Transfer 7 Week 5

This week went by pretty fast, we were able to stay busy most of the week. We were able to meet with Alberto in the Ricks' home and have a great lesson on temples. Nate canceled again due to him getting sick, and we weren't able to meet with Leslie because she's been too busy with packing to move. The first snowfall of the season hit us on Friday, we got about 3 inches. It seems like the cold weather came unto us all of the sudden because earlier this week it wasn't that cold but these past few days have been below freezing. The freezing weather has made a noticeable difference in peoples receptiveness to talk to us on their doorstep.. Were going to have to find a better way to contact people in this weather. It was pretty funny how many people thought we were crazy for being out in that weather and them slammed their doors. haha Oh well. 

On Thursday we spent the whole day in Milwaukee, we left at 9 in the morning for Madison to pick up the Mad Spanish B Elders because they're in a bus area and then we headed for Milwaukee. Elder and Sister Schwitzer of the 70 addressed us and gave us a training. It was a great mission tour/zone conference but it was kind of upsetting that they didn't bring up us receiving ipads.. They've been telling this mission they would get them for like 3 years now and everyone thought this might be they day since now they're saying we are getting them early 2016.. oh well haha. Good meeting anyways. And it was great being able to see some previous companions and lots of other missionaries. We find out who is getting transferred this upcoming Saturday. Elder Pounds is most likely leaving but you never know.. we could stay another one together. 

Happy early Thanksgiving! So far we have 2 dinners planned for thanksgiving so it should be good!

I love and miss you all!

 

Elder Stevens

Transfer 7 Week 4

Another week..

This week I was able to go on exchanges in Madison with Elder Bennett. We've been going on weekly exchanges with the Mad 3rd elders which is pretty weird but its all good. We were able to talk with a couple really nice people and set up a few new appointments for them. We went to this place called Jason's Deli and I had this amazing honey mustard sandwich.. it was great.. hahah

We have this survey with 10 questions on it about Families and Faith which we can use as a finding method by transitioning to the Book of Mormon. Its been in the mission for about a year now but we just started using it a lot this week and its a good way to find and talk to people. We were able to talk with a lot more people this week using it. 

We were able to meet with Leslie again on Saturday. We taught her the plan of salvation. It was a decent lesson. I think she understood it fine, however she didn't come to church yesterday. Were planning on meeting with her twice a week now. She is actually planning on moving in a couple weeks though. She's moving in with her mom somewhere up by Appleton so hopefully she'll be able to meet with and have discussions with the missionaries up there so she can keep progressing. 

 

 

We've been doing this really cool activity with members where we have a block of wood with a single nail stuck in it, sticking out quite a bit, and then we hand them 9 other nails and tell them to try and balance all 9 of these nails on top of the single nail in the wood. Only using the nails. Most families haven't been able to do it but there actually is a way to balance them all just using the nails. We relate it to having many different challenges and things going on in life that can seem impossible but with Gods help we are able to balance our life and "do the impossible"

Next week we have a Mission Tour in Milwaukee with Elder and Sister Schwitzer of the 70. I'm excited for that. Those are always fun. Being able to see other Missionaries and what not.

Anyways. We climbed a tree to catch the sunrise. 

Have a good one!

Peace.

Transfer 7 Week 3

Welp this week was pretty average, but we had a really great miracle where this Recent Convert of about 2 years now called us and told us how she had this friend who is going through a lot and she wants to meet with us. We had dinner at the members home on Saturday and had a AMAZING lesson with Leslie. She totally opened up and told us her concerns and challenges and all her spiritual experiences she's had recently. I don't wanna get too personal but she fainted at work a few weeks back and she saw an outline of these 2 people and when she woke up, the amazing feeling she had was gone. And while we were going over the Restoration and turned to the page where it shows Joseph Smith and the First Vision she got all excited/amazed because she said that is exactly what she saw when she fainted. She understood and took the lesson very well. The spirit was so strong, and she came to church yesterday also. I'm excited for her! 

We were also able to meet with Alberto. The only thing stopping him from getting Baptized is this female that's living with him.. he cant just kick her out because its a favor for a friend.. Its just a sucky situation. We need a miracle! Some way this girl can move out or an exception to be made! We also met with Nate and had a really good discussion on Temple and Eternal Families with him. It was great. We had a lot of other appointments cancel on us this week but these were the main ones. :)

Elder Bedgisoff and I were able to go on exchanges again this week. We were able to help this lady move across town. It was just the 2 of us helping out. Luckily it wasn't a very big move.. hah. We were also able to meet with this less active member we haven't seen in a while and set up a Family Home Evening with him and his family for next Monday.

We've been finalizing our plans for the December 6th Open house tour thingy. We've made fliers and hopefully the ward will get pumped for it and invite a lot of friends so it will go well. 

Anyways. Hope you all have a great week.

Love and Miss you all!

Transfer 7 Week 2

This week the Madison 3rd Ward Elders came to Baraboo and worked with us in our area most of Tuesday and Wednesday. Elder Pounds and Elder Bennett were able to meet with Alberto while Elder Begisoff and I went to another appointment which ended up falling through. Apparently the lesson with Alberto went great. He just won't be able to be baptized anytime soon due to a female living with him in his apartment. Hopefully she'll move out sooner than later but it might take a while so yea...

We were able to meet with Nate, we watched Mountain of the Lord with him at the church. We had popcorn and everything, it was great. Most of our lessons fell through this week but we were able to set up another appointment with this guy named Jordan we met a few weeks ago. His kid had the flu so he had to cancel this week but we'll be meeting with him again on Tuesday. We ran into him in Walmart during the week and he says he's still excited with meeting with us so that's a good sign!

Our ward had a trunk or treat on Wednesday and Elder Pounds and I dressed up as a half skater half missionary. I was the bottom half of the skater with Black Jeans and Skate Shoes on while Elder Pounds had the top half of the skater where he wore a normal shirt, had a wig on and a snapback. The members loved it so that's cool! hahah For Halloween we weren't allowed to be out working while kids were out trick or treating so we had a dinner appointment and stayed at the members house the rest of the night playing board games. That was fun.

It was pretty rainy all week so it made it hard to find a lot of people this week. Apparently we should be getting snow in the near future so its not going to get any easier..

Anyways, hope you all have a great week!

Elder Stevens.

Transfer 7 Week 1

This was a pretty average week I guess. On Monday we were able to see Alberto. We had to drop his baptismal date due to some reasons. Were looking at at least 3 weeks ahead for now. We will set a solid date in the future. On the bright side we were able to meet with this 17 year old kid named Nate. He had been talking to the missionaries for about 6 months before I got to Baraboo, but his phone number had changed and we weren't able to get in contact with him until last week. He's been taught mostly everything but his mom is against him being baptized so we'll have to work that out somehow. We're going to start meeting with him weekly again. Hopefully his moms heart will be softened though. 

 

This week we were able to get a lot more new investigators, especially on Wednesday, more specifically on this certain street.. We were knocking doors in the afternoon on this one street and we were able to get 4 new investigators/return appointments in less then an hour. It was pretty Crazy! That like never happens.. So it was pretty cool..

 

We had dinner on Saturday night with The Gilletts (Bro Gillett is the one who lost all his memory from the concussion) He is doing so much better! He is already back at work and being his normal self. He remembers everything fine now and doesn't seem to be having any trouble now so thats great! We were able to help this really cool family move into their new home. They moved into a really old home right next to an abandoned hospital which is kinda creepy but the house is really neat! It used to be owned by the Ringling Brothers cousin! Haha fun fact..

 

Yesterday I gave my first 15 minute talk in church! I used to think filling up 5-7 mins was hard... hah but nah it wasn't that bad.. I think it went really well. I got lots of good jobs and a bunch of the Dance and Jones kids thought the story I shared was reallly funny! haha A story a member told us about repentance.. long story sorry. lol Oh and we got to play with a 1200 dollar drone thingy with a camera on it.. I want one. 

 

Anyways, pretty good week. Next week should be good with all the appointments we got from last week! Love and miss you all!

 

Elder Stevens.

Transfer 6 Week 6

Transfers are this Wednesday, ill be staying in Baraboo with Elder Pounds at least for another six weeks. These transfers just keep going faster and faster..

Halloween is coming up so during our dinner hour Elder Pounds and I decided to go out and buy some pumpkins and carving tools to make jack-o-lanterns. While at the pumpkin patch we were able to meet this really nice guy who actually went to the University of Utah. He's had the missionary discussions before but he said he would like to meet with us again sometime. Pretty cool how you run into people sometimes.. We haven't been able to carve the pumpkins yet but that'll be fun to do in the next few days.. haha

We got a call in the middle of the week to go give a blessing to a member that we have dinner with every Saturday. He got hit in the head by a cherry picker (a little hand crank crane that lifts car engines) it slipped and cracked him on the head.. He got knocked out for 10 mins and then was fine for a few days until he started slurring his words and not making any sense. They took him to the E.R. and by the time we got there he couldn't remember ANYTHING. Not even his wife, his boss, his address, Pepsi (which he loves) Elder Pounds and I, nothing. It was pretty scary. We were asking him all these questions and he couldn't remember anything. We finally asked him if he knew who Jesus was and he paused for a few seconds and thought.. he was like uhhh, I think so? He helped us out in some way right? Woww.. Elder Pounds and I were shocked. He couldn't fully remember him but he knew him better than anything else! Pretty cool. Later we found out he has a severe concussion and he was cleared to go home, he'll regain his memory within the next 2 weeks or so. Pretty Crazy experience though!

We had the opportunity to attend a Pentecostal church last night. We were invited by these people we met a couple weeks ago. It was very interesting! They had a live band and spoke in "tongues". It was a great building experience. They were sooo nice to us and they recognized us during the service and thanked us for spreading the word of God and for our sacrifice. (even though it was wrong they said..) xP Cool experience though.

Anyways, Alberto's date is being pushed back a couple of weeks. We aren't sure exactly what day yet but it'll happen. I'm giving a talk in church next week on Preparing for the Eternities. That should be fun.. haha Welp. I love and miss you all!

Elder Stevens.

Transfer 6 Week 5

These weeks keep flying by...

We have this awesome next door neighbor named Lilian who is probably like 4 foot 5, mid 70's and from some foreign country. I wanna say shes Dutch but I'm not sure. She's been known by all the missionaries here to be a prankster. Apparently the last missionary to serve here didn't get along with her too much so we've been getting to know here more and more. She's so sweet! This week she put a fake spider on our door hoping to scare us.. Apparently she'll start our with the simple pranks but the more she gets into it she can take it more and more seriously. We have to get her back somehow, it'll be fun to see where this goes.. hahaha

There's a returned missionary (Mason) that moved back here after serving in Baraboo and he bought a restaurant in the Dells. We've been helping him fix it up a couple times a week for the past few weeks. We're getting to know him pretty well and he's pretty cool! He says we can eat there free for life for helping him.. hehe

A recent convert couple took us to this Mexican restaurant for her birthday, we thought it was just going to be them and us but Mason was there and a bunch of other people. There were like 14 of us at a table for 8.. It was a blast xP

I went on exchanges with Elder Begisoff this week and we were able to have dinner in Brother Ricks' home with Alberto and teach him a great lesson. I remember when I was really young having Tamesha take the lessons in our home.. The beast lessons always happen in a members home. 

On Friday we had our interviews with President Cutler. That went pretty well. 

We also had a Zone Training meeting in Madison on Tuesday. This week was also Stake Conference so we were able to go to Madison andii was able to see families from all my areas there! It was great to see everyone! This was a pretty packed week looking back at it.. hahaha

Welp, Hope you all have a great week! I love and miss you all!

Elder Stevens.