January 13

This week Elder Palmer and I were walking on the sidewalk which wasn't cleared, plus it was next to the road which was paved. We were trudging through snow that went up to our knees. So we eventually called a member and asked him to give us a ride, because it would've taken us a couple hours to get to our next appointment.

We finally got rain! It's been a while. That means the snow is slowly going away, but that also means there's going to be a lot of Ice.

I'm teaching another excommunicated member who wants to be rebabtised. Investigators like that are always the easiest people to teach, because they already know how important baptism is and most everything in lessons is a reminder of things they've already been taught.

This was Elder Rhodes first week of teaching district meeting. I was impressed, he's done a great job teaching us and checking in on Elder Palmer & me to see how we're doing.

Also, this week during trade offs I got to spend a day with him. It was a good experience. The highlight of our day though was when we taught this guy who was referred to us by a recent convert. His name is Basie, we briefly taught him the restoration, but I'm not sure how much he got out of that lesson. He's one of the most confused people I've ever taught. He asked us why he never herd of this Joseph Smith guy from the bible, and we explained that he wasn't alive the time the bible was written. We told him multiple times that Joseph Smith was born in the early 1800's. Then he asked us why he's not in any scripture, so we showed him the scripture in 2Nephi 3 that prophesies of Joseph Smith, and said "Well it only says his first name, it doesn't say Smith." Elder Rhodes was smiling but he was getting frustrated. Basie also kept bringing up Rev1:4 which talks about the seven churches, and he tried to use that as a way of arguing that there isn't just one church, and we explained that it just mentions seven churches and nowhere does it say that they belong to Christ. Before we left he told us he'd do some research on Joseph Smith on Mormon.org. Elder Rhodes and I still joke about that visit. :)

Elder Palmer & I visited a couple that we've met multiple times, but haven't been able to set up an appointment with yet. Both of them were pretty hammered. Besides that we had a good visit with them, we finally set up to meet with them Wednesday! We said a prayer with them, and before we left they gave us the game Life, a 'build it yourself' antique ship, and corn chips. Those two are fun to visit. :)

This sunday a speaker wasn't going to be able to make it, so the bishop asked the 4 Elders to bear their testimonies during sacrament meeting. It was cool to have a chance for us 4 to do that for that for the ward.

It's good to hear from everyone. I hope you all have another great week.

Love,

Elder Candland

January 6

I'll just say that new years day wasn't any different from any other day. (Nothing exciting happened) But I've excepted that holidays on my mission will be different from the ones at home, so I'm not disappointed. 

We have a new district leader, who's actually now serving in Saginaw2, so I get to see him more frequently. He was also in my district in the MTC, his name is Elder Rhodes (He's in 7/22/13 email, he's the one to the far left in the background.) He's a pretty cool guy. I can tell that he's still new to the calling, but once he settles in he's be a great district leader.

We need more people to teach! Right now we have only 2 investigators who have kept commitments we left with them. So this week we did lots of finding. In the past 3 days we went finding since we left the apartment, to when the sun went down. We got 130 'invitations to learn' this week, which is the record for me.

Friday was the coldest day I've ever bared. My breath got my scarf wet... then my scarf froze. I think it was between -2° & -9°. I feel tougher now |:)

This week we also got to visit one of the members, who I haven't met yet. He served his mission in California & was Cambodian seeking, which from the sounds of it is one of the most challenging languages. He's pretty awesome.

I'm glad to hear the MTC has been an awesome experience for you Hermana Candland, & hang in there with the language. President Hess told me that the opposite of faith is discouragement, so don't get discouraged, just keep moving forward.

I hope you all have a great week and happy hunger games :)

Love,

Elder Candland

December 30

Congradulations Hermana Shaini Candland! I hope you've settled into the MTC schedule and that you're enjoying you're expirience there.

Christmas eve: That evening we went to a ward christmas party at a members home. It's was great, the food was great, we had white elephant gift exchange & we had a fun time.

Christmas Day: We opened our presents, and went to some members homes and got to play board games with them & play with their toys. Yep, that's pretty much it; we all got to talk to our families. Oh yeah, one more thing. that night we left our apt. without our keys. So after annoying our neighbors by ringing their doorbells & them ignoring us multiple times, we called our district leader, who called the zone leaders, then we got a call from the assistants, who said they'd give the Saginaw2 Elders & ask them to card the door to our apt. So we were able to sleep in our beds that night.

Preston got 2 new members in his ward both are between age 8-11. He also got to see Jacob Hill & Mercedes Thompson in Mesa.

...So one of the other Elders was just now on the computer here in the family history center, & someone just remotely moved the mouse & log him off. Most likely someone from the church needed something. It was still pretty weird though.

The investigator who's driveway we shoveled dropped us this week, because she felt that the Church doesn't appreciate women. If had thought about it then, I would've told her to look up the talk given by D. Todd Christofferson. But I sure there was a reason for why she dropped us.

On the bright side we picked up 2 new investigators. One we invited to look up the talk by Holland on depression. We're excited for both of them. They're not any of the finest investigators, but they're ones who if they receive a witness will be baptized for sure.

Sorry, I guess I didn't spend enough time writing about this week, and the Elders are all waiting on me to get lunch.

I hope this next week goes well for everyone!

Love,

Elder Candalnd