S6 E5: 1 Murph, 3 Baptisms, 1 Amazing week from the Lord

 (Elder Cummings)

Quite possibility the best week of my life, let me talk about the cool but not quite as cool stuff first.

We have a couple members in our ward who are big into Crossfit and are unparralleled when it comes to athleticism. They invited Elder Richards and I to join them and their gym(The Iron Boot)in a Murph race to honor those who gave their life for service for our country. As we walk into the workout room we see some of the most built and strong men and women we've ever seen, to say it was intimidating is an understatement. One guy had calves that had to be at least a foot wide. Anyway, so the Murph is a 1 mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups and 300 air squats, and then another 1 mile run...it was lethal but worth it. I BARELY beat Sister Stock, but let's not mention the fact that she's in her late 30's and has already birthed 4 children into this world...and was wearing a 15lbs vest. Let's just say I have never been so sore in my life and muscles I didn't even know I could feel are hurting very much. But like I said, it was worth it.

Now for the best part, I already mentioned "Jerry's" baptism, we were also blessed with being with Jesus and Carolina at their baptism! They are two kids that we have been working with for a couple months now. They are also some of the smartest kids I've ever met. Both of them were very nervous for the baptism but knew that it was something that they needed to do. I was so impressed with the resilience and courage they both had to go do it anyway. Jesus isn't much of a talker and I will always remember afterwards how I asked him how he was feeling now and with the biggest most genuine smile he just said "good". They are lights and examples to their family and to me. I think of what President Monson taught us, "May we ever choose the harder right, rather than the easier wrong". When we know the Lord's way we know His will. We can follow His will with confidence knowing that everything will be for our benefit. I love this work and I love the Lord!

Some honorable mentions for this week:

-We helped a member wrap some brisket and we had some brisket sandwiches ourselves, we both ate about 1 lbs of brisket

-The same member, took us out to eat and we both ate another 1lbs of shrimp, which we ended up talking with the owner and we are now studying with her!

-we just have a lot of really progressing friends right now! We're busy and we love them and we love teaching them!

Have a blessed one!

Elder Cummings

Playing fetch with a rock

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

This was my first week in my new area, and it's been pretty great! We are teaching a man named Gabe who is super chill, and wants to find out what is true. He has a sincere desire to pray and read the scriptures. We are super excited about him! We are also teaching a woman named Debra who has a really strong testimony about how the Holy Ghost can guide us.

We've also had two exchanges this week. I went with Elder Van Wagenen who is the AP, and an exchange with Elder Miller and Elder Vorwaller. They are all such great missionaries! I learned the importance of being urgent in the first one, as we ran from contact to contact. I learned the importance of having fun from the other. On one of the door contacts, two huge dogs came out of the door, one with a huge rock in its mouth. We got the rock out of its mouth, and tossed it. The two dogs chased after it and started fighting over this rock. It was a pretty funny game of fetch.

Lastly, we spoke in two different wards on Sunday. I used to suck at speaking in front of a lot of people. They turned out way better than I expected! I've found, that God has helped me obtain confidence in doing things I used to be bad at. I'm definitely not good at it, but I know he's been able to help me as I try to look outwards and serve Him the best I can. The beauty of life on earth is that we can learn and grow and become better then we were yesterday.

Love yall! (Hit my 16 month mark about a week ago. 2/3 done baby!)

1-5. Pictures from Natalie's baptism

6. Elder Haskett, Elder Snow, and I

The AP's Declared War??

 (Sister Putnam)

Hey everyone!! This week was incredible!

We met a lady on facebook in Africa named Ritah and she seems very interested in learning more about the gospel, so that's really exciting! And the more we learn about Ritah the more I am impressed by her faith! She is awesome!!

We had another lesson with Shae this week and we asked her how she felt about what we taught about the Restoration last week and if she felt like it was true when she prayed about it and she said she felt peaceful and happy and like it was true! And that was incredible because I remember feeling joy and peace when I read Joseph Smith's account on my own, so I shared that with Shae. We taught her about baptism and the gift of the holy ghost and asked her to pray to know that baptism is the right thing to do, so we'll follow up Next week And tell you all how that went!! Please pray for Shae that she'll know it's the right thing to do!

We also had the opportunity to teach the youth about this Sunday and so sister Israelsen and I, our Ward Mission Leader who is 20 and preparing to go on a mission, and a girl Hailey who just got back from her mission last week all taught about missionary work. But before we started, Bishop shared some insights with the youth about how Satan tries to lure us off our high ground. And he kept using the term high ground a lot and I'm not sure if he knew he was quoting the Star Wars prequel memes.

Also, this week Maas, the church protections program on missionaries' phones decided to freak out and delete apps randomly on everyone's phones. Well that meant I had to reinstall a few apps and now Facebook won't work. So we called up to the APs who know more about the issues to see if they knew any solutions. Well, I'm known to make a few dad jokes, and so they were like "okay if these solutions we give you don't work in the next few days, contact us. And we'll have dad jokes prepared." Sooooo I think the APs have declared a Dad Joke War. So that's fun!

Okay love you all!!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

Chelsie and Natalie's Baptism

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

This was a wonderful week! Our friend Natalie got baptized on Saturday and then Chelsie got baptized Sunday! Chelsie was going to get baptized next week, but a surgery came up and she had to move it earlier. So she got baptized last night! It was a wonderful experience! The spirit was super strong during both! It was confirmed that what they were both doing was a major step in coming closer to Christ. I am so happy for both of them!

It's been amazing to go to different areas in the mission, with different companions, yet still meet people that I come to love so much! Heavenly Father truly has given me love for these people that I couldn't have felt by myself. I am so grateful to have met Chelsie and Natalie!

I am now with Elder Snow and Elder Haskett, but it was great to be with Elder Gunderson and Elder Jesclard. They are all such stellar missionaries!

Love yall!

1. Saying goodbye to Elder Clove

2-6. Pictures of Chelsie's baptism. I'll get Natalie's pictures next week

S6 E4: Gumbo, T-bone, and Aaron's Baptism!

 (Elder Cummings)

Good morning y'all!

This week was an awesome one, I'll just run down just some of the miracles:

1) Our good friend John decided to treat us again and fixed some T-bone steak! See the picture below, that was just the first one I had...

2)Except for our church services on Sunday, I don't gotta wear a mask because I've been vaccinated!

3)On an exchange down in Gonzales, LA me and Elder Bartholemew held up a sign that simply said in all black letters, "Free Jesus Book!", in about an hour we had talked to about 15+ people and given away pamphlets and scriptures and gotten numbers to do some good ol studies with them. Welcome to the South. *clicking noise and whistle*

4)Zone Conference! We had an awesome zone conference, I am just in awe about how unified our zone is. That's a miracle itself. So much love for those good people

5) We had a lesson outside right after church yesterday so we were in our suits, and Elder Richards spilled this rusty, muddy, liquid all on himself as soon as we got there as he was moving a lawn chair...literally the disgusting liquid done wicked right off his suit pants like nothing, and then it went and stained the concrete without problem

Now for my more favorite miracles:

6)We've been doing some Bible Studies with a sweet lady named Shontell. She is the definition of Matthew 5:6 "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled". We're having the studies over zoom,  and she is just sitting there with her notebook out taking notes and writing down all the scriptures we say, and then asks awesome thought provoking questions. She is the most humble learner ever! So we are teaching the Plan of Salvation from the Bible with her and she is eating it all up and loves it. She talks about how it makes so much sense and helps her understand this life more. We text her the link to the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and invite her to read, ponder and pray over it. About 15 minutes after the lesson she texts us a picture of an old beat up physical copy of the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and is like "I've had this for years! I've been carrying it around everywhere for so long now, now I know where it comes from!" Turns out she had somehow gotten a hold of a pamphlet and had kept it all these many years. If that is not a miracle I don't know what is!

7)So we're in Elders Quorum and our friend(I'll call him Jerry) speaks up and begins to start crying, he is talking about the support and love he feels from the church and the experiences he has had here. Jerry has been attending church every week since October but has not gotten baptized for various reasons. He suffers from anxiety and other things and so setting a date for baptism has always been really really hard for him. After Elders Quorum we walk up to talk with him and he is with two awesome brothers in the ward and Jerry looks at us and says, "Can I be baptized tomorrow?" It was SOOOOOOO Awesome! This morning Elder Richards and I woke up, got showered, and went to get things ready for the baptism. It was beautiful, all the stress and burdens he had felt seemed to be taken off. You could see it in him. What adds to this miracle is that just last week I asked my family to keep Jerry in their prayers and BOOM he receives the strength and confidence he needed to take the next step! Miracles! And now Jerry has made the most important decision in his life and will receive greater blessings and happiness than he ever has!

Because of that, I would like all of y'all to pray for Jesus and Carolina, they are two kids we are teaching that are being baptized on Saturday. Please also pray for Dallas, Carolyn and Shontell! Miracles are real, they just require the faith! I love y'all and hope y'all are fixin to have a great week

Elder Cummings

Pics!

1. John and the steaks!!

2. Us and the Gumbo!!

3. Ivan and Lisa! The two funniest people in the world

4-5: Zone Conference pics

6: Us and "Jerry"!!

Transfers!!

 (Sister Putnam)

First of all, so sorry for missing last weeks weekly email, I don’t want that to be a consistent thing haha we were busy spending our last pday with our district and packing because sister Madsen and zinn got transferred. And that means I got a new companion. My new companion is Sister Israelsen, she and I were actually comps in the MTC so that's awesome! She's wonderful and so good at teaching!!

We've had a couple lessons with Reba and Shae, and we are actually preparing to pass them off to the missionaries near them which is sad that we won't be teaching them as much but still really exciting!

Okay, love you all!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

Six months already???

 (Sister Putnam)

Okay, so we did a lot of service this week, plenty of yard work and stuff. We had one service that apparently the Elders had done service for and she was apparently really rude to them, so we were really nervous about it, but she was actually really nice. We did another service for this other lady who was pretty rude and I'm pretty sure used us as a cleaning service so that she wouldn't have to break her nails, she kind sat around while we cleaned. The house was also really sketchy so needless to say we won't be back.

We got our second dose of the vaccine on Wednesday, so that was awesome!! We also have a friend, Ruby, who is youth age, so we went to the mutual activity that was sports so that she would have someone she knew there, and we played rugby. It's odd, I've heard of rugby but I'd never played it until Wednesday and it's just football but weird.

On Friday the elders threw hot dogs all over our car for no reason so that's fun. Prank wars are so funny cause they make no sense lol.

On Sunday they asked Sister Madsen and I to speak in church on the subject of mothers and I had the opportunity to reflect on how much my mom and my grandmothers have influenced me, and I'm really grateful to have so many righteous women in my life.

Okay love you all!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam