Chapter 12

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! That makes me sooooo happy that hunger games will be in my BEST MOVIE EVER list when i get back! hahahaha. And tell Anastasia thanks for having me there in spirit hahaha.  Also, thanks for sending me the white pants and those snacks, they will be greatly enjoyed in my stomach. hahaha XD.

Hey, guess what!?!?!?\ My Ward Mission Leader, Brother Bigly who by the way are an awesome family, was badly sick and called us up and asked if we could give him a blessing. So we did and guess who got to give the blessing? I did! XD It was my first time giving one and it was an awesome experience! XD. And yaaaa, about the schedule of a  missionary. While I have nothing against following it as a missionary, I definately won't be having this kind of schedule off my mission hahahaha. Elder Arrowchis likes eatting late and his late nights XD hahaha. Well i guess it's time to tell you about this last week XD.

So about the pizza challenge....We didn't get to do it ;( ;( ;(.  When monday came around they ended up calling jim, one of the people we are teaching and told us he would pay for the pizza beacuse he wanted to see us get sick, and told him that we didn't give them enough notice so they didn't make the dough for us....soooo we didn't get to do it :( but Elder Martin, our zone leader and my teamate for the challenge, said he will come up next month again before transfers so we can do it hahaha.  Which also means that i was to upset/mad about the challenge that i didn't get around to writing any letters haha. So you will have to wait a few more weeks or so to hear about me owning this pizza challenge, which might i say 20 teams have failed at and only 1 team has completed hahaha. 

Well onto the next item of discussion.  You know Jim, the person who we are teaching right now, right? Well, this last week he agreed to be baptized!!!!!! Wooooooot! He is progressing sooo much and is strengthening his testimony tremendously and it's so much fun/exciting to see him grow! AHHHHHH! (If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty excited just talking about it XD hahaha).  Oh and you can thank the McPhersons for me for sending that package and can let them know that i sported that green tie they sent me on Saint Patricks Day like a BOSS! XD. K well I shall end this chapter of my wonderfully Redunculously awesome mission here! Peace out till next week XD.

With love,

Elder Arrowchis The Awesome

(Also, let steve know that i am infact allowed to respond to snail mail and give him my address so he can send me a package XD. and tell them all that they are all awesome XD)

Chapter 11

Thank you for doing that [providing dinner] for the missionaries because everyone should have that attitude about feeding them.  I have learned that attitude from being up here in Salmon.  Everyone here is sooooooo nice and almost at every dinner appointment we have they always tell us "if your dinner appointment ever falls through call us and let us know and we will feed you," which has only happened once and our ward mission leader ordered us a pizza XD. So thank you for doing that for the missionaries XD.  And we are supposed to eat at 5pm but on occasion that time doesn't work for the family so we have to eat at around 6 instead. But i do very very much miss having dinners at 10pm like we used to hahahaha XD. 

It's been snowing/raining very much this last week and been on average around the high 30s or so. So unfortunately this last week wasn't as awesome as my previous ones.  The work was coming along alot slower this last week, but this coming week it should go back to being on the awesome level again hahaha.  But it has still been a good week regardless.  We helped someone stack 10 cords of wood, which took multiple days of doing but he was very grateful for us doing it.  We have also been teaching an investigator named Jim and he is coming along very well.  He enjoys us coming over and we love going over to talk to him.  He is such a great person and he is really nice to everyone and just a fun person to talk with and teach.  The work here is great and it is so much fun being a missionary.  I love when i am teaching someone and they suddenly get that lightbulb and everything just clicks in their minds.  The Spirit is amazing and it is so wonderful to see it first hand work in someones life. 

The last thing that happened this last week was our zone leaders came down last night, because they are going to go on an exchange with us tonight/tomorrow, and we played Settlers of Catan which is one of the most fun board games ever hahaha.  Well that's all for this week so i will end this chapter of my mission here and bid thee farewell till next week.  If i don't get the time this week to tell you how the pizza challenge went you can expect a detailed description with pictures of the event next week hahaha.  Well love you and miss everyone and hope all is well back home.

With Love,

Elder Arrowchis (The one who dances better ;) haha

Chapter 10

This week was another great week!!!  So this last week Elder Clegg, one of the missionaries in my district, got transfered to pocatello and now Elder Bystrom, who was Elder Clegg's companion, got a new companion and that companion just happened to be Elder Harelson's, who is my companion, MTC companion so that was cool for them to be to see each other again. Sorry if that was confusing but just nod and say "THAT"S AWESOME!" hahahahaha.  Also, it's funny that you added that quote about answering someone else's prayer because we just had an experience with that this last week XD.  A family in the ward that was scheduled to feed us this last week was praying for a missionary experience and one night at the beginning of this week we felt like we should call them and ask them to invite their neighbors over for dinner, who we just tracted and met the week before.  The family agreed to call and invite their neighbors and their ended up agreeing to coming over for dinner and it went very well and their neighbors became more comfortable with us and we think they will be more receptive to us asking if they will take the lessons, so that was a very cool experience to have XD. 

K next story.  So there is a pizza place up here called Dave's Pizza and guess what they have!?!?!?!? If you said pizza then techinically you are correct, but they also have A PIZZA CHALLENGE!!!!!!!!!!! The challenge is to eat this pizza, with one other person, that is the size of 2 and a half extra large pizzas in 40 min and it has to have 2 toppings, oh and you can't throw up while doing it.  And guess what???? I am taking the challenge the challenge with elder Bystrom next monday, our p-day XD!!!! hahaha. We thought it would be a good missionary opportunity to get our pictures up there hahaha. Plus we want to dominate that challenge hahaha.  There is also another challenge down in Idaho Falls,i think that is where it is, i have heard and it is a sandwhich challenge so i plan on doing that one in the future if i ever go there hahaha.  Well, i did write down what i was going to write about this week, but i left that list back in the apartment and this is all i can remember that was on that list so yaaaa im gonna end this here hahaha.  Peace out till the next chapter of the Great Adventures of Elder Arrowchis! XD.

Chapter 9

You're right, i don't want to hear that it was 88 degrees yesterday hahaha.  I wish it were that warm up here, it's been getting really cold lately actually :(.  It has also been snowing about every 3-4 days here, which keeps ruining some of our service plans :(.  K time to answer your questions XD. We use the computers in the family history center to email home, there are 4 computers here so us and the other 2 elders in salmon can use them also.  We have a washer and dryer in our apartment, so we just do our laundry there. XD And yes my clothes are clean and i am brushing my teeth everyday and i am sleeping on top of my bed, just using my blanket i brought, so i don't have to make my bed in the morning hahaha XD. K well it's story time so lets dive into my week.  OH by the way thanks for the driving record, i can finally turn it in and prove to them that i am able to drive XD.

OH MY GOSH GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK!?!?!?!? I SAW A WOLF!!!!!! nah jk i wish i did hahaha, but i will one of these P-days when we go on a district hike into the continental divide XD, oh ya the continental drive is right next to us, like literately a 10-15 min drive hahaha.  K so this week we did quite a few service activites.  We moved some hay, we painted someone's garage, and we were going to rake someone's yard but it snowed on us so we couldn't do that, but we can't wait to go and rake their yard. 

Hmmmm what else happened this week....Well like i said we helped someone move hay, and i got some pretty boss pictures from doing that, which of course i will send after i finish this XD.  OH THAT"S RIGHT! something major did happen just yesterday! it was my 2 month mark hahaha XD.  I also got to experience my first transfer calls on saturday.  The mission president does a really long recording, which ends up being about 9-12 messages long, and sends it out to everyone via phone and we listen to them to find out what is happening in the mission. It was pretty boring/uneventful for me because i don't really know a whole lot of missionaries yet, i only know the ones from my mtc district, Elder Hill, Elder Meehan, and the Eders in my district, and i knew nothing was gonna happen to me because the training program is 2 transfers long (by the way every 6 weeks is when transfers are) so that means next time my name goes in to the Hunger Games drawing and my name can be picked to be moved hahahahaha. 

It is so much fun being on a mission! Getting to have that first hand experience of watching someone gain a testimony and have it grow is priceless and is such a wonderful thing to see.  K well, i have to go so i will end this chapter of my mission here and i will write down what im going to email home during the week next week so i don't forget, like this time, what im going to write home about on p-day.  Well Peace out and keep having a wonderful time in the Little Town of Aliso Viejo, especially at the Hunger Games Midnight showing hahahaha.

With love,

Elder Arrowchis, The one that always goes XD

Chapter 8

This week was also an AMAZING WEEK!!!!!! Yes, I have noticed that everyone talks about the weather way more than we do because like you said, in SoCal all we every wonder is how warm will it be and how long will it be cloudy for in the morning hahaha.  And hey the weather is starting to have more variety here, it snows about every 3 days and melts in the same day it snows hahaha.

So 2 sunday's ago me and Elder Harelson went up to Leador for church, our other ward we cover, and i was a little taken by suprise to find out that we weren't doing sacrament first but we were going to Priesthood session first. Then when priesthood session was over i was thinking, "k time for sacrament!" Nope! Next ended up being sunday school, and then 3rd hour was sacrament.  So they pretty much took the normal church schedule and flipped it around.  But apparently they do that because it's calving season right now and alot of people can't make it to church at 11 so they wait to have sacrament last to give them time. 

K next reason why this week was awesome!!!!!!  We found a new investigator, his name is Jerry, and he is pretty much a golden investigator!!!!! He came to our Special Stake Meeting yesterday, which i will talk about next, and then came to the baptism afterwards and he was very impressed with our church and the baptism and also expressed a desire to come to church next week so we are excited for him XD.  Ya by the way being a missionary is super fun XD XD XD! K, on to our Special Stake Meeting.  So this last sunday we had what was called a Special Stake Meeting, where one of the Quorum of the 70 (Jay E. Jenson) came and talked to us about the importance of family time, such as having family home evening.  Some other things he said were that 1) Be weary of the contrary winds in our lives 2) Meal time discussions will have a greater impact on righteous actions in your kids lives than weekly family home evening 3) Use Hymns to do more than just start/end a meeting, like use them to introduce your talk and what not, because Nothing invites the spirit faster than a Hymn. And Lastly, my favorite thing he said was, "When you feel joy in  your heart, make sure to notify your face!" When he said that i couldn't stop laughing inside for like 5 min because it made me think of the times where people, mainly my friends, would say something like "Man that's so ______" and i would respond with, " Your face is _____".  hahahaha yaaaaa, Goooood times XD. Anyways back to the story.  So that was a very good meeting and we got 5 of our investigators there so it was a great experience for them also to hear one of the 70's speak.

Well i am almost out of time to write at the moment, we need to go shop and do our p-day stuff, but i will come back after that and send pictures and be FULLY AWESOME!!!!!!!! XD.  Well peace out for now and i will end this chapter of my life here. Love you and continue to update me on all the awesome! stuff that is happening back home (which as you know is everything in my opinion hahahaha XD).

With love,

Elder Arrowchis

Chapter 7

Just to annoy you and put you in suspense for the latter part of my email, THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!!! anyways, That's so freakin cool that V got his Eagle certificate, let him know that i am VERY VERY proud of him for pushing through and getting it XD.  Also give a shout out to the young men that i miss them all and hope they are all having a wonderful life, which of course is full of preparing to go on a mission ;) hahaha. That's so sad that Elder DeYoung is leaving, him and Elder Davis both had a huge impact on the lives of many people there and i was lucky enough to witness it first hand XD.  Yes people talk about how easy of a winter we are getting here all the time, like every visit we do haha, but hey it snowed like an inch or less the other day :O but it melted after a day or 2 mostly hahaha.  K well i am short on time this week for emailing so i will go right into story time.

 

So you may be asking yourself, why was this week so AWESOME for Jordan? well let me tell you! First off we had Zone Conference, where many zones come together for a conference, this week which was AWESOME!!!! We went up to rexburg for 2 days and the first night we spend the night at our Zone leaders house, Elder Martin (who get's things done) and Elder Roberts, and the Challis missionaries did too, Elder Anderson and Elder Tamayo, and we split into 2 groups and went tracting for the night because earlier that day we had just had a zone council about the importance of finding.  So we split into 2 groups and decided to have a competition on who could find the most Potential Investigators (PI's) in about an hour and a half, and whoever lost had to buy the other team frosties at Wendy's.  So we split off and took off tracting and guess who won?  Of course, My group! (which consisted of me, my companion Elder Harelson, and Elder Roberts) But guess how many PI's we found? We found 10 freakin PI's in and hour and 20 min and set a new record hahahaha!  They found 3 so in all we found 13 PI's in one night, which is really really really good! it's just tobad that they were in our zone leaders' area and not ours haha.  But things are going great in our area.  We are currently teaching quite a few people and they are all really nice people and things are going pretty good with them.  We also have been doing alot of service this last week, from raking leaves to moving firewood to making a fence to moving someone to a new house, so we are getting to know people that way and they are welcoming us in, which is good XD.  Honestly, being a missionary is a BLAST! 

 

K i have been thinking for the last like 10 min what other story i was going to tell you and i finally remember hahaha! K, so i was in Subway the other day, one of the investigators we went and did service for (the one we went and helped build a fence for, which by the way his name is Jim and his wife's name is Angela) decided they wanted to feed us subway for helping them out, and while we were in there they played my favorite song! If you guessed Mary had a Little Lamb you are dead wrong, because it was PARTY ROCK ANTHEM!!! hahahaha that instantly turned that day into one of Jordan's Best Day's Ever! hahahaha!! Well i have to go now, we went bowling today as a district so i am short on emailing time, so i will write more next week and include pictures next week.  Peace out and can't wait to see what else is happening in the little town of Aliso Viejo, well big i guess compared to here, next week XD.

 

With love,

Elder Arrowchis, your Youngest!

Chapter 6

I ran into Uncle Bob's friend that lives up here in Salmon, Brother Whittier (spelling could be incorrect).  We were walking to an investigators house in town and he drove up and asked, "So which one of you knows Uncle Bob?" I told him that Uncle Bob is my uncle and we talked to him for a few minutes.  Unfortunately he is isn't in our ward though, i am pretty sure he is in the River Ward.  That's so cool that Elder DeYoung recommended that idea to his dad.  I completely agree with that idea because being a ward missionary and going out with the missionaries has definately helped me being a missionary, especially having 2 stud missionaries such as Elder DeYoung and Elder Davis as examples. XD.  Also, I even knew this would happen once I got on my  mission, but I wish I had gone out with them more than I had, even though I went quite alot, because I could of learned even  more than I did. 

The visits and lessons are going good here.  We have gotten alot of new investigators already and it is going well with them.  We also have been visiting alot of less actives and trying  to get to know them and establish a relationship with them and inviting them to church/church activities.  K, story time XD. 

This week was the ward's valentines day party and DANG was the food good!!!!!  We had prime rib, jumbo deep fried shrimp, potatoes, surbert icecream, rolls, and salad.  The coolest part was that they let us take home the left overs XD.  The people up here are sooooo nice XD.  We also met some non-members there and set up some appointments to meet them and talk with them.  Also, our Zone Leaders came down this last week to go on exchange with us to make sure everything is going alright with us.  There names are Elder Martin, "Who gets things done" (you have to say that when you say his name hahaha), and Elder Roberts.  They are both super kewl Elders and are helpful and nice. 


K next story.  So we went to go visit a less-active member this week and while we were talking guess what subject came up?  The color code book! hahahahhaha! So we were able to connect really well through that and they became more open to us so it was super cool.  I even was able to figure out both of their colors with only meeting them for the first time hhahahaha.  Oh and by the way, you can probably guess what color my companion is.  If you guessed red than you are dead on hahahaha.  K well I need to go for this week so I will end this chapter of  my life here and send some pictures.

With love,
Elder Arrowchis