ELDER OLDROYD: Country!!

Look what happens when you’re at the right place at the right time and enduring trials with righteousness?  You receive some amazing/exciting blessings! Our family had to have this huge trial in our life with the scariest accident I could imagine. I’m thankful for it. That is literally the reason why I’m out here today. That’s seriously where I found out that Heavenly Father wasn’t some made up person and where I found out the Jesus Christ was really our Savior and also to find out he wasn’t a made up being either. All in a snap of a finger I was able to feel that. I know we haven’t really talked about it and the individual anxiety and stress and PTSD we all got from it. But I’m sure that if my family thinks about it personally to see what they gained from it, they won’t be able to deny anything that happened. My Mom is working at the Temple.  Hands down I would never have thought she would be doing that. Truly I didn’t see it coming. But she received Spiritual Strength. She were trying to find a job working at the school with the kids, and wherever else she applied and they all just didn’t work out for some reason. Well it was because she needed to be working at the Temple! I’m sure she has thought about that in that way. But if we sit back and relax sometimes to think about what’s going on in our life, there is a reason with everything that happens. It’s our choice to accept it though. I do know that every choice whether it’s good or bad has consequences. Consequences don’t necessarily need to be bad! It’s really neat to see the Lord’s hand in everything… ha-ha well I don’t know where all that came from but I can testify that it’s true.

This week was really great! We had a zone conference at our Youngstown Stake Building. Elder Shin and I were in charge of the teaching practice. So what we did in the meeting prior to that about a week before in Missionary Leadership Council was that we decided to have a practice on taking members out with us teaching and also to teach the Word of Wisdom with that member to an investigator. We had an hour and a half to do this practice. Well that seemed like a ton of time but in the end it wasn’t enough. It was really neat how it all worked out and President Vellinga came up to us after and told us that the practice was downright amazing and he wouldn’t have done it better himself. Ha-ha so that was a relief! We are obviously trying to take more members out teaching with us, and also a lot of investigators throughout our whole mission isn’t getting baptized due to Word of Wisdom issues. So we had two practices in one. It was really neat. Speaking of getting members out teaching, we have been getting members out with us like crazy! Due to our Stake President rebuking everyone last Sunday. We have been going out with a good amount of Brethren and it’s a good feeling! The Connor family just gave us two referrals this morning. All because Sister Connor is reading Preach My Gospel and really is trying to implement what she is teaching! Does she get scared to spread the Gospel? Sure she does! Does she sometimes want to shrivel up when somebody turns her down? Of course she does! Even we do! Ha-ha Rejections suck, nobody likes to be rejected. But the more no’s you get the closer you are to a yes. I truly believe and understand that is true. Ha-ha Speaking of rejection. We were tracting and this sweet 80 year old lady comes to the door and we get “Hey how are you this morning?” and She yells out she is Methodist and slams the door as hard as she can. Well by the sound of that door being slammed she still seemed really strong even though she was 80.

I don’t know if you guys recall, but when we were in Duchesne, Grandpa Wersland told me that I could never wake up as early as farmers do and milk cows in the morning. He put 5 dollars on it that next morning I proved him wrong and I was in the barn milking cows with Uncle Roger at who knows how early it was ha-ha. I remember it was a sight I have never before seen! I loved it, the main thing that I loved the most was being with Roger. He always has the sweetest Spirit and he couldn’t stop smiling when I was in there with him. He would show me how to hook up the milking machines to the utters and I found it super fascinating that he seriously wakes up this early every single morning. I just couldn’t fathom it. But Roger told me to grab an utter like this and showed me and squirted me with the milk ha-ha. I tried it and it took a few tries but I was able to milk the cow with my hands. Roger squirted some in my mouth and it was at first the grossest thing I have tasted. Why? because the only time I have had a swig of milk, it was cold and it tasted like Milk! This was warm and it definitely didn’t taste like milk ha-ha. The reason I’m telling you this story is for two reasons. One is because that was an amazing memory with Roger and two we had some investigators named Cheryl (age 45) Donna and Randall (Age 70’s) and they grew up on a farm. I was able to somewhat relate to them and I was able to tell them that story. Even though I’m from I guess you can say City ha-ha I have milked a cow and it’s really neat to have experiences so that you’re able to relate with people and break the ice!

I feel like I could go on with stories for days, but time doesn’t let me. Ha-ha I will catch you guys next week. I hope this e-mail finds you well and don’t forget that I love you guys. Have a great week!

Love Elder Oldroyd