Best Christmas present a missionary could ask for

This week went a lot better I feel like. Everything just started falling apart and things didnt seem to be working out last week but this week, everything just fit together somehow. Last week Im pretty sure I said that we had a problem with some of our investigators. They weren't married and living together and separated so they could each get money from the government. They couldn't afford to live if they were to get married. We tried talking to them about faith and things just working out with the Lord. They said that they would just have to give up on getting baptized if that is what we were going to make them do and their baptism is super close. They come to church every week and are progressing really well. I didn't want all that work and determination to just go down the drain. So that is why I was stressed out. We went and talked to the bishop and he said he would go talk to them. What I wanted to get to was truly amazing. Our ward mission leader is the judge in the town and came over to give us a Christmas present. He asked if we had a minute to talk and we told him we did. He said he looked at his calendar and  was marrying two people at 1. I couldn't believe what he was telling us. They just took the leap of faith and took action. 

I've been thinking a lot this week about how weird the gospel truly can seem to people. We go to church for 3 hours and worship someone we have never met or seen. We follow rules and live standards and yet somehow it changes lives. They just want to change because they feel its the right thing to do. It's kind of a weird thing to think about. You can pick any principle out of the gospel, and if you start living it the best to your ability it makes changes in your life. No matter what principle it is. This is why faith is so important. Nothing works unless you first have the desire to believe. Its also crazy to think about how fast faith can grow. We have only been teaching these people for a couple of weeks and they are willing to put their faith in the Lord. They are making steps to become closer to the Lord and doing things because they just feel its the right thing to do. I love how the Lord works in everyones life! He is there and will help anyone. They are getting baptized the 16th. Then we have another family that gave up smoking and coffee and are making huge steps. They are ready to be baptized on the 2nd. I cant wait to see how these people will grow throughout their life when they make the gospel part of it. The gospel truly works wonders, whether you are doing it out of your choice or obedience. It will change you for the better.


 Love, Elder Lange

The Free's on their wedding day

New Bedding! 

Study the scriptures where you go

Arizona scenery 

Talking to the family on Christmas

Pictures from Arizona!

Alec's mom talking:  I have been getting a lot of texts this week of pictures of Alec.  I'm sure it's in part because it's Christmas and people know how much we miss him this time of year and it's great because Elder Lange is terrible at taking pictures!! 

Helping clean up at a wedding reception with Elder Shaw

Talking doctrine with one of the members 

Dinner at the Solomon's house in Snowflake

Elder Lange and Elder Shaw picking up their Christmas packages from the Rapier family who so generously drove it down From Logan to Snowflake for us! 

Don't be casual

This week was super good! Elder Shaw and I were super glad to stay together. We love this area and it is doing really well. We got 2 more 9 year old kids on date this week. Hopefully we can get 2 more next week. We are trying to get up to 15 again. I think we will only get to 13 because the other two are quite a stretch. We have been teaching quite a few families but some of them are are super busy this time of year and cant meet very often. We have two families with baptisms coming up, one on the 26th and one on January 2nd. They are both having problems with the word of wisdom but they have come along way. They all use to smoke about 20 cigarettes a day if not more. They have all cut down to 0-1 a day. Well I love these families so much and cant wait to see their lives improve with the gospel. We got to go to the temple yesterday and that was a really cool experience. I learn so much just going through the temple each time. What I've been focusing on so much this week is obedience and diligence. Its so true that if you are just casual about the work the members and the Lord notices! He will put people in your life if you are obedient. I've noticed that if I'm kind of just casual with the work then things don't go as well as you would like. I've been getting kind of casual about the work and couldn't figure out what was wrong with the week. Then I read that if you aren't diligent or obedient then the Lord notices and doesn't trust you with people and the work! Its crazy how this happens! We have been working really hard at this this week. We also went to see Jay this week for the second time and they told us he had passed away! :( So sad. Its good to hear from everyone. Send lots of pics.

Love Elder Lange

This wolf is so skittish so I couldn't get a good pic close to it, but it does come to you sometimes

One morning for breakfast at the Caldwells 

A super good week!

This week was SUPER good. It was long but good. We pretty much had a normal week teaching people but one of our families we had to move the date back to the 26th. They are really taking the steps to quit smoking but it is going to be hard for them. They wanted to have a white Christmas so we let them. Everyone we are teaching is progressing really well. Saturday we had a baptism of a family of 3 and I got to see Elder Meza again because he helped teach them! Its always awesome to see how happy they become after being baptized. You always think they are happy just taking the lessons but it doesnt really show until they take the steps to salvation. The families and as well as us missionaries can feel how proud our Heavenly Father is of them. Then we had a really good Sunday and we bore our testimonies and confirmed the family. The whole ward loved hearing us and loved what we had to say. One of our ward mission leaders got up and bore his testimony about how thankful he was for us. It was good to know that people love us as people and not just missionaries. He said im a quite person and soft spoken ( as you would of guessed) but there is a super bright light shining from me. I was a hard worker and a good leader) There is this family that we teach and before we left this last time hes like hang on i got something to tell. Every time i look in your eyes i see something. You are definitely going some where big. You are going to be a really good leader. Talk about scary! Anyways, then we had the mission tour and MLC. Elder Robbins (presidency of the seventy) shared so many things I've been trying to work on and it helped just to keep doing it. I've been working on letting people have their agency. It would make it so much easier if we could just make them do things without telling them why they had to do it. Its good to focus on why they need to do it and give them the choice. Sometimes they don't learn as much as we would like them to as fast as we would like them to but they will learn eventually. It will always work out. I've been praying for Elder Shaw to just have stronger desire just to do everything he can a put everything he has into it. This is part of the reason why giving people their agency is hard. I could just tell him to do things but he will learn nothing. He has grown a lot and has a lot more of a desire to do things! It makes me so happy. This doesn't just mean to leave them there and do nothing. We still have to encourage and help lift but we cant take their choice away. We are trying to get about 5 more people on date and then we will have about 17 people with a baptism date. It might take awhile and people will get baptized by the time others commit but we are doing really well together and Elder Shaw is growing a lot. Its good to see peoples growth especially your companion! 'I've grown a testimony of how strong pray is this week. Prayers really do work!

Love Elder, Lange

Their Christmas tree! 

Elder Lange and Elder Meza

A car selfie

Elder Shaw, Elder Lange, family members getting baptized and Elder Meza

The Elder stocking hung over the fireplace 

The Christmas countdown from momma Lange

One of their investigators has pet wolves 

Cookies and milk

Enjoying cookies and milk while taking to investigators on the phone 

Keep Moving Forward

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