Small and simple things!

(Alec's mom here:  Alec had a really busy week and so his email was very short, he spent some time in other towns this week doing exchanges which is guess is pretty common because his trainer is also a zone leader, so he actually didn't spend much time in Snowflake this week.  It sounded like he was here and there and everywhere. But I did want to share with everyone, his email about the message he wanted to get across this week and also the experience they had with Jay, whom they baptized this past week.) 

The message I wanted to get across is; in the small and simple things, great things come to pass and it feels so good to know that you are pleasing the Lord when you actually work hard. Jay is in the hospital I will try and tell you as much as I can about that before I have to go but first we show up to his house and his car is like half crashed. So we head up to his shack and the door was open and I could see him sitting on his couch/bed. I asked him what happened to his car and he wouldn't answer. He just looked at me and was totally out of it. He didn't know anything that was going on. It was raining out side and was super cold and he didn't even have pants on. We tried wrapping him is some blankets while we tried to find some help but he lives in the middle of nowhere so that was impossible. So we called an ambulance after awhile because we didn't know anything else to do. Long story short he had a blood clot and that is what made him loopy. The blood clot could of either went to his heart or his brain and been lethal. He didn't even remember us finding him. We were definitely guided by the spirit that day. It was really scary to see Jay like that. 

Love Elder Lange

Conference and A Baptism!

So that email I sent you last week I sent to the President in my weekly email and he called me and told me how good it was and had a training on it with all the missionary leaders and sent my email out to the whole mission. It was pretty freaky but I guess thats what he wants in the mission. He was really impressed with what I had to say. I feel like I'm growing a lot and he sees it. Which could be a bad thing because then I will be a zone leader or something, and thats a lot of responsibility but if thats what he wants I will do it but if it were up to me I wouldn't choose to be a leader. 

The two things I liked this week were conference and a baptism we had. I really liked conference and every thing they taught us. I never really knew how much I could like conference since I didn't really like it back home until I almost came out. If you just take your time and really listen to what every single person is saying, no matter who they are, then you can find knowledge and wisdom in every talk. You can get so many questions answered if you just really want an answer and search for it. General conference helped with a lot of things. 

Jay's baptism was really good too. We have grown really close to Jay over the time we have been teaching him and he has progressed really fast. He was afraid to get baptized because he didn't really know what to expect. We tried walking him through what happens but he was still scared because he had never seen one done before. The reason I loved this baptism was because after he was baptized he was the happiest person on earth. It made me so happy to see him happy and how much blessings and joy come from this gospel. When taking the right steps and becoming more Christ like you truly do feel amazing. I loved seeing how much he progressed and the steps he took to get there. He had recently had a surgery so he couldn't move around a lot or lift much of anything, but he took the steps he needed to, to get baptized. The happiness that comes from taking these steps and truly living righteously is amazing and that is mostly the reason I came out. I want to share this joy I felt when trying to do my best and getting as much as I could from the church and to see that that had happened made me so happy. I want to serve the Lord and do this for him but bringing happiness to others and seeing it in there lives doesn't hurt either. Everything is going really good in our area and we are trying to work harder and harder everyday.

I'll send some pics of us and Jay bird. He is such a stud. Try to pick something they told us to do in general conference and keep the commitment. Like ponderizing.

Love you all!

Love Elder Lange

(Alec's mom talking) I got this text after conference last night and it was just the thing to top off a wonderful day! "I love having your missionary son live in our apartment.  He is doing good and has already made great strides.  When he first got her he was pretty shy haha!"

Love the Lord!

Hey everyone! Surprise! We had a p day on Wednesday because of transfers and new missionaries coming in. This will be every six weeks. I am still here in Snowflake and don't have a new companion either. So everything is going great for me. The thing i wanted to focus on this week is loving the Lord. I'm super new to this and really had no idea what to expect but Elder Meza was assigned to me and didn't care.

I'm here now and the best time to plant a tree is of course 20 years ago but the second best time to plant a tree is today. Thats what I'm doing now and I'm working with what I have. Elder Meza has been working us so hard and it has definitely been paying off but its super hard. Everyday I come home super tired and I'm just exhausted. Studies in the morning have  been really hard too, to have the desire. It was always me, me, me. I'm tired can't we not walk so fast or visit so many people. Then Elder Meza turned to me and said who do you love more, yourself or the Lord. Hit me super hard and I've been thinking about it a lot. Of course we are going to be tired but you don't think the Lord knows that? He watches out for you in everything you are doing and all I was worrying about was me. I wasn't thinking about the people I could bless or the families I could be helping. I came out here for a reason and I learned a lot this week that is wasn't for me. It wasn't for my family. It wasn't my ward. It was for the Lord and help bring everyone back to him. He sent me to this very place for a reason to do the best I could do. I thought I came out because I loved the Lord and wanted to do this for him but I've noticed how much I think about myself and the natural man takes over. My love for the Lord has grown so much in just this last week and I'm striving to be the best I can and serve him. I look back and think of all the things he has blessed me with. Any time anyone complains in our zone with other missionaries, everyone will just say I'm grateful. Holy cow that puts thinks into perspective. He has blessed us so much and there is really nothing we should be complaining about. We should be grateful for everything and don't stop to the look at the things we don't have or the things we "need". I love the Lord and I'm starting now to try my hardest to serve him in everything I do. I encourage all of you to do things for the Lord. Serve others, Mosiah 2:17. Do something everyday to serve the Lord and then pray to him in your nightly prayers and thank him for the opportunity to do so. You will see a change in your life and blessings will follow. I hope all of you take this commitment and just know that as much as I love you, the Lord loves you more! Love you all!!! Have a good week full of serving the Lord.

Love Elder Lange

What a day!

Well I guess here is a story for the week. We were driving out east to see an investigator that built his own house. He lives in a little shed thing that has tarps for the roof and is way ghetto. He is about 50 has huge eyes that kinda pop out of his head. He shaved his head in a mow-hawk/mullet thing. Hes kinda fat because his belly fills up with water and has a hernia so he has this huge lump on him too, it looks like an alien is living in him. The point is he look pretty scary and lives in a ghetto house but he is one of the funniest and coolest guys. He is supposed to get baptized on September 29th but just got surgery so we don't know if he will make that date. Anyway, its hard to get to his house anyway, but then its started rain. It gets super muddy so we were trying to get to his house as fast as we could. When it rains down here too you better watch out because everything turns into rivers. We got to his house and I knock and I heard him say something but you couldn't hear it but at the end i heard him say come in so I hopped in and shut the door behind me so I wouldn't get soaked. I turned around and saw him standing there naked. I was like oh I'm sorry and he was just like go back out to the truck. So I ran out there and told my companion because he stayed in the truck and was gonna come when the door was open. After about 10 minutes we went back in his house and started to teach a lesson. I told him I was sorry and he was like you should knock or something before you come in. About 5 minutes into the lesson his house pretty much started flooding and he doesn't have any towel so we were trying to use his clothes and then I knocked over his big pot of water that he was using for bath water. I looked back at him right when this happened and he put his head in his hands and said why is this happening to me. I felt soooo bad. First of all I saw him naked and now I'm flooding his "house". After we cleaned it up we went out side and tried to patch up some holes with some plastic he had. The rain drops were so big they were hurting so we stayed out as long as we could and then told him we were late for a lesson so we left after making a huge mess. We got in our truck and the road was about a foot deep river but that didn't stop us. We were determined to get to our next lesson, but we ran into a problem. We got to a part of the road that was about 3 feet deep. We started boon docking in the hills and sage brush but finally got back to a road we could drive on. We started speeding down the road going about 50 and we started fish tailing. After doing a couple fish tales we started spinning. I was waiting for us to hit something and crash but we some how stayed right in the middle of the road. We had a pretty bad trip up to Jay Westovers house but we are here and not hurt or stuck so I take it as a blessing in my life. Ill get a pic of his house and hopefully a pic of Jay and I will send it to you guys. I hope at least some of you laughed at this because even though it was rough the whole day we laughed about it for a super long time after we got home and we had a sleep over so I told every one in our area and they all loved it. It makes a pretty good story. Love all you guys! Try to spread the good word and be the best person you can be!

Love Elder Lange

Elder Lange in pictures...woohoo!!

(Alec's mom speaking) Well I didn't get a group email this week to put on the blog, but I did get some pictures, it looks like the perfect place for him.  I loved every picture except the last one!  You can scroll down to see why!  

 Fitting right in with his Arizona "attire" bolo tie and all.  

The Elders bedroom (it's pretty clean...whoa) 

Finding a replacement for Sadie, I won't let her see this! 

Their home

His new boots (I'm pretty sure he's more than excited about these) 

Elder Meza and Elder Lange!

(Elder Lange speaking) I did get punched by some drunk guy once but I didn't want to really tell anyone because I do love it. He just said he didn't like us and punched me so we left haha

***UPDATE*** (from Elder Lange the jokester)

I'm just kidding I just wanted to sound cool. I was weed eating
because we do a lot of service here and a piece on something went in
my eye and then I swelled up. I just wanted to have a cool story but
it's not really that cool haha

Best decision of my life.

This is one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Actually it is the best decision! The people around here are so great and there is so much work. A lot of the time we cant have our full personal and companionship study because there is so much work! But on our way we have a family of 5, a couple, 2 kids and single adult on date to get baptized. The thing I wanted to focus on this week was priorities and decisions. This week there was a huge festival and a rodeo and stuff. The plan was to either go contacting and try to find new people to teach at the rodeo or go out and teach people that we have already taught. The choice was really hard because I wanted to go to the rodeo so bad and watch it and talk to people along the way of course, but we went a taught a investigator instead. All the other missionaries were at the rodeo and when we went to see our investigator I was so sad we didn't get to go. But later on I realized what I had done and how much it helped the person. Most of the people at the rodeo we would have talked to probably wouldn't have been from our area and of course we probably would of just watched the rodeo. It wasn't the choice between bad or good but good and better. The choice for me was so hard to make. It wouldn't have been bad to go to the rodeo, our president even said we could go. The decision of going a teaching that night was hard but I've thought a lot about it and I'm so glad that I went and taught them. Choices come in our life and we think taking a good path over the harder but better one, will make our lives so much easier. The choices will always come but what we need to focus on, is who we want to become. I realized that I used my time to the best of my ability that night and things this week have been so much better. People don't fall through on their lessons and everything is just working so much better. My dad helped me a lot more than he thinks he did and he once told me after I made a choice he said "well at least it was better than doing that". He said well there is always something worse you can do. Everyone turns the choice of agency into something bad. They make a mistake and say well I have my agency, its my choice. No one ever really thinks how agency can be applied in a good way. Agency should always be applied in a positive way. I had the choice to go to church instead of thinking I had to go to church. Anyways what I was getting to is you always have a choice, they aren't all going to be good or bad and some are going to be hard but its so much worth it to make the best choices we can make in life.

Love Elder Lange