Saturday, October 28, 2017

Transfers! Mesa Week #63

Hi Mom!

I got your email about Grandpa Nielsen this week. Although it is hard to see him pass away, I also know that he is happier in his Heavenly home with Grandma Nielsen and his Heavenly Father. I am going to miss him and his many stories and adventures! I'm so grateful I know that God has a plan, and that it's a perfect plan. I don't have to worry about it because I know he is in good hands. Grandma Barbara told me a special story today. She said that the only time she had ever seen Grandpa Nielsen cry was when he gave me a Priesthood blessing when I broke my leg as a baby. I had never heard that before, it really touched me. I am grateful that he was a worthy Priesthood holder of God who set the example for our family. Grandma sent me a few pictures
of me with him when I was little. Super cool to see those. I'll attach some of them.

So last week I told you about those two investigators, Hannah and Cole, who randomly showed up to church. We were able to meet with them this week and they are solid! They are a younger couple and they are hilarious! We taught them the Restoration and they understood it and accepted it very well. They accepted to read and pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon! They both committed to prepare themselves to be baptized on the 18th of November! I know that the Lord is preparing the hearts of the people around us. I know He blesses those who seek to share the gospel with others.

So this week is transfers again. And I am getting a new companion! Elder Draper, he also was in the MTC with me and was Elder Birds MTC companion. I was his roommate for two transfers while I was in Las Sendas. He's from Wyoming. He's a funny guy. I am Senior companion again which is cool. Not like it means anything special but it motivates me to work harder. Turns out that I am also being transferred. Definitely my shortest stay in an area. But I'm excited to move on and experience new things! I will be going to the Mesa Stake serving in the Pioneer and Poinsettia wards. I'm kind of happy that I will have two wards! Its been a year since I last had that. My area is right next to the temple which is sweet considering that the Christmas lights will be coming up here soon. So I will probably be at the temple lights every night in December! This area is one of the best areas for finding people which is a huge change for me, I've been in really wealthy areas for the last 8 months. It is definitely opposite of where I'm at now, it is by the temple so it's super ghetto there and there are a ton of homeless people. It will take some getting used to but it will be a great growing experience for me. I will be on bike! Heavenly Father was sooo kind to me by putting me in car for the hot months of
the year! Now I'm on bike right when things are cooling down, I love it. BUT,  I will need to buy a bigger bike lock😅

I am sad that I have to leave this area though. Even though I've only been here for 6 weeks I've never loved so many people so fast in just one transfer! There are many good people here. And I won't have a queen size bed anymore😂 It was nice while it lasted haha, I'm okay moving away from luxury for a little while. Time to be a normal missionary again😂

Today was a fun p-day. We kind of did our last hurrah with our district and did a bunch of fun stuff. We went to Venezias Pizza and went to a place called "Tough Tie". They are based out of Mesa and they make super tough, water repellent ties and they are sick! It is two returned missionaries that run it. They are cool guys. So we all got a tough tie. It's awesome because you can put ketchup on it and it slides right off and so does any other liquid or food. Nothing sticks. Its not like I'm a messy easter or anything like that haha but
Elder Anderson and Mosel have one and they taught about baptism with it by putting ketchup on it and washing it clean. Pretty cool. So I couldn't resist😂 Oh and we also went mtn biking in Las Sendas with Elder Thompson and Helton. That was fun but man am I out of shape😂

Well I have plenty of pictures for you this week haha, I love you so much Mom. Your the best! Have a fantastic week!
Love, Elder Findlay
At a members house, in their dream garage!


Me and Grandpa Mckinney and Grandpa Nielsen.
 I will miss Grandpa Nielsen.

One last ride with the boys



Thursday, October 19, 2017

Temple Tuesday- Mesa Week #62

Heyo Momma!

My p-day is today (Tuesday) because we are going to the temple! Sorry I meant to tell you last week but I forgot to. Thank goodness For Sister Brown haha (she is basically our Mom here. She makes us dinner and stuff sometimes) We live with them and she said "Did you tell your Mother that your p-day was on Tuesday?" And I was like no I forgot to. She said "well you can't do that to her so I'm going to message her"😂 I'm really well taken care of here. I hope I don't move places.Thank you... I did get my pants! And they work like a gem. I love them, they look sooooo much nicer than all of my pants now😂 The sun really wears on slacks here.

Your right this month is going by super fast and transfers is a week from today! I'm super excited for it. I'm not sure if I'll stay or leave but it's always exciting! I can't believe it's transfers again though. Time flies by. There are a bunch of missionaries that I'm super close with who are going home next week:/ I'm bummed about it, they were like all of the missionaries that I hung out with in my first few transfers. Now we are some of the older missionaries in the mission, but I feel super new still😂 

The last few days I've really felt a lot of love for my mission and what it's done for me. There have been a lot of homecomings for returned missionaries in our wards. Every time I talk to them they say how much they miss their mission and how badly they want to be back serving. You can obviously tell how much it has changed their lives and how it has become a part of who they are. Just seeing and hearing that makes me love my mission that much more. Even though it is difficult and discouraging sometimes, I LOVE IT! I recommend everyone who has the opportunity to serve a mission to do it. Even if you're scared out of your mind and don't know if you should go, just go. Put your trust in God and let it happen, let him mold and shape you into the person you need to become. 

Jack got some Kyrie 3's?! Man I love shoes so much still😂 You can never have too many right? And he wears 11's now? What the, when did that happen? How tall is he now? What a stud, I miss him a lot. Its going to be weird seeing him all grown up😅You should come up to AZ for UEA! Just not Mesa😝 You can go to Gilbert or something and be next door and still enjoy the weather. It is super nice here. In the mornings we go out and shoot hoops, it's like 65-70 degrees and perfect. Could ask for better weather, I'm going to be soaking it up for the next few months😎 

We had a pretty successful week full of miracles. Lots of great contacts! Sadly we had a bunch of doors slammed in our faces which isn't too normal because we don't usually tract at all. Most of the door slammers were former investigators and less active members.  But yesterday at church we had a non-member couple randomly show up to church and they came up to us and said they want to meet with us! They are from Washington and just moved here. They had been meeting with missionaries there and one of them was almost baptized but then had to move. So we will be meeting with them this week!

Everyday I am more and more grateful for having the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so blessed to have it in my life and especially to learn more about it and share it with others. I so wish that I would have taken it more seriously before my mission. I'm a little late but now I know the joy that comes from it all. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know that Christ heals all those who are willing to be healed. It's such a joy!

I love my mission! Its awesome. I hope you have a good week! I love you soooo much! 
Love, Elder Findlay

Temple day with my zone


new tie selfie

This guy is 90 years old!

We got a new car!!! Brand new!
So much better than the Cruz..

This is my good friend Kaleb's old companion. 
He just got home from the Houston Texas east mission, where he served with Kaleb, and lives in one of my wards.  Small world!  

This is the picture Sister Brown texted to let us know that Elder Findlay's p-day was on Tuesday this week.  We really love and appreciate all of the members in Mesa who take such good care of our missionary son. :)



Thursday, October 12, 2017

Service=True Happiness! Mesa Week #61

Hey Momma!

It's interesting to hear about all that's happened in the last year or so! Things are always changing, there and here.  All I can say is that the Lord is blessing you at home and me on my mission and that brings me a lot of happiness.  And I know that peace comes because we live the gospel of Jesus Christ. What more could you ask for!

Aw man I'm glad you ran into Christian! I miss him a ton. I can't wait to hang out with him again. He is a super good kid. 

 Brother Senior(my WML) told me that he saw Lucy and Finny in Utah at a mission reunion. It was cool to make the connection. Brother Seniors awesome, he travels up to Provo every week for 4 days because he teaches at BYU. Super smart guy. My other Ward Mission Leader Brother Passy is super cool too! We had a Correlation meeting last night with all of the ward missionaries and it was soooo good! I think he's one of the most motivated and best WML's I've had on my mission. Things are going to pick up quick in that ward😁

We didn't have too much success this week with finding people to teach. It's still pretty difficult to find people to talk to. People are like vampires here, they don't come out of their house for anything....ever. If they do they are always in their car😂 We did meet with one of our recent converts Taz. She's solid, has a super strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and she is preparing to go to the temple soon! Her Brother gets back from his mission this week so that's exciting too! 

Although the teaching aspect of the week was slow, we were able to do a ton of service! It was sooo much fun! I've never had so much fun on my mission! Seriously! Especially after watching General Conference and how much of the focus was on serving others as the Savior did. I was able to help a less active family clean up their home and help them move out. They were so grateful, you could see it in their smile and that's priceless. We also helped the Zone Leaders serve one of their investigators. He is a professional skateboarder and so we cleaned up his skate park in his backyard and cleared up some weeds. Again he was so grateful he couldn't express it. Now I know why the Savior served so often! Everyone wins!

The biggest service opportunity we had this week was at a Triathlon in Mesa. It was called the "Mesa Sprint Triathlon". It consisted of a 400 meter swim, 10 mile bike ride, and then running a 5k. We were able to help out for basically all of Saturday morning. There were a TON of people there, it was awesome! What I did was help at the transition station, where people went from swimming to biking. It was nuts but good! People are die-hards. I had to keep people off of their bike until a specific point on the course, and then once they reached that point then they could mount their bikes. It was good haha, I don't have a super loud voice so I was yelling pretty loud directing contestants. Elders Mosel and Anderson were with us the whole time as well. One of them is my district leader so we had a fun time. I actually bumped into a ton of people from Las Sendas area which was cool, everyone was on their bikes. If you live in Mesa and you bike a lot, you go to Las Sendas. Anyways once everyone was done with the transition from swimming to biking, we were able to go to the finish line and hand out metals and cheer people on. It was cool because everyone recognized us as missionaries and thanked us for serving. We were all wearing bright orange shirts so it was hard to miss us. It just made me realize the joy that comes from service. I was super happy having a good time as well as the contestants and other people helping out. It was a testimony builder for me that service is a huge blessing for everyone. I love service😊

This week I also had the privilege of giving a training about the BOM. I shared this quote from Tad A. Callister's talk last week. These are his inactive friends words “Initially, I wanted the Book of Mormon to be proven to me historically, geographically, linguistically, and culturally. But when I changed my focus to what it teaches about the gospel of Jesus Christ and His saving mission, I began to gain a testimony of its truthfulness." I talked about the importance of helping people have the right focus when reading the BOM. That focus needs to be on Jesus Christ and his teachings and gospel. That will help all people gain a solid testimony of their Savior and will have more spiritual experiences with the BOM. I know that this has blessed my life so much and that's why I continue to share it with everyone. 

Well that's about it for this week!  I know this work is true and that it will continue to go forth no matter what. Thanks for all of the love and support from home! I love you Mom, you are such a huge blessing in my life. I hope you have an exciting week! LOVE YOU!😁


Love Elder Findlay


Back to Saguaro Zone!



Remember Elder Parra😂 from Chile?
sadly he isn't in our district, just on exchanges for the day.
Love that dude
.




Service day at the Mesa Triathlon 

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Conference Weekend Mesa Week #60!

Hello Momma!!

I feel the same way about Conference as you do! Soooo good. I was able to watch it with a different family each session. Except Priesthood session, we went to the church for that one. I loved Conference this weekend, I don't think I've ever loved Conference so much before! It's really cool to watch it as a missionary, it's just a way different experience. We watched one of the sessions with the Tahiliani family and they are great! They have a huge home theater so I had my own recliner and everything, it was my most luxurious conference by far. I felt the spirit super strong this whole weekend, especially during the last session. I think
Tad R. Callister's talk was my favorite. He is very gifted in his
speech and it's amazing to listen to. His testimony of the Book of Mormon was powerful He's done a bunch of missionary trainings and given talks that I've studied from in the past, but this talk was sooo good! There is no way on earth that the Book of Mormon is not true. No way. I don't care who who are and what you say, Joseph Smith
translated it by divine power from God.

This area is kind of similar to my last area. There isn't too much work going on. So remember I told you I had 4 wards? Well now we only have 3. The YSA Ward dissolved and so the Elders who covered that Ward got one of our wards. It's kind of nice because it's less stressful on Sundays but sadly it was the ward with a ton of work in it, we even had people on
date for baptism. But that's ok because now we get to work harder and start over. I'm pretty excited. Its fun finding people to teach! It gives me a challenge!

We are currently teaching a lady whose husband is an inactive returned missionary. She is on date for baptism but we aren't sure how that will work out. She knows she needs to be baptized, but really the only thing holding her back from being baptized is stage fright. She is just afraid to do the physical baptism. We've also had a really hard time keeping daily contact with her so that has been an obstacle as well.

This week we had our first district meeting. It was really good because our district is awesome! We also had a district service project after at Clyde Bawden's house. (He's a famous LDS pianist and composer). I'm in his ward now😂 He's awesome, he's in the bishopric. Anyways we cleaned up some brush on the side of his long driveway. It was a lot of fun. He was really grateful and so we went to his place today and had pizza and such. I love our district, they are really great missionaries.

Other than that not too much happened. Still trying to get to know members in this area and motivate my comp to work hard! ;). I know that this work is true and there is no place I'd rather be! I love you!

Love, Elder Findlay


The kind of homes in our area...it's really nice here

Dodge Viper...I would drive it ;)