Untitled 07/30/2012

Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 10:59:01 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

This week was kinda crazy. Lots of good and bad.

Monday I went to the departing dinner at the mission home with all the people I came out with going home. Because its just going to be 4 of us going home on the 14th, they let us come to this dinner. It was weird... I was there, and everyone else was headed home, and I just went back to my area the next day for district meeting. We ate dinner, and half way through I just started feeling nervous... Then afterwards we watched the slide show with everyone's pictures. Then we did departing testimonies. I was the very last one, and no one really cried a lot, but because I was last and it just kept building, when I got up there, I lost it. It was kind of embarrassing, but it was all good. haha. I was choking up the whole time, and when I sat down I started crying a more. It was tough. Then that night we all spent the night  at the AP's house. I went on a tour of ASU campus with Elder Gibby on our way back to their house. The next morning I got up with them, and went to the office, and they all got in the action-van to go to the airport, and I sat in the mission home with Elder Lindquist and talked with President until our ride came... It was weird. But I get to do it again in two weeks.

Tuesday I was wiped out all day. As soon as I got back to my area we went to Circle K to get some Mountain Dew so I could stay awake for District Meeting. Then we watched 17 Miracles because it was Pioneer day. It was good.  That night I taught Gibson again. He tried to drop me! (I was on splits with our WML, Matt Parisek) I wasn't having it. So we tried to get him back, and we did a pretty good job. Its all up to him now. We talked about how he was going to come to know God. He is really against it. That makes it tough. So we'll see how things go in the future with him. 

The rest of the week is so hard to remember!  Wednesday we snuck into transfer meeting even though we're not getting transferred. I was supposed to have a temple recommend interview, so they let us come. It was my last one! It was a good time though. Our zone kind of got rocked again. Two areas whitewashed... but one of them was for a good reason. Our problem DL and Elder Parrott are gone. Which is sad. But they're both doing well now. We got Elder Krueger back in his old area! He's a new senior comp! and his companion is kind of struggling. But he'll do a good job. Its weird that he's back, but whatever. Its cool. 

Thursday was ZLC again. It was actually a good meeting. We talked about a lot of good stuff. Including the "new P-day policies" they're making. There was a pretty big discussion about it, and no one really got anywhere, so they asked us to fax in the next day what our version of the pday policy would be. So Elder Schick and I photocopied the white handbook and faxed it in. I hope they get the message. Its funny, because there's always big dumb discussions (I wont say arguments) in that meeting, and people are always just trying to sound a little bit better. But Elder Schick and I just sit there and when they're talking we turn to the answer in PMG. Its not hard, people just need to do what they're supposed to.

Alex also fell off date again this week! His mom left us a message saying he wasn't ready, and wasn't committed enough. I think she's trying to avoid us a little bit because she didn't get back to us. We're still trying!

Saturday was a rough day but it ended well. It was awkward all day because everyone was busy doing their own thing and no one really wanted to talk to us. But that evening we taught a new guy. His name is Hunter, and he plays football for ASU. He visits the Penrod family every weekend because he has no other friends from Arizona. He just graduated from High School, and he's from the Bay Area somewhere. He's awesome. We watched the Joseph Smith movie, and he seemed pretty touched. They told us after we left he started reading the Book of Mormon right away. Which is awesome. He's going to football camp for the next few weeks, so I wont teach him again before I go.

Sunday we taught Lance again. He is doing so good! We're getting ready for his baptism this week. His girlfriend's mom called the Bishop kind of freaking out, and so he talked to us about making everything perfect. I guess she's just "like that" which isn't a problem. But its funny. Bishop said he even pulled the "Zone Leaders" card to get her off his back. We went over to talk to the mom to calm her fears about the baptism a little bit. It worked.  But the mom told us that Lance said, "Even if we break up, I'm still getting baptized." So that's always good to hear. He's awesome, and fits in the ward really well. Everything is good. AJ is still looking good for the 11th too. He even brought his little sister to church this week, and were meeting with her next week. 

Love,

Daniel

Elder Jackson and I 

The Temple 

San Tan Zone 

Schick and I messing around in the car

Daniel vs Elder Schick

Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:46:14 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

 

My new companion is Elder Schick! I've known him for a long time, we lived in the same house in Queen Creek for a transfer, and he's been in the San Tan zone for a while. We're super excited to get things going in our area and the zone. The Zone has been doing great! We should end June with 13 which is awesome for this zone. 

 

Elder Jackson's last few days were good. On Monday night we taught the Boccella family about the tree of life. They are on vacation right now, but they are doing so good. Its so awesome to see the change in their lives, even from the day before the baptism.

 

Tuesday we spent a lot of time packing and stuff. But in the evening we ate dinner with President Riggs, he used to be the stake president but he's leaving this week to be a mission president in DC. We ate Joe's BBQ, a famous place here in Gilbert. It was good. He had a lot of questions about the mission. He's going to be a great mission president. Then we walked out of his house, to his next door neighbor, ate a second dinner, (ribs and potatoes) and taught this family's neighbors. They are moving to Maricopa AZ, but we taught them about the Book of Mormon to try and get them interested. They said they'll read it! So that was good. 

 

Wednesday was the transfer day. I was so scared! My options for companions were not looking good when I got there. I wont go into that though, because when President Howes read "In San Tan, Elder Feller and Elder Schick" I was waaay too happy. It was one of those transfers that makes everyone laugh or gasp or something. It got loud and Elder Schick Jumped on me and I carried him to the bench.  

 

Thursday was Zone Leader Council. All day meetings! Yaay. It was good though. We talked about a lot of good stuff. President told a story about how when he got hired at this company he sold a ton of this one medicine that was supposed to be terrible, but no one told him that, and he sold a ton of it. He related it to faith, because someone mentioned that they didn't feel like they could reach the success they used to and President basically asked him who told him that. It was cool. That's been something I've been thinking about a lot, being in this zone. Some people get down for no reason... But we're putting a stop to that. 2 Nephi 29:7-9.

 

Nothing really eventful happened the rest of the week. We had a few lessons cancel due to fathers day.. But that was it.

 

Love,

Elder Feller

 

Elder Parrott and I in the Palm Tree Farm on exchanges



I was trying to catch the dust storm that was coming in. You can kinda see it.

The Temple in Rear View

Daniel vs Meetings

Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 11:01:07 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

This week was crazy... But not a good missionary crazy. Like, meetings and stuff crazy.

Monday we taught the Boccela family. They are doing great. We finished talking about the Plan of Salvation, but mostly talked about Prayer. At the end we were just finishing up and I was asking if they had any questions, and I specifically asked the daughter, Avery, and she started crying and talked about her friend who died. We talked about it, and she felt a lot better. It was really cool, and then we talked about praying for comfort, and asked her to say the closing prayer. She said she figured that was coming, and we knelt down, and then the funniest thing ever happened. The dad, Al, got a charlie horse while kneeling and freaked out and fell on the ground saying "Ow! ow! ow! ow! ow! ow!" and we all started laughing. Bro Smelser went to go help him stretch it out and he got one in the other leg too. It was funny. The spirit that was there was gone, and then Avery said the closing prayer. It was still good. But really funny...

Tuesday we taught Alex again. He's doing well, but his mom is still crazy. She's putting a stop to everything, and saying he needs to read the whole book of mormon and stuff... I dont know whats going on there, but the sisters tell us he has been at church, so thats a good sign... That night we had a crazy time trying to figure out what to do and where to go. It was fun though, we stopped by the singles ward FHE activity and saw Danielle. She's doing great. We also found a ride to transfer meeting.

Wednesday we went to transfers meeting, and took Elder Howard home with us. He was down from Show Low and came to our area for the day. It was fun. We got our long board we bought from Cole Warner, the fellowship for Carly. Its custom made! Picture below. But the rest of the day wasn't to productive. It was mostly people being happy to see Elder Howard time. It was a good day though.

I'm emailing from a High School Library its kind of weird.

Thursday was Zone Leader Council. It was mostly uneventful. The biggest thing we did was talk about the activity planned for Friday were we read from the Book of Mormon from 8:00AM to 8:30 PM. The purpose being to help us build faith and unity. It was no secret that I didnt agree with doing the activity at first, but after I heard Presdient and Elder Potts talk about it I felt better about it, and we had a good time on friday. But I seriously sit in that meeting sometimes and wonder how smart people actually are. Some of them always try so hard to "aspire" as we call it. They were asking about wearing suits the whole day while we did it and most people were like "heck no!" but one ZL was like "I like it! Then we can cary more pens in our pockets!" and I just said straight out loud "I have pockets on my pants..." and Elder Case laughed really hard at me. But, in the end, President wanted us to wear suits. So we went in on Friday and wore suits for like 20 mins, and then gave everyone permission to take off their coats. The meeting went well though. We also prepared for the training were going to do at the end of the month. That was pretty cool. And its always good to see my friends from all over.

Friday was the Zone read-a-thon. We got together at a church building and set up tables in the releif society room and read the Book of Mormon aaallllll day. It was actually really good for us. And surprisingly, everyone kept really good focus untill about 7:30. We started reading out loud as a group and did that for a long time and then switched to individual. It was cool to see themes that were common across the whole book, that you wouldnt normally catch in just a few chapters. At 8:00 I was on Mosiah 27, and I brought everyone back together and we read Moroni 10 as a group and then talked about what we learned untill 8:30.

Saturday was catch up day. We started off doing service on the Indian Reservation south of Chandler. One of the Elders in our Zone has been asked to start working out there. We went in and cleaned up the semetary that was across from the LDS chapel. It was cool. The Reservation is what I expected Arizona to look like when I came out here... dusty and shacks everywhere... It was like the Wild West! But service was good. They put a lot of stuff on the graves because they believe it belongs to the person. And of course, we were cleaning up this pile of garbage, and Elder Parrott was like "I think thats actually a grave..." and we told him it wasn't and cleaned it all up and then we looked at it again and realized it probably was... and we were stepping all over it and throwing away his stuff. We left it alone after that. It was really funny, because at the end the native guy incharge asked us to say a prayer for the people in the graves, and we took that as protection for us for taking his stuff... haha. Saturday afternoon we had a huge long meeting with our district leaders about all the problems in our zone...

And sunday was.... typical sunday. I had a huge headache from fasting, and we were still trying to catch up... Nothing to exciting.

We got mission T-Shirts! and also, someone in our district made district T-Shirts! Pictures below.

Love,
Elder Feller

My New Longboard

Me Riding my new Longboard in our front yard this morning... I'm still really bad at it... 

The Mission T-Shirt (and new logo)

District Shirt front and back. The back is "the Watering hole" with all of our "Spiritual Animals" drinking from it. I'm the big black bear. 

Elder Krueger got transfered! 

Daniel vs Work

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 10:53:03 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Time is short this week because I have a lot of other stuff to take care of.

Not too much going on this week. Kinda slow, lots of things cancelled. And when things cancel they usually get pushed off to next week. Its funny how our time passes differently than the members time.

Tuesday we trained the zone. That was fun. San Tan is a tough zone and no one prays them self here, if you know what I mean. So it was good. We talked about the purpose of missionary work.

Wednesday my bike pedal fell out so we had to drive... I got it fixed on thursday at Zone Leader Council, but it was a looong day...

Thursday we had our secret zone leader meetings. I barely slept the night before so I had a huge headache and it was hard for me to pay attention. But it was overall good. Not much to say. There was only one disputation, and it was because the AP who was trying to get us to understand wasn't explaining what he wanted very well at all, and I really didn't want to call him out for it... So it turned into a little dispute as everyone was confused. But it ended well.

Thursday night we taught Aubrey Preston. We found out more about how he feels he needs to be baptized, but wants to do it for him. We found out that he doesn't understand a lot of things we thought he did, but we ran out of time, so we'll adress all that later.

Friday we biked all day, and taught Danielle at night. It went really well! We finished the Plan of Salvation, talked about baptism and she liked church, and committed to watch conference. The next day we talked to Bro. McConkie and he told us that they were talking after and Danielle said, "When I get baptized will you baptize me?" and he also told us that she said she was feeling giddy the whole time, like she wanted to laugh. That's the spirit. So we're going to extend a date next time.

Saturday was conference. It was awesome. Sunday too. We taught Shelby on sunday. She's pretty set on waiting until after summer to get baptized like her mom said... So we talked about how Satan is going to try to keep pushing that back and getting in the way. And we talked about how important being built on the Gospel is.

But yeah. That's it. Things are going well. We're playing Volley ball today.

Love,
Daniel

San Tan Zone!

Elder Howard and I cruising

Make a weird face. 

Elder Howard and I at Transfer meeting

Gilbert Temple Progress.... (Our hospital parking spot.)

Greek Strained Yogurt is all the rage among healthy Arizona moms... mmm... gross.   

Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:46:34 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

This week was pretty busy. A lot of normal missionary work stuff. Things are going pretty well. We're facing some opposition with our investigators that we thought were pretty solid. But, I've found that something has to happen each time while people are investigating the church. Some trial or doubt or fear comes up. So we're working on it.

On monday we went to Barney's Sports Complex in Queen Creek, which is not very far away. It was cool to go through my old area again. We stopped to see if I could say hi to some people, but no one was home. We still had a good time at barneys though. As always.

On Wednesday I went on exchanges with one of our District Leaders who has been really stuggling... pretty much his whole mission. The day before at district meeting he talked about sacrifice and "gave up" a lot of his "weapons of rebellion" he was hanging on to by throwing away a bunch of CDs. It was good, I think he's making slow improvemnt. I just hope he keeps on track, we're trying to help him the best we can.

Thursday I had my first Zone Leader Council (ZLC) where we all go have a meeting at the mission home. It was pretty cool. Early in the morning before we went to the Temple to seek revelation on what our zone needs. We talked about a lot of stuff at the meeting. Administering stuff. Then in the afternoon we had some pretty good trainings. You asked in a letter if I liked being a Zone Leader. I do, overall. Its pretty fun, and I get to go to secret meetings and stuff. haha. But, I must say I think its over rated. People treat the Zone Leaders differently, and I think its kind of silly, because in reality we dont do all that much. But I was thinking about that this week, and I remembered what Elder Howard told me when I got here about the biggest thing we can do is be an example. I thought about how much I always looked up to most of my ZLs and what their example did for me. So I guess thats the whole purpose. And with that in mind, I'm feeling a lot better about the whole thing. It is acually pretty fun.

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Schick, an old friend from when I was in Queen Creek. He's on of our District Leaders. It was fun. We had a good time, and talked about a lot of stuff. We're trying to work smarter and better than we have before, because doing the same old thing has not bennefited the San Tan zone very much in the past. We also got to set up a huge Teepee for this cub scout thing.

Saturday Venice was baptised! It was a good baptism. Its weird, because her whole family is active, but she just fell through the cracks because her dad wasn't worthy to baptize her when she was 8. He thought he would be able to this time but the answer came back no a few weeks ago. But it went really well, the whole family is happy, and they're doing awesome. It was kinda weird for me because I just came in on the tail end, so I didnt teach them the whole way. This is the first time thats happened in a long while. But it was still good.

Also, on Saturday we found out that Bro. McConkie, our high councilor over missionary work, was released. They want him to focus in more on the mission prep class. Its pretty sad, but we still get to visit him because he's fellowshipping one of our investigators. (he doesnt live in our area) He is super smart, and we always ask him gospel questions when we go over and he blows our minds!

thats all!
Love
Elder Feller

Exchanges with Elder Schick driving the Teepee poles. 

Venice Allen's Baptism

ZLC

Everyone jumped on me.