President Nelson

 Hello everybody. So this week I really didn't work in Menomonie too much because of exchanges and President Nelson. So on Thursday the Eau Claire elders came down and worked in Menomonie. I went with Elder Meyer and we went and taught Tabitha and Linda. Elder Meyer was doing Tab's baptism interview so he wanted to meet her first so we taught her a lesson and he got to know her. Then we went to Linda's and taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and asked her to commit to come to church and she said she would when she could find a time that she wasn't going to go to her church. Then all four of us went to a place called Hangs, which is a Vietnamese restaurant.

Then that night I went to Eau Claire with Elder Lucero.  Elder Lucero is a Hmong missionary so the whole time I was trying to learn Hmong. Nyob Zoo! Yexus Khetos lub koom txoos ntawm tsoom haiv neeg ntseeg hauv hnub nyoog kawg. Siab ntsib dua! And I can pronounce it pretty decent too. I was practicing like the whole day. We taught a lot of Hmong people as well and I got my Hmong name which is Nyiaj Thoj. Nyiaj means Money haha and Thoj is my clan name. In Hmong there is only like 13 last names and they are like the 13 tribes. So that was a fun day. 

Then Friday night Elder Lucero, the Eau Claire sisters and I drove down to South Saint Paul and drop the sisters off with the Cottage Grove sisters. Then Elder Lucero and I drove up to Oakdale and stayed the night. The next day we drove down to Bloomington with the Oakdale elders. We got all of our packages and materials we needed and I was also able to get me a Hmong name tag.  Then we all went in and lined up for a picture with President Nelson. Before he came in we sang children's primary songs.  Then when he walked in we finished our song, took a picture and then went into the chapel.  While we went into the chapel every single missionary got to shake President Nelson's hand and also Craig C. Christensen who is one of presidents of the 70.  We also got to shake Elder Stacy's hand who is our area 70.  He focused a lot on the Book of Mormon and asked the question, if the Book of Mormon was taken out of our lives how different would our lives be.  Some of us got to stand up and tell what we thought.  There would be a huge difference in our lives and a lot of the simple truth that we know would be lost.

 Today we went and helped Hsaing  move some of her heavy stuff into a trailer. We also went longboarding today because a member has some longboards and we wanted to go.  It was pretty fun and we took some videos. Well that's about all I have so I'll talk to y'all  later.

Elder Bullock 

Mission conference with President Russell M Nelson

 (center, front row)

Elder Bullock is in the third row behind the second man sitting on the left (wearing the purple tie), behind the Sister with the black and white striped jacket

Happy Mother's Day

This week has been a great week! The definite highlight was being able to talk to my family that I have been so blessed with! And Happy Mothers day to my fantastic Mother! 

So this week we went on exchanges with the Eau Claire Elders and I went to Eau Claire with Elder Meyer. Elder Meyer is super awesome and super funny! We both came out at the same time so we were able to talk about that. In the morning we had district meeting so Elder Peterson and I drove there and then after district meeting we exchanged. 

We went to the college campus there and went contacting, so we just walked around and talked to college kids for an hour and a half. Elder Meyer has some rules when he contacts. He doesn't talk to people when there is more than one. If there are two people he just skips them. He won't talk to someone if there is a big crowd right behind them. I know he has a few other rules but I like them. It is already awkward enough to talk to random people. We went and shared the Prince of Peace video with this guy named Paul and he said he would come to church so that was a super cool Miracle! We got his number and he had the address to the church and our number! We talked to quite a few people but we hadn't given out a Book a Mormon yet so I told Elder Meyer that we had to pass one out before we got back to the car. We saw this girl sitting by herself just reading so we go over and ask if we can share a scripture and we shared Ether 12:27 and she liked it and took a Book of Mormon! Hopefully she can read it and they can start meeting with her! 

We went to dinner and the people we had dinner with was my cousin Shaura and her family! So that's was really cool. We were able to see a less active family that night as well and we stopped by a few people who weren't home.

Then the next day we exchanged back and we met in Elk Mound. We stopped by the few people that we had in our area book from Elk Mound, but no one was home. After trying to stop by a less active guy's house we were driving down this narrow road and this dog was walking around and this lady was behind it in a car. I think it was her dog that wasn't coming home or listening to her. Anyways this dog and another dog that was outside started fighting and the lady gets out and runs over. The owner of the other dog was outside and he separates them and  opens the door of his truck and his dog gets in and then he pulls out a handgun and points it at the other dog! We were driving away at this point, but I never heard at gunshot so I think we are okay! It was super intense though!

We mowed lawns quite a bit this week. There is a less active family that we do laundry at their house and email there as well and they were out of town for a week or so. While they were gone we would feed their fish and we decided we were going to mow their lawn. They have a riding lawn mower so it wasn't too hard but it felt good to help them out. Then on Saturday we went out with Brother Erickson and he wanted to go see a less active person out in Boyceville. We had a lesson with Derick that morning and we wanted him to meet him to be a fellowshipper. We also had this lady that wanted us to come mow her lawn over on Wheeler, which is close to Boyceville, so we asked if he could take us over there after seeing the lessactive person and he said sure and offered his lawn mower. So he comes and picks us up and we go to the library and have a super awesome lesson with Derick about the Plan of Salvation and answer a lot of his questions.  Then we go out to this less active person, Mark, and when he opened the door he asked us if we were willing to do service. He needed his lawn mowed because he can't do it very well because of allergies and we happened to have a lawn mower and clothes to mow a lawn! If that's not a miracle then I don't know what is. So we change and then mow his lawn and it went super quick since we had two Mowers! Then while we were mowing we get and call from another less active lady and she asked if we could help her get pull ups for her kids because she was working all weekend and they were running low and her husband didn't have the car to go get some. So Brother Erickson goes back to Menomonie and then buys pull ups and then drives up to Knapp and gives them pull ups. Brother Erickson is such a Stud! Anyways after mowing his lawn and chatting for a little bit we go over to this other ladies place and mow her lawn and it was a good thing we brought Brother Erickson because she didn't have one. She needed it mowed because she was maybe going to get her kids back from social services and they wanted it to look nice. I am not sure if I told that story last week, but basically she got her kids taken a way because the dad hit one of the kids and the place was just a mess so the kids got taken away and they had to clean up and maybe they would get them back but I don't know if they did. 

We saw Tabitha a few times this week and things are going well for her. Her date is still on May 27th and we set the time for 10:30! I am super stoked for her baptism. She is super solid and we have taught her everything she needs to know and went over the baptismal questions with her. She will have the interview on Friday. 

So this Saturday we are having a mission wide conference and Russell M. Nelson is going to be there and speak to us and he requested that he gets to shake every missionaries hand. So that is going to be super awesome. I am really excited for it. 

We did a lot of walking this week as well. The weather was super nice and we are low on miles so we figured we might as well. We didn't really see a lot of people but a lot of people talked to us. Some things were kind of funny, like we walked up to this lady outside grilling on a small grill and talked to her a little and then this guy yells out the window "she's married!" That was pretty funny. Then right after that these guys drove by and out the window they told us some guys stole our bikes back there. People were honking at us and waving and we heard some kids yell hey Elders. We are so popular! 

Well anyways that was my week! I will talk to y'all later!

Elder Bullock 

Skype call

My Cousin Shaura and family

Selfie

TRY JESUS bumper sticker

                                       

                                        

Ninth month mark

Hey everybody!

So this past Wednesday was my ninth month mark! It is pretty crazy haha. I finally got called a veteran and soon I can say just a little under a year. Menomonie has been great. We had about 65 people to church which they said was a lot. The church is a lot different too. It is only a stage 2 and doesn't have a gym and they don't have a chapel. They have a thing called an assembly room which looks like a chapel but it has chairs instead of benches and it is not dedicated.  So they can put up the chairs and can have a party or something in it. I also had to bless the Sacrament which is something I haven't had to do since New Prague.  But it's pretty great. 

We have a few investigators that are progressing pretty well, but President Forbes has asked us to work with less active members  a lot because there are around 300 members of the branch and only 50 to 60 are active. 

Tabitha is our most progressing investigator and has a baptismal date set for May 27th. She is a college student here in Menomonie at the University of Wisconsin - Stout. She is from St Louis, Missouri and she didn't really grow up religious, but when she got to college she started going to some non denominational church and bible studies. Then her friend in St Louis, who is a member, told her to look up the church and ask for the missionaries to come over. She thought that there was no way that there were missionaries in Menomonie, Wisconsin. She only met the missionaries a few weeks ago and had come to church 3 times and brought a less active member to church. She is super solid and it's pretty exciting.

Our other Investigator that is pretty solid is Derrick. We only met him on Saturday. He lived in Chippewa Falls and was meeting with the missionaries there but just moved to Menomonie. He has had a pretty rough time in life and made some bad choices and has addictions. He wants to change and I think he will but it will just be a long process. He loves the Book of Mormon and he doesn't have a car so he rode a bike to church. That's dedication. There are a lot of people that won't come when they have a car and nothing else to do. He is super sincere and I really like him.

So last Saturday we went over to this old ladies house and helped her with some yard work. We raked up some wood chips around a tree and we weeded her garden. Well when we saw the weeds we didnt quite know what they were. Well Elder Peterson grabbed a handful and pulled it out and his hand started stinging pretty bad.. well then I realized it was stinging nettle. His hand hurt for a couple days after that. We got gloves that afternoon and pulled them all out with a few minor stings. Well I got stung a few times on my arm, but Elder Peterson whole hand got stung and then he kept getting stung through his gloves. He is better now though haha

Anyways not much else happened this week. So I will talk to y'all later! 

Elder Bullock 

Transfers

Hey everyone! 

So I found out about transfers today and I am going to be going to Menomonie, Wisconsin with Elder Peterson who was my first Zone Leader when I was in New Prague.  Menomonie is a branch so that will be fun! I guess there are around 40 to 50 active people in this branch so it is smaller than New Prague.

Anyways this week has been super busy and I am actually not sure I can even remember everything that I did. I will just start with what I can remember. So Elder Cordara came to Bloomington for an exchange with Elder Anderson and I and Elder Oldroyd went to Hudson. It was pretty fun and we went and gave a blessing to Shawn before his surgery. But we actually had to see him twice that night because we came and he talked to us nonstop for like an hour and it was just really hard to talk. So we  had to leave and go have a meeting with our Bishop and then come back after the meeting and give him the blessing and then he kept talking. Haha he is super cool though.

Then the next day we had to go to Minnetonka and pick up Elder Vaughn because he was going up to Thunder Bay, Ontario. So we got him then went to Oakdale to drop off Elder Cordara and pick up Elder Oldroyd and then we drove up to Duluth and worked with the Duluth Elders for the day. I got to go with Elder Oldroyd and Elder Huntley and that was super fun. We tracked a street to look for this guy but we couldn't find him but we found this other guy named Kevin. He let us in and we taught the restoration and gave him a BOM and he said he would call in about about month after he thought about it all and has read some of the BOM. He is not so sure about prophets. We also got to see this less active guy named Will Williams and he said he would come to church! He also had a puppy so that was nice. Anyways then we went to Texas Road House with some Sisters and I got to see Sister Rosier  again  too!

We had 14 Elders stay in the Duluth Elders apartment! It was pretty crazy! Sorry but I have been terrible at taking pictures recently and I think I took like 2 pictures from Duluth. Sorry! We also ate at this meat shop that had 2 dollar briskets and pork.. and they were so good. We had to go and get more before we left Duluth. So we stayed for part of their Zone Conference and then drove back down after we got everything switched around. Duluth is the closest I have seen to mountains since I have been here. It was nice.

Okay so today I went into Minneapolis with the Bearrs, pronounces Beers, who are the medical coordinators. They took me to a doctors appointment in downtown Minneapolis. Then I went to Oakdale and I spent the day at their Zone p day. I am going to be working in Hudson until Wednesday because Elder Last is the new Assistant to the President. So yeah I am going to work with Elder Cordara until then and then go to Menomonie. Anyways tonight we went to dinner at a members house and the son brought 3 non member friends and we were able to teach the restoration to them and It was super cool! They said that they would come to church. So two of them are foreign exchange students, one from Germany and one from the Ukraine and the other one is from Wisconsin  haha.   Anyways so I can add two more places to the countries I have taught. I have taught people from Mexico, Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Togo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Romania, Cuba, Ukraine, Germany, and Laos. So I think that is super cool and maybe  I can add more to the list haha anyways I don't really have anymore time to email so I will talk to y'all later!

Elder Bullock 

     Part of Minneapolis with the Bearrs

      Lake Superior from  far away.. sadly

 Almost a mountain on the way back from Duluth 

                        And the puppy