Colton!

 

My companion and I looking fly!

I can't even believe this.  Every time the area starts to actually get going, they ship me off to a new area.  Yup, you guessed it.  I am being transferred to Colton.  Which is about an hour or so north west of here.  I'm sure it'll be great!  I'm super sad to leave this place though.  There are so many cool people!!  My list of favorite people is sooooo long!  I don't think I'll be able to say goodbye to everyone :(  Luckily though, I should be able to come back down here for some baptisms when they happen!  That'll be great!  This last week we picked up some Golden Investigators.  Literally golden.  They've been looking for a religion and they want it to be LDS because their friends are LDS.  So literally we just have to teach them everything then dunk'em.  It's great!

Let's see, oh yeah we went to the temple last week.  The new video is awesome!  The Redlands temple is beautiful!!  Really small though haha.  But that was a really cool experience. 

And this last week has been rainy.  Weird.  It's cool though.  The mountains that surround us are all snow-capped and really pretty!  And it's still 85 degrees down in the valley!   It's great!

We met some really cool people yesterday.  They just moved into a really really nice house which apparently is a downgrade.  I mean, they went from a 5 car garage to a 2 car garage.  It's really inconvenient cause now they can't store their 4 trucks (one of which is a raptor!), 6 Harleys, dirt bikes, 4-wheelers, jet-skis, and all of their other toys.  They are really great haha!!  Super nice people.  They fed us last night. 

Also, on Saturday night we had a ward party which was really great!  It was a potluck game night type deal.  Everyone brought games and just kinda chilled.  It was super fun!

Minute to Win It Marshmallow

And I won!

 And I'm so glad that Bro Willinsky could get a hold of you!!  He's a really cool guy.  I'm gonna miss him. 

Well, That's all I got.  Missionary work is so fun!! This church is true! 

Saying good-bye to the Carlson's at In-n-Out Burger

Love you all,

Elder Wise :)

Hey Guys!

Alrighty.  Well last week was pretty great!  We had an awesome lesson with Sherry last week!!  We took the Willinsky's with us which was the best idea we've ever had.  Good thing the Spirit told us to do it. So the Willinsky's have a crazy history.  They are both on their third marriage.   And Sherry is currently going through a separation and stuff.  So we walked in to the lesson and literally just sat there for a while and listened to the willinsky's relate to sherry and help her out.  Then we read some stuff from the BOM with her that was totally perfect and it was exactly what she needed to hear and it was just so cool.  The Spirit is the best.  And then the Willinsky's invited her to dinner for tonight, so tonight is gonna be awesome!! 

Also, this last Sunday Tommy came to church!!! Yay!!! It was really great!  Tommy is awesome.  We have only taught him one lesson but him and his grandma study the BOM every night!  It's so cool!! 

The really exciting news is what's happening this week. Wednesday actually.  We get to go to the temple!!!!!! YAY!!!!!  It's so great!!  We only get to go about once every 4 months or so I think.  So this week's schedule is kinda wierd.  Today isn't actually P-Day.  But the Pres has given us permission to email today so you all don't freak out.  P-Day has been switched to wednesday this week so we will do all our P-Day stuff then.  So today we've just been out working like normal.  It's a great time! Haha

That was the highlights of the week though.  Past that it was kind of boring.  Oh except we went on exchanges twice last week.  Once with the ZL's and once with the DL.  It was a great time! 

Well it sounds like things at home are going great! The B and G sounds way fun!! I'm glad everyone liked the hot dogs!!

The only PGHS counselor that is actually cool and is helpful is the german lady.  I can't remember her name.  Ask sister Hardman.  She would know.  

Also, I think I am still missing one of the Valentine's packages.  It should get here soon though haha.  Hopefully.  I got the Peas one last week.  It was great!! 

 

Well, I'm sure I missed replying to something.  Sorry! But I don't have much time today.  Love you all!!  I'll let you know how the temple is :)

Have a great week!!

Love, Elder Wise :)

Greetings from President Obama

I don't know if you all knew this or not but Obama was in California this weekend!  And even better, he was in my area.  Which means...wait for it....we tried to talk to him!!!  We walked up to the secret service guys and introduced ourselves and asked them what was going on and stuff.  We talked to them for a few minutes and then they were like "feel free to hang around if you want, just don't walk up the road" and then they walked away.  So we didn't get a chance to ask them if we could talk to the president.  But it didn't sound like they were too keen on anybody getting anywhere near the president haha.  But hey, we tried. 

Let's see, what else.  Oh on Saturday we had a zone conference.  All the missionaries (36) in the stake had a meeting with the mission president.  President Van Cott is awesome!  Such a cool guy.  So that was all day on Saturday.  And then Sunday we tried to talk to the president and then we met with Sherry.  She's doing great!  Still can't get sundays off work though.  So we are still praying for that. 

And Tommy is doing well too.  Have I mentioned him before? I feel like I have.  Anyways, we couldn't meet with him on Sunday but his grandma told us that they've been reading the Book of Mormon together every night and now they are in the book of Jacob.  So that's awesome!! I guess he has a bunch of questions about baptism by fire and stuff.  So we are super excited to meet with him this week!!

And that's kinda all that happened last week. It was kind of slow for some reason. 

That's so awesome about the Olympics!! And all the Mormons over there haha!  That's so awesome!  Good for them! 

The new stake presidency is awesome!!  That's great!

I got 3 packages last week from you mom. Is that all of them?  They were awesome!! Thanks!!  And I LOVE the pics and letters from Lucie!!  They are hanging on my wall haha.  I smile every time I read them. 

Well, I love you all!!  I hope you stop getting sick and stuff. That's no fun!  Missionary work is awesome!  :)

Love, Elder Wise

Oh boy!!

 

Well this last week was pretty great.  Let's see.  We met with Sherry twice this last week.  And we put her on track to be baptized on March 8!!  It's looking like it might have to be pushed back though cause she hasn't been able to get Sundays off of work and to make things worse her son is moving to Utah and he wants to be the one to baptize her so they might wait a while.  It's complicated all of a sudden.  She is progressing and we are still teaching her so that's great. 

We were also able to get another new investigator last week. His name is Tommy. We invited him to be baptized and he said no.  I don't think he really understands the importance of baptism so that's what we are going to teach him next.  Once the Spirit get's working on him he'll come around I'm sure!

Dinner with the Carlson's on Saturday was great too!!  They loved El Gallito.  Which of course, everybody does haha.  It's so good!! 

Yesterday the Sisters in our ward had a baptism.  His name is Rick Willinsky.  He's so awesome!!  He's been coming to church regularly for about 12 ish years.  Most people thought he was already a member.  But the Sisters were finally able to get him to be baptized.  Well, technically the Holy Ghost did but you know what I mean.  Anyways, it was really awesome.  It was kind of a missionary reunion too cause a few missionaries traveled down to see it cause when they were here a while back they were working with him so they wanted to see.  But it was really awesome!

This was yesterday at the baptism. 

   Sister Lee, Sister Busenbark, Sister Landgren, Me, Sister Akagi, and Elder Stafford. 

     Lee and Akagi were the ones that traveled down for the baptism. 

And that was pretty much our week.  It was great! 

Sounds like things at home are exciting!!!  I can't wait to get my Valentines packages haha! And no I never got the CNY one.  My guess is the ZL's will pick it up and give it to me tomorrow.  I did get the new journal though!  Thanks Uncle Jim and Aunt Susan!

Hahaha mom those stories are awesome! I want to serve on temple square haha.  I can't believe he actually swallowed a cigarette.  My goodness haha. 

The ward party sounds awesome!!  We are having a ward party coming up at the beginning of March.  It's like a game night potluck type dealio.  It should be cool.  But the Price is Right sounds awesome!!  Just out of curiosity, how old is Brian Hardman? haha

Family day sounds fun too!  I miss watching the Olympics haha.  They are so fun!!  And the alarm went off at church? That's awesome too!  I'm really tempted to try out our building's alarm now haha.  Jk that would be no bueno!

Poor Lucie.  She is picked on a lot.  haha she's so funny!

 

Well, I love you all, have a great week!!! Oh and stay tuned for some pics cause I'm finally on a computer that will let me send some!! Yay!! :)

Love you!

-Elder Wise

 

We went on a hike a while back.

Sunrise from last Wednesday I think.

Sister Busenbark is ridiculously good at slack-lining.  Which is one of our favorite P-Day past times. haha

I'm clearly not as good! haha

El Gallito makes MASSIVE tacos.  And Sister Akagi can pound it all.  Haha

Theres a park we often go too that has hundreds of ducks.  And this one had an afro. haha

The lunch of champions...1 box of macaroni and Mt Dew in a champagne glass.  yes. 

The Broncos Lost

Don't worry, I didn't watch the super bowl.  But it was on while we were eating at a members house and I happened to see the end result.  Poor Broncos.  Sorry guys.

Anyways, last week was pretty good. According to our numbers we did lot's more than last week!  Yay! Let's see.  Well here's a story.  So last Tuesday night we were out walking around and we met a kid named Nefi.  Which of course is the Spanish translation of Nephi!  Which is what we told the kid and he seemed really stoked about it and he wanted us to come and teach him the lessons.  Well we were super excited about that!  So excited that we decided to walk the same route the next morning.  To our dismay, the Book of Mormon we had given to Nefi was in the ditch.  In the mud.  And had been run over by a car.  Sad. Day.  And then we tried to call him a couple days later and he hung up on us.  So we dropped that guy.

Nefi's Book of Mormon

On the good side of the week though, we were able to get a new investigator!!  Yay!!  Her name is Shelley Bright and she is the mom of one of the members in our ward.  She is pretty great.  She was really interested in prophets and seemed really interested while we were teaching her the restoration.  We have a return appointment tomorrow night!  It's great!

Also, we were able to set up some appointments with some people for this week so by next Monday, we will hopefully have at least 3 more!! It's really great!!

The other enjoyable part of the week happened yesterday.  We were at church and this crazy guy with pink sweat pants, black dress shoes, a tan button up shirt, wearing a pink backpack and carrying an old beat up golf club came and talked to the missionaries.  Well he rambled for a while and he had a thick accent so I wasn't really paying attention but then all of a sudden he was staring at me and it was apparent that he had told me something.  So I was like "Wait what?"  And he was like "You wear nice clothes but Jesus is not in your heart."  And I was like "Hold up.  Yes he is."  And that seemed to calm him down.  Haha he was nuts.  It was a great time.

Well it sounds like things at home are fun!!  Wow mom, you've been busy haha.  You see more people in a week than I do haha.  Well probably not but still.  At least they let you in.  And Ruby River sounds awesome!!  And I'm glad your leg is almost better!  And way to go Sadie!!!  That's awesome!!  Way to swim!
Chinese New Year sounded like a great time!!  I still haven't gotten that package though.  Which is pretty weird.  I'm sure it'll come soon though.  Can't wait!!

And I'm totally jealous of Dad and John and Trent!  There have been some people up here from Pocatello and I asked them if they ever went to Geraldines and they were like "Heck yeah!  We love that place!"  It made me crave some Geraldines haha.

Oh and this weekend we are going out with the Carlson's again!  We are taking them to El Gallito!  Have I told you about that place?  It's pretty much the best Mexican food around.  And the Carlson's have never been there!  So that'll be way fun :)

Well, I hope you are all doing well!  Missionary work is totally bomb.  Love you guys!!!

  -Elder Wise

This is a funny card that I saw.

Hello!

Well this last week has been kind of boring.  Transfers always screw everything up.  Last Tuesday was spent just saying goodbye to everyone for Elder Weaver, and Wednesday was taken up with getting a new comp, doing some shopping since Elder Stafford didn't have any food or anything, and taking him around to introduce him to all the important peeps.  That was pretty much all we did the rest of the week too.  We couldn't get a hold of either of our investigators so we didn't get to see them.  We were able to contact some other people though.  We've had a hard time getting a hold of them so that was really good.  This next week should be loads better! 

So a little about my new comp.  His name is Elder Stafford.  He's from St. Louis Missouri.   He likes to play the guitar and sing.  He likes longboarding.  He's 19 years old.  He's been out for about 3 months.  So he just finished getting trained.  Which means I'm his follow up trainer.  Which is no big deal haha.  We get along really well.  He's really funny!  We have a good time working hard. 

Well that's my week.  Happy Birthday Mom!!!!! Man you are old.  Haha JUST KIDDING!  You aren't really.  Lunch with Sandy sounds fun!!  Good luck finding somewhere to go.  Although right now it's 3 oclock your time so you've probably already eaten.  Hope it was good! 

I haven't received your package yet.  I can't wait!!  I love Chinese new year!  Sounds like last week was pretty crazy!!  Lot's of stuff going on!  Glad it all went well though! That's awesome. 

Lucie is so funny!!!  Haha I miss her.  And I think it's a great idea to be Perry every Halloween.  Haha

Here's some crazy stuff.  Jessika Lloyd's cousin is in my Zone.  Hermana Bates.  Totally hung out with her back in the day when we were little kids haha.  So that was cool. 

Well, hope you all have a great week!!! Love you all!! Missionary work is fan-tast-ic!

Love, Elder Wise

Transfers!!!!

Alright so sorry about yesterday.  Because of the holiday the library was closed and we didn't have anywhere else we could go to email.  But luckily we get to today!!  Not nearly as much time though :(

Let's see.  Last week was pretty good.  We went on exchanges with the district leader and stuff.  I went with Elder Webster who is pretty much my favorite missionary haha.  He's so funny.  We got some good videos haha!  So that was a great day. 

The sad part of the week though was when we went to see Robert Perez.  Our pretty much golden investigator.  We got to his house and he was higher than a kite.  He then informed us that he didn't want to keep learning and he didn't want us to come by anymore.  We bore our testimonies and convinced him to let us come by when he wasn't so high so we could answer some of the questions he had and stuff, but the next day he ignored all our phone calls and stuff.  So we haven't seen him in a while.  It's really sad.  :(

The weekend got better though.  This last weekend was stake conference.  For the Saturday night session, (everyone 12 and up), the topic was missionary work.  All 36ish missionaries in the Palm Desert Stake sat up on the stand and sang Called to Serve and the stake president pretty much guilt tripped the whole stake haha.  The spirit was really strong though and I think the wards are gonna pick it up.  And then the sunday session was really good too.  It was a broadcast from SLC and President Eyring spoke, along with Elder Anderson, Sister Barton, and a member of the Seventy.  It was really cool!!

The week concluded really well.  We got to go see the Carlsons!!!  It was awesome!! We went and visited with them for a while and then they took us out to dinner.  It was delicious!  They are wonderful people haha.  It was great to get caught up on all the happenings in the Carlson clan haha.  They are so great!  Plus, Grandma and Grandpa Carlson do more missionary work than most of the members in our ward.  They gave a referral the other day to some missionaries in a different ward, and they kept trying to think of neighbors around here who we could go talk to haha.  It was awesome.  We shared a little lesson with them about the Holy Ghost. 

Now, the big news.  Transfers are tomorrow!!! Elder Weaver is outta here!!  It's pretty strange actually. We didn't think it was going to happen since we've only been together 6 weeks.  But whatever.  All of my other favorite missionaries are leaving too.  Elder Hevner and Elder Webster (our old roomies), and Sister Akagi.  My only remaining friend is Sister Busenbark.  Oh well.  It'll be a good time.  I will miss those guys though.  My new companion is going to be Elder Stafford.  He sounds like a cool guy so I'm stoked.

Elder Weaver

Well, sorry I don't have time to say much else.  We are on a time crunch today.  I saw all the pics and stuff though!!  It was awesome!  Thanks so much for the emails!!!  Sorry I didn't really respond to everything. Love you guys!! Missionary work rocks!!

Love, Elder Wise :)

Oh boy oh boy!

Well all sorts of stuff happened last week.  Holy moly.  Where to start.  Alright, well we will start with the beginning of last week.  I called up Grandma and Grandpa Carlson and got a hold of those guys.  They are awesome!  Grandma was feeling sick last week though and Grandpa has a golf tournament this week so we are gonna meet with them I think at the beginning of next week.  But it was great to talk to them.  I guess Kade and Elle had their baby!!!!  Congrats Carlsons!  That's way sweet!

Here's part 1 of the big news.  We have our own apartment!!!!!  It's super nice.  Except it doesn't have a washer and dryer yet.  They can't decide if they are going to get us some or not.  So now we have to go do laundry at the Laundromat which is no fun at all.  But besides that it's pretty nice.  My back loves the new bed.  The apartment is really big too.  Two bedrooms and two bathrooms with a big main room with like 15 foot ceilings.  It's sweet.  Really kinda boring though.  We need some roomies haha.

Ready for big news part 2.  It's pretty flippin awesome. I got my first baptism!!!  Haha kinda.  The sisters who share the ward with us had a baptism that kinda just happened.  The back story behind it all is super complicated and I don't even know it all.  But all of a sudden, she was ready to be baptized and they asked me to do it so I was like "Heck Yeah!"  It was Sister Akagi's first baptism too so that was cool.  And it was the first time Weaver had ever confirmed anybody and given them the Holy Ghost so this baptism was full of firsts haha.  It was way sweet!  That was on Saturday.

The sister missionaries, me and Sister Couch.

That's all the big news of the week though.  Well hold up, we finally got a hold of Robert again.  Hopefully we are gonna go see him tonight.  But we also got a new investigator last week.  His name is also Robert!  So now we have two Roberts and both are pretty legit.  It's great.  We also taught our other investigator Brian last week which was super cool.  The spirit was super strong!

But past all that, nothing else happened.  All the other days last week were pretty boring.  Mostly filled with us walking around trying to see less actives and then getting the door slammed in our face.  It's a great time. 

Sounds like it's been crazy back home! It's sad to hear about Mel.  It sounds like his funeral was pretty nice though. Kind of reminds me of Patriarch Fugals.  Except without the airplane and stuff. 

Tupelo sounds great too!!  And Jims Christmas present looks awesome!  That's a great painting.  Too bad Dagny is sick though.  That's no fun.  I guess H1N1 has been going around up here too.  No good. 

The hospital trip sounds fun!!  I'm glad your leg is getting better mom.  We had to go to the hospital a couple times last week cause some people in there needed blessings.  I was just reminded how cool working in a hospital would be.  Although I wasn't impressed by the nurse who was helping one of the women we went to see.  She was a piece of work. 

Anyways, It's cool you saw Elder Savage!! Yeah he's a cool guy.  If you see him again tell him I said hi back haha. 

Well, I hope you all have a good week,  Love you guys!!!

Love, Elder Wise

Happy New Year!!

Well let's see.  It was sooooooo great to see you guys on Christmas!!!!!  Ahhhhh that was awesome.  I wish we could have talked longer.  But at least we got a while haha.  After I hung up with you guys we just went around and visited some members.  One of the family's we saw fed us dinner and then we went to another family's house for cheesecake.  It was delicious. 

Let's see, here's a little more about my companion.  He's a pretty great guy!! We get along really well.  And I don't really know what else you want me to tell about him haha. 

The rest of the week was kinda slow cause everyone was busy with the holidays.  We only taught like 8 lessons and they were all pretty much Active Members.  We did teach Robert last Monday and that was pretty sweet.  I think I told you about it when we skyped though.  We haven't seen him since though.  Hopefully soon!! 

The other exciting thing that happened this week actually happened earlier today.  It's been a long day.  Last Thursday we got a text from our zone leaders about a surprise mission conference.  So this morning we drove up to Redlands (about an hours drive) and listened to Elder Richards of the 2nd quorum of the seventy.  It was pretty great!!  He's awesome.  He looks a lot like Michael Caine though.  At least from where I was sitting.  So that's kinda thrown off the whole P-Day thing. We get a few hours tomorrow morning to finish all the things that we didn't get done today.  Which is pretty much everything.  We came straight to the library after the conference. 

Oh and there was one other cool thing that happened last week.  I went on exchanges with the zone leaders.  The reason this is exciting is that the ZLs are Spanish speaking!! So I spent the day doing pretty much nothing. Well, we did stuff obviously but I just followed him around and tried to understand what was going on.  He taught me quite a bit of Spanish though.  I was actually able to understand what the conversation was about.  It's cool though, cause even though I didn't really know what was being said, I could still feel the spirit.  For instance, I knew he was talking about the first vision at one point cause that was when the spirit felt the strongest.  It was pretty cool.  The gospel is true in Spanish and in English.  As I'm sure Keven would testify.  Haha

Well, Christmas sounded like a blast at home!!  I'm glad you all had a good time :)  Even though you were kinda sick haha.  And I loved the pics you sent!!!  Especially the letters in the snow haha that's awesome!!!  Thanks guys! 

Oh and I almost forgot.  Yeah I totally ran into Alex James on Sunday.  That was trippy.  I stood up and turned around and saw him and totally did a double take.  That was pretty sweet.  There were a whole bunch of PG guys.  It was awesome!!  I should've taken a pic with him though.  And had him send it to you.  That would have been cool.  But I didn't think of that till after he'd gone.  Darn it all. 

Love you guys!!!

-Elder Wise

Merry Christmas!

I can't even wait to see you guys!! It's gonna be so exciting!!  There's been a development however.  It looks like we won't be skyping until later in the afternoon.  I'm not even really sure what time.  I'll probably be able to call you right before so you know to get on the computer.  Or something like that.  I don't know for sure.  And President has asked that we only take 45 min.  So have a list of questions to ask or something haha.  I can't wait!!

Let's see.  My new area is doing pretty well.  Last week consisted mostly of going around and meeting everyone in the ward.  Although we have found a new investigator!!  It was pretty cool.  We went on exchanges on Friday so I was with Elder Hevner, my district leader, and we were walking on our way to visit a less active and we walked past a guy raking some leaves in his front yard.  Well both Elder Hevner and I had this super strong feeling that we needed to talk to the guy.  But we both kind of ignored it cause we had to go see the LA.  Well, the LA ended up slamming his door in our face, so as we were walking back to the car we talked to the guy raking.  His name is Robert.  And he is sooooooo prepared for the gospel!!  He's 22 years old and in his past life he was quite the partier.  But he was reading a book and decided that he wanted to become a Christian and do all the things that Christ would do.  So he's been researching Christ and stuff and earlier in the day, before we talked to him, he'd been reading about Mormons.  And then we showed up.  So we set up an appointment with him for the next day and gave him a Restoration pamphlet.  Well, when Weaver and I showed up the next day, he'd read the whole pamphlet, and also ripped out some of the pictures and hung them on his wall because he "liked the way they made him feel".  Haha he's awesome!!  He's super in touch with the spirit.  Even when he's reading stuff online, he can tell when something is true doctrine and when it's kinda sketchy, so then he asks us and we clarify and he says "I had a feeling that wasn't really right".  He's unreal.  We are meeting with him again tonight and hopefully we will be able to get him on date for baptism for Jan 11!!! 

That's really the only exciting thing of the week.  Although, the week was made LOADS better by the fact that we had killer music to listen too!!!  We've been listening to those CD's all week long!!  They are so awesome!!!  Thanks so much!!  The candy is amazing too!!!  Mmmmmmmmmmmm good!

I can't believe you guys have all been sick!! That's no fun!  Santa going to Lucie's school sounds awesome though!!  That sound's so fun!! 

And the snow sounds awesome!! I miss snow.  I miss skiing.  Oh well.  It sounds like grandpa is getting it in for me haha!  That's so awesome!

I can't wait to hear about what everyone get's for Christmas too!  What did you get dad??

I totally fasted on Sunday for Sadie's blessing.  I'm glad it was good!!  It sounds awesome!

Well, Hopefully I will know more about skyping home in a few minutes.  Stay tuned for another email that contains the exact time and stuff.  Hopefully. 

Love you guys!!!  Can't wait to talk to you!!

Love, Elder Wise