I LOST MY INNOCENCE WHEN…31 October 2022

OK so I probably won't give a full run down of every day of this week, but!!! Some pretty crazy stuff happened so I'll tell y'all about that!

Tuesday we had an exchange with the zone leaders and I had a blast!! I went with Elder Burt and he is literally perfect! One: he's a giant teddy bear and gives the best hugs; two: he is absolutely hilarious and we share, like the same humor so we were just cracking up the entire day; and three: he's so smart and so confident in the gospel! I mean obviously, he's been out for 18 months, but like, the guy could give a five minute restoration lesson to some random person on the street, get their phone number and set up a return appointment in less than ten minutes. He does it so naturally and is like a pro. 

But after the exchange we went back to our normal grind. Wednesday was kinda crazy though. The middle of the day was normal. We had service with the sisters which was super fun. We had to clean up a bunch of rotten meat and cheese and dairy though so it smelled like straight up death. Let's just say we came home and had like three showers to clean off the stench. But after that we were making some phone calls, and this one guy we called answers and we asked if it's Jeremy and he's like maybe, then we offer a prayer and he just starts rambling about the most unimportant not applicable stuff ever. He starts talking about how we should pray for everyone, then he starts talking about Adam and Eve, and how she was lustful and then he starts talking about how she lost her innocence in the garden, THEN and I kid you not, this is a direct quote from him, and he says, "I lost my innocence when I was six years old..." but to keep this email PG I won't put in the rest of what was said but you can assume that it was very funny and a little inappropriate. And me and my companion just died laughing, we couldn't keep it together. We obviously put it on mute but we were dead. And then the guy kept rambling about the woman with the blood disease and how we don't know what her specific blood disease was and that our uplinks or our leaders were lying to us, and we were like, the whole point of the woman with the blood disease is she had faith to be healed, it didn't matter what disease she had. And he was like nope your wrong, she was on her period and had some terrible blood disease and you don't know it because your leaders follow man. And we just were like uh OK, we'll go pray about it and then call you back so we hung up and didn't pray about that because it was very dumb lol.

Anyway then comes Thursday and we had an awesome lesson with one of our progressing people. We brought a member too and we all just had a great time. In fact we put him on date!!!! We are still gonna have to work with him some more, but he said he wanted to know how to become a member of our church and we were like uh wanna be baptized, and he said yes!!!! We are super excited for him and can't wait to see him enter the waters of baptism.

Friday was also really interesting and kinda crazy. We were talking with this guy, who told us he felt prompted to tell us to come back 2 weeks later. So two weeks later we knock on his door and we were prepared to give him a restoration lesson. Turns out he kinda was a basher but a super super nice basher. He was asking us great great questions and we were just having a conversation about what we believe and what he believed. I personally learned so much because this guy was a flipping genius!! But his only problem was that he didn't have concrete physical evidence of the Book of Mormon so he doesn't think it points to God and Christ's love for all his children. Which isn't true and he said there are contradictions in the book but they aren't really contradictions. Moral of the story he believes what he believes, he learned a lot from us and we learned a lot from him. Then out of nowhere we were about to leave and he goes, so which one of you wants to pursue the medical field. I was like uh me? And he was like, see how easy it was for me to ask God and he told me what you want to do with your life. I never told him anything about wanting to be a doctor or anything about my family being in the medical field, yet this guy basically just told me I need to be a doctor. Now I don't know if this is like what I actually need to do, that'll take a lot of praying and pondering but I couldn't believe what I heard. Anyway! This guy was super super nice and he said to come back if we ever wanna talk more about stuff or if we wanna say hi so we may or may not do that but he just was a super smart great guy.

Saturday wasn't crazy except it was my comps birthday!!!!! So happy birthday Elder Smith!! Hope 20 treats you well lol. But Sunday was super fun, I always love Sundays. We had to prepare talks because the first counselor was like hey the bishop is giving the closing remarks but he is a little sick so we don't know if he's gonna be there. So me and my comp prepared 10 minute talks in hopes that bishop was there, which he was so we got off the hook. But other than our friend who's on date showing up to church nothing crazy happened until Sunday evening. We ended up calling Jeremy back just to see what would happen and he thought that we were the leaders now, and he starts rambling again just about the most confusing stuff that made absolutely no sense, we honestly were just messing with him at this point but when we said we needed to go because we really had to go. We had a mentoring call like right then. We said we had another call and he got so mad, he was like "ohhh so the devils calling, gotcha, you guys are scared of the truth! I died and saw my whole life then begged for mercy from God to bring me back to life!! And he did!! I have been instructed by the holy spirit blah blah blah!" Then we just hung up, probably won't call him again because he's a nut job. 

Well I guess the one thing I learned is that the Book of Mormon has a lot of power. It is a true book because whenever we teach about it, and even when we were talking with the guy who was the super nice basher, I just felt so strongly of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and I can testify that it is the record of the ancient Americans and their dealings with Christ. It talks about our Savior and how much he loves everyone on this planet. It is the word of God, and with the Bible next to it, it can bring power into our lives and give us direction, cure our sadness, and bring light like no other to us and to those around us as we stand as a witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Because, if the Book of Mormon is true then that means Joseph Smith was a true prophet and he did see God the Father and Jesus Christ which then means that this church is the true church that Christ established on the earth in the Bible. 

Pictures 

1) Waffle house with the boys (I know my arms are massive, no need to compliment me 💪😤)

2) Thrift shirts going crazy!!

3) Funny frog spitting facts

4) Richmond temple is almost done!!!!

5) I like soda 

Waffle house with the boys (I know my arms are massive, no need to compliment me 💪😤)

Thrift shirts going crazy!!

Funny frog spitting facts

Richmond temple is almost done!!!!

I like soda 

PERUVIAN FOOD CURES TRUNKINESS - 24 October 2022

Hey everybody!! Week three has gone by so flipping fast! I can't even believe that it's Monday already! Like, I don't even know where this last week went. All I can say is that if my entire mission is like this, I'm gonna be home before I can even blink. But I don't want to think about that or else I'll end up getting really homesick and then my mission will be a lot longer than I think. 

This week was honestly really fun. I was nervous that it was gonna be loong because last week was REALLY fun but when I put my mind to the work and focused specifically on the people I'm teaching, it's quite enjoyable. Monday night we went around checking up on some of our progressing people but the fact of being a missionary is that you do this 24 hours a day. Our friends on the other hand, actually have lives outside of us teaching them so they usually don't show up to lessons or don't answer their doors. which is what happened Monday. But we then decided to visit a really cool couple in the ward and had a great time talking with them to end out the night pretty much.

Tuesday was really cool cause we finally had interviews with our mission president finally! What's funny is right before interviews, we were doing service at the farm and we were hauling out some hay bales for some cows and horses. I had hay in every crevice of my body from head to toe, just hay in my hair, down my shirt, my pants, and in my shoes! We also had to go straight to interviews after so we rushed over to the church building. We had our church clothes to change into and we changed really fast and had to go wash out a bunch of hay out of our hair so we looked presentable to the president! It ended up being fine and I loved talking with the president, sharing my successes and also some areas I can improve on and seek guidance on. 

Wednesday and Thursday were just basic "Grind the Find" days. We spent all day Wednesday making calls and knocking doors. We actually had a lot of success knocking, we found three, maybe four really interested people that we are hoping to keep in contact with this next week. Thursday we also made some phone calls and stopped by some people's houses, but we also did some service for this lady who needed a bunch of stuff taken out of her daughter's house. It was great and all and she really appreciated us but there's something about doing service on a farm that can't be compared to anything else. But we got to help out this lady which was really nice and she did really appreciate all our help.

Come Friday and Saturday! We had an exchange with our district. I spent the night at my district leader's house and the other elder spent the night with my companion. It was so fun and I learned a lot. I will say some of the things I learned is that I'm grateful that me and my companion keep our apartment nice and clean and also that I'm starting to get comfortable in my area because when I wasn't in my area for this exchange, I was a little awkward lol. But I also learned a lot about how I can teach people and also the importance of prayer. Praying before and after every lesson, every daily activity, every time we leave the house. It's just really nice to know that the spirit is always with you and the one way we can make sure we always know that is through prayer. Praying invites the spirit like nothing else and if we can pray for the spirit to be with us in all we do, we will know and will have the spirit wherever we walk.

OK Sunday was really weird! We were a little late to welcome people in but we invited one of our friends, and he came!! He was super chill, he stayed for just a little bit but we got to talk about what a bishop is and about songs and about what happens during Sacrament meeting. It was great! He stayed until after the Sacrament, so he got to experience that, and he also sang all the songs which was lit too!!! But after he left we finished up church and basically sat in the family history center eating lunch, making calls, doing family history work for like 4 hours! We were honestly so exhausted but we had a dinner appointment which we were super excited about! And they made the most delicious food ever!!!! This guy was an artist when it comes to food. He made us this like Peruvian meal, lots of chicken, rice and beans but it was so flipping good!!! Then we played a game with them, shared a spiritual thought and also he gave us ties!! Sunday ended out pretty flipping amazing but the vibe all day was like weird, still an awesome day though!

That just about wraps up my week. I will share a scripture that really stuck with me and it's Jeremiah 1: 8,19 which says "8 be not afraid of their faces; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 19 and they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." The adversary will fight against us. He will send temptations and cruel things and even people to tear us down and try and break our happiness. but knowing that we are part of this church and knowing that we all have the holy ghost to direct us, to keep us safe, and to make us feel true joy, the adversary can't prevail against us. He will fight but he won't tear us down. We will be immovable from our foundation if we build our lives upon the rock of our redeemer who is Christ.

district after some sweet interviews with the pres

you can ask for context 

I mean cmon you understand 

I got a guitar lol

dude the skies here are honestly unreal 

like seriously what! 

PERKS OF BEING A MISSIONARY, PEOPLE GIVE YOU MONEY FOR NO REASON! - 17 October 2022

Welcome to my week 2 email! Probably not gonna be as long as the last one but that's OK! I think everyone can agree that I probably can ease up on the quantity of my emails for a bit lol.

This week was a blast, we had so much going on and this week flew by so quick! Tuesday we had service at "the farm" from which we built a dope flipping fence, so props to me and my comp! But while we were building this fence, Miss Judy was yellin' at the cows to quit coming up to us. She hadn't fed them that day and wasn't gonna till we finished the fence. But it's funny 'cause she calls her cows "the girls." So the first time she said, "All dem girls gonna start chasin' after ya!!" I thought she was talking about all the girls back home. As from which I proudly agreed to her and said you got that right, I'm what you'd call a girl magnet! It was a little weird and I felt awkward the rest of the day. But, then we had an amazing lesson with this girl and she is super smart, she loves talking to us and I'm praying for her everyday cause we would love to see her progress even more than she already is. Her boyfriend is on a mission so that's why she's been really curious about the church. She comes to Sacrament all the time and has a family in the ward that basically treat her like their daughter which has been so helpful cause now this girl just feels so comfortable coming to activities and all that jazz.

Wednesday we had another service to go to which was really fun, we got to go with the sisters in the area just next to us so it was fun to go hang out and clean out an old hula studio. We then had another amazing lesson with this family who is also super smart and super super nice. They made us a fantastic dinner and then we taught an awesome lesson, even though it was a really scattered lesson, I felt the spirit and I'm pretty sure they did too. 

ZONE CONFERENCE!!! Aight so zone conference was Thursday and oh my goodness it was so fun. I might just be deprived of contact with others my age and with other people who understand me but it was a blast to get to talk with all the other missionaries In the surrounding zones and get to hear from our mission president and really just talk about our purpose and the power we bring as we truly dedicate ourselves to this work. After zone conference we went and knocked a bunch of doors. We honestly don't know what happened but some lady just gave us 40 dollars for dinner cause she said she liked what we were doing and said that she wanted to lift our spirits from all the mean people haha. Also while we were knocking doors, we get to this one guy who apparently talked with missionaries before and said he was having dinner, so we asked if there was a better time to come back and he just looks down, laughs, looks up and says "I want to say no, but I'm prompted to say come back" 

So interesting!!! Honestly super cool!! So we are going back to contact him in a couple weeks. 

Friday and Saturday were also super fun, we had service to go to both days and had a super fun YSA activity that we invited one of our friends to come to and she came! We got to talk with her and ended up going into the backyard with the family whose house we were at and played pickle ball for a while. It was honestly so nice to just feel like a teenager and have fun. But I do think that we really connected with our friend cause she seemed to enjoy it and she came to church Sunday so she wasn't freaked out by us. 

Sunday you can't complain I mean, church, Sacrament, people who are nice, some dude gave us a 45 dollar gift card to Smash Burger, had an awesome Sunday school lesson about Jeremiah and how God was gonna speak through him and that even though the adversary was literally gonna fight against him, as long as he had the Armor of God on and had faith, he would know that the lord would deliver him and that the lord would protect him to declare his word unto the people. But that was fantastic and then! We get home and there's this note card on our door that says "to the balcony singer" and my comp earlier that morning went out with his ukulele and just messed around a little when a girl walked by and like stopped to listen. Apparently she was super grateful and said he had an amazing voice and that he made her day, so she puts this visa flipping gift card in it with 100 bucks on it!!!!!! Like what the actual heck!!!! We are hoping to see her again so we can either give it back cause that's a lot of money or at the least thank her so so much.

Anyway great great week, thank you to all who emailed me and uplifted me, I really needed all of y'alls comments. I'm praying for each and everyone of you, and if you guys ever need anything specific to be prayed for please reach out to me. I've learned a lot about the power of prayer out here and I can say I don't know what I would do without that knowledge of prayer. I'm so grateful that I can reach out to my Father and share my thoughts, share my pains, my sorrows, my joys because I can testify he listens, he hears every cry, he hears every laugh, he hears every shout, he hears and knows our feelings. Knowing that he is only one prayer away from us is truly a blessing and just opens my eyes to the love he has for us. He isn't a million light-years away, he is one thought, one feeling, one prayer away from us. Love you all, praying for you all. Hope to hear from y'all and hope you guys enjoy your week!!!

 I'm a fricken awesome swag beast!

My zone is the best zone in all the zones of all time

 The sky looked pretty flipping cool, kinda looks like an album cover 

DON'T PUT DAWN SOAP IN A DISHWASHER!

WHEN THE BEST PART OF BEING A MISSIONARY IS SCOOPING POOP..... - 10 October 2022

You're probably wondering: "How's that weird guy doing who moved to Virginia a few weeks ago?" ...well that would be very rude if you thought that but very reasonable.

IM IN VIRGINIA! Crazy! I know! Never thought I would actually get to this point because it always seemed like something I talked about for my future, but now my future is the present! I'm living by myself with someone I've known for about a week. It's kinda weird and honestly one of the most challenging things I've ever had to endure through. I love my area! I will say there are a lot of other areas I could have gone to but, the area I'm in is super clean, well looked upon, everyone around us are just nice people. There's an elementary school right next to our apartment complex so super chill, nice, safe neighborhood. But the hard part is I keep thinking to myself that this is just a couple week church camp and I'll be home anytime now, but it's not...I'm out here alone with my companion, don't really know anybody and it's like what am I doing with myself?! But, I'll tell you this, as I've read "Adjusting to Missionary Life," and talked with my comp and with a lot of my friends and even some people in the ward I've learned that I am uncomfortable but I'm never alone. In times when I feel like there's nobody who cares about me and I can't turn to anybody, I remind myself that I can turn to God. I've never really looked at my relationship with my heavenly father like that but he is watching me, he wants to see me happy, he is constantly filling my heart with love and it's our job to constantly reach out to him especially in times where we feel alone because that's when we can feel his love the most. 

'Aight time for the cool stuff! We are teaching a lot of people already, I mean I haven't taught a lesson because everyone of them have fallen through and canceled BUT, we have two people on date to be baptized. One on November 12th and one hopefully at the end of this month! Other than those two fantastic gents we have a few others that are very very likely to be baptized soon. There's this girl named Kailani who's boyfriend is on a mission and she's been coming to church like a lot these past months. As long as we can teach the lessons she should be set any day. A couple others we have in our teaching pool I'm hoping we can get teaching and keep them on their commitments and they will be ready hopefully by Christmas. Then there are some other people who are super super nice and seem really interested so hopefully we can start them up on lessons too. I know that was a lot but I'm so excited to see how much we can accomplish by Christmas! 

Speaking of Christmas, our mission leader is implementing a goal for us to come to know Christ and encouraged us to make a goal to help others know Christ. He wants us to literally stretch ourselves to the maximum. Our goal is 5 baptisms by Christmas! I think it's honestly super achievable but I'll keep y'all updated on that in the next few weeks. 

I'm sorry that this is a long email but these past couple days have been long yet fun! On Friday we went to do service at a lady named Miss Judy, and she is the meme of the area, everyone loves her! She is the funniest, yet most nice lady ever, she has raised a really old farm that if we weren't here it wouldn't be running so she is honestly super grateful for us. This is where my poop scooping skills came in to play. I had to scoop like three horse stalls of poop and then had to feed all of them and give them water. It honestly wasn't that bad. I will say though, after sitting in the apartment for a day or two...and just not doing anything I'm comfortable with...manual labor is the greatest thing in the world! Doing farm work, scooping poop, feeding horses, all that jazz was literally one of the highlights of my week. We go back to the farm tomorrow and I'm so hyped.

'Aight that's pretty much the jazz of the week. Met some really cool old dudes who are super passionate about missionary work. Some old lady in our ward walked by me and said, "Ooo we got a new Elder! And a good looking one too!" So yeah I'm basically the hype of that generation I guess. Had a crazy emotional roller coaster of fear, loneliness, happiness, and just messin' around vibes all week. And I might be buying a guitar soon to give me something to do when we aren't doing anything lol.

Oh yeah!!! I'm writing this just after someone bought us dinner!! Me and my district went to Cracker Barrel for Pday and as soon as we sat down someone walked over and said, "ELDERS!" We talked with him for awhile, he's visiting his daughter from Utah and he was like, "You know what, I'm gonna pay for y'alls food!" Crazy right?! Never thought that I would be in this situation but we were all like literally so grateful for this guy, we had an amazing delicious dinner and it was all free. Almost made me cry because I just really loved the food, not because the guy was extremely nice and I will forever remember what he did for us. 

But anyway! The most important thing I learned this week and the thing I'm trying to work on the most is just patience. It honestly has been a struggle adjusting to the fact that I'm here for two years. On Thursday I felt like crap cause we had meetings over zoom for like 5 hours and I didn't get to do much and I just kept thinking to myself why am I here, I'm in the middle of Chesapeak Virginia, nobody around me cares about me, I'm living with someone I met two days ago, and I'm supposed to do this for two years? I didn't think I was even gonna last till Christmas. But as I've thought about it, I'm never gonna fully adjust to being a missionary right now, but as long as I keep thinking and reminding myself that everything is gonna be ok, God is ALWAYS watching us, literally anytime we may feel like nobody around us cares, God always does. And because we have the gift of the holy ghost, we can always feel that love from the savior and from heavenly father because that's the thing that will keep us going. What a blessing it is to always have that constant friendship and companionship of the spirit.

'Aight lemme know how life is with y'all, I really wanna hear how everyone is doing, it will keep me from going insane because I have nobody to talk to so email me if you want and I would be very happy. Enjoy y'alls week!!!

4 October 2022 - arrived safely in Virginia and met President and Sister Hutchison!

The two wards at our building had mission prep and this was the last one they had till January 

I'm absolutely gorgeous in this picture and I found a sign that said elder so that's cool

If you tell me that's not a bottle of pee I will call you a liar 

Caught a fish today :)