Slow beginning but Ended with MIracles

Hello Everybody!!

I hope you all have had a great week and thank you for the letters, I really appreciate it.

This week was pretty good but it started off pretty slow during the day time. Our nights have been pretty busy though. The last couple of days we have been teaching 4-5 lessons each day which is really good since harvest is starting. Hopefully this week we will continue seeing miracles like that.

A miracle that happened on Saturday was that we finally got to talk to a family we have been trying to meet for 2 months. They have only lived in the US for about a year and they had grown up catholic. In mexico they had a business so they didnt have much time for studying the bible but when they got here, some more time was available for religion. She started to notice that what the bible said and the catholic church taught were not matching up and she stopped going. They had super good questions and it seems like they really want to learn about the gospel. We are going back over next saturday to teach them again. Unfortunately thats the only day we can catch the whole family. We are super excited to keep teaching them.

The language is coming along nicely. Gospel terms come to me in spanish before english now. It gets easier to learn new words and to pronounce them. I still struggle sometimes because I want to say something one way but I have to say a different way because I forgot the right words. With time everything gets better.

Sacrament meeting yesterday was really good. A youth that just got baptized a few weeks ago passed the sacrament for the first time. Then the bishopric talked about missionary work in the ward. They were definitely trying to light a fire under the members to start opening their mouths and finding people for us to teach. The bishop also extended some goals for the ward that are pretty bold. The ward baptismal goal for the year was 8 and we have 7 right now but he wants to double the goal to 16 for the year. Then he also challenged the ward to prepare 200 names for the temple and have it done by the end of the year. The last challenge was to read the book of mormon by the end of the year. I was really impressed with how bold those goals are and hopefully the ward will jump on board with it. Also our ward missionary leader asked him to introduce a calendar for the members to sign up to be available to go to lessons with us. Hopefully we will start seeing some more progress from this.

I just want to say that the Lords work is going forth and its amazing to be a part of it. I know that many blessings come from serving a mission and at the same time there are great blessings from helping the missionaries around you. I challenge all of you to look for opportunities to share the gospel with your friends and family. It will bless their lives as well as your own.

I know this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was called to be the Prophet of the Restoration and that his successors are called of God as well. I know this because I know the Book of Mormon is true.

I hope that you all have a great week and always pray for missionary experiences and ways that you can find people for the missionaries to teach.

Elder Young

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Transfer Week!

Hello everybody!

Thanks everyone for the emails and letters.

This week was really good and it was transfer week. Our trio got split up, so we are back to 2 again. There are Hermanas in Umatilla now which is a bit different but its really good. My companion also got made the District leader, which just means that he helps the Spanish missionaries here to achieve their goals and gives them training.

On friday we had a really good day of teaching. We were busy pretty much from when we left the house until about 8:00 unfortunately the last hour was a bit of a bust. The next couple of days were rough though. We did do a role-play for general stake priesthood meeting to help out the ward mission leader and ward missionaries know what  good correlation meeting looks like. Hopefully it was able to give them some direction.

It's exciting to be a missionary but the time goes by soo fast! This week and month just seemed to fly by! The month is already half over and it feels like it just started. I suggest to anyone that is on the fence about going on a mission, GO. It will be the best thing you ever do. You learn so much in such a little time about everything. You learn how to work with others, to listen and study and most importantly how to recognize the spirit. It is an amazing opportunity to serve and focus on the Savior for 2 years.

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Young

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Transfer calls and County Fair

Hello everybody!

Thank you everyone that sent me letters and emails. I appreciate it, its nice to hear how others are doing.

This week was kind of slow because of the county fair. Everyone was gone on Saturday because it was the last day and the weekend. We also got transfer calls on Saturday night. Elder Hall and I are staying here in Hermiston while Elder Hammond is getting sent to Boardman. We will also be getting Hermanas in Umatilla. It will be fun to have more sister missionaries in the zone.

Spanish has been really fun to learn. It gets easier every week but there are always challenges that come up. Sometimes there are people that talk differently than I am used to or they talk faster or quieter. Everyday is a learning opportunity.

I just want to share that I know the church is true and that Joesph Smith was a true prophet. He was called of God to restore the true church. The evidence of this restoration is the Book of Mormon. By reading and praying about it, we come to find out for ourselves that God's work has not ceased on the earth and continues to reveal his gospel to prophets today.

Thank you for your support and prayers and have a great week.

Elder Young

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County Parade

Hello everybody!

This week was pretty good but a little slow. We are still covering a really large area but its fun to get to know more people. This weekend we will be getting transfer calls so it will go back to normal next week sometime.

This weekend Hermiston had its County Parade and we got to be in it! We walked with a 55 Chevy Coup which was pretty cool. There about 7 of us missionaries and we passed out about 30lbs of candy and a bunch of pass along cards. It was crazy how many people were there! Of course it was almost the whole county that went to it. Someone was telling us that there was about 200 floats. Also it was a pretty long parade but I'm not sure how long it was. The rest of the night was just about impossible to find anyone at home because they were still trying to get home themselves since traffic was crazy.

The week was pretty good but it had some slow moments. This next week will be hard to find people because the County Fair will be starting. Hopefully it won't hurt us too bad for work.

I just want to say the watermelons here are awesome! Its harvest time and our fridge is pretty full of watermelon and we get it just about everywhere but that doesn't matter because they taste so good! Something interesting we tried last night at an investigators house was Agua de Coco. Pretty much it was coconut juice with pieces of pulp too. We were so full trying to eat a plate of watermelon and a big cup of Agua de Coco.

It has been a lot of fun serving here so far.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Young

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Getting used to the Trio

Hello everybody!

This week was pretty good and the first full week of the tri-panionship. Its been fun getting to know my new companion and at the same time learning how to teach with 3 people. It definitely makes you learn and grow really quickly.

We had some miracles happen this week. We put 3 people on date for August. We are excited for them and are praying that they will be able to receive a solid answer by that time.

Funny story about the 3rd lady. We were teaching the restoration and the wife had to run outside for a bit so we kept teaching the husband. When we got to the first vision, he started telling the story. He then told us that he was baptized in 1982, was active for 10 years and then hasnt been to church since. We were floored! We had no idea that he was a member and we had talked with him a few times before that. After a few minutes his wife came back and we finished teaching the Restoration and then extended a baptismal invite and she accepted. We are praying she will start coming to church and receive an answer about the book of mormon.

Sacrament meeting was interesting this past sunday. The young men talked about their experience at scout camp and high adventure. It was extremely difficult to translate for it though. You don't use "tent" or "raft" or other words like that when you are teaching the missionary lessons. We just kept looking at each other as people were telling the story and then we would try to translate it the best we could. Hopefully with time it will get better.

Thank you for the prayers and the letters. I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Young

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What a week!

Hello everybody!

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that wrote me this week, I really appreciate it. I love to hear how things are going in your lives.

This week was pretty fun and interesting and full of Heavenly Fathers blessings. We gained a companion this week as someone was transferred to Othello and called to speak an Indian dialect. It was a bit of a scramble as we moved him to our place with  such short notice but everything went pretty smoothly.(Blessing)

It was pretty warm this week but we still had a good amount of lessons that we taught. (Blessing) We definitely saw the Lords hand in our week as things fell into place and we were able to accomplish some of our goals as well as being protected. This past saturday we were knocking some doors on a little apartment complex and just about when we were finished with it. A little boy looks through a window and then tries to open it to talk to us. A few moments later the door opens and a pit-bull comes out with the boy trying to hold it back. Pretty soon he can't keep a hold of it and lets go. (He is screaming at the dog the whole time). Elder Hall was trying to keep it from jumping on him and got a couple teeth marks on his hand (blessed it didnt chomp down) Then it started coming after Elder Hammond and I. It never got us (another blessing) The kid tried grabbing the leash but couldnt and I kept yelling at it to sit down or go back inside then the kid said he wouldnt do it unless he had a treat so I told him to go get some. While he ran inside I managed to grab the leash and get the dog to call down a little bit. I was holding it like I was holding a snake (I didn't want to get bit) Luckily it was a choke collar so the dog got pretty tired and decided it would be best to back inside. I could definitely see Gods hand in protecting us because we could have been seriously hurt.

On sunday I had the opportunity to translate for sacrament meeting. I now understand what its like translate and it is really hard. Hopefully with more practice it will get better and better so the people listening can feel the spirit during the meeting.

Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Young

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New Changes!

Hello everybody!

I hope you all had a great week!

We got a few new changes with the new mission president and the new changes that came from Salt Lake. At first I was a little confused about them but after thinking about it for a little bit, it made sense. For example, they asked us to wear our tags on the right side(besides the pocket tags). When you shake someones hand, it easier to see the tag. They are also going to let us wear lighter colored clothes. There are a ton of pictures on the church website which is pretty cool.

This week was pretty good. We went to the temple today so thats why I'm a day late. We had a good week of teaching and finding. We had 4 people at church and that was because members got involved and brought them there. The work just goes so much better when the members get involved in missionary work.

Sorry its a short one this week. I don't have a lot to say this week. Send me a letter or something. I would love to hear from you!

Have a great week!

Elder Young

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