April 21, 2014 He Is Risen!

Happy Easter!  It sounds like you guys had fun, and I had a wonderful holiday.  I completed the talk President Young asked us to do on the Atonement and turned it in Sunday on time (it was semi last minute but I guess that's just how I roll).  But it was wonderful to write.

On Saturday morning we performed our song, I Heard Him Come, at the ward Easter breakfast, and it went pretty good.  Elder Rushton and I recorded it without the piano and the sisters and we may possibly put it up on Facebook, but if not I'll just send one to you.

That night we had Elder Rushtons b-day party since we pretty much knew he was getting transferred, we went with our WML and the sisters to a mexican place then to an amazing little dessert cafe called Sweet Life.  Before that though we had gotten the transfer call and Elder Rushton was assigned to White City (I was soooooooo excited having been there and I made him a big long list of everyone he has to see) and my companion will be Elder Carroll who is descended from James Franklin Carroll which means we're related!  He was in my district in Corvallis.  He's awesome, I'm excited.  But sad for Elder Rushton.  He's gone and I'm waiting with some other missionaries.

Sunday's Easter program was awesome, we sang in the choir, then we just said bye to some people and packed the rest of the night.  We were up till 1:00..............  Normal life that was hard enough, but as a missionary it's terrible.  Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Life is good.  The Hendersons are still coming to church and Tara is still investigating.  They could both use your prayers though.  And we really need prayers that we'll find new people to teach.  But I love this area, it's great.  Tons of missionary potential.

I don't have my iPad right now which is my new brain in lieu of paper planners, so I KNOW there's something else I have to say but I can't think of what it is...  I did have some pictures to send you but those will have to wait.

I decided to send you my talk one segment at a time.  I'm not sure why I segmented it like this but I did.  Let's just say it's not a talk I would probably give in Sacrament Meeting, it's actually specifically for President Young.  It's definitely quite disjointed but I wrote from my heart and that's what counts. :) The first segment is definitely a little depressing, but it gets better!

I.

In darkness I walk, helpless and alone. The flames of the world led me
here, promising gold, but I find nothing. I heeded their siren song,
even though in my heart I knew the words were wrong.

"A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death,
without any order, and where the light is as darkness." Job 10:21-22

I hear a voice. "Come unto Christ. Because of Him, the chains of
despair are broken in pieces. Light may break forth to fill the
immensity of space, all the stars of the cosmos may sing together, and
all mankind may rejoice."

My heart swells with joy, can I truly be freed from this obscene dark
prison? I hasten towards the sound of the voice, I keep running, but I
see no one.

The mists in front of me begin to swirl like the fire that led me
here. My progress slows as I become mesmerized by the dark psychedelic
shapes. My soul longs for the promised light, but my heart is still
chained by darkness. My feet wander away.

The mists leave me in agony of despair. I do not notice their absence
until I hear the voice again. "Because of Him, I can begin again, and
again."

I knew the words were for me. With weakening limbs I arise, and
continue my search.

Love you sooooo!

Elder Georgia

April 14, 2014 Defying Gravity (FYI - some of these titles are from the Broadway musical "Wicked"-he's a fan)

My Dear Family,

Oh, how I love thee. 

So the weather here has been gorgeous, the rain has decided to vacation in Alaska or something, which has been quite nice for us. I haven't got much time, thanks so much for your nice long e-mails to me. 

This week we taught Tara and Elizabeth an awesome lesson, Tara is continuing to ponder on what we teach and considers joining. When she tells people hat Elizabeth was baptized they freak out and become concerned for her and give her all this anti-ness but Tara has become pretty confident that we will always have reasonable answers that make perfect sense. 

Teaching the Hendersons is going well also, we've gotten the Sisters much more involved to connect better with the 12 year old girl. We're going to be performing a musical number, "I Heard Him Come," at the Easter Breakfast this Saturday and we haven't even practiced yet! Yay! 

I loved your story mom. Oh and mom, I was wrong about Henrie, he lives in New Mexico. 

And you're the boss of your conference so you can do whatever you want, but Bro. Marks would be good. ♪( ´▽｀) 

Gotta go defy gravity! 

Love, Elder Georgia

April 8, 2014 "Delighting in Fatness"

Dear homefolk,

Oregon spring is the best! So many flowers and joyfulness! And it's in
the 70's right now. So gorgeous. We had interviews yesterday so today
became p-day which is why I'm e-mailing today.
Conference was absolutely incredible. My most favoritest talk was
President Uchtdorf's from Sunday morning where he told us of the power
of gratitude and talked about eternity. So amazing. Elder Oak's talk
in Priesthood about priesthood and the authority of women was very
well said, and all three of the first presidency messages were awesome
in that session. I loved Elder Bednar's, and the 70 I can't remember
who talked about his wife jumping from the truck. We watched every
session of conference in a different place. Saturday morning was our
ward mission leader, afternoon was at pop's place, priesthood session
at a church building in the Springfield stake that happens to be
closer to us than our own building, then the DeGraws who drove us
there took us to a burger place. Sunday morning we had breakfast at
the DeGraws and watched the session, then last session was at the
Hendersons and I made them bacon cinnamon rolls!
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

This week was grood, I can't remember if I told you about Jean, and my
iPad deleted my old sent emails, so we met Jean a few weeks ago
tracting before dinner, she was just next door to the members we were
eating with. She was an immediate, thanks but I have my own church,
but we offered service, gave her our number, said a prayer with her.
After the prayer she randomly volunteered the info that she had a
grandson who was a Mormon, who had even served a mission. She was
warming up to us. (^_−)−☆ so a few days later we got a call from jean
(who is a little old lady I should say) and she asked if we could
de-moss her roof for her. No one ever actually calls! This is not the
first time I have done this same job as you may recall. I'm quite the
expert now. So we borrowed some tools from her neighbor and got to
work, but this moss turned out to be a very devious and vicious
variety, so we called up the sisters and they came to help. It still
took two different sessions and about six hours total to get it done.
She was very grateful, and asked what she owed us (they always do),
she didn't become a new investigator, but it was good contact and she
has her Mormon neighbors to keep on her. It was fun.

Teaching and stuff is good, we need to find new investigators.

In case you've been wondering, the pad has all these foreign keyboards
and I got this Japanese one that makes those awesome faces.
ヽ(￣д￣;)ノ=3=3=3

Eternally love,
Elder Georgia

March 31, 2014 Dancing Through Life

Dear Familia,

This week was great!  Spring break, so lots of people out of town, but we taught the Hendersons, they came to dodgeball and church, fed us dinner, and the 12 yr. old girl wants to be baptized!

We had a zone conference this week, and it was awesome, as usual. I think the biggest thing I learned was about the power of prayer.  We started off with Joseph Smith's experience, his humble prayer he offered with so much faith, and later we talked about the importance of teaching sincere prayer. When we take the time to pray sincerely to our Heavenly Father every day, we will feel His love in our life. Never underestimate His willingness to answer prayers!

The gospel library app on my pad is so amazing! Lately I've been reading ensign articles, institute manuals, and of course, the scriptures, almost constantly. And there's such a great system for marking and collecting scriptures and quotes.

Mom, I have another speaker for your conference! He went home recently from our mission, he was homeschooled, was our a.p., writes music and plays it awesomely, and lives somewhere on the east coast.  I was thinking with all the emphasis on missionary work in the church, the homeschoolers should get on board. So if you want to take me up on that his name is Will Henrie and you can Facebook him, he's on my friend list.  Since he was a.p. He would be a good speaker and he could play music. :3 and don't forget Bro. Marks. :) wahaha.

I discovered a kind of toothpaste that is, believe it or not, mint chocolate flavored.  It tastes exactly like the ice cream. So amazing.....

I inserted this photo to show that I have completely rebelled against black clothing after the rules changed trololo.  Don't look too closely at our room, I didn't make my bed very well, our zone leader left some of his junk, and I'm using my suitcases for stuff until I can organize it or throw it all away. Or send it home.

Love love love!

Elder Georgia

March 20, 2014 The Wizard and I

Hello dearly beloved fabulocious familia!

You're awesome.

I just bought new shoes and belts and a sweater.  Why would I do such
a thing when I already have negative room in my suitcases you ask?
Because I'm a sucker for thrift shops.  I've developed a love for old
man clothes.....

The Hendersons came to church again this week which is only the second
time they've come as a family for years!  Sooooo happiness. Soon we
hope to get all the boys the priesthood so they can baptize the girl.
(They won't all baptize her)

There's some awesome people we're teaching here. And the members are
super cool. Love it. We did dodgeball on Friday and it was a smashing
success! We had these fancy expensive dodgeballs (this ward can be
kind of ridiculous) that you can throw far but don't hurt. We had
about 40 kids come from our ward and 1st ward with a pretty good
number of less actives and nonmembers. The Hendersons came and I
pretty much just watched them the whole time- they're so funny. And
really good at dodgeball. We began and ended with prayer and had a
spiritual thought at the end. This week we probably won't get as many
people, but next week we expect an enormous turnout.  It was so great
we spent like 5 minutes talking about it in ward council.

I am not looking forward to spring break. Everyone and their dog here
goes to Bermuda or something so we'll be left all alone in a ghost
town. We hope to find some new people!

I CANNOT WAIT FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE(hyperventilate)

I loves you all.

Most Elder Georgia

March 17, 2014 Seeing Green

Olo! Elder Georgia here! Coming to you from his one short day in the
Emerald City!

I really like it here in Santa Clara, which I have discovered is
really just another word for Eugene.

Elder Rushton is very cool. He was a music major so of course he's
super musical and pretty laid back. He's been in this area going on
six months by the end of this transfer so he'll definitely be ready to
move on... But for now he's fine with being here.

I use a lot of superlatives don't I? :[]

First Sunday here we got a very less active family to come to church!
They're awesome.  The week before I got here the elders baptized an
awesome 17 yr. old girl name: Elizabeth, and now we're teaching Tara,
her mom! Then last week the sisters in our ward had a baptism too,
which doubles the amount of baptisms this ward had last year! We're
rocking the boat! Yes this is the first time I've shared a ward with
sisters and yes it is kind of weird, but they're cool.

They just reorganized the Stake presidency and called our bishop as
one of the councilors and they haven't got a new bishop yet, on top of
that the ward mission leader is out of town, so it's kind of
awkward.... Regardless we are moving things forward and will be
starting an invite-your-friends dodgeball night this Friday at 8! Tell
your missionaries! It's awesome!

For my birthday I want... A very small amount of things. This last
move almost killed me and I'm going to have to send home or throw away
a lot of stuff before it happens again. Ties are nice, there's one cd, A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet Joseph, that I want. If I think of something else I'll tell you, and you can send whatever you want as long as it isn't very much please!

Everything here is green.

Love, Elder Georgia

March 10, 2014 To the Motherland!

I'm not going to Cottage Grove!  I won't!  Pretty close though!  I'm going to Santa Clara which is basically just a suburb of Eugene.  I've never been so close to the motherland (aka Sodom and Gomorrah) haha.  I'm prooty excited!  Super sad to leave Brookings but ready for a change!  My companion is Elder Rushton which is interesting because that's the elder I took over for here in Brookings.

Have Bro. Marks come to your conference it would be awesome!

No, adjusting to le iPads.

Matthew and Seth are going to be bestest friends one day.

Get better Adr!  Tell Adr-anne to write me!  Even though I haven't written her.... @ 3 <

Love, your Elder.

Fare thee well Brookings!

March 3, 2014

Hey Erryone!

Make sure you read that article I posted about Imagine Dragons.  That was awesome.

Hey Mother did you get Bro. Marks' letter?  You should give him a call.

Fast and testimony meeting yesterday was a-a-amazing.  Us elders had been getting up every month, but this month we didn't have time.  All the testimonies were about missionary work, and it seemed like most of them were from the youth.  One of the young women investigating bore her testimony, we had watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration with her the day before, and she said after the movie she felt like she was wrapped up in an electric blanket for the rest of the day, and that she no longer had any doubts about the church.  She also comes to our mission prep classes.

Mom, you should always listen to the Holy Ghost.  I definitely do NOT like raisins. :)

Good to hear things are going well.  I pray for you guys all the time.

Love,

Elder Georgia

p.s. Oh yeah, I have an iPad.....  This week felt really weird.  We're having some minor adjustment issues... but it's awesome at the same time.

February 17, 2014

Dear family,

I am greatly Overperturbed and Disenunciated and Suprajoyed at the Lindy news.  Never fear, I have scolded her already and am now somewhat calm.

Happy Valentimes! (tines)  Thanks a ton for le package!  It was super great.  I loved the letters and such and the candy, and the cookies are fantabulous!  Mom, did you make them?  You've gotten really creative.  Did you use pudding mix?  I shared some of them with our mission prep class and they said to tell you they were delish!

Last night we were at our ward mission leader's house for dinner and his grandkids were over and we were teaching them a lesson when one of the granddaughters all of the sudden interjected with a referral.  To clarify, we have not been getting hardly any referrals, maybe one every three weeks, and this was entirely unexpected.  But this approx. 8 yr. old girl just asked us to visit a friend of hers who she had been inviting to church and faith in God.  It was a touching moment for me, because of her faith, and because of the tender mercy it was for us.

This week we taught 17 MCV's (lessons we teach to members).  The previous record was 5 trololo.  We taught 8 in one day [disclaimer: this was largely because our Zone Leaders came down and we split with them].

Nick is getting baptized this Saturday.  There was finally one thing he didn't accept super easily, which was not drinking tea.  But he agreed to live the Word of Wisdom, pray about it, and move forward in faith.  So we're super excited for his baptism, we hope the whole ward will be there and lots of nonmembers.

Well, I love you all tons!

Love,

<3

Elder Georgia <3 <3

Feb. 10, 2014 Groceries

Just thought I'd let you know, a sister in our ward bought us like five tons of groceries last week.  So your prayers are answered. :D

While I was in Corvallis I told you a bit about Eric, well I got news recently that he got baptized!  That's always good news to get.

MOM.  I have been absolutely failing in my duties as your son.  This week Bro. Marks, our ward mission leader, drove us to the medford temple (which is about a three hour drive) and talked pretty much the whole time.  But he has written a bunch of books about raising children, and "selecting a mate", he also wrote a program that taught all of his children to read before kindergarten, he has eight kids who were all extremely successful in highschool and continue to be successful, one of his sons lives in our ward and recently started homeschooling his six-or-so kids, another son is a professor on family values or studies or something who actually uses Bro. Marks books in his curriculum, and Bro. Marks is a fabulous public speaker, very wise and pretty hysterical.  All that hit me on the drive to the temple and I was like, duh!  He needs to get in contact with mom!  So I'm going to send you his reading program, and you should get in touch with him and fly him out to your conference!  Cuz it's cool to get flashy people like John Bytheway, but what you really need is down to earth people like Bro. Marks. ;)

We had a good week last week.  We finally taught Maya and Renee again, Nick is still progressing strong, We had an awesome lesson with Holly and Ray, and we remade contact with a few people who fell off the boat.  The Lawtons are among our favorite families to visit, They weren't able to come to church for various reasons, one being that Bro. Lawton-an in home health care provider-worked on Sunday.  Now we've been praying ever since I got here that they would be able to come to church.   So on Saturday we had dinner with them and he told us that the patient he took care of on Sunday had passed away suddenly....  Hmm.

Anyways, we had a really cool experience yesterday.  We were biking along the highway in the dark when we came across a man walking in the same direction.  Elder Antig (I have to brag about him a bit) always wants to talk to everyone he sees, so he slowed down and started talking to this guy as he walked.  He was cool, and said he respected us for what we did.  As we conversed he told us that he wished he had been more brave and had taught his girlfriend about Christ before she had passed away, and that he felt terrible about it now.  Because we were listening intently to what he was saying, we were then able to testify that all people will have the opportunity to hear the gospel, even after this life.  It was obvious that he was deeply impacted by what we said.  He didn't have a phone, and he lived with his uncle and didn't feel comfortable with us going there, so we gave him our number and told him where the church was and the time we met, so it's entirely up to him and Heavenly Father for him to learn more.  We'll be praying for him, and hoping he will make contact with us.

Love,

Elder Georgia

p.s. This song was written by an elder in the mission, Elder Henrie.  He was our AP last transfer, and he was also homeschooled.  He wrote it for an investigator, and it's awesome.

February 3, 2014

I know I'm terrible. Sorry this is short. Stuff at home sounds awesome! Poke Seth from me for being a stinker (but that's pretty funny). The work's going well. We're finding new people, more people are progressing, Elder Antig and I are doing good work, President Young has asked us to come unto Christ, to focus on building our own testimonies of him, being able to express them, and developing His attributes. To do that we're all writing 15 minute talks on coming unto Christ. It's gonna be awesome. So stay posted and I'll send it to you!
Eternal Loves,
Elder Georgia

January 27, 2014

This week was awesome.  It is transfers but I'm staying.  Elder Woestman is going home, and we'll miss him, but Elder Hall will do great as a replacement.  We had lots of great experiences with the youth of the ward this week.  They've been inviting their friends to be taught and inviting less-actives back, and the response has been amazing.  One young man, Christian invited his friend Nick to read the Book of Mormon, and to make a long story short, he'll be joining our church on February 22nd as he proudly announced in Priesthood yesterday.  Renee also wants to be taught again which fills our hearts with joy.  :D

Sorry this is super short, I'll send a good one next week!

Love muchas!

Elder Georgia

January 20, 2014 Why Does It Rain, Rain, Rain...

Just kidding it was gorgeous this week. :D

We just got our first box of new and improved 2014 Bom's.  They're awesome (they feel so soft).

I found some more cousins.  I'm fourth cousins with the Johnsons in our ward cuz they're direct descendants of Joel Hills.

As to sweets, the tupperware you sent for Christmas worked well to keep it all intact.

Luke doesn't take after me at all.  I don't know what you're talking about. = u =

Alvin came to church again this week which surprised us, so we're going to ask him to be baptized this week.  We were trying to make contact with a potential investigator who didn't answer his door, so we crossed the street and started knocking on his neighbor's doors.  The first door we knocked on told us he was busy but we could come back at 4:30.  We talked to a bunch of people who weren't interested but we went back at 4:30 and the first guy was awesome and we taught him and he's letting us come back.  I'll tell you more about him later.  We found another investigator next door to him too.

All four of us spoke at church.  It was awesome.  I might send you my talk.

Gotta go love you!

Elder Georgia

January 13, 2014 Oh Rain!

The weather was beautiful.  i.e. we got soaked.

I'm glad to hear the chitlins are being good (ish) and having fun.  That home teaching appointment sounds like it was hilarious, and I'm proud of Luke and Age for containing themselves.

This week was sweet.  Elder Woestman and I sent our children up to North Bend to be on exchanges with the Zone Leaders while we worked down in Brookings.  We had almost straight teaching appointments the whole time.  It was awesome.

Bro. Stonebreaker asked us many times to visit his friend, Scott, who had been taught by missionaries before but was kind of dropped, and we tried stopping by and calling but we never got a hold of him.  So on Thursday we tried again.  The screen door was shut but the door was wide open and there were lights on in the house so we knocked.  And we knocked.  And knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and I wanted to leave but Elder Antig said we should knock more and suddenly... some chihuahuas came and started barking at us, so we knocked some more then we gave up and just before we walked around the corner of the shed Elder Antig glanced back and saw Scott!  So we went and talked to him.  He has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and he's been taught all the lessons but he's still smoking so we asked if we could set up a time to meet with him and he was like, how bout we just talk about it at church?  And we were like, yeah.  So he came to church and stayed all three hours and it was fantastic.  Alvin came to church too!  He's the sweetest old man who absolutely loves us but seems incapable of accepting the message of the Restoration.  We keep working on him though.

We had interviews with President Young this week and he mentioned he would like to send Sisters to Brookings, whether he'll add another set or just replace a set of Elders is up in the air, and it probably won't happen for a little while, but we mentioned it to Bro. Marks (our wml) and in Ward Council he got up and announced that Sisters were coming and we needed to prepare for them (facepalm).  That Ward Council exploded with excitement. (I bet that never happens to your ward council eh Dad? ;)  We had to clarify the particulars but it was pretty awesome.

Does Haymarket have multiple sets of missionaries?  Do they have iPads?

TTFN!

Elder Georgia

January 6, 2014

Hey fam!

Thank you so much for all the awesome Christmas presents!  If I already said that I say it again.

For New Years we watched Monster's University.  Infinite lawls.

Last week we met a less-active/part-member family who are super awesome.  We set up a return appointment for Thursday at 5:00 forgetting that the senior fireside/potluck was at that time so when the day came we were thinking of just dropping by at 4:00 instead but something came up that kept us from that so it was close to 5:00 and we were wondering how solid of an appointment it really was and if they actually remembered we were coming (hey, our dinner was at stake!) but we decided to head over there and we got there right after the nonmember husband got home.  They invited us right in and the husband told us he was glad we were so prompt, he usually left work around 5:00 but he made sure to get there right on time because of our appointment.  I was so glad the Spirit prompted us to go!  We had a great lesson with them, talked about their religious views, shared the message of the Restoration, and got a return appointment.

On Sunday we dropped in to visit a former investigator I had met once before, but this time he and his wife were both home and they invited us in and started talking about their past experience with missionaries but we had dinner coming up so they asked us to come back afterwards!  We did, and we spent... two and a half hours... just talking to them about the gospel.  It was awesome but bad.  We're not supposed to be at someone's house for so long, but they're so open and have so many questions.  So it was pretty sweet.

Well, that's pretty much all I have to say!  Hope you have a great week!

Loves,

Elder Georgia