Moments from a Missionary

Another week come and gone with the wind...wild, I am getting very excited for this last transfer of my mission it is going to be the Grand Finale! My heart literally gets beating faster with excitement both for the awesome stuff we have going on here in the mission and for returning home when the time comes... So I am short on time this week because we have have had to detail clean our car because it has reached 50,000 miles and is being taken up to Charleston  tomorrow,  and will be replaced by a brand new car! Whoot whoot...final transfer bonus, haha. (I mean all the mission vehicles are practically brand new anyhow, but this will be the newest car I have ever driven) ​First of all thank you everyone for the all the birthday cards it was awesome to get so many for a whopping grand total of 26! that is impressive...our mail man we ran into him the day after my birthday and he saw my name tag and said "happy birthday by the way" haha. They are all awesome! ​Birth

Dearest All  Another fantastic week, the momentum keeps building here in the Great Noke! so Updates on a few people C.C. - I mentioned her last week when we met with her at dinner  on Monday . She came to our district meeting where I asked her and L.K. to role play with missionaries some teaching situations and skills...they both put my missionaries to the test! It was a great district meeting we all learned from the spirit and especially the investigator and recent convert guests from our ward and a couple other wards. Learning from them what was effective when they were taught and listening to their experiences and conversions.  We also had an incredibly powerful lesson with her  on Thursday ...C.C. is truly incredible, I am thoroughly impressed by her...we covertly asked her all of the baptism interview questions and the member we had along with us H.H. bore a powerful and pure testimony of the blessings that she will receive from Baptism and the love of the entire ward...S

Dearest All Do you all realize after today that there will only be 10 more P-day emails in my mission, that is nuts! That being said I better make the most of them, I hope that my emails can express my love to all my family and friends at home and those I have met and come to love in my mission...and there are so many of you. I don't know what I am going to do without this weekly account to review my week, it will be strange but I imagine Facebook will fill that void. Well the week was amazing where to start. ​Lets start here...let me introduce L.K....She is pretty much a missionaries dream, she is a solid recent convert of about 6 months, she is tenacious (even more than me and that is saying something) Super excited to share the gospel and is active in that desire to share the gospel, she had been out of town my first two weeks here and so for a while she was just this mystical shadow that I wasn't sure was actually real or not. But turns out she is real and she is

Dearest All The area is good, we have met with and taught less-active members and friends, we continue in the effort of finding and organizing (adding, moving and removing records) the Area book   and the ward directory.  The task is enormous and tedious, however we try to be out and about, doing the majority of the work at a library, campus or other public place. I figure this way it gives Heavenly Father more opportunities to have people cross our path and gives him more to work with.  The Zone Leaders also allowed us a portion of zone meeting to share with the zone our vision and also the resource that the YSA ward can be for the missionaries, less-active members, and their friends.  I was a member of two YSA wards before my mission and I absolutely loved them, I didn't think I would like them at first either but the YSA wards provided friends and fellowships which helped me return to full activity in the church and sling-shot me toward my mission and spiritual goals. 

Wow, President Salisbury wasn't kidding, when you said this area was a "strange beast". It was tough just to know where to start, we spent hours talking about people and working with our area book and trying to review what has been done and do our best to create a plan. I was truly looking forward to Sunday more than I ever have before in my mission.   Thankfully Sunday truly delivered, I received a warm welcome to the ward, which was very encouraging. I loved the two YSA wards I was a member of back home, and remember why now. I love their lively activity even with a small group, the lesson conversations are excellent and sacrament meeting is dead silent reverent, you could hear a pin drop. We were able to talk with president Clark from the stake presidency on Sunday as well.  I feel like there are some un-tapped resources in the area, I look forward to trying to be involved with Virginia Western Community College and Roanoke city...Working with the Downtown