A Great Week

This week has been a great week.  At first it didn't seem like it though.  We didn't have many appointments this week, so we went and visited many potential and former investigators. We burned through names in the area book and miles in the car, but our efforts were rewarded with 5 new investigators which is a lot. We currently have 13 investigators! Some of them are starting to keep their commitments and the members are starting to trust us and work with us more now too.

Chilly is a comparative word. Chilly for North Carolina yes. Chilly for Utah no. I only wear a jacket because we are required to by mission rules. It has been raining a lot though.  The leaves are starting to change though. 

Our district is very compact. There is only 2 wards in it and each ward has a set of Elders, Sisters and a senior couple. That's three set of missionaries in each ward!

We eat breakfast and lunch by ourselves. I usually don't cook things, I try to keep things simple and fast. Dinners are sometimes with members, but usually not. But, when they feed us it is amazing food.

Just last week I had Hawaiian barbeque and Philippian food.

I did receive the package, thanks for the food and music it was exactly what I wanted. Don't worry about the clothes I bought myself a jacket that should work with my personal debit card.  

That's nice to hear about your break. Today is Columbus day here and I guess it's a pretty big holiday in North Carolina. That is great to hear that stake conference is coming up and that President Reed is still the Stake President. You will have to tell me how Stake Conference goes.  It is good to hear about home.  

I love that quote, something that I study a lot on since I got here is trying to understand people. They have something in the mission called OLDS. Observe, listen, discern and speak. It says in Preach My Gospel that listening is more important than speaking. We cannot help people if we don't listen to the spirit to know how to help them.

I love you so much, even if I don't express it sometimes and I will email you next week.

Love, Elder Lakey

Technically not a greenie anymore

It is nice to hear from you.  Thanks for all that you do for me it is great!

I am technically not a greenie anymore, but basically I'm still am because I am staying with my trainer another transfer. I will probably stay in Jacksonville till Christmas, but you never know what will happen at the next transfer, which is near Thanksgiving.  Everyone that is being transferred goes to the transfer meeting. I am glad I am not training anyone yet, not only do I lack patience, but I still don't know what I am doing.

We had a goal for two baptisms this month, but they probably are not going to happen. One got offended the week he was suppose to be interviewed.  And the other person has not really kept any commitments. Most members just stay at home to watch conference. There were only about a dozen people that would show up at the church including us. We did get some investigators out to the church to watch it though.

I have not received your package yet, most likely because they freeze mail during transfer or else it would create a big mess because no one knows where anyone is going yet.  But, I did receive the package from Grandma.  I am sorry, but I can't seem to get pictures to download onto the computer, so no pictures for the moment. 

That is great to hear you ran into Shaeley Lewis.  I'm glad Grandma and Grandpa found a place to live, is it by where Jason lives? Kiley really does have bad luck with cars!  Members buying lunch for missionaries is universal, it's just that, only in Utah are there enough members for that to happen very often.

We attended all the sessions of General Conference at the church it was very spiritual. I learned more from this General Conference than I have at any other one. I took twelve pages of notes at this one!

As a missionary, I loved the Saturday afternoon session. Because, it was mostly about Missionary work.   I liked Brother McConkie's talk he even said himself that many of the things he talked about he got from Preach My Gospel. There is one whole chapter in it dedicated on how to teach lessons. And, another one on lessons investigators must be taught before they can be baptized. I also loved Elder Dube, Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Elder M. Russel Ballard's talk. Elder Ballard's promise is powerful.  I hope people pay attention to Elder Neilson's talk and his promise, that if everyone in the church talked to one person by Christmas that millions of people's lives will be blessed.

I love it out here, it really is the best two years and I will email you again next week.

Love, Elder Lakey

Last week of training

Things have been going great here.  We currently have 3 investigators who committed to being baptized.  It  is crazy to think that this is my last week being trained and come transfers next week I have no idea what if anything will happen or not happen. 

The week after we met the man from Honduras we knocked on his door again and a different Hispanic man opened the door and he told us that the other person moved away a long time and he didn't know where to. A lot of weird puzzling stuff like that happens on missions.  Despite the productivity of this week the Facebook referrals have stopped.

It is feeling very nice during the day now, but during the morning is is starting to get cold. I don't know how cold it gets here or what I really need.  What I probably need for now is some warm-up clothes and something that is jacket like but looks good when wearing missionary clothes, but not something all expensive like a suit coat. And thanks for the package. I will try to send some photos next week.

That is great to hear about Sarah and Daniel I am sure they will be great missionaries. Thanks for adding them to the contact list. And yea there are a lot of missionaries coming out.  There were 30 last transfer and 17 this upcoming transfer. Mike Russell said he has been nonstop training since he has been trained and Tom Hill is being trained by someone only one transfer older than him. 

Did Grandma and Grandpa ever find a new place to live? And that is good to see that Jonathan wants to try an instrument, especially the cello, since I did the cello too. Hopefully he will stick with it better than I did.

We are extremely excited for General Conference, my companion, Elder McHan took 26 pages of notes last Conference. We will watch it in the ward building the stake building is way to far to go.  In fact, most members here in Jacksonville will watch it at their house. 

That is great spiritual message there will always be a need for prophets and revelations. Mosiah 8:18 says that prophets are for our benefit here on earth. Many people don't understand the need for revelation from God and are satisfied with their current relationship with him. It is interesting to note that they are damned when they do this, but they damned themselves because they stop progressing towards God, God does not damn people.

Keeping your covenants is a great theme. Many people get hung up on the fact that they already have been baptized. But, outside of our faith few if anyone views baptisms as a covenant with God and that partly is why they have to be properly baptized.

It has been a good week and I hope you are all doing well and I will email you next week.

Love, Elder Lakey

Bogoroditse Devo

Things have been going pretty good, we are now starting to get new investigators.  I did get on Facebook this week and it has been pretty successful we got a lot of referrals through it.  This week we finally got to talk to an investigator who works 16 hours a day.  She is really excited about The Book of Mormon. It goes to show that persistence and diligence pays off. I also talked to a person from Honduras who didn't know much English and I am trying to read a Spanish pamphlet  to try to prepare to teach him the Restoration, that was pretty interesting. Yesterday was also stake conference.

It has cooled down a lot now, it is kinda weird but it feels like being up in the mountains because it cool about in the 70s it rains a lot and there are trees everywhere( roads here are just green tunnels).

The family is allowed to like and comment on it and even encouraged so that way others can see it. It has cooled down a lot now, it is kinda weird but it feels like being up in the mountains because it cool about in the 70s it rains a lot and there are trees everywhere( roads here are just green tunnels). This week we finally got to talk to a woman who works 16 hours a day. She is really excited about The Book of Mormon. It goes to show that persistence and diligence pays off. I also had to talk to person from Honduras who didn't know much English and I am trying to read a Spanish pamphlet  to try to prepare to teach him the Restoration, that was pretty interesting.

I hope I can clarify the stance on Facebook. If I post some spiritual message on Facebook you and all my family and friends are allowed to like it and post about it in fact  you are encouraged to. However I cannot talk or message you unless it is strictly about missionary business, like for example if one of my non-member friends wanted to talk about the gospel or you have some people who are interested in the gospel who you want to refer them to me to through Facebook. We also have our companions proof-read everything we type before we send it on Facebook.

We do have a CD player.  Elder McHan and I like to listen to spiritual music a lot. I wouldn't mind if you sent me some spiritual music like Mormon Tabernacle Choir especially Called to Serve and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing(that CD has some nice gospel music on it) I also wouldn't mind some Rachmaninoff music. Especially a song called Bogoroditse Devo.  It is Russian but it is beautiful and invites the Spirit in. A care package would be nice and I don't really care what is in it I will be grateful with whatever.

Thanks for the sports update. It is kinda funny because many members love BYU and so do missionaries so every Sunday members will approach us and start talking about BYU football until yesterday.

There was a lot of talk about the Holy War until yesterday... I did not know the score nor what happen at the game but I knew without anyone telling me that Utah won.

It is amazing how often missionaries will come at just the right time. There is a member in our ward that tells everyone his conversion story that he was going to commit suicide later that night just before the missionaries found him. We are told in in the Book of Mormon several times that all good things comes from God, and good things no matter how small can be the answer we are looking for.

This should be a great week out in the Mission field and I will email next week.

Love, Elder Lakey

Doing the Lord's work

It is going good out here, doing the Lord's work.  No new investigators yet, and the referral from HQ led us to a part member family, it is still unknown if the non-member wife wants to take lessons or not.  We had some interesting encounters with people but nothing has come of it yet.  I also did have a few opportunities to use the priesthood this week. The temple was great and all the missionaries in my zone came with me.

I have zone meeting on Wednesday about Facebook. I watched my zone leader the other day get about 3 referrals in about 30 minutes on Facebook.  To put that in perspective I have only gotten 4 referrals this entire month. have no idea how General Conference is suppose to work.  We are also having a General Authority coming to us in November this year it is a member of the seventy but last year it was Elder Holland.

I did receive the cookies you sent and they are in good condition.  I have yet to try any strange food although I have recently fallen in love with pot stickers. Other than Camp Lejeune, I can't say I have been anywhere interesting although Camp Lejeune is huge and I haven't been to a lot of it.

I am glad about everything the pioneers did for us. And similar to how the Lord helped the pioneers he help us missionaries. If you think 20 year old men can convince people to join a whole other religion using just words, than your crazy. It is the Lord that does the converting and I seen missionaries withstand any and all false doctrine even from those who went to religious schools for years.  That power and knowledge only comes from the Lord. If that power knowledge were stay with us after our missions getting a degree in Theology would be easy.

Raleigh, North Carolina is a baptizing mission it is not a Noah or Mormon mission where we are to cry repentance in vain. It will come in time I just have to do everything I can do and everything will work out fine.  It is true that it is obedience is what increases our faith because then we are experimenting on the words of the Lord.

Thanks for your prayers and I will talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Lakey

Hard but fulfilling

It is going alright down here. The weather has cooled off a little bit but not as much as I would like.  Things have been slow, we honestly do not have anyone who is willing to do more than just hear the word. We are trying to find more investigators through members, because finding them through our own efforts only seems to find flaky investigators. I hate writing stuff that sounds negative especially for the the last couple weeks. But I cannot lie and sugar coat missionary work. It is hard but fulfilling, frustrating and peaceful at the same time I truly do enjoy bring on a mission but it is agonizing to see people fall short of their potential.

I haven't been on Camp Lejuene much since the baptisms. We try to have exchanges (where the member comes with both of us as oppose to us separating) to every lesson but it doesn't always work that way, but we get exchanges to most lessons. I have yet to speak in the church except for the primary once but we missionaries are teaching 3rd hour on the 5th Sunday of the month. We are going to the temple on Friday. 

Thanks for cleaning up my facebook account.  Thanks for the cookies and I would just keep sending stuff to the Mission Office. I have figured out the GPS, it was rather easy, but I am not sure I will ever enjoy bike riding.

It sounds like everything is going smoothly back home. I hope Jonathan sticks with an instrument, because I never could. 

Thanks for the message as usual, faith in the basic doctrine is all that is needed to do great things and to have the testimony of the church. That part of history(leaving Nauvoo) is sad but it needs to be remembered.  I feel gratitude for the pioneers and what they did especially since I don't think I would have the physical strength needed to be a pioneer back then. 

It isn't a matter of if we will find people who are willing to repent and be baptized it is a matter of when.  You never know, the referral we just got from church HQ as I was emailing you may be that person who will bring himself and others onto Christ.  Just work hard, be obedient and have faith and everything will work out find.

Love, Elder Lakey

Laboring in the Lord's vineyard

It going alright out here. We did get new missionaries, Elder Gallagher from Kanab, Utah and Sister Bush from North Ogden, Utah. It has been a little slow on the investigator front, it seems like for one reason or another appointments keep on falling through.  But, these things always happens to missionaries and are to be used as a learning opportunity. But, the recent converts are doing well, which is a really good thing because some recent converts in this ward that were baptized before I came, end up falling away from the church and going inactive, and we still teach them about once a week.

We are not doing anything special for Labor day other than laboring in the Lord's vineyard which is special enough for me. And if a public event happens during the day on preparation day we can attend. Elder McHan has gone to some minor league baseball games in his last area.

I will start using facebook around September 18th. Because Elder McHan is a District Leader he gets to test facebook and he is already on. We will not be receiving ipads for a long time.  One of the things you could really help me out on is preparing my facebook account. Due to facebook policy, I will be using my old facebook account, because we are not allowed to have 2 accounts.  It could be a big help if you were to delete all game and apps, unlike all things that don't relate to the gospel and post on my facebook warning my friends that I will have to unfriend them if they try distract me or try to talk to me about non-missionary things. There are other things I will need to modify but I will do it myself, but just doing these things alone will be a big help to me.

The bike riding has not hindered the work, but it is a very obvious weakness that I have. I did receive my kickstand several week ago and my butt is now used to my bike.  That is great about Derek I am sure he is happy. I do remember Mrs. Neese, although I would be very surprised if she remembers me all that well though. That is great you are liking elementary school, there is a certain innocence in elementary schools that don't exist in Jr. highs. Yeah, we have ward council meetings dedicated to missionary work. We try to work with them, but as you could imagine certain organizations do a lot more missionary work than others.

Thanks for the spiritual message there is a lot opposition out here, but it comes mostly in the form of contentment and apathy. Many people are content with their understanding of the gospel because they believe they have already been "saved". Many people can give you the date on when they were "saved", and thus reject the Book Of Mormon and the church because they feel like there is no need for it. It is very critical that we get people to pray about the Book of Mormon. If they find out it is true, then they learn that there must be more out there.

Thanks for the prayers and I pray for you back home too.

Love, Elder Lakey