Week 64...Elder Wilford Andersen & Birthday Surprise!!!

August 25, 2014

 Elder Muir and the surprise Bday cake

 Birthday book full of wishes & pictures

 Feeling the "Birthday love"

Church news picture with Elder Muir front and center

Elders helping with moving day

Elk County courthouse

Howdy,

Hey, I am online and answering your questions but I thought I would send you a quick link from the Deseret News and the Church News about Kane’s 150^th Sesquicentennial celebration.  I am front and center in one of the pictures.  Here’s the link to the articles.  You may have already seen it on Des News.  https://www.lds.org/church/news/members-participate-in-kane-pennsylvania-sesquicentennial?lang=eng and http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865608905/Sesquecentennial-celebration.html?pg=all

This week was awesome!!!  A birthday and General Authority all in the same week, what more could you ask for :)  Things have been good and we are keeping busy.  The crazy thing is we are half way through the transfer again.  I can't believe school has started for Boris and Megs and summer is over.  By this time next year I will be home and starting school too…kind of scary.  Hope you enjoy the answers to your questions.

1. How was your week?  What were the highs/lows?  This week has been a pretty awesome week.  Like I said, a birthday and general authority coming, what more can you ask for.  The high was definitely the general authority, Elder Wilford Andersen coming and speaking to us.  His remarks were awesome and he is a really good speaker.   His wife also gave a great little talk.  It was fun to see all the missionaries from our zone and catch up & see how they were doing.  Another high was my birthday.   So many people were thoughtful and sent cards and packages of love…Thank You!!!  I loved your package and reading the fun birthday booklet that you made.  Thanks again for doing that, it made my day.  I can't wait to see what comes from you this week.  That day was a busy day because we had quite a few teaching appointments.  That night we went to a  church in St. Mary’s that does a free dinner every Wednesday night.   We had a service opportunity and helped out there by washing dishes.   Suffice it to say it was a very cool experience.  The low was that it’s been pretty humid.  It’s been pretty good all month but then last week the humidity cranked big time.  However, from what I hear our weather has been abnormal too.   Sounds like you’ve had a crazy/weird August.   People are having a rough go with their gardens this year.  Another low is we are roasted on miles already.   We most likely are going to go over :(
2. Did you order/get your new scriptures?  Yes, I got them last Tuesday. 
3. Did you get my bday package?  What did you think about the cake?  Yes, I got it all and I loved it.  Unfortunately, I have not taken it to DM yet because we did not have it last week because of the mission tour.  There is a lot of frosting on it.  It is good, but I think the humidity is getting to it and making it kind of weird.   I loved the little birthday book you made with the notes & pictures.  Who are all the girls with Flat Zach at Rita’s?  I recognize most of them but one looks like a Hall girl but a lot different than last time I saw them.  She is the one in middle front. 
4. Have you heard of the Bavarian Fall festival in St. Marys coming up in September?  Will you participate in that?  The lady that did the cake looks like she'll have a booth there (according to her FB page).  I bet fall will be beautiful in St. Marys.  No, I haven’t heard anything about it.  I don’t think we will be doing anything for it.  Maybe I will have to visit it. 
5. How was the mission/zone conference with Elder Andersen?  How was your trip to State College?  Did you get pictures?  It was awesome!!!  Pres. Johnson talked about the standard of baptism and how we need to be following what it talks about in DC 20:37. . .  And again, by way of commandment to the church concerning the manner of baptism—All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.  Afterwards Elder Andersen did a Q&A session and related it to the doctrine of Christ.  The cool thing that really stood out to me was he talked about the same thing that almost all the general authorities have talked about.   He discussed how one of the main purposes of a mission is to convert yourself.  He said we (missionaries) are the next generation that will lead the church.  We will be the next bishops, stake presidents or even prophet for that matter…that’s a little scary to think about.  It is crazy to think about all of that but really that is the purpose of a mission. . .to prepare you for those types of leadership and callings.  The most important thing is to magnify the calling that you have no matter where you serve.  The trip to State College was good.  It was kind of cool because we stopped at Chick FilA for lunch after the conference.  Some people from the State College ward happened to be there and they bought us ice cream.  He was a young guy with his dad.  He is going to Penn State for his PhD.  No, I did not get any pictures L 
6. Have you heard about a new movie that the church is releasing on the big screen on Oct. 10th called "Meet the Mormons".  It's a movie about 6 LDS people and their lives and will play in select theaters.  It will then play in one of the theaters down at Joseph Smith Memorial (I think).  Yes, I have heard of it and I’ve seen the trailer.  I think it looks pretty good.  I’ve heard that it will be on lds.org at some point so hopefully I will see it. 
7. Did you get dumped on with rain on Wednesday or Thursday?  Your weather looks pretty nice right now for this week.  Yes,  more so Thursday.  Luckily, we were inside for most of the day. 
8. What are 5 positive things from the week?  1) We had lots of service opportunities this week.  2) I learned a lot of great things from the mission tour.  3) My birthday cake/surprise arrived here without a glitch. 
9. How was the move that you helped with?   Well we only helped with one of the moves because the other people ended up being earlier than we thought.  Both families are members.  The family leaving went to Erie, PA.  He is going to be one of the assistant DA's for Erie county.   The other family moved from the ward above us but they have been coming to the branch for a few months now. 
10. How are things with your investigators?
1.  How are things with the ice cream lady?  Good, we keep just keep talking to her as she is driving around. 
2. What about the other family you met/talked to after her?  We have not talked with her since. 
3. How are S, P, L, G, J & the gang?   Boy is that ever a saga.  Let's just say people need to date people that are their own age and not be cranky. . . I will leave it at that.  Basically  G & S are out of the picture.   S has been out of the pic for a while.  G has moved out and does not really talk to P & J.   I don't know what’s going to happen with J.  Right now they are kind of stagnant with all that is going on.  We’re hoping to be able to move forward here soon. 
4. S?  I don't really know about the prayer dreams.  We have not really asked.  We’re just happy that she is still meeting with us. 
5. Media referral that requested bible and BOM?  We dropped him because he seems to be avoiding us. 
6. Neighbor of member that told you to visit the neighbor?  Well a pretty cool thing happened there.  We have not been teaching her at all but we did help clean her big Victorian style house on Thursday along with some members of the branch.  It almost did not go through because of poor planning on our part but we figured things out and it ended up working out.  We’re hoping to get more of the branch involved with her.
7. Any new leads or prospects?  We saw S  last night and her boyfriend was there.  He does not really belong to a religion so we have started teaching him. 
11. Can we do anything for you or pray specifically for anything/anyone?  No, just keep doing what you are doing and pray that everyone will progress toward their baptismal dates. 
12. Are your baptisms still planned for Aug. 30 & Sept 20?  We have moved the baptisms set for Aug. 30^th to the end of September because they are just not ready yet.  The other one is still on for Sept 20. 
13. Anything exciting or funny that you'd like to share?  On Wednesday I will conduct my first baptism interview for one of the Dubois Elders’ investigators.  In branch council we watched 2 leadership training videos that were really good and worth your time to watch.  Here’s the link https://www.lds.org/callings/leadership-and-teaching/2014-annual-auxiliary-training?lang=eng#media=.  They are the first 2 videos at the top.   I find it interesting that the church is conducting a lot of their training videos using the “Come Follow Me” format.  The sit in a circle and each of them are contributing to the discussion. 
14. How are the meals coming along?  Anything exciting?    They are going pretty good but they have been kind of slow.  They just started passing the sign up sheet in RS.   Hopefully we will get more meals scheduled soon.  We had a big turkey dinner with the  S family yesterday. 
15. Members?  How are they doing?  They are doing great. 

Another week in the books and lots to look forward to.   Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, gifts and cards.   I felt the love!!!

Love,

Elder Muir

Week 63...Happy Birthday Elder

August 18, 2014

 Birthday surprise delivered to Elder Muir this morning

 Birthday banner for Elder Muir

 The "district" before transfers last week

 Love the green & corn fields behind  the church parking lot

Elder Muir & Elder B at dinner with the branch president & wife

Howdy Family,

Hey, sounds like you’ve had quite the week.  It has been good here.  Glad all is well at home.  I’m excited to see the “surprise” you have planned for my birthday.  Yes, I will be home for 9:30 am on Wednesday morning J   I am sure whatever it is it will be awesome and we’ll have fun with it.  Yes, I have heard the song, Bless My Son.  I have it on a flash drive.  We’re able to listen to the group that sings it. I think the lady that sings it is the person who plays Emma Smith in the Joseph Smith movie.   

1. How was your week?  What were the highs & lows?  This week has been a pretty good week.  We have been somewhat slow with our teaching, especially with the investigators that have been progressing.  They seem to have slowed down and we have focused our attention on some other new leads we’ve found.  Kane seems to be where all of our work is right now.  On Saturday we had a cool thing happen in Kane. We were just walking around and one of the ice cream vans stopped and gave us free ice cream.  Come to find out she was baptized about 15 years ago but hasn’t really been to church ever since.  She gave us her phone number and birthday so we can track down her records.  However, the clerk cannot find them so we are not sure what the deal is with that.  Hopefully we are going to meet with her sometime this week.  Ironically, yesterday we saw her again in Ridgway.  She told us that when we saw her on Saturday she was doing a new route and could not find the street that she was supposed to be on.  She saw us and then realized that was street she needed to be on.   She called it divine intervention.  We’re hoping to meet with her and help her come back to church.  After we were done talking with her we were walking down the road and we ran into some other people and we were able to talk with them too.  One of them was a member that had not been to church in a while.  Her brother is on our records, but they have no idea where he is at.  We are going to try and see her again and get her records.  A low has been slow progress of our potential baptisms. It has been hard contacting them this past week. The biggest low is our miles again.  We have to go all over the area so it makes things sort of difficult.  A big high was yesterday at church.  Sis. B  knew my birthday was coming up and after sacrament she asked us to come to primary for a minute.  It was awesome, the primary kids sang me a primary Happy Birthday song and then gave us cupcakes.  It was pretty cute and very thoughtful.   Another big high was Bro. B  was finally able to make it to church yesterday.  He has said he was going to come for a long time but never has  but finally yesterday he came.  We went to the S family’s  farm and helped clean the barn and split logs.  I will get pictures of it next time I am up there. 
2. What's your schedule like for the week with the GA coming on Tuesday?  Other than the conference our week is pretty normal.  We need to be in State College by 8:30 am tomorrow morning.  It’s about 75 miles away and takes about an hour to get there.  The Dubois elders are going to pick us up at about 7 am.  We will be talking about the Doctrine of Christ.  I really like 3 Nephi 11. Jesus Christ descends from heaven and teaches the people about the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. He invites them to repent and be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end.  This is the doctrine of Christ.  It talks about voices they heard that they didn’t recognize.  Sometimes we have that same problem, we have short spiritual memories. How quickly we forget the messages and promptings that come to us, and begin to evaluate our mortal experiences base on our secular understanding.  Elder Packer taught, “ As an Apostle I listen now to the same inspiration, coming from the same source, in the same way, that I listened to as a boy. However, the signal is much clearer now.”  I find it interesting how it all ties together and how baptism and temple covenants all relate to that. 
3. How is the new calling going?  Good so far, nothing terrible yet.  The biggest thing was trying to get a lesson ready for district meeting.  I had my first lesson on Wednesday and it went pretty well. 
4. What duties do you now have as DL?  What does the DL do?  Basically I have to teach district meeting and collect the numbers at the end of each week and then report them to the ZL's.  I’m in charge of the district making sure things are running smoothly, let’s hope they go smoothly. 
5. How many people are in your district?  6
6. Do you teach at district meetings?  Yes How was your first meeting?  It went very well.  I was sort of nervous but it turned out good.  I taught about the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion.  We had some great ideas and discussion on how we can help our investigators recognize the spirit.  When do you have them?  Wednesday mornings. 
7. How's the weather?  Did you get a lot of rain at the beginning of last week?  It rained quite a bit on Tuesday last week but other than that it has been super nice.  It has been like mid 70's with a nice breeze and not too humid. 
8. What are 5 positive things from the week?  We got 2 media referrals that are actually going somewhere.  We have a member referral that took a BOM.  Also the weather has been pretty nice. 
9. How are things with your investigators? (do I dare ask after last week's news)
1.  S, J, G, P & L? (BTW, where did  L come from, never heard about her before last week).  Give me some background on these people.  Are they related?  Do they live together?  How old are they etc?  Are any of them members?  They are doing well.  They are the people that have been kind of regressing.  We have not seen them in a while but we have been texting back and forth.  G was at church yesterday.  So here’s the scoop…all of them live under the same roof.  Now I will explain who is who…L (20, I think) is a cousin that moved in with them a while ago.  I thought I had mentioned her before, but I guess not.  She is a cousin to P & S.  She is one of our investigators.  G is also an investigator.  He is 41 and used to be S’s  boyfriend but they broke up and she is back with her old boyfriend in Johnsonburg.  That is kind of a saga and long story.   G is moving out soon.  So we are not really teaching S anymore.  S is a less active along with P and they are sisters.  J is P’s boyfriend.  He is 31 and is an investigator also.     
2.  S and her brother? (any news about E or other members of the family)  How old is S?  S is doing good.  We had a great lesson with her last week in a member’s home with a recap of the restoration.  She wanted to come to church but they were out of town and her mom does not really want her to go.  Her mom is kind of anti about all of it.  So we will see where it goes.  She says her “prayer dreams” have been answered but she told us that through a text.  We have another lesson with tomorrow in a member’s home so I think it will be explained more tomorrow night in the lesson.  She is 18.  We don’t have any new news on E. 
3. The G family?  They are doing well.  We have not really talked to them much because they have been busy.  We are having dinner with them on Thursday. 
4. Any new leads or anything else going on?  Well we have a media referral that requested a bible and BOM that we taught a little but we have not been able to contact since.  Also some members told us to go visit their neighbor and hopefully we can sit down and teach her. 
   
   
10. How are the members?  They are doing great and continue to hasten the work and are a big help to us.  Really without the members’ help we don’t progress much.  Members and missionaries working together is really the key. 
11. Any service opportunities?  We have some people moving out and some are moving in. So we are helping with that this weekend. 
12. Do you do anything fun on pdays?  Not really because we never have extra miles to do anything.  Also everything exciting is outside of our area.  So we just hang at the apartment after we shop and email.  We’re not too exciting.  Hopefully my next area will have things to do on pday. 
13. How are things with you and Elder B?  They are going well.  We continue to have our ups and downs, but really overall things are good. 
14. Who's the new missionary in your district that replaced Elder H?  Elder T, he came out the transfer before i did. 
15. Are you happy and healthy?  Yes  

Well things are going well here and i can't wait for the packages and surprise om Wednesday morning. 

Attached are some pictures of the district before the tansfer and then some of the church and its surroundings. 

Love you :)

Elder Muir

Week 62...Transfer #11

August 11, 2014

 

I can't believe it is the beginning of a new transfer already.  This last transfer was 7 weeks but it flew by pretty fast.  I’m on the downside of transfers and almost down to single digits in months remaining in the mission. 

1. What's up with transfers?  Are you staying or going? 
   The news with transfers is that neither of us are leaving.  However, Elder H in DuBois is leaving.  We were not expecting this because he goes home next transfer and he will only be in his new area for 6 weeks.  He was the DL (district leader) and drum roll…I am the new DL.  I got the call yesterday afternoon from President making it official.  So I am excited and nervous at the same time and hope that all goes well.  I know it will definitely teach me a lot and there are many things that I can learn.  I am excited for the new adventure ahead. 
2. What about Elder B?  He is staying
3. How was your week?  What were the highs/lows?  Wow, as usual this week has been a busy week.  There is a lot going on here in the Ridgway area.  Things are continuing to progress.  There’s not a lot of new action but things are still progressing.  The progression is slowing down a little bit but at least it’s steady.  Satan seems to be on the war path and he’s really been messing with our people. Everybody we are teaching has a lot going and life has thrown a lot of curve balls lately and that is probably one of the lows of the week.  Another bummer was on Friday during our weekly planning.  It’s hard to agree on everything and we had a few disagreements and were driving each other crazy.  Luckily, we have everything worked out and have another transfer to be together and accomplish great things.  Moving onto the highs... this weekend we had a booth set up in Mt Jewett for their annual Swedish festival.  We helped out at a booth that one of the branches had and handed out a lot of pass along cards.  We also gave people hand cart rides.  Another high was getting the call from President about DL, that was a cool experience.
4. How was the painting service project for the EQ?  It was great, we painted a bunch of trim in their bedroom white.  It used to be a wood color.  We also had dinner with them. 
5. Has the weather been nice?  The weather has been awesome.  It’s only rained a tiny bit and it has been in the mid 70's to low 80's.  Unfortunately, it has been humid so it’s been sort of hot. 
6. What are 5 positive things for the week?  It’s the end of the transfer and we are starting fresh.  We were able to have quite a few lessons.  
7. It's exciting to hear that you may have some people on date for baptism, who are they?  Well J, G & L are on date for August 30.  I am not sure if it’s going to really happen or not.  We still have a lot that needs to be done before then but at least there is still progress.   We have  S set for September 20^th and we’re hoping that things will work out for her.  She has the most potential to meet her target date.  We will see what happens. 
8. How are things going with your investigators?
   1.  S, P, G & J?  Well that house is pretty crazy right now.  Satan has got a grip on them and is really trying to make life difficult for them.   S broke up with G and got back together with her old boyfriend. G is not happy about that and is quite depressed about it.  The whole situation is causing quite a few problems.   J really wants to be baptized but I think it’s going to be a little bit before we get things wrapped up with all of them.  Seriously, before we can move forward much more they really need to start living the commandments.  To top it off…P thinks she might be pregnant and  L, the other girl we are teaching at their house, just found out she is 15 weeks pregnant. 
   2. The G family?  I think things are going well with them, we haven't really talked to them much lately.  We didn’t get a chance to talk to them at church yesterday, but I think things are good. 
   3. S & S?  We have dropped them for now.  They moved and his phone is shut off so we don't really know where they are at. 
   4.  E & S (father/daughter)?  Well this is pretty heart breaking and sad.   S is doing great.  She has so much potential.  E, on the other hand, is now in jail L  Here’s the story…for some reason last week after church he got really violent and start hitting his wife.  He pretty much went off the deep end and had a meltdown.  The meltdown lead to him stabbing some guy at their house 4 times…yeah, no Bueno!!!  We were quite sad when we heard the news from S because we thought he had cleaned up his life from all his past problems.  Satan won this round and for now E’s ship has sailed.  However,  S really wants this change in her life.  Her life is kind of rough right now and she is trying make things better for herself.    We had a lesson in a member’s home here in St. Mary’s because she doesn’t like being in her house.  That lesson was awesome.  She talked about how she and her brother were out driving and they pulled off to the side of the road and sat and talked.  She said “what the heck is going on with our family and what are we going to do?”  She then said a prayer and asked if the Mormon thing was the direction she should go.  She said she got a feeling that she should continue pursuing this religion.  We’re praying that we can keep progressing with her and we can help her get her life in order and that she can feel the peace and joy that comes from living the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
      
      
   5. C & A?  We have pretty much dropped them.   They don’t seem super interested right now, but we will stop by again here in a few weeks.
9. What mission things/business do you have to look forward to?  Well next Tuesday we have a seventy, Elder Anderson, coming to do a mission tour.  He will talk about the Doctrine of Christ.  In a couple of weeks I will have the report on how it goes.  Not much else is going on.  We have zone conferences in September.  
10. Any fun stories/exciting news that you want to share?   Here’s a fun story… yesterday was branch council and Pres. W, Sis. W and Sis. B were all there.  Sis. W was filling in for the RS president.  It was pretty funny watching them…because they’re all related (it was mother, father & daughter all in the meeting together).   Pres. and Sis. W totally remind me of gma and gpa Ivie.  Their house is always an adventure and their personality reminds me a lot of them.  They were comically bickering and messing around with each other all meeting.  It was pretty funny. 
    
    
11. Anyone that we can pray for?  Continue to pray that our people will progress toward baptism.
12. How are the members?  Who have you really connected with and who do you enjoy spending time with?  I really like spending time with the W family (branch president)  and B family. They make me feel like I’m at home with all the craziness and stuff that goes on in their homes.  Also, I enjoy spending time with the EQ president, Bro. M.  He is a young guy with little kids and he’s pretty funny.
    
    
    Well there is my busy and adventurous week.  I was going to send you pictures but my camera is dead.  I will send some to you next week. 
     
    Love,
    
    Elder Muir