Training Round 2

Hey Everyone! 

I just wanted to shoot y'all a quick email while I can. Elder Merrill is being transferred on Tuesday and I am training again. I went to another trainer's training yesterday. Anyway, I am looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun. Please keep my new companion in your prayers. :)

I love y'all!

Love,

Elder Mendenhall

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3/26/2012

Howdy!

So I figure there are about 104 weeks in a mission, so about that many weekly emails. It's hard to come up with subject lines every week. So I will just put the date. Boring. Also a boring way to start an email, so let's move on.

This week we did a couple of service projects for the Jenson family (they are members). They recently bought a house and we are helping them when we can to help renovate and remodel it. We helped them twice this last week just getting paint and wall paper off of the walls and the ceiling. It's been fun getting to know them a little better and helping them love and gain a greater trust in the missionaries. 

We had a few good lessons with Dexter, one of our investigators. We are supposed to meet with him tonight at 6. The only bad thing about this whole thing is that he is planning on moving to Chicago on the 29th of this month, so in three days. We can hope he wont move, and even if he does, we'll send the missionaries up there to meet with him. 

We are also working with a PMF. The Minnifield family. Marvin, the dad, is a member. His wife, Barbara, is not. They have four children who haven't been baptized either. a 16 year old daughter, and then three sons ages 12, 9, and 1. Barbara and the 12 and 9 year old have dates set for the 21st of April to be baptized. As well as Alysha, another one of our investigators. So please pray for all of them. 

Well, transfers are in a week. It's pretty hard to believe. Time just slips through the cracks and if you're not aware of it, it just disappears. Before you know it, you're left with nothing but lost dreams and a whole lot of could've, would've, should'ves (to quote Dexter..) UNLESS you take full advantage of every moment you are given and make wise use of your time. Not only to be busy, but also to be productive. There sure is a difference. Just as Brother Covey... or read about it in the 7 Habits book. (We talked about this in Priesthood on Sunday).

Alrighty. So, how is everyone back home? For everyone who reads this and has sent me a letter that I haven't replied to yet, forgive me. I am working on it. I will get them to you eventually. :)

I am super excited for General Conference this weekend!!!! It's going to be soooooooooooo amazing! I always look forward to it. I might have to make some waffles! Hahahaha Waffles and Conference always go so well together! OOOHHHHH!!!! Captain Crunch French Toast is pretty amazing too. Mmmmmmmmm... Yummy!

Here's the Conference challenge that I want every single person who reads this to do!!!! (So all of you who get this in an email, you pretty much have no choice. Yes, that means YOU family! As for those who read this on the blog, well... it's your own fault for reading it... ;D )

As you listen to conference, I want you to choose THREE talks that mean a lot to you personally. Whether they answer questions that you have, concerns, or are just awesome and amazing (see this talk from 2009 for an example) choose three that touch you personally. Then send what you like/your notes/whatever else you want to about those talks to me, either in a letter or an email (letters are preferred for this). Then I will respond in a like manner to everyone with my favorite talks. This will help us all to not only hopefully pay better attention, but also retain the info that means the most to us ad we write and talk about it. It will also help to raise our spirits together in an outpouring of love for the Lord, His Gospel, and His prophets.

Do you accept the challenge? I sure hope so!

Well, I love you all. I hope Conference weekend is an amazing and life changing (for the better) weekend for all of us. This Gospel is true. Christ lives! His Atonement is real. 

Love,

Elder Mendenhall

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Pictures

Hey Everyone!

Here are some pictures for all y'all! There are two pictures of the cute little turtles we caught! Hahahaha, pretty cool, huh? Then there is Diego and myself, the Wrich family and me (from Philly), Elder Redmon and me, and then my last district... Elder Kington, Elder Bolander, and Elder Sommer.

Probably not in that order though...

Enjoy!

Love y'all!

Love,
Elder Mendenhall

Hmmm

Hey Everyone!

Not too much happened this past week. We no longer have a car, so now I am truly in a bike area. I don't expect a car for the rest of the time I am here. We'll see how that works out. Hahahaha... It's all fine and dandy when we don't have 25 mph gusts of wind, like today. Then it's just cruel. Oh well. I will get used to it eventually! :D (I secretly love it, but don't tell anyone!) ;D Being on bikes makes missionary work easier, in my opinion. We can actually stop and talk to people, people see us, and it helps to keep me healthy! Because, let's be honest, I was never so good at the exercising/working out thing. I actually wouldn't mind being on a bike for the rest of my mission. Maybe the new mission president will let me do that. Keep me out of being Zone Leader and AP, and just keep me on a bike. Of course, that's what Elder Redmon wanted (my trainer in case you forgot) and he didn't get that. He has been a zone leader for the last few transfers. He goes home on April 4th, actually. That is going to be weird. I am slowly yet surely becoming an older and older missionary. I have been out for 15 months. Wow. I don't know where time goes. I don't want to waste another day. Just remember that no matter who you are and no matter where you are called to serve, make the most of it. Magnify your calling. Don't have any regrets. Prove to the Lord that He can trust you. Live for that trust. 

Okay. So I know it is early (we already established how long I have left on my mission...), but I am trying to figure out school stuff as much as I can as early as possible, so I can hopefully make it all possible. Anyway, my first semester at BYU-I starts on Jan. 14, 2013 and right now I go home on the 12th of December. That leaves me about 4-7 weeks to work my tail off (if I go home a few weeks early... not sure if that is what I will do. Still need to pray about it and what not...). I want to be able to earn as much as I can in that little period of time, so as the months go on, if you could keep your eyes and ears open for any potential seasonal jobs or any kind of work that I could do for that short time period, I would appreciate it. I just finished out that idea last night. The calculations come out to the follow... if I make $8.00 an hour, and work 20 hours a week, for 7 weeks, that's $1120.00. That is hopefully just a minimum calculation. Anyway, you get the idea. I figure it is a good time of year to get a seasonal job if nothing better is out there. Moving on...

The work is going alright. Not as well as it should. We will fix that though. It will pick up in the next few weeks. I ask for your prayers. I know I already have them, but please continue to pray for the area, for the people here, and for Elder Merrill and myself. 

I know I said a lot today, without really saying much, but it's me, what do you expect? ;)

I love y'all. I hope y'all have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Mendenhall

Hey Y'all

Hey Everyone!

I hope all is well. It rained here. Quite a bit, actually. I don't have too much to say right now. Zone Conference was awesome! Life is just dandy down here and I am doing fanTAZtic! (I just invented that. I figured it's fantastic and crazy... crazy like Taz from the Loony Toons. So, aka, a fantastic yet crazy life!)

I am working on trying to figure some things out for school right now, so this is short. I love y'all and I hope all is well! Have a wonderful week! This work is awesome and oh so true! :)

Love,

Elder Mendenhall

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03/05/2012

Hey Everyone!

Zone Conference is tomorrow. I'm pretty excited for it. It starts at 10 AM in Shreveport, LA. It's about a two hour drive. Well, a little less. We'll be talking about finding. Also, President Tucker will be announcing our new mission president, but seeing as how Mom already told me, I am one up on the game! 

So, turns out that the West Monroe Elders got in a wreck last week so that make 50% of our zone vehicles that have been wrecked. It wasn't their fault though. A lady pulled out in front of them to flip a U-turn without signalling. You would still think us missionaries would learn how to drive...

Church was good on Sunday. I don't know many people still. I will learn. I feel more confident in the area already. I may not know exactly how to get to places, but I know where they are! Hahahaha. 

We got 9 new missionaries this past week who are waiting on their visas to go to Mexico. One of them is here in Monroe with our Zone Leaders. The rest are scattered throughout the mission with other Spanish Elders. So we have 5 missionaries in the Monroe ward right now, but I don't know how long Elder Evans (the new Elder) will stick around. We'll see. We had a visa waiter who stayed here for 10 months last year (he was going to Brazil though).

Life is going great. Johnny, a member (recent convert), takes excellent care of us. Feeds us several times a week. We don't have too many investigators right now, and hopefully that will change in the next couple of weeks. 

They are moving forward with a Spanish Unit here within the Monroe ward. We have quite the number of Spanish speaking people. Purty cool. 

Okay... so I have quite the number of emails to reply to (okay, only 4, but it's more then the usual two and some of them are LOOOOOOONG) so I am going to make this a little shorter then I would otherwise. And I don't know what else to say. This Gospel is awesome and I love it! I hope y'all have an amazing week! :)

Love,

Elder Mendenhall

1401 Erin Street #177

Monroe, LA 71201

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.