February 5th, 2013 Email

Hello everybody!

 

Life is crazy, very crazy. This past week has been an insane rollercoaster and it seems to be be speeding up. As all of you now know I am now a father! Last Wednesday, Elder Knittle went up to Willard and Elder Pape came to the area. A lot has happened since then. Being a new trainer has stretched me a little bit, but being with a new companion is the real kicker. Elder Pape just came from the MTC a week ago and he didnt know much about missionary work. They teach so much at the MTC so fast that by the time they get to the field they have forgotten everything. I feel as if I have had to start from scratch. It is a stressful process, but I am working through it. Every morning we do companion study and as a trainer we do 2 hours of companion study. So far our comp studies have consisted of me teaching him how to teach the basic lessons and how to extend commitments. It is cool because it helps me learn them more and it is nice to see Elder Pape progress as he has learned the lessons more. Still stressful though.

 

We have been very succesful as a companionship however this past week. Last Thursday we stole the car from Elder Walz so now we have a car. That makes things very easy because we can cover our whole area in about 5 minutes. Friday we taught this guy Doug for the first time. He has never heard much about the LDS church and so he wanted to learn more. We taught him and extended a baptism day for him. He didnt quite accept, but he knew that he needed to find out if it was true and he knew how he would get his answer. We also taught Kine that day for the second time and she accepted a date as well, but she is definitely more solid than Doug. It was a good day because we went to a baptism of ELder Henthorn's sisterinlaw's brother. It was good. And we had another lesson with Ric that night which went well.

 

Saturday was kind of lame because we had two pretty cool lessons set up, but both fell through. The rest of the day was pretty lame and slow and it was a hard day for me. That night however, we had a zone "get to know you session" where we played this game that is similar to fruit basket, excpet with missionary experiences instead of fruit. It was fun and I ate food. Then Sunday we weent to church all day like usual, but Kine and Doug did not show up to church, so their baptisms will have to be pushed back. That night we had some lessons and good times with some of the less active people we work with. They are pretty cool.

 

Yesterday was a pretty decent day. 2 of our lessons fell through, but the two that we were supposed to have on Saturday happened yesterday and we got 2 new investigators, and one of them with a baptism date. Ben is interested in learning about the church, but did not commit to a baptism date because he wanted to read the whole book of Mormon first which is cool, but his answer will come before then. The other is Kenshin, who is Takashi's 9 yr old borther. He wants to be baptized, but only because it is "cool" We cannot deny him of being baptized, so we will have to teach him the importance of baptism so that he can understand it and understand the commitment he is making. We had another lesson with Gideon, who is doing fantastic by the way. He met with the bishop and he is working to going to church. He is now reading the Boook of Mormon every day and doing everything he can to resist temptation.

 

This week has been a crazy rollercoaster. Training is draining me because I am doing most of the work, nearly all of the work, but I am forcing my son out of his shell by having him do some teaching and extending commitments. He reminds me of myself when I was green and so I know how to help him and what I need to do. It has been very difficult and some days I feel completely stressed and depressed and overwhelmed by all of the things I have to do. I am so grateful for the Lord because I know he is helping me out. I could not do the work without his help, I just could not.

 

I am glad to hear that Grandpa is doing a little better. I have been praying for him and yous guys. That is also sad to hear about Pres Labrum's wife. That is a hard thing, but you are all right about the plan of salvation. It is real and it helps us all out a ton. Much loves to yas. See you on the other side!

 

Love

Elder Connell

January 29th, 2013 Email

Hey Fam,

So tomorow is transfers and I found out last night what is happening to me, drum roll......I am training! Crazy huh? I am getting a son, poor kid. So yeah that is whats happening, Elder Knittle is going up to Willard. Crazy times here that is for sure. I will update you next week who my companion is and what he is like and all that good stuff. I am super tired again so Im not sure how much sense this letter will make. I am always tired though, so this is normal. Mother I sent a letter to you, so you should get it soon.
Ya'll are saying that you liked my last email, that is good, I will try to do all of them like that. Last Wednesday was a normal day, we had some lessons that went well. We met this guy Matt who used to do some bad stuff and he went to prison and now he is wanting to do good. He is kind of an odd guy, but he is nice. Less active and kinda wanting to get back to church, but not so much. There is another guy like that, Tony. There are some pretty wierd people here, they are super nice, just way wierd. Morgan's baptism date was pushed back to the 16th because she is waiting for her dad to get the Melchezidek Priesthood so that he can do the baptism and confirmation. She is solid though, so no worries there.
Thursday was another average day. We had some lessons with some peeps. We also found 2 new nonmembers that day who we can start teaching. Ben is pretty interested and wants to know more. And Chris is semi interested, another odd fellow. Though both of them want to meet with us so we will see where that goes. Friday was also an average day. We met with Gideon that day though, he is still doing pretty good. He is going to more AA stuff and adiction recovery places. He had a meeting with the Bishop Sunday and we are not sure yet what happened there, but we will probably find out tonight. He is making pretty huge leaps and bounds which is so awesome because he is getting closer to Christ! We have had to reschedule with Kine as well, but it should work out now because we will be able to get the other guy there to help translate. Everything seems to be going good there.
Saturday was the interesting day. In the morning we made a few contacts, and then we had a lesson with Ralph. I dont know if I have talked about Ralph before, but he is less active getting active again. When we came saturday though he was struggling, so we helped him out a bit. My testimony on the Spirit was strengthened ten fold in that experience. We then helped some other missionaries that afternoon with a baptism. Our dinner for that night fell through and then we had a lesson with the Leighs, who are this family who is getting active again. They are doing super good.
Sunday was another average Sunday with meetings from 9-5. We fasted for Ralph as well, and that night the Elders quorum president went over there to check up on him. Everything else that night was pretty normal except that it was snowing pretty bad. Yesterday we had a pretty normal day as well. Meetings in the morning and then some lessons that afternoon and evening. Most fell through like normal, but it was a pretty good day. Takashi is acting strange with his mom, and his dad came by when we were there. He has no custody over Takashi, but he sees him every once and a while. Lets just say he isnt a very good influence. Cussing and yelling at your kids is not the best, even if they do something they are not supposed to. And then that night President Hiers called me and asked me to train, I rejected and he said I would do it anyway, jk I accepted. I feel as though I am ready for it and I need it. We had transfer breakfast this morning and found out where everyone else is going and doing. It is snowing pretty crazy again.
Oh did I tell you that there was a day where we had freezing rain. That was pretty fun, but dangerous. I fell twice and it took forever to travel anywhere cuz we had to shuffle the whole time. This week seems to have been somewhat uneventful haha, next week will be better though. My greeny is gonna have a reality check with some of the people we are seeing this week. We may have an anti person that we could start teaching. Fun stuff. I hope all of you have a good week. Pray for me haha. See you on the other side!
Love
Elder Conelly

January 22nd, 2013 Email

HEY!

I am super tired right now, and it is very odd because there is one more week in the transfer. Next week I will find out what is going on, I will probably stay, but Im not sure what will happen otherwise. I always get super anxious around this time of the transfer. And then a week after that I hit my year mark o_0 crazy to think about. This past week has been pretty crazy.
It basically started last Thursday when we had a zone blitz in our area. The whole zone tracted out a whole appartment complex. It was pretty crazy, but we got some more people to teach out of that. We did some other stuff that day and then we did splits that night. We got quite a bit of work done and set up some lessons for Monday which was very good! The next day Friday, we go back to see some of the people that were contacted at the appartment complex from the zone blitz. The first one fell through, story of my life, but they are still interested and want to meet with us sometime, so we set up a lesson with them on Monday. The second one did go through, it is a Martial Island woman. She does not speak good english so there was a language barrier there and we had to teach VERY simply, that was a new challenge, I will talk more about that a little later though, her name is Kine.
And then the other lesson for that area was this guy named Gideon, this is a pretty cool story. Gideon is a less active member, very less active. He has fallen into some addictions and has gotten to the point where he does not feel like he can be forgiven. This, coupled with some mental illnesses has caused him to become very depressed. The day of the blitz he was contmeplating suicide and was in the process of measuring his closet to hang himself when one of the missionaries knocked on his door. We came back the next day and talked to him. We talked about the Atonement and how it is for everyone. We told him that God does love him and is there to help him. We got him to pray and to make baby steps with his repentance process. At that time he was semi interested in changing his life, but after that lesson he said he was just going to get drunk again that night. We set up a lesson to meet with him again on Monday. I will continue this story later on.
Friday night we had a few lessons with some less actives that went pretty well. Miracle: one of the less active families that we are cool with knows someone who SPEAKS MARTIALISE! That is pretty rare, ESPECIALLY in Utah, ESPECIALLY in this area ESPECIALLY someone who we can get in contact with. God has plans for Kine and her family. The next day, Saturday, was Takashi's baptism. It was kind of a more laid back day because we did weekly planning and then we filled up the font for a while before the baptism. Takashi was baptized and it was pretty awesome, see photo below. He was confirmed Sunday, and we were able to be there for that which is awesome, Sunday was pretty crazy though and I will get into that now. We went to some wards in the morning, but then we had two places to be at 1, a confirmation, and an ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood for a recent convert. We found someone who could drive us around for the day so we tried to make this work. We went to the confirmation because it starts at the beginning of Sacrament, than we went to the ordination and got there right in the middle of it :( We were 2 minutes too late which was sad, but we were there to support him which was good. We then had a lesson and a meeting that afternoon and some other stuff for that night.
Now we get to Monday. If you have been following around so far you will have noticed that Monday has had a lot of lessons set up for. We had 7 lessons set up for monday, starting from ten in the morning and going until 7 that night with an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner. 10 oclock..cancells. 11 oclock goes through, we have a pretty good lesson with Jane who is one of our investigators. She is going to get baptized, but she has some issues she has to work out and we discussed that with her. 12- lunch. 1- cancells. 2- cancels. 3- cancels. 4 is with Gideon again, this is where his story gets pretty cool. We go to his lesson and he tells us what has happened over the weekend. The night we were over the first time, where he said he was going to get drunk, he got 1 and a half beers in and he lost the desire, he threw out all his beer. The next day he feels an overwhelming pressure to drink again, he overcomes it. Sunday he feels a comfort and peace that his burden has been lifted a little. And goes to an addiction recovery group and feels very welcomed by everyone there. Monday we meet with him and talk more about the atonement. He is going to meet with the Bishop and work through his problems. The atonement is for everyone, and it changes lives. From meeting with Gideon the first time I get this overwhelming feeling of love for him and all the people we work with. I had an overwhelming desire to help EVERYONE. I felt a portion of how Jesus feels for all of us. A tiny tiny tiny portion of that. Just to put things in perspective. 5- we have dinner with Bishop Fisher and wife, mexican food. 6- we go with one of our wml to visit some people in his ward, good contacts. 7- we meet with Ric and he is close to quiting smoking, he is going to get baptized soon. Overall the score for yesterday is: 4 cancelled, 3 gone through. Story of a missionary, thats pretty normal, but upsetting.
That is basically most of my week. The rest of this week is super booked with lessons most hours. Many will fall through, but many will go through. The Lord is blessing me right now with work and I am very grateful for it. I want the work because this area NEEDS the work, there are so many people here who need to hear this message. Lots of miracles this past week. I hope all is well with yall back home. This email is longer than usual, this is unusal for me because I usually dont like typing, but I felt like telling yous about all this. See you on the other side!
Love
Elder Connell

photos:
Me and Jeremy
Takashi's baptism