Week 53 7-27-15

     Awesome awesome! Man my first missed Flake rodeo that is SO weird to think about! In Dallin's EFY pictures he looks like a mature little stud which is super weird because the last time I saw him was just before his sophomore year........I'm so old! I TURN 20 IN LIKE 9 MONTHS! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Calming down now. :) Its a miracle that Smokey didn't poop or pee! Whew! :P Another choir, a foreign exchange student, man home is changing so much! We've picked up some sweet potentials, we spend about 5-7 hours or so a week finding probably, and no we don't have Ipads. :( But its whatever because I'm so used to doing it this way anyways. :) Scott is a stud! I'll give you some details on when I met him in a sec. :) The gospel is super awesome and I LOVE it!

     Monday was kinda goofy because Mike (potential investigator bike repair dude) tried to fix my bike's crankshaft and it broke their tool! So it wasn't going to be done until Wednesday, but he gave me this beastly ancient one-speed bike to borrow until then. It was a blast to drive but hills were TERRIBLE in that thing! :) We were able to talk to a bunch of people and then we went to FHE with Jacob Orr (a recent convert of about a year) and Jaycee (his member girlfriend, thankfully they don't live together!) and that was awesome! They fed us hamburgers and then we watched the "Mountains to Climb" video with them and it was awesome and brought the Spirit super strongly. For some random reason, in all my studies and whatnot I just kept on relearning again about Heavenly Father's love for us! I was reading the Ensign the other day and it kept emphasizing how God ALWAYS loves us no matter what we do! Even if we feel we've gone so far that there isn't a way back, that is a total lie because He still loves us and knows that we CAN return. It was super awesome. :)

I met Scott Hendrickson in Nauvoo!

TUESDAY WAS NAUVOO! Brother Ford drove us and the zone leaders down and we got to go to a session in the Nauvoo temple! It was sweet because it was a total spiritual recharge and I was FINALLY able to receive an answer to a question that I've been wondering about for ages! The Church is true and the Spirit is awesome! We had time to see the brickyard, the blacksmith's shop, check out the Vistor's Center, and go to a variety show before the pageant began. And...I met my future brother-in-law, no big deal. Hahaha we were talking to some of the performing elders in the Vistor's center and I met an Elder Solomon who is related to Cade and Colton Solomon! He noticed my name and he goes, "wait, do you have a sister named" I said, "Alyssa?" Then he was like "Yea!" I said, "Do you know Scott Hendrickson?" He grinned and said, "Wait here for a sec," then he took off into some random door! Like two minutes later he walks out with this tall dude and his nametag says "Elder Hendrickson." He sees me and he goes, "No way! You're Alyssa's brother!" I was like "Yea man!" We started talking and he is a super chill guy! I like him a lot! Halfway through our conversation he goes, "Wait, I was going to send her a letter. Hahaha do you want to write a little something on it?" Pssh! Of course! He whipped it out, I wrote a sentence or two, then we both started laughing! We gave each other a big hug and then he took off because he was in the variety show! Hahahahaha it was the greatest thing ever!

     The Nauvoo pageant was awesome and the Spirit was super strong there! I loved it so much! Haha we didn't get home until like 1:30 in the morning! Then we still had to wake up at 6:30 which was brutal. :) Wednesday we went on exchanges with our zone leaders! Elder Schwendiman and I stayed in our area and Elders Bolinder and Ellis went in theirs. We went and gave service mowing a member's lawn because he couldn't and that was a blast! Haha at one point, the lawn mower randomly made this horrible grinding noise and the next thing I know a random belt shoots out of the bottom! It was snapped in two! It was just the belt that allows the lawnmower to be self-propelled, so for the next hour I muscled it up and down the lawn. :) We did some knocking, tried by a bunch of potentials, and then we were able to teach Brian at the library that night! His aunt that they live with doesn't want us coming over anymore because she doesn't like Mormons. So now we teach him at the library. :) By the way, as of today Brian has been 100% SMOKE-FREE FOR OVER A WEEK! YEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were able to address a bunch of his concerns, Satan has been working on him overtime, but he still knows the Book of Mormon is true! He is still super pumped to get baptized on August 7th! :D Exchanges were a blast, I love Elder Schwendiman so much! He is hilarious and we had so much fun! We helped Brother Lahman dig more paths so he can lay some brick down and that evening he fed us dinner! His son (Richard) was there visiting from Newton, Iowa and it was awesome because he is a recent convert of Elder Bolinder's when he was in Newton! Then on the 8th of August we get to go to Nauvoo again because Richard is going through the temple! Haha on Friday we were doing service at the library dusting off a bunch of their shelves and straightening a bunch of the books. Some random older gentleman comes up to us and this is the conversation: "Are you guys volunteers?" "Yup!" "Mormons?" "Yup!" The next thing we know, he starts bashing on us and all this craziness! Its like dude! We're just giving service at the library c'mon! We said, "We don't want to argue sir, have a good day," and then he walked away. Man the people you meet on your mission you'll never meet anywhere else! We were able to get in contact with Sarah again which was good. She felt like it would be easier to get baptized and then live the Word of Wisdom and the other commandments, so we had to explain how living the commandments before baptism helps to prepare us for baptism. It was cool because at one point in the lesson we were just like, 'Sarah, we hope you know that we love you!" She was thrown off guard! But then she replied, "Thanks, I love you guys too!" It was awesome! Learning how to really just love people is so awesome! On Sunday none of our investigators were able to come to church but its ok. Sarah was busy, and Brian's new schedule with his work had thrown his sleeping out of whack so he'd accidentally slept right through until like 12:00! We tried calling him earlier that morning but no answer. After church, he called us back and was like, "I'm so sorry guys! I promise I'll be at church next week!" That evening we were able to find a new investigator named Bruce! He is probably the most fit old guy I've ever met! He is in his 60s, rides his bike all over the place, and works out! He is paranoid and schizophrenic, but the Spirit was strong and we were able to help him see that Heavenly Father loves him. It was an amazing lesson and my testimony was built a lot! What a sweet week! :D

Love,

Elder Logan Flake