Letter #41 . . . Light the World with 25 things in 25 days!

Hey peeps! 

Thanksgiving dinner, 2016 with the Ah Mu Family!

How are y'all?! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving over here in Independence. :D We got to ball it up in the Turkey Bowl. I had 4 touchdowns, cause I'd always be pretty open because Reber was being double teamed because he's the football player haha. We had the missionaries and the Lamb family vs the rest of the ward! Later that day we had dinner with the Ah Mu family! Dinner was super good. How was Thanksgiving down in St George?! I miss you guys! I was just thinking back to the time we ate Denny's for Thanksgiving that one year in St. George when all the other restaurants were closed. Haha best meal ever. 

Turkey Bowl with the Lambs and the ward!

This week was tough with investigators and finding. You'd think people would be generally nicer during the holiday season, but after intensive research, we found the opposite to be true lol. Most people really did not appreciate a knock at the door this week, especially cuz the weather is freezing. Which is weird cuz we're so cute and fun and stuff..? :) We did have some lessons with investigators and members tho. We had dinner with this family who had a bunch of non members over. One of them was this guy named James who is incredible on the cello. We listened to him play some sweet songs, then they pulled out their ukuleles and I sang and jammed out with all of them! Click here to view!

The new zone!

Our zone is now super different with all the people transferred out and the new peeps coming in. Sister Sarah Farnsworth, who I knew a bit before the mission is in our zone! She's super awesome... Fun fact for ya, she got a 36 on the ACT!

The church came out with this sweet new Christmas video/ Initiative. If you haven't seen it yet go check it out on LDS.org . . . it's called Light The World! With the vid, they came out with a list of 25 things we can do in 25 days to be a light to the world. The church is getting so good with their websites, social media, and videos!! It's so awesome. Check out Mormon.org. They updated their website. It's so clean and simple!! 

Love you all. Until next week!! 

- Elder Townsend

Letter #40 . . . starting to see the fruits of it all!

That was a sad email mama! Sounds like a lot of sad stuff happening...
Hope you guys are doing alright tho.That is so sad about the kids at
Corner Canyon. That has made me feel sick all day. I can't imagine
what their families are going through. Same with Britt...  Life is way
too fragile. We all gotta be careful, and not take anyone for granted.
I loved the article you wrote mom. Made me all teary.

With the Valentine's in Independence!

As far as the work over here. . . We are working really hard, and are slowly starting to see the fruits of it all! We have a new investigator named Angela that is super cool. I'll keep you updated on her. We have a bunch of appointments with members set up for this week too! It should be good.

Also it just got cold overnight... We are not huge fans of the cold. Probably going to be busting out that winter jacket soon.

Other stuff that went on this week... Well, our church starts at flippen 2:00 pm... and there is literally a church on every single corner. Soooo we may have gone into the Calvary Baptist Church Sunday Morning to check it out hahaha. It was interesting, and a good thing to experience. They were super friendly! EVERYONE is religious and goes to some church out here. So we are just trying some different churches
to learn what it's like! :)

Zone in Independence

Today we went bowling.. Again.. with my old companion Elder Kirkham and my MTC comp elder Fowlks! Today I got a 143 and am pretty proud of myself. We said bye to our two best pals Elder Parker and Corpuz this past week for transfers. We got super close with them and are bummed to see them go. They are the ones in the rap I sent you haha. I taught Reber how to play Viva la Vida on the piano today. I just found out Reber's good friend Mckenna Breinholt is roommates with Lauren O.!! That was super awesome to see a pic of the two of them... Small World!

Love you all, talk to you next week.

- Elder Townsend

Letter #39 . . . tough and so rewarding at the same time!

Family and friends!! 

Bowling with the zone . . November 14, 2016

Life is good over here in Missouri. We went bowling with some of the zone today! I won both games. No big deal. :D I'll send some pics. Transfers are this week, I am guessing I'll stay in Independence with Reber! We work hard and have lots of fun. 

Tanner and Elder Reber!

That makes me sick about Annie Schmidt. I can't imagine what they're feeling like, I'm praying for their family for sure. Life is way too fragile... 

Yeah send me screenshots of Dad's new website! I wish I could have made the date night!! I miss the fam, Gramps, the boys and all! I hope they're doing good, and know I'm happy out here. I love hearin about what the bros are up to! Britt, that dance looks fun. She looks like a cutie! Mom, I'd love for ya'll to come pick me up!! Is there any way we could go to New York again too and see those sites?? 

Stuff that happened this week . . . it was bike week and my brakes were broken, and an older guy we were talking to on the street said he called himself the "neighborhood fixer upper" and said he could fix it. We brought it into his garage, in which the toxic fumes let us know he was definitely on crack. We decided, eh, well he couldn't make it any worse. (Lol) He worked on it for a solid minute, and managed to clamp the brake with pliers and snap them in half, braking it even more. Why thank you kind sir. Also, this week we helped these awesome members, the Wilkes, put up some Christmas lights. Makes me sad we never went all out with lights haha!

Went on exchanges with the District leader and met with Jesus and Roberto M. Roberto is 18 and was just baptized. He has an awesome testimony. We were able to go through and teach them the lessons for a second time. We taught lesson three, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We then ate lunch with John Davies, the organist of the COC! 

Bowling poses!

Our investigator Matt B. is RLDS, and we had awesome lesson with him. He really is progressing super well! We are helping him gain of testimony of prophets and apostles! We brought this sweet kid Dallan C. with us, who's about to go to Raynosa Mexico on his mission, and he was able to come out of his shell a bit and bear a strong testimony of the Savior at the end. It was AWESOME. 

My testimony is growing every single day. I am learning so many things about myself. It's tough, and so rewarding all at the same time. 

Love y'all! 

- Elder Townsend

Sent from Zion

Letter #38 . . . organ playing at Community of Christ auditorium!

P-day fun!

Hellooooo!

Halloween was great last P - Day, . . . it's interesting as a missionary. President told us not to go out! So we stayed in and played games in our apartment!  It was a good week, some notable things from this week, we stood in on two blessings the bishop gave to this young couple. Their 21 month old son passed away unexpectedly the night before. So sad. The Spirit was so strong in the room, knowing that they'll be with him again.

We ran into a guy named Justin A at Subway.  He was baptized a few years ago and fell away from the church, but has felt like he needs the gospel back in his life. He said he's been looking for our number everywhere and couldn't find it. He was shocked when we walked into subway!

We met with this guy named Matt who is RLDS, (we've been talking to a ton of them lately) that may as well be Mormon!! Haha He talked forever about how much he loves everything about the Mormon church, and is disappointed with the direction and emptiness his church offers. But he feels like he hasn't got a spiritual confirmation to change churches. We'll see what happens with him!

We did a lot of service this week. We planted flowers like the gardening prodigy I am. Dangerously hacked down a tree with an axe hahaha. President doesn't let us use a chainsaw for "safety" reasons, but lemme tell ya, that chainsaw would have been a million times safer than swinging a dull 30 pound axe 1000 times. Just about cut off our legs a couple times!

At Zone training at the Independence Visitors Center this week, we got to see an early showing of the New Christmas video the church comes out with every year around this time. It was sooooo good!! I'm pumped for you guys to see it!

We were able to meet with a couple investigators we haven't been able to reach forever!! They both have little kids, and we do this awesome object lesson that we call the Fire Atonement where we draw a little stick figure, and draw chains on him with a magic pen, then show how Jesus can remove the chains with his atonement. We then hold a flame to the paper, and the chains disappear! Kids minds are blown and it's so fun. #magicpens.

Community of Christ auditorium

This P- Day we toured the Community of Christ auditorium with John Davies, the organist of their church, who I've gotten pretty close with, and a bunch of missionaries from our zone. The auditorium is pretty amazing. John has been RLDS his whole life, and played the organ for them almost his whole life, and he is now a member of the LDS church, and has been for a little over a year! (Even tho he feels like he's been a member his whole life) I was able to jam out on the organ with him in there. Click here to watch the short clip! (Sorry it's a little blurry!)  I think the auditorium is the second biggest in the United States, just behind the conference center! Also got to play on an amazing Steinway and Sons Grand piano that belonged to the great grand daughter of Joseph Smith! 

The large auditorium!

Love y'all!

Elder Townsend 

Sent from Zion

Letter #36 from Tanner . . . SWEET members everywhere!

Hellooooo!

Mom, I got your package!!! It made my day, thank you. I'm jealous I
can't be with y'all on vacation!! This week was good, but tough. Reber
and I were on bikes this week, and biked over 15 miles a day, visiting
everyone we could in the area book, and talking on the street with a
ton of people. We laugh and generally have a good time doing it, and
the weather has been amazing this week... So many people in Missouri
are just kinda rude haha! Like it's honestly rare these days to run
into someone who treats us like actual human beings and show any hint
of kindness, and not annoying salesman. It's hard not to feel down
after a long day of work with no success. But that's mission life out
here. Still trying to get used to it.

We did some service just about every day this week. We picked up tons of giant, rotten walnuts (see video here) off this lady with cancer's yard, we laid some bricks in a members garden, planted some flowers, moved some fat TV's, "raked 1 billion leaves" (See the video here), and helped cut down a tree. I'll attach some pics and vids we took there! :)

So, our teaching pool is almost non existent. Work is TOUGH these days. Our super solid dude Ryan just now wants us to come over to 'help' us really get on the right path. (He wants to bible bash) He says he feels bad that we've been led astray in this religion...

We visited a part member family where the wife is an inactive member, and the husband is an RLDS dude. They're so sweet! We have been meeting with them a bunch, and teaching him the lessons. We've been visiting active and less active member's homes during the evening and getting to know them, and sharing spiritual messages with them. We've had some pretty awesome spiritual moments with some of these peeps. One of my favorite things about the mission is seeing how there's just sweet members EVERYWHERE you go in the world.

This week at district meeting, I gave a training on the story of Christ asking Peter three times, lovest thou me? I love it. Go watch the Bible video, Feed My Sheep.

I love you all, until next weeeeeek.

- Elder Townsend

Letter #37 . . . funny and cool things that happened this week!

 Hello Fam and Friends!

I'm jealous of your trip to Costa Rica!! The pictures looked awesome. Love how you're keeping me up to date with what's going on with the boys. I miss those dudes. Also, the Annie Schmidt thing puts a pit in
my stomach. I can't imagine what their family is going through. I've been praying for them.


Some funny things that happened this week . . . We have a member of our ward who is a carbohydrate Nazi and gets very heated and riled up as we ask him lots of questions throughout the week about what things have carbs or not. :)

 We judged the Chili Cook-off and had to try 20 different chili's and pick the best one. It was quite the experience. 

We met a man named Joseph from the Community of Christ Church, who had a super long gray beard, and wrote a book about evidences of the Book of Mormon. 

We went to a member's house for dinner and found out that the first meal the Elders have over there HAS to be eaten with their hands with latex gloves... We had spaghetti. It was amazing. haha 

Also, we made a sweet missionary rap with some other elders. 

Some cool moments this week . . one day we were street contacting and
walked past a construction site. A worker named Jeffrey was sitting in
his car, we passed and he said, "Are ya'll Jehovah's Witnesses?" We
explained who we were and he told us he's been wanting to find a church.
We were able to talk about the gospel with him, and have appointments
to meet with him next week! As we were driving away, we saw him
reading the Plan of Salvation Pamphlet in his car, and when he saw us,
he quickly put it down acting like he wasn't hahaha. This week we had
lots of awesome street contacts meeting new potential investigators.
They are solid!! I'm excited to be able to start meeting with them! We
have 6 or 7 new potentials we're working with!   

Short and sweet this week.
 
Love you all,
Elder Townsend

PS.  haha