Day 450-somthing

This past week has been great! We have been going around to visit a ton of people! Lots of good things are coming about! Something that I have noticed about when we put in our hardest work, is that referrals start coming in! We start to see a lot more of those come in! We just received two from the 1st ward elders yesterday for people who seem to be ready to hear and accept the gospel. One is for a 16 year old kid, and another is for an older lady. So we are super super excited to see what happens and what will come from those as we contact them! 

We have finished the area ward directory for the 3rd ward. And are about halfway done with 4th ward. We have been busy writing down all the people we know for the different addresses! It has been cool to see just how many members there are on EVERY STREET! ON just about every street, half of the street is members. With the vast majority of them being less-active members! So we are super excited to go and meet them all! 

The Mission Tour on Tuesday was super fantastic!! I loved it!! Absolutly loved it!! So much good stuff came from it!! I loved hearing from Elder Neilson! He has a lot of good insights. I loved what he said about Less-actives. About how we need to go to them. He articulated something that I have felt, but have never been able to express. Virtually every less active on our records are part member families. Very rarely do two members go less-active together. So there are a lot of potential in our less-actives! There are sooooo many people who are ready to hear the gospel. It is just a matter of time before we get there!! 

We also talked about using social media as a tool for getting people to teach and talk. To have the members send out texts or face messages or direct messages to their friends. Something really non-threatening, but super effective! So y'all better do it too!!!!!

We are so excited for what will be coming!!! This is going to be big!

I love all y'all and each y'all!

Elder Miner 

Mission conference

Oreos burn?

Elder Ramirez and Elder Miner

****

So this week has been good! I really like Elder Ramirez! He is a super good Elder. He knows what he is supposed to be doing. And he is a lot of fun. I am excited for what these transfers together will bring! 

We have been going around trying to find new investigators. Trying is the key word there. We have decided to make a directory of our area with all the streets and all the address's. We are going to slowly meet everyone who lives in the two wards. We knock only a few door on each street at a time. So we are excited to see how that goes. We have a ward activity coming up later this month that is specifically for bringing less-actives and non-members to the church. It is a multi-cultural event! But the wards like Elder Ramirez. They are all surprised at how good of english he speaks. But they like him. It is weird. As far as the work goes, we are more of less starting over. We only have a few investigators. The wards trust us, but we really just need people to teach. We need to find. So I am excited for this week to train on finding. Especially since that was the last thing I trained on too.. Elder Ramirez and I have set some goals for the following two transfers. We think we are going to be together for two. But we have a goal of 40 new investigators over the next two transfers. 17 at church. 6 with a date. And 3 who will get baptized. We are going to exceed our goals! 

Funny story:  So we were knocking on this door and we met this super pissed less active member who has been trying to remove her records for 40 years. So we started joking around with her about that. She said that she should just write a "tell all mormon book, and then they'll excomunicate me" So my wonderful companion said "i'll read it" hahaha. Then we invited her to church and she said "it would probably fall down if I stepped into it. On second thought, that is a good idea!" Then my companion said "you won't"...We had a good laugh and then said goodbye and told her to call if she ever needed anything. Good times haha.

We are SUPER excited for mission tour tomorrow!!!! It is going to be super sweet!! we are excited to learn! and we get to drive to sparks!!

Well I love all y'all and each y'all 

Elder Miner 

Transfers

This week has been good! It has really gone by fast!! After last Monday Elder Jackman's stress level dropped a ton! So this week he was super super solid!! It was really good to see that, and it made the work go really well this week. We have a ton of appointments set up this week and I am excited to be with my new companion. Elder Ramiraz is a good guy. I've met him before and he seems to be really cool. He has been out for 18 months now. He goes home the same transfer as Elders Lyman and Latham. I'm excited to still be District Leader out here. Also excited that the Fallon 1st ward elders didn't change. So that will be sweet to be with them both for another one! This next transfer is going to be super awesome!!! 

We had a chance to go on another exchange this week with Elder Tolbert and Elder Day. I was with Elder Day and we were able to fulfill what I believe to be prophesy. In Ely, my first transfer there, he promised me that the exchange we had there would not be our last. And he did not lie. It may have taken almost 3 more transfers, and a different city, but we were able to go on another exchange! It was super good and I love that man. He helps me to learn a lot and it will be good to have both him and Elder Tolbert still as our Zone Leaders! 

But General Conference! Wasn't that great?! It was so good to be able to hear from the Prophets and Apostles. Their words truly are inspiring! I loved the opening talk of conference by President Eyring. Talking about family history! A couple things stuck out to be from that. That family history work is the work of our generation! I loved that! I really feel that when I go home, I need to get more fully engaged in this great work. That was a specific prompting that I received during his talk. 

President Nielsons challenges from his talk were also pretty cool. To mark and study all the references to the savior found in the topical guide! That is pretty cool!!! And to study the Living Christ. Those are some things that I really want to do. I can't say that I've studied the Living Christ really at all. I've probably read it once or twice. 

Elder Hollands was very good as well. I had a lot of thoughts about that. I loved his analogy of the choir. It worked very well to illustrate the point he was making. "Come as your are, but don't play to stay as you are." I Know that I have been changed by my Father in Heaven. He has altered the course of my life soooo much. I am not who I was when I entered the Field. I am a changed person. I don't want to go back to who I once was. 

I am super duper excited for this next transfer!! It will be super good!!! Elder Ramiraz and I will do some good! 

Some cool things that I forgot to mention last week was that we had zone conference!! I love zone conference! We had some good insights into the mission from it. We found out that in our region, the American Southwest region, it takes on average finding 24 new investigators for every one baptism. In our mission though, it takes finding only 10! So that was cool to see that! Our investigators are aware of what we as missionaries are doing. I love this work sooo much!! 

I love all y'all and each y'all!! 

Elder Miner 

1 Elders Tolbert, Jackman, Day and I 

2 Elder Lyman and I (also Sister Chesnut)

3 Elder Ruiz and I 

SUP

Howdy y'all! I love Nevada! It's the best! Lots of good stuff going on!!!  

There are some days when I almost grasp what the Savior did for me. And then there are other days where I have no idea. Those days where it is just so close are some of the best days. Those are the days where I wish I could stand on the rooftops and shout out loud what we can do. What and who we can become. When I want to declare what the Lord did for me. And for everyone. Those days I feel closer to my savior. I feel him around me. Everyone rejoiced at the coming of the Master. They understood exactly how important it was. I want to be at that point one day. I hope I can be. I am striving to be. I can't say that I will be on the same level as Elijah. But I am striving to have that level of relationship with my Father and with my Savior. 

This week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Ruiz in his area! It was a ton of fun! Elder Ruiz is a fun elder. We had a good time. We saw miracles happen! We were placed in the path of someone who needed us! We exited a less active mans house and This lady named Vicki Love walked up. She asked if we were LDS or JW's. We said LDS. She thanked God and we proceeded to hear all about her life! She is going though a ton of tough stuff. She just doesn't understand why it all happens. We testified of the truthfulness of God's plan for each of us. We testified of the Savior and what he can do for each of us. Then I gave her a Book of Mormon with a card in it with our number. I left the card in 2 Nephi chapter 2 and invited her to read it. She was super excited to be able to get a copy of the Book of Mormon. She was definitely a daughter of God in need. I am glad that we were able to be there for her. The Lord uses us to be where we need to be. We are being led by him all the time! 

I love this work!

I love all y'all and each y'all!

Elder Miner 

Fallon District

Fallon Zone

Sunset in Fallon

14 Months!!!

This week has been good! I really enjoy being out here in Fallon! It is a great place and the people are just so great! We have been working a lot in the Fallon 4th ward. The work traditionally has been done more in the Fallon 3rd ward, so we are going to switch it up. The Bishop in the 4th ward is a lot more ready to do the work! He is a really good guy! We are establishing weekly contact with him outside of Sunday. And establishing daily contact with our ward mission leader too. Just to update them on everything we are doing. So they should already know everything before we get to coordination meeting! We are super excited for everything that is going on and the work that is moving forward! 

Last night we had a lesson with our investigator Josh Schei. He is a super cool kid. He is 17 and has to wait till he is 18 for him to be baptized. He has been coming to church every week for about 6 months now! And we have been switching it up every week on who's house we have a lesson in. Yesterday we were in our Bishop's home. Bishop Stokes of the 4th ward. On a cool side note, his semi-active brother was in the ward I served in in Spring Creek! That was a neat connection. But it was pretty cool to have the lesson in his home! His whole family was their with Josh. We taught the Plan of Salvation using the Love diagram. We focused a lot on the love of God. That was a huge part of it! And also on the Atonement too. It went super good! The family had super good insights! They were able to explain Grace to Josh. Afterwords Bishop was talking to Josh and asked him when he was going to be baptized. So Josh said on his birthday. Bishop looked it up, and his birthday is on a Saturday! So that works out pretty well! So Josh is very very committed to be baptized the day he turns 18! This kid is a stud! Excuse the slang. And then a year after baptism, he is planning on serving a mission! 

I got to go on exchanges with Elder Tolbert this week! He is one of our zone leaders He is a very good Elder! I love the guy a lot! But as I was sitting there in personal study, I read one of Elder Day's sticky notes at his desk. It says "When I was a Highschooler, I spake as a Highschooler, I understood as a Highschooler, I thought as a Highschooler, but when I became an Elder, I put away Highschool things" 1 Cor 13:11

I am striving to be that way. I am already so different than what I was But I still have a long long way to go. But something out here that I notice, is that I am happy. I am truly truly happy. I wear bright colors. I never stop smiling, or so the other missionaries say. I love my life and I love my savior. I am not a Highschooler anymore. I am an Elder. I am a missionary. I am a servant of The Master. I have changed. And I absolutely love it!

I love all y'all and each y'all! 

Elder Miner

Fallabama...

This week has been good!!! We have been seeing a lot of cool miracles!! Like seriously it has been super great here in Fallabama!!!!!! 

We gave the Book of Mormon initiative to our Elders Quorum president and his wife. We gave them the whole little spiel thing and then we asked them about if they had anyone in mind already. And the wife, Sister Merritt said that as soon as the book touched her hand, it came to her exactly who she should read for. It was super cool that she got that instant revelation! Super cool thing!! She shared a very personal story and it just week super well and it was amazing!!! 

Later this week we were trying a former who had just kinda lost touch with the missionaries about 9 months ago. We managed to catch her at home and we asked her about us coming over again. She said she wasn't quite ready yet. But then we asked her if there was anything we could do to help. We saw the spirit working on her. It was super cool! Then she asked if we were serious. We said dead serious. Then she got a lot happier and said that she had a pool she needed moved. So we said tell us when and we can do it. So she said to come by this tuesday. It was amazing to actually see the spirit soften your heart. I have never had ANYONE ever say yes to us asking if we could help with anything!

The next day we were trying to contact some other formers. We put it into our GPS and and it took us to a house. I felt impressed that we should ask for who we were looking for. I felt like we should just try to talk. So we went to do just that. Right after we said our prayer and got out of the car, a man came out of the house with his dog and we were able to have just a casual genuine conversation that lasted about 30 minutes. In this conversation we found out that he was not who we were looking for. He is a less-active member who hasn't been in the church for a little while. he said that if he were to go back to church, it would only be the LDS church. It was super cool to see this!! He was really happy to see us and it was a very good contact and he said to come back any time. 

I love all y'all and each y'all!

Elder Miner  

Sandbagging

Alright so I definitely procrastinated writing this email.... super sorry!!

But the biggest thing this week is that we have spent almost every day sandbagging! Everyone is very scared for flooding!! So we go and help sand bag for about 2 hours or so every day! Its a lot of effort and fun! We are going to get fit and buff! But it has been really good because the people are recognizing us as missionaries. And a lot of non-members are liking us more because of that! So that has been good! It is really odd to be in a bigger town. There's a lot of people! its super strange!!! but it's good! Oh and update, those kids we were teaching in Ely all got baptized on Saturday!!!!! I'm pumped about that! But sad because I couldn't be there to be with them on that day But God needs me here in Fallon. I love being a missionary!

I love all y'all and each y'all!

Elder Miner