Welcome Home!!!

Ok. I am now home. I got home this past Thursday the 25th or March. I am loving being home with the fam. It's great.

Here are some pics from when I got home!

Henry made me a sign!

Just another week in Florida!

So things are going pretty good out here in Cape Coral. This week has been a pretty good week.

We had a lesson with Anna this week. It went really well. We taught her the plan of salvation. She had some concerns before we taught it but then cleared up pretty much everything during the lesson. It was cool. We are planning on teaching her again either tonight or tomorrow night. She is progressing well. She is reading the Book of Mormon and really liking it. She has a friend in Utah that she always asks questions too and they end up reading the Book of Mormon together over the phone. It's pretty cool. We are excited for her. She won't be able to be baptized until sometime in April because her ex-boyfriend is living with her and won't be moving out until sometime around then. She still hasn't come to church because her baby has been sick, but she is looking forward to it.

Other then that, we aren't really teaching anybody really positive. We had a dinner with a part-member family this past week. They took us to a Japanese place where they cook the food in front of you. It was really fun and the food was amazing. We're not sure if the non-members are going to go anywhere, but we are going to try. We have another dinner appointment set up with the family this week.

I hope you have a great week!

Pizza Dough!

Things are going pretty good here. We now have someone that we are teaching. Her name is Anna. She is the one from Brasil. I haven't been able to teach her yet. We went on exchanges last week with the zone leaders and I wasn't in the area for the lesson. But it went really well from what I was told. She is really positive. She wasn't able to come to church this week because her daughter was sick. But we are planning on teaching her a couple more times this week.

Last we had a pretty awesome p-day. Every week we go to a members' pizza shop and eat. And it is probably the best pizza and wings I've had. But last week, he had this fake pizza dough thing made out of rubber to practice tossing it. It was so much fun. We were getting pretty good at it too. Hopefully we'll be able to play with it some more today.

It's been a while...

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. But don't you worry. I am alive and well. And a lot has happened since my last update. First off I am no longer in Haines City, serving with Elder Watson. Which is kind of a sad thing. Elder Watson and I were planning on staying together for at least one more transfer and I was very positive that I would remain in Haines City for the rest of my mission. But that didn't end up happening. I am now serving in Cape Coral with Elder Dooley. We are having a great time and like serving with each other. But first, I think I'll post some stuff that happened during the transfer with Elder Watson!

First off, Elder Watson has been collecting ties for the past 6 months or so. And he has definitely gotten up there in the numbers. One day, we decided that we wanted to hang all of his ties on the wall. Some missionaries out here do that for easier access to their ties. I do it. So I talked him into doing it. Oh what an adventure that was. Take a look...

This is the before picture...


And this is the after picture. Pretty crazy, eh? Yeah, he's got a lot of ties. At that point he was at 3o0. Now he is at 320!

We even had started to teach somebody. Jim White. He was a really cool guy who was engaged to marry a member. He was very interested and he even said that he knew the church was true in our first lesson with him. Unfortunately, we weren't able to continue to work with him because we actually were both transferred from the area. He does now have a baptismal date. I am way excited for that! We aren't sure why President Colton decided to transfer both of us. He said that we would most likely going to stay together. Oh well.

And now, like I said, I am in Cape Coral with Elder Dooley. We are having a great time so far. We had interviews with our mission president this past week. They went really well. We are hoping that we stay together and President Colton says that it may happen. Hopefully it will.

Things are going pretty good here. We are now teaching a few people. We have a lesson tonight with a lady that seems really positive. She is from Brazil and was taught a bit down there. She has a friend in Utah that referred her to us. We are excited to start teaching her.

Than we have another lady that we got through a media referral. She ordered a Book of Mormon and a DVD. We dropped those by and she is way interested in learning more. The only problem is she doesn't have a car and she lives quite ways from the church. But we are going to start teaching her sometime this week.

And that's about what is going on here. I hope everything back there is going great. I'd love to hear from everyone. Have a great week!

IT SNOWED!!!!!

Yes you read that right. It snowed in Florida. The first time since '76! And I was able to experince it! It was amazing. We had heard that there was a chance of snow so we were looking all day for it. When it finally happened, we were at a members house having lunch. We were constantly looking outside to see if the weather was changing. Then we saw white coming down. We just about jumped up and ran outside. But we stayed in at the table to be polite. The members noticed and just laughed as they said, 'You can go.' And immediatly we were out the door. It was awesome. You may be able to sence some excitment in my voice on the video.

It was freaking awesome!

Other then that, this week was a pretty decent week. I was on exchanges in Lake Wales from Monday until Wednesday, which was zone conference. Zone conference was pretty good. Kind of the usual thing. The 2nd half of zone conference is always my favorite. President Colton usually talks a bit and so does Sister Colton. Then they have a testimony meeting. And that is always really good. I enjoyed it.

This Sunday, we actually had some people come to our Sunday night lessons we are having. It was our Ward mission leader and our assistant Ward mission leader. Then the Elder's quorum president showed up too. But it was still a good discussion that we had. We are going to continue to announce it and invite as many people as we can.

It's gettin' cold here...

This week was another average week. Just trying to find people to teach. It's still going kind of rough. We were called the other day from a member in California to give someone a blessing. It was kind of interesting. She spoke Haitien and very little English. But it worked out. As we were leaving some other people came in and were very confused at seeing us. We explained what we had done and such, but not sure how much they understood. So we called the guy in Cali back and had him call them and explain everything. None of the people were members including the lady we gave the blessing too.

We are starting to do the missionary lessons every Sunday night at our church for anyone that wants to come. We have announced it the past 2 weeks in Sacrament meeting and also in Priesthood. But then nobody came last night. But it's ok. We were, in a way, expecting there not to be a whole lot of people the first week. But we are going to be doing it every week. So we are expecting it to pick up quite a bit.

It has been pretty cold out here the past few weeks. Yesterday we got in the car to go to church and it said it was 36 degrees! I thought I was in Florida! Oh well. I enjoyed it. Reminded my of home. Everyone else here was freezing their butts off though. I thought it was quite funny.

Christmas!

Christmas was great! I was able to talk to the fam for a while and loved every minute of it! We had 3 meals that day. It was pretty tough, but we made it through all the food. :) Our first one was at a members house who had just got out of the hospital. It was really fun. The family is really nice and really enjoys having us over. After that, we went straight to the church to eat with the spanish Sisters and our Zone Leaders. That was pretty fun. Then we watched the new 'Night at the Museum' movie. I enjoyed it. I'd reccomend it if you haven't already seen it. Then we went right to another members house for some more food. We had eaten at there house the night before as well. The food was great and after we played Disney's Scene It. It was a lot of fun.

Now, before Christmas, on either Wednesday or Thursday, we went with the spanish sisters to an investigators house to eat. It is known as 'La Casa.' And apparently there is always something interesting that happens there. But when we went, it was just a fairly normal visit. Except that I couldn't understand most of the conversation as it was in spanish. But then they brought out the food. It looked kinda strange so we asked what it was. They said it was beef. Then they added a spanish word, which being translated means tounge... So we were able to eat cow tounge the other day. Not too bad if mixed with rice and put on a tortilla. But it does have a pretty strange texture. But all in all, it wasn't too bad. I'd eat it again as long it was cooked well.

Yesterday, at church, a guy named Bryan Levi came for the first time to see what it was like. He has been talking with missionaries in Salt Lake for a while. He said the he grew up in a baptist home and only heard bad things about the church, but has seen members and they always seem to be happy. So he diecided to come and check it out for himself. We gave him a church tour before church and he liked it. Then in our gospel principles class they taught the plan of salvation. Which he really liked and said it answered a lot of his questions. Then in priesthood there wasn't really a lesson planned so we just talked. It ended up being him asking us questions and everyone answering the best they could. It was really cool and the Spirit was really strong. He said he really enjoyed it and looked forward to our next meeting. We set up a lesson with him then he left.

Then later that day, he gives us a call and said that he is not ready for this big of a life change right now and for us not to come by or to call him again. We were extremely bummed after this. We aren't sure what happened. But we are praying for him and asking the Lord to try to help him remember what he felt at church and all the things he said.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Y'all!

This going to be a short one. Just letting everyone know I am getting transfered tomorrow up to Haines City. And I will be serving with Elder Watson. I am really excited. Christmas is going to be awesome and I am way stoked to talk to the fam!

Baptism!

Sorry about last week. We weren't able to get to the library at all. It was a pretty interesting week. We were on exchanges for a good portion.

But last week we did have the baptism of Debbie. It was really good. There were a lot of people there. I was really impressed. There were almost more people there then usually at church. It was great. We are planning on teaching her a bit more, but she was sick all of last week, so we are still working on that.

We had our Christmas Zone Conference this past Tuesday. I really enjoyed it. A lot of my mission friends were there and it was great to see them. Quite a few of them will be the last time until I get home because they are going to be headed home after this transfer. But it was a great conference.

Yesterday for p-day, we went to the stake presidents house. He used to work for UPS and was really high up in the company. So his house is huge! But they had the whole zone over and fed us really good food. They have a pool table, ping pong table, air hockey, darts, and even a poker table. We had a lot of fun. And we were able to get on his yacht and look around. Couldn't go for a ride, but that's fine.

This is the view from his backyard. Pretty awesome!

Transfers are coming up next week. Right before Christmas. I am expecting to be gone. But I am fine with that. We find out on Saturday what is happening for sure. Should be interesting.

Thanksgiving!

So this week was pretty good. We were able to teach Debbie a few times. She is still ready to be baptized on the 5th. We are excited for that. We taught her yesterday morning and set up her baptismal program. She seems pretty excited for it.

We were able to talk to Sarah on Sunday a little. We had a branch social after church and she wanted to sit next to us. It was fun. Kids are always interesting. We have her reading the kids Book of Mormon Stories book and she is also reading the Book of Mormon. And she is enjoying it. But things are going to be a little slow still, as we can only see her on Sundays.

This Thanksgiving was probably one of my favorites. We were invited down to a member in North Port. That is the Sister's area. So we were with them all day. We had a lot of fun. We had 1 lunch and visited a few different members. We even had a fire at one. That was cool. We were able to watch the new Ice Age movie. And also we watched a movie called Taken. That was a really good one. I would reccomend that if you haven't seen it yet. But we had a tomn of fun all day. It was great. And, of course, we were able to watch a little football. Good times!

Adn that is about all that I've got for this week.

Yup...

So things are still going well. This week was pretty good. We were able to teach Debbie a few times. She is very ready to be baptized. She just needs to quit smoking. But she is well on her way. We have changed her date until the 5th of December. With the week being Thanksgiving, she is really busy and we are not going to be able to teach her as much as we would like. And that is another reason we moved her baptismal date back a week. But we are excited.

We had Stake conference this week. So we weren't able to teach Sarah. We talked with her grandma a bit through out the week. But things are still at the point of us teaching her at church. So hopefully we will be able do that next week.

Adn that is what we have going on for now. We are still trying to find more people to teach. Not getting much. But trying.

Alive and kicking!

The work is still going about the same. We were able to teach Debby again. We focused on the word of wisdom. She smokes and that is the only thing really in the way right now. She is trying to quit though. But things are still going good with her.

We were able to start teaching Sarah, the 8 year old girl, on Sunday. She is really smart and already knows quite a bit about the gospel. Right now, we can only teach her on Sundays at church because of some things at home. But her grandma is trying to work things out. But she is still excited and wants to get baptized.

Yesterday we went fishing again and some of us actually caught some good sized fish. We also played a little football and soccer. It was fun.

Transfers...

So this week was the last week of the transfer. So that means this was is transfers and today is Transfer day. Yippee...? What happened for transfers is definitely not what we were expecting to happen. President Colton talked with both of us at interviews about bringing in a spanish missionary and we were pretty sure that that was what was going to happen this transfer. But, instead, Elder Schramm and I are still together and are now in a tripanionship with Elder Zahl. So this next transfer is going to be interesting. And our apartment is going to be fairly full. But I am still excited for this transfer.

The work is moving along well. We were able to teach Debbie a few times this week. And are going to be teaching her again on Thursday. She has a baptismal date for the 28th. We are excited for that. She knows a lot of people in the Branch so she has a lot of support.

We tried to teach the 8 year old girl, Sarah, but her grandmother was busy so we had to keep rescheduling. We have some things for this week and hopefully they will work out.

Halloween!

As I mentioned last week, we had interviews with President Colton. Those went pretty good. I am now a 2 time winner of the shiniest shoes! Last transfer I won a thing of spray hand sanitizer and this time I won a can of Chunky soup! Which was much needed because Elder Schramm and I were running low on food. Every transfer at interviews, Sister Colton always makes home made bread for us. Which is amazing! But this time, with it being pumpkin season, she also brought home made pumpkin bread! It was awesome!

After interviews, I went up to the Sebring area with Elder Zahl. That was pretty fun. Every week they have a volleyball night and I was able to be there for it! It was a lot of fun. Then, my last night there, they had there trunk-or-treat. Which was also pretty fun. We got lots of candy.

Then we switched back on Thursday. That day, a member took Elder Schramm and I out to eat. The place we went to served gator meat! So of course we had to get some of that. It was pretty good. Not the cheapest, obviously, but I would for sure have it again.

While I was on exchanges, Elder Schramm and Elder Reed set a baptismal date with an invexstigator. We are pretty excited. She came to our trunk-or-treat on Friday. She seems really excited and she already knows a good chunk of the people in the branch. We are going to be teaching her again on Wednesday.

The trunk-or-treat we had was pretty fun. For being in a small branch, there weren't a whole tom of people there, but we still had fun. Near the end of the night, we had a donought on a string eating contest. And of course, the missionaries have to participate. The out come was, I got 3rd place. But had I gone against the person who got 2nd during the 'tournament' I would have probably been 2nd. Oh well. It was still fun.

Today, we went to a members house who has a lot of WWII things such as jeeps, tanks, planes and such. He gets them and restores them. It was really cool. He also has a canon that he let us fire off. It was cool. Here are a few of the pics I took.







We also got to ride around in that jeep.

The canon!

18 months!

I am finally doing somewhat better. I now mostly just have a cough. But I still am getting pretty bad head aches. And cold symptoms off and on. But it's getting better.

Things are going pretty well here in Arcadia. I am actually currently on exchanges in the Sebring area from today until Thursday morning. We were able to teach a few people last week. Jose and Georgina. they would be baptized already but they aren't married. But they can't get married until Jose gets citizenship. But he is working on that. We haven't been able to teach that little girl yet. Neither her nor her grandma were at church this past week. And her grandma moved from where we thought she lived. But we are going to try to see them this week.

Yesterday, we went down to Port Charlotte for p-day. The sisters set up something for us to do. It was a lot of fun. We just played a bunch of games. We had musical chairs, a 3-legged race, a water balloon toss, and such. And we carved pumpkins! We all had a lot of fun.



Then today, we had interviews with President Colton. They went really well. We showed Sister Colton the pictures of the snake and she told President that she wanted one we they got home. Haha. It was pretty funny. She was joking though. President said it would be fine. We'll see if that happens.

And this past Friday was mine and Elder Schramm's 18 month mark! So we had a bon fire at a members house and burned our stuff. We were also able to teach a lesson out of it. It was awesome. So we had an actual 'fireside.' Haha. But the people are pretty much golden. We are excited. We are going to be teaching them again this Friday at the trunk-or-treat.

Still sick...

So, I am still feeling quite sick. The cough is still around. It doesn't hurt quite as bad anymore but is still very present. I think that I am starting to get a cold too. So, I don't think the sickness is going away just yet. Which sucks. But I am going to be calling Sister Colton after this and probably going to be setting up a doctors appointment.

We had Zone Conferance this week. It was pretty good. I enjoyed it. There were a lot of missionaries there that I didn't know. But the ones that I did, I was glad to see. It was fun.

Then on Sunday, we had a branch social after church. We were talking and decided to drop one of our investigators cause nothing was really happening with them. And right after we decided to do that, a little girl comes up to her grandma sitting by us and says, "I want to get baptized and my mom says it ok." Her mom isn't a member. And we were like, we can take care of that. So now we have someone else to teach that wants to get baptized! We were pretty stoked about it.

Then yesterday, for P-day, we went down to the North Port area to a members. The guy was awesome and had the biggest mullet I've ever seen. He has a ton of crazy animals like snakes, crocs, raccons, turtles, lizards, and such. I took a lot pictures that are in the slidshow thing to the right. But it was a lot of fun. I was able to hold some pretty huge snakes too. We took his biggest snake, 18 feet long, outside and all held it up together. Then took turns holding it by our selves. It was awesome. It just about choked me though. It had it's tail wrapped around my neck. And it was pretty tight. But it was cool. And we also got to hold an Australian Salt water crocodile that was about 4 feet long! It was awesome. He said that he used to have Siberian tigers too that would play with you. But he currently doesn't. But is working on getting some more soon. So if he does, we are definitley on our way back!

So that was our week. Hopefully I'll get better this week. We are still going to try to teach when we can. And as you may know, my 18th month mark is Friday. So Schramm and I are going to be going to a members house to burn our clothing. I will have pictures and video up next week. We are really excited.

Sick....

So, this week has been a very long and boring week. I have been sick since last Tuesday. It hasn't really gotten a whole lot better since then either. Near the middle of last week, it started out as a sore throat. And since has developed into a really bad cough and sore throat. We stayed home from church this Sunday because I felt horrible that morning then started to get better that morning. But then Monday rolled around and it was pretty bad again. I called Sister Colton yesterday to see what she thought I should do. She gave me some suggestions of medicine to take and so I went and got some. She told me to take some Nyquil along with other things so I would be able to sleep at night, cause the coughing was so bad it was keeping me up all night. Let me tell you, that stuff is amazing for getting to sleep quick and staying asleep. It was great. But this morning when I woke up, the cough is still here and it still hurts a lot. So we'll see what happens. I'll be seeing Sister Colton tomorrow at Zone Conferance. So I'll talk to her and see what she wants me to do. I'll probably be getting a doctors appointment sometime near the end of the week.

So that was our week. Me being sick. We are both pretty bored and are sick of being in the apartment all day. So hopefully I'll start to get better soon.

Fishing, Transfers, and GC!

So, I wasn't able to update last week because we had a pretty busy day. I found out last week that I was being transfered. So I had to pack and such. Which takes me a while because of 2 things, 1 I have a lot of stuff, and 2 I get distracted quite easily.

But last week for P-day we went fishing. Didn't catch anything but had a lot of fun. We were able to see a dolphin swimming right by where we were fishing. That was pretty awesome.

Now, I am in the Arcadia area. Serving with my other MTC companion Elder Schramm. Yes I had 2 MTC companions. And yes it is awesome to have served with both of them out here. We are having a lot of fun so far. Except for the current time, I am a bit sick and am not enjoying it. But it will pass. Hopefully soon. Last night was not a good night. But I'll get over it.

Yesterday, we were able to go fishing again. It was a blast again as well. And again, we saw a dolphin! Crazy! But out of the 9 of us there, we only caught 2 fish. We had a grill there with us and cooked hamburgers and hotdogs. We also cooked one of the fish we caught and all had a little bit of it. But we all had a lot of fun. And we'll probably be going again this transfer.

And this weekend was General Conferance. I absolutely loved it. I especially loved Elder Hollands talk and also Elder Callisters. Those were 2 of my favorites. I can't wait until next months Ensign comes out to read and study them all.

Old People Home

So this week was an alright week. We were able to teach a few lessons and such. On Saturdays, we are now going to be doing a weekly 'lesson' type thing at an old people home. This past week, we got there and we were supposed to find a member that works there. At first we couldn't find her, so we went to the main desk. They asked us if we were the missionaries that were going to be teaching. We told them we were so they led us to a room with a bunch of old people in there that were all kind of out of it. It was interesting. But we started by reading out of the Bible. Then watched a movie on Christ.

As we were watching the movie, the member found us and told us we were actually in the wrong room. So Elder Garner went with her to the other room where they were reading out of the Book of Mormon. I finished the movie and then went into the other room. It was going really good in there. They were having a Q&A type discussion. We are excited to go back next week.

Jello, anyone?

Things are going well here. We have kind of run out of people to teach here, though. This past week we went over to Scott's to teach him a little bit. He made it to church yesterday was able to get confirmed. So that was good. But now that that has happened, we are a little low in the teaching pool. There is one guy that has come to church twice, but we can never get a hold of him or set up a time to teach him. But we are still trying. He knows a lot already and is basically ready to be baptized. We just need to be able to teach him.

Other then that, not a whole lot has gone on. We had a few lessons set up that fell through. But we are still trying to find more people and working a lot with the members. So things are still going good.

Throughout the transfer, we have been having this prank war with a member in our ward. The Bishops daughter. It all started when she toilet papered our car. Then we incased all of her hair elastics in jello. Then she thought she was clever in taking Elder Canfields scriptures. But, she also mistakingly left her's behind. 25 boxes of jello, a few ziplock bags to protect the scriptures, and 4 missionaries later, we finally returned them. The container weighed about 25 to 30 pounds. We attempted to extract the jello from the container, but as you can see from the video, it didn't work as well as we had hoped. But it was still funny.

After this, she gave Elder Canfield his scriptures back. Although, they were in side a big, huge bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was interesting. But all had fun.