College has just begun in B-Town

Well Hello There Everyone :)

So basically I have been spoiled with great weather my whole mission... until this week. It has been so hot and humid I am melting into a puddle everyday! I feel like we are on a survivor show every time we go out. It has made this week one of the longer ones on my mission, but I still very much enjoyed it :)

So you know how missionaries generally have one of those great missionary stories they like to tell everyone? Ya, well Elder Coles and I just got ours this week :)

There is an old lady named Donna Michael (in her 80's) who we have been teaching for the past few weeks and we have taught her about 5 times now. She is definitely a hoosier and she loves to tell us the same stories about her atheist neighbors every time we come over. Well she was committed to a baptismal date by the third lesson and she had some concerns and was pretty defensive on the fourth lesson so we thought we might have to drop her. So we decided to go over a week later to see what our verdict would have to come to.

When we got there she answered the door and we said "Hi Donna! How are you doing today?" and she said "This isn't Donna, this is her twin sister..." She then proceeded to tell us that she was watching Donna's house with her husband while Donna was in Kentucky with her girlfriends. We were so shocked that this innocent old lady would pull such a ridiculous move that we just decided to mess with her and go with it. I said "Well I didn't introduce myself, I'm Elder Young. What is your name?" and she said "Donna.... I, uhh, I mean Donnetta." Then Elder Coles said "Donnetta, have you talked to missionaries before?" and we continued to ask her if we could sit down with her and share a 5 minute message with her... she accepted :) We asked her how she came in contact with the missionaries and she told us that she was gardening in her yard (she pointed to Donna's yard) and continued to tell us the same story that she told us when we first ran into her. We asked her why she was gardening in Donna's yard and she paused for a second then said she help's Donna out a lot. When we talked about the Book of Mormon we asked if she had heard of it and she said "Oh yes, I read from it everyday!" and we asked her how far she had read and she said about halfway. Then Elder Coles asked "So what book are you in then?" and she said "oh.... like in psalms." So at the end of the lesson we asked her if we could come back and teach her more and she said that would be fine. Then I asked her "Donnetta, where is your husband at? Would he be interested in learning about the gospel?" and she said "oh yes, he probably would, but he is so busy. He works at the CVS up the road." She said his name was Claude, and we told her that we would stop by after the lesson and say hi to him. Then we said a prayer and were on our way.

Pretty good right? :)

Other than that we are just trying to get the area moving farther forward and find more people to teach. Well I love you guys and thank each of you for your love and support. If you guys would please pray for Gabriel Saleh, Lynne, and Chance that would be much appreciated. They are investigating and they just need to find their testimonies.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

 The first picture is of my companion Elder Coles (far right) and our two campus missionary buddies.

The second picture is of a sick building on IU campus. It is the coolest building ever!

The third picture is of the "main entrance" to the campus (the campus is huge).

also here are three more pictures.

 the first is of me holding a pancake that Elder Coles and Elder Palmer made me.... it is suppose to be a "Y" but it failed.

The second is us just being goofy :)

The Third one is of me asleep in the car.... apparently I fall asleep in the car all the time (I do, they aren't lying) so they thought they would get a picture of it :)

Week 4 in Bloomington!

Hey all you wonderful people!

Update from B-Town:

This week we have been continuing to find new people. The work here requires much dilligence, obedience, and faith. The area we are in is known for the high level of diversity in religions and a extremely large population of agnostics and atheists. Because it is a huge college town, it is uber liberal and about half of our area is university staff or students. So all in all we have some fun times tracting and street contacting :)

Yesterday, while Elder Coles and I were tracting we ran into a lovely guy who highlights some of the other wonderful people we run into in this area. When he opened the door we introduced ourselves and shook his hand. When I asked what his name was he hesitated then told a his name was Bob... we both could tell he was lying. We asked if he had talked to any Mormon missionaries before and he said "Ya. I actually think you guys are pretty crazy." and as he began to close the door Elder Coles scored some brownie points by saying "Hey Bob, is that your real name?" and he said yes just as he slammed the door... :) It made my day! 

Our recent convert, Clive Fisher, is doing great. We had our first new member discussion at the Grant's house and you can really tell that he has received the Holy Ghost. He was definitely speaking with "the tongue of angels." He has such a electric testimony, it is exciting and strengthening to hear. We watched the restoration video with him and he teared up. We gave him the video and he was very excited.

I hope you all are doing good and staying true to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need Christ's Atonement in our lives at all times and in all things and in all places. I hope each of you find joy in following Him, if not then learn more about Him. You will find as you learn more of Him and try to be like him, your life becomes more enriched.

Love you all! Thanks for your love and support.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Greetings from B-Town!

Hey Guys!

This is going to have to be a shorter weekly letter this week, we don't have as much time to email as we did in Plymouth.

Good things are happening here in Bloomington University ward! We have been finding new people to teach in response from our finding fast. We have been very blessed from the Lord and I am so grateful for his mercy and love he shows me. I know God lives and that He loves us all. He sent His son to earth so that we could have second chances. 

I love you all and hope you all have a splendid week!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

First Week B-Town!

Hello Everyone!

Transfers have come and gone and I am now a district leaders' companion in the IU university ward in Bloomington Indiana. We are walking distance from IU which is a ridiculously large. My companion is Elder Coles from Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the district leader over the university ward and the campus missionaries. From what President hinted at pretty bluntly and what some zone leaders have told me is that this transfer is training for me to take his spot next transfer. So we will see what happens there! It is so weird going from senior comp to junior comp, it is like taking a vacation. I feel like I am being trained again, it is so great!

So I just have to say the contrast from Plymouth (my previous area which is clear up north in the boonies) to Bloomington (at the southern end of the state and is a big college town) is huge. I feel completely out of my element here. Everything has flip flopped and it took me a few days to adjust to. Here are some differences.

In Plymouth, almost all people have an interest in religion or at least believe in a higher power, in Bloomington most people we have talked to are either Atheist or Agnostic and more people than I would like don't believe in God and don't care to know there is a higher power.

In Plymouth, most people are lower class and don't have a higher education, in Bloomington almost everyone has a degree or several and thinks that their opinion is truth and there are some sketchy opinions down here...

In Plymouth, the elders and sisters are all pretty far geographically from each other and are all generally hard workers, and In Bloomington we are all like 3 miles apart and the elders and sisters flirt with each other and they deal with lots of lazy and disobedient missionaries down here (by the way, President Cleveland fixed that this transfer with the disobedient missionaries so that is for the most part taken care of).

In Plymouth, there is so small of a population that it is mostly white Hoosiers and they were for the most part all Christians, In Bloomington it is very diverse with all different kinds of ethnicity, religions, and races (including tons of Chinese, Jews, and Muslims).

In Plymouth, the missionaries get pretty out of shape because we all drive everywhere and don't play sports at all (no single adult activities, no sports groups that meet, our branch didn't even have a basketball hoop), in Bloomington not only do we go to the gym every morning to work out but we also have different sporting events every night of the week besides Sunday... I am definitely getting into shape down here :)

In Plymouth, our branch was tiny with lots of older families and old people and the ward missionary work was moving faster than I have ever seen, and in Bloominton we have a huge ward with tons of young families and our bishopric got called 5 weeks ago and when the bishop was called he said if he had to choose to go back to Vietnam or be a bishop he would choose Vietnam.

Haha... get the difference? :) I sure love it though, and I am definitely not bashing on Bloomington. The ward is great here and things are already looking up in our area. We were able to teach 18 lessons in 3 days so things are definitely moving forward and we are striving to do our best. I am going to love it here and am excited to see the Lord work miracles in this great town of Bloomington.

Quote of the week:

Our Ward Mission Leader is super funny, he is in school and has several younger kids. At dinner his little girl Anna (who is about 4) only wanted the dark croutons and not the light ones and when she started to fuss a little bit about it Brother Crocker (our ward mission leader) said " Quit being a racist and eat the white ones!"

Hope you all are doing good, I sure love all of you and want to thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Last 2 Days in Culver... :(

Hey Guys!

Sadly, the time has arrived for me to leave Plymouth. I am going to miss this area greatly. The Plymouth Branch and all the people in it's boundaries I hold dear to my heart. Branch President Kelly has taught me many things and has greatly increased my effectivness in working with members and investigators. He has also shown a wonderful example of how a unit in the church should do their missionary work. I hope to take those things I have learned and apply them to my missionary work now and also when I get off my mission.

I am honored that the Lord needs me somewhere else in the state of Indiana to go and invite others to come unto Chirst. I am ready to get started where ever I am put. I am hoping I get put somewhere close enough to Plymouth so I can come to Richard Hill and Ron Jones baptism. I had to say goodbye to Richard yesterday and it bitter-sweet. Gave him a big hug and said we would see each other again. I get to say bye to Ron on Tuesday when we go over to his house and that is going to be real hard! I love those guys so much, it has been so good to get to know them.

This week we almost hit standards of excellence! We got 21 lessons and it feels so good to see the Lord blessing this area so much. Every week there are new people flowing into the teaching pool, I can literally feel the Lord performing miracles everyday and it has strengthened my faith so much! I am so excited to hear about all the wonderful miracles that continue to happen as Elder Russell trains a new missionary here. Elder Russell is great, I have thoroughly enjoyed being companions with him and he is definitely going to be an amazing trainer for whoever gets him. Also that new missionary is going to get whipped into shape quick in this branch, they know how to train missionaries :).

Well I love all of you very much! Thank you for your love and support, prayers and emails. You guys are wonderful and I hope to hear from you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

The first friend sleepover (without Jake)...

So this is pretty funny but both of Jake's best friends, who did not know each other until last Sunday, had their first legit sleepover at our house. Without Jake, of course.

Neither of their parents would allow sleepovers and no amount of Jake's begging would sway them. Riley was a year ahead of Jake in school and Jean Luc hadn't moved here yet. Riley and Jake never could get permission for Riley to spend the night and then Riley left on his mission.

Jean Luc moved to Rexburg after Riley graduated and he and Jake became buddies after Riley left on his mission. Jean Luc wasn't allowed sleepovers either. Jake would even call his mom and try to swoon and sway her but his charm had no affect. So Jake left on his mission sleepover-less with his besties.

Both boys have come over several times since Jake left (for which I am very grateful) but never at the same time until Sunday and they had a great time and since they are both in college now, they decided no matter what their parents said, it was time for a sleepover which took place last night (Monday night) in our basement minus the common denominator. It was fun to have them. They brought nutty bars and oatmeal pies (Jake's staples) and ate them all. That is what's hanging out of Riley's face in the pictures below.We did what we always do, buy everyone pizza, chat for a minute, send them downstairs and retreat to our bedroom.

I saw them for a minute this morning and then they were gone. I'm thankful for the little filling they add to the hole that Jake has left in our home. :)

My Last Full Week in Culver :(

Hi Ya'll!

 

Things are still moving right along in Plymouth, Indiana! We are doing our best to find, teach, and baptize. As we have invited people to baptism and given them a date on the first lesson we have seen immense improvements! I have a firm testimony that as you create a road map to baptism that you can commit investigators to follow they will have more of a vision and feel that they have a more solid grasp on the situation. Increased vision brings increased motivation.

A great miracle this week: As we were tracting the apartments in Plymouth we had a goal to get 1 other lesson and 2 new investigators in about a hour and a half period. We told ourselves that we would reach that goal (with the Lord's help of course) and as we tracted with that as our mindset we achieved that goal within knocking about 8 doors! We were able to teach a mother and daughter (19) who were pretty new to their faith in Christ. They go to the Crossroads church in Plymouth and the mom (Cami) has been reading the Bible frequently. You could see the spiritual hunger she had for the gospel. Her daughter had been reading a little bit from the Bible but also loved to learn more about God and his plan for her. As we taught then on the doorstep, the Spirit was so strong! During the first vision, Cami got goose bumps and she was pointing to the picture of the first vision in the pamphlet and saying quietly to her daughter "Honey, check that out! Isn't that cool?" They were very excited to receive their own Book of Mormon and they both committed to baptism on September 7th. Elder Russell and I were amazed at what the Lord can do when we show our faith and be steadfast in accomplishing His work. This method of verbally telling ourselves right before we go to work and even as we are working has proven itself multiple times, I quite enjoy it :)

Yesterday we had Interviews (hence why I didn't send this email yesterday) with President Cleveland and it went very well! President talked to me about a couple of things and said that he has no idea what I will be doing next transfer or where I will be going, so I guess it will be a suprise! :) Elder Russell will be staying here in Culver and training a new elder so this week we nominated him senior companion. It feels so good to be junior companion!! I haven't been JC since I got trained and I wouldn't mind staying this way for a while :) I am going to be so sad to leave Culver, the Plymouth Branch is amazing and there are so many good people here.

Update on Richard Hill: He is still moving along wonderfully. He is going to have his baptismal interview either this Sunday or next and he is still wanting to be baptized on August 10th. He is continuing to wean off the coffee and cigs. He has smoked and drank coffee since he was 9 years old, so this is a big feat for him!

Love you all so much! Hope everyone is growing in the gospel and sharing it with others. This gospel is true and it needs to envelope the world. We need a big family party in heaven so get to work inviting people! :)

Sincerely,

Elder Young