January 15th, 2013 Email

To the Family,

I feel like I was just in this stinkin library yesterday, this week has gone by way too fast! I guess I will outline the week sort of for all of yous. Last Wednesday I was sick, so I stayed in that stupid room all day while other missionaries went to the lessons we had. It was not fun. The next day we had the "huge" snow storm and they called us in early so that we would be safe. Utah doesnt know how to plow their roads, so there was a ton of traffic that night. All of the neighborhood streets are still not plowed or salted which makes it scary sometimes when people drive. It snowed all the way through Friday and stopped on Saturday. Overall we got about 14 to 16 inches so there is a decent amount of snow here and it is a blast to walk in!
Not much happened Friday or Saturday except for some lessons we had with mostly less actives. Sunday we gave talks about fulfilling our calling which I thought was interesting because father spoke a bit about that on Sunday as well.
We also taught some lessons that night and saw a bunch of peeps which was good. Yesterday President finally met with Ric about the polygamy thing and he doesnt have to meet with a GA!! That will make it easier for him to get baptized! Now all he has to do is quit smoking and move out of his ex wife's house, odd situation.
To update you on our peeps. Takashi is getting baptized this saturday!! Everything is set up and ready for him so that should all be good. Morgan is now solid to get baptized, but it will happen the 9th of February because she wants her dad to baptize her, so no complaints there. Kristen still has to get married first and we are having a tough time getting that set up with her. Greg is ready, but he has to get divorced first. And we have not met with Ralph in a while which is no good. We talked to this woman yesterday who is a semi investigator. She doesnt really believe in God because she says she has never felt his presence. We talked to her yesterday a little bit about the Spirit and how that works. We are going back on Friday and will discuss some more things. Pray that she has an overwhelming experience and acts on it!
We are meeting with a bunch of less actives which is cool. The Leighs are a cool family and they are progressing very well to make it to the temple pretty soon. Devon is an 18 year old kid who kinda believes in the church, but has made some mistakes in the past and kind of needs to work through those. I cant think of any others off the top of my head, but there are also a bunch of recent converts that we are working with. There is plenty of work to do in this area. I especially realized this the other day when we were walking through one of our appartment complexes for what seemed for hours! We have 8 or 9 appartment complexes like that. We determined that there are 50000 to 100000 people in our area. I might be exagerating, but that is till a mucho! And not many of those are active members. It was a little overwhelming when I came to this realization, I felt like I needed to try every appartment and find EVERYONE! But that would require knocking doors, and that is a waste of time. We are going to try to work through members more because they are the key. I think I have explained this many times, but I cannot stress it enough. Members are full time missionaries. I spoke about this on Sunday how God has commanded us to do missionary work, so we gotta do it. It is part of our calling.
Well I will stop ranting. I hope all of you have a good week! See you on the other side!

Elder Connell

January 8th, 2013 Email

Hey Everyone,

This time I am emailing on Tuesday and it should be this way for a while. The past 2 weeks were flukes because of the holidays, just so all of you are aware. Well, another week has come and gone. I did see Jeremy last Friday which was wierd, we had just checked the mail and I see him in his car right in front of me. I thought it was kind of odd and then I actually realized that it was him. He came into the room and we chatted for about half an hour and he gave me the package. Thank you so much for that by the way it was pretty nifty cool!

Yesterday we had zone conference. It was a pretty good zone conference, shorter than they usually are. They trained us on using the Spirit in lessons, how to introduce the Book of Mormon, and goals. I learned some pretty neat things that I can take with me and use in my work here in Clearfield. Then we had lunch, took a group photo and got to the second half. Sister Hiers spoke on hope and President Hiers answered some questions we had and the like. He then put us into groups where we discussed missionary experiences of getting people to the temple, and some missionaries shared some of their stories. Then he did something different and he called on a few missionaries to share their testimonies. It was pretty neat and the Spirit was there pretty strongly.

This past week some other missionaries had a baptism and we attended that since our lesson canceled. That went pretty well. We also picked up a baptismal date with Morgan.  I dont think I have mentioned her before so I will talk more about her now. Her mom was just recently reactivated and her dad was just recently baptized and she has just recently shown interest in learning more. So that is where we come in. We kind of met with her and talked to her once 2 weeks ago, and then last week we had the first lesson with her. The Spirit was there and she recognized it at least partially, so we invited her to be baptized. She said yes, but she is still iffy about it and has to find out whether or not she really wants to do it. So we set a date with her, the 26th, and by reading and praying and attending church she can find out whether or not this is all for her. That is where we are at with her. We have a lesson with her tomorrow, so we will find out where she has progressed in the past week.

Ric, the guy who has to meet with an apostle, is still doing good. He first has to meet with President Hiers, which he will do on Thursday. Kristen, another investigator, wants to get baptized, but first has to get married. We are meeting with her tonight to figure that out some more. She is thinking it will be after February because she wants family to come, and they may not be able to come until then. Tekoshi was interviewed last night to be baptized and he passed! The only issue is that the baptism will be moved back to the 19th because his mom will be working late this saturday. It will happen, it just keeps getting pushed back which is not fun. All the other peeps we are teaching right now are not really progressing too much.

A less active couple we are teaching just recently had their baby!! That is exciting and very cool. We are working a lot with the less actives and recent converts to get them to the temple. That is the mission vision, to get people baptized and then get them to the temple. It is a good vision because we dont want anyone to go less active after they are baptized because we dont want them to get lost. That is my purpose as a missionary.

That is really all that has happened this past week, it hasnt been too eventful. Hope all of you are doing well back home. See you on the other side!

Love,
Elder Connell

January 2nd, 2013 Email

Dear Family and peeps,

It is now a new year! Im sure all of you know that by now though. Yes, I am emailing on Wednesday again because yesterday was a holiday and everything was closed. Next week will be on Tuesday though, so you will have time to repent and email me. This has been a very good week so far if I remember right. There have been several things that have been very interesting.
I guess I will start out by saying that we have a baptism date for the 12th of this month. It is a 13 year old named Tekoshi. His mom is less active, but we are working to get her more active, so that Tekoshi is not baptized into inactivity.
I think I also mentioned a guy named Ric who has to get an interview by a member of the 12, so we are getting that going, right now he has a meeting scheduled with our mission President. There are some others that we invited to be baptized, but they have some issues that we are kind of working out right now. We hope to get a bunch more peeps with dates within the next week or so.
We are also working with a bunch of less actives and recent converts right now which are doing pretty awesome! I cant really think of any off the top of my head that are progressing or whatever, but we are helping them.
We just recieved a training today, and we are going for 460 baptisms for the mission within 3 months. The goal for our zone will be 40 baptisms in three months, which is very achievable. They also trained us on our daily and weekly planning things and how to do those more effectively. I am pretty stoked about this training and incorporating it into my planning sessions and all that.
So there were a few interesting experiences that happened this last week that I am going to talk about. Neither of them are connected really, but I understand what both experiences taught me and how they connect in that way. The first experience happened one night when we were at a lesson with one of our investigators. The mother of the home lives there and is a member. She was very sick at the time and desired to recieve a blessing. So we give her a blessing, I annointed and Elder Knittle blessed and when we were down she turned to me and said that when I put my hands on her head she felt an immediate warmth. I was kind of caught off guard by that because I was just using my priesthood as I normally would, but she felt a difference. I have given several blessings this past week which have been very good and helped in one way or another. God can do anything by the priesthood.
The second experience happened on Sunday which is super crazy. So we were just walking from one church building to another, ward hopping, and this guy in a truck pulls into a parking lot in front of us and asks us if we speak Spanish. We say no, because we dont, but we give him the number of the Spanish missionaries. We thought nothing of it so we go our merry little way to church. Later that night we find out from the Spanish missionaries what happened with that guy. He called them and told them to meet him behind a Laundro-mat at 7pm that night. They thought that was pretty sketchy so they came prepared kind of. They meet him there and it all turns out good and he invites them to his place of residence. It turns out that he has talked to missionaries before and not wanted anything to do with them. But that morning the Spirit directed him to go on a drive. When he saw us on the side of the road the spirit directed him to talk to us, but he resisted. The Spirit told him again to talk to us, so he pulled over and did. We gave him their number and he called them and told them to meet him at the laundro mat. He decided that if they showed up to the meeting then they were messangers from God. They did show up and now he has a baptism date for the 26th. It is interesting to think that the Lord put us in that exact place for a reason, and we didnt even know about it really. The thing that I got out of these experiences is that I am a tool for the Lord, he is using me to work his miracles and I need to be worthy for him to use me. It is very humbling to know this.

Well, I dont know what else there is to say right now so I will end it. Tell me all your new years resolutions and whats going on back home! See you on the other side!

Love

Elder Connell

December 18th, 2012 Email

Dear yall,

 

I know all of you are wondering whats going on with transfers, but I wont tell you....JK!! I am being transferred to Clearfield, my new companion will be Elder Knittle who I dont really know anything about. I think it will be a pretty good transfer. This email is going to be a little bit shorter than usual because I have to pack and do a bunch of other stuff today, I will only be able to say so much.

 

Next week is Christmas, and I dont know what we are going to do. I am supposed to tell you the plan today, but I dont know anyone in my area so I dont know how I am going to tell you what we are going to do...Hopefully we will be able to skype.

 

Not much else has happened with our investigators or anyone so there really isnt much to report there. I am leaving them anyways so I wont know whats going on with them either after this ha!

 

I did hear about the massacre in Conneticut. That was very sad to hear about. The girls family does live in Ogden, but im not sure where at around here. I hope they are doing alright as a family. It is hard to hear about these kinds of things happening around the world, but we need to remember the Plan of Salvation and how the Atonement of Jesus Christ is for everyone. As long as we strive to live the commandments and follow Christ, we will be able to live with our Father in Heaven again for eternity and be way happy! It is also good to remember Christ during this season and remember not only the fact that he was born, but to remember why he was born.

 

I hope all of you have a good Christmas, I promise that next weeks letter will be better! Love you all! See you on the other side!

 

Love

Elder Connell

December 11th, 2012 Email

To the Family,

 

Another week has come and gone like a flash, it is starting to freak me out! Some of yous have been asking about sending a package. At this point all of yall should send stuff to the missionn office due to the fact that I will probably be transferring next week. I have been in the Ben Lomond Stake for the past 6 months, it is time for me to go. Also, you have been asking what I want, that would be music and ties and random stuff that you would think I would need I guess. Pictures are always good. From this point forward I am banning food from being sent. We get fed WAYYY too much here and it is hard to eat all the goodies that people give me. Thank you.

 

Last week we had the Mission Christmas Conference. It was pretty good. We had an interesting training in the morning about what we need to do from hours 1 to 5 and how we should speak to members during dinners. It was pretty cool. We also heard a returned missionary speak about his experiences. He is from Utah and he served in Boise haha. Then we had lunch, ham and potato, original...and then we took a mission picture. Then after that was the talent show, I was not a part of it. There were many neat talents shared and some not so neat talents haha jk it was all good.

 

Some of you were asking about that older couple that I talked about last week. Well they dropped us haha. The morning before we had the lesson they called us and said that they were not interested and that they did not want to change. Story of my life, nobody wants to change out here!! We did not really expect that all due to the fact that our first lesson went so well and the spirit was so strong you could cut it with the Book of Mormon. We did help them come closer to Christ even just a little bit if anything though. We helped the lady forgive herself for something that happened so long ago. Who knows, maybe they will be looking for something later on down the road and they will remember that experience we had and look further into the Gospel.

 

We did pick up a new investigator this week!! It really isnt as exciting as it sounds though because he isnt that interested haha. Remember I talked about the foreign exchange students a few weeks ago. This guy is the Serbian exchange student. He has many questions and odd concerns, but is interested in at least hearing about what we believe. The lesson was supposed to be on the Plan of Salvation, but it got way off topic, maybe our next lesson he will listen a little bit more. We will talk about faith since he doesnt seem to have any belief in faith at all or even know what it is. We have yet to meet with the German girl still who seems to be the more interested one. We had a lesson set up but she kinda bailed on us, so now we are trying to set up another lesson.

 

How was the Christmas Party back home? Did you have any nonmembers or less actives show up? How long was it? The parties here are like an hour and a half long and it seems too short. I dont know, maybe Im going crasy. We have been to 4 of them so far and we have 3 more this saturday in the morning. Who knows why they do morning parties here? The funny thing is that they all serve the same food, so every saturday we know exactly what we are going to eat for breakfast and for dinner...ham...We have invited a bunch of people to the Christmas parties and a few have showed up. We are hoping this weekend will be better. I sang in the stake Christmas choir a few nights ago, there were a lot of cool songs we sang. We also had a few people show up who we were teaching which was awesome!

 

Other than that I dont think there is anything else new. Next Tuesday I will be able to tell you where I am going so that will be exciting. I am getting a bit anxious again to find out whats going on. I hope all of you have a good week! See you on the other side!

 

Love,

 

Elder Connell

December 4th, 2012 Email

To the Family and others,

 

Okay, so there are a few items of business. Thursday is the mission Christmas party that you have heard about. All of you can just send packages to my appartment. Transfers is the 19th and I am most likely transferring so keep that in mind. I dont know where I will be going, but I have a feeling that it will be up north. And mom, I think there are sister missionaries in the area that the Ures are living, so it is unlikely that I will go there, at least at this point in time.

 

Also, a few of you have asked if I have been sick. I dont remember saying anything about that last week, but this past week I have had a small cold. It is going away now so no worries. It was just annoying.

 

For Christmas I just want music, more ties of course. Maybe a calendar if you feel so inclined, but I dont need one. Pictures are always good, and letters in general are pretty cool. What do you guys want for Christmas? I cant do much, but I want to do something, so give me some ideas.

 

There were a few interesting things that happened this week. Arianna has not returned home yet and we still have not taught the German girl again, but we should this week sometime. We are picking up more and more less actives though with a few nonmembers popping up here and there.

 

Here is a crazy story. Last week we were knocking on doors that had been referred to us by a ward mission leader. We have a map that shows us where each house is. I briefly looked at the map to see where one of them lived and saw that they lived on a corner of a street on the edge of our stake. We park up the street a ways and knock on a few houses and talk to a few people on the way to this particular house. We knock this house and an old couple answers the door, we ask to give them a Christmas message, they say no, then Elder Hayes says that nobody listens to us and we need to teach to stay on our game. We kinda guilt tripped them, but we got a lesson set for the next day so it was all good. We go the next night over there not really expecting much to come from this lesson. We give the Christmas message and then some of their concerns come out and we addressed them, and she felt the Spirit, strongly. Strongly enough to want to learn more at least. So that was pretty awesome. Then a few days ago I was looking at the map again and realized that the people actually live outside of our area, BY ONE HOUSE!! I mixed up the boudaries in my head as I was looking at the map before. But the thing is that we would have never knocked on that house if we did not make that mistake. The Spirit was directing us there, that was for sure.

 

There are a ton of Christmas parties going on. We have three to go to in one morning! Its pretty nuts. We are also doing little Christmas messages for the season. We basically talk about the nativity story in Luke 2, share some personal stories or traditions, ask if they have any experiences, and then we ask to come back to teach them more about Jesus and the Restored Gospel. It is a pretty nifty idea for the season.

 

Oh yeah, one of our less actives that we thought was active dropped us. She had been listening to our lessons and keeping committments, but the whole time she didnt agree with certain parts of the Gospel. We found that out last week and we spent an hour trying to resolve those concerns, but her heart was hardened, she did not have the desire to learn more because it would mean she would have to change. If they dont have the desire to know then they will not learn.

 

It was an interesting week, I felt pretty out of it half the time because my sinuses were going crazy. I can see now that being sick makes it harder to listen to the Holy Ghost. Kinda annoying, so that is why the Word of Wisdom is so important.

 

Any who I hope all of youo have a good week, I will try to as well. Lovest thees! See you on the other side!

 

Love

 

Elder Connell

Novemeber 27th, 2012 Email

Hello Ya'll,

 

Thanksgiving is over, next is Christmas...yikes...another call home. Anyways, thanksgiving was very fun! We played turkey bowl for 3 hours that morning, then we went to "dinner" at 1pm at one of the members house and ate delicious food. Then we went bowling with one of our Bishops, afterwards we visited a few of the people we are teaching. Than we went to Plain City to visit the Sparks because they wanted us to. We played that picture sentence game at their house which was way super funny, we laughed. It was a good Thanksgiving.

 

Just a heads up, transfers is in 3 weeks, on the 19th. I will most likely be transfered meaning you wont have my address until I can give it to you on Christmas Day...I dont know how thats gonna work anyways.

 

So this week has been somewhat the same as other weeks. Last week was pretty slow because of the Holidays, most people were busy, so they didnt want to set up any lessons with us. I told you about the 2 foreign exchange students right? Well we havnt heard from them yet about doing a lesson, but Im sure it will happen with the German girl. We also kind of picked up Toni again last week. We taught her a lesson and she said that she would probably come to church this sunday, so we will see.

 

Not much new has happened with our investigators. Arianna has been out of town for a while now, but she wants to talk to us about something...? Who knows what that means, I hope its not something bad. Our less actives are doing pretty good as well. Again, not much has changed because this week was a little slower, but not much bad stuff has happened either so thats good.

 

The weird thing is that everyone has been getting sick lately. We have met like 4 or 5 families that have had some kind of flu going around. That is why so many of our lessons cancelled, because peeps are getting sick. I havnt gotten sick so no worries there.

 

Not sure what else to say. Volleyball is still going pretty good. Not many people are showing up, and lately it has been just members, but hopefully this saturday we will have more show up. There are a lot of Christmas parties going on this month, it is funny. We are also singing in a stake Christmas choir which is kind of fun. We will be inviting all those we are teaching to come watch us.

 

Remind people to write me because I dont get much these days. I hope you are all having a good time back home and that everything is going well! See you on the other side!

 

Love,

 

Elder Connell

November 20th, 2012 Email

Hello all yall,

 

Another week in Ben Lomond. Lets see what has happened...

 

Arianna's baptism has been pushed back another week because she is not quite ready. She needs to go to church one more time and she needs a stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Gospel itself. She has come a long way though. She is starting to recognize some blessings and the Holy Ghost. That is what its all about, conversion, step by step. We cant learn it all at once, otherwise our heads would explode, no joke.

 

It is unfortunate, but all of our other investigators, besides Gloria, are not really interested in being converted. They just want to know more about our religion because they just moved here. Or they just want to socialize and feed us. We did have a pretty cool dinner last night though. We did service with this young man last week who was talking about some of his friends who were foreign exchange students. We asked him to invite them to dinner with us because his family was feeding us. So we ate dinner with them last night. One is from Servia, and the other is from Germany. We had a good discussion with them at dinner, the Servian is not sooo interested, but the German girl seems pretty solid from what I can gather. We have another lesson with them on Wednesday that we can see better where they are at. It was pretty cool.

 

Have I told you that we are doing volleyball every saturday morning with peeps in the area? Well we do. It is pretty cool because some peeps we teach are starting to come. Hopefully the foreign exchange students will come as well. Dad, you could mention this idea to the Elders that they could do volleyball with the youth and have them invite friends. It is a pretty good way for missionaries to get to know nonmembers in a nonthreatening way...and its fun.

 

Our less active work is pretty awesome as usual. We picked up this family the Lee's, I dont know if I mentioned them before. We are mostly just helping the mom get back to church, because she knows its true. Thats the thing...most of the less active people we talk to know that the church is true, but they are caught up with little things like if they got offended, or they are lazy, or they were forced into things as a youth which caused them to rebel. It is pretty sad to see them in their situations, but I guess that is why I am here, to help them get back to church and to access the Atonement of Jesus Christ and feel of his love.

 

I dont know what else there is to report. I did think of another Christmas gift idea. I have been wanting to learn guitar as maybe a possible few of you may have possibly guessed. Well I do.. So.. a cheap ukeleley, with a beginner book guide, I dont know. You dont have to, but it is just an idea.

 

Thank all of you for everything. THanksgiving will be good, there are peeps who will feedest me so dont worry. Muchos love! See you on the other side!

 

Love

 

Elder Connell

November 13th, 2012 Email

Hello Peeps,

 

First of all I want to apologize for last weeks letter, it was rather lame. To clear things up, I am staying in Ben Lomond for another 6 weeks, well...5 weeks now. And I am still with Elder Hayes which is very unusual to be with one companion for that long. I thought for sure that I would be transfered, but the Lord needed me here for a little longer for some odd reason, Im not sure why yet.

 

Congratulations to Britt for getting married on Saturday! Wish I could be there, but I will be there in spirit so its all good. It sounds like it will be a very good wedding, so take much photos and record it well so that I can see what its like and stuff.

 

Okay, and peeps been asking me what I want for Christmas. First off, you dont have to get it to me by that deadline thing, I dont care if I dont get a package for that mission conference thing. You can just send the stuff whenever. I guess I just want the same things as I did for my Birthday. Some more music, maybe some talks or books on tape or whatever. I always like ties, pictures, letters. I dont know what else, maybe a nice watch? I dont know, I will have to think some more. There isnt much that I really need, Im a missionary haha I dont have much use for things.

 

Okay, so our work is picking up a bit again. We had a baptism date for this saturday, but it is being pushed back because Ariana, the investigator, isnt ready yet. She HAS progressed though, a lot. It is crazy to see the change in people. She has a hard time keeping committments because she is not used to it, so we are helping her with reading the Book of Mormon and praying. Our other investigators are not really going anywhere which is pretty sad. Gloria is still very sick and it is hard to get a hold of her. Gino, and the Lambs have basically come to us and said that they dont want to get converted, but they like to learn more and talk to us and stuff like that. The only thing we can do there is bring the Spirit and pray that their hearts are softened.

 

Our less active work is going great though! We are picking up a few more people to teach there. Like I said last week, our less actives have been doing missionary work and doing awesome things! I will share with you a story I guess yesterday. Well, its not really a story, its just the fact that yesterday was a really good day. We just seemed to talk to all the right people, the Lord was guiding us to all the people that He wanted us to talk to. We can no longer use public gyms, so we went to turn in our key card to snap fitness and we talked to the girl who was working there and it turned out that she was less active and we had a good conversation with her and hopefully helped her out. And then when we were leaving the parking lot we saw this guy who was also less active who wants to get back to church. We have talked to him before, but have not met up with him yet. It was just cool to be an instrument in the Lords hands to guide me to His children that He wanted us to see that day.

 

That is whats going on right now. I have some pictures to upload so all of you can enjoy. See you on the other side!

 

Love

 

Elder Connell

 

 

November 6th, 2012 Email

Hey Family,

 

Transfers was this week, I am staying with Elder Hayes and nothing happened. Sometimes I just think that President doesnt really care what happens so he just leaves me here. Dont get me wrong, I like the people in my area, but I cannot be within the same square mile for 6 months, it makes me stir crazy and I feel a little stressed right now so sorry if my letter today is out there.

 

It is very cool because we are teaching some less actives right now and they are being super missionaries! Danica now has a testimony of God and has invited her nonmember friend to our lesson tonight. Jason and Whitney, this other couple who we are teaching, brought a friend to our lesson last night who wants to get back to church. Jason and Whitney were helping us teach the whole time and were bearing their testimony the whole time. It was awesome!

 

We also saw footloose the musical at the local high school. We sat on the front row. It was cool to see so many people that I know and recognize in the cast. We are teaching a bunch of people in it so we saw it to support them.

 

Im sorry again that this email is lame, I am not into it today. I got the package the other day, thank you for all the cool stuff. Love you all. See you on the other side!

 

Love

Elder Connell