Where's Kodren

Can you locate Kodren in the photo above? This is two of their zones after a hike together.

Hey mom! I’m so happy to hear about Josh. That is so cool. Can you send me Josh and Brad’s emails please? I want to talk to them and hear from them too. I miss home really bad. I miss my friends and family so much! Seviah sent me that picture of me from the team’s Facebook wall and it made me so happy and sad all at the same time haha. I love baseball and dang I miss my team. But I have a new team I am a part of haha. I miss real cold so much. Here "cold" is 50 and people are wearing winter clothes and I’m in a short sleeves thinking it feels like summertime haha. It’s so different here.

I’m making friends here, I really am, but it seems like right after you become close to them they leave or you get transferred somewhere else. I have only seen two people I was in the MTC with and I learned that one of the elders who was in the MTC with me went home. That hit me really hard to hear that he had to go cause I thought he was so strong in the gospel. I guess not that strong, it was really hard.

Other than that little rant, I’m doing pretty good haha. This Saturday we had a ward activity which was eating pancakes then playing softball and it was so much fun to play ball. I hit the only home run of the game so that was pretty cool and I had at least three guys there tell me when I go home I should try to play college baseball. I would totally be okay with that haha. Today we played basketball for a few hours. It is nice to play sports to let off a little steam.

This week we picked up two new investigators, the Hargrove family! We learned that the dad is actually a member but has not been there since high school but his wife and son are thinking about getting baptized! It was really cool! They are a young family, the dad is big into hunting, and he has four deer and three elk and a pig hanging in his house. He is pretty cool they have been attending other churches and are just seeking more knowledge of what we believe. So she started reading the Book of Mormon, so that is awesome. Hopefully we can baptize them and we want to baptize before Elder Brown goes home in April. I think we can do it because through Christ all things are possible. I love Elder Brown he is awesome. He is from Arizona. He really likes sports and he is really fun. He makes not so fun moments into fun moments. He is one that I will really remember. He has taught me a lot of stuff about the scriptures and about missions.

And we had ward conference and learned more about the Book of Mormon I loove the Book of Mormon!!!!!!! Thanks for everything mom. You are the best mom in the whole world I love you! Have a great week and tell everyone else I love them!

Temple and Technology

How was your valentines day? Holy dang there’s a lot going on back home! I wish we had stuff going in still no investigators and no one to teach but we are doing what we can. Everyone is teaching people but us! This week has been hard. Yesterday was rough. I miss Loche. I miss everyone. But the work must go on, that’s why I am here doing this haha. I’m okay, just tired. And, life is good.

Yeah, we are getting smart phones. We don’t know any details yet.

Also we got to go to the temple this week, which was so so amazing. I love the temple, it is heaven on earth. I love it so much the spirit there is so amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has anyone in the family had any cool spiritual experiences? If you have those, I would like to hear about them. How is seminary? I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My scriptures are full of notes and markings and all this crazy stuff that I never understood before and it is cool. I read chapter one the other day and I got so much out of it that I never noticed before. It was pretty amazing. I also read the story of the Anti Nephi Lehis and I don’t remember the exact scripture but there’s one where it talks about how they would rather die than commit sin and that was really cool.

I love you. Thanks for everything!!!!!

Hiking elders

Hey!!!

Things here are slow as usual it seems like haha we dont have any new investigators. We are still working with the less active, Martin. He is really cool. I really love him and love teaching him but other than that we have no one to teach. We are trying to get in with a family whose husband has been a member his whole life but he is not active. He hasn't been to church in a long time so we are trying to get him back and we are going to try to teach his wife. We talked with them for about a half an hour or so and they are super cool. He was a baseball coach for a long time and he also likes guns and so he showed me one of his guns that his dad gave to him and it was amazing. It was a gun from a Nazi soldier. It was crazy!

My favorite scripture this week is 2 Nephi 25:26. It's one that our mission president has asked us to memorize.

I'm feeling pretty good. Still tired but just pushing along haha.

The pictures are from when we hiked up that mountain we hike up all the time. I've hiked up it three times now haha. It's like two miles and it takes about 30 minutes for me to get up. It's a really small hike. It's no 14er but it's nice to be outside. the one with all of us in blue shirts where there are a lot of people in the background, one of those people is President Hammon, our mission president.

Love you all!!!

A baptism!

Hey mom,

Okay. YES MA'AM! (This is in response to some very pointed, finger wagging advice I gave him in my letter to him.)

How’s things? Did you hear about Seviah’s knee? I hope its not too bad.

How’s everything else going? Anything else exciting?

Everything here is pretty good. It was kind of a normal week, still trying to get to know the area as best I can. I like being with Elder Brown, he is super fun and we do a lot with Elder Kligge and his new comp, Elder Hunt, who is an awesome guy. They are all great to be around. Elder Brown has 3 months left. I will most likely be his last comp, which is pretty cool. Elder Brown is awesome; he might be my favorite comp so far. We get a lot of work done together. I’m still tired, as always ,and doing my best to work my butt off haha.

Oh, and we also ha d a baptism!!!! We baptized DJ. He is retired Army Ranger. He is so amazing and a really fun guy to be around. I taught him twice but Elder Brown did all the work before I got here haha. DJ now helps other retired vets who have mental and suicide problems. He is awesome!

Also, we met a guy named Martin who is a less active. He is super cool and he need the gospel so much. He has asked us to come over once every day so he can really get to know the Book of Mormon. That is really cool and its amazing the love that you grow for people as you teach them. My problem is I need to show love for everyone, even those that say no to us. That’s what I need to learn.

I’m feeling pretty good. It’s still hard some days. I wake up and I just don’t know how to do everything. I know I sound like a wimp but I miss home and I miss my family and close friends so much. How’s Brad doing? I miss him like crazy. I was thinking about him the other day, I think about him a lot, and I remembered when me and Bishop and then me and you visited him and how much fun we had. He has truly changed and grown up to be a good man and I am so proud and grateful for him.

I miss you guys so much. I can’t even describe how much I miss you guys. I do know that I sound like a wimp but it’s hard to be away from my family and not see you guys everyday. All I see are pictures and those are just not the same. But I promise that I’m doing my best.

I love you. Thanks for everything. Have a great week.