Things are blooming in Bloomington

Dear All You Beautiful People!

Things are continuing to rocket forward with great excitement. The new district is wonderful. We have great elders and sisters. Elder Decow's (pron. DeCou - it's french) voice is spicing up everyone's lives. It sounds like the announcer for General Conference :) 

Our investigators are moving along amazing. Anthony, Heather, Radonna, and Kayla have such a zeal for the gospel it is inspiring. The Lord has been preparing them and there is going to be sorrow and despair in Satan's kingdom once they are all baptized. Radonna hasn't smoked since we committed her to live the word of wisdom and she is starting on 2 Nephi. We had a lesson with her and Kayla at a member's home and the spirit was starting a riot in there! It was such a good lesson and when we left our investigators were ecstatic. It has been amazing to see the miracles taking place here. To help Anthony quit smoking, he is coming to work out with us at the church every morning at 6. He is a super star! The ward is doing great. They have been a huge help to the work and have been getting really excited with the new investigators coming.

I have such a strong testimony that God is mindful of His children, and that He is such an intimate part of each of our lives. He loves us, and cares for us. He respects our agency perfectly. He will only come into our lives if we allow Him. I love my Father and my Savior. They live, I have seen an endless string of experiences that manifest that they are real. As we put our complete trust in Them, They will guide us safely home and make sure our journey was well worth it.

I love you all and hope that you all have a great week this week. Go and share what you believe with someone you love!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Something's Brewin in Bloomington Part 2 - He's staying put this transfer but his comp is leaving and he is the new DL.

Hello All You Lovely People!

Holy Cow! This week has been jammed packed with miracles! We have four investigators (Anthony and Heather, Radonna and Kayla) who are all progressing at an alarming rate! 

Radonna and Kayla both already have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and are really excited to get baptized, in fact, Kayla put herself on a baptismal date! Anthony and Heather have been completely socially converted and now they are quickly becoming spiritually converted. They are in love with the ward. The members are doing a perfect job with them! Yesterday I barely even saw them because the members were with them and talking to them the whole time! 

Yesterday Heather brought a struggling friend (named Alex) to church and she loved it! We taught her that night at Anthony and Heather's and she is also committed to baptism! The coolest thing was was that Anthony and Heather are already doing missionary work and Anthony helped us teach Alex! They are so prepared it is ridiculous. Anthony really wants to give up smoking and has confided in one of his member friends that he had only started because of a bet and he really wants to quit. 

Heather has received some opposition from a friend who is part of another Christian faith. When she told him she was coming to our church he was frustrated and said "Do you even know what their core belief is?" and he told her that we believe we can become God.... haha she was annoyed at him and just ended the conversation but she asked us if that was true and we told her that we can become like Him but we can't become Him. She was like "Makes sense!" :) Anthony also has been telling everyone that he is getting baptized and has been getting some negative feedback but he told us that that just makes him want to join us even more! Such a boss!! The Lord is preparing this area for something great and he is gathering His elect to fill the world with His good news.

Transfers have come and Elder Coles is leaving and becoming a Zone Leader. I on the other hand am staying in Bloomington (thank goodness) So I continue to teach all our sweet peeps. President Cleveland transferred almost nobody last transfer so this transfer he transferred almost the whole mission! There are a number of areas that are completely whitewashed (everyone transferred). President Cleveland likes to move people around a lot and call and release leadership a lot :)

Well I love you all! Go and share you testimony with someone this week will ya? You guys are all beautiful!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Something's Brewin' in Bloomington....

Hey Everyone!

The Lord has been kicking our area into overdrive this week! There has been so many miracles (both with investigators and members) this week we have truly felt the Lord's work hastening in the Bloomington University ward. For the first time since I have been here we have had more than one investigator come to church.... we had FOUR! It was so awesome. Our sacrament meeting program was amazing and spirit-filled. On of our investigators who goes to the Evangelical church just down the street from our building started tearing up during the talks, and his wife was taking diligent notes the whole time! That is not even the big news...  THE LORD LED US TO OUR FAMILY WE HAVE BEEN FASTING FOR! It is totally Anthony Sykes and Heather Monroe (they are married and have a month year old boy named Zaden). The great thing is is that we live next door to the church and they live right above us so they can just walk out their front door and into the church! They came yesterday and loved it, we have several young couples in our ward that are in the MBA program at IU so they had a ton of excited fellowshippers and our gospel principles class was HUGE! We had a fun time in there :) After church the young couples invited Anthony and Heather to come over that night and have a game night and desert with them and they went! Things have been going so good this week, we are so grateful for the Lord's loving hand in this area. It is completely Him and we can just work hard and have faith in Him.

Something else cool that has been happening too is we are teaching a middle aged lady named Radonna and her daughter named Kayla (in her 20's). The daughter was meeting with the sister missionaries from a different ward and was doing really well and Elder Coles tracted into her mom (Radonna) on exchanges and she wanted to meet. Well now Radonna is on a baptismal date for November 29th and her daughter, Kayla, called the sisters and put herself on a date to be baptized the same day! So we are super excited for them, they are hungry for the gospel and they are progressing super well. Also because Kayla is in our area and in our ward she was handed off to us, so now we will be teaching both the daughter and the mom about 2 to 3 times a week.

There are so many amazing miracles that have happened this week. We have some other investigators that have great potential but it is still a waiting game for them right now, but we definately have faith that they will "catch the wave" and surf right into the font :)

One interesting experience I had this week was we taught a lady in her early 30's named Stephanie. She is a scientist who studies human behavior and used to be catholic when she was younger but now is Atheist. She is really funny and sweet but man she is messed up as far as beliefs go. We sat there and debated over the concept of God and Jesus Christ for quite sometime while Elder Coles and Brother Tew kept giggling whenever she dropped the f bomb.... She said it a lot... It has been so interesting to me to think about having the belief that after you die there is nothing else and that there is no God and we are just here by happenstance. She agreed with me that that is a bleak way to live and doesn't bring a lot of happiness but it is better than feeling guilt from believing there is a God who is damning you for your sins. It was a good intellectual discussion but it made me very sorrowful to see this young mom who has this huge void in her life and is being strangled by the chains of Satan. You wish you could do something about it but because of agency there really isn't much you can do except show your love and bear testimony. We are going to meet with her again so hopefully we can help her out more.

Well I sure love you all, thank you for your love and support. Hope you all have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

More pictures...yeah! :)

Chillin' in the woods on P-day

Another stadium shot

P-day activities

Morning Workout Crew 

(check out Jake's shoulders!)

District Conference

(including Elder Willie as the District Angel)

Still Rollin' in B-Town

Hello Everyone!

Wow, what a week! To imagine when I got here this area was really in the pits and now it is like a flowing river a progression! This past week Elder Coles and I believe we have found our family we have been fasting for... and they live right above our apartment :) 

So on Friday we went out on a normal day of proselyting and we were on bikes. On our way out of the parking lot we saw a man walking with a stroller and a new born baby in it. On our way out we said hello and he asked us if we were going on a bike ride. We told him yes and asked if he would like to join us! He laughed and said no thanks. So about 5 hours later we got back from proselyting and he was there at the parking lot again but with his wife and baby this time. He asked us if we had just gotten back from our "bike ride" and we said ya. Then he came up with his wife and asked us what church we belonged to and when we told him we were Mormons he told us he was interested in learning more about Mormons and wanted to meet. We tried to set up an appointment but he said to just come by that night! After talking to them for a few minutes we found out they lived above us and that gave us a good laugh. So we met with them that night and the lesson went awesome!

Their names are Anthony, Heather, and their son Zaden. They committed to read the Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. We also invited them to come to conference at the church next door and they come to the Saturday Morning session! Anthony had lots of questions and it was a good time. We are scheduled to meet with them tonight. The Lord truly does answer prayers if we have faith. I was so excited to be led to a family and boy were we excited when they found us! The ward is also excited because several members fasted as well and were thrilled to hear that we found a family to teach.

Other than that great miracle, we are continuing to find more and more solid people to teach. I can feel that the Lord is definitely preparing people for baptism in the Bloomington University ward as we speak.

Conference was great! I loved the talk by Jorg Klebingat, who spoke on how to be spiritually confident. He was very bold and straight to the point. It was also an answer to one of my questions I asked prior to conference so I thoroughly enjoyed it :)

Thank you guys for all your love and support!

Sincerely,

Elder Young