Elder Christian Martinez Back to Missionary Letters The Journey Home Hey y'all, I'll make this quick Due to the COVID-19 virus, and having asthma, my service in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission will be stopped, and I was informed I probably wont be able to come back out, due to the amount of missionaries coming into the United States. I return home tomorrow morning. The experiences I have had while out here will stay with me the rest of my life. I've learned so much about me, others, and especially about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how much God loves us. I have loved every single thing about being a missionary and serving the Lord Jesus Christ. I love Him, and what he did for me, and all of Gods children. He walked such a long, lonely path, so we wouldn't have to. May we always remember our Savior, and what He did for us. This is His church. God lives, Jesus is the Christ, never ever forget God's love for you, it will never go away. I love you all! Elder Martinez Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Alyson Cook Back to Missionary Letters The work will go on Hello everyone! My goal is to keep this short, so wish me luck. We are continuing to be quarantined until further notice, but this wasn't anything that we didn't expect. But we are continuing to be shown time and time again that the Lord knows what he's doing! Some miracles I've seen throughout the week; - We don't have enough time in the day. We have to be aware of every minute of time because everyday is filled to the brim! -Ariana is continuing to progress amazingly! It's so cool to be able to witness the gospel change her life right in front of my very eyes - Tons of missionaries from this ward have returned home due to Corona, and we have someone who has just been a stellar missionary! He requested 5 Book of Mormons already to give to his friends. Will update you on that! -Sister Rosenbeck and I have been praying to receive revelation for our areas worm, and everyday we've been able to pinpoint moments where we were lead by the Spirit in what we need to do! - So many lessons! I don't know if it's that my other two areas were slower, but quarantine seems to have increased the amount of lessons we are teaching to people. We're so busy! I'd like to share a scripture that I read this week. It's been on my mind a lot lately. It's from the Book of Mormon (Alma 17:10) and it's talking about the sons of King Mosiah and Alma the younger preparing to go to the Lamonites, or unbelievers to share the Gospel to them. The verse says "And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted." The next chapters go on to share about their mission over the next 14 years. They were cast into prison, they starved, they were beaten, and many many other trials. At the end of this story, they were bring 7 Lamonites cities to the knowledge of Christ, which is amazing! But that wasnt for a long time. I'm sure that in the middle of their trials I'm sure that they thought "why the heck am I doing this?" Many times. But the Lord, in all His goodness, knew exactly what they were going to go through beforehand. To prepare them and give them assurance that that was truly the right direction, before they ever set out he visited them with His spirit and gave them peace. So when they would be going through it, they would be able to recall that experience and know with assurity why they are there and that God is with them. That's a truth that can be applied to lots of different situations, so I invite you to read that chapter (Alma 17) and ponder how the Lord gave you peace before the trial. I love you all! Thank you for being in my life :) Sister Cook Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Nathen Abbott Back to Missionary Letters The Last One Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great week. My week was pretty good. I shall explain it to you. First of all, disclaimer, this is not my final email. Just want to point that out to you. However, we just had transfers, I am now on my last transfer, and my group is currently the oldest in the mission. So that's pretty crazy. It's so weird to think about. But anyways, I'm doing good. Despite everything that I thought, I am in fact transfering. I will be going to Trenčín to serve with Elder Hamilton as Zone Leader. It will be good. He is a fun Elder and one that I have already served around a lot during my mission. It will be a good transfer. This also means that I will have officially served in every area in Slovakia 🥳 Except for the two areas in the east (Košice and Prešov). I've only been there once. But maybe I'll get to go there a couple times this transfer. We'll see. We visited with a couple members this week. It is always so much fun. I love the members here so much and getting to know them. It was good to be able to visit a couple of them these past few days before they left. Fun stuff. We met a new guy this week! That was way lit. He is very cool. He answered to the ad that we made about the bible, and actually had interest in meeting so we met. We talked about the Bible and mentioned the Book of Mormon and the story of Joseph Smith and how he used the Bible in order to find answers that he was looking for. And then we talked about other stuff that he kind of brought up and used the Book of Mormon to back up things that he was saying and reading from the Bible. He really loved it, and at the end even talked about how much he liked the scripture we shared with him in 3 Nephi 11 where Jesus comes to the Nephites, yet they don't understand the spirit at first. It was a way sweet meeting. This week we had other meetings, but just meetings with other missionaries like MLC, SMS calls, Office meeting, District Council, and so on. So it was a lot. It made for a busy week. The ZL's stayed the night again and then stayed the whole next day with us. It was wack, but it's whatever. I got icecream like 2 or 3 times this week. That was also a nice highlight. Not much else to tell you guys about, so I'll just end here. Have a great week everyone! Love you all! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Jeremy Perkins Back to Missionary Letters Hey guys! Hope all is going great! We had an awesome week. The fire is out and the rains have started to come. We even received an alert on our phones saying flash flood warning! My family is in Oregon! I am going to the temple tomorrow to receive my endowment! I am so excited and grateful for this opportunity and experience I will have. My mom, dad, and older brother will all be able to come. The silver lining in all of this is that my brother is able to go, in which if Covid-19 never had happened he wouldn't be. The Lords hand is in all things. It will be a memorable one for sure. Kinda weird to think that they are actually here! Sorry I know this is a short one but I will make sure to write more next week. Love you all, stay awesome! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Dylan Wilson Back to Missionary Letters Blessings Blooming in Bartlesville Hey y'all! These two weeks were absolutely fabulous if I do say so myself. Things have been great here in Bartlesville, but instead of rambling on about how great things are I'll just tell you why they're so great! We ate lunch with the Vaclaw family on Tuesday the 13th and they took us to a steakhouse with another set of Elders. It was quite delicious and filling so by the end of the meal I was exceedingly stuffed, but they decided that they wanted to buy a huge slice of chocolate cake for each of us. My companion got a third of the way through his while the other two Elders and I just picked at ours for a minute. We were all joking about how we should have a competition to see who could finish their slice of cake when Brother Vaclaw suddenly slaps a $5 bill on the table and says, "First one to finish their piece of cake gets five dollars." I'm happy to say, but also not happy to say at the same time, that I earned that $5 bill. Later that day we went street contacting and we had walked a pretty good distance away from our church building. We were able to pray and find a new friend to teach named Cheryl! As we were walking back we realized that we weren't going to make it back to the church in time for our lesson so we started running down the streets. I wouldn't recommend doing that in dress shoes and church clothes, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. We had a really cool experience on Thursday the 15th! We went to the park to talk to people and after a few conversations with no real results, we were a little discouraged. However, the Lord loves effort! We started another conversation with this lady named Judy who was out on a walk with her kids and her friend. Long story short, we walked with her for about twenty minutes on a trail teaching about the Book of Mormon! She was talking about how much sense it all made and after we shared the classic Helaman 5:12 she said, "So how do we do this? Do I just give you my number? Can you come to my house?" We had a lesson with her the next day and she starts off by saying that she's been "thirsting for more knowledge" and "praying to know what changes I should make". It was awesome and she's so open! Found a few more new friends to teach, my testimony of God leading us in the right direction towards those that are ready to receive the restored gospel has grown so much. We talked to a lady named Sherry and she seems pretty nice, we found her at about 8:45 PM. Just a testimony to work all the way until 9 PM hits! Another time we were riding our bikes on Saturday night and started talking to a lady named Sarah outside her house. She recognized us as missionaries and was uninterested at first, but when she mentioned Boy Scouts as part of her life I pulled out my Eagle Scout card and she opened right up! Turns out that she's a Silver Beaver. Anyways, she listened to our message and we have a return appointment for this Tuesday! Took a trip to Pawhuska this week and it was quite interesting, Elder Grantham and I did a TON of walking and it reminded me of the old days tracting in Australia: heat, humidity, and lots of sweat. Checked up on some referrals, but nothing to really show from it unfortunately. Had a great Zone Conference! It was my last one which was pretty sad, but so many good things were talked about. Our friend Leslie is praying about being baptized so please pray that she'll receive that confirmation soon. Please also pray that Mike will receive a testimony of the Book of Mormon along with Judy, Regan, and others we're teaching. Things have been so great, I've been so blessed by the people here. Spiritual thought: Mosiah 18:8-10 I read these verses and was thinking about all of the things it asks us to do when we're baptized. We promise to bear one another's burdens, mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and stand as a witness of God at all times. It seems like a lot, but it's important to remember just how many other people have made that covenant that are there to help you. At this current moment, close to 17 million people. Not only that, but Jesus Christ was baptized and covenanted with Heavenly Father to help you. Our covenants connect us! Stay strong and know that so many people have your back! I love y'all so much, have a great week!❤❤❤ ~Elder Wilson Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Emily Leavitt Back to Missionary Letters Hi Everyone! This past month has been good! We finished our month of May goal to lose 500lb, sadly we didn't make it😅we lost about 470lb.BUT we did meet our goal to get 500 new people to church so that was good! This week was exciting, after two months of not being able to get any fast food, our president said we could again! We have also been getting a lot of new missionaries that are being reassigned from out of states! We got two new elders in our district so now it is 8 elders and us two sisters! We are a little out numbered.. Elyria, my last area got a new sister and they came to get some stuff from us last night! The new sister told us about what it was like to go home for two months and that would be so hard! But we are excited to have all these new missionaries! Sister Tanner and I really hope we get another sister soon! A few of our people are progressing really well! We had a lot of powerful lessons this week! We have developed a good relationship with Brad! Him and his fiance invited us to go get ice cream with them and their baby the other night and we had to say no because of quarantine. We were so sad! It would have been a great opportunity to get to know his fiance because we have been trying to get her to join our calls! And their baby is so cute!! Not to mention Mitchels ice cream is the best! We were talking to Brad's relative in the ward who referred him to us about their invite and they were so surprised because apparently she doesn't open up to many people or let people around her baby!! It is extremely frustrating to miss out on opportunities to meet and teach people in person but we are still excited they are comfortable with us enough to invite us! Yesterday we finally got a lesson with Juan!! Each time we teach him he always has good questions and we can tell he has a real desire to learn but he is really hard to get in contact with because he is so busy! We did get to commit him to read a verse every day that we send him so email me your favorite scriptures! He really want to know the Book of Mormon is true! The weather has been really nice out here! Sister Tanner and I are out side every day and we have found some really beautiful parks and the other day we went to a Botanical garden! Probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been! This one guy spent 60+ years creating 6acres of this garden!! We also went to Cleveland a few p-day ago and saw the Rock n Roll hall of fame...but couldn't go in...one day!!! We finally got Dylan to sign his baptism record so he can be an official member! He has been working a ton! Poor guys between being a single parent with his kids on the weekend and work all week he has no time so we haven't been able to talk to him much. It is a continuing struggle to find people in quarantine but we are so grateful for the people we get to teach! It is easy to ask when this is gonna end, especially when we see everything opening up but Elder Christofferson spoke to us a few weeks ago and one the main topics was stop asking when and ask what! What can we do to keep the work going! What do we need to learn! This whole thing has taught me a lot about patience!! I'm so grateful I get to be a missionary at this time!! Thank you for all your love and support I hope you all have a good week! Love Sister Leavitt Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Dylan Wilson Back to Missionary Letters This is the End Hey y'all, this week was definitely one for the books! Or the weekly emails I guess you could say. Anyways, I don't have much time because we're going to have a district P-day so I'll cut to the chase! We went to Kansas on Tuesday morning so my companion could go to a doctor's appointment. We only went to Coffeyville which isn't too far from the Oklahoma border, but now I can officially say that I've been to all three states in my mission boundaries. Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas! Later that day we prayed to know where to go for street contacting and we both felt very strongly that we should go to a park that was a little far away. That wouldn't have been a problem any other week, but this week was bike week where we only rode bikes to save miles on our cars. Anyways, we start biking and I saw this 17 year old kid running down the street doing some exercise so we stopped and talked to him and he ended up being interested in learning more! His name is Gavin. When we finished sharing with him, we started heading towards the park again, but got stopped again when we taught and older man named Mike and turned him into a new friend! For the third time, we set out to go to that park we felt prompted to go to, but we stopped and talked to a lady that was sitting on a bench on the trail we were riding. This lady, Jennifer, ended up being interested as well so we set up a return appointment with her! At that point we didn't have any more street contacting time so we didn't even make it to the park, but we wouldn't have found those people if we didn't keep trying to go to the park! On Wednesday we had two lessons, one with our friend Nicki and one with Jordan. They both went pretty well! Thursday was quite the busy day! We had my last district council in the morning and it was a good training, but a sad day. I'm going to miss my district and going to district council! We had a lesson with Gavin later and it went pretty well! Nothing much happened on Friday, just biking in the heat and checking on interested people in our Area Book. Saturday though! Everything happened on that day! We ate breakfast with the Leavitt family then we had six lessons! All on bikes it was quite glorious, we were so busy that day and it literally flew by, we also put our friend Nicki on baptismal date! It was such a miraculous day being on the Lord's errand! Spiritual thought: 2 Nephi 31:20 I've been thinking a lot about my mission experience and it's crazy to think it's been over. I think a good representation of my mission is the experience we had riding to the park. If we had focused solely on making it to the park, we would've missed the people that actually needed a message about Christ. If you're serving a mission and only focusing on making it to the end, then you won't be able to find those that need a message about Christ and you won't be able to change or experience the things you need to. A lot of missionaries say at the end of their missions, "I've truly come to know my Savior." And I was asking myself if I really had come to know Christ better. Then I remembered all the things that have happened and all the changes I've gone through and I can say the same. I've loved my mission and I love you all. In the words of my man Jacob, "Brethren, adieu."❤❤❤ ~Elder Wilson Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Spencer Cox Back to Missionary Letters Followers of Jesus Christ in Summerwood TX · I LOVE BREAD! I enjoy visiting our local bakery and trying all the different delicious pastries and breads! However, even when I take 2 whole bags of baked goods home, the items don't last long and I'm hungry the next day. There is one type of bread that will never leave us hungry for more: "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (John 6:35) Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Jamie Bundy Back to Missionary Letters Quarantine Week 6: Facebook finding Hello again all. This week had its ups and downs. Just like every other week I guess. It was mostly good though. The biggest highlight of our week was finding someone new to teach named Andrew! I don't know if any of ya'll saw the awkward video I made and that my mom posted on her Facebook but Andrew saw it and really liked it! He commented that he was interested in learning more. My mom got him reading from the Book of Mormon and before she got me to set a lesson up with him he was already through the first book of Nephi. So that was just way cool. We had my mom join us for our first lesson with him and it went awesome! He had so many great questions and was just really interested. We committed him to pray about baptism because he said that he already knew that the Book of Mormon was true. Which was just amazing. We set up a return appt with him and we also took a virtual Priesthood Restoration Site tour with him! It was just awesome!! (I encourage you all to go take one as well. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and completely free! go email chloe.shepherd@gmail.com to set one up;) You won't regret it) We got ahold of the Elders that live in his area and we had them join our lesson. They were very good and bold teachers and just within that lesson, they had him committed to being baptized on May 17th. Wow. It was pretty cool and we are SO excited for Andrew and hope that he continues progressing. We were sad to have to let the elders take over with his teaching because it was really great getting to know Andrew and teach him, but we know that he is in good hands now:) His missionaries will take good care of him and I know they'll do great. It was all such a miracle! I KNOW, that through all the interactions that my video got, both the good and the bad, that it was meant specifically for Andrew. There's no way it wasn't. It strengthened my testimony that the Lord is preparing people always, and all places. He can use the light we shine to find them. And I was grateful to have been a part of that finding process for Andrew. He told us that he had been a part of a lot of different Christian churches but didn't know anything about our faith and just wanted to know and wanted to know what it would take to become a part of it. It was really cool experience and I hope he continues accepting the Gospel into his life. Another tender mercy and miracle that happened this week also happened because of something really small. So we went out to get some fresh air. I remembered that the car needed gas so suggested that we go fill it up. As I was coming up to get in the drivers seat, there was a lady sitting in the car next to ours with her window rolled down. I didn't notice her at first so when she said "I like that picture of Jesus you have in your window" It kind of startled me haha. I don't know why this is a thing, but a lot of the missionaries will stick a pass along card in the driver seat window. I didn't ever think that anything would come of it, but I did the same to be cool and fit in;) So this lady noticed it and liked it I asked her if she wanted one for herself. She said that she would love one. Thankfully, I had a whole stack of different Jesus cards in our cup holder. I not only gave her one but I gave her a couple different ones. She said that she was the only "believer" in her house and that she plans on hanging those nice cards up around her house. I thought that was so awesome. She was really sweet and I guess she lives in our apartment complex so we will probably see her again. It was really cool to me to see how something seriously so small could have had an impact like that. I can't count how many times I've had the cards I've offered people be rejected, or how many times I'd have to convince people to take one. The Lord is in charge of this work. And He's a lot better at doing it than any of us are hahaha. He knows the ones He is preparing and He knows the best timing of everything. We just have to be doing our best and following the Spirit and He'll put us at the right place, at the right time. So, something that one Zone has been doing to try to help us all stay busy and have something to look forward to is by giving us different challenges every day. And if we do these challenges then we get a certain amount of points. At the end of the transfer, whoever gets the most points, gets a prize hahaha. So these challenges are pretty simple but some of them have been pretty fun. One of the ones from this week was to recreate and film a scripture story and keep it under a minute long hahahaha. We all had too much fun with that. I would say that my personal favorite was the Zone leaders recreation of David and Goliath hahahaha. I think it was just a good excuse to throw rocks at each other It was very entertaining to watch hahahahaha. We did Samuel the Lamanite. Basically just an excuse for me to stand up on a wall while I let my companion throw sticks at me hahahaha. It was too much fun. Those were just some of the little miracles I saw from this week:) Its been really nice to be able to have more time to learn and study the gospel as well. My studies have been more fruitful for sure and it has been a great way to receive personal revelation. Something that I've been trying to do more is have a question in mind before I study. There was something really cool that I learned from one of my studies that I wanted to share with you all. So the question I had in mind was "Everyone seems to have a different definition of 'exact obedience', Why? How can I know if I am being 'exactly obedient'? So I wrote this question down and everything and began my studies. Guess where I happened to be reading that day? hahahah thats right, the war chapters yesssss. So, in Alma 53 the people of Ammon, who had made a covenant with the Lord that they would never again take up arms to fight and kill, saw all the war and bloodshed that was happening around them and felt a need to help defend their country. They were planning on breaking their covenant with God so that they could do this. Helaman stops them because he knows they would be better off staying in a good standing with the Lord than breaking covenants with Him. So then they're like "Ok, well our sons didn't make those covenants. Lets send them to war." So then their sons, also known as the two thousand stripling warriors, also makes a covenant with the Lord to defend their country. I compared these two covenants. Verse 11 says: they had taken an oath that they never would shed blood more; and according to their oath they would have perished; yea, they would have suffered themselves to have fallen into the hands of their brethren And verse 17 says: And they entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites, yea, to protect the land unto the laying down of their lives; yea, even they covenanted that they never would give up their liberty, but they would fight in all cases to protect the Nephites and themselves from bondage. Soooo, I don't know about you guys but, I've personally never seen, heard, or read anything more opposite of each other. Both groups of people clung to their covenants, and BOTH were exactly obedient my doing so. There were a couple things I learned from this: 1) Sometimes it can feel like "rules" or "commandments" can be a roadbock and can hinder our progression or our aid in furthering the work. But the Lord has promised that He provides a way. He always does and I've learned that His way always turns out better in the end. 2) Because we all are different, our relationships with the Lord are also DIFFERENT. The callings we have, the things we are expected to do, certain promises or covenants we all make with the Lord are different, therefore requiring our performance in keeping those different covenants to be, that's right, different! Even the universal covenants we make at baptism and in the temple have different meanings to us all, and yet, if we all are doing our best to keep those covenants the best way we know how and understand, we are being exactly obedient. 3) Our leaders are here to help us and remind us of our individual covenants. I, Of course there's more that can be learned here but I thought it was pretty cool have my question be answered like that. I hope you all take time to ask questions and seek personal revelation in your scripture studies and other in other ways. I promise He will speak to you, if you listen. I love you!! Have a great week! Mission office: 721 Paxon Hollow Rd Ste B Broomall PA 19008 My address: 716 Wharton Dr Newark DE 19711 -Sister Bundy Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Jaeger Lee Back to Missionary Letters Catfished Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon. This email is my Christmas present to you. You are welcome. Anyway, not many new things have happened recently. It is Christmas time, so we have a lot of different events going on. We had a Christmas concert planned and organized by the mission and that was pretty fun. Our homie Riku joined us and I harassed him with kindness. Don't worry he enjoyed it. Also, regarding the title of the email... There is this Japanese guy named "Gabriel Mario" and we have no idea where he came from. Two weeks ago we were in a Convenience store one day and he kinda just spawned. We ended up talking to him and apparently he went to English classes in the area like 4 years ago. Now he comes to English class every week and tells us about his "wife". She's not a real person, but he's convinced. That's the most exciting thing to happen so i'll leave you with that. Transfers are next week so you'll figure out in like 3 months if I move or not. Also my google photos aren't working so ill add new pictures here. I don't want to type anymore. また！！！！！！ Also the pictures might be sideways. Ignore that. Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Savannah Price Back to Missionary Letters my last mass Hey everyone! This is gonna be short, but I will go home next week! I am very excited to see everyone again! I can't wait to tell you all all about it next week! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder McLain Easton Back to Missionary Letters Hau (Lakota for hello) This week has been amazing and full of so many miracles. Nellie, (someone we have been teaching in Pineridge) got baptized!!! I was able to confirm her a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. It was so awesome!!! I was super nervous. Brother Not- Help- Him and Elder Oman told me that I could do it with the guidance of the Holy Ghost. My Mission Mom, Summer also gave me the courage I needed. So I stepped in faith and gave her a blessing and confirmed her a member. It was super cool and the spirit was really strong. We have so many angels in our mist. I will forever be grateful for the example of Nellie. Today I found out I'm going to get transferred. I'm kind of sad about it. My trainer, Elder Oman has been wonderful and has been teaching me so much. But that's the way the mission life goes. I'm still going to be on the Reservation. Its just in a different town called Kyle. Its about a hour away from Pineridge. I love the Ridge but I guess God has another plan for me. So I will go where God wants me to go, and do what he wants me to do. I invite you all to reach out to a coworker or friend who you think could use some spiritual uplifting. And remind them that God has a plan for them. I would love to hear from you easton.mcclain@missionary.org . Love, Elder Easton Previous Letter Next Letter