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.

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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 :)

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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.

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…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.

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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.

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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!