Elder Jeffrey R. Hollands Visit

January 30^th 2012

"Come to the Edge", He said

"I Can't I'll fall"

"Come to the Edge!", He said

"I can't I'll Fall"

"COME TO THE EDGE!" He said

I went to the Edge.

He pushed me.

Then I Flew

Well it sounded like everyone had a good week and things are fun. It’s exciting that Jamie and David are buying a house and David is finishing school soon. Maybe now they can have some children. I don't want to have to be the first ya know. It’s weird to think that I can be getting married in the next two years. Two years ago I was with my friends in Six Flags having a gay old time messing around being teenagers. Man time goes by so fast. So yeah it sounded like everyone had a good week. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m pretty sure mine was better than all of yours. So someone from the church flew out last week and met with President Lewis in the hospital. They chatted for a while and it was decided that it would be best for him to go back to Salt Lake to recover so all last week he was in Salt lake in a hospital and then just yesterday they released him from the hospital to his home in Sandy to continue recovering. They said it should still be another month till he is well enough to return back to the mission. He has not been released but President Westin from the mission presidency is standing in his place while he is away and I think they might get someone else to stand in as well. President Westin's occupation has to do with Taxes... So he is super super busy right now. So every Tuesday we have a conference call with all the zone leaders and the assistants to the mission president to talk about numbers and stuff. Well normally we don't have any other conference calls. Well on Wednesday night they said we needed to have an emergency conference call. So we had one and they told us that on Friday the 27th we were going to be having a mission wide conference where all the missionaries needed to be there. It was going to be in Stockton which is super far from where we are. It took like an hour to get there. They said all they could tell us was that we needed to look our sharpest wearing our conservative ties with shoes polished and we weren't allowed to bring backpacks in. They said all President Westin said was that it was an opportunity for him to meet all of us at one time. They said we needed to be there at 2:15 sharp in our seats quietly listening to the prelude music and then when the meeting was over at 4 we needed to leave very promptly and get back to work. So everyone was making jokes that Elder Holland or President Monson or some General Authority was going to be there. So on Friday we drove all the way down to Stockton and we were super early and we were able to talk to some missionaries. Then they had us in our seats at 2:15 listening quietly. They had us stand up at 2:20 for the meeting to start at 2:30 so we knew someone was going to be there but we always stood when President and Sister Lewis walked in. Well right at 2:30 guess who comes walking in. Well wouldn't ya know, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles walks in behind President Westin and some other guy who was the missionary committee. So to start the meeting they took 30 min. so every single missionary in the room could have an opportunity to walk up and shake Elder Holland’s hand. It was pretty cool. I'm going to try and say most of what I wrote in my journal that night. When I walked up he looked me straight in the eye. It was seriously pupil to pupil and he asked me where was home and I told him Mesa Arizona and he said oh that’s a nice place. I couldn't look away from his gaze it was so powerful. As I walked down the isle of pews I couldn't help but get the fattest grin on my face. A lot of people laughed at me. I didn't care. I just got to shake hands with one of Christ's Special Witnesses. So we sat down and President Westin shared a few words for like 5 min. and his wife did the same. Then for about 45 minutes Elder Holland talked to us about stuff. It was super neat. When I get home I’ll let you read the three pages of notes I took. He said that in the few short seconds he was shaking our hands, he looked into our eyes and he had the opportunity to have a personal interview with each one of us soul to soul. That was pretty cool. He talked a lot about us growing up while we were out and how the only reason we were allowed to go through the temple at such a young age was so we could have all the blessings God can give us to aide us in the work. He told a pretty cool poem which was the poem I put at the beginning of this email. He told us we need to take things to the edge. Where it seems like we are risking everything. Where we could fall because of being there. Then God will push us and we will fly. He talked about how inspired Preach My Gospel was and how it is designed to convert the missionary then when they are converted they can figure out how to convert the investigator. He said we are doing missionary work a lot more effective now. He said we need to go to where our investigators are and have been and then bring them out into the Sacred Grove and on the Calvary’s hill. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had! I got to meet, not only and apostle, but Elder Holland! It was incredible. He is such an amazing speaker. He actually started yelling and pointing and being very bold about us going home and becoming less active. It was so intense. The Office Elders got an HD recording of it for President and Sister Lewis to listen to. They said they will try and get permission to make us copies in our zone. So that would be super cool so you guys could hear it too. We aren't exactly sure why he came honestly. We just know he did. It might have been for the Gladys Knight Event but he really didn't even talk about it. He said he was very impressed with our mature mission being able to continue strong and obedient even when there isn't a man to lead us. He also told us that every "good thing that has happened to [him] has been a result of the small portal of those 24 months on a mission". So that was pretty cool.

On Saturday I was able to go back to North Sac to see Jennifer get baptized. It was super good and she is doing great. I was happy to get to go back to that and see some old friends and stuff. So that was awesome. Howard is getting baptized this Saturday. He is super solid and ready to be an official member. We are already seeing the blessings of hard work and obedience in our area. We have been able to see a lot of miracles and a lot is starting to happen. This will be a great area to finish my mission. My diet is going good and I am still losing but no one will know till you see me how good I have done. It will be a surprise. Well that’s pretty much it. We had an awesome week teaching a butt load of lessons. I hope everyone is doing great. Oh and how could I forget dad’s temple tie. It’s handing on my tie rack as we speak for me to see it every morning. Well that was my week. Let me know if you think yours beat mine. Hey find out in Andrew is home from his mission yet and if he is tell him to email me! Love you!

--
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

ELDER TYLER PETE ARNETT'S RELEASE DATE THURSDAY, MAY 17TH 2012

January 23^rd 2012

Hi, so I am not sure about how it all works. I was talking to the lady that does it all and she was saying that the church just gives you a time and it’s in the morning. I will talk to her more about it today and see for sure if we can request a time. If so then all I want to do is visit some of the families up here in north sac and any I get cool with here in Carmichael other than that I should be good. If you and dad wanted to come out a few days early I am sure that would be fine, you probably wouldn't be able to see me till Thursday though. We'll see. We still have a little bit of time to plan it out but the time sure is flying by isn't it?! It’s crazy. You could visit some of the families in other parts of the mission but there are not very many of them. I guess you could see the sights but I haven't really seen anything too cool. The Sacramento temple is real pretty and I am sure you could do a session while you’re here and maybe even one with me! So we'll see how things work out. If the church will only let me go home at the time they give me in the morning then we'll take it. That would give us time to be home in time for Krazy Sub for lunch. And I’ll still be a missionary so I would get the missionary discount! We'll see. Man two years is a long time. But I am still working hard and I have a lot of time so a lot of miracles can happen! We had a pretty cool miracle this week. You are right, we are getting plastered with the rain. People were getting worried because it just wasn't coming and it usually comes in October or November. But it came and it’s making up for it! So the other day Elder Hatley and I didn't have any appointments so we dedicated the whole day to trying to find more people to teach and baptize. So we went out and started knocking some doors. When we started it wasn't really raining all that bad. It wasn't even enough to get our hair wet. So we just left our rain coats in the car, well then it started to pick up so we got our coats and continued knocking doors. So you know I hate rain. I hate being wet except for when I am in the shower. And even then I get to dry off right after. So we were talking to people but no one was really interested. The other day we had been reading through Preach My Gospel and we read that we should ask everyone, even people we meet on the street, for people they know that we could teach. So we have been trying that a lot. It also says that missionaries who do this usually have a lot of people to teach which is what we want and need to get this area booming. So we had been asking people if they knew anyone and these people don't live on a street like ours and no one knows their neighbor. But one lady pointed out a few doors that she said would be interested. Well the first one she gave us was a guy who is a member but he is Less Active and doesn't want to go to church. A lot of time people give us people that are already member’s cuz that’s what they think we are looking for. So the second door was Patty. She was probably 30ish and she was nice. She tried to invite us in right off the bat which usually hints to us that it’s a member so we asked and she said yes she was. She had gotten baptized like 10 years before when she married her husband; she said they had split up a couple of years before so she hasn't been to church in a little while. Well we were talking and asked if she had any kids. She did. She had an 11 year old son named Gavin. She had him come over so we could meet him and talk to him. He was a nice kid and he was excited to learn about scouts and stuff. Then his mom, Patty asked him if he would like to go to church and get baptized and he said yes and she said she wanted that for him so we will be going over tonight to teach them and we are excited to baptize Gavin! Also at church this larger black American lady came up to us and said her husband claims he is a member and got baptized as a teen but the church cannot find any record of this guy in their system so he needs to be baptized or rebaptized if he has been and that she wanted us to find out and if he needs to be baptized to come over and set a date. So Howard, the husband of the large black American lady, is going to get baptized too! Then I was able to talk to Elder Jones last night and he said Jennifer is getting baptized this Saturday so I will be going back for that, so things are looking good. We still have a lot of work to do over here to get things really rolling but we are seeing really cool huge miracles and it’s awesome! Too bad the 49ers lost last night. Now everyone is going to be sad. But Jesus will mend their broken hearts. We didn't teach too much this week. We had a lot of meetings but we were able to find some super solid people that we will be teaching this week. I have decided that I am not going to tell you how much I weigh. You will all just have to wait and see when I come home. We have been dieting and I have been doing really well. So this was a good week with weight loss. I am ahead of my goal thus far and I feel so great! Maybe if I keep doing this well I will revise my goal... We'll see. I sent that letter to Hayley the same day I sent Jackie’s so I don't know why it got there so late. I don't think I said anything about you mom or anyone else at that. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't let you read it. Oh yeah I almost forgot. I need more Breathing Treatment Medication. I only have like 15-20 vials left and I take one every morning. They don't forward our mail from the mission office because we are here so often so I should get it pretty soon after you send it. This will probably be the last package I ask for before I come home. I won't need a birthday one. Cuz I’ll be home 3 weeks later! So yeah. I didn't have much time today and the computer I am on is poopy so I have to be done now. I love you all and I hope you have an awesome week! Oh and I received Jackie’s letter as well so that’s good. Bye.

Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

We received a letter from Elder Arnett’s mission president with his release date which will be Thursday, May 17^th 2012. We are super excited! Just under 4 months left.

Arnett’s

January 16^th 2012

Yeah I'm pretty sure his blockage was just a blockage. He exerted himself to much doing transfers and was in a lot of pain and had an infection so that is why he went back into the hospital. I get to learn a little more now that we are around the assistants. The assistants are the assistants to the mission president. Every mission has them I think and they are two elders that are usually really good missionaries to help him train and organize things in the mission. Elder Kelley is one of them and he was my zone leader at the time I left Jackson and went into the Florin ward. He is a super cool guy and looks like Joe my cousin. The other is Elder Marcheschi who I have never served around but he is a cool guy too. They are in our zone so it’s fun. I will not be able to participate in the Gladys Knight performance which kind of sucks and I’m super bummed out about but oh well I’ll live. Elder Stradling just got to the mission on Tuesday and got his trainer on Wednesday. Since the Elder I was replacing was going home, he finished his mission; I met my new companion at the mission office, which is in our zone, which is also where the new missionaries get their trainers on Wednesday. He looks just like his mom! He was a typical new missionary. Kind of like a new puppy. I did get to meet him and I gave him a big hug, which is something we do a lot in this mission. He didn't seem to know my name but he said his family knows some Arnett's and I said well our moms are good friends. I think he was still trying to take it all in and was a little confused. He is not in my zone but he is with a great missionary in a great area. So yes I did get to meet Elder Stradling. My new companion is Elder Hatley. He too is from North Carolina ha. He is my third companion from there! Elder Brantley, Elder Jones, and now him. He is from Charlotte though and elder Jones was from Raleigh. But he is a great guy. He is half Chinese but he doesn't know his dad, who is the Chinese one because his parents split up when he was three. He is the only member of the church in his family. He was baptized at 8 but was less active until 18 and now he's on a mission. His mom and sister had their names removed from the church while he was on his mission. I don't know why they did that. And neither does he so yeah. He is super cool. He is very humble and has a lot of Charity. He makes me smoothies every morning for breakfast. We get a long pretty good. He is a little quiet but that’s ok. And Elder Hatley and I get along just fine. We live by ourselves in an apartment and it’s great. So no we do not live with any other missionaries. So yeah I do have three transfers left. The odds are that this should be my last area, and I am treating it as such by putting all my effort into leaving my mark here! But anything can happen. Elder Hatley will probably be together for one or two of those transfers but not all three. Then he would be here for like 8 months which doesn't happen. I don't know our address yet but I’ll get it. I know the cross streets are Marconi and Fair Oaks Blvd. So you can look that up. We live on Marconi and it might be closer to the other Cross street, Walnut. I have been thinking about what I want to do when you come to pick me up. I am not sure how it will all work. The church buys me a plane ticket but I can't pick what time I go home so it will probably be in the morning which would not allow me to do anything. Some elders just buy their own plane ticket and go home whenever they want. Really all I want to do is go visit some of the families I have gotten really close to on my mission. Some are converts that I worked with or just normal members of the ward. My last area has a lot of people so I will probably be spending most of my time there. Fortunately that area is right next to the Sac airport. So we will see. I will try to find out more info about the plane ticket. If the one the church gets me is late enough we'll do that or if not maybe I could get my own? I still want to go home the same day which would be a Thursday but I was thinking probably sometime in the evening. The flight is probably around two hours I’m guessing so to get home early enough we would probably need to leave here around 5 or 6 which would give me plenty of time to see people all day. So maybe if you know more info about that stuff just let me know. It feels really trunky thinking and talking about this stuff but better now then too late. Well this email has been pretty informative and I don't have much more time. I'll tell you some highlights of the week. I got here Wednesday and it was great. I was able to go back to my last area on Thursday to see Megan Hall get baptized. It was awesome. Brother Call from my last ward came and picked me up. He is super cool and I told you about him last week. I was able to get a picture with his family at the baptism. The baptism went great! It was cool. Usually during the time between the person getting baptized and them changing into dry clothes a missionary gets up and teaches the restoration so any nonmembers can hear it in a super spiritual setting. We call it the Half time show. Well there were no nonmembers there and I was doing the half time show so I just bore my testimony and kind of told the story about how it all worked out with Megan. A lot of people came to the baptism to say bye to me cuz I didn't have time to go see them so that was cool. I told them how it felt like home being in their ward and that I had made so many close friends that it felt like they were all family to me now. I told them that ward would always be my home away from home and that I’ll be back to visit later. So that was pretty cool that I got to do that. We have a few people we are teaching right now so that is cool. We don't have anyone with a date to be baptized yet but we are working with a few that came to church that we are extending a date to. We just need to teach a little more to count it as a solid number. This area doesn't have a whole bunch going on. In fact the whole zone is kind of down. I just want everyone to baptize here. And I just want to baptize as well. I came from the highest baptizing zone in the mission and from the highest baptizing ward in that zone and now I’m where not much is happening. Its rough but I have been able to bring a lot of good things in and hope it all works out great. I don't know why they brought me here to be a zone leader but I hope I can make an impact. I have the time to do it so we will see what happens. Well I hope you all have a great week. Sorry this email wasn't super long and all about my week. I feel like it was pretty informative so yeah. Love you!
--
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

TRANSFERS-ONLY 4 MONTHS TO GO & COUNTING

January 10^th 2012

So this week was pretty good. I know my last two emails were pretty long and informative. I had a lot of time to write them but this week I don't have near as much time so I regret to inform you that this one will be short... And we just played ultimate frisbee and my team lost so I’m not happy right now. So yeah I’ll tell you about my week.

Monday was pretty good. We ended our P-day at 4 again because of the long holiday week end. We went out and tracted and then had dinner with Robert and Sandra. It was really good and we had a real fun time visiting with them. I can't really remember all that we did that night but it was good. Tuesday morning we had Zone Leader Round table where all the zone leaders in the mission meet together to talk about different things that are going on and about our goals and what not. It was a real good meeting. President Lewis wasn't there because he is still recovering from his surgery. We found a little more out about it this week. He had a blockage in his intestines and so they went in and removed six inches of them. He is recovering good but he had to go back into the hospital because of infection. So you should pray for him. After that meeting we came back and had another meeting with the two district leaders in our zone. It was good. Then we went over to the Call's to have dinner with them. They are really cool people and we have gotten close with their family. The Dad's name is Aaron and his wife is Jeri. They have four really cute little kids and the oldest is 7. So it was a good time. Then we went and saw some people. We had a rough week teaching wise. We didn't teach very much but the people we did get to teach are all preparing to be baptized so thats good. All the people we were teaching before got baptized so I guess we need to find some new people to baptize. Wednesday we had a good District meeting in the morning. After that and lunch Elder Jones and I drove up to the Mission Office so he could get his shirts his mom sent him. Oh and I got my shirts on Tuesday. We also had to pick up a bunch of much needed supplies. We came back in time to teach a family we are working with. They are a part member family and the young grandson is not a member. We went to dinner with the Lopez Family. Not Jordan, our ward mission leader, but the other family we have had dinner with a lot. It was good and we had a fun time visiting with them as well. We have been having some good dinners lately with some great families we have gotten to know pretty good. After dinner we met Matt and Malissa Ott at Megan Hall's house to teach her. We had a really good lesson with her. She is getting baptized on Thursday. Thursday we went and inspected a couple of the missionary’s apartments. It went good and they actually cleaned them so that was nice. We saw a few people then had lunch. We went and visited Glen, the old man we baptized in October. He was in need of a large print Book of Mormon so while we were at the mission office we picked one up for him. So we took it over to him and had a nice visit. He will be going to get the rest of his toes cut off. He has diabetes so they took off some already and he needs the other ones removed. He is getting old. He tells a lot of the same stories over and over again but thats ok. He is thrilled every time we come over and visit with him so it’s fun. I like old people anyways. I think they have cool stories. We saw a bunch of people throughout the day. I can't remember who we had dinner with on Thursday. I also can't remember what we did that night. Friday was a good day. I started my diet. I was 275 lbs. on Thursday night. Oh on Thursday night we taught Annabella and Tom with their son Max. The lesson went very well and the spirit was strong. I think we resolved a lot of their concerns. We have been going to the gym in our apartment complex every night to go running. We didn't go last night because of Transfers. So I did really good with my diet on Friday and ok with it on Saturday. Sunday I did horrible except it was fast Sunday so how much can you eat on a fast Sunday. Yesterday I did terrible with it but I will do good the rest of my mission I swear it! I am down to 268 so I have lost 7 lbs. so far and it’s good. We had weekly planning on Friday so that was good. Then we inspected the rest of the missionary’s apartments. We had a really good lesson with James the miracle guy. We took Robert with us and it was great. He wants to be baptized and he is feeling like it is true. He does have to make changes before being baptized, one of which is getting married so we will be working with him on that. He is reading from the Book of Mormon and is reading more than what we tell him to so that is good. He didn't come to church on Sunday though so that’s a bummer. We did other things on Friday but I don't remember what they were. Saturday morning we went out and helped a young family move. The husband is a non-member. They are a very young couple. The girl is my age and had a two year old and the guy is like a year older. They are from Arizona but they are moving to Las Vegas. It was ridiculous! Who would have thought that a couple so young with such a small apartment could have so much stuff! And it was all heavy. I was super sore on Sunday from it. It took a little bit so after we finished and got all ready we went with Brother Bland to lunch. He had signed up to feed us on Friday but he had a company party so they said they would leave a $20 under the door mat but they forgot so he felt bad and wanted to make it up. We went to Chevy's. It was cool. It was right next to the American River and we ate outside and it over looked the river and the weather was amazing so it was a good time. It made me sick to my stomach though cuz I hadn't eaten breakfast. We went and did some other things all day but honestly I can't remember. Sunday was a good day. We had a meeting early in the morning with the stake presidency and it was good. We were 3 short of the goal of 100 so that was a bummer but it’s the most the stake has baptized since anyone could remember. So that was exciting. We went home and studied in the morning. I was feeling ill in the morning. I haven't slept very much lately. But I feel real good now. We had a good church. Megan Hall had her baptismal interview and that went good. We had to watch her 2 year old while she was in there. I'll just say they need a new nursery leader. If two 20 year old guys can entertain a 2 year old long enough for his mom to get her 20 min. interview and the nursery can't for more than 5 min. then they need a new one. But it was fun. He's a funny little guy. We had Ward Council after church and that was fun. We have an awesome ward and its always entertaining. We had dinner with the Green family and that was good as well. We got stuck in traffic on our way to the blitz at the church. They had a King's game at Arco arena which is in our area and it was getting over as we were leaving so it was ridiculous traffic. We had a good blitz. Then we went home. Yesterday was a day. I don't like Transfer Monday's very much. They drag on and make me nervous for our calls. We went tracting first thing in the morning. Usually you hear stories about missionaries who find someone who is super prepared on the last door of the street at the very end of the night. Well we were tracting first thing in the morning and on the very first door of the day in the apartment complex we were tracting a black guy answered the door and wasn't interested. Well we were persistent like we always are and tried to set up another time we could come by and finally he said, “Well you might as well come in now if you’re just going to come back later, I need to talk to someone anyways cuz I’m going through some stuff.” So we went in and taught him a really good lesson and set up another appointment for later this week. It was pretty cool and he said he would be baptized again. He has made a lot of changes already in his life and I think he was being prepared to find the gospel. We got permission from the Assistants to the President to go out of our zone to Down Town Sacramento to go visit Megan Hall at her work. We went there and the place is like a 5 star restaurant with valet parking and super expensive so we went and got pizza... After that we went and saw some more people and that was good. We saw a lot of people and things are good. We had dinner with the Call family again. We had a feeling I was getting transferred so they wanted us over one last time. They said they found me on Facebook and added me as a friend so in four months I’ll accept their request. We had a good time. While we were there we got our Transfer calls. I am getting transferred sadly. I am a little bummed but change is good sometimes and it had to come sometime so it might as well be now. I am going to the Carmichael Stake. It is the stake that the mission office is in and it is also the stake that borders the North Sacramento stake so it is really close. I will see the missionaries from this zone a lot at meetings and what not so that’s good. I will be companions with Elder Hatley. He was made a Zone Leader a transfer ago and is a great guy. He is sort of quiet but he's real humble and cool so I think we will get along great. I am super excited too. Also the Assistants to the Mission President are in our zone so that will be fun as well. Elder Jones is staying of course and his new companion is Elder Streeter. One of my old companions, Elder Holyoak trained him and he is a real cool guy. So yeah that’s our transfers which is a bummer but hey it’s all good. I will probably stay in this area for the rest of my mission so that is exciting. I get to come back on Thursday for Megan's baptism and Brother Call said he would come pick me up so that is cool too. Well that’s pretty much it. I am excited for the next transfer and its going to be awesome. It’s a great zone. So yeah. Have a good week!

--
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

January 2^nd 2012

Hi,
So this week was good. Since we had so much time off for Christmas Eve and Christmas, we were to be proselyting again by 4 on Monday instead of the usual 6. So we decided to just go straight to tracting. We had a good time doing that, then we went on over to the Davis family to have dinner. Their son recently returned home from his mission in Denmark about 3 months ago. He had a nonmember friend over so after we had dinner we sat down and taught a lesson. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went really well. The whole evening was a mighty fine time and a lot of fun. After dinner we went and visited a few other people then we went home. On Tuesday we had a few appointments in the morning but unfortunately they both fell through so then we went to the church to have Leadership with the two district leaders. We talked about some of the things that were happening and we were all excited to hit our goals and break the records. Which i am sad to say we did not. Only two people were baptized this weekend which left us three short from our goal and beating the record. But everyone worked really hard and we all saw some huge miracles and have people who are ready to be baptized this month. The rest of the day was pretty cool. Elder Jones and I had a really cool miracle this week that happened. I tell it now so i can talk about him later in the email. So on Tuesday we were driving and we noticed we had a missed call and a voice mail from some random guy so we listened to it and he said his name was Richard and he wanted to talk to missionaries so we called him back and Elder Jones asked him what we could help him with and he said “well i want to be baptized” and Elder Jones responded great saying “well when do you want to get baptized?” and he said “as soon as possible.” So we set up an appointment for the next day. That sounds like a cool miracle but it gets better. So we met with him on Wednesday after lunch. We met him at a park and there were so many ghetto people there. It was ridiculous. The park had this cool little building by it that we could meet in so we went there and had a really good lesson. During the lesson this really old guy named Don Bartz walked up and Richard introduced us to his old Mormon friend. So he sat in on the lesson and it was really good. Towards the end he handed us a pass along card with two names and a phone number on it and asked whose hand writing it was. Elder Jones and I had been tracting about two weeks earlier and we talked to this really old senile lady. She was talking our ear off but wasn't interested in the message that we had to share so we gave her a card with our name and number on it to shut her up. Before we left she said that she had a Mormon friend name Don Bartz who was going to be having surgery the next day and asked us to pray for him so we wrote his name down and we did. Well I guess she didn't see any use for the card so when Don got out of the hospital she gave him the card and when Richard came to him wanting help in getting baptized he gave that phone number to him. And so our effective use of a pass along card to shut and old senile lady up was used by God to have someone get in contact with us. After teaching him he gave us his address and we realized he wasn't in our area but another ward in our zone so on Saturday we took the missionaries that cover the ward he lives in and we all taught him a really good lesson. He had preach my gospel questions like, Why are we here on earth? Where are we going when we die? and Where did we come from before we were here? So we taught the Plan of Salvation and it was perfect for him and answered all of his questions. He came to church yesterday and is now preparing to be baptized on the 21st of January! So that was a pretty cool miracle with old people and a Jesus card. I think I'll formally call it the old people and a Jesus card miracle. So that was good. Wednesday was great. We taught Richard like i previously mentioned and then we taught Jennifer the Restoration and she loved it. We weren't able to meet with her again because she has health issues and doesn't feel well sometimes but she did come to church yesterday and stayed for all three hours. She loved it and i think she is learning a lot. She is shooting for January 28th to be baptized. Thursday was a weird day. We were supposed to have exchanges with the Assistants to the Mission President after they had District Meeting in their zone but after lunch they called and said they wouldn't be able to make it. President Lewis had to go into the Hospital and have surgery. I think they said it had to do with his Bowels. But he is doing a lot better now and recovering so it will all work out. Elder Jones and I don't have a huge teaching pool so we have been visiting a lot of people that we have talked to in the past. I told you all about a guy named James who was praying for guidance and asked God if the Mormon thing was for him and if so then to send us over the next day and then the next day we did come over. Well nothing ever happened with him and just like Jennifer we were about to give up on him. Well on Thursday as we were walking across the parking lot in his apartment complex I had to save Elder Jones from getting hit by a green Mini Van. Well James and his wife with their 4 kids were in that van so we went up and talked to him and he invited us to come back over at six that night so he had some time to clean up his apartment. We went over there at six after dinner and we had a great lesson on the Restoration with him and his wife. Towards the end he said he felt a lot like Joseph Smith trying to find which church was true and he commented how he will do what he did and ask God. We brought it to his attention that he had already asked God and he answered by sending us. He liked that so he committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. After that lesson we rushed over to Megan Hall's to teach her with Bro. Lopez. We were nervous to teach her about the Law of Chastity, she has a 2 year old child and no husband, and the Word of Wisdom, she works at a bar... So we taught it all to her and she was like oh yeah i remember all this stuff and trust me I have learned my lesson on the Law of Chastity with Hector here, Hector being the child, and i had stupid friends in high school and i live the Word of Wisdom already so i am good on those. So it was great and she couldn't have accepted it better. She is getting excited to be baptized on the 12th. She has called her family friends that are Mormon and live in Texas. They are all pretty excited too. Friday was ridiculous! We had to do transfer reports after a morning of weekly planning. We had to give out the reports to the District Leaders so they could do them on their Districts and then we had to do them all for ourselves then we had to pick up theirs and fax them all into the office. It took us all day until dinner to get them all done and picked up and then after dinner we faxed them in. We had a great dinner with The Clifford's and a couple of Recent Converts from June. It was a swell evening after a boring day. If you don't know what transfer reports are, and i assume most of you don't, i will explain them. So we rate on a scale from 1-5, 5 being the highest, each missionary in the zone. The things we rate are their Obedience, Leadership Ability, Charity, Work Ethic, People Skill, Teaching Skills, and how well they keep the Spirit. Then we write a few comments on why they are a five or what they need to do to become a five. Then we write about their strengths and areas of which they could improve and then we give a recommendation for what should happen with them the next transfer. It takes like 20 min. to a half hour to do just one missionary and there are 16 in our zone so it took a while. Especially because Elder Jones and I cannot stay on track and focused, and after a while we were getting pretty loopy and i was writing Steve in the place for teaching and it was getting bad. We finished in the nick of time because any longer and i might have gone completely mad. So those are transfer reports. Saturday sure was a nice day. We went to a baptism at nine in the morning. It was for a guy that Elder Jones taught a year ago. He was scheduled to be baptized then but for some reason he fell off and never got baptized. Well when Elder Jones got back in the zone as a Zone Leader he asked the missionaries in his ward how he was doing and they thought he was a member but he wasn't so Elder Jones went with them to teach him and he got baptized and confirmed on Saturday, News Year Eve! It was a really good baptismal service. Then we stuck around for another Baptism in the zone. It was for an 18 year old guy who wanted to be baptized. There weren't going to be a lot of people there so we stayed to make a congregation. I had to play the Piano once again at that baptism so i have been getting put to use lately! I also had to play prelude music while he was changing so that was fun as well. I played all four of my songs and i feel like I'm getting them down pretty good now. After those baptisms we went out to lunch with the missionaries who had the baptism and we went to In N Out. It’s a nice place to celebrate. I sure do like their Double Double Animal style with no Tomatoes. As well their Animal Fries are pretty tasty, along with their Dr. Pepper with a shot of their Pink Lemonade. I like it. Later we took the missionaries that covered Richards ward and taught him. It was good, i already talked about that. Then we saw a bunch of people. We went to dinner early because we had to be in with the Zone by six because of New Year's Eve. The dinner was OK. We met with the zone at 6 and played over 20 games of dodge ball. I thought the teams were lopsided but our team won a lot but the other team won more. It made me super sore. I got hit so hard in the face once that it knocked me onto my back like you see in movies. The missionary who threw it pitched baseball in high school. It hurt but the sting went away pretty fast. Sunday we didn't have church till 12:30 which was weird but it was nice not to be rushed all morning. We had dinner with the Ott's. Sister Ott is the Larson's daughter. The Larson's are the family i had thanksgiving with and the mom called Jackie to set up the Skype. It was fun. Both Brother and Sister Ott served missions and we had a good time talking to them. Brother Ott went out after converting a year earlier and he was already like 25 so that was cool. We went and visited Roberta and Serenity for a little bit then had a zone meeting and it was good. We went home and had a good night. Elder Jones and I talked about random crap for a while. It made me tired for today. Today we played basketball and it was good. We have to be back out by four again today so that’s a bummer but its all good. We can find more people to baptize and we had a lot off over the weekend. Well i think this one was a pretty long one filled with miracles and explanations of some of the things we do as missionaries. I hope you all enjoy it. I'm not sure if I'll be sending pictures home. I might send some over email but i think you can all wait a few more months. Oh and Happy Birthday to Jackie! Tomorrow. I love you all. Have a good week!
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett