Heating It Up in Tempe

Arizona can be beautiful, too! Hey there all my lovely people! Thanksgiving was pretty great, wasn’t it? I always love getting together for the main purpose of being thankful, but eating tons of food is a pretty good secondary purpose. Food is life. I hope you all felt that as well.  Thanksgiving was awesome! That morning we played some football with our district, took a nap, had dinner, took another nap, then played like 30 rounds of UNO. Good times. It’s pretty weird to have free time as a missionary, you always feel like you should be doing something. So it was a pretty intense day, but I had so much to be thankful for. We went to dinner with a guy named Brigham Dallas, who is quite the stud. He invited about 20 people over for Thanksgiving dinner, so it was a party. There was tons of food, and he is such a nice guy. He offered to host for all the people who didn’t have families to spend the day with, and all those who just needed a place to go. It was so great to inter...

Don't judge...I needed proof. Lamborghini, Audi, Ferrari. Same apartment complex. Same day. Happy Thanksgiving week everyone! I hope you are preparing yourselves for one of the best holidays ever. Food is definitely one of my favorite things, so I always look forward to the feast that will go down in about 3 days. And yes, always remember, gobble ‘til you wobble.  Well, after being in the Towne Lake ward for about 2 Weeks, I have seen some awesome things. I even saw an Audi, Lamborghini, and Ferrari all at the SAME HOUSE. And it was an apartment at that. Logical? Not really. Awesome? You bet. Anyways, I definitely have a strong belief that there are people out there who need us! Something that is really emphasized as a missionary is the principle of talking to everyone, which is exactly what it sounds like. We go out of our way to talk with and get to know everyone we see. That is my favorite part of this work, we meet so many amazing people!  This week, we ...

Happy Monday everybody! It’s been quite the week, and pretty much nothing is the same as it was 7 days ago. Let me walk you through some of the changes: I am no longer in the South Mountain Ward! After 7 months, it was time for me to head elsewhere, so now I am serving in the Towne Lake YSA ward, which is a pretty good chunk of Tempe and West Mesa. It’s pretty intense. I am still a zone leader, but over a lot more missionaries than before. They reduced the number of zones from 9 to 6, which means the zones are now a lot bigger, so we went from being over 18 missionaries to 34! Quite the jump if you ask me. So yeah, pretty intense. My companion is Elder Morgan from Layton, Utah! He has been on his mission for about 10 months and is a baller. We are very similar, like creepily similar, so it’s going to be a party. #PartyInTheYSA. Anyways, with all of this change, probably the thing that has been on my mind the most is how important it is to trust. There is a saying from one of...

Gonzalo and his mom on her baptism day! Hey everybody!!! Man, has time been flying! I feel like I just sent out my last email...let's see what I can give you this week.  Best experience this week was on Saturday for sure. If you have been diligent in reading my emails for the last year you will remember that last October there was an awesome young man in Casa Grande named Gonzalo who got baptized, and this weekend his mom actually got baptized, and Gonzalo baptized her! I got permission to go, so for the first time in over 9 months I was back in Casa Grande! It was a really cool baptism, Gonzalo was pretty nervous but it was really powerful to see their family come together in celebration of Nancy's choice. It was a really cool moment. It is awesome how God works through families, and that is where we find our greatest joy.  I also was able to go on two different exchanges this week, we had our MLC and normally we would have a meeting with the zone to train them on...

Hello everyone, and Happy Halloween to you all!! We had our p-day moved to today since we have be inside at 6 anyways because no one takes us seriously on Halloween. But we also get to go to the Mesa temple as well, which is super awesome. Love the temple so much. This week was really fantastic for many reasons, but I'll maybe share just a few of those experiences with you.  First off, I was able to attend the temple on Saturday with the Bushnell's, who I taught in Casa Grande a year ago. They were able to go through the temple for the first time and being able to be there was one of the coolest things ever. Being able to see both of them go to the temple together was amazing, and there was a powerful spirit. Sister Bushnell, after going through, came and told Elder Grigsby and I, "You tell your mothers that this was worth it, okay?!?" It was really funny, but it is so true. We tell people about our mission experience and they are amazed at all that we sacrifice...