We only cover 9 wards now in 1 stake, instead of 13 wards in 2 stakes

Hello everybody,

GUESS WHAT!!!! I got transferred! I served for 7 months up in the cottonwood stakes, and now I'm back in the Riverview stake in Draper. It was a really weird switch, especially because I served here for 3 weeks back in september. I remember a whole lot of the area, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on here. The mountain point stake that was part of this area before is now part of another area, so we have maybe half as much work as we had before. There are also some investigators that we were working with 7 months ago that are still being taught... I've enjoyed getting to know the area a little better now that I have a few months experience down, and getting to know some of the people a little better. We only cover 9 wards now in 1 stake, instead of 13 wards in 2 stakes, so it's a little easier to manage but at the same time we don't have many contacts. My companion is Elder Collins, who has a track record of not being able to hang onto companions for very long. A lot of people say they cant stand him, and I admit, he's a little quirky, but he's better than some of my past companions. He wants to work as well, and he has about 18 months experience. He's the district leader, so I'm back to being the good old district leader companion again. Our apartment is really cool, our kitchen window has a view of both the jordan river and oquirrah mountain temples. If we didn't live in the basement we could probably see the draper temple from the front of the house. There are 2 other elders living with us as well, but they are looking for a new apartment in their area. They better find one soon because it's way too cramped with 4 of us. We also have a car which makes sundays and mondays much more manageable, but we still ride bikes on other weekdays to save miles.

 

We did a whole bunch of service on saturday and helped our landlord's son move out to west valley. We also spoke at THREE different sacrament meetings yesterday! Elder Collins likes speaking so it looks like we might be doing that a lot these next 6 weeks. We've been checking with the different auxiliary organizations to get to know the wards a little better lately, and to find out what kind of work is going on in the wards. Some of the members remember me, and I recognize faces, but trying to remember names is impossible.

Nothing much else to report. I dont know what kind of info you guys want so let me know.

Peace and Love,

Elder Wright

A pretty exciting week for us

Hello all!
A pretty exciting week for us. We did a whole bunch of service for the Pike family. We baptized the two boys a long time ago, but they've been struggling to come to church. We helped them weed their garden space that had been overgrown for a few years. We offered to go back next week to help them plant all of their veggies, and we hope we can get all of them to come out to church more frequently. We also went on a few exchanges this week. Elder Bergmann in my district came here and we taught a few lessons. He was really good at using and applying scriptures in the lessons. It motivated me to look for more scriptures to use in teaching situations. Also, The Zone leaders did an exchange with me this week. It was interesting. Elder Ames came here and he taught me a lot about teaching with questions and remaining focused on the goal at hand. This whole week i've been preparing Elder Lundwall to take over the area in case I leave. Transfers are this week, and none of us have any idea what could happen.

Sorry I couldnt write more this week,

Love you all,
Elder Wright

Hey dad,
For sacrificing lunches last week, we could manage eating out/not eating out because my companion sacrificed giving up going out, instead of giving it up altogether. So we would head back to our apartment and I would study for an hour while he ate. Some places still give us discounts. One of our high councilors over missionary work has a son in the helsinki mission and we get stories back from him every once in a while.

I'm glad that some people are finding work at home. Tell Ricey to take care of that beach cruiser. It's my favorite. We had a guy offer to fix up our bikes. When we got them back, he called my bike, 'the bike from hell' because it wouldnt go back together again. He asked if God was punishing me to ride a 'tank' like that. It is half the size of my companions bike, but twice the weight. I love it though. free 50 free. I just need to get some new wheels and tires and the rest will work fine for a couple of years.

It was a small miracle in my mind

Hey everyone,

This week was pretty solid. We worked hard and we pushed through the week. One day we decided to bike up the heughs canyon ward up on the mountain. It was a nice little climb. We took some pictures at the top. We've been trying to seek more opportuniteis to teach in the wards that we havent been in for a while. We are trying to let all the wards know we are there, even though there are two of us and 13 different wards. We've been helping a lot of less active people lately. One of them, Terry McNeal, has been going through a pretty rough time. He lost his job a while back and he's been unemployed for about a year now. We tracted into him and started teaching him a while back before christmas. He knew NOTHING about gospel doctrine even though he was a member, and we re-taught him the lessons and then got him to come to church and he eventually was ordained to the aaronic priesthood. His testimony is growing so strong, and he loves to learn more of the gospel and he asked us a whole bunch of questions about general conference this past weekend. We also just decided last night to go by the Martinez family to see how they were doing. Sister martinez is a member and her husband is not, but when we got there she was so glad to see us and she asked for a blessing. It was a small miracle in my mind because we were just stopping by, but we were placed in her path to be able to help and serve her.

I'm trying to learn more as a leader but i still feel so inadequate when I have such strong district members already. Sister malave in our district is planning on going home this next week, and we have been so grateful for her service. She is the boldest missionary i have ever met. This transfer has flown by, and I have no idea if i'll be staying or leaving next week. I'll keep you updated.

Love you all,
Elder Wright

hey pops, currently I am studying Alma ch 42, moving my way through, along with PMG CH10 and CH2. Also studying the missionary whitehandbook, and studying missionary trainings for district meetings. I dont read my scrips en espanol, and if I did i would do it during non-study hours. usually at night time if I had free time, but that has all but evaporated since being a DL. We do our studying from 8-10 in the morning. My companion is doing alright. He's starting to get the area down and come up with new ideas for teaching. He's starting to get to know the area a little better so I may or may not be staying here next transfer. He's a little ADD, so we have to refocus studies a lot, but part of that is my fault hehe... He's also sufferng pretty bad from allergies, but he refuses to take medicine for some reason. It's also kinda funny because we are in cottonwood, which is known for the cotton pollen that's supposedly coming this spring. We finished our sacrifice of sweets a couple of days ago. It was hard. especially over easter break. We saw blessings throughout the entire week coming from it. We decided to have new sacrifices this week. I'm not eating lunches, but elder lundwall couldnt do that to himself, so he's not going to eat out anywhere, just at the apartment. he's also sacrificing his lower gears on his bike. (impossible).

that's all i got

We decided to sacrifice all sweets and music

Hey everyone,
This week was a little jumbled around. It was getting close to 60 degrees at the beginning of the week but then right in the middle it decided cool way down and to dump 3 inches of snow on us. Hopefully it'll warm back up again but it is expected to snow again today. Elder Lundwall also came down with bronchitus, which slowed us down for a couple of days. I spent one day studying the bible dictionary. It's more fun than most give dictionaries credit for. Anywho, we were able to watch general conference at members homes. It was all AMAZING! I think my favorites were the first presidency's messages during the preiesthood session and also the focus on the Ressurrection during the Sunday morning session.

This week we also decided we need to put more people on date to be baptized, because right now not many people are progressing very well. I'm trying to work on our focus and our goals more. We decided to have a personal sacrifice this week so that we would be able to achieve the goals we set. We decided to sacrifice all sweets and music. It was tough getting through all of easter without any chocolate. Every 5 seconds people would offer us dessert or candy or something, but we perservered. We still have most of this week to get through... We'll see if we can make it. Elder Lundwall is having music withdrawals. Not much more to report. Oh, we decided to ride up to the Heughs Canyon ward in one of our stakes on Tuesday. Holy Cow! It's about 2 miles away from anything else in our area, and it's on the mountain side. And at the end it decides to just take off straight up the mountain. We're planning on going again sometime soon when Elder Lundwall is feeling a little better.

All is well,
Love you all,

Elder Wright

Hey pops,
I'm glad the yard is coming along. and that you had an easter egg hunt. good luck planting anything in that square called bedrock. I am doing fine with my reassignement, dont worry TOO much about me. I really do enjoy the work here. Tell cameron and kurt congrats on their calls!

Edub