Transferred to Carmel

Hello Jared, 

What an exciting but sad week, if you can use those two words in the same sentence. Sunday morning I was coming home from an early morning meeting when I saw an ambulance at the Collard's home. Topher was running up behind me. He had heard over the scanner that Ed was unresponsive. We went inside to see what was going on. He had passed out at the table while eating breakfast. When he came to, he was clammy and disoriented. They hauled him to the hospital but after running some tests and finding nothing wrong, they sent him home.

Then, Dad came home from on Monday with some tickets to the Jazz game. After dinner we headed over. We were about an hour into a pretty exciting game when dad got a call from work. He talked for a bit then turned to me and told me he had to run into work. Taylor, who has gone with him on several occasions, wanted to go. They handed me the car keys and took off on foot. They ran all they way to the conference center where there were fire alarms going off. Shortly after they arrived, here came all the fire trucks. They met in the lobby and Dad led the firemen to the elevator. Taylor turned to dad and said, "This is on my bucket list, to go into a burning building!". As soon as he said that, one of the security men saw Taylor and told him he had to wait outside. Bummer! A life dream shot to bits!

Dad guided the firemen to the source of the fire and was right in the middle of all the commotion. Taylor stood outside watching all the emergency vehicles show up. Finally after about 45 minutes, Taylor called me and we met him at the car to go home. We missed the end of the game, which I later heard went into triple overtime and the Jazz won. Dad didn't come home until 11:00 the next morning.  The conference center sustained a half million dollars in damages, but considering what the whole building is worth, we were lucky they were able to contain it so quickly.

Fortunately, the week got better after that.  I was in charge of a Stake Youth movie night. We watched "17 Miracles". We had over 200 attend. I was happy for the turnout. Friday night, me and the girls, along with Becky and Emma, went to see the play "Father of the Bride" at Hale Center Theatre. It was a cute show and the girls enjoyed it. Dad and Taylor went to an indoor football game and then drove to a Vernal late that night. They worked all day Saturday to help Grandpa put in a new fence. I heard that all the way out there, they played leap frog with a Shelby Cobra. Taylor was driving when he came up on the Mustang who was going the speed limit. Taylor opened it up and flew past him. On the next straightaway, the old car raced by and so it continued for miles until they were going over 100 mph. I'm sure the testosterone levels were soaring as well as the adrenalin. Sigh. Boys will be boys.

Saturday night was our ward Pie Party. That was fun. Sit around, eat pie until you're sick, then go home. Sunday I went to Jaesi's mission non-farewell. She did a fantastic job. She's really funny and she kept all of us captivated. A mission will be good for her! Cooper Hansen got his Mission call. He's going to South America. I can't remember where, though. Maybe Bolivia? He doesn't leave until August or September. Other than that, nothing too exciting this week, hahaha. I'm excited to find out where you will be going.  You didn't answer my question about voting. Do you want me to send you an absentee ballot? Also, you got a tax refund. It's several hundred dollars. What do you want me to do with the check? I can send it in a package to you, deposit in your checking or savings, or forge your name and go shopping. If you don't respond, I will do the latter. :)

Love you, 

Mom


Hey!  

All is well here. Last Monday and Tuesday Elder Santy and I spent the day saying our goodbyes to people before I left Bloomington. It's a bit of a bummer to be leaving after only three months, but I'm happy to be in my new area. I am now serving in the Carmel ward with a fairly new missionary. His name is Elder Tobler and he's only been out for three months. Carmel is great. It's a really nice area. It's on the north side of Indianapolis. It's where the temple is eventually going to be built. There are tons of huge houses here. I'll have to take some pictures to send next week. There are lots of gated mansion commuities here. It's nuts!

We're teaching a pretty good ammount of people here. There are a lot of missionaries living on our street. There's us, the Assistants to the President, two office missionaries, and we share an apartment with Elders from the neighboring ward. It's a lot of fun here. Parts of this area remind me of Plainfield. There are a lot of great bike trails everywhere and it's beautiful here. We live right next to downtown Carmel in the Arts and Design district. I'm excited for the next few months working here with Elder Tobler. He's a great missionary and we're going to get a lot of work done.  

Love you!  

Elder Wise

Changes on the Horizon

April 16, 2012

Hi Jared!

We got your memory card and have had a blast looking at all your pictures and videos. Mikayla was especially enjoying the footage of a fine looking prospect on a skateboard in the kitchen. It brought much enjoyment into our lives. It'll be fun to hear all the stories behind the pictures. I will get that sent back to you in the next day or two. Thanks for sharing it with us!

After a really wet, cold week, it looks like spring is back. Everything is so green and beautiful. I just really love this time of year. It is my favorite season. I love finding new flowers that have bloomed every day and just when you think things can't get any prettier, something else bursts out in full splendor. And knowing that summer is next in line is always exciting. I really enjoy spring.

We are all still really busy trying to get the garage finished. Right now it is a complete disaster, but it's progressing. Everything we do seems to take so long and cost so much more than expected, but little by little we will conquer it. One thing this project has accomplished is Taylor knows without a doubt that he does NOT want to be a drywall guy for a living.

Mandy and her new husband, Kevin, are moving to Minnesota today. He got a summer job there. They will come back this fall when school starts so he can go back to BYU Idaho. Jamie is headed off to Israel for three months. She's really excited to go. That should be a neat experience for her..

Thanks for sending blessings our way. As you know it is tax season. Since we have paid off our house and we have so little to deduct, we should be getting hit hard by taxes, but for whatever reason, our return was huge. It's almost enough to pay for the rest of your mission. We were pretty excited when our accountant called us with the joyful news!

Have a fantastic week! I hope you know how many people love you, pray for you and ask about you daily. Of course, I am always proud to tell them how well you are doing. You are such a good example to so many youth who look up to you. Thanks for being willing to serve.

Find out if you can Skype on Mothers Day. That would be so much fun!

Love,
Mom

Hey,

Hold off on sending that memory card, I got a call this morning saying I'm getting transferred. I'm really sad to be leaving Bloomington after only three months, but oh well. It was good while it lasted. We had a great week this week. Elder Santy and I have been working hard. It's been really rainy the past few days, so we've had some fun in the rain. On Saturday we had an appointment on the other side of town, and we had just gotten back from a meeting and were already late. We jumped on our bikes and didn't even think of getting a raincoat or umbrella. We booked it over to the appointment and turns out he wasn't even there. We started walking to our next back up plan which wasn't too far away. That's when we saw this cloud rolling towards us. The clouds move REALLY fast here and it came quick. We got pounded by the rain as we were running to a nearby gas station to take shelter. We stayed there for a few minutes and then we got lucky and a member showed up at the gas station. She got her husband to give us a ride home. We were soaked. Indiana thunderstorms are pretty crazy. Haha.

Yesterday was great. We were packed with appointments. We taught Josh and Nikki first and it went pretty well. They've got a long way to go, but they're working pretty hard. We got to go to a Why I Believe fireside and hear some recent converts speak, so that was pretty cool. And to finish off the night we had a first discussion with a new investigator. He was a referral from a family in the ward, (the ones who saved us from the rain) and he's awesome. He's from India. This was my first time teaching someone who doesn't come from a Christian background. The spirit was strong as we testified about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It was a great teaching opportunity.

I'm going to miss Bloomington, but I'm excited for what's to come. 

Love you,

Jared

Homeless in Bloomington

April 9, 2012

Good morning Jared,

The kids are back in school after a week of Spring Break. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house on Thursday and came back on Sunday night. Dad went fishing Friday and then Saturday he and Taylor helped Grandpa put a new liner in their irrigation pond. The boys enjoyed the service project and Grandpa was super grateful for the help.

Grandpa sold his 1946 Chevy last week. It is a little bit sad, but he's become really partial to 1929 Fords. he had to thin down his fleet to devote more to the Model A's.

While we were out there, it snowed five inches in Bountiful. But by the time we got home on Sunday there wasn't a trace left.

Road trips are a fight now, because both Taylor and Mikayla want to drive. Taylor HATES not being in the drivers seat and Mikayla thinks it's not fair that he always gets to drive and she wants her turn...they are driving me CRAZY! :)

We got your camera in the mail. We'll hang on to it and I'll get your memory card back to you. Did you get the package that we sent? Hallie was sure mad at me when she found out that I sent you the pictures. She picked them all out and SHE wanted to send them in a letter so that they were from her. Oh well, I rarely do anything right.

Do you remember Clairae Heap? She is Carl's mother. We were in their ward for the first half of your life. Anyway, she passed away this week. She suffered from Alzheimer's and it finally got the best of her, but is is a good thing. She has suffered long enough. The funeral is this week.

I don't think I told you that Austen got his mission call a couple of weeks ago. He leaves May 23rd for Ventura California.

We are all doing well. I hope you are too. Have an awesome week.

I love you!

Mom


Hey,

I got the package you guys sent. Thanks so much! I really enjoyed the pictures.

We had a good week. On Tuesday, we volunteered at a local soup kitchen here. I love doing service there. The people are really funny. Here are some choice quotes....

"Elder Santy: Hey sir, would you like some corn?

Homeless guy: Of course I want corn, I'm homeless!"

"Lewis: What are we having today?
Me: Bologna sandwiches.
Lewis: Bologna? That's for poor people!"

Haha. It's always a good time volunteering there. It's really busy there all the time. Bloomington has a large population of homeless people. I've heard that it's ranked 4th per capita.

Wednesday we had interviews with President and Sister Collins at our apartment. One of us was talking with President Collins in the bedroom while the other was with Sister Collins, who was showing us how to clean our apartment. It was great. I always enjoy talking with President and Sister Collins.

Easter Sunday was great. We had a great church service. The choir sang and it was amazing. This ward is the best that I've ever heard. After church we had a lesson with Nikki and Josh. We finished teaching them the Plan of Salvation and we comitted them to be baptized on June 9th and they accepted! They're doing really well! We had a great Easter dinner and overall, a fantastic week. We even caught a little bunny. (There's a picture on the SD card I sent.)

Love you!


Jared

General Conference

April 2, 2012

Hi Jared,

Well, Taylor finally had his day in court. He did a great job and didn't seem nervous at all. He was sworn in, and took the witness stand. He had to go and draw the accident on a white board and tell every little detail of what happened. I was proud of him for being so brave.  Taylor got to skip school, PLUS he got paid a whopping $16 for his time.  We actually felt sorry for the other guy. He was a middle aged Hispanic man who seemed like a good guy who just didn't understand what happened. He used a translator. I thought how horrible it would be if you were in another country and had to be in court, not understanding the language or the procedures. When all was said and done, the City (and Taylor) won. The other guy had to pay a $160 fine.

The whole experience was a good thing. We had to wait more than an hour for our turn. While we were waiting, there were a lot of cases before us. I think that every single one of them were drug or alcohol related. There was even a man in a striped jail outfit wearing shackles who came before the judge. It is a good reminder for all of us why it is so important to obey the Word of Wisdom. It's always amazing for me to see real life application of why we are given commandments. Keeping the commandments sure does simplify life and make it more enjoyable.

Although we missed having you here on April Fool's Day, Hallie more than made up for in practical jokes. First thing, I went to the kitchen to make beeakfast and all the silverware was missing. There was just a note..."April fools". Then, I grabbed my iPad so I could listen to conference and something just wasn't right. She had switched cases on mine and Dads and it totally confused me. She had several more lined up throughout the day for us. She was a lot of fun. Were you up to your old Tom Foolery yesterday?

Last, but certainly not least, we enjoyed General Conference. I thought there were some really amazing talks. I really enjoyed Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Jeffrey R. Holland's talks. There were some really good one liner's too. "Stop it", "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you",
‎"There is enough heartache & sorrow in this life without our adding to it through our own stubbornness, bitterness & resentment." These things are plastered all over the Internet, especially on Facebook.

But my very favorite part, that really made me emotional, is when I saw all the missionaries from the MTC singing during the Saturday session. Wow! That choked me up. They did a beautiful job and even had a little help from David Archuletta. and they sang one of my favorite songs, "Called to Serve". I still remember the feeling I had in the MTC all those years ago when we would sing that song. It can be so powerful.

This week is Spring Break. I think we will go to Vernal for a few days. We haven't been there since last summer. Dad is wanting to go fishing.

Have a fantastic week.

I love you!

Mom



Hello,

Not much to report on this week. It's been pretty normal here. General Conference  was great. I learned a lot from it that I can apply to missionary work. Josh and Nikki are doing pretty well. They watched conference this week and they enjoyed it. I don't know how much they got out of it because they have four wild little girls, but we'll hope some of it stuck.

I had a good day on Wednesday when I went on exchanges with Elder Wilson, one of my Zone Leaders. We worked in his area, which is the Indiana University campus. It was a huge change from what I'm used to. It was a little weird talking to people my own age. Most of the people we talked to were really open so we got a lot of return appointments set. We also had two lessons that day. One of them was with a girl named Stacy. She's roommates with two members from Fort Wayne and they're a really good example for her. We had a very spiritual lesson and she's excited to learn more. It was pretty weird to see people from past areas I've served in.

Well, that's pretty much all that's new.

Love you,

Jared