June 2

This week we've had some trouble on our bikes. On our trade off, Elder Rhodes rode one of our bikes, which already had a busted frame. Suddenly I hear him say "Ohh, no!" I turn around & see him with the back tire completely loose from the bike. We both started laughing, then we chained our bikes & got a member to pick them up. 

He was nice and gave us a loaner, which was a 25 year-old cruiser.

A day later that bike broke down too. It was on the way to a dinner appointment. It so happened at that moment that the member saw us tinkering with the bike & pulled over to the side of the road, and the other Elder's happened to be driving by & they pulled over too. The member loaded the bike into her car, & Elder Davis & I rode with the other Elder's in their car. That was pretty convenient to say the least. And the family we had dinner with let us borrow one of their bikes! We have an awesome ward here.

One more thing about my trade off with Elder Rhodes. That morning I put sunscreen on before we left the front door. While we were out it started sprinkling rain. 

Pretty soon Elder Rhodes & I were out in the middle of a rain storm. It was dumping rain & we're biking back to our apartment as fast as we can. We were both smiling & laughing, I thought it was sorta fun. By the time we got back we were thoroughly soaked. We poured water out of our shoes, & got inside & changed our clothes. (Well, I did. Elder Rhodes had to put his in the dryer.)

That night when I pulled my scriptures out they felt really heavy. It was as if there was a rock in the bottom of my scriptures. It was hard & inflexible. I realized they were partially soaked. The other Elders looked over & saw what happened & wanted to feel them. I'm still waiting for my scripture set to dry completely, I have it in rice right now.

Oh, on a side note, there was a lady on her front porch that wanted Elder Davis to call her when he got back home to Utah. I'm pretty sure she's like 35. She was pretty excited to get our number. Luckily we haven't heard from her since then.

Saturday we got to help a family move out of there house. That turned out well. And that night we got to help a member put up a fence in their back yard. It's A Lot Of Work! We moved fence portions, posts, and concrete bags. We dug holes, and nailed the fence to the posts. It's a lot more work than I thought, we were there for a while. It was almost done by the time we left. I enjoy doing service for others. I enjoy it more than when I was in young mens.

One last thing that I thought was a little funny. Today Elder Davis & I parked our bikes out in front of Kroger so we could do our shopping. By the time we were done we realized there no way we would bike back to the apartment with all of our groceries. I put as much food as I could in my backpack, with a can of pasta sauce in each side pocket, and I carried a bag in one hand & the toilet paper in the other. Elder Davis had to carry everything he bought. Fortunately our apartment wasn't too far from the store.

Sounds like everything's going well. Good to hear from everyone. Half mission P-day is this week I'll let you know more about that next week.

Love ya!

-Elder Candland

May 26

We just got back from the ward Memorial day picnic. A lot of people showed up, it was fun. We played some games & had fun. Our investigators showed up, & we got to play some ball with them. It was pretty fun, & I think I'm getting better at paying.

 Our ward mission leader played with us. He's not bad for his age.

Tuesday, I finished polishing my shoes & got on my freshly dry-cleaned suit. We car pooled with other Elders, and drove to Lansing. On the way we listened to an awesome talk about the story of a convert while we ate muffins I made that morning.

All the missionaries from Detroit & Lansing were anxiously (& a little nervous) waiting for Elder Holland's arrival. When he got there we all lined up to shake his & Elder Hallstrom's hand. He told us we were unaware, but he had a brief interview with each of us, while we shook his hand.

Here's some of the things he talked to us about; we can't go back home & be the person we were before we left for our missions. He told an Elder "If you go back home & become inactive I will shoot myself! And everyone will know about it, it'll be on Deseret news, 'Elder Holland shoots himself because Elder goes Less-active." 

He's a pretty funny guy. He also asked "why isn't missionary work easy? Why can't we have people crowded outside our apartment every morning in white jumpsuits, & then we say 'aghh, these people again?" He answered that by saying, "Because salvation is not a cheap experience." He told us that we seldom think of the Gift of the Holy Ghost as having the companionship of a member of the Godhead. He's equally as qualified as God or Christ. One of the other big things he mentioned is that it is not possible for a person to block another's salvation. We might bump & bruise each other on our course, but no one can block another's salvation.

We had dinner this week with Bro. Usi. He's from south Africa, he speaks 5 languages, and he and his wife are Awesome! They fed us an African themed dinner with sweet potatoes cooked in cinnamon sauce. He loves science, we had a good little talk about physics.

We had a good talk with a long lost investigator this week too. He loves to tell us stories. This week he told us about how when he was in high school, a fight broke out during lunch. Two football players had a fight over a girl. Pretty soon there family's came & got involved in the fight. Teachers tried stopping it, and ended up getting injured. One football payer almost got killed. Then the police came. Both of the boys got suspended for the rest of the year, and 24 other students got suspended for a few months. We're trying to "Re-activate" him, and have him at church and all that.

That's pretty much my week.

I'll talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Candland

May 19

We ran out of planners, so this week I've been using a memo-note book. It works. It isn't quite as nice looking, & it's a little extra work writing in all the plans.

 A lady in our ward fed us this week. She's awesome. We were supposed to have an adult male come with us, but he didn't show, so she packed the whole meal up. She made us roast ham, corn, salad, cornbread, & for desert she made cookies & marshmallow filled chocolate cupcakes! She was really sweet, & she did that, shopping & all, in one day.

Which reminds me, we had dinner with a member who had a party before, so he made us a LOT of food. And they had ice-cream and every kind of topping for desert.

 This week while on trade off's I was able to teach one of the other Elder's investigator. Twice. A then she was baptized that weekend! She's only 14 years old & wanted to take the discussions. She had been taught before by other missionaries, so everything was pretty much a review.

I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, that went well. She & her mom I think cried at least a little bit though out the baptism. It went very well.

During our district meeting, a couple people came into the church, I think they said they were looking for the food pantry. We ended up introducing ourselves & our zone leader talked to them about who were. And Elder Rhodes & Marley gave them a church tour. They said yes when Elder Rhodes asked if they could teach them.

Remember when I talked about seeing that Uhaul & helping that lady move. Well this week we've taught her the first 2 lessons. She told us that her friends talked to her about the Mormons. She told us if more than one person told her the same thing & seemed hateful about it, then it probably wasn't true. I'm anxious to keep meeting with her. I think the more she develops a better understanding of our beliefs, we'll see more commitment from her. Also she told us she was excited to read the Book of Mormon.

I don't have any new pictures this week, so I'll send something from weeks previous.

 I'll let you know how the meeting with Jeffery R. Holland & Elder Hallstrom goes.

 

1. Elder Bear

 

 

2. HUGE longhorn

3. goofy district

4. Trinity's baptism

 

Love Ya!

Elder Candland

May 12

We're back on bikes this week. The weather is warming up; in the past 2 days it's been in the 80's. Biking's only hard if we're in a hurry, if we're not our legs are fine.

It's been nice until about now. Elder Davis & I were able to go for a jog this morning, & when we got back to the apartment we saw thunder. The weather here can change really fast.

 We met someone this week who talked to us on her porch. We taught her the restoration, and she really liked it. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read from Mosiah 2. She told us it wasn't there. After looking at the pages we saw that most of Mosiah was missing!! (picture at the bottom) We got her another copy of the Book as soon as we could.

 

One other lady we met while knocking on doors we talked to for a little bit. When she told us she wasn't interested in learning more, she told us she has been through some tough times. Then she got teary eyed. Both Elder Davis & I wanted to cry. I think she got a little embarrassed and told us we could move on. We had a feeling we should got back and talk to her, but in the end we were only able to leave her with a pamphlet with our number.

Pday, like I mentioned, we went to Frankinmuth. I have some pitures of that I'll send.

One of the members took us out to lunch to this Asian food buffet. I really liked it, but I'm not sure Elder Davis did. I ate cooked baby squid right next to him, and by the expression on his face, he seemed horrified.

While we were finding one day, a lady answers the door speaking gibberish. She kept a pretty straight face, but I could tell she was just messing around. So we kept talking to her, and did an overview of the restoration, then she started talking to us normally. We left her with a pamphlet, and we'll try back again some other time.

 

Card tower. One night at the apartment I started playing with note-cards & got a little carried away.

Last thing I'll talk about is the baptism.

The other Elders had a baptism for Marcelo Saturday. All went well. Not many people showed, but we had our best Investigator come, and Marcelo's family came too. I gave the opening prayer, and Elder Davis gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. While we were waiting our ward mission leader had a discussion directed to Marcelo's family. He talked about Christ told parents that it's better to have kids involved in gospel meetings & be a little loud, then to not have them there at all. Then he told them about how Joseph Smith restored the church.

By the time he was done Marcelo was in the room. Then we had Bishop talk about how the church's purpose is to strengthen the family, and anything we do is to serve the Lord.

Before we closed Marcelo stood up and talked briefly. It was an awesome meeting.

It was good hearing you too. Sorry I just cut off, but I'll get to talk to you again Christmas.

Love you, have a good week.

Elder Candland

1. Marley & Bronner's

 

2. Bronner's

3. Maze

 

May 5

We had T-calls this week. I'm staying for at least another 6 weeks. This is a good area to be in, so I'm happy. The other Elder's are staying too, so we're all happy.

 Our top investigator, the one that's been coming to church, came this Sunday with his girlfriend! She seemed to like church, she talked with a lot of people.

They want to get married soon, so this week we'll have the Bishop come to an appointment with us so he can arrange something with them. It's pretty exciting!

We actually got a call from his mom this week, telling us that he needs a ride from the hospital. We were doing home teaching with one of the members so he drove to the hospital that night and picked him up. He had been in there all day. He told us he had a really bad tooth/head ache that morning,  to the point were he was crying and had to call an ambulance. He's been much better since then. 

One of our new investigators we taught the 1st lesson to, and played a game of horse with him. Of course Elder Davis won, he's pretty good at basketball despite his height.

One of the families in the ward gave us groceries again, that was awesome. Now we don't have to spend so much money! Also they kidnapped us that night and took us to a frozen dairy drive-through. They got Elder Davis & I some flurries, which were really good.

No exciting pictures this week. The 1st is a small valley that I thought was a river until I looked closer. All the ice melting around here has caused some flooding.

That 2nd picture I thought Kortney & Rylee would like. It's a car called wanda that we see driving through Saginaw.

 

I found some reading glasses today at a dollar store so I bought them. We'll see how they work.

 

We'll be going to Frankenmuth again today. It'll be Elder Davis & Marley's 1st time, we're excited.

I look forward each p.day to hear from everyone, it's good to know how things are going. Hope everyone has a great week ahead.

 

Love,

Elder Candland

April 28

It's getting warmer around here, finally can start busting out the short sleeve shirts!

This week was pretty average, just a few things I want to talk about. Here we go!

While we were out we spotted a Uhaul, so we decided to go see if the people needed help. At first they say that they're good. We told them we weren't busy & needed something to do, then she told us we could help! They actually had two trips they had to make, and we were able to catch them both times. We worked for about an hour total. The people were really grateful for our service, and told us we were welcome to come back and share our message!

There is also a couple of other moms who told us they'd be happy to hear our message, and they also seem like great family's to teach. They trick is catching them at a time they aren't busy.

I guess the biggest story of all is when we visited an investigator in the hood. The story with him is that he's 15 and want's to be a pastor when he graduates. Since he was younger, he's changed his life around, and has committed to separating himself from the bad influence of others.

So the story goes like this,  we go to his house while they're having a barbecue. While we're talking to our investigator, one of his drunk step-uncles walks up to us smiling & tells us we look like Robo-cops. After talking to him a little bit he walks back inside. Then we notice him look through the blinds at us while we're still talking. Then he comes back outside, this time he doesn't look happy. We walks up to me and is right up in my face, then he tells us we need to leave. Our investigators Dad tells us to come inside & he'll fix us up a couple of hot dogs. So we came inside & talked to our investigator some more. Then his crazy uncle comes inside sits down next to us, tells us to leave, gets up & leaves the room. This happens like 4 times. The 5th time he's up in Elder Davis's face, and tells him "I'm gonna punch you, then I'm gonna punch your friend." Then for a second I though he's about to throw up on Elder Davis, but instead he drools on his arm. Then he began using a more colorful vocabulary. Eventually the Dad came in and sat next to him. After we had our hot dogs we got out of there. We said bye to everyone as we were leaving, everyone but the uncle smiled & said bye. He told us he was gonna kill us.

 (This was actually from last week) We were doing some tracting when we came across a young couple doing yard work in their back yard. They were both surprisingly happy to talk to us. Our conversation lead into them asking us why we believe in the trinity & in works. Our conversation didn't go anywhere, he was pretty much doing all the talking. So eventually we asked if we could talk to them about the Plan of Salvation, and so we went inside. When we asked if we could pray he told us we could, but he would not be part in it. While we taught them, whenever we got to a point in the lesson he would question why we believe that. The lesson dragged on, that was a lot he didn't agree with. He did however agree that Christ paid for our sins. Out of that whole lesson what surprised me the most is that they didn't agree that people that didn't have a chance to accept the gospel would have a chance in the afterlife. They were a little hard headed, the husband especially. And unfortunately the only thing that came out of that lesson is that they now know what we believe. Best case scenario is that they pray like we've asked, and get an answer.

 To end on a brighter note, Elder Davis & I sat next to a couple of playful boys and their Dad while their mom gave a talk. I looked over and saw Elder Davis playing with one of the boys, and his toy car. Then they started putting other toys in his hand. It was kinda funny to watch.

 Sounds like you all are doing well. I hope your week goes well.

Love,

Elder Candland

1. corvette (we found P.Day)

 

2. Thrift store swag

 

3. Elder Candland

 

4. Elder Davis

 

5. Another Really nice car.

April 21

Tuesday it snowed. Not much, but it snowed. This has been a record winter here in Michigan. But the good news is it was hot enough Sunday for Elder Davis & I to break a sweat walking.

We've eaten so much this week.

We had another french toast eating contest, and Elder Marley won again. He ate 20 pieces of french toast. He was not proud of it. I was 7 short of his record, & I could not eat any more.

There one morning I actually felt like I was going to throw up I've had so much food this week. Fortunately for Elder Davis & I, we've been running every morning this week, so we're staying pretty active.

We were at Wendy's for lunch one day. We were in line ordering our food next to this old couple. Elder Davis orders a value burger & fri. And while Elder Davis was waiting for his burger, the old guy took one of his fries when no one was looking! Elder Davis sits down next to me with this look on his face & says, "That old guy totally just took one of my fries!"

That same day we were walking down the street and we pass this guy who has his hand stretched out and says, "Don't talk." We were thinking, dang it! we're gonna get mugged. Then he asks for a pamphlet, so I take a Plan of Salvation pamphlet out of my bag and was about to hand it to him, but I remembered that I had a slip from the post office in one of the pamphlets, so I'm thumbing through it to make sure it's not in that one, & he took it right out of my hand! The slip wasn't in that pamphlet so I'm good.

One of our potential investigators invited us over for Easter during lunch. She had some of her kids, and great gran kids over. I don't think she was really up to talking about the gospel. We tried showing the message on Mormon.org, we thought it would be great for Easter, but we only had a few people watch it. All they said was, "That was pretty well put together." Oh well. We did have a chance to talk to a lot of her family about missionary work, and to kinda just show that our church isn't all that weird. It was a nice experience.

Last night we were only able to talk to about 4 people while tracting, but out of those 4 we had 2 that wanted to talk to us more about the church.

The first guy we talked to said we could definitely come back and talk to him, and seemed excited about it too! He seems like a nice guy with a nice family, and we didn't have to talk to him long to convince him. It'll be cool talking to him later this week.

As we were walking back to our apartment this guy runs over to us and asks if we had time he could interview us. He's doing a project in school and he asks us questions about what our name is, and how old we are, and then he asks us how much a human is worth. Then he asks us if a human is worth another human. At first we weren't exactly sure how to answer that, but we pretty much said that God is not a respecter of persons. Come to find out he's a senior in high school. But he seems like a pretty nice guy, he gave us a ride back to the apartments in his Jeep. We'll be meeting with him Sunday.

It's been a exciting week. I hope you all enjoyed this Easter week.

Love,

Elder Candland