August 26,2013 

So This Week I Went Swimming

So a lot has been going on this week Wednesday we were doing a service project and it started to rain which felt pretty nice as it rarely rains in burns but then as time went on it started to thunder and lightning and then it started really pouring hard it was like sheets of water were coming down and apparently we got winds up to 75 miles per hour so we run back to the apartment to close a window and at this point all the streets are totally flooded and there is a huge branch blocking the entrance to our complex to I hop out and also at this point I'm completely drenched and wade out to the branch and move it.  Then we went to the chamber and helped mop up a ton of water and it was a blast. Then the storm died after about an hour and by the next day all the water was gone.  We went about life as usual.

We had stake conference this week we had Elder Bussy from the seventy come and talk. Elder Johnson and I went to the leadership session broadcast to Burns at 4 as the stake center is in Bend, which is two and a half hours away from Burns. So after that we stayed at the church waiting for an appointment we had there at 6 30, but he didn't show up til almost seven which was when the adult session started.  Then after that it was 9 so we went home and went back the next morning for the general session and that’s when the problems started. About 20 minutes in to the conference our feed cut out and then came back but continued to freeze every 10 minutes or so for quite some time til finally after an hour the feed cut out completely and we found out that the system in Bend had died and they were working to just get us the audio, now which started to work and then died also, until finally with 30 minutes left in the session the feed finally came back and we watched the concluding remarks. It was good because it was Elder Bussy. He gave a good talk.  It was also good because two of our less active members came for the first time, at least since I've been there so that was cool. Then today I'm in Bend as we are going to do exchanges again until Thursday. This time I'm the one going back to Burns with the zone leader Elder Worstencraft so thats exciting and scary at the same time as I'm going to be the one that knows the area.

One really cool story for you all so last Monday I said I was at a mission tour and while there we talked to the mission president about Burns and our concern about only having one investigator and he told us that there were at least two that were ready and that we needed to find them so we really refocused our effort. Saturday we were visiting a less active member who has some adult sons in the area and we just said we were looking for people to teach and she said well I don't know anyone and so we continued talking. Then she says that her son who is active is now raising two of his nieces and they aren't members but have been coming to church and seem interested.  So we go over there ( it was the next house over) and talk to her son who says the oldest said she would want to be baptized except she didn't want to wear the funny underwear which was funny. Then we set up an appointment to teach them on Tuesday so now we have two new investigators which has really strengthened my testimony of divine revelation but now time is short so I wish you all well the church is true 

August 20, 2013  The Benefits of Weed

So this week was a very interesting and busy week, we had mission tour which is why I am writing on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. To start the week last Tuesday I was running around Washington park for morning exercise while my comp sat in the truck watching and as I was running around I heard the gravel rustle and  look behind me to see a decent sized dog right behind me which kinda scared me, seeing as since I've been a missionary dogs haven't been liking me much lately. So I pick up my pace and he just sat there and finally ran off and in my head I'm thinking it was a tender mercy that I didn't get attacked, and that he stopped just short of me, little did I know.  Then as I am completing another lap around I hear a noise and look behind me a little sooner to see this same dog come running at me full speed. So I start running as fast as i can away from this dog which I was sure wanted to attack me.  In the brief moment I heard him catch up to me I braced for the bite and when it didn't come I in shock looked for the dog and there he was running right alongside me so I slowed down and he slowed down and now back at my normal pace I waited for him to get bored and leave but the dog ran right next to me for the next 10 15 minutes at which point I started back to the apartment telling the dog shoo.  He stayed right with me all the way back to the apartment and when I stopped he stopped and then Elder Johnson threw a stick and as the dog was running after it we ran inside. After a while he went back to where ever he came from. Then we helped a family of one of the recent convert families the vantassle family move in who are either non members or less active members move in on Wednesday and bro vantassle thanked us with a big batch of his specialty, no bake cookies! they tasted just like home. Thursday we helped a new family in the ward move in and the elders quorum president, bro vantassel and us were the only ones that showed up so that took a while. Saturday we helped the young mens president move out and by then I was getting pretty good at moving. There were so many people there that we made an assembly line and loaded really fast. Later we went to visit the  a part member family in the ward who we are focusing on right now and have been helping clean up after they had a kitchen fire, which was actually really good because Glen the husband has really been warming up to us. We're hoping he might decide to investigate  as he comes to church every week and his wife is even one of the ward missionaries, but any way we go over and he barely acknowledges us but as we are leaving after talking to his wife awhile she mentions she has some furniture for us to move from her parents house to their house . So we go and move two big dressers from the house to the truck to the house and as we pull up Glen starts talking to us more and then Elder Johnson asks for a match or a blow torch to stop the rope from fraying after looking and not finding anything elder Johnson mentions almost jokingly to use the grill and Glen goes “oh yeah I even have it lit” so we go over and he turns on a burner and starts spraying it with the cooking spray which cause a flamethrower effect. We were all laughing and so that was good.  Then we went over to the pluards, a less active members house to try and help her get her older boys back in the church. We show up and they hide from us and so we talk to her and her youngest for a little bit and then we go to leave and as we are getting in the truck the youngest, Luke, who is like 7 yells wait wait and comes running out and says you can stay for a little longer. So we go back in and talk to her and Luke for a little while and then left.Tthen we decided to do some ward list visits. We were going to go to the lewisons who we had never heard of but we finally find the apartment complex, which is looking really sketchy and we walk in the complex. It just stinks with smoke and we find their apartment number and the door is wide open and the keys are still in the door. So we knock and no answer we knock again no answer so finally we call out hello and we hear a hello back and then a very large man with  only a pair of shorts walks into view and tells us to come on in and sit down and so we do and I'm wondering what the heck did we get ourselves into his name is Smokey by the way which also described the apartment. Then his wife walks in fully dressed but in back health so we talk to her for a little and then he comes back in with a shirt now and starts talking about his dad who he took care of until he died as he had Alzheimers, who apparently was at the va clinc being taken care of and I guess he was losing a ton of weight and they couldn't get him to eat.  Smokey goes up he is saying your medicine doesn't work so now I'm going to try mine and then says "  boy he started gaining all sorts of weight once I started him on weed" and then proceeds to tell us how he saturated all of his food with weed and then continues to talk about his dad and his own heart attacks for the next hour straight Sunday we went to church and then packed and went to Bend for mission tour which is basically zone conference but with a general authority. We had Elder Richards of the second quorum of the 70.  Monday we went to that and talked to the mission president who told us that there were two ready for the gospel in Burns and that we needed to find them in response to our telling him that we only have one investigator who is basically a member he just can’t be baptized yet. We went home and we get home Monday with about an hour and a half of time left so Elder Johnson says who should we visit? The Pluards came to mind, so I say maybe the pluards? he says ok, but before that he had to unload the car and as we are unloading I'm think more about the Pluards and the better I feel about visiting them. So we go over and on our way we see Luke at a house we didn't know, so we stop and Michele it there too so we talk to them. She seems like she wants to talk to us so we set up an appointment for today and then go try and see a less active member named Madison who likes to read the BofM with us and we go over and her mom says she’s out walking her sheep, I then confused say a sheep? and she says yeah we have to exercise them. Then we leave and now we still have an hour and 15 min left and unsure what to do we call the wml bro Johnson and set up a meeting with him and Washington park and so we go there and on the swings is Michelle and Luke so we get out and talk to them more, while I entertained Luke and his friends. It was really good and then while we are talking to her I hear this loud bahh and look over to see Madison walking her lamb and she comes over and starts talking to us as well and then Bro Johnson shows up and now all of us are talking and it was really good.  Madison even committed to going to church on Sunday and then they left and we talked to bro Johnson about our trip and the plans for the week and then we had to go home so overall it’s been a great sore week.

August 12, 2013

So a lot has happened this week last Monday afternoon we went to bend for zone conference and exchanges and I learned that it is a lot hard to stay awake for the two and half hour drive when you are the passenger especially when you can only listen to church music and then when we got to bend we went to this food service supply store called cash and carry. I thought costco sold in bulk but this place put it to shame I saw the biggest bottle of sweet baby ray sauce I have ever seen it was huge. Then after that it was dinner so we went to find a place to eat and after calling some of the other missionaries in bend, by the way there is four sets just for bend, we settled on this little taco shop and I had a massive burrito which tasted great anyways after that we went to the zls apartment to unpack for the night the aps also were staying in the zls apartment we had to bring in some mattresses from the garage to accommodate all six of us, but it was way fun. then the next morning we had zone conference and as we all woke up we realized that we had a big problem zone conference started at eight and all 6 of us needed to shower and get ready before then so elder johnson and I after seeing that we were going to have time to shower there ran over to the dls apartment and showered there and then went back to the zls to change unfortunately everyone had left and despite our asking for them to leave a door unlock we found the doors were locked and all of our church clothes in the apartment so after calling the zls and finding out they were in the middle of a car wash as we had car inspections that day and would not be able to be back at the apartment for a while and we didn't have time to wait we found the swamp cooler which stuck out of the window and pulled it out and then I climbed in through the small opening in the window and ended up inside and upside down and I'm sure it looked hilarious two missionaries in pjs breaking into an apartment especially when I started to climb in head first and all you could see were my legs but we got in and made it to zone conference in time. zone conference it's self was great my mission president really focuses on first developing a vision and then strategy and tactics so we learned a lot about that and the culture he wants to develop in the mission as we are a combination of two different missions opm and oem and our slogan is "build upon the rock" so our whole culture was focused on the gospel of Christ and living the higher law or as the president likes to say the more excellent way in regards to our rules and how we act. I don't think I've met a single person who doesn't love our mission president he is definitely a spiritual powerhouse. After zone conference which ended at 6 I went on exchanges with my district leader elder Palmer. we went to his wards assistant ward mission leaders house for dinner which was great by the way breakfast pizza covered in hot sauce and then we discussed what the ward needed to do to be successful after which when Elder Palmer noticed the sun setting around eight he asked if I had been to the butte and I said no and the next thing I know we are rushing to the butte as fast as we can before the sun sets and basicly it was this tall narrow hill that from the top you could see all of bend and it was incredible especially because there had been a lot of fires so the sunset was a deep red, pictures on the way and after the sun set we went to an investigators house and talked to them is was two sets of young couples living together and the one girl was investigating and her boyfriend was sort of also investigating they were interesting the two girls were nice and the one sorta investigator boyfriend greets us wearing a shirt with atheist written in big letters and the back had some sayings about why its best to be atheist. Apparently the girl Sarah had all the lessons and was coming to church but didn't want to be baptized because of the church's stand on homosexuality which is not a question easily answered and honestly the more I learn about and teach the gospel to others I've learned that God works through small and simple means and usually the simple answer is the best and so if any of you have questions or concerns on certain aspects of the gospel and still don't feel comfortable with the answers given by the leaders of the church I invite you to find your own answer by the simple means of prayer which may sound like the generic answer but just as we have to pray to know if the gospel is true we also should pray to know if those certain doctrines  are true and I can promise you that if you ask with sincerely with real intent wanting to know for yourself that God will answer you and that is the only way you will ever be able to have a testimony of any doctrine. after that we went back to the apartment and got ready for bed and as we are getting ready Elder Palmer pulls out a cello and says pick a hymn so I pick my favorite and he plays it with no sheet music or hymn book and he goes pick another and I say another favorite and he plays that well this continued for a while until I ask if he's memorized the whole hymn book and he says no so I said well then how are you doing this and he can play by ear very very well the next day we did a service project went to eat and then thursday we went to lunch with the zls at an Indian place and as we are waiting in line this guy who is finishing his meal asks us if we are meeting with anyone or if we are by ourselves and we say that we are by ourselves and he hands us two 20 dollar bills and says lunch is on me we  thank him and as we talked to him briefly the zls recognize him and after he left they told us that he was a less active member and his brother was a bishop or something like that but his kindness really humbled me as I being an active member and a missionary probably wouldn't have done the same thing if I were in his shoes. Well time is running short so a little bit about the people of burns they are all mostly super nice most are farmers or ranchers everyone waves and knows everyone and news travels super fast, most own animals which I now know how to catch sheep but that's a story for another time. The church is true the power of prayer is real.  

Aug 5th Letter

So since I wrote last not a ton has happened.  This morning I helped the ward mission leader move a sprinkler line and then he gave me a haircut. It was a little sketchy at first, when I was first told that our state trooper ward mission leader cut the missionaries hair, I thought it was a joke but I said ok apparently he has been cutting his own hair for years but anyway I was sitting in his living room and he walks past and he's like ok elder come with me and he starts heading outside and I get up and follow him totally confused as to why he is going outside when he said he was going to cut my hair but I walk out and there is a green plastic chair in the middle of his gravel driveway ( he lives out passed the reservation next to three of his brothers one of which is the mission president but anyway the point is this house is out in the middle of nowhere and he is standing by the chair with a box of clippers in hand and so I go and sit down on this little green chair in the middle of nowhere and he starts buzzing my head but it actually turned out pretty good despite my companion making jokes about how the bald spot will grow back and I only got cut once needless to say this is probably the shortest my hair has ever been. Another interesting thing that happened is one of the part member families we were working with had a kitchen fire so we spent most of Thursday over there cleaning things up we vacuumed walls and ceilings and then took mops and attacked the walls the husband is a non member and in the past hasn't been very open to the gospel but has been slowly becoming more friendly and open and after the fire clean up, hopefully we will be able to begin teaching him soon. Then Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting and there is a family in the ward with a 3 year old and a newborn and this three year old has a vocabulary of a six year old and so he runs up and his dad lifts him up to the mic and with his mouth pressed firmly against it and with out any prompting he begins to tell the story of Ammon how he cut off all the lamanites arms and the king thought the Ammon was the great spirit but that AMMON WAS JUST A MAN and not the great spirit, it was after this that he says the church is true but then proceeds to tell us that lamanites kill nephites and that nephites like to kill lamanites and is about to go on but his dad whispers in his hear to have him wrap up and so he says " I know Thomas Monson is a prophet and I know the church is true and I know Thomas S Monson is a prophet....and I know Thomas Monson's a prophet and that Thomas Monson is a prophet... everyone laughed yeah amen" its at this point his dad bears his testimony while he keeps yelling I want to go again and everyone is dying with laughter it was hilarious and after the bishop gets up and says I know where I'm going for scripture study. Everything is going good the work is starting to pick up we have some potential investigators we are working on and I think I have had more food than I have ever had in my life we get fed every night about and Saturday we were fed twice, and the members make sure that my plate is never empty but I am sooo sick of desserts it was great to have a big cake or pie with ice cream for the first while after two weeks straight it starts to lose its appeal however you never turn it down or else it really offends the members and you never have only one serving needless to say i am very grateful for the exercise time we have and much to my surprise I'm actually loosing weight but we've had some great lessons and I'm learning a lot still more to learn but its all good the church is true and the book of Mormon is the best book every  ( His letter cuts off here I hope it was the end and we didn't miss much )

Elder Telford with his Mission President and his wife as well as his companion.