Let Freedom Ring!!!

It was yet again a bitter cold night on the banks of the Delaware River in late December 1776. Soldiers sat huddled, praying that defeat would be delayed just a little while longer. In the months previous to this bleak night, American troops struggled to come out on top of battle after battle. Since General Howe of the British Army had arrived on Staten Island with his 30,000 plus troops, the Americans had suffered losses, both physically and emotionally. In the Battle of Long Island Howe and a 20,000 man army drove the Americans back time after time. Washington's army escaped an attack which would have lead to much destruction when he planned and executed an extraordinary rapid movement withdrawing all of his troops in the middle of the night leaving General Howe to discover empty camps in the early morning. This left New York open for Britain’s taking. Later Washington and his men engaged in the Battle of White Plains. Americans were forced to split their troops leaving some at Fort Washington and other to go fight. Unfortunately both were defeated and the American strong hold was lost despite Congress’ plea to keep it at all costs. Washington and his men continued their retreat through New Jersey. In passing they learned of Congress fleeing to Baltimore, leaving them completely and utterly alone in their battles with their enemy. With a small band of only 6,000 men, George Washington was left to wait on the banks of the dismal river. General Howe announced that there was nothing more for them to do other than wait for the Delaware River to ice over, then he and his Hessian troops would invade and end the war. Morale was low on the American side. Defeat after defeat left them discouraged and out manned. It was cold, they were tired, and soon they would be defeated for good. Fortunately, God inspired the minds of a few men.
Thomas Paine wrote in his treatise titled The Crisis, "THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God." With in days of it being published, Washington had this read among his soldiers. Thomas Paine couldn't win the battle for them. He couldn't give them warmth or food or shelter. But what he did was more than all of that. His words gave them the morale to continue on; to live to fight another day. George Washington, the bold genius, devised a plan that would save this young country and ultimately lead to their victory over the war. In the middle of a frigid Christmas night, American troops gathered together in a variety of boats. As they navigated men, artillery, and even horses through the blocks of ice floating through the river, Colonel Henry Knox commented that the crossing was accomplished "with almost infinite difficulty." Following their landing Washington gathered his men and commenced to what is now known as the Battle of Trenton. He easily captured the Hessian troops in about 90 minutes and though their position less than ideal continued their fight. Lord Cornwallis of the British army took notice of his position in Princeton and thought he had Washington pinned between Trenton and the Delaware. Much to Lord Cornwallis’ dismay, before the next morning Washington had forged and carried out yet another movement in which American soldiers left fires burning bright through the night and, moving silently, attacked the British army and secured a position in which they could rest and regain strength. Though the war didn't cease till October of 1781, this moment in American history turned the momentum of the war and led to the triumph of this Young American country.
Men had fought long and hard with many giving their lives for the cause. Wives were left widows, children were left fatherless and fathers lost sons in the treacherous battles. The reason for this war was Freedom. Britain, their mother country, was imposing unfair taxes in attempts to raise money for debts acquired in a previous war. British Parliament in reaction to American boycott’s passed what is known as the Declaratory Act in which they stated that Britain had “full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America ... in all cases whatsoever". Though American colonies weren’t represented in Parliament, Britain assumed the right to make laws and changes to colonial government. The patriots weren't having it. They decided to lash out in rebellion for a cause that they knew to be right. No man was to be "bound in all cases whatsoever". That right belonged to God only, and even He, the greatest of all, grants unto us our agency, the Freedom to choose. Today we are in a battle similar to the one our forefathers were waged in. But this battle began years and years ago. In the council before this world began, our Father in Heaven called all of his spirit children together to discuss plans for earth life. He presented to us the opportunity to leave our heavenly home and come to earth to get a body. He told us of the choices we would have to make while here in this life. One, Lucifer, presented his plan. He said he would come down to earth and he would force everyone to follow God. It was too risky in his eyes to let people come to earth and have that chance to mess up. With his plan no one would be lost. God could have all of his children again. But we wouldn't learn and we certainly wouldn't be free. Lucifer wanted all the glory. He wanted the praise and power. This was opposite to the plan God had envisioned. Christ stepped forward and offered himself. His plan was for everyone to comedown to earth and be given the freedom to make their own choices. We would all make bad choices in our lives so he offered that he himself would come down and live a perfect life. He would then give himself up as an infinite and eternal sacrifice so that, if we chose to do so, we could accept and allow him to redeem us from that fallen state. It was clear as it which choice was the right one. Satan was furious and gathered as many followers as he could to side with him to rebel against God and Christ. For their rebellion, God cast Satan and a third of those in heaven down to earth with out bodies. We know which side we chose because we are here today with a mortal body. Each of us has made that one right choice in our lives. No matter how bad anyone has screwed up they can know that at one time they made one right choice. The war in heaven was all about choices. Just like our forefather, it began because of Freedom; Freedom to choose.
That war that began long ago is still long from being over. Satan tries to persuade us to make wrong decisions all the time. Rarely are we free from his temptations. He is miserable and he wants us to be miserable with him. There are choices we have to make everyday of our lives. Some of them don't really matter in an eternal aspect. Such as, What should I wear to work today? or What kind of cereal should I eat for breakfast? Some of them are a lot harder like, Who should I Marry?, What should I study in school?, or even, Should I keep watching this show even though it is a little dirty? Some of these decisions won't make a difference two weeks from now. No one cares that I wore a pink shirt to work last week. But others like, who should I marry, could impact us for the rest of forever. It’s all about choices and I think for most of us we make the right ones. I feel like most of us try to use good language and listen to good music. Most of us want to marry someone with similar standards as our own. But I also feel like we tend to shy away from making the "big" decisions we are required to make. It is intimidating to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life as a career. It’s intimidating to decide what you want to study in school to get you there. It’s even intimidating to make that final leap into marriage. Fortunately we don't have to make these choices on our own. Satan wants us to choose those options that will lead us to failure but God is rooting for us. It’s the final inning today and I’m not sure if God wears hats but if he did I’m sure he’d have his rally cap on. He wants to help us but we have to access the help he’s given us. He has given us many tools to find answers to many of life’s questions. We have the scriptures for example. They answer questions that man has been faced with since the days of Adam. We have the words of modern prophets to guide us on matters of today. And the one I feel is most important is a direct communication with God in prayer. I was able to gain a strong testimony of prayer early on in my mission but it was strengthened more as I was finishing it. In returning home from my mission just a short while ago, I was faced with a lot of these important life forming decisions. About a month before coming home, my Mission President had all the missionaries going home in my group fill out a return home plan. In it included what my vision was for my future family, career, and church service. It also asked for goals that would aid me on my way to creating that vision and then action items to achieve those goals. I felt super overwhelmed, so I began with a prayer that God would comfort me as well as help me know what a worthy and realistic vision was for my life. I immediately felt comfort. The choices were still there to be made but God had comforted me so I continued filling it out and I felt his help as I did so. But even after that experience, returning home was scary. It’s easy to write it and read it on paper but I actually had to start doing those things. So I prayed some more to ask God what exactly he would like me to be doing. In the month and a half proceeding my return home I have been blessed with many opportunities that I believe God has given me as answers to those humble prayers. I have been blessed with a good job that I can later make into a career which has also helped me decide what to study in school. I have been presented with schooling opportunities by people who care about me which has helped me decide what will be right for me in where I should attend school. I have seen God's subtle hand in my life and in answering these questions I’ve been presented with and I feel extremely blessed. But making these important choices isn't all Satan is trying to attack us with.
I think one of Satan's biggest weapons of today is getting people to do nothing at all. So many people today think they can get away with doing nothing and still get something out of it. The saddest part is that there are many politicians trying to make that easier for them! Too many people rely on Government hand outs. Much of the working class today is paying to provide for those who don't do anything at all. This is not what our forefathers were envisioning when they framed our country. From modern revelation we learn that the founding fathers of this country were inspired in the choices they made. In the Declaration of Independence we read "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"... That we are endowed by our creator is a religious principle that we believe in. To be endowed means to be given a gift or provided for. So what our forefathers, being inspired, were trying to tell us was that we are provided for by our Father who is in Heaven. The government can only do so much for people. They have limited resources and, quite frankly, too hard of hearts to impact the needs of the world today. God is the only one that can give us what we need. We are living in pretty hard times right now and I believe things are only going to get harder. But you know what they say... "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going". Ok that doesn't apply at all to this situation really. But it kind of does. When things start getting real tough, we need to be the ones out there fighting for what’s right. The more horrible the world gets, the more righteous God’s people will get. Let’s refer back to the writing of Thomas Paine. "THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country..." I feel like NOW is the time that is really trying men's souls. There is so much for us to worry about and though we might not be "shrinking from the service of our country", scripture has alerted us that in these last days "men's hearts will fail them". The Summer Saint or maybe the Part-Time Priesthood holder might fall under the pressure. It is just too hard to do it on our own. We need God's help. But that endowment from God doesn't just come with out any effort on our part. We have to work for the blessings of heaven. We learn from the scriptures that when we receive any blessing it is because we were obedient to some commandment (D&C 130:20-21). So to be endowed we need to act, to make those choices, to do what’s right. I learned this lesson early on in my mission while serving in my first area. My companion and I were working hard to find people to teach and baptize but we weren’t seeing too much success. One week our Zone Leaders came to us and asked us why we weren’t reaching all of our goals. We had been asked to talk to 125 people out on the streets a week and we were only talking to maybe 50 in a week. They promised us that if we did all we could to reach those goals and to do our part God would provide. So we put it to the test and worked super hard. We talked to as many people as possible every day and by Friday evening we had talked to our 125. That Saturday we were on exchanges but my companion and the missionary he was with had a huge miracle in our area that I was able to feel the blessings from. They went to a return appointment that we had set up earlier in the week with a younger guy with a young family. When they got there the family was in the process of moving. The guy wasn’t home but his dad was and he wanted to talk. Usually when people want to talk it is usually either really good and they will get baptized or its bad and they want to bash. This guy wanted to bash. So though they shouldn’t have, they did bash with him. About 5 min. into their bash a man in a shiny silver convertible pulled up to the driveway and just stared at them. He was a grungy looking guy, wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off. He was covered in tattoos and had a fatty goat-tee with an athletic build. All those combined with driving a nice sports car make him look pretty intimidating. They thought he might be the guy’s buddy coming to take care of them if they beat him in the bash but after five min. he drove off and they continued their bashing. About 20 min. later, as they were finishing up their conversation with the kid’s dad the same scary man drove up and they thought ok here it comes. What happened next they did not expect. He called them by Elder and introduced himself as Jim Jordan. He told them about his wife named Julie who struggled with medical issues. She suffered from severe migraines and had been in and out of the hospital quite a few times in the past couple of weeks and it was taking a toll on their family. He asked them if they would come over and give her a blessing around 1 and afterwards they would talk some more. They scheduled it in and continued on with their day but only a few minutes later, at 11, Jim called and asked if they had time right then to come over. They did, so they went over and after giving Julie a blessing Jim told them that he wasn’t a member but Julie was. He had been taking the lessons a few years earlier while living in a smaller town named Davis. He loved the church and even though the members were a little weird he wanted to be baptized. So the missionaries began preparing him and his daughters for their interviews. While in the interview they found out that he was on parole which would keep him from being baptized at that time. The missionaries didn’t handle it as well as they should have and he was a little offended so he and his family stopped attending church. Well a few years later and over his parole he had the same desire as before to join the church. He later introduced us to his two young daughters Mikayla who was 13 and McKenna who was 10 and he said they were ready to be baptized as well. When I met them for the first time he asked me, “So what has to happen for us to be baptized because we’re ready?” We explained to him what would happen and they were excited. He said he had wanted to talk to missionaries for a while but he couldn’t ever find them but that day when he went out to get some groceries and medicine for his wife he saw them standing there on the drive-way of the bashing man’s house. He waited for a while but got nervous so he just left and told himself that if they were still there when he was coming back, he would talk to them for sure. It was a huge miracle that Jim was able to find us and that they were that ready to be taught. We only received that blessing from God because we did what was asked of us. Jim, Mikayla, and McKenna were all baptized about 5 weeks later and it was the first baptisms of my mission. God has given us the freedom to act for ourselves. Countless numbers of men and woman have given their lives to preserve that freedom. Many more still fight today with that same drive. It would be disrespect to those who lost their lives in preserving this great cause if we just sat here doing nothing. The government can't help us. Only God can and to receive that help we have to use that freedom of choice that was given to us way back in the pre-mortal existence.
I think Thomas Paine said it pretty good when he said "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods..." Essentially, the more work it takes to accomplish something, the greater the reward in the end. The prophet Joseph Smith was given the same promise in a revelation recorded now as D&C 121:7-8 “My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; though shalt triumph over all thy foes.” At this time when our country celebrates the heroic acts of the many men and woman who have fought and now fight so we can continue to have the freedom that we fought for before this life, let us make a choice, the right choice. Let us do something. Let us be something. These things I know to be true and you can too. Good day sir.

ELDER ARNETT COMING HOME!!!! THIS IS IT!

This week is transfer week so we will not get a letter from Elder Arnett until Tuesday, May 15th.  By that time Marilyn and Max, his parents, will be on their way to pick Elder Arnett up.  His release date is Thursday, May 17th.  We will be having an Open House for him at our home at 635 N. Windsor Circle at about 8 pm until when ever the evening of May 17th.  Come by and say Hey to him!

His homecoming talk will be Sunday, May 27th at 8:30 am at the Stake Center on Brown Road in between Gilbert and Lindsay Roads.

1 WEEK & 3 DAYS TO GO!!!

May 7^th 2012

Well it sounds like everyone is having a good time. Maybe Porter grew too fast and that’s why his back is jacked. Jackie sent me the picture of the family in front of the tree and porter is taller than all the girls. Braden is too but Porter is young for that tall! You should get it checked out. That’s awesome about Braden and Hayley getting their blessings! I have loved mine and it has helped me out on my mission knowing what i need to do and how and what not. So that’s cool. That would be cool if Braden was a General Authority. And as for Hayley. Man two dates with Brian? That seems fun. He would be a cool brother in law. I got David's announcement for graduation on Thursday which was the day he graduated so that was fun. It was actually kind of funny well no it wasn't but on my birthday i didn't get crap in the mail. The day was actually kind of a bum day altogether but then on Thursday i got a bunch. I got Jackie's parcel in the mail a letter from a friend and David's announcement. It’s like they always say, Better late then never, but never late is better. So yeah that was good. I got my blue suit dry cleaned last week and it looks pretty good. It’s a little big on me but it’s a nice suit. On Monday night we had dinner with our ward mission leader and it was fun. His family is pretty awesome and it was a good time. I had to sing my Phantom of the Opera for them as well. I think about half the ward has heard it now... People are starting to film it now. It’s really not that good. I just get into a lot. If you can remember the piston choir concerts with Mr. C-Rap. It’s even better than that. Tuesday was fun. We had a Zone Leader Conference. I like spending time with all the other zone leaders and President Lewis. It was a good meeting. We visited a lot of people this week and we saw a little bit more success. Wednesday was my birthday. We had a cool little miracle in the morning. So Dewey Ray writes to the missionaries in the ward pretty often and he puts some scripture studies on the back. Well one day i was reading through one and it was similar to a lot of the others. He said it helped his mission baptize 1000 people in a year. So i thought i would piece a few of them together and call it the Bible/Book of Mormon connection. So we made pictures and stuff and had the scriptures marked and we have been trying to share it with a few people. Basically it takes someone through the bible showing what it is who wrote it and stuff and then you show that there were people in America and since God loves his children (which you use scriptures showing that he loves them anywhere in the world) he would raise prophets there. So we went tracting in the morning which usually isn't too effective but we didn't have anything else to do so we did it and it was in a nicer neighborhood which usually doesn't result in much but we were following the spirit and we went there and met a guy named John. He was old and invited us in right away. He got us some water and told us he was a Catholic Bishop. He asked if we were going to share our message with him or if he could share one with us so we said well how about both and he said ok. So we shared our bible/book of Mormon connection lesson. Some of the things we read in the bible he didn't know and he didn't even know where the book of Mormon came from and who wrote it. He was amazed and intrigued. He then shared his message which the Catholic Church sends to his Ipad every day and it had to do with Paul and another person in the bible being set apart to preach the gospel. He looked at us and said that's what we were. We were set apart to preach the gospel and we were sent to him. So that was cool. But then he said he wanted to invite us to a study group he has every Wednesday night but it wasn't at his house that week so he didn't want to be impolite to the people so he said the next time it’s at his house he wants us to come share it with his whole group of about 8 couples. He said they need to know about the book of Mormon because people don't understand where it came from. So it was pretty cool. The rest of the week was good. We were able to teach a few new people and reach many of our goals. Things were going slow but we can see that they are steadily picking up which is good because it feels like our success will be lasting and consistent in the future rather than just spurts of baptisms here or there. So yeah it was pretty good. So this week on mother’s day i will call around 4:30 or 5. I don't want to Skype because i am still on my diet... But i will call. I am excited for you to come here and meet some of my friends! Well i hope everyone has a good week. Love You!

Sorry it’s so short. I will see you soon enough. Next week i won't email till Tuesday and by then Mom and Dad will be here! Man it’s gone by so fast and its not slowing down these few weeks. 

--
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

2 WEEKS & 3 DAYS TO GO!!!

April 30^th 2012

Well Jamie just emailed me the Gender of the Baby! I shared the Dr. Quote with the zone and they loved it. So this week was slightly better than last week. It was hard to push through working hard because i go home so soon and it would be hard to work hard without seeing success all that time but i did stick it out this far and now it seems a lot easier to work hard for only two weeks. I mean football camp was a whole week and i could work hard all that time so yeah its going to be good. We have a lot of work that needs to be done. On monday evening we went and said bye to Jason. He left for I think Georgia tuesday morning but had to be in a Hotel by 10 on monday night. So we went by their house to say bye. It was really sad to see a Dad have to leave his wife and 3 little boys. The oldest is like 4 and then 2 and barely born. But in six months they will fly his family out to North Carolina where he will be stationed and they will live there for like two years. So now i have a good collection of people i will know in North Carolina so i will have to go out there and visit everyone. Tuesday was good. We had interviews with President Lewis. It was really good. We just talked about being a good Model for the Zone as a zone leader. He said even if we aren't seeing success we still need to work hard so others will when they aren't seeing success. They set up my Departing Interview and it will be on May 8th so a little bit before i go home but it will be good. They gave me a Return Home Plan worksheet to fill out before that interview. It wanted me to write down what i want for my life in Family, School, Career and Church then to set goals and make plans to achieve the goals. It was pretty hard actually and i started having a similar feeling i had in the MTC when i was staring at 2 years in front of me and i was scared and overwhelmed. Its going to be scary starting my life and family and career and it was overwhelming filling it out. But i did remember an awesome experience my second day in the MTC. I was feeling super overwhelmed of the task ahead and it was making the day really hard to focus and what not. So i prayed and asked God to help me feel comfort and to not think about how long and hard it will be but to just focus on whats happening now and do what i need to do now to produce my future goals. I didn't even notice that my prayer was answered until the end of the day when i realized that since that prayer i was so distracted with things to learn and practice that i was no longer sad and down. It lifted me right up and so i gained a big testimony of prayer and answers to prayers my second day in the MTC. I even wrote that experience down in my journal and i have gone back and read it a couple of times. So as i started the worksheet for going home and i began to get those feelings i knelt down and asked God to comfort me and help me Focus on the now and in minutes i was able to focus on the worksheet and write everything down with faith and excitement. I didn't feel overwhelmed at all through it. I do still feel it a little bit when i think about my future life but its all good. But yeah so we had interviews this week and it was good. We had to go down to the building thats next to the temple for our interviews. So we got there a few minutes early and we walked around the temple. It was pretty warm out but it was a nice walk. I love the Sacramento Temple. Its pretty. You should come check it out when you come here. We saw a lot people all day and we were able to teach someone so that was good. We switched up for exchanges at night. I went with Elder Wyatt in his area. It was fun. He goes home the same time as me. I told him he can meet you guys. He is super cool and i like hanging out with him. We stayed up a little late talking. The next day we were on bikes cuz their area is a bike area and it rained all morning then stopped till dinner then from like 6 till whenever it stopped in the middle of the night it rained again. So it was fun. Its a lot easier to go out and bike all day in the rain knowing that you don't have to do it the next day and if you did it would only be for three more weeks. So we had a good time. Thursday we had District Meeting. It was really good and we enjoyed it. We don't do anything anymore so its fun receiving trainings again. We had a couple of appointments but they all fell through. So we had a member with us name Brother Paugh. Its said Paw. Hes white but his wife is phillipeno. So he was with us so we went and saw Delores. She is an older lady.h She tells us the craziest stories about how everyone is out to get her. She told us one once and it was awesome so i went home and wrote it down. I doctored it up a little to make it more intense but it was pretty good already. I'll have to tell you all my stories i've thought up out here. I think they're pretty good. But we taught her and she wants to get baptized but she needs to come to church. Shes in the hospital a lot because she is old and frail. So she didn't come this week cuz she had Kidney stones but hopefully next week. Friday we had weekly planning which was pretty cool. We planned for the week. During lunch i have been working out a little so i can be in better shape when i get home. Things are going good. I was doing really good on my diet but when i was with Elder Wyatt we went to Godfather pizza buffet. So it backed me up a couple of days but as of today i am at an all time low! So yeah. I'm not going to make it as far as i wanted but i think i'll hit my original goal. So thats good. We saw a lot of people again on friday. We didn't see much from it but we did work hard and we set up a couple of return appointments with people. Saturday was pretty good. We helped our mormon hands on over to Ancel Hoffman park which is a golf course/nature reserve. The nature reserve is called Effie Yeaw. It was cool. All the California was doing Mormon Helping Hands last weekend and the weekend before that. Thats why i said we helped our mormon hands over there. Just in case you didn't get that. The Elder Quorum in our ward was in charge of re-roofing a big huge bird house so we helped with that. I have never done a roof but i learned a lot. I learned how to cut wood. Use a hammer. Use a nail gun. Not fall off a roof. Balance. and put all the crap on that a roof needs. It was fun. It took a while but it was fun. We had to redo like everything. We had to make the trusses and stuff. It was fun though. They had a guy there that was filming with a camera. Someone said he made video of it and they said i was in it a lot. So the guys said he'll email it to me but you won't see it till i come home or else it will expose my weight loss to you. So yeah the roof was cool. I got a little bit of a sunburn but its almost gone now. We did some other cool stuff so that was awesome. Sunday was good. We went to church. I liked it. Someone signed up to feed me on my birthday. Its the Plenerts. They are super cool so i am excited. My birthdays on wednesday just incase you forgot... So yeah that was my week. I hope everyone is doing good. I am getting excited for my friday fun when i get home. I should probably start sending some stuff home... cuz i don't know if it will all fit in my bags. Or... you can just have extra space in your bags that i can put it in... Let me know. I am going to get my blue suit dry cleaned this week so i can wear it when i get my black suit dry cleaned next week. I want to wear my black home on the plane but i want it to be nice. So i'm getting dry cleaned and i'm not wearing it till the day i go home. So yeah its exciting. I love you! bye...
--
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

So for those of you that haven’t seen facebook, Jamie and David found out today that they are having a boy!  We are all so excited.  The doctor’s quote that Tyler refers to in his letter is that when Dr. Holmes first started doing the ultra-sound, he commented immediately that he already knew what it was.  He then started doing measurements and making sure of everything and this was his quote:  “There is no doubt, something is sticking out!”  So a boy it is.  Also for those of you that don’t know it is only 2 weeks and 3 days left until Elder Arnett returns.  We again are so thrilled and can’t wait.

Marilyn

3 weeks & 3 days left to go!!!!

April 23^rd 2012

Well even though everyone’s life is boring it is nice to have some variety in reading. It was good to hear about everyone. It started to actually get hot this week. It was high 80's at the beginning of the week then it got up to the high 90's in the end of the week. It felt a lot worse than it was because we went from 65-70 all the way up to 99 in like two weeks. But it’s been good. I don't have to sleep with my blanket on anymore. I just use it to hold on to ha. With the warm weather everything started growing again... which results in allergies... which was not fun. Saturday was the hottest day and we were out all day walking a lot trying to find people and my allergies were killing me. At some doors my eyes would just start watering so bad that it looked like i was completely crying. My nose was super itchy and runny as well. Luckily we meet with our Bishop every Saturday and go over the progress of the work in the ward. He is a Doctor and he noticed how bad my allergies were and asked if i was taking anything for them. I said yeah i took Benadryl which doesn't make me tired anymore cuz i take it every day with a Claritin. He said that it makes people constipated so he said i should get a nasal spray. Well i tried that road before and it screwed me over cuz you can only use it for three days or your symptoms get worse if you stop using it. So i told him that and he said, not the kind a Dr. prescribes. So he went and looked and he just so happened to have a sample kind of the nasonex nasal spray. He said it’s not habit forming and after taking it for about a week it works pretty good. I read the little leaflet and it said it should kick in about 11 hours after you first use it and then it will be in full force after a week or two. Well it is already working and i feel so much better. But i still can't sleep with the air on. Luckily i grew up in Arizona where i became accustomed to sweating in my sleep. So that’s been fun. This week was pretty rough honestly. After having those meetings last week we decided to make all the necessary changes in our planning in our area so we could baptize more. Every night our plans look amazing and it looks like something great is going to happen but then we go out and do them and after a little while nothing happens and no one is home or interested so we continue on with faith and believing that something is going to work out in the later evening. Well each day we ended and felt like nothing has happened. And we go back into planning at night and we plan out a new day doing everything we have been counseled to do and making changes on the previous day that might not have been too effective and then the next day nothing happens again. We don't think it’s a lack of faith because every day we expect to see miracles and expect our plans to work out. We have been trying to be as obedient as possible and we are working our butts off. This last Saturday we worked so hard. I was dead by the end of the day. I had nothing left. I can think of one day that i have worked harder on my mission and it was with Elder Manukailea and we were on bike, i didn't have an inhaler and we tracted for 3 hours straight. So we don't know what’s going on. We think it could just be a trial and testing period but we really do desire to baptize right now. I don't have much time left and i just want to baptize people! Is that an unrighteous desire? To want to baptize as many people as possible in the short time i have left? To work my hardest and see the fruits of my labors? I mean I’m still going to work hard till the end no matter what, success or not. But i would like it better if we saw something from it. We do a self-evaluation and look at our area each night and try to figure out what we’re doing wrong but it’s getting to the point that we can't see anything... So we will just keep working hard and doing all we can to baptize and whether we baptize people or not i will know i finished to the end. So yeah that’s what has been going on this week. That’s cool that i get some time before my home coming talk. I was thinking about trying to find out the topic out here so i could prepare but now I’ll have plenty of time when i get home to prepare. And i like the idea of getting released right away. About Andrew and Hudson being engaged... Man that is insane. I could find some new guy friends to hang out with but i think I’ll just get married too... Honestly i have been thinking about my future back home and what i want to do and stuff with working and school and stuff but i can't seem to think of anything to do with friends other than trying to find a wife. I don't know if it will be the first girl i date or not or if it will be as fast as theirs but if i find her i don't see the point in waiting... You’re probably going to freak out about me not caring about how long it takes. But oh well. I don't want to wait to get my life started. But Hudson and Andrew both knew those girls really well. I can't think of any girls i knew that are 1 available or 2 that i would date. Not that they aren't pretty and cool but i just don't think of some girls as my wife. Who knows, maybe that will change when i get home and get to know some of them again. But yeah. It’s all good. If you think about it, Andrew and Marianne being engaged already isn't that crazy. He's been home for 3 months. Jamie and David only dated for like 3 months and they didn't even know each other before. Andrew and Marianne have known each other for a little while now. So it’s not that crazy. And Hudson knew Kyleigh and they had a thing before the mission so that’s not that crazy even though it was super-fast. So yeah. Work, School, and Marriage. That’s my objective when i get home. So yeah have a good day. Love ya! --
Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

4 weeks and 3 days to go!

April 16^th 2012

You know mom it’s kind of funny that you should mention the Ghana thing. There is a guy in my ward, Brother Cobbinah who taught our Sunday school class one week and he is from Ghana. He was there when all of that happened. He is in a book that the church used to make that talks about it. He was the second person in Ghana that got a book of Mormon for the group. He said on the first day the church came there 82 people got baptized. They had full on branches and stuff before the church even got there. So that is pretty cool. It was there family that we had Easter Dinner with. They are a super cool family, maybe I’ll introduce you to them when you come here. They always make me sing my Phantom of the Opera. So about the dinner thing. It is against the rules unless i get permission for it which probably won't happen. When the Reidheads came i just didn't ask but i am trying to be obedient till the end so i don't think it would work out. And i don't think they would let you take Elder Stradling and Elder Jones out, but you will get to meet Elder Jones. So that is a bummer but we are blessed for our obedience. Elder Heaton does just about anything anyone could think of. He played Football in high school as a running back and he did other sports. But he is also a fitness and health fanatic. He is from Idaho Falls, Idaho. So yeah thats that. This week was great! A lot of things have changed in the mission over this past week which i am totally stoked about because now i can work a ton harder! Also Elder Heaton and I made some new awesome friends. Last Monday night we had dinner with the Pinnegar family. Now there are like fifty billion Pinnegar families in our ward. The parents who are kind of old. Then they have three married sons who all live in the ward and they all live on the same street... So it’s pretty confusing. We had dinner with Jason and Anita which is what i will now refer to them as from here on out. So they had signed up on our calendar and in talking to them we realized that they were actually pretty cool. So that was cool. Towards the end of dinner they said they would take us for dinner that Wednesday because we didn't have a dinner so that was real cool. On Tuesday we worked our butts off. We were told sometime in the morning that someone from the MTC was visiting and was giving a training to President Lewis and his assistants and one of them wanted to come out with Elder Heaton and i to teach people and then to come home with us and plan at night so we cleaned our apartment during lunch. Well they said that President Lewis was the one that would come with us so we met a couple of people that day and set up some appointments for that evening and they were really good. The first was Tina who had taken the lessons from the missionaries before but she couldn't quit smoking so she stopped taking the lessons. We had a good lesson with her but she canceled our return visit later in the week and said she wasn't ready yet. Then we taught Larry who was a guy we had knocked into. When we had first met him he was super great and asked a lot of good questions and was excited for us to come back but when we came back he didn't want to meet but he let us in any ways and the first thing he said was that he would say no but he wanted to know why we thought he should join our church. Well we went in and started talking and found out he didn't believe in God so we talked about that and he started asking some more questions again. He asked why we do what we do and what incentive there is for us and we told him why we were there and what we believe and he was amazed. The lesson was good but when we offered to come back again he said no and that he didn't want us knocking on his door anymore but we persisted and finally got him to let us come back just to say hi. Well when we went back later in the week he warmed right back up to us and invited us in and we had a great conversation on repentance and forgiveness of sin. At the end of that lesson he told us we could come by anytime so things sure changed. I think the spirit worked on him. We had our District Meeting on Wednesday which was good. Elder Heaton prepared a cool training so it was fun. When we went to dinner Wednesday night Jason and Anita said that they were going to cover for his parents who were supposed to feed us on Saturday but couldn't so they were asking what we wanted to eat and we asked what was an option and they said well our breeding rabbit outside is infertile so we are going to eat him soon so you want to have that. Well Elder Heaton has killed and eaten a lot of Rabbits so he said he would love to and i have never had rabbit so i said of course as well. Well they had never butchered a rabbit so Elder Heaton offered to teach them how so we went back on Friday and had a hay day. I actually killed it... We stuck a bar behind its head and i grabbed it by the back legs and pulled it real hard and it broke its neck. Then Elder Heaton taught them how to do everything else. So that was fun. Don't worry, i got a lot of pictures. We had it for dinner on Saturday and it tasted amazing! It was like a really good moist turkey. So i like Rabbit and they said it’s the most lean meat. Well in being around Jason and Anita so much this week we realized that they are super cool people and they are now our friends! We love them. But Jason is leaving on the 26th or 28th i can't remember. He is in the military and he has a 6 month training in i think Georgia so that’s a bummer but we still have some time left with him. So they are now some of our best friends. On Thursday the MTC guys gave a training for all the District and Zone Leaders. It was awesome. They were freaking hilarious and super bold with us. They said our mission is having a lot of pointless meetings which is true. They said they noticed that we even had some meetings to plan for other meetings that we weren't even supposed to be having. So they cut out a lot of our meetings. They said our leaders were doing way too much administering rather than ministering. They told us what our new role as Zone Leaders is. Basically they said just be the best missionaries in the mission. They said our first focus is to baptize in our area. Then to bring other missionaries into our area and show them how to baptize. We don't do anymore trainings at District Meeting. We actually don't even meet as a zone anymore except to play sports on pday. They want us to rotate each week going to the districts district meeting. So it’s pretty cool. They took away a lot of Managing responsibilities and are just having us lead by example. They also told us to stop focusing on baptismal invites which is funny cuz i just talked about it last week. They just want us to baptize people. They want our mission to double our baptisms and i am going to do everything i can to do it in my area till i go home. I asked President Lewis if i could stay and he said he wanted me to but i couldn't. So I’ll be coming home the same time. So yeah that was basically our week. We are super excited to work hard and baptize more people. So yeah. I love how all of the previous email talked about Porter. He sounds like a stud but i would like to hear about other people. I now i am coming home soon but i like knowing what’s going on. So yeah. I love you! Bye!

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Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

5 weeks 3 days to go!

April 9^th 2012

This week sounded eventful. Well not really actually. But it sounded like everyone had fun. Our week was pretty good. We worked our freaking butt's off. Since Elder Fitt was being transferred, we spent the rest of the night after dinner to get him all packed up and what not. On Wednesday morning we went to the mission office bright and early to wait for my new companion Elder Heaton. He got there about nine and we hung around with some of the missionaries that were going home the next day. A lot of them are my good friends so i wanted to say bye to them. We were able to be in the meeting where the new missionaries get their trainers. I love that meeting, especially having seen it from all sides. Being the new missionary, being the trainer, and just being a bystander. Its fun to watch and it’s exciting to see the missionaries. There was a HUGE kid from Samoa there that played football for UofA before he came out. The kid is giant! But he seems nice and is going to the Tongan ward. We went out to lunch with Jake Larson. He was the son of the people that Elder Jones and I had thanksgiving with. The mom called Jackie to tell her i could skype. I love their family. Elder Heaton was in their ward for 6 months so they love him as well. We went to Chipotle which i love! We had a good leadership meeting after lunch and our District Leaders are awesome! One of them is a brand new District Leader. He was in North Sac when i was there and he has grown so much and is a great leader. Elder Heaton and I don't have very many people to teach so we have been visiting a lot of people. We tract a butt load all day and see random people that are potential investigators and less active and part member families. It’s so nice to work hard again! We want to find a lot of people and one of the things we are asked to do as missionaries is to invite people to be baptized the way its outlined in Preach My Gospel. We call them invites and we record them as numbers that we keep track of. We are asked to get 3 per missionary per day which is 42 in a week for a companionship. Invites are probably the easiest things to do but no one does them. They don't think that it will lead to anything. I don't know if any of you have read 7 Habits of Highly Effective people. I have earlier in my mission which i was supposed to but i took a butt load of notes on it and i use them for training and stuff. Well in the book they talk about the Circles of Concern and Influence. Everything we are concerned about that we worry or think about is in our circle of concern but only those things we can directly control are in our circle of influence. Well the more you concentrate on your circle of influence the more it encompasses things in your circle of concern, like baptisms. So we decided a long time ago when i was in North Sac that invites are the easiest thing in our circle of influence to control. We just have to get them. Well when we do we baptize and when we don't get them we don't baptize. So Elder Heaton and I instead of getting the 42 this week we got 91 which is a butt load and it means we had to talk to 91 people long enough for them to understand our message and to decide whether they want to be baptized or not after us inviting them of course. So that was insane and it took a lot of hard work and sacrifice. Our goal for this week is 150 which will stretch us a bunch. My record is 106 when i was with Elder Manukailea. We worked super hard for that one. So yeah thats basically what Elder Heaton and I did all week. We tracted a butt load of houses. Apartments, neighborhoods, random people in parking lots. Everyone. It was fun. We had a Mission Leaders Council on Friday morning. It was fun. I love getting together with all the leaders in the mission because most of them are my friends. So yeah this week was great. I love Elder Heaton. I couldn't have asked for a better companion to finish my mission with. I'm still trying to figure out what i did to deserve this. Its so nice to have someone that is not only willing but pushing for obedience and hard work the same as you are. And he loves having fun and telling stories. He will probably be my second favorite companion after Elder Jones. Elder Heaton though is huge into fitness and stuff. He has me on a new Low Carb. diet. Its great and i feel so healthy and I’m losing weight again after my plateau. And he helps me on what work outs i should do to get the results. He is super skinny, like 165 lbs. but he is ripped out of his mind. So its fun as well. We get along so good and we love a lot of the same things. So yeah i am being extremely blessed right now. Well yeah that was my week. I hope everyone is having a good time in sunny AZ. Its warming up a little here. Finally. But its still only in the 70's. I love it though. Well i love you. Bye!

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Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett