Daniel VS Transfers!

Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:33:16 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net


Hello from Queen Creek!

Yes. I got transfered again. Two six week areas! Man. But whatever. I keep telling myself that its a sign of lack of faith to be too disapointed and complain about leaving. Gilbert was fun and a learned alot. I'll miss Elder Parrott. We didnt even get our T-Shirts in time! Ahhh.

So not too much happened this week.

We biked up to Jake's house because his fellowship is in China. We read from the Book of Mormon with him. It went really well. We learned he doesnt read too well which is probably why he hasnt been reading on his own. We read 3 Nephi 27 with him and explained the whole thing. He really enjoyed that and I think it helped him a lot.

That night... Transfer calls. Every monday before transfers the zone leaders get a call from the APs, who call the District Leaders who call us. Elder Gunter called me monday night and said I was getting transfered! Nooooo!

Then tuesday. We spent tuesday packing and saying bye to people. Then at night we went to the Easter Pagent with Chuck! And his girlfriend came too! We had to call ahead on monday to get seats. Thats right, missionaries can reserve front row seats! Its pretty sweet. Oh, thats a funny story too. Elder Parrott called on monday to reserve the seats, and he talked to a sister in the Mesa Mission at the visitors center. And he went through it all "2 investigators, 2 fellowship, and me and my comp ... oh you can only reserve seats for you and your investigators? ... can you put us down for 6 anyways? ... Thanks!" Then she asked if we were in the Mesa Mission and he said "No way! Tempe!" he almost said "Tempe Baby!" And she laughed and said sorry. But anyways, we go to the pagent and we're in the visitors center picking up our tickets and this lady dressed up to be in the pagent pulls Chuck aside and is like "Do you want to take a picture with some of the cast!?" and after some struggle convinces him. This is very smart on the mesa mission side! Then Chuck and his girlfriend get pulled into a long line where the girl starts talking to them about everything. The pagent. The missionaries. The everything. It was awesome. She said "I play 'follower of Christ', I do that every day, but now I get to dress up for it." After that, Elder Parrott and I looked at each other and complimented her on that line. She was totally helping us out. She was agressive as a temple sister! I hope it helped Chuck's girlfriend, because thats who we were trying to focus on. Then the pagent was amazing! It went through the whole life of Jesus Christ, and almost everything from the Bible. I dont even know how to describe how awesome it was. You just have to see it. Then at the end, Jesus gets lifted up into the sky on this pedistool, but it looks like he's floating! Theres nothing above it, its on the top of the stage and he just starts to float. Then it goes all dark and music starts to play. It was awesome in every single way. And Chuck and Diane really liked it too.

But then I left this morning and now I'm in Queen Creek! Exciting news in the mission, they just formed a new zone! Its like the split Queen Creek and another zone. And Elder Gunter is the Zone Leader there!

Anyways, gotta go!

Love Elder Feller

The Gilbert Zone!

The Easter Pagent

The first thing Elder Parrott told me when we moved into the Anderson's guest house was "She likes Christmas and Unicorns... and rifles"

All packed.

Daniel vs Muddy Buddies

From: Eric Feller <eric.feller@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Wed, Apr 13, 2011 18:04:57 GMT+00:00

This week was pretty average. A hard week for missionary work here in Gilbert. I dont know whats going on! Things just seem to be falling apart... no, not really. Just losing momentum. We need to pic it back up.

Chuck came back from North Dakota! But the problem is, he brought his girl friend! She doesnt want to get married and so that makes baptism hard. Apparently he had dropped her before... But you know what happens when you get snowed in North Dakota for a few extra days... But we're looking at it in a positive way. A two for one! It'll just take a little longer to happen thats all. The gospel is true, so its only a matter of time. The same principle applies to microwaving stuff. When you put two hot pockets in, it takes longer!

Also, we had "the baptism" talk with Jake. He's a little resistant to do it so fast. He feels like he needs to work some stuff out first. The problem is, getting him to understand that baptism will help him with all that. So we're still working on that. It doesnt help that his fellowship is in China for the next couple days.

So we made a ton of muddy buddies to thank the sisters for making us a pie... not just any pie, the best pie ever. Pictures bellow. It was pretty intense. We multiplied the normal recipie ... wait for it... TIMES FOUR!

Last sunday we taught our usual "Sunday night at 7 at the Stake President's house" lesson. Our stake president here is really awesome, and really trying to get missionary work going in his stake. So he has this young couple, Troy and Alexis, come over, and we teach them. Her parents are converts from this year. And they are really interested in getting married forever. Yes, we're the only church that can do that. They are awesome. But they're in a tricky situation for baptism because they live togeather, the wedding is not untill late may, and they arent in a situation for one of them to move right now... I guess. But I was asking some inspired questions last sunday and I asked "how did you feel at your parents baptism?" and Alexis said it felt powerful and Troy agreed and I said, "Do you want that same thing? Do you want to be baptized?" The both said yes! He light up like a flame thrower and was all for doing it right then! But she wants to be more sure... lame! But we'll get them soon enough. They are so cool. We got a text during church last sunday from the other missionaries saying Troy and Alexis went to one of their ward and were participating in church, and they knew all the answers from what we taught them! It was so cool! And when Alexis prayed at the end of our lesson, she thanked God for the opporitunity to learn from us, and to make her mom proud by knowing all the answers in Church. Does it get any better?

We also designed a t-shirt and are waiting for it to be printed! Its pretty awesome. Some zones in the mission will do zone t shirts. so we decided to do an area t shirt. It has my and my comps face on it, and some stuff on the back. I'll save the surprise for when I have pictures.

Last night we taught the first lesson to a kid of a part member family. But the non-member dad sat in! So it was hard to teach a 7 year old while trying to focus on the dad. But it turned out really good. We committed them to read and pray about the book of mormon as a family!

Pretty fun stuff. Plus: EASTER PAGENT STARTS THIS WEEK! We have one appointment to go next tuesday, and we're hoping for a few more! Coolest thing is: We can reserve seats for us and our investigators in the front rows! Or at least a little part of it. Its going to be so sweet!

Thats all foir this week!

Love

-Elder Daniel Feller

A familiar sight.

"Bland Homes" !?

I'm so serious

All the stuff for muddy buddies. (we didnt use ALL that)

Action shot!

The ammount of cereal

Final product.

Daniel vs Conference Weekend!

Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 11:13:36 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

So this past weekend was conference. It was weird going to 10 hours of Church over two days instead of 8 hours all at once! But conference was amazing! Going around every day and telling people how great it is that we have a living prophet on the earth really puts conference in perspective. When it began, and President Monson was talking I got an overwhelming feeling. It was awesome. Remember how President Uchtdorf was talking about how the church is reaching out though technology? Its true. Our whole mission has texting now, and all our new pass along cards guide people to Mormon.org, which is an AMAZING website! Everything on LDS.org gets really connected too! I would encourage everyone to use that to the max! I really learned a lot, and it answered a lot of my questions.

Which is funny because this week we also had interviews! So I didnt have that many questions for President...

Interviews were awesome too! The Zone Leaders trained on getting real fellowships for our investigators, not just having a "member present" which is what the stat is called for a lessons taught with a member there. Then the AP's trained on how important prayer was, and talked a lot about that, which was really good, until it was my turn to be interviews and I missed the last 10 mins of the training AND Elder Rands' departing testimony! Elder Rands has been AP since my second transfer, so way back when I was in Saint Johns. He's an awesome guy, and a stud missionary. And I missed his departing testimony! But my interview was really good. I walked in the little room in the church and President had this board with all this stuff on it, and was erasing all the numbers. He didn't even turn around when I walked in and he said, "hello Elder Feller, take a seat" it was funny. Like in a movie. But then he asked me all my numbers from last week and I was like "dang, I wish you did this a week ago when I wasn't kinda sick... and burned out from getting 200 oyms last week" Plus it didn't look to good because our teaching was down because we only could teach one guy once last week, and our other progressing investigator is stuck in North Dakota because is snowed up there! haha, funny story, we were talking to his neighbor and he called Chuck (the guy from ND) and Chuck said he was snowed in, and his neighbor was like, "that's funny, because its 98 degrees here and my kids are swimming!" (It got pretty hot last weekend) But anyways, president didnt give me too hard a time about the numbers, he said we were doing about as good as most, and I explained to him everything going on.There was a point to the numbers! He's not just all about "stats" but its hard to explain it all so I wont. Then I asked him some other questions about some stuff. The funny thing is, president isn't always supper talkative in interviews, but always asks what he can do for you. If you say nothing, then your interview is short and you dont learn allot. So I always come with specific questions about whats going on in my area and its really helpful.

So, P-Day is switching to Mondays in a couple weeks, on direction from the Missionary Department... LAME!

Oh, we got a referral from Elder Gunter the other day! He called and said he talked to this lady and her daughter who want to get baptised, and we he gave us the name he said, "April... Elizabeth... Fools." and I was too excited so I said "fools? Like 'oh thou fools'?" and he laughed and said yeah. Then I said "So her name is April Fools?" and then I realized what just happened. :(

Well thats pretty much it. We had a pretty slow week otherwise.

Wait. I forgot the most important thing. Ok, maybe second most important after hearing the prophet. Remember (FLASHBACK!) when I was in Saint Johns and I told you a Sister in Springerville made us the best apple pie I've ever tasted? I might not have told you but that happened. Well, she's in Gilbert now. I was telling my companion about the apple pie in the mountains (everynight, so good) and I said, but this sister makes the best apple pie I've ever had. So the next wednesday in Wal Mart he went up to her and said, "Elder Feller has been spreading rumors about you." and my companion is kinda a jokster so I was like "oh no!" and then he said "He said you make the best apple pie in the world." She said, "yeah, its true." And agreed to make us some. So she gave it to us at conference and we ate it. And it was the best... ever. So we were trying to think of a way to pay her back, and so we're going to make 4 batches of "Muddy Buddies" and give it all to her. Quantity for Quality, right?

Well that's really all of it.

Love,

-Elder Feller

Daniel vs the 200 Challenge!

Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:10:18 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Hello! Last week was a pretty awesome week. Elder Parrott and I succeded in the talk to 200 people challenge. We didn't believe it could be done. So we did it. But now we're thinking we should back off from talking to people at the park... I dont want it to become the place where "the mormons will attack you!"

Breana's baptism went amazing! The spirit was so strong. Some of her family that pretty much kicked her out of the house came. I didnt get the chance to talk to them but I hope they liked it. Breana walked out of the changing room in the white jump suit thing and we went up to her and asked if we could get some pictures. She was like "in this!?" and I said, "yeah just a few" so we went out there to take the standard missionary baptism picture and then like a million people came out and the simple picture became a big event! Haha. It was funny because before she was getting mad at her boy friend for saying he was going to put pictures of her in the jumpsuit up on facebook, and I told her we would be the only ones with the pictures... oops. But yeah, the picture is below.

I went on exchanges with Elder Gunter on monday. That was pretty fun. We taught 4 lessons in one day and they were all really good! It was an amazing day. haha. One of the lessons was with a guy he talked to the other night. We were teaching the first lesson and I was talkng about how God has always had a prophet and he says "wait, is there a prophet today!?" and we're like whoa hold your horses! You're skipping ahead. Then we were talking about the great apostacy and we paused and he said "...and then what happened?" It was so perfect! hahaha. He was all into it.

We also taught another lesson that night to one of his current investigators. We taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Then at the end we asked if he had any questions. He said, "yeah I do. What does faith mean to you." pointing to Elder Gunter. These are my favorite times in lessons, when an investigator almost challenges you like that, because the spirit gets so strong and its perfect for testifying. So Elder Gunter did an amazing job, and then he turned to me and asked. So I bore my testimony on faith and how important it is to me and how it is the building block for everything we believe in. He really liked that. Oh yeah! We preach two by two, double trouble!

Thats all!

Love,
Elder Feller

Look what I made! A tie rack!

I was trying to catch the reflection of an airplane on my glasses. It didnt work. But mom keeps asking if I have sunglasses so I thought I'd show her.

you got flamingo'd?

$70,000 "sand rails" is what people in Arizona do for fun. But it has a corvette engine

Close up of all my poly ties. I keep my nice silks separate.

Daniel vs

From: Eric Feller;eric.feller@myldsmail.net
Sent: Wed, Mar 23, 2011 18:24:35 GMT+00:00

Baptism week baby. We have an amazing convert this weekend. I cant really claim her, because she was ready when moved here from Phoenix and was taught by some sisters there, and I've only taught her once. But she passed the interview and she's all ready! So pictures next week.

I know it seems like I never have baptisms, and that's because I never do! I always move when everybody's ready! haha. Its no fun. But I promise I'll have a few while in Gilbert.

Nothing really special this week. Elder Parrott and I have begun a 200 OYM challenge. Thats 200 people talked to on the streets in 7 days! Its nuts, but its morning day 3 and we're at 65. Yeah, we got 45 yesterday! Because thats pretty much all we did. We didnt have anyone to teach. But we're getting lots of referrals from all the members we talk to. Because this is Gilbert, and in 4 square miles, there aren't 200 non-members that are going to be outside. But working through peoples friends is the best way, especially here where lots of people hate the Mormons because they're "not in the club." Which is sad that they feel that way. But we're here to help them get in the club.

Oh someone got us a Tie Bag this week. Pictures below. 50 pounds of ties. Very few good ones.

OH! Even cooler! We have a deaf investigator. I havent taught him yet, because the ASL missionaries in Mesa are silly. BUT! They hooked us up with a translator. Her name is Julie Croft. Like Laura Croft. Tomb Raider. But we had an appointment monday night and we were waiting for the guy to show up and talking to Sis. Croft, who is a college student at ASU, and she was telling us about sign language and stuff. It was cool. She said she just started translating for church and she had to learn all these new words, or signs for words she already knew. We of course asked her if she learned funeral potatoes and jello yet. hahah. But we also learned "Hi, I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints". But in ASL its more like "Missionary Church Jesus Christ Last Day Saint." I'll send a video of me doing it later. We also asked why deaf people dont like to read, because it makes no sence right? WRONG! ASL is completely different. Reading in english is like a whole different language. So our investigator watches the scriptures!  Its pretty cool.

Chuck is praying about the 9th of April for Baptism! So we're praying really hard too! We've been asking him to pray out loud and he says its weird for him. Haha. Its weird to me that its weird for him! Because I grew up my whole life doing it, so its hard to relate. But he's trying and he's doing better. Maybe next  time we'll force him to say the closing prayer. I love hearing investigators pray. Especially ones that haven't had a history of prayer. They're very honest and sincere in what they want and its awesome.

Invite your friends to church! Its not that scary. They wont get mad. They will get Baptised.

Love,

Elder Feller

Some sweet pictures this week. Ties and that cookie recepie that mom lost! I found it in a members cook book! Its a newer version though. 

Daniel vs The Heat!

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:58:13 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Its starting to get hot! Its going to be a fun, sweaty, summer here in Gilbert on our bikes. Things are going amazing here in Gilbert. My companion is Elder Parrot. Like the bird. So we both get lame jokes on our names. He's from Atlanta Georgia, but really from Springville Utah until a year before he came out. No, he doesn't know any of you.

We are having a blast here in Gilbert. We have pretty much no people to teach, and its getting hotter. But we've been trying to master the goal setting principles in Preach My Gospel, and the ones we've been trained on as a mission and we're already seeing the huge blessings from that. I'll send a picture of our goal setting board next week. Totally forgot.

I've also set a goal to take more pictures. So expect pictures pretty much every week.

The kid next to me is watching Star Wars videos on Youtube........ this is making writing hard.

I cover 6 wards now, in 4 square miles. Welcome to Gilbert Arizona. Mormon Town USA. But its nice. I'm in the Highland Stake and I cover the Lake View Trails, Higley Groves, Page, 3rd, Lexington and Constellation wards. The two most exciting about it are: 1. Lexington ward is a singles ward! and 2. Lake View Trails is doing the ward council process perfectly! Without me even slapping them into shape.

But anyways. We have one person on date for baptism on the 26th. She is in our singles ward. Her name is Briana. She's awesome! She took the lessons from some sisters in Phoenix, so teaching her is a easy. She is so ready, and is awesome. Haha, her Boyfriend welcomed me to the ward in Elders Quorum on Sunday and was like "see, he's already got one baptism coming up" and I was tempted to say, "I left 3 on date in Yuma!" But I didn't want to make him feel bad...

BUT! Potentially we could get 3 this transfer. Well... potentially we could get 6. But probably three... But hopefully 6.

Theres also Jake Baker. He's awesome. He bore his testimony to us last night when we asked if he wanted to get baptised and why. We'll be setting that date on Thursday.

Also, Chuck! I don't really know Chuck, but he's awesome. He just moved from North Dakota and was invited by his neighbor to go to church. Now he wants to be a Mormon. He's 63. He came and saw us speak in church on Sunday and I think he liked it... we haven't talked to him a whole lot since. But our talks were great, if I do say so myself. I made everyone laugh with a risky joke, it paid off. I said, "Since I'm speaking first I guess I should tell you all about how me and Elder Parrott met..." then everyone laughed and I told the transfer meeting story.

And the potential 3 more are these kids who are pretty much waiting on their dad to get worthy to baptize them.

Well thats all,
Love Elder Feller

I've got some cool pictures.

Me and the famous Wells Fargo Horses!

The first scorpion I've ever seen.

A hobo sleeping on the side of the church.

This house was an Extreme Make Over house! In my area. Used to belong to a less active member.

Daniel Vs Gilbert

Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 16:04:34 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Helloooo! This last week has been pretty crazy. Last Thursday Bob passed his Baptisimal Interview! We pulled up to his house because we couldnt get him a ride to the church and he is standing in the door way without a shirt and the missionary goes in and interviews him. I was nervous, not going to lie, because Bob is kinda crazy. But anyways all is well and we start to get ready for the baptism on Saturday. So we set everything up. He didn't really know anybody in the ward, so my companion was going to talk and I was going to Baptize him. We go over saturday morning and he's like, "guys, I dont know what to do! I smoked a joint last night! I cant get baptised now! I cant lie to God!" NOOOOOOOOOO! Bob! You cant do that. He said he didnt even think about it, just went for it when his friend was over. but he's moving now and all should be good. He'll get baptised later, with a bunch of other people that I LEFT IN YUMA!

Yes, its true, after 3 months in Yuma I have been transfered to Gilbert. I've been here a few hours now. I rode down with our Zone Leader in one of the mission's mini-vans. As we were leaving I said, "Wait I've got to get one last picture. I'll probably never see this place again." And the picture kinda sucks. But thats ok. Yuma was fun, but I dont think I'll ever go back... But I will miss all the Taco stands on 8th street and hanging out with a bunch of spanish missionaries.

But I'm excited to be in Gilbert! We have 6 wards in 4 square miles and we are on bikes! This is my first time on a bike in my whole mission. And on the way to the library, I found out that my bike had a low tire, so I kinda re-attatched the pedals to a bike that we had at our house and rolled on over here. Kinda. The bike is about to fall apart. I'll fix mine in a little bit. But remember Elder Gunter from Saint Johns? He's my district leader here! Oh, and I'm a senior companion now. Things are going crazy in the mission! There are tons of youngin's growing up.

But yeah, I've gotta go!

Love

Daniel 

My future car. Nice and clean.

Elder Lindquist playing the guitar

Nasty. Leaving this morning saying goodbye to Elder Workman.

Bye Bye Yuma.