Week 59...Helping Hands in Kane & Interviews

July 21, 2014

Hi,

 

It’s been another awesome week.  Lots of good things have been happening.  I got your letter with the pictures from Tahoe & TREK.  It looks like you guys had a great time.  I LOVED seeing all of the pictures.  Sounds like this past week has been pretty busy for you too. 

1. How was your week?  What were the highs and lows?  This week was an awesome week and many great things happened.  The best part was that we had 3 investigators at church yesterday.  It was awesome, Dad's bday (July 20^th) brings miracles.  So Dad… there is your birthday present, I got some investigators for you.  Last year on Dad’s birthday I had my first investigator lesson.  Dad’s Bday brings good luck out here in PA.  Another high for the week was the Mormon Helping Hands service project.  It was pretty awesome and both the city of Kane and the branch were very impressed with everything we were able to get done.  Another high was interviews with President Johnson.  It was fun meeting with him and getting to know him a little better.   After interviews we had exchanges and I stayed up here in St. Marys.  Elder B went to Dubois.  The low of the week was probably Friday.  It was kind of a rough day as we were trying to get weekly planning done.  Basically, I was worn out and I was ready for the week to be over.  Things have been crazy busy around here so when Friday rolls around I’m exhausted and ready to be done. 
   
2. How were interviews with President Johnson?  Interviews were awesome.  He seems like a very nice guy and I can't wait to get to know him even more.  He seems like he will be fun to work with. 
3. Have the mission/rules changed much with the new mission president?  No, not really.  It’s all pretty much the same.  The only difference is that the music rules have a few minor changes.  Basically, he says just go by what the white handbook says. 
4. How was your Mormon Helping Hands in Kane?  It was AWESOME!  We had a much bigger turn out than they expected.  They Kane city council was very impressed with all of the hard work and effort that was put in and they were happy with all we were able to get done.  We had one group of people painting a pavilion, another group (my group) helped clean out a spot where a building was overgrown with weeds and another group moved a whole bunch of bricks and rocks.  Like I said, the branch was and city were both impressed with how many people we had there and how fast we were able to get it all done. 
5. Was the church in the picture of the Brockway parade that you sent the LDS church? I thought the church was in Ridgway.  No, it was just another church.  PA seems to have a church on every street corner.  The LDS church building is in Ridgway. 
6. I would love for you to take a picture of the front of your house and your kitchen etc.  I can do that.  I just was trying to get a few pictures of the apartment before I sent that package to you. 
7. How are things with you and Elder B?  Things are going good.  We still have our ups and downs with differing opinions on how things should be done, but we are still trying to work on that.  Companionships are a good place to learn about compromise.  Overall, things are going well. 
   
   
8. What are 5 positive things from the week?  1) We have been fed pretty well lately.  2)  Our attendance numbers continue to grow for sacrament meeting (123 attended yesterday).  3)  They weather has been decent this past week, it only rained on Saturday.  4)  We had the 3 investigators at church. 
9. How are things with your investigators/less actives?
   1. S, P, G & J ?  They are doing awesome and they were all at church yesterday.  They continue to progress. 
   2. The G family?  They are doing great.  She continues to come to church and the ward is giving her a lot of support. 
   3. The family living with the B family?  Their names are Skye and Nathan.  We are seeing them again tonight. 
   4. Boyfriend/girlfriend media referral from Texas living in Kane?  Their names are S & S.  They are doing great.  He is a less active and she is an investigator.  We are seeing them again tomorrow. 
      Any new leads with investigators/less actives?  No, not really
      Any other news...exciting, funny, noteworthy or such?  We found a really cool thing this week.  We were cleaning the apartment last week and we found a book about the church and its growth in western PA.  It goes through a whole bunch of the growth of the wards, branches and stakes in western PA from the time of the pioneers.  It talked about some of the first missionaries in western PA and get this… we are related to him.  Jedediah Grant was one of the first missionaries here in PA.  I thought it was really cool that we are related to someone that was a missionary and played a vital role in establishing the church here in PA.  Some other interesting things I found were that Orrin Hatch was raised in Pittsburgh and that is where his mother is from.  Random fact… Elder B showed me on lds.org where you can request the patriarchal blessings of deceased ancestors.  I thought that was kind of a cool thing.  I know it’s kind of random, but it might be kind of cool to get some, especially if we have prophets or apostles in our genealogy.  We also have a new branch mission leader.  He is from the Ivory coast and has 13 kids.  He has lived in PA for quite a while.
   5. Anything that you need from us?  Do you have my Priesthood Line of Authority.  If you don't it is OK I can do a mail request through lds.org. 
      
      
      Well, that is our awesome week of miracles.  Hope to hear from you soon.
       
      Love you,
      Elder Muir
       

Week 58...Rockin' & Rollin' in the Ridgway Branch

July 14, 2014

     

 Mural on the side of a building in the north part of our area

 Elder Muir's study area in the St. Mary's area

     We were pretty fast today cleaning.  I made Elder B clean fast because I wanted to get emailing.  I am impressed that you are getting so good at emailing from your phone.  I never thought I would see this happening.  Have fun at the meeting and I’ll get busy with the questions. 

1. How was your week?  What were the highs/lows?  Holy cow…this week was awesome week again.  We had tons of lessons and quite a bit of member involvement.  It has been awesome!!!  We have a pretty decent teaching pool right at the moment.  To start things off, a high was on Friday night when some people in the branch had a 50th wedding anniversary party.  Their kids threw the party for them and we were invited, we ended having to help serve root beer floats J  It was a fun little night and there were some non member family members that were there and also a bunch of people from the branch were there.  It was fun and we had way good food.  It was weird being on the receiving end of a catering event, I felt right at home when we started serving the root beer floats.  The kids did a great job doing the party.  I have determined we are going to give you and dad a party for your 50th wedding anniversary.  We also had an investigator at church yesterday.   S, a less active, came and a friend of hers who is an investigator also came to church.  We tried to get all of them there (P, J, S & G)  but only S and G  came.  We couldn't get a ride to fit all of them.  A low was not being able to get them all there.  Another low has been the rain and humidity, I am really starting to get sick of it.  It’s the middle of July and they’ve already had 3 ½ more inches of rain for the month of July.
   
   
2. How was your weather this week?    Did you encounter crazy weather on Tuesday or this week?  I'm assuming all is well and you survived :)    Yeah, it rained last Tuesday pretty hard but we survived and it poured again yesterday afternoon. 
3. What are 5 positive things from the week?  1) We had an investigator at church yesterday.  2) Meals are slowly starting to pick up.  3) In general everything is starting to pick up.  4)  We had 110 people in sacrament yesterday and we average 70-90 (10 or so were people visiting family for the weekend)  5)  Our 3rd missionary from the branch leaves this week to serve a mission in California. 
   
   
4. Do you know if the new mission president is keeping a blog?  Not sure
5. How are things with your investigators?
1. T & R ?  Any progress or did you have to drop them? We have pretty much dropped them but we are going to keep in contact with them and see how they are doing. 
2. S & P and the BF?  Things are going great. We got  S and her friend to church yesterday and they are really starting to progress.  We had 2 lessons with all of them this week and on Saturday they invited us over for lunch.  So things are going great with them. 
3. The G family ?  They are doing awesome.  They continue to come to church each week and we keep having dinner with them. 
4. Texas media referral (girlfriend & boyfriend from Kane)?  Not much has happened with them.  We are having another lesson with them tomorrow night. 
5. Any new leads/investigators?  The B family (one of our less active families) that we are teaching have people that living with them so we have started teaching them a little.  
   
   
6. Anything exciting going on?  This Saturday up in Kane we are helping with a  Mormon Helping Hands project. 
7. Do you have interviews or zone conference coming up?  We have interviews coming up on Thursday so we will head down to Brookville.  We don’t have zone conference until September again.  We are doing exchanges Thursday.  That is pretty much what is going on for mission business. 
   
   
8. How are things with Elder B?  Things are going well.  We are continuing to build unity with one another and trying to learn new things and ideas from each other.  So overall we are doing great. 
9. How are things with the members? They are doing awesome and they continue to show their support.  Random fact… we had dinner with a family that has 13 kids but only about 10 or 11 live at home.  It was pretty fun J

Another week of adventures and success.  Glad to hear you had a good week and had fun on TREK.  I can't wait to hear the rest of the report and see pictures. 

Love,

Elder Muir

Week 57...13 Months & 4th of July

July 7, 2014

 

Brockway 4th of July Parade

Well, we were cleaning the apartment this morning because the new rule is they want us to clean before we start emailing so it actually gets done.  So from here on out it may be a little later than normal.  Good luck driving and be careful.  Off to Walmart now, love you again.

Holy cow this week has been an AWESOME week.  We have had tons of stuff to keep us busy and it seems that the work is really “hastening" here…wahoo!!!  I’m not sure what’s going on, but it is awesome :)

1. How was your week?  What were the highs/lows?  This week has been an awesome week.  As I said things have really been picking up.  We have had quite a few lessons and we almost had some investigators at church.  We have been making a lot of progress which is a bigtime high for me.  The 4^th of July was pretty fun and was also a high for me.  We were able to watch fireworks off our deck and we also got to eat with a less active family and watch a bit of a parade in Brockway with them.  That also leads to kind of a low for me.  For some reason lately I have been missing home again.  It seems to hit in the summer when I see everybody out and about with family and having fun.  But overall I have been OK, I just have random little spots where I miss home and being able to go on vacation, relax and have a nice break.  But I am almost there, only 11 more months and I’ll be back with you guys.  Another high was last week when we were emailing we got a media referral.  It was from a member that just moved from Texas to live with his girlfriend in Kane, PA .  We have started teaching them and they almost came to church this week.  He is semi active so there is some serious potential with him.  Another high was that we spent the day in Kane on Saturday trying to contact a whole bunch of old potentials.  Most of them moved, but we found some other people.  
   
2. Did you do anything exciting for the 4^th of July?  Well Thursday night St. Mary's had their firework show.  Luckily, we could see it from the back patio so that was our firework show.  I got some video and pictures of it and I’m putting the SD card in the mail today.  We went to a less active/part member family on Friday after our weekly planning and she had a little picnic thing she invited us to and then we watched part of the parade that Brockway does.  The SD card has some pictures stuff of that too. 
3. How are things with Elder B?  Good, we are continuing to get along and we get lots of work done.  It is fun being together, there’s not a whole lot to complain about.  
4. How was the meet & greet with President Johnson?  They are pretty awesome.  They seem like great people.  They are very overwhelmed with everything but they are slowly starting to get the hang of things and are grateful to be here at this time.  Basically he told us about his family and what some of his expectations are.  So it will be great to get to know them in the last year that I have here in PA. 
5. How’s the weather?  It has been awesome.  The beginning of the week was hot and humid but it cooled down for the weekend.  The 4th was only in the high 60's.
6. How are things with your investigators?
1. S, P & the BF?  They are doing awesome.  We have kind of got the boyfriend set with a date but we will see what happens.  Our branch mission leader came with us and we taught the restoration.  We are seeing them again tomorrow and things are progressing. 
2. Lady’s nonmember husband that moved from Brookville? What’s their name?    They are the G family.  She is a convert from a few years ago.  Elder B (companion for Lititz) actually baptized her at the beginning of his mission.  Her husband worked at Hill Air Force Base at one point so they lived in Utah for a while.  Interestingly enough, they never heard anything about the church.  When they came back to PA things just started falling into place and she ended up baptized.  Her husband is not a member but we are going to try and change that.  He comes to church with her, so hopefully it will all go well. 
3. T & R?  Not much happened with them this week.  We are getting close to dropping them because they are not really going anywhere. 
4. Any new leads, investigators, less actives?  Like I said we got that media referral last week and we have started teaching the girlfriend and she has lots of potential.  We have made lots of contacts with a whole bunch of less actives and hopefully we may start teaching some of them. 
7. Any service opportunities that you’ve had?  Yes, actually we ran into a lady last week at Walmart that is friends with H, the librarian. The missionaries used to help her back in the day and she would feed them.  She has this big garden that she needs help weeding so we have been helping her with that.  She is sort of crazy when it comes to food.  She is very organic and is a health freak to say the least.  She does not like any chemical stuff.  Apparently she washes her hair with baking soda to avoid all the chemicals.  She has some weird views on some things but they are a very religious family.  The kids are all older.  One weird thing is she would not let her children watch Disney movies because she says Disney has magic and other things like that.  She thinks that is bad because magic and all that kind of stuff has to do with the devil.  She has got some weird views on things, but she is super nice.
8. What are 5 positive things from the week?  1) We had a lot of dinner appointments this week.  2) Things are slowly starting to roll (more like really fast all of the sudden) 3)  The weather has been nice and cool and not too humid. 
9. Any dinner appointment excitement?  No, but shockingly we had a good week of dinner appointments.  A few of them were last minute, but we’ll take whatever we can get.  Basically we were up by some of the people’s houses and they were having dinner.  We had stopped by and needed something and they invited us to stay.  So we had 3 or 4 dinners which is the best I’ve had in a week here. 
10. Happy& healthy?  Yes, things are going well.  Like I said, with it being summer it sort of makes me homesick, but whatever I’ll be back to relaxing one day. 
11. Did you get the 4^th of July package?   Yes, I go it and I loved it.  I really liked the Paul Cardall CD.  I love hearing I Love To See The Temple.  It’s probably my favorite song of the CD.  The package was great, it didn't need to be anything fancy. 
    
12. Is there anything that you need?  No, I think I am good right at the moment. 
13. Do you have any birthday ideas/needs?  No, not really at the moment.  That is crazy to think that is already coming around again.  That is a scary thought, by the time my bday rolls around I will be down to almost 9 months left. 
14. Any other news that you want to tell me?  I am sending home a little flat rate envelope today.  It has some old cards & letters in it.  It also has the SD card in it.  Most of the stuff you have seen but there is some new stuff.  Like some 4th of July stuff and a few more things.  Unfortunately, you'll be at TREK so you probably won’t get it until this weekend.  

I hope you are driving safe on the road.  Where are you guys at right now?   If you can respond, let me know where you’re at.  Have fun reading this on your phone and good luck with TREK.  Hope all goes well with it and I can't wait for the report.

Love you tons!!!

Elder Muir

Week 56...Introducing Elder B & President Johnson

June 30, 2014

Elder Muir can jump rope...Ridgway Branch activity

Oops...Elder Muir & Elder B cream the branch president with a pie

 

Well it sounds like you’ve had quite the busy week.  Sounds like my week, I have been very busy too.  The week of transfers is always busy and I am now the senior companion so it’s been a little crazy having to keep the area afloat and keep everything moving along. 

1. Introduce us to your new companion…His name is Elder B.  You say it the way it is spelled.  He is from Provo and went to Timpview.  He lives in between Timpview and the temple up on the hill in Edgemont.  He came out the transfer before I did and he was in my district when I was in Camp Hill.  Recently he’s been serving in Monongahela which is just south of Pittsburgh. We get along well, but we definitely have some differences in the way we like to do things.  However, we are compromising and letting both sets of ideas help the area out.  
2. Where was Elder G transferred to?  Elder G went to the Harrisburg walking/biking area in downtown ghetto and I think he likes it. 
3. How was your week?  What were the highs/lows?  This was a pretty good week.  It has been crazy with transfers and trying to get Elder B acquainted and continuing to keep the area afloat.  It definitely has been sort of stressful for me.  Unfortunately, this weekend was kind of a rough spell during dinner.  I was kind of stressed and exhausted, but I am over it now.   It is finally Pday and I can get a good break and get my energy back.  Elder B is definitely a go go go sort of person which is a good thing, but sometimes it gets to be too much.  He always wants to be doing something.   He is always making phone calls and other things.   It is good that he is such a hard worker but it definitely starts to wear on me and I need to have some down time sometimes.  But so far things are going good.  On the upside, we have been able to contact a lot of members and he’s been able to meet a lot of people and get to know them.  We also have been able to find a few potentials through all the contacting.  I don't know where they will end up going, but it’s progress.  In other news, we had a fun branch activity on Saturday.   It was a dutch oven lunch and they had a bunch of games for the kids and a slip and slide.  Of course, I forgot my camera but luckily Sis. F got a few pictures of us and hopefully she will post them on my FB.   Another cool thing that I really liked was Sis. Linda K. Burton’s talk in the Ensign from the last womens’ conference.  She shared a quote from Elder Maxwell that I thought was pretty cool.  He said, "All the easy things that the Church has had to do have been done.   From now on, it’s high adventure and followership is going to be tested in some interesting ways.”⁶
4. How was the drive to Pittsburgh on Tuesday?  It was good.  It is crazy driving through Pittsburgh.  The roads are crazy but once you get out of the city it is OK.  I drove home from the transfer pickup in Pittsburgh.  
5. The weather/news made it sound like Cranberry Township had some flooding on Tuesday night?  Did you encounter rain on your drive?  From what I can gather, your area has had about 12 inches of rain since the beginning of May.  Probably more now because that was as of last week.  Sheesh…that’s a lot of rain.  No, we got some rain on the drive home but we went east of Cranberry.   It did rain on us on the way home but not super bad.  Holy cow that is a lot of rain that you reported and I am getting quite sick of it.  It just needs to be nice. 
6. How are things with the new mission president?  Have you heard from him at all yet?  When is the next time that you’ll meet with the mission president (zone conf or interviews)?  We got President Johnson’s weekly email today.  They seem good and we are going to State College tomorrow for a meet and greet with them and he is going to introduce himself and talk about the training that they got at the MTC.  So I will have a report on him next week. 
7. How are things with your investigators/LA?
1. T & R   Things are going well.  We had a short little lesson with him this week.  Unfortunately, we might be dropping them soon.  I hope we don't have too but they are not really progressing right now so hopefully we can get him moving along again. 
2. S ?  Things are well with them, we saw them on Friday.  We have actually started teaching her sister, P, too.  We almost had them at church yesterday but they had to help their mom out with something, so hopefully next week.  Also we have started teaching P’s nonmember boyfriend.  He seems somewhat interested.
3. What about the potential from last week that moved in with the LA?  How did dinner with them on Thursday go?  Well she is in the hospital because of her appendix right now.  So we aren’t able to teach her at the moment. Dinner was actually with someone else.  She is a lady that moved in from the Brookeville ward.  She is super nice and her husband is a nonmember and we may start teaching him.  We are having dinner with them again on Thursday.   
4. Any new potentials or LA?  We have a few potentials that we have found, but nothing super promising yet.  We have also started to talk to some new less actives as well.  Not really teaching them yet but we have possibilities. 
8. Have you been back up to Kane?  When is the dedication of the building that you were talking about?  Yes, that is where S & P  live.  The dedication of the chapel is the first weekend of August and that is when Kane Days is also. 
9. Do you have any grand plans for the 4^th of July?  Does St. Marys or the surrounding area do anything fun?  I am not sure yet.  We may have to be in at 6 pm (that is what happened last year, but I am not really sure).  I don't know if St. Mary's has anything going on.  They were doing some fireworks the other night.  I know Brockway has a big celebration, but I’m not sure if we will make it down. 
10. How was the weather this week?  Are you water logged yet?  The weather is up and down. There have been sunny days, but also lots of stormy days.  Yesterday we had a big thunderstorm roll through.  It looks like there will be rain through the week until the weekend. 
11. Are you happy & healthy?  Yes,  I’m just sick of the rain. 
12. Do you need anything?  No
13. Gma Karen said she sent some gift cards recently, did you get them?  Sis. Kirk  said that she sent a note to you, did you receive that?  Have you received any other fan mail  Yes, I got it all.  I haven’t received anything else recently.  Actually, I guess I got Meg’s letter the other day. 
    
14. Anything exciting, funny, depressing or noteworthy that you want to tell me?  Yes, as I am sitting here at the library typing, the ambulance just showed up for some lady that just passed out or something like that.  I am not really sure though.  We got pictures while we were in Pitt on some of the overlooks.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so Elder G is going to email me some of his pictures and I will send them to you next week.  

FYI…I found the oil vial the other day under the seat in the car so I don’t need one anymore.  Have fun at Tahoe…one more year and I will be there.  Say HI to everyone for me. 

Love you all!!! 

Elder Muir