Super Crazy Week!

Hello everyone!

Hope you all had a great week and that you have seen many miracles!

This week was super crazy for us with lots of driving. We went to the temple in tri-cities which was about a 7 hour drive round-trip but it was well worth it. Thursday we did our weekly planning because we found out that we were going to go see the new movie that the church came out with called "Meet the Mormons." We had to drive to Selah to go see it which is about a 3 hour drive from our house. It was super good to see that. It is a really good movie and you should go see it when it comes out in theaters. It should be coming out in quite a few theaters on the 10th of October. It is a really good inspirational video for members and a good clarifying movie for those that aren't members. It's well worth going to go see and to bring a friend along as well. Also those long drives all started early in the morning as well. Each of those days we had to wake up at about 4:30 in the morning in order to leave on time but its amazing how much the spirit helps us to overcome trials in our lives, even being tired.

Despite all the driving that we did, we still saw some pretty great miracles! One of our investigators that has been investigating the church for about 5 months got permission from his mom and he was baptized on Sunday. That was a miracle that we have been praying for for a while and we are very grateful to have been a part of his teaching. Also we didn't really notice much of a difference in getting a hold of our investigators so that we were still able to get some work done. Although the plans that we had set didn't always go through, we were able to find more people that the Lord needed us to visit at that time. The Lord is hastening his work and its a privilege that he asks all of us to be a part of it.

Sorry that I don't have much more to say this week. Hope that you have a great one and that you all enjoy conference! It's going to be great to receive revelation and instruction straight from the prophet and apostles.

Hope you all have a great week and that you check our general conference to see the prophet and apostles speak!

--Elder Young--

Temple pday this week

Hey everyone!

Hope you are all having a great week. I haven't heard from a lot of you in a little while. Hope to hear from you soon!

This week was pretty good. We got some really good training from our mission president and his assistants about how the Lord wants his culture to be among the missionaries and then afterwards about weekly planning. Instead of just doing some superficial planning like we have been doing, preach my gospel teaches about planning with more detail the whole week and then the daily planning is focused more on what you are going to teach the next day. It took about 7 hours to do it but it has really helped us to stay focused on the investigators throughout the whole day. I know it will help me throughout the rest of my life to be a better planner. It's kind of funny because a few months ago I had prayed to have better planning skills and then we got this training. I know the Lord answers prayers in his own timing and in his own way.

The Lord has also blessed us with someone pretty awesome to teach now. She is an older lady that was a single mom for most of her kids life. We found her while she was watering her flowers and we were walking by trying to talk with everyone that we saw. We asked her if we could come back another day and talk with her and about a week went by before we had another chance to talk with her again. Long story short we have taught a few times, she has been to the english classes 2 times and is coming again today. She has read a little bit from the Book of Mormon and when she prayed last night she asked about knowing if its true. It is a huge blessing to find someone that is willing to act and that listens very well. We hope to see many miracles to come from teaching her.

This morning during my study I decided to do an activity from preach my gospel about writing down the specific blessings promised in the scriptures for the commandments. It really helped me realize that a lot of blessings come just because of our obedience to the commandments and then even more blessings come when those actions become a part of us.

I hope you all have a great week and that you see many blessings from putting the commandments to the test in your life. 

--Elder Young--

Time just keeps flying by!

Hey everybody!

This week went by super fast! We didn't have a ton of lessons but Elder Fraser and I set out to go find some new people to teach so we would park the car at the church and walk for most of the day. It's helped us to talk with everyone and to get to know the area better as well. The Lord did bless us with a couple of new investigators, a high schooler and an elderly lady. We hope that we will have success with them as we teach them the gospel and invite them to act on the knowledge that they receive.

This past weekend was very full of surprises. The companionship of sisters that are in Chelan texted me and asked if I would be able to do a baptismal interview before Sunday (its Thursday at that time) for someone they were teaching. It turned out to be the investigator whose husband was being difficult in letting her be baptized. Long story short, he gave her permission so I did the interview on Saturday. I also needed to do an exchange with the elders that are there so started the exchange the night before. The exchange went well and we changed back Saturday night and when I see my companion again he tells me that our branch president asked if I would speak on Sunday because everyone had cancelled on him. Crazy thing was that he wanted us to speak on doing the small things to strengthen our families and in turn strengthen the branch. Sound familiar? After I finished he got up and said that 4 other wards in the stake are focusing on the same thing and it was something that came from the stake presidency either. The Lord is definitely revealing to all of us in this area that its important that we do the little thing so that we can progress and do His will.

Hope you all have a great week and that you see many many miracles!

--Elder Young--

Another week in the Mountains of Brewster WA

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty good. We set out to go finding for some new investigators so we ended up walking around Brewster a lot to find formers and potentials and anyone else we could talk to. We were able to talk with some really nice people but a lot of them are so busy right now they think they have no time so its hard for them to want to set an appointment for later on in the week. We hope that as we pass by them again that they will feel of the spirit and want to learn about the restored gospel.

This week in district meeting I felt like I needed to give a training about doing the small and simple things in missionary life so that the spirit can be with us. I think it was just as much for me as well as the district because there are times when the small things don't seem as important and we get lazy with them or we don't realize that they have fallen down by the wayside. Just like it says in the scriptures that by small and simple means are great things come to pass. We need to do the small things each and everyday in order to have success and to have the spirit. Our testimonies are so much more than just knowledge and words but rather our actions. The things we do because we know those things. We are different people because we know the gospel has been restored and we should be because we are striving to be more like our savior. I know the gospel is true and because I know its true, I try to be the very best that I can be and do the very best I can so that I will be able to look up at our Heavenly Father at the judgement day and feel at peace there.

Hope you all have a great week and hope to hear from you all!

--Elder Young--

First few days in Brewster WA

Hey everybody!

Transfers went well. I got to drive a brand new Jeep Compass up to yakima and from wenatchee to brewster and it ended up being our new car. It had 15 miles on it when I got in the car on Wednesday which was pretty cool. It was a very long drive to go from hermiston to tri-cities to yakima to quincy to wenatchee to brewster and each time I had to move my luggage to a different vehicle. 

So not too long ago there was a fire that went through this area and a bunch of homes were burned down and there has been a lot of help from the church to do clean up and repair so the last transfer the Elders had been doing service pretty much every day for several hours but things have calmed down a lot and we are able to start teaching again.

I really like my new area, it's beautiful to see the mountains everyday and to be right on the river. There are a lot of good people here and I'm excited to get to know them and help them receive the blessings of the gospel. The members are really friendly and willing to help out with missionary work. It will be good to get them involved with the people we are working with to get the work really moving here. I'm still trying to get to know the area so next week I'll probably have some good things to report about the area and the investigators.

So our companionship is really interesting. There are 4 of us in a double wide trailer which is a pretty good setup for us and my companion (Elder Fraser) and I are responsible for the stuff in Brewster and the other 2 elders (Elder Rosero and Elder Lee) are responsible for the stuff in Twisp and Pateros but we all just go where the work is so that we aren't wasting time and miles. Everything here is really spread out and the towns are pretty small so things kind of go at a slower pace which is pretty relaxing. I took a couple of pictures as we were driving from Quincy to Wenatchee. It was a long but beautiful drive. We didn't get home until 8:45PM so we were both very bum sore from riding in the car all day long.

Have a great week everyone! Hope to hear from you soon!

--Elder Young--