There's a Chick-Fil-A in Reno!!!!A

This week was good! 
A couple of really good things happened too! One was that we got to meet with the man named Kevin! He is super cool! He is getting married to his active wife tomorrow. In the Lesson we had with him, we talked a lot about the restoration. He is prepared to accept the fact of a world-wide apostasy. From the answers we have given him, it makes sense to him that it could happen. He is searching for a spiritual answer as well as a logical one. And so far he loves everything he is seeing logically. He just wants to make sure that nothing said or taught isn't what he agrees with. He says, though, that everything he has heard and seen from Church and the missionaries, is more or less what he believes. The restoration isn't what he was raised with, but he can accept it. Something really funny is that his Fiancee towards the end of the lesson said "I'm gonna break you babe". Then he said "yup I signed up for this for the rest of my life." We all laughed at that. We really like Kevin. He is a really good man who just wants to know the absolute truth. He asks so many questions, and realizes that some cannot be answered by anyone but God, so he does have a lot of real intent to act upon what he learns. 

Something else that was really cool, is that we were helping a less-active man get started on his family history yesterday. He also blessed the sacrament for the first time ever yesterday! But we were helping him with his family history and when we entered his Dad's name into the computer, nothing came up. So he created a new file for him. As we kept working on it, about 15 minutes later a little blue box appeared on his Dad's name. This blue box was some document hints. He opened them up and it had three hints. A birth record, a death record, and also a grave record. With those first two documents he has enough information now to take his Dad's name to the Temple. He announced triumphantly to everyone in the family history lab, "I'm going to be baptized for my Dad!" It was a miracle that we were able to help him in that moment. And that the needed documents appeared. We helped him to reserve those ordinances, and that will be the name he takes when he goes to the temple for the first time! God is allowing us to assist with the missionary work on both sides of the veil!!! It is so cool to see!!

I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Lyman this week!!!!!!!!!! I loved being with my first companion again!! It was good to talk about our time together again, and also to see how much the two of us have grown. I love that man and the example he sets to everyone else and to myself! 

I love all y'all and each y'all! 

Elder Miner 

A snake we saw

Sunset

Elder Lyman visited!!!

16 months

How"s it going? This week has been good! We have been able to see some cool things happen! 

In the third ward, we got two solid refferals (spelled wrong) from the zone leaders and the 6th ward elders. One is for a lady named Rene who is wanting to be baptized. She moved down here from Sparks. She just has some medical things that are making it inconvenient for her to be baptized. She has dialisis (spelled wrong) and she has recently broken her hip. She is super nice though and we've got rides worked out for her so that she can make it to church! 

The other cool thing is a man named Kevin. He is engaged to be married on may 31 to an active member. He will be in our ward once he moves in. The 6th ward elders met him at their church and did a first lesson with him. He is super cool! Has tons of questions and is ready to learn! He went to gospel principles yesterday and pulled out his phone already loaded up with the Gospel Library app. We will be having a lesson with him on Wednesday and we are super excited for that!! 

It is cool to have the new member of the district, Elder Hiatt, here with us. He is a cool guy and we were having a good time earlier today talking with him and playing a game together. Him and Elder Ruiz are doing great and they will be a good combo. 

But Fallon is fun and it is a good place. Lots of good things are gonna happen here!!! 

Something cool that happened this past week also is that we went and got Sushi twice!! So north western Nevada is known for all-you-can-eat Sushi! So this place here called the Wok has some pretty good stuff! On Monday last week we went there with Elders McGee and Ruiz. And then again on Thursday we went there to see how many rolls Elder Ramirez and I could eat. Dang Sushi is good! 

I love all y'all and each y'all

Elder Miner

Selfies with Elder Rameriz

***

This week was good! I am very excited to be able to stay here in Fallon! I am excited to see what will happen and the things that will come There are a ton of changes in the zone! I am SOOOOO excited to have Elder Lyman coming here to be a zone leader. It has been over a year since I've been around him. And it will be super cool to be around my first companion again. And to be able to go on exchanges again too!! 

I love it here in Fallon. Sorry this is going to be a lot shorter email. I am kinda burned out of telling people what happened after skyping home yesterday. But once again a happy Mother's day to the best Mom in the world!! 

So I guess I will talk about the other Elders in the district. I got to spend a lot of time this week with Elder Ruiz. He is a fantastic Elder! I really like him a lot. We had a lot of things in common. I am excited to be with him again this transfer! It will be super good! Elder Hiatt will be taking Elder McGee's spot. Elder Hiatt is a great guy and will have fun out here in Fallon! Elder McGee will be with Elder Gailey! I hope those two do good together! I bet they will. Both of them are good Elders. 

I love all y'all and each y'all! 

Elder Miner 

****

So this week was very good though!!! I loved it ton!!!!! We found two new investigators this week!! George and Cindy. They are very nice people! Cindy was super cool because we were trying to find her less-active brother. We got in the door and sat down with both of them. Her brother, Robert, asked some question about the 3 kingdoms and asked why other churches didn't have that. So we talked about why our church is so important and why Joseph Smith is important. Cindy asked us about Joseph smith and she said that she wasn't a member. So just to make sure we asked her about her baptism and his baptism. She said she got sprinkled with water and that she didn't think it counted because Jesus wasn't baptized that way. So we straight up said "yeah no that doesn't count" Then we asked "do you want to be baptized?" Then she asked what all entailed in it. So we explained the baptismal covenant and she got excited. Then we explained why our baptism counted by teaching the message of the restoration. She agreed with it all!! She thought the idea of a living prophet made sense and was necessary. The priesthood made sense to her as well. Then at the end she said "well that is neat but how do we know it is true?" So we pulled out a Book of Mormon and had her read Moroni's promise and told her she could know. She seemed super excited about it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A very nice lady!

So Elder Ruiz and Elder McGee are in my district. Those two elders are some of my favorite all time elders. They are just very good friends and very good missionaries. They think they don't have much going on in their area, but they really do! They have a lot going on! I absolutely love both of those guys. If I could serve around them the rest of my mission, I would be a happy happy Elder. I love this zone! Elder Harmon and Elder Ramirez are just great!!!!! Fallon is a great place here and there are such nice people! Also probably the craziest people in the mission!! Like if you were to add up all the crazy people I have met on my mission, Fallon would have more! And I have served in some pretty odd places! But Fallon takes the cake!! 

But I loved going to MLC this week with all the other district leaders and zone leaders. It was very eye opening and a inspirational experience. It gave me the motivation to be more exact with my obedience! Which I really needed! I love this work and this gospel! I love my Lord and My God. I have been watching the bible videos a lot lately, and my favorite one is when the Savior heals the man born blind. I love his reaction at the end when he falls at the Savior once he understands who he is. I wish to be like that man. Slowly I am begining to see the light. And I will One day Understand it all. But until then I will keep striving!! 

I love all y'all and each y'all

Elder Miner 

Joe Smith

This week has been very good! We had a good time this week! We saw some pretty cool things happen! On Tuesday and Wednesday night we went out with some members. On Tuesday we were with our ward mission leader in the 4th ward and we went out to visit some people that he had planned for. And also that we wanted to meet. It was super effective!! We got to meet a great many less-actives and got to know some pretty cool stuff about them as well. The ice was broken by having this member, Brother Moulton, introduce us to them. They agreed to let us come by and practice with them sometime too! Then the next night we went on splits. I was with Brother Moulton and Elder Ramirez with a member of our Bishopric. We had some wonderful talks with people. My companion was able to give a blessing and the 4 of us met many many less-actives! We are planning on doing this every week now! And yesterday we were talking about trying to get us out on splits every single night with members! Or even if splits won't work, then just have someone with us. We are very excited! People actually talk to us and let us into the door when they see someone who they know, or who looks more normal than we do. 
And this morning, as Elder Ramirez was getting his haircut by his wife, Brother Moulton and I were talking about how to make these nights and also home teaching more effective. So tomorrow, we are going to bring our map of 4th ward. It has it all divided up into sub areas. So we will be coordinating and planning out these future nights our on the town based upon the less-actives in each area. And yesterday in PEC, most of it was on how to make home teaching more effective. Because of the dynamics of this ward, it could be really easy, or really hard. So we talked and shared a little about how it says to figure out home teaching assignments by distance and area. So Brother Moulton is going to present our ward map in the next ward council as a solution to the home teaching issues too. We are going to be working very heavily with the ward leaders on this. The Bishop really wants to turn home teaching into neighbor teaching. Which in turn will help with missionary work. Because now they will be able to see their families more often. Especially the less-active ones. And the Ward has been giving us a lot of attention too. They are mentioning us a lot more. We are so excited to see what will happen in the 4th ward! 

In the 3rd ward we got a new ward mission leader on Sunday, so we are excited to see what will happen with that. He is a younger guy. His name is Bryant Hendricksen. 

Also in the 4th ward, we were asked by a member to help out in Sunday school. So I got to memorize a ton of the Joseph Smith story, and then dress up as Joseph Smith, and recite it as if I was him telling his story! It was super cool to do and a lot of fun! Everyone said that I looked a lot like him too. So that worked out well! Memorizing the story, word for word, I got to learn more about Joseph Smith. I learned the different specific words he used. It helped me to better understand what he went through. It was just a very good experience

I love all y'all and each y'all

Elder Miner 

Chandler as Joseph Smith