Week 62 9-28-15

 Man I bet it was nice to not have to do anything for once for Jazz and Show choir. :) Nope I didn't see this one coming at all, it was hard to leave because I've grown to love Cedar Rapids and the ward so much! What??? Dad, Spencer, and Dallin got to see Wicked? Man now I'm just jealous!! Oh and I heard back from President Jensen and sadly no I can't go to Vocal Point in Waverly. :'( Thats ok though. :) What?! A new ward and boundary changes?? Thats nuts! Well this w

eek was sad but good at the same time. :)

   Well I got transferred out of Cedar Rapids after a meager three months! :'( It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone that I've grown so close to. Saying goodbye to Brian Foster and his family was especially hard. You really grow to love the people wherever you go. My life won't be the same since I've met them, they definitely leave their mark on you. :) So I was transferred to Quincy, Illinois! It is an awesome place! So we're doing whats called "whitewashing here. Both me and my companion are new to the area, they just sent both of us here fresh and we replaced the sisters who had been here for only 3 months. My new companion is Elder Winn from West Jordan, Utah and he is awesome! He's been out for 10 months, and he is quiet but powerful. We're having a good time! :) Thanks to the work of the sisters, we had an 18-yr. old guy named Carter Henry baptized and confirmed this weekend. He is hilarious and the chillest guy I've ever met! We haven't been able to teach anyone yet but we've been doing some finding and have met some awesome people. Hahaha we met an older guy who said he was a "born-again" Christian. We knocked on his door and he opens it then says, "No way! Ok lightning might strike, this is crazy!" So we said, "Uhhhh what?" Then he goes, "We were literally just talking about you guys! I just told my wife that I've never seen any Mormon missionaries in our neighborhood and then you knock on the door 15 minutes later! This is weird!" 

     So we all had a good laugh at that! :) He was a really nice guy but he wasn't interested sadly. In his own words he said, "Sorry boys but we would end up debating because I'd try to convert you and you'd try to convert me and we'd get nowhere." Man I've definitely met some characters out here! I'm excited though, I think that this is going to be a great place. :) I'm a little nervous because neither of us know anything about the place, but this is Elder Winn's 3rd time whitewashing so he is a veteran. :P Church was awesome! One of our investigators, a 55-yr. old man named Randy who is paralyzed from the neck down, came with his less-active mom! He is probably one of the happiest people I have ever met in my life! He loved church too! In fast and testimony meeting and it went well but I still HATE standing in front of crowds! Haha but I loved the plays in highschool, go figure. :) Oh I forgot to mention that we live with some members, the Davis family, who are probably the most amazing people in the world! Besides my family that is. :) They're both in their 60s and just the best! I already love Quincy and I've only been here 3 days! :)

Love,

Elder Logan Flake

Sad goodbyes!

Week 61 9-21-15

Rockin the shades!!

So about the Vocal Point thing, I've asked but no response yet. What Spencer gets home this week? Thats so weird!!!!! Thanks for that little story Dad, it made me realize that I've been thinking the same thing. Some days I feel like, "I've done all I can do! Why is this still tough and nobody is doing what they've committed to do?" It can be frustrating at times but I'm starting to deal with it and recognize that I just need to be more patient and love others. That has been one of the toughest things on my mission that I'm still learning is how to truly just love people. Still working on it. :) 

     Soooo I got hit with a bombshell this morning when President Jensen called. Elder Martin is training and I'm LEAVING!!!! :'(  I'm going to miss Cedar Rapids, the ward, and living with other missionaries so much! :( That makes two of my four areas that I've only been in for two transfers. However, I know that wherever the Lord sends me off to is where I'm needed. I've learned a lot of valuable things here in Cedar Rapids. I've been able to change some things that needed fixing and though I'm still not perfect, I'm slowly becoming better. :) This week was super rainy! We were on bikes too! Two of the days we got soaked! Haha there comes a point when you're so wet that you don't care anymore and we started riding our bikes through puddles a couple of times. :) On Tuesday we were able to teach Clay and he accepted the baptismal invite! He is in his 30s, has two kids and a girlfriend in Waterloo, and he really enjoys the Book of Mormon already! The lesson went really well and when we saw him briefly yesterday, he's already read a chapter or two!! Yes!!!! We were also able to teach a man named Joseph Lent the Restoration! He is 24, married and has three cute little kids, and he liked the lesson! We're not entirely sure how interested he was though because he told us that he was just listening because he didn't want to be a jerk and slam the door in our face. So we'll be going over that tonight a bit with him. :) He is an awesome guy though! This week was also kind of the Lord sorting out the wheat from the tares too. Kuwon, Kewan, and Dick and Bev all dropped us sadly. We were kind of down for a bit, but realized that maybe they just weren't ready at this time. I know that we've been able to plant some good seeds with them though. I know that they'll eventually be baptized, just not right now. :) We were able to make contact with Sarah! We read out of the Book of Mormon with her and she let us know that she likes us and the gospel, but she doesn't know if she is willing to give up any of her Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity problems right now. We'll be meeting with her this week hopefully so we'll see what happens. We were able to touch base with Karen Hoffpauir and Liz Allen again though and that went well! They still have solid testimonies of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith which is a plus! Now we're just trying to help them come back to church. Speaking of church, haha yesterday Brother Ford was gone so we had to figure out how to do the translating for the deaf family in our ward. Thankfully we got all the technology figured out so it went well. :) We also had an awesome discussion on pride in Elder's Quorum! It made me realize that I need A LOT more humility because I'm a really prideful person in a lot of things. Thankfully we have the Atonement so we can change our hearts and desires. Sorry this week's letter is a bit short, next week's letter should be normal. :) I'm sad to leave Cedar Rapids, REALLY sad, but I know I'm going where the Lord needs me to go now. Talk to ya'll next week! (Everyone in Iowa always says "ya'll" I don't know why) :)

Love,

Elder Logan Flake 

Week 60 9-14-15

Man sounds like a blast!!! Thats nuts about the BYU games though! It sounds like it was awesome! :D No worries Mom, I know you'll bond with the Jr. High punks eventually because you're really good with people. Hey you raised us! :) It seems like the number of steers gets smaller every year sheesh! Well hopefully all goes well with the fair and school and whatnot! 

     THIS WEEK WAS AMAZING AGAIN AND AWESOME AND EVERY OTHER ADJECTIVE I CAN'T THINK OF RIGHT NOW! We were able to get into contact with Sister Liz Allen and it was a great lesson! We talked about daily scripture study and why its so important and she totally committed to reading even just a couple of verses out of the Book of Mormon every day! SWEET! Small and simple steps! :D We were also able to go and meet with Blane Blackburn (one of the less-active members we're working with) again and he is still having a super hard time with the death of his dad. We just talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how He is ALWAYS there to lift us up whenever we need Him, any time of day. It was a really powerful lesson and just awesome. We went to our appointment with Dick and Bev Gates (two potential investigators) and we were able to teach them the Restoration!!!! They are an older couple in their late 60s and really open to learning about the gospel! Dick has never been baptized and when we invited him to be baptized he was like, "Oh yea definitely!" YESSSSS!!!!! It was an awesome lesson! Hahaha so random fun fact about Iowa: SO many people will just talk your ear off if you show even just a tiny bit of interest in their lives. So as missionaries, like every day people are just telling us their life story forever! Haha its so much fun! :) We were able to get in contact with Sister Hilton (another less-active) and we read out of 3 Nephi 11 with her and felt the Spirit guiding us super strong! I'm finally starting to recognize when the Spirit is guiding me now. Its taken me forever and a lot of humbling experiences, but I'm finally learning how to listen to it. We were able to see Travis Mcdermott again and we read out of the Book of Mormon and set a baptismal date of October 17 with him! He is super pumped to be baptized and even committed to coming to church! We were also able to find an older lady named Becky who has A LOT going on right now but I know that the gospel can definitely help her out. :) We taught her the Restoration and she accepted the baptismal invite without question and now we'll be giving her a church tour on Wednesday with some members! It was the best week ever! On Friday we did another exchange with the Spanish elders (the zone leaders encouraged doing a lot of them because Elder Martinsen is brand new) and I went with Elder Rader. We had a blast! We were able to teach some less-actives, talked to a SUPER drunk black guy for about 20 minutes about life, and just had a great time. Haha when we got home that night, we randomly had an epic Nerf war! No big deal. :) 

     We were able to teach Willine about half of the Plan of Salvation with Jacob and set a baptismal date for October 17 as well! She is doing good, just going through a nasty cold at the moment. Hahaha her little 5-yr. old son Isiah is adorable! He kept randomly interrupting the lesson by running in and just leaping onto her lap until she was finally like, "C'mon Isiah, please go to your room. This isn't time to jump on Mom, I've got company." Haha. :) We went with some members to pick Travis up for church yesterday morning but apparently he'd been partying all night and was super hungover. C'mon man! Oh well, he'll come next week. :) That evening we went and taught an African man named Yannick who was a referral from the sisters. HE IS AWESOME! We were just about to talk about the First Vision and suddenly two of his friends, Lionel and Jonathan, came in and they started listening too. The Spirit was super strong and all 3 of them accepted the invite to baptism! They're all awesome! I could tell that Yannick was really thinking about it because he was kinda quite at some points in the lesson and he had some awesome questions. This week my testimony was definitely built that the Lord has prepared people for the gospel in the areas where you serve. We just have to go out and find them! Now the main thing we're focusing on is maintaining contact with our investigators and helping them progress and come to church. One of the funny stories of the week: We were talking to a Muslim man named King and he randomly started talking about how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are one and the same. Later in the conversation we were talking about the ancient Apostles and he says, "No no no, you've got it all wrong! God has his own Apostles and Jesus Christ has own Apostles!" So we were like, "Uhh I thought you said God and Christ are the same?" He then said, "No no no you're wrong. I never said that, I said that God told everybody Jesus Christ isn't His son, He is Mary's son!" Man we were just confused! The people you meet on your missions are definitely characters thats for sure! :) Its always fun. :)

Love,

Elder Logan Flake

Week 59 9-7-14

  Man what a week! Greens Peak is the best! I'm sad I missed it.....:( That's awesome on the corn! You've just gotta take the good with the bad sometimes I suppose. :) Sarah does not have a date set yet because we haven't been able to teach her at all this week. She leaves for Chicago today to go get her kids or something like that so we're kinda just playing it by ear at the moment. Curtis and Melissa we've tried following up with but no word from them at the moment. But! We have the truck this week so we can get to places faster than when we were on our bikes! :D Its so weird to think that Devin and Heather are in their last year at BYU! Man that is so weird! The pictures are awesome too! Thanks! Why did Uncle Jason get a knee replacement? Just old knees or something?

     THIS WEEK WAS AMAZING AND FULL OF MIRACLES AND FANTASTIC AND AWESOME! After p-day, Kristi and her friends fed us pizza and we were able to discuss how the Lord can give us the strength we need to endure our trials. It was really awesome. She will come back to church and be active again, we can feel it! It will be a little bit of a long road but I know she can do it! :) We were able to visit the Walkners again on Tuesday night and read from the Book of Mormon with them. That was a blast! Hahaha Mike is probably the greatest 70-year old guy I've ever met! He just cracks us up all the time! :) I literally can't remember what else happened on Tuesday...well good thing I've got a journal. :) We had interviews with President and Sister Jensen on Wednesday and that was awesome! Man! The Church's leaders are just so inspired and awesome! I asked him for some advice on some things I've been dealing with for a bit (mainly feelings of inadequacy again, dumb Satan!) and I know that his counsel was directly from Heavenly Father. He inspires President Jensen so much. I literally don't have a clue how the Jensens just love everyone so much! Its so awesome how much love they have for literally everybody! They're the greatest. After interviews we did exchanges again with the Spanish elders, the zone leaders recommended doing a couple of exchanges this transfer because Elder Martinsen is brand new. Elder Martinsen and I stayed in their area and had a blast! He's been out in the field for about 3 1/2 weeks or so now, and he is from Queen Creek! Down in the valley! Haha he actually asked me if I was a Snowflake Lobo! I was like, "All the way!" :D We were able to talk to a lot of people and we had dinner with the Pitchforths from their ward. Apparently Brother Pitchforth knows Britney Kay Diaz and Lori Shumway Bailey! It was so weird! Small world I guess. :) Elder Martinsen is a stud and he has the Spirit with him so strongly! It reminded me of when I was fresh in the field, almost (whoa) 14 months ago. Thats weird........ On thursday we got 2 new investigators! One of them is a man named Kuwon Coleman. He is a minister for his church, married and has 3 kids, and is an honest seeker of truth! When we taught him the Restoration it was a little crazy because his kids were in and out the door like 50 times! However! The Spirit was strong and he accepted the invitation to baptism without question. The other one is Kewon Davis. He is in his 20s, lives on his own in a really nice house, and he told us that he's been feeling like he needs to go back to church. He took the Restoration and the baptismal invite well and is just a stud!! Oh yea I almost forgot! So, right before we went and tried by Kewon we started talking to this random guy named Jarell walking by Kewon's house. He was like, "Are you guys church people? Cuz I don't really go to church." We were like, "Well you're pretty close! We're missionaries, etc." He went on to say that he doesn't know which church to go to because he doesn't think any of them are true. Direct quote: "I just want to find the true church, but I guess I'll find out when I die if its even here." We bore testimony of the Restoration and gave him a pamphlet and our card! He couldn't meet at the moment but it was an amazing experience. He just needs the gospel to find the answers to his questions. 

     On Friday we went on exchanges with our zone leaders and Elder Shumate and I hit our area! Hahaha he is hilarious! He goes home in about 2 or so months, he is from North Carolina, and he is a stud! We tried by A LOT of people and were able to talk to a lot of people. Haha so we went to try by some people that another man referred us to and it turned out that they were actually inactive members! An older lady comes out and she goes, "Hi, how are you guys?" Then we were like, "Oh we're great! Have you ever talked to missionaries before?" Haha then she said, "Oh yes! I'm actually a sister, my husband and I just haven't been to church in years." We were like, "What???" She was like, "Yes. My name is sister Patricia Shelton." We had a nice chat and then she had to go but she said, "Oh yes you guys are welcome to try by anytime we're home. We'd love to talk!" Hahaha at the first chance I could I whipped out the ward directory and sure enough! Russell and Patricia Shelton were on it! You never know I guess! :) We tried by a lady named Bobby who used to investigate the church and she was home! She is 72 apparently (she looks maybe like 55 tops!) and she had a bunch of questions about the 3 kingdoms. We answered her questions as best we could and then we asked her if meeting with missionaries is something she'd like to do again. She said yes and we were able to give her a Book of Mormon! Jacob Orr came out with us again on Saturday and we were able to find 2 new investigators with him! One, a man named Travis, used to work with the missionaries like 2 years ago and he said that he'd like to start meeting with us again! The other one is one of the sisters' former investigators who moved into our area! Her name is Willine, she is from Haiti, and she loves God! Awesome so do we! :D Then on Sunday Blane Blackburn (a less-active convert we've started working with) came to church and he brought a friend! That was AWESOME because we didn't think he was coming!!! They were only able to stay for the first 2 hours but they enjoyed it! We visited him that night and while answering some of his questions about the spirit world and he was able to open up A LOT about how hard the death of his dad has been for him. It has really shaken up his faith a lot. It was a really cool experience and I feel like he trusts us a lot more now. It was just a great week! 5 new investigators and a lot of trust built with some of the less-active members that we've been starting to work with! Good times in Iowa! :D

Love,

Elder Logan Flake    

Week 58 8-31-15

     What?! Spencer's tendon got separated from the bone? Thats nuts! You watched Wicked? Nice! I remember when we saw it in New York! We also got to see it when I was a freshman on the band trip to California! The giant Oz head is so awesome! :) YEP SARAH CAME TO CHURCH! We've only been able to meet her once a week for the past two weeks but hopefully more soon! Sarah is getting closer, small step by small step. She'll get there eventually though, I can feel it. :)

     Monday was dope! We had an awesome time at p-day, nothing too crazy this time. :) We were able to talk to a LOT of people though which is always fun! Hahaha that night we had a banana-eating contest with our zone leaders! Elder Martin totally destroyed us all in it, man our stomachs just hurt afterwards! Haha so much potassium riding in our guts! :) Gotta love living with other elders! OK NOW THIS WAS SWEET!!! On Tuesday we went to an appointment we had with a man named Curtis at 2, he was gone but his girlfriend is like "Oh come back in an hour, he'll be here then." We came back and it was a madhouse! Curtis was there but he and like four of his friends were getting ready to have a barbecue! Hahaha rap music blasting, his friends preparing the food in the background, but he's all "C'mon in bros! Let me introduce you to my homies!" At least they turned off the rap music. :) We started teaching him and his girlfriend the Restoration and when we started teaching about the First Vision it was crazy! Everybody was super quiet and listening intently, even those preparing the food, and the Spirit was super strong. It was the most amazing thing ever. Curtis and Melissa accepted the baptismal invite without question and he even said, "I haven't been to church for 7 years and we've actually been looking for a church so this is great!" Pssh! Yea it is! On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Spanish elders! Elder Rader and I were here in our area and we had a blast! We were able to teach Sarah Hubbard again with Jacob and it was great! We went in there with a plan to teach the Law of Chastity and some other commandments but ended up teaching about the importance of daily scripture study and prayer.

     It was a little bit scattered, but the Spirit was there and thats what matters. I've come to realize on my mission that we don't have to be perfect teachers we just have to invite the Spirit and do our best, then the Lord will make up the rest. Its been a hard lesson for me to learn because I'm kind of a perfectionist, but I'm FINALLY starting to realize that I don't have to be perfect. I just need to do the best I can and the Lord will help. That evening we were able to teach Brian his first new member lesson finally! We taught the Restoration and it was great! Brian is coming to church, loving everything about the gospel, and he has now been smoke free for like 2 months!!!! After 28 years of hardcore smoking, the power of the Atonement has completely helped him break that horrible addiction! Man the gospel is so true! :D We were able to teach our investigator Alson (he is a guy) on the bridge and we taught about the Book of Mormon and were able to set a date for October 24! Haha at first when we extended the date he just flat-out said, "No." Then when we explained why we extend baptismal dates (its a goal to work forwards, etc.) he was like "Oh that makes more sense! I thought you guys were just trying to rush me into it and I wanted to take more thought on it first!" We were like "Yep sorry if we came across that way, we're really just want to help you out." It was really good. SARAH CAME TO CHURCH! She's come three times now and is loving it! We're still trying to help her to get that initial "push" but she is slowly getting there! Man! Life is just going so great here! I love Cedar Rapids and I love Iowa!

Love,

Elder Logan Flake