Transfers to West Seneca~ Companion Elder Self

Hey guys!

This week was a pretty fun one. So first off I getting transferred to West Seneca which is south buffalo. That should be really fun but I am really going to miss some of the people here especially the Pfaff’s. There's always that family in every area that you really like and that you become part of the family. Here it was the Pfaff’s, the McNees' in Brockport, and the Owens in Springville.

Also, there are a couple of investigators that I will miss too but there are always good people in the next area. So that was the big news for the week. We had a good time at the Teresa house that led to a new investigator and we were able to give her a tour of the church on Saturday and she really liked that so that's awesome and she might come to church in the next couple weeks.

I also went on exchanges with Elder Fieseler on Saturday. We had a good lesson with Rich and he is moving forward steadily. We had a member who has a non-member brother visiting her and he requested a blessing and he was really moved and hopefully it will lead to him investigating more.

We also had Zone Conference this week!

Sunday we had great meetings at church and then we went to the Baldwins with some of their kids, friends, bishop  and the Pfaffs and had a really good Easter dinner and played some games, Easter egg hunt etc... You know. Other than that we did the usual stuff. Have a great week!

Love you!

March 21st, 2016

Hey guys!

This week we did a lot of service again. We raked some leaves for the Pfaff’s, we went to the Teresa house, and the most fun one was we went to the Baldwin’s and we got to use their Rangers and we hauled dirt for most of the day fixing all of the holes in their driveway which might not sound like too much fun, but it's a little different than the usual service,  so it was a nice change. Plus, we got to drive the Rangers.

We had a couple good visits with a member here in Geneseo named Barbie and we are just trying to help her make all of the necessary steps towards becoming active and she's really close. The thing that is just missing is motivation, so we are going to go over at least 3 times a week now. We have also been showing the hallelujah video that he church put out to a bunch of less actives, active members and it's a good excuse to go see the investigators that don't really want to meet with us any more because everyone likes an Easter video.

We had interviews with president this week and those went really well. We just talked about how things are going, how we can improve, we also talked about looking forward to the future etc... We had quite a few of our other appointments cancel but one cool thing this week was I met a lady who used to live in St. George, so we had quite a few things we could talk about.

Then, on Sunday night we went to the Pfaff’s for family home evening and we had a fire and that was a lot of fun!

Transfers are coming up next week so we will see what happens! Have a great week!

Love you!

When life gives you 70 lbs. of lemons.... (That's a lot of lemonade)

Hey guys!

Sorry we are getting to email late today, so it might not be too long.

We had all of the usual service at the Teresa house and we went to the food bank place in Perry. They gave us a ton of food that nobody wanted. Which isn't really a good thing. It is usual a nice thing, but what are four missionaries going to do with 70 lbs. of organic lemons? Nothing! I already squeezed a whole gallon of juice and we have been giving them away to everyone. We also got a bunch of star fruit.

We had a good lesson with Randy this week and we helped resolve a bunch of concerns with him because he saw some anti-stuff online but the good thing was his first instinct was to defend our religion and he's not even a member!

We also had a good lesson with Brian and there was a girl over at his house that we also taught and is going to meet with us again next week.

We met with Rich again and he is awesome and really wants to do everything God wants him to do.

Also funny story, kinda. So there is this lady going on a mission trip to

Guatemala with her church and we told her we could give her some stuff to bring, so we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon, the

Restoration, the testaments, and a bunch of our stuff from our church and she's super excited to give it all to the people in Guatemala!

We also had some good visits with the active members like the Moon’s, the Larson’s, and the Pfaff’s had us over and had a birthday dinner for me, which was super nice of them! I really appreciate all that the active members do in this ward! Oh yeah,  and I played piano for sacrament meeting this week.

Other than that, a pretty typical week!

Love you!

March 7th, 2016 Update (20th Birthday)

Hello guys!

Thanks for the birthday wishes! It's been a pretty good day so far. So, for this week it was a pretty typical week for at least the first portion. Visiting less active/active members, our investigators, and doing service. We had family home evening after p-day last Monday at the Pfaff’s. 

Then on Tuesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Pedersen who is one of the other missionaries in the apartment to their area. We spent most of the day down in Mount Morris. Then later that day we went to the senior center in Mount Morris with Bridgette and Jaylene to visit Merna and Todd who are a member and would be a member if his health was good enough.  That was good and they really enjoy it when members come to visit with us and

also when girls come visit instead of just the two guys every week so

that was good.

Wednesday, we had district meeting in Warsaw at the Dieus apartment with the zone leaders as well.

Thursday, we ended up doing a lot of service first for the food pantry and then we came back here to do service at the apartment complex for the maintenance guy. He just had surgery on his shoulder so some things he can't/shouldn't be doing. So we painted the walls and ceiling in an apartment and tore out a bathroom floor. Then we went to the Pfaff’s for dinner and then we had a lesson with a really cool new investigator that we got from the city. His name is Rich and he has been meeting with missionaries for a while. He embraces all of the doctrine, loves the church, has read the gospel principles manual, etc.. But he just has a couple things before he can be baptized but he's planning it. Also he has no license as of now but he's trying to get it back soon so he can come

to church.

Then on Saturday, we did service at the Teresa house and then that night we had stake conference. We went up to Rochester and had dinner before. Stake conference was great! I really enjoyed the speakers and the spirit that was felt there.

On the Saturday session, they had a couple speakers assigned like the patriarch, temple president, etc.. But in between, they called on random people in the audience to come up and to share their testimonies, something they have learned recently, thoughts on a favorite hymn,etc.. And that was really good too!

Sunday, the missionaries for the stake were the choir so we got to sit on the stand for the whole meeting and we sang three songs at the beginning of the meeting. I liked sitting up there just to see all of the people, and their families, and how they are reacting to the speakers. There was also a bunch of good talks on Sunday by President and Sister Francis, the stake president, and a couple others.

Anyways hope you have a good week!

Love you!