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