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

The OC

July 30, 2012

New transfer! I'm here in Ypsilanti still, and my new companion is Elder Johnson from....Irvine, CA! Gotta love that OC spirit. He's great, I've served around him before, he was a district leader in the westland zone when i was a zone leader there. he and i know some of the same people too. and he has some good ideas for the zone that we'll feel out, he was a zone leader in the bloomfield hills zone for the past few months. and it's been a fun week, we've seen lots of good things happen. just yesterday a lady called us up and said she really needs spiritual guidance. it was a lady elder pedersen and i talked to about a month ago and gave her a card. when we taught her yesterday for the first time she had a lot of research done already on the mormon church and was ready to just soak in as much as we could give her. we had another experience where there was a lady helping her father, who was in his 80s and had dimensia, out of the car and he ended up collapsing on her and fell to the ground. we ran over from across the street and helped get him into the house. he seemed ok, we got him set up on his coach and helped her calm down. she said she had things under control, so we left her with a plan of salvation pamphlet and our phone number. it was pretty intense, very scary for her.

i think the highlight of the week was going to the temple. we went on saturday with elizabeth (baptized last saturday) and cyaira (baptized in may) to do temple baptisms. it was their first time going and it was a great experience. elizabeth probably set a new record for the quickest temple trip for a new member after their own baptism. the credit goes to the young women leaders in the ward, they jumped right on that and put together the trip for them. it was the first temple baptism trip i've been on since i've been out here too, we helped out with some of the ordinance work too.

i'm low on time, we went to help some people move this morning and we still have some things to do before 6 when p-day comes to a close. but life is good! hope everyone is doing good over there on the west side of the states. have a great day.

much love, elder lamb

July 23, 2012

Baptized and Baptized

Aloha.

Elizabeth and Mike were baptized! It was a great baptism service, the spirit was very strong. Elizabeth was in tears when she was standing in the font. And Mike was just so at peace for the whole thing. It has been an awesome experience working with them both. It seems like helping others learn about the gospel is also an experience to learn things yourself, and these two were no different. And just unbelievable miracles took place that anchored my own faith more in the Lord. This is His work, we just are helping Him.
The baptisms were absolutely the highlight of the week. And something much less significant, but still fun, was the baseball game we went to on Thursday. Angels vs Tigers. The Tigers won. Rachel and Kristena drove us and the Belleville Elders (Kristena was baptized in March and Rachel was baptized in June), so it was fun to go with them. And we ended up seeing a lot of other missionaries there.

So there are some pictures from the game and also of Mike and Elizabeth. They're the ones in the front of the picture in between Elder Pedersen and me. The two in the back are members of the ward who baptized them. Bro Higham has the beard and he's one of the ward missionaries, awesome guy. He helps us a lot with teaching and has become a good friend of Mike. And the man with the glasses is Cyaira's grandpa (who also baptized Cyaira in May). Elizabeth is a close friend of Cyaira and her family. And Elizabeth's mom is in the middle. And then there's also a bonus picture I threw in, it's me in Grinch footy pajamas. Swagger, huh?

That's about it I think for the week. The new transfer starts today. Elder Pedersen goes home tomorrow so I'll be getting a new companion. We're meeting up with some other missionaries and some members today to play some games at the church. It'll be a fun day. Elder P's doing good it seems like, still focused and having fun. Not too weirded out with going home.

Well gotta go, love you guys. Have a great week.
Love, Elder Lamb

upcoming baptisms

July 16, 2012

Hey,
This week was pretty awesome. Some great things happened. Things have come together for both Mike and Elizabeth to be baptized this upcoming saturday. I can't explain it all but miracles have just been taking place that has made everything possible. It's clear to see the Lord wants people baptized just as much, and more, than we do. He has been involved in these conversion processes throughout it all and without a doubt before the lessons even began. Much prayer and fasting, hard work, Elizabeth and Mike's own faith, and the Lord's divine intervention has made things possible. Experiences like this solidify my knowledge that the Lord is alive and involved in our lives. Whether we realize it or not - and when we realize it and turn to Him, He can and will do even more for us.

We had another awesome experience yesterday. One of our investigators texted us and told us he had some good news he wanted to share with us and his member friends whose house we teach him at sometimes. We went over for a lesson at the members' house and he told us he's been praying about baptism into the Mormon church and got his answer that he should! His name is Big Marcus. He's the man. We've been working with him for a few weeks and he's been thinking about baptism, saying he would if he got the answer to, and said that he hopes he gets that answer. And now he finally has that answer. So he's on date for a few weeks out from now. It was great, there was a great spirit in the lesson and we were all really happy for him, he was happy himself.

This is less miraculous but still exciting, but this week we're going to watch some baseball! We switched our preparation day from today to Thursday because we got tickets to see the Angels play the Tigers down in Detroit. Don't worry I'll root for the Angels. This will be the first game I've been to, and tickets were like 9 dollars I think. So that'll be fun. We still came in to do emails today but we're going out to teach once we're done.

I think that's about it for the week here in Ypsi. This is week 6 of the transfer and Elder Pedersen's last week of his mission. Crazy. We're going all out.

I hope you guys have a great week. Enjoy Batman and Spider-man.

Love,
Elder Lamb

July 9, 2012

like a fire is burning 

hotter than a mug. that's what they say in the D. I've never learned what mug really means, I've been told it means something pretty bad, but other people say it doesn't really mean anything. so maybe be careful who you say it around, but even the locals don't really know what it means so you're probably safe. but it has been hot. in the triple digits, and the humidity bumps the heat index up even higher. and if you remember from my last email, our AC had been off. It was off for about a little over a week. it took a few days for them to figure out what the problem was. it turns out my companyero did it. he kicked my sky ball you guys had sent me and it hit the thermostat and broke it off the wall. and in the chaos of all that the wires got fried so it wouldn't connect to the water heater. but they didn't know that at first and thought it was the water heater, so they replaced that, which meant they had to turn off the water for a about a day and a half. ha it was an adventure, but it's alright because it builds character. also, we went on two exchanges this week and i left the area each time :) but at any rate, it's all good in the hood! we got the AC back on on Friday morning during weekly planning.

and thanks for the package! the bacon chocolate was pretty neat, tasted a little strange, but very cool. and the shirt is awesome. hope you guys had a happy 4th and delaney i hope you had a bumpin' b-day! i can't believe you're 13! it sounds like you guys are having fun and keeping busy.

this week was pretty awesome.

Some major miracles happened. We've been teaching this awesome investigator for a few months now, she's very converted to the gospel. She's 16 and she's already planning on going on a mission one day. She has very close friends in the ward, she's the girl I've told you a little about who came up to us at Cyaira's baptism and told us she wants to get baptized. so we've been meeting with her regularly and she's been doing just awesome. her mom is a really nice lady and has been sitting in on a lot of the lessons and has been really supportive in driving her to church each week and lessons and mutual. she's been holding off on giving her daughter permission to be baptized until December to make sure she'll have enough time to learn everything and to see if she's really committed to it all. So we've just been teaching and helping her regardless of when she's getting baptized, and we've been doing a lot of praying. And we even fasted with Elizabeth (the daughter) and some other members in the ward this past Fast Sunday. And then last night her mom texted us asking us what would have to take place to prepare for her baptism if she was to give her permission to be baptized this month. And then Elizabeth texted us today telling us she's getting baptized on July 21st! That is in every sense of the word a miracle. Only the Lord could have directed this situation from where it was to where it is now.

And then another miracle took place yesterday at church. We're working with another awesome guy who's on date for baptism also. The ward has been really helpful with rides and fellowship, he doesn't have a car right now. It hasn't been the easiest situation for him in meeting with us also, some of his roommates are giving him a hard time and his mom has been a little upset with him too. But yesterday in sacrament meeting he got a text saying his mom is going to just give him her car. Miracle!

So it's been an awesome week. I barely remember the heat. Things are good. There was an area in our zone shut down a couple weeks ago so we went to clean out the apartment today with some other missionaries and then went to lunch at a place in downtown Ann Arbor called Krazy Jim's Blimpie Burger. It was good, really greasy. It's been on the food network or some sort of show like that.

Gotta go. Have a great week everybody.

Here's a cool quote. "Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his face is to us." - President Ezra Taft Benson.

Much love,

Elder Lamb

July 9, 2012

I haven't heard a word about my return date yet. Elder Pedersen goes home in about two weeks and he told me that his family got the itinerary info a few weeks ago. So you'll prob get it about 4-6 weeks before I come home. So you'll probably find out the date sometime in October?

July 2, 2012

Happy 4th!

This week was warm. Which didn't help when our AC stopped working a few days ago. So my blankets are a thing of the past. We're going to figure it out with the maintenace man hopefully today. He's a cool guy. He gives us spiritual thoughts whenever we see him. He's an elder himself, ordained when a local bishop layed his hands on his head, just from a different church...and so a different authority. Awesome guy though. We gave him a Book of Mormon a few months ago. Nothing has come of it yet. But one day it'll happen!

We went to the mission fireside this week and brought one of our investigators. His name's Big Marcus, he's a close friend of an awesome family in the ward. We've been working with him for a few weeks now. He seemed to get a lot out of the fireside. There were some great recent convert testimonies. And at the fireside I saw a kid named Esclon who I was teaching the whole 6 months I was in Roseville. Awesome kid, he's 17 now, just never had a way to get to church. That was all he ever needed to get baptized. Knew the church was true the whole time, just never could get to church and his family wasn't very interested. So I haven't seen him in almost a year and I saw him this past Thursday, and he told me he was getting baptized the upcoming Saturday. So he got baptized this weekend! That was a tender mercy to be able to talk to him there a few days before his baptism. You never know when someone's going to accept the gospel and eventually enter into that covenant, we just have to keep planting and nurturing those seeds.

This week should be fun. We're going to a BBQ on the 4th at the institute building down in Ann Arbor. Our district is putting it together so all of those missionaries will be there with hopefully a ton of investigators and recent converts. We've got a few people planning on coming from our area already.

That's about it for the week. Have a fun 4th! The missionary handbook says we can't play with fireworks so set off a ton of extra ones for me, the more the better :) 

have a great week, love you guys

elder lamb

June 25, 2012

general authorities in ann arbor:

Good morning :) how was new york? did you spot any celebrities? i hope you all had fun. and happy almost anniversary mom and pops!

this week we had elder per g. malm from the 2nd quorum of the seventy come out to tour the mission. he came to speak to us when i was at the mtc too, and i was looking through my notes from both meetings and it turned out he shared a lot of the same stories each time i saw him speak. but that's not to complain, this meeting was awesome. he's an awesome man. he's from sweden, he's pretty funny and at the same time there's no doubt he takes his calling very seriously. he talked about personal accountability and integrity and about acting in faith. pretty typical topics, but i got a lot out of it that i needed. it was probably the most revelatory experience i've taken away from a mission meeting, which is saying a lot because they're always jam packed with the spirit and give you an awesome boost of momentum. it was a blessing having him come, no doubt he's a very inspired and righteous man. just talking with him and especially when you look into his eyes you can tell he's called by God.

things are still good here in ypsi, we're staying busy. we've been improving our finding and we've found some awesome people we've already had a couple powerful lessons with. and we're still working with elizabeth who is still doing incredibly well. she's the friend of cyaira who came up to us after her baptism telling us she wanted to be baptized. she's pretty much been taught everything but her mom is still wanting her to wait a while before she's baptized so we're just helping her build her faith even more at this point. her mom's not a member of the church, so it's understandable to be a little cautious. but she's doing great, the ward loves her and it seems like her yw leaders are really impressed with her. she and kristena both went to youth conference this weekend and really liked it. they're both planning on going to young womens' camp this summer too.

weather's really nice today. we might play some volleyball with a couple other companionships and some members. we might go get some lunch with some other missionaries too. should be a good week coming up.

have a great week and enjoy your summer. hit up the beach for me if you can :)

love, elder lamb

June 18, 2012

new couch:

Happy Father's Day dad! Hopefully the girls made you breakfast in bed or something nice like that. It's probably even cooler to have breakfast in bed made for you when you're vacationing in New York City. Jay-Z would approve. Hope you guys are having a fun trip. If you get a chance and if you're in the mood for burgers, you should try a place called the Shake Shack. Have fun :)

This week has been good. We got a couch the other day from the smiths. We were ecstatic. Missionaries still haven't been in this apartment for very long so really the only furniture it's had are some wooden chairs and our beds. Not to complain, other missionary apartments might even have less, but it's been nice to have this couch. The bad part about all this is that Elder pedersen set his glasses and name tag down in our hallway when we were moving the couch up the stairs, and when we came back out they were gone. someone must have snagged them. sort of a bummer. he likes the couch a lot though, so we're not too upset.

this week elder per g. malm of the seventy is coming to tour the mission. he spoke at the mtc when i was there, he's a cool guy from sweden. that's tomorrow and that will be fun. this week we found a lot of new people and we're feeling good about this new transfer. there are a lot of good things going on. we're so blessed to have the restored gospel of jesus christ in our lives. we have it so good. the more we immerse ourselves in the gospel, the happier we are. the gospel life really is the good life.

love you guys a lot. have a great week in the city!

love,

elder lamb

June 11, 2012

new transfer:

hola! how's everyone doing? makenzie's prob pretty pumped, congrats on making it through high school. have fun at your graduation this thursday! everyone's out of school out here i think. this week is the first week of the nex transfer. elder pedersen and i are both staying here in ypsi. this is his last transfer too, so we're going all out. i guess we're suppose to go all out every transfer anyways, but regardless we're going hard these next 6 weeks.

something new that's going on out here is there's a new senior couple in the ward. they're here for 18 months, they were called to work in the singles ward that meets in the same building and with the institute program, but they also agreed to help out the ypsi ward. so we're pumped, they're going to be a lot of help for some people we're working with. they're names are elder and sister tingey. they're cool. a highlight of the week was that we took kristena tracting. by the way, kristena found the link to this blog somehow, so if you're reading this kristena, stop creeping on my blog :) jk, you can keep reading. but as i was saying, we went tracting with kristena one day in her neighborhood to give her a little sample of the missionary life. we actually didn't get very far because we told her that tracting is what we do when members don't invite their friends to meet with us, and so she called up her friend who actually lived on that street and he said we could come by and teach him. we haven't heard back from him since, but it was a neat experience. kristena also spoke in sacrament meeting this week, she told her experience of starting to meet with the missionaries and working towards baptism. it was prob the best talk i've heard in sacrament meeting in a while. everyone was paying attention and the whole ward was feeling the spirit really strong. i wouldn't be lying if i told you i ALMOST got a little teary eyed. but just almost.

things are great though. it's al ittle rainy today, we were thinking about playing some ultimate at the church with some other missionaries and members but we'll see. i think that's about it for the week. that's about it for time though.

by the way, word is spreading that i was on yo gabba gabba. pssh i feel for elder david archiletta.

love you guys. thanks for all you do. keep being a great example to me and everyone else around you. the church is true!

love, elder lamb

Rachel = baptized!

Aloha. This week was pretty crazy. Lots of good things and lots of less than good things happening. The rough parts weren't anything to be worried about though. We just had some rough experiences with investigators. You probably remember me telling you about the guy calling us up a few weeks ago saying he wanted to be baptized. There really was only one thing that could have gone wrong, and it ended up happening this week. When he was meeting with missionaries a few months ago, he was set for baptism but he had some complications with his girlfriend, and then some more issues came when she left him. That's basically what ended his contact with the missionaries. And when he called us up about a month ago, all of that was out of the picture. but a few days ago, from out of nowhere she came back into the picture, and we've lost contact with him since. his baptism was set for this weekend coming up. so that was a big disapointment this week for sure. but hey, the church is still true.

and the work rolls forward. this week Rachel was baptized! woot woot. it was great. it has been a very humbling experience to work with Rachel at times. i've probably told you a little about her, i think we talked about her on the phone on mother's day. but if you remember kristena who was baptized a couple months ago (kristena had lost her parents in the car crash), rachel is a close friend of kristena and that family. so rachel had always sat in on our lessons with kristena because there's always a ton of people at the house. after kristena's baptism, we asked rachel what her thoughts have been about everything that had been happening and what we had been talking about. she said she felt like it was from god and wanted to strengthen her relationship with God, but didn't think her family would be very supportive. but the turning point was when kristena spoke at a mission fireside last month about her conversion story, rachel was really inspired. and the next time we went over, she had told us that she told her mom she wants to get baptized. her family was not happy. they basically disowned her and kicked her out of the house (she's 21). so it was rough, it broke her heart, but incredibly she never let it slow her down. she knew what she wanted and was going for it. it was faith-building for me to see, and i'm sure it only solidifies everything for kristena's own testimony and the rest of the family. it was a great baptism service, and she asked me to do the confirmation yesterday in sacrament meeting. that was my first time doing a confirmation. it was very special.

so all things considered it was a great week. another highlight was that i went to young womens this week for the 3rd hour of church. we're still working with elizabeth (she's the girl who came up to us at the end of cyaira's baptism and said she wants to be baptized), she's doing incredibly well. but she wanted someone to stay with her in young womens to help her get to know some more of the girls. so elder barfuss and i went with her (he's from the other companionship in the ward). it was weird. i felt out of place. i felt....pretty? nevermind. it was weird though.

well that's about it for the week. hope everyone's doing great. don't forget to read your scriptures and say your prayers every day!

much love,

elder lamb

bugs up my nose

May  29, 2012

Happy Memorial Day! The libraries were closed yesterday so we didn't get to email right away. Hopefully everyone had a good time, maybe set off some fireworks even? We celebrated by having a barbeque with the other missionaries in our district. We went to a park in the sisters' apartment complex. We played a lot of volleyball. It's been too long. And I only got a little sunburned.

This week was good. We had a fireside and Dan and Rachel both came. They're working towards baptism real soon. Rachel this weekend coming up and Dan the following week. They both really enjoyed it. And I saw a few familiar faces from other areas. Remember Bill from when I was over in Flint? "The old baptist minister" as he likes to refer to himself as. He's the guy who would come to church in a wheelchair and had the issue with giving up smoking before his baptism who smoked for health reasons. He was there. And so was Laura who we baptized in Plymouth. She was baptized by Lil' Wayne if you remember seeing the pic. She's doing awesome right now. She told me she's been called as a Single Adults Rep, and she's tearing it up as would be expected. So it was neat to see them both as well as other missionaries you don't get to see very often. Things are going great. The weather's been warm and humid, it's been raining a little too. And we've been out of miles as the month has come to a close so we've been biking a lot. We rode through about 5 minutes of bugs one night, big swarms of something were hitting our faces, I ate a few and some definitely went up my nose. A highlight this week was when I was on an exchange in a town called Brighton and we did some yard work on a pretty big farm property. I got to use a sit-down lawn mower for the first time. It was awesome. It was the kind you steer with the two levers you push out and pull in. I did a couple donuts and picked up some good speed. Too bad we don't have enough lawn back home to use one of those things.

This week is zone conference so we have to put together an instruction in the next couple days. we have a few good ideas so far. we'll probably be instructing on retention. john 15: and we heard we're getting a senior couple in the ypsilanti ward to also help out with the singles ward. senior couples are awesome, i'm excited. we haven't met them yet but they're always the coolest people. 

well that's about it.

have a great week and keep being awesome. thanks for everything.

much love, elder lamb

humidity's coming, dripsy in ypsi

May 21, 2012

Hey there. Hey happy birthday dad and makenzie! it sounds like you guys had fun celebrating. even though i wasn't there, i was thinking of you guys on your b-days. hope everything was great and that you got a bunch of cool gifts!

Here's the picture from Cyaira's baptism last week. That's her and her family. Elder Davis got permission to come up for the baptism, so you'll prob recognize him because he's so tall. It was a neat experience. I don't remember if I talked about it last week, but at the baptism Cyaira's friend came up to us and said she wants to be baptized. she's been coming to church every once in a while for years. her and her family is really tight with cyaira's family, and she told us she's been wanting to be baptized for a while and feels like now's the time. so we've been working with her all week and she's just cruising along. she's loving the book of mormon and it all means a lot to her. her mom isn't interested in having formal lessons right now, but we've had a couple good discussions with her and her mom, and the mom is very supportive. she's willing to give rides when for lessons and church and mutual. very exciting, she's awesome and will be baptized in the next couple weeks.

another miracle that happened this week was with a guy named dan. last monday we got a call from him saying he used to meet with missionaries a few months back and wants to get back on track. we saw him the next day for an appointment and before we really even introduced ourselves he said, "i know the church is true, i know joseph smith is a prophet, and i want to be baptized, and i think i can be ready in 3 weeks." whoa. i felt like i was in a dream. he's incredible. a few months back he was working towards baptism and was coming out to church regularly, but some things came up that knocked him off track. but last week he got the feeling he needed to call up the missionaries and get back on track. it's cool because he knows a lot of the members already so it's really just a matter of picking back up the momentum. so we've been working with him all last week too and he's planning on a baptism a few weeks out.

the lord has been pouring down some incredible blessings recently, and it's been fun, but it's also humbling. i feel like i have to live up to the responsibilities that He's given us that come with the blessings. i don't remember the reference, but there's a part in the book of mormon where king benjamin is talking about how we'll always be in debt to God. we try to please him to return the love he's shown us already, but when we please him he pours down even more blessings. but i think he's less concerned with that debt we owe him and more concerned with us just being happy. god is good, and the gospel life is the good life.

but michigan life isn't always the good life, it's starting to get humid.

well gotta go. love you guys lots. have a great week.

elder lamb

Cyaira's baptism!

May 14, 2012

Hey! Long time no talk! It was great talking to you guys yesterday, it just wasn't long enough. But November will be here quicker than we know it. Crazy. I forgot my usb chord for my camera, so i'll make sure i send you a pic from the baptism next Monday. But the baptism yesterday went great. The dad ended up coming out and it seemed like he was touched by the experience and the Spirit that was present. You could tell that Cyaira's whole family was feeling the Spirit and that the baptism meant a lot for them. There was a lot of people there from the ward too, Cyaira's been part of the ward for a while so even on Mother's Day it ended up being a packed house. She had some of her non-member friends there, and after the baptism one of them came up to us with Cyaira and said she wants to be baptized. Talk about a blessing falling from heaven. The girl's mom was there and we talked to her and she's really supportive about it too. So we're teaching her on Wednesday.

I still feel sick, but it is what it is. What's ridiculous is I was just telling Elder Pedersen a few days ago that I've never been sick on my mission. Then out of nowhere - boom - i get hit with something. What I should have said was I've never baptized 500 people on my mission and let that happen instead. I'll try it today and keep you posted. Today we'll probably run a few errands and just take it easy. We might play some basketball with the Belleville Elders but I might end up taking a nap as they all play. I've been against naps so far out here though so we'll see.

Yesterday at church a lady we found in Plymouth who was baptized with her son the week after I left was visiting some friends in the Ypsilanti Ward. So that was neat to see the two of them doing good still going strong. And I already told you that Jacob Foster was in our ward yesterday too with his sister. Small world. I've seen Morgan and the Scotts, who knows who I'll run into next.

Oh so last week we started teaching the boyfriend of a recent convert in the ward. We had a good lesson with them last Sunday and put him on date to be baptized. He was already thinking about getting baptized into another church at the end of the summer, but we put him on date for a day halfway through June to be baptized as a Latter-day Saint instead. I think something we said really inspired him because he actually ended up getting baptized yesterday in his church. Not quite what we were hoping for, but still exciting in a way.... Ha but we're still going to be working with him, that might have just been the warm-up round.

So things are good out here in Ypsi. Still having fun and working hard. Today I should be sending two boxes of winter clothes to you guys. You can unpack them if you'd like but it's not anything important so you can also just leave them all in the boxes and I can figure out what to do with it all when I get home. The weather's nice today. It feels like a California summer right now. A little breezy but still warm. The humidity hasn't kicked in yet but it'll be here soon. Oh boy.

Have a great week. Love you guys.

Elder Lamb

so cal fiesta

New transfer. My new comp is Elder Pedersen from Yucaipa, that's near Riverside down in sweet southern California. but you guys know that because you all were there for youth conference. so it's nice to be serving with someone who appreciates an In-N-Out burger and hanging out at the beach. don't worry it's not so nice that it makes us homesick or makes us lose our focus. he actually only has two transfers left so he'll probably stay here until he heads home, which means i'll probably take off after this transfer or be here for a few more months because they usually don't white wash an area like that. it's weird to think in short chunks of time like this.

we've had a great first week of the transfer. some awesome miracles have happened with people we're working with. we're having a baptism this sunday actually, so i'll tell you more about that when we talk on the phone. i'm excited to talk to you guys too! makenzie and delaney look grown up too so who knows if they're even the same people anymore. i'll find out on sunday when i ask them. i don't have a ton to say today, but life is good. i love the gospel and i love the Lord. i'm still figuring things out myself and will be forever, but without a doubt i have learned some valuable things out here. the Lord pours blessings down when we serve Him and others. But my favorite part about all this is that so many of God's children get to find more happiness and peace in their lives. it's not my doing, it's the Lord's, but it is a humbling experience to be able to go out and represent Him. i love the gospel, the Church is true! have a great week.

much love,
elder lamb 

April 30, 2012

all straightened out

Baptisms! Here's a pic of Kristena's baptism a few weeks back, I never sent that to you. The other pic is from Saturday night. A lot of people dressed in white. I don't know if I've said much about the family we've been working with, but the whole experience with them so far has been incredible. My first day in the area, 6 weeks ago tomorrow, a member pointed out a kid walking by as we were driving back from transfer meetings. She said the kid is a member but his family hasn't been active, so we decided we'd start working with them as soon as we figured out more about them. Then later that same night, our ward mission leader called us and said he just stopped by a family he had just been assigned to do home teaching for and that the mom wanted a couple of her children baptized. So we've been working with this family the whole time, meeting with everyone, not just the two girls working towards baptism. There's 8 children total and the mom is single and under a lot of pressure working to provide for the family. A great lady. The mom is working on Sundays but some of the members of the ward have just been incredible in getting the children to church and mutual and other activities. And the baptism ended up happening this weekend. Something else that's pretty neat in the whole orchestration of things is that another set of missionaries in the zone felt inspired to stop by a less active man and they were able to start working with him, and as it turned out he had two sons he wanted to be baptized. And then somewhere in the teaching process of these two families, we found out this man and this lady were divorced a while back, and one of the girls we had been preparing for baptism goes to his house on the weekends. The dynamics are pretty complicated. But we team-taught this girl with the other set of elders. And yesterday her, her younger sister, and the two sons of the dad were all baptized! So the girl standing in front of me in the picture is the older sister, the one who switched between the two other elders and us, Elder Davis baptized her. The younger girl standing in the very front is her sister and I baptized her. The two little boys are obviously the brothers. And then the guy in front with the facial hair is another cool guy who was baptized by another set of Elders in that ward, a cool guy. But it was a great baptism. Just an awesome family who has come a long way in the past 6 weeks. More good things to come for them too.

So other big news, the transfer's over. Elder Davis is peacing out. He's going back to the Spanish branch down in Detroit, he's a Spanish Elder so he's pretty pumped to go back "home". It was a power transfer, a pretty dynamic duo we had going. But good things are in store for the next 6 weeks for sure. We're working with a lot of great people right now.

I think that's about it for the week. Today we're running a few errands and Elder Davis is packing up. We got haircuts from a lady in the ward this morning and helped some other members pack up a trailer to move out. It's raining today. Oh this week we stopped by a member family for a dinner appointment and we found out that the wife is a chiropractor. She offered to do a quick adjustment afterwards for either of us and I couldn't resist. My hip had actually been bothering me for a few days after tweaking it in basketball one morning. I ended up getting an adjustment on my back from the wife, apparently my lower back was pretty tight and I had a rib that was out of place. One of my legs was longer than the other too? I didn't even know that could happen, she showed her husband and Elder Davis and they said it was a good inch or two of a difference. She's done chiropracting for Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Anniston, and a couple other stars when she worked in Hollywood. Now I feel like a star.

That's about it around here. Have a great week.

Much love, Elder Lamb