80 Degrees

So this week was crazy I don't really know where to start.

Lets go with the baptism. So Donnie, Valerie and Isabelle Colvin were baptized on Saturday. They are such an awesome family and there are 3 more in the family that we are working with! they also gave us some deer meat so we made some cool food some sort of stuffed taco thingy. the sky was very pretty however last night and its like 80 degrees here for the rest of the week!

But yeah that's all for this week. We will see if another miracle baptism happens or not next weekend.  

Transfer-Beautiful Lacey

So transfers happened and my first week here has been so awesome! We had a baptism of a nine year old girl, which was so great. I met her Tuesday night and we went back two days later and she said she wanted to be baptized.  She had been meeting with missionaries for about 6 weeks and her family is less active so she was never baptized. So the missionaries found them and started working with them. Less actives are a great source of missionary work. They have family that are members and they know how people can be blessed by the gospel.Thanks for all of the emails and support.  I love you all.  Have a great week.

Elder Lund

20th Birthday--A Cake and Some disappointment

So first things first, thanks for all of those who wished me a happy birthday! I means a lot and thanks for the loving support each week!

But I have been here for my first six months and it is time to head out. I got my call Saturday and I am going to the Deschutes River Ward in the Lacey stake! From what it sounds like there are a lot of trees, but they have had some success and we will be going to the Portland temple with a recent convert there so I am excited.

Well on to the less happy part of the week. This week has been the most stressful week of my life. We tried to set up a baptism. It was so stressful, because it was going to happen a few days later when the girl accepted to be baptized. Our bishop was against it a little, but finally agreed to a baptism on sunday night. Saturday we went over and had her interview. She passed fine she knows it all really well and wants to be baptized. We had to come back later to get her info and parents permission. We go over there and the dad is there and the wife hadn't told him about the baptism like she said she had. So he didnt want it to happen. So no more baptism, there is a lot more to the story but I dont want to get into it again.

​trying to burn our ties for 6 months, didnt work.

​coker baked me a red velvet cake I bought on monday

​Pre tism mirror selfie with elder Theobald from St. George(we get a long)

​eating cake sunday night at a small end of transfer party a ward mission leader from another ward throws at the end of every transfer.

that's pretty much it, next time you hear from me I will be out of my first area!!!! so weird to finally be leaving. love you all

--

Elder Lund

Bike Wheels Returned

Im just gonna hop right in because I don't have a ton of time.

Monday: Went to the sound and went on "5 mile drive"(hmmmm wonder if they copied 17 miles drive). It was way fun, while we were walking some members were like oh good missionaries! We just had a lunch go get some food. So we had lunch. While talking with people I met someone related to Nan Rains. That was cool!

​Also say coker eat something besides hot chocolate, chips

​

Wednesday(sorry Tuesday):

So we hear a knock on our door. Its Slim, they homeless guy who used to live in our bushes, and would use coker's water spout outside for water. HE GOT OUR BIKE WHEELS. We told him last Wednesday about it and he was upset! exactly a week later he brought them to us, he told us he found them in a mobile parts van and got them for us! So crazy. Later we talked to some other homeless people and one said that all the homeless people were talking about how our bike wheels were stolen and how mad they were. They used more colorful language but the were pissed! It made me happy that the prayers we say with them actually mean a lot to them and that they care for us, at least some of them.

for some reason the tires were slashed?

oh well. Homeless friends have our back!

Sunday:

Eh sunday was a hard day! I got a minor migraine and slept for most of the day. But then we went out and knocked with someone who is preparing to go on a mission, so that was good!

Monday!!!!!:

way fun. The mission had Lakewood and Tacoma Stakes come to one of the stake centers to play sports, have food, and a water balloon fight. It was so much fun. Sis Blatter made "cafe rio" sweet pork burritos and it was so good! It was pretty much identical to the real thing.

Went to walmart and got groceries, and then stayed in for the night. We didnt knock on any doors or do any missionary work. It felt way weird, but it was a nice break. Coker had some fireworks he set of. He said after the fact that they were two years old and he was surprised they worked.

I will attach a video or two.

Love you all so much. Keep it real!

--

Elder Lund

Bike wheels stolen

So this week was crazy fun/ awesome and it went by really quick! Like speedy fast. but I'll start with Wednesday because that is pretty when it all started. 

Wednesday:

Went to Zions Camp in Belfair. Its a camp owned by the church and it has a cool ropes course. We did the ropes course and then had zone conference after wards. WE had lunch on the drive home at a place called Me-mos(Memos? idk). They had a burrito that was huge for 5$ so that was good!

Thursday:

Weekly planned and had a member meal. The Girlfriend is a member, but the boyfriend is a good cook so he makes us dinners from time to time. We taught the restoration after dinner just as "practice" but we really were just teaching him on the low low. 

Friday:

We went back to the bf and gf and did some service moving firewood for them. They got us Papa Murphy's for lunch. We were able to put two people on date for baptism as well! So that was an awesome boost

Saturday:

Had lunch at Kobo teriyaki. The lady at the counter knows us now and pretty much expects us to come buy like once a week for a drink or a meal. But after we went to this lady named April. She is a little disabled, but we found her a while ago and she wanted us to come back and read the BoM with her. We have and we found out she has a husband who wants to be baptized. So we found that out yesterday. we were about to leave when a lightning storm blew over us. It started hailing before we even left so we kinda hesitated to leave and the caretaker there told us to stay and then we got a text from our ZL's telling us to stay indoors until the storm passed. So we stayed for another 15 minutes and the caretaker started asking us questions and is now interested and wants to learn more. So potentially at this time we have like 4 people that can be baptized by the end of the transfer. After the storm passes we go to see a person we put on date earlier. We went over and there was a bunch of people in side. Turns out they also wanted to be baptized so now we are at 7 people on date in total. crazy. we decided to go see someone who said they wanted to be baptized, so we started biking over there. Well the rains came down again, not lighting and hail, but we got soaked! It felt like winter again here. but he didnt answer. 

Sunday, happy fathers day!!!:

A YW who spoke brought her friends to church, we dont know how interested they are. Just knocked nothing really happened. Had dinner. Went out to knock 5-7s. One lady accepted to be baptized, she already had a Spanish Bom, but she wants to be baptized. We ended up referring her. Then a car rode up and a mexican wanted us to say a prayer for him. We said the prayer and i asked if he wanted to be baptized. yes! and his girlfriend wanted to be baptized too! soooo we had put 9 people on date I think in total this week, but one fell off date and one is the Spanish investigators now. then we got back from knocking and we saw that our bikes looked kinda weird. Well yeah somebody stole our front bike wheels and helmets.

thats was pretty much our week. ill attach pics love you all

--

Elder Lund

Dominoes

Hello All,

It felt like a really quick week this week. We stayed busy and just got through it. Unfortunately a lot of our on-dates fell off date because they didn't come to church and haven't meet with us this past week. But we were able to put two more people on date for baptism. Hopefully they will be able to be baptized! 

We were able to get our new wheels on Wednesday. So all day Tuesday we walked from a potential and then to a dinner. We then knocked in the direction of a appointment we had so we could get there at a reasonable time.

I finally used a dominoes gift card I got for Christmas. There is a brand new one that is a 30 second walk from our house. Saturday night we got a chicken bacon ranch pizza and enjoyed it while planning for Sunday.

Coker has been on the move lately. he comes down and talks to us every night and every morning now. We think it is because he is getting married and will move out soon, so he wants to spend every moment he can with us while he can.

There is this Mexican restaurant/bar thing that is always open way late. Well they started blasting the music at 10:40 so we could sleep for a while we got a video,it was so loud even the cameras could pick it up.

--

Elder Lund

Knocking

Well this week was pretty interesting. It consisted of mostly knocking. We had an exchange though and that was fun. Ill attach some pictures of it.

Unfortunately our top investigator dropped us, so that was very upsetting! We have found some potential with a lot of less-active and their children that haven't really been to church, or have had the opportunity to be baptized and learn about the gospel. So there is a lot of potential there!

Im just gonna attach pictures and describe them as I go. That seems to work haha, but I love you all!

--

Elder Lund

Back to the Bike

So it feels weird to say I have been out for 5 months. I don't know if it should be more or less. But oh well. 

This week was pretty much knocking on doors all day all week. Most of our investigators dont want to meet with us at specific times so we kinda just have to meet with them when we have seen them in the past. Our investigator Paul has a set time to meet with us this week though. It has been two weeks since we have seen him last. Hopefully it will go well.

I know I can't complain too much about the heat here in Washington, but it was hot this weekend and we were out all day on our bikes (oh yeah our car got taken away from us..."The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away") and so we got burnt pretty bad. Thankfully some nice people gave us waters and let us kinda chill for a second in their houses. I saw that Golden State is up ("If you cant avoid it, enjoy it" - President Weaver, old WaTac).

So allergies with the heat is not a good mix. Elder Jocelyn took some medicine and then took an Excedrin from a headache he was getting from sneezing too much. Those did not mix well and we had to spend from 4 on inside the house. He took a nap and woke up in the middle and started talking to me about purple jelly beans and rainbows. I thought it was a little random because I thought he was coherent at that point. He took another nap and when I asked him about it, he said he didn't member. kinda funny, but kinda sad because we couldn't do any work.

Well I remembered my scripture of the week. Alma 37:37. It is Alma talking to his son Helaman. he tells him to counsel with the Lord, and that by doing so the Lord would watch over him. I shared that with a lot of members this week because I really like it.

I might add more when I send the pictures from the week, but for now that's it. 

love you all!

Lincoln It Is...

 Elder Lund helping Coker with his ipad

 Elder Lund's Crock Pot Chicken

Well I am staying here! Crazy that I will be here till my birthday, and then if I stay again that is 7.5 months in my first area which I seriously doubt will happen. But it has been a good week. We have found a way cool family that we are know teaching. There is a father a mother and two boys and two girls. The oldest boy is about 12 and we asked him if he would read the BOM and he said he would. We came back for a visit and he actually did read the first chapter and the Testimony of Joseph Smith at the front of it! It was good to know they are still interested after they missed church. 

We also knocked on a door Saturday night and this old man came out and aksed if we were with a religion. "we're from the Church of Jesus Christ" I said. And he was all like "Oh I am an Atheist, but I respect Mormons come on in." so we went in a talked with this guy for 30 minutes and he told us about his life. He showed us around the house he built and his sons house he built across the street. After wards we invited him to church and he asked if we were going to be there. "Of course", "then I will see you there." He actually came to church! It was way awesome. He had to leave in the middle of the last talk to visit his wife in a nursing home, but he got up and was like "I have to leave now. But I am impressed!"  Sooooo yeah we will try to see him tonight and talk about it.

So dealing with transfers. There are no more sisters in the ward. We were expecting to get some after transfers and give the car back, but President never called sisters to the ward. So we still have the car. The members of the ward are a little salty because they love sisters, but oh well. 

On to some fun stories... well we were talking with coker during our weekly planning session(He kind of destroys our studies and planning sessions sometimes), and we were talking about Instagram. I asked if he had one and he said no. I asked him why not, and he gave some excuse. The conversation ended and he went back upstairs. Not 3 minutes later he came back down with his tablet and was like "Now what do I do." So we spent the next 20 minutes getting him an Instagram. Then he spent the next two hours on it haha!! so funny.

We also found a BOM under the claw foot tub while we were cleaning for inspections...#nasty

So Coker has also had a slight problem with homeless people using is water spout outside for water. Elder Jocelyn and I saw it for the first time. Some dude just pulled up on his bike and started taking water. We waited until he started biking away to snag a pic of him. 

love you all!

Mission Temple Trip

 TEMPLE TRIP

Well it is the last week of the transfer already. These 5 weeks have been fast. I am probably going to leave this area and get sent somewhere else. So look forward to that on next week's email.

This week was pretty slow work wise. We had exchanges with the zone leaders on Tuesday, and then the temple trip on Thursday. It was so awesome to be able to attend the session. It was so spiritual. Sister Blatter walked up to me while we were in the temple and told me that we will have to do this again back home in California. They are the nicest people ever. 

We did a lot of all day knocking this week. We can be knocking all day and still have the same amount of lessons and success all day in the two hours from 5-7. We can definitely see that time is sacred knocking time. But we were very tired by the end of the week and ended up planning at night on the floor.

Forgot the scripture of the week again. Sorry about that I always forget to write it down. But by far the best thing that happened this week was going to the Temple. 

We also got a new bishop on Sunday. We will miss Bishop Shumate, but Bishop Anderson will be great as well! He was the YM president. He wants us to work closely with the Priests.

Love,

Elder Lund

Great Investigator

Well this week has been way too fun and very quick. We also got some good work down with one of our Investigators. We will do the spiritual first.

Scripture of the week is one I forgot to write down... sorry

So one man we are working with loves the Bible and thinks the Book of Mormon is alright. We decided to just read it with him for one of our lessons. We read the first 6(?) chapters of 1 Nephi, and by the end he was marking his BOM and sharing what he liked about the verses we read and about Nephi and Lehi's faith. We then invited him to a baptism this last Sunday. He said he would come. We showed up and he was already there. The Baptismal service was awesome. At one point he was crying and he was nodding his head like crazy for the talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. At one point a sister missionary got up to bear her testimony. she knew before hand that we were going to bring our investigator. For a large portion of her testimony she looked directly at him. He kept nodding his head, and would write down scriptures that were talked about in the testimonies and talks. After the service was done we took him on a church tour. We just showed him around the classrooms and chapel and what not. He really enjoyed it. It was obvious he felt the spirit strong. The best part came afterwards and when we got home. He sent us a text saying "thank you again for inviting me. It has given me a lot to think and pray about. see you soon." Ahhhhh Elder Jocelyn and I just screamed at each other. It was so awesome! We are super excited to see him on Thursday!

Thursday will also be a great day because we are going to the Temple! Everybody cant wait! This week is going to go by very fast because of it as well! Super exciting. 

Time for some funny stories. Elder Jocelyn has already typed them up so I am going to "abridge the records" that he has kept. Ill italicize what I add.

We had 3 funny stories happen this past week 2 of which were in the same place actually. The first one is we were walking down the road contacting at 8:45 the other night and there was this lady in a mini mart parking lot and she yelled to us "I LOVE YOU GUYS" and waved us over and we talked to her for a minute and she was just your typical crazy old lady on the streets of Tacoma. We said a prayer with her and right when we were done this guy comes running out of the mini mart and jumps into this car backed into a spot and this Asian man comes running out screaming "STOP THEM" and Elder Lund and I are in the middle of the dip in the sidewalk to enter/exit the parking lot and the car comes blazing at us and naturally we jump out of the way because they would have hit us. And I Elder Lund do say that I didn't move but the car almost hit me, I could have punched the car it was that close.  After the car pulled out the old lady starts chanting "AUS****"(The license plate number) over and over and follows the Asian man into the store to call the cops. I will never forget that license plate number. Also the other stories will be told at a less important time. But ask of George and zombies.

Anyways Love you all!

Elder Lund

Hair Cut

Well it was a pretty fast week with the excitement for being able to talk with the fam for mothers day. I feel like that is all I have to say.

But we did get a car for the rest of this transfer! So we have just been riding around Lincoln! Way weird to be driving again. Elder Jocelyn drove a few times, but it is usually me driving.

Got a haircut today, a little short for my liking, but it felt good, the lady rubbed my hair down with a warm towel, and also used a strait razor to clean up the edges. Professional. 

Forgot to do, as requested, a scripture of the week. Mosiah 21:4 stuck out in my readings. 

It struck me that the Lord will do all he promises, whether it is putting people in bondage because they did not repent, or because he has promised blessings.

4 Yea, all this was done that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled.

...Ummm yeah that is really it for this week, not too  many pictures either.

Love you all

Almost Four Months

Well another week in Lincoln, Elder Jocelyn and I are having a lot of fun which is good because we are still working hard, even though the work is slow right now. Not many people answered their door this week or even wanted to hear from us, but that tends to happen a lot.

This week did bring nice weather though. It was sunny for the last half. 

Sunday we had a "Why I Believe Fireside" again. Some good testimonies of recent converts again. Also sang and got to see a bunch of missionaries I haven't seen in a while like my MTC companion.

We are spending a lot of time in the new area we got. I finally took some pics to show. Also got a nice view of Mt. Rainer.

Have a good week!

Elder Lund

New Companion--More Flat Tires

Singing with President Blatter

Elder Lund's new companion--Elder Jocelyn

Hello all,

This week has been way fun. Got a new companion. He has been out for 8ish months and is from Hurricane, Utah. Elder Jocelyn is super nice and way funny. We are gonna have a fun transfer. 

We are working with the new area. There is a lot of potential--we are realizing it. But it is straight hills. If only I could listen to the Hills by the weekend while biking them, that might give me some more push in the pedal haha jk, that's apostate. 

I had some more flat tires this week... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that ruins the day pretty much. but whatever. Some Elder nearby let me use his bike until I got a new tube Monday....also sorry for not emailing on Monday, our ride got messed up again.

Ill attach pics and explain them. that is pretty much the week though. Love you all!