Week 50 7-6-15 Transferred!

     I GOT TRANSFERRED AGAIN! I was transferred to Cedar Rapids (the 2nd biggest city in the mission so its quite a change up) and I am now with Elder Bolinder who is on his last transfer. :) He is from Firth, Idaho and absolutely hilarious! It'll be the first time I'm with a companion who is on the home stretch of his mission so it'll be a great learning experience! :) I was able to say goodbye to a lot of the members before I took off and it was sad because I have grown to absolutely love the Indianola branch. Everybody is just so fantastic and awesome there! Well, we went to transfer meeting on Thursday and I saw Elder Hollan for the last time! He is home now and done with his mission which is really weird and makes me feel ancient! It was fun though I was able to see a lot of people there that I knew including Elder Curless again! :D Oh by the way, we live with our zone leaders in a house that a member rents out to us and it is super fun! Anyway, we got back from transfer meeting and the evening was BUSY! We went and saw an investigator named Brian Foster and answered his questions that he had about baptism and the Holy Ghost. We were then able to teach him the Word of Wisdom (he has problems with smoking and tea) and he committed to do his best to live it! He is an extremely humble man and super nice. His wife is actually a member who started to return to activity once he started taking the missionary lessons! Miracles all around! We were then able to go and see some recent converts, the Falkners, and they are an older couple who are probably the nicest people I've ever met! We went and read the Book of Mormon with them and it was great, the Spirit was so strong. :)

     Friday was kinda nuts! First off though, we were able to go to the ward 4th of July picnic for a bit which was a blast! They did it on the 3rd because nearly everybody was going to be gone on the 4th. We had hot dogs, played some epic volleyball, I cracked a bullwhip and scared myself to death because it was so loud, and a bunch of other great things! The ward is super friendly and all of the members are just awesome! :D We then went and mowed some lawns for Brother Harvey (the older member whose house we rent out) because he broke his ankle so he couldn't do it. Then we went and weekly planned and by the time we finally finished that, it was nighttime! On Saturday we went and helped to clean the church in the morning and then we had a great get-to-know-you district meeting! So our district is the Spanish missionaries Elders Barron and Rader (who I've been in their zones in previous areas so I know them fairly well), the zone leaders Elders Ellis (who I came out with) and Schwendiman (who is actually Elder Cook's trainer), Sisters Gygi (who was in my MTC zone) and Schrader, and then me and Elder Bolinder! It was a blast and so much fun! After that we tried by some investigators and did some knocking.

     On Sunday we had an AWESOME fast and testimony meeting in sacrament meeting! This ward is the BEST! There were actually quite a few members who at least knew where Snowflake was! It was great! We had an awesome discussion about the Savior's suffering in Gethsemane and how much He loves us to do that. It was really powerful. Then we had an awesome discussion in Elder's Quorum about priesthood dispensations. After church we did some finding and it was...interesting. Haha we started talking to this older guy, he was standing in his yard and we were talking to him from outside his fence, and we said, "Would you be interested in a message about Jesus Christ?" He just looks at us and says, "No, I've got better things to do." So we said, "Ok, do you know anyone who could use an uplifting message?" He slowly turns around, gives us a death glare and says, "You're lucky you're over there and not over here," then walked away muttering under his breath. Sheesh dude! It was kinda weird! We drove by this random bike repair shop and Elder Bolinder felt like we should go back and talk to the guy in the shop working on a bike so we did. His name is Mike and he is a Seventh Day Adventist. We got to talking and answered a LOT of questions that he had about our religion and we were able to have a great conversation with him! He said he might be interested if we could answer him this one question, Is it important to keep all of the commandments or just the ones traditional to your church? He said, "Next time you guys stop in, answer me that one out of the scriptures." It was a lot of fun talking to him he is a great guy! :) Thats about the week!

Love,

Elder Logan Flake