October 27th, 2014 ~

                                                                   October 27^th, 2014

So this week was kind of like last week. One p day we went to Letchworth State Park and that was really cool!! Elder Snyder was nice and took all of our district there. It's a big canyon with a couple big waterfalls and it just has some trails and stuff you can walk around on so we stayed there for most of p day since we have nothing better to do. Then we went to the Owens for FHE and I taught the lesson.

The rest of the week I don't remember what I did on each day so I'll just tell you what we've done. We've tracked a lot trying to find people but only found a couple of potentials. We've tracked half of Springville, half of Holland, and most of West Valley. So, pretty soon we'll run out of doors to knock on. I went on exchanges with Elder Passey over in Arcade and we did the same thing...tracked. We did see a house with Utah license plates, so we talked to them and they are members that just moved into town. We volunteered at the trading post. We went down to Ellicottville, which is a really cool place! It has two ski resorts so it’s kind of like a mini Jackson Hole with all the fancy shops and nice cars everywhere! I couldn't convince Elder Vickers to tract though. He's not very motivated to do stuff and he's tired of tracking, but I don't mind it. We had a trunk or treat at the church and that went really well! We had a chili dinner before and lots of non-members and less active members came. It was good to meet them. We gave away a case of our muddy buddies that we got from the trading post. 

Sunday was the primary program and there are only 15 kids so they all had to say about three or four parts to take up all of sacrament. Kyle who is a recent convert blessed the sacrament this week for his first time so that's great! He's the only priest in the branch.

That's pretty much it for the week! Hope you guys have a good week! Love ya!!

Love Elder Daugs

Elder Holland visited our mission.  This is a picture of him with our Mission President and wife  walking into the Sacred Grove.

October 20th, 2014

                               

 Hello again!                                                                                                         October 20^th, 2014

This week has been pretty fun but a lot of work! Monday we went to the Owens and did the normal FHE stuff.

Tuesday Elder Hamula from the Seventy came and spoke to the mission and that was awesome!  He let us ask questions for a while and he answered them. Then he talked about some of the things that our mission could use some work on and how we can get better. So that really good, I think it made us realize where we need to improve and sort of pumped us up to try our best! So we've been working super hard this past week!

Wednesday we went to the trading post and handed out food from a food truck for a couple of hours and there was pretty much half the people of Springville there! Afterwards they had extra and they needed to get rid of it so they gave us three cases of muddy buddies Chex mix!! So, now we have over 200 bags of Chex mix! 

We found a guy there who saw a documentary on PBS about the Book of Mormon and he wants to meet with us!

Then for the next three days we taught a few less actives and then spent the rest of the time tracting! We've tracted in West Valley, Springville, and Holland! We've found ten or so potential people we can teach who let us come in or said we could come back! I don't mind tracting, I think it's kind of fun, but Elder Vickers doesn't like it. I like to get out and walk except for a couple of times. The only times I didn't like it was on Saturday for a while. It was raining really hard and I got soaked. It was pretty cold and on Sunday when we woke up it was 34 degrees. It only got up to 42 so it was pretty cold but not cold enough to put on a big coat.

So, it was a pretty good week and hopefully some of those potentials will turn out to be good and we can meet with them again! Talk to you later! Love you!

Love Elder Daugs

Chex mix

October 13th, 2014

Hello everyone!                                                                                          October 13^th, 2014

This week hasn't been too exciting. We've volunteered at the trading post a couple times this week and we are getting to know a lot more people so that's good! Just walking around town people recognize us and come say hi, but none are really interested in being taught.

Elder Newbold from Freedom had to go home and take care of some stuff so

that was kind of a surprise. A brand new elder was emergency transferred over here so they don't know where anything is because Elder Passey just got here two weeks ago too.

We had a zone meeting on Tuesday and we got to watch the meet the Mormons movie so that was pretty cool! Hopefully people will hear about it and go see it in the

theaters and maybe be a little more interested in the church. We've been trying to find more people so we've gone tracting a couple times in Holland. We've found one guy who was a little bit interested. He took a Book of Mormon and said we could come by some time next week so hopefully that turns out well. Other than that everyone else said no and we figured out people in Holland aren't very friendly and they all seem to have really big pit bulls!! We stopped by the park to see if anyone was there that we could talk to and we found a couple guys but they didn't want to be taught so we just beat hem in basketball instead. We've taught lots of less actives this week but not too many investigators.

Elder Hamula from the seventy is coming tomorrow and we will get to meet him so that will be awesome! He spoke in general conference last week and we'll get to meet him. Some of us will have to speak but we don't know who yet so hopefully it's not me! Lots of leaves are falling out here and it's cool to drive through the country with all of the hills changing colors! I always forget to take pictures because I never think of it but I'll try and remember this week!

Sorry for the short letter but not munched happened this week!

Love you!

Elder Daugs

October 6th, 2014

Look who else got the Golden Plates!!!

Companionship bowtie pictures in Arcade. 

Bowtie pictures in Arcade (Freedom Branch), after the second session of General Conference yesterday. 

Hello everyone!                                                                               October 6^th, 2014

This week has been quite week. We went over to the Miess' for FHE this week and taught them a short lesson after dinner. All of the kids were getting sick and I think they got me sick too so hopefully it doesn't get too bad! Got three referrals from headquarters this week so that part was good except two of the addresses they gave us don't exist!! We've asked people around the neighborhood if they know where they live. Nobody knows them, one address is on Main Street but the number they gave is a hardware store. They never answer their phone so we can't contact them and the other referral said he thinks our religion is fake and he doesn't want to meet with us so those didn't work out too good.

Chuck cancelled on us, and so did Brenda so we only ended up teaching Alan a couple of times and Dennis. It's super hard to find more people to teach out here! The whole village has been tracted by past missionaries recently and that doesn't really work anyways.

People aren't out walking on the street and 90 percent of the members live out of our area so we don't get much help from them either so hopefully we can think of some other way to find people.

We went and helped Chris move out of his apartment and that was a crazy experience! Long story short he left, got drunk, came back and got in a fight with his neighbors then the cops came so that was an eventful night!!

Thursday night we went to Arcade and did this thing where you walk around and go to all of the businesses and they all have booths in front of their stores and have samples and flyers and all that. So, we went there and there were lots of people to talk to. We found some potential investors, but they are all in the Freedom Elders area so we helped them out a little. We did our usual helping at the trading post, nothing too exciting though.

We went to the church to watch general conference and that was awesome!!! I loved general conference! There were only about ten people at the Saturday sessions at the church and about twenty on Sunday. Sunday morning the city had the he whole city's power off for some reason so we had to watch the first session on a laptop until the power came on. Also, it was really cold since there was no heater! We had a potluck at the church between sessions and then more people came to watch the second session because of that. But I think this was my favorite conference I seen so it was a great experience!

Tomorrow is zone conference and we get to watch the meet the Mormons movie before so that will be awesome! It's playing in Buffalo at one theater so hopefully a lot of people go and watch that and get more interested in our religion!

That's cool that you and Sister Owens talked for a little while! She's a really awesome person! I liked the pictures you sent, especially the pose that Nate has in the one! That’s pretty much it! Love you guys!

Love Elder Daugs

Hi dad 

It took a lot of work to get through that tree!! We used chain saws but it was still hard! Especially since we had to cut up the whole tree! We can't really find much teaching to do so we're mostly doing service. Most of the members don't want to help and most of them don't live in our area.  I've heard in other areas, the members help a ton!

Depending on the day I've gained 7-8 pounds since I left! Hopefully some of its muscle because we've been doing lots of service. I do p90x and a ton of push-ups too. We've each done over 1600 push-ups in the past two weeks! Last Friday we did 625! We've gone on a low fat high protein diet too so that will help too. We've got lots of protein powder mix and stuff so hopefully I'll get bigger. I've already noticed my arms are bigger. This mission is known for making people fat so pretty much all of the missionaries work out a ton!

This guy named Jim, he's Kelly's husband, he's not a member but he likes us and he's probably just a little older than you but he has a duck dynasty beard, but anyways he gives us lots of fresh eggs and a lot of fresh venison so that's awesome. He has 13 deer tags this year!!

I did cut my own hair with the trimmers. There was a big attachment that leaves it about an inch long so I used that. We turned on the heater for the first time because it's getting cold and the heater sucks!! It's only warm if you’re a foot away from it, so that will be fun in the winter. We have to walk around in sweats and sweatshirts to stay warm. I'll probably buy some long johns soon.

The truck is fixed now. They forgot to fix the water pump after the accident so it was really sluggish. But now it's as good as new and it's really nice. It's the nicest and newest thing I've ever driven so we're pretty lucky!

That’s pretty much it.  Love ya and tell mom too!

Elder Daugs