Monday, March 30, 2015

What a Week!

Well this last week was just jam-packed.  Let's see.  Well, we had a lot of great stuff happen with our investigators!  We had some great lessons and 4 of them came to church!  We had Amber, and 3 of the Katomski family come which was so awesome!  And it was a really good meeting too.  It was a homecoming for an Elder who served in Atlanta Georgia. He's super cool and an amazing speaker/teacher.  He's come out to lessons with us several times.  So that was pretty great!

Everyone is still progressing towards their date though.  Although we will have to push Roger's back a bit because he couldn't make it to church. Darn Satan.  But we will keep on trying! And we will hopefully be putting a few more people on date this week which would be amazing!  I'll let you know how it goes.  

On Wednesday we had our first Scripture Study Class Yucaipa style.  It's a little different from the ones we did in Colton.  We only have a short lesson, and then there are games and refreshments!  It was a big hit!  We had over a dozen people come and it sounds like there will be even more there this week! 

We also had another Mission Conference this last weekend!  Elder Brent H. Nielson of the First Quorum of the Seventy.  He had like 3 extra hours here in California so he called up President Van Cott and asked if he could speak to the mission.  It was really great!  That makes 6 general authorities that have visited our mission and talked to us in the last 18 months! We are so blessed!  And to make it even cooler, Elder Nielson will be speaking in conference this weekend on Sunday. So watch for him! I got to shake his hand.  

The church came out with their new initiative this last week too!  The #BecauseHeLives initiative.  So we got lot's of fancy pass-along cards to hand out.  Check out the video and share it online!  It's on HeLives.mormon.org.  It's super cool!  And if you get on YouTube's main page Sunday morning, you'll see the big add that the church bought out haha.  It's great! 

I'm glad to hear you all had a pretty good week!  Good luck on StuCo stuff Sadie!  I loved the posters! And I'm glad to hear you don't have to have surgery mom!  That's always nice.  I'm sure Lucie is thrilled!  

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!  This is a great work to be involved in.  And it's so fun!  So many great people :)

Love, Elder Wise

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Hey!

Well this week was pretty great.  We didn't have a whole lot of appointments though because everyone decided to cancel.  But the ones that didn't cancel were great!  In fact, we were able to put Roger on date for April 18!  It's going to be so awesome!  And Amber is still doing really well and progressing towards her date.  So the work is going great!  The ward is really getting excited about missionary work too!  A couple of weeks ago when Elder Packer came, he invited everyone to do three things: 1) Pray in every single prayer for a missionary opportunity for themselves. 2) Be nice to everyone.  3) Don't have a conversation with someone without letting them know that you are a member of the church.  So lately, when we go to member's homes, we have been re-inviting them to do number 1.  And it has been so awesome!  Every single week we hear new stories about how they actually prayed, and God answered within just a few days or hours.  It's great.  So everyone is getting really excited about it.  I think the work around here is going to explode pretty soon!

And so  yeah, that was our week!  It was pretty good.  I'm glad to hear your week was pretty great!  Sounds like a lot of fun!  I love the new campaign signs you made!  I think my favorites are the spider-man one and the Ironman one.  So funny! And I'm glad to hear that Chuzi had a great time! haha It sounds like it was a lot of fun!  And that's great she was able to convince Leo to go too haha.  It'll be a party for sure! 

Well, I hope all goes well this week! 
Have a great week!  Love you all! 

Love, Elder Wise :)

Monday, March 16, 2015

Transfers...

Wait for iiiiiiiiit.... I'm staying.  Big surprise haha.  We are both staying here in Yucaipa for another 6 weeks.  We figured we probably would.  We had a great week this week though!  Got a whole lot of stuff done. Let's see, well Amber came to church which was awesome!  She's progressing really well!  Hopefully we will be able to start meeting with her a couple of times a week though so that we can teach her everything she needs to know before april 11.  Otherwise we might have to push it back a little bit.  Right now we only see her once a week.  She's doing really great though.  The Katomski's are doing great as well.  We are still working on trying to get them to come to church with us.  I think we are making some progress though!  We have an FHE set up with them for next Monday at the Stake Presidents house.  So it's going to be great! But yeah, that's kind of the highlights for the week!

Congrats Britta and James!!  He is so cute!  I can't wait to meet him someday haha :)  And Pi day sounds super fun!  I didn't realize it was such an epic one!  3.141592653  haha that's bomb. Luckily, the member we ate dinner with that night remembered that it was Pi day and got us some pie! It was delicious! 

I'm glad to hear Chuzi made it to town safe and sound haha!  I hope she has a great time! :)

Yeah I don't think I have ever witnessed a convert baptism in that ward haha.  That's great that it went so well!  And I can't believe Chris is home?!  That's awesome!  I bet Madi freaked out haha.  Tell him I said hey! 

Wow Conference is going to be so fun!  That's so many people! GC is the best.  It's like the Super Bowl for missionaries.  I'm pretty excited about it.  Our mission president put out a challenge a couple months ago for whoever wanted to do it.  The challenge was to read the whole book of mormon before conference.  I'm almost done!  It's such a great book! 

Well I hope you all have a fantastic week!  Love you all! 

Love, Elder Wise

Monday, March 9, 2015

WooHoo!

Man this week was pretty crazy.  Let's see, where to start.  Well, we had Stake Conference this week!  Elder Packer (President Packer's nephew) came and spoke to the stake.  He is amazing!  It was an incredible conference!  It was held at the Redlands stake center which is a lot bigger than the Yucaipa one.  And it happens to be literally right next door to the Temple.

So our Stake President and his wife are the main fellowshippers that we have for the Katomski family, who have been meeting with missionaries for years.  So we usually have them call and invite the Katomski's to church or whatever.  Well, we knew that Elder Packer was going to be staying at the Stake Presidents house while he was in town, so we figured it would be a great opportunity to go over and ask him to call our investigators and invite the Katomski's to stake conference!  A personal invitation from a member of the Seventy would totally guarantee their attendance! So we went over there Friday night, and sadly Elder Packer wasn't going to arrive in Yucaipa until the following morning, but we asked Pres. Cartozian if he would be willing to call the Katomski's at least, which he agreed to do.  But then as we were leaving he said that IF they had time the next morning, he would take Elder Packer by and personally invite them!  Well we prayed very very hard that they would have enough time.  And they did!  We were doing some service for the Katomski's Saturday morning, when they pulled up in front of the house!  I couldn't believe it had actually happened!  So Elder Packer and Pres. Cartozian had a nice little convo with them, and invited them to conference.  And the Katomski's were super stoked about it!  Especially since after the Conference, the Temple grounds would be open and people could walk around and take pictures and stuff.  So that was super cool.  And then Satan attacked Saturday night and Brother Katomski ended up going to the ER and Sister Katomski had to work Sunday morning, and they slept in too late to get ready in time, and they didn't make it.  Luckily though, Sister Katomski was able to get off work in time to meet us right after the conference ended and take the temple tour which she really enjoyed.  

The other awesome thing that happened was that we found a new investigator, well actually a former, she was taught a few years ago, and she wants to be baptized!!  We have the date set for April 11.  But it's possible that we could move it up a little bit if she is able to come to church and everything runs smoothly.  Her name is Amber.  She is amazing! 

 And those were the highlights of the week!  It was pretty awesome.  We had a very good week.  We stopped by Joanie's house a couple of times, but she wasn't home.  I will give her a call this week and try to set something up.  It's nice because we have to drive right past her house as we drive from our homeshare to our area.  So it's very convenient! 

Yeah the package was great!  I was able to wear the sweaters a couple times before it got hot again haha.  There is a senior couple in our ward who work in the mission office, so when they saw the package come in on Wednesday, they just grabbed it on their way home and hand delivered it!  They are so nice!  

Glad everything is going well back home!  Good luck during campaigns Sadie!  It sounds like your posters will be pretty legit!  And I can't believe Chris is coming home!  That's so cool!    And Emily is going to Korea? Dang that's so cool!  She will love it.  

So Chuzi will be there next Monday?  That will be super fun!  Yeah she has 3 younger brothers.  The oldest is pretty interested in the church, but is insanely busy with work and school so we never really got to talk to him.  And the middle one is semi interested, and the youngest isn't really interested at all.  But he comes to stuff with the rest of his fam.  They are all super cool though! 

Anyways, I hope you all have a great week!  The church is true.  Missionary work is bomb.  

Love, Elder Wise

Monday, March 2, 2015

Brrrrrr...

It's so cold!!!!!  Well, not really.  It's only like 50 degrees.  But I am FREEZING!  Haha it's all good though. I've got my sweater.  It keeps me warm.  Well this last week was pretty good!  There really isn't much to report though.  We are just clicking along.  Trying to find more people to teach.  We received a few referrals last week though and it looks like a couple of them are pretty promising! So that will be our focus this week.  Our investigators are doing pretty well though.  They still haven't come to church yet, which is a problem.  They won't ever progress until they come to church.  So that's what we have been working on with them. Mainly we are working with the Katomski family, Guy Manasuk, Roger Haller, and hopefully we will be able to start working with Kimberly. We still haven't been able to meet with her yet because of a whole lot of different reasons.  But hopefully this week!

I haven't been to see Joanie yet, but we will definitely swing by this week!  

Oh oh oh!  The best news of all!  It is official.  This isn't a false alarm.  It is actually going to happen.  We are getting iPads!!!  They will be here on May 15.  When they get here we will also get to start using Facebook!  It's going to be great haha.  I will probably have more information on it all next week though.  Hopefully anyway! 

Well it sounds like everything is going well back home!  Wow!  Bishops Story is incredible!  I'm going to copy and paste so all my friends can read it haha.  
 "He was telling about an experience he had as a missionary in Australia.  He said that many of his companions didn't like him very much because he was very much a "letter of the law" kind of missionary.  If the handbook said to be out doing missionary work until 9:00 than that is what he was going to do!  So one night they had finished their appointments a little early.  It was like 8:45ish and his companion just wanted to go home.  But he wouldn't let him.  He said they needed to be working until 9.  So they found a cul-de-sac that they decided to tract out.  The end of the cul-de-sac was at the top of a hill.  And there was a huge party going on.  So, they were fearless and decided to go talk to them.  Well. they obviously weren't interested.  So they knocked on a few more doors with no success and were back down at the opening of the cul-de-sac with five minutes left before 9.  So the Bishop pulled out his planner and was trying to decide what to do with the five extra minutes.  His companion was very frustrated.  Then all of a sudden he heard a gunshot and found himself flat on the ground!  He had been shot in the back by one of the party goers at the end of the cul-de-sac!!  Can you believe that?  The chapel was completely silent as he told this story.  No one had ever heard it before!  Turns out that the bullet penetrated his suit jacket and his white shirt, but stopped there.  It didn't leave a hole in his under garments or hurt him at all.  He shared his testimony about obedience and the protection it provides.  It was awesome!" 

That is such a cool story Sade!  That's so great that you were able to be a great influence in another person's life!  It is the best feeling! 

Well, I hope you all have a great week!  I love you all!  

Love, Elder Wise