Thursday, June 30, 2016

Transfer 12 Week 5


We started off this week by having a lesson with our neighbor Autumn and Bryan. They are so awesome! Bryan was in and out of the house during the lesson but came back in to talk after the lesson with Autumn was finished. We were able to set a lot of things straight, they were super confused on who we were and what we did since they had never heard of LDS missionaries before. They always saw us together and wearing nice clothes so they didn't know what to think of us.. They said they almost called the cops on us one time because they didn't recognize these two kids trying to get into the house.. We were just wearing normal clothes one Pday and they didn't recognize us.. hahah it was good to answer a lot of their questions! They're super open and really good people! Autumn has a lot of potential to progress! We had two lessons with her this week and she's super sincere and wants to know if it's all true! We're excited for them.

 




Tuesday we had district meeting and I went on exchanges with an Elder up north to Sturgeon Bay. The exchange was decent, I was happy to be back to Manitowoc on Wednesday.

 

Thursday was jammed packed with service. We went from helping a member move three sets of couches up and down stairs, to helping Jack Gunderson cut down some of his branches in his yard, to then helping a single sister clean out her cluttered, junk ridden garage, which took a few hours but was worth it because of the great meal we had afterwards. We found a nest of mice in the garage, and the mother mouse took off running, we spent a while trying to catch this mother mouse to bring it back to its babies, but we were unsuccessful. Super fun time though. I never thought I'd have so much fun trying to catch a mouse in a cluttered garage.. 

 

Friday was Sister Cazares' birthday. Ruby and Jack threw her a party which was super fun. There was a piñata'! I guess you know you've grown up, when the piñata' breaks and no one there rushes to go grab the candy.. hahah It was a fun day. 

 

Saturday we went to a car show that was in two rivers, we were able to talk to a lot of really nice people and see some sweet cars! We then went straight to Chilton and had another quick, but really good lesson with Brent. We read out of the Book of Mormon with him and were able to get a better relationship with him. He's awesome. We saw some other people, and then finally had the long awaited lesson with Tony. Tony was the guy that E. Amann and I tracted into, that was super excited at the news that Jesus had came to the American Continent as well. So we finally were able to sit down with him. He took us to his garage and sat us down, where he had 10 honest questions to ask us. We flew through the questions with ease and he was impressed with our responses. We then went on to have one of the most spiritual, in-depth restoration lessons of my mission. Tony was a super cool guy, so we were able to be totally chill and straight up with him. The spirit was soooo strong there, even though he had a beer in his hand, he was tearing up and telling us that he already believes this is true, and that it made too much sense to not be true. It was amazing. I honestly wish I had it on film to be able to rewatch the whole experience. Funny part about it was Elder LaRose and I both had been drinking soo much water that day, since it was super hot, so since we had a longer lesson with Tony, we had to pee soooooo bad during the lesson.. Super funny story.. Thankfully, neither of us, gave in and peed ourselves.. but we were close.






We returned back to Manitowoc after the lesson and finished off the night with the second lesson with Autumn. It was a good day. 

 

Sunday was super good as well. We were invited into priests quorum to share our thoughts on why the youth should serve a mission. This was one of the most spiritual lessons in church I've had in a long time. Everyone was breaking down and it was just a super good experience. 

 

Anyways, this week was super good. Lots of great, memorable experiences. Like this dope picture, Sister Peterson falling into lake Michigan, those crazy good lessons, and more. Life is good!

 

Hope you're all doing great! I love and miss you all!

 

Elder Stevens.
 

Monday, June 20, 2016

Transfer 12 Week 4





This week we had 2 baptisms in the Manitowoc ward! Jenni and her son Jaime, 2 of the sister's investigators were baptized. They had been working with them for 2 days short of a year, the day they got baptized! Pretty exciting. Jenni's 2 daughters were baptized a couple months ago and so now all of her children above 8 are baptized! They have us over every week and were pretty close with them so it's super exciting to see their family in the gospel now.

We had our last Zone Conference with President Cutler on Thursday. He leaves this next week and we have another meeting called "Meet the President" in about 2 weeks to meet President Williams. I'm sure there's gonna be some changes in the mission pretty soon! It'll be exciting to see what those are. (or not so exciting..)

We went to church in Chilton this week, all the members there were super happy to see us. They had a father's day parade in Chilton that we contacted and handed out free water to people at. We were able to plant a lot of good seeds. It was a super hot day and Elder LaRose and I both got super burnt.. It was fun though.

We were able to stay decently busy this past week so that's good. We have a lot of people we're working with, and some exciting new ones. We have an appointment with our next door neighbor today. We were mowing our lawn on Friday and we stopped to talk to our neighbors and it turns out they had no idea who we were or what we did, and so were meeting with their family today. The mom, named Autumn was actually super interested! We're also going to start working towards baptism with Jasmine's sister's boyfriend! He's had a baptismal date before but he's had a lot of recent disappointments in life that has made him interested in learning again. We have a lot of great things going on! Hopefully we can harvest the seeds we've been planting though!

Anyways, hope everythings been going good for everyone! 

Elder Stevens

Monday, June 13, 2016

Transfer 12 Week 3


This week was really good. We started off the week with another crazy miracle!

We were at the church on Monday for Terry's appointment. (The lady that just walked into the church asking for the pastor) So the appointment was at 1 and she didn't show up.. but another guy at 1:30 walked into the building and literally asked the same exact question.. He asked if he could talk to the pastor. We explained we didn't have a pastor, but a bishop, which is similar and we gave him the number to our bishop. He wasn't able to get in contact with him at that moment so he expressed himself to us. He's a recovering alcoholic that had been sober for 9 days at that time. He needed a little extra cash to do laundry. I gave him 10 dollars. He expressed that he had been to other churches that day and nobody had helped him out, and he was interested in what we believed so we set up an appointment for that day at 5:30. We were a little skeptical about him at first but he ended up showing up to the appointment at 5:30 with a friend! We had an amazing spiritual lesson with James and Brandi, and they both wanted to learn more! He called us and told us our message really touched him and was very interested to learn more so we set up another lesson with him on Friday but he got called into work.. I'm pretty sure he met with bishop on Sunday though so were pretty excited for him.. Just walking into the church was pretty crazy.. 

On Tuesday we went on exchanges. I went with Elder Kelly, he just came from Beaver Dam (one of my previous areas) so we were able to talk a lot about the area and the people! Elder Kelly is really awesome and a great missionary. 

We were finally able to make it out to Chilton this week. We only had a couple of hours so we visited the more solid people and its great to see that there is still a lot of potential in Chilton! We were able to get in contact with a lot of people we hadn't seen in a long time. Remember Crystal, Josh, Luke, Sarah and Ethan? We haven't been in contact with them for a long time and we stopped by, they weren't home, so we left a card with our number on it, telling them to give us a call! The next day, Crystal texted and we set up a time to meet on Saturday! So we were able to come back to Chilton and have an awesome lesson with Crystal, Josh and one of their new friends Brent. They're all still super interested! We taught the Restoration because Brent hadn't heard it yet and he had soo many questions and showed a lot of interest. Pretty sweet. We'll have to try and make it out to Chilton more.. its just hard because of miles!

We were able to see Pao Xiong again.. The Hmong guy that just talked to us for like an Hour and a half. Our ward had a clothing swap, so we picked up a bunch of clothes for him and were able to give it to him. He was super grateful. Elder LaRose taught him the Restoration and he knows this will help him in his life. 

Welp, I think those were most of the main points of the week.. Things are going great though! We're working with a lot of awesome people.

Elder Stevens.

I didn't even know Wisconsin had these..


Monday, June 6, 2016

Transfer 12 Week 2

Well, this week flew by.

Monday was Memorial Day. We were jumping from BBQ to BBQ, our whole day was full, it was pretty great.

We went to the Monitowoc Parade in the morning, it was pretty neat, then we went to a BBQ with Jasmine and her family. We ate, played Frisbee, Kickball, Volleyball and what not, it was so cool. We then went to a BBQ with a recent convert and her non member husband, Ruby and Jack. They're so awesome. They have us over to eat every Friday, Jack used to be totally stand offish towards the missionaries because he's not the most interested, but Elder LaRose and Lewis were just super down to earth with him so he's come a long way, and he's coming around now. Were just normal people around them. Monday was really awesome though. 

Tuesday was our Pday last week. In the morning, Jack took us Golfing. I was a little rough around the edges but it was super fun.. haha

Wednesday we had District Meeting, we were supposed to have dinner at Pizza Ranch but the member didn't show up.. and in the evening we took over for the sisters and lead the Family History Center night. No one showed up to do Family History.. but this one lady came in and said she was there to meet with the Pastor. She had called earlier and was there to meet with the bishop. We led her to the Bishop's office and she met with him there. After their meeting the bishop had us come meet her and Elder LaRose asked if she was a member, she replied "no, but I'd like to be.." Pretty awesome. We have an appointment with her today at 1. Hopefully she's solid!! Pretty cool Miracle though.. 

Thursday we went out to Hong Kong Buffet (My favorite restaurant back home..) with the Leslies. We visited some Hmong and English people and had a lesson with Jasmine, getting her ready for her Baptism on Saturday. After Jasmine we have a sports night every Thursday for members and investigators to come and have some fun and fellowship. That was super fun. 

Friday we visited a ton on Hmong people. We got in with this guy Paj Xiong, he let us in, sat us down and just started talking to us for like an Hour and a half. I had noo idea what in the world he was talking about.. occasionally he would use an English word.. like Engine or Minnesota or Cashier.. so I was like ohh, we must be talking about this subject.. but then no, he's onto something else.. hahah I didn't think he was interested at all because you could tell Elder LaRose was trying to talk so he could teach him about the Restoration but he wasn't letting him have any room to talk.. So after the longest hour and a half of my life, just sitting there listening to some guy speak in this weird sounding Asain language for what seemed like forever, we finally got up and left. I thought the guy wasn't interested at all, because he had just talked to us for and hour and a half and didn't let Elder LaRose talk hardly at all.. But when we got out to the car, E. LaRose was just expressing how Awesome that was.. Because apparently, he was expressing and opening up his heart and talking about his whole life and how he wants purpose and direction and how he knows the message we have to share will help him.. He also apologized for him talking to us for a long time and how next time he will let us talk. So, I just thought it was pretty funny that it actually turned out to be really good! Instead of bad like I thought.. hahah

Saturday was Jasmine's Baptism! It was super awesome! Elder Lewis came up from his area to Baptize her. She was soo happy to be baptized and said she felt soo good and clean afterwards. Sunday she got confirmed and said she still hadn't made a mistake! hahah 

Anyways, It was a really good week! Hope this letter made sense.. I love and Miss you all!

Elder Stevens.