29 April 2013

good morning everyone!

we're pushing 100 degrees today. good times there :)

the missionary work is going well. we've had some success in finding new people. we'll see what materializes (not sure that's the rights word), but so far we are feeling good about the prospects.

the bike is still working well, which is truly a blessing! remember all the trouble I used to have with my bikes?

not sure what else I have to report on. we're kinda just doing our thing, talking to people, teaching the same people. not sure what kind of progress we made this past week. im pretty sure we DID make progress, because we are trying to do our best to do what we're supposed to do, we just haven't seen the results yet. we'll just keep on keeping on. I guess if you have any questions for me, you'll just have to email them to me, because I cant think of anything else to write.


heres a couple quotes I came across this week:

"you can be a minority of one, the truth is still the truth"
                                                       -ghandi
if more people thought this way, we'd be a lot better off!

"a man who whispers down a well on goods he has to sell, will never sell as many dollars as a man who climbs a tree and hollars"
kinda clever

love you all, be good!
-elder Donovan :)

22 April 2013

happy Monday everyone!!!!

lifes good here in Vegas. its weird, because its still ugly and hot and brown here, and its the desert and nothing living actually enjoys living here. but I LIKE living here! at least for right now its great to be here!

I think im getting the hang of this new area. im still working on remembering everyones' name in the ward, that'll take me another month, but ive met everyone we're teaching and i've learned a lot of the streets already. (when you ride a bike, the penalty is big for a wrong turn, so you learn quickly) And my bike is still working! two whole weeks and no problems yet *knock on wood*

Elder till and I are doing well. we, along with the district, are pushing to find new people to teach. all of us have some really promising people we are teaching, but a lot of them have been "really promising" for a long time, so we need to find some new ppl. so far so good though, we're doing pretty well at meeting our goals.

as a zone we are playing flag football today, should be fun, except that its 90 degrees out!

oh, and i finished reading the Book of Mormon again! good news: its still true! the end of the book always amazes me. how Mormon and Moroni (father and son) are the last two people following Christ, probably in the whole continent. the love of Mormon for his son is what struck me this time. He writes a letter to his son and basically says "The rest of our people have fallen away, this brings me great sadness. the one thing that brings me joy is that you, my son, are still strong in your faith" he then pleads with his son to STAY strong, so that when their lives end they can be reunited in the presence of our God.  I sure hope that in the end of my life i can take solace in the fact that my children are faithful to the Lord.

God is GOOD, remembering that makes life good :)

I hope all of you are doing well!

love,
elder donovan :)

15 April 2013

so far things area going great up here in vegas 7th ward!! i think I'm going to love it here. Ive met a lot of interesting characters so far. all different walks of life. all different levels of sanity. so far far its been great!
and it feels good riding my bike around! even if everyone cancels their lessons and we dont actually get to teach, it still feels like  we're working our butts off, which is good! plus there are so many people that honk and wave at us, its almost ridiculous. everyone time i hear a car horn i just assume its someone saying hi to us lol.
elder till is the man. hes got a good hold on the area and knows what needs to get done, ive just been following him around this last week. its been nice.
we're teaching a guy named brian. dudes super classy. he is the CEO of  ...  here in town. he is super smart. (we often need a dictionary in order to decipher his text messages) he loves people and loves the Spirit.
the apartment we live in is in a pretty safe area (right next to the Las Vegas Metro police station) we hear sirens constantly. it kind of adds to the atmosphere haha. but the apartment is nice. we cleaned it up, threw out a bunch of junk, and now it's looking pretty good
in my district there are 4 english speaking elders (including elder till and I), 3 spanish speaking elders, and two sisters. its a much bigger, more diverse group than we had down in the Rump. I havent met the rest of the zone, but my district is pretty cool. i dont know a lot of the elders now. a lot of them got to vegas while i was in Pahrump. this past transfer meeting i knew almost no one. the mission is very young. last july we had 102 missionaries, this july we will have 250!

all of you in utah, look out for a job for ol' Donovan. i only have class tuesday and thursday afternoons and i need a job that'll give me as many hours as possible!

all of you with moms, remember that mothers day is in a month!

everyone else, remember i think youre great!

love,
elder donovan :)

8 April 2013

welp, the good times in Pahrump will soon come to an end. today i'll be heading back over to vegas again. . Elder Till and I are going to be working together in an area that is right in the middle of vegas. apparently we have a good mix of people in the area. Brandon Flowers (lead siger of the Killers) is in our ward. other than his neighborhood its a rougher area, which is good for missionary work! i havent been there yet, but everyone is telling me its a great area. we will be riding bikes for at least the next couple weeks until new cars come in.

Leaving an area is always sad. ive had a really good time here in pahrump and met a lot of great people. last night we had a good time chillin with randy. he played his guitar, we sang freebird. haha, good times, i will always remember randy and the trouble he has caused lol.

nicole still wants to be baptized on mothers day, so hopefully i'll be able to come back for that. baptisms for Andy and Lourie should also be happening soon, so hopefully i have a few return trips to Pahrump in the near future.

this week did lots and lots of service for people. im getting to old to do all this physical labor. we helped a lady move. for 6 hours straight. that was 4 days ago and im still hurting.

General conference was great! hope y'all were able to enjoy. i especially enjoyed President Uchtdorf's talk in the priesthood session. he gave each of us 4 titles and expounded on each:
1. Child of God
2. Disciple of Christ
3. Healer of Souls
4. Heir to All of God's Gifts

"Healer of Souls" was especially powerful to me. i've got to think carefully about what i am already doing and what i need to do better to live up to that title.

hope y'all are doing well! i'll give you more info about my new area next week. be safe!

-elder donovan :)

1 April 2013

we"re just chugging away here! we started teaching a few new people this week. 3 new people in fact! all had really good first lessons and all showed up to church! cant ask for much more than that!  The other elders in pahrump had similar results this past week and there is much excitement!

No more word has been received on whether or not 2 more elders are coming to pahrump next week, or if they will have a place to live. I am expecting to get sent back up to vegas next monday, but who knows what will happen. we will find out for sure this week and i will let you know next monday.

easter here was a good time. elder bloomfield and I along with 2 teenagers were all assigned to speak at church. the 3 of them talked for a combined 15 minutes, kindly leaving me 25 minutes to talk. luckily i brought a couple stories (time fillers) and all went well.

lets see what else happened...

we went on a hike last monday and found a little family of 9 wild horses, that was pretty cool!

i bought a nice dark gray suit for $3.50

i got signed up for the classes i want to take in the fall. all is set for school except for a job. im happy about that.

o hyeah! and i was able to go to the temple with brother wood and brother lamphere as they went through for their first time. that was AWESOME. it was so good to see that they are still both strong in the faith!

i hope all of you are well! feel free to let me know how youre doing ;)

love,
elder donovan :)

25 March 2013

sorry i couldnt get y'all an update last week! i was busy trying to set things up for school. big old hassle. made me want to stay out here lol.

heres whats been going on in pahrump:

the mission office called us last week and told us we needed to find another place for missionaries to live in pahrump, as there will be 6 of us instead of 4 starting in two weeks. so far the new ones will be sleeping in their car lol. im pretty sure i'll be headed back over to vegas in two weeks anyway.

nicole has had a couple really great lessons recently. we have been bringing an older couple with us and they have connected with nicole really well. they can kind of  tell her the way things are a little more bluntly than we can get away with, which must be what she needed because she decided to get baptized on mothers day! we are excited for that.

i dont know if i told y'all about andy, but he came to church a few weeks ago and said that "God had led him here". then he didn't come for a few weeks and we thought he might have moved on but he came back this week and asked what he needed to do to be baptized. we of course were happy to tell him :) we dont know him very well yet but he seems pretty genuine.

this coming saturday Brother Wood and Brother Lamphere (baptized in my first area) will be going through the temple for the first time. i'm lucky enough that i get to go through with them! it'll be really good to see them!

those are the big things recently. summer is coming on, i feel it. heard y'all back home had snow! i dont think i miss late march snow lol. be safe! make a snow man for me!

love,
elder donovan :)

11 March 2013

It's getting harder to write these update emails. everything we do just seems normal and so i dont know what y'all want to hear about.

the zone leaders came down this week and spent a day with us. that was a good time. we taught a couple people, knocked some doors. elder bloomfield twisted his ankle playing basketball and spent the day walking with a cane. that was fairly humorous.

it rained for a couple days. thats always exciting. one of the mornings it was raining we went and spread gravel in someones yard. we worked for a couple hours but had to stop because it got so muddy we couldnt push the wheelbarrows into the back yard anymore. they kept getting stuck. good times!

on saturday, our ward mission leader texted us a name and an address to go see. we did. and the guy was crazy. not sure what happened to him to make him crazy, or if he was ever normal, but hes not all there now. and his place was a mess, bugs crawling everywhere. needless to say, it was not our most productive contact ever. later when we found out that our ward mission leader has arrested this guy like ten times and basically just wanted us to check up on him. it seems like most of the people we talk to have been arrested. thats pahrump for you :)

that was basically our week. life is still good out here :) hope all is well at home!

love,
elder donovan :)