Sister Talia Hansen Back to Missionary Letters Well kids it's about that time! I go home on Wednesday morning so this is my final email! Thank you all for supporting me so much throughout my mission. I've come to truly love the people here in Idaho and I've learned so much! I feel I've definitely come closer to my Savior and come to appreciate the great sacrifice that He made even more! He truly does know me and love me and YOU TOO!!! He knows each of us personally! I'm so grateful for Jesus! Anyways, I'm excited to be going home and to see all yalls beautiful faces! My family also says I talk different so don't be surprised when you talk to me and I sound like I'm "straight out of the wild west" (my brother Taner) I guess I did pick up an accent in Idaho `\0/` SEE YALL SOON! -SISTER HANSEN 💕 Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Veyo Bundy Back to Missionary Letters Road trips and Disney princesses Hello! Wow, this week was super eventful. All good things though. A few fun stories from this week! -we had another hour and a half long Bible bash! We love when people take up all our finding time so we can't talk to people who might actually be interested in talking to us ♡ we decided that we gave this fam a fair shot and they're just not ready yet. One day though. -On Wednesday my compie had an appt in.... LA QUINTA!! Soooo. We got to roadtrip down there and I got to see my home. Love that place. Also our roadtrip was a BLAST. We made PB and J sandwiches and played lots of Jesus music and it was a party and a half -Thursday we had zone conference in Rialto, so I got to see my OTHER old stomping grounds. Lots of good mems. We love the ghetto. ♡ -This weekened we had a giant service project at this big mansion in Redlands. The mansion used to be occupied by nuns, is definitely haunted, and now houses events for little kids. The event was basically like a drive through Disney thing and so there were all these Disney princesses and Jedis and all that fun stuff. Our job was set up and clean up so we didnt get to actually drive through but it was a party working with the zone. -today we had a zone activity at President and Sister McKinnon's house! I love being with the zone. It's my favorite thing ever. That's all. -we found a new person to teach and she is so awesome. She's a referral from a member of another ward and she is so prepared. We love her! Pray for her please, her name is Ramona. On a spiritual note, one thing that's been on my mind this week is the importance of family and of gospel learning in a family unit! I have been so so soo lucky to grow up in a family where we are all members of the church. So many people dont get that. I also re-read the Family Proclamation this morning during my personal study and I had forgotten how good it was. Go read it sometime! The Family Proclamation https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng Kk. That's all. Love you. OH! If you're looking for people to pray for->> Bryce + fam John Kim + Kyle Hajee Marlina Elizabeth Eddie Ramona Amy Dawn Luis Kayla + more if you want em. Also pray that we find families here in Redlands! Love you all!! -Sister Bundy 7000 central ave Highland CA 92346 Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Talia Hansen Back to Missionary Letters Idaho, Pocatello mission The Idaho, Pocatello mission was not affected very badly by COVID. We definitely had it a lot better than most missions. We were in quarantine for about 2 months and then we were allowed to go out and do service. About a month after that we were allowed to go back into peoples homes! So we were basically back to normal! But while in quarantine we set up zoom lessons and did lots of teaching online as well as Facebook. We made lots of videos and posts for Facebook :). We were even still allowed to hold baptismal services while we were in quarantine so it really did not stop the work! I know that the Lord cares about all of us on this Earth, so much that He was willing to suffer and die for us! I know that He wouldn’t want the missionary work and the teaching of His gospel to stop! I know that the gospel is the truth and that so much light, joy, and happiness comes from it. It’s been a blessing for me to be able to see that light change peoples lives. I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and that we really can do all things through Him because He loves us! 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 Joshua Abbott Back to Missionary Letters Transfers😬 Hey everyone! This week was super awesome! We had MLC on Tuesday which was lots of fun. We talked about the new missionary handbook and becoming more committed missionaries. It was a good time and I definitely learned a lot. We got a good amount of snow this week, like 8 inches or so, which made being outside so much fun. We actually had a super nice family let us in and feed us dinner on a freezing night so that was super awesome. On Saturday we had a Sacrifice Saturday so we just went finding for like 8 hours with the Zone. We found lots of awesome people and hopefully helped out some other missionaries in the Zone with their areas. We got to talk in sacrament meeting yesterday, I talked about revelation and used the story of Joseph Smith as an example of receiving revelation. It was a great experience and made my last Sunday in the ward a great one. And with that being said, yes I'm being transferred... to Colville. That's a small town north of Spokane about 2 hours. I'm super pumped about it though because Canada is in my district so I'll be able to go up there for exchanges and stuff! I've loved serving in the Lincoln Heights ward so much and I'm definitely going to miss serving here, but I'm super excited to go serve more of God's children in another part of His vineyard. I know God lives and He loves all of you so much, have a great week! I'll talk to yalls later! Previous Letter Next Letter

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

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

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 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

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 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