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