WEEK TWENTY SOMETHING  (23)

Hey guys! This week was super good, but it feels like forever since
last week though. Well I guess I will get started!


So James got baptized on Saturday, January 7th! It was a little rough
for him. We had to wait until Wednesday to have the interview because
the Fickles said he wasn't keeping the word of wisdom so we had to get
that all figured out. On Saturday we went to go start filling the font
and then we went to go teach a lesson. When we came back we checked on
the water and the font was empty. We don't know how but the plug came
out so we got the idea to get the garbage cans from the classroom and
some pitchers from the kitchen and turned on the hot water in the
bathroom sinks and dump them into the garbage cans, then we would dump
the water into the font. I did both sinks in the men's bathroom and
Elder Huntley did the same in the women's bathroom. It usually takes
the font about four hours to fill up and we had two hours until people
were getting there. So for two hours with no breaks we just went back
and forth filling up the font from the sink while the font ran to help
it go a little faster. By the time people were getting there it was
getting pretty full and I think we did a pretty good job. It was a
little shallower than it should be, but James isn't that tall so it
worked out. It was also a little colder than it should be, but James
is pretty tough. When they got in the water people asked him if it was
cold and he said no so that was good. The floors got a little flooded
but we just mop them up right before people got there. So that is the
story of James baptism! He got confirmed yesterday and then went up
and bore his testimony since it was fast and testimony meeting.
James and Bernie both got callings yesterday as well, we don't know
what they are yet though.


During James interview Elder Huntley was interviewing a family for
baptism from the cottage Grove area. There were five people total he
had to interview so it took a while. Since he is the District leader
he is the one to do the baptismal interview.  So in the mission when a
missionary speaks a different language like Cambodian or Korean they
get to take a two-week break whenever they want, but only one. So one
of the sister missionaries in Saint Paul decided to take hers and so
she  switched places with one of the sisters in our district. So
Sister Frank, who is in our district, is up in St. Paul learning korean
and Sister Heath is serving in cottage Grove right now. I thought that
was kind of cool since I really wanted to speak a language.


We have been over to the Berniers a lot this week and Amanda has been
reading a lot of the Book of Mormon. So every time we come over she
always has a bunch questions of where she has been reading.  We have
also been teaching Rourke the lessons so he can get baptized.
Amanda has already had the lessons when Aiden was taught them. Unfortunately
they did not come to church, but they really wish they could have came and Amanda
said she was going to bear her testimony yesterday so that's cool.


We were able to do some emergency service this week. We were
driving to the church to use the computers really fast and pretty
close to the church when we saw a car that had spun off the road. So we
pulled over and went to go talk to them and there were some teenage
girls on the way home from school and the driver was on the phone and
the other girls wouldn't roll down the window to talk to us. They just
held up a finger to tell us hold on. Well finally this lady, who I
guess a knew them, came and started talking to them. Well being the
Boy Scouts Elder Huntley and I are we had some snow shovels in our
trunk and we were able to dig them out and push them out.  The lady
that stopped thanked us but the girls just drove off and it was kind
of awkward. Another person we were able to help was this old guy named
John. He was shoveling his sidewalk and driveway and we offered to
help so he went inside. When we were about done he came back out with
some granola bars and money, we only took the granola bars. So that
was cool.


We did a little tracting this week too even though it was pretty cold
when we did. This whole week was in the negatives with the windchill.
The secret is you just crank the heat in the car until you're
sweating and then go outside and it feels nice. So it wasn't that bad,
but we didn't really meet anybody who was to interested. A lot of the
doors we knocked on no one answered, but after we were a few houses
down we would see them pull out of the garage or they would go out on their
porch to have a smoke. This one guy just started laughing at us when
we told him who we were, but that's OK ha ha.


Last Monday after emailing we went and saw the boot! For those that
don't know the Red Wing boots they are a famous boot store that is
based out of Red Wing. In the store they have this super big boot that
is the worlds largest boot! Don't worry I took pictures!


So one night we went to go see Alex again after the holidays and when
we knocked her dad answered and said she wasn't there she was at her
moms, but he said that she told him that she wasn't interested
anymore. I really did not believe him at all, I just think that he was
annoyed of us showing up all the time. So we will try again later and
maybe try stopping at her moms instead. After that we went to go to a
dinner at the Voigts. Earlier that day, at James's baptism, Angela
Voigt told us that dinner was going to be at 6:15 because Angela would
not be home until then. Well I didn't think that we had a dinner that
day with them, but when I told Elder Huntley he said that we had
dinner with the Voigts today. Well apparently he thought I said that
the Voigts we're going to feed us since we didn't have a dinner. So
long story short we show up to their house and knock on the door and
they weren't answering. Well finally Brother Voigt came and answered
the door and was surprised to see us. He asked if we were coming over
for dinner and we said yes. Well they actually had family over and did
not sign up to feed us that day. They still did feed us some pretty
good lasagna though so it all worked out in the end.


Well that was my week! I think it was a pretty good one ha ha well I
look forward to talking to y'all next week!


Elder Bullock

James' baptism

5 Month Mark

Hey guys this week was awesome and I had some super cool miracles! You may want to be seated before you pass out from the excitement!

So the biggest miracle this week was when we talk to Amanda and asked her if she has prayed about a date. She told us she had and that she doesn't know when because she is having back surgery in the beginning of February but she wants to do it before one of us leaves. So we told her that we think that she will be ready by February 4th! She agreed with us and we also mentioned how we think Rourke should be baptized on the same day, so we set a date with both of them!  Blaine only agreed if we can try to have a Rourke baptized in a river. He thinks that if we do something like that to make it more memorable for him that it will help him stay active and want to go to church. Amanda has been super awesome this week and we were able to give her a blessing to help her stop smoking. At the beginning she was smoking two packs then overnight she cut it down to one pack then she smoked five the next day and is still working on cutting in half. To help Amanda we told her we are going off sweets until she gets baptized so a lot of our candy is going to have to sit in our drawer this transfer.

One night when we went over to Amanda and Blaine's we ended up teaching them a lot and technically taught three lessons.  Elder Huntley was talking with Amanda about family history and they actually got her started and she went back 12 generations. While he was doing that I was talking to Aiden about some questions he had about the Scriptures and was able to teach him some things and help him understand what they were talking about. I also taught him about the storyline of the middle of the Book of Mormon. I started with King Benjamin and told him he had a son named Mosiah who became king and was super righteous. I also told him about King Noah and who was a wicked king. I taught him how a prophet named Abinidi came and started preaching to the king and his wicked priests. One of those priests was Alma the Elder who believed his words and when king Noah told them to kill Abinadi, Alma the Elder stood up for him and told them not to kill him, but then King Noah sent them after Alma.   So Alma runs off and hides and then repents and baptizes many in the Waters of Mormon and started the church. Abinidi ends up getting burned at the stake and promises King Noah that he will end up the same and later King Noah does get burned at the stake. Then Alma has a son named Alma, who is referred as Alma the Younger. King Mosiah has 4 sons, Ammon, Aaron, Omner and Himni, and are referred to as the sons of Mosiah. Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah are wicked and go around trying to destroy the church. Alma the Elder prays for them that they will repent and an angel appears to them and tells them to repent and Alma the Younger falls to the earth and can't move and the sons on Mosiah carry him back to his father.  When he awakes he tells everyone that he has repented and him and the sons of Mosiah end up being amazing missionaries.  Alma the Younger becomes the prophet and in the end is taken up without tasting death. That is why he is my favorite in the Book of Mormon. Then after that I started talking to Blaine about a whole different thing and about the Plan of Salvation, mainly the three kingdoms.

The whole family came to church for all three hours for the first time. They all really liked it and Rourke, who is 11 and in the primary, told us he really liked it and he loved the third hour. For second hour Alexander, who is 4, went to the gospel principles with us and Amanda and Blaine.  He was bored the whole time so we asked Blaine if he would be comfortable letting Alexander go to primary and he said sure. Blaine wanted him to stay because he didn't trust the people here yet, but he ended up letting him go. We heard from some of the members that they were participating and Rourke even said the closing prayer. One of the sisters asked him if he was ready to say a prayer and he said yes and said a good prayer. They were both answering questions from things we taught them which was super cool.  They said that they thought it was awesome how Rourke was helping Alexander and things like that. We went over to their house after Church and when we got there Blaine asked us if we would play him in chess, but for every piece of his we took that would be one chew he had to give up for that day. So if on average he had three chews and then we took one of his pieces then he would only have to have two chews. So Elder Huntley played him and ended up taking 16 of his pieces so that is 16 days that he has to go with one less chew. I feel like that is a sign that he can quit and that he is working on trying to quit. Hopefully we can be able to be at his baptism someday.

We went out to go tracting with Aidan because he wanted to go. He was super awesome and after the first door he asked if he could take the next one. He ended up doing most of the talking and the lady we met even said we could come back sometime. He literally has no fear of talking to people and is going to be a great missionary someday! He also talk to this other lady and at first she wasn't interested. We asked her if she was religious and she told us she used to be, but her parents forced her to go to church and that kind of push her away. Then Aidan just blurts out that we are having a competition to see who can pass out the most copies of the Book of Mormon. Elder Huntley and I were both like, "What are you doing!" And we looked at each other. We actually didn't say that but I could tell that's what he was thinking. This lady we met told us that she thinks she can be pretty open minded and told us that she would take one and call us after she reads it. I'm not sure if she really will, but it was still a super cool experience. It pays off to have a 12-year-old with you while tracting. Aidan was always saying how he got baptized a few months ago and that he is just learning how to be a missionary. It was kind of funny to us, but it seemed like it softened peoples hearts. He ended up coming out with us for about three hours. Also I put a picture of this car we saw while tracting.. it is the same car I drove at home!

So James is set to be baptized this Saturday, January 7. James has told us multiple times that he has been obeying the word of wisdom, but the Fickles, who live with them, say there have been a few times this past week that they saw he was high. James has a problem with alcohol and marijuana so that is what we are concerned about. We have to take James word unless we can get real proof so he is set for the baptism. Elder Huntley agrees with James and believes him. I feel like that the Fickles wouldn't tell us this if they didn't know for sure. But there's nothing I can do but trust the zone leaders to have the spirit with them in the interview to see if he is living it or not. I will try to assume the best and just love him. He is definitely ready to be baptized and does have a testimony, But I still have that concern that he is lying to us. Our ward mission leader had a talk with him and James said to him that he was sober as well. James does call us  occasionally to ask us questions about the Book of Mormon or the studies he has been having.

So this past P day we went tie shopping at a thrift store and they were super cheap so we decided to get as many as we could that looked good. We each ended up getting six and when we went to pay for them we were told that there was a sale so they would be even less. All I had was 20s in my wallet so I pull one out ready to pay and they tell me that will be $.75! We got 12 ties total for $1.50! When we got home we hung up all our ties and then proceeded to count them all. We each had about 30, not quite sure exactly, so deciding which tie to wear gets a little difficult. We took a picture of all our ties so you can see for yourself! 

Anyways it has been a super good week and we saw a lot of miracles this week! I look forward to talking to y'all next week!

Elder Bullock

Got ties?

Almost like the car I have at home

Elder Huntley playing chess

WEEK 21  

"We are just spiritual beings having a human experience"

Merry Christmas! 

This has been one of the best weeks so far. It was Christmas week plus we were able to do a lot of fun things. It is always nice to see my family. So this week we find out if we are staying or going. Usually transfer boards are out by now, it's about 12:30 right now so while I am typing this I might just interrupt myself and tell you guys about it. Anyways I will start with the miracles.

The biggest miracle this week was when we Skyped to our families at the Berniers and after we were done Amanda told us that she got her answer. She told us that while she was out side with the dogs she was just thinking about how much we missed our families and that we were still out here. She told us that she just got this overwhelming feeling that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. She told us that us being out here even though we miss our families that we must be doing this because we know this is true. We talk to her more about it and told her to pray about a date to be baptized and she told us she would and that she knows that she can stop smoking. That was super crazy because before she told us that she didn't think that she could quit. So that was the coolest miracle. We are hoping to set a date with Amanda and Rourke and have them baptized the same day. We hope to see if we can get Blaine to be baptized with them as well, but we will see.

Now I have some bad news. We talked to Jonny Banks who is teaching the temple prep class to see if he could come out with us and teach. He told us he couldn't but he had some news for us. The Fickle's came up to him after the class and needed to tell him something. All Jonny said was that James is still struggling with his word of wisdom issue. He told the Fickle's to just talk to us about it because we will know what to do about it. So then when the Fickles took us out to dinner they told us about James and how the past few days he has been drinking a lot. They said that James was going to just lie to us and say that he has been sober and still be baptized. He really wants to be baptized and go to the temple but Satan is working against him. We are trying to find a way to talk to James about it without feeling like the Fickle's tattled on him. But we definitely cannot let him be baptized yet, he is not ready. So that is something we are working on with him and hopefully we can still get him baptized.

There are a few more people we have been teaching that are progressing, but they aren't close to baptism yet. William is  one of those people. He is super interested whenever we come over and has always had a lot of questions. He said he came to church last week, but we never saw him and he said he was coming this week but I don't think he did. Hopefully we can see him come sometime soon. We are also going to be able to start teaching Brent again if he is still interested. So that will be in a week or two. He had a baptism date set but said Satan worked against him so hopefully we can get that all figured out. We should be able to start teaching Steve again, the person who makes violins. Since it's after the holidays it is going to be a lot easier to schedule things of people. A lot of people have just told us to come back after the holidays because they are so busy. We met this lady named Kelly who was shoveling her neighbors driveway and we got out and helped her. She doesn't have a church and we invited her to our church but sadly she didn't come. We are trying to go back there and to see if we can take some members with us. We also saw this lady named Sheila who is an ordained minister but doesn't go to church because she hasn't found one she likes. She is a little crazy and laughs superhard and everything but she liked having us over.

So this week we were not in Red Wing as much. On Monday we went up to Cottage Grove for a district P Day. When all the sisters got there we built our gingerbread houses and ours it was definitely the best. And then we went into the gym and just play games. We played three hit staying with a volleyball and we also played a game called signs. It was really fun since we don't see missionaries very often. There are some areas where you are super close to other missionaries and you get to do that kind of thing every P day. 

Tuesday was really fun too. We went on exchanges with our zone leaders and I went up to Hudson with Elder Oldroyd. We met in Ellsworth, which is in our area, and stopped by a less active that Hudson has. Then we went out to River Falls and spent most of the day there. We met this sweet old lady named Janette who is super awesome. We gave her a Christmas present which was just popcorn but apparently she loves popcorn and eats it for dinner sometimes.  Elder Oldroyd told me that she also loves frozen grapes. Elder Last and Elder Oldroyd baked sweets with her last time they were there. While we were there we shared Luke 2 with her about the Saviors birth. We also met this really cool guy named Kareem who actually lives in St. Paul but was visiting a friend. He was super knowledgeable about the Bible and he says every religion is good so he didn't talk bad on our religion. He also said something which I put in my quotes. He said "we are just spiritual beings having a human experiences." Then while we were trying to see some people in this neighborhood we decided to knock on this random door because their lights were on and when she opened the door I started talking to her and she stopped me to ask me why we were outside it's so cold. Then she let us in and we were able to share the light the world video with her and set a return appointment with her. Her name was Carol and she was super nice but a little awkward. The last thing we did that night was go and see some recent converts, Aiden and Gage. They are both still in high school and their grandma used to be a member but removed her name. She reached out to the missionaries and told them that she wanted to be baptized again and that she had two grandsons that wanted to be baptized as well.  So while we were there we played go fish! Ha ha and then taught them about the Saviors birth. Elder Oldroyd said it was super cool to teach them because all they knew was that Jesus died. They did not know much more than that and didn't know a lot about the Savior.

So then Wednesday morning we went to Eagan for district meeting and met Elder Last and Elder Huntley at the Eagan Sister's apartment. We usually do not have district meeting in an apartment we usually do at the church but we all went to Eagan because we were having a district blitz in Eagan. So after district meeting all of the missionaries in our district did missionary work in Eagans area. Eagan used to be an elder area but they just barely put sisters in and they don't have a lot of work. So we decided we would help them out and do this blitz.  I got to go with Elder Last again and it felt just like when I was in New Prague I really missed being with him. And then after we all met up and talked about it.

They took forever for transfers so I'm just putting it at the end. Drumroll please… I am staying in Red Wing with Elder Huntley! But one of my zone leaders, Elder Oldroyd is going to be one of the assistants to the president. Also they put sister missionaries in New Prague. I talked to the assistants to the president saying that New Prague needs sisters so I pretty much did that.  Well not much else happened this week so I look forward to talking to you guys again next week. I love y'all so much!

Elder Bullock

Elder Huntley and Elder Bullock's creation

Goofing off

WEEK 20

Mele Kalikimaka! (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian.)

This week was a super long week, but it was a super good week and I enjoyed it. We have gotten a ton of snow and we may or may not have played in it. We even spent some time shoveling people's driveways. We went over to the Berniers and started shoveling their driveway, but Blaine didn't like that so he came out and helped us. Then later that night there was a bunch of snow again so we shoveled it again for him and he is one of those people that doesn't like getting help from people. Then we just went around and did some other people's that we were teaching. The only part I didn't like, well it was still pretty fun, was getting into our driveway with all the snow. We live on a hill so it took us about half an hour to get up it and we had to get a lot of speed and I had to push. We eventually got it and now it is plowed so it's fine now. It was also pretty cold, but the coldest was yesterday and when we left for church it was -40 with the windchill. So it wasn't too bad, but I think we have climatized to the cold or we just have good clothing because it hasn't been too bad at all. Well and we don't have to be outside that much with our car, but our car is never warm because by the time it starts warming up we are already where we were going.

We have been to the Berniers a lot this week and we even were able to watch 17 Miracles with them! I really love that movie and we are going to try and watch Ephraim's Rescue which goes with 17 Miracles. They came to church again and they always call it their church which is super cool because there are some people that get baptized and still call it your church. We went over for dinner on Sunday and they fed us some thick steaks... like they were huge. That was Elder Huntley's third time eating steak over there and only my first. But they are all totally getting baptized. I don't know if I will be here for it, but I know it will happen eventually.

We haven't seen Bernie or James that much this week, but they are still going strong. They come every week for all three hours and they are involved in class. James keeps saying how excited he is for his baptism and he just wants to go to the temple super bad. Last Sunday we told Bernie that she could go do baptisms for the dead and she told us she wanted to wait for James. We had a linger longer after church and we sat by them and they just always talk about their studies and how much they love the scriptures. It is so cool to see the change in them especially James.

On Thursday we did service at Connecting Connections and we were almost done cause we had to go soon, but then this guy showed up and he had some dressers he wanted to donate and that was exactly what we were looking for so we rode in his truck with him to his house to grab the key to his old house where the dressers were. While we were driving we were just talking to him and then he asked a few questions about the church and we were able to teach a lesson, but he was the pastor for the first covenant church so we were able to ask him some questions too. He was a super cool guy and when we got the dressers and dropped them off at the people who needed them we asked him if we could come by and talk to him some more and he said we could, but he is super busy so just call his church and we gave him our number too. So we are going to convert him and his church and the New Life United Pentecostal church. 

So I don't remember if I talked about this in my last email so if I did just pretend I didn't. Plus there is new stuff since last week... so we got this call from some missionaries in Rochester and they told us about a family that moved into our area and the guy was a member, but his wife wasn't and they were being taught in the past so we should go ever there. So we called him and set up an appointment with him. So we went over on Saturday and he let us in and they had two new puppies that were so adorable, but not as good as my puppies back home! So R****** used to have her own dog sled team and she is starting that up again so she got some puppies and will get more eventually I think. J**** works on hot rod cars and has had a bunch of cool cars and he also like guns and was showing us his guns and to be honest... they were pretty sick. He said they moved here for safety reasons and doesn't wasn't us to give their address or number to the members. I guess there were some people that messed with them and is going through court now. Anyways they told us that she wants to become a member and told us when they were available to meet and so we are going to start teaching her and set a date with her!

On Saturday we also saw William W. and he has always asked a lot questions when we are there and this time we were able to have more of a lesson than usual. He was asking questions like what you had to do to be baptized and things like that. He said he was coming to church but sadly he didn't. He will come eventually I think so we have high hopes for him! He just found out he has stage 2 lung cancer so we were able to talk to him about it a little and he was asking things like why we go through trials and things like that!

So we had a pretty crazy miracle this week. We went to the YMCA to try and get a gym membership and since we don't make any money we were trying to get a discounted membership and we went in and told them we were missionaries and we didn't make money and they had us fill out some stuff and then the next day we got this call from this guy that works there and he told us that him and his staff kind of talked it over and they decided since we do so much to help out the community that they were just going to give us a free six month membership and all we had to do was just tell them when we were leaving and stuff so now we are going to get to be swoldiers and it makes it a lot easier to work out since it is cold out and we can actually go running now!

So right now we are on our way to Cottage Grove to have a district p day and so I am typing this in the car on my IPad. We are going to be making gingerbread houses and playing board games haha so much fun! So I won't have as much time to email today! Anyways that's about it for this week! I will talk to y'all next week! 


Elder Bullock

-40 with windchill

Elder Huntley and I keeping warm

Ice crystals on the eyelashes

Elder Huntley's snow angel

Elder Bullock's snow angel

Week 19

Hey guys!  So the highlight of this week would have to be the snow! I have been praying for it for awhile and we have gotten a bunch Saturday and Yesterday! We have been having a little trouble getting up our driveway and I usually have to get out and push because we live on a hill, but it is so worth it. It is supposed to get pretty cold soon too! Its been in the teens and I have gotten fairly used to it by now. The bad part about the snow is that not a lot of people came to church yesterday and we only had one investigator and that was James. I am getting pretty excited for his baptism and I should be here for it, but we will see. We actually stopped by yesterday and listening to him talk about the gospel I can just feel that he is really committed to it and I just love hearing his testimony! He called us a few days ago just to tell us he missed hearing our voices and that he had been reading some conference talks. I thought it was super cool! 

We saw the Berniers this week as well and it went super good! Amanda was in a good mood and she usually isn't because she was always hurting. They were asking a lot of questions and saying things like, if I got baptized, and it was super awesome. We are going to go over there and watch 17 Miracles with them sometime because they want to learn more about the saints and all that. They watched the movie The Prophet of the Restoration and they liked it. They kind of saved us because we had a dinner scheduled, but we were up in Oakdale for a Zone Conference and I guess every year they watch a movie as a zone around Christmas so we watched it's a Wonderful life. I also got to see the temple and it is super beautiful. It is a small temple, but I like it. It is actually right next to the stake center too. Anyways, we couldn't make it back in time for our dinner and so as we were driving home we got a text from Amanda and she told us to come over for some pizza so we were super blessed! 

Another cool miracle this week was we got a referral from one of the youth in the ward, Angela, and she was talking about the gospel with her friend Alex, but I guess they stopped talking so she wanted us to go over and try to teach her, but she didn't want us to use her name so we were trying to figure out how we could get a way in without using Angela's name and so we did a role play and Elder Huntley pretended to be Alex and I acted like I was knocking on her door. So after I was done talking Elder Huntley felt like there were some things I said that would really help her. So we went over to Alex's and we knocked on the door and it wasn't Alex, but I decided to just say what I was going to say and she told us she wasn't interested. Then we asked her if there was anyone she knew that could use this message and her face lit up and she said Alex. She told us that she was at her moms right now, but we could stop by on Monday after school. We think it was her step mom we talked to, but her name was Charity. I thought that was super cool and I know that wouldn't have happened if we didn't prepare for it.

Well not much else really happened this week. There weren't as many people at church this week either because of the snow! Anyways that's about it! I will talk to y'all next week.

Elder Bullock

Zone Conference

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Week 18- Four month mark

Hey guys!

I guess I will start with the highlight of the week! On Saturday I hit my four month mark and on that day I had my first baptism! It felt so awesome to be there for that and to see them change their lives. Elder Huntley did the baptism since he had been there the whole time for her and was the one who taught her the most. She did choose me to be one of the witnesses though which was pretty cool, I just made sure she went all the way under the water. We had a lot of people there to support her which was really cool to see. I know it really helps converts stay active when the ward is there to support them. When she got to the church she told us that Satan was working on her and  was a little stressed because she was afraid she was going to be late for her baptism. She was actually early, but she wanted to be extra early. We told her that she was fine and that we have everything planned out and all she had to do was be there. Then after that everything went awesome and it was a cool experience for us, since she was Hawaiian her husband said the opening prayer in Hawaiian and her daughter said the closing in Hawaiian as well. The next day on Sunday she was confirmed and Brother Hadler was supposed to do it, but when we all went up there he wasn't there so we had to have someone else do it and she asked Elder Huntley to do that as well. After we sat down we saw Brother Hadler and he told us he had to put his plow on since it snowed that day and he owns properties that he has to plow and so he was late. He explained it to them after and they understood so it was all okay! We got James involved in the confirmation by having him hold the mic during it and so he was kind of part of the circle. I am pretty confident that James is going to be baptized and I feel like they will both stay active in the church. It would be pretty cool to be there when they are getting sealed in the temple. 

We did see the Berniers this week as well and I love this family. We went by to see if we could set a date with Rourke and we kind of talked to him about the baptismal questions and told him about the commitment that he would be making. After we taught him his dad wanted to wait and make Rourke go to all three hours of church  for a couple months to make sure he really wants to do this and I was kind of mad because I wanted to set a date with him, but I see why now because on Sunday Rourke didn't want to go to the last two hours. So I feel like it was a good choice to wait for him. After we taught Rourke we talked to Amanda a little bit and we asked her if she wanted to quit smoking and if she wanted to get baptized and she said she wanted to quit, but she didn't think she could and that she could never be as good as the sisters in the ward. We were thinking about trying to get a  sister to fellowship her and try and help her and it was cool because on Sunday Sister McGrath came up to her after church and started talking to her and asked her if she had ever been to Relief Society yet and then asked her if she would come this week or next and told her she thinks she would like it and then gave Amanda her number and I thought that was super cool. Sister McGrath is super awesome and she is the one who converted her husband and now they have been through the temple. Now when we talked to Blaine after Amanda he told us he is not going to quit chewing and even if it is going to kill him he won't quit. He believes the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet and everything we tell him and he comes to church every week and even wanted to be baptized until he found out about the Word of Wisdom. So he chews during sacrament and even has his bottle and we were talking about it in Ward Council before church and some people were saying we should tell him to stop and the Bishop said not to worry about it because it isn't worth pushing him away. So then we saw him come to church and he didn't have chew in his mouth and that was the first time that I had seen him without it. He looked completely different and it was partly because he shaved his beard so he looked way different. So hopefully that can continue at least during sacrament!

We stopped by Brant's this week and we were supposed to meet with him on Saturday, but we were in the area and so we stopped by and then the next day he sent us a text and told us that he doesn't want to meet anymore until January and doesn't want any contact at all. He said it is because he is still having an issue with alcohol and he isn't on his medication right now so that is kind of a bummer, but hopefully we can continue with him next transfer. 

On Saturday we went to Mickey D's to celebrate our baptism and then when we prayed for our food a guy came up to us and thanked us for praying for our food and then just walked off and I wanted to run after him and try to get his name, but I thought that might be to weird. It was still a super cool  experience and we even took a selfie after! 

On Thursday we went and got haircuts and I was pretty excited because my hair  was that awkward medium length stage so we went to Sister McGraths and she cut it for us and I had the measurements from last time in my head and it liked it that length, but after I told her and she cut it... it was shorter than I wanted and so I was wondering why it was so short and I guess I was just super confused because later I realized that I told her the wrong length so now my hair is pretty short and I have come to accept it. Its getting cold enough where I can just wear beanies all the time anyway so its all good!

This morning we actually got to teach seminary so that was a cool experience and we taught about the parable of Lazurus and the rich man in Luke 16 and I actually learned a lot from studying it last night. I am not sure if y'all have read it or not but it talks about a rich man  and a beggar named Lazurus who is begging for food at the rich mans gate and the rich man never gives him any and so in this life the rich man lives a comfortable life and Lazurus is in torment and then after they both die it talks about how the rich man is in spirit prison and how he sees Lazurus in Abraham's Bosom, which is spirit paradise. So now Lazurus is the one who is living the comfortable life and the rich man is in torment. And the rich man cries out to Abraham and and asks him to bring Lazurus back from the dead and send him to go teach his brothers so that they won't have to suffer like he is and Abraham told him that he won't do that because he already has prophets on the earth and if they won't listen to them they won't listen even if they see a miracle. I can think of when Laman and Lemuel saw angels multiple times, but they still rebelled and it didn't convert them. Alma the Younger saw an angel, but he was converted and ends up being an amazing prophet and my favorite in the Book of Mormon. It wasn't because Alma saw an angel that he was converted it was because he fasted and prayed to know these things and I love what he says in Alma 36 about his experience, but you can read that on your own (; 

Anyways it was a good week like usual and I will talk to y'all next week!

Elder Bullock

Bernie's Baptism