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.

Daniel vs Espanol

Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 11:07:35 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Hello all!

I had a pretty cool week. Started off last Thursday going on exchanges in Somerton with my Spanish District Leader. Now, I cover Somerton for english work. But we hardly go there because no one speaks English. So I got to try and speak spanish all day! It was pretty fun. I did ok... haha. not really. I couldn't really do anything but answer the questions people asked me. Like where I'm from, How long I've been out and stuff like that. It was really fun. I couldnt really talk to people on the street because I never got the Gospel vocab in high school. Elder Bradshaw said I answered 90% of the questions I was asked back in spanish, and was pretty impressed.

OH! Bob is hopefully getting Baptized this saturday. Thats our plan so far! He is getting kicked out of his trailer park at the same time, which is sad but good. Because he needs to move to a better place where kids dont mess with him. But yeah, our plan is this saturday. But you never know with Bob. We also have another one, Frances, next week. Hopefully. Haha, she didnt go to church last week because she found out about the word of wisdom and likes her tea. She called her friend and said "I cant do it, I dont want to go to church because I cant give up coffee and tea!" and we went by yesterday and straightened all that out. So now she wants to get baptized again! Awesome. THEN! On the 19th of Febuary, we're hoping we can finnaly get Erikah baptized. She's been trying to quit smoking and some other things I shouldnt go into, so that she can get baptized! She really wants it now so its exciting. We just have to set up the interview with the mission president. Oh I forgot. I need to do that!

THEN! We also got an awesome new investigator. So check it, here's the story! This guy named Abram has a girlfriend who moves to Salt Lake City and joins the church there, then Abram goes to visit her, and they go to Temple Square. Now, I dont know if you guys know this, but the any Sisters at a Temple Visitors Center are CRAZY! By that I mean they will not leave you alone untill they are sure you are going to get baptized. So its a good crazy. But, not always. Alot of the time we get these referals to our phone that say "GOLDEN GATOR!, AWESOME!, READY FOR BAPTIZM!" ect, and we go over and they're smoking, drinking a beer, and have one of those "THIS IS A CATHOLIC HOME, NO PROPOGANDA FROM OTHER RELIGIONS" cards on their screen door, and have abosolutly no desire to speak with us. So we usually dont take it serriously when it says all that good stuff. But so we get the referal and it says to call first, so we do, and no one answers. We try the next day, and no one answers again. The next day, so 2 days after we get the referal, we get the referal again. "SO PREPARED CALL ASAP!" and we're like "dang these are some crazy temple sisters." So we call, he answers and we get an appointment... and let me tell you what, this guy is awesome. He has a huge desire to change his life. He's gotten in a little trouble in the past (half our last lesson he was telling me about Gangs) but he's been to jail for a little bit and never wants to go back. Pretty much, he talks like he already knows, just needs to get an official answer from praying to make it legit. He wants us to come by pretty much every day at 4:00. So we do. But since today is P-day I got a little sneaky. He still hadn't read last time (the biggest unsolvable problem in missionary work) and so I said, "ok, we're not coming tomorrow, but instead at 4:00 you're going to sit down and read this book and pray about it." and he said ok. So I'll text him at like 3:30 and remind him. But we're hoping to baptize him this month too.

Man, it would be just my luck to get transfered in a week. But I still dont think I will.

Oh speaking of, Its week 5. That means no mail to Yuma, send it to the office or wait a week! You never know!

OH! One more thing. We have another appointment tonight with a lady who works for Henry Florez, the guy we baptized in January, tonight. Apparently she was about to get baptized in Mesa, and then had to move here, but didnt know where to find the church or the missionaries. She asked a lady she works with "are you a mormon!?" and then BAM! We have an appointment!

Thats all for this week!

Love,

Elder Feller

All my City of Yuma stuff.

One of the many Ice Cream mans.. in febuary.

Thanks for the coat mom!

Cactus.

Somone lives in that.

Elder Lindquist burns his tie.

Daniel VS The Word of Wisdom

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:10:36 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

 

Whoooooooooooooooooo.

 

Things are going rough in Yuma. Everyone we wanted to get baptized this transfer is giving us problems. Quiting smoking and... well mostly smoking. Bob, an old guy who tries to get to church every week and loves all of it and doesnt care what his friends have to say about the mormons, is so ready, he just doesnt quite understand why he has to quit smoking, and has been smoking for forever. He has to stop today in order to get baptized on the March 5th. Same with our other almost baptized investigator Erikah. She just needs to quit today! And I told her. I told her everything she needs to do in order to get baptized. Because of other circumstances, she needs a interview from the Mission president, but I cant set that up untill she makes that effort. But I know she will get baptized. She knows the church is true and wants to do it really bad.

 

We also have another really good investigator that we were hoping to get baptized this transfer, but we missed them for like a week and a half and then she had a baby! Its a little early, so its really little. Very cute. But they still want to go to church and meet with us this sunday! I felt bad because she was super tired when we came by yesterday...

 Here's two pictures of me at the California border. Its litterally down the street. Pretty crazy. It felt good to be in California for a couple seconds.

 

I found a treasure! The first good one I've found thus far. See, because us missionaries are always out and about, we find lots of cool stuff just on the ground. One of the Elders I live with has a little Buddah and these two old school "Tomorrow Land" lappel pins. They're legit! But the otherday while walking back from the Zone Leaders appartment in our same complex, I found a burnt CD that has "50 Cent and T.I." mix on the front. We listened to the first couple seconds of every song just to make sure it worked, and it does! I'm totally keeping it forever. So I can listen to it when I get home and say "I found this on the street in Yuma"

 

I was trying to send a video but its too big and my camera died! But it is of me and Elder Lindquist playing "Kids" by MGMT on a keyboard in our appartment. Its pretty sweet. Next week!

 

Hopefully I'll have good news next week!

 

-Love

 

Elder Feller 

Tribulations

Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:12:40 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

I cant collect my thoughts for a weekly letter this week. Sorry. I just wrote a huge letter to president pouring out my soul about how I'm frustrated with this area/my wards/my companion. Not much happened anyways. Oh But I went to California for a little bit. Like 5 seconds. I got a picture with the sign. I'll send it next time with a good lettter. Because I forgot my camera cord.

-Sorry,

Love Daniel.

Daniel VS Zone Conference

Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2011 11:18:38 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

 

Hello all!

 

It has been another week here in the Arizona Tempe Mission, Yuma Zone, District 1 and area 2. (Summed up my our area initials YU-12)

 

This week like many others has been very uneventful, except for a very few things that I want to tell you all about! 

 

The first cool thing was on Sunday in fast and testimony meeting. And the first thing you need to understand is that we cover 3 wards. So we go to 3 sacrament meetings. Every sunday. So I'm sitting in one of our less-exciting wards, kinda bored, and then our recent convert, Henry Florez, gets up. Now, you have to understand, that Henry Florez is a big deal in Yuma. He's a big time doctor. But he gets up there and he starts thanking everyone. His wife, who has been an active member her whole life, and his friends who he bicycles with who were also members,  and the missionaries (Hey! That's me!) and then says that he knows the Church is true because it has changed his life. And it really has. Everyone keeps telling us. He's like a different person now. He's at peace, no longer frustrated or grumpy. He's awesome! And I was filled with exceeding gladness.

 

Also, we were at his house last night teaching him the new member lessons and after his wife was talking to me about boy scouts and she said that when they were at camp, doing the astronomy meritt badge, her husband and these other men couldn't stop laughing at the planet "Uranus" and he busted up laughing again and was like "hahahaha Uranus!" and kept laughing. And I was laughing really hard too because here is this big time doctor laughing at the word "Uranus" like a kid! It was hilarious.

 

Lets see... I also finished the Book of Mormon a while ago. Now I've started and am a good way through the D&C. I dont remember if I told you that yet. But the D&C is amazing!

 

Oh yeah! And we had Zone Confrence yesterday! It was awesome too. Sister Howes got up when it was her turn and said on the drive down she felt like Wendy from Peter Pan, going to see the lost boys. Hahaha probably because Yuma is waaaaaaay out of the way and there are no sister missionaries here. I thought that was awesome. And I'm going to see if we can get some t-shirts referencing that made up! Missionaries make Zone t-shirts all the time, but I dont have any yet! (send me ideas!) But the Zone Leaders trained on goal setting and the importance of it. And thats something I've been trying to make a part of my mission for a while. Its hard! But reading the Preach My Gospel section on goals really makes you want to "master the techniques of goal setting" and then President Howes and the AP's talked about the Doctrine of Christ, and gave us training on what they were trained on when the missionary department came in from Salt Lake City. Preach My Gospel is amazing. And applying the Doctrine of Christ is awesome. The Doctrine of Christ is: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Recieving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring the the End. It is central to the missionary purpose as stated in preach my gospel and is also the 3 missionary lesson. We've been learning a lot about how to teach it, and how to appy it to all our teachings. Its hard! I cant explain everything about it yet, I'm still learning. But someday. But there are 5 Chapters in the scripture that out line it, and that we focus a lot on. They are 2 Nephi 31, 3 Nephi 11, 3 Nephi 27, Matthew 5 and I forgot. Maybe theres only 4 because I really dont remember what the 5th one would be. But these are all awesome! Especially 2 Nephi 31. I think thats my favorite right now.

 

Also, a less-active ladies non-member husband was asked to make the lunch for the confrence! He was someone we tried to contact before, but got mad at us for not calling before hand because they litereally have 15 little dogs that bark like crazy when you knock on the door. I didnt have the heart to tell president that because he wanted to go talk to him. hahaha.

 

Anyways, I have to go.

 

Love,

Elder Daniel Feller

 

Here's some D&C

 

"Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth!

Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free" (D&C 128:19,22)

Daniel VS Sloooooooooooooow weeks

Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 13:05:18 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

"These kids are disco dancing, they're tired of rock and roll, I'm tryin' to tell them that that drum machine ain't got no SOUL!"
No big news here... I'm coming my hair the other way now... I guess thats cool.

oh wait,

ONE OF THE PASTORS OF THE LOCAL MEGA-CHURCH MOVED INTO THE APARTMENT NEXT TO US! Check it, so we're planning the other night and I hear all this comotion outside, so I go see if we're getting new neighbors and as I walk out the already wide open door he says "oh hey are you the neighbor!" and I said, "yeah whats up man, we missionaries for out church and 4 of us live here. Can we help you move in or anything" and he said no they were almost done. Then I go inside and a few mins later, one of the spanish Elders we live with went out to talk to him. And this time, the guy introduced himself and said he was a pastor at the Genterations Church, a local Mega Church in Yuma. (Mega Church is defined as a huge non-denominational Christian church, that is like... how do I say it... i dont know, Like a party church pretty much) Then he said, "Yeah the real big difference between us is that we believe Jesus is God, and you believe Jesus is the Son of God." Elder Lindquist politely agreed, even though a claim of a restored Church of Christ with a living prophet is the real difference. Then he said he doesnt like to have doctrinal debates, which is good because we dont bible bash either. So the converstation politely ended again and we went back inside. a few mins later me and my companion went outside to go get mail from the other missionaries who live in the same complex and we heard the pastor in the back of their Uhaul saying something about "the flesh of God" or something in an angry tone, but when he saw us, he stopped right away. It was pretty funny...

Also this week, I have a HUGE infection on my face. I'll spare you all the gorry details but I thought it was just a huge pimple at first so I tried everything to get rid off it. Lots of acne wash, neosporin, hot water and pain trying to drain it. This morning I went to the doctor and he said it was an infection and gave me a perscription and sent me to the pharmacy right away. Now I'm taking a anti-biotic pill 4 times a day, and a face rub 3 times a day. Gross.

AND! We found this huge statue of Mary! Its on the way back from this little spanish town that we cover for the english work there. Pictures are better than words. Look below.

It was as pretty slow week. But Ashley and Robert were at Church! And we're planning on baptizing Bob pretty soon!

Yaaay.
-Love
Elder Daniel Feller

Giant Marry Statue. Life size person with a like ... 12 foot cross behind her.

What Somerton looks like