This Is By Far My Favorite Area

March 31, 2014

Yes, we are both zone leaders. What is the sister’s name? Do you know what part of North Carolina she is from?

Just so you know I bought a new suit, it was $13 at thrift store and fits like a glove. One of these days I’ll send a pic. I also had to buy more socks at Wal-Mart, mine are trashy, so that's what those two purchases were last Monday. 

This is by far my favorite area, there's a lot of work, people are progressing, the ward is on fire, my companion is awesome, life is good. We took our investigator Alex to a baptism that another ward was having he loved it. He’s been to like three now. Sometimes I forget that he’s not a member. It will be a great day when he gets baptized. I feel very strongly that he is the reason that the mission split and I came up here. 

We had a few meetings this week and we taught a lot of lessons. Last night the bishop asked us to come and teach a youth fireside at his house. We each took 3 or 4 youth (there are 2 sets of missionaries) and we got to teach them how to pull doctrinal points out of preach my gospel, formulate a lesson plan, and the practice teaching a lesson. There are some stellar youth in our ward, I love it. 

We had a pretty funny experience the other day. We ate dinner at a members house on Wednesday and as we were leaving my companion told there son (he's about 4) that he was a "boss" (that's a phrase kids these days are saying to mean cool). At church yesterday the member came up to us and told us that their son started to not do what they say and told them that he was the boss. So they sent him to time out and every time they asked who the boss was he said it was him. Luckily the member still loves us (they signed up for dinner again) and the kid came back to his sense. Well that's about it, love ya.

Jordan

I Never Want To Run A Company

March 24, 2014

It’s still way too cold here, the weather is very up and down. Friday and Saturday it was a beautiful 75 degrees, today its 38.... The areas that close will reopen as soon as more missionaries come in. As for investigators it depends. We just absorbed one of the areas into our zone so now our Spanish missionaries have twice as much area to cover, which is a pain because of logistics. I’ve learned from being a Zone leader that I never want to run a company or anything, way too much logistical stuff. I know Abby from school, where is she going? This week was really good, we were super busy with transfers. We have 3 new district leaders in our zone so we spent a lot of time preparing for that and providing some training on what they need to do. Then we had some super good lessons with our investigators. One family that missionaries have been working with for months is now set for baptism for the end of May. We met with Alex and he is a step closer to getting work off so he can be baptized. He doesn't want to unless he can come to church every week and participate which is good. That's the difference in baptizing someone and converting someone. Elder Pelham got sick this weekend so we left church early and he slept all day. Sitting around gets super boring when there is nothing to do. Luckily he’s better and we can get out and work. Oh ya, I forgot to tell y'all that a Sister Romney is now in our mission, she is from Washington State. I think we decided I was more closely related to Mitt than I am to her. 

One of my suits is wearing out so over the next few weeks I am going to try and find a decent suit at a thrift store. There is no sense in trashing a brand new one. I think that’s it for this week, love ya.

Jordan

And A Miracle Happened!

March 17, 2014

For the car inspections we had to check oil, check tire pressure, tread depth, see if all the lights work, cleanliness and which car was best overall. It was pretty fun.  Transfers happen on Thursday and I will be staying in this area with Elder Pelham. Elder Henrie is not in my apartment but I know him. That will be good to get another Spanish speaking missionary here, this transfer 4 go home and 1 comes in, so they have to close an area. I know Elder Belisle, he actually went to Desert Ridge, and I didn’t know him until my mission though. We were told that we would get I pads anywhere between April and November, but I know a lot of the missions around us have them so I hope its sooner than later.  This week was good, we had those stake conference sessions that were awesome! The members out here are really stepping up their game. To save miles we had missionaries from the Eastern Shore stay with us this weekend so it’s been a lot of logistic stuff for Elder Pelham and I. We also have 3 missionaries from the zone going home today so we’ve been busy with a lot. We get to drive them to the mission home this afternoon. This was the best week of the transfer by far. We had a super powerful lesson with Alex about the Holy Ghost, he is the most spiritually receptive person I have ever met. And a Miracle happened! He got work off randomly yesterday and came to stake conference! Best surprise ever. He is now eligible to be baptized! He wants to wait a little longer to see if he can really get work off consistently so he can be committed to church, he really understands the gospel a lot. Soon he will be baptized. We had a lot of cool miracles this weekend, this next week should be great as well. Love ya

Jordan

This is a Facebook message I got from a ward member where Jordan is serving. (with pictures!)

 We had such a wonderful meal tonight with Elder Romney and Elder Pelham. Boy are they both amazing missionaries and they added a special bright spot to my day! Thank you for sharing your amazing son with us here in Virginia!

I Am So Grateful For The Restored Gospel

March 10, 2014

This week was a pretty busy one for us, we had a lot of meetings and such. Thursday we had an awesome zone conference. Wednesday and Friday we had to go to Portsmouth and Newport News to inspect the cars for some of the other zones, that was pretty fun. We taught an interesting lessons on Tuesday to a man named Travis. He is a youth Baptist teacher at a local church and we knocked into him and he said he'd be interested to learn a little more. It was a fairly good lesson, usually other preachers can get pretty contentious and start focusing on what we "believe" and start bashing. This one was different we had a nice conversation and talked a lot about our beliefs and then his beliefs. It was very educational. I am so grateful for the restored gospel, it answers so many questions that most people think there are no answers to. Travis talked a lot about the trinity and everything  he said about it just contradicted itself, I’m just so glad that we have the Book of Mormon and Prophets. We have a lot of meetings  again this week, the zone meeting that Elder Pelham and I have to teach, as well as the Virginia Beach Stake Conference. It should be really fun. I did get the contacts, it should last me for a while, they sent me two boxes of left and one right. I will keep you updated if I need more. Love ya have a good spring break.

Jordan

This Week Has Been Really Good Here In VA Beach

March 3, 2014

Our apartment complex has a club house with two computers that we are allowed to use, so that is where we email from. Transfers are March 20th I will know if I get transferred the Sunday before that. That’s awesome that you got to go to the temple dedication, it'll be exciting to see it when I get home. This week has been really good here in VA Beach. There are a lot of good things going on in this stake right now. Elder Pelham and I and the other set of Zone leaders in this stake had a meeting with the stake president where he told us about what his vision is for the missionary work in the Virginia Beach stake. It is going to have heavy member involvement. He is going to introduce at stake conference next weekend and it’s going to be great, he is expecting 80-100 referrals for non-members and 300+ referrals for Less Actives just from stake conference. It’s a good time to be in VA Beach. We had a super powerful lesson with our investigator Alex this week. He still doesn't know when he can get baptized but he bore a powerful testimony that he knew all this was right and that he needed to do this. So we invited him to fast yesterday to be able to find a way to get baptized. He said he had a super spiritual experience, hopefully miracles can happen now. Things are going really well, this is one of my favorite wards I’ve served in, the members are great and I have one of the best ward mission leaders ever. I hope I get to stay in this area for a while. 

Jordan