a powerful testimony. the bishop was def inspired to call him up. so she's back on track, she's ready spiritually so once she's feeling physically up for it, she'll be able to be baptized.

elder clark and i found some new people this week. we had a lesson last week with the guy, i think i mentioned him, who was receptive to hearing that he wasn't baptized by the proper priesthood authority. we showed up for our follow up appointment with him this week, he wasn't home but his son and the son's fiance pulled up right after we knocked. they let us in for some water and eventually we were talking about the restoration. the dad showed up about a half hour later, and the discussion went really well. the spirit was really strong. what was cool is the dad had told us that the girl wasn't very interested in religion, but when he brought up some arguments in this lesson she was standing up for our message. the lord leads us to prepared people, we need to make sure we do our part to prepare for them though. we're trying. so we're set up to see them tonight and we're planning on bringing our ward mission leader with us. should be a good time.

this week we're going to the temple for our district activity, so we'll be going on thursday. has the ward taken any trips to do baptisms for the dead lately? kenzie, sign yourself up if there's one soon. there's nowhere cooler than the temple. real talk.

well i gotta go, have a fun time tonight, and have a good week. 

love you guys

elder lamb

former hunting

Oct. 24, 2011

Hey family,

We had stake conference yesterday, it was the first stake conference i've been to on the mission, and I think it was the first one i was really focused in on, and probably completely awake for. it was awesome. bro armstrong came and he really enjoyed it, he drove himself and even said he'd drive us anywhere we'd ever need him too. and ended up giving us a ride home after. we listened to his folk/christian accapella music in his car. he's the man. it was a little more difficult for some our other investigators to come but this sunday will be back in the normal routine so we're hoping to see more people out at church again. this saturday is the ward's halloween activity at the church and we've been inviting investigators so we may even see some people out there too.

this week we focused on going through the former investigator records. this is the first area i've seen where the former invs had their own binder, they went back pretty far and the pile was pretty fat. we've made contact with some of them, some weren't interested but some were happy to hear from us so we're trying to pick things up with them. we contacted someone who had been in jail for 5 years, his record said he'd be getting out now so we called him up and he was there and we met with him. he had picked up some different ideas about "truth" while he was away and had lost interest in the church. so that was interesting at least, but too bad. we left him with a thought on the atonement from the book of mormon and left him with his own copy and our card if he ever wants to look up the church again.

we started talking to someone on the street and ended up meeting up with them later on for a lesson. they are really into studying the bible, and was interested in hearing what we had to share. we went over the restoration and he had told us that he's already been baptized. so we discussed the significance of authority. he cut us off and told us to be blunt with him and tell him if that means his baptism wasn't done the right way. so we told him it wasn't, and he actually took it pretty well. he was definitely a little shocked, but he said that he's going to "get to the bottom of this now". we're planning on meeting with him again tonight so we're hoping we can help him "get to the bottom of this" in the right way. aka, with the guidance of the holy ghost!

well that's about it for this week. we're working with some awesome people right now, they want to do good and learn about God and because of that they're able to make good progress. so it's been a good time working with these people. each week is a blast.

thanks for all that you guys do too. i hope everythings going good down in the OC. stay warm and eat lots of candy on halloween. any halloween plans? any cool costumes this year? feel free to use my crayon costume. love you guys, have a good week!

elder lamb

chillly

Oct. 17, 2011

Hey family,

i know this isn't really something i should focus on, but today i hit 11 months. in four weeks i'll be out a year and then i'll be halfway home.

things are good in the hood. we had a pretty exciting week. we've been finding sweet people. we went tracting one night and found an awesome older lady, the next house the guy wasn't interested, and then the next three houses we found solid potentials. the first lady we've already gone back and had an appointment with. one of the guys was already planning on ordering himself a Book of Mormon and we're going to see him tomorrow. another lady seemed really cool and she's married to an inactive member who's not on our records, she said she's interested in learning more. the last lady was interested and we set up to see her tomorrow too. so that was just one tracting session. we have a couple people on date at the moment and some more people who aren't on date yet but want to be baptized. so good things are happening, but we can't afford to get too comfortable. the way i see it, we've got to be even more focused and stretch ourselves even more.

we had an awesome experience with bill. he's the man who's been coming each week to church in his wheel chair. he's wanting to be baptized now, but his biggest issue has been smoking, which he does for medical reasons to control his seizures. well he requested a priesthood blessing and last week we gave that to him. in the blessing he was told that the seizures would lie dormant and not affect him anymore as he gives up smoking to work towards baptism and confirmation. immediately after the blessing, the sharp pain in one of his legs that has been there for months left and yesterday he said he has feeling in one of his feet again. he went a day without smoking, but smoked again after that. understandable since he's been smoking for a lot of his life. but the fact that the lord healed his leg as well is a testimony to us that all aspects of the blessing worked and that he's closer to baptism if he keeps putting his faith in the lord.

so good things are happening. awesome experiences with some disappointments, but that's how the work goes. one disappointment that's less work-related is the warm days are gone. winter's coming and the days have been in the low 50s. it's looking like i'll stay here till at least the end of december because of elder clark's training, so at least i'm guaranteed some car-time for this winter. no more riding a bike on ice or getting chased by dogs in the snow. knock on wood. i gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting on the doctrine and covenants, i had to do a little research, i think it turned out alright. i also got to hold a page from one of the original copies of the 1830 book of mormons. it was in a preservation case. our ward mission leader has it and told us a cool story of how he got it. and i think that's about it for this week.

thanks for being great examples to me, you guys all are an amazing blessing in my life. keep up the good work!

love you guys,

elder lamb

1 week, 2 baptized

Oct. 11, 2011

Hey!

We had 2 baptisms on Sunday! and it was awesome. Tyena and Jessena Neely. Two 10 year old twin sisters. I think I've talked about them a little bit before. Well we stopped by the Neely home a little over a month ago to check in and see how they're doing. They're an awesome family, lots of fun. Each time we go over we'll end up cracking up about something. The family had become less-active a while back and we wanted to talk to drop in and see what's going on. They had also gone through some tough times earlier this year when their house had caught fire. We found out later that they had a neat experience where everything on one of the walls was damaged except for a picture of Jesus they had on the wall, that was left untouched by the fire and the smoke damage. So the Lord has been with them the whole time, and when Elder Lewis and I dropped in about a month ago the first thing Sister Neely said to us was we need our daughters to get baptized. We said we could help them out. So we've been working with them since and it's been a neat experience. The two girls are a lot of fun, they're definitely a force to be reckoned with, Two real solid additions to the kingdom at age 10 even, plus they're hilarious. Anyways the baptism went great, a lot of ward support. Their parents gave the opening and closing prayers even though they were a little reluctant at first. And Bro Armstrong came to the baptism and had a great experience for himself as well. He's the man in the wheelchair we've been working with. He had a great experience. We've had a couple of really awesome lessons with Brother Armstrong lately. The whole time I've been working with him he hasn't ever wanted to say the closing prayer in a lesson. His excuse was he feels like the Lord has abandoned him and he doesn't want to tempt or bug the Lord. Elder Clark and I talked to him about his relationship with God and explained some doctrine that would give him encouragement. At the end he gave the closing prayer, the first time praying with other people in years he said. So that was a simple thing, but a significant step in his progress. The next night we asked if we could kneel for the closing prayer, we were hesitant because he has bad knee problems but he was more than willing. He said he had felt a lot better after he gave the closing prayer the night before. And something else that's small that I noticed is he would never say "amen" at the end of our prayers, but at the end of the kneeling prayer that was given he said "amen" for the first time. 

Simple things but great things are being brought to pass. We've been more forward about baptism and our purpose with him lately. He wants to be baptized and believes this is the Lord's Church. He knows smoking is still his issue. If you don't remember, he smokes so that he can control his seizures. This whole time the thought of a priesthood blessing has crossed my mind, but I didn't want to bring it up until he was ready to really place his faith in that. Well on Sunday, the sacrament talks were on the priesthood. And the Gospel Principles class was on obedience. That night he brought up a priesthood blessing. He said if he's going to get baptized then the Lord will have to provide a way somehow, and he'd like to try receiving a blessing. So that was significant. It hasn't happened yet but he's making progress.

I could go on about Bill. But I'll stop there this week. He's awesome though, each experience is some sort of miracle. But more on other parts of the work. At church this week a man came up to us and asked if we could pray for him because he's having thoughts of suicide and struggling finding the reason to stay in this life. We took him aside on the couch and talked about some of his loved ones he's lost recently and read Alma 40 with him. He had a great experience at church (he's the friend of a less-active who came and brought him and another friend that Sunday). But all three of them loved church and have a ride figured out for next week already. We went by and had a lesson with them last night that went great. So we're working with them now. It turned out the man who came up to us was baptized into the church a long time ago so we need to find his record. But we picked up the other friend as an investigator.

Things are going great, I feel like we're working as hard we can and we're seeing good things happen. I could go on with more exciting things that have happened this week, but I'll leave it at that.

Quick update on training. My companion is Elder Clark. He's fresh out of high school, even fresher out of the MTC. He's from San Jose, California. He swam freestyle in high school and played whole set on the polo team. Sounds like a good guy huh? He's solid though. He's ready to work and it's been neat being able to figure out how to train him. Mostly just figuring it out as I go. There's a brand new 12-week training program the church has started that's built around Preach My Gospel. We get an extra hour of companionship study everyday to focus on this training program. It's awesome, I feel like these new missionaries will be way more solid than I'll ever be because of this training program and the whole new program they go through in the MTC now too. So I'm learning lots from him too. So it's been good. Things are really picking up in the area, we're finding new people who are sweet and we're picking up momentum with people we've been working with before. Good times. Well I've gotta go, we're giving talks next week in sacrament meeting and my topic is the Doctrine and Covenants. I need to do some quick research while I still can.

Thanks for the package, it showed up last week and the reese's bars were just as tasty as always. they didn't last long, thanks for the tie sean and arin. till next week, love you guys.

elder lamb

president monsoon brings the spirit like a tidal wave

Oct. 3, 2011

Hey,

wasn't conference awesome? It manages to get better and better every six months. I heard a lot of things I needed to hear and the Spirit was there. it was a great experience for some our investigators too. the man who comes to church each week in his wheel chair and has the smoking issue made it out to four of the sessions. After he told us that he wishes he went to the Priesthood Session too. He's told us before it's difficult for him to come out to church and sit in his wheel chair for all three hours because of his many health problems and pain, but he sat there for 8 hours this weekend just soaking it all up. When we spoke with him last night, he shared with us the things he's come to know and appreciate as he's met with us. He said he knows the Book of Mormon is the word of God (he's halfway though 3 Nephi on his CDs, planning to start them over once he's finished), he said he believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, and he believes Thomas S. Monson speaks with Jesus on a regular basis. He even said he felt strengthened by what President Monson and the other speakers said. He's becoming more and more converted to the gospel and a definite change has come over him. still has a little ways to go but he's working with the spirit and miracles follow his effort.

new transfer starts today. i'm staying in burton which is good with me. it's starting to get cold and this is a car area, that alone makes staying worth it. i think in my last letter i mentioned i was going to the leadership training last week. it was a cool experience, i hadn't been to one before. plus there was costco pizza. but i got the call from president last night about what leadership position i'll have this transfer, turns out i'm training. kind of crazy to be responsible for someone, especially when you're responsible for them in a place like flint, maybe i'm getting just a hint of what it must feel like to have a new baby. that's a weird connection. so ya, i'll be training this transfer.

thanks for being such a solid example to me before the mission and still. i couldn't have asked for a better family. well i hope everybody had a good week, i hope you guys had a great conference experience too. we're all entitled to it. the church leaders tell us exactly the things the lord knows we personally need in our lives. feast upon the words of christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do. love you guys.

much love,

elder lamb

hey again

Sept. 26, 2011

hey, it was a slower week than last week, still good though. trevor was confirmed yesterday in sacrament meeting. bill made it to church again and he's still super cool. he's basically a part of the ward family. the lessons are still going great, we're learning things from him and he's liking what he hears about the book of mormon and the church. "so far it lines up with scripture". he's eating up his book of mormon cds too, last we heard he's halfway through alma. when he's done he plans on going through them again. so still doing good. we started working with a guy who struggles with alcohol and some other things. man oh man. life is hard without the gospel. the further away you go from it the harder it seems to get. the church is true. 'nuff said.

we were helping a member with some work at their farm. we were moving a huge pile of hay piece by piece (it was at least a couple of tons) so a lot of it got scattered. we found a snake slithering around underneath the piles we made so we called the dog over and he killed it.

it was like watching the discovery channel. this week elder lewis went to the temple for his one-year temple trip so i got to go on a day exchange over in the warren area. that's an area in the last district i was in, so it was cool seeing some of the same people and working with the elder who's still there again. we stopped by a lady in their ward who used to be a member of the RLDS church so it was neat to hear her story of how she ended up joining this church. someone in warren thought we were the ghostbusters, we had to explain we weren't but that they could still call us if they were interested.

the zone leaders told me i'm invited to a leadership meeting tomorrow for the next transfer. so i'm guessing i could be district leader again or training. not sure until transfer calls this week. so that's coming up soon.

general conference is here too. excited about that, general conf has been an even better experience for me since i've been out here. probably because i'm more focused on the gospel than i was pre-mission, also maybe a little because i don't fall asleep like i would back home ha. well have an awesome week guys. enjoy conference, invite friends if you find a good opportunity.

love,

elder lamb

the waters of burton

Sept. 19, 2011

hola! good things are happening in burton. to name a few: we had a baptism on saturday. trevor is a ten year old kid who we've been working with lately. his mom joined the church when she was younger but had been less-active for a while, but she's been active again and she's been bringing trevor along with her. because trevor had never been baptized we did what we could to help make it happen. they're awesome. it's been a good experience working with them too. their car was actually stolen in december so they get some help from members for rides to church activities. last week something happened where they missed their ride to church so we were bummed, but they surprised us by coming late because they decided to take the bus. that's dedication and faith. so that was great, elder lewis performed the baptism and i gave a talk at the baptism.

last week we stopped by an inactive family that lives pretty close to the church. they were happy to see us and instantly the two youngest daughters got pumped up because they really want to be baptized. they're ten years old too, twins, they're pretty hilarious. so we told them we'd help them out and get them baptized. one of the girls was scared because she doesn't like the water, so we invited them to come to trevor's baptism so they could see for themselves what it's like. so they came with their mom and their brother and she felt better about it then. but it was cool, the ward was happy to see them all there, so it was a miracle within a miracle. they came to church yesterday too. the mom knows that she needs to start coming to church every week for their baptism to happen, but she seems to really be ready to come back regardless. they recently had a house fire where most of the things were destroyed, but a picture of jesus they had hanging up on the wall wasn't damaged at all, even though everything around it was burnt or had smoke damage. the lord absolutely directs our lives if we let him.

we have some other sweet investigators we're working with right now. they're coming to church and their lessons lately are directed by the spirit. we'll show up with something planned to go over and somehow we spend the whole time talking about something different, but it's what was needed. that one investigator who's been coming to church in a wheel chair i've talked a little about is still doing good. he has dyslexia so we ordered him the book of mormon on cds. he listened to 2 hours worth the first day. he has some knowledge on the jewish culture and he's teaching us things about the book of mormon as well, he'll say something like that makes sense because...... it's very cool.

i went on an exchange with one of our zone leaders, who was in my first district. so that was a lot of fun working with him again, he's a solid missionary. we were in downtown pontiac for most of the day riding around on bikes. i haven't seen hills since i've been in michigan but that whole day we were riding up and down hills, morning till night. it was a much needed workout. my foot handled it fine too. my toes still don't curl all the way, but i can live with that.

out of time, thanks for being the best. happy be-lated birthday mom! hope it was great. love you guys,

elder lamb

Sept. 13, 2011

hey family

yesterday elder alan packer (president packer's son) came to tour the mission. he's in the first quorum of the seventy. it was a great experience. i was expecting it to be like a devotional or a general conference talk when a general authority speaks, it was a little different but still good. I got a lot out of it that I needed. elder packer wanted us to let our parents know that he is sincerely grateful for all of the sacrifices you make so that we can be out here doing the work. and i can't help but join him, this is hands down the best time of my life. i wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for your guys' help and i appreciate it. sean and i owe you big time.

things are good out here. there's a man who's coming to church each week. it's a sacrifice because he's old and has a lot of health problems and comes in a wheel chair. but he's definitely being led by the spirit. he says that before he dies he really feels like he wants to accomplish two things: 1) find out more about himself and 2) learn more about the mormon church. he has a very solid religious background, has two theological degrees, worked as a pastor for a bit of his life, and has had a ton of spiritual experiences in his own life and in bringing others closer to Christ. you meet people out here who have very religious backgrounds but aren't sincere or are too set in their ways or hard hearted even. but he seems really sincere. it's a lot of fun working with him. he's progressing sort of slowly right now, only because he has dislexia and can't get very into the BOM so he's waiting on his Book of Mormon on CD he's ordered. the only real hangup is he smokes a lot. but we're not exactly sure what to do with him because he says he has to for medical reasons. he has a nuerological problem that affects a few things in his life. and one of those things is he needs to smoke or he goes into seizures. a lot of doctors have tried to figure out how to take him off the cigarettes but each one ends up saying he should stay on the cigarettes. he says that he doesn't approve of people smoking in general and he wouldn't do it if he didn't have to. we've discussed that the lord will provide a way to keep any commandment, but it seems like he's pretty set on choosing smoking over his seizures. he quit once before for about a year but it was a pretty miserable experience and his doctors told him to go back to cigarettes.

i'm on an exchange right now with elder wenzel. he's solid, he and i were in the same district together when i first came out on the mish. so it's been fun working with him again. this morning we found this guy who's elect. we're in downtown flint. oh out of time. he's sweet though.

love you guys have a good week!

elder lamb

cds

Sept. 13, 2011

could i make a request for a christmas present? there are two cds that would make the rest of the mission, they're cool. one's called "A Hymn Revival" by Lower Lights. and the other is called "Nearer". that one is from various artists, not just one group. but they're hymns in a blue-grass/folk genre. maybe deseret would have them? please and thanks. love ya

foot update!

August 24, 2011

hey family, i'm really sorry i wasn't able to email you yesterday like i thought i would. we went to the library after transfers but there wasn't enough time for me to send an email out because i had to wait for a free computer and we had an appointment to make.

but here's the update. so i went into the doctor yesterday. bro chukwurah is our ward mission leader so that was nice being able to set up with him real quick. so elder p and i went to the hospital where his office is. i went to the x-ray office and they wanted to see if anything was inside my foot causing the infection. i mentioned in the last email that i thought i saw something the night before in the cut. well....there was definitely something in there. turns out there was (what looks like) a piece of copper wire, probably from an old coat hanger. it was about two inches long. insane. i guess i was walking around with that in my foot for about 3 weeks, i had no idea. so back in his office he ended up numbing my foot with some anesthetic, and then he made some incisions, about a cm long. i was awake for the whole thing, i couldn't feel any pain but it was sort of trippy being conscious for that. and once they made the cut big enough they pulled out the piece of metal. so as you could imagine, taking that out of my foot made a huge difference. immediately i could walk on my foot without crutches. and he wrapped my foot in some dressings, gave me a surgical shoe, told me to take it easy, gave me a prescription for another week's worth of the same antibiotics, and some ibuprofen if needed. i went in again today for him to follow up and he said it's coming along great. at this point i'm just waiting for the wound to heal. he didn't give me stitches or anything so i'm just waiting for it to close. things are good to go. and i really am taking it easy too, don't worry. we're not going out as often and spending more time at the apartment with my foot elevated.

as far as transfers go, president had me and elder p stay at home instead of coming to the meeting so i could get some rest. the hunsakers went and picked up elder p's new companion and brought him back to us. so the three of us are in a trio for a few days in roseville until i can get the ok from the doc to go to my new area. the new roseville missionary is someone who was in my MTC district so that's pretty fun. and my new area is called burton. it's by flint if anyone knows where that is. about an hour and a half north of here. my companion up there is in a trio with a different area waiting for me to come up. i don't know him but from what i hear he's cool and president says the area is great. i don't have the new address for the area so i'll put that in the email next week, i'm guessing i'll be up in burton in just a couple of days at the very latest.

so things are good, definitely on the up and up. i still don't understand how the metal ended up in my foot. i thought it was the nut cracker only because that was right there on the scene, i thought it had just hit the top of my foot hard enough to break skin and that the cut got infected by germs. turns out the lawn mower ran over a wire hanger or something and shot a piece of it through my shoe and up into my foot. i found a tiny hole in my shoe that the metal must have gone through, but i didn't notice it at first. it still seems like the odds are pretty stacked against the wire going through that hole and into where it penetrated, but it's the closest thing that adds up. that's what i get for trying to be wolverine, i should just stick to the hands next time. but really things are good, i'll keep taking it easy and follow the doctor's instructions. i'll definitely keep you posted. i'll also put some pics on real quick so you can get some good visuals.

the first pic is of my foot about a week after the injury, i just thought it was swollen at the time, didn't know there was a piece of metal in there because it was swollen. the next is of a blood blister that formed around the wound, not that serious just kind of gross to look at. the third is what my foot looks like now in my new surgical boot, not as comfy as ecco's but the velcro straps are stylin. the next one is of the piece of metal on my other foot about where it was underneath the skin. the last one is just another pic of the metal.

really crazy, i still can't believe i was walking around with that in my foot for three weeks. but things are good now, just healing. and i got a ton of help and care from the hunsakers. they're awesome. elder p and the two podiatrists in the ward and president and sister holmes helped out a lot too. so i was being taken care of, just some mix-ups with the whole process i guess. whatever, it's all good now. so that's the update, time to go. i'll talk to you again on monday. prob from the new area up in burton. 

have good weekend, love ya