Daniel vs The Sun

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:49:31 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

We've had a rough week, but all is well. Its been extremely hot! Our arms are way darker, and for the first time in my life, I had a sunglasses tan! But I got rid of it the next day. Gross. But we've been scrambling to find someone to teach out here! This week we didn't find anyone, and got dropped, after 3 months of trying to get an appointment, by 16 year old Tori. Its almost a relief, but she's on "her our religious journey, and has her Mormon friend to help her out." Whatever. Honestly, its more of a relief. We're turning her over to the missionaries who cover her friends ward.

Elder Howard, one of the missionaries we live with, hurt some ligament and fractured his foot. It happened a month ago, but he just went in and they gave him a cast. So he's crutchin' all around the house now. Its pretty funny. But at least he has a car...

We've visited Bro. Powell the last 3 night, helping fix up bikes and talking with him and his family. He invited us back on Sunday for dinner, but we already had a dinner planned with the Elders Quorum President and his family, and they're awesome, so we couldn't cancel on them so we had to try and double dinner... Only because he was planning on making his famous pulled pork. First of all, you have to understand that Bro. Powell, even though he's not a member, is famous in the ward for cooking for youth firesides and scout trips. He cooks good. Pulled pork is his specialty. He made BBQ sauce, with a vinegar base (whatever that means...), a month and a half ago, and let it sit, so it would taste perfect. And he planned on smoking the pork all day and coming to church. Unfortunately, Satan broke his smoker so he couldn't get to church OR make the pork! So they made carne asada burritos and gave us all the left overs... But he fixed the smoker and we're going back tonight for dinner and Family Home Evening! Awesome.

Love,

Elder Feller

Daniel vs 1 Year

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:59:35 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

This week has been pretty fun. I got a new companion, Elder Darrington (Dear-bear) from Declo Idaho (380 people). I don't remember if I told you about a missionary who put a huge deep whole in his knee mountain biking but he's my companion now. But his knee is getting better so we don't get a car. But we're having fun in queen creek.

The dust storm was crazy last week! I'm sure you heard about it and wondered if I got any of it... Queen Creek is right on the south-east edge of the phoenix valley, so we got it first! I was inside when it rolled in, but I saw pictures. But we biked around in the dust for a few hours. We walked out of a lesson to look at someones giant swing set in the back yard and it was crazy outside! All dark and dusty and windy .. at like 7. which is weird here, the sun comes up at 4:30 and down at  8:30. It was nuts.

Oh, so my old companion, Who was a big guy from Idaho, and was dieing in the heat, got sent to the mountains! In Eager, the little town with the closest stop light to Saint Johns. He's going to love it!

And, I don't know if you're aware, but I hit one year this Thursday!! The time has flown by, I can hardly believe it. I don't ever want to go home.

Oh so we also had a sweet lesson with brother Powell this week. Its been hard to bring up his feeling on the gospel  recently. Almost like he's avoiding it. But we got him alone and I went for it! We found out some of his concerns and then had a really good discussion on commitments and living up to the blessings. I think that's what he fears right now. But it was really good. I almost cried telling him about Brandon and Zach, the first two baptisms me and Elder Lesh had in Chandler, and what a blessing it was. We know more about whats up with him and are better prepared to teach him now. It was awesome.

Pray I have more to talk about!

Love,

Elder Feller

Video of the dust storm

Elder Baird



Dear-Bear and I trying to get some pictures in The Pecans.  Our richest neighborhood.

More of The Pecans



My free new shoes!

Daniel vs Africa

Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:49:41 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Transfer week! I'm staying and my companion is leaving.

The Mongane's baptism went AMAZING. It lasted an hour and a half. In the talk on baptism, she included a little bit of the family's story, about their journy fleeing from Africa, to here. I dont konw how much I've written already, but Roy Mongane fled The DR Congo after being arrested at a peace rally. He escaped from prison, got a visa to America, and ended up being found by a man here and joining the Church. Meanwhile, his family was moving to different countries, waiting until he could get them to America. For 6 years, the lived in different countries. They started going to Church over there. When they finally made it here, there was so many problems and delays getting to the airport. They got held up in Customs in Dubai, and his youngest son, Joseph, (named after the Prophet) screamed about getting to America to see his dad, because he had never seen him before. Then again in LAX. The next flight wasnt for a while, so the members here in Queen Creek got ahold of a Bishop in LA. He took them in for the night and sent them on a plane to Pheonix the next day. After getting settled for a month or so, we were able to teach them. Last saturday they were baptized. Roy was able to baptize them. He got into the baptismial font, and started moving and splashing arround. Then he started singing "Count your Manny blessings" in french or Swahili. His wife, Rachel, came down into the water and started singing with him. Everyone was silent, and the spirit was so strong. He then baptized her and his two daughters, Ansi and Alice. Then in the talk on the Holy Ghost, the man to took him in and introduced him to the Church in Virginia spoke on the Holy Ghost. He talked about how the Holy Ghost had prepared these people to come to America. And, since Roy is a decentant of Ephraim, how a literal dicendant of the House of Joseph was brought to the promised land.
The next day in Sacrament meeting, during the confirmations, there were so many people in the circle I could hardly get my hand in there. But it was amazing as well. Roy did an awesome job giving some wonderful blessings to his family. His wife cried, and one of his daughters hugged him and said "thank you daddy!"

It was really amazing. Nothing Else that happened this week matters.

Love,
Elder Feller

July 4th - No Title (Probably should be Called Daniel vs. the Jungle or the Gauntlet

Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2011 11:58:27 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net
To: natfeller@hotmail.com; efeller@byu.net

Hello family! This past week was pretty much the same as usual. It was really hot. Most people in Queen Creek seem to dissapear when it gets hot.
Lots of fun stuff!
First things first! We taught the Mongane family! More like, just got them ready for the Baptism this saturday! We were doing to program and stuff. We had to bike outside of our area, like 3 miles, and it was 118 degrees outside. But they're all excited for the baptism!
Also, we stoped by this family's house and they werent home. But they have a jungle built in their yard! Pictures below.
So there were all these signs up for a missing turtle in one of our neighbor hoods this week. They were pretty funny signs. And we were biking in the day and it was really hot and no one was out... and we found the turtle! My companion saw it so I went over to the sign to get the phone number. and I was messing with my companion and reading him the description, making sure it was the right turtle. And these members we know pull up and ask us whats going on. We tell them we found the turtle! Then she gets out of the car, and takes the turtle away back to her house! We thought we were goign to be the heroes. But they did give the reward to us. 15 bucks at cold stone! But our glory and hopefully a teaching moment got stolen!
Also, one of our really good potential investigators, who is the girlfriend of this member, (They're like 50) came up to us at church and told us she got baptized. We thought they were joking... I kind of assumed she wanted to get baptized, but no. She really got baptized without us last weekend. They went up to Utah to go to his daughters wedding. She was talking to their friend up there about some gospel question she had, resolved her concern, and then asked when she wanted to get baptized. She said "how about friday in your pool?" So they called the utah missionaries up there, got her interviewed and baptized... with out us, her actual missionaries... So that was pretty funny. There goes one of our awesome potentials for this month... 
One more weird lame thing, pictured below is the Guantlet. We caught some scorpions and some other missionaries gave us a black widow and we had them fight. They just kinda sat there for a few days. But this morning! The scorpion is huge and black inside.... and the black widow is gone! Scoprion 1... black widow 0. Pretty awesome.
We're still working on finding. I've met with all the bishops and ward mission leaders and am still trying to implement all the stuff they're supposed to be doing. Thats what I feel like God has been telling me to do. So I'm trying. So far its going good. But nothing much to report this week.
LOVE,
Daniel

Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2011 12:03:05 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

The rest of the pictures..

 

PS I forgot to mention the huge statue of Moroni! Its at this excommunicated guys house who's trying to come back. Its pretty sweet. 

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:53:21 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Daniel vs 11 Months!

Wow. Tomorrow is my 11 month birthday. Its hard to believe I've been out that long. It really doesn't feel like it.

The coolest thing that happened this week was:

We went to Brother Powell's house. We've taught him all the lessons and hes waiting to go to Yuma to "talk about some stuff with his parents." We're assuming baptism. But anyways, we show up at his house just to say hi. We talked for a little bit and he talks about fathers day. Well his 7 year old son takes this to mean that fathers day is right now, so he goes and gets this book "Fathers of our Faith" with President Monson on the front and gives it to his dad. Bro. Powell laughs and asks him what it is. The kid says, "Mom said to give it to you for fathers day!" and we all started laughing really hard. He gives it back to him and says "hid it until Sunday and I'll act surprised!" then turns to us and says "I think she's trying to give me another hint" It was so funny. Meanwhile we're trying to sneak a lesson in there, and we talk for a while and he says, "well do you guys have a lesson or anything tonight?" Of course we do. We read 3 Nephi 27 with him. The Doctrine of Christ. And his sister in law comes in as our member present. The spirit power punches every one of us and it was an awesome lesson. His wife walks in at the very end and is like "So do we have a date set for baptism!?" I guess they were putting the pressure on him earlier because he just kinda stared at the ground. Oh, I forgot: The whole time his step son's mission call is sitting on the table in the other room. But he's in Nauvoo with the other youth in the ward. So Bro. Powell asks us to come back on Saturday for dinner and to open the misson call. So we move our dinner around and go back on Saturday. We get there a little early so we go to the store with Bro. Powell to get some stuff. We stoped by the bike store to pick up my companions new bike and he also gets me a new comfy bike seat because mine was broken. (By the way, Bro. Powell is the nicest person probably ever) So we go home and everyone is there waiting for his step-son, Ty, to open it. Meanwhile, Bro. Powell is going crazy making tons of chicken wings for everyone. He's also an awesome cook. The chicken wings were aammaazziinngg. But Ty opens his mission call, and at the dread of his mother, he's going to ZIMBABWE! Pretty crazy. He's jumping arround all excited, Bro. Powell is passing out the most amazing teriaki, buffalo, and bbq chicken wings ever, Elder Baird and I are talking to a non-member girl who goes to a huge non-denom church, trying to get her interested (didn't work). But Elder Baird and I hang out with Bro. Powell and the family a little more, and he keeps giving us these extra wings. I was sooo full. But it was really amazing, and the spirit was really strong.

So Bro. Powell is going to Yuma and California this weekend and he's going to talk with his parents while he's there.

Other than that this week was really slow. We had dinner with one of our favorite families, the Seymore's, on Fathers Day. He gave us some flat brimmed ASU hats! Pictured below. And we're probably going to get some more.  The family really likes us too because we remind them of their sons who are on missions right now.

That's all for this week,

Love
Elder Feller

Pictures,

Hiking San Tan Mountian

Karate Kid at the top.

Birthday cake cookies! Thanks mom!

ASU!

Daniel VS Baptisms

Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:54:11 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

Looooong week. But nothing else matters. Ryland and Jaycee Wilkins got baptized last Wednesday! They moved the day up on us! It was so awesome. Definitely one of the happiest moments on my mission.

We got there early to set up and stuff, (and we took some dumb pictures: see below) then the Wilkins family got there, and we had them change into the baptismal suits. Bro. Wilkins didn't want to change yet because it was funny looking. But we made him so we could get a picture! They went into the bathroom to change, and Ryland came out with it on backwards. It was so funny. His mom freaked out on him and told him to change it and he, like any 10 year old boy, did not understand why it was important. But he went and changed, and Jaycee came out too and we started the program. We started singing the opening song and Sister Wilkins started to cry. Then the chorister, who was her sister, started to cry too. Then the parents, then like everyone. Sister Wilkins' mom got up and talked on baptism, and gave the kids each their own set of scriptures. Then the baptism! Bro. Wilkins was so nervous he was going to mess up, and when he was baptising Ryland he said "thee" instead of "you". The witnesses didnt catch it, but bishop had him do it again. He did it right, and he did Jaycee the first time too. Then we went back in for the talk on the Holy Ghost. Bro. Wilkins' grandpa got up to talk. The same on that gave him the priesthood last week, and the same one that talked to him and changed his outlook. He is hilarious. He got up and started by saying, "I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony. I know what I've got to do but I dont know where to start." and went on to talk about the Holy Ghost, and threw in a couple random stories and stuff in there. Like a discourse about the human brain, and the medical term for Jesus bleeding from every pour. It was good though. Afterwords, Bro. Wilkins said, "now you can see why our talk lasted like 4 hours!" Then after the baptism we went out to eat with them. It was super cool!

The rest of the week was lame in comparison. Not important.

Oh, but my birthday. Thank you to everyone who sent gifts! I really appriciate it. My birthday was a long, hard, and HOT day. It was pretty frustrating, until we came home at night and our Ward Mission Leader's wife had put a ice cream cake in our freezer. My companion told her the day before.

More next week,

Love

Elder Feller

Wilkins Family

filling the font

I messed up. 

Daniel vs Five On Date

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 10:48:01 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

This whole week was long, hard, and HOT. Not much has happened since last P-Day. Of course, I'm still in Queen Creek with Elder Baird. Transfers past and we're going round two. Wednesday, we weren't allowed to go to transfer meeting unless we were getting transferred... so our roommates called us from there and put us on speakerphone so we could listen to the whole thing. It was pretty funny. Except everyone already knew where they were going so it wasn't that surprising. Last week everyone getting transferred found out when they signed on to write their emails to the Mission President. Because we put in our stats and it tells us our wards. The funniest part of that was a sister missionary who got emotional when she found out she was going to Yuma. The called me over to talk to her about it, and I found out she was going to my old area! So my old Yuma area now has sisters!  Weird. But she was worried and asked me if it was really ghetto. She's from Idaho, so I had to say yes. But its still cool! oh well.

So the most exciting part about this week is that Ryland and Jaycee Wilkins are getting baptized on Wednesday morning! Its really exciting. Bro. Wilkins got the priesthood from his grandpa. It was a super powerful blessing! He drove us home after and was just amazed, he said "wow that was powerful... my lip was quivering!" So we're super happy. We will have pictures of their baptism next week!

Also, The Monganes are planning on July 9th for Baptism! We're still working with them, but thats when their friends are going to be in town. So that's awesome! So we have 5 baptisms coming up. Two of them are 8 year olds so they dont count as convert baptisms, but who cares. They count as souls saved in my heart!
Ohhh, we were at Brother Powell's house, just chit-chatting, hoping to fit in a lesson, and then all of a sudden his kid runs inside, crying, with blood pouring out of his mouth. He biffed it on his bike. So they went to the ER... And we had to leave.

Also, We had a crazy day. We had to take a missionary with us for the day while his companion was in a meeting. So we were making some copys of some stuff and then he  decided he needed to go all the way to his area to wash this guys truck so that he would listen to them. So we didnt have anything going on so we decided to go. We had to get a ride all the way down there, in this tiny little truck because he wasnt expecting three of us and we finally get to this guys house and he is loading his truck up, so we cant wash it. Then we have to walk 2.5 miles back to his house where we met his companion and got a ride back to our area. Not that cool of a story, but it explains the random pictures below. Elder Russell and I. He's tiny. 
Until Next Week,
Love,
Elder Feller