Effort is Required! (Halloween in Payson Arizona)

Well this week has been super good. So lately we have been working super hard to try and find people so we have been doing everything we can. We have been kinda chasing people down the street seeing if we could talk to them. We have just been knocking on a ton of doors and things. So far it hasnt been really that successful. Its was just hard going out with out seeing any results. We kept going out with faith though trying to have a spiritual experience every day and take away something that was good about everyday. We knew that if we kept going out in faith it would pay off. We have been having around 3 or 4 lessons a week and only 2 investigators to work with. Well one night we were driving around trying to think of what to do and we decided to try and go by this lady even though we had texted her and called her multiple times. Well we stopped by and she let us in. We had a lesson on the restoration of the church. It was a really good lesson and the spirit was super strong. Well during the middle of the lesson she went to grab her Book of Mormon and I told Elder Hampton to invite her to be baptized on Dec 17th. I just hurried and look at my calendar and the day looked pretty good. Well at the end of the lesson he invited her to be baptized and the spirit just came flooding into the room! It was so awesome, her eyes watered up and she was excited to accept the date. It was a super good lesson. Its also good to know that hard work pays off. In Ether 12:6 its says "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith". It was so good to come to know the truth of this scripture. We have been working really hard and doing everything we can and stretching our faith. Then we finally saw the witness of our faith. "Effort is required, but it is effort you will never, ever regret." -Thomas S Monson

Thumbs up for the wiener dog! 

(Elder Lange's mom talking) I received this text from a member, they were feeding the missionaries on Halloween in Payson.  She said "Truly our pleasure having these missionaries in our home."

Elder Mangus, Elder Bell and Elder Lange making pumpkin pancakes and buttermilk syrup on their last night together in Phoenix

When you get hot at night in Phoenix, you do what ya gotta do! 

Elder Bell getting transferred to the mountains. 

The small cowboy town of Payson!

Hey everyone! Payson is pretty good. It's a pretty small cowboy town. I serve in the Ponderosa Ward and Christopher Creek Branch. We had to speak in the branch on Sunday. I wrote a 6 minute talk and couldn't think of anything else to write so I went in with that. Branches are crazy! They are so small and there are just a bunch of chairs in the chapel. Well I ended up having the Spirit take over and I spoke for around 15 minutes so that was pretty good. My comp is awesome. Elder Hampton. He is from Layton Utah. We also live with 2 other companionships. The work here is pretty slow. We had the highest numbers this week and we had 4 lessons. Pretty rough. We do a lot of service though. 

So recently we started to focus on more investigators and just pretty much drop all of the less actives we were teaching. We are called to teach repentance and baptize converts, not be good home teachers. A General Authority came and told us that so we have been tracting and finding a lot instead of just using our time teaching less actives. We have seen some pretty cool miracles from it though. One miracle at we saw this week was a guy named Dylan. So one thing we have been trying to do is called lightning visits. We show up to a members house for about 10-15 minutes, share a message and ask if they know anyone who could use that message. Well we chose a name on our list and the guy was less active. He had lived there for 5 years and no one had come by to visit him in the 5 years. That in it's self was a miracle that we just happened to stop by. Well it was late so he said to come back another time. Before we left we asked if he knew anyone. He said to go to his neighbor a couple houses down. Well when we were driving to Brother Lutz house I was looking out the window and saw a house full of people and thought we should stop by and knock just to see what happens. We saw a guy outside and decided to go see if this guy needed a message. As we were walking over he had his truck open blaring rap and he was smoking and drinking. He had earrings and a bunch of tattoos. It was a pretty scary looking guy but I just kept walking toward him for some reason. Well we said hi and the conversation just got going. We asked if he wanted a uplifting message and he said he was going through some hard things and could really use a message. He said he had been through some things and really admired us for coming up to him and sharing what had helped us in our lives. He said we didn't know if he was a gangster and was gonna shoot us or not but was glad we walked up. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he wants to meet up later to discuss more about it. He also wants us to send him a text of a scripture everyday so he can have a good uplifting day everyday. It was a super cool experience! Experiences like those are why I came on my mission. I felt the spirit so strong and love sharing the gospel with others. 

Love, 

Elder Lange

The beautiful town of Payson

Elder Lange is headed to the mountains of Payson!

This week has been super crazy. We found a new investigator.  A member gave us a referral. Saturday we went and saw her to set something up. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her if she gets around to it you can read it but we will explain it a lot more in our first lesson. Well she ended up coming to church the next day. We saw her on Tuesday and had a lesson with her. She had already read the Title page, the Introduction, all the witnesses and part of first Nephi. She couldn't see the words on the copy we gave her so she downloaded it on her computer and figured out how to use it on that. She is on fire! We had a lesson with her put her on date. She is so awesome. We also had a really good lesson on Thursday with her. She's gonna get baptized soon! 

Well in between our awesome lessons with her we had a temple trip! It was super awesome! The temple is the best. It's been a really long time since we have been too so it was good. We went with our zone. It was pretty stinkin good. Well the next day we had a ZTM. We talked a lot about faith and the love for our Savior. It was the best ZTM I've had so far on my mission. 

We also got transfer news this week. I'm being transferred back up to the mountains. It super sad leaving these comps. I really loved them and we worked super hard and our work is finally starting to pay off. We got like 10 referrals this week and like 4 people on date. This is arguably one of the hardest areas in the mission so it's hard to just see all the work gone. I'm going to Payson to train. It should be pretty good but I'm not going to be a zone leader anymore. I'm just a normal missionary. It's kinda hard. I feel like I did something wrong to not be a zone leader anymore but I'm sure this is where the Lord needs me. 

Having this week has made me think a lot. It been super crazy with spiritual highs and spiritual lows. Along with everything in between. But I've thought a lot about it and all I can think about it gratitude for everything I've been given and everything I have. So many times in life we can go through these spiritual high and spiritual lows and it just depends on which way we turn when the lows come. If we turn to Christ everything will work out, but way too often people try to do the right thing and their life isn't going "according to plan". I've heard way too many times on my mission "why should I try to live the gospel when it's so hard and when I start living it everything seems to go wrong". I've thought a lot about that this week. Why try and be a good missionary and try to stay exactly obedient and work hard when it doesn't go my way anyways. My heart and mind are brought back to the Savior every time. I know the Lord has a plan for me and I don't want to mess it up. The Lord has literally given us everything we have and all he asks is that we love him. Showing our love is hard sometimes but always worth it in the end. I know the love of my Savior and it's what keeps me afloat. Just keep going. The Lord is there to pick you up even when everything seems to be going wrong. If you're trying your hardest to follow Christ, you are headed in the right direction.

We are here to grow and become better!!

It was a super good week this week. We picked up 2 new solid investigators. One was being taught by some other missionaries and they wanted to come to our Ward so they handed her over to us. She is a little 9 year old. She's super awesome. Her name is Vanity and she has an 8 year old brother named Leon. They were both at church and both had the biggest smiles on their faces. They were super happy to be there and it was awesome. The other is super nice. She is in her 60s. She is the sister of a member in one of our wards. She already feels like a member. You know those people that just feel like members and just have a good personality, well that's her. She is awesome and she also came to church. 

Well we had a General Authority come to our mission this week too. Elder Zaballos. He and his wife are super cool. One story that he told was when he was living in Chile. He lived near the coast and there was a hill in the back of his our. One of his kids really wanted to climb the hill and would ask his dad every day. But much like Arizona the sun was hot and not worth climbing in the day. He told his son if he really wanted to climb it he would have to wake up early so they could hike it before it got too hot. Well sure enough his son woke up bright and early and they climbed this hill in the morning. When they got to the top of the hill, to their surprise they found another larger and taller hill beyond the one they just climbed. They were not able to see this bigger hill from their home because of the view and angle they were looking from. His son wanted to climb the next one and he told him they would do it a different day. Well they got back home and he asked them what they had learned from the hike. One of his sons said that he learned they found another hill behind the other one. He explained that this was a good lesson to learn. Sometimes we have to do hard things in our lives to get to the next level and find a high altitude. He applied it to life and finding new view that we can strive to achieve. Sometimes we have to climb a hill to find the next one that's even higher. We are only here to grow and become better so do it! Love you all and strive to achieve new altitudes in your life. 

Daring to eat a scorpian

Family Photo:  I trained Elder Shaw (bottom right).  He trained Elder Guebler (bottom left). Now Elder Shaw is training again, elder Hales (top right) and elder Guebler is training 2 missionaries. (Top left and middle). Elder Pendleton and Elder England.  I'm a great Granddad now. Super cool! 

Don't be a TURKEY!

This week was super good. Conference was super awesome! There was a lot of good stuff talked about. I think my favorite was President Uchtdorf in the priesthood session and President Eyrings about Joy. Both were really good. Well now that we listened to conference we need to not be like turkeys. We talked about turkeys this week in conference. So let me tell ya a little story. There was this group of turkeys and one knew how to fly. His name we will just call Fred. Now Fred wanted everyone to learn how to fly so he started teaching all the other turkeys. The turkeys worked really hard and tried to fly for hours. Finally they learned how to fly. After learning to fly they flew everywhere. They soared to new heights, and went to places they have never experienced before, new views and loved what they had just learned. Well in the end they thanked Fred, had a closing prayer and walked home. Don't be a turkey. There was a lot of good stuff talked about this conference. Do something with that knowledge. It wasn't meant to just up lift us for the day or even the week but actually change our lives. Take what you learned and change your life. Become closer to Christ. Love you all!  

Elder Lange