super short

Sept. 5, 2012

Hola.

Really low on time. We're walking out the door now. But real quick update:

New transfer this week. I'm serving in the Livonia North area with my homie Elder Davis. We're reunited. So pumped. And he and I are the assistants to President Holmes. So things are very busy. We have to get going to drop off some departing missionaries.

But the church is true! And I'm jealous you got to see the Aquabats. They're super rad.

love ya,
elder lamb

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

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