Physically Fed, Spiritually Nourished

October 7, 2019

So I don't know if I've said this before, but people here give us so much food. It's to the point where we're constantly full, anywhere we go people offer us food and we can't turn it down of course. An example is Saturday, we just finished eating junk food at someone's house so we weren't even hungry, then we went to our dinner appointment where we ate homemade Chinese food which was interesting, then they of course gave us a huge slice of cake. Then after a conversation about how Elder Fonnesbeck felt like throwing up, we stopped by another members house to check on them, and they were like, "You're just in time for dinner" and they had made their famous macaroni and cheese which I had heard so much about, and so we had to have some.

Things like that happen every day which is kind of awesome, cause I love eating food. Unfortunately, although I have been well fed, I haven't been well nourished. 

It has been a great week here in the fun little town of St. Johns. A lot has happened, but I don't think that those things fully deserve their own paragraph, and so I'll just make a little list of some random things from the week:

1. We picked apples from an apple tree (I'll include a picture)

2. A kid came up to me and said "You look like a kid" and walked away. 

3. We had our interviews with President and Sister Cox which was fun

4. I met two different girls with the name Kendall 

5. We helped build a She Shed

6. We still don't really know what a She Shed is

7. It was Surf N Turf day on Thursday at the Sugar Shack, our favorite restaraunt, and so we had a delicious meal there

We also went on exchanges with the other Elders one day, and we did some service for a lady named Grandma Barbara. And she was having us do the most random things. One of them was that she had these open containers of dirty water, and then she had a large bin of dirty water that had a lid on it. She took the lid off, and then directed us to take the smaller containers and pour them in the big bin without stirring up the dirt or getting the dirt in the big bin, even though there's already dirt in the big bin. And if we did it wrong she got after us. Eventually we had successfully transferred the dirty water into a bigger container of dirty water and we still don't know why. She was a funny lady though. I don't remember how it led up to this, but as she was rambling on she eventually started talking about her childhood. And she was like, "Did you boys grow up on a farm? Raise pigs?" We said no and she paused, probably disappointedly, before continuing. "Well when we raised pigs we didn't waste anything. We used everything on the pig, the skin, the hooves. The only thing we didn't use was the oink--we couldn't figure out how to bottle it." 

Anyway though, it was a good week. General Conference was this weekend, which is where twice a year the leaders of the Church pretty much give sermons like we hear in Church except it's broadcast all throughout the world in a whole bunch of different languages so everyone can hear. And it's just really awesome because we are able to hear from the current apostles and prophet and other church leaders to be able to gain insights from them, and be able to have guidance and inspiration from them, that is ultimately from the Lord. I've talked about it before how Jesus Christ's Church has been restored, and along with that, the organization that He established has been brought back as well, that being apostles and prophets who serve the Lord and help run His Church. And that is something I have really come to know myself, is that God does speak to prophets today just like He did in the Bible times. And the messages which we hear from the modern day apostles and prophets are inspired to help us strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ and to comfort us and to help us learn and to help us with whatever we need at the moment. I personally had a couple questions I had been praying about before the Conference started, and as people spoke and I was able to feel the Spirit, I was able to get answers to those questions. And it wasn't really what they said exactly that directly answered my questions, but it was things they said that helped give me more insight and triggered thoughts of other things, and I was able to be personally taught things that I needed by the Spirit. Because that is the most important thing, that we learn things on a personal level and grow our faith in Christ on a personal level. And one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to testify of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and so that's what I mean when I say the Spirit can teach us things. He can help us feel the truthfulness  of things, and open our minds to understanding things.  And its important for everyone to learn how to receive that kind of personal revelation, which just so happened to be something that speakers at General Conference talked about.

I'm grateful for the restored Church of Jesus Christ with the modern day revelation from God through modern day apostles and prophets who teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm grateful for that Gospel of Jesus Christ which has been restored in all of its fullness and clarity so that we can fully experience all of the blessings of peace and joy that our Savior has made possible for us to have. And along with that and most importantly, I am grateful for my Savior and the testimony I have of Him. I know He lives and loves us and I've come to know that by living His Gospel of having faith in Him, making changes in my life to follow Him better, and by making covenants or promises with God and striving to live them all throughout my life. When we do these things and "press forward with a steadfastness in Christ" then we "shall have eternal life." And that's the most joyful part of all of it, that one day, because of Jesus Christ, we can live with our families forever in the presence of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful week. Til next time,

~Elder Oswald

P.S.- Pictures

1. How do ya like them apples?

2. Me looking extra like a 12 year old with Tyler and the other Elders

The Grass is Always Greener when you Spray Paint it

Septempber 30, 2019

Hello everyone!

It's been another fantastic week here in St. Johns, Arizona. I will warn you though, this email is going to be unusually short.

So we were doing some service for some people the other day, and it was a whole lot of random jobs pretty much just taking care of their backyard getting ready for a wedding reception that would be hosted there. And one of the jobs was the most redneck thing I've ever done. You see, their lawn had a ton of brownish reddish spots all over, and they wanted it green, and so they had us take green spray paint and spray the lawn. Unfortunately they bought like this really dark forest green and it didn't match at all. But it was a lot of fun though. Who knew there was such a simple way of getting green grass? 

So we began teaching someone named Ladonna. Her husband is a member, his name is Trent. And Trent's mom is really close to Ladonna and had told us that she was expressing interest in being baptized. We weren't gonna try and push or anything though and we figured she'd talk to us when she was ready. Well we just went by for a quick visit one night with the intent of sharing an uplifting message about Jesus Christ with them, cause that's what we do. And that's what we did, and we were about to say a prayer and leave when they said "we actually have something we wanted to tell you, she wants to get baptized." And so we talked about that with them and we started teaching her this week. She has a pretty good background with the Gospel, and has already learned a lot from the family she married into and she is very accepting of what we teach. So that's exciting for her and her family.

That's something I love is that the Gospel can really bring families closer together. And that's such an important part of God's plan for us and I've seen that a lot on my mission, that God really does love and care about each of us, and that the joy we can experience in families is meant to last forever, and we can be with our families forever because of Jesus Christ. I know this is true. I pray that we all can come to know our Heavenly Father's love more and gain a deeper understanding of the purpose and joy that we can have in our lives.

Well, it's time for me to make like a salt shaker and dash, but I hope that you all have a great week.

Til I write again,

~Elder Oswald

P.S.- Pictures 

1. The Wild West

2. Donkey Selfie

3. When you're making pancakes while thinking of home

A Hole Lot of Fun

September 23, 2019

There are many differences between St. Johns and Scottsdale that many might consider to be astronomical. For instance, there are significantly less people here, and the roads are significantly less busy. There are also significantly more trees and significantly more farms and ranches. It is also significantly higher in elevation and therefore there is significantly more lower temperatures. The most literally astronomical difference however is that because of the significant lack of light pollution here, you can see the stars way better. 

This week was really good. I'll make a quick recap of some of the events from the week:

-We went to a block party and talked to a hitchhiker

-We helped at the food bank

-We got food poisoning low key

-We visited with a ton of people as usual

Now, Saturday was quite eventful. I've explained it before I believe, but we have as a part of our area, a bunch of land in the middle of nowhere both on the east and on the west of St. Johns. To the west is Concho, where we have a small congregation. And to the east is a power plant and "the forties" which is a whole bunch of forty acre plots of land that people own. And a little ways north is called the "witch wells" which is similar to the forties except for its apparently more dangerous and we're not supposed to go there without someone going with us who knows the area. Anyhow, now that you have that background, I can tell this story:

So we got a text from a lady a while ago asking us to help her with stuff on Saturday. She isn't a member of the church but she is friends with one of the members and that's how she knew to contact us for service. So Saturday came, and we followed her directions to her property. And her property is in the aforementioned Forties to the east of St. Johns. And this was farther into the middle of nowhere than I've ever been in my life. It was crazy. But anyway, we get to her 100 acre ranch (she owns more than the typical forty acres) and she explained to us that she wants us to put in a septic tank for one of her trailer homes. And it was surprisingly simple instructions: dig a hole, put the 55 gallon plastic drum in the hole, and cut a hole in the top of it. But digging the hole was way harder than I expected, for in my experience with hole digging, it always took place in the soft layer of topsoil of my vegetable garden in Michigan, and it only went about a foot deep, and I was 10. In this case however, the dirt was dry and hard, and we had to get it big enough to fit a 55 gallon drum, but even worse was that it was mostly hardened clay that we were digging through, which is pretty much just a step below trying to dig through concrete. It was challenging, but we did it and it only took 3 hours and a few sore muscles. It was just like that movie Holes, except for we only had to dig one hole and we never discovered an intriguing plot about hidden treasure or our ancestors stealing pigs from each other. 

The lady, who we'll call Valerie, she also prepared lunch for us which was super nice. And she also invited all her "neighbors" over for lunch. I say neighbors in quotations because I'm used to that being a word which means a person living close by, and they don't actually live close to her, they're just the closest people that live to her. They still hang out all the time though I guess. The first to arrive were the two identical looking men who introduced themselves as "Dave and Dave." They were the same height, had the same work boots, the same blue jeans, the same bushy gray beards, and the same "Trump 2020" hats. The only distinctions were that the first Dave had sunglasses and a green sweatshirt and the second Dave had normal glasses and a green jacket. The rest of the neighbors that came were pretty normal. There was the older single guy, the middle aged single guy, and the older married couple. It was fun to have lunch with them. However the conversation soon became very political, and as missionaries we are supposed to remain politically neutral, so we did our best just to nod our heads, except for at that point we ourselves were wearing Trump hats since they were given to us to protect us from the sun while digging the hole, and so I'm not actually sure how successful we were at appearing politically neutral. 

But after that, we were taken to the top of her property where she showed us all the pottery shards from the Anasazi Native American tribe that once lived there and we got to collect some. So that was cool. Then she took us to where she thought were some Anasazi cave drawings except for she couldn't find them. 

But yeah, that was our fun adventure on Saturday. 

Well I'm gonna have to get going, but I spoke at Church yesterday and I wanted to share with you now, one of the scriptures I shared then. It's in the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18.

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

I love this scripture because it is very simple and straightforward. And I know it's true. I know that whatever we've done, we can be forgiven. Through Jesus Christ we can become clean and we can have peace and we can be happy. I love this knowledge I have about the Savior and His Gospel, and I love continuing to learn about it and I love teaching others about it as well.

I hope you all have an enjoyable week!

Cordially,

~Elder Oswald