February 25th, 2013

It has been a crazy week this one! We did not get done with as much as we would have wanted this week due to other responsibilities that we had to do. But it was still a good week!

 One of the weirdest things this week has been the weather! It snowed here.....twice!! Not once did it stick to the ground to be able to get some good pictures for you but it snowed! The second time was yesterday during church! It was crazy as it was definitely a blizzard. We were sitting in sacrament looking out the window or I would have gotten a pictures but it was snowing so hard that you couldn't see the cars in the parking lot about five feet on the other side of the window! So crazy! Yet still nothing stuck to the ground! Only in Arizona! Ha-ha But it has been so cold these last couple of days! Staying around 30 degrees for most of the time during the day and even less at night! That is quite the difference from the 120 degrees I got used to during the summer! And now I look back at myself and scratch my head because I sent my jacket home during the summer! But I think the cold will only last a week or so then it should start getting warm again!

 We were able to take 2 road trips this week! The first one was to "scenic" Duncan Arizona! It is about 45 minutes to an hour away from here. Tiny town that you can drive through in about a minute.....going 45. We went there to pick up a bag that was misplaced during transfers. One of our missionaries was without all of his white shirts and slacks for a few days while we tried to find it. But it was a fun little road trip! We drove down. Waited for the other missionaries to meet us there from Lordsburg.....and then drove back! Not a whole lot to report on that trip! The other road trip we did was to Tucson. We went down on Friday for a Young Single Adult Specialized Training! It was also a good road trip as we had Elder Hanni and Elder Auvia'a with us. They are both funny so we had a good trip down with them. We had a good meeting discussing working in YSA areas and I learned a lot. It is interesting to see that around 70 percent of people who join the church in this mission are people younger than the age of 30. This is the time that people are looking for structure, looking for a true foundation whereon to build and center their lives. This is why YSA work is so important and brings forth so much fruit! I love being in this area to help people find that solid foundation!

 It was a pretty good week as far as teaching goes as well! We didn't teach as much as we wanted but we had some really good lessons! We are continuing to meet with Tashena and it is so great to be able to meet with her! She is still so awesome and learns everything so well! It is almost as if we don't even have to teach her! She understands everything! We discussed Charity and the Enabling power of the Atonement with her this week and it was great! It is amazing that she is starting to teach her family and plant seeds! She is awesome!

 We were also able to meet with Larry again and had a really good lesson! He was able to get a job last week and also he was finally offered a scholarship at New Mexico State! It is not Tennessee that he had already signed for but it is D1 and he is super excited! Those things along with others have showed him that God is watching out for him! It is helping him a lot! He really opened up and discussed his childhood with us. He has had the roughest life of anyone that I have ever met! He has been through a lot! But he is still making progress! Slowly but surely!

We are still working with Tyler and have some really cool lessons with her! Her biggest problem right now are some of her influences. It is astounding to me what a powerful effect that your friends will have on you! I am so thankful for my friends and how good they were for me!

 We had another miracle this week that was really cool! Wednesday night we were doing our nightly planning and setting goals and we both had the feeling to put down one new investigator and one member present lesson. Now we had no idea where that would come from! Our Thursday was looking to be a slow day and we were wondering if it were possible to reach those goals. But we each had the feeling again and one thing that I have been learning is, when the spirit tells you something....you do it! No questions! Ha-ha so we put it down and then prayed that, according to our faith, we would be able to accomplish that goal! Thursday morning we did all that we were supposed to and had good studies and everything and then right as we were walking out of the door we received a text! It said, "Hey Elders, I have a friend that wants to learn about the Church and wants to meet with you before six today. Would that work?" We were so excited! Ha-ha What a miracle! God is in the workings! This is truly His work and I am blessed to be able to be involved and a tool in His almighty hands! We of course were able to do that and we were able to have a lesson with Nicole. Nicole is awesome as well. She is from the Phoenix area and is a cheerleader up here at EAC. She came up here, had some Mormon friends on the cheer squad, met some other Mormon people here, started to feel the spirit with these new friends, decided to check out the church and more importantly....decided it was time to grow up and find some stability. It was a really great lesson and it was cool to see the support group that she already has! We had seven people involved with that first lesson, five involved with the lesson we had on Saturday, and eight people involved with the lesson we had yesterday. Friends are amazing! If you choose your friends wisely in life then you will be set! Nicole has a baptism date she is working for, into 2 Nephi in her reading and really wants to know it this is all true! We are excited for the opportunity we have to be able to teach her and help her find what she is looking for in life! Funny side note- Nicole is the first all-white investigator that I have ever taught! Yep! Almost 15 months into the mission, five companions, three areas and she is the first! Now of course that doesn't make any difference to me but it is interesting because my Patriarchal blessing tells me that on my mission I will come to know and love people from all kinds of races, creeds, cultures, and lifestyles! When I was first called to Arizona I didn't think that would be able to happen. But the Lord knew! The Church is true!

 Also I just have to put a short comment about the 58 new missions announced...Holy crap! That is insane! The Lord is hastening His work! There has definitely been a different feel out here since Oct. We are getting near the end. We all need to think of what we can do to help Him in this work so that we can bring salvation to our souls!

 That will be it for this email! Good week! Till next time!

 Elder Banner

February 19th, 2013

It has been a crazy week!! I doubt that I will be able to write a lot about half of what we did this week but I will try!

 We will write by topic so this can go quicker!

 Today is transfer day! That is why this email is so late. It has been a long day. We had most of our zone move. Elder Clark and I are staying but most of the rest of the zone is leaving! Also Elder Dineheart is going home! That saddens me. Because of all of this I am so tired!! I hope I will still be able to write a good email!

 Now I am going to talk about Larry. Larry is still doing really well! He is still kind of like a roller coaster. He has made some amazing leaps this week and we were able to have a good lesson with him a few times; he was able to come to a baptism this week that he really liked! Other than that he is still struggling with finding a place to go play football and everything. 

We have been still teaching Tyler! She is great! She is learning and growing so much that it is crazy! We were able to have a lesson with her and with Bishop Bluth this week that was really cool! It was a real cool lesson and had a special spirit there! She was able to ask some of the most profound questions ever! Such as, "How do I know if what I am doing is right or wrong?" and "Would it be possible for someone like me to ever get to the temple again and what are those steps?" It was funny! After those questions and lots of others she said, "Wow..every answer is in this little blue book [Book of Mormon]." It was awesome! It really has an answer for every question!

 This week was valentine’s week....... Let me tell you.....Valentines in a full singles ward area is terrible!! We had absolutely nothing to do on the 14th and the entire rest of the weekend was super slow also! On Valentine’s Day they did have a seminar that we got to go to; but this time is was all about dating.... Yep! Fun stuff for a missionary! The whole time I was thinking, "Ten more months! Ten more months!" ha-ha it was crazy! They also had a Valentine’s Day dance on Saturday that we helped setup for! Not a good time to be here as a missionary! Ha-ha But it was all good! The other thing that didn't help is that it was also a three day weekend! Everyone goes home for those times! It is pretty crazy!

 We also had a really cool little miracle that happened. This week we have been trying to find new people and have been striking out! We were over at one of our ward mission leader’s house and he explained something that really helped him out on his mission that we decided to give a try! It is called purification. The whole point is that we need to "purify" ourselves and get rid of the things that we do wrong that keeps the spirit away from us. We have a 24 hour fast and during that day we think and write down everything that we are doing that is not conducive to the Spirit. After we break the fast we then "fast" from all of those things for 40 days and then finish with another 24 hour fast. So we started on Sunday. Saturday night we started our fast and then Sunday started really doing it. It is amazing how many things came to mind that I need to change. So we did all this and then broke our fast around 5:25 Sunday night and started our dinner at 5:30. At about 5:35 our phone starts vibrating! Yep! Good referral that is pretty solid! This stuff works! I am so excited to see what continues to happen! This is going to be great!

The last thing that needs special mention is the best part of the week. All of these are one thing with Tashena. The first thing is that we were able to have a lesson with her out on the temple grounds! It was so fun!! It was amazing to be able to teach about the temple with her while sitting there! There is a special feeling there that is unlike any other! She was really impressed and loved the lesson and is looking forward to the time (she wants to go next week) to the time that she can go! She loves that families can be together forever and the grave cannot take families away! Also......TASHENA WAS BAPTISED ON SATURDAY!!! It was the most amazing thing ever!  It was one of the most, if not the most, spiritual baptism that I have ever been too! Anther miracle happened; Tashena's family just decided to come down for Saturday even though she had not told them the day that she was getting baptized yet! So, seemingly by accident (if you believe in such a thing! Especially with this work), her parents were able to come all the way from Window Rock and were able to attend her baptism!! it was a great thing for all of us! Especially for her parents! I think that it was a spiritual sucker punch that they were not expecting! Anyways the entire thing was great! LennaKay (her friend) gave a great talk that tied in the Navajo culture and everything as well as the importance of Baptism and the Holy Ghost! We also had a great musical number that was super spiritual! After that she was baptized and then we (Elder Clark and I) were able to give a short lesson on the Book of Mormon while she was changing. But the best was yet to come! Tashena got up and bore her testimony after she came back out and it blew us all away!! It was one of the most impressive testimonies I have ever heard! I am not able to antiquity describe it now because of time but it is in my journal and is amazing! It was such a cool thing! The church is true! People can truly change with this gospel and it is amazing to see the extra happiness that it brings! Also she was able to receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday and it was an amazing experience! She was a different person that night when we had a lesson then she was that morning! She was almost literally glowing! It was amazing!

The Church is True!

That is it for now!

Elder Banner

February 10th, 2013

Hello again!! I can’t believe that it is already Monday again! I have no idea where this week went but at the same time as I tried to remember what happened this week I was shocked that Zone conference was this week! It feels like so long ago! I can’t believe it! Ha-ha

But it was a good week this week! Most of the things we did are hard to explain over email though! We will start with Zone Conference this week. We had that on Tuesday and we had our zone (Gila Valley) and the Mount Graham Zone and the New Mexico zone all there for this one! It was actually a really good zone conference and I learned a lot! Elder Clark and I were very involved in this zone conference being that we had to train two different times and then our zone was able to sing a song as well. It was good though! Our first training (the one we remembered we were training on) was to the entire group and went really well! It went better then both of us thought it would. Our second one (we completely forgot to prep for it) was a longer one just to our zone. Now that is fine, we can wing it for them pretty easy but the problem originated when President Killpack decided to join us…. Good thing we prepared! Ha-ha but it actually went alright as well! Hopefully they all learned something!

Tashena is doing amazing! We are so excited for her baptism on Saturday! It is going to be great! We had some really good lessons this week with her! We had one about Patriarchal Blessings that was really cool and we had one yesterday about temples that was really fun! To show how prepared she came I'll share with you a little about that lesson. We had given her D&C 109 for her reading assignment which is the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple! She understood it and we had a really cool discussion about it. She even asked a question that Elder Clark and I didn't know how to answer because we didn't know where in the scriptures the answer was found. Thank goodness we had one of our members there that was able to answer it! She really is awesome and we are super excited for everything that will happen!

Larry we are not sure what is happening with him. He is still struggling trying to figure out what to do. We had some good lessons with him this week but he didn't come to church yesterday. But we are hoping he will be able to next week! Also working with Tyler has been going well! We were able to have many lessons with her this week and are seeing some real progress! It is amazing to watch her because she wants to learn so badly! Things are going well with that!

This week has been really fun due to the fact that it was Elder Clark's birthday yesterday and Elder Dinehearts birthday on Wednesday! Because of that the four of us had some fun parties this week! We had lunch on Wednesday for Elder Dinehearts birthday, a family in Elder Dinehearts ward invited us all over to have a party on Friday night, and some of our members had us and Elder Dineheart over on Saturday night to celebrate as well! It was super fun! I loved it! 

Oh there is so much more I want to talk about! Including having lunch with a guy that me and Elder Clark need to develop charity for (meaning we both wanted to kill him). He was super annoying and WOULD NOT SHUT UP!! For example.....he asked Elder Clark what his favorite animal was and after he answered this kid who I will not name spent five minutes arguing (without opposition) why he (E. Clark) was wrong! Oh man I am proud of us for not even raising our voices with him. Ha-ha Good times!

We will call that good for today!

Till next time!

Elder Banner

February 6th, 2013

What a week!! Man I love it up here!! Everything is so great! This was an interesting week being that we would have a really productive day and then a day doing nothing but "chores" i.e. helping other missionaries, getting an oil change that took two and a half hours, doctors’ visits and other things like that and then a productive day again and then more chores the next day! Pretty good regardless though! There is so much to say and I hope I am not too brief in an attempt to get everything on! This will not be in chronological order.

We had interviews this week with President Killpack and it was a really good one! It was weird being that this time we mostly just talked instead of an actual interview. It was really nice and I learned some cool things from him. Then we discussed the zone and how everyone is doing. It is great because this zone is a good one! It is real obedient and all of them are doing all that they should and because of that we are seeing lots of success up here! We will have at least one baptism every week up here and for this area that is really good!

One really interesting thing that happened this week I will need to give a little background on. For the last about 4 weeks I have had some trouble breathing! It came out of nowhere but every time I would do something I would have some trouble and I would cough for a long time after. Anyway it kept getting worse to where after a long conversation I would be winded. One night we were with Elder Dineheart and Elder Hutchings and just telling jokes and laughing and stuff and I got to the point where I was laughing and felt like I was about to pass out. After that we called sister killpack to see if I could go to the Doctor. Yes it took me 4 weeks. I hate going to the doctor. Anyways we got there and the doctor is our stake president up here so that was good and I completely trust him so that was good but we found out.......I have asthma...... Yep..... I don't know where it came from because it has never bothered me before a few weeks ago but I have it now. So I have an inhaler and everything! I can breathe again but I am not sure what to think about it.

But enough about that stuff! I don't think I have spoken about Larry yet. Larry is awesome! He is the number 8 ranked linebacker in the nation for junior colleges but super humble being that he grew up in the ghetto of Louisiana and never had a lot. He is big and black and awesome! He can bench over 450 and is ripped! Ha-ha I feel so small next to him! We have been teaching and helping him out because he is going through some tuff stuff! I don't have time to explain everything but things are going good with him. We taught him the Plan of Salvation on Saturday morning and it was a great experience. It was cool to see the inspiration there. At the end of the lesson I was able to relate the entire plan of salvation to football. Now I love football and am good at making comparisons but that was not me. I know that because I had never thought about that stuff before until it was out of my mouth! Ha-ha I learned a lot from it! The Church is true!

We also started teaching another girl named Tyler! Tyler is also a Navajo like Tashina. Tyler is already a member of the church but has been very inactive for years and years. But now has decided to come back to Church so she spoke with her bishop and he let us know that he wants us to teach her. Her gospel knowledge now is about the level of a normal investigator if not a little less. We really enjoy teaching her because she is really cool. We had a very good lesson with her on Thursday night. One of the most powerful lessons I have been a part of. It was great! The spirit was so strong! We will continue to teach her.

Also I need to talk about Tashina! Tashina is still as awesome and as golden as ever! We are so blessed to be able to teach her. We really don't need to do too much because she is so prepared and ready and figures out a lot of things on her own! We had a few really good lessons this week including one where we watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration with her. In our lesson yesterday she sounded like the missionary in her answers! Pretty soon I think she will be teaching me the gospel! Ha-ha I said before that coming down here and helping Danielle into the gospel was worth everything I had to go through on the mission. I still believe that because Danielle is so amazing. And now teaching and helping Tashina into the gospel, even if she was the only one I ever taught, is worth everything and all the crap I have had to deal with the whole mission as well. Being that I have the opportunity to get to know each of them and help them I am very blessed! And I still have a long time out here! "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; for, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance. And how great is his joy in the soul that repented! Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people. And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto I into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!" (D&C 18:10-16) That is so true! There is no greater joy then seeing your friends find the happiness of the gospel!

One more thing about Tahini and also a follow up with last week’s letter. We were able to go to the baptism of Rachel on Saturday with Tashina! It was such a wonderful experience and it was all the more special just because of Rachel! it was so great to see how happy she was the whole time and also really interesting to see how much she changed yet stayed the same during the ordinance as well! She is such a sweet little girl! It was so nice to see her be baptized! Afterword’s we had a lesson with Tashina and Hyrum and it was great! Tashina told us how much she enjoyed it and how welcoming the feeling was. She then said she is excited to think that it will be her in the water in two weeks! AHH!! I am so excited!! hahaha

We also had to wake up at 4:30 on Friday and head down to Tucson for Zone Leader Council. It was great and a really good meeting and it was interesting that, as we were driving into Tucson, I felt like I was going home! It was weird to feel that for Tucson but really cool! I can't imagine how it will be when I actually go home! But we aren't going to think about that!

To close I will share to you what we did during the Super bowl! No, sadly we did not watch it. It killed me not to! Ha-ha We went over to one of the members of the bishoprics in one of our wards house and they were all watching it. So Elder Clark and I grabbed our food and went out in the backyard and sat on a table out there! Ha-ha it was actually a really nice night. For all of you that are freezing....it was about 65-70 degrees yesterday! Perfect! Ha-ha that was our Super bowl!

That would be it for this time!

Elder Banner