Week 18: 2/13/2017 Fight Club Part II

Well hello all of you lovely people. What a great way to start a morning seeing all of your lovely faces... or something. Huh.... tomorrow is V-day isn't it? Ya know I didn't even realize that until yesterday. That's one of those holidays that everyone kind of tries to ignore or forget exists in the mission.... I guess we must do a pretty good job. But anyway let the weekly begin.

I'm honestly never sure how much I bother to tell you about pdays... cuz I email in the morning and then the day happens but I tell some people about some of the stuff and I think some of it at least makes it into my mailer... I dunno. Maybe I'm crazy. Obviously we went to Lowes last week and hung out there for a while, we also went pawn shopping with the Zone Leaders (ZLs) and what not. Fun stuff. I also don't remember if I told you... our pdays are kind of all figured out. This week is a Zone activity at fight club, next week we're learning to weld, week after that haircuts and probably lowes, and the week after that adventure in Moab with Brent. Good times :)

Anyway we started off the week by stealing an older ladies Bricks... well asking permission to anyway. We have a pair of investigators that live in some less active members basement/back of house, and while it's a super nice house and brand new, the landscaping and stuff wasn't done before winter hit, so they have giant, super nasty field of mud you have to track through to get to their door. So when we discovered that a lady we helped move had a bunch of paving stones she didn't want and was giving away we stole them and offered to make them a path to walk on. Even better though... this was the day we finally caught up with C. We had gone by Monday night and talked to her brother and his wife, actually gave him a blessing in the process and they said she's normally awake around noon.... so gosh dang it we were there at noon the next day. And she was awake. Hallelujah! We actually had a really good lesson and got to understand the situation a ton better, she said she would make it out to church so she could be confirmed finally. We're also hoping to get her ready for the temple so we can help her with that as well. Sooo exciting. We also got to see T. that day which is always fun. We got to talking about our deep stuff for just a little while but we didn't have a ton of time unfortunately. I'm super excited for them too though.

Wednesday was one of those interesting days... My companion and all the other district leaders had to go to a district leader training meeting so I was on a temporary exchange with Elder Hill. It was fun... but no car which was a bit of an adjustment to say the least. But it was super fun actually. We went to go visit someone... and I saw this dog. And I just felt like we needed to catch it. Wasn't sure why... just that we needed to. So we did. Her name was Arrow and she lived at a nearby house. I checked my iPad, it said some members lived there but I figured I'd ask. So I texted Bishop Jarvis... his records showed a less active and his nonmember wife. Bingo. We figured we would go offer to fix their fence where the dog was getting out and go from there. To be continued.... on Thursday ;P the rest of the morning was fine, we saw Emilio and got paid for twice in the process. (I think he means they got their meal paid for) Yum.

Then once my companion got back we went to a chapel for weekly planning... and saw A's kids who flagged us down and asked if we could walk them home from school because their parents were gone with the baby and couldn't come get them. First we tried to find someone to take them (since we couldn't drive them) but eventually we decided we'd just walk them and leave it at that. Haha but they're distractible. It took almost an hour to get there. But it was a fun little service anyway ;P after that we just visited about a bajillion people. And that's our day.

Actually one other really cool thing happened that I forgot about, so there are a couple kids we've been trying to teach for a while. R and J. And last time we saw them they just said they weren't ready right then so we left them alone for a while. Then about a week ago we just happened to be going by and knocked and R. said to give him a week to think about it. So we had planned to see him today anyway...then while Elder Hill and I were eating at the Great Steak he showed up. So we chased him down and talked to him for a while, he said to come by later. We talked to him again and he said sure we can do this. It was super cool.

Thursday was Zone Training Meeting. And it started early... and went late... it was a long meeting. But super good. Magic and fantasy and role playing games are now all officially banned. By the area 70. Bam. Oh and face cards too. Apparently some missionaries were uh.... shall we say distracted? That seems like a major understatement but that's what happened. After that the Zone went out for lunch, so by the time we finished studies and everything, we'd basically lost our whole day. It was almost dinner time. Ok the dog story continued, so we went on visits with Bishop Jarvis and we were in the area so I asked to stop by the house. We got there and he said that he had visited that house, it was some young college students attending the YSA Ward. All active members. Talk about a let down. But then oddly enough, we went to another house that Bishop spied because we were there... and met the coolest guy. He called himself the "Ward Heathen". I really hope I can get to know this guy better. I don't know why I had to chase that dog but this is where she led me and I want to know more. Just gotta be patient I guess.

Oh that's right we also found a family who has a ridiculous amount of dog poop in their yard. Apparently all the dogs in the neighborhood poop in their yard. So after weekly planning we went and did some service That's all poop. From just the front yard. It's maybe 10x15 feet. And we picked it up with our  hands. Haha it was a blast. And also raining a ton which made life difficult for the other project... remember stealing bricks? Well bricks to put in a muddy yard that sucks your shoes in and sticks to your feet for years gets a whole lot harder when it decides to rain the day you're putting them in. It was fun though, I think we did an ok job.

You can't see super well but I built little canals for gutters so the water can run down and not wash out the bricks

We actually managed to have a really great lesson in between the services and then a good lesson afterwards.

Shoot... Saturday was long. We seriously visited AAAAALLL OF THE PEOPLE. Barely survived. But I actually felt super good about it. And if you promise not to tell... Lakeside RV can't forward magazines if people move... so we got a brand new copy of Gameinformer. With all the stuff about the Switch and the new Zelda game... it was sooo hard to wait until the end of the day to read it. And now I gotta wait another 20 months to play the stupid thing. Oh yeah, yesterday was my 4 month mark btw.

Sunday... C. finally got confirmed. Finally finally. Finally. Now her baptism is complete and we can move on with life. In other news... we got another investigator who isn’t gonna be baptized until April. Sigh. But in other new we ate a ridiculous amount of food at the H’s, and then had a birthday party for M with even more food... oh yeah how's this for a no soliciting sign?

We saw that a few days ago, and based on the sign and what we heard about people we decided against knocking... but then the dog bell went of. And it was a biiiig, very loud dog. So the man who lived there came to the door anyway even though we hadn't even knocked. Super awkward.

Anyway hope life is good. As always, any questions or whatever just ask my mom or as me directly.

Love,

Elder DeFord

Week 17: 2/6/2017 Weekly Time Again

(Editor's note: Elder DeFord included videos this time, however, they are sideways. I will post them when I figure out how to turn them the right way)

 Man it feels like this was a long week. It really wasn't that long,
but the last few days, at least, felt pretty long. Should be good though
😊

Last Monday was a ton of fun, sorry again to all the peeps I didn't
email last week... was just distracted, oops. Haha yeah, it was a good
day though. Since we were completely out of miles we asked the Zone
Leaders to drive us around for the day. We just kind of chilled and
started laundry and what not while we waited for them and emailed and
what not, then we went with them to Walmart, went shopping, hit the
mall for a while. We went to Lowes for about 2 hours. I got my ninja
course time down to 1 minute 7 seconds or so, need to work on the
salmon ladder but good other than that. We went back to Brent's and emailed
some more. Then I actually made dinner for us and Brent. It was kinda
fun, although I'm apparently a teensy bit rusty ;P turned out ok
though. Then we went and had family night with the R’s and are
continuing to help them become more active, hopefully one day building
in J the desire to be baptized with the rest of his family.

Now Tuesday... that was long. By the end of the day Monday, when we
got home, we had less than 5 miles left. Luckily Tuesday was the last
day of the month but still… 5 miles. The best we could do was drive to
the most centrally located chapel in our area and bike around all day.
It was a little chilly to say the least. And it was a rough morning.
We did all of our studies and planning and what not, then we went and
talked to Dale and some other people around the park, went and
unlocked the bikes, had to track down Jake to get some hex keys to fix
Elder Skaggs bike, the we had to put our bike rack back on, finally
got the bikes on, and then decided that in order to again protect our
precious miles we would stay a while longer, make calls and texts to
be productive, so we could eat lunch at home cuz there was no way we
were coming back before the end of the day. So all of that done we
finally drove the exactly 2.2 miles to the Marrott Meadows building,
with 2.4 miles left to get us home again at the end of the day... get
our bikes of the rack and realize.... we had forgotten our helmets at
home. And unfortunately we are obedient missionaries, and the white
handbook says that to ride a bike you must have a helmet. Crud
monkeys. It's just gonna be one of those days. So we borrowed some
from the J's because they're fairly close and had to book it out
of there to make our first appointment. Which cancelled. One of those
days. We went around visiting people, came back and were late for an
appointment, then the husband wasn't home for our dinner appointment
so we just got some dinner in a Tupperware cuz we couldn't go in without
 the husband.... yep one of those days. But we did have some good lessons
 in the evening at least... except the ones that cancelled. But yeah. It's good.

Wednesday we had Zone conference to discuss the new schedule, but
first I went to go see Emilio for the first time in way too long. We
went for lunch... and he wasn't there. Turns out he took off the whole
day... and I even brought him a present too. But Zone conference, was
super cool. Got to see President Hodgman and everyone. It was fun and
we discussed lots of stuff. For a really long time. After that just
more lessons and missionarying.

Thursday was more of the same. We spent all morning contacting people,
we actually found some really cool referrals and knocked some random
doors... and bunches of people didn't answer, but that's the way it
goes.  Welcome to missionary life. We had a lunch meeting with some
ward mission leaders and then went and did a bunch of service at a
food bank for most of the afternoon. That's one thing that's new. You
know how we've had Just Serve for like 4 years? So apparently it's
just starting in Utah so now we're supposed to do like 10 hours of
service a week, it's a really good way to fill those not very
productive times during the day. We had a lesson with B and
family, then a meeting with Bishop McGriff and Brother Bateman about
some possible investigators in his ward.

Weekly planning... ya hoo... but then we ate at Great Steak with Emilio
for real this time and it was fabulous. And then more weekly planning
cuz one session just wasn't enough. Early afternoon lesson, trying to
get some kids to the temple, dinner was awesome. There's this place in
Provo called 180 tacos that's suuuper good. It apparently used to be a
food truck but it was so successful that they opened an actual
restaurant. They make tacos that are themed after cultures around the
world. And make crappy donuts. But thats not really important. We had
a great lesson with the G’s, their mom even sat in and
participated which was great. It seems like they're really making
progress now which is fantastic. Then another cancelled lesson, and an
unexpected lesson and blessing that was super duper good.

Now Saturday was a looong day, first we had a lesson cancel, went and
picked walnuts for two hours as a service... and knocked on doors the
rest of the day with very little success unless they were members and
we came to talk about other people. Like I said, long day. But it
paid off right at the end. We had a lesson with a family in our
trailer park that was super nice and went really well. Good way to end
a long day.

Sunday was good as well. We had Stake Correlation meeting in the
morning and we actually had most of our ward mission leaders there so
it was super nice. Then we contacted some people during sacrament
meeting, got to set up some lessons, and of course, the best part,
three testimony meetings and three sacraments. It's living the life!
You really learn a lot about yourself and your Savior when you can
contemplate His sacrifice three times every Sunday. What a blessing.
After all of that we got told by a family that we've been trying to
reach for months that they weren't interested. It was kind of
a relief. As much as I love them and want them to come into the
Gospel, I'm glad they finally gave us a straight answer, and I pray
for the Elders that will one day teach them. I just wish I could've
helped them more. We visited some more people, and set up some family
History visits for our recent converts so they can take family names
to the temple. I'm so excited for them. I'm glad I'm here in Provo,
it's a good place. We also set up to learn how to weld in a couple
weeks then we're going hiking with Brent in Moab sometime this month.
Looking forward to it and I'll see you all next week!

Love,
Elder DeFord

Week 16: 1/30/2017 Episode III: Revenge of the Sacrament

Well hello all... new companion time yay! So a little about Elder Skaggs... once again my companion is younger than me... but older in the mission. He's actually only been out one transfer longer than I have, but he is also district leader now so he's learning a lot. And I'm learning a ton from him which is super nice. He's a fantastic guy. He's very earnest and passionate about missionary work, and way obedient. It's been a great few days. In other news, he's a bass. And apparently at least decent because his high school is like super kick butt at choir stuff. He's also a wrestler, cross country runner, and by his own admission... smokin' hot 🔥. And yes that's a direct quote from him. But yeah it's been super good for the last few days, I'm looking forward to the rest of this transfer.

Ok anyway... so Monday last Monday.... so long ago. I'm just gonna blow through it... I honestly don't remember. We mostly visited people Elder Connelly was gonna miss and stuff... then the Hansen's took us out to Tucano's. Mm good stuff. That's really the only important part. Just food. So much food. It gets worse though.

The next day we did normal tings, visited more peeps... actually saw other missionaries from other places in our area... including Elder Hill, Elder Connellys new companion that I knew in the MTC, and Elder Banks who served in my area about a year ago. Then the Zone Leaders invited us for lunch at Wingers... they have an endless sticky fingers lunch special... so at lunch the day after Tucano's we had endless chicken fingers. Oops. We ended up competing against Elder Gallegos and Elder Santos. Me and Elder Connelly. Needless to say, they were crushed. At the end Elder Connelly even kept ordering for them afterwards. And we still destroyed. With our encouragement they did do a little better... but we won. Insert pictures here. And numbers. (editor's note: he did NOT insert pictures. Or numbers)

But that's not all... that night we were invited by D. in the trailer park, he apparently actually went to culinary school.... dang it was good. But so much food. Plus dessert. And the J's invited us for scones... and M. and V. gave us food... bam.

Wednesday of course was transfers... we did some shopping for the new guy and showed him around, started in on some new people and met some others. Nothing too crazy.

Thursday however... dang. I don't know how many of you have heard about the missionary broadcast on the 25th but they released a new missionary schedule among other things. Also, my mission President is seriously the most inspired man... over a year ago he decided that there were too many key indicators and our mission has been only reporting four, the four that measure and lead to conversion: baptized and confirmed, on date for baptism, church attendance, and finding new investigators. Or as we call them, Gate, Date, Pew, and New. And guess what one of the broadcast things was... that's right, world-wide missions are now doing what our mission has been doing for a year. Cuz President Hodgman is a boss.

Also the schedule is different... the details aren't super important, but one big change.... Pday starts at 8!!!

The rest of the day was just finding, setting up appointments, cleaning up the area book and relearning how to be a missionary. We had a great talk with C.O., I'm really looking forward to working with him. That was new investigator number 1. Already I feel pretty good about this companion. The rest of the night I was kind of questioning myself, what things I needed to do better. How could I be the person I was meant to be. I sent an email to President and marked it Urgent. I just said "What Lack I Yet?" It was rough. But it's all good now. I feel like I'm progressing in the Gospel and in my missionary service. Finally. We also played some games with S.B. and his family as well as taught a really powerful lesson.

Oh I forgot to mention, so one of our wards was planning at special missionary minded 5th Sunday meeting.... and I got asked to sing... like Wednesday. So I had to find someone to play.... nope nobody
could. So yeah. Friday is weekly planning and crunch time for a pianist... nothing. I decided what the heck, I'm a missionary and a man of a God, I can play my own piano. So I contact a sister in that ward and borrowed a mic stand from her... woot. Anyway more visits, more fun stuff. A couple of great lessons and more contacts all the time. I'm lovin this week more and more, even as tired as I am. We finished with another Armenian family, we like them a lot, but they're maybe not quite ready, I'm just not sure yet. Thank goodness the Lord provides.

I also have a new favorite Mormon message. I've seen it lots of times before my mission, but out here, it's seems to apply to just about everyone and everyone can make a connection with the truths in it. It's called The Hope of God's Light (The Hope of God's Light). I think everyone should watch it for a reminder of what's good in life and how to find happiness. Another good one is Sanctify Yourselves (Sanctify Yourselves).

Saturday we moved a bunch of people. First a nonmember who wasn't interested. Then we moved R... to Orem. That one made me sad. She's an incredible lady, a dry Mormon as we sometimes call them... just add water. She has beautiful testimony and more charity than I see in most Stake Presidents... truly incredible. And now she's moved to Orem. Talk about a sad day. But I have no intention of losing her. She was entrusted to my care and that doesn't end just because she moved.
She's my friend and I'm going to take care of her as long as I can. But... we also picked up 4 new investigators that day... two different families with two... so I guess it made up for it for now. But only because I'm staying in touch with her :)

Sunday was frustrating but good... so I did sing in Sacrament.... and play... and do both at the same time and do it in sacrament with minimal practice. All I'm gonna say is it wasn't awful. Aaaaaand... in spite of the fact that the whole ward was supposed to bring nonmembers to the sacrament meeting.... no investigators at sacrament at all. So that was pretty sad... and everyone who should've been in second ward wasn't... and 3rd ward we just had one... rough Sunday. But we made good connections and talked to loads of people. We've received several referrals though and picked up two investigators, 6 and 7 for the week. By the end it wasn't so bad... and I think I'm already for next week. We have a zone  conference on Wednesday to discuss the new schedule and The changes that come with it. Should be interesting.

Anywho toodlloo... sorry this is so late... it's been an interesting day. Love you all and stay cool.

Love,
Elder DeFord