Baptism coming up, conference recap and helping out with Special Olympics

Weekly Email - April 14, 2014

Love that Elder!!

Hope you guys are doing well! Looks like the trip was Vogel was a lot of fun. Those were some fun trips there playing in the river. Glad you guys were able to bring Solo, I'm sure he was happy as ever fishing. Too bad you couldn't catch anything. Thanks for the video you sent Ali, I sure loved playing baseball with him. This week was great. C--- is good to go for Saturday for his baptism, he will have his interview on Wednesday. He is really strong and committed and the ward's youth have really been great supporting him. He is really excited to be baptized. We attended the new Highland Ward on Sunday. Trying our best to get to know as much of the new members as we can. We got a new Elders Quorum President, new YM President, YW President, Sunday School President, and going to have new ward missionaries. So it's kept us really busy meeting them and helping them out however we can. We missed Monterey Ward's Sacrament because they now both start at 10am. I heard from bishop Sunday evening that E--- came to the ward and bore his testimony, sad I missed that. On transfers they should fix that. On Saturday the mission helped out at the Special Olympics which was really cool.

Special Olympics

Most of the mission was there so I got to see Elder Macfarlane and Elder Davis, which was nice. It was their track and field competition so there was no softball like I helped Albert out with but we got the athletes water and set up and took down equipment and cheered them on, it was pretty neat. We had some good lessons this week. Met with C-----, hopefully will be going to the Easter Pageant this week with him and his wife. Found two new investigators, P--- and B-----. They are close neighbors of Brother Gaytan. We met them a couple weeks ago doing service for them and we gave them a Book of Mormon, then we caught them outside again and they invited us in for a lesson. They are older (75 maybe) B----- has read quite a bit of the Book of Mormon a while ago and P--- has started to read it. We are pretty excited for them. Brother Gaytan took us out to lunch on Friday to a sushi place, man it was good, didn't know I was a fan of sushi but it was pretty tasty. He is really busy with his work as a police officer but he is a great ward mission leader, always goes out with us when he can and does what he can to get the ward missionary minded. Went on exchanges twice this week, both times with Elder Ramon, one time in our area and one time in his area. He is a great missionary, really good teacher. I learned a lot from him. Going to get a voice recorder/mp3 player (that's popular with missionaries) today with some money I saved, will make keeping track of what happens a lot easier. Anyways, I'll get the letters in the mail to you guys today, it's hard to remember everything emailing.

Love you guys!!!!

Christ lives! I know it.

love

Elder Mountain

Elder Mountain & Jewkes enjoying a delicious meal thanks to Brother Gaytan!

Weekly Email - April 7, 2014

Hey guys! Hope you guys are doing well. Vogel is sure going to be fun, that will be a blast with Solo. This week was great. Conference was amazing, it was all great there are some talks that really stuck out. Priesthood session was my favorite, it was really neat all of the first presidency spoke. I really liked Elder Ballard's talk on Sunday about following up and about missionary work, he is all of the missionaries favorite because you can count on him talking about sharing the gospel. It was really neat to hear from Elder Aidukaitis. He actually spoke to the Tempe Mission not too long before the mission split. His son served here in the Tempe Mission and about a month ago while we were knocking doors a guy came up to us who was painting a house and told us he was a convert and Elder Aidukaitis' son taught and baptized him. He told his story about how he struggled keeping employment and had a bad drinking problem and now that he has the gospel he has started a business and can provide for his family, it was really neat. Pres Utchdorf's story about him about to take off in the air force one jet in priesthood session was really funny. It seemed they talked a lot about service this conference, and building your foundation on Christ. Helaman 5:12 was quoted or referenced 3 or 4 times, which I thought was interesting. ( "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall" Helaman 5:12) Our foundations have to be sure, small things like prayer and scripture study build it, we cannot neglect those small choices or something hard will pop up and it will be too late. We watched all the sessions but one at the Stake Center. Because of Highland boundaries changing we gained an investigator who was being taught by the sisters in the area that became part of Highland. His name is C---, 17 years old, and is scheduled to be baptized on the 19th. He has a really neat story, he has been taking the lessons since January, when his friend from school invited him to take the lessons. He knows all of the youth in the area really well because they play basketball together all of the time. So he started taking the lessons and his parents weren't happy about it at all. He told them he wanted to be baptized and they said he had to investigate 2 other churches before he can be baptized. So he went to a non denominational church and some other one for a bit and he said it strengthened his testimony even more to see the difference. We are just getting to know him, we saw him a couple times this week. We watched the 2nd session on Sunday with him at a members home. The new part of the ward has been really awesome to us already. They haven't had elders in a long time so they are excited about that. We met the man who portrays/plays Jesus and the apostle Paul in the Mesa Easter Pageant (a pageant put on by the church each Easter, approx. 150,000 people watch it each year!), they are actually next door neighbors in that new part of the ward. This evening we are going with the Highland Relief Society President and some other members in the old part of Highland and going to deliver cookies to all of the new members, so it will be a great chance to meet everyone. Got the chance to see E--- between sessions at the Murphy's. It was great to see him, it had been a while. He is going super strong, he teaches the Gospel Essentials class and is a ward missionary. He has had some trials, namely going through a divorce since he was baptized, but man he is strong. T---- is doing good wasn't able to make it to conference though. T--- is also doing good, super busy with work and school. He got a new truck that I like this week a '92 F150. He sold his little Toyota he had within 2 hours of putting it up on craigslist. Anyways, his 18 year old step daughter who isn't a member was in town from Utah this week with her boyfriend. They were pretty nice, we were able to have a pretty good lesson with them. Thanks so much for the letter Rae sent and the package, that always makes the day to get mail. The garden looks great. It's getting hot here already, supposed to be 97 by Wednesday. Oh, it was also neat to hear from Elder Walker at conference., he is the seventy over Arizona, I'm pretty sure and was here for the temple dedication. 
Hope you guys have fun on your trip send some pictures! Love you guys!!!

love

Elder Mountain