An epiphany moment

October 12, 2015

Well hello again
So first off I'll start with a funny story. The Vienna elders, in our zone, elder judkins and elder baulk, were making phone calls this week and they got to some guy and his wife. Something Rasmussen and his wife Kate kelly. Knowing it sounded familiar but not sure why elder baulk called them up and asked for brother Rasmussen. In return he got "that's my husband but I'm Kate Kelly may I ask who's calling?" His reply, still wondering why she was familiar, said "oh hi, I'm elder baulk from the Vienna ward and we're just calling because we want to get to know our members better. Is there a time we could come meet with your family?" Her response was "well first off I was excommunicated last year and secondly I now live it Utah." He said oh.. Ok.. Well have a nice day.. Thanks. Being quite puzzled he just moved on to the next person in the list. A few hours later a member of the bishopric called and asked" did one of you just call Kate Kelly?" Elder baulk was like "yeah! Who in the heck is she? The name sounds super familiar" he then informed them who Kate Kelly was and as they started laughing the bishopric member told them that she posted on Facebook about the elders calling her. Still laughing they looked her up. The comments are a bit ridiculous but here's the post that made our whole zones day. It was quite hilarious when he was telling us the story. He know remembers where the name came from. We read a lot of the other comments and they were quite sickening.. Sadly..

As for the rest of my week it went really well. We've continued to meet with some members and we picked up a new family we're excited to start teaching. Zafar has basically disappeared but George is doing really well and said yes to baptism! We were pretty stoked about that. We did a lot of service this week as well which has been fun for the most part. So we're also trying to figure out if answering doors here is unorthodox or if people are deaf or if the whole state's been out of town for the last month... What ever it may be, people are just never home here. Doesn't matter the day or time, they're not home. We've got tons of names of people to visit but we've not been able to get ahold of any of them! It's ridiculous.

Elder cox and I are still getting along super well and it's been awesome! It's made the this whole missionary thing much more enjoyable. I've been learning tons from studies which has been grand,
and also feeling the spirit a lot which has also been grand. We met a man named mr. Grant. He's the guy we had answers to questions for and he was super happy we were able to answer all his so far questions. It was pretty sweet and were hopefully going back soon. I had me first real door slam experience. We've had some decent ones, but this one was top notch and my feel goods are still hurtin. The funny thing is a while back he referred himself to the missionary referral database and
apparently can't seem to figure out why the missionaries keep showing up. We haven't had any new bashers, just door slammers. I also learned that the McLean bible church has their main meeting every week and then also their "how to beat the Mormons" service which I want to attend. It's kinda ridiculous but whatever makes them happy I suppose.

It's actually getting kind of cold some days which is good compared to the blistering heat we've had. The fall definitely isn't as good here in the east. But it's close. I miss the mountains and having any sense of direction. The roads here are so insane. They follow no patterns and go all over the place and the drivers here are the worst in the world!

I had a pretty cool epiphany moment, as I was falling asleep on the couch, as to why I'm here and why I know the church is true. It was pretty cool. I basically just realized that I'm gone for 2 years and away from family and friends and I'm either starving or bloating and I only get to communicate once a week and people are often mean and a lot Catholics are not saints and it's really hot a humid and I'm always exhausted and everybody honks and the hurricanes are lame and everything is expensive and we don't have a car... But I'm happy. All this stuff that could be unpleasant, but I'm happy and Im enjoying what we do and if it wasn't true we'd all be classified as psychos and
I wouldn't be as happy as I am. Just an interesting thought I had one day. It also kept me awake because I got up and wrote it down. It also made me think about why we're happy as Mormons in general and those thoughts have helped me help explain to others why we're so much happier or why we do the things we do. So a challenge to everyone I suppose, think of how best to describe why you're happy as a Mormon and what makes you know the church is true. Even more so than just the
typical oh I feel the spirit.

And yeah, that's basically what went down this week. It's been a good one. Oh if you have any easy, cheap, and filling snack ideas or recipes please email away! Oatmeal cream pies, Oreos, and Raman aren't quite fitting for that category.. We've been eating fruit and sandwiches but that's about all we got. Slow progress, but a good one!
The church is true without a doubt and I love the work. Not necessarily the state or the people, but definitely the work. Time's flying but I still have forever.. That's something I'm still workin on
getting over.. But other than that all is well. Thanks all for the emails and all the love and support.

First area - Falls Church Virginia

 

 

I'm here to stay

October 5, 2015

First of all happy late birthday mom!!! I didn't get the chance to say it last week! Hopefully it was grand. Thanks for all you do and your continued support. Ice thought a lot about all you've done for me over the years and I truly appreciate it. I'm definitely a much better person for it. So thanks for all you do. As for the wether yes it's been awful.. We didn't and don't tract much. The people here are
seriously the meanest and nothing good comes from it. Thank you Adam for the letters! I've meant to respond but I've been busy. I really do love to know what's going on. Thank you all for your emails and letters. Things are grand. I'm still definitely homesick but it's a lot different now. I'm here to stay and enjoying it. Even though people are evil. As for music. As long as it isn't too intense or anything and is clean it's fine. They're not super strict about it as long as it's not distracting or taking from the spirit. We listen to a lot of movie sound tracks like batman and inception and superman and Star Trek and Disney songs are always good. just things like that and just soft nice songs or ones without crazy beats. Id get my own but I have no way to.. I haven't sent the pants, but I will when I get the
chance. As for Julie's package. I talked to our mail lady and if there was no apartment address it'd go back to post office for a few days then back to the sender. As long as you put apartment 203 on it I will get it. The correct post office is out of the area so we can't go to it. It least not without talking to the zone leaders and it's super far away. It's also getting quite nippy here and I don't have a coat..
Or even a jacket.. Were you going to send something out? Or do I need to just go buy one? Will you email me pics of the motorcycle and our car wreck pictures. Ive thought a lot about that wreck and how the thoughts I had before we wrecked were probably promptings rather than just my own thoughts and how I should've listened to it and said something... So a lesson for all, never hesitate to listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost whether they seem ridiculous or not. Like the scripture say if it's good it comes from God so if it's good, let it be known. Our gym is garbage which stinks and 6:30 is super early, but things are going good and I'm feelin the spirit nice and strong.
Keep reading and keep praying even if it seems hopeless. I finished the Book of Mormon in the MTC (didn't start in the MTC) and will probably finish it again before the transfer. Our apartment is super
nice and clean and seeing the other apartments makes me super sad I'll have to leave this one.. Missionaries are slobs and disgusting creatures that trash everything. Elder cox and I are still getting
along super well and it's awesome and been really nice. We're still getting things going but it's been good. We're still working on a car because the area is huge and I still don't have a bike. But yeah. Oh
so dad there are tons of porches and corvettes and the basics like mustangs and cameros and chargers and challengers and pretty cool bmws. I havent seen any but there are tons lambos and ferraris around. There's a Porsche store and a super sweet Aston Martin store close which is cool. We saw an I8 bmw which are way nice. You should get some. Everyone's loaded here which is why a lot of them are heartless.
Hope all is well at home and everyone is happy
Elder Lucas

 

Found on Facebook

October 2, 2015

 

P-day service activity

Companion is at 10:00 from Parker

It's an adventure!

September 28, 2015

Hello everybody! This week flew by! It feels like I was just writing. Hopefully it's been a good week for all. Were to start.... Um so the Indian ended up being not an Indian from India but instead a paki from Pakistan. I have no idea what they're called. But we talked to him and went over the first lesson with him and found out that he's been reading the Book of Mormon, gospel principles, and for some reason started reading the bishops and stake presidents Manual. He's super smart and is basically just learning everything he can about the church which is awesome! So like the great missionaries we are we committed him to baptism on October 3rd! It was awesome and he is totally prepared and we were super excited! I use the word "were" because he came to church yesterday, like he has been, but informed us that he might be going out of town tues or Thursday and doesn't know when he'll be back... If at all... So yeah we basically just sat there and didn't even know what to do or say... So we're crossing our fingers and praying he decides to stay a bit longer so we can get him baptized... He's a golden investigator for sure and we might be losing him. We do have another though His name is George and he's 15 years old and he's interested in what we have to say. We taught him the first lesson and yesterday the second and believes it and wants to keep learning and we are still working with him. So we're hoping he feels of the truthfulness and we can get him baptized.
Other than that the wards slowly coming together. These last two weeks they've sustained like 50 people so things are a bit slow but the members are awesome and friendly which is a huge relief because the average virginianite is an insensitive bafoon.. We've done some good amounts tracting and the people here are heartless... We've also been doing a lot of member contacting and the active ones are really nice and some inactives are nice but a lot of the inactives are grumps. One guy told us that he keeps telling all us Mormons he'll come back when he wants to and how he's tired of telling people that... We thought about telling him a crazy way of changing that but we didn't. Another
told us he's not a member anymore because he wasn't gone in 15 years. We were just like actually buddy you are, you're just a pile of a member. All in all the people of Virginia are evil. Their license
plates all say "Virginia is for lovers" but it's a lie. A lot of them are Presbyterian or Jewish or Catholic and as soon as they see us they tell us which still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. "Hi we're
missionaries from the chur....oh I'm Catholic" and we just sit there like ok well what's your point? "Um that's cool we're Mormon, can we finish?" And in the case that they're  Catholic, which is quite often, having the pope in town has sure made things difficult... Everyone we try to contact is constantly talking about the pope and his majesty. Did I mention they're heartless?  After one pretty horrendous day of tracting we were enjoying the wifi of a local target and a lady (non
member) said hi to us then told us how amazing we are and how she knows it's gotta be so tough but that we're amazing for doing what we do. It was pretty awesome. It made my day. Then she bought us soup. It was beyond disgusting but it was thoughtful and we were happy. My happy day lasted a whole 2 minutes though because a guy walked past us and said quite rudely "the pope says hi..." We both about jumped up and beat him to the ground but we refrained due to our name tags and our increasing Christ like attributes.
Another "fun" experience: we were sitting at Wendy's enjoying wifi and lemonade and a big weird lookin guy came in and sat down at the table next to us and plopped down a bible and were were both just thinking great... Here it comes... So he started asking us why Joseph smith wrote another bible so we started to explain and he kept ignoring and hammering us with questions about him writing a new bible. We said something though ,without bashing, that made him stop talking. It was cool. He paused for only a moment though and started asking us about random crap and telling us what he believed. He told us of these crazy experiences he's had where God showed himself to him and told him things and some other random stuff. We just sat there smiling. He then drilled us on how the New Testament is correct and asked us, with sincere intent of destroying us, if we'd ever read the New Testament. And we both chuckled and said yes actually we have. It caught him off guard but only for a sec because he was quite persistent in finding out if we'd ever read revelation and again we chuckled and said yes, we believe fully in the New Testament and revelation.... He was stumped for a moment but failed again to shut his ever flowing mouth. He kept telling us how the New Testament is right and that we need to read it and how he knows some Mormons that were reading it and
teaching from it and that they were telling everyone about it and how people were upset because they were reading the New Testament???... He was psycho and we really messed up his plans of roasting us so he wasn't making much sense. In the end we said we had to leave and he told us not to teach falsely or we'd end up in a burning lake of fire with Moroni. We were upset but after a while got a good laugh out of it. And now we think it was quite hilarious.
One last quick thing. Our planning is often crazy and and random last second stuff but it always ends up working and people tell us how good our timing is and how good our lessons are and how we came at the right time and it's awesome to see how God has plans for everyone and everything is in motion even if it seems completely random.  So that's been an awesome thing to experience. God knows what he's doing and everything will always work out. Alma 26:27
Those are just a few of the interesting things we've experienced. And to clear up the "enjoying wifi" phrase I use. Most apartments have wifi in the leasing offices that missionaries use/need to update area books and maps and lds tools and check emails and such but ours doesn't have wifi so we have to go out about 3/4 a mile to Wendy's because it's the closest. Or target when we were in the area.
All is well. The work is good. Slow and hurtful but good. We're still trying to figure things out and we're out of money and have maybe/hopefully enough food till next pay day and pday... We had 29.73 to buy food today for the week...But it's fun and an adventure. Raman, cereal, sandwiches, and snacks are wonderful. As for this vs the MTC, this is much better. The MTC was nice but it's also nice to be out here learning and growing and doing as we please (all good obedient things of course). I hope all is well at home and that everything is going ok. I love you and miss you all. The church is true and the gospel is great. It's been rough at times but the scriptures can be life savers. So read and pray and endure to the end. If you don't... you end up in Virginia. Jk but for real
Elder  Lucas

P.S. We should be able to go to a members house for conference but we might also go to the church. We're not sure yet. The members are super nice and welcoming. At least the active ones are.. The wards huge but there aren't a lot of active members. The only ones we're teaching are Zafar and George. We've had no other luck. We do have a bunch of referrals that we're hoping will pay off though. We've bought some food. But we don't have much. Next week we should be able to buy a bunch because we'll get paid again. 165 a month... The elders bike I'm using has a car. We're working on getting one though because our ward/area is huge and there are tons of main roads. It's about 4ish miles from top to bottom. Maybe a little bit more. And 2ish miles wide more in some areas. We're living near the bottom of the area. And yes we wear helmets. We have to. Nothing super spiritual has happened but it's definitely been awesome to see gods effect and love in everyone's lives and in helping us connect with people and meet their needs. And nothing scary or crazy has happened. All is well. Some days are a struggle but they go quick and we're staying busy. My companions still awesome and we work really well together. I don't need anything. But I did get the pants and do
love the letters and emails and pictures. Will you send me a picture of the motorcycle. But yeah everything is good.

Virginia is for Lovers!

September 21, 2015

Hello everyone! 

Sorry I haven't been able to email... The way pday was in the MTC and now here in Virginia through things off. So first things, the MTC was awesome but I'm very glad to be out of it. We woke up at 1:30am on the 16th to leave at 2:30. We got on the plane about 5:30 and after a layover in Minneapolis we made it to Reagan airport at about 2:00 pm eastern time. It was a long and very boring flight but flying into DC was pretty sweet. We saw the monuments and pentagon and lots of trees. We then went straight to the Jefferson memorial to take pics for our families and to look around for a second or two. Afterward we got back in the scalding vans dripping with sweat and so tired we wanted to die. We went to president huntsmans house ate dinner had interviews and finally made it to our hotel by 10ish. We were all so exhausted we could barely stay awake for anything. I don't know if they were trying to kill us, scare us, or if they thought it was funny but a few of us kept looking at each and were seriously wanting to run away. It was intense and I thought for sure it was going to be the worst 2 years of my life... Either way we were dead to the world and slept like coma patients. 

The next day we got up and went to transfer meeting and met our trainers. My companions name is Elder Cox from Manti he's awesome and we get along super well. I'm already gonna be sad when we split. We've connected really well and are stoked to be together. We've also got some crazy random same backgrounds which is sweet. He's been here for almost 15 months. So he's got some good time behind him. And of course he's taller than me...

We are currently in the McLean stake in the tysons corner ward our address is 7700 random run lane, falls church, VA 22042. I love all your letters and packages so send away! We are the ones opening a brand new area/ward which has been and is quite the struggle. We have no directory which means no names or addresses and no area book which means no investigators or potentials or inactives or anything. We have nothing... It's been a pain in the rear. To make things better we got to our brand new apartment which is sweet because it's the biggest by far and nicest by far of any other apartment in the mission. The only issue is that it's new to missionaries... So we have a little furniture and it's nice and clean, but we had not a single bit of food, lamps and lights but no light bulbs, I didn't have a blanket or pillow for the first two nights, we had half a roll of toilet paper, no shower curtain (you never realize how important a shower curtain is until you don't have one... The bathroom was soaked) and the sisters had our luggage until like 10:15. So our first day was very unproductive because we had nothing and didn't know what to do And it was dark in all rooms but the kitchen and bathroom. We've since been able to buy light bulbs, food, a shower curtain, and other necessary items. Mom, the package of food you sent us came at the perfect timing! We are beyond thankful. We were able to eat breakfast, lunch, and have a snack. We thought for sure we were going to starve to death. Kidding of course but we were very hungry, hadn't eaten all day, and were quite worried about our well being. So thank you thank you thank you! It's been a very rough start but things are getting better. 

On a positive note we had an Indian (from India, there's tons here) call the church while we were there for a meeting on Thursday and say he wants to meet. We met and he wants to be baptized which is awesome! so we're working with him now. We also were finally able to meet the bishop and mission leader and a nice member family and get some food and other supplies as well as a meal schedule. The mission president and his wife are also very nice and welcoming and seem like they'll be great leaders. We met a guy named Jose who didn't speak tons of  English but he's interested so I used my vast amounts of Spanish....to tell him we'd have the Spanish missionaries come visit him.... We've met with members and tried tracting but with out a directory or area book we're still basically working with our hands tied and eyes blind folded...

Things are going well and I'm excited to start working in a bran new ward/area. We are biking missionaries in a huge area which is a pain, but members are nice and we've been able to catch rides places. It's hot and a little humid but it's very green and there are trees everywhere!

I hope all is going well and that life is good. I'm back to being able to check emails whenever I have wifi since we've got iPads so feel free to email. Oh and send pics! I love to see what's going on at home. Again my address is 7700 random run lane, Falls Chuch, VA 22042. Love you all, hope everything is going well, everything here is dandy, the church is true, God loves us all, pray lots, read tons, and have a wonderful week. 

Love Parker

PS Everything is going well. Elder cox and I get along super well. Our apartment is super nice but kind of in an interesting part of Virginia. Thank you dearly for the package. We really didn't know what we were going to do. Some things I need and would like. I need our medical insurance card.. And also a watch with a date keeper.. And you could email me pictures of anything. The motorcycle, Morgan, the family, my mullet, just anything so I have some. Also a thumb drive full of music would be great! Movie soundtracks are always good or nice Christian bands. Basically calm appropriate music. Cologne would also be nice. I can obviously get a lot of that here, but anything would be nice. Also something to say to the youngins. Practice instruments! Both in the MTC and here I wish I played the piano better and had songs memorized. I also wish I knew how to play guitar. Other

wise things are dandy and were surviving. Oh I thought I had a lot of ties.. Most missionaries have like 20+. I think that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm allowed to check email again whenever I can so send away. I like to read all your emails even if I can't answer a lot of them. Thanks again for everything.

Elder Lucas

Poor starving missionaries!

 

Meals are set up for the whole week so we won't starve!