Letter #32 . . . solid investigator, Dora party and shoveling dirt!

Hi All!

Things are pretty good these days. Ellsworth is good.  

As far as the weather, it's slowly getting cooler here. 

Those Claire vids were hilarious! They made my day. It's good to
hear the fam is doing good. K, I don't have much time today, so I'll send
you a better email answering all ur questions next week. Sorry!

Stuff that went on this week . . .  we threw a surprise party for Elder Call last P-day. He's a district leader in the district next to us, and his companion is Elder Fowlks, my MTC comp. We had a barbecue at a park, and had Finding Dory Birthday hats. :) Good times. We went out and did a Team-up with bishop Hubner this week, we had an awesome talk and got to know him a lot better!  He's so awesome! He was asking about my family. Turns out he knows you dad. He's like, "Matt Townsend is your dad?! I listen to his radio show all the time!" That was pretty awesome! I had a couple exchanges this week and they were pretty sweet. On one of them we just shoveled dirt all day lolz. Party. So many sweet missionaries out here.

Barbecue at the park for Elder Call!

We found Ryan Matthews on the street cleaning his car. He's a super solid investigator and loves meeting with us! I feel confident we will baptize him. On Sunday we had dinner with the Lambs, this awesome family. I jammed out with Remi and Madi Lamb, 2 of their daughters. They have awesome voices and we played a bunch of hymns. It was awesome. The link to this video here!

I've been able to give a couple blessings this week, the Priesthood is so powerful. It's amazing! We've had some awesome dinner messages with families this week basing it off the, "Can ye feel so now?" Scripture. I'm in Alma 20 in the Book of Mormon by the way. I love that book!
Much luvs.


-Elder Townsend

PS. I promise I'll write you a good email answering stuff next week with more detail.

Letter #31 from Tanner . . . mission is an emotional rollercoaster!

Hey hey!

7 months down. Yeah sometimes it seems like a lot shorter.
But it equally as much feels like time goes very slow out here haha!

That Mormon.org thing sounds sweet! How did you get
involved with that? You'll have to download it and send me a vid of
it. I may not even be able to go on Mormon.org... But just send the
link too anyway and I'll try it.

Also, I did get the package mama! Thank you thank you! I guess
you can go ahead and activate that card. Thanks for updating me on
everyone! I'm praying for all of you every day.

This week, God, by a miracle, led us to a lost sheep Richard Karner. So
we went over to this Motel 6 to meet with Steve that we met smoking
outside of there. He wasn't home, but he lives with his father, who
was home, and answered the door. He invited us in, and we had an
absolutely amazing conversation. This man is 61 years old, and
heavyset with a long white beard. Turns out he was baptized into the
church in New Mexico a few years ago, and has read the Book of Mormon
twice. He loves it and knows it's true. He's been waiting to come in
contact with missionaries again because it's been a while. He is
amazing. It was amazing. Here we are on the 3rd floor of this random
hotel with hundreds of rooms, somehow sitting on the bed of this lost
sheep. It was a miracle that we somehow ended up there. Us & Richard
couldn't deny God led us there for a reason. He has health issues,
he's blind in his left eye, and needs to be hooked up to oxygen. He
wants so badly to come back to church because he loved it. So as soon
as he gets portable oxygen, he will be there he says! :) We read and
studied the tree of life with him, and you could see the peace flow
into his eyes.

Tanner in his sister's new Piano Studio t-shirt!

The Sister Missionaries in our Ward called and asked if we could give a blessing to this lady in the Ward. She has been in tons of pain lately, and has tried everything to help, but nothing seemed to work, so she wanted a blessing. The spirit was so strong during the blessing. She told the sisters later that it was the most powerful blessing she's ever had. Good job following the spirit Ellsworth! ;)

We also had an awesome district meeting with my comp as the district leader. It's fun, I get to play lots of piano, I play the prelude and hymns in almost every meeting!

We were able to visit with this woman we've been trying to reach out to for a while. Her name is Madelyn. A couple months ago the missionaries were able to have an amazing lesson on the Plan of Salvation, that she loved, and got super emotional. 4 months ago her 25 year old son was shot during a robbery and passed away tragically, and this past week a man attempted to rob her at gunpoint while she was working her job as a bank teller... So, she's had a lot going on. I know this gospel can give her the peace she needs to get through these challenges in her life.

This week was full of some very tough times. This whole mission is an
emotional roller coaster. But that being said, I felt God's love for
me stronger than I have in a long time. Being on a mission, you start
to see more dramatically what your weaknesses are. Constantly, every
second of every day, you are finding things you need to work on. Satan
is really good at distracting me from feeling the spirit by making me
feel overwhelmed and hopeless with all the things I need to change.
But I've learned, Christ isn't asking us to master all of our weaknesses
over night. He does not want us to run faster than we have strength.
He wants us to take it one thing at a time, and through our faith, his
grace and peace is available to us to help us along the way.

I'm at Alma 15 in the Book of Mormon. That book seriously brings so
much peace.

Love you,

- Elder Townsend


Sent from Zion

PS. Attached is a selfie in my awesome new Piano Place shirt!

Letter #30 . . . lots of little miracles and spinning balls!

Hey fam!

Stuff that went on this week ... Ellsworth was still sick with a
cold, but we've still been able to go out and work. We had a lesson
with an investigator we haven't been able to contact all transfer.
He's been dropped a few times because he won't commit to anything, and
we had a lesson with him that didn't go too well. Turns out the "team
up" we brought with us was not a good choice. He's the High Priest
Leader, and he hates us missionaries. He had some dirt in the past with this guy,
and apparently doesn't like him, like, at all. and kinda destroyed our lesson
plan.. Anyway, we had to drop the investigator again. He refuses to
change, or commit to anything.

One of Tanner's winding down activities!

I changed the words to "Love Yourself" by Justin Bieber and put some church words into it. It turned out pretty schweeet! I'll try to send a vid!  
Here is the link to the video!

I downloaded the John Tanner (Great Great Great Great Great . . . yes that's 5 greats . . Grandpa) story on my iPad and watched it. It's amazing! For those who haven't seen it, go check it out in the gospel library in D&C Visual Resources!
Here is the link to that video!

Cool little miracle happened. We walked into the Independence Visitors Center to get some brochures to pass out. One of the sisters came running up to us and told us that a lady that came into the VC had just barely asked if she could possibly receive a blessing of comfort. No elders were anywhere to be found and then we walked in right then! So we gave the blessing, and the Spirit came into the room super strong. One of the coolest blessings I've been a part of. The lady said, "This is going to sound dumb, but I feel like I'm burning up with a warm feeling of peace inside." No lady. That's not dumb. That's the Spirit of God and it's the warmest feeling one could ever feel. ;)

Yesterday was the craziest Ward council I've ever been to... There's
no way I can do it justice in words... but, our Bishop is huge on
missionary work, and we were all trying to figure out how to implement
a "team up" schedule with the Ward, (Elders Quorum and High Priests) and
the missionaries. It was pretty contentious as everyone voiced their
opinions. (Well pretty much the bulk of the contention was coming from
the High Priest Group leader that hates us, and seems to hate life in general.)
Later on in the day bishop decided to talk with all the Elders and
High Priest Quorums about it. Basically, a lot of people talked about
how that'll never work, and that they hate team ups, and that we
should do all of our work by ourselves. The mood was basically, "how
dare the missionaries intervene with the members busy schedule!" It
was not good. Well... our bishop is amazing, and straight up rebuked the
ward, saying that it IS the WARD'S job and Priesthood responsibility to
find people for us to teach. He said it is us as missionaries job to
teach full time, and that we can't be as effective without the Ward.
He rebuked in a way that brought the spirit so strong and he got
emotional talking about the power of missionary work. The entire Ward
had a complete turnaround. The spirit overcame everyone, and suddenly
they were all more excited and motivated for missionary work than
ever. It was incredible. I LOVE BISHOP HUBNER!

That night was pretty awesome... some amazing miracles happened. It
was pretty late, and we only had time to go visit one guy on our bikes. We
biked there and he wasn't home. We wanted to leave a note, but we
flippen didn't have a pen, so we thought, "well, there's nothing to do,
we have to head home in a bit anyways, so let's go bike around and try
to find a pen in the road hahaha ... As we were riding, we saw a man
and a blind woman walking. He said what are you guys selling? We told
him who we were, and he said if you give me a Book of Mormon I'll read
it! We walked and talked with him, and he's really interested. We then
met his friends Steve and Chad, both just chilling, smoking outside.
They were so nice and sensitive, and loved talking to us. Felt like we
were best friends talking to them! We sat on the curb and had an
awesome conversation for about an hour, just getting to know them and
letting them know who we are. They are so ready. We read some
scriptures to them and they said they felt the chills! They want to
meet with us again. We are going over there Tuesday!

Lounging while spinning! :)

Love you all! :)


Elder Townsend

PS. Two more "spinning" videos . . . Tanner and Elder Ellsworth . . 
Elders Tanner and Ellsworth in Independence! 

More spinning fun on p-day! :)

Letter #29 . . . studying in Zion!

Hi All,

It was a good week! Independence is awesome! Ellsworth had some sick
days this week, so we had to stay home a couple days. Gave me a lot of
time to think, and study the Book of Mormon! I'm on Mosiah 20. Reading
it my 4th time total. This week we had a couple good lessons with
investigators, and had an Investigator and his son come to church! The
work is super tough these days. We work all day long and we just can'tseem to catch anybody home, or have them keep their appointments. It's
been tough but we're working to get through it! 

Temple lot in Independence

I've been praying to receive a stronger discipline and drive to go
give 100 percent to the Lord all day every day. I've realized that me saying
that, is in essence telling God, "This is how I am Lord, I don't have the discipline and drive, or frankly the humility to try to change, so I'm going to wait right here until you magically give me those things."
I've found, if I truly want to end my mission with no regrets, I need
to stop playing the victim card. Or the, "If only I was more like
this, then I could do this" game. I've learned the key for me is
striving to exercise perfect humility. Which to me means, I need to go
out on a limb, and be humble enough to completely trust that the
Savior can help make my weak things become strong, and trust that he
will truly guide me to where I'm supposed to be in life, and then on
top of that, go out and work!! I'm gaining a deeper understanding of
the atonement every day. I'm slowly overcoming weaknesses I didn't
think I could. Ether 12:27... 

So I'm serving in Independence Missouri now. I live about five minutes away from the temple lot that Joseph Smith dedicated forthe last days. It talks about it in D&C 57:1-5, and D&C 84, and the chapter headings of 58-60. We go do our studies on that grass sometimes. D&C straight up says that field of grass in Independence Missouri will be the center place of Zion, the New Jerusalem. Joseph Smith dedicated that ground and received revelation that that very field will be the VERY FIRST place the Savior comes during his 2nd Coming... Awesome Spirit felt there. 

I miss you all! Everything about Independence is great! The work is slow but we're working hard!   Sounds like things are going pretty well over there! Mom I've read your letter a couple times. I love it! I don't have time to respond to much of it, but just know I loved it and have read it many times. 

Love you! 

-Elder Townsend 

PS. This is where Joseph prophesied the Savior will come first in the 2nd Coming!

PSS.  This is a random funny moment on p-day today . . . watch video here!