Sister Maleena Felshaw Back to Missionary Letters howdy partners Heres some updates for my mom and whoever reads these: -we got to go to the temple as a mission on Oct 30th!!! Each zone had a different session. It was my first time going back to the temple in over a year and boy did it feel good. - a member gave us a bunch of bananas. Not like a singular bunch of bananas but like A BUNCH OF BANANAS. like 20. Needless to say I ate a lot of bananas. I was looking up different banana recipes and a picture below was one of the results. I was not a fan. -transfers happened. Again. I know they're every 6 weeks but it sure does feel more frequent than that. My comp and I both stayed! I kinda expected that but I'm super excited to continue in this area and work on my spanish. -speaking of Spanish: it is hard. It is hard to be a missionary for 15 months and then be put into a Spanish area and feel like you can't contribute anything. It's hard to have thoughts in your mind that you feel would help someone but not be able to communicate them. It's hard to have people talk about you in front of you because they think you dont understand. IT'S HARD OKAY. but I am so grateful for it. I love this language and I'm sad I have such a short time on the mission to learn it but I look forward to continuing it after. Sorry, little did you know when you asked to be on my email it was more of signing up to hear my problems lol. Life is good guys! Have an awesome week! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Kade Haviland Back to Missionary Letters Well, this is it! I'm at the end of my mission. That's crazy! By this time Wednesday I'll be home. It doesn't feel like it has been two years, although I can't tell you if that means it feels like it has been longer or shorter than that. It seems like my mission has been shorter that two years, but it also feels like I have been doing it for all my life. It's weird. Elder Bridenstine and I were surprised this weekend when we got transfer calls, to learn that Elder Bridenstine will be leaving Richmond as well! And not only does that mean that Richmond will be getting two new missionaries (we call that white washing), but one of those missionaries will be in training. In fact, 2 of the 4 areas in our district will be white washing this transfer, and 3 of the areas will be training. This district is really getting moved around! Other crazy news about transfers, Elder Brownlee, the missionary I trained, is going to the the zone leader in this zone. Man, they grow up so fast. I want to thank you all for the support you have given me throughout my mission, whether it was from prayers, emails, letters, or lessons taught. I have been thankful to receive them all! The mission has been a great time for me to learn and to grow closer to our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I've come to know that God has a plan for each one of us as I have had the opportunity to help Him put that plan into action. I know that Christ took the penalty for all of our sins and felt the misery of all of our shortcomings because I have felt the peace and love He has for me and seen others feel it as I and they have repented and aligned their lives with God's will. I've come to know that I can trust the Holy Ghost to never lead me astray, because I have seen Him guide me to do what's right and testify of Christ and God to those I've taught and to myself. These truths I've come to know thanks to the Restoration of the fullness of the gospel through Joseph Smith. I'm thankful for the Book of Mormon; it is the word of God. I'm thankful for the Prophet; the teachings God sends us through him have helped me a lot. These two years have been fantastic, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. I really do love you all, and I look forward to seeing you when I get home. Au revoir! Faaitoito! Elder Haviland Pic My district and how many months they've been out. It felt weird to be holding up a 24. Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Lauren Leavitt Back to Missionary Letters I have no way to truly express my love and gratitude I have for my mission. But for my last week I wanted to share my testimony. These past 18 months are times that I will cherish forever. I know that God is in the details of our lives. He is so real and so aware of each of us. I am grateful to know that I know I have loving Heavenly parents. And that they are constantly watching over me and blessing me for my efforts. I know the gospel is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I've found peace within the pages and love for those who have have sacrificed much so that I can have the knowledge and another witness of my Savior. I love the Book of Mormon and the lessons it contains. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. He restored the church again on the earth so that you and I can receive blessings of eternal families, personal revelation, and a personal relationship with our Heavenly Parents and our Savior Jesus Christ. (The list goes on) I know my Savior. Yes, period. I know my Savior! This is my biggest testimony and witness. I KNOW HIM! I know Jesus Christ because of the most difficult times on my mission. I know him because of the people he has placed in my life to be his hands. I know him because of His atonement. He did it for me. He did it for you. I know because I've felt it. I know because I've seen it. Throughout my life, He is there in the details. I know Him and I love Him. He is real. He is there. He lives. I know this is short and my testimony is much greater than these few words but I wanted to share something before I return home. I love each of you! And I love this gospel and the experiences I've had on my mission. I hate saying goodbye to people and a place that has taught me so much. I love it here because I have grown to know my Father in Heaven and my Savior. I'm excited to see all of you soon! Thank you! I love you! One last time, Sister Leavitt♡ Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Jody Ludvigson Back to Missionary Letters So this week was absolutely wild! My new area is absolutely insane, I dont even know how to describe it. Basically all you need to know is I am going to have some crazy crazy stories by the time I get transferred out of this area. This area is also super busy! We have 2 baptisms coming up on the 15th and are super excited for that! We have found a bunch of super cool people to this week! With tons of miracles throught the week! So my first day here one of our lessons cancelled so we decided to go stop by some interested people, and we felt super prompted to go and visit this lady named Barbara, so we go and knock and she let's us in and starts talking to us getting to know us, and we found out she just recently had a family member pass away and really needs the gospel! We were able to teach her the restoration and about the Book of Mormon and she loved and is going to start coming to church with us! It was super cool to see when we follow the promptings of the spirits the miracles that come from it! We are also teaching this super cool family who's Dad has been inactive and the rest of the family aren't members, and it has been super cool to be able to get to know them and teach them, they have this 12 year old son who is an absolute beast! So pretty wild experience that happened this week was we had another lesson that cancelled so we decided to go visit another person that is interested. So we go to visit him and this address is taking us out to the middle of nowhere, and where we live now it is pretty country, and a lot of trailer homes. So anyway we get to this address and the home it takes us to looks abandoned, it is only half built, with no windows holes all over, looks unlivable, so we pull up and there is like a junk yard next to the abandoned house and we see a guys rummaging through the junk yard and we get out to talk to him to see if he was the guy we were looking for, and he walks up to us just head to toe covered in dirt, and so we asked him if he was Cody Dalton (the guy we were looking for) and he says no, but he lives in there, *pointing to the abandoned house. So we asked is he in there and he said idk go knock. We walk up to the house and the door is destroyed it's not even on the wall, its leaned up sideways against the door frame, and we thought no way anyone lives in there, but we knock anyway and we hear someone yell from inside, "who is it" and we say "the missionaries, what are you up to" and Cody responds "oh nothing just smoking some coke" and he invites us in. And we were like what in the world, so we start talking and he introduces himself, he says "my naked Cody Dalton, my mom call me Cody Dalton" so we start teaching him and the spirit was actually there so we invite him to church and he says he wants to start coming so that was cool! But this transfer is going to be amazing! We are always super busy so that is nice! Also my Comp Elder Macdonald is a stud, he is from Hawaii, and we get along super well! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Braxton Poole Back to Missionary Letters Training is over whats next? (Week 15) WOW, feels like yesterday that our first transfer ended! It's been kinda weird building up to transfers. We went on two exchanges that both were a party! My first was with Elder Davis, as always we had a good time with Spanish. The other was with Elder Dye, he is from Island Park, Idaho! It was so much fun and the area we were in was kinda the boonies compared to Wesley Chapel so it reminded me of home a little. The reason I brought it up was because we met so many just different people there it kinda scared me! We had a lot of good lessons over the week and met a few new friends. I guess we didn't have anything drastic happen. It's been pretty average I guess, but I won't be keeping track of Wesley Chapel anymore! I'm going to Ocala! Ocala is the most northern zone in our mission and I get to be right in the city! My new companion only has one transfer left so that is crazy! Can't wait for the new adventures. Really sad to leave all of the other Elders in Tampa zone but it will be so worth it! I'll try and do better next week with my email! Elder Poole Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Hannah Haviland Back to Missionary Letters Kumusta Friends! Time is flying by here in the Naga Philippines mission. I cant believe that it has already been a whole week since I last got to email! This week Sister Morris and I did a lot of looking. Our area is a city area which means people are always busy working. However we were able to find a family this week! The Morada Family is super cute. They have three little kids, the oldest being around five or six and the youngest being seven months old. The only problem with teaching them is I understand less of what they say than most lessons. In my area, the people speak a lot of Bicol, another dialect of Tagalog. I thought learning one language was going to be hard but boy oh boy did that one throw me for a loop. Sister Morada had to leave for a second half way through our lesson, and after she had left Sister Morris leans over to me and said "She is speaking mostly Bicol so I am kind of confused because I am not really sure what she is saying." Sister Morris, welcome to my life here in the Philippines! haha, but it is great. Every day I am beginning to understand a little bit more than the day before. Lucky for me I can understand most of what Sister Morris is saying. In the middle of this very noisy lesson, sister Morris started to testify of the truthfulness of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The room was still very loud, but for me everything started to stand still. My Friends, we are truly so blessed to have the restored gospel here on the earth and I know that it is true with all my heart. If you have not had your own witness, I invite you this week to really read the Book of Mormon and ask God with a sincere heart if it is true. I promise that if you do this, you will receive a witness. God wants to bless us and God wants us to know of the truthfulness of his gospel. this knowledge brings so much happiness! This week we had ward conference which was fun. Ward conference here is a big deal for some reason. Everyone gets extra dressed up for church and most of them actually show up on time! adjusting to "Philippino time" has been a bit of a stress for me. Everything starts thirty minutes to an hour later than it is supposed to. It makes it hard to want to show up on time some times haha! But Sister Morris and I got to participate in the Ward Choir. They start their ward conferences of with the special musical number so that was interesting. We sang "I Feel my Saviors Love" which is one of my favorites! Our Savior truly does love all of us so much and shows his love to us through everything we see and receive. A funny story from this week. When Sister Morris and I walk down the street, we are very often stared at by like....everyone. This particular time however, we were walking down the street and a group of six or seven kids, probably around the age of ten, started staring and pointing at us. As we walked by them, one of the little boys started to talk to us (in English so I actually understood what he said) "HEY! I love your skin! I need your skin! Give me yours skin!" to which sister Morris responded "yeah well I need it more" and then the kids just laughed and continued to walk away. In hindsight, those comments coming from anyone besides a kid would actually be really terrifying. That's all for this week! I hope that you are all doing well. I love hearing from you all and I am so grateful for your support and love. Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Lara McOmie Back to Missionary Letters PARKOUR. PARKOUR. PARKOUR QUE PASO? What a week wow, also I feel like I just wrote to you guys?!?! time FLIES let me tell you. THE DAY OF STRAIGHT MIRACLES Tuesday was one of those days that's like a high of highs. Miracles were coming left and right. Our friend Amalia who we've been teaching IS ON BAPTISM DATE and it was so unexpected! Then we called a grey dot... HES COMIN TO CHURCH... then we got in contact with someone we havent been able to for a long time!!! There were lots of other things today but guys God really is good :) EXCHANGES. ZONE CONFERENCE. CHINESE PARTY? yall this week was lowkey a VIBE. I had exchanges with Hermana Church and it was soooo fun, it was cool to go and work in a different area and meet amazing people. Zone Conference was SO good. Okay. Pause. Wait. Because I NEED to tell you this miracle. We learned about baptism and being better at inviting at ZC. Later that day... we had a lesson with one of our newer friends. We were teaching the resto again cause the first lesson was interrupted many times. ANYWAYS... he had no questions about it, we talked about the Holy Ghost read some scriptures #moroni10:3-5 duh. THEN this man brings up the fact he isn't baptized for HIMSELF. Then we whipped out our ZC training... Matthew 3:15 and 2 Nephi 31:6-7 to follow... BAM baptism in 2 weeks. The Spirit was working all the magic during that lesson. Oh also kinda cool... I was the one who invited him to baptism... did I mess it up so bad he didn't understand what I was saying the first time? Yes. BUT I asked again anddd he said YESSS. Anyways back to the Chinese party... my district is like all Chinese speaking except for us so it's kinda hype. They posted on their story that there was a Chines New Year party and we were like bet. So you already know we pulled up. HYPEST WARD PARTY I HAVE EVER BEEN TO. I am sorry to every other ward, but they just knew how to do it. Were we out of place there? Yes. But it was still the funnest thing ever. I wish I took more pictures... I will try to be better at it HMM... WHAT ELSE? I honestly don't know what else to tell yall... sorry this is boring BUT I'll have a little Pday talk with yall. Pdays are hype cause we always hang with the zone and it's so fun. Ontario zone is one of the bigger ones so it's a PARTY. Today we hiked a mountain and me and Hermana Morse did parkour + spin jitzu until that was banned. Then we only did parkour :( it was a party, right now we are headed to the church to play some games. Secret Hitler is our top favs. Oh me and Hermana Longhurst my trainer have THE WORST LUCK, we got a flat tire this week and 80% of our lessons cancelled... BUT we did have 7 friends at church. So it all evens out in the end. READ. READ. READ. READ. READ. X10 THIS WEEK... there was really only one thing I could talk about. Sooooo... Let's talk about the scripture example of... ABISH . An amazing example of member missionary work. Little background... the first 2 weeks we struggled with member realtions because the past companionship was here for 6 months! SO we are a lot different and it took a little getting used to I think. We made an effort this last 2 weeks to work with members. LET ME TELL YOU!!!! OUR WORK EXPLODED. The amount of influence members have on missionary work is more than you can imagine. We have so many awesome members in our small ward that have... invited our friends to church, given then rides to church and our English class, come to the essons with us, testify, invite them to come over for FHE, move from their family to sit with our friends that sat alone, and SO MUCH MORE, little and big. So let's see what we can learn from Abishs example of missionary work when you're not a full time missionary... Alma 19:17 "Thus, having been converted to the Lord , and never having made it known, therefore, when she saw that all the servants of Lamoni had fallen to the earth, and also her mistress, the queen, and the king, and Ammon lay prostrate upon the earth, she knew that it was the power of God; and supposing that this opportunity, by making known unto the people what had happened among them, that by beholding this scene it would cause them to believe in the power of God, therefore she ran forth from house to house, making it known unto the people. " FIRST... I love the first bolded part, ITS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU ARE CONVERTED FIRST!!! You need to make sure and CONTINUE to fill your own buckets before you can help others fill theirs :) SECOND... I love how she took that situation was that she needed to go tell everyone!! She ran house to house telling people what was going on so they could see for themselves! We can all do that more!!! If you're truly converted to the Lord, you will WANT people to come and see for themselves! SO... go help the missionaries, open your mouths and TELL THE WORLD ABOUT JESUS and all the goodness He can bring into this crazy crazy world :) Go spread some JOY I love all of you awesome people MUCHA AMOR -Hermana McOmie <3 Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Scott Sperry Back to Missionary Letters Hola everyone!! Hope all is good and things are good back home and where ever you are. I wouldn't know because a only hear from a few of you (shoutout to you, you know who you are). Not meant to be a guilt trip, but is kinda meant to be a guilt trip (I'd like to hear from some of you.... or all of you...) Love you all ❤ 😁 ❤ Tuesday- It was raining almost all of Tuesday so we mainly did a lot of studies in our apartment and called and texted our people. In the afternoon, it was still gloomy and wasn't raining so we decided to stop by our friend Andres. We took a taxi there because it was sprinkling a bit and my companion didn't feel like walking in it. So we went to his house but he wasn't there. We had an English class in an hour and we decided we had plenty of time to walk there and the weather was ok. But as soon as we decided to start walking, rain just comes down HARD.... so you could say we had some fun walking haha. And when we got home after English class, my companion and I watched President Nelson talk from Sunday (because we didn't have time Sunday) and President Nelson spits BARS 🔥🔥🔥. Grateful to have a modern day prophet! Wednesday- We had our district council and it was also Hermana Clark's birthday so we celebrated afterwards. My companion and I bought her a balloon that said Feliz Cumpleaños (we tried to find a piñata but no one sells piñatas for some reason) and we had some fun. Then we went back out east and did some contacting around there. Thursday- Had a recent convert lesson with Raul. He was someone the Sister's taught and baptized right when I got here. After we had lunch with the Stake Patriarch. It was a fun time and him and his wife are amazing people. He even showed us some pictures of him and President Nelson (yes, that President Nelson). Later that night we had a lesson with Daniel, a less active member who is wanting to get back into it. He is a stud! Friday- We went to the north again to Shacktown (Shacktown is what we call it) and we're going to have a virtual temple tour but she was sick and so we decided to walk around and talk to some people and ended up getting a couple return dates set up. Saturday- We had nothing planned for Saturday so we spent about 6 hours in the streets contacting people and we got a few numbers and found a couple people but a big problem here in Carrasco is that a lot of the people we talk to don't live here so it's a bit difficult but it is what it is... Sunday- We had a FIRE 🔥 sacrament meeting. We had two missionaries give their farewell talks and a missionary give her homecoming. The Sister that came home is the daughter of President and Sister Dunford of the Montevideo West Mission (where Elder Wakefield is) and President and Sister Dunford spoke as well. A very spiritual sacrament meeting. Hope y'all had great week and will have a great week. Talk to you all next week! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Ty Bryant Back to Missionary Letters Week 25 It has been a hard fought week of finding and contacting inside the Adeiso B area but we have been blessed and uplifted throughout the week. I am excited to see what the next week will hold for us as we try to reach out and contact everybody that we have talked to. Elder Pluim and I get along great and are more than willing to do the work. One thing to know about Ghana is that Taxis are constantly trying to get people into their cars. They will pull up and ask you where you are going, maybe they will offer a good price for the ride, all this just to get your business. While we were walking back to our apartment one day a taxi pulled up and asked where we were going. I responded heaven, and he just looked at me and asked are you sure. I said we are trying, but we have not found a taxi that will take us there yet. It's just one of those things that would only happen in Ghana. One day we were walking down the road when Elder Pluim stopped me because he had found a service opportunity for us to do. A woman was collecting yams from the back of a truck and then walking with them down to a storage unit 150 to 200 yards away. Without hesitating Elder Pluim started to get to work and I was right behind him. For those of you who don't know yams grow in the ground like potatoes and that means they get very dirty. That means that carrying them also gets you very dirty. We were in our whites and boy did they get filthy. The rest of the day people looked at us like we were crazy for all the massive dirt marks all over our clothes. A wonderful experience from this week was finding a professor and a teacher who are married, wealthy, and by their professions intelligent. We walked up and started talking to them and almost immediately it started to rain and by necessity we were brought inside their house which was very nice. We sat down and chatted with them, got to know them pretty well while it rained and gave a lesson on the Book of Mormon. I know they will read it because of the kind of people they are and I am really excited to go back and learn with them again. My thought this week is simple and that is to follow the counsel of our leaders in all things. Sustain them and love them, I know they do the same for us. Thanks for all the support! Elder Bryant Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Kade Haviland Back to Missionary Letters An old man and an old missionary Hello beautiful family and friends! Sorry I haven't sent emails the last couple of weeks; I got kind of lazy. I've got to make sure I get emails out while I'm still out here in the field. I've not got much longer! (I will not say how much longer though. That is a number that is forbidden to be said in our appartment. As far as our verbal conversations go, I've got about a year left. Gotta avoid getting trunky somehow) Yesterday, we went to a park to try calling some people. While we were there, there was an older guy fishing near by, and once we were done calling people, I really felt like we should go talk to him. So we walked over and started up a full on 30 minute conversation about fishing. Now, I know almost nothing about fishing, so I was absolutely scraping from the bottom of the barrel with my contributions by the end of the conversation. Thankfully, I have a lot of practice of fake-it-till-you-make-it in conversations from my first few transfers speaking French. Talking about fishing was a lot like speaking a different language, so I guess the gift of tounges still applied. At the end of the conversation, we shared a message about the Restoration with him and gave him a Book of Mormon. He seemed pretty touched by the message and said he would pray about and read the Book of Mormon. We have his number, so we'll call him later this week to follow up. About a month ago I gave a baptismal interview for someone we'll call Peter. This Saturday, I had exchanges and had the opportunity to go out to lunch with Peter and his mom. They were both hilarious and I had such a good time with them. Peter's mom had some questions about the church, and Peter's had been doing his best to answer them, but he had some he couldn't quite answer. We had the chance to explain to Peter's mom the importance of having the proper authority in baptism, and the blessings of baptism not just being that you show your commitment to God but thsy you make a covenant with Him. Peter's Mom is super in tune with the Holy Ghost, and as we answered her questions, she eventually asked "I'm going to have to go under, aren't I." It was really cool to see her recognize the power of the Holy Ghost testifying of the truth of what we said. We had another cool experience kind of like that this week with another friend of ours. We had asked her what she believes and eventually she got to the point where she told us that she doesn't think it's possible for any of us to know for sure what's true in the Gospel and that she doesn't know if God will tell us what is true or not. We were able to boldly tell her that God does want to teach us the truth, and that because of that, He restored the fullness of the Gospel through Joseph Smith. I'm not very good at being bold in lessons, but I felt the Spirit strongly as I bore that testimony and our friend did too. When we finished telling her that she can know the truth, our friend said "I feel in my heart that what you said is true." As missionaries, our teaching means nothing if we don't have the Holy Ghost with us, and it's really cool to see how powerful He is in lessons like that. Today was district Pday and we went to the park to play GaGa ball. If you don't know what that is, don't worry, I didn't before this week either. Look it up though, it's pretty fun! Elder Bridenstine is pretty old for a missionary: he's 26. As a result, we have started making jokes about how old he is. It started with me, but he picked up making the jokes too. Last week, at one point, I told him "thanks for joining in on the jokes. They never get old" to which Elder Bridenstine replied "Yeah, unlike me." That was literally the joke I was setting my self up to make, so I told him "Dang, you beat me to it," to which he replied "yeah, by 6 years." I've really had to step up my game around Elder Bridenstine; despite his age, he's pretty quick to the punch! There's never a dull conversation in our appartment. That's it from me for this week. I love you all and hope you have the most fabulous of weeks! Elder Haviland Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Scott and Sister Stephanie Sangberg Back to Missionary Letters Elder Sangberg is the mission vehicle coordinator and I am the mission secretary. Our mission office is quite busy. We have about 180 young missionaries and about 20 senior missionaries. Our mission comprises most of New Jersey and some of New York. Our mission president is President Rolfe. He and his wife have 6 children, of which 4 are here with them. They are very kind and energetic people. We love serving here and seeing how the gospel changes lives, including our own. We love working with the young missionaries and being inspired by their dedication. Previous Letter Next Letter