Dearest dears,
I hope is going awesome in your neck of the woods. This morning we woke up with a very thin layer for snow over the world but it is already pretty much gone.
We had an awesome member referral this week. A member brought us over to her friend Will's house (actually both her and Will came and got us) . We taught him and he came to church yesterday. He has had a really troubling past and is in need of a lot of gospel healing. He says that he really wants to know the truth and what he needs to do. I am really excited to work with him even more. We are going to his place tomorrow evening for dinner and a lesson. We even are teaching his neighbor and she was going to come to church too but she had an extreemety in the family happen.
Another awesome investigator we met this week is Sarah. Sarah is a non-denominational Christian. Her husband Paul is an agnostic. We tracted into her (on Tuesday) and at first she was disinterested but then we got talking and she got really into it. She committed herself to come to church after we explained how our services and beliefs were. She said at the end that our church sounds a lot like what she has been looking for. We went back on Friday and she showed that she had been thinking a lot about the church and even the potential of joining it. We got to talk to Paul and he had a few great question, though alot of them were the same questions she asked on the first visit. He was very intrigued with our perspective on faith, hell, 3 degrees of glory and stuff like that. They both accepted a soft commitment (even though he said that he was not really interested in learning) and she was planning to come to church. She didn't and when we called Sunday afternoon she said that the night before he got really sick and she needed to stay home and take care of her husband. We are going over there with the ward mission leader on Thursday. I am way excited to continue teaching them.
We are also helping a less active quit smoking. He thus far has not smoked since Saturday.
Last week after I emailed I was browsing Mormon.org and found Joan Sowards's profile. It was really cool to find My mothers profile and to read why she's a mormon.
So I finished reading Genesis and started reading Exodus this week. I love the story of Moses. It makes me want to watch Prince of Egypt. One thing that really stands out to me as I read it is the idea of Heavenly Father, a true God, vs Pharaoh, a false god, and the other idols of Egypt. It shows how the things of the world truly are worthless and that God will always win and that with out God we are literally nothing at all. I know that thinking you can do missionary work (or any other kind of work) without seeking the Lords help is literally just as worthless as Pharaoh thinking he could best the Lord God of Israel. It is of nothing.
-eldervonsowards
Monday, January 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Jan 16 2011
*Disclaimer: The Message Von sent on the 4th literally only said Happy New Year
Dear Family,
did you guys not get the email were I sayed happy new year? that would have been on the 4th. I didn't really have anything to say. I guess I just wasn't in the mood. Last week South Pittsburg (and pretty much the rest of the mission) was covered with snow. It came in sunday night (the sunday of the CES fireside with elder christopherson) it was something like 6 or 7 inches and every thing shut down. We still got out and worked though, we just had to walk. Then that wednesday I got transfered. There were a couple areas that were unable to make it to the meeting due to blizards. It was different.
So now I am no longer with elder march and no longer in an area that covers 3, states only 2. I left south Pittsburg and am now serving in Bristol. Bristol is a city right on the virgina/tenessee boarder. Last week they annoinced and this week was the begining of a ward split. The ward use to cover abingdon virgina but now they are thier own ward, still in the same building. It's pretty cool.
well I'm glad to hear that you are getting over your illnesses.
love,
eldervonsowards
Dear Family,
did you guys not get the email were I sayed happy new year? that would have been on the 4th. I didn't really have anything to say. I guess I just wasn't in the mood. Last week South Pittsburg (and pretty much the rest of the mission) was covered with snow. It came in sunday night (the sunday of the CES fireside with elder christopherson) it was something like 6 or 7 inches and every thing shut down. We still got out and worked though, we just had to walk. Then that wednesday I got transfered. There were a couple areas that were unable to make it to the meeting due to blizards. It was different.
So now I am no longer with elder march and no longer in an area that covers 3, states only 2. I left south Pittsburg and am now serving in Bristol. Bristol is a city right on the virgina/tenessee boarder. Last week they annoinced and this week was the begining of a ward split. The ward use to cover abingdon virgina but now they are thier own ward, still in the same building. It's pretty cool.
well I'm glad to hear that you are getting over your illnesses.
love,
eldervonsowards
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Dec 26
Dear Family (and anyone else you made be listening in),
Thank you! Thank you all for you wonderful spirit, and love, and support, and friendship, and happynesses! You are all awesome! Thanks to all who sent me letters and cards and packages, and love for Chrisrmas and even for my entire life! Were would I be with out all ya'll?! Please, all those who are listening, make sure that those who aren't listening knows of my graditude for them.
Yesterday was awesome! We had an investigator at church! Not just one of those part-member-non-members, or just a some one who happens to be visiting a member so they tagged along and they really live in some other mission far far away. Nope. A real investigator that WE found and WE taught and WE invited and SHE came! She came! Do you know the return rate of invites to church? or even the return rate of people with rides lined up for church? Or how many people say "I'll come to ya'll church this week" or "I'll try" and then don't? My personal favorite one is "I'm ain't gon'na make no promises". But this one said that she'd come, AND SHE CAME! On her own! No wake up call, no ride, nothing! And she came! Even thought the roads were icey and we were only having sacrament meeting, and half the active branch wasn't even there, but she was! And the members (that were there) were SO happy to say "our missionaries had an investigator at church this week." She was even invited to a members house for dinner this Wednesday. And she hugged every member on her way out the door. I don't even care that we had to walk around all day yesterday in the freezing snow and that we had 3 appointment bonk us and thus all we had left was knocking doors in the snow. Who cares?! Ravin was at church!
Appart from that everything is great! I had a great Christmas! I recieved packages from Mom and Dad, the Campbells, Whitney Redford (soon to be Billings), and Grandmother Dorthy (and many others for the whole clan). Thank you all SO much! Enjoyed evey one! I just wish I had money to send ya'll some packages. I'll write you.
So what else? ah... That might be it. My voice has been shot for the past weeks. Pretty much just be for I left for my training to Chattannooga. It's been gone since then.
Love you! thank you!
elder von sowards!
Thank you! Thank you all for you wonderful spirit, and love, and support, and friendship, and happynesses! You are all awesome! Thanks to all who sent me letters and cards and packages, and love for Chrisrmas and even for my entire life! Were would I be with out all ya'll?! Please, all those who are listening, make sure that those who aren't listening knows of my graditude for them.
Yesterday was awesome! We had an investigator at church! Not just one of those part-member-non-members, or just a some one who happens to be visiting a member so they tagged along and they really live in some other mission far far away. Nope. A real investigator that WE found and WE taught and WE invited and SHE came! She came! Do you know the return rate of invites to church? or even the return rate of people with rides lined up for church? Or how many people say "I'll come to ya'll church this week" or "I'll try" and then don't? My personal favorite one is "I'm ain't gon'na make no promises". But this one said that she'd come, AND SHE CAME! On her own! No wake up call, no ride, nothing! And she came! Even thought the roads were icey and we were only having sacrament meeting, and half the active branch wasn't even there, but she was! And the members (that were there) were SO happy to say "our missionaries had an investigator at church this week." She was even invited to a members house for dinner this Wednesday. And she hugged every member on her way out the door. I don't even care that we had to walk around all day yesterday in the freezing snow and that we had 3 appointment bonk us and thus all we had left was knocking doors in the snow. Who cares?! Ravin was at church!
Appart from that everything is great! I had a great Christmas! I recieved packages from Mom and Dad, the Campbells, Whitney Redford (soon to be Billings), and Grandmother Dorthy (and many others for the whole clan). Thank you all SO much! Enjoyed evey one! I just wish I had money to send ya'll some packages. I'll write you.
So what else? ah... That might be it. My voice has been shot for the past weeks. Pretty much just be for I left for my training to Chattannooga. It's been gone since then.
Love you! thank you!
elder von sowards!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Dec 12- ONE YEAR
Dear ya'll,
Yep. One year. A year from today my administering certificate will expire and a year from the 15 I will fly home to AZ. Weird.
The night of the 9th I came to chattanooga for another 4 day training. The training was friday and saturday, released for sunday but was to suppose to continue today and tomorrow. I went back to South pittsburrge for church and then sunday afternoon came back to chattanooga. Then the roads got covered in snow and they didn't want everyone traveling in the snow so they pushed the meeting to tuesday and wednesday. Fun fun.
I have met alot of awesome people here! alot of out-of-the-blue amazing teaching opportunities. I am in a four some and only one of us is actually serving in the area. It is crazy. I will be back in south pit wednesday night.
love,
von
Yep. One year. A year from today my administering certificate will expire and a year from the 15 I will fly home to AZ. Weird.
The night of the 9th I came to chattanooga for another 4 day training. The training was friday and saturday, released for sunday but was to suppose to continue today and tomorrow. I went back to South pittsburrge for church and then sunday afternoon came back to chattanooga. Then the roads got covered in snow and they didn't want everyone traveling in the snow so they pushed the meeting to tuesday and wednesday. Fun fun.
I have met alot of awesome people here! alot of out-of-the-blue amazing teaching opportunities. I am in a four some and only one of us is actually serving in the area. It is crazy. I will be back in south pit wednesday night.
love,
von
Monday, December 6, 2010
Hello elder Dec 6
Dear Family,
A year ago today I was set apart from the world to proclaim the gospel.
We did get some fluries of snow yesterday.
This week has been grood. I meant good... and great... great and good.I actually got to leave the mission on Wednesday. We were out with a member seeing one of his new home teaching families, less active, so niether of us knew were they lived, all we know was that they lived up on South Pitsburge Mountain on South Pitsburge Mountain Road (the "mountains" out here are nothing compared to the Mountains out west. here there are just ALOT more hills so the big hills are mountains). So we are going going for like 20 minutes and then we see a sign that says "Franklin County" and me and Elder Marsh are like "wow this is out of the mission! we must have gone too far." So we turn around and look for the house but can not find it. We go all the way back to town, get the GPS out of our car and plug in the address. It shows us that the only way to get to them is to leave the county (mission) and then the road will go BACK into the county. So the member said "lets go" and we drove all the way back out there. This took up the entire afternoon, but the less active family did take us up on our challenge and came to church to partake of the sacrament yesterday.
Christmas list? uh... I don't know. The GPS was a really nice gift. I need new shoes, but it might just be easyer for me to buy them here instead of you shipping them out to me. I don't know what else.
Yesterday after church, before choir practice, the branch pressident's daughter pulls a book out from her bag and starts reading it. I looked at it and said "What is that book you've got there? it look VERY familliar." She says "it should". Low and behold the book was that little chistmas story book the Mom had a short story published in for winning a contest. She said that she just found this book among thier other books and thought she'd read it since it was about chistmas. Then she found an auther in it named Joan Sowards from Mesa AZ and she put 2 and 3 together. Crazy huh?!
-elder von sowards
A year ago today I was set apart from the world to proclaim the gospel.
We did get some fluries of snow yesterday.
This week has been grood. I meant good... and great... great and good.I actually got to leave the mission on Wednesday. We were out with a member seeing one of his new home teaching families, less active, so niether of us knew were they lived, all we know was that they lived up on South Pitsburge Mountain on South Pitsburge Mountain Road (the "mountains" out here are nothing compared to the Mountains out west. here there are just ALOT more hills so the big hills are mountains). So we are going going for like 20 minutes and then we see a sign that says "Franklin County" and me and Elder Marsh are like "wow this is out of the mission! we must have gone too far." So we turn around and look for the house but can not find it. We go all the way back to town, get the GPS out of our car and plug in the address. It shows us that the only way to get to them is to leave the county (mission) and then the road will go BACK into the county. So the member said "lets go" and we drove all the way back out there. This took up the entire afternoon, but the less active family did take us up on our challenge and came to church to partake of the sacrament yesterday.
Christmas list? uh... I don't know. The GPS was a really nice gift. I need new shoes, but it might just be easyer for me to buy them here instead of you shipping them out to me. I don't know what else.
Yesterday after church, before choir practice, the branch pressident's daughter pulls a book out from her bag and starts reading it. I looked at it and said "What is that book you've got there? it look VERY familliar." She says "it should". Low and behold the book was that little chistmas story book the Mom had a short story published in for winning a contest. She said that she just found this book among thier other books and thought she'd read it since it was about chistmas. Then she found an auther in it named Joan Sowards from Mesa AZ and she put 2 and 3 together. Crazy huh?!
-elder von sowards
Monday, November 8, 2010
8 November
Dear Family,
Two days ago I woke up and looked out the window and saw and world coverd with just a very tiny bit of frost. Frost on our cars, and the leaves. Just about the most you would ever get in the pheonix valley. The weather now is about the weather of Mesa at its coldest average, and it is only going to get colder. It is GREAT!
In out apartment our heating system are these big coil things inside of a cage. When you turn it on it glows red, like a stove top, and it smells funky, like a curling iron. I am scared of them...
Anyway. Wow. None of the people I talked about last week are progressing now. We might still be working with them but not really as much.
We are teaching 2 new families. FAMILIES! This hast to be the first time I have had the opportunity to teach an entire investigator family. I has taught part-member families and less active families but never investigator families. It is really cool. I have to admit, when I read the parts is PMG were it says "strive to find and teach families" I always thought, "ya but the only people who we can find and teach are individuals." Now I am actually teaching an entire family.
The First family is a small one. A Husband and Wife and their little 3 year old. They are really friendly and fun. Our main concern with them is that they look at us as learning and not as searching. The wife asked us if she COULD get re-baptized (not that she SHOULD or NEEDED TO) and thats how they are looking at it right now, option for more learning.
The other family is a little bigger. There's the Parents, and their two daughters, ages 16 and 12. They are awesome. They have invited us over to thanksgiving dinner (that is our 3rd invite). They have been looking for a solution to their family drama and they feel like getting into a church will do it. We plan on extending a baptismal invitation tomorrow when we meet with them.
Apart from that life is good. Hope all is great in AZ. I learned this week the Mormon population statistics of the states. TN is .70%, that is 1 in 145 people. AZ is 5.6% or 1 in 17. Idaho is 27%. And Utah is 67% or 1 in 1.47. Wow. AZ vs. TN, that is a huge difference. Utah to AZ that is even more insain! TN to Utah is like nothing! Yesterday I saw 1 tenth of all the active mambers of the entire state of TN at stake comference. That is a huge chunk! In AZ at an average stake comference it would have been 1/88th of the active mombers of the entire state. Different worlds. But still the same. It felt like any other stake comference I had ever been too, the only difference is the size of the area.
-elder von sowards
Two days ago I woke up and looked out the window and saw and world coverd with just a very tiny bit of frost. Frost on our cars, and the leaves. Just about the most you would ever get in the pheonix valley. The weather now is about the weather of Mesa at its coldest average, and it is only going to get colder. It is GREAT!
In out apartment our heating system are these big coil things inside of a cage. When you turn it on it glows red, like a stove top, and it smells funky, like a curling iron. I am scared of them...
Anyway. Wow. None of the people I talked about last week are progressing now. We might still be working with them but not really as much.
We are teaching 2 new families. FAMILIES! This hast to be the first time I have had the opportunity to teach an entire investigator family. I has taught part-member families and less active families but never investigator families. It is really cool. I have to admit, when I read the parts is PMG were it says "strive to find and teach families" I always thought, "ya but the only people who we can find and teach are individuals." Now I am actually teaching an entire family.
The First family is a small one. A Husband and Wife and their little 3 year old. They are really friendly and fun. Our main concern with them is that they look at us as learning and not as searching. The wife asked us if she COULD get re-baptized (not that she SHOULD or NEEDED TO) and thats how they are looking at it right now, option for more learning.
The other family is a little bigger. There's the Parents, and their two daughters, ages 16 and 12. They are awesome. They have invited us over to thanksgiving dinner (that is our 3rd invite). They have been looking for a solution to their family drama and they feel like getting into a church will do it. We plan on extending a baptismal invitation tomorrow when we meet with them.
Apart from that life is good. Hope all is great in AZ. I learned this week the Mormon population statistics of the states. TN is .70%, that is 1 in 145 people. AZ is 5.6% or 1 in 17. Idaho is 27%. And Utah is 67% or 1 in 1.47. Wow. AZ vs. TN, that is a huge difference. Utah to AZ that is even more insain! TN to Utah is like nothing! Yesterday I saw 1 tenth of all the active mambers of the entire state of TN at stake comference. That is a huge chunk! In AZ at an average stake comference it would have been 1/88th of the active mombers of the entire state. Different worlds. But still the same. It felt like any other stake comference I had ever been too, the only difference is the size of the area.
-elder von sowards
Monday, October 18, 2010
Oct 17th news & views
Dear Family,
thank you so much for the packages. I got them all on my birthday its self. They were much apprieciated. Thank you for the GPS. It is just what I needed. They are so nice to have as a missionary. When finding addresses, finding out miles and if they are worth it of not, finding gas stations and restraunts. They are just really nice. Thank you so much!
Elder Adams had the flu last week and was resting on thursday and friday. He was the only person I saw on my birthday. It was quiet.
Transfers are this wednesday and Elder Adams will be leaving South Pitsburge. I will get a new companion.
love all,
von
thank you so much for the packages. I got them all on my birthday its self. They were much apprieciated. Thank you for the GPS. It is just what I needed. They are so nice to have as a missionary. When finding addresses, finding out miles and if they are worth it of not, finding gas stations and restraunts. They are just really nice. Thank you so much!
Elder Adams had the flu last week and was resting on thursday and friday. He was the only person I saw on my birthday. It was quiet.
Transfers are this wednesday and Elder Adams will be leaving South Pitsburge. I will get a new companion.
love all,
von
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