Daniel vs Time

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 10:55:06 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net


This week was crazy.


My travel plans have just changed again, and so I'll be coming home on August 14th. A lot of crazy things have happened with this extension and I'll have to wait and see how everything will work out. President mentioned in my interview letting a few of us who are going home in the middle of the transfer go out and do something fun and special. I don't know what that means. We'll have to find out. But I would prefer to stay here in my little zone and work here. But what happens happens and I was asked to stay for a reason, so we'll see.


Tuesday we had to stop a district meeting and correct the district leader. I don't want to get too much into the story of everything, but our new district leader is causing a ton of problems. And we had to stop his district meeting and set him straight. He definitely got a talking to, it was not pretty. He was using the meeting as a way to correct his companion for something that was not even wrong. And we had been feeling like there was something going on in their companionship that was not right. He's treating him like a problem child, which he isn't, even though he has a lot of time on him and is only in his  current situation because of a small mistake that someone blew out of proportion. The district leader is crazy. He is very prideful, and full of how "good he is", but he's really not that good. Yeah, he's probably never broken a mission rule, but he also has never lived up to the commandment to love his neighbor. Which is a much bigger issue than "law of Moses" mission rule obedience. There's a powerful lesson to learn here. But I'm going on exchanges with him tonight, so we'll see. 


On Tuesday we also taught a guy named Patrick. He had been taught by Elder Howard before, but had recently returned to being interested in church. He's a typical collage aged person. Very logical. But he's getting it. His faith has increased alot. One huge deal breaker last time was that he did not want to live the law of chastity... So we'll see how everything goes this time. But he's very sincere so it will go good. 


Also, Tuesday night we tie-dyed shirts with the singles ward. I now have a tie-dye dress shirt. It was an old one anyways. It had a whole in it. Like most of them do. I'm losing shirts fast! I lost another one after interviews, and got a ton of ink on another one! I'm holding on tight until the end. 


Wednesday we had a weird day preparing for interviews the next day, getting our car clean, and making a training and stuff. Our house was super clean from the P-day before, but a little lived in. We got a 65% on our cleaning inspection from the new housing coordinators. The whole zone failed. Except the Sisters (duh). Needless to say, everyone was pretty mad. She wrote "No Cleaning Done" on the form! It was ridiculous.


Thursday was interviews. Elder Schick made Pancakes for lunch for everyone. And we trained the zone on planning and stuff.


Sunday we taught Lance again before church. It went really well. We had a lesson on faith, and Alma 32, and how to build our faith. He struggles with a basic belief so we felt this would be a good topic to discuss. Then at church there was another guy we met who was not a member but agreed to meet with us. That's 1 new investigator a week from the singles ward! We have high hopes for that ward.  

Love,
Elder Feller

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:50:10 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Danielle's baptism was awesome! We taught her twice this week leading up to it. We had a really good lesson about the Tree of Life, and then talked about the Holy Ghost after her interview. She is doing amazing. She's a really strong person and she's sticking to it. And the ward has made such good friends with her, she already hangs out with all of them. So were happy. She is into decorating so her baptism had a lot of cute decorations to it. But her parents and some family came, and so it was really good for her and for them. Bro. McConkie baptized and confirmed her and gave a very powerful blessing.

Monday we taught the Boccela (Bo-CHELL-AH) family. It was a really good lesson. We talked about the plan of Salvation, but mostly about prayer. We had Al say the closing prayer and he did a really good job, despite all his fears. They were at church this week, and are doing awesome. We meet with them again tonight.

Nothing else too noteworthy happened this week. President Riggs, the San Tan stake president, was released. One of our bishops is now a councilor. Oh, we did have a sweet 6AM meeting on Sunday. It made us really tired for the rest of the day... and I'm still tired because of it (and I haven't been sleeping well) but it was great. The stake has only had one baptism so far this year, and so they're trying to fix that and focus on missionary work. They had some really good trainings, and then made all the priesthood leaders role play, and then President Howes threw down on them for like 20 minutes. It was really amazing. They talked about "real growth in the church" which really means families getting baptized, active, and serving missions. President let them know something I don't think they knew, that Arizona is a choice land, and the church here is strong, and we still need more of this real growth to make more missionaries in the future. We are laying the foundations for a great work.

Love,
Daniel

Free Cactus!

My Area.

Us and Danielle

Elder Jackson, Elder Feller, Danielle, Sis. McConkie, Bro. McConkie.  

Kinda blurry, but its Elder Bruce R. McConkie's folder and business card! 

Daniel vs Easter

Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2012 10:55:58 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

We had a pretty busy week here. Not the busy I would like, but it was still an over all good week.

Tuesday we had a bunch of appointments all in a row, but the last one cancelled. We taught Carly about the Plan of Salvation. It went really well. She has been reading a ton from the Book of Mormon. She had a few pages of notes just from the introduction and the first few chapters. She's really interested, and we can only hope her parents wont be a problem. Then we taught Alex and asked him to pray about a day to be baptized. We've had to be really careful because it seems like his mom is looking for any excuse to try and stop him, even though she's a member herself. Just really less active... So we'll follow up on that tomorrow. Oh also, on Tuesday I returned an iPhone that I had found on the road a few weeks ago. She was really grateful and gave us some candy. Unfortunately though, I don't have an iPhone anymore.... haha. Pictures below.

Wednesday we had interviews all day. President always does the Zone Leaders last and talks to us about all the people in the zone. It was pretty cool. My personal interview was really short. But then he talked to both of us about most of the people in the zone. It was really cool to hear how well President knows everyone, even though its hard to feel like he really knows you when you dont know him that well, especially when you're young in the mission. Apparently he told Elder Krueger that he was going to get more responsibility soon. Which is good for him. I cant believe I trained him 8 months ago! But no other really big news. Oh, President has asked Elder Schick to start working on the Indian Reservation that is just south of his area. So that's pretty cool. He's really excited about it.

Thursday and Friday we spent all day in Leadership trainings. It was good, but long. Thursday we were in one of my old areas, which was kinda cool. I don't really miss the Mesa Zone... But it was a really good meeting. They paired us off with people we've never been around and we taught together. It was really fun. We talked a lot about making commitments and following up. Friday was good too. In the morning we spent a lot of time in a zone leader group, talking about specific questions. Sometimes I really hate all zone leader meetings because there are too many chiefs and not enough indians. A lot of the zone leaders think they're really hot stuff... Its annoying. And I really believe it causes so many problems in zones. You cant just be the missionary police and pretend like you were never where the missionaries are, you have to be their friends and make sure they know that you're on of them. I tried to bring that up, but we didnt have time. They were too busy  arguing about something stupid. In the afternoon we had a big question and answer, and the questions were actually good this time. I won a golden chocolate egg with one of my answers. Basically along the same line as what I said earlier. People were getting into this question and the answer there were arguing about was way off. They were talking about how we need to be "Preach My Gospel" missionaries and help people become converted to the book Preach My Gospel. I brought up how I don't want to be converted to the book, I want to be converted to the gospel because that's what the book Preach My Gospel, and Elder Bednar's talk "Becoming a Preach My Gospel Missionary" is about. So I got a golden Easter egg. With these stories, I'm not trying to say that I'm more intelligent than a lot of other people, but I mean... come on.

Friday night we taught Danielle. She really wanted to be baptized. I'm not used to that. She really threw herself out there... We didn't really know how to react so it was kind of awkward for a second. But we put her on date for the 28th of April. The lesson went really well, but I felt like I wasn't entirely spiritually prepared for it.

Sunday was easter! We had church all day. And our dinner almost cancelled on us because their nephew almost died in a skateboarding accident... It was kind of awkward, I felt really bad. But it worked out great and we had a good time. We were going home after to do our weekly planning because we didn't get to do it on Friday or Saturday and we got a call from a family asking us to come over and teach their niece's boyfriend right away. I was kind of annoyed because I expected the guy to just be some thug who didn't really want to listen to us, but couldn't escape this family. I repented. Carlos was awesome. We had a really spiritual lesson with him, and he is really looking for answers and peace in life. We taught him outside by candlelight which was kind of cool. I didn't recognize the family, I think they go to a Spanish ward somewhere. But it was awesome. Too bad he lives in Mesa, and we probably wont meet with him again. But he will be taught. So its all good.

Love,
Daniel

Daniel vs Surprise Baptism!

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:21:16 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

You wont believe this.

On Tuesday was had a meeting scheduled with Shannon, the investigator who's daughter had passed away and we attended the funeral. She had been coming to church for a few weeks and so we tryed to set something up again. We texted her to confirm the lesson and she said, "Can we just bypass all the lessons? I have done a lot of research. I just  want to talk about baptism." So we met and she was telling us about all this research she did were she went to every anti web-site and then looked up all the church doctrine. She said the only thing she couldn't find was the process to be baptized. We didn't understand at first, because she didn't sound like she wanted to be baptized, so I was like, "... well... first you meet with the missionaries, and then..." and she cut me off and went on this tangent about the articles of faith, and then I got it. She was asking me what she had to qualify for. So I showed her the interview questions and said that you have to pass this interview. She looked over the questions and was said, "ok, I can do that."  So I asked her if she wanted to be baptized, and she said yes. Then I asked if she believed in the church and everything and she said yes. And so we put her on date for Saturday and she was baptized! It was a tottal surprise. 

But getting to the baptism was a little harder than that. We found out Tuesday evening. She also said she didn't want anyone to be there, because she's terrified of being in front of people. We also had her interview on Wednesday morning, where, thankfully, Elder Case got some of her understanding on the right track. Some people don't realize how important the commandments are, especially when they do their own homework. Then Wednesday night we told our ward about it all and they were happy, but the Ward Mission Leader was going to be out of town, so I had to get everything done for the baptism all by my self. Then, we had to move the time up because of the stake baptisms that day, and also, the Stake was getting mad at us because we planned the confirmation for Saturday because she is terrified of people, because the handbook says it has to be on Sunday at church, even in her situation and with the Mission President on my side. And then Shannon didn't get back to us about the program until the day before. So we spent all Friday night trying to find some members to help us make it. We ended up at this guys house who when we ate there for dinner, just told us all these funny stories about dumb stuff he did on his mission, who said to come over if we ever needed anything. So we got the program all set at 9 o clock the day before, but the Bishop still didn't know the time changed, because we couldn't get a hold of him all day. But we call him again at 9:30 and he tells us that the Sake President had sent him an email about how Convert Confirmations need to be in sacrament meeting because the handbook says so. So we have all this drama coming from the members! (again). But the Baptism and confirmation went off without any problems on Saturday morning... except I forgot to tell the person conducting that the time had changed... Oops. 

Lesson Learned: Don't have me do a whole baptism by myself... 

But Shannon is awesome. She has found the truth and wont let it go. She's a pretty funny person. She's super intelligent, and really stubborn. Hence why I don't even have a picture of the baptism. She didnt like meeting with the missionaries to get information, so she found it all out, and because of her already strong relationship with God she was able to discern the truth by the Holy Spirit. Which is a testimony booster of the converting power of the Gospel. 

That was most of the craziness this week. The rest of it will develop at a later time, and I'll fill you more in then. But get excited. 

Love,

The Key is too big!

Daniel vs Being Busy

Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:38:10 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

We had a crazy week! Tuesday was interviews with the Mission President. It was really good. Except we didnt get home until about 5 o clock so the rest of our evening got thrown off. President Howes really amazes me at how well he knows every single missionary. In my interview he just talked about my District, each person specifically and their needs. It was crazy!

Then on Thursday we had a visiting General Authority! Elder Wilson of the second quorum on the 70 came and spoke to us. It was from 9 in the morning until about 4-5. President and Sister Howes spoke, then Elder Wright, the area 70 here, and then Sister Wilson, then Elder Wilson. Then after lunch Sister Wilson talked about the common born-again argument against the church about "grace and works", which was a very complex answer that a lot of us didn't completely get, and then Elder Wilson talked again and opened the floor to questions.

Friday we spent applying our new training from the Assistants on our weekly planning, but then I had to bike way into Mesa in my suit to do a baptismal interview for the sisters. It went really well, except in the middle of the interview the girl I was interviewing told me I had pretty eyes, so I wrapped it up quick... It is really cool to interview these people who are so ready to be baptized. Its awesome to see the excitement in them as they are preparing.

Then Saturday we had to help Amanda move, and then had a ward Halloween party at night. We sat down and were eating food next to some of our friends in the ward, and at the same table was some non-members and no one told us! She got up and left to go get food and then her friend came over and was like "that was my neighbor!" and we're like, "Why didn't you tell us!?" Remember: It is impossible for missionaries with 300+ members at any given time to know who's who. I had 1200+ members in Queen Creek. You have to tell the missionaries if you want them to talk to them!

Then on Sunday we had to go to church, hurry and hop over to another ward to try and catch some investigators that didn't show and then race back to the other building to speak in the singles ward and then we left early to go prepare for Amanda's baptism, then we had a baptism and after we had to get a ride over to another church building to interview the other sisters candidate for baptism, then we went home to take some study time so I could prepare for District Meeting, but then we couldnt because we had to go to Amanda's house to give her some church DVDs we forgot to give her.

Whew.

But the baptism was amazing! The spirit was really strong and she really felt it. Her and her son Joseph were baptized, and after he went to church yesterday, her other son Christopher wants to get baptized as well. Joseph asked me to baptize him, and that was really cool. Amanda asked the Bishop to baptize her. She jokingly said it was because she wanted to make sure it was the right authority! We explained that lots of people could do it, but she still wanted the bishop. So it was really good. It was the first baptism of my mission that came from street contacting, even though I wasn't here when they started teaching her.

Also, wait let me explain, So Elder Krueger has my number back in Queen Creek so he could call me if he had any questions, because he was so fresh and didnt know the area. He called me before and told me that Bro. Powell had told him that he wasn't really waiting to talk to his parents, but he still believed that the Catholic church had that authority, and I was devastated! I felt like I had failed! But then called me on Sunday night and said he went over and had a throw-down lesson with him about the restoration and bro powell got back to him later and said he thought about what he said and would probably get baptized this year! It took me a second to realize that there's only two months left this year and then I was supper happy!

Love,

Elder Feller

Finally Pictures! These computers at MCC are bad at pictures, but I have conquered them!

Amanda's baptism

Last day in Queen Creek

Presents for Elder Krueger

This was taped on my desk, which is across from my companions desk.

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 Interviews!

Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 11:07:27 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

This week we had a baptism! Wooooo. Bro. Henry Florez decided to write his name in the book of Heaven. He is an awesome guy. He's a doctor here in Yuma who was born in columbia and went to college in New York. in his second marriage, he married a member of the church. He dodged the church and the missionaries for a while, but as we found out in Sis. Florez's testimony, they were having some marital problems and then he asked his friend why they were always so happy all the time. His friend replied, "well, its the gospel of Jesus Christ" and then 6 weeks later he's baptized. I didnt really get to teach him too much, just the word of wisdom. And I helped him understand and then get over coffee. So it was fun. The baptism went really well. Lots of tears were shed. haha, and he was a little late, so we didn't get to get the traditional baptismal suit picture. But that's ok. Hahaha. The funniest part of the whole thing was: They had special musical numbers in the middle time while he was changing, and his son gets up there and plays "families can be together forever " on the piano. One note at a time, and very good for a little kid. Then my companion gets up and plays this ellaborate version of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" And totally blows this little kid out of the water. I almost laughed out loud and some people did. But it was ok, the kids feelings weren't hurt or anything. But it was way funny. My companion didn't even realize untill I told him later.

Neeeeeext. We had Interviews! President Howes and the AP's came down to Yuma for interviews! I love opportunities to learn from the President and APs. They are always good. President got up and told us that there were more missionaries than ever before in Yuma right now (6 English and 10 Spanish) And that he anticipated growth in the Church here. The first thing that came to my mind: in ward council meeting our ward had been reading the handbook. They got to the end of section 4. Next meeting they will be on Section 5. The missionary work section. So, because of my enlightened understanding of the Ward Council Process and the Church General Handbook of Instructions, I took that as I need to kick my wards into gear! So that's my plan as of now. To get these wards doing some serious missionary work! via a ward mission plan! 

Also, my interview with President was very good. I learned a lot. It was funny, because he started talking in Business terms, and I understood it better. hahaha. Basically he told me that some people grow leaps and bounds coming out of the MTC and then flatline on my improvement, but at this point for me, it would take steady effort to continue to improve upward.

Then the APs talked about getting referals from everyone, and the way to go about it right, in order to get good referrals.

That's pretty much it for this week. Other than that, we have got a few new peopel to teach. Which is always awesome. And we got one of them to say the closing prayer last night, and she had never prayed before, but we felt very strongly that she needed to be strong in prayer in order for her to come closer to Heavenly Father. And so she was all nervous about prayer and I just said,"what do you think you need to pray for?" and she paused for a second and said "to understand what I'm learning" and I said, "if thats all you need to pray for right now, just say that" and then she offered an awesome and every ernest prayer. It was amazing. And the spirit was so strong.

That's all for this week!

Love,

Elder Daniel Feller

What Yuma looks like

Me, Bro. Florez after baptism, and Elder Workman

Bro. & Sis. Florez's whole family.

A awesome billboard here in Yuma.

Daniel vs Interviews!

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:59:35 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Hello all. I'm emailing from the wonderful land of Show Low, Arizona today because we drove into Zone HQ early this morning for zone pday. Because our ride left for Show Low at 6:30...

This week was interesting. Not too much happened. Untill monday! We got 2 new investigators. One is married to a less active lady, who is only less active because of her job. But we went to his house and met with him and talked a lot about the church. He told us he likes it and stuff, but he also see how committed people have to be. That and he's mexican and likes his beer, According to him. But he did ask us what he would have to do to join the church. Pretty cool. The other new investigator is a guy we met outside of an investigators house. He's her friend. Even though she's kinda special... He's fine, and hopefully pretty solid. A family in town has already been fellowshiping him. But being themselves, apparently don't want the missionaries getting a hold of him. They've done this a lot before. There was a girl who was really really solid, and she came to church every week, but she wouldnt meet with us because he said she wasnt ready, and she'd let us know. Now she moved. If we could've taught her we could've baptized her for sure. :(

The only other interesting thing that happened this week was interviews. President Howes came up to Show Low and we all got interviewed by him. And trained by our AP's and Zone Leaders. My interview with president was good. I didnt really know what to talk about so it was short. But he told me I know what I need to do to improve as a missionary, so just do it. Which is true. I'm also a little sick and he asked me why and I said, "oh I get sick every year when it starts to get cold." Then I realized what I just said... then he said, "oh well then we'll have to put you some place warm." Shoooot. I might get kicked off the mountains next transfer! But hopefully not. The Zone Leaders were doing transfer recommendations this morning when we got to their house, and they asked us what we wanted and we told them to keep me and Elder Russ in Saint Johns and combine the areas. So hopefully in a week we'll be in charge of the missionary work in a whole city... even if its small. hahaha. It would be a lot of fun.

I hope everyone heard about the groundbreaking of the Rome temple! And they revealed what it will look like!

Here's a link: http://tempiodiroma.chiesadigesucristo.it/en/index.html

Its pretty cool. I almost wish the architecture was more traditional Italian style. Like the Vatican and the rest of Rome and stuff... But whatever. It looks good. That will be a really cool place to go!

Gotta go,

Elder Feller.