"My visa came in!!!".......Week 14

Hey everyone! This has been a long week cause on transfer week we dont' have p day till Wednesday. I got some exciting news this week my visa came! and I leave for Australia on April 6th!

Monday: On Monday we got well over a foot of snow and when Logan gets an inch or two school is cancelled and most roads and highways get shut down.  So when we got 17 inches it was insane! We played board games with the Morgans and couldn't go outside cause it was like 12 degrees and dumping snow and all that, but Elder Morgan decided he wanted pizza.  So after a long time we got his minivan out and got some pizza after getting stuck like 5 times haha. It was a fun day though.

Tuesday: On Tuesday since we couldn't drive anywhere we dressed warm and grabbed some snow shovels and headed out.  We went and shoveled people's drivways and as we were finishing up this old ladys driveway, this Indian man came up and said you shovel for me yes? and we were like sure. So we went over and he owns a hotel with a giant parking lot and he said he needed to be able to park so we were thinking ok he just needs like a path but noooo he wanted the whole thing cleared.  It was like a 200 foot by 100 foot parking lot so that's like 200000 thousand feet square haha and it took us like 5 hours and we were working hard, like attacking it.  But there was just so much snow so were were pretty wiped out. and they didnt say thank you once, but I started talking to the wife and got their phone number and a return appointment for a lesson so that was good.

Wednesday: We went over to the Rowley's house on Wednesday and then worked on some family history pamphlet thing that the mission got, with the Morgans. We shoveled more snow and then went over to the Senators and Chris was there again finally.  It was good. We read a chapter from the book of mormon and then on our way back the Morgans took us to this awesome chinese buffet.

Thursday: We went tracting all day today but no one would talk to us.  It was kinda a bummer cause we knocked like 200 houses but its all good because when it does pay off it is worth it.

Friday: Today was zone conference and when we left at 7 am for it it was -17 degrees outside.  It was soooooooo cold! But it was a great meeting and I learned a lot. We didn't get back till like 7 pm though so we just went out and walked around and talked to people on the streets. We decided to walk up to Ranae and Dillon's house which is at the top of this massive hill and the last couple of times we have gone they haven't answered, but they did this time.  We went in and taught them a little and read helaman chapter 5 verse 12 and talked about building our foundation on Christ. it was good to see them again.

Saturday: We went to Momma Janes for breakfast and as always it was delicious.  She makes these amazing biscuits and i put fried apples and butter on them and its heavenly! But after we went to Jeremey's home and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and talked about the word of wisdom again and he hasnt' smoked or chewed since we had talked about it, so we were super excited about that! We went after and tried to see a couple different people but no one answered the door. So we went down to the church and shoveled out the parking lot enough for like 10 cars and so they had room to back out. i hate shoveling snow now haha and on Saturday it had been raining all day but it was freezing rain so the parking lot was just solid ice like 8 inches thick that we had to chip out with soaked snow on top of it.  I'm soooooo sore.  After we went to the Senator's and we taught about the story of the book of mormon and joseph smith using this picture thing i had made. When we told Chris one of us was leaving he started crying.

Today our number at church went up we had like 20!  The Morgans and us sang a musical number in sacrament.  It was funny cause we were like a third of the people there. After church we had Peyton's baptism.  She had turned 8 she is a Senator and so we have grown really close to that family as we have been trying to get the mom to come back and Lina to be baptized and all that.  We love them a lot. Sister Morgan was taking the Senators home after and there was like a 2 foot deep puddle that she tried to get through and got water sucked up into their engine so that wqas a interesting couple of hours haha. Around 6 we were eating dinner with the Morgans and the phone rang and it was President Salisbury and he said that Elder Clawson is leaving and I'm staying. So I was pretty excited I get to stay another transfer cause i really love this area and the people here. After dinner we went and taught Salinah her last new member lesson.  It went good.  It's cool to see the change in her. She is 11 and has hated the missionary's, like she wouldnt look at them or talk to them, but now she loves us and cares about us. She still wont shake our hands though haha.

Monday and Tuesday were hard days.  Everyone kept cancelling so we did a lot of tracting.  At 4 we went to the Senators so Elder Clawson could say bye.  We played with the kids for a little then went to bible study. After, Sis. Farmer needed help backing out so I said I would help and I thought it would just be real quick so I just went out in my socks (sorry mom) and backed her up and she took literally like 8 min to back up 10 feet! and it was just so funny. I was freezing though! On tuesday though we were visiting Sis Vannater and Koby said he had something to show me.  He is 13 and a deacon in the branch. So he brought out this deer sled for like when they kill a deer that's how they get it out. He wanted to sled down the frozen mountain road in it so I was like sure and we climbed way up to the top and we both got in it and we flewwww down the mopuntain so fast haha.  But it was safe so we decided to go one more time and of course we crashed and flew off the road and tumbled for a while haha.  He was on top of me for most of it though so he was fine. I was all good too, I didn't even rip any of my clothes! monday night President called and talked to me for a bit just saying he was gonna miss me when I left and he told me my visa came in!!!!!!! So i leave April 6th for Australia! I'm sooooooo excited but I'm gonna miss it here.

Love,

Elder White

"It was a pretty interesting couple of minutes haha...." Week 13

Hey everyone!  So I  have a couple of things to clear up from last weeks email. The first is that I did not mean to send that flexing picture haha.  I had elder clawson send me some pics to send to you guys and he included that one and i didnt see so ya haha. And crew and cannon i sent you some rings so you can rest in peace now!!!

Monday: Was just a normal p day and we had a good bible study but not much happened.

Tuesday: We had a lot planned but appointments kept on falling through, so we tracted a lot but didnt get anyone to talk to us. Then we went to the ugly and saw the Haneys which is the family that lives in the shed in the big ugly. We watched the restoration video with them and then answered questions like "do you celebrate holidays ?" and "are you allowed to date?" and "do you have lots of wives?"  and "can you where shorts? and can you .... " so we were able to clear up a lot. But ya it was a hard but good day!

Wednesday: Today was crazy! We had district meeting and the district leader decided to have the meeting here in Logan so we went down at like 8:40 to get the church ready for the meeting.  We were going down the stairs and I stepped into 3 inches of water and we realized that the whole entire basment was flooded! So we took off our shoes and waded back to see where it was comming from and found that it was coming from this storage room. Water was just pouring out of this pipe and thanks to my training from my dad haha, I knew where to look for the shut off valve and lucky for me it was right past the water that was pouring out.  So I took off my suit and tie and charged in and got soaked trying to climb over a bunch of stuff to get to it,  but I eventually got there! I turned it off and we started cheering cause we had saved the day haha. But the other missionaries got there in a couple minutes and we got trash cans and brooms and started pushing the water out.  I got everyone kinda in groups and we got it done pretty quick.  I had them pick up the wood furiture and put it on this little raised stage thing down there so were able to save most of that, but ya it was pretty sweet! It was exchanges and the district leader stayed with me in Logan and we went to Eric and Kim's home and taught the plan of salvation. He was pretty quiet but when he spopke it was awesome and at the end i invited them to be baptized and they both said they would, so we are really excited for that! Later that night we went to the nursing home to see some older people who are in the ward and as we were visiting with one I saw an old lady looking in the door so I went out and said hi.  She grabbed my hand and was kissing it and rubbing it against her cheek and crying then she just said thank you and kept walking.  I was about to go back in the room when this other old lady came over as fast as she could in a wheel chair, grabbed my hand and said are you a preacher? I told her I was a missionary and she asked me tp pray for her and her home.  So I  did and she said thank you thank you praise the lord and wheeled off.  It was a pretty interesting couple of minutes haha.

Thursday: On Thursday we exchanged back at 11:30 and went down to the church and pulled up carpet and the trim and all that good stuff.  I kept asking for certain tools that dad had showed me that work good for different stuff and as I was working they were like, Elder you must have done this before,  and I told them about your company and how this is what i did back home.

Friday: We went over to Eric and Kim's after weekly planning and we showed them the restoration video and they liked it a lot. The spirit was there and it was a good lesson. Then we went over to the Rowleys and we went outside with Ryan who is 12 and he is crazy smart.  He has gotten himself a bunch of nice tools and he builds computers and stuff and we went outside and he had gotten a sheet of steel that we are gonna make some sweet knives out of. We need to work on getting him back to church!

Saturday: We went to Momma Janes house for breakfast and then Tim, the 14 year old boy, took us outside and showed us his potato gun.  It was pretty sweet! They were offering me 50 bucks if i let them shoot me but i decided that life was better and turned them down. We went over to the Senators next for a birthday thing and we went outside with Mickey to check his crawdad trap and there were a couple in there, so we were messing around with them and they were trying to get me to let them have them pinch onto my hands.  After  a while I let them do it and it hurt pretty bad but it was funny. Then we went to Jeremey's and taught the plan of salvation to him and we used my picture things I made.  I made the same one brother O'Hare used that he showed us up at AP camp. and at the end we brought up the word of wisdom and he was like ohhh no. And we were like how many cigarettes do you have left? and he opened his pack and said one. and we were like can we see it? and we were like, do you really need this? and he started to get nervous saying yes I do.  I  need it and all that.  We told him the blessings that would come as he quit and he said, well let me see it. and he took it and crumbled it up all the way and tossed it in the garbage can. It was cool to see him commit to trying to quit. When we had gone into his house there was no snow by the time we got out there was a couple inches so we had some fun trying to get out of the ugly haha. We went back to the Senators that night, driving like ten miles an hour.  We went cause Chris was supposed to be there but he didnt show up. But Bobby, the dad of some of the kids, gave us an old crawdad trap earlier that day. So when we got back we went out to check it cause we had thrown it into the river by our house with a rope tied to a tree, and as we were walking down some creature was sitting by the side of the river and when when it saw us it jumped in to the river and disappeared.  So we looked at each other and booked it back to the house haha!  We completley wussed out! But there was no way i was going near that water!

Sunday was pretty interesting.  The roads all had a solid layer of ice so at church there was only 13 people and 4 of them were missionaries, us and the senior couple.  Two were visitors so we just had a testimony meeting and went home.  It was pretty funny. but good cause the chorister lady wasn't there so I got to pick the songs I played! We went over to Eric and Kim's again and we mainly just addressed some concerns she had.  They always text us asking questions about the scriptures that they are probably arguing about and they use us to solve the dispute haha.  They say we have wisdom and knowledge haha.

Well we have like 8 inches of snow right now so we are gonna go do something with it haha.  Love you all!

Elder White

Oh and Gunner Ashlyn and Aunt Dawn, I got you letters.  Thanks they were awesome and made my day better!

This is a mini golf course I made since we are snowed in for pday haha!  It's only part of it. There are 5 holes and we are being careful mom!

""I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun..." Week 12

Hey everyone this has been a good week! Mom and dad the remodel looks awesome and coop that confederate flag is sweet haha.  We should have put that up a long time ago.

Tuesday: A lot happened on Tuesday.  We had planned to go and start working on the trailer but Brother Stevens called early and cancelled because the roads were too icy to get out of his holler. So we went to help take down the lights in the park instead and no one was there, so we went to see Gordon Workman and he was gone too, so we went to find Jeremey's house, and the way people give directions here makes it nearly impossible. These are the directions we got to get to his house: go up the big ugly and after about two miles head up creek and then turn at the big boulder with moss on it and head up that holler and you will head down the holler until it turns down creek and it's a little further on the left. So we were driving around looking for it and almost got stuck in the mud roads a couple times, but as we were about to give up we found him he was out walking his dogs and so we were like hey man and talked for a bit.  Then we were like where do you live? and he said I'll show you and hopped in.  We aren't really supposed to give rides but it wasn't too far down creek. Then we went and met with some less actives. It was Elder Morgan's birthday so we wrote him notes and put it in a envelope and said it was from tahiti and put a bunch of used stamps on it, so when he got it he was pretty confused. It was funny.

Wednesday: We had Brother Bennet's funeral today.  He was in Trinity which is a nursing home, and we got pretty close to him and he passed away, so that was nice to be able to attend. Then we went over to Eric and Kim's house and taught them the restoration.  It went really well and they were serious about wanting to come to church. Then we went to the Senators and Mickey took us up a hill to this vine and we swung over the creek on it and stuff.  It was fun. Then we went in and taught them and Chris about the priesthood and why it is important. Chris seems to be kinda faltering.  I hope we can fix whatever the problem is.

Thursday: We had zone meeting on Thursday. We got back at like 5 and then we went and had dinner at Momma Janes. As always it was good! but everyone here makes meat loaffffff. Then we went to correlation meeting. Meeting days are hard for us to get much done.  The next furthest area has a 30 min drive in our whole zone, and we are 2 hours! its all good though.

Friday: On Friday we went to work on the trailer.  It was so fun.  We  started by tearing out the bathroom and no one could budge the toilet .  So me being bonesawraw went up, got down and bear hugged it and ripped it out of the floor haha.  I was feeling really big until i felt something wet and realized I was getting covered in who knows how old poop water, so i took it to the front door really quick and tossed it outside haha.  It was sooooooo nasty. Then we had to get this water heater out and no one could budge it while i was throwing out the toilet, so they called me in and I got down low and pulled and got it out and as i was about to toss it off the porch it slipped and the rusted bottom busted and soaked my feet with water and it was already freezing, so by the end i had frozen water on my feet and frozen poop water in a lot of other places! We tore the floor out so you can just see the ground underneath the trailer. But afterwards we were out in the yard and noticed some tires and so i grabbed one of the bike tires and tried to toss it into this dead tree.  Elder clawson and Monnie came over and we just all started trying to toss tires and get them to stay on the limbs of this dead tree. They were throwing bike tires and I started throwing car tires.  We got like 5 tires total in there.  It was fun but my back was sore! Later that day we were at Sister Vannater's house for dinner and we got on the funniest topic.  She started telling us about how she met her husband and then at the end she was like I'm so glad i met my cousin that day and me and Elder Clawson looked at eac hother like whatttttt?? and then the two grandsons were like that's weird grandma and their mom was like its not that weird! I'm dating my second cousin right now! and he is in the branch toohaha. and she is white and her two sons are black and they said well im pretty sure our pa wasn't your second cousin... we're black! It was all just soo funny. 

Saturday: We went to Jeremey's house and taught him the restoration.  As I  told him about Joseph Smith and said

"I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air.  One of them spake unto me calling me by name and said This is My beloved Son hear Him.  I began to tear up.  The spirit in the room was so strong and he said i can feel something right here and pointed to his chest. We told him that was the Holy Spirit testifying to him that what we have said is true. He told us he wanted to be baptized and we asked if he could be ready by March 14 and he said yes, so we will work with him a lot this next couple of weeks. He wanted to come to church so we went to peoples' houses to ask if they could take him since he doesn't have a car, but no one was willing to. We called like 20 people but no one would get him! It was so disheartening that he couldn't come to church. We went to Grandpa Peyton's house after and talked to him and then said "well boys lets go into the kitchen" and he grabbed two sweet potatoes and said "boys I'm gonna ask you to eat these."  One was huge and the other was like bite size.  Well Elder Clawson grabbed the bite size one and I got the one that looked like a grapefruit haha.  So after choking that down he gave us each a piece of cake and we ate it and he said "now Clawson I'm gonna ask you to get white there another piece.  He is a growing boy you know".  So Elder Clawson  cut me like a 10 inch by 5 inch hunk of cake and I had to eat it all cause i didn't wanna be rude haha.  And then as we were about to leave the wife was like "I made some grilled cheese" and so we had to eat that and Elder Clawson put two on my plate.  Then she said "I also made a pie for you " and she gave Elder Clawson a normal sized piece and she gave me the biggest piece of pie i have ever seen! I swear they are trying to kill me!

Sunday:  Sunday was awesome.  Eric and Kim were picked up by the Morgans since they dont have a car... like everyone we meet! But they were at church and loved it and said they are comming back next week and they are comming to bible study tonight and they are going to the valentines day party, so we are really excited for them and to see them progress. We did a nml (new member lesson) with Salinah and she invited us to her birthday party haha.  She is 11 so we may stick out a little but we talked to her mama which means grandma. Ma means mom. But we are gonna be the mummies for the mummy wrap and just help them have fun, so its right up my alley! 

i love you all!

Elder White

"...it was an amazing week and i love being out here..." Week 11

Today was probably  our best week so far. It was so awesome! I'm just gonna get right to it.

Monday: We played al ot of basketball on Monday to stay healthy and we did some sprints and ran, so nothing very interesting.  But that night at 6 we went over to Ron and Brittney's house and taught the plan of salvation and at the end we invited Ron to be baptized and he said "nope not happening".  Then we asked Britteney next and I was thinking I doubt she will say yes after her boyfriend just said no, but we asked her and she said yes!! And it was awesome. We have a lot to do before she is ready though. So we will be working with her for a while and we won't give up on Ron.

Tuesday: So last week we got Monnie to agree to finally cut his hair and he did it Tuesday morning.  So me and Elder Clawson went and bought some ribs and rolls and got him a white shirt and ties and brought it over for dinner. He got a nice haircut and while Elder Cawson made the ribs I taught him how to tie a tie. He put on the white shirt and tie and looked at himself in the mirrior and began to tear up. He looked awesome. Before that though we went to the big ugly community center and we were talking to the boys and they wanted to go outside.  So I started this game where me and Elder Clawson stood on one side and they stood on the other side and we took turns throwing basket balls at each other and you were not allowed to move.  It was lots of fun and they loved it. They would usually move though before it hit them. 

Wednesday: We went down and helped take down the lights again in the park for a while. It's a bunch of old guys who have been volunteering for years and years to do this and they are so funny and make fun of each other a lot.  There all like the super high up people in Logan with money, but you can't tell cause they just were coveralls and camo hats. Ron and Britney cancelled again on us so we stayed there longer.  Then Sister Rowley called us and said she needed help, so we went over there and carried a couch like a half mile over a hill from the side of the road to her house haha. And when we finally got into the trailor after like 20 min of twisting and pushing, we realized they have absolutley no room for it so they just shoved stuff to the walls and put it into the middle of the room. Later that night we went over to the Senators and taught them and Chris. We taught about following the prophet. Then we took Mickey to mutal and they watched Inspired Guns. We weren't allowed to watch it so we went out tracting.

Thursday: Not much happened.  We did weekly planning and contacted some refferals and tracted, then we had a correlation meeting later that night.

Friday: We had a good day Friday.  We went and checked on some elderly people. Then we felt inspired to go by a lady's house who had just moved out of it because she is in a nursing home now. So we went to drive by and saw a moving truck and some people out smoking on the porch, so we pulled up rolled down the window and started talking to them.  We chatted for a bit and asked if they went to church much.  They said no but that they were looking for a church. We said that we were missionaries and that we would love to have them come down to our church. They said they would love to and that they would take the lessons from us!!! It was awesome. Later that night we went to Sister Vanaters house and I wrestled with 2 of the boys out on the tramp that was covered in snow.  It was freezing but fun. Then they asked us if we were going to the auction. We were like what auction? and they told us about this redneck auction where people bring stuff to this clearing and auction it.  So we went and itl'ed some people and got some sweet West Virginia stuff. It was so cool.  There was just a bunch of dudes there chillin on their 4 wheelers and buying stuff.  We had lots of fun. There was a kid there named Jeremey.  We have played bball with him and talked to him a lot and he came up to us that night and he shook my hand and gave me a hug.  Then he said "I want to be baptized in your church.  I  want to learn about your church." It was so awesome because he had been kinda like he didnt want to learn before, but the spirit softened his heart.

Saturday: This was the best day ever! We went to the big ugly in the morning and taught Monnie and Rebecca and then we went to the "shed dwellers" . We keep forgeing to ask their last name and they live in a shed, so we call them that haha.  But we had met the boy at the community center and he had come to mutal to watch the movie. so we went over there and talked to them for a bit.  There is the mom, his 13 year old sister, and he is 15. We taught them the restoration and they asked awesome questions and were super interested.  The spirit was super strong and they are a really cool family. We left them with a book of mormon and the restoration dvd, and as we were leaving they started watching the saratov aproach about 2 missionaries haha. We ate a quick lunch, like 10 min, and headed back out cause we had a lot we wanted to do. We went to the family we had found yesterday and taught them a little and helped them move stuff around and we got them some water cause they didnt have any, and they water wouldn't turn on till Monday. They seem really interested. Then we went and taught Ron and Britnney a lesson.  It was a little weird because she seemed not interested anymore, but we will see.  I really hope Ron isn't bringing her down! Later we went over to the Senators to teach them and Chris but he never showed up, so that was a bummer. But on our way home we talkled to 2 different random people and invited them to learn more and it was neat.

Sunday: This Sunday Monnie got up and bore his testimony.  It was so awesome and he looked so much better in the white shirt and tie and having short hair.  Everyone was so surprised! But it was a real neat experience. We went to Ron and Brits house later but they didn't answer so we went out tracting and we started talking to this guy and he asked to be baptized haha he was drunk though. But we asked if we could give him a picture of Christ and when we pulled it out he was like "that's not what he looks like i have seen him 4 times!" and were like umm. We didn't even know how to address that and then he said I'm gonna tell you a scary story and ya he was getting pretty crazy so we said we had to go and left.  I swear there are some crazy people here- thats the 5th person we have talked to that says they have seen Jesus!

But ya it was an amazing week and i love being out here. There is no place i would rather be and i love it! 

Elder White