"I accidentally tore a door of the hinges at church...." Week 10

We had to put an end to our onion plant.  We buried it.

It snowed pretty good.

We fixed a kid's quad.

So I accidently tore a door off the hinges after church. I was teaching sunday school and I opened the door to let them out and boom!!!!! So I felt pretty strong, but also awful. I went and told the branch president and he said he had been waiting for that to happen and to not worry about it, so that was good !

"...fought a good fight, almost puked...." Week 9

hey everyone! so this week has probably been the hardest so far. but its still been good in a way to.

Monday was pday so that was actually a fun day we played ping pong at the church the score was 25 games to 25 games so we played 1 more and I won! so Uncle Andrew and Dad just wait till you have to play me again I can already kill coop and caden wellllllll ya haha. but then we had bible study and we tried to see a potential but she wasn't home.

Tuesday: So Tuesday was a tracting day because evryoone we had planned cancelled so we got to knock a lot af doors. And its hard to tract for a long time and stay up beat because we usually only get a sentence in before they close the door but we did get 2 people to talk to us for a bit but they were just being nice not really that interested in learning. then around 6pm Bro. Stevens called us and said if we wanted we could do a new member lesson with his adopted daughter that was baptized before I was here. So we did that and brought them some pizza and it was good. We taught the plan of salvation using the little thing I made and it went well. Bro. Stevens gave us a couple refferals to some friends of his to. later that evening we stopped by the rowleys and got ryan to commit to come to mutal Wednesday but johnathan said there was no way so that was a bummer.

Wednesday: the first thing we did is we went out and tried to contact the refferals which was hard because people give weird directions here they say like oh drive to this place and then you will see this and go about a mile or two past it and you will see this and its across the road from there up some holler. so we finally found them but no one answered. we had an appointment with 2 of our investigators and they both cancelled so we went and did more tracting and no one talked to us that time people laughed at us a couple times though cause they were not all there though haha. Luckily Chris didn't cancel on us so we went and taught him a lesson we read the scrips with him and answered some questions. we took mickey to mutal and called to see if we needed to get ryan Rowley a ride and he said is mom was taking them and johnathan was coming to! so that was so awesome. Last time they came the other guys picked on them so before they got there I talked to them and they were really nice to them so it was a awesome time.

Thursday: on Thursday once again appointments got cancelled so we did more tracting! till about 5pm then we went to momma janes for dinner and after that we went to correlation meeting with the ward missionaries it was a good meeting and we got a lot figured out.

Friday: on Friday we did a lot of service taking down the Christmas lights in the park I gotta drive this huge f550 so that was fun and I gotta get in the bucket and mess around with it the old guys that owned it told me to haha. but after that we did more tracting for a couple hours and then we went to go to our appointment with ron and brit and they were not home so we were kinda weird and tried to find them cause we know if they are gone they are buying more cigarettes so we found them but they didn't have time to meet I guess.

Saturday we helped take down the lights again then we did more tracting haha. its super disheartening but we love doing it. we did find one person who said we could come back so that's good. Later on we had another lesson with Chris we watched the restoration video with him and answered more questions he has a lot of weord and hard to answer questions so we just do our best like he got really caught up on the 3 and 8 witnesses in the beginning being all men? but ya it went good he hasn't really been reading so we have been calling him every night and asking him to read or reading with him. hopefully he will start having a desire to read and pray.

Sunday was good we went to the Big Ugly and saw a lot of people. we went down with beccah and monnie to see the trailor they want to move into and we are gonna help them fix it up! it needs a lot done but we should be able to do it they think we know how to do everything haha. And I may have run my mouth a little to much because I was just saying what I always heard dad say when he looked at stuff but I don't actually know what to do haha.

Monday we had a awesome p day we went with some other missionarys in the zone to this place called hillbilly hot dogs and it is crazy its a bunch of buses welded together and shacks and stuff and they have this food challenge called the widow maker and it is this giant hot dog that is 15 inches long and weighs alone 5 pounds and then its in a giant bun with a huge mound of toppings on it and you have to eat it all in 12 min. so of course I did it, all the other elders wussed out haha but in the end I fought a good fight almost puked and didn't finish it by like 30 seconds!  but then we went and had a zone pday and it was a good time.

That's pretty much our week love you all.

Elder White

this Dakota and jasmine they are becca and monies kids. I love them!

this is my confederate flag

"...we are gonna get sent home..." Week 8

hey everyone!

So this week was awesome, we did so much and i always forget to bring my journal so i forget what is going on and what to write about haha.

Monday: on monday we went down to the senators and for our p-day we played monopoly and other board games with our investigator chris and just really got to know him better. We had a great time. then we studied isaiah in bible study with some of the less active and active members over in Elder and Sister morgans apartment (they are the senior couple). We tried to knock some doors but no one answered.

Tuesday: On tuesday we had a crazy experience that put us in some danger i cant really say what or who but we almost got transfered out of this area! 

Wednesday: ummm on wednesday we went and taught chris about prayer and how he could hear the answer that the Spirit gave him. it was a good lesson and he really understood it. we did some more tracting and it was hard but awesome because it was snowing like crazy and tons of wind so it was really cold walking around! 

Thursday: thursday was probably our best day this week we went to a refferal that we had gotten from ron and brittany who our 2 of our investigators. we went and knocked on this door and this lady that i swore was 100 but turned out to be 50 answered the door. she invited us in and she has a 19 year old son that lives with her. we talked for a while then we shared the restoration lesson and she began to tear up during it and her son was interested they both agreed to read and pray! Then we went and visited a less/in active family and they live in a trailor (like everyone else) but theres is just falling apart and they have a dog that they keep inside and it just pees and poops everywhere and they dont clean it up and there are bugs everywhere! but she is divorced and has a 14 and 12 year old son and a 18 year old daughter who is getting married to a guy who she has met once and then he left for the army and texted her asking if she wanted to get married while he was drunk and she said yes so yaaaa. but ryan the 12 year old is a genius he like builds computers and stuff and he makes cool assasin creed weapons that actually work! he makes my invention stuff look like what cooper and caden make haha just kiddin guys. but he likes us alot and we are really trying to get him to church he is like cannons size and last time he came like 4 months ago to church he got bullied by some of the young men so thats why he wont come back. And then the 14 year old he just shuts himself in his room and locks it everytime we come. I finally got him to come out because i heard avatar the last air bender playing and started talking to him about it and we talked about pokemon and other nerdy stuff so he likes me now! then we went and we tracted a whole neighborhood we knocked every door and no one was willing to talk to us and alot opened the door and we would say "hi we are missionarys for the church of" and they would slam the door or say not interested and close the door. So it was discouraging but literally the very last house in the neighborhood probably like the 40 house we had knocked this old lady answered and said come on in and we were able to teach the restoration and leave her with a book of mormon and she said she would read it! so all in all it was a good day.

Friday: friday was district meeting we have to drive the farthest by far because our mission area is in the middle of nowhere most people have a 30 min. drive we have a 2 hour drive so meetings take most of our day usually. but we left for the meeting at 7:30 and got home at 4:30. district meeting was really awesome though. we got there and we sing a song and then Elder Signs our district leader says and now Elder White is gonna give the 5 min. principle from preach my gospel on having faith to find. so i got up and talked about it and shared some scrips but i guess he had texted us saying that i needed to prepare for that and we never got it so it was not great but its pretty easy to teach out of a book that teaches you how to teach. we got to teach the senators again that night we read the story of ammon and they loved it. We got back visited some less actives and ate dinner.

Saturday: saturday was good we went up to the Big ugly for breakfast at momma janes she is the only one that feeds us and every saturday she does it she has her fam. over and its always a good time. They just got a ping pong table so we used it to get paul to open up to us more his wife is a member but he isnt and he has 2 sons who are 19 and 15 but he wont let them be baptized till they are 18 which is a bumer but we got him to play and i am the champ no one can touch me haha. but we went later that day and back to the rowleys to visit ryan and johnathan it was good we talked and commited them and there mom and sister to come to church.

Sunday: yesterday there was a ton of people at church like probably 50! and Sister rowley and her daughter came but not ryan or johnathan sadley. But we are sitting up on the stand since we bless the sacrament and all of the sudden i hear my name and they said i was speaking in place of sis. beright who was sick. well i was the last speaker and ended up with like 30 min to fill! I grabed a hymn book and opened it to a random page and spoke on it haha it was hymn 226 improve the shinning moments. I was able to do it and half decently to haha. That was a pretty nerve racking experience! but sunday afternoon we went and taught ranae and her son again they are the refferal from ron and brit. we showed the restoration video and bore a testimony of the truthfulness of it and left with a prayer it waqs really awesome. As we were walking down the mountain we saw that ron and brits lights were on they had been out of town all week so we went overe and visited with them set up a appointment gave then some scriptures to read and left with a prayer. then as we were driving back we were like lets get an itl *(invitation to learn) so we went and looked for people but it was pitch black and raining pretty good so no one was out so we went to mcdonalds to go through the drive through to itl them and we just bought an icecream cone and it was good we itl'ed them and got the ice cream cone for free. but as we were driving back elder clawson was like elder white think and i was like ummm about what and he said we are gonna get sent home and i was like why? and then i looked at the icecream cone and realized it was sunday! we bought an ice cream cone on sunday so now when we teach those people and we teach them about keepin the sabbath day holy its gonna be kinda awkward haha. 

love you all

Elder White

"...small but huge miracles..." Week 7

So many different things have happened this week. It was really discouraging at the beginning like Monday through Thursday plans just kept falling through and appointments cancelled and so we did alot of knocking doors. so really there isn't much to talk about as far as the beginning of the week goes.

      There was alot of good that came out of those days however because when we were down we were more reminded of who success really comes from. We didn't get investigators and speak powerfully to people because of our strengths it was because of Heavenly Father and us having the Spirit constantly with us. And so we were humbled and as we began praying in earnest this week we saw some small but huge miracles.

On Friday we were headed to the Senators because it was rebeccahs birthday. We wanted to meet with Chris there but we couldn't get a hold of him. We stopped at a gas station to buy her a candy bar and as i looked out the window i saw a car pull up and Chris got out! we went over and said hi and talked for a bit and it turned out that he was stopping by the senators to so we were able to meet with him and the lesson went so well. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and as we talked about baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost we paused and really talked about the importance of baptism. lina is 18 and has received the lesson for a couple years but hasnt been baptized. But we delved into it and then committed them to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood of God and they were quiet for a couple seconds and that was great cause usually she just says no and Chris freaked out last time. But they thought and she said she would think about it and Chris just copied her answer so i said to them that they owed it to themselves to know whether or not this was right for them and if they should be baptized and we asked them to read the Book of Mormon and pray every day for a confirmation of whether or not it was what they needed to do and they agreed to do it. it was a great lesson and when we ended the Spirit was very strong. We left at about 6pm and as we were driving home we thought about Ron and Britteney and2 days ago they had called us and she had a really  bad stomach virus and was sick so we didnt go see them and as we were driving by we were trying to decide if we should go visit or not and figured she was probably still sick. But we felt we should at least try so we drove over and as we were driving up the hill we saw 2 people walking pushing a stroller and we were like is that them and it was! so we rolled down the window and asked if they were able to meet with us and they said yep. So we went down to thier house and we felt impressed to share the restoration video so after we chated for a bit we put it in and watched it. The Spirit was just so strong there and as we watched Ron who is usually not very open started to tear up and it was just great. they would have come to church but they are going out of town but they are gonna come next week. 

on saturday we went to the edge of our area and we were looking for someone and as we were asking directions over and over and over we would start talking to the people we were asking and we got like 4 phone numbers and return appointments set up to teach it was awesome and we finnaly found the family and they said that they would love to talk to us and they are so excited to learn she was baptized into the church as a little kid but never really went and he hasnt been baptized and they have a little boy. They are an awesome family and i cant wait to teach them.

we started our ice pillar thing but the neighbor who doesnt even share the same porch as us complained so we had to take it down after 1 day.

love you all, being out on a mission is awesome and i love it so much hope you have a good week.

Elder White