WEEK TWELVE

Hey guys

It has been a great week! We had four investigators say they were coming to church, but none came, so that happened. It has been kind of frustrating, but they will come when they are ready. We had a recent convert, Brenda Estevez, who hadn't came in awhile, come so it made Sunday a lot better. She has a boy that can get the Aaronic priesthood and a girl that can be baptized now. I was able to lead out in the teaching this week a lot more which is making me feel more confident at it. I have only 3 weeks until I am out of training which is awesome because to be honest I hate being trained and a "greenie". I am hoping to stay here with Elder Last at least one more transfer which would be December 28th, this Transfer ends November 16th.

I did have a good exchange with Elder Bono and taught two lessons which I lead out the lesson. We taught a guy named Darius and I lead out the lesson with him. We taught him the Restoration and he says he has no reason to not believe it and he wants to be closer to God. We taught him outside of Coborns, which is a grocery store, and he said he would come to church even though it was at the same time as his other church. He didn't come though, but I can imagine it would be kind of scary to go to another church with people you don't really know. Elder Last wants to go to a Saturday mass to see what they are like, but I think it's kind of creepy in there. 

We taught Ashley the first night of the exchange, Monday night, and she said she would come to church and I invited her to the Primary Program on October 30th. She said she would try and come to that as well. She doesn't remember a lot of what the other missionaries have taught, we are going to teach her all of them again if we can ever setup an appointment. It seems like with a lot of investigators they try to avoid you and when you do set something up they usually back out at the last second.
 

Mollie has done that to us for the last 2 months and we haven't been able to teach her another lesson and she hasn't been to church. We stopped by there on Tuesday and she couldn't talk to us then either. She said she has a new job and works from 8 to 6 so it might be a little easier to get over there. We went back there on Sunday and she had company over for the weekend so we just kind of told her that she can call us when she can meet with us instead of us going over there three or four times a week and not being able to teach anything. 

The members here are super awesome and we have had a dinner every night this week. We have a ton of food at the apartment too so we aren't going to be hungry! They almost make me feel at home, but not quite. I am pretty used to the missionary life now and it is kind of weird to think about going home now. I feel like I wouldn't know what to do at home. There are a lot of things that I want to do when I get home that I learned on my mission.  I have only been out 12 weeks but I have learned so much and not just about the gospel. 

We were able to help a recent convert, Perry Holthaus, move a lot of his stuff into a storage shed on Wednesday. He is selling his house because he wife left him and they are getting a divorce so he can't afford it. He has been struggling with this so he hasn't been to church since I have been here. His mom has cancer so he is trying to spend time with her too. We helped him unload then we drove to his house and helped him load some more into his trailer.

Sacrament this week was pretty interesting. They went to break the bread and realized there wasn't any bread so Brother Dickerson went and looked for some while we were singing and couldn't find any so they used animal crackers. It was kind of cool to realize that you can use almost anything. Brother Brimhall left to go home and get some and when he walked in with the bread sacrament was over. 

I hope you guys enjoyed my email a little more this week. I feel like I started just talking about things day by day and said a lot of things that really didn't matter. Before I end I'll leave y'all with a spiritual thought.

So this week I read a talk called "If Ye Had Known Me" by Elder Bednar in the Sunday afternoon session. He asks if we only know about the Savior or are we coming to know the Savior. If we do the will of the Father then the saving grace of the Son is obtainable. We come to know the Father as we come to know His Son. There are four ways that we can come to know the Savior. We need to exercise faith in Him, follow Him, serve Him, and believe Him. We can exercise faith in Him as we rely on His Atonement and have the faith that he can save, heal and strengthen us. He told the story of Peter and Andrew and how the Savior told them to follow Him and they dropped their nets and followed Him. To follow the Savior we act as he would and keep the commandments that God has given us. We come to know the Savior as we do our best to go where He wants us to go, as we strive to say what He wants us to say, and as we become what He wants us to become. We strive to serve others and to not think in selfish thoughts and as we serve others we are serving God. It says in Mosiah 2:17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.  As we believe Christ we believe that the things he taught can affect us and can change our life. I am trying to apply this to my life and It has changed the way I do things on my mission.  

Elder Bullock

Elder Bullock on transfer day October 5th, 2016

 WEEK ELEVEN

Hey guys this week has been awesome! I have been having more fun while working harder than last transfer. Elder Last and I get along super well and he is doing an amazing job training me. We are both hoping to stay here at least another transfer which will be just after Christmas.
Elder Last is a pretty good cook and has been cooking me a bunch of different things and kind of teaching me how. Like last Monday he grilled us some pretty good pork and smoked it as well! A while ago in about the beginning of September I locked my u lock on my bike and then lost the key, but we never biked so it didn't really matter. This transfer we wanted to save our miles to use them to go to the farther cities more. So I finally got my u lock cut off and I'm gonna send it home as a souvenir. He actually had to take it into his work to get it off, but it worked.

On Tuesday we had a district meeting over Skype but it took us like a half an hour to get it set up because it wasn't working and then when Elder Araoz started saying the prayer we couldn't hear him so it was kind of awkward. We ended up just doing a conference call to hear and Skype to see. We tried to go see Mollie again with Sister McBride and Sister Seger but when we got there Sister McBride was there, but Sister Seger wasn't and she wouldn't answer her phone because cell service doesn't always work. We went and talked a little bit with Mollie but we couldn't go inside because there is a rule that you can't go inside unless there is 3 guys or 3 girls so we just talked a little bit outside her apartment but couldn't really teach a lesson. She is going through a hard time right now and might lose her job. She lost her Book of Mormon and pretty much begged us for another so she really does want to read it and I think she will be baptized eventually. She said to come back tomorrow if we could. We had dinner at President Hoskins and he had us teach them a lesson as if they were investigators and then told us what we could do better. They both served missions so they helped a lot. We went and got my bike from Brother Calls and then they pretty much fed us a second dinner, I couldn't say no to lasagna.

On Wednesday we were in New Prague and just biked around. We didn't really get to see anyone because no one was home. It was kind of fun to just ride bikes though. We went to the church at 6 to eat dinner that Sister Seger made and then Sister Odegaard was supposed to come because  she wanted a blessing and one for her little boy too. She never showed up though and we waited like 2 hours. While we were there though we were able to give a blessing to Brother Thomas because he has been sick and they were moving the next day to Arizona. After that it wasn't quite 9 yet so we went on an obedience walk down Main Street just to stay out as long as we were supposed to. We met a guy named Darius that is pretty cool and is willing to let us come teach him. It shows that if you are obedient to the Lord he will bless you!

Thursday we pretty much changed our whole day just to see Mollie. We started it off going to the library after studies to do things on the computer that you can't do on the iPads, like Mormon.org. We didn't have a lot to do so we made a bunch of phone calls that we needed to make and then went back to the apartment  and cleaned up a little because there were going to be inspections the next day. We went to Belle Plaine and tried to see some people before we saw Mollie. We did get to see Addison, who is 15, and we just talked to him about skateboarding and computers. He was saying things that didn't make sense about computers and I just kind of acted like I knew what he was saying. We went and picked up Mitch and then went to see Mollie at a time she chose and then the kids came and told us to come inside and then we came inside, I took off my shoes and then she asked if we could come back later because she was going to have dinner with her neighbor. The kids begged for us to stay, but we weren't able to teach her then either. So we left and went and stopped by a referral named Festus. We knocked on his door and just told him who we were and he told us to hold on and then he opened the garage and we sat in there and taught him the restoration. He asked us how to pray and we gave him a Book of Mormon to read and pray about. He was super nice and thanked us for coming and said to come back. He is from Ghana which is really cool.

On Friday we didn't do a lot because we had to go up to Lakeville to get our oil changed. We drove up after studies and we got there and they let you sit in the car while they worked on it. Then we went and ate at subway for lunch! It had been forever since I had subway. We drove down to Montgomery to see Little Fawn and Joseph and we were going to see how they felt about baptism again. Joseph was sleeping so we just talked to Little Fawn. We had a lesson prepared but we felt it was better to talk about other things that she wanted to know. She goes to aa meetings from her addictions she used to have and she had never been taught the word of wisdom so we taught her a little about that and she told us she wanted to stop smoking and that all they do at aa meetings is talks and smoke and drink tea. She is awesome though.

Saturday we just did a lot of service. We worked at the food shelf in the morning then went and mowed Sister Grewes lawn then President Hoskins called and asked us if we could help him put up a fence with his boss, who is a less active. We marked it all up and then we used an auger to dig holes. It wasn't too hard but took awhile to do. We went and got haircuts at Sister Calls because we couldn't on p day because we are in Faribault. Then we went to the shotgun shoot and I just got to watch them shoot and eat dinner.

We had some less actives come to church on Sunday which was kind of cool. We didn't have any investigators come to church either. We went to Le Sueur with Brother Brimhall and Mitch and then Brother Brimhall was tired so he took a nap when we got there. So we walked to an investigators house, he wasn't home but we met someone while we walked named Margarita. Then we saw Tana for a little bit but we couldn't talk long. We went to Belle Plaine and had dinner  at the Harcourts and then tried to see Mollie with Sister Walsh and Mitch but she wasn't home. We went back to New Prague and talked with Brother Skok and then went and packed and drove to Faribault and stayed the night for district p day. We got to their apartment and they weren't there, but their phone and everything was still there. Like a half an hour later they both pop out of the closet!

Today we went on a 5 mile hike on a trail and then went and ate and now we are at the church watching the best two years! So Elder Last and I have been reading all the conference talks and Utchdorfs talk in the women's session was really cool. It talks a lot about faith and he tells a story  about some missionaries that were knocking on doors in some apartments and they went and went through the first floor and no one answered, the second and the third were the same but then on the fourth floor last door this little girl answered the door and they asked for her mom so she went and asked her mom and her mom just lost her husband. The mom didn't want to talk to them but the little girl told her they were really nice so she did. They were baptized two months later and that little girl ended up being Utchdorfs wife. It makes me want to be able to knock on that fourth floor and that last door and you could use that in a lot of different ways in all you are doing.

Anyways this week was awesome and I am loving being with Elder Last and I am super excited for this transfer!

Elder Bullock

            

Elder Last and I on a hike

(Not sure of the story behind these pictures!)--Tayson's mom

WEEK TEN

 The Last shall be first

 

Hey guys this week was pretty crazy with transfers happening! On Tuesday we just packed up Elder Moore's stuff most of the day. Elder Moore went and said bye to a bunch of the members. We didn't get home until like 10:30 that night and Elder Moore still had to pack so we didn't get to bed until like 12:30.

On Wednesday we left at about 9 and went to Lakeville to drop Elder Moore off an then I took Elder Johansson, who is from Sweden, and Elder Heiden. I drove up to Bloomington with them and then we parked at the mission home and got all of our vehicles inspected and then I met Elder Last! He is one of those guys that is always smiling and he just gets along with everyone! We get along super good though and we have been talking to each other like nonstop. And yes there has been a lot of Last jokes like, I hope you are not the last missionary. We went and ate at Taco Bell with Elder Callans, and I gave him a ride to Lakeville. Then we went back to New Prague and unpacked and we decided to clean the apartment like super good which was super awesome. I think we might have the cleanest apartment in the mission. We went to the church to go introduce the members to Elder Last. When we got there Sister Seger asked us if we would go and give Sister Grewe a blessing. Brother Thomas is her home teacher so he drove us out there and about half way we got a call and apparently she was on her way the ER in New Prague so we turned around and went back. We checked in and then we were able to give her a blessing. She is in a lot of pain and she hasn't been able to eat since Wednesday because it hurts her. While we were there we were able to give her daughter a blessing because she was really sick. 

On Thursday we went to Le Sueur and we were going to ride our bikes around because that is something we decided to do this transfer to save miles and it is something we both like doing. Unfortunately when we got there we realized my bike has a flat tire so we just parked the car and walked around Le Sueur. We were able to do a lot more contacting, which is just talking to people as you pass them. We were in the library to use the wifi for a few minutes and when we left we walked right into rain. We walked back to the car in the rain, which was fairly close and ate our amazing pb&j dinner and it stopped raining. We decided to go introduce Elder Last to Brother Lewis. When we got there he was having dinner so he fed us anyway. After we left it was raining again, but we decided to be tough and go visit Brother Snow before we went back to the car so by the time that we got there we were pretty soaked. He offered to give us a ride to the car which was nice. The drive back to New Prague was pretty rough though. It was raining so hard I could barely see and Le Sueur is the farthest town. 

On Friday we went and helped Brother Reinwand move for a few hours, but they gave us pizza so it was totally worth it. It actually was super awesome and Brother Williams made us laugh the whole time. It was pretty cold though, but I have been hearing from a lot of people that this winter is going to be pretty bad. Sister Dvorak showed us pictures of the bad winters where she couldn't even get into her car because there was so much snow. I honestly think that would be super awesome and am pretty excited to test drive my new snow boots. They said that the worst is when it is so cold that it can't snow so there will be no snow but just freezing. Elder Last is from Hurricane, Utah so he is used to the warm weather. He said he got here in March and thought that was pretty cold.

We got a text this week from Little Fawn telling us that they are getting married which is super awesome. We are going to have President Hoskins marry them so hopefully we are here for that. They said they want to get married soon so hopefully. 

Saturday we went to Montgomery again and went to help out at the food shelf again. It was pretty slow but were able to talk to Little Fawn there a little and it is always nice to help these people out especially because no guys work there and they cant carry them out and I would hate to have some old lady have to carry this stuff out. We walked around Montgomery all day which was awesome and we got to see a lot of new things that I didn't notice before when we drove everywhere. 

Sunday was super awesome and it is always good to fast. I even bore my testimony even though I was like super nervous. We went out to Le Center with Brother Brimhall for a bit and then had dinner with the Dvoraks again. Brother Dvorak gave us a lot of advice again and he is way awesome. 

This week has been one of the best weeks so far. Elder Last is a really good missionary and I have been learning so much from him and he has been doing a good job of training me. We are really similar and I love how he talks to people and I have been really trying to improve my talking skills. One thing that stuck out to me from conference is joy. And I love in Elder Nelsons talk he said that we need to suffer with joy and that our suffering will be taken by Christ. We can only feel joy through Christ and this gospel and I know that everyone has their ups and downs, but as long as we stay close to the teachings of this church and keep the commandments that God has given us we can have that true joy. I encourage you all to look in to that talk because it is super awesome. I am super glad to be out here and I am excited for it.

Elder Bullock

That is some random persons garage and we just really wanted to take a picture with it.

New companion,  Elder Last

WEEK NINE

TRANSFERS!

Hey guys 

Tuesday we didn't do a lot because I got Elder Moore up on time and we worked out and then got to studies. We put some less actives into our area book that we didn't have then Elder Moore decided to take a nap because he woke up on time. He slept until like 4:30 so we didn't have a lot of time to do anything that day so we just went to New Prague that day. We went tracting at some apartments where one of our investigators live and we eventually met Terry. She is I think Lutheran, but she is willing to hear what our beliefs are and she is really nice and told us she knew a little about our religion. She told us her great grandma rented to some missionaries and she called them her Mormon boys and Terry told us she has some Mormon boys of her own now. We said a prayer for her at the end and then she asked us if she could pray for us and that was really awesome. We had dinner with the Thomas family and they are so awesome. They live in a bus that they turned into a RV type thing and Sister Thomas makes a lot of herbal things and she uses a lot of plants in her cooking. They are moving to Arizona soon and are going to eventually live on a sailboat. I told Brother Thomas that he looks like Rob Lundquist from Homefree and so he looked up a picture and they are like twins.

On Wednesday Elder Moore said he didn't sleep at all so he was going back to bed. I let him sleep for awhile and I just read my scriptures for a couple hours. Sister Williams asked us to help them put in their pool liner over in Belle Plaine. So we did that for most of the day and Felix fed us homemade pizza and spaghetti. He is a really good cook and is the one who gave us the peppers that almost killed me. We didn't eat breakfast that day so we ate a lot there and we ate at like 1. We had a dinner that day too over in Elko New Market and Sister Choe texted us and asked us if we could eat earlier at like 4 and so after that my stomach really hurt. We went to teach a less active named Hyrum Labaron-Jones and his wife, Amber, opened the door and said Hyrum wasn't home, but he was going to be in about an hour. Amber told us that she was due the next day for her baby so that was pretty cool and she ended up having it on Thursday. Anyway we came back and Hyrum was there and he likes the country boys so I made sure I wore my cowboy boots. He has an interesting story with the church. He was raised in Mexico and was part of one of the break offs from the LDS church. His parents practiced polygamy and he said his dad had 50 kids and didn't know most of them!  He got baptized into our church when he was 20, but I'm not quite sure why he did because now he is going to a different church and doesn't actually know a lot about our church. He really likes to talk and he talks really fast so it was kind of hard to even get a word in, but he is super awesome and I think he liked me because of my boots and my voice. He said we could come back whenever and he said he has an open mind. 

Thursday we had a district meeting through Skype and then we went to Le Sueur. We stopped by Kristy's and she is going through a lot of things and she told us that she really appreciates us and then we tried to teach the restoration and then after we taught the first vision she told us that she need to be alone and told us to leave so she could think about this. Elder Moore asked her to be baptized if she found out that this was true and she said yes but she wouldn't commit to a date. It was kind of a weird situation to me. We stopped by a few people that weren't home except for Mike who is a stay at home dad but he was making dinner so we taught him a short lesson. We went to Le Center after that and I can finally say I have been to every town in my area now. We actually didn't even get to teach anyone there because Le Center is so far away that we can't go there that much, but we have a lot of miles left for this month. We did have dinner at this Mexican restaurant which was pretty good and then drove home to New Prague after that. 

Friday we got some more money for food so we went shopping because we had like no food at all. We got back to the apartment and I started reading my scriptures because I was almost done with Mosiah and then when I was done Elder Moore was asleep on the couch so I just read some more because it is almost impossible to wake Elder Moore up and if you do he is still half asleep and won't remember it then just go back to bed. After he woke up we went and had our weekly planning session at the church then went to the Segers for dinner. The kids and nan were the only ones there but Sister Seger made dinner before she left and Aurora brought the food outside for us to eat. After we got back to  New Prague we were able to just stop by one of our investigators. 

On Saturday we had General Conference! I hope everyone was able to watch it. We went to the church to watch it and apparently you are supposed to wear suits when you watch it. We were the only ones at the church but they were really good talks and I got a lot more out of them when I took notes. In between sessions we went and ate McDonald's in our suits and we got a lot of looks. We got invited to go to the Segers for dinner and a bonfire with the Grewes. So we went there and watched the Priesthood session and had dinner then we had a fire outside and it was one of Sister Grewes kids birthday so we had cake and I ate it to be nice.... anyway we just played with the kids and the dog for awhile. One of Sister Grewes kids always grabs my pinky and walks me around to show me things she is like 4, but she is the cutest. 

Sunday we went back to the Segers for Conference and we got there at like 9:30 and they made us breakfast. Mollie was supposed to come watch it with us but she never did. It was pretty much just watching conference. They made us lunch and dinner too so that was kind of nice. 

Today we drove up to Lakeville and are going to try and stay here the whole day. We are getting transfer calendar which tells us where we are going next transfer. I am staying in New Prague, but Elder Moore is leaving and I'm and getting a new trainer Elder Last. No one knows who he is though. Anyway I'm kind of excited.

Elder Bullock