What 3 weapons would you choose?

Week one of the transfer is over!  What a week :)

It was a relatively long week, as missions go... which means it was still one of the fastest weeks of my life.  

My companions are:

1) Elder A

Farm boy from Utah.  

Farm boys have great work ethics. :)  In fact, I was almost worried that he might outwork me.  'Tis not so, but we're totally on the same page, it's awesome. He's way funny, and is a great missionary. He's been out for about a year.  His 3 weapons in the impending zombie apocalypse would be

 a) A revolver,

 b) Katana,

 and 

c) shotgun.  

Pretty solid choices, We'll keep him around

2) Elder S

Same as last transfer. Good guy, glad to have him around :)

a) Maul

b) Shotgun

c) Sickle

I don't know why he thinks a maul is a good idea, but that's okay, we all make mistakes.  Although that one may be his last.

3) Elder T

He's our new boy from Hawaii! Get this, he chose me to be his Father!  Who'd have thought?! I thought I'd never be a father again.  It's way fun :)  

He's the happiest, most optimistic companion I've ever had.  Great guy, so happy to be here, eager to learn and to work.  

a) Bow & Arrow

b) Machine Gun

c) Shotgun

Hah.  Good luck finding ammo for your machine gun, Tani.  

4) Elder Lonas. 

Yep! still here!

a) Machete

b) Glock 19

c) One-handed Crossbow.

So by the last week of last transfer, most everyone we had found and taught last transfer had either been baptized, dropped us, or we dropped them.

Which means this week we knocked a lot of doors! SO MUCH FUN! Elder A and T both love knocking, so I'm happy :)    We've found more new investigators in a single week than I have in quite a long time, so we'll be working with them a lot this next week, doing our whole wheat and tares thing.  

Mainly I just want to knock more doors :)  We'll be placing a lot of emphasis though on trying to solidify the people we found, helping them get to church next week, and putting them on date for baptism.

I've been thinking recently about a talk given, I think by Elder Uchtdorf, entitled something along the lines of "always in the middle".

When people ask me how far I am into my mission, I just say "Oh, I'm in the middle"  :)

I'm definitely past the point of 'picking up speed' and the only thing I think I need to be wary of is the tendency to want to 'slow down' near the end.  What a silly idea :)  I'll be in the middle of my mission until the end :)

I'm in 3 Nephi right now, working around chapters 3&4.  I'f you're bored, I recommend looking up the definitions of "expedient" and "subsist" and see where it takes you.  

Well, I'm out of time.

Love,

Lonas

Book of Mormon Baseball

Official coming home date!  December 18th, 2013.

Dear little world,

This has been the fastest transfer of my mission so far.  I think I'm gonna start praying they slow down.  

Missions are such a privilege.

I remember feeling like a mission was something I could do for God.  In reality, I don't think I've helped any one person out more than I have helped myself.  Don't get me wrong.  Missions aren't about yourself, they're about others.  But as we focus on others, we are the natural byproduct.  

If every time we were to help someone get closer to Christ, and have better lives, we were to arbitrarily say that we were to have improved their lives by 10 degrees, I would say that we as missionaries get a couple degrees closer as well.  Maybe not as big a step as someone who is being baptized, but a significant difference.  If we do that with a few thousand people... the sum total is greatly in favor of others. But as far as which individual is benefited the most, it would definitely be us.  We are so so so so blessed to be missionaries.    (Mosiah 2:21-24)

If Heavenly Father just wanted the job done right, I think he would just have Holland and Bednar come do it all by themselves.  But the wonderful part of missionary work is that he has such silly people called to be missionaries, so we can learn and grow.

This weekend Mary and Lars, along with Bill, were baptized and confirmed.  Building schedule conflicts and working with people's schedules made it kind of stressful - but at their baptisms you can feel The Holy Spirit of Promise, testifying that what is taking place is sacred and eternal.  And nothing else matters :)

My friend Elder Christensen is getting transferred to Alaska.  I suppose Heavenly Father wants him to baptize some Eskimos.  (His two years are over, he's going home.)

I'll be getting Elder A.  I don't know a lot about him, but apparently he's a good missionary, and a very hard worker.  I think he's a farm boy, so that'll be fun.  

Keeping Elder S, but unfortunately I'll be losing Elder H.  He's a good missionary, and a way funny kid, I'm gonna miss him.  We will be getting a new boy too, so that'll be fun.

In the past couple of weeks we have been separating the wheat from the tares a lot.  I'm excited for the next couple weeks where we can do a lot of finding!  Finding people is so much fun.  

So, I've become quite the culinary prodigy.  I now make French toast, and spaghetti! (not together)

When I make spaghetti,  I add basil and tarragon. I have no idea why, but we have them in little bottles in our cupboards, and it makes me feel like an Italian chef.

Oooh! and Lonas has a new addiction!  It's a game I picked up from Elder F back in the blessed land of Bremerton, but never really played it until this past week.  I taught it to my boy when we were having a long day of tracting towards the beginning of the transfer, and he seemed a little bit discouraged.  Unbeknownst to me, he liked the game a lot and kept playing it by himself.  And then he showed it to Christensen, who later showed it to me again, haha.  So now we are all playing it!

It's called Book of Mormon Baseball. I'll try to explain the rules.

2 players each take turns.  When one player is up at bat, the other is pitching.  The pitcher makes a noise with his mouth to indicate that he is pitching, and immediately begins fanning through the Book of Mormon.  When the Batter says "Swing!" the Pitcher stops flipping through, and opens up the book.  If it's in the topical guide or intro or something, the pitcher calls "Foul" and re pitches.  If it's fair, he calls "Clear!"

Followed by at which point in time the Batter calls either Right Right, Right Left, Left Right, or Left Left (Indicating Right or left page, and then right or left column)

In turn, the Pitcher will tell him which verse numbers are in the column.  

I'll give a quick example of that part.

So lets say he calls swing, and the pitcher opens up to pages 372-373.

Pitcher says "Clear" and the Batter says Left right (so Left page, right column) 

the Pitcher would then say "4 through 10" Because those are the verses on the page (I just checked. I dont know that offhand hahaha)

the Batter will then pick a number. between 4 and 10.  Let's say he picks 10, then the Pitcher will read verse 10.  

The Batter can ask him to re-read it as many times as desired.  He has 3 guesses to guess which chapter of which Book it's in.  (So the Correct answer to our hypothetical round would have been Helaman Chapter 3)  

If he gets it right on his first guess, he gets 3 points.  If he gets it right on his 2 guess, he gets 2 points, if he gets it right on his 3 guess, he gets 1 point.  He can continue guessing indefinitely, but if he misses it after that, he loses a point for every guess, and can still only get 1 point for getting it right.  

You can also use 1 or 2 of your guesses to narrow down the book.  For example:

Is it in the Book of Alma? 

-No  (counts as 1 guess)

Is it in the Book of Helaman?

-Yes (counts as 2nd guess)

is it Helaman chapter 3?

Yes!  (Batter receives 1 point, because he got it on 3rd guess)

So the first person to 21 points wins!  

 OK, now for advanced rules.

If, after the 1st or 2nd guess, the Batter misses, the pitcher can call "Tip!"  

At which point the Book of Mormon is handed to the Batter, the batter flips through and the pitcher calls swing. (just like a normal turn) 

except the Pitcher only has 1 guess to get it right.  If he succeeds, then Batter loses 3 points.  If he fails, then the Batter automatically gets however many points were still possible 

(so If the pitcher called tip after the first guess, and then failed, the Batter would get 2 points, bc the batter had 2 guesses left)

Ok, Those are all the rules I can think of off the top of my head.  If you have any questions, let me know and i'll clarify.  It's WAY fun though after you do a couple rounds.  You learn a lot just by playing, because you're constantly being tested, and then whenever you're wrong you can learn why really fast and then keep going.  

Lonas is currently undefeated :)   

Guys, I love my mission so much.  I'm a little bit nervous for the new transfer as usual, but I'm sure it will be good, Heavenly Father always has such a great plan :)  And I know he has a plan for each of us.  He really does.  

-Lonas

Chase and his buddy Elder Christensen

 

"When obedience ceases to be an irritant, and becomes our quest, we are endowed with power."

This week has been so much fun!  Another short week for emailing, Elder C is going home next week, so we have to spend a lot of Pday time doing "going home" stuff, so we don't cut into proselyting time, which is good :)  

We had a goal in the mission set by our Mission President to give as many church tours as possible.  I don't know if it's good or bad, but once we get a goal like that, it becomes a game.  So it's been a way fun week haha :)  We had a lot of success, I've never given so many church tours in one week before. We gave more last week than I've given in entire transfers before.  It just goes to show you that you can get what you go for.

That's something that Elder Christensen and myself have been talking a lot about.  Faith is the first principle of the gospel, and yet sometimes we don't really live by what we preach.  We as missionaries pray about our goals before we set them, which is the process by which we try and align our will with our Heavenly Father's. If our goals are in line with his goals, then we should be able to bring them about if we really put our all into it.  We won't always hit every goal, and that's ok- but sometimes I think we use that as a cop out to only say we believe in it, but not really do all we can.  

Preach My Gospel recommends that in a companion study, you make a list of every proselyting activity you did that past week, and then evaluate whether or not it was an effective use of your time.  The idea isn't for us to look busy for two years, while in actuality we're spinning our wheels, but to be as productive as possible.  So we've been focusing on only filling our day with the BEST of activities, and minimizing the "good, and the better.    It's fun and satisfying :)

In my personal studies I've been studying a lot about Obedience.  I think it was Benson, who said that when obedience ceases to be an irritant, and becomes our quest, we are endowed with power.

Good thought :)

Hey, short again I know, please forgive me :)

Love,  Lonas! 

Pictures!

A few pics I lifted off the mission blog.  Thanks Sister Weaver!  :)