900 Miles!

June 19

Hey Everyone! 

We had a good week this week. We travelled around the mission quite a bit. So far this week we drove over 900 miles. It was a lot of driving. We attended Zone Training Meetings in Nauvoo, Cedar Falls, and Iowa City. It was good. The mission seemed to benefit from the training this last week. This week we have Zone Conference that we will be travelling to. It was hard to be gone all week. We just wanted to be back in Des Moines teaching people, but we know that what we were doing was also important. President Jensen has us present our training at three different Zone Training Meetings. 

I want to share a cool story. So on Wednesday we were driving to Cedar Falls, Iowa. We were driving along and we got a call from Hannah. She is the Aunt of Justin. Justin was the boy who was baptized last week. We have been teaching her for a few months, but she has been nervous about being baptized. She is a great lady. She has great faith. She called and said "Can I be baptized on the 20th?" So we talked with her and said that we could come by Friday once we were home, and talk about things. So Hannah will be getting baptized this Saturday at 11 a.m. We are really excited for her. She is super prepared. 

This week we will have a goodbye Zone Conferences for President, and Sister Jensen. I am super sad that they are leaving, but they have been so great for the past 3 years they have been serving. Have a great week! 

Also, Happy Fathers day! I love my Father. I also love my Father in Heaven. I am grateful to be a missionary.

"Perhaps the most essential of a father’s work is to turn the hearts of his children to their Heavenly Father. If by his example as well as his words a father can demonstrate what fidelity to God looks like in day-to-day living, that father will have given his children the key to peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come.9 A father who reads scripture to and with his children acquaints them with the voice of the Lord." My Father taught me this, and so much more. My Mother definitely helped as well! I have great parents! 

"Fathers" By Elder D. Todd Christofferson 

 -Elder Lords

Justin was baptized!

June 12

Hey Everyone, 

Wow, it has been a great week. It has been busy, fun, and stressful. The best part of the week was this; Justin was baptized, and confirmed today! It was great. He was supposed to be baptized this last week, June 4th, but then his date got moved because of his family. Then he was supposed to be baptized June 18th, but his Mother's girlfriend said that he couldn't be baptized that day, but that he could this Sunday. We had to scramble to get the baptism all set up. The ward was a little frustrated that we didn't give them more notice. Of course we would have given them more time, but we gave them as much time as we could. I am sure that Alma didn't give the people a few weeks notice that he would be baptizing people at the Waters of Mormon. Haha, No I know we need to respect, and work with the ward, but Justin was ready and prepared. He needed to be baptized. He was so happy at his baptism. We shouldn't deny him the blessings of the gospel because "The ward needed more notice." I am glad that they were able to understand that, plus the Stake President helped them to see they were being unreasonable. Sorry for my rant. Justin was baptized. It was super great. He was super happy! He kept smiling the whole day. 

This week we will have MLC on Tuesday. Then we will travel the mission Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday giving the same training from MLC. It should be good. Hopefully we can help the missionaries. Have a great week! I love you all! 

June 5

Hey Everyone! 

This week was pretty good! We were busy with going to the temple, and transfer planning! It was a good week. This week was also pretty sad. Justin was supposed to be baptized on Saturday. We called his Mom Friday just to confirm that everything was good to go. She got scheduled to work so she said we would have to move the baptism. We moved it from 11 to 7:30 p.m. We got the font all filled and a few members of Justin's family couldn't make it. His family demanded that we move the baptism. We had to respect his family. So he should be baptized in the next few weeks! He is a great kid. 

This week we will pick up the new missionaries on Wednesday. Then 9 missionaries will depart on Friday. It will be sad! It will be really sad to say goodbye to President and Sister Jensen at the end of this month! I love you all! Have a great week! My emails keep getting shorter and shorter! Sorry! 

-Elder Lords

May 29
Hey Everyone, 

I hope that everything is going well! We had a good week. We taught a good number of people. Things are going well. I just found out who my new companion will be. He is actually one of my previous companions. I trained him when he came to the mission, Elder Davis Cox from Kaysville, Utah! I am excited it will be fun! 

This week we will go to the temple with the Departing missionaries. Then we will transfer plan all week! It should be good! Sorry this is a short one. We are having a baptism on Saturday. It will for sure be Justin. He is a sweet 12 year old. He is super prepared. His Aunt Hannah will possibly be baptized as well if she decides to be. She has been a bit nervous about getting baptized so hopefully she will decide to be as well. She says she wants to wait, but she is thinking about being baptized still. She has already paid tithing so she might as well take the leap of faith and get baptized! Have a good week! 

-Elder Lords

May 22
What a week! This week was great. It was full of great things. Mahawa was married at the church on Friday. It went well. I will attach pictures. Bishop Cook married them. Then Mahawa was baptized yesterday, and confirmed today! 

The wedding was really great. It was half a gym of Liberians. It was great. I love Liberian people. They are very loud people so it was a fun wedding. The wedding was scheduled for 4 p.m. No one showed up tell about 5 p.m. We were talking to a few people at the wedding, and they said "Us Liberians are always late." It turned out good. Mahawa was baptized the next day at 1:30 p.m. Her daughter Princess was planning to be baptized with her, but her Grandparents found out and didn't want her to be baptized it was sad. They stopped her from being baptized. Patience, a friend of Mahawa, was supposed to be baptized as well. She got nervous, and backed out she. Says "I will wait until June 4th." So hopefully she can be baptized then. It was stressful trying to figure everything out this weekend. It was good. 

This Saturday I will find out who my new companion will be. Then next Tuesday we will pick him up on the way to the temple next Tuesday. We will be in a trio until June 10th when Elder Banta goes home. I am so grateful to be on a mission. I love Christ, and his church. I hope all is well. I love you all! 

May 15
Hey Everyone, 

We had a great week. We got to teach a lot of people. It was good. We stayed super busy. We are always busy. Mahawa and Princess passed their baptismal interviews on Saturday so they will be getting baptized on Saturday at 1:39 p.m. Mahawa will be getting married on Friday at 4 p.m. It should be a great week. 

This week we will be in our area all week so we should be able to teach a lot. It will be good. I want to share one of my favorite quotes. “The purpose of the gospel is … to make bad men good and good men better, and to change human nature.”  I am grateful for the gospel. I want to be a good man. I make mistakes and sin, but I am so grateful for the optamism that comes from The Gospel of Jesus Christ! I love you all have a good week! 

-Elder Lords

Happy Mothers Day!

May 8
Hey Everyone, 

THings are going great. We had a pretty good week! We travelled a lot! We drove over 700 miles this week all over the mission attending meetings. It was good, but long. We also got to stop in Dyersville, IA at the set where they filmed the "Field of Dreams". It was cool. I will attach a picture!! 

The work is going well. We have a family who will all be getting baptized on May 21st. Hopefully the Father (Prince) will be able to join the wife (Mahawa), and the eight year old daughter (Princess). Prince and Mahawa will get married at the church May 20th, and then they will be baptized the next day! It will be awesome. They are doing well. We are also teaching another family, Justin (12), and Hannah (his aunt). Justin's Mom is a member of the church. All the people that I just talked about are from Liberia. They are wonderful people. 

I am very grateful for Mother's, especially my Mother. Parents play such a essential, and fundamental role in the lives of their children. I am so grateful for the kind, compassionate, loving, and thoughtful Mother that I have. She taught me so much. I am grateful for all the women in my life. I hope you all have a great week! I love you! 

May 1
Hello Everyone, 

Things are going well. It has been a great Sunday. We had a lot of investigators at church. It was a huge blessing. We were supposed to have a lot of people at church, and church started and no one was at church, but at the end of the day we had 13 people at church and 7 of which are baptismal age. It was a huge blessing. We had a mission wide fast that every companionship could have 2 people "On Date" for baptism by May 14th. So hopefully we can see fruits from our fast. 

We got a full work in our area this week. It was great. I love teaching people the gospel. This week we taught people from all over the place. We taught a lot of people from Liberia. We taught, and talked to several people from Thailand. We also taught some people from New York, and from other places around the US. It has been a great week. I love the optimism of the Gospel. The Gospel is all about where we are willing to go with the savior's help, not where we have been. It is about changing and putting the past behind us. I love applying the principles of the atonement in my life, and helping others to apply those principles. 

This week we will have a bunch of meetings.... :/ We will have MLC in Iowa City on Tuesday. Then we will attend Zone Training meetings in Cedar Rapids(Wednesday), Davenport(Thursday), and Oskaloosa(Friday). It will be good. We are stopping by "The Field of Dreams" on Wednesday so that will be fun! I hope you all have a good week! I love you all! 

-Elder Lords

April 24
Hey Everyone! 

This week was good. We had transfers it went pretty well. Three of the missionaries that were coming out missed there flight from Texas to Iowa. So they didn't get here on Wednesday until 10 p.m. They were suppose to get her on Wednesday at 12 p.m. So they had to sit in the Fort Worth Airport from 10 a.m. to about 8 p.m. That would be such a long day! Then we trained them from about 11 p.m. to 12 p.m. It was a long night. They were all falling asleep as President interviewed them and as we trained them haha! 

We also got to teach a few people this weekend. For a while we lost contact with Hala. Angelina, Halas mom, also told us we couldn't teach her anymore. Then this week we got permission to teach her again. So we saw her last night and she is going to be baptized on May 21st. We will have a busy weekend. Mahawa a lady we are teaching is going to be married at the church on May 20th and then baptized with her daughter May 21st as well. They are a really cool Mom and Daughter from liberia. 

I love being a missionary! Life is good. I love you all! 

Picture: On the left in Alex. He was baptized in December, and the right is Dede. He is a man we are teaching. Alex is from Togo, and Dede is from Burkina Faso. 

April 17
Hey Everyone! Things are going well. We had a good week. On Tuesday we went to the Nauvoo Temple with the departing missionaries it was a good time. It will be sad for me to see some great missionaries returning home. I will attach some pictures from the temple. 

This week we spent a lot of time transfer planning. It went pretty well. The mission should benefit from the changes that will be made. We also have a few hours of Pday on Saturday because we work in the office on Monday. This Saturday we went golfing with President Jensen. It was a lot of fun! I enjoy golfing. 

We also got to teach a few people this week. We had about 3 hours each night in our area other than Saturday. We had almost a full day Saturday. My favorite lesson this week was with Kay. She is an awesome lady from Thailand. She came to church last week and really enjoyed it. She wasn't at church today though. We taught her on Friday, and her and her daughter fed us Pho. It is a Thai dish. It was really good. It has rice noodles and beef and a whole bunch of stuff in it. Teaching her wasn't my favorite just because of the food, but because she is just super humble and she understands. As we teach her she just soaks in the Gospel. Most people in Thailand are Buddhist, I think, but she is Christian already! 

This week we will be busy with Transfers. The new missionaries fly in on Wednesday. We will pick them up around 12 or 1. Then we will send the departing missionaries home Friday. We will leave for the airport about 5 a.m. Have a good week! I love you all! 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/in-praise-of-those-who-save?lang=eng

This is my favorite talk from conference! 

-Elder Lords

April 10
Hey Everyone! 

Life is great we had a good amount of time in our area this week! We had meetings in Iowa City Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, but other than that we were in our area all week. It was great! We were blessed to teach 8 new people this week. It was a lot of fun! We taught people from all over. We taught a lady from Thailand, and a lady from Liberia of course. We met a lot of cool people. 

We also ate some Fufu last night. Fufu is an african dish. It looks like a ball of dough. You put some on your fingers then you dip it in spicy soup, then you swallow it whole haha! It is an interesting dish. I kinda like it. The family that fed it to us had just gotten back from buying/butchering a goat haha! I will attach a few pictures! 

This week we get to go with the departing missionaries to the temple. It will be great. I love the temple. We will wake up at 6 a.m. and drive three hours to the Nauvoo temple. It should be great! Elder Gowers one of my previous companions will be going home. He is a great missionary. He is one of my favorite companions it will be sad to see him leave! 

The rest of the week we will transfer plan with President Jensen. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from about 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. we will transfer plan. It is fun/stressful/tiring to transfer plan. It will be good for the mission to have a change though! Life is good. Recently I have been reading back through "The Pearl of Great Price". I really enjoy learning about the creation and all the great doctrine in that book! I hope that you all have a great week! I love you all! 

-Elder Lords  

Pictures: 

The stuff in the sink is what Mable calls "Goat Gut" haha. 

The other picture is Fred and I. He was baptized December 31st. 

The other picture is Fufu and Spicy soup

March 27
Hey! This is going to be short! Sorry! 

Things are going well. I have had a great Easter. I love remembering the Resurrection of the savior. I am truly grateful for the atonement. I am continuing to increase my gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us. He makes so much possible. 

This week we have Zone Conference. We will travel to Davenport and Iowa City on Thursday and Friday. We have been preparing our training. I hope it goes well! I am so excited for conference. I love hearing Gods word. Hala is doing well. She will be baptized April 16th. We found quite a few new people this week. We are really excited about a few of them Love you all! 

-Elder Lords