The "Turkey Trot"

(Alecs mom) We received this text early Thanksgiving morning from a member.  Alec and the Elders helping out with the "Turkey Trot" in Snowflake.  They all look so happy and helped us know that he was having a great day! 

Blessed with Opportunities

This week went really good! It started out like any normal week but on Tuesday I went on my first exchanges. It went really well. I got them motivated to work harder and we TTId 4 people that told them to come back. I taught them to just open their mouths and the Lord will bless you. On Wednesday we had Zone Conference and that went really well. I learned a lot. On Thursday we woke up and helped with the Turkey Trot in Snowflake. We had to ride bikes in front of the first runner and lead the way. We had only one Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was having theirs at 1 so we only went to one. We got invited to a whole bunch but only went to one. Thanksgiving went really well though. We saw a couple of other families after that. On Friday Elder Shaw invited 2 more people to be baptized and they accepted. We are going to a lot of peoples houses and they all say that they love the expressions and enthusiasm he shows. Everyone thinks he is going to be a good leader. He loves teaching, and the people definitely love him. I then went on exchange with Elder Anderson. It was a really good exchange. We both learned a lot from each other and I learned quite a bit about training

This week I made a cool connection with our Heavenly Father. Our Father in Heaven loves us and just wants what’s best for us. I feel like we could be so much better than we are sometimes and our Heavenly Father feels the same way. He’s just sad that we can’t grow as much as he wants us to. We are only human and I know we have weaknesses. We can only grow at a certain rate also. I love Elder Shaw I just want to see him become the best person he can become in the short time we are together. It’s hard giving him his agency. We always teach the principle but we can’t take their agency. Sometimes I want to just tell him he can’t do some things just to make it easier but he always has his agency. Sometimes it’s hard to see him fall just short, and I’m sure it’s the same way with our Heavenly Father. It’s hard for him to see us fall just short and that is why the atonement is so necessary. He loves seeing immediate rewards but it’s hard for him when the rewards are a lot farther down the road. It made me realize how hard we have to try for our Heavenly Father, he needs us. He needs each and every member to try their hardest to be doing the things they need to do. I’ve learned a valuable lesson this week of love, devotion, and eternal progression. We need to keep moving forward. Even if we feel like we keep falling short. He’s more focused on our direction instead of our speed.

Love,

Elder Lange

Elder Lange and Elder Shaw

Hey everyone! This week went really well. Elder Shaw and I work pretty well together. We have already found a new investigator and he is progressing really fast. Elder Shaw is going to invite him to be baptized today! Elder Shaw loves the work and being a missionary but just being so new he makes the small mistakes that I think are just easy for everyone. He really is a good elder he just needs time to change to the missionary life. He always has the right mind around people and missionary work he just doesn't apply it full time. We are both trying our hardest to grow. I'm starting to see some change in him. Our main focus is leaving everything behind us when we come out. Its going to take some time but I'm teaching the principle and leaving it to his own agency. He is really making a lot of progress though. I am so grateful for the opportunityto be in leadership. It's going to help me grow so much. Before Elder Meza left he told me that I'm going into leadership to grow and that I was put in the spot because I was soon getting to the point where I would just hit a point of flattening off and not progressing as much as I could. I didn't think that I was getting comfortable, but now looking back, I needed something new to push me in a way of eternal progression. I didn't think I was quite ready for this leadership but now I know its something I needed. I started getting comfortable with the people, teaching, our area and my responsibilities. I needed something to help me grow, so as much as I'm helping Elder Shaw grow he is helping me. I think he just needs a few little things to get down and he will become a super great missionary. We have baptisms on the 5th and the 12th! They should be super good! Both are families of 3. We just need to start finding new people teach and help progress, so that is our biggest focus as far as investigators. I'm excited for the work to start growing as Elder Shaw and I put all of our might, mind and strength into this area!

Love, 

Elder Lange 

(Alec's mom talking:  When we were getting Alec ready for his mission, we bought all short sleeve shirts, lightweight pants and socks.  We didn't get him a jacket or sweaters or anything remotely warm.  When people would ask him where he was going and he would say Scottsdale, inevitably people would always say, "oh boy I hope you like the heat, because you are going to die!"  Well it seems strange and ironic that he sent this picture of him in the snow way before we have a drop of snow up here in Utah!  Needless to say we have sent coats and sweaters in every package!)

 Alec and his new companion Elder Shaw

The Lord knows me and knows what I need...

Hey everyone!! Its getting pretty cold here. Its already snowed twice. Shout out to Colton and his farewell. I wish you luck becoming a missionary. Its something you will never regret. This week has been super crazy though. So we had the Gordons baptized!!!! They are the coolest family. Garret and Heather and then they have 3 girls Kiarra(13) Kensly(11) and Kailey(9). I baptized Kiarra and Kailey. Elder Meza baptized Kensly and then some old friends that were members baptized the parents!! They have the coolest story and just had this prompting to move up here, so they did. Garret and Heather were all for taking the lessons but the girls werent too sure. Soon enough Kailey got super excited to be a Mormon and started telling everyone in her school that she was getting baptized and was going to be a member of the church. We were going to have the baptism a week before but they had a death in their family. I was sad because they all wanted to be baptized so bad and then had to wait another week. But this gave us time to try and get them baptized as a family! The day of the interview for everyone the 2 older girls decided to be baptized! This made both me and Elder Meza soooo happy. It makes it even that much better of an experience. The two older girls just got a lot of negative things from their real dad that they go to every other weekend. But they finally started to take a stand and do it for themselves!!!! I love this family. Maybe even more than my own ;) just kidding

The next day we went and saw Jay in the hospital. He is really not doing good and they are trying to get his will together. :( He has no family left and they are having just a friend put it together. We gave him a blessing that everything would work out and he would be at peace. Its hard seeing someone doing so well when we met him, now on his death bed. Its a really cool thing that we got him baptized though because pretty much the day after he started going down hill!

So good news again! I got done being trained finally! Bad news Elder Meza left me! It is super weird not having him around. It is literally like loosing a brother or something. But more good news! Im now training Elder Shaw from Oregon and he is only 24 hours old! I also got put in as a district leader. So I kind of have to take care of a small group of missionaries and help them grow and stuff. Its weird because every single one of them are older than me and I have to try to teach them. The only thing I keep telling myself is that the Lord knows me and knows what I need. I just got done training and now I'm in a ton of leadership. It almost seems like they made a mistake because that hardly ever happens but I know I was given this responsibility from God and he is helping me every step of the way. Ill send some pics from this week too. 

Love Elder Lange

                                                    The Gordon Family

                                             
                                              Elder Shaw, Elder Lange, Elder Mesa

Work hard, no matter what and things will work out

I want to tell about the lesson I learned this week. Work hard no matter what and things will work out. Elder Meza and I made a goal to get 15 people on date and we had a month to do it.  At the time it seemed pretty easy and then we got to the end of the dead line and we only had 10 people. I couldn't understand what happened. I felt like the Lord was pleased with me every night in what I did that day. I felt really depressed and couldn't think of the reason why we didn't have the people on date. I got down on my knees and decided to pray. The answer i got was just to keep working. I got up and decided to leave it behind me. This last Sunday we got another family on date and I realized we had 15 people on date.  It was one of the best lessons Ive had and we got them on date and they were all super excited to be baptized. It was crazy to think of how to Lord wanted it to happen, and it happened. We met our goal we set just because we kept working and didn't get discouraged in things we thought would work smoothly. 

We have four families on date and a couple of single people. To have "excellence" in your area you should have 3 people on date and we have 15! Elder Meza and i work really well together and our work is progressing so good! I think we are leading the mission in people on date but we still want more people. We are trying our hardest but i think Elder Meza is leaving me this week! :( its like a 95% chance he does! Ill tell you more about all of the families when they get baptized.

We also spent like 8 hours in the temple on Halloween. It was crazy! I was on the biggest spiritual high. We did everything we could in the temple. We were pretty much the workers and they kind of just directed us. Obviously there were some things we couldn't do but we did everything we could do. We got so much work done! After we cleaned the whole temple and it was one of the craziest things. When I get home I hope I can find time to spend a whole day in the temple every 2 week and at least go each week. It was one of the coolest experiences. 

And don't feel bad if I don't get to write you one week. I will try to get to you the next week. We are just always so busy! I will try to take more pics but I just usually don't sorry! I will send what I have.  I love you all