The best Christmas of my life!

I hope you all had a great Christmas week! I know I sure did! Everything was perfect! Christmas as a missionary is just the best. 

Monday- We had a good P day. Oh man, we played dodge ball and I just got wailed on. Ha, I guess everyone did though. That game is a little bit more painful when you're playing with a bunch of 20 year old guys who are forced to be polite to proper all week while people slam the door in their face. Blasting someone in the face with a dodge ball just makes you feel better. As long as you're not the one getting blasted anyway. For the rest of our evening we made our rounds and shared Christmas messages to a list of people that the Bishop gave us. 

Tuesday- Santa came early this year and gave me an extra special present. I woke up sick as a dog today. It had been going around the District and I thought I was in the clear, but I guess it caught up to me. I knew it was a bad idea to finish Elder Wood's French Dip sandwich. So yeah I felt pretty cruddy today. It probably didn't help that we did a whole bunch of service today either. We finished the Charlilton’s floor, moved a giant sectional couch into a member’s basement and then helped the Halls get ready for their Christmas party that they invited us to. But hey, we got it all taken care of! We had a lesson with an investigator named Dave but honestly I was so far gone by then that I could tell you how it went. 

Wednesday- We had a great appointment with Denitra in the morning. I still felt super sick so that sucked, but besides for that it was a good day. Denitra has been really sick lately too apparently. She's doing well though. Starting in the new year we move to 9 o'clock church, and she'll be able to start coming to church with her work schedule. 

Thursday- Merry Christmas Eve! I felt a little bit better today. Still not good, but better. A member family took us out to an all you can eat pizza place for lunch. It was there big extended family so there were a million little kids running all over the place like a family reunion should be.  And thus begins the two day feast. For dinner we joined another family reunion feast. I dare say there was an even bigger collection of screaming kids at this one. It was fun though! Oh man, the food was so good too! It was great to meet all the different families too! A good half of the people at the get togethers that we went to on Christmas and Christmas Eve weren't members, so don't worry, we weren't just eating. We were doing missionary work too! After dinner we made our rounds and dropped off little Christmas cards and what not to the members of the ward. It was fun!

Friday- Yay! Christmas! What a great day! I dare say that this was the best Christmas of my life! That’s  pretty big because I've had some pretty awesome Christmases! Elder Robinson and I did our morning studies and opened our packages and then took off to The Horrocks's house for Breakfast and skyping. Oh and thank you so so much to everyone who sent me cards and packages and all sorts of great stuff. You're all the best! I felt so loved and cared for! Anyway, breakfast was awesome. Elder Robinson Helped make Crepes! There was bacon and eggnog and hash browns and eggs and all sorts of breakfast glory! Oh man, I love breakfast. Skyping was awesome too! I even got to see my brother Brycen! He's in Scotland on his mission right now so we all got to three-way skype together! It’s so nuts to see him as a missionary! He's just like me! It’s weird to see someone else in an Elder Cluster name tag. I know he's giving it a good name though! My first Christmas was definitely a lot harder than my second so I feel for him. Seeing my family was great! Knowing that I'm going to see them in a couple weeks made saying goodbye pretty easy. After Skyping we went to the Halls house for a giant Christmas lunch! We had the ham and turkey and potatoes and the whole nine yards. It’s crazy how different each Christmas party was. Really everyone was doing the same thing, just getting together with a whole lot of people and a whole lot of food but each family is just so different. It was great though. We got to join in on their white elephant! I got a digital picture frame to display my mission pictures and Elder Robinson got a Holiday scratcher! He won Twenty Bucks! (This party had far fewer members than the other, which almost made it that much more fun. I know the word of wisdom frowns upon it, but a little alcohol at a family reunion sure spices thing up! Finally we made it to dinner number one. The Stocks, an older couple in the ward, invited over a non member couple and a super awesome recent convert. We chose not to eat too much this time around but it was great to meet their friends! We talked a lot about the different church history sites around the area, and some of how the church started. Next we went to dinner number two. This one might have been my favorite of the day. Not because of the food but the night was just so.. Christmasy! We all talked about different mission stories and then sang Christmas songs and shared a message about receiving the gift of Christ and then turning around and finding a gift within yourself to give back to God. It was great! Then last but not least we went to dinner number three at Denitra's. Oh man, that one might have been the best food of the day. She barbecued up a whole bunch of ribs and all sorts of great meat and we had baked beans and green beans and Mmmm! At first I told her I was way too full to eat anymore which was a very true statement but I went forward with faith and tried to eat just one more time and I'm sure glad I did. Food aside we got to meet her oldest son. Apparently he had met with missionaries quite a bit in the past and said he would be interested in meeting with them again so we passed the referral back on down to Raytown. Wow, that is a long explanation of my day. I hope you all made it through. That about sums it up though. After that we went home and slipped into a food coma. 

Saturday- Phew, this is a long email! I'll wrap it up soon, I promise!  We had one more appointment with Denitra and it went fantastic! It’s been hard to meet with her before this week, but we talked about setting up a regular twice a week meeting schedule. We taught about tithing and fast offerings today and guess what! She's on date to be baptized! Wooo! January 16th! It'll be my last Saturday of the mission! What a perfect way to wrap things up!

Sunday- We did Church stuff and stuff. We taught the gospel principles class on exaltation. By now I'm mostly feeling better. It all moved into my sinuses so I'm ridiculously congested but besides that I'm feeling well. 

Welp, Thanks for reading! I hope you all have a happy new years eve! This is my very last 2015 entry. Talk to you all next year! 

Love, Elder Cluster 

Sent from Zion 

Merry Christmas Week/

Hey Everyone! I hope you're all having a very Merry Christmas season! Four more days! It’s been a good week. Thanks for tuning in! 

Our cute little Christmas tree

Monday- After P day we had a good appointment with a former investigator named Mary. She is a great lady and has met with missionaries a lot in the past. She's become good friends with a member in the ward so we brought him with us. Mary wanted to talk about the "Geological Proof" of the Book of Mormon. Our team up knew a couple cool interesting facts but I guess what it came down to in the end is the fact the proof can't build faith. Cool stuff to talk about but not what it’s going to take. She's doesn't have that real intent to know right now but maybe someday it will come.

Tuesday- We put more work into the Charelton’s house.... Yikes!  We did finish the living room though. That’s looking really good. 

We are learning all kinds of home improvement skills.

Wednesday- District meet went well! Since they took the sisters out of our district its kinda small now. We did some great tracting today too! We found this Huge indoor apartment complex that’s perfect for winter Tracting! If they don’t answer you can just waddle a few steps over and you're to the next door! No freezing rain, no sketchy pitch black nights (which comes by like six o’clock now) just lots of people to talk to! We had some appointments fall through in the evening but the Elder Quorum were getting together to go caroling and take cookies to some members in the ward so we joined in. It was fun! I love Christmas!

Thursday- We went on team ups again with Jeremy Guthrie again! What a stud! I love that guy. We visited a part member family that he home teaches. Oh I forgot to mention that we went to his house on Pday and his wife gave us and another set of missionaries haircuts. We look great, but it gets even better than that! So I guess people just give brother Guthrie free clothes all the time with like business logos on it and what not, so he can advertise for them. He was going to take a big box of it to a thrift store but he ended up hooking us up instead. There’s a lot of good stuff in there and it’s all brand new! 

Thank you Brother Guthrie

Friday- The ward Christmas party was great! The food was awesome, all the little skits and performances and what not were fun. It was just a great experience all around! Jesse made it. He has cerebral palsy so we had to help him eat. Taking care of him has been such a great experience. It makes you appreciate all the blessing that we have in our life that we take for granted. 

Saturday- We taught a new investigator named Ashley! It went really well! People are just more open to listening this time of year. It’s too bad it’s almost over!

Sunday- I'm not going to lie, church was kind of a disappointment this week. We had five people tell us that they were going to be at church this week and we didn't even get one! I mean come on! I guess that’s how missionary work goes though. At least dinner was good though. Ha, I think food is always my fall back positive comment when everything falls through. But regardless, we had Kansas City Barbecue Ribs! It was Fantastic! 

Well, that’s all I have for this week! Have a very Merry Christmas! I love you all!

A beautiful week in Zion.

Hey Everyone! I hope you all had as good of week as I did! It's been a warm beautiful week in Zion!

Monday- P day was fun. We went back down to the shopping outlet Legends again! That free southern food at the member’s restaurant is just the best stuff you could ever eat! That and we needed to go repent of some impulse shopping and make some returns. We also met a really cool guy named Taylor. He was house-sitting for a member that we went to visit, so we ended up talking to him instead. He made a lot of friends who are returned missionaries through being a pest control salesmen. He doesn't live in the ward so we won’t be able to teach him, but hopefully we'll be able to get some of his info from the members to send missionaries his way. If nothing else it was cool to learn about being a pest control salesman. Sounds like there’s good money in that!

Tuesday- So remember a week or so ago when I talked about ripping out a
members carpet so they could get it replaced? They decided that they want to fill it in with vinyl tiling and that they wanted us to do it so... We did.. Or we tried at least. It was a much bigger project than we anticipated and elder Robinson and I aren't exactly professionals. We'll let you know how it turns out when we finish. Later that night we went to the Horrocks house to make Gingerbread houses! It turns out I am a natural architect. It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday- We got transfer calls!!! Elder Robinson and I are staying in
Parkville together for another six weeks! Looks like this is where I'll be dying! Since it was the last day before the transfer the zone all got together in Leavenworth to have lunch and say goodbyes! It was fun! Goodbyes always suck though. Elder Stallings, my zone leader and mtc buddy got transferred into independence. That’s alright though; I'll see him soon though. Besides for that we've mostly just been working hard. We've gotten so much tracting in this week! I love it. I know they say it’s not the smartest way to work but I love just getting out there and working.

Thursday- So there was a set of sisters serving up in Leavenworth who just got taken out of the area and the car got left behind. Guess who got moved back up to full time car! We got a ride up to Leavenworth and drove back down with a car all of our own! Man, having a car is just so helpful! No more long sweaty bike rides for me!

Friday- We worked a little bit more on the Chareltons floor again. Besides for that, a lot of things fell through and we did a lot more tracting. Tracting is good though. We found a new potential investigator named Andrea.

Saturday- We did missionary work! It’s been kind of a slower harder week to be honest. But that’s okay because all of our hard work paid off on Sunday

Sunday! - It rained a whole lot today. It was also Stake conference! It was good to see some of the members that I met when I was serving up in this Stake way back when. So a return appointment with Andrea and her family was tonight. It went so well! I don’t know if I have ever met anyone so prepared in my whole mission! We have another return appointment Wednesday, then they are coming to the ward Christmas party on Friday, and then to Church on Sunday! It’s going to be great! We are so blessed to be trusted with such a prepared family.

Well thanks for tuning in! Hope you have a great week! Talk to you next week!


~Love Elder Cluster

Departing Testimony Time?

Hey everyone! It sounds like people like the day by day more than the miracle thing, so I guess I'll be going back to just talking about everyday for the next six weeks. Here we go!

Monday- We had a great p day as usual. We went down to Legends! It’s this big open air mall down in Kansas City. It's only like a fifteen minute drive for us. It was a lot of fun. We went and ate for free at this restaurant down there that a member owns. It’s called "The Jazz." Its super good southern food. I had a shrimp "Poboy." It was like a sandwich filled with the best shrimp I ever did taste!

Tuesday- Today was the All mission Christmas conference! It was fantastic! So many great missionaries! It’s like the ultimate missionary get-together! Oh man.. It was the weirdest thing ever. So they always have the missionaries who will be going home soon get up and bare their "departing testimony." I was convinced that I would be baring mine the next time we get together or something but then they called my name! You stand up there and see the past two years flash before your eyes. It was good. It Kinda trunks you out though. The whole conference was really bitter sweet. It was so great to see all of the missionaries I've grown to love, but it was so sad to think that this was the last time I'll see a lot of them. All the same it got me super pumped for Christmas. Christmas is the best as a missionary!

Wednesday- We went and Helped Brother Horrocks finish cutting down the trees that we started helping him with last week. Did I mention that last week? I think I did. Either way we cut down some big trees and moved a whole lot of logs. We also had a great lesson with an investigator named Dave. We taught the plan of salvation. The Plan of Salvation is always the best. We just have so many answers through the restored gospel that other religions don't, and the Plan of Salvation shows that so well.

Thursday- It was a pretty standard day of procaliting. We did a good Chunk of tracting, and found a couple new potential investigators. We helped the Charlton’s move a drier into the basement. They have a business selling Kilts and Scottish stuff and what not; so to say thank you they totally hooked us up with Free Kilts! Now I just need to get my bagpipes back and I'll be ready to fly out and pick Brycen up from Scotland! We had a nice lesson with our investigator Jessie. He's doing great as always and still coming to church every week.

Friday- Hmmm... looking back on the week we had a lot fall through. It was a good week all the same though. We did another good chunk of tracting in the afternoon and had a great evening on team ups with Brother Rainey.

Saturday- We Finally met up with Denitra again. I'm not going to lie, for a little while I was thinking we were losing her, but that’s not it at all. It turns out the temp service has been working her crazy hours. She's been working ten to twelve hours a day seven days a week! It’s mostly just been a crazy busy time in her life right now, but she's doing her best. Things are going to slow down for her after Christmas, and then she'll be able to start coming to church more regularly and what not. Elder Robinson and I made ourselves the best steaks ever created by missionaries! It was beautiful! That meat was the best investment I ever did make.

Sunday- Church was fantastic. Best fast and testimony meeting that I've been to in a long time! Between the commute and the fact that church doesn’t start until one o'clock for our ward I feel like church takes up just about our whole day. We met a new really cool potential later that night too! He worked summer sales with a bunch of return missionaries, and even visited one in Utah for a couple days. He made those summer sales sound like a pretty good deal too. I mean I have eight months of nothing before I start school back up and making ten to thirty grand sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

Anyway, it’s been a really good week. Lots of little testimony builders and lots of little miracles that I couldn't mention but just know that your prayers help! Hope you all have a great week, and I'll hear from ya next p day! Love ya all!

Love Elder Cluster