Happy Birthday Camz!!!

Hey Mom!

 

Ya so......we have bed bugs. For some reason I kept on forgetting to mention it. I have been sleeping on our couch for the past month and Elder Daley has been sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor. We are waiting for the bed bugs guys to come and steam our apartment. Its pretty lame. I cant remember the last time I've slept tight and didn't let the bed bugs bite!

 

  Anyways this last week was a good one. All the zones had their zone meetings where we watched the meet the Mormons movies. Its a pretty good little flick! I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about members of the church.

 

   Elder Daley and I got a lot of time to spend in Little Rock this week which was awesome! We have a couple of people we are working with right now that should be getting baptized in the near future. One of them is a guy named Mark Green. He is a way cool guy. We taught him and his sons the plan of salvation with the Duncan famiy (members in our ward) on Friday night and it was awesome. At the end of the lesson Bro. Duncan asked Mark from what has been discussed if he felt inspired to do change anything and Mark said "I just need to hurry up and get baptized so I can be clean and ready for the next life!" ha ha man if only every investigator understood that! He has a baptismal date for the 25th of this month.

 

This next week we have five specialzed trainings in a row. Monday-satudrday. And then the week after that is transfers. So it is going to be so busy!

 

Mom thanks for the letters and all that you do for me. I am really grateful for it.

 

 Happy Birthday CAMZ!

Virtue and Repentance

Elder Zwick, Elder Daley, Elder Udall, Sister Zwick

 

Hey family whats up!!

 

It has been another classic week in the ALRM! This week was pretty power packed with learning experiences. So on Tuesday was mission council again for the month of October! After talking with Elder Zwick, President told us that he wants the mission to focus on Virtue and repentance for these next couple months. So at mission council Elder Daley and I gave the spiel on virtue. I'm really grateful that I got to instruct on the topic because I learned how vital it is to become virtuous. Like it says in PMG, "Virtue originates in your innermost thoughts and desires." I think that's a good thing to constantly reflect on, what do I think about throughout the day? Where are my desires? PMG also teaches us the virtue is prerequisite to receiving the spirits guidance. That's why we are focusing on this attribute especially.

 

Our mission has a goal of 100 baptisms in November. The only way we are going to reach that goal is if we are worthy and constantly seeking out the guidance of the spirit.

Anyways Elder Daley and I went on 2 exchanges this week. The first one was with the ZL's in Searcy. I went to searcy with Elder Chapman who is going home soon. Our goal that day was to set a baptismal date with somebody. So we went hog wild talking to everyone we saw. We found some great people but the real miracle happened at the end of the night. We taught a guy named Curtis the first lesson in the church building. When I first saw Curtis he said "Elder Udall! I know you!" I asked him how and he said he met me a year ago in searcy when I was serving there. He said I gave him a book of Mormon and told him if  he ever wanted to learn more to call the number. He said that he was now finally ready to learn more. He still had the BOM copy I gave him. So we taught him the first lesson with Brother Shirley and the spirit was strong. We invited him to be baptized on the 18th and he accepted! It was sweet! O and guess how he found the missionaries again after a year....Chris Cooksey!! Chris referred him to them. ha ha

 

We also went on exchanges with the Memphis zone leaders. I brought Elder Henderson to Little Rock with me. We got out of the car for a lesson that night and we heard the tornado sirens. The weather looked fine so I decided to ignore it and the CMAS weather alert text I got that said "Tornado warning, find shelter immediately." Not even 2 minutes later though it started raining really hard and the wind was blowing so hard I thought we were in RV for a second. Then there was a lot of lighting and the power started going our everywhere. So we though it best to start heading home! The weather got bad but I don't think a tornado ever hit ground. It was crazy though. Anyways thanks Mom for the letter you sent! It was a cherry on top to a delicious sunday! I love you Mom and am so grateful for an athletic mother!

 

 

 

 

only the gospel will allow a family to enjoy and endure life.

Whats up fam!

Mom you might be doing a procedure right now but I just want to let you know that your in my prayers. I know that this cancer can't as aggressive as you are because you I have seen you run bases. I grateful for your athleticism in everything that you do!

This last week for me has been awesome. I told you about the Elder Zwick experience. That was one of the highlights of my life! The rest of this last week Elder Daley and I have been working in out area a lot which has been great! Members are on fire ever since the member fireside that ELder Zwick put on. We have 5 or 6 members that have told us since then that they have a friend they want taught in their home! That right there is the most effective way to do missionary work. When members invite their friends into their own homes to be taught by their missionaries. Right now we are in the process of weeding out the teaching pool and pausing all those who just are not ready.

Have I told you about our new investigator yet? He is a man we have been teaching for a few weeks now. He is one that President was with when we taught him and Mark was having a bad day and was really mad. So President pretty much grabbed his arm and drug him over to a chair where we gave him a priesthood blessing. After that blessing he has never been the same! He is awesome. We taught him the word of wisdom and the only problem he is facing is coffee. He has been drinking coffee since who knows when and he said he is addicted. So we are working on him with that. Besides that he is good to get baptized and has a date for the 11th.

Elder Daley is the man! I love serving with the guy. This next week we have another mission council and Daley and I are going to be doing a couple of exchanges so it should be fun. Our focus for the mission right now and what we are going to teach at zone conference is repentance and virtue. So I have been studying those 2 topics a lot.

Family, thanks for your prayers. Thanks for all that you do. Its so easy to take for granted the blessing of a close family until you witness so many broken ones. I would dare say that every temptation you can find out in the world today is in someway linked to destroying the family. ONLY the gospel will allow a family to endure and enjoy life. That is one thing I have seen clearly on my mission. You never have to ask an investigator family if they have read or prayed together when you go over for an appointment because you can FEEL it when you walk in. Its s distinct difference when those kind of things are done. I love you Mom. Thanks for being the Mom that made us get up in the morning for scripture study and dragging us to family home evening. Or singing annoying gospel songs when we would fight with each other. Things like that make all the difference! Good luck.

Vist from Elder Zwick of the seventy!

Hey Mom!

Sorry i didn't write a couple of days ago. This last week was one of the busiest on my mission. We were getting prepared for Elder Zwicks mission tour and he sent a pretty thick list of things he wanted set up. That list was detailed right down to the color of markers he wants on the white board. Me and Elder Daley wanted to make sure everything was set up perfect for him so it was pretty crazy!

Monday was our missionary council meeting with Elder Zwick and all the ZL's and STL's of the mission. I was asked to conduct so I got to sit right next to him up front. The whole meeting that he wasn't up talking he would just lean over and teach me something! It was crazy! Its not everyday you get a general authority whispering the gospel knowledge in your ear so I took good notes of everything he said!

Tuesday we had zone conference in Little Rock and wedensday was zone conference in Memphis! So basically the past 3 days Elder Daley and I have got to hang out with probably the most awesome member of the seventy ever! He taught me so much these past few days! It has been one of the highlights of my mission. Last night when Elder Daley and I were leaving memphis to head back to little rock we went to say good bye to him and he gave us his card and told us to keep in touch and that he was going to keep track of us. He is awesome!

 

Anyways, everything is going great! Little Rock is doing really good! We are teaching some great people. Elder Daley is so awesome. He is a hard working missionary and is a lot of fun to serve with. He is a dang good basketball player too.

 

On sunday we got a list of people that just moved in the ward from our bishop. So that night we tried to contact as many as possible. It was about 8:30 so we decided to do one more that we felt prompted to go to. We went and it was a young couple who answered the door. After some reluctance they invited us in and so we got to chattin'. We found out they were from gilbert, AZ! They husband is a returned missionary and the wife is not a member. They thought for the longest time that the husbands mom called us and told us to go over there. Apparently the husband fell away a little while ago and the mom had been trying to get them back active. Anyways it was a great visit and the spirit was strong. The husband said that he needs to get back into church. We are going to start teaching the wife now and get them coming to church! I know we were prompted to go there because of the prayers of a righteous mother. Speaking of the priesthood of the church Pres. Packer said "They don't come near the power thats given to a righteous mother." I know thats true. Thanks for your prayers family. Please pray for Stephanie and her family. We haven't been able to teach them in a while and they mean a lot to me. Thanks for everything yall do!



New Companion! Elder Daley

Mother dear!

Whats up? These last 2 mondays i haven't had time to take a p-day and next  monday i won't either because we are having a meeting with Elder Zwick of the 70! I am excited for that. I can't even began to tell you what happened these last 2 weeks because of all the craziness of transfers but it has been great! Elder Armstrong got released last week as an assistant an he is serving again as a zl in memphis.  I am going to miss serving with him!  Elder Daley just got called to be the new assistant with me. I can already tell he is going to be one of my favorite companions. He is a dang good missionary, he just got done serving in searcy (the sacred home land), and he is a dang good basketball player. Things are going great. I dont have time to share all the experiences but i do want to share my testimony. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. All my life "the gospel" has just been something i heard but i never really tried to deeply understand it. On my mission though i have realized that "living the gospel" is a whole lot more than just a testimony meeting line or a bumper sticker quote. Its having the faith in Christ to change, or repent, and to make promises with God, and seek out the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As these things become more than just a checklist and are made the central purpose of our lives, our vision gets clearer and we began to live more abundant lives. No matter of its through sunshine or shadow, when we are walking the path of discipleship, we can feel peace and joy. Not just happiness, JOY. A scripture that has been in my mind a lot lately in D&C 112:13 "And after their temptation and much tribulation, behold I the Lord will feel after them, and if they harden not their hearts and stiffen not their necks they shall be converted, and I will heal them." This is the central purpose of our lives and it can always be a joyful journey. I love you Mom. Thanks for your example of discipleship.

See people not as they are right now, but as they can become

Hey Fam!

Thanks for all the birthday letters and pictures and packages! It was great! This last week was awesome. We didn't have very many meetings so we were able to go on a couple exchanges with zl's and it went great. Our first exchange was in downtown Memphis and that where my homegurl Latrice lives. She is Elder Boyers recent convert. Mom she said she is friends with you on facebook. ha ha thats awesome. Our next exchange was in Pine Bluff with the elders there. We also went to some Sketchy areas on my mission this last week. So you know thats a good week!

We also went to the Branch on Mountain view on sunday with President for sacrament meeting on sunday. He is doing this thing where he wants to go with us to all the outlying wards and branches on the mission on sundays so they dont feel out of sight and out of mind. The branch president at mountain view and his wife went to EA for school so it was cool to talk to them.

Basically, I don't have a lot of cool things to say this week but i do have 1 "call to repentance" experience I would like to share. Me and Armstrong were in a apartment complex saturday night teaching one of our investigators and this girl walked up. She was drinking a beer and was a little drunk, but she was just saying the crudest things and not exactly inviting the spirit into the lesson. So at the end of it all, we were about to leave and then she said "yall to good to  pray with me." I thought she was just trying to be all contentious and what not but we told her we would pray with her. Armstrong started to say it and all of the sudden she interrupted and said "Hold on, I know yall are Jesus people, so could you pray for me that I will be able to get a job. Because my 3 kids are in foster care and the only way I can get them back is if i get a job, and all I want is my family back again." That took us off guard. So we prayed for that and at the end she was crying and she said "thanks I needed that." Man I felt like the lowest piece of dirt there. I thought this lady was just all about herself but I realized the reason she was doing things like drinking was just to numb the pain of what she has to deal with everyday. President Monson said "We must develop the capacity to see people not as they are right now, but as they can become." President Petersen always told us "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is, but treat a man as he should be and ought to be and he will become what he should be and ought to be." I feel like thats a lesson I have been learning over and over again on my mission. Its amazing to see how people and the world look as we try to see with our spiritual eyes. Thanks for everything yall do for me!

 



Increasing ones ability to recieve and follow spiritual promptings

Hey Family!

 

Its crazy that Ryans senior year of football is already starting! Time is flying by!

 

We had a really good week this last week. Elder Armstrong and I had about 4 nights in a row that we went to sleep after 1 in the morning but we were able to have some awesome experiences. We had zone conference on Wednesday in little rock and Thursday in Memphis and they went really well. Armstrong and I focused our topic on Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. I love and hate speaking at these conferences. I hate is because I get so dang nervous every time! I don't think I will ever break my pacing-around habit. But I love it because the spirit always brings things to your remembrance that you can say and teaches you new truth while your up there speaking!

 

In this mission the focus that President Wakolo brought is "increasing spiritual capacity." In other words increasing ones ability to receive and follow spiritual promptings. I am not very good at this yet but it is amazing to see what miracles can happen in someones life when they seek to follow the promptings of the spirit.

 

Yesterday we were able to go to our ward in the first time on forever! It was way good. Last night we went to our investigator Stephanies house and had an amazing lesson with her. She gets anti'd out the wazoo by her family, friends, and co-workers. Last night we had a lesson about eternal families and at the end of the lesson we asked her to pray and ask if what we have taught and if the church we represent is true. So she did and then we sat in silence for a long time. We asked how she felt and she said that normally, if she heard so many things about someone, she wouldn't let them in her home like she lets us in all the time. She said that she always feels like she needs to let us in though. She also said that when we are in the home, it feels really peaceful and she feels loved and when we leave it leaves with us. After some questions we helped her recognize that it is the spirit! She is coming along! She has an awesome family and its so easy to see the difference the Gospel would make in their life. Please pray for them! I am grateful for the family I have back home. Thanks for all your Prayers!