Zone Conference

This past week has been great! We have seen a lot of good things! We had ZONE CONFERENCE!! It was super weird to be there with all the different missionaries. I had 5 companions there! Elders Lyman, Latham, Anderson, Rivers, and Ramirez. It was super neat to have all of them there and to talk to them. I really enjoyed the training's we got at zone conference A lot of "how to do things". I love it. I fear that in the church we focus on the doctrine too much, and then we saw "go and do" But we don't teach how to do it. Like studying the scriptures. We are always told to do it, but we, for the most part, aren't taught how to do it. I love this new approach to giving training's. It resonates well with my soul to explain how to do things. I have fully made this a part of the training's which I give weekly. These "step by step" "how to's" have made a big difference in our missions. 

But zone conference was super cool to be able to talk to old companions and hear updates on their missions and also on old areas and people I care about. Elder Latham is covering part of my first area where we served together, and we were able to talk about how those people are doing! Elder Rivers and I talked about ELY! People are dead, dying and doing great out there!!! It was so cool to be able to see everyone!!!! 

So a funny story that happened recently: We have this investigator named Jessie. His step dad is a member. His step dad speaks spanish, so Elder Ramirez talks to him, and I talk to Jessie. So him and I were talking about why he doesn't come to church, and he said that when he came last he got made fun of because of his scriptures. So he wanted to know which ones we use. So I asked to see his. And he pulls a Jehovah's Witness bible... So I told him he could have the Book of Mormon I was using and that we would get him a new bible. And then he said he was going to tear apart the JW bible, so I told him to not tear apart scripture and said we would take it, so now we have a JW bible? He is doing much better now! we got him a bible too!

Yesterday at church a woman from Tonga bore her testimony and was talked about sand crabs. She said that when you put one sand crab into a box, it will try and try to find a way to escape and usually will. But when you put two or three in the box, they latch onto each other and don't try to escape. She was using this for our lives. When we are alone then our lives aren't the best and we try to escape. But when we have our families we stick together and take care of each other and we don't let people fall through the cracks. 

I was able to go on exchanges with 1st ward and I was with Elder Ruiz. I love Elder Ruiz!! He is super cool and awesome! I have loved going on exchanges with him these three transfers! He is a good Elder and he knows what he is doing. Their area is really seeing a lot of success! And it is because of the hard work they are putting in! 

I love Fallon and the people here. They are good people and they take care of themselves and each other. 

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

Elder Miner 

Josh and a friend

The District

Elder Rivers!!!!

Elder Latham

The old Ely gang

Elder Ruiz and Chandler after service

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

15 Months???

This week has been good! We have been seeing a lot of less-actives coming back and willing to meet with us! We had more than 3 less actives at church this week! But we really have been seeing miracles as we have gone to the low hanging fruit! I love working out here in Fallon Nevada! 

This Wednesday and Tuesday we are going out on splits with members to go and visit people whom they want to see! They have appointments set up and we are going to go along to meet this people and hopefully begin teaching them! This is the way it should be, Members setting up appointments and bringing us along. We have some with less-actives, and some with non-members. 

So Elder Jackman gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon that is the original style. It is the way that Joseph Smith printed it back in 1830. So I started to read it through. It is really neat because it reads more like a novel vs scripture. So as I have been reading it, my understanding of the events in the Book of Mormon has increased. I now see much of it as complete stories, rather than separate events. For example, In this edition, the first chapter of the first book of Nephi covers all the chapters in the standard edition from one through 6. So it is all one story of everything dealing with getting the plates. And that is how much of the Book is. It is a story. Which I love. I love love love books. So this works with my brain just so much better. I have been marking this copy as well I have been underlining all the references to the Savior! It was so eye-opening to be able to see when the Savior was talked about the most. It was usually in the times of repentance. When they were disobedient, then he wasn't mentioned a lot. So just as righteousness went up in down in a cycle, so did the mention of the savior. From that pattern, I learned this week how important it is to "keep an eye single to the glory of God". If our focus is on the Savior, we won't fall down. Just like Peter on the water, when the Savior beckons him out. So long as he kept his eyes on the Master, he was fine. But once he looked around at all the waves and the storm around him, he started to sink. 

Every time I finish the Book of Mormon, I feel really sad. I love the book, but I really don't like seeing how much they all suffered and fell. They had such height. They had such progress. In all aspects of society. They had masterful sermons on virtually all topics in the gospel. From Benjamin's tower, to the ministry of the Savior himself. From Nephi and Jacob, to Alma and Amulek. And yet, a people with so much, fell so hard. It just makes me really sad. It just means we must learn from their mistakes. To keep the Savior as the center of our lives! And I will strive for the rest of my life to make sure I do that.

I love all y'all and each y'all

Elder Miner

We found a pie in our freezer and we then we ate it

Fallon in a nutshell

Funny sign

Elder Day and I on exchanges