hello

hey, not a lot of time. we're going to the temple this thursday as a district, so we have a normal proselyting day today. but it was another good week in ypsilanti. i got to go on an exchange with elder davis, my 6 foot 8 friend who i served with here in ypsilanti back in march. he is a missionary stud, and it was fun having the duo back for the day. and it was an incredible exchange, a lot of miracles in finding and teaching. he and i have a good companero vibe.

and big marcus and mike both received the priesthood! i almost got to ordain big marcus, he asked me to because his buddy who baptized him wasn't at church at first, but we called him up and he came down and was able to do it. i would have loved to do it, but what matters is that he got it. both of them! and we're planning on going to the temple this friday to do baptisms with them and a couple of other recent converts. we also have zone leader council meeting on friday morning. and it's the last week of the transfer. so it's going to be a wild week. i'm not saying i'm feeling like i'm going to get transferred, but i HAVE been in ypsilanti for 6 months now....just pointing it out.

but it was a great week. we have 7 people committed to a date at the moment, and we're finding some awesome new people. and the awesome people who were recently baptized are still awesome. this week we gave elizabeth a preach my gospel (she's wanting to go on a mission one day) and we had her teach us the plan of salvation. she's got the skills, and the spirit. and really everyone is doing great in their own ways.

it's fun.

love ya guys, have a great week,

elder lamb

knock, knock, knockin on ypsi's do-o-ors

Sorry for leaving you hanging on the email last week. I was sabotaged by the computer timer. And I actually don't have much time today either. Our ward mission leader brother jensen, awesome guy, is taking us and the belleville elders to the Henry Ford Museum. And we're meeting him in just a little bit. I've been before, but it's a neat place. I've taken pictures of most of the cool stuff, but I'll see if I can still find some good pictures to send you guys. Our preparation days have been busy ever since I've come to Ypsi, and the next few weeks of this transfer are just as busy. Next week we're going to the temple with our district, and the week after that we're having a zone activity. It'll be a lot like the one Elder Adamson and I put together in Westland - ultimate frisbee, dodgeball, and other games at our stake center. So mission's are both fulfilling and fun!

This week was great, we got to do more finding than we have been in a couple of weeks. We've been pretty busy with teaching that it's been hard to find. Which is a good problem to have, but you start to hunger after those tracting sessions, believe it or not. Not to mention all of the strange experiences that can come from tracting, it's like russian rullet (sp?) because you never know what will happen on the other side of the door. Just the other day a guy came to the door with a pistol. He calmed down when he found out who we were. Wasn't interested though. We've had some really neat experiences in finding this past week too, where the Spirit whispers to us where we need to start knocking doors. There was one experience a couple of days ago, we had no idea where we needed to go but we eventually ended up on a street and felt that it was the right place. I was thinking about which side we should start tracting and the first thought I had was to knock on the right side of the street. But then I noticed that the left side had three or four times as many cars parked out in front - so it made sense to me that we should go down this side where there would clearly be many more people to talk to. But just to be sure, I tried to discern between the two and decided on the first impression to tract the side with less cars. Then we started our tracting session off with a prayer, and after the prayer I felt the confirmation that the thought to tract the right side was definitely a prompting. And sure enough, we tracted into an awesome guy. We were lead to him for a reason. It's neat to see that the Lord really will do all things to help us if we give Him the chance to speak and if we trust in His directions.

This week I went on an exchange with Elder Clark, my son! He just came into the Ann Arbor Zone this transfer. I've seen him at meetings every once in a while but it was the first time I've really worked with him since his days of being trained in Burton. It was fun being his companion again for a day or so. Crazy that was almost a year ago. He's been out of Burton for a while too now, but he was just on the phone with another missionary serving there and got an update on Bill.

Remember Bill? He's the "old time Baptist preacher" as he'd call himself, who we were working with for a long time and ended up getting baptized. He's the guy who had that issue with smoking that Pres Holmes had to figure out with the area authorities. But Bill the old time Baptist preacher is now a Mormon priest! He's been a Mormon for a while now, but he just got the Aaronic Priesthood apparently. That man is incredible.

Well out of time. But have a grrrrreat week! Love ya guys!
Elder Lamb




(sorry this was from last week, but the computer logged me off before i could send it)

Hey family,
This week was busy. We had two days of Specialized Training. Elder Johnson and I gave an instruction on planning, it turned out pretty good. The meetings were awesome. I don't know if I've talked much about President Holmes' spiritual guru skills, but he's got them. Every time he instructs it's powerful. He has taught me things on my mission that have changed my life. He's so in tune with the Spirit and he understands complex things and can break them down so simply, and he understands what I have always considered to be simple things and expounds on them in ways I've never even known how to think about doing. Aka, he's the man. He gave some great instructions this week on faith, on receiving the spirit, the week before he instructed on zion at our zone leader council meeting. Good stuff.

I'm low on time with the computer's timer so i'll be brief. today we're having our district activity, we're going to the institute to play ping pong and other games. that'll be fun. we also have to plan for another meeting coming up, zone training meeting, it's new, it should be fun.

this week was a good week. big marcus was confirmed yesterday. we're trying to get everyone to the temple really quick for the first time so that's our next step for these awesome people we're working with.

Big Marcus's Big Baptism!

First of all.. Happy B-day Arin! (here's your shoutout) Enjoy your day, have fun, make Sean take you roller blading or something awesome like that :)

Yesterday Big Marcus was baptized! It was great. There was a lot of ward support, people love that guy. And the Belleville elders (the other companionship in the ward) baptized a lady and her daughter who they had been working with for a while. So it was an exciting day for the Ypsilanti Ward. It was a good program. Big Marcus was baptized by his friend Boone who's in the ward. Boone and his family played a big role in helping Marcus get to this point so it was neat to have Boone be the guy to do the job. And it was extra exciting to watch since Boone is a pretty small guy compared to Marcus as you can see from the picture ;)

Marcus' mom isn't a member and hasn't been interested in taking any formal discussions but came to the baptism and seemed to enjoy everything. Earlier in the week, Marcus told us he was interested in going on a mission maybe. That was awesome, we were PUMPED. And then at church after the baptism program he asked his mom what she thought about him going on a mission one day, she said she'd have no problem supporting him. Look out Babylon! That was so sweet to hear! He's 18 now so it won't be long. He's a good guy, a good example for myself. I'm excited for him.

I don't even remember what all happened this week. We had zlcm (zone leader council meeting) at the mission home, that was a great meeting. and the missionary program is starting a new meeting church-wide called Zone Training Meeting. We still don't know how it'll play out exactly, but it basically is a big zone-wide district meeting for those of you who know what a district meeting is. but we have it once a month after zlcm to relay a lot of training ideas that were discussed at zlcm to the rest of the missionaries. and it's different than a zone conference because president and the assistants don't come and put the meeting together, it's basically put together and ran by the zone leaders. so elder johnson and i are putting that together in a couple weeks, we'll figure it out....probably :) we're also putting together a zone activity this transfer. so we're keeping busy. i'm starting to appreciate "being busy" more, the days of looking forward to sitting around and relaxing are starting to fade away and i'm starting to be ok with that. which is good as long as i don't burn myself out. but the Lord gives us strength out here if we want it. but don't be surprised if i come home and take a big nap for a few days.

Things are still good out here in Ypsi. We have specialized training tomorrow and thursday, so elder johnson and i are putting together an instruction all day today.....on something. we're at square one right now so we'll pray for guidance. so that's what our p-day is looking like right now. hope you guys are having a great week and having fun.

love ya,

elder lamb

"How could a person possibly become what he is not thinking? Nor is any thought, when persistently entertained, too small to have its effect.  The “divinity that shapes our ends” is indeed in ourselves, It is one’s very self."                                            -Spencer w. Kimball