June 27, 2016 - Week 11

Hey Everyone!

I may have procrastinated this email a little so it might be kinda a little shorter  but still an awesome week!

So this week we did a ton of finding. When I was doubled in here we got notes from the last Elders telling us about the area. In one of them they said to stay away from the Twin Dolphin apartments so my Elder Tobey decided we were going to knock every single door in the Twin Dolphin apartment Complex. We ended up meeting this kid named Christian. He is 18 and just got out of Jail (not sure why) and said he found God in jail and wanted to learn more. Yesterday we had an awesome lesson with him and his little brother Brandon and set up another appointment for Tuesday, making them official investigators! They are super receptive and recognize us as messengers sent from God, so that is pretty cool.

This week we had a lesson with Mark. It went super well but we have met a new problem with his Mormon friends making him a little worried. Let me teach everyone something, when your friend tells you about the church, never talk about anything about the church lightly. Don't make jokes and don't tell them about stuff they won't need to learn about for a LONG time.

We had exchanges this week, I went with E. Clark to the Columbia ward. It is a walking area so I got to test out the Hush Clarks (a pair of Clark shoes with Hush Puppy insoles, cost me 2 bucks and I don't care if they get scuffed or ruined). Found out they aren't the best for walking but I still like having them. We had dinner with Bro Falan, a food scientist. He helped develop a lot of cool stuff. The company he works for provides the fries for most/all fast food places. (basically if they don't make their own, these guys make them)

This week will probably be our last lesson with Pedro and Z. They get their keys to the new house Thursday and start moving in. I am so excited for them to keep progressing in both temporal and spiritual ways.

No new developments other than that, Love You!!

Elder Strong

Us, Mark and Linda

June 20, 2016 - Always looking out for us.

You should look into one of these

June 20, 2016 - Pictures 2

You'll know its me when you suddenly get a ton of emails at once!

Elder Strong

Bees

Oven Problems

My chicken, the sauce caramelized and was soo awesome I thought about bottling it but I let it it sit while I ate and it basically became Toffee 

This is me cutting chicken. (doing what he loves)

Also Me and Elder Clark doing our "Best day of our Lives" smile with a package I got from Nate and Airaka 

June 20, 2016 - Pictures (creepy dolls)

At our lesson with Pedro they told us an interesting family tradition. When Z was four they took her to a Halloween store and she fell in love with a baby for sale there. It was cheap and she liked it so they bought it. They kept buying her more and she takes them to see Santa. She eventually figured out what they were but she has been completely desensitized to them.

June 20, 2016 - Week 10!

Hey everybody!

We had a super awesome week this week!

Wednesday we heard the departure testimonies of President and Sister Ware! (if anyone would like their Homecoming info, ask my mom). They were awesome/pretty sad. I learned a lot from listening to them and what they thought would be the most important subjects to talk about in their testimonies. 

We also went and did more service at Guardian Angels, we planted some flowers in the Court Yard people hang out in.

Then we had super awesome lesson with Pedro, Michelle and Z. We taught the Plan of Salvation lesson. We asked Z a question to see if she was following along... she wasn't. But then Pedro hopped up and taught everything back to her and showed her how everything works with the diagram we were using! It was awesome to see how much he was learning!

Thursday we had another lesson with Mark and also did the Plan lesson. He followed really well and already had a lot of similar beliefs. He had a lot of really good questions too. It is awesome to have all these solid lessons.

Friday we had a lesson with these two girls who wanted to learn more about the gospel (Onica and Ingrid). Their dad is a Buddhist but he wants them to learn all they can and make their own choice. The lesson went really well except the member we were with said "Oh ya, I was supposed to invite you to church" but everything still went well. (they didn't come to church though)

We also had dinner with a member who served in Korea, came home got married, and then adopted 3 Korean Babies. We ate something called Bul Kogi, it was awesome! Basically it was elevated lettuce wraps. super good.

We me a guy this week named Earnhest. He was really excited to be invited to church and was for sure going to come but then he worked a 12 hr shift and wasn't home until 10 Sunday morning. It will be awesome to see what develops.

Sat we had dinner with the Van Katwijks who I lived with my first couple weeks. He showed us his 5 hives of bees and gave us a bunch of all natural honey. Apparently a tsp a day will help you over come your allergies so ima try it.

Well I love you all and I'm doin awesome! 

See ya later!

Elder Strong

June 14, 2016 - Temple Trip

Me and Elder Tobey at the Temple

June 14, 2016 - Week 9

Hello!

This week was way Awesome!

We met a guy named Mark this week who has a member Girlfriend, we put him on date the first lesson! He asked us what he needed to do to be baptized so we told him take the discussions and set a date! Aug 6 at 10am, he even set a time.

We found out Pedro, Z, and Michelle are moving into a Neighboring ward so we have to hand them off but all is well. We will for sure be at the baptism! They are pretty sad to be handed off and change wards but they are also excited for the fresh start and the changes they are making are awesome!

We also found a little crazy untouched area of houses down this road called Twin Bridges in the middle of nowhere. We walked dirt roads all day and went house to house to these little farm houses by the River, It was an awesome day. (you should google earth it)

Tomorrow President and Sister Ware are having their farewell talks, It will be awesome and super sappy. This Transfer is going by way fast

We also have a ton more potential investigators, way more than ever before. We put a lot of work into Shoreline Ward but we always seem to be rewarded for it with people in the RiverView ward.

I just realized that it has already been three weeks in this transfer! Pretty Crazy!

Oh and Today was Temple Preperation day, We went to the temple at 9 and didn't home until around one.

Well this email will be a little short this week, sorry. We still haven't done any shopping yet today so we gotta do that before its too late.

Love ya!

Elder Strong

Best meal Ever cooked by me! It is the Ono Chicken recipe but I cooked the chicken in the sauce and didn't bread and fry it. It was awesome! Elder Clark did the asparagus and Tobey did they minute rice!

Elders Tobey and Holdiay fixing our cabinet

Elder Tobey and some cows

 We parked here then walked to a few houses that lead to a bunch of dirt roads, Pretty cool.

June 4, 2016 - Text

Dear Strong family and Tobey family, I hope these are cell phone numbers that can received this text and these photographs. This is sister Becky Bird where your sons are serving. We had the privilege of having them join us for dinner last night. My husband serves here in the stake presidency and we've had numerous missionaries in our home over the years. Occasionally there are some who come with a spirit of humility , wisdom, service and good cheer that make them stand out. Your sons were among that number. They came to our home in their PDAy clothes having done a good service for young family on a hot day helping them move. Your sons are handsome and healthy and doing a good work. Thank you for sharing them with our part of the lords vineyard and for raising them to do so. You can be pleased with them. We enjoyed a lovely evening with them.

May 24, 2016 - Surprize from Bruce Cornwell

We had the Elders over for dinner this evening.   I am a Church Service Missionary - Photographer and so we took some pictures, we thought you would enjoy seeing a few.  They have been looking high and low for people to teach.

Bruce Cornwell.

June 6, 2016 - Week 8

Hi!

By the way. Elder Tobey is from Providence Utah and has been in the field for a year. He just got done being a Zone Leader so he was having a pretty weird/hard time getting used to just training. Plus we are in the part of my training where we are "learning" how to teach lessons I have already taught a thousand times. So its been pretty boring. We are getting a long together great though. We are a lot alike.

So this week was a pretty decent week.

 I survived having no money this week, my Captain Crunch supplies have been exhausted though, (it was a 2 1/2 pound bag! I had to share, rough times in the Apartment). I have been awakened to being able to shop smarter though so this week should go smoother. 

Wednesday we had a basically normal day until dinner. First we didn't know who was feeding us because the calendar lady would not answer her phone. So we ended up eating at the Mckinnons because Sister Mckinnon is awesome. Then after dinner we got in the car and it wouldn't get out of Park! The shifter would move but no gear change. So we called the vehicle coordinator but no answer from him either. So we just walked around and stopped by a house we talked to a while back. They are an RLDS family. (The RLDS church is now The Community of Christ) They said they used to love their church but now they are making all these changes against their will and they think their leader is an idiot. We talked to them for an hour, it was pretty awesome. They don't have any intention on becoming Mormons (yet) but they were very nice. We think the problem is that they are old and can't internet so they haven't seen the recent articles from their church denouncing Joseph Smith as a Prophet and calling the Book of Mormon not scripture, just an inspired work. Plus they don't know that the RLDS church branched off of us after polygamy had already began. We didn't do that after they left, they were a part of it too, and so was Joseph Smith who is also their Prophet.

(They also gave me a Book of Mormon calling it RLDS but it was an LDS published book and was the exact same as ours, they are just a confused old couple that needs guidance. They are more LDS than they know)

We'll help them come to these realizations soon enough.

After that lesson we returned to the car hoping it would have fixed itself since we were meant to go talk to them...NOPE.

So I called Ford to see if maybe it was a safety feature and there was a release but they couldn't help so I gave up and arranged a free towing for the morning since it only had 37 thousand miles on it and was under warranty. Plus the Church buys soo many they want to keep us happy. Elder Ririe (vehicle coordinator) was super blown away that i made it happen, he said he would have never thought of it and was happy I could sort everything out. Hes pretty new, he'll get there eventually. Now we drive a Corolla while the fusion is at the shop.(It is still there!!! The Tow Truck Guy showed me the problem. If I had the part, I could have done it with my Walmart Screw Driver.)

So Thursday we went on exchanges, I was with Elder Holiday in my area so it was pretty crazy. He's only been out for two weeks so it was pretty funny to be in charge all of the sudden. We met with Pedro and Z and put Z on date for baptism on the 25th! Super excited.

They are moving in July though so I probably won't be the missionary to get Pedro to baptism but I'm sure he will try to get me to come to it when it finally happens.

Not much else has been happening but it has been a really great week.  Oh and we did meet this lady who really wants to meet with us and her son for some reason. Hopefully she isn't anti and just wants to bash... but at least she is excited. We are pretty excited to if she is actually interested.

Well, I gotta go. Love you!

Elder Strong

Richland summed up

The Apartment 

Matching Ties