Im leaving Des Moines!

 May 18, 2015

 

   Well we got the call this morning that I am getting transferred. Who knows where I will be headed. I have tried guessing a little but who knows. President Jensen called and told me I would be getting transferred. He also asked if I would take on a new assignment as a Zone Leader. I am nervous for that.... Pray for me in this new calling.

What a great week! We had some great people at church and we were able to teach a lot of lessons so that has been great! I am really enjoying teaching all these people from Liberia. I am so sad to leave Euince, tuice, Shalleen, Daywulu,Nancy, Able, and Amira. They are the family from Liberia. I hope to be able to come back for there baptism on June 27th! I am also very sad to leave Kory and Kayla. I have really enjoyed my time here in Des Moines! We saw a lot of miracles this week and it rained pretty good the last few days!

P.S the pictures are of a super long lawn we mowed and of our district!

Love you all!

-Elder Lords

 

 

 

 

Happy Late Mothers Day!

May 11, 2015

 

Hey Everyone,

This week was pretty good! We were able to meet with Eunice and her 6 children. Eunice is from Liberia in Africa. I LOVE Liberians. They are the nicest people. Eunice brought her children to church last Sunday and then we taught them all Monday night. They are preparing for baptism on June 27th! The people getting baptized will be Eunice(the mom), Tuice(16), Shanell(13), Daywulu(10ish haah) and Nancy who will turn 8 this month! Then they have a 2 year old son Able and new born as of Last Tuesday named Amira. They are an awesome family! We are hopefully seeing them tonight. I pray that if I get transferred that I will be able to come back for there baptism.

This week there has been a lot of rain. Last night it rained hard for a few minutes. The streets looked like rivers. I hope everyone is doing well. Its almost summer I cant believe that. I am grateful for the chance I get to serve as a missionary. I hope all is well! Have a great week! I love you!

-Elder Lords

What a week!

Hello Everyone,

This week was awesome! The weather has been wonderful. It has been in the 70's and 80's. It is starting to get humid which is a real drag. That is okay though because we have been blessed with a car. This week was awesome. We had 2 families at church. Mable and Marshawl who are from Liberia. Mable is a member from when she moved to America in 2008. She joined the church in Salt Lake and then moved to Des Moines to meet her husband who just got here 8 months ago they have 2 children. Unis and her 5 children were also at church on sunday and Kory and Kayla. We filled up 2 rows of investigators it was awesome. It helped the ward see that we aren't just hanging around the apartment. We had so many people introduce themselves to our investigators it was great!

We also were blessed to get severial new investiagtors. Unis and her family we met on Friday and they came to church Sunday. They are also from Liberia. Unis doesn't have a husband and she has 5 children plus she is pregnant and due May 10th and she still came to church! It was sweet!

 The Lord is really blessing us in this area and im going to be sad to leave. Transfers are coming up on May 21st so we will see how that goes. If I leave Des Moines it will be bitter sweet. I have loved the 5 almost 6 months that ive been here!! I know the church is Christ Church again established on the earth. Have a great week everyone! I love you! Be Safe!

-Elder Lords

Rain and Sun!

Hey Everyone! Things are going very well. This week was a fun week. We met and Taught a ton of people from Liberia. They are pretty hard to understand but we are praying for the gift of tongues. They are awesome and humble people. We met a lady named Mable who has been in the US 5 years now and she first moved to Salt Lake where she joined the church. Her and 2 of her daughters joined the church im Salt Lake. Her husband marshal just made it to the US in December. We knocked into Mables friends and Mable came in part way through are first Lesson with Augustine and Patience (also from Liberia) and started saying "Its all  true! What they are saying is true!" It was awesome! So now we are teaching her Husband and her friends that she knew from when she lived in Liberia. Our Father in Heaven is guiding this work. It is great to see. I just finished a book called Power of Everday Missionaries by Clayton M Christensen. Its a great book its only about 160 pages long.

The weather is Sunny and nice today. Last week was pretty rainy. It rains a lot here. A lot more than im used too! We are meeting our investigator Kory at a baseball field by his house and playing catch and having a home run derby on one of the little league fields. I am pretty excited for that. Hope all is well! Love you all!

-Elder Lords

A Rainy Week!

Hello everyone! This week things went pretty well. We didn't have a lot of appointments scheduled so we did a lot of finding. I think I knocked a million doors. Not really. We knocked a lot but it was pretty fun! We met an older couple (in there late 80's) Tom and Erma. We knocked on there door and this little old lady comes to the door and yells to someone "its the Mormons". In my head I was thinking oh no here it comes she is not going to be happy to see us. She swung the door open and smiled and said "Come in" before we could get a word out! We taught them the restoration and invited them to be baptized. The declined which happens a lot. Then we tried to address there concerns and asked them to pray about baptism. They wouldn't even commit to praying about baptism. It was sad. Tom and Erma are the first people I have taught that wouldn't even commit to praying about baptism or to know if the church is true and has been restored to the earth. It was very sad to see. We continued to talk with them. We asked if there was anything we could do for them and they asked us to help them fix there hand rail. We quickly undid some bolts and showed them that they need to buy some parts. Then as we were saying good bye I noticed a small hand gun by Tom. I said that is a cool .22. He said thank you. I thought for a half second I was going to have to shoot whoever was at my door but then we saw it was the Mormons. Then we all started laughing because he obviously was joking.

The last experience I want to share happened yesterday. We again found ourselves knocking doors. We had been knocking for about an hour without anyone letting us in. Then we knocked into a family from Liberia. THey were a really nice family and REALLY hard to understand! We taught them the Restoration right as we started talking about the Book of Mormon there was a knock at the door. Two other ladies from Liberia walked in that knew the wife, Patience, when the lady that walked in Mable saw us she said Ive been looking for the church! She had been baptized while she lived in Salt lake City. She instantly started testifying to the family who was struggling understanding prophets and the Priesthood authority. All of there concerns were resolved. It was an awesome miracle! I love seeing and recognizing the miracles we see EVERY Day! It is awesome to be a missionary of Jesus Christs restored church! Have a great week!

I hope you can all understand my email. Sometimes they don't make sense to others like they do to me so sorry! haha Also I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Burtenshaw. He is from Mud Lake, Idaho and I knew him a little before the mission. He is a great missionary. We were in the MTC together! Attached is a picture of Elder Burtenshaw and myself! Sorry for the long email!

-Elder Lords

Coreana was confirmed!

Hey!

Well this week went pretty well. Coreana who was baptized several weeks ago finally got back from Texas and got all settled in. She was confirmed by Elder Cox sunday at church! It was awesome that she was finally confirmed! She is doing well. Her daughter loves church and so that helps motivate her to come!

We also had the opportunity to watch "Meet The Mormons" with 2 of our investigators. They both really enjoyed the movie. I love meet the Mormons it is a great film. I also had a pretty cool opportunity yesterday. I interviewed Dwayne for baptism and it was my first interview. I was pretty nervous because I kept thinkin what if he isn't ready and I have to tell him he needs a little more time. Well I sat down and got to know him. He likes to watch baseball and football so we talked about that and his family. Then we started the interview and he knew his stuff. He has such a strong desire to get baptized and I knew without a doubt by the power of the holy ghost that he was ready for baptism. It was awesome! The weather has been great this week! It rained like crazy on Thursday but other than that it has been good! I love the warm weather! But it makes me want to go camping haha! No camping for me for a while. I wanted to volunteer to go with the scouts but we aren't allowed to go camping. Our job is missionary work haha! Have a great week! Love you all!

-Elder Lords

Conference Week!

Hey Everyone,

Things are going good from over here in Iowa. Today we received our transfer calls. I knew that I would be staying in Easter Lake(South Des Moines) with Elder Cox because we have 6 more weeks left of training then I will probably be transferred. By then I will have been here 6 months!That is crazy! I feel like I just got here yesterday! . President Jensen also called me to be the District Leader here in Easter Lake. Im a little nervous for that but it will help me grow as a missionary im sure.  

We had a pretty good week. Things were slower than usual but we were able to teach Kayla who is Korys wife. Kayla and Kory are a sweet young couple. They both just graduated college and Kayla is an auditor and Kory is a computer programmer so they are both really smart. It has been fun to teach them and on Wednesday we will be watching Meet the Mormons with them I am really excited!

This week we are hoping to find a few more people to teach. I loved what I learned from conference. Im so grateful to have a Prophet and apostles leading and guiding our church with Christ as the head. The apostasy was so real. I would encourage everyone to study the apostasy. It will build your testimony of the Restoration and that we have the Priesthood authority restored to the earth! I hope you all have a great week! Love you!

-Elder Lords 

P.S that is our new mission car haha! I wish! That is Elder Roberts our ties had matching patterns on Easter and so we took a picture. That is supposed to be my Easter looking tie!