Week 13 10-20-14 Transferred!

     Sounds like a blast! And wow a new car?? Sheesh leave for three months and the whole world changes! :) And one more thing, Dallin are you wearing my BYU hat? Cuz I wanted that to stay boxed up please. :) Nah you can wear it just be careful cuz I like that hat. :P But guess what happened...drumroll please.......I GOT TRANSFERRED TO DES MOINES ITS HUGE AND SO DIFFERENT THAN WAVERLY!!!!!!!! Transfer calls on Monday were the worst cuz the APs called and were like, "elder hollan you're staying and elder flake you're......getting transferred." AAAAHHHHH!!!! But I love des moines its the best! My new comp. is elder curless and he is from bountiful, Utah. Hahahaha and he is hilarious! We get along great. :) (haha whew!) But first, heres the past week. Monday we got transfer calls. Tuesday we got permission so we went and watched a play called "let freedom ring" that all of the NorthStar people put on and it was awesome!! Hahahahaha it was hilarious watching them all singing and dancing to patriotic songs! :D :D Then we went to Kevin's house with Brother Durbin and watched the "Finding Faith in Christ" video and it was super powerful.

     Wednesday was p-day and that evening we went to Brad and Angie's house and talked with them and it was really good and super sad too cuz when they found out I was leaving Angie started crying and Brad was tearing up. I've grown to love them and their family so much already but it was super good to be able to say bye to them. :) Thursday we went to transfer meeting in Iowa City (about 2 hours away) and then I got a new comp. and we went to des moines! Man its huge!!!! Elder Curless and I taught the plan of salvation to two of our investiagtors-Isaac and Janeth- and it was super good. They are 9 and 14 yrs old so it was interesting having to simplify everything down cuz I've never taught a lesson to just the kids before. :) We then went and tracted the downtown area of des moines.

     Friday we had a get-to-know-you district meeting and that was a blast cuz all the missionaries in our district our hilarious!!! We then went and talked with Royal Corbin (a black member of our ward who is super awesome). Saturday we went and tried some less-active people-they all fell through- and then we went and helped the Robinets (older inactive couple in our ward) move and that was a bunch of fun too! :) Haha so the funny thing about our ward is we have like 130-140 active members and then we have like 450-500 inactive/less-active members as well. So we've got our work cut out for us. :) Oh and this was a total miracle! So the Robinets gave us a bunch of canned goods after we helped them out-like three big brown paper bags full!-just cuz they like us (and they WOULD NOT take no for an answer). And then Royal called that night and was like "do you guys have any food by chance? I'm sorry for being a freeloader but I'm all out." So we were totally able to give him a bunch cuz we'd gotten a bunch like four hours before! Cool isn't it??!!

     Sunday we went to church (Isaac and Janeth came and they loved it!!) and it was awesome! Afterwards, we went tracting downtown again and ran into this down-on-his-luck guy named Chris who was totally prepared! He has had a real rough life and he told us that before he met us walking around, he'd said a prayer hoping that God could guide him to somebody who could help. WOW! It was the coolest thing ever he is super awesome!! We then went and had dinner at the Craypo's house (they're senior couple missionaries in our ward) for dinner and then we went to go try to see Augusta (less-active nice African lady). Haha so we got there and she was like "do you guys want to try some African soup?" And we were like "sure!" So I took a single sip of the broth part and my MOUTH WAS ON FIRE IT WAS SO STINKIN' HOT! MY LIPS TURNED BRIGHT RED IT WAS SO SPICY THATS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE! And then I only took like two bites of the turkey (it was pretty good actually) and I also noticed that there was some kind of meat covered with spines (I didn't dare touch it) and a shrimp with the legs still on (didn't touch that either). And then....it happened. A BOILED CHICKEN FOOT (without talons thank heavens) BOBBED UP FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE SOUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I nearly lost it all over the table. I have an American stomach for goodness sake I'm weak! Elder Curless actually gagged!! Good thing Augusta wasn't in the room when that happened......

Love,

Elder Logan Flake

What a goober!

Week 12 10-13-14

Some of our district (He still doesn't have a belly!)

Well,  this week was awesome! 

     So we have two couches in our apartment and one of them is a big leather one that had all this NASTY crusty stuff on it but we cleaned it up and gave it to one of our potential investigators because she needed a couch. Hahaha so that was kinda fun clorox wipes are a miracle. :) We then popped by Kevin's house to see how he has been doing and he has been doing awesome and hasn't drank for like a week!!!! We then went by Chris's house (he is a potential) and talked to him and that was.....interesting. He is a really nice guy but we think he might be a pathological liar. But we love him nonetheless and are doing the best we can to help him. :) Hahahaha so on tuesday we were helping out at NorthStar and we played the board game "Life" with Jeremy and travis (two of the patients) and it was hilarious cuz we're all super bad at it! And almost the entire time we were there, there were a bunch of other NorthStar patients playing Just Dance 4! I've never laughed so hard in my life it was so great watching them all dancing and having a blast! :D :D We then went with Lincoln Ackerson ( a member of our branch) to Dave's house and we taught about half of the plan of salvation before he pulled out a bunch of anti stuff on us. Man i don't like that stuff its spiritually destructive. So keep dave in your prayers please. Then we went to the Austin's house and watched the video "finding faith in christ" and man! That one is powerful! Wednesday we went with Stefan (pronounced "steh-faun") Larson and we went and had an AWESOME lesson on the Book of Mormon with Brian and Rebecca! They are an awesome family we met with a couple we

eks ago and taught them the plan of salvation. But it was awesome! They've both been studying hard on our church and they had alot of really good questions and they are totally honest seekers of truth and really prepared. :) We then went to Brad+Angie's house and raked their yard, had dinner, and then EPIC AWESOMENESS HAPPENED! So elder hollan was helping angie with dishes talking to her about the Book of Mormon and me and Brad were chilling by the fridge talking about priesthood authority and wow! It was so cool because he has some really deep concerns about the priesthood and the spirit totally told me what to say and brad was satisfied by my answers! It was the coolest experience i've ever had in my life. :) 

     Thursday we had an AWESOME district meeting on using the Book of Mormon to respond to objections and then we went on exchanges with the Waverly West elders. Elder Olson and i hit our area and we went and taught the plan of salvation to kevin (it was a bit of a rough one but oh well) and then we went and had a legit discussion with Paris and Bria!! They haven't been praying at all and only reading the Book of Mormon a little so all we taught about was the importance of scripture study and prayer and wow! It was like a spirit BODY SLAM at one point because we were all feeling it so strong!!!!! Oh and we finally connected with James (he is the 15 year old guy who has been inactive and anti) and at the end of our discussion he said he'd try reading the Book of Mormon and he said the closing prayer for us!!!!!!!!!!!!! MIRACLE!!!! Then we went and taught Wilma about temple work (baptisms for the dead and eternal marriage) and it really touched her that she could be married to her husband forever. She is moving to Waterloo, Iowa in two weeks so we're fairly sure that she won't get baptized in Waverly but who knows? Maybe she'll get baptized eventually she is so prepared. :) Saturday we helped these older people move to Denver, Iowa for like four hours but it was a blast and they fed us lunch!! :D We then went with Sky Holmgren (member from our branch) to janesville and we tried this one house and it was CREEPY! So the day before, we had been in Janesville and met this older lady named Katherine (she isn't all there but she is really nice) and set up an appointment. The first thing we noticed was her sun porch had an open container of mothballs on it so it smelled really bad but the creepiest part was the mounted deer heads. There were like five mounted deer heads and there was mascara+eyeliner+lipstick on them and it was the creepiest thing i've ever seen in my life!!!!! Ugh it was freaky deaky! We then went to Henry and Susan's house and it was amazing! So the two previous lessons with them has been a kind of a bashing atmosphere because all they've done is try to prove us wrong but we would never bash back so they would just get frustrated. but this one was just a really simple lesson about the Book of Mormon and it was really good we were all touched by the spirit super strongly. :) And then Sunday!

     So first off, Kevin shows up at church and he'd shaved and had a haircut and he bought a white shirt, tie, dress pants, and sunday shoes and he looked awesome! The Atonement has totally begun to change him inside and out! Man he is a boss! Then Sky and Stefan both gave their mission farewells (Sky is going to California, Stefan is going to Sweden) and it was awesome. :) Elder's quorum was super awesome cuz we had this lesson on loving others and loving God and it was powerful! That evening we went to the Larson's home with the West elders and they fed us amaaaaaazing pork and we had an inspiring lesson on charity and elder olson gave a powerful testimony. He is going homethis thursday at transfers and he has been such an awesome missonary i'm gonna miss him alot. :( But thats the week! Oh and we get transfer calls today!!! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

Love,
Elder Logan Flake

"All Natural" Deer with no makeup

Week 11 10-6-14

First off, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA (thats an evil laugh by the way) WE BEAT BLUE RIDGE TAKE THAT!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D Ok i had to get that out of my system. :) But it sounds like a totally awesome week as always! Elder Hollan and I for most of the sessions watched conference in the church by ourselves but we had A LOT of pringles and ginger ale (to combat the pringles) so we were set and happy. :) I think probably one of my absolute favorite talks was the one by Lynn G. Robbins cuz he went hard in the paint!! But this week was AWESOME!

     Monday we had dinner and a lesson with Wilma at the Durbin's house. We started talking about faith but halfway through, Wilma like started clutching her arm and was like "ugh this darned thing hurts so bad." She allowed us to give her a priesthood blessing and after it she was like "i don't know what i just felt but it was definitely something." YYYYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! IT WAS SO AWESOME!! Tuesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and i went with elder Bellistion who is a total boss! We knocked a lot of doors and not much was happening but we were finally able to get into contact with Abebe (this AWESOME ethiopian guy we tracted into like 5 weeks ago) and we were able to clear up a lot of things (hahahaha he has been thinking that we were Jehovah's Witnesses so he never wanted to answer the door because he doesn't like them). So yea that was good to clear that up, and we gave him the Book of Mormon after talking about what it was and he was super pumped to read it! Elder Hollan and elder Parry taught Kevin and it was AWESOME! So on monday he just slipped up suuuuper bad and drank like 3 pints of vodka and chewed A LOT of tobacco but it was good too cuz it FINALLY got his wife paula involved. Before, every time we came over to Kevin's house, she would just disappear into the bedroom and listen to devil music! But now she wants to help Kevin so she is interested!! MIRACLE FO REAL!!!

     Wednesday, we went and gave service at NorthStar again and it was super fun as always. :) Hahaha when we were walking back, this random truck went by with a GIGANTIC fake bear in the back of it and it just made me bust up! Hahaha only in Iowa i swear! We talked to a guy named Scott Swehla (who has bats in his attic literally and figuratively-he has a bat infestation in the 2nd floor of his house and he is CRAZY) so that was......interesting. Then we were able to go and help the branch out with their Combined activity and it was like a murder mystery thing and that was a blast! Hahaha i played an irritated colonel who yelled a lot it was hilarious! We went and knocked some doors and NOTHING was happening so we said a prayer and then we were led to this boss Lutheran guy named Jim! The Lord truly answers prayers! Thursday we got to go to Iowa City and watch "Meet The Mormons" (a movie coming out that was produced by the Church and its super awesome) cuz President Jensen got it from the 1st Presidency so that was way cool! We then had dinner with the Berding family (she is an inactice member and her husband is a nonmember) and as we started to share a spiritual thought they just hustled us out the door (but it was in a nice way i guess). Idk it was a weird situation.

     Friday we went to Wilma's with brother Larson and we had like a Book of Mormon study thing it was sweet! We just all read through 3 Nephi 27 taking turns and we all jotted down thoughts as they came to us and then we told what we had written down and why. It was really good because it was REALLY simple and thats just what Wilma needs right now. We then and met a potential named Brian who just sat there with a Book of Mormon and a sheet of anti junk in the other hand and he just tried to bash with us but we wouldn't bash back and he eventually ended up accepting the invitation to baptism! Who knows it could happen! :D Saturday we watched the 1st session of conference and it was awesome and then the 2nd session we watched with Wilma at her house and she really liked it! CHURCH IS TRUE! Then we hit Janesville and were able to talk with Henry and Susan Heine, we talked with them last week-they are a really old couple who is REALLY Lutheran. He had gone to his pastor and asked him about Mormons and his pastor gave him LOADS of anti-mormon papers. So Henry tried to bash with us as well but we found out that he hadn't read the Book of Mormon at all so we invited him to read it and pray to know if it was true. We told them that was the only way to know if it was true. 

     Sunday we watched conference and it was super legit again! Our appointment with Paris and Bria (potentials) cuz they told us-and this is an exact quote, "you can't come over for this week because one of our dogs-they have three-is in heat and the other two are going crazy!" Hahahahahaha we just started laughing our heads off i was like "What?! Thats the most random excuse/reason i've ever heard!" But we were able to finally meet with brother Matthews (he is inactive) and his wife Kathy (she is a nonmember) and we had a really good talk with them and encouraged them to look up the conference talks-especially the one by m. Russell Ballard about "staying in the boat." Then we talked to Dave (history buff guy in the trailer park) and had a recap of the restoration with him (we haven't been able to meet with him for like 6 weeks!) and it was super awesome and he said he'd read the Book of Mormon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was another super awesome week in Waverly, Iowa!! Love you all!!!

Love, 

Elder Logan Flake