Email from James - February 20, 2012

Dad or family, whoever it may concern or whoever reads this. :D,

 

     I love missionary work! My love for missionary work has grown like crazy over this past week. I can't even put into words the crazy change that I have gone through in just one week. I love it and it was way humbling to see all the miracles. I am going to attach my email I sent to president boswell because I wrote everything I would want to say to you. It was such an amazing week and I love talking to people everywhere, and anywhere. I love missionary work and I'm sorry, but I really don't want to come home. It makes me sad to think how short of a time I have and I am now getting this crazy love and fire that I never had before. I always loved missionary work and worked really hard but I have never worked as hard as I am now. I ask the Lord for his patience and forgiveness for me for that but thank Him that I have this great fire now that I never had before and make promises to work and preach the gospel until the stake president says, "take off the tag". Ugh that hurt to write that. I still have so much time and it makes me comforted. I may or may not be planning on getting a good ol talk with the president to see if he needs an extra elder around a little longer. :D Odds are he probably won't let me :( but I can still try. ha. My studies have been so great. These past few weeks I have been really having a deep study about prayer and personal revelation. I can't wait to just sit down and discuss about how powerful prayer can be and how blessed we are to have such a gift. I think the reason I don't want to go home is because I love being so close to the spirit 24-7 and I have so much time to put what I learn to the test. Everymorning, I get up and I start getting way excited to go out there and start talking to people. I love having that sacred and powerful responsibility to go out and preach the gospel like the ancient apostles and propohets of old. I read a way good talk about that by Elder Holland. A line I really like was ," Imagine being Peter or Paul as you go out to spread the gospel and yet the lurking darkness of the apostasy is creeping in even while as they were living and they had lived with Christ himself". I pondered about that for a long time. How terrible that would feel. You had just been with Christ, after he died he is resurected and exhorts you to go out and feed his sheep and then as you do so, people start rebelling and then the world falls into darkness. Elder Holland went on to say that they had literally failed their dispensation. But, they knew that the gospel would be brought back for when last great time where it would never end. All of the ancient apostles and prophets dreamed and prayed for this day. I believe they still are and they are counting on us to do all that we can to keep it growing stronger. That made me so honored to be trusted with that great power and calling. It made my deisre grow even more to go out and talk with everyone. My bus contacting has been moraculous and I have met some amazing people. Elder Bennet visited Estonia and Latvia but didn't get to come down to Lithuania. He called those missionaries to repentance and a call to be better. I was with a russian elder this past week and I had him bring his notes so I could copy them and then he could tell me all about it. It was such a spiritual intense talk. He is like another Elder Holland. I love it. I will definitely share my notes with you. A couple lines that I just love is that when something is hard or umcomfortable for us to do, the Lord will see if we talk that step to change and become perfected and he will bless us for it. The other line I love was to enjoy the "sting" of the gospel. The gospel is here to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. If we aren't feeling that "sting" of the change that we need to be doing, we aren't doing our part. That was a call of repentance to me and I have loved getting super uncomfortable and making myself change. Haha I'm so weird huh? I love feeling a prompting, thinking how weird that will be or how uncomfortable it will be, and then taking a deep breath and doing it. I read this morning that joseph smith said, " you have been baptized, you have had hands laid upon your head for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and you have been ordained to the holy priesthood. Now, if you will continue to follow the leadings of that spirit, it will always lead you right. Sometimes it might be contrary to your judgment; never mind that, follow its dictates; and if you be true to its whisperings it will in time become in you a principle of revelation so that you will know all things.’ Constantly be looking for the change that you can be making every single day of your life. It's a wonderful thing.   I love you all so much and can't wait to write next week.

 

                   -Elder James Sanford   

 

Dear President Boswell,

  In all my time as a missionary, I have never liked to bus contact. Now, I can say that it is one of my most favorite tools for finding people. Out of all of the things I have done over my mission to find people, I have been the most successful in bus contacting. It has been so wonderful and my happiness and my excitement to share the gospel just keeps growing and growing. I saw some amazing miracles and I know it was because of our obedience and because everyone in our district has an even greater desire to go out and find. I am so proud of the District that I am in. We have all changed so much and we will begin to see the fruits of our labours of we work our hardest and go out with the Lord into His vineyard.
  This week I really applied some powerful scriptures into the work and into my life as a missionary. It was so wonderful to see the results and to see that the Lord truly aids his people when they carry on His work. The scriptures were D&C 82:10. The verse before that I really like. In my own words he says, " here,let me show you how much I love you". Then in verse ten he gives us a powerful promise. He is bound when we do what he says. There is also a very powerful consequence. If we do not what he says, then we have no promise. That is pretty scary. I can't imagine being in the field with no promises. So as I said last week, I have been really making it a part of all that I do to be 100% obedient and to spread the gospel as bodly and as powerfully as I can. One of the great Lord's promises is that he will give us what we need to say at the moment we need it. Another verse he says, if we do not open our mouths and speak, he will take away our talents. I expecially like D&C 62:2. It was a good scripture for me to get the desire to bus contact and fear god and not man. In comparison to D&C 82, I found the verses in D&C 130:20-21. That made the verses in D&C 82 more powerful and more meaningful to me. God always gives us laws, but with every law that He gives us, there are always blessings. I thought about it in two ways. It thought about as me as a missionary all of the great blessings the Lord has promised if we keep all of His commandments and if we go out and open our mouths. My other thought was to the investigator. Are we letting them know how many great and wonderful blessings the Lord has in store for them if they keep His commandments? If they aren't acting, are they realizing they are denying themselves the blessings from Heaven? I thought about it long and hard. I wrote down a lot of my thoughts on why investigators aren't progressing and how we can help them see that the Lord is waiting to bless them, but it is entirely up to them. IT was a wonderful and very intimate personal study for me and it has changed how I look at a lot of things pertaining to the gospel.
    For district meeting, we set a goal of each member of the district has to hand out at least one book of mormon with out testimonies on the inside and we have to testify of the book of mormon to at least ten people. What a great goal to set? When there is a goal like that, my runner attitude comes out and I want to beat that number. Well the Lord surely made that happen. I set a personal goal that added to a really neat miracle that happened this week. I promised with the Lord that every bus ride I am on, I will talk to at least one man. It has been amazing. So as I was working on my goals this week and trying to talk to as many people as I could, we got onto a bus to go to the church to start our exchanges. I sat down next to a really nice looking man who is about in his mid 20's, perfect Melchezidek preisthood age,and right as I was about to open my mouth to start talking to him, he asked, "Can I ask you something? could I get one of those books?" Mircale! I couldn't believe what came out of his mouth. We had a great talk and I testified of the book of mormon and how much I love it and how personal it is to me. He almost didn't take it because he saw there was writing but I told him that was my personal testimony and he said, " oh great, even better." That same day, as I was working with Elder Mays, we handed out another book of mormon. Two book of mormons in one day! Those amazing miracles have really helped me to get that burning fire and desire to talk with everyone as bodly and powerfully as I can. I love it so much. I don't wake up tired anymore. I wake up and I get super excited to go out and talk to people. I kinda hit myself on the head because I am having this great desire now instead of earlier on in my mission. But I thank the Lord that I have this change at all and that I still have time to use this new talent and love I have for the work.
   The only lesson I was in this week with Elder Rich among our investigators was with Radvile. She is doing so wonderful and keeps making great progress. Our first lesson was about repentance and she understood it so well. We were both amazed at how well she knew it. We read from Alma 7:15 and in Alma 36:17-21. We talked about why we have to leave behind all sins and not just the ones that are easier to leave behind. It was a very powerful lesson and the spirit was strong. The other lesson we just decided it would help her a lot to read with her from the Book of Mormon. She is now in 1 Nephi 18. Our goal with her is to have her finish the book of mormon before her baptismal date. Elder Rich gave a very powerful promise that if she reads every day, her parents hearts will be softened before that time and she will be able to be baptized.
   We have some great goals and we have changed plans on how we can work more effectively this week to achieve them. Our numbers in other lessons have stayed at a constant 4 and we really want to get that up and find some more people. We got the courage to go out and find, even on the buses, but now it's time to find those people and teach some lessons and get the members to get the same excitment for finding as we do.
              Love,
            Elder Sanford

Email from James - February 13, 2012

Hello family,

I am a bad big brother and didn't say last week so I will say it now: SU GIMIMA DIENA PARKERAI!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARKER!!!!!!! I loved the pictures dad sent and it looked like you had a way fun time. You, dad, and I will have to go hit some "real" golf balls when I'm back. haha you will probably play better than I will. I am terrible at golf. :D You will have to ask dad if you can write to me in the next email to tell me what you got for your birthday. Love you bud! :)

Before I forget, on the blog my address is correct but just need to add one thing to poeples letters will get sent to the right place. After the Lt-01011, there needs to be Vilnius written after it. So it would look like this:

A/D 3438

LT-01011 Vilnius

Lithuania

This email is going to be really short so forgive me if it isn't too long. We are going to Trakiai, the big castle that is outside of Vilnius and I had to email a lot to president Boswell today so I don't have a lot of time. Just know that things have been so great here. I love Vilnius so much and the members are so wonderful. I spoke on sunday and the members really liked it. I love public speaking. Also, me and two other elders sang in sacrament meeting. :D yay using my new talent. I have never been more happier in all of my mission than I have been than this past week. I will send a clip from my email to president boswell so you can know why. I was also wondering, dad, do you have a line of your priesthood. Like who gave you the priesthood and then who gave him and so on up to the apostles and jesus christ. All the elders have theirs and I don't even know mine or have one. hahaha. It would be really cool if I could get that. Well I really need to go but here is the clip from my emial. I probably would have written about the same thing. :D I Love you all so so much and I can't wait to hear from you again.

Love,

Elder James Sanford

Dear President Boswell,

What a powerful week. I feel this has been one of the greatest weeks in my mission. The reason I say that is one, I learned the great joy of repenting, pushing myself to the limit/stepping out of your comfort zone, and one investigator we called from the area book has a baptismal date. Let me explain this great overjoy that I have felt in this past week. I went on exchanges with Elder Frollick who is such a great elder. Him and I became quite good friends right from the start. As we were out working, he told me about the great conference he got to be in with Elder Bennet. He told me all that happened and all that he said. Wow, talk about a humbling conference and quite a powerful one. It really made me look at myself and get the desire to become even better that I already am. I thought I was a good missionary and that I lived according to the rules well, but I could see I could do a lot better. The reason I wanted to do a lot better was because of Elder Bennett's great promise," every blessing comes from an act of obedience." Elder Frollick and I talked a lot about that and we set a goal together and it is one that I have never been fully comfortable with. That is, contacting on the buses. Elder Frollick said since he started doing that, he has been so much more happier and he has seen the blessings from it. I am a second witness to that as of lately. It was so scary getting up the courage to go up to a guy and sit down and just start talking. But I did! I felt so happy and now I am always looking harder for someone to talk to. Harder now than I have ever done in my mission. I know the Lord has seen my desire to change and he blessed us with Valdas, who now has a baptismal date. I have been really looking in the handbook and looking at myself at how I can improve and change and repent. It has been wonderful. I can't describe how happy I am. My prayers have become a lot stronger and I have personally received so many strong and personal revelations. When I am in lessons, I have so many good questions come into my head that I didn't even think I knew. I kinda smack myself on the head for not starting this sooner. Haha. I am just glad I am still blessed with lots of time to use these knew skills the Lord has blessed me with. It was so hard to start this great change at first, but it was so worth it.

Email from James - February 6, 2012

Alo Dad,

 

What a crazy but awesome week this week. It was crazy but oh my flip, it was so cold. Last winter was cold but oh my goodness, I have never felt such a deep coldness before. Here are some funny stories to show you how cold it was.

   We had to go to the teaching center to clen it up and we cleaned out everything on the inside and and made it look really nice. Elder Mays said, " oh, I think I will go clean the front window because it looks way gross. He walked out and sprayed some of the window cleaner, came back in and put down the bottle and picked up the towel. Ok, that was like 2 seconds to do that, right? OK remember that short time. He goes out and trys rubbing the window cleaner. He tires but nothing happens. He tries a little harder but nothing. By this point you can only see his body from because the window was all covered with the window cleaner. He came in and said, " Ummm, it's all frozen." Ya it was all frozen. We went out and tried to scrape it off but it hardly did anything. Hahahaha it was hillarious. It wasl like those moments when you hear stories of things happen like that but this time I was in the story. Ha

   Next story. To style my hair without gel, I get it wet and just style it so it doesn't look so spikey. So I did that like normally and then we went out. My hair wasn't that wet. We got out to the bust stop and we were waiting. It was way way way cold. I have never felt a cold like it is here. We got into the bus and we sat down. I scratched me head and my hair was way hard. I thought, wait, did I put gel in my hair. NO ofcourse not, I don't wear gel. I began laughing and realized that my hair had frozen. It was way hard. Hahaha weird. My eyebrows got some frost on them from my breath and then it froze so I had cool spikey eyebrows. Hahaha. Ever experienced feeling your eyebrows and eyelashes freeze? Nope I never had before, until this last week. Weirdest feeling in the world. Hahaha.

 

   Even though it is cold, I wouldn't want to change my mission for anything. I love it so much and I don't ever want to leave. My language has picked up like crazy. I find it very hard to study in english. I don't even read the scriptures or preach my gospel in english. I left them in my suit cases. All I have is books in lithuanian. I will only look in my scriptures if I want to see how the translation from the bible are to find the difference. It's a  lot of fun. My reading of the book of mormon is going way strong. I am currently in Alma and I have learned so much. I love the branch here so much. The youth here are hillarious and I love them so much. The branch president is such a great guy and I got to talk to him for a while. You won't be able to see a pic of our apt. The places where I put those in the book are different now. We live way outside of center. We only come down to center if we need to go to the teaching center or if we need to check the mail etc. It kinda makes me sad that I never got the chance to serve here for a longer time but I am so overjoyed that I even get the chance to serve here. I am way excited for tonight because I am leading the lesson for Family Night. We have family night with all of the youth at the senior couples house and it is so much fun. I am going to talk about sacred things and about prayer mostly. The flakes wanted me to talk about something like that. They are a hillarious mission couple. They don't really understand the culture and they are just so sweet and innocent. They try to learn lithuanian and it is quite funny but we love them so much. You two better serve missions. There was another couple that came down from riga and the wife was so funny. She kept saying how hard it was and how her husband was just loving everything. I told her how much I love this mission and wouldn't ever want to change it and she said, " when does that start". She said that we don't understand how it is because we don't have grandkids. Hahaha I laughed and said eh go watch general conference again. Haha. :D At church we helped out in primary and it was hillarious. They are so funny and I haven't seen so many kids in so long. There is about 12 of them. I'm going to pass out when I'm back in our huge ward.

 

  OK you need to remind me who jenny gustaves is. I know that is josh's family but who is jenny. That is so sad to hear. We went to a funeral this week and sang at it. It was a little interesting. It was the father of one of the members. The guy that died was an older man but the members asked if we could come sing. There was an open casket infront of us in this really small room. Kinda weird but the singing was really neat. The spirit was way strong and the people after thanked us for it. It was a really neat way to serve. You wont' believe this but I love singing. I am totally joing the church choir and I may want to do some singing in college. :D

 

  I am so happy to hear that mom is doing great. I really enjoyed her email. It really touched my heart to see my pic by her bedside. I love you mom so much and I always think and pray for you. Don't get too excited for April because I'm not. :D Keep in there

 

   Well all the elder are dying to go. I was going to write more about what I have been studying about prayer in DC but I will wait til next week. I have learned so many things from just a few sections. I have been going through each verse and picking out things from it. Revelation is the neatest thing to learn in the whole world and my prayers have become so much stronger and so much more personal.

 

              I love you all so much,

                    Vyresnysis Senfordas

 

  So I attached a bit of my email to presidet boswell of a really cool experience that happened this past week.

Pijus- In this lesson I really learned the power of testimony. Pijus has been meeting with missionaries for a long time and he is quite a confused guy. In the lesson he was telling us how he is starting to believe in what the jews believe becaue it is all written out and you can see the questions and the answers. He said he beleives in Christ but just in the way that he was a good teacher which is contrary to what he had told missionaries just barely. In one word, the lesson was kinda crazy. He was very confused in his beliefs. He had an experience a while back with Elder Rich where he prayed and he said that he felt something when he asked if the book of mormon was true. He told us it is hard fro him to judge just by feelings and he wants to know for sure in his head that what he is thinking is from God and not just his own thoughts. We read from the story of oliver cowdrey when the lord reminds him of the "night he spoke peace to his heart" and it didn't help him too much. He just got a little more anxious and said he still doesn't know. I felt a strong impression to share my testimony. I shared my testimony of how I know how he feels. There was a time in my life when I was really confused about if the church was true or not. I told him I felt like him, confused and frustrated because I couldn't tell if it was just my thoughts or really from god. I told him I had to change some things in my life. I had to "really" begin reading the scriptures, I had to get on my knees and really talk with my heavenly father and showed him that my desires to know where important to me, I had to do all of "the small steps" to receive my testimony. I told him that it was hard and that it will be the same with him. It will require work, but if he really tries and asks with real intent, meaning he will act on the impression that he gets, he will get a testimony like I received. It was quite a powerful experience for me. Instead of bluttering out more thoughts from the world or his own head, he sat very quite. I didn't think that was possible for him. We sat there for a bit and he was thinking very deeply, I feel for his first time. We invited him to begin praying and to read from the beginning of the book of mormon. In the past, he had only read where the missionries said but we felt he should just start from the beginning. He said he would and I could feel he was truly being sincere this time.

Email from James - January 30, 2012

Dear Dad,

So already being the most humble of all missionaries that I am and finishing an assignemnt right as I get it, I had already sent that letter for grandma and grandpa to mom's email. But I took the liberty of sending it to your email for more confisciensy ( I have no idea how to spell that word lol.) Hahaha wow that was so me writing that with a sarcastic british stuck up voice so don't take that seriously. I am not that prideful haha :D It just made me laugh writing it.

Ah yes, transfers. Well I thankfully spoke in church on sunday in Šiauliai before I left. I met with a lot of members before I left and I saw so many tears and you would think we were having a funeral for me. I kept telling them I wasn't dying and that we would still keep in touch. :D It touched my heart at how loved I was there. Every president chomskis said he was way said I was leaving. He tells all newer missionaries to the city that he will forget their name way quick once they have transfered. haha. I am now serving in the large and spacious city of Vilnius. I am in the capital of lithuania and it has been great. I love the big city. :D I am serving with Elder Rich and he is just the coolest guy ever. We are going to have a lot of fun and I am pretty sure he will be the one sending me home. Gross, did I just say that. I meant to say the one I will be serving with these next two transfers. I love Vilnius. My whole mission I really wanted to serve here in the summer because I went on a lot of exchanges and I loved being outside and there were a lot of people out all of the time and it was so much fun. Now, oh my goodness, it is so flipping cold. I left those cool 180 earmuffs at home and that was a dumb decision, I got sick all last week and today it is finally going away. It was no fun. Elder Rich gave me a really great blessing and that helped a ton because I wasn't sleeping good with all of the junk in my nose, head, and throat. I took those cool orangey pills and they seemed to help a little. I just drank lots of tea and we stayed inside for most of the week. I feel so spoiled in the apt. we live in. It is so big and we are way up high so we have a great view. I sleep in a big bed. The kitchen is way nice and really big. The bathroom floors are heated, crazy huh? I thanked heavenly father so much when I found out where I was going to be for these tranfers. The branch is so great. I knew most of them pretty well from conferences and all of the activites so there were way excited I get to serve here now. The youth are so great and I love them a ton. We are already becoming way good friends. On sunday, oh it was so cute, they had a primary program. I haven't seen one in 2 years. They were so cute, singing and giving their little talks in their adorable little lithuanian voices. I loved every minute of it. Church here is three hours. It was really weird not worrying about who is speaking or the money stuff and all of the things that ran through my head while being a first counselor. Now I get to be just a great missionary. I am so excited to be serving here. There are a lot of teenagers here so that made me so happy to be serving here because I love talking to the youth. They were way nice to me and accepted me right away. They are hillarious. There are also 4 american girls here who are teaching english. It was weird to talk to them and it was really akward for me because I don't know how to have a normal conversation in english lol. :D I love speaking lithuanian. So before I forget, my mail address is:

A/D 3438

LT-01011

Lithuania

So haha, talk about last moment, I can't believe you and katherine and mom painted the wall right before her surgery. It looks really good and I love the temple pic. AH temples. I can't wait. It will be really cool to see. :D

That is way crazy that parker's birthday is way close. Hahah is he left handed? That is so funny. I remember he kept switching hands. That made me laugh way hard.

I laughed at what president homer told you when you mentioned he promised you would be the bishop when I came home. That is totally a mission president thing to say. It's great when the Lord turns the table and you didn't know what to expect.

Keep me updated on how mom is doing. I have been keeping her in my prayers all week and I will especially tonight when it is morning there. I hope everything works out ok and that she will have the courage to go through it. Just remember the scriptures where the Lord promises His children, fear not, for the Lord thy God is with thee. and also the prayers of your family and friends and your frozen son on the other side of the world. :D

I love you all so much. Stay safe and know that You are always in my prayers,

James

This is some of my thoughts that I wrote to president boswell and I thought you might like them.
AS for the question that we have to answer weekly, there was a verse in the book of mormon that really stood out ot me in my studies. I tried finding it through lds.org but it couldn't find it but I will look it up when I am at home and report it to you because it was a very good verse. But it said in the verse towards the end, "the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of His people". That really stood out to me because I feel sometimes, as missionaries, we get in a mindset that there are just a few things we can do to find and teach people. We harvest, we contact, we walk on the streets. etc. We feel, at least I can say for me, that these are the only things that we can do to find people. I felt really impressed when I read this because I feelt the Lord wants us to use many means to find people. Elder Rich and I are very creative and I feel that we can think of even more creative ideas on how to find people. We are very excited for putting this English Club idea to the test. I feel we will be able to find a lot of people through this.

One of my goals is to increase my courage in finding people. I was already caught with guile from the knowledge that the Lord works in many ways to bring salvation to his children but I also found another verse in 1 samuel that I really liked. It says, "When thou goest out to abattle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and bchariots, and a people more than thou, be not cafraid of them: for the dLord thy God is with thee." I liked this because I changed some of the wording and put, "when thou goest out to contact amongst thine enemies and my children and seest roughened men and hoolies of all kind, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee." That became more personal to me. I personally am not very comfortable with bus contacting. I have done it in the past but I feel I can improve on it and as we learned from president lawrence, we need to contact everyone everywhere. I noticed when I came here, it was very common not to have a lot of lessons or investigators. When I heared the calls from the other elders, they were pretty down about not having a lot of numbers and just kinda laughed it off. I felt way bad. In Šiauliai we had a lot of success and if we only got 5 lessons a week, I knew it was time for us to really pick it up. I feel that if we and myself included, pick up our faith and press forward harder in every finding tool and use the Lord's many ways of finding to bring salvation to His children, I know we will have great success. I am very excited. 

A letter from Elder Nelson's Mom

Hello! Sanfords,

My son Elder John Nelson is serving with your son in Siauliai Lithuania.  I wanted to write you and say "Hello" as well as letting you know how much we appreciate your sons service as a companion to our son.  Elder Nelson is loving his mission and he is grateful for the excellent missionary companion he has.  He is learning much from your son and is so grateful to be serving the Lord. We are so grateful for the experience our son is having and know that much of it is due to the faithful young men he serves with.  We hope your family is well and enjoying having a full time missionary.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Nelson

Email from James - January 16, 2012

Hey dad,

 

This week was really depressing and really hard. Sunday was a super day but the rest of the week, I didn't now like. Our investigator is in the hosptial because of depression and yadadad. We went to visit her because she wanted us to and it was so akward. She was on some way weird drugs because she was not acting like herself and had a ton of energy. A lot of people we had planned to meet with canceled at the last minute so we were stuck knocking on doors all night and getting the door slammed into our faces then it started snowing way bad. Not going to lie, my faith has dwindled a bit. But, you do what you got to do and you just keep going.

 

Not all was bad though, we found a pretty cool family. Just the dad and the daughter were home and we taught them a short first lesson. They were really nice and the dad wouldn't give us his number but he took ours and said he would need to talk to his wife. He came to english so that was fun. Teaching English class made me feel a lot better because I am way close to my friends there. They treat me so nice and they are all like my best friends. I wish people would give us the chance to speak and get to know us instead of judging us right from the start. It's way irritating.

 

Sunday just made my week. We had branch conference, so we had a lot of people come, well a lot for Šiauliai. Some members came from Vilnius and Kaunas and Klaipeda. The District President is so cool and we talked for a long time. His wife is way spunky and loves to talk to me. They are planning on going on another trip to Utah to see their daughter, about the same time I am going home. Their daughter lives in Riverton. Can you believe it? That is way close to us. I told them they have to let me know when they are coming out so I can see them. One of the members from Klaipeda, Gintara, is the funniest and coolest girl. She is 12 or 14 and just hillarious. We all talked forever and her mom was laughing way hard at all the funny things we were all talking about. They were all way interested about the story from our family about the guy from france who married an indian girl. They thought that was way cool and want to know more. Gintara and her mom were so cute, they asked when I was going to come back to Klaipeda. They said it's not as fun as when I was there. Gintara was so funny, they were getting ready to leave and she kept saying she didn't want to. :D I love them so much. All these members just make my day all of the time. They are such great people. I look forward to sundays so much.

 

Nothing really much left to tell. Really slow week, not fun.... Please let me know if you got those past two emails. Nothing was updated on the blog and you didn't respond to anything I said so I am a little worried. This is the last week of this transfer so we will know next week what will happen. I'm a little nervous because I have been here since May so we will see.

 

I love you all so much and I always keep you in my prayers. You mean the world to me

           Love,

               James

Email from James - January 9, 2012

Hey dad,

 

Hopefully this letter will get to you. I don't know why the last letter didn't get sent. It was a long email and so I resent it and I hope it gets to you.

 

That's way funny that you got some snow on saturday because it started to snow here on saturday too. A lot actually. It just kept coming down and down and wouldn't stop. I had great fears that the winter was beginning and that the great battle was about to begin. It kinda felt like in the second Lord of the Rings movie where they are beginning the battle at the castle thing and the music begins and you can tell on Aragorn's face that it will be a hard fight but he rounds up his shoulders and fights. Ha ya that's how I would describe my feelings for that day. But, it warmed up a bit and now most of the snow is melted again. It is still way cold and bleak looking outside with the gray blanket of clouds but the snow is gone.

 

That's really cool you got to eat at President Homer's house with President Price. It's always way cool to be in the same room as a general authority and have the oportunity to be instructed by them. They are true servants of God. You can feel it when you are around them and I am blown away by how well they know their scriptures. When President Clayton came, an elder asked a question and without even a pause, he said, " well let's open up our scriptures to Doctrine and Covenants yadadad." It was crazy how well they know their scriptures. It makes me a little worried because I don't know my scriptures that well and I still haven't read through the new testament or the doctrine of convenants, but I am trying. I am beyond thankful someone used up their time to make the Bible Dictionary and the Topical Guide. :D I can zip through that way quick and find scriptures. I will have a lot of time to study the scriptures for the rest of my life which is very exciting for me because their is so much to learn from them. It's a life long pursuit that I am sure I won't ever be able to complete but I hope I can get close.

 

I totally am 110% in support of your new goal to be home with the family. That is a very honorable and worthy goal that not many families here have the opportunity of having. It's not that they have busy jobs or their lives are way busy, it's that most of the families are broken and their isn't a good dad or husband to come home after work to give the family some love and protection. I am so thankful that I have you as a great dad. You have been used as a great example for service, forgetting yourself, loving the Lord, being an example to me through my life and on my mission, being a great father and husband, and so many other great things. I can't wait til we are home and we can have conversations about gospel stuff and life more. I regret not taking those chances when I was home. Talking about gospel stuff or life wasn't that important to me, but now I am so thankful it is. It has taken a whole new meaning on my life and has a lot greater importance. I am so beyond grateful for my mission. Words can't describe how happy I am to be on a mission and to have this foundation that will bless my life forever. Thank you so much for being the great example that I needed to see to shape me into who I am becoming today. I shared some of my goals in the last email. They have been going pretty well. I have been working out every day except for sundays. It was a little hard to start and some days when I'm really tired, it's very hard to work-out but I actually want to keep this goal. I have seen great affects from it. I feel a lot better through the whole day and I am getting stronger. The Book of Mormon and D&C reading got a little slacked but I am renewing my desire to keep it going and setting goals to keep that strong.

 

Here's a copy from my email about one of our great investigators saule.
Saulė- I think personally this week for the question of what did I do to acheive the missionary and branch baptismal goal was our work with Saule. We have been working with her so hard and she has made so much progress in just one weeks time. She was very open with us when she knew that we saw her smoking after she told us she hadn't smoked in about 3 months. The spirit was a lot more stronger in our lessons with her and we could see and feel that she was repenting. I am very excited to ask her those questions you gave us. As we told you in our lesson this past week, the spirit was way strong and she has opened up way more to us, which I didn't think was possible. Her and Vladas have set the goal to quite smoking together. It has been wonderful to see. Vladas bore his testimony in church which was huge! We met with them sunday night and he said he was starting to think about not bearing his testimony but that he felt like he should. We are keeping a constant contact with Saule and Vladas to check up on their smoking and keeping that constant contact so we can know how they are doing spiritually. We gave their daughter, Gabriella, some of the bible and book of mormon cartoon stories and she loves them. They all read and study those together. Vladas and Saule are praying together. I couldn't be any happier from how I have seen them changed. Saule's baptismal date is for the 4 of February. It has been wonderful for me to be her so long to get that bond with her and saule so there is that trust. I feel I can be completely open with them and they said they feel they can tell us what they are feeling or what is hard for them. They told us that we were both from God just by how much we have helped them. When Saule first came to Šiauliai, way back in the summer time, she wasn't even interested in the gospel, and now, she wants to be baptized. People's hearts can change.

Romas has been out of town in Switzerland with his family so we won't be able to meet with him til next week.

 

That made me laugh about how people are arguing about who's team I will be one. What are the team's so far? Make sure they are serious about having me run because I really want to when I get back. I have been working out so I will be ready to get back into training fo the race. You totally got to run it. It's way fun and it's one of those experiences you got to try. Not many people say they ran a marathon like ragnar. :D

 

So I got an email from the lady from Bingham and she said that she can't send me those forms through email. I will copy what she said to me.

 James,We do not have the capability to email transcripts.  I need you to give me the name and addresses of the Universities for which you are applying, we will mail them directly to the admissions offices, that is part of the official transcript process for admissions.  Also, give me your date of birth and the year you graduated. If you would like us to mail an unofficial copy of your transcripts home we can do that just give me the address. Thanks,Robyn SmithRegistrar OfficeBingham High

      So you will have to get me the address of the schools that we are applying for. I think you can do both email and physical address of the colleges. I will need the addresses for BYU, Utah Valley University (UVU), SLCC and I was also thinking about Uof U too. :D Thanks for helping me out so much. It really means a lot. I am way excited to go into college and begin my whole new adventure. I am going to work way hard.

 

I didn't tell you on the phone about one of the exciting things I wanted to talk about. So we are going to go to Nauvoo? Wow I was way thrilled to hear about that. That is going to be so much fun and I can't wait. Some of my companions have been there and they say it is amazing. I want to go to the Nauvoo temple way badly. Oh I can't wait for that trip. Two thumbs up for that idea to go to Nauvoo and I am sure I will live if the hotel has a pool or not. :D That made me laugh hearing Anna and Parker ask if there will be a pool. Ha I remember flipping out if there wasn't a pool at the hotel. haha.

 

Nothing much really to report about this last week. It was a little slow but still lots of fun. I love being here and I can't believe how fast times just goes and goes. It gives me the extra drive to keep working harder and harder and to keep improving my skills constantly because I still have so much I can improve on. I love you so much and I can't wait to hear back from you. 

 

             Love always,

              James