Rednecks, Big guts, and this guy is nuts! (Aug 19-25)

On Tuesday we had a pretty good day. We started it off with a lesson with a less active member and it was really hype! She gave us a referral, but she said to wait a little bit, because she didn't want to have them slapped in the face with the gospel. We had a dinner with some members that night and they fed us pretty good. They talked about Salad dressing the whole time. Not gonna lie, I never thought someone could talk about Salad dressing for an entire hour. Stranger things have happened, I guess. On Wednesday  we ended up having Elder Pehrson pack most the day and I got a haircut. Then we headed down to Elk River and we were with the Princeton Elders too (Elder Laytons last area).

Thursday was Elder Layton and my first day together as a companionship. I had served around him before so he may have been in some of the previous pictures. He is from Colorado and he has been out for 15 months. (Yes this one should stay, lol) He is what you would call a redneck, which is awesome! We went and picked up the potato cannon from his old apartment and then headed up to Aitkin. We ended up meeting a few of the members when we got there. We had an awesome dinner with Rusty Decent and his family that night. We made dinner with their son Tyler, and we just had a great time! Afterwards we had a really spiritual lesson about patriarchal blessings with them.

Friday, we were able to meet with Stan and we talked a lot about what he thinks happens after we die. He said that he really likes us, ask him what he personally believes, because it helps him realize what he truly thinks about it. We helped him put his motor back on his boat and then we left. We had dinner with the Simons, and they made a whole rack of ribs for us and it was super good! We of course had leftovers, which thankfully survived the bike trip home. My backpack did smell like ribs for a bit though. No wonder the dogs didn't leave me alone.

Saturday we were tracting for a bit, and we decided we would go to the park and pray about what we should do, because we felt there was no success in what we were doing. We ended up calling Grandma Piecek to let her know we had to change the day we would meet with her, and she said she was having a really hard day and had some stuff for us to do. So went over and organized her garage so she could have a rummage sale. While we did that she made dinner for us, and she said that she was feeling super lonely that day. God watches over everyone! We then went over to McDonald's to meet with Ray, and we got to talk to this guy Randy afterwards. He asked a whole lot of questions why Utah was a place with a lot of members.

Sunday we had our Branch President drive us everywhere, and we saw a bunch of his friends that he has given a copy of the Book of Mormon too. After spending all dd's day after church with him, we went home and packed and left for Carlton. We had a Zone Conference and Pday again and it is over in that direction.

The Great Walleye, and My new hair cut

The Great Walleye, and my new companion Elder Layton

The most accurate shirt for Minnesota

Study spot by the River

The Wheels on the Bike Go Round and Round... until you crash (Aug 12-19)

Tuesday I had my first real day with Elder Pehrson. He is from Syracuse, Utah and he has been out 9 months. He got to celebrate my 6 months mark with me! August 13 is exactly 6 months from the day I entered the MTC and started one of the best things for me. It's funny to look back and to see how shy and unconfident I was even in the MTC. I feel that I really started to have a testimony in the MTC and then my time with Elder Harris solidified that growth of testimony. My time with Elder Coombs helped me to become confident and bold as I never really was before. I have the gospel which is the best thing people could have. Why not act like it? If you really think it is the  best thing why wouldn't you want people to accept it. Elder Gardner, helped me realize how much growth I have had, as we were both out the same amount of time. And lastly Elder Pehrson helped me, too see that it is important to be who you are. Don't act like someone your not. So now I act strange all the time! 

Wednesday we had lunch with Grandma Piecek again, and she made so much food as usual... we were able to help her clean out her garage, so that was good. After that we drove to Crosby and biked around the town to our different appointments. My companion Elder Pehrson was trying to be cool and tried popping a wheelie and lost control, lol. He ended up dislocating his shoulder but he has double jointed shoulders so it popped back in real easy, but he was still in a lot of pain. He ended up scraping up his elbow pretty bad, but he was able to get it cleaned up with my first aid kit. (see it can be useful sometimes!) We called up a member in the area who is a nurse and she gave us ice packs, and some really nice bandages for his arm. She gave us some brownies too!  It was worth it for the brownies! 🤣

Thursday we had a great day! We started it off a little slow, because we had district Council, and since we live in the middle of nowhere we have to do it over Skype. It's more ideal than driving four hours round trip I guess. After that though we were able to have some lunch and then we drove to Crosby. We decided to bike part of the way, and there are some mountain biking trails that lead straight to where we needed to go. So we got on our bikes with a white shirt and tie, and went for it! It was great and everyone stopped and talked to us too! Most of them just wanted to ask what was wrong with us. No one wears ties when they mountain bike, lol. We had gotten there a little early so we decided to just go around and try talking with some people. We found this little memorial park about some of the History of the little town Ironton. This one elderly lady got really excited when we asked her about it. She said she wants to feed us dinner! What the Heck!!??! Literally just met her, and she wants to feed us and take us to some performance at the American Legion (that she is paying for all of it) 

After that cool experience we taught Tammy and her son Isaiah again and we had an activity lesson for the 10 year old. He loved it, and wants us to do more with him!! We had a dinner after that lesson so we biked through the trails again to get back to the car. We then drove to our dinner, and it went well. She cooked up extra stuff so we could have leftovers to eat the next day! People around just love to feed each other, and to go hand and hand with that, people also like eating a lot out here. Besides Polynesians, I think these people eat more than anyone else, lol. After that we went over to Kevin Decent's place and he showed us his bunny farm! He raises them and then sells them off to people. We sat and talked to him for a long time and hyped him up about his hobbies.

On Friday, we traveled down to Onamia (about an hour south) and we tracted out this little trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately we didn't have any success, but we got lunch at this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Happy's, and it was super good! After that we went down south about 5 miles to the closest thrift store because Elder Pehrson had forgotten his tie, so he was going to buy one for the day. We went in there and they told us they didn't have any ties! What type of thrift store doesn't have a tie?! So then we went across the street to the other thrift store to get one there... they didn't have any either! But we got talking with a lady and she said that she had just donated some really nice ties to the other thrift store, so she said we should ask for them to check the recent donations. So back we went and we asked the owner to check her recent donations. Lo and Behold there were three ties! So Elder Pehrson picked out a nice blue one and we asked how much and the lady said we could just have it! She must've figured that if we went through all that work for a tie it was pretty important to us... lol.

After the Tie fiasco we went and we talked to a member there who is so sweet to us. She loves having us visit because she doesn't get much company there cause she lives so far from other Branch members. As we talked she started telling us about this neighbor of hers and she let us know that he said he wanted to meet with us! So hopefully next week we will start teaching this guy! We then went up to a lady named Bobby and we showed her the Because of Him video, and boldly told her that she needed to start coming back to church to show her appreciation for the savior, by partaking of the sacrament. Before we had just kept telling her that she was doing well, but the spirit directed us to call her to repentance! Sometimes boldness just feels so good! And she felt of our sincerity and she wants us to keep on coming over. Being bold is important and sometimes you have to be very direct and upfront with people. It just has to be with the love of the Lord.

Saturday we had another really busy day. Whew... We got to see Stan again, and we talked about Baptism with him for a while, but it ended up turning into a conversation about a lot of other Doctrines of Christ. It went well enough. Then we biked on over to The Rusty Gun, because there are two members that own the place that we hadn't met yet. We talked with one of them for about an hour in his shop. They don't really ever have customers that often so they can just sit around and talk whenever. We then went back to the Apartment to grab the car and we headed off to a dinner appointment that was about a half hour away. They had a great big family get together and they invited us to come on over and eat with them. They had a great big ole fire pit with cheese Brats, hot dogs, and hamburgers.

It was pretty crazy and funny to see them all talk. After that we headed back home and there was a member doing his laundry downstairs so we decided to talk with him. Overall we stayed busy all day!
 

Burning a tie (traditionally Elders burn a tie at their 6 months mark)

Thunder Bay, Canada? (August 5-12)

On Tuesday we went to the reservation near Mille Lacs, to hopefully follow up with some of the people we found there, but unfortunately, some of the Natives there got a little aggressive with us, so we both felt it would be better if we left. So we went down further to a little town called Onamia (about 1000 people). We tracted down there for a little bit, and only got to talk to one guy, but he was super cool. He said that whenever we are in the area, we should stop by. After that we went to a little library there in town. It is kinda a cross between a museum and a library, because they preserved a Train ticket station and then made it into a little library. It was pretty cool. We then walked around town and we found a couple cool spots to take some photos. We also got to teach Ray that night!

On Wednesday we had lunch with Grandma Piecek and she gave us a bunch of leftovers as always. She is the one that gave us all the fruit last week. She is so sweet and helps us out so much. After lunch we went and taught Darlene, and that went really well. We read Ether 12 with her, and it talks all about faith and why it is important. We committed her to read the Book of Mormon, and now that we gave her a big copy of it,  she can read it! Things are going really well with her, as far as progression. Wednesday night, we visited a member and it went pretty good. We were able to bring members closer together, because she had expressed concerns, that she was being forgotten. It's hard in a branch where a majority of the members are family and there are a couple who are not related to them.

Saturday, I had the opportunity to trio with the Zone Leaders in Duluth. It was a good day we were able to teach several people and they got two referrals that day. We had lunch at a place called KD's (Kicken Delicious) and it was soooooo good! If I am ever in the area, that is what I am eating. We went by later that night to one of the referrals to give them the bible that they asked for, and they weren't home. So we left and on the way to the car we went over and started talking to these dudes, and one of them had some of the weirdest ideas I had ever heard!

Sunday we were in Duluth for church and it was awesome! They had 6 people they were teaching at church there! I got talking with one, who was just getting into the YouTube scene, so I was just hyping him up the whole time. He has a really cool story! After church we had a big Potluck because one of the senior couples that served there for years were departing, and they had a lunch of snack type food. After church we headed over to Aitkin because we had a baptism to get to in Brainerd. We had Ray (the nonmember) drive us there and I got to see Arenda and Eli get baptized! They were a couple of kids I taught with Elder Coombs in Brainerd and then I left. It was cool because they got to be baptized in a lake too. It was really good to see Elder Coombs again.

Monday, we we had a lot of fun! We had 8 Elders all together and we played ultimate monopoly again.

Me with Grandma Piecek

TJ tire and skate park in Onamia (My Initials)

                     

Arenda, Violet, Eli, and Max Baptism.

Ultimate Monopoly on Preperation Day with 8 elders.

Feasting on Food (July 29- Aug 4)

Song of the Week "Your not your Mistakes" (Part 1)

It’s like you’ve been hypnotized,

Stumbling your way through life.

And it’s weighing you down,

On our P-day, we had the Carlton Elders over and we played a really fun version of Monopoly! We had Lord of the Rings monopoly and Star Wars Monopoly, so we just combined them and played with both sets. It was actually super fun, and we probably will play it again in a couple weeks. The next day we had our exchanges and I went with Elder Fletcher, and we spent the day down on the Reservation. We talked to a lot of natives down there, and will hopefully be seeing some of them again! 

Wanting to do what’s right.

You fall ev’ry time you try,

What are you gonna do now?

Wednesday we had Lunch and did some service for Grandma Piecek. She is sweet, and on Thursday she gave us tons of fresh fruits and vegetables! Which has been amazing, having a healthier diet this past week! After going to grandma's we tried stopping by some members homes, but none of them were home. We decided to have a companionship study instead, and then after we studied the scriptures together, we were able to go and see this older couple in the branch, and we were able to talk with them for a while! We then had a lesson and got to know the Elders Quorum President and his wife better. We then set up a time for Saturday to go and help them with there home, as they had been remodeling.

You could hang your head low, head low, or

You could pick yourself up, move forward.

Friday we went down to the Mille Lacs reservation and we tried stopping by all the people we had found before, but no one was home. We were able to visit a less active lady named Barb and she really appreciated us coming over again. We set up a time to go do a service project for her, and I invited her to start reading the Book of Mormon again. She said she would, and then sent us off with some really good Italian bread and some hot dogs. We told her she didn't need to give us anything, and she said, well you are missionaries, and I know I need to feed you, so take it! Everyone here really has that ingrained in the heads. Missionaries need food. Missionaries need food. Missionaries need food. Well I'm not gonna complain! 

No matter how bad it gets, it’s not over.

It’s not over.

You’re not your mistakes.

It’s just something you do sometimes.

On Saturday we were able to go and help out our Elders Quorum President and his wife and we helped them remodel some of there house. They have an adorable little girl, who was being so funny the whole time. They got us some Rafferty's Pizza, which was super good! After service and lunch we did our weekly planning and made a lot of plans out for the week. We had dinner with the Crowthers and they had a big great family reunion there! They had a fish fry and had about 60 croppies, cooked up, as well as a large array of other foods. It was great, and they offered us leftovers, but we don't even have enough room in our fridge for it, so we didn't take any.

But that’s not who you are

In your heart

’Cause you keep on trying.

So don’t be so hard on yourself.

We ended off the night by teaching a man named Ray, and it went awesome! Right near the beginning of our visit, some guy came up to us, and asked us if we wanted free ice cream, so of course we said yes! He gave Ray 1 pack, and us 2 packs. There were eight 1 pint Ice creams, in each pack! So now we have no more room in our freezer either! After he left we went back to playing chess, and Ray, beat both of us again, but, I almost beat him. We were able to share the spirit with him, and we both feel impressed that he wants the gospel, but that he is too afraid to ask. That's why he plays chess with us, and then casually asks questions. It's his normal and natural way of wanting to learn more.

Just ask Him for a little help.

This is only a phase,

And there’s time to change.

You’re not your mistakes.

Ultimate Monopoly with the Carlton elders

Grandma Piecek's surprise fruits, and vegetables 

I made crepes

And Alfredo