VISA!!!! VISA!!! Time to say goodbye to AZ :(

Email from Gilbert Arizona Mission, received April 23, 2014

Brother & Sister Mountain,

We wanted to give you a heads up that Elder Mountain’s visa to Brazil has cleared and he will travel on Tuesday, April 29^th.  Attached below is the entire itinerary.

 

When he’s at the Phoenix Airport, he is allowed to call you if there is time before boarding.  Also, it looks like he’ll have a couple of hours layover in the Atlanta airport, where he may also be able to call you at that point before boarding the plane for Rio.  If you have a preference on when you’d like him to call , or if you would like to get a message to Elder Mountain, email me back and I’ll get the message to him.

 

Elder Mountain is a fine missionary and we have thoroughly enjoyed having him here in the Arizona Gilbert Mission!  Actually, we hate to see him go!  We believe he has grown, and hopefully having been in Arizona will be a treasured memory for him also.  Thank you for raising a fine son.

Sincerely,

Sister Cathy Thornock

Mission Secretary

Arizona Gilbert Mission

A text picture we received from a family in AZ. Elder Mountain was on his goodbye tour! 

Weekly Email - April 28, 2014

Man what crazy news, I never thought this visa would ever come. So you guys found out on Wednesday? I didn't find out till Saturday night. I am really excited, hard to leave here I have been in this area so long, it's like leaving home all over again. I am really excited, a little nervous about the language and all but really excited. How I found out about my visa is a kinda funny story. I guess President Nattress was supposed to call me on Friday to tell me, but he forgot. On Saturday evenings the Thornocks who live in Highland ward and also are office staff for the mission have all of the missionaries in the area over for root beer floats. When Elder Ramon and I got there (we were on exchanges that day), Elder Thornock asks, "So you know right?" "Do I know what?" "Are you serious you haven't heard?" "I haven't heard what?" I thought he was pulling my leg, Elder Thornock is a funny jokester kinda guy and I didn't even suspect that my visa came. I hardly thought about my visa at all to be honest. Then he tells me "Your visa came Elder Mountain, you will be out of here in 3 days!!!". I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. It is going to be a lot of adjusting I know, but I am excited for it. It's going to be hard to leave the members and missionaries that I have gotten to know here. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve here. I was quite lucky to be able to be a part of the temple open house and dedication here. That was incredible to be a part of. I am definitely going have to introduce you guys to a lot of people here afterwards. So today and tomorrow are going  to be some crazy days. I have a lot of the packing done already but it's gonna be really close to fitting into the 50 weight requirement. The type writer definitely can't come, haha. I was able to say bye to a lot of people yesterday and hopefully be able to see some more today. They announced that was leaving in Monterey Sacrament meeting, which took me by complete surprise. There are so many members I am going to miss. Today I hope to see T--- one more time and E--- is going to take elder Jewkes and I out to eat. It will be great to see him again. Other than the visa news the week was great. There was an expanded Zone Conference for our stake and the stakes around us where all the missionaries plus all of the members in the are are invited hear Pres Nattress speak to us. It was really awesome. Every time I hear him speak I feel like I'm in the presence of an apostle or something, haha. He just radiates with the Spirit, haha. So this evening I will be picked up by the assistants and will spend tonight at the mission home and then fly out in the morning. I am super excited!!! 

love you guys!!!

Elder Mountain

Elder Mountain and Elder Ramon, great friends!!

Birthday and rumors of transfer!!! oh, and another baptism!!

Weekly Email - April 21, 2014

Elder Mountain's birthday dinner & cake with this amaZing family!!! I love them!!!

Hey family thanks for the happy birthday wishes. Thanks for the package and all of the cards, been a great bday so far. The sisters in the district are making me a cake apparently, haha, and we ate at Sonic after we went shopping at Walmart. I have been recording every night what happens with the recorder I got last week. C---'s baptism was so dang awesome. The ward supported him really well there was a lot of youth there. His friend McKenna, who gave him a book of Mormon with her testimony in it a couple months ago, gave a really good talk on baptism. The spirit was so strong there. The baptism pictures are on Elder Jewkes' camera and he forgot it so I will send some pictures of it to you next week. C--- was confirmed on Sunday, it was pretty neat to happen on Easter Sunday. We missed Monterey Sacrament Meeting because both of our wards now start at the same time. They will fix that during transfers I'm sure. Interviews with President happened this week, interviews are always so awesome. We all had about 15 or so minutes. He hinted that I will be leaving the area next transfer, I have been here a while. I would like to stay if I can but change is good too. Went to the Easter Pageant with C----- this week. The pageant was incredible, it is so well done. It was crazy how many people were there. My guess would be 5000-7000 people, if not more. It was absolutely packed. It was a really good experience for C-----. On Sunday we had a investigator come to church out of no where. C--------, who was baptized about a year ago and is 17, also just turned his papers in for his mission, brought his mom to church. We have been trying to meet with her for a while. She really wants to meet but is busy with work because she is a single mom. Hopefully we can meet her this week. She really liked church. Did you guys see the "Because of Him" Easter video the church released. We shared it in a lot of our member visits this week. It's a great video. Also have you guys seen all of the bible videos on lds.org? Watch those if you haven't. they are incredible. We share them once and a while. Elder Parsons and Ramon both were pretty sick this week. Elder Ramon had the flu and Elder Parsons has pneumonia. It was a pretty sick apartment, haha. Luckily I have felt fine so far. It was a pretty good week otherwise. Can't believe it's the last week of the transfers. Love you guys!!!! Thanks for the package and all!!!

love

Elder Mountain  

Elder Ramon posing in front of Nate's flag.

View from Gilbert apartment! Elder Mountain spent 7 months living on Guadalupe Road :)

Saying goodbye to a favorite member missionary!

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

Ward split, investigator on date, typewriter and VISA cray-cray!

Weekly Update - March 31, 2014

A cool picture of a favorite scripture!

Man what a crazy week. Good to hear from you guys and glad you all are well. So yesterday when we came to church the Stake Presidency was in our Highland Ward Sacrament meeting and the ward was expecting our Bishop to be released. He has been in there about 6 years and since I have gotten here everyone says his time has to be about up, haha. The Stake President gets up to conduct 'stake business', releases our Bishop which wasn't too much of a surprise, and then announces that the ward is going to be split! No one expected it at all. He announced their would be a "re-alignment" meeting later in the evening and that they would call the new Bishop there. So for a couple of hours we had no Bishop, haha. The split involved 4 wards that turned into 5, there was a whole lot of re-aligning. And 4 of those 5 wards have new Bishops. The Highland Ward basically got cut in half and we found out we will only be covering the southern half. They also included a small section of a neighborhood across the street so we will have quite a few new members to get to know. Our new Bishop actually lives in that part so when he was called we weren't sure who he was. Every member in the ward got released from their callings, so the leadership is going to change quite a bit I can imagine. Out of the ward council our half of the ward only has our Relief Society President and High-priest leader. It means that we loose our investigators F---- and J---, which is hard but it's all because of growth, which is good to see. This week was a great week for us teaching wise. We finally got an investigator on date. Our investigator T---, who we found not too long ago from tracting, is progressing really well. He has read a ton of the Book of Mormon and really likes it. He graduated this year and had a ton of free time now because he isn't in school and I don't think he has a job either. We were able to see him three times this week. He committed to be baptized on April 26th. We had a cool experience this week when a member who lives down in Florence called us up and said he is giving his nonmember friend a blessing, who lives in our area, and asked if we would like to help with the blessing. When we showed up I remembered that we tracted that door and they they were an older couple who said they were baptist and politely said no thanks. So I was super interested how they would react to seeing us again. We found out they were going through quite a hard time because some of their kids/grandkids have made some wrong choices. The member explained what a blessing is and we explained just a little about the priesthood and we gave both of them a blessing and we ended up talking to them for a good while and getting to know them and they invited us back later. We should see them in the next day or so again. It's amazing what a member friend can do. Blessings have been some of the neatest experiences on my mission. They are always very powerful and it's crazy to see how the spirit works. Found out we are going to be able to go to the Gilbert Temple which was exciting. Can't wait to do a session there. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff but I'll mail those letters to you today. Love you guys!!!! Have a great week.

love

Elder Mountain

VISA cray-cray!!! Yes, Elder Mountain was actually called to the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Mission. I check the Brazil consulate website every day to see if there is a change in his VISA application status. Last Friday was what I have entitled, "VISA cray-cray Day" ;) There are actually 3 application with corresponding numbers under his name, due to having to renew the application every so often. For 8 months there has been 1 red dot for each application, meaning 'received' or 'sent'. On Friday I checked and 1 application had 2 red dots, meaning they were beginning to process the VISA!!!! Yay!!!! Next check an hour later and ALL 4 dots were red!!!! Which means ready for delivery!!! (note above picture) Then, before my eyes, the entire application and dots disappeared!! It now shows only 2 applications under his name and they each have 1.....red.......dot :( I called Salt Lake to try and get some answers, they had none, but they said we can know for sure someone is actually working on his VISA but the website is not reliable :/ So, we shall see but it made for an exciting day for me! Thankfully he LOVES Gilbert and is completely content there <3

Back in December, Nate was given a typewriter by another missionary that had completed his mission and was going home. When Nate was 4-5 years old he wanted a typewriter so bad! We finally found him one but it didn't work so he just pretended with it and eventually took it apart (he loved taking electronics apart at that age too). So to say the least, he is thoroughly enjoying the typewriter!! He types his journal entries on it every night and mails them to us weekly, which is super fun to read!!! I'm sure he'll be known as "Elder Typewriter" to his companions and roommates ;)

Good week, email from Bishop and lots of pictures :)

Weekly Email - March 24, 2014

Elder Mountain and Elder Roman (roommate in apartment)

Good week this week, thanks for all of the emails. Sounds like you guys are all doing good. Thanks for the boiled peanuts, that took me by complete surprise, haha, especially since the Memmott's had it. Gonna try and make some for lunch. Everyone in the apartment is anxious to try them as well. No one knows what they are, even people from the south I have met here. Is it only a Georgia thing? haha. Got the type writer ribbon in the mail this week as well, it works great. Hopefully it wasn't too hard to find or expensive. This week was good. We had to do some hard but necessary steps with our investigators this week. We had a heart to heart, I guess you could say, with C----- because he hadn't been doing his reading we gave him and he was honest with us and told us it will probably take his son coming home from his mission for him to take that step of commitment. He knows it's true I know he does but I guess that's what it is going to take. So we had to tell him to let us know when he is willing to commit and we can see him again. It was hard to do especially how nice he is but we have got to see some action with the people we teach, at the very least read the Book of Mormon. It was hard but needed. and maybe after two weeks or some time of us not stopping by he will make that decision and let us know. We had a good lesson with F------- this week. We invited him to be baptized and found out his concern is church attendance because of work and it being hard to get into the habit of going. That is pretty understandable, especially when you haven't gone to church ever before. He wasn't there this Sunday but he committed to come so he should be there next week. T--, our other investigator, was out of town in New Mexico this week but we heard he got back in town yesterday so we should see him soon. Almost finished with the big huge list of names Bishop Anderson gave us to go find. We got a lesson out of it this week, which was pretty neat. It was an inactive who felt he was forced to go as a kid and soon as he was on his own he stopped going but he is now starting to see why church is important. He has some things in his life he needs to work out but we hope to be able to help him come back. Funny story with transfers, Elder Parsons, who we live with, was told to pack because he was moving and he ended up getting transferred into the area (Elder Jewkes' old area) that they moved into our apartment. So he is in a different area but is still living with us. He is with Elder Ramon who was elder Jewkes' old comp. He is from Micronesia, which is really cool. Really funny guy, can speak 5 languages too. Anyways, I'll keep sending what I type up every night. It's really hard to remember everything that happened, haha. Love you guys!!

I know this gospel is true! I know that it brings true happiness and joy into people's lives. I know that no matter our weaknesses and shortcomings the Savior wants to help. Like it says in Ether 12 the Lord gives us weakness so we will turn to him. I am so grateful for my Savior and the opportunity I have to serve him.

Elder Mountain     

**Email from a Bishop from one of the wards Nate is serving in:

"Brother and Sister Mountain.  I wanted to send you a quick note to
thank you for sending such a great young man out to serve the Lord.  I
know he wishes he were in Brazil, but we are VERY happy he has been
waylay-ed here in Gilbert, AZ.  I am the Bishop in the Monterey Ward.
Elder Mountain has faithfully served here for several months.  He is a
great representative and has blessed many lives.  He always has a
quick smile and word of encouragement.  Know that we are very happy
for the efforts he is making to share the gospel.  We have been
blessed with the new Temple being dedicated and the outpouring of
Spirit. Thanks for letting your son share that with us.

Know that he is working hard and having great success.  I get an
update at least once a week from he and Elder Jewkes on progress and
successes.  We are trying to get them additional people to teach.
They set a great example for our young men.

Thank you for your faithfulness in supporting your son.

David"

Elders Mountain & Jewkes with an awesome ward member!
She sends lots of text messages/pictures to me :)

Gilbert, AZ sunset

The District

The Zone (minus Zone Leaders)

Another transfer together for the awesome duo! 28 Books of Mormon given out!

Weekly Email - March 17, 2014

Elder Mountain, Elder Jewkes with the Tabile family.
(Bother T. is the Ward Mission Leader)

Hope you guys are doing well! First big nugget of news, got transfer calls last night. Elder Jewkes and I are both staying for another transfer, we are so pumped. I honestly thought I was going to be transferred because I have been in this area for about 6 months but I really wanted to stay.

Transfer day but happy to be staying together!

I love the wards here, I have  gotten to know them really well. I'm excited to be here and to stay with Elder Jewkes. Both of the elders we live with are being moved out so we will have some new roommates. We heard they are moving sisters into the area so we may be living by ourselves, transfers are always real exciting. So this week was good. Brother Schoenburg's funeral was this week, it was done really well. Most of the ward was there along with the family of course. Glad I was able to go, he was a good man. We picked up a new investigator F------ this week, he has a friend who goes to college with him and has introduced the Book of Mormon to him and is now interested in learning. He is actually next door neighbors to the Bishop in Highland Ward. It was a good lesson, will see him again on Thursday. Had our lesson cancel with J---, which was a bit disappointing. We were planning giving him a baptismal date and were really excited for the lesson. It was spring break this week here, I think he went out of town with his son. C----- is doing good, he is so close. He is still a bit hesitant to act and we have been pushing him a bit the last few lessons, which he needs. We've been tracting as usual for a n hour or so a day. Have met some interesting people for sure. Met a Muslim who moved here from Egypt not too long ago who was really friendly and met a southern Baptist who was actually very nice to us and called us "Jesus boys" haha. We ended up handing out 28 Books of Mormon this transfer which was cool, we had a goal of 25. We can do better though. I am still working on being able to talk to everyone we see on the street. I have gotten okay at it but there is always room to improve. Went over to T---'s house Sunday evening, he is doing great and likes his calling in the YM and A---- just got a calling in the primary. He gave us a frozen chicken and some potatoes to cook in the crock-pot we have. Never have used that thing, haha, hopefully it turns out good. We put it in this morning and hopefully it will be ready for dinner this evening. I went on exchanges this week in the district leader's area and we ended up eating dinner with a family named the Frasers. Sister Fraser ended up being from Buford and went to North Gwinnett and grew up in the Suwanee Ward. I couldn't believe it, first person I have met that knows of Buford much less lived there, haha, small world.Other than that, things are going good. A lot of people were out of town this week so it was a lot of running around with nobody home but they should be back this week, haha. Excited to be staying! 

I know this church is true. I know that Christ lives. I know that he loves us and wants us to be able to live with him again. All we have got to do is turn to him. I know that prayer is real. I know that we can talk to our Father in heaven and he will help us and guide us when we turn to him. I love the Book of Mormon, I love the power that it has. I can't read it without feeling the Spirit. This is a great opportunity to share what I know.

love
Elder Mountain

Map of one of the wards he covers. It is hard to see the 'key' but the black marks
represent "very Anti" homes! Always good to know ;)

Love this picture of this scripture passage!

Elder Mountain with a young man that got baptized a few moths ago.

Perfect bike for Elder Mountain: MTN TAMER :)

Two updates!! Dedication, a loss and gators o'plenty :)

weekly Email - March 10, 2014

Hope you guys are all well!! Looks like you had some fun ice skating. I don't think they know what ice skating is here, haha. It's getting hot already here. The summer is gonna be an adventure. This week was good. A lot of teaching and a lot of finding as well. Elder Jewkes and I kept the tracting up, we have a return appointment tomorrow with a lady that we found named L---. When we knocked on her door her son, who I'd say is around 14, opens the door and without saying anything to us yells 'Mom!.....Mormons!' and ran back in the house, haha. His mom came out and was really nice and we had a great conversation with her and she invited us back on Tuesday, so we are excited for that. We had a great lesson with J--- this week. He is the other guy we found tracting. We brought Brother Celeste with us who has an amazing conversion story. He was in school to become a Baptist minister then missionaries knocked on his door and he was baptized two weeks later. Amazing. He is an awesome teacher and was great in the lesson. J--- reminds me a lot of T--- when we first started teaching him. So open and curious and can recognize the Spirit. I am really excited for the next lesson. He is single but has a 8 year old son we hopefully can teach has well. He said he will read the Book of Mormon with him, which was really cool. Had a really good lesson with the S----- family. They are a part member family, Brother S----- is a member, a convert too actually. They always invite us in and ask us to share a message with them. Every time we stopped by it seemed we had an appointment in 10 or 15 minutes so we didn't have too much time. But this week we taught them the restoration and it really touched Sister S-----. In the past she has been very kind to us but has been kinda closed towards us. She really opened up this lesson and she said it's hard for her to change but she sees a change coming. It's was really touching. We had a good lesson with C-----. He is so so close to baptism. He told us he is afraid of change, which is understandable, it's just a matter of time with him. I know he knows it's true, we are just waiting for him to act on it. We did have some sad news this week. Brother Schoenburg passed away from a heart attack. It was pretty hard for me for a day or so. I have seen the Schoenburgs as grandparents since I've gotten into this area. We have spent so much time there working in their yard and helping them out. We have been there once a week since I got here. (5 months!!) We actually saw him the day before he passed, asking what we could help out with. I hope Sister Schoenburg is doing okay, we are going to stop by tomorrow to see what we can do. He was such a happy guy, lived a full life. Thank goodness for the Plan of Salvation. We teach people the peace the gospel brings but it's nice when we can take comfort in it ourselves. Other that that, spent a lot of the day with Brother Gaytan on Saturday. He took us out to a Mongolian bbq, that was super good, then visited some members and tracted some. We also went tracting with Brother Malupo and man that was an awesome experience. He is the guy who was a Mission president in Tonga. He was so bold yet so loving to people. I learned a lot from him. We plan on going with him once a week. Finally committed to writing in my journal every night, actually typing it on the type writer, haha. Been good at it for 2 weeks or so. I did it off and on before but I want to do it everyday. You guys get the stuff I mailed you? Love you. Awesome that you guys have been out with the missionaries so much, that is so awesome. Proud of ya, you guys mean a lot to the missionaries. Members who are aware of us and help us out and aren't afraid to share us with their friends make our day. Love you!!! One more lesson I forgot about, had a great lesson with T-- our new investigator. We brought Brother Gaytan and they hit it off. Him and J--- and C---- got to get wet before I leave this area, haha. ("get wet' means get baptized)

 

love

Elder Mountain

Weekly Email - March 3, 2014

Great to hear from you guys, glad you are doing good! Hope you feel better soon, Pa. So this week was awesome, full of small miracles. The dedication was yesterday, we were able to go to two of the three sessions, they were really awesome. I remembered the Atlanta temple re-dedication a little bit but glad I was able to attend another one. The Prophet and Elder Eyring were there, along with three members of the Seventy. The Prophet looks like he has aged quite a bit lately. The cultural celebration was on Saturday and the Prophet was there for that as well. It actually rained almost all day on Saturday, first time its rained in months. So all of the kids were pretty wet but it went smoothly and looked awesome. We were able to watch it at our ward mission leaders home. The local news station covered it, so it was on TV. Besides the dedication we also had a good week. We have found some great people from tracting. One guy named J--- we found was really golden, reminded me of T--- when we first talked to him. He accepted a Book of Mormon and we got a return appointment for next week. We also met a couple named A----- and J---- who were over at the members home when we had dinner there. They were super curious and also accepted a Book of Mormon and they want to learn more. They really enjoyed the temple and had some questions about eternal families. They are great people, very strong in their faith in Christ but are searching for a church for their family, what we like to hear, haha. We also met a couple B-- and M--- who are neighbors to some members who are super missionary minded. They invited everyone on their street to the temple and took quite a few of them. B-- and M--- asked about the Book of Mormon so we went over and dropped one off and gave an explanation of what it is and they asked several questions and are very open to reading and praying. We had our first lesson with T--, another neighbor of some members. He is an older man, 78 I think is what he said, we went over to give him a Book of Mormon and he invited us in and we had a great lesson. He ended up telling us his life story pretty much and some incredible experiences that have brought him to have a testimony of Christ, especially of prayer. We invited him to read and pray and we should see him in the next few days. Been an awesome week for finding new investigators, which we need. Elder Jewkes and I have been focusing on giving people Book of Mormons in our contacting. Our goal is 25 BoM's for the transfer and we ended up giving 10 this week. B---- is doing good, we had 2 lessons with her this week. She says she wants to finish a novel she is reading then she will read the Book of Mormon all the way through, haha, I guess that's an okay deal. We still have been busy with the church tours and taking the members of the ward on them. They are starting to catch the vision of it, just gotta give them that push so they will invite their friends. Other than that things are going good. Elder Jewkes and I are doing well, laughing a lot. One quick funny story from tracting, we knocked on a door and this lady that looked pretty distraught answers the door. She says I cant talk right now I'm preparing for surgery. I think then maybe she is a surgeon or something and she is studying. But then she says shes busy on the toilet. I could hardly keep a straight face, haha. It was pretty funny. It was either a really good excuse or she really was in the middle of something. Anyways, love you guys!! and miss you. Time is flying by. The church is true. The lord is a Lord of miracles, that is for sure. 

love,

Elder Mountain