Chili dogs!

Gourmet dinner of Chili dogs and tater tots! The wonderful people of Arizona know what kind of food missionaries really like! 

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A post from mom Lange

This week I wrote to Alec in his email about how hard life can be; so many ups and downs, so much sadness and sorrow not just within our own family but just the world in general.  I asked him if we would be so eager to come to earth and get a body if we knew how hard it was going to be.  This was his response to me in my email and I just thought it was a amazing how my own children are giving me guidance and comfort.  :) 

"I'm sure we knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into. Now if we knew that Heavenly Father wouldnt help us along the way, thats a whole different story. We came down here to get a body and become like our Heavenly Father. We wanted to be just like him and experience things he did. Now if we didnt come down here and get a body we couldn't do any of that. Im sure we knew pretty dang well what we were getting ourselves into and wanted to be a part of our Fathers plan." 

Good week after Zone Conference!

This is my letter to president because I didn't want to write a whole other one. If any of this doesn't make sense just ask someone that has been a mission I guess haha. 

This week went really good! I don't know what it was but after the Zone Conference we have been doing super good. We got another person on date but we are back down to one again because we had a baptism this Saturday. We are trying really hard to meet the standards of excellence. I've tried tell Elder Watts that we need to try new things like maybe tract a few houses out because what we were doing wasn't working. He wasn't too fond of the idea and wanted to call you and ask you what you thought. I just said we wouldn't do it and we could just wait to do what he wanted. I've just really been trying to see how he worked and how the area worked. But ever since Zone Conference its been super good. We are meeting with a lot of people and don't just hang out at peoples houses. I don't know, things just changed and I'm super happy about it. I think if we keep working exactly how we are now then we can find a bunch of people to teach. That's only if we keep working how we are now. I'm going to try and get out of my comfort zone more and try to lead things out more. I'm going to try and keep the work progressing the way its going because not meeting the standards of excellence (3 people on date, 3 people progressing, and one member referral a week) is driving me crazy. But we are on track to find a bunch of people to teach. There have been a couple of people that have come and talked to us about families we might be able to teach. One is even looking for new churches. Those ones are always the best! haha. Anyways I've been trying to be the best companion to Elder Watts. I've been doing everything he tells me to do even when it doesn't matter too much. He corrects me on a whole bunch of small things and they aren't even rules. Sometimes its just things that bug him. But I've been trying to be a super good comp and try to do everything that will make him happy. Its really not easy sometimes and I just want to get mad but that's thinking way too much of myself. I just want to get work done and when he is happy with me then we work a lot and get more work done.

I love you guys. Keep up the good work and hold to the iron rod!

This is our baptism this week!

This is the baptism of a kid that I taught but I didn't get to go to his baptism because it was the same time as my other baptism 

This is my companions ipad haha 

Alec's mom talking:  I got another little treasure yesterday in the way of a picture text.  They are eating dinner with the Brian and Shelly Gardanier family.  One thing I have noticed in almost all of Alec's pictures is him holding the Book of Mormon.  Not many pictures of him without the book.  He absolutely loves serving his mission and he works really hard.  And if I were to guess why his eyes were wondering in this picture I would say it was because he saw a dog.  He loves his dogs! 

Maybe it's the small things....

I love my new area. So I guess there was some miscommunication. I live in a little town called Pinedale which is in the middle of Clay Springs and Linden. We cover all three and they are all pretty small. I love Elder Watts he is really funny. Being a zone leader is kind of hard. I didn't really know how many things they had to do. Half my inbox is filled up with emails of things we are supposed to do. We have to go on exchanges and try to teach them how they can be an even better missionary and what we see they could work on. We pretty much have to do all the dirty work to help the zone run smoothly. We have to give trainings too which is scary haha. We get our whole zone together and try to teach and uplift and edify them. Which is so weird and hard to me because first of all it's like giving a talk but has to be really inspiring and most everyone is the zone except for 2 missionaries have been out longer than me. Sometimes it just feel like I'm in the wrong spot but I guess this is where the Lord needed me. So Elder Watts is supposed to be training me on how to be a zone leader and on the area but I feel like sometimes he just does things that missionaries have always done in the area so it makes it ok. Like going to a members house and hanging out for a little bit and leaving without sharing a thought or message. I know it's not a life changing thing but it's not a good use of time. I just don't want to cross the line and be the missionary that is so up tight about things that we don't work effectively together because he doesn't like me. Don't get me wrong Elder Watts is a great Elder and we work pretty well together. I just want something great to happen here. The work to pick up and be a area that others can look to. It's hard to correct people when you need to work on things yourself. I'm trying to think of the ways that my other area was so good and why this one isn't. I can't really find anything too major so I've been trying to work on my obedience. Maybe what's hold us back isn't the area or the members or even the people, maybe it's us. Maybe the small things like hanging out at a members house and actually sharing a message can make all the difference. Love you guys! Happy Valentines!

Holding a bird 

Grilling with a dog 

My new area...Clay Springs!

The new area is great! I love the people and my companion. The area is a lot slower than my old area right now though. It has 1 person on date and they are getting baptized Saturday. Other than him not much is going on. So I guess it's time to buckle down and find those people the Lord has prepared. I did it in my last area so why can't I
here? I'm just learning the area right now and once I learn it pretty well the work is going to start coming in. Elder Watts and I are going to do a lot of work, I can feel it. It's pretty funny here. Our ward mission leader comes to church in like a camo beanie and camo tie and everyone wears boots and jeans haha. There are actually trees over
here too not just sage brush and dirt. So I'll tell ya what's happened so far. I got here Friday and had to give a talk Sunday. You probably wouldn't believe that I can actually kind of talk now. I got writing them down and giving them I'm just working on the length now. I gave a talk on having the gospel in our lives and what a difference it could make/ obedience to Gods commandments. I talked about Lehi and his family and what the difference was between Nephi and Laman and Lemuel. I don't know why I like Nephi so much but it could be that I always try to read the BOM and get to 2 Nephi and get confused so I start over. I've probably read 1 Nephi like 20 by now haha. Anyways a lot of times we go through our life like Laman and Lemuel, complaining about everything. We do what we are asked but we mostly do it unwillingly with little faith. Sometimes we just need to step up to the plate and
have faith in the Lord. Do as Nephi did and do it because we know it's the right thing to do. Laman and Lemuel think of them selves too much and that's nothing gets done. Nephi is persistent and thinks of others before himself. Just because you are obedient doesn't mean life is going to be easy though. Nephi had to do plenty of hard things (Killing Laban). We need to stop think of ourselves and do what we are asked. It's not always going to be easy but we always have the Lord to help us. Then we had p day and the next day we drove 3 hours down to the valley. Sat in a 5 hour meeting then drove 3 hours back. Talk about a long day. It was just a MLC (mission leadership council) so only zone leaders and Sister Training Leader came. There was about 25 sister and elders all together. Then the rest of the week was just normal work. Well it's time to start getting this area going. It needs
a lot of help. It's been pretty slow for awhile. Love you guys. Just remember even though we have the gospel and the Lord on our side doesn't mean we have to easy. There are still going to be challenges. The trick is to hold to the iron rod. It makes it 10 x easier. Love you guys.

Elder Lange