Monday, May 21, 2012

Blessings in Carmel

Hello Jared,

Were you able to see the solar eclipse? It was pretty cool. We put Taylor's welding helmet on and watched it. We had the whole neighborhood out taking turns looking at it.

We had Stake Conference this weekend. It was really good. They did a satellite broadcast from the conference center to our chapel. It was for Davis County. My favorite talk was by Elder Holland. He asked everyone to think about a talk from General Conference and wanted to know how many of us had made a change in our lives because of something that we heard during conference. Then he proceeded to teach us the principle of, "Be doers of the word and not hearers only".  It was very thought provoking and of course made me want to do better.

Friday afternoon I was able to go on our training trek. It was a lot of fun and got me really excited for our upcoming trek in just a few weeks. Hopefully it all turns out well.

Have a great week. We're praying for you.

Love,

Mom


Hey,

We've been super busy this week with all kinds of stuff. On Thursday we helped a family move and right after the move we went to help Ryan and his mother with some yardwork. We were doing service almost all day. Afterwards we were rushing to an appointment to give someone a blessing. There are a lot of hospitals in this area so we get the opportunity to give a lot of blessings to other Elders' members and investigators. Giving the blessing was a powerful experience. It was a referral from a member in one of the Indianapolis Wards, and this lady didn't really know anyting about the church when we showed up. We taught her a little before we gave the blessing. We asked her if she had faith that this blessing would help her and she said "absolutely". After the blessing she was in tears and told us that she felt a lot better. It was great.

Saturday was also an amazing day. We had a mission conference with Elder Neal L. Anderson and Elder Parker, an Area 70. Elder Parker spoke first and it was great. He's a convert of 30 years and by the way he spoke, you can tell he was a Southern Baptist. We got preached to. Haha. Elder Anderson was great. He spoke a lot about the Atonement. His talk was amazing and his testimony powerful. What an experience!

We also got some exciting news this week. The temple renderings have been released! Hopefully they'll break ground soon. The Temple site is in our area, so I think it'd be a great finding and teaching opportunity.

Love you,

Jared

Friday, May 18, 2012

The Work Goes On!

Jared,

It was super fun to talk to you last night. We really enjoyed our time with you. I am happy that you seem to be doing so well.

I talked to Tammy last night and she said Bridger said to tell you that he just got a letter from you that was postmarked two months ago. Apparently the mail is really slow there. Brings new meaning to the phrase, "snail mail". 

What's the lastest with Sibanda's, Ryan and Thompson's? And the lady you met in the parking lot, did anything ever come of that?

Last week was my scrapbook retreat. We spent Monday thru Wednesday up at Collards cabin. I got a lot done and we had a good time. Perhaps the best time there was when a tiny little mouse poked its head out from under the recliner. Nichole shrieked and jumped up on a chair. Hahaha! Too bad we didn't get video footage of that. Pretty sure it would have gone viral. Haha! Jenn grabbed a broom and smashed the little critter flat. She was the hero of the day.

Well, it's off to the races for me. Time to wake the kids up.

Love you!

Mom



Hey,

The letter that Bridger got was sent when I was in Plainfield. I sent it about a year ago. We email back and forth so it's alright. I'm just glad I don't have to rely on mail alone.

The Sibandas are still doing well, aside from the job situation. Brother Sibanda works in South Bend, which is about three hours north of here. He's working all the time and can't get Sundays off. We're just waiting for a miracle with them. Ryan just moved into the Westfield Ward, so he's not our investigator anymore. We're going to help him with some yard work and have a barbeque this week though. We had an appointment with Michelle, the lady we met in the parking lot. She didn't show up though. We'll keep trying. We had a great lesson with Brother Thompson a few days ago. We reviewed the Restoration with him and read it right out of Joseph Smith History. He said it was powerful hearing it in his own words. He told us that his wife's friends are telling them all this false information and he keeps defending us. He said "there's something in that book that Satan doesn't want me to read. He's doing all he can to stop me from reading it." He knows it's true, but it's a little hard to get him to act on it. He really doesn't like to be pushed. We're getting close with him though.

Well, that's about it.

Love you!

Jared

Thursday, May 10, 2012

A Lot of Love in Carmel

May 7, 2012

Hello again,

This week flew by in nothing flat. It was super busy with lots of fun things! Mikayla was in a play at her school and the performances were this week, so of course we wanted to be to all of them we could. It was "Honk", the story of the ugly duckling. It was a really cute show which was very well done, right down to the casting. Mikayla, of course, was my very favorite actor. She did a stellar job as a turkey and I was so proud of her. maybe some day she'll be on broadway. She does have quite the knack for acting.

Oakley got baptized on Saturday. It was very nice and I enjoyed visiting with everyone afterwards. Marion has taken a job with the State of Wyoming. He is in the process of selling his shop in Draper and will be moving up there. He started a few weeks ago so he was telling us all about his new job and how different it is from owning his own place. Holly is getting married in July and Mirranda is getting married in August. Paige has two boyfriends, she just can't decide which one she wants to marry. Garrett bought his own house just outside of Vernal and is making a lot of money.  Adam's new baby, Bentley, is pretty cute and so is Holly's baby, Lucy. Everyone is growing up and things are changing so quickly.

Did you get your package? I hope you like the book.  Have a fantastic week.

I love you!

Mom

Hey,

This week's been great. All the senior missionares live around us so we get really spoiled. The Jarmans are always having us over for dinner and Sister Parker is always baking something for us. We get a lot of love here.

On Wednesday we did a lot of work in the Indianapolis part of our area. We've been finding some great people there. The only problem is it's a little hard to get down there on the weeks we don't have the car.

Wednesday Night we had dinner with Brother Bell, who is a beekeeper. We got to go into his backyard with him and put two queen bees into two of his hives. It was pretty neat. He's got a roommate from Germany, he lives about an hour away from Tim. That was a really fun night.

We had our Zone Conference on Thursday, which was great. I'm always eager to get back out and start working harder than ever whenever we have meetings like that.

After Zone Conference we had dinner with a member in Indianapolis. While we were there our appointement for the next hour fell through. We moved on to our backup plans and tried by a few former investigators and planned to tract in the area. Once we tried by everyone I felt like we should try one more that was in an apartment complex a few miles away. We got in the car and drove over there. We parked the car and got out to walk to the apartment. There was a car parked next to us with the windows down and this mother and her daughter in the car talking. They sounded like they were in distress. We walked to the apartment and knocked, but nobody was home. As we were walking back out there was a group of teenagers all leaning on our car and talking to the people in the car next to ours. We saw this as a great opportunity to talk to all of them. We introduced ourselves and started explaining who we were. The mom in the car asked us if there were any black people in our chruch. She said she had never heard of a black Mormon before. Elder Tobler jumped right into the Restoration and explained everything. By the time he was done they said they really wanted to get a copy of the Book of Mormon. It was amazing. We'll be going back next week. She's got eight kids, so this should be a fun teaching experience.  

Saturday was really neat as well. We helped a family move in the morning. We taught Chris, who is doing great. He's so sincere about learing more about the gospel. He's great. Setting a baptism date with him is out of our control, but I think he'll be able to be baptized soon. For dinner last night we ate with the Moalas, who are members of our ward. He's also a starting defensive end for the Colts. He brought a teammate over for dinner too. He's a starting center that just got signed to the Colts from the Steelers. Dinner was amazing. It was one of the few times I've had ribs in the past year. We brought the Westfield Elders with us too. We had a ton of fun with them. They're awesome.

The only downside to this week was that my bike was stolen last night. Bummer.  


Love you,  
Jared

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Crime in Bountiful Soars

April 30, 2012

Good morning Jared,

We have had another crazy week. I guess it started out a week ago Friday when Grandma Mott called the eye doctor. She has been seeing some weird stuff out of one eye. He got her in on Friday, saw that she had a tear in her retina so he immediately got her an appointment with a  specialist on Monday morning in Salt Lake. Her plan was to come out and back in one day. It was business as usual for me last Monday, so I was working at Spanky's when I looked up and saw both of my parents. The doctor told her she needed surgery and he would do it Tuesday morning. They came by to spend the night.

About 12:30 Tuesday morning, the phone rang. I thought it was perhaps someone calling to be the first to wish me a happy birthday, but instead it was Dennis. He said the cops were on their way and we might want to come out and make a statement. We were burglarized again! Dennis was just getting ready to get in bed when he saw headlights outside. He looked out and noticed the dome light in his car and Grandma and Grandpa's car were both on. There were some kids going through both of them. He turned his porch light on and yelled and they jumped in the get-a-way car and sped off. We think they came in on foot, cleaned out the cars and then the car came in for them. They got in Taylor's car, but found nothing. They somehow got into the Audi, which was locked, and got Dad's new GPS. Then they moved on to Dennis' car, got his stereo front and rummaged through the Buick but found nothing.  When they were in the Audi, they went through the glove box where your iPod was...I felt terrible about losing that, of all things,  but on closer examination, we found it. I'm not sure how they missed it. We think it had to be a miracle. The car was in the driveway where it was well lit, the dome light and the glove box light were on and the they had a flashlight (which they accidentally left in  Dennis' car). How could they have not seen it? Anyway, it was our tender mercy. The police came and did an investigation. We ended up talking to him until about 1:30.

We climbed back in bed and tried to unwind from the early morning activities. After laying there a bit, Dad saw car lights reflecting off the garage. I jumped out of bed and ran to the front room window where I saw a small, dark car stopped. I watched as a tall man stepped out of the car. He was carrying some sort of bag. My heart was racing. I yelled in my loudest whisper for dad to call 911!. Then something inside me hesitated. I told him to hold the call until I did some investigation of my own. I watched as he slowly strolled towards Ensigns, then disappeared between Meske's and Ensigns. I waited a couple of minutes but he never came back out of the shadows. I put on a robe and headed over to find out who was lurking in the darkness. I slowly made my way over, with Dad following twenty feet behind with cell phone in hand in case he had to call for back up. When I got to the side of their garage, there was a light on and some rustling sounds. I was a little perplexed about how a crook could get in the garage, since the window is so far off the ground.  I cautiously made my way around to the back of the house, where I saw Masen's tv through his bedroom window. It was then I realized it could have been him coming home. I went back to the side of the garage where I thought he was and called out to him, to make sure that was him in there. When he didn't answer, I realized what it was making the noise! They have a bunch of new baby chicks. Haha The light was the heat lamp and the rustling sound was them! Boy did I feel foolish. Later that day, Christy confirmed that it was Masen coming home at 2:00 am. I nearly called the cops on him! 

So in the end, we only lost the GPS, we never caught the lousy crooks but they didn't get your iPod and they did no damage to the cars. We feel pretty blessed. Taylor said he was glad for the bad guys, because they are the ones that keep life exciting.

After Grandmas surgery, she decided to stay here for a week of recovery, since she is supposed to keep her eye looking to the ground for seven days and nights. The doctor injected a gas bubble in her eye to hold it where it needs to be to heal, but the eye had to be down in order for it to work properly. Today I will take her back to the doctor, if he clears her to go home, I will take her half way and meet Grandpa this afternoon.

Life is an adventure. Sometime when it isn't, we have to do things like follow our neighbors who lurk the the darkness at unearthly hours or talk to baby chicks in the middle of the night. In the end, it's all about the story. I thought maybe I could be a vigilante and stop a crime in progress, instead I just got put on somebody's stalker list. And Bella, our ferocious watchdog, slept through the whole thing.

I love you, Jared!

Mom


Hey,  

Elder Tobler and I are doing great. We have had a pretty great week.   We had dinner with a family in the ward last monday, we were talking to brother Jenkins, and it turns out, he's from Sunset Utah. He said he thinks his parents probably know grandma and grandpa.  

We had a great lesson on Tuesday night. We have a family that is investigating the church, the Sibandas. They're from Zimbabwe, and they are amazing. They absolutely know that the church is true. They'd be baptized today if they could. The problem is they both work on Sundays. They've both asked time and time again to get Sundays off, but it's not happening. So that's the trial they're going through right now.

We were able to have dinner with a family in the ward, and have the Sibandas with us too. We had a great dinner and lesson afterwards. They can't come to church now, but they have a huge ammount of faith and I know that the Lord will bless them for it. He will provide a way.   Thursday was great. Our evening was packed with appointments. We taught a guy named Ryan. He's been coming to church for the past few week. He's a great guy. We taught him and commited him to be baptized in June. He told us no, but he would think about it. A few days ago we got a call from him, and he had some questions about how the baptism service works. I have a feeling he'll get baptized pretty soon. Later that night we had a lesson with the Thompson family. Normally we just teach the father, but this time the son was there with a bunch of friends. They were all really interested and wanted to learn more. They had so many questions that we didn't get home until about 10:15...and we're supposed to be in at 9:30. Oops...  

On Saturday we had some success. We were able to have three lessons back to back, and none of them were set appointments. We stopped by a few investigators we hadn't heard from in a while and happened to catch them home. That was two of the lessons. The third was with a man named Keith. We found his name in the potential investigators section of the area book. He let us right in and we taught him the Restoration. It was great.  

Hope you're having a great week.    

Love,  

Jared