August 26

Hey!

 

This was a great week. We had the awesome opportunity of being able to be trained by Elder Richards. He was such a gentle man and you could really feel his love for the Gospel and the Savior. There is such power when a man comes under the keys of President Packer. I don't know how people can feel that power and then fall away. I guess that is why it is so important that we are constantly feeding our spirits.

We are seeing great things happen here. The building process is going slower than I would like but we are really seeing many great things happen. We have an investigator  that wants to be baptized but her parents are making her wait until she turns 18 in November and she doesn't want to be taught the lessons everytime that missionaries come into the area because she really is active the only thing that is missing is baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. However we didn't want her to loose her testimony especially because she is so close to being able to be baptized so we decided to ask her if she would be willing to help us teach another one of our investigators. She is really excited about that and we are going to be going over and teaching her how to use Preach My Gospel and go over the lesson that we are going to be teaching. A way to teach her without her feeling like she is just going over the lessons again. We also had a lesson with Don this week. He said that he wants to be baptized but he says that he has some things that he needs to work through in his mind. He doesn't want to make a commitment to God before he is ready. He is afraid of making that covenent and then falling short. We are working with him to overcome that fear.

Thanks for the note on Kindel. I will give her a call. I hope that we are able to go over before transfers just in case I get moved. Transfers are next Monday. Chances are very good that I will get a new companion and possibly move. They won't white wash (both missionaries new to the area) a Zone Leader area unless they have to and going home together isn't a very good reason to do that to an area. But we will see. President Samuelian said that one of us will probably move but he will see what the spirit tells him to do.

 

This past week I was talking to Elder Buhler, one of the AP's, about my extention. He said that it had to work its way up through the missionary department. Church policy is that you cannot extend more than 30 days which means that your plane lands at home on day 30. Well my plane lands on day 31 and apperently it was a very costly move. But it got approved and who knows maybe it made it to Elder Nelson and Holland. But I bet that it didn't:)

 

Thanks for all that you do for me. I know that I have made things a little comlicated but I really am grateful for all that you have done for me.

 

Love You!!

Dustin 

August 18

Hey!!

 

This has been a great week! I hear that everyone is sitting on pins and needles waiting to see when I come home. Who knew that this would be such a complicated thing? So the final word is October! They haven't been able to make our final travel plans yet as far as we know but we do know that it will be in October. You should hear from the Mission Office sooner or later.

 

That is cool that you were able to give her a blessing just before she had her baby. That is so cool that you have been able to build up such a trust with them in such a short time period! I hope that good things just keep happening there.

 

This was a great/interesting week. We had a really awesome meeting that Elder Irvine and I were able to assist in putting together. It was Bishop Training meeting. Elder Irvine and I were in a meeting with President Richardson (Stake President) and we were talking with him about the vision that the mission had. He asked us if we could come and train the Bishops on vision in the Bishop tringing meeting and we accepted. We also asked him if it would be possible to have the councilers and the ward mission leaders come to the meeting. The next day we were talking with President Samuelian and telling him about it and we asked if he would like to do that training and he said that he would love that. So we were all set for the meeting and then we decided that it would be great if we could have all the missionaries in the Zone come as well. So we decicded to call and ask if we could have all the missionaries come and sing a musical number. The meeting and the musical number went really well.

 

I have really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the Stake Leaders. It is interesting to see the different perspective. In June Elder Whiting from the 70 came and was talking about Preisthood Leaders. He said that mission presidents are all optimits and that all bishops are pesimists. I think the same thing applies to Stake leaders, optimists. I really enjoy it!

 

This coming week is going to be very exciting. We have Elder Richards of the 70 coming. I am so lucky. Usually it works out so that you get to watch General Conference 4 times as a missionary, I get 5. Usually you have 2 mission tours (where a member of the 70 comes), I get 4. We are really excited about it. Elder Irvine has an interview with him after the meeting and he is really nervous, it is kinda funny! We are really hoping that he brings the new technology (iPad Mini's) with him. In the Broadcast Elder Holland said that they would be coming to us through the 70 so if it doesn't happen this week it wont happen durring my time as a missionary. Elder Richards has also called a special MLC so we get to have meetings with him two times this week.

 

Other than that there really hasn't been anything too exciting. Thanks for the cookies and the bread!

Temple visit

Zone conference

August 11

Hey!

We had an awesome week! We were able to find new investigators and to teach and see many miracles. The best part is that the investigators that we found came through members. They really are the key to this great work. We took Chelsea to the temple yesterday. That went really well and it really helped her to open up and ask questions. She is torn right now because she wants to be able to please everyone in her life and part of the people that she loves are telling her one thing and the other part are telling her another. She is living the Word of Wisdom, praying, reading the Book of Mormon, etc. She has even asked her Catholic boy friend to read the Book of Mormon and come to church but he said no. He is really what is standing in the way of her taking the step of baptism.  She leaves for school in 10 days so we are going to have to pass her off to the missionaries in Portland. Her member friend has also talked with her about attending institute as well. I have faith that she will be able to overcome the obstacles that are standing in her way.

Things here are going great though. They just keep growing and Elder Irvine and I just keep talking about how we feel like we are not the reason why it is the Lord's hand in it. We just keep doing what we know we are supposed to do and it all works out. "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say..." We are really seeing this come to pass. I am so glad that I have had the chance to serve here with Elder Irvine, we really work well together and we have seen many miracles.

On Friday we were on Exchanges with our district leader and his companion out in Tillamook. When I got my call I remember Grandma Steel saying that she hoped that I wouldn't have to serve in any bike areas and that I would get to serve in Tillamook. Well I have spent over half of my mission on a bike and I din't think that I will ever be assigned to the Tillamook Ward but I did spend the night there and served there for 24 hours. I think that we will just have to call that a success:)

We had Zone Conference this past week. That was really great. President Samuelian is a very spiritual man and when you meet him you know that he really is the man that the Lord would have be here right now. He has really been able to change the perspective that missionaries have.

Thanks for all that you do for me! I love you all!

Dustin

Pictures - Mission Leadership

Pictures - Zone conference

August 4

Hey! 

Today we took our entire zone out to the beach. It was about an hour and a half drive there and back but it was totally worth it. We went to Pacific City and we were able to sit down as a zone and Elder Irvine and I had planned out a little lesson about living our lives the way that Christ lived his. The theme for our mission is to build upon the rock and the image is haystack rock in Pacific City. So we sat in front of that huge rock and we were able to read from the scriptures and talk about how we could become more Christ-like. It was great and the spirit was really strong. It was also a way fun to sit on the beach and eat, fly a kite, play a little volleyball, take pictures and just play in the sand. After that we went to the Cheese Factory in Tillamook. It was super busy, so busy that we didn't even stand in line to get ice creame. But that is just the way that it works sometimes. The Hawkers from our ward were able to drive us out there and we really had a great time with them. They are out "go to" members and they live conveniently close, across the parking lot. I was fun though because they have a 12 passenger van so we had four missionaries and them in there.

This past week was also way cool!  On Thursday we had MLC in Newberg. We weren't able to have it at the mission home this time because they had one of the neighbors file a complaint about all the missionaries going in an out all the time. Hopefully they can get that resolved soon because it would be really terrible if they couldn't use the mission home for its intended purpose. MLC was really interesting though because the former missions have finally started to come together and lets just say that there have been a few growing pains. There are definite differences in the Portland and the Eugene Mission cultures and it has made for a few interesting companionship's and meetings etc. We were able to get much of that resolved at MLC and we have Zone conference this coming week and that should also help smooth out the edges. It was cool though because we were able to also spend quite a bit of time talking about vision. President asked Elder Irvine and I to share our vision and talk about what we did to come up with it. That was cool to be able to share with the leadership of the mission what we were doing in our area and in our zone. 

Friday we had our weekly planning day. We really wanted to seek the will of the Lord and to do what he would have us do. We prayed and we asked Him what he would have us do. We felt very prompted that we needed to and that we could assist in helping Chelsea and Wendi get baptized. So that became our focus. We prayed for them we made them a very specific part of out fast. We knew that in order for us to get this accomplished that we needed them to come to church and in Wendi's case we needed to meet with her because we hadn't heard from her in three weeks. 

So the first thing that we did Saturday is we went to go visit Wendi's fellow-shipper. Unfortunately no one had heard form her and the daughter that had heard from her was at the Laurel High Adventure... We really din't know what to do at that point. So we just kept her in our prayers and kept her in our thoughts. Some how we figured that it would all turn out fine. At this pint we turned our focus to Chelsea. We called her to remind her to fast. Three weeks ago we asked her to pray set a date that she would know if the church was true or not. She picked August 4th, fast Sunday. So when we taught her on Wednesday we focused our lesson on fasting and the power that could come from that. When we called she wasn't able to talk but she said that she would call us back later, so we told her that we went to bed at 10:30. We are in our apartment and we have started our planning session. No call yet. We decided that if we hadn't heard from her by 10:20 that we would just text her to remind her to fast. We really didn't want her to miss out on that opportunity. She called at 10:10 and we talked with her about fasting and she said that she had been thinking about it all day and that she would see us in the morning at church.

Sunday morning we had a meeting with our Stake Presidency and President Samuelian along with President Lewis (1st councilor in the mission presidency). That meeting was great and we are going to see great things come from that meeting. It was all in vision and what we need to do to progress the work. We got out of that meeting and walked into the chapel (8:40) and there was Chelsea sitting all by herself. We walked over and she asked where Amy (Sister Updike who invited her to take the lessons)  was. We told her that we didn't know but we introduced her to President Samuelian and Lewis. Sister Samuelian and their daughter Nicole, who is waiting to go on her mission to Florida in a couple of weeks, were also there. So we introduced them to Chelsea and Nicole came and sat down by her. It was perfect because they are very close in age. Sacrament starts and I had seen RayAnn walk in to the chapel and sit down with the Ellison's. We were singing the opening hymn and Elder Irvine leans over to me and says,"Wendi is here." In my mind I switched Wendi with RayAnn so I just brushed it off and said I know. Then I saw Wendi sitting with the Shurts and then I realized that it was her. I was so excited! So we had a week full of miracles. Sunday afternoon we had a lesson with Chelsea and we asked her if she had gotten her answer yet and what she saud was that she could no longer say that there wasn't a God but she didn't feel like she could say that there was for sure. We think that she knows that it is true but is afraid to admit it. We are still working with her and she will come to see it and be able to admit it soon.

Thanks for all that you do for me! I love you very much!

Dustin