A Successful Week

Hi Jared.

My kitchen project dragged out all week and ended up downstairs in the family room. Now the entire downstairs is a disaster. The kitchen is still not entirely put back together, but looks better than before. I left your footprint indent in the wall that you put there many years ago. I like it there. :)

Mikayla is in love and went on another date this week. (Different boy). It's fun to watch her have so much fun. His name is Ben, and he's really cute with her.

Life is getting busier each week as my hours at the Capitol increas. I don't know how moms who work full time keep everything together. Luckily, this will only last three more weeks.

Here's a story I neglected to tell you. A few weeks ago, Taylor and I were coming home in Dads Audi, when Taylor heard a strange noise. He tore into the car and found that a piece had a hole in it that wasn't supposed to be there. They ordered a part, fixed the problem but then the car wouldn't run for more than a couple of minutes. The computer kept shutting it off. They called Josh's brother, Eli, who works at Strong Audi, and he said there were some unrelated recall items. He told them to make an appointment for the recall items and he would look at the other problems while it was in there. They put it on a trailer and borrowed Dennis' truck and took it into Salt Lake. They gave Dad a really sweet loaner car to use while his car was being fixed. They found there were metal shavings in the engine, so they said it need to be replaced, a $7000 job. The car has a 120,000 mile warranty. His car has 119,161. They are giving him a FREE BRAND NEW ENGINE! Dad says this is blessing from having you on a mission. Thanks! Can you believe it? When does this ever happen?

We're still getting more snow. There's probably a foot and a half on the grass and piles everywhere. The one by our back door is 4 1/2 feet tall. I am so ready for spring.

Have an amazing week!

Love you, Mom

Hey,

 

We had a pretty incredible week with a lot of exciting miracles. On Tuesday we had exchanges with the elders in Marion. I had Elder Davis with me in our area. We stopped by a woman named Sandra. Elder Zeyer and I taught her for a while, but life got hectic, her husband lost her job, and he didn't really want us around so we quit teaching her in November. He got a job again, so we're welcome back. We had a great lesson with her and her granddaughter Courtney. She loved having us back and she really recognizes the spirit we bring into her home.

 

On Wednesday we were able to get ahold of a member named Brandon. He was baptized about three years ago, came for a few weeks afterwards and then quit coming. Nobody in the branch really knew why. Brandon called us a few months ago asking for a ride to church. We found him one and he came that day but we were never able to get ahold of him until now. We stopped by and he let us right in. He asked us all about what he needed to do to get the Priesthood. I asked him what made him ask about it and he told us that he really felt like he needed to call us a few month ago to come to church and recently he's been reading scriptures and the topic of exaltation keeps coming up. He told us after all he's read about it he'd be a fool to miss out on it.

 

Thursday we had a pretty great lesson with a guy named Randy. We found him tracting a few weeks ago and he let us right in. This was our second lesson with him and we finished teaching the Restoration. He accepted it all really well and he even committed to be baptized when he knew that this was true.

 

Another great miracle happened on Sunday. We had planned to stop by Beth and Everett as one of our last stops in the evening. As we were driving into the town of Alexandria where they live Elder Melchior felt like we should stop there first. We followed the prompting and caught them home. They were friendly and invited us in. We asked about why he felt like he didn't want to meet with us anymore and he brought out some questions about the Book of Mormon that had been troubling him. We were able to answer his questions and he agreed to meet with us again. They're going to stick with their other church for now, but I'm really grateful that the door is open again for us to stop by.

 

So, that's been our week. I'm really excited that we're teaching Sandra, Courtney, Beth and Everett again.

 

Love you,

 

Jared 

The Last Zone Conference

Hey,

 

We've had a good week. We started the week off with exchanges with the Zone Leaders. They both stayed in our area for the exchange and we split up to cover more area. I went with one and Elder Melchior went with the other. I worked in Elwood and Elder Melchior went to Frankton. We both had a lot of cool things happen. We found a lot of great people and had a few lessons with new investigators.

 

We also had Elder Melchior's birthday on Wednesday. We got more birthday cake than we know what to do with. Brother Phillips, our Ward Mission Leader had us over for dinner and had a big cake for us, and another family, the Kings, had a nice German chocolate cake waiting for us when we stopped by.

 

On Thursday we had our Zone Conference. We got some pretty exciting news that Elder M. Russell Ballard will be coming to speak to the mission on March 2nd. On the less-than-exciting side, I had to give my "farewell testimony". It was a strange feeling. I didn't even know most of the missionaries there. My group going home is really small, so there weren't many of us up there sharing testimonies. There's only four of us going home, and there are thirty coming out next month. They're in the process of dividing areas right now so there are places for all the new missionaries.

 

 

Love you,

 

 

Jared

Staying in Elwood

Hi Jared,

Well, this week was pretty much awesome. I stared my new job at the State Capitol. I LOVE IT! I get to be right on the House floor while the legislature is in session. It is quite the hopping place. It is really fun to get to know some of the Representatives that I am assigned to and fascinating to see how it all works. 

Mikayla and I were both in the Davis County Clipper this week. Me, because I am shaking hands with Representative Nielson and Mikayla because she is in the play Little Mermaid.

The plays opening night was Friday the first. They do a great job and it is really fun to watch. Mikayla has really loved it. She spends so many hours at the school these days, that we hardly see her anymore. 

February 4, 2013

Dear Jared,

Hallie, of course, had her Birthday on Friday.  She is officially 14. Seems a little crazy that everyone is getting so old. Thanks for the letter and adorable pictures. You are one handsome cat. Not quite as cuddly as Garfield, but purr-fect in my eyes.

Sunday was the Superbowl. We celebrated with lots of food and friends. It got a little crazy around here. 

Manuela and Alice will leave today. Manuela is simply adorable. I could keep her forever. She fits right in here. She is funny, cute and really adventurous. I love that about her. I will miss her a lot.

Love, Mom

Hey,

We had transfer calls yesterday. I'll be staying in Elwood with Elder Melchior. We've had a bit of a slow week. It's been hard to meet with some of our investigators. We had a whole day planned in Alexandria yesterday and everything ended up falling through before we even got there. We did get a lot of lessons set up for this week though.

We did have some cool stuff happen though. On Wednesday we got to go to mutual. We taught the Young Women about missionary work and had a big question and answer session.

We had a pretty good lesson with Adam. He's still doing pretty well. He ended up moving again and he's having some troubles with the apartment, but he's staying with some friends right now and they're treating him pretty well.

On Saturday we had a member from Kokomo come down to take us out to lunch, which was cool. He's going to try to make it down here at least one more time in the next few weeks.

Well, hope you're doing well.

Love you,

Jared