This is all he wrote...

Dear Mommy :) I will see you in less than 72 hours. Sincerely, Elder Young...







This came a little later. Titled: "Comin' home"

The last group email from his mission. Wow.

Hello Everyone!

This is my last mission email. I will be heading home on Wednesday! feel free to email me at jakeyoung94@hotmail.com. 

We had 4 investigators come to church on Sunday! It was a good way to end the mission :) Love you all, thank you for the love and support!

See you all on Facebook.

From the week of Sept. 14th - we are getting closer to Operation Squeeze Jake!

Hello Fellow Citizens,

Our faith and patience has been tested this week. With Elder Porter spraining his ankle last Monday, we have been stuck inside the majority of the week; being allowed to teach a couple of lessons here and there. We had been feeling that there were going to be big things happening at the end of this transfer for several weeks now and then all of the sudden we were completely halted in moving the work forward. Elder Porter and I prayed much concerning the matter and the message received from God on all accounts of prayer have been to quite literally "Be still, and know that I am God"-Psalms 46:10. So we wait :)

Maurice and Racine have been plateauing the past week. Maurice still reads daily, praying for the answer he is looking for. Racine smokes one cigarette in the morning and only reads when Maurice reads to her. They failed to come to church again on the account of trying to rid their home of a mouse all Saturday night. They are scheduled to be baptized on October 25th and will make it. Racine already knows it is true and I personally think Maurice does too, he just isn't satisfied with his answer yet.

Maria has once again decided to remain a Catholic regardless of her witness of the truthfulness of all we have shared. She just doesn't want change in her life. Her daughter Vikki is planning on being baptized but is moving very slowly in her investigation.

Sadly, our friend Terrance, dropped us and so did James. They both had tremendous spiritual experiences on their first lessons with us and seemed so prepared but when the adversary stepped in "their hearts failed them." I have hope that they will accept the message in the future though.

We are excited for this last week of the transfer. Now that Elder Porter's foot has healed sufficiently to walk on it, we will be going as hard as we can to prune the South Bend vineyard :)

Thank you for all your love and support. If you could add those we are teaching into your prayers, that would be much appreciated!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Letter from Sept 8th - He got his plane ticket to Hawaii for his birthday

Dear Friends,

Considering it to be the week of my birthday last week, it was a very eventful past seven days. Elder Porter and I have seen many miracles, setbacks, good times, bad times, and just plain craziness. We currently have five people on a baptismal date, none of them prepared to be baptized before I leave. Elder Porter has possibly broken his ankle as of yesterday playing volleyball. To finish it off, we have been praying for our goal of baptizing three people before I leave for the past three months... We are have been praying for clarity and confirmation about our goal and have been comforted multiple times concerning the goal. I have definitely felt and seen over the past several months the Lord show me that he doesn't work by statistics or formulas, but by miracles. That being said, I have been learning that He wants me to trust in Him regardless of how dire the circumstances may seem.

This week we had 5 people who were planning on coming to church and none of them showed up... which was a bummer but also might have been a blessing because the fire alarm went off twice during church on Sunday. No one knows the cause of the alarm going off but it went off once during sacrament as I was bearing my testimony over the pulpit, and then again during the third hour.

Maurice and Racine are still doing good, but in our last lesson Racine randomly announced that she wanted to get baptized on October 25thinstead of September 19th. She said that October 25th is her twins' birthday and wants to be baptized on that date. Maurice is still waiting for his answer to come and reads and prays daily. Racine got a job that requires her to work Sundays so that leaves Maurice without a car to get to church and he refuses to get rides... So we are working on that.

Maria and Vikki finally came on a church tour this week and they both loved it! Vikki is still excited to be baptized, but Maria now has decided that she is going to stay Catholic. She believes the church is true but feels more comfortable just staying where she is at... Stubborn Italians!

Some great miracles happened this week while finding though!

One day we were headed to a lesson in an apartment complex called "Irish Hills." The lesson ended up falling through, so we went around and contacted several potentials we had, but no one answered. So we decided to just start knocking. By this point we were really far into the complex and the fourth door we knocked, a man named Terrance answered the door. He invited us in and as we taught him the Restoration he expressed to us much of his religious views and they all lined up perfectly with the Restoration! He is about 50 years old. Used to have a really rough life living in the ghetto, but had since found a better way and had dedicated himself to God. He prays all the time and lives by faith. We had an amazing time discussing the gospel with him. 

As we recited the first vision to him, he said multiple times "That's what's up!" We committed him to baptism and even though he already belonged to a church he said "of coarse I will!" Then we taught him the Book of Mormon and he expressed that he always felt that Christ had visited other people around the world and would often get in arguments with other religious people over the matter. We committed him to read from the Book of Mormon and when I asked to read him a verse he took the book and said "I have a better idea, how about I open up to a random verse and see what it tells me." In a matter of a second, he opened the book up to 3 Nephi 11:25 which reads:

"Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

... We all looked at each other and were in shock. He was elated by that point and was claiming that it was true. We committed him to be baptized on September 19th and he accepted. He then proceeded to tell us that he had been having some bad experiences at his church recently and felt that we were led to him. God is preparing people everyday to receive the gospel. We must be willing to always look for them, even when we don't feel like it.

Thank you for all your love and support!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Email the week of August 31st

Hello!

Miracle week! I am in awe of the power of God. Through faith and diligence, He truly can answer our prayers. It has been an honor to see the Lord change this area in the coarse of two months. We are teaching over ten people and several of them are families! Elder Porter and I measure our success each day not by the number of lessons we teach or the number of new investigators, but by feeling the Spirit guiding us throughout the day and whether or not we felt we did the Lord's will that day. We realized that the Lord has us here to teach and baptize but also to comfort, inspire, and uplift others and sometimes that means spending some time helping a less active or something of that nature. It has been so cool to see the tender miracles that happen each day as we go out and work.

Maurice and Racine Conley are doing AWESOME! They are definitely going to be baptized on September 19th. They have so many member friends already it is ridiculous. Turns out that Maurice is a professional gamer and he made about 52,000 dollars last year in tournaments. The best part is is there are like 3 young couples in the ward who are hardcore games as well and so they totally hit it off and one of the couples already follows him on a gaming website! Small world.. They came to the stake fair we had on Saturday at the church and loved it! Then on Sunday, Racine and the two little ones came to all 3 hours of church (Maurice had to stay at home with their autistic boy who through a huge rage fit because he didn't want to wash off his spiderman face paint from the fair the night before and refused to go to church... :)!

Maria and Vikki are on the upward slope! Early last week Maria was still stuck on the opinion that Catholicism and Mormonism are the same thing so we were trying to decide what to teach her and I got the impression to show her a clip from the talk "Why 1820" by Hyrum Smith (this talk gives a very in depth timeline from Christ's ministry to Joseph Smith, it pretty much shows how corrupt religion had become after the Apostles died.). Well weren't sure if she would take it well so we went to the lesson and felt we needed to share it with her and so we did and she loved it! Turns out she has been a Catholic for 70 years and didn't even know what the Nicene creeds were... neither did her daughter... That is what their church is founded off of! haha so we taught them about the Great Apostasy and they totally want to study the Book of Mormon now and find out the truth for themselves. It was a great lesson.

One great opportunity Elder Porter and I have had this week is to give blessing's of healing. I am a witness that the Priesthood power works. Healing's still happen today. I have been able so see it happen many times on my mission and it is always a sacred experience when we get to participate in one.

Thank you for your love and support!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Ward Newsletter excerpt

This week I was asked to do a write up about Jake. It was emotional for me to write. Jake got flack from his MTC buddies that he didn't love his mother because he wasn't homesick. Well, I never cried or was homesick for Jake either but now that he has finished what he was sent to do and he's done a phenomenal job of learning, teaching, and growing, I am more than ready for him to come home! I wonder if that's how Heavenly Father feels. :)

Ward Newsletter:

We can’t believe it’s time to write about the wrapping up of Jake’s service in the mission field. We have been overly compensated by Heavenly Father for Jake’s service. We will miss missionary letters, stories, and the Hoosier friends we have made through Jake. He has had a glorious mission and we are so grateful for his example and sacrifice. He is finishing his mission in South Bend, Indiana. His area stops right at the campus of Notre’ Dame. He is training a ballroom dancing elder from Preston, Idaho. They have had a great time serving together. We are excited to see and squeeze him!

If Jake had a reoccurring theme for his mission it very well may this: "And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith." Enos 1:12

A few excerpts from Jake’s letters that have brought a smile to our faces:

Our gospel principles class has been temporarily cancelled due to a large attendance of recent converts and returning less actives in the temple prep class. It is a joy to sit in there with them and make comments about the greatness of the temple.

__________________

The temple open house has been a great experience for everyone. We have been able to go down three times so far and take 5 nonmembers with us. It is a little frustrating dealing with all the anti-mormon stuff that is going on at the temple, but the work moves on! Apparently the anti-mormon crusade has been pretty heavy at this temple open house. 

There is an ex-bishop who is leading the campaign and has hired several people to dress up as parking ushers and hand out anti-mormon literature disguised as church information. Some people have also come through the tour and when they went through the celestial room, they emptied pockets full of dirt on the white carpets. Someone else also brought in animal poop and put in in the celestial room as well. I quickly realized why they didn't have any elders help out at the open house, because if they did then there would be one too many brawls happening with anti's :)

________________

Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, live. They are performing a great work here on earth. They are training their children to live the eternal life that is prepared for us. Opposition may ensue, but the war has already been won between good and evil. It is a honor to serve in the Lord's army.

__________________

…When we met with her on Sunday morning HER FRIEND WAS THERE! Her friend read the Plan of Salvation and loved it. She wanted to learn more and so we taught them both how to recognize the Spirit using the scriptures and they both felt the Spirit. Kadesha said she felt a light feeling like she was on a plane that was descending. We committed them both to baptism and in the closing prayer her friend, Autumn, told Heavenly Father that this was the best day she has had in a long time.

__________________

Last Saturday we had the privilege of going to the temple in Louisville, Kentucky with Crystal. It was her first time there and she had some of her own family names to do baptisms and confirmations for. I will never forget what took place as she walked into the temple for the first time. She stepped in and saw all the people dressed in white and the beauty of the front foyer and took a step back in emotion. She stood there and with excitement said "I feel like I am in heaven." The Spirit was so strong that day in the temple and I had the opportunity to baptize her for her deceased ancestors and also to baptize Elder Dodd for her male ancestors. I was able to look at Crystal as they were confirming her father who was deceased. She just smiled and cried :) There is nothing like going to the temple with those you have seen join the church and be there with them for their first time. It was a truly remarkable experience.

________________________________________________________________________________________

South Bend update

Good Day Everyone!

The last 7 days have been full of wonderful miracles. Besides the cultural celebration and the temple dedication this last weekend, we have seen so many wonderful individuals take steps closer to their Savior. 

Elder Porter had the opportunity to invite three people to be baptized this week and they all said yes! It was such a spiritual thrill to see them light up and get serious as we shared the message of the Restoration and then to see the eagerness in their countenance to read the Book of Mormon and find out the truth for themselves. 

One of the new people we taught is from Jamaica. She is here working as a nurse and has an unshakable faith in Christ. We rejoiced in her experiences she had with God in recent years and then we taught her the Restoration. She enjoyed it thoroughly and said she felt peace in her bosom as she learned about the Book of Mormon. She is happy to have us come back and her son is going to start investigating with her as well! These seems to be a plethora of new people the Lord has prepared to hear the gospel and Elder Porter and I are humbled that He has allowed us to take part in this spiritual harvest.

Maurice and Racine Conley are doing wonderful! They told us they want to set up a schedule to meet more often and more consistent so they can learn more and schedule easier. We brought over Britt Williams (a stellar recent convert who is married to a recently returned inactive) and they hit it off! They were instant friends and when Chris (Britt's husband who is an introvert) came to pick us up, he came up to the door (which he never does) and came in and hit it off with Maurice (which doesn't rarely ever happen!). They exchanged numbers and the Conley's said they wanted them to come over to all their lessons :) They are still on schedule to be baptized on September 19 and Racine is working on the Word of Wisdom; Maurice is pretty much living it already, he just drinks a cup of coffee ever once in a blue moon. We are so excited to see them progress.

Maria is doing ok. She has received some opposition and so she is back to the opinion that both the Catholic and the Mormon church are true... So we have some more work to do with her :) On the bright side, her daughter Vikki is now investigating, so hopefully they can help each other overcome their roadblocks.

This coming Saturday we will be going to the newly opened Indianapolis Indiana Temple! We have two recent converts we have been helping do family history with for some time who are going to be going to do baptisms for the dead for the first time. We are all super excited to go and we will send you some pictures next week of the trip.

Well I love you all and thank you for your love and support.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

This showed up this week...YES!

Continued work in South Bend

Hey Y'all!

What a week! We are seeing a steady increase of the work in the South Bend ward. There are miracles happening everyday and the people we are working with are being changed by the Spirit. We also have been able to bond more and more with the ward, they are considered family already. The central lesson Elder Porter and I have learned these past two transfers is that we must be obedient and do all we can, then just sit back and watch God do His work. We can't make miracles happen, we can only help set the stage for them.

Speaking of miracles, the transfer scripture President Cleveland sent out this transfer was an answer to our prayers. We have had this goal of three baptisms since the beginning of last transfer and worked our tails off to reach it. At the end of last transfer I kept having the feeling that "we aren't going to see 3 baptisms this transfer but the next transfer" and so I just went with the flow and we kept working hard. Well we continue to pray for 3 baptisms and keep working to reach that goal and when we read Enos 1: 12 which says:

"And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith."

As we finished reciting the scripture, Elder Porter and I both looked at each other and were feeling the same thing! We both knew that the Lord was telling us that our prayers would be answered in His own time and that we just had to keep being faithful and follow His will each and every day. Then for companion study Elder Porter randomly decided to read Alma 37 and there were multiple verses telling us the same thing! Super cool experience.

Our investigators are on the upward slope. Maria ALMOST came to church yesterday. We brought the bishop's wife to our lesson and she was PERFECT for Maria. They talked for a while after we left and Bishop's wife told Maria that she would pick her up for church and would come help her get ready if she would like (cause Maria is old :). Well Maria ended up having to take her daughter to the hospital that night and ended up staying there to help her so we didn't get to see her at church :( but we know that she will come soon. 

We are starting to teach a young family, Maurice and Racine. They are reading the Book of Mormon together and at the end of our lesson Racine gave the closing prayer and said "Lord, we feel already that this is the path that you want us to take." and also said "We are grateful that you had us talk to Elder Porter as he walked up to our house even though we didn't want to at first." SO COOL! They have three little ones and will be a huge blessing to the ward when they are baptized.

Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, live. They are performing a great work here on earth. They are training their children to live the eternal life that is prepared for us. Opposition may ensue, but the war has already been won between good and evil. It is a honor to serve in the Lord's army.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

T minus 6 weeks...

Good Day!

I go home in 6 weeks! :'( I knew this day would come, but not this fast!

Elder Porter and I are excited for these next six weeks. We have had a really good feeling about the work here. There are avenues that are opening up where avenues close. There has been people prepared in this area by members to receive the gospel. We are in the process of teaching two member referrals that have been strongly fellow-shipped. 

One of the member referrals has been coming with the family for several consecutive weeks now. We have set a goal for baptisms next transfer and feel that three people will be able to enter the waters of baptism in the next six weeks. We are going to do all we can to reach the goal and leave the rest in God's hands. It has been a blessing to learn from experience that this is 100% God's work and we can try to do all we can, but in the end God is the one who does it all. He leads us to people, He teaches people by the Spirit through us, He gives people the witness of the truth, and He is the one who changes their hearts. We simply just have to give it our all and have faith in Him.

This week we had specialized training down in Indianapolis. That is where all the trainers and new missionaries go to be trained by President Cleveland and the Assistants for the day. We were able to spend the night with my homies in Crossroads. It was soooo good to see them and what was even more cool was they moved apartments and now they live in a million dollar guest home off of a member's home! It is pretty much like a giant party house. They have a basketball court, pool table, movie theater set up, underground tunnel to the main house, and TONS of open space to play. The only problem was the AC was broken so some of us slept in the underground tunnel (I attempted to sleep down there on just concrete... didn't work) and the rest of us slept in the theater section of the house with fans.

We had a good time at specialized training, but it seemed a little bit moot for us to be there because I had already taught Elder Porter everything they did so he pretty much just got to learn it over again and ace all the role plays because we had already practiced it all so much :) It was a great time to see many missionary friends and reconnect with them.

Last night I dubbed Elder Porter the new senior companion for this new transfer (I think it is getting to his head, so don't congratulate him :D) with a huge samurai sword at the William's house. I will send you all a picture of the event.  He is doing so wonderful and I thought it would benefit him to take on more responsibility. He will do great and I know he will help push me hard these last six weeks.

Well I love you all so much and am grateful for all your love and support you have shown to me these past 2 years. 

God bless you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Aloha!

Aloha!

This week has been another wonderful week. We have had some set backs with all our investigators, but we are continuing to see new doors open up and old ones close. Our investigators are all going through different struggles and so we just have to be patient and keep showing them love. Elder Porter and I also got to ride our bikes a lot this week due to the end of the month and running low on alotted miles to drive. We had a blast and it was hilarious to hear Elder Porter go from nagging me daily to ride bikes to now not wanting to even touch his bike :) I told him how lucky we were that we got a full time car, but he didn't listen... greenies :D 

Elder Porter and I are having a great time together. We tease the crap out of each other everyday and have a blast teaching people. He is doing so well that when we go to knock doors he will go about 15 feet away from me or cross the street and we will both contact and teach people on the door step by ourselves. I am so proud of him! I could have never done that as a new missionary, I was terrified to do that up until about 13 months of being out.

We are working more with a return missionary in our ward, Sa Kennach. She does A TON of missionary work and loves to help the missionaries. Infact, this week we went down to the temple open house with her, her inactive older brother, and her brother's girlfriend who isn't a member. The girlfriend (Sina) is interested in the church and we are going to start teaching her in the Kennach home thanks to Sa being a great missionary! It is also helping get her older brother, Taft, reactivated.

The temple open house has been a great experience for everyone. We have been able to go down three times so far and take 5 nonmembers with us. It is a little frustrating dealing with all the anti-mormon stuff that is going on at the temple, but the work moves on! Apparently the anti-mormon crusade has been pretty heavy at this temple open house. 

There is an ex-bishop who is leading the campaign and has hired several people to dress up as parking ushers and hand out anti-mormon literature disguised as church information. Some people have also come through the tour and when they went through the celestial room, they emptied pockets full of dirt on the white carpets. Someone else also brought in animal poop and put in in the celestial room as well. I quickly realized why they didn't have any elders help out at the open house, because if they did then there would be one too many brawls happening with anti's :)

Things are going great, and Elder Porter and I are still working hard and praying to find three precious souls to baptize in the next 7 weeks.

If you guys could pray for Kadesha and Lizzie this week, that would be much appreciated. They are going through some struggles right now and could use the spiritual support.

Love you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Temple tour with the Kennachs!

                           And dinner at the Williams house! They had a samuri sword almost as tall as I was!

South Bend report

"Howdy Howdy Howdy!" -Mr. Shark (with Woody's cowboy hat), Toy Story 1

Miracles continue to abound in different ways. All our investigators who were progressing seem to have hit a spiritual roadblock simultaneously. We are sadly going to have to stop teaching our dear friend Lizzie. Her abusive husband has put the kibosh on us teaching her and so we cannot tread any further. Please keep her in your prayers. 

Also Kadesha's friend, Autumn, must have received some anti-Mormon literature because during our church tour she kept making weird faces and had to leave early. We were really bummed out that it ended the way it did for the lesson, but we have not lost hope!

We focused our efforts on finding this week and continue to find wonderful new people who have so much potential to progress. We are eager to meet with them all this week. We also have had some wonderful opportunities to strengthen relationships with lots of the members. We do service for a couple who have recently returned to activity. We help him fix several van's that he uses for his taxi service. He has been teaching us some mechanics, including how to change breaks, change spark plugs, change radiators, and this week it will be changing the engine heads. 

This couple has really dived head first back into the church and are working towards going to the temple to get their endowments out. Our gospel principles class has been temporarily cancelled due to a large attendance of recent converts and returning less actives in the temple prep class. It is a joy to sit in there with them and make comments about the greatness of the temple.

Elder Porter and I continue to work out every morning at the YMCA. We have been working out really hard and I soon shall have the pecks of David Hasselhoff :D

Well I love you all and thank you for your love and support.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

A text I got today...it made this mother VERY happy!

"Elder Young wanted to send you this picture...I have waited a year to see him again. He doesn't have too much longer and he will be home." When I responded that Elder Young must have been very happy to see him, he responded, "He was ecstatic." I love this boy of mine.

More from South Bend: and in the closing prayer her friend, Autumn, told Heavenly Father that this was the best day she has had in a long time.

Dear Loved Ones,

Something big and spiritual is about to go down in South Bend! There are so many miracles happening here in our area. We have set our goal for 3 baptisms this transfer and we have been giving it our best effort to reach that. We still have no one on a date and have 3 weeks left of the transfer, but Elder Porter and myself have a feeling that we are going to reach our goal in the Lord's own way. We are finding tons of awesome new people and are starting to meet with multiple investigators regularly. Things are looking up, we just need to ward more involved (we are working on that). We also were able to go with 4 people to the temple open house so far and had great experiences with each of them.

We definitely had some miracles this week. First one. We are teaching an old head quarters referral named Lizzie. I looked at all the referrals that this area received in the past year and Lizzie was a referral from about a month and a half ago. We contacted her and she wanted to meet. We went over with Sister Garner and boy was that inspired! They hit it off and turns out Lizzie used to be an ordained minister but has had several trials over the past few years that has caused her to backslide a little. She is very smart and when we taught her the Restoration she was more excited about it than we were! That was probably the funnest lesson I have had in a long time because we were able to feed off each other and both rejoice over the message of the restoration. When we told her about the temple I asked her if she remembered the temple Solomon built in the Bible and she said "This is the same thing as the temples back then, isn't it!" And we of coarse had a blast telling her about the temple open house happening down in Indy. She is going through an abusive marriage right now so we have to tread lightly because there is going to be a divorce soon. We are just praying the Lord can help her get around this road block so she can focus on baptism.

Another amazing miracle we had was with our girl Kadesha! She grew up going to church but she got discouraged because they always talked about feeling the Spirit and she never felt like she could feel it so she thought something was wrong with her. Her old church also taught "hell fire and brimstone" and "spoke in tongues" (which freaked her out) so she just decided to leave it all. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she totally gave some great responses to the questions we asked her and the scriptures we read with her. We left her a pamphlet and committed her to read it. Well when we texted her a few days later she said she gave the pamphlet to a friend who was going through a hard time and talked to her about the Plan of Salvation (already doing missionary work, what a boss!). Well when we met with heron Sunday morning HER FRIEND WAS THERE! Her friend read the Plan of Salvation and loved it. She wanted to learn more and so we taught them both how to recognize the Spirit using the scriptures and they both felt the Spirit. Kadesha said she felt a light feeling like she was on a plane that was descending. We committed them both to baptism and in the closing prayer her friend, Autumn, told Heavenly Father that this was the best day she has had in a long time.

I definitely know this is the Lord's work and we can't control the results of the work. All we can do is improve ourselves and give our full effort then watch the power of God bring the results. "We are saved by GRACE, after all WE CAN DO." This applies to the work of the Lord.

Thank you for all your love and support!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

An email from the Pres.

Dear Brother & Sister Young,

Your son, Elder Ira Jacob Young, has been assigned to train a new missionary. The position of trainer only comes to missionaries who have demonstrated the highest level of trust, obedience and diligence.  A new missionary's trainer sets the standard and establishes the framework for the entirety of the new missionary's mission experience. We have every confidence in Elder Young and know that he will be a great blessing to his new companion.

We appreciate your love of and support for Elder Young.  Those acts have helped prepare him for this new assignment.

Sincerely,

Steven C. Cleveland
Mission President

Just around the [South] Bend! (Pocahontas, nailed it!)

For my last 3 months of the mission I will be training a wonderful new missionary named Elder Porter in South Bend, Indiana. South Bend is in the northern most part of Indiana and home to Notre Dame University (our area borders the campus). I am in the same zone as my old favorite area, Plymouth! I am hoping to go down there and visit many of my dear friends. 

Elder Porter is from Preston, Idaho. He is fresh out of high school and is extremely prepared for the work. He spent his growing up working on a farm to help support himself and his family. He is a very hard worker and seeks to do all things by the Spirit. President said we had some things in common and my hunch was right! He is also a ballroom dancer!! He did ballroom dancing for about 3 years in high school and loved it.

This past week has been so hectic but great. President really hooked us up. We took over an old zone leader area and received a full time Jeep Compass! But, with all that we have a ton of stuff to do. Elder Porter has been patient with me as I have tried to get everything under control,. The Zone Leaders before us didn't keep records well or clean so we had that to do plus I am a district leader with a new district so I had all kinds of fun stuff to do there. We were relieved to have a break on 4th of July :) 

We had district meeting on the 4th and then were free for the day to spend it with members, investigators, or in our apartments. That night the new Zone Leaders who I love came back up from Mission Leadership Conference and us four went out to dinner and then went to a park for about 30 minutes to catch fireflies and watch the fireworks, it was a blast.

Elder Porter and I are harnessing all the new greenie power that he has brought to the field and the little I have left and we are trying to lift this area. We set a goal for 3 baptisms this transfer and 3 next transfer, so if you could all pray for us to be able to find 6 precious souls that have been prepared that would be much appreciated.

Our ward is great. We have a decent sized ward and there are some Polynesian families in there that love to help us with missionary work. One of the Poly dad's played professional rugby and is sooo shredded! He looks like a tank :) His name is Brother Moala and he came out with us last night to teach and we felt like we were bringing a bouncer to our lessons, haha :)

Things are going great and I want to thank you for all your love and support.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Leaving Franklin :(

Hey Friends and Family!

Turns out I will be leaving Franklin this week. I got my transfer call from President Saturday night and he told me he had a surprise for me. I asked him what it was and he said I would be released as a zone leader (praise the heavens) and would be training a new missionary! I am so excited and honored to have the privilege to train before I leave. I will train this missionary for three months and then head home at the end of his training. President said that the elder I will be train has some things in common with me, so we will have some stuff to talk about when he gets here :) Also Elder Coles (the assistant to the President) told me that I am going to the best area in the mission or his "dream area" but I think he is just messing with me cause I know Coles and his dream area is Crossroads.. haha ya. Yet, I am super excited for my new assignment and am ready to train my new boy how to be a Indiana missionary!

This week has been one of the most cherished of my mission. Last Saturday we had the privilege of going to the temple in Louisville, Kentucky with Crystal. It was her first time there and she had some of her own family names to do baptisms and confirmations for. I will never forget what took place as she walked into the temple for the first time. She stepped in and saw all the people dressed in white and the beauty of the front foyer and took a step back in emotion. She stood there and with excitement said "I feel like I am in heaven." The Spirit was so strong that day in the temple and I had the opportunity to baptize her for her deceased ancestors and also to baptize Elder Dodd for her male ancestors. I was able to look at Crystal as they were confirming her father who was deceased. She just smiled and cried :) There is nothing like going to the temple with those you have seen join the church and be there with them for their first time. It was a truly remarkable experience.

Later that day we also had the magnificent opportunity to go to the baptism of Amanda Herald and her three beautiful and vibrant girls: Clarissa, Selena, and Sierra Culvahouse. I baptized Amanda and Elder Garrett (my previous companion and dear friend) got to baptize the three girls. The Heralds had been through so much to make it to that day and there was a spiritual fire in their hearts as they were baptized. Amanda has found her new faith and is loving it, she fights every day to prove faithful to her new covenants she has made to God. The Spirit was very strong there and it was a wonderful day.

To add to the greatness of that day, that evening I got to go to a race car rally in Indianapolis with Elder Garrett and a family we worked with and baptized their dad (the Shipleys). It was a BLAST! The cars were so loud and we would all pick a car we think would win and we seemed to always pick the cars that were in the top 3 spots (just luck, I guess). It was so great to be able to spend some time with Elder Garrett before he heads home on Tuesday, I will sure miss him.

Well, I sure love all of you and thank you for your love and support. May you all continue to be faithful to the Lord and "go about doing good" this week.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Pictures from members this week.

All the above pictures are from Sister Susan Loper, a wonderful sister in their Zone that takes great care of them.

A father's day picture from a family who fed Jake and sent Ira this picture and message: "Hi dad! Happy Pops Day, Father!! Hope you've had a great day! Love from Franklin, Indiana!!

(Then the member added, "We love this great missionary and are taking care of him!!!)

SO GRATEFUL FOR WONDERFUL MEMBERS!!

More Franklin style miracles

Aloha!

This week has been wonderful. We were able so see miracle after miracle and felt that God truly was using us as instruments in His hands to do His work. Elder Dodd has a week left of his mission and it is admirable to see that he is trying to give all he has to the work before he heads home. I pray that I may follow his example and give the Lord all I have when that time comes.

Anna came to church on Sunday! We met with her on Friday night at the church with John Woodbury (best member missionary on this planet, he is a YSA), and her daughter who we are all trying to work on (including Anna). We watched the Restoration DVD and Anna was crying half the time. She felt the Spirit very strong and we committed her to come to church again so she could take the sacrament and prepare to renew her covenants when she gets baptized. Well she ended up coming to sacrament meeting with Sister Woodbury (John's mom) and she was crying half the meeting! It was the father's day program and it was just perfect for her. She knows now that this is where she needs to be and she can feel the Spirit when she comes to church. She is making progress on smoking a little each day. She has almost completely quit coffee (fist pump!). We are predicting she will be baptized in about 2 months from now.

A Miracle we had this week:
For the past several weeks, when we have appointments set up with new investigators and bring a member out with us, the investigator never is there or doesn't answer the door. So we take the member with us to several potentials and hope we can teach with them so it isn't a waste of time for them to come out. Well this week we took a youth in our ward (Jake Johnson) who just sent in his mission papers out with us to teach a new investigator who, of coarse, didn't answer. So we started to take him to a list a potentials to hopefully teach and while we were on our way to on of our potentials I looked over at a another potentials house who I thought wasn't super solid and his door was open and his trucks were in the drive way, so we decided to give it a shot and try him first. 

Well he came outside to talk to us and we ended up chatting with him for about 50 minutes (about 35 of those minutes we just listen to him tell us about the chaos that was going on in his life). Turns out he had been sent home from work for the next 6 weeks due to anxiety attacks that he was having. He had never had it before so he was really distraught about it. He is one of those guys who is never not moving and working so he expressed to us that he felt that God had allowed this to happen to send him an important message. Well as we talked and taught him he told us that he felt that God had sent us to him to tell him what he needed to hear and agreed to be baptized and learn more. He told us to come back whenever cause he has six weeks at home. It was great because Jake was able to bear his testimony a couple of times and see an awesome miracle in his own community.

If you could all keep Crystal Smith in your prayers this week that would be much appreciated. She is having heart problems right now and is pretty down. She is suppose to be going to the temple with us this Saturday, so we are praying the doctors can get her well enough that she can go.

Also another amazing miracle that happened this week. One of my favorite investigators from Crossroads (Amanda Culvahouse) has been battling addictions for the past three months and this Saturday she will be getting baptized with her three beautiful girls (Sierra 11, Selena 11, and Clarissa 13). Amanda and I have been texting and calling each other from time to time to keep her motivated and keep her going on the right track. We both struggle with anxiety so we were able to really connect and I am able to help her with her thoughts cause I have gone through the same things. 

On Friday night I received a text from her saying the following: "I'm not sure what y'all's rules are, but I know I seriously need to talk to you in person. I have prayed about this and this is the second time God has said I need to turn to you for help... I don't feel that I can get baptized Saturday before I talk to you." So on Saturday we went up and talked with her and it turns out that she was just having anxiety about some doctrine she was confused about, and she needed to understand some things. 

So we talked to her and the coolest thing happened. As we taught her some of the doctrine, it finally clicked with her and she said she now felt that it all made sense. She told us that for too long she had been ignorant and just listened to what the missionaries had to say because she felt that God had sent them to her but never really put in the effort to learn for herself. Those past few days she decided to really study and search for herself and in response to that she felt her prayers answered. She is ready to go now and is bearing her testimony with vigor. 

I am a witness that there are certain people that God puts in our path to help. I have been given weaknesses so that I can relate to individuals on a more intimate level. God loves His children and if we can be faithful to Him and listen to His promptings, He can use us to do His work. God led Elder Dodd and I in that meeting with Amanda. He was there speaking through us to her and it was a memory that will be burned in my mind forever. Glory be to God, for He is creator of all things and the Father of our Spirits. I know He lives and loves us. Christ is His Son and has given us life. He hasn't left us alone. He uses each one of us to help each other and lift them.

Well I love you all so much! Thank you for your love and support.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Franklin 2.0

Hey Everyone!

WE FINALLY GOT TO TEACH A SECOND LESSON TO SOME PEOPLE!! :D The famine seems to be passing and we are now teaching two families and an awesome young man. We have seen some amazing restoration lesson miracles with these families we are teaching. You can feel the Spirit so strong as we teach and the best part is seeing their reactions to the Spirit and the change that takes place in a 20 minute visit. Without a doubt, it is the Spirit that does all the teaching, conversion, and changing. We are simply the vessels in which the Spirit can do it's work.

This week we had the opportunity to do some service at the Woodbury farm. They have a beautiful property and John (a YSA who has been our biggest help) has his farm on the property and sells fresh produce. He was out of town so we helped his mom harvest different plants and get them ready to sell, it was a great time :) The cool part about John's farm is that he does a thing called Aquaponics which is a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish or other aquatic animals supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which in turn purify the water. So he has these huge tubs of fish who fertilize his plants and in turn his plants are actually super fresh and organic. 

Anna is doing well, she is struggling with smoking but we keep supporting her and she keeps giving her effort to quit. She went to church last week but didn't like it... The more we talked to her about it, it turns out that she has been have such grand spiritual experiences the past several lessons and during a church tour that she was expecting something even bigger. So when she went to church and didn't feel like she was being translated, she was disappointed... So we talked to her about how we aren't always going to have those great special spiritual experiences but we should continue to be faithful so that they can continue.

Well I love you all and thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Continuous fun in Franklin...

This past week has been a whirlwind. To tell you of the irony we have experienced I wish to quote my lovely companion on the ride home from transfers:
"Hey, maybe this transfer we won't have such a rough start! (Talking about me having a TIA warning stroke, living in Greenwood for two weeks due to the sisters taking out apartment, and having to move everything around with apartments).

Haha we let me tell ya... on the way home about 20 minutes after he said that we got rear-ended on the free way (not our fault) and it was a hit and run... so we had to deal with all that fun stuff and then about two days later I got really sick and thought I was experiencing similar signs of another TIA so we went to the hospital at 2 in the morning and they informed me that I never had a TIA but that I was experiencing sleep paralysis the first time and the second time I had inner ear congestion from allergies which caused me to have some vertigo... So they put me on meds for that but I feel like my head is as light as a balloon and I feel nauseous all the time. THEN two days after the first car accident after transfers, while I was picking up my meds from Walgreens, I backed up the car and as I closed the door and Dodd started to pull forward an old lady backed into our car....also not our fault. 

THEN on preparation day while at a zone activity, I went to lunch with a good missionary friend of mine who is one of my district leaders and he told me of some disobedience that went down in the zone. So we called President and he ended up ending their preparation day early (ours too) to have us all change and meet him in the city for a meeting. So we lost most of our preparation day to hear President chew out some missionaries in our zone. hahaha it has been a CRAZY week :)

Right now we are working with our investigator Anna. She was also another miracle who has come along slowly but is making great strides and is shooting to be baptized on June 20th. We found her our first day in the area and she was the first door we knocked. Today she told us in our lesson that she had actually prayed that day that God would help her because she was having a hard time and was at her wits end. She has progressed slowly but very steadily and it has been so cool to see how receptive she is to the Spirit. The change that has taken place in her is amazing. She is working on quitting smoking and if you could all pray for Anna that would be awesome. She needs all the prayers she can get.

This work continues to move forward, we notice that the Lord leads us from day to day and we are right now "pruning the vineyard." We do lots of finding and stopping by potentials trying to get people to progress past the first lesson. We are excited to see some of these people progress here soon.

Thank you for all your love and support, if you could keep Anna in your prayers that would mean a lot!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

A picture and sweet text!

We got this text from a family in his area yesterday: 

(Elder Young) is such a good missionary! He does the right thing at the right time! He is very good!!! Elder young is very serious and diligent. He is recognized for his hard work here In Franklin. But today and during off times he is silly and fun! What a great boy you have raised!

Continual fun in Franklin

Hello Friends!

Last Saturday we got to witness the baptism of Crystal Smith. There was such a strong spirit felt there, so strong that the members that got up to speak were brought to tears just talking about it. It was so great to see that the Lord is preparing His elect all over the earth to come into the fold of Christ and aid Him in the final stages of His great work. Crystal has also been doing some family history and almost has some names all ready to go. President Hilton talked to her at the baptism about temple work and after that she was so excited to go and you could tell she felt a sense of urgency to help bring salvation to her deceased ancestors. We are in the works of setting up a temple trip with the ward mission. We will probably go in the next 4 weeks. Elder Dodd and I were so happy for her and it touched our hearts and made them soft and mushy ;)

Speaking of Elder Dodd and myself, we got transfer calls and we will both be staying. Elder Dodd will spend his last transfer in Franklin before he goes home. We have set some awesome goals that will stretch us this transfer, but we can already see that Heavenly Father is laying the groundwork for us to accomplish those goals as we focus on them and pray about them daily.

It was great to be able to talk to my wonderful family last Sunday night. I sure love those goof balls :) We talked about the mission and some of the great lessons we have learned, but the majority of the time was spent talking about all the girls my parents wanted to set me up with from my dad's campus ward he is the bishop over... haha. I was pretty nervous when my parents said they had girls for me to date, but I must admit that they have pretty good taste! :D

Well I love you all so much, thank you for your faith and prayers. Keep serving the Lord and giving it your all. I know Christ lives. He is my Redeemer and King.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

No email this week because...

We had such a great visit with Jake on Mother's Day! We didn't get to facetime until 9:00 pm his time, 7:00 pm our time but we got to visit for a couple of hours and it was great! We had some great laughs about the girls we want to line him up with, some serious talk about life post-mission, and some really great spiritual insight about the spirit of the Law and the Holy Ghost.

He is doing GREAT! He only has 4 months before he is released but he promises he isn't trunky. If anything, he's scared. :) He loves being an ambassador for the Lord.

This is a tiny recap of one aspect of our conversation: He's doing so great!! He did express to us that at the first of his mission he needed to live the letter of the law and as he grew and matured as a missionary and learned the true purpose of the law, he can now live the spirit of the law as guided by the spirit. And just recently this was confirmed to him by his mission President. So that was cool. :)

More fun in Franklin!

Hello Everyone!

This week we have seen great miracles and at the same time been tested and tried. I am in awe of the mercy and love of God. He knows His children so intimately and even more so He cares for them amidst all their shortcomings and struggles. If we can open our spiritual eyes and go out into the world, we will see that God is everywhere and is working with great "urgency" to save His children. 

There are so many experiences we have had this week concerning this concept but one I would like to share. We had another busy day of appointments and things that needed to be done and so we set aside some time to have some "power finding" which consisted of us setting hourly goals for our finding so we could get the most out of our finding with what little time we had. The previous, we set a goal to teach three lessons for one particular hour and get a new investigator. We set a goal for 3 total new investigators for that day. 

As we went out and started tracting, we only had about 25 minutes to accomplish our hourly goal before our next appointment. We prayed for divine help and then began knocking. Within 20 minutes, we were able to teach three lessons (including showing the "Because He Lives" video) and get three new investigators with return appointments for the next week. Elder Dodd and I were in shock and elated to just witness such a compact miracle. We thanked God for His great power and mercy.

Concerning some of the people we are working with, Crystal Smith is doing awesome. She didn't make it to church yesterday because he knee gave out when she got up and had to spend a good portion of the day in the hospital getting everything taken care of. She is doing much better and is still blazing down the trail to baptism. 

Our other investigator who was going to get baptized on the same day ended up flaking out yesterday. Armando is from Honduras where it is part of his culture to drink coffee. He has been a beast in overcoming drinking and other addictions but when it comes to quiting coffee he just isn't ready to quit yet. As we talked to him we could tell he is scared to commit with the fear that he will mess up in the future and drink coffee again. So he didn't come to church yesterday, and instead went to another church down the street from his house. He still wants to meet and we know that he will get baptized soon, it will just take time :)

There are amazing people we are meeting almost daily here in Franklin so we are excited to see these amazing individuals progress towards baptism here this week. On Sunday we definitely had a refining day. Everything that had been set up had fallen through, we had three people who were suppose to be at church but only one came, and we had received bad news after bad news. 

Also amidst all of that, both Elder Dodd and I are still recovering from our sickness and Elder Dodd got a huge burn on his leg from sliding on gravel into 2nd base in Kickball at MLC. So we had a great day :) It was cool to see though, that once everything had fallen through, we could have easily just went and taken a nap to help mend ourselves, but we felt this was the Lord testing us and so we went out and tracted and contacted some individuals and we had an amazing evening! We definitely felt that the Lord had people He wanted us to contact that night and because of it we have some wonderfully solid new people :)

Well I love you all and thank you for your love and support. Your examples and loving encouragement keeps me going.

Sincerely,

Elder Young