Monday, March 27, 2017

Transfers! Week 33

Hey! Yeah I saw the video of Landon and Mason's mission calls on Facebook! I am super happy for them! They are going to be awesome missionaries. Haha maybe I'll be the only one called in the states, I'm good with that😂 but holy cow I'm sure kaitlyn and Brett and Dad are all hyped
for Chile! There are so many people that get called there, it's
insane. And the Alpine mission will be super cool too!


 It was actually really nice weather this last week, sunny with
a wind chill and it was great. Its supposed to heat up again so that's gonna be fun...not!

So this is cool... the Oakland Athletics and Chicago Cubs do their spring training for baseball here in Mesa and our mission nurse sister Clifford got a bunch of tickets for us and so we got to go for our P-Day activity today! It was the Oakland A's vs the Kansas City Royals, pretty sweet. It honestly made me feel at home (like a ton) haha. The Royals were killing it so I was pretty happy about that, but I do like the Athletics too. Man I love sports😍

It's been pretty interesting lately... a couple of days ago a water pipe started leaking in the ceiling of our apartment so they have to fix that sometime this week. It was pretty bad so they had to shut off the water and we have been without water in our apartment for 3 days. Thank goodness we have keys to the church!😁

This week was sooooo good!! And we also found out transfer news. I was pretty excited for transfer news this time because it would be interesting to have a new area and a change but then again I love this area so I would have been good with whatever. Turns out Elder Child and I are both staying here
and we are both pretty hyped about that. I think I've had the most fun with him haha we are always just being goofballs which makes things pretty chill. Plus we have a TON of work going on. This last week we had like 4 or 5 lessons in a row. It was sweet. Downside is that I am still on bike. But we've been working really hard with our investigators and it is definitely showing progress.

What I've learned this week is that the Lord is trusting us more and more. He has literally been putting investigators right in front of us and it has been great! We found 4 new investigators and they are all progressing really well! We also found two new part member families that had us over for dinner and so now we are working with them. Plus
they came to church! Super cool, we are excited to see what happens in the next couple of weeks because things are really picking up.

I wish I had more to say but I can't really think of anything else. I just know that I have been called out here for a reason and there are people here that I am supposed to meet. I have already met some of those people and it is changing my life. I've never felt more close to God than on my mission right now. There is still soooo much I need to learn in order to become the best missionary I can, and that's the beauty of a mission. You are constantly learning and trying to become
better.

I love seeing everyone's smiling faces back home! I love it here and I am happy, but I sure love my home in Utah too...I hope you all have an awesome week! 

Love Elder Findlay
Our view from the game today

Easter Pageant set up and sunset

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Gettin hotter...Week 32

Hey! This week was awesome other than the heat haha!
Tuesday night was pretty fun, we went to Brother LeBarons house to help with mountain man, which is like a scout adventure camp thing. Anyways they were making like knife cases and bags and all sorts of other things out of leather. Bro LeBaron has a big leather shop. So there is a member in the ward and she is married to a non member and he comes to church every single week. Has been for years and years. He won't get baptized though. He's like the funniest dude and loves the church he just won't meet with missionaries and get baptized. So anyways he is in the deacons quorum presidency and he was helping with the leather and everything. We were there for him and just getting to know him more. By the end of the night we were pretty much best
friend😂 he's such a good person, so who knows what will end up
happening.

On Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Austin in his area and that was fun! We had a party, I love that kid. We had district meeting that morning and I gave a training on how to use the Book of Mormon to answer the questions or concerns that our investigators might have. It was pretty good, but I'm done with giving trainings for the rest of the transfer thank goodness😂 Anyways and then we had like a little zone pump up Meeting. That was pretty fun. We are trying to meet our goal for finding and so we are all trying to get hyped to meet that. We had Barros pizza for dinner which was good, love Barros. Its like a local pizza place that the bomb. Anyways then we went on YSA splits which is always fun, I've been on splits with them in that ward so much because I've been on so many exchanges. So I know the YSA members
pretty well. Anyways we had a perfectly set up lesson😂 so there's a
potential investigator in their area whose name is M. Well they have had some trouble getting to teach him. So we thought for a minute and came up with this plan. We would go knock on his door and see how he was doing. Then say "can I ask you a weird question? Can I use your bathroom?" So elder Austin used that one which got us in his apartment! The next step of the plan was that when we get inside and ,Elder Austin goes to the bathroom, then I would teach the restoration to M. Turns out that when we got inside he had two other friends there. So I just started getting to know them and taught the restoration and it was run solely by the spirit. When I talked about the first vision you could just see the tears in everyone's eyes. It was probably the most
powerful lesson I've ever been in. So we ended up finding 3 new investigators! That was so sweet!

On Friday we had a lesson with Sister B who is an investigator and it went so good! She was scheduled to be baptized on April 29th and during the lesson I received a prompting that said she is ready and that she needs to enter the waters of baptism as soon as she can. So we moved her date up to April 2nd! So we are super excited for her! She is awesome and will make a faithful member!

All in all it's been an awesome week. I've seen the Lords hand in
every day that I go through. I love you all so much!
#sunsets

p-day fun!

Cool sky

This is how I feel about the heat...in MARCH!!!


Monday, March 13, 2017

Holy Toasty! Week 31

Hello!! How's everything in good ole Utah? Yeah its been really toasty here this week. And its only March, oh boy. But yeah me and Elder Child are having a good time, we have a lot of fun! The work is moving along slowly but at least it's going. We are always finding ways to make the work fun😂

This week was so great! I've never done so much service in my whole life😂 On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Calio to his area and we had a blast! We had interviews with president and it was awesome! Plus I found out that Sister Townsend named pizza pie cafe😂 She entered a name contest and won! I was so hyped when I heard that! Plus she knows my friend Danielle! Do you remember her? She is the one who's Dad is a mission President in Peru? Anyways we had a lot of service opportunities which is always a plus. We helped a gentlemen move who is a less active. He is also a returned missionary and all he talked about was his mission and the experiences he had while serving. It just showed to me how much impact missions have on people. Anyways we were helping him move some old furniture out of his apartment to the trash. I about died doing that because his apartment was not well taken care of, like at all. Like someone lived their for years and never cleaned. I was moving a tiny dresser out and I asked him if he wanted to keep it or chuck it. He said "open the doors on it and if any roaches come out, then you can chuck it." Well that sure made me excited to open the doors😭 I did and Guess what? Cockroaches were everywhere and I about died. Literally, I felt like I was in a dump. They were in all the clothes and on the walls and me and Elder Calio just wanted to help the dude move out of there as fast as we could😂 Thank you thank you thank you thank you for raising me in a clean home and taught me the importance of cleanliness!😁

On Wednesday I got to go on exchanges again but this time with Elder Quist in his area. If you don't remember he was my roommate for 2 transfers! We had a really good time, and again got to do a ton of service. We helped a member who does hard floor and carpet cleaning for a living. So he taught us a lot about that and I actually learned a lot. We had Zone Training Meeting that day so it kind of chewed up some of our time. I gave a 30 min training on commitments to our zone and it was probably one of the scariest things I've done haha, I still don't like talking in front of big crowds😂  But I thought it went really well and I learned a lot studying for it. Anyways we had dinner that night with a couple who I forgot their names but they were from Ogden! We connected really well and they are awesome. And I think they texted Dad a little bit about Bonneville or something. We had a good night and it was in car so I soaked up the driving as much as I could.

I finally got to go to the Temple again on Friday ! It's been soooo long! I had such a good time. I love the Temple!  I love how it sucks you out of the world and allows you to focus on one thing. This time it reminded me of when I went to the temple for myself and I remember seeing you in white Mom, it was one of the happiest moments of my life😁 We went to Backyard Taco after that, surprise! 

Saturday I went on another exchange, but this time with Elder Hanks. He is one of my zone leaders and I love him! He is from Lehi, Utah and is pretty funny. And guess what? We had a lot of service again! We helped some people move some branches and it was fun. We went to their house and it was jaw dropping. Not just their house but their neighborhood. This guy used to own Cold Stone ice cream and so he is loaded. Anyways he and his family have their own gated community. Literally he built houses for all their kids on a huuuuge piece of land and gated it all of and its all their family. Its so nuts. Like seriously its crazy. I have picture of it that depicts a little portion of it, but they have a huge pool in the middle with a big game house and watch tower. They are the nicest people! We are going to spend a p-day there playing dunk-ball and golf😁😁 anyways we had a good time and I learned a lot from Elder Hanks.

Sunday was so so tiring. I forgot how much 3 wards can wear you out. We gave talks in 34th Ward and that was pretty good. I talked about missionary work in our day and and to sum it all up I talked about the restoration. Because that is the single most important message on this earth. It is the only message that can bring true and eternal happiness to families. Everyone needs to hear this and learn more about it, they have no idea what it can do for them. Like we always say to people- with sincere prayer and thought, you can know the truth of this message. You can know that the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored for the last time. And that God is calling you home. 

All in all I loved this week. And at the same time I am sort of glad that it is over with because with all the trainings and talks that I had to give and the little time I had to prepare them because of exchanges, and I am just straight up wasted and tired😂😴 Today I will get to chill though, I love P-Days. Maybe find some time to hammock or something. I hope you have an awesome week! I always keep you in and everyone in my prayers. You are everything to me and I love you so much! Bye😁
Love, Elder Findlay


                      This video is scripture power for real!
MeSa

This is one families gated neighborhood. Whoa!

Haha!
I jumped in front of Elder Child's tablet as he
was taking a picture of the beautiful temple!

Pizza Planet!

#Arizona

Toro Squad (Zone)

Not sure what is happening here...

Monday, March 6, 2017

WARMMMM in Mesa! Week 30

☀☀☀☀☀
Hey!  Sounds like you guys had an awesome week! I'm glad Jack is still sticking with basketball, it's the best thing! It's fun to hear about his games. They were talking about churchball in one of our wards and it reminded me of all the games we played back home! Man those were some of the best times😂 it was bigger than NBA ball! Churchball is life. haha

On Tuesday this week I went on exchanges with Elder Higham! We had service in the morning at Brother H's house. We scraped paint off of a roof above our heads for 3 hours! My arms were so tired. After that we had a lesson with our investigator C.  and taught her to pray often, read the scriptures daily, and keep the Word of Wisdom. She struggles a little with some of it but said she believes in living the word of wisdom and will try as hard as she can to live it. It was a great lesson.

Then we talked to some people that we met last week that believe that only blacks will be saved because they're descendants of Jacob. We knocked on one of their doors and they opened it with a huge evil looking grins on their faces and came out and started preaching to us. Same thing as last week and we literally went back and forth for what seemed like 2 hours I'm not kidding. A group of other people started joining in the conversation and they were talking about racism.  They believed that only black people who keep the commandments will be saved. I had him read Mosiah 2:41... 

"And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." 

....and he was like, "yeah that's right."

After going back and forth with them for a while one of them said "alright you know what I respect you guys. I will read the Book of Mormon and we'll talk about it next time." So we will see how that goes!

We had ward visits after that. Then we went by Brother P. 's  place, he has a collection of Jordan's worth thousands of dollars and has 1 of 9 baseballs in the world signed by Babe Ruth himself. We stopped by another family's home later in the night and they talked to us for almost 30 minutes about how awesome they think Trump is doing as president and they fed us really good soup.  It was an awesome day! I was in Elder Higham's area so it was pretty nice😂

On Thursday we had a Special MLC conference, which is for Zone Leaders and District Leaders, which I am neither. Anyways me, Elder Bland, and Elder Thompson were the very few missionaries who weren't in a leadership position there. It was scary! Every one of those missionaries in that meeting are such powerful missionaries! I felt like a greenie shrimp haha😂idk what that means for us but who knows. Anyways it was really sweet! They had some people from the missionary department from Salt Lake. One of which, President Littlefield, helps the apostles assign missionaries to a specific mission! It was really cool to hear from him. They focused on the importance of members, especially in THIS mission. Members are KEY here in Mesa, we live off of referrals and street contacting. Speaking of which, on Friday we talked to this one guy named D. and he was awesome! We talked about his religious background and he and his family are looking for religion! So we have a lesson with him this week. He has a cool job, he makes the Cardinals football jerseys! Sooo sweet!

Today we had a good  P-day, we spent it with Elder Quist and Austin because they have a car. We went disc golfing and shopping at Winco! I love that place. Then we had to run to the mall and guess what?! They had a Pizza Pie Cafe! Ha so we went there and I felt like I was home! It was weird, but the missionaries get a discount there too, so that was awesome. Missionaries get so spoiled here in Mesa, but I'm not complaining😁 

Anyways I love you so much! I love your words of encouragement and everything you do for me! Its really hard to be away from home, but I do it because I know that I am needed here and I am serving my Heavenly Father.  I hope you have an amazing week Mom!! Love you!!❤😁
Love Elder Findlay

Like the car President T. gave us? 😉😉

Missionary correlation meeting with Brother H.👍